OK: Bible Or Else

After the Pledge and a prayer, Ryan Walters opened the State Board of Education meeting on June 27 with a stern warning. The Board was set to consider taking a license away from a teacher who is accused of teaching "inappropriate"  materials that the state has outlawed. 

The state won't tolerate "activist teachers" and "indoctrination," says Walters. "All individuals need to be aware that actions have consequences, and if you break law, if you break statute, if you break rules, regulations, there will be consequences for those things."

From there, without a trace of irony, Walters moves on to railing against the Oklahoma Supreme Court, a group that specializes in determining whether or not you have broken laws, statutes, ordinances, rules, or regulations, and declares that their ruling that the proposed Catholic charter school broke laws, statutes, ordinances, and the state constitution--well, there should not be consequences for that particular rule-breaking because Walters is sure they are wrong, and therefor he'll be working with the school, lawyers, and parents to make sure that there are no consequences. 

But Walters had another shoe to drop. Rather than be out-christianed by the state of Louisiana (where they just declared that the Ten Commandments must be in every classroom), Walters announced that he was going to forcibly shove a Bible into every classroom in the state. (Because, as Walters will tell you, the Constitution doesn't mention the separation of church and state.)

His pitch is centered on the idea that the Bible is a "necessary historical document" and the "most foundational document used for the constitution and the birth of our country." Walters used to teach AP History, and should know better. "Every teacher, every classroom in the state will have a Bible in the classroom and will be teaching from the Bible in the classroom," he declares. He announced that the memo will come out that day, and sure enough, it did. 

Effective immediately, all Oklahoma schools are required to incorporate the Bible, which includes the Ten Commandments, as an instructional support into the curriculum across specific grade levels, e.g. grades 5 through 12.

The emphasis on the Ten Commandments is a telling one. After all, the Bible also includes the Golden Rule and the Beatitudes, but gosh, that whole "do unto others" and "blessed are the meek" stuff sounds awfully woke.

I'm also trying to imagine how teachers in the upper grades will manage to work the Bible into every single class. Home ec lessons on unleavened bread? Geometry lessons about cubits? 

And once again, let's note that culture panic support for school choice is skin deep. If a parent wants to send their child to a school without Bible instruction in it, Ryan Walters says, "No, you can't have that choice."

Walters, you may recall, previously called the teachers unions a terrorist organization, and has not exactly extended a great deal of trust to teachers, so it's curious that he would trust each and every one of them to properly use the Bible in their classroom. But it's comply or risk losing your teaching license. How effectively does one evangelize when you're spreading the Bible under duress?

The memo says that the Department of Education "may supply teaching materials for the Bible, as permissible, to ensure uniformity in delivery." Permissible by whom? But once again we arrive at the point where the state is going to tell students how to interpret the Bible. Or maybe teachers will just put their own spin on holy scripture. 

Maybe this will survive the inevitable court challenge, or the legal challenge to include other peoples' historically significant holy scriptures in classrooms. If so, I'm betting religious conservatives will rue the day that the state and its teachers were put in charge of religious instruction of their children. And if you decide, for whatever reason, you don't want the school being your co-parent when it comes to religion, you'd better not try to escape in Oklahoma, because breaking rules and regulations has consequences.