Home School Heartbeat Radio Program

Is the study of history overwhelming your student? Chairman Michael Farris suggests using a particular conflict to help your child stay focused on today's Home School Heartbeat.

Mike Farris:


Throughout the book Wide as the Waters by Benson Bobrick, which tells the story of the translation of the English Bible, the battle between censorship and freedom rages. Studying a conflict can help students organize their thoughts around its major players and arguments.


Church leaders, initially in an effort to maintain the purity of Scripture, claimed that the Pope alone could authorize the translation of the Bible. Eventually their efforts became a desperate attempt to maintain personal power. The Church became the icon of censorship.


A key figure in the history of the English Bible was King James I. A poet and scholar in his own right, James quickly agreed to a new English translation of the Bible, knowing that the Bishop's Bible was a rather awkward English version.


But the king didn't believe in religious freedom or the freedom of the press. The statement of the King' authority in the front of the King James Version is actually a witness of the power of the king to censor all books, including the Bible itself.


Our own Constitution stands on the foundation of beliefs in freedom that were birthed by the knowledge of the English Bible. What a paradox that the man who authorized this great translation also exemplified the need for the constitutional freedom of the free exercise of religion. In the end, the Bible prevailed, not King James. I'm Mike Farris.