A few days ago, I came across a Facebook announcement from a Baptist church near where I live.
The church was announcing the return of something called Bible 101 at a local public middle school.
The post emphasized that the class was optional.
That word caught my attention.
Optional.
It is a reassuring word.
Nobody is being forced.
Students can choose whether to participate.
Parents can presumably say no.
For many of us, that may be enough to settle the matter.
It almost settled it for me.
Then I kept reading.
The announcement said students in Bible 101 would study “God’s word,” “grow in their faith,” and learn how the Bible applies to their lives.
I stopped.
Not because I was surprised that a Baptist church believes the Bible is God’s Word.
I spent most of my life in Baptist churches.
A church teaching young people to believe the Bible, deepen their faith, and apply Scripture to their lives is doing something perfectly recognizable.
It is religious formation.
The question that interested me was not whether a church should be allowed to do that.
Of course it should.
The question was what happens when that activity takes place through some arrangement involving a public school during the school day.
And suddenly the word optional no longer seemed capable of carrying all the weight I had initially placed on it.
Optional answers one question.
It tells us that participation is not mandatory.
That is important.
But it does not answer every other question.
What exactly is the school’s role?
Where does the class meet?
What school time does it occupy?
How are students invited?
Is this an academic examination of the Bible or an opportunity for religious formation?
Would another religious group receive the same opportunity?
Would I see the arrangement differently if the class were designed to help students grow in a faith I did not share?
Would I see it differently if the purpose were to help students grow more confident that no God exists?
Those are different questions.
And saying optional does not answer them.
That interested me because I began wondering how often a reassuring word does this to us.
We hear a word that seems to settle the uncomfortable part of a question, and we stop looking.
Voluntary.
Traditional.
Natural.
Patriotic.
Biblical.
Scientific.
Common sense.
Choice.
Freedom.
Safety.
Any one of those words may describe something accurately.
But sometimes the word begins doing more work than the evidence underneath it.
We hear the label and assume the inquiry is finished.
That is where I have become increasingly cautious.
Not suspicious.
Cautious.
There is a difference.
Suspicion begins with a conclusion and searches for evidence to support it.
Inquiry begins with the willingness not to know yet.
That distinction matters here.
I do not know enough about this particular Bible 101 program to make a legal judgment about it.
A Facebook post does not tell me everything I would need to know.
And I don’t need to reach that conclusion to notice what interested me.
I noticed how quickly one word—optional—could make me feel that nothing else needed examining.
Perhaps I noticed it because I have spent much of the past several months revising I Dare You, Teacher, a book about what happens when authority and certainty enter the classroom.
One of the questions beneath that book is simple:
Does the student encounter a conclusion—or an invitation to examine one?
But the more I have lived with that question, the less willing I am to leave it inside classrooms.
It applies to much more.
It applies to churches.
Families.
Political parties.
News stories.
Social media posts.
Books.
And certainly writers.
A conclusion can arrive disguised as a word we have heard so many times that we no longer notice what it assumes.
That may be especially true when the word belongs to our own tribe.
If I already approve of the activity, optional may be enough for me.
If I distrust the activity, I may suddenly become very interested in all the questions the word does not answer.
That asymmetry deserves attention.
Would I ask the same questions if the worldview were mine?
Would I apply the same standard if it were not?
Those questions are uncomfortable because they move the inquiry away from the people in the Facebook post.
They turn it toward me.
And perhaps that is where inquiry becomes useful.
It is easy to examine the assumptions carried by someone else’s language.
It is harder to notice the assumptions carried by our own.
I still like the word optional.
It tells me something worth knowing.
I simply don’t think it tells me everything.
Sometimes a word answers the question.
Sometimes it merely gives us permission to stop asking.
Knowing the difference may be one of the reasons we keep a pencil nearby.
Continue with The Pencil’s Edge
A Pencil Practice
Think of a word that tends to settle an issue quickly for you.
It might be traditional, scientific, biblical, freedom, natural, safe, fair, or something entirely different.
Write the word at the top of a page.
Then write:
What does this word actually tell me—and what does it leave unanswered?
Do not argue with the word.
Just notice where the questions begin again.
When you have finished, the practice is complete.
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