A so-called “historian,” who conservative radio host Glenn Beck has hired to teach at his online university, recently argued that scientists needed a “fear of the Lord” to do their job, and students’ test scores would increase if schools had “a daily Bible reading.”

During Tuesday’s Education a Higher Calling program on the Trinity Broadcasting Network, David Barton noted that Americans had gotten away from believing that a “fear of the Lord” was the beginning of all knowledge.

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“If you wanted to be a good scientist, you had to start with fear of the Lord,” he explained. “If you wanted to be a good mathematician, if you wanted to be a good preacher, if you wanted to be a good artist — whatever knowledge you needed, you had to start with fear of the Lord.”

“And that’s what happens with a secular approach to education,” Barton continued. “When we had a God-fearing approach to education, our educational knowledge was so much higher than what it is now.”

“Just something as simple as having prayer in school and having a daily Bible reading. Did you know, back when we did that in schools, America was number one in the world in literacy? We had the highest literacy rate in the world… We’re now 68th in the world in literacy. Our knowledge of even how to read has fallen through the floor; correlates exactly to the time we said ‘Oh, fear of the Lord can’t be part of our knowledge.'”

Watch the video below from Trinity Broadcasting Network, broadcast Sept. 3, 2013.

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(h/t: Right Wing Watch)