S6, Ep. 02: Oklahoma and Texas try to force Bible teaching in public schools

We continue to see bold attempts by people who espouse Christian nationalism to influence our youngest population, and news this summer out of Oklahoma and Texas show two troubling examples. In this episode, Amanda Tyler and Holly Hollman talk about the edict from Ryan Walters in Oklahoma to mandate having the Bible in public schools – alongside our nation’s founding documents – and the new proposed curriculum in Texas that strangely uses religious beliefs as fact in lessons for students as young as kindergarten. 

SHOW NOTES

Segment 1 (starting at 00:37): How does Christian nationalism impact public schools?

BJC has several resources for issues at the intersection of religion in public schools. Click here to see a list, including a short overview from BJC and classic resources that include A Parent’s Guide to Religion in the Public Schools and A Teacher’s Guide to Religion in the Public Schools.  

Learn more about BJC’s Christians Against Christian Nationalism campaign at ChristiansAgainstChristianNationalism.org. 

Holly and Amanda discussed Christian nationalism in the public schools in episode 14 of season 4. 

 

Segment 2 (starting at 05:39): Oklahoma created a Bible mandate … and you’ll never guess which Bible perfectly fit the requirements! (actually, you probably will guess immediately)

Read the original edict from Ryan Walters at this link, and read the guidance released later at this link.

Amanda and Holly read from this article by Jennifer Palmer, Paul Monies and Heather Warlickand for The Oklahoman: ‘Trump Bible’ one of few that meet Walters’ criteria for Oklahoma classrooms

In October of this year, Oklahoma amended its requirement for Bibles in classrooms to no longer require the Bible to include U.S. historical documents. Read more in this article by Ken Miller for the Associated Press: Oklahoma amends request for Bibles that initially appeared to match only version backed by Trump

 

Segment 3 (starting 21:32): Troubling Texas curriculum

Amanda mentioned this article by By Linda Jacobson  for The 74 which broke the story: Exclusive: Texas Seeks to Inject Bible Stories into Elementary School Reading Program

Read more about the September day of action in Texas in this article from BJC’s Report from the Capital magazine: Saying ‘no’ to Bible-based curriculum in Texas

Amanda shares more about her experience with the curriculum in her column for the magazine: Do something

If you live in Texas, there is still time to contact your State Board of Education member about this troubling curriculum before their November vote. Visit this link to find out who represents you, and scroll to the bottom of this page for tips on crafting your email. 

Respecting Religion is made possible by BJC’s generous donors. You can support these conversations with a gift to BJC.

Transcript: Season 6, Episode 02:  Oklahoma and Texas try to force Bible teaching in public schools (some parts of this transcript have been edited for clarity)      

 

AMANDA: Imagine the teacher who may or may not be Christian —
HOLLY: Yes!
AMANDA: — who’s tasked with teaching this. And, again, these are faith claims. These are things that I believe. The content is not what I’m objecting to. It’s the context.

 

Segment 1: How does Christian nationalism impact public schools? (starting at 00:37)

AMANDA: Welcome to Respecting Religion, a BJC podcast series where we look at religion, the law, and what’s at stake for faith freedom today. I’m Amanda Tyler, executive director of BJC.

HOLLY: And I’m general counsel Holly Hollman. Today we’re going to focus our attention on the troubling rise and proliferation of Christian nationalism in a place where it impacts children across the country: our nation’s public schools.

AMANDA: Yes, Holly. We are seeing all sorts of, shall we say, bold attempts by people who espouse Christian nationalism to influence our youngest population. And there are some really troubling things happening in states across this country.

This summer we saw the State of Louisiana pass a measure to require the posting of the Ten Commandments in public schools, and then — not to be outdone — we saw Oklahoma issue an edict regarding teaching the Bible in public school classrooms. And then Texas brings up the rear with a really troubling curriculum measure.

HOLLY: Yes. It does seem like there’s a bit of competition among some states about which one will be the first or the most aggressive in promoting religion in the public schools and testing the legal boundaries of recent Supreme Court cases.

