It is absolutely appropriate to study about religion in history classes in public schools. History has been deeply influenced by religious groups, for good and ill.
But it is not okay to promote religion in public schools. That’s indoctrination.
State leaders in red states want to restore religious practice into the schools, despite the fact that students come from many different faith traditions, or none at all.
This movement is led by evangelical Christians.
The Texas State Board of Education gave its approval to a Bible-infused curriculum for elementary students in the latest test of the line between church and state in public school classrooms. Proponents of the new curriculum say they’re not looking to proselytize or convert students. The Bible is a foundational text of western civilization, and understanding it is key to understanding everything from common phrases in the English language to major developments in history and society, they argue.
“Scrubbing biblical references from school curriculum may seem like a step toward inclusivity, but given how deeply such phrases and allusion are embedded in the language, such an effort would more likely impose a form of illiteracy on students,” American Enterprise Institute senior fellow Robert Pondiscio wrote earlier this year in The 74.
But opponents say the curriculum goes much further than simply helping students understand Biblical references. Jewish Texans and other religious minorities say the curriculum treats Christianity as a default truth. Writing in The Forward, Caryn Tamber-Rosenau, a Jewish Biblical scholar based in Houston, argues that the curriculum imposes 21st century American sensibilities on a challenging, ancient textwhile ignoring “the actual biblical material in favor of grafting onto biblical Israel what Protestant Christians do in churches today — what a coincidence.”
The Bluebonnet Learning curriculum is optional, but school districts will get a financial incentive for adopting it.
Meanwhile, a federal judge found that Louisiana’s law requiring that schools display the Ten Commandments is unconstitutional, but an appeals court said the law will be on hold only in the school districts that sued. Most schools in the state will have to display the Biblical mandates while the court case works its way through the system.
And Oklahomans are suing over a requirement that schools in that state teach the Bible — and not just any Bible. The state’s request for proposals was so narrow that one of the few Bibles that fit the requirement was a $60 edition endorsed by president-elect Donald Trump.
Just think: Trump will get a cut on every Bible sold to the state of Oklahoma!
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Correction:
“This movement is led by REGRESSIVE/REACTIONARY/REVANCHIST (take your pic or have em all) FUNDAMENTALIST/evangelical Christians WHO SEEK TO TURN AMERICA INTO AN XTIAN THEOCRACY NO DIFFERENT IN DEGREE OR KIND FROM THE RADICAL ISLAMIC THEOGRACIES SUCH AS IRAN OR SAUDI ARABIA..”
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Why I’m enraged by Texas’s new Bluebonnet bible curriculum – The Forward
https://forward.com/opinion/677608/bluebonnet-curriculum-jewish-houston-texas-bible/
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“Scrubbing biblical references from school curriculum may seem like a step toward inclusivity, but given how deeply such phrases and allusion are embedded in the language, such an effort would more likely impose a form of illiteracy on students,”
This statement is pure nonsense. Students whose families are non-Christian continue to excel in public schools across America. Silicon Valley and top universities continue to serve Chinese, Indian and Middle Eastern students that achieve at high levels of education. They serve as medical practitioners, engineers, scholars, analysts, scientists and Wall St. executives, and none of them has been held back from a lack of Christian references.
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Religion and Public Schools
Religion and public education have long been kept separate in America, like oil and water. Recent Supreme Court rulings are shaking things up. In this post, Carol explores questions that arise when they mix: Should schools mandate prayer? Should tax dollars fund religious institutions?
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There are many types (sects) of evangelical Christians, including those represented by: Methodism, Wesleyan Holiness churches, Pentecostal and charismatic churches, Some Anabaptist churches, and Some Baptists and Presbyterians.
Evangelicalism is a non-White movement within Christianity, and the number of Evangelicals worldwide has increased from 112 million in 1970 to 386 million in 2020. In 2020, 77% of all Evangelicals lived in the Global South.
Christianity has many denominations, with some estimates suggesting there are over 45,000 globally. Some reasons for the many denominations include differences in belief, power struggles, and corruption/
The sect that supports Trump is the evangelical Christian Nationalists[one known as the Ku Klux Klan] fascist MAGA cult.
People who belong to this sect fit the same profile for this one:
“The German Christians were a Protestant group that supported Nazi ideology. Both Hitler and the Nazi Party promoted “nondenominational” positive Christianity, a movement which rejected most traditional Christian doctrines such as the divinity of Jesus, as well as Jewish elements such as the Old Testament.”
Those Christian nationalists in the US are enamored with Putin, even if they oppose Russia, new research from Northeastern professor says:
Christian Nationalists Support Putin, Even if They Oppose Russia
That begs and answer to this question [well, at least for me]
“Just how big is the Always Trump component of the Republican Party? The former president’s hold on a portion of voters is already having a deep impact on the race. …
“Fully 28 percent of Republican primary voters are so devoted to the former president that they said they’d support him even if he ran as an independent, according to a national survey last month from The Bulwark and longtime Republican pollster Whit Ayres. Indeed, the “Always Trump” component of the party is so pronounced that it’s affecting how Trump’s opponents operate around him.”
Just how big is the Always Trump component of the Republican Party? – POLITICO
Still curious, I asked Google how many Republicans vote in the primaries? I didn’t find the answer but I did find this:
Republicans are restricting who can vote in primary elections : NPR
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The evangelicals have been hoodwinked. Oligarchs who claim God but worship mammon have hijacked religion for their own good. Now future generations will see Christianity like Jefferson did, and churches, once full, will be empty. The evangelicals do not understand that it was separation of church and state that has made religion a lingering reality in America.
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Sorry, I am not seeing the issue here. Here’s what Bluebonnet says of its curriculum:
Are there religious lessons/text included in Bluebonnet Learning materials?
No, there is no religious instruction in Bluebonnet Learning. Bluebonnet Learning materials have a broad base of topics including history, literature, the arts, and culture which, when contextually relevant, can include religious references sampling from a wide range of faiths.
Are religious references, including the Bible, allowable in Texas public schools?
State law (TEC Sec. 28.002) requires that curriculum includes “religious literature, including the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) and New Testament, and its impact on history and literature.” While public schools may not provide religious instruction, guidance from the United
States Department of Education (DOE) indicates that public schools may teach about religion and promote religious liberty and respect for the religious views of all. Bluebonnet Learning materials adhere to both state statute and this federal standard.
Familiarity with religious texts is part of cultural literacy. When I was a young man studying English literature in college, I had a distinct advantage over many of my classmates because I knew the Bible well enough to get the breathtaking number of allusions to it in the English and continental literary canons. In my American literature classes, I often gave lessons on the religious literatures and ideas of Precolumbian native Americans, of the Pilgrims and Puritans, and of writers like T. S. Eliot. In my English literature classes, I gave lessons on early Bible translations, on key selections from from the King James Bible, and, incidentally, instruction on the multitudinous allusions to that Bible in English literature across the ages, starting with the first poem of ascribed authorship in the English language, Caedmon’s Hymn. One cannot be a literate person without familiarity with the key sacred texts of