Does Sodom Love Gomorrah?

When public schools ban the Bible to duck religious controversy, they recklessly cut off a sturdy taproot of secular culture. To measure the cost, English Teacher Thayer S. Warshaw of crack Newton (Mass.) High School devised a 112-question quiz on simple Biblical allusions, sprang it on five classes of bright, college-bound juniors and seniors. In The English Journal, he reports the result: a sobering case of "cultural deprivation."

"Several pupils thought that Sodom and Gomorrah were lovers; that the four horsemen appeared on the Acropolis; that the Gospels were written by Matthew, Mark, Luther and John; that Eve was created from an apple; that Jesus was baptized by Moses; that Jezebel was Ahab's donkey; and that the stories by which Jesus taught were called parodies."

Asked to complete familiar quotations, 63% of the kids flunked Isaiah's "They shall beat their swords into plowshares," 79% flunked "Many are called, but few are chosen," 84% flunked "The truth shall make you free," 84% flunked "A soft answer turneth away wrath," 88% flunked "Pride goeth before a fall," and a full 93% flunked "The love of money is the root of all evil." Going beyond quiz questions, Warshaw found students missing the whole Biblical point of secular literature--for example, the implication of the final scene in Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, when the old man collapses with his wounded hands outstretched, as in crucifixion.

To cure such ignorance, yet avoid charges of proselytizing, Warshaw developed a reading course, drawn from the King James Version, that stresses literary influence rather than theological interpretation. His students soon found a new dimension in Moby Dick's Ishmael or Faulkner's Absalom! Absalom!, learned the origin of a doubting Thomas, a Jonah or a Judas, and got the point of Handel's Messiah or Harry Belafonte's rocking Noah. On new tests, Warshaw's pupils pushed their grades to high levels, and a couple of students named Cohen and O'Connell got perfect scores. Parents were grateful; Warshaw got not a single complaint from them, even though his students included believers in all faiths, plus "nonbelievers from the listless to the atheistic."

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