AMANDA: And as you and our listeners know, Holly, I am now living in Texas, so I’ve had a front-row seat to what’s happening down here, and we’ve been particularly active in working to try to stop this troubling curriculum that infuses Bible stories into the reading and language arts curriculum in the ways that it teaches religious claims as fact.

We have also found just a lot of half-truths and really straight-up mistakes in the draft curriculum, and so we’re going to go more in depth in this show about what’s happening in Texas and give some calls to action for people who live in Texas or know people who live in Texas about how you can get involved.

HOLLY: Yeah. And I think that also sets a good example for people in other states as far as how to get involved in legislative efforts, so we’ll talk about all these. But let’s start with what’s at issue here first.

And for our new listeners, it’s probably important for us to say that we support faith freedom for all, and supporting religious liberty means ensuring that public schools treat all students similarly, without regard to religion in providing public school education.

There’s certainly a place for teaching about religion in the public schools, and BJC has often been involved in efforts to ensure correct guidelines for doing so without violating our constitutional promise of faith freedom for all.

But here we’re talking about something else. We’re talking about Christian nationalism and how this ideology promotes a certain view of Christianity and ideas about its relationship to our nation. As many of our listeners know, BJC is home of the Christians Against Christian Nationalism campaign, so we should start off with a refresher about the definition that we use about Christian nationalism.

AMANDA: Yeah, Holly. We define Christian nationalism as a political ideology and cultural framework that tries to merge American and Christian identities. Implicit in the definition I just gave is that I’m defining Christian nationalism in the American context. In the U.S. context, of course, it is part of a larger ideology of religious nationalism that’s a recurrent problem throughout history and around the world today.

But in the American context, Christian nationalism suggests that to be a real American, one has to be a Christian, and that narrative relies heavily on this mythological founding of the United States as a, quote/unquote “Christian nation,” one founded by Christians in order to privilege Christianity in law and policy, and likewise really relies on a cherry-picked version of American history that overemphasizes the Founders’ religious biographies and underemphasizes or at times completely ignores the actual text of the U.S. Constitution in the way that religious freedom is protected in our constitutional order.

HOLLY: Christian nationalism is a direct threat, in direct opposition to the religious freedom that we advocate for that provides that we are all equal citizens without regard to religion, free to practice religion, but we do not rely on the government to promote religion, and we don’t want the government to interfere with people’s religion.

So some of you will want to hear more about that. You can go back to earlier episodes where we talk about Christian nationalism and its influence in public schools. We did an episode back in season 4, episode 14, to give a little more background. But today we want to be real clear about these new unwarranted pushes to insert religion in the public schools, so let’s start off by looking at Oklahoma.

 

 

Segment 2: Oklahoma created a Bible mandate…and you’ll never guess which Bible perfectly fit the requirements! (actually, you probably will guess immediately) (Starting at 5:39)

HOLLY: This summer — back at the end of June — Ryan Walters, state superintendent of public instruction, put out this edict, a short memorandum that said, “Effective immediately, all Oklahoma schools are required to incorporate the Bible, which includes the Ten Commandments, as an instructional support into the curriculum across specified grade levels, e.g., grades 5 through 12. This directive is in alignment with the educational standards approved on or about May 2019 with which all districts must comply.”

Okay. I think he protests a little too much there, like, you know, he’s trying to show in that first paragraph that this is okay, when clearly it is not. And excuse the slight — I don’t know if that felt like sarcasm in my voice. It’s just a little odd to have a government official telling us what is in the Bible and saying, “Effective immediately, schools, get on it,” you know. It’s disturbing.

AMANDA: It’s also the middle of June. Schools aren’t even in session, so it felt a little too much like a power trip to me when I read it as well.

HOLLY: It does. He goes on in this memo to say that the Bible — let me quote this. “The Bible is one of the most historically significant books and a cornerstone of western civilization, along with the Ten Commandments. They will be referenced as an appropriate study of history, civilization, ethics, comparative religion, or the like, as well as for their substantial influence on our nation’s Founders and the foundational principles of our Constitution. This is not merely an educational directive but a crucial step in ensuring our students grasp the core values and historical context of our country,” close quote.

AMANDA: Yeah. So, I mean, this caught our attention this summer, Holly, when we saw it.

HOLLY: Yeah.

