Is Your Child’s Textbook
Christian or Secular
M
ANY YEARS AGO I sat in Bill Apelian’s office. As
the director of BJU Press, Bill had a keen interest
in making regular improvements to the organization, and
he thought I could help. “I’d like to offer you the position
of Bible Integration Coordinator,” he told me. “You would
review all of our materials and make sure they include bibli-
cal teaching.” As a freshly minted Ph.D. in Old Testament
interpretation, I was dismissive of his offer. My specialty
was the study of the Old Testament. I thought the Lord was
directing me to teach Bible courses at a college or a seminary.
“BJU Press is a Christian textbook publisher,” I told myself.
“This job is for someone else.”
But I was wrong. Through a series of remarkable events,
God made it clear that this position was the place that He
had prepared for me. Within a few weeks, I was up to my
eyeballs in doing research, evaluating manuscripts headed
for publication, and conversing with Christian educators
from around the country.
As I spoke with teachers and parents, I noticed a common
problem emerging. Christian schools and homeschools
were focusing on integrating biblical thinking into character
development but not on integrating such thinking into the
subjects themselves. If a Bible verse was referenced, it was
likely to be used to correct student behavior not to help
the student understand math, science, language arts, or
history. I found that the Bible was included primarily to
create a Christian environment for learning—not to create
Christian learning.
Why was this the case? Two main reasons. First, construct-
ing distinctively Christian learning is very difficult. For a
teacher to do this well in, say, sixth-grade world history, she
needs to be a specialist in ancient history, biblical theology
and exegesis, and classroom instruction. Second, Christian
schools in huge numbers were using secular textbooks—the
same books used in public schools across the country. I
also found that these two reasons were involved with one
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By Dr. Bryan
Smith, Ph.D.
another in a spiral-like relationship. As teachers who felt
uncertain about biblical integration used textbooks that
had stripped religious faith from the learning, they felt even
more uncertain about trying to do biblical integration. The
one area where these teachers had confidence was in the
shaping of character. In the end students were given a vision
of the world that was segmented and divided, rather than
unified and whole. When it came to learning about good
behavior, they were to think like Christians. But when it
came to learning facts about their world, they were to think
like secularists.
When I realized how serious and widespread this prob-
lem was, I was staggered. “O God,” I prayed, “how can I help