Bible Curriculum Dispute Heats Up in Texas Town
By SUZANNE SATALINE
May 16, 2007

Lori White thinks high school students should study a variety of religions, including Christianity. But the Bible curriculum used in Odessa, Texas, and a growing number of other schools, she says, is aimed at instilling faith, not knowledge.

"It's a curriculum that proselytizes," says Ms. White, whose son graduated from Odessa's Permian High School last year.

The text used in Odessa high schools, developed by the nonprofit National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools, represents as fact that the Bible was a "foundational text" in the framing of the U.S., that the King James Bible "remains one of the...most-loved books in the history of the world," and that "the sun went black" when Jesus was crucified. Critics say that such statements represent the views of some believers, not necessarily scholars. the rest