Ever since I announced that Oklahoma public schools would include the Bible in their curriculum next school year, my plan has been met with criticism, hysteria, and outrage from the usual suspects: left-wing labor union leaders, anti-religion activists, and woke politicians.
Now those powers are Class action lawsuits They try to prevent the Bible from being taught in classrooms.
It is impossible to fully understand the history of the United States and its founding without a basic understanding of the Judeo-Christian Bible.
Whether or not we accept the Bible as the revealed word of God, it is our passport to an intellectual world of goodness, beauty, and historical influence.
And this is the last thing the far-left wants.
There is nothing unconstitutional about teaching the Bible. Bible instruction in public schools has been under attack by the Supreme Court for over 60 years, and in the past decade has come under some of the most vicious political attack.
Two years ago, the Supreme Court It overturned what was known as the “Lemon test.” Legal progress on religious education in the classroom is long overdue. Whereas courts previously imposed meaningless and ahistorical three-part tests on Bible instruction, we are now returning to a proper understanding of the First Amendment and the role of religion in public institutions.
There is an opportunity before us for thoughtful educators and parents to reverse decades of judicial activism and return to a balanced educational curriculum. Of course, there are still those who oppose this.
The Bible is like any other primary source, as are many other foundational works of literature that American students do not study. In academic terms, the many primary sources and documents contained in the Bible have been collected together in an anthology. However, the books contained in the Bible permeate the historical and literary worlds that preceded the founding of this republic and the formation of the American nation.
It is impossible to fully understand the history of the United States and its founding without a basic understanding of the Judeo-Christian Bible.
In the first two sentences of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson summarizes the American ideal, the foundational principles of our entire existence as a nation. In these sentences, he makes it crystal clear that our rights come from God, and that any laws that supersede the laws of a tyrant like George III are given to us from that same transcendent source.
Twentieth-century figures from Martin Luther King Jr. to Ronald Reagan cited the Bible as a driving force in their public activism.
Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech marked a key moment in the history of the civil rights movement and the entire 20th century. The speech includes references to Amos, Isaiah, Psalms, and Galatians. His “Letter from Birmingham Jail” also contains several direct references to the Bible as a refutation of systemic injustice. This is not because King simply chose to use the Bible as a rhetorical device; his efforts were motivated by the biblical belief that we are all created equal in the image of God and therefore worthy of the protection of the law and society.
The left wing of the education cartel is vehemently opposed to bringing the Bible into the classroom, exercising a kind of intellectual tyranny.
Reagan often pointed to Christian principles and the truth of the Bible as the source of America’s greatness. said“The Bible contains the answers to every problem that man faces.” Reagan freely referenced and used both the Old and New Testaments in his private and public life. His longstanding use of the Bible as a resource for explaining the country was evident in his declaration that America was a “shining city on a hill” for the whole world to see.
To a student without an academic training in the Bible, such arguments will sound, at best, like a poorly translated foreign language.
With the exception of a few who simply oppose teaching the Bible on the basis of what is called the principle of “separation of church and state” (a term that appears nowhere in either the Declaration or the Constitution), the most vocal and vehement opponents of the academic teaching of the Bible fear what would happen if these texts were legitimized and officially sanctioned.
The same anti-civilizational voices will claim that the Bible has no academic value, but at the same time, left-wing politicians and trade union leaders continue to fight for pornographic books like “Gender Queer” and “Flamer,” which have nothing to do with education and are only used to politically and socially subjugate children to the radical left.
So not surprisingly, the left wing of the education cartel is vehemently opposed to bringing the Bible into the classroom, where they exercise a kind of intellectual tyranny.
In this way, radical, progressive, anti-Western worldviews are protected from anything that might give weight, meaning, or substance to what they wish to belittle and destroy.
That is why I am excited about this fight to protect academic Bible education in Oklahoma. Our students deserve a true education that gives them firsthand exposure to the greatness of the civilization we inherited and gives them real tools to meet the challenges to that civilization.
Just as important, our republic and society deserve a citizenry that is properly educated in this regard. Americans certainly deserve better than that.
