Bibles in public schools?

Just when you’re starting to fret not having a reasonable idea for a column for this week’s paper, along come the good folks from Oklahoma willing to try to skirt the U.S. Constitution for their religious beliefs.

According to a press release dated Nov. 14 from the Oklahoma Department of Education, ODE Superintendent Ryan Walters “announced the purchase of more than 500 Bibles for use in advanced placement (AP) government classrooms today. This purchase is the first in the nation Bible purchase explicitly for use in schools as an academic and literary resource and is the first step toward providing Bibles for every classroom in the state.

“We are focused on ensuring we get Bibles available in every classroom in our state as quickly as we can,” said Walters. “I will take every step possible to ensure Oklahoma students have the resources they need to fully understand American history. By acting now, Oklahoma is leading the country on a path toward greater focus on academic excellence by providing critical historical, cultural, and literary context for our students. We are not going to change our history, and the Bible is a major part of that.”

According to a story in Education Week, groups including the American Academy of Religion and the American Historical Association have both condemned Walters’ directive, saying in statements that it “shrinks rather than expands religious literacy” by presenting a narrow view of the role of Christianity in the nation’s founding. Others have criticized Walters for singling out the Bible without mentioning other religious texts and for assembling a committee to review Oklahoma’s social studies standards that includes evangelical activist David Barton, who rejects the notion that the U.S. Constitution protects religious pluralism.

The guidance from the Oklahoma Department of Education calls on schools to provide every classroom with a physical copy of the Bible, the U.S. Constitution, and the Declaration of Independence, calling the documents “mandatory for the holistic education of students in Oklahoma.” It directs teachers of fifth- through 12thgrade students to incorporate teachings about the Bible’s “influence on Western civilization,” “impact on American history,” and use in art and culture.

But according to the St. Louis Jewish Light, a non-profit independent news source, a story by Benyamin Cohen says Walters spent a decade teaching high school history — the Mayflower, the Constitutional Convention, Thomas Jefferson and Martin Luther King Jr. — and noticed a through-line: For many key figures in American history, the Bible was “very much a motivating factor.”

Walters said it would be “academic malpractice” not to teach the Bible in classrooms. “If somebody in history cites the Bible, whether you believe in the Bible or not, that’s really irrelevant,” said Walters, the son of a Christian minister. “We have to cover history accurately.”

“Public schools are not Sunday schools,” Rachel Laser, the president of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, told The New York Times, “Public schools may teach about religion, but they may not preach any religion.”

Rabbi Michael J. Broyde, a law professor and the projects director at the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University, said what Walters is doing in Oklahoma may be constitutional, since it is teaching the Bible in the context of history or literature, not as a religious text. If what the schools teach is “that the people who founded America read the book of Exodus, I think that that’s a reasonable argument,” Broyde said.

Walters’ argument is based on a technicality open to interpretation. As many parents have taught their children over the years, anytime your argument is based on, technically, you might want to look for a stronger argument. Sure, context matters. Walters’ plan might be better suited for a college campus and a higher-level theology or history class on the role of religion in American history.

The claim teaching the historical context of the Bible is part of history is curious from a state where one year after Oklahoma lawmakers passed a bill banning some concepts about race in public schools, Bixby, Okla. teachers decided to shelve a lesson on “Dreamland Burning” a young-adult historical fiction novel based on the Tulsa Race massacre, according to a piece Jillian Taylor and Ari Fife wrote Aug. 23, 2023, in The Frontier.

A recent study from a personal finance company ranked Oklahoma’s education system the second-worst in the country, based on various measures from pupil-teacher ratio to median standardized test scores, WalletHub ranked every state’s education system. With 100 representing the highest quality of public education, Oklahoma received a 32.8 grade. The only state ranked lower was New Mexico, with a score of 27.92.