Bible-in-Schools Shuffling

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIII, Issue 15, 13 April 1905, Page 18

Bible-in-Schools Shuffling

The Bible-ijt-achdols leaders are rapidly passing 'dow<n ' Uie ,ringi>mg grooves of change.' I*hey ppofess to asflc for a ' referendum ' ; what they really demand is a plebiscite. Last year the stated object of the socalled referonllum was to determine whether their Scripture text-hook— to Which they were utterly committed— should, or slb/ould not be, foEcefl upon the public s;olV)ols. Now, they do not kttow what the sham referendum is to determine. 'We have prepared a text-book,' said the Rev. Dr. Gibbj ' but we are not absolutely oornmitted to it.' They are unable to decide whether the Protestant Bible itself, or selections from the Protestant Bible, are ty> te submitted to the pdoiple by, tihe miscalled referendum ; and' they have failed Ik> say "vyhettier the pojpular vote is. to have a legislative effect, or *to constitute a direction which Parliament must not \gnore, or whether it is simply a roundabout and very

expensive way of gathering information. Lfcst year the Bible-jn-schaols Conference stoad for ' ethical ' Bible teaching,, and hotly defended their text-book, which has been officially described by its Victorian compilers as a nratuial of ' religious instruction.' Now the Ro^. I>r. Gibb, Chairman of the Executive, states officially that they ' absolutely ' do not wis-h teachers to ' teach religion,' fcuit only ' to see that the children umiderstajnid the dictionary meaning and grammatical relations of the woilds, arid thjat- they remember what they have ioa,d.'

Dr. Gibb tliem proceeds to give an example of their proposed ' careful elimination of religious teaching.' Fox this ftunpose he took the text : 'In my Father's house there are many m'anslians. If not, I would not have told ydu, that I go to prepare a place for you ' (John, xj.\, 2). But he serenely ignores the patent fact that in line quoted sentence he directly or indirectly imparts to the child the following items of dogmatic ' religious teaching ' : (l)The existence of the First Person of the Ble^od Trinity ; .(2) His Fatherhood as regards Ijhc C)hrist ; (3) the Sonhood of Christ ; (4) the existence of heaven ; (5) the opening of its gates to miajniAftnyd by our Diwine IJQrd, as Saviour of the war I'd ; (6) titoe dotctrin&l tea&hing that is in\ohed i)i ' the dictionary meaning of the words ' ' many mansions ' ; aqd the fijrtiher and necessarily implied dogmas flliat (70 tfceiro is a life beyond Wie grave and death, and that (8), in Idoid's ho"^e tjhe just will And the reward) of the good works done by them in this world. After this brilliant example of ' absolutely ' non-religious teacjhimg, Dr. Gibb triumphantly concludes : ' All the lossoins fn aur tpxt-bocyk might be discussed in ijhis fashion wiUhou'b a-s mu>cn as once raising a theological point,, or necessitating the toafrhcr giving any indication cf his peaa\anal belief or disbelief. 1 To us, the exact opposite 'of this is equally cleat. The small text quoted abcr.e affords, by itself alone, a wide fiel/d for imparting lessons and deriving conclusions unacceptable to Catholic, Jewish, and many Protestant children. And we cannot forget 'how the Protestant Bishop Lamgley and other leaders of the Bible-in schools movement in Victoria iiublicly expressed the hope that the system of religious instruction now proposed for use in New Zealand wowjd overthrow ' the pagan system ' of the Churoh of Rome, q(nd further bhe< interests of Protestantism by banishing ' the errors and superstitions that were Oast over at the Reformation.'