Throughout grade school and high school, in all my years of studying civics, government and U.S. History, I never once learned about the Constitution. Although it is the source document for every law, every Supreme Court decision and the very structure of our government, it can also be rather contentious and was thus deemed too explosive for the secondary school curriculum.

Of course, I am being facetious. To remove the Constitution from the education of any American child would be absurd. Its influence reaches to the depths of our culture. There is only one other document that has had a greater impact on our society, but sadly, for reasons of First Amendment misinterpretation, secular overreaction and stubborn ignorance of undeniable influence, that book has been removed from standard curriculum.

The Bible. The best-selling book of all time, the best-selling book of the year, every year. The book that found its way into countless presidential speeches, literary works, popular films and the rallying cries for civil rights. Shakespeare alone references the Bible an estimated 13,000 times. It is difficult, nearly impossible in fact, to read through the works of the Founding Fathers without coming across reference to God, the Creator or heaven. The language and values of the Bible are as deeply sewn into our national fabric as are the principles of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It has colored our history and politics, our literature and film, our national psyche and our international reputation. To ignore the Bible’s influence on our past, not to mention our present, is at best foolish, at worst, disastrous. If you doubt its relevance you either read neither books nor newspapers or you are simply lying to yourself.

And yet our citizens are woefully inadequate when it comes to knowing this text. USA Today quoted a study showing that 60 percent of Americans cannot name five of the Ten Commandments. According to the Los Angeles Times, another study found that one in 10 Americans believe Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife. Our country is mimicking a joke from “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure,” and it’s a sad, pathetic sort of joke.

At first glance, many disparage the use of the Bible in public school as an affront to the First Amendment. But educating our youth on the world’s most influential book is a far cry from establishing Christianity as a national religion. The true intention of the Framers concerning religion was to build a government, not separate from nor neutral toward, but tolerant of and encouraging toward any and all religious belief.

Some cite the Supreme Court’s 1963 landmark decision, Abington Township School District v. Schempp, which held that mandatory prayer and scripture reading were unconstitutional. However, in the decision for that very same case, Justice William Brennan wrote, “the holding of the Court today plainly does not foreclose teaching about the Holy Scriptures.” Fifteen years prior in McCollum v. Board of Education, Justice Robert Jackson wrote that “a course in English literature that omitted the Bible … would be pretty barren.”

With the current civic environment being so sensitive to the mixing and mingling of religion and government, some fear the power that a Bible-including curriculum would have to offend. This must be addressed with a firm “teach don’t preach” approach to the topic. I would never ask for history class to include an alter call, but when students read King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, they should know that when he speaks of “justice (that) rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream,” he is invoking, nearly verbatim, the Old Testament prophet Amos.

It is not an exaggeration to call the Bible the most influential book of all time. Ignoring it in our schools will not diminish this influence, but it will diminish our understanding of where we come from and where we are going.