AMANDA: Of course, we were not recording Respecting Religion at the time, so we saved it for this conversation.  But, first, as we mentioned at the top, this definitely seems like a direct response to what happened in Louisiana, because the Ten Commandments is referenced twice, so Oklahoma’s trying to show, I think, here, See, we like the Ten Commandments, too.

But also, I really view this as textbook Christian nationalism — no pun intended — in the educational context. But the fact that, you know, there really is a thorough merging of American and Christian identities and more than a subtle signal sent by the state superintendent of schools here that to be a good student in Oklahoma, you have to study the Bible, that you can’t understand or even be a good American if you don’t have some kind of understanding of the Bible.

And it is also, again, just not true that the Bible had a substantial influence on the foundational principles of our Constitution. The Constitution is a secular document. It is not a religious document, and you do not have to understand the Bible in order to understand the Constitution or be an American citizen.

HOLLY: Two other points about this short memo. It came sort of with this feeling of threat. It said, “The State Department of Education may supply teaching materials for the Bible as permissible to ensure uniformity in delivery” — more about that later. But, “Adherence to this mandate is compulsory. Further instructions for monitoring and reporting on this implementation for the upcoming school year, ’24-’25, will be forthcoming. Immediate and strict compliance is expected.”

That’s the part that I found very heavy-handed, and we have since learned quite at odds with the way Oklahoma education law actually works and who is in charge of curriculum decisions.

So soon after this, we had the same person, Ryan Walters, state superintendent, issue guidance. And, Amanda, I think he doubled down on the point that you were making in that guidance, you know, saying more fully that the Bible has been a key cornerstone in the development of western thought, influencing legal systems and ethical frameworks, and cultural norms.

So he issued more guidance to — I don’t know — I guess, to try to make it seem like it had more educational value, but at the same time, it really undercuts that by further weaving together this idea of the importance of the Bible and what Oklahoma school kids need to learn.

AMANDA: And I’ll point out, you know, that statement about being a key cornerstone in western thought, influencing legal systems, ethical frameworks and cultural norms, there’s no citation to that. I mean, I think this statement gets repeated over and over again without any kind of actual intellectual interrogation of the claim. And that is really troubling.

And I think it is important when we hear these claims repeated that we ask for proof of that, you know, that we not just assume that some kind of Christian majority status or Christian privilege is actually a foundational legal document, when, in fact, the constitutional history tells a different story.

HOLLY: When this longer guidance came out, I noted that it really is sort of both doubling down, as we noted, on the Christian nationalism perspective, but also giving a little window dressing to this edict — kind of legal window dressing, trying to appear as if what he’s doing is only reminding teachers that they can teach about actual historical events and people that involve religion, like talking about Martin Luther King or mentioning the Declaration of Independence that mentions a creator.

So the guidance is both misleading and confusing, and it also lacks the kind of specificity you would want if the state superintendent was actually expecting teachers to follow this in a way that is constitutional.

AMANDA: Yeah. I think he’s sending mixed signals here. I mean, there’s one way to read this to say this is just stating existing law, especially in the section where he talks about legal considerations and reminding educators that they have a duty to be neutral and objective, not promoting or favoring any religious beliefs, that they need to incorporate diverse perspectives and communicate with parents about the ways that the Bible is incorporated.

But I think we have serious questions and concerns about how this is implemented. If it’s just restating current law, not a problem, but that doesn’t exactly comport with the messaging that has come from Ryan Walters’ office throughout this entire process, as if this is something different and new that he’s doing. So I think we’re going to have to watch very closely to see how this actually plays out in Oklahoma public schools.

HOLLY: There was a fair amount of pushback immediately on this news story, I think, both in Oklahoma and around the country. And then, you know, people went back to our busy summer, reacting to all the things that happened this summer, particularly on the political — the national political front.

Later, Walters issued another statement, this time requiring schools in the state to place copies of the Bible, along with founding documents like the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence, in every classroom.

And maybe you remember, when I read that earlier, you know, there was sort of a vague reference to the educational materials necessary to comply with his first edict. I don’t know that that really stood out to me at the time, so Ryan Walters made it very clear for me and everyone else what he’s getting at here, Amanda.

