So Michael Gove is going to send a copy of the King James Bible to every state school in the country. I'm sure he does this with the very best of intentions: regarding the JKV as one of the launch pads for modern British Society, indeed the English speaking world and a very real desire to get school children reading great literature again. There is a lovely passage in a speech he made in Cambridge recently
"Austen's understanding of personal morality, Dickens' righteous indignation, Hardy's stern pagan virtue"Indeed, the classics of literature can give us a moral framework and the KJV has a central role to play in this.
So why I am writing?
Gove is offering the bible to schools as a piece of literature, not the holy book of a world religion. Yes, the bible can be central to a moral framework for modern society but much more iprtantly "You have the words of eternal life..." (John 6.68) or as KJV puts it
Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life.This is why every child in every school should experience the bible and its message. Not because it is fine literature but because it is true, life giving and transformational.
And my fear? Well that our opponents, who grow in strength and commitment to their arguments (see what I have written previously about the Accord Coalition) will simply see Gove's Gift as a PR gift to them.
4 comments:
A whole other question is whether, with the greatest respect to the KJB, it is a helpful tool to tell today's young people about Jesus..
You obviously know more about this bloke than I do. And, the cultural climate in UK. Louie Crew used to teach "The Bible as Literature" when he was at Rutgers. Jane Holmes Dixon, the second woman to be consecrated a bishop in TEC, discovered the bible through a similar course in college. I know two religious women (Anglican nuns) who came to Jesus through similar routes.
As I say, you know your context and this man far better than I.
Perhaps this is one more piece of evidence that we really are "two countries separated by a common language."
A blessed Advent to you.
Elizabeth,
Thanks for this. Michael Gove is our Education Secretary (Minister) and is behind an interesting set of reforms which are designed to place power in the hands of local people. A good place for it to be, but there does need to be some level of professional advice. The state used to offer this through Local Education Authorities. Now schools must buy it in through devolved budgets. I'm not convinced by the reforms.
Neither am I convinced by giving out a bible - as you may have gathered! The argument over here in the church is whether KJV language is readily accessible to school children, most of whom, if they read at all are with JK Rowling rather than KJ version!
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