The School and the Bible by Editor

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 18, 1913

The School and the Bible

By Editor

ONE of the world-wide plans of the Christian Citizenship Conference was the setting apart of one day in the year when special sermons would be preached in all Christian churches on the subject of moral and religious instruction in the public schools. The aim of the organization is to have the Bible made a textbook in all the public schools. To that end prayers were to be offered in all churches. The day set apart for that service this year was September 14. We understand that many pastors have fallen in with the idea. Would it be facetious to suggest that on one or two Sundays in the year all the churches unite in a special service looking to the adoption of the Bible in its unmutilated form as the fundamental text-book of the church as well as of the day-school? If there is any one thing that the Christians of America should pray for more than another, it is that those who profess to be children of God should make his infallible Word their chart and compass, and turn a deaf ear to the philosophical vagaries of the higher criticism. If the church will do that, she will see less need of hiring the public-school teachers as expounders of theology and religion. The church was ordained to teach the Word; but she has been criticizing it instead. As a result, she is unable to hold or to reach the masses, and this has brought about that condition which causes the church now to make a plea for the teaching of the Bible in the public school. If the church, commissioned by her Master and infallible Guide to teach the Word, will carry out her commission, she will never need to call upon the state or any other organization to do her work for her.