AMANDA: Yeah. I mean, this is — I was kind of saying, What’s different. Well, this is remarkably different, the idea that the state of Oklahoma is going to buy a Bible for every classroom to be sure that that’s the instructional material that every classroom needs, and that it’s not just any Bible but a Bible that includes the founding documents, like the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.

HOLLY: And sorry to interrupt, but for anyone who maybe doesn’t own a Bible or might be unfamiliar with printed copies of the Bible and their contents, there are different editions of the Bible used by Christians across denominations, but they normally do not include copies of the founding documents of the United States.

Maybe there’ll be some maps in there to help understand the geographical setting of the stories in the Bible, perhaps the missionary journeys of Paul, things like that. But I can really only think of this one edition of the Bible we learned about recently that has both Christian scriptures, what we call the Old and New Testaments, alongside the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.

And that’s because, you might remember, if you’re a regular podcast listener with Respecting Religion, you would have heard us talk about last season where we covered the gross marketing of this Bible that was mixed with the founding documents called the God Bless the USA Bible, which was endorsed by former President Donald Trump and is commonly referred to as the Trump Bible.

And here it seems Oklahoma was pretty specific about its requirements. Not only did it need to be a certain translation of the Bible that they wanted in the classrooms — the King James Version — and to have founding documents bound with the scriptures in a leather-like material.

AMANDA: So I personally was not at all surprised when I saw that there was one Bible that fit the specifications that the state superintendent had issued this summer for what instructional materials would be required for implementing the edict, and it is Trump’s God Bless the USA Bible.

We talked in depth about our disgust of this, as you put it, gross marketing scheme that seemed transparent just to be a way to make more money, and we wondered, you know, what’s the market for this? Well, evidently the state of Oklahoma’s about to buy 55,000 of these Bibles, so they’ve created their own market for this Bible in the state of Oklahoma.

And I think for those watching, this just added a whole other level of cynicism to this entire governmental enterprise, that it looks like it is not just to push Christian nationalism in the public schools but also to line the pockets of the former president.

HOLLY: Yeah. It’s funny, Amanda. You and I are both products of public schools, and I just remember so fondly going to the library in my school. And I bet all of these public school libraries have the Bible in them, I would assume — if they don’t, they certainly could, I would say they should — as well as other appropriate material to teach about religion, particularly religions that any well-educated person would want to know about and maybe books about them that are age-appropriate.

But this is so different from that. This is so unlike the kind of education that we want all our students to have about religion and its positive influences, as well as the way religion has been used, you know, for positive and for negative throughout history.

This is such a transparent effort at promoting Christian nationalism by putting this in every single classroom, a Bible that is like no other Bible and that would be so promoted by the state that they would mandate it in every classroom.

AMANDA: And the impact of all of this on the public school students in Oklahoma really causes deep concerns about religious freedom. You know, a public school classroom should be a welcoming place of belonging for all students and their families, regardless of their faith, and not a place that invites religious indoctrination or seems to privilege one faith community over others or privilege the practice of faith over the choice not to practice faith.

HOLLY: Yeah. And it’s really troubling to me just as a person of faith that learned about the Bible and Bible stories appropriately in my home and in my church, to think about people being introduced to the faith in this manipulated way of it being intertwined with our nation’s civic story. It’s a real disservice to Christianity that it would be taken and manipulated this way for this, you know, political purpose.

AMANDA: Yeah. And, you know, you and I are certainly not the only ones who feel that way, Holly, and I’m really pleased to see that there are some school officials that are pushing back. The Oklahoman, a newspaper in the state, quoted Bixby superintendent Rob Miller in an interview that he gave in which he said, “We will not be forcing our teachers to do this. As a Christian myself, the idea of diminishing the word of God to a mere classroom prop is a little repulsive to me, so we will not be complying with this directive of having a physical Bible in every classroom,” end quote.

HOLLY: It was great to hear that response, and, of course, not surprising to us. That’s our response. But this really did get a lot of attention. And the article pointed out that it’s not only offensive as a matter of religion and religious liberty, but it also has a lot of legal problems as well.

