Going out on a limb of the pedagogy tree, I’m going to say that I think the Bible should be taught in American public high schools.

Texas is considering becoming the first state in the country to require all public high schools in the state to offer an elective course on the Bible. The elective would not be mandatory.

While it’s unfortunate this is first being proposed in one of the most conservative Christian states in the nation, which can possibly be interpreted as an effort of preaching, not teaching the Bible, it is nevertheless a good idea to offer high school students exposure to this and other religious texts.

Coming from me, a person who is definitely not Christian or even religious, my motivation for suggesting this is completely secular. Removing the Bible from the religious realm and teaching it in conjunction with history, literature and comparative religion, can only help today’s students gain a deeper understanding of their studies.

Anyone who suggests mixing public schools and religious discourse realizes how volatile this combination could be. The trick is to properly train teachers to teach religious texts, not indoctrinate students. It would be a dangerous conflict of interest for a Christian teacher to lead a class about the Bible.

I make this argument coming from some experience as a student in public school learning about the Bible.

In my high school AP literature class, we read the book of Job. Later, in college, I read Job again in conjunction with Homer’s ‘The Odyssey’ for a discussion about the Greek gods’ (or God’s) manipulation of humans.

Last spring, I took a Bible as Literature course through the UW’s English department and received a thorough eye-opening. This was the most convincing experience that affirmed the benefits of teaching the Bible in a non-religious setting.

I spent my childhood between Protestant and Catholic churches, and in my high-pressure Sunday schools, religion was crammed down my throat. It was impossible, in that setting, for me to separate the literature from the morality.

In the Bible class I took, the morality of the text was not allowed to be taught, so as to honor the separation of church and state our country so wisely requires. As a result, I was able to read almost the entire Bible cover to cover and learn about its major themes in a non-confrontational manner.

Having taken this class, I have learned two important things.

It is always preferable to read the source material rather than rely on other people’s explanation of the text. A religious service doesn’t appeal to me, but I found several books in the Bible that did, including Song of Solomon and Ecclesiastes, the basis for the famous Byrds song ‘Turn Turn Turn,’ famous for the “for everything, turn, turn, turn, there is a season” lyrics.

Secondly, having read the Bible, I realize just how influential to Western culture this text is. Our daily lives are filled with Biblical allusions. More importantly, perhaps, the classes that students are expected to take in high school are filled with references to the Bible. The number of examples of this is overwhelming and undeniable.

In literature classes, everything from Milton’s Paradise Lost to Melville and Hemingway’s novels refer to the Bible. Shakespeare alone uses hundreds of biblical references throughout his plays.

In history, monumental documents like the Declaration of Independence refer to the Bible, and some historical events were prompted by religious interpretation — the Crusades and the Salem witch trials, for example.

Even in pop culture, the Bible appears with remarkable frequency. The Matrix movies, for example, are chock full of biblical allusions. In TV shows like Desperate Housewives and The Simpsons, the Bible is referenced often.

Once the importance of the Bible to our culture is realized, there still remains the question of how to teach it in a way that is fair. It is hard to argue, regardless of how influential the Bible is, that schools should offer a single elective devoted entirely to studying the Bible as a cultural artifact. What about the world’s other major religions: Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism, just for starters?

The best solution is for schools to offer a comparative religion elective course in which the Bible is given slightly more focus than other religions because of its impact. Then, teachers in individual classes — art, literature, history — should pull excerpts from the Bible when their material references it. The result is a better, more well-rounded student than ever before.

High schoolers are the perfect students for this sort of education. They are just beginning to question their spirituality, their mortality and their way of interpreting the world. They have tons of questions and can always find the loophole in an argument. The more elective subjects offered in high schools, the better. Some schools already offer elective courses in sociology, psychology and anthropology — why not add comparative religion?

Reach columnist Amy Korst at opinion@thedaily.washington.edu.