A former attorney general of the state of Oklahoma, Drew Edmondson, was quoted as saying that, “It appears to me that this bid is anything but competitive.” He went on to say that, “It adds to the basic specification other requirements that have nothing to do with the text. The special binding and inclusion of government documents will exclude almost all bidders. If the bid specs exclude most bidders unnecessarily, I could consider that a violation.”

So here you have this experienced Oklahoma attorney who’s worked for the state noting that not only is this problematic for the reasons that we’ve noted, but that it appears proposed in a way that is at odds with the whole government request for proposals and bidding process.

AMANDA: And because the former president stands to financially benefit from the sale of these Bibles, it also raises issues of campaign finance law and whether there might be violations there.

HOLLY: We should mention now that after all this pushback and concern, Oklahoma did amend its requirements in October. The amended request no longer requires the founding documents to be in the Bible. They can now be together, or they can be separate.

 

 

Segment 3: Troubling Texas curriculum (starting at 21:32)

HOLLY: Well, getting less national attention but, I think, at least as troubling from a practical standpoint is what is happening in Texas. And I know this is something that you have been following very closely and have been active at the grassroots level. So tell us about what’s going on from a curriculum perspective in Texas.

AMANDA: In Texas right now, there is a proposed curriculum in the elementary schools — so from kindergarten to fifth grade — to teach reading and language arts, and the curriculum infuses the teaching of Bible stories into the curriculum.

So unlike what’s happening in Oklahoma, this is actually hundreds of thousands of pages of curriculum that gets printed out and sent — or sometimes this is actually part of the controversy. It’s an electronic curriculum that’s not necessarily printed but something that teachers can access electronically, that basically provides scripts for teachers how to teach reading and language arts, and includes the teaching of the Bible.

And as we said earlier, there are certainly appropriate ways to teach about the Bible in ways that promote religious literacy in general, and we are supportive of that. But that’s not what’s happening with this curriculum, because this curriculum teaches the Bible.

One of the problems is just the way that it overemphasizes Christianity with regard to other religions. So if you’re really trying to promote religious literacy, then you’re teaching about Christianity as one of many different religious traditions.

HOLLY: Or if you’re really just teaching language arts, there are many, many texts from which you can draw.

AMANDA: Yeah. Exactly, exactly. So there are lots of issues with this particular curriculum. But if you are going to teach religious texts to teach reading and language arts, then you should be evenhanded and teach different religious texts. The vast majority are Christian texts.

There are a few references to the Hebrew scriptures, but they’re all told from a Christian perspective, and some of our Jewish colleagues have talked about why that is in Texas, about how these are not Jewish interpretations of these texts. These are Christian interpretations of the Old Testament. There are only a handful of references to Islam, and there are no references at all to Buddhism, Hinduism, or Sikhism, which are other major world religions.

HOLLY: So, Amanda, how did this come up? What’s going on in Texas? Is this like an annual thing that Texas schools do, to review the curriculum, or is this some other kind of proposal?

AMANDA: Well, this is something that’s totally new. The legislature passed in its last legislative session, regular session, in the spring of 2023, passed a law known as SB 1605 that required the state to develop its own curriculum.

HOLLY: So that’s just the idea that Texas needs to do a better job teaching kids to read. They just need new curriculum, because, yeah, we need to make sure that we have an educated populace. You want to, I guess, occasionally review how you’re teaching reading in the schools, and so it was purported just to be an effort for Texas to improve its language arts education. Is that fair?

AMANDA: Well, I’ll say we weren’t, you know — because we’re not focused entirely on education policy, this isn’t a bill that we were tracking last legislative session. It wasn’t apparent on its face that this was going to be an effort to pursue religion in the public schools or to teach religion in the public schools.

HOLLY: Yeah. Makes sense.

AMANDA: But we were tipped off that this was an issue when the education policy news outlet called The 74 broke the story in May, and we can link to their story in show notes. And they talked about the origin of this particular draft curriculum that was first released to the public in the spring.

And I’ll just quote from their piece. They said, “While largely hidden from public view, the redesign sparked behind-the-scenes debate long before its release. When a leading curriculum publisher balked at the state’s request to infuse its offerings with biblical content, Texas officials turned to other vendors. They include conservative Christian Hillsdale College in Michigan and the right-leaning Texas Public Policy Foundation, which supported an unsuccessful effort to require the Ten Commandments in every classroom, according to a list obtained by The 74.”

HOLLY: So the state is telling the education experts what to put in their material.

AMANDA: That’s right.

HOLLY: And if they don’t do what — if they don’t put what they want in there, they’ll go somewhere else.

AMANDA: They’ll go to other bidders, so the actual leading curriculum publisher, the one that does this for a living for other states, said, no, we’re not going to write that curriculum, so they had to go to some of these other outlets. But I’ll tell you, in subsequent reporting on this story, the state is not being forthcoming with how this curriculum actually got developed, and so we’re just grateful for excellent investigative reporting here by The 74 and also by The Texas Tribune, which does a lot of reporting in Texas on these issues.

HOLLY: So it gave us a chance to look at it more closely, which I’m really glad that we did. So, Amanda, specifically, what were some of the things we found when we looked at this more closely?

AMANDA: Well, for one, again, this is for kids in elementary school, children as young as kindergarten or five or six years old, and one of the problems is that this content is simply not age-appropriate. You know, children who are five or six years old and even all the way through elementary school — I mean, I have an elementary school child at this point. They are just simply too young to determine what is a religious claim and what is a fact claim.

And so, this is where I would argue in some ways, you know, Oklahoma’s getting all the attention, but this is actually more troubling, because in Oklahoma, that’s at least starting in fifth grade to twelfth grade. There’s none of this teaching at the elementary school level.

The impact, though, is that if you’re teaching the Bible as a faith claim, it is really interfering with the family’s religious freedom rights and their choices when it comes to religious instruction.

Another problem with the curriculum is that it doesn’t at all seem necessary or sometimes even related to the subject being taught. And so when you read through these lessons, it feels like gratuitous mentions of the religious content and a not very subtle way to insert devotional study of the Bible into the curriculum.

And so let me give you an example. In the third grade unit on studying ancient Rome, they have a lesson on the life of Jesus in studying ancient Rome. And I’m just going to read from the teacher’s guide. This is what a teacher is scripted to tell the class:

“These New Testament texts of the Christian Bible describe what modern Christians believe to be the circumstances surrounding the birth of Jesus celebrated today as Christmas. The angel told Mary that she had found favor with God. The angel explained that she would have a son who would be called Jesus and that this was the predicted Messiah.

“The Bible explains that Jesus rose from the dead. Three days after his death by the Roman authorities, followers of Jesus visited his tomb and found it empty. An angel appeared and said, He has risen, and led them into the tomb. When the visitors entered the tomb, they found it empty.

“The Roman historian Josephus noted that Jesus had many disciples at the time of his death by Pilate, but those who had become his disciples did not abandon his discipleship. They reported that he had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion and that he was alive. In the years that followed, many heard about the resurrection of Jesus, that he had risen from the dead, and word spread throughout the empire. To be resurrected means to rise from the dead.

“More and more people believed that Jesus was the son of God. These early followers of Jesus grew to a large group of believers, eventually calling themselves Christians and calling Jesus the Christ, which was the Greek word for Messiah. Over time, these early Christians developed many new customs, including eventually celebrating the event of the resurrection as Easter.”

HOLLY: Okay, Amanda. That sounds like you were just reading from a Christian Sunday school curriculum guide. I mean, anyone who is listening to this that grew up in a Christian church would recognize this, and it’s really shocking to hear this read and imagined as something that kids get as part of their compulsory education.

AMANDA: I mean, imagine yourself or imagine yourself as a parent sending your third-grader to school and sitting and listening to the third grade teacher, the major authority in this person’s life reading this story to them. Or imagine the teacher, who may or may not be Christian —

HOLLY: Yes!

AMANDA: — who’s tasked with teaching this. And, again, these are like — these are faith claims. These are things that I believe. These are things that we talk about in our churches. The content is not what I’m objecting to. It’s the context and the fact that we’re doing it in public schools. And, you know, just the idea that this is being mandated in the form of this written curriculum, I believe, again, for the age that we’re talking about, the context that we’re doing it in is really a very troubling violation of religious freedom rights.

HOLLY: How could a child hear this and not have questions and not want to probe this more in a way that would be totally appropriate for a parent to engage with their child or if that parent wishes to allow their religious teachers to say, This is what some religions rely on; here are some of the stories of their faith. But the idea that that would be what you would choose is really shocking.

AMANDA: Yeah. And I just brought one example, because we just don’t have time to go through the whole curriculum here. But just suffice it to say that this is one example out of, I would estimate, about 30 different objectionable lessons from this — again, for kids as young as kindergarten that have been written into the curriculum and is being considered right now.

HOLLY: Tell us a little bit more about how this led to the actual filing of comments and complaints about this proposed curriculum.

AMANDA: Yeah. Well, when I saw this reporting from The 74, I noted that they had talked to Dr. Mark Chancey, who is a professor of religion at SMU here in Dallas and one of the country’s leading experts on religion and teaching of the Bible, in particular, in public schools. And so I was in touch with him about this curriculum and very quickly saw that he had serious concerns about what was in it.

And then here in Texas, we have our local organizing project of Christians Against Christian Nationalism in North Texas, and so working with our local organizer, Lisa Jacob, we started getting our coalition involved and actually reading through the curriculum.

I mean, it is difficult — they don’t make it easy to access, to read all these curriculum, and so we first navigated the process and put together some instructions for people on how they could read for themselves through the curriculum, and then did an actual training webinar where we both walked through the concerns we had with the curriculum, but also, in partnering with other advocacy groups here in Texas, including Texas Impact and Texas Freedom Network, we gave people instructions on how to file public comments with their concerns with the curriculum.

And there was a deadline in August for the public comments, and when that deadline closed, we found out that there had been about 2,000 comments filed all together against the curriculum and only 200 for the curriculum, which I saw — first, just the volume of comments filed, that is an incredible amount for, again, a pretty difficult and arcane process in the middle of the summer, for that many people to kind of come together and voice their concerns that way, but also those of us who were concerned about the curriculum were outnumbering those who were supportive of it by ten to one.

HOLLY: And I’ll just echo the difficulty of this process. I mean, this is a detailed, sort of bureaucratic process that you would expect education experts to be involved in, to know this. You know, there are people who are trained in elementary education who, of course, are deeply invested in these developments.

But the fact that this reporting really set off the alarm bells motivated people to say, okay, well, what can we do about it? And there are processes for public comment. I remember, Amanda, when you showed me what’s proposed and I went through at least like one grade or two to see what the problem is — and you have to dig through quite a lot.

And not all of it, as you would expect, not all of it is horrible. I mean, that would be too obvious. Right? It’s more hidden in the weeds that you have to go through and then say, Wait a minute, why is this in here? Only by really going through it in great detail can you see this nefarious effort to push Christian nationalism there.

I mean, one thing that you didn’t mention but that I remember seeing is that there was also confusing content about America’s religious freedom tradition. So — and maybe it’s a little bit like Ryan Walters, you know. You’re trying to have it both ways.

You know, you’re kind of sneaking in this religion in America stuff to act like it’s just normal education, and you’re really doing a disservice to both, both religious education and devotional content, as well as our civic education about what kind of country we are.

AMANDA: I’m so glad you brought that up, Holly, because when we as Baptist Joint Committee filed an official comment, we focused on not a lot of what we’re talking about here today, because we knew that a lot of other people were raising the concerns that we’re raising with the teaching of religion in devotional ways in the curriculum.

We focused on how they were presenting and misrepresenting our religious freedom tradition, sometimes with just, you know, misstatements of fact and mistakes that needed to be corrected, but overall, just furthering the cherry-picked version of American history that promotes a mythological history of America as a Christian nation, rather than the more accurate telling of how religious freedom is protected in this country.

And one could argue whether, again, kids this age really can fully understand the concepts of religious freedom. Right? And that —

HOLLY: Yeah.

AMANDA: — was also what was a little confusing to us is why are they continuing with so many lessons talking about religious freedom for kids this young, because as we talk about on this podcast, these are complicated issues, Holly, that might be more appropriate for a secondary school audience than elementary school anyway.

HOLLY: I’m so glad that the reporting led to this response and had so many people learn about this process, get involved and file the comments. And so what happens after that, Amanda?

AMANDA: So after the comments were filed, we hosted another training for people who were interested in actually physically going to Austin for the State Board of Education hearing in September. And I testified, along with a number of other people from across the state.

And when I kind of reviewed who actually testified that day, those of us who were opposed to the curriculum outnumbered those who were there testifying in support of the curriculum by more than three to one, probably even more than that, but at least three to one, outnumbering those.

We do know that some of our advocacy has been effective even to this point, because they’ve already made some revisions to the draft curriculum based on comments. And one of the more egregious examples, I think, of really trying to work in biblical content into the curriculum where it didn’t seem to at all fit was in a kindergarten lesson that was teaching just about narrative structure and sequencing in a story: first this happens, and then this happens, and then that happens.

HOLLY: Uh-huh.

AMANDA: And there was a unit on using fairy tales to teach that. So one lesson taught the story of Goldilocks. Okay. You’re like, Where’s the Bible in this? I’m getting there.

They said one of the lessons of Goldilocks is, Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. And they said, “This quote comes from the Sermon on the Mount, and Jesus taught his followers this saying in this sermon.”

And so many of us objected, because we said, yes, this is the Golden Rule, and, yes, Jesus taught the Golden Rule, but the Golden Rule is not unique to Christianity. In fact, the Golden Rule is found in many other religious and moral traditions. And so to try to teach about that as if Jesus and the Bible were the sole source of the Golden Rule was misleading and wholly inappropriate for this story about Goldilocks for five-year-olds.

HOLLY: My goodness. There’s really no need to combine the two, to act like they’re related. I guess the only connection is it has the word “gold” in it. I don’t know. I mean, I had to sit here and think like Goldilocks, that’s the great story about the three bears. Right? These are things that can be taught without this absurd meshing of religion and fairy tales in this patently manipulative way.

AMANDA: Yeah. Well, so you’ll be pleased to know that that part got cut from the curriculum.

HOLLY: (Laughing.) Good.

AMANDA: And we are still reviewing the amended curriculum to see which comments they did take. But I can say overall, there are still large problems with the curriculum in the way that it infuses Bible teaching.

So the next action is that the State Board of Education will actually take its final vote — or is scheduled to vote — the week of November 18. And so if you’re listening, there is still time, if you live in Texas, to contact your State Board of Education member.

So there are 15 members of the State Board of Education. You can find your member by Googling who represents me, and you can find the contact information of your State Board of Education member and contact them directly.

But even if this curriculum passes, it does not automatically take effect. And so what happens then is every school district in Texas will then have to determine which curriculum they’re going to use. This would be one of several options.

But the other really cynical piece of all of this is there is a financial incentive for school districts to choose this curriculum over other options, so if the curriculum passes and it still has problems in it, then the advocacy would shift to each school district for people to encourage their school board not to adopt this curriculum.

HOLLY: Well, it’s good to hear that this advocacy is having an impact. The work is not over. Parents and educators and anyone in Texas who cares about the future of our country and the education we teach in public schools need to be mindful of this, to be aware that there are people at work that would use the public schools to do harm, both to religious freedom and the teaching about religion.

We’ll put in the show notes some articles that talk about this and provide a model for community action.

That brings us to the close of this episode of Respecting Religion. Thanks for joining us. For more information on what we discussed, visit our website at RespectingReligion.org for show notes and a transcript of this program.

AMANDA: Respecting Religion is produced and edited by Cherilyn Guy.

HOLLY: Learn more about our work at BJC defending faith freedom for all by visiting our website at BJConline.org.

AMANDA: We would love to hear from you. You can send both of us an email by writing to [email protected]. We’re also on social media @BJContheHill, and you can follow me on X, which used to be called Twitter, @AmandaTylerBJC.

HOLLY: And if you enjoyed this show, share it with others. Take a moment to leave us a review or a five-star rating to help other people find us.

AMANDA: We also want to thank you for supporting this podcast. You can donate to these conversations by visiting the link in our show notes.

HOLLY: Join us on Thursdays for new conversations  Respecting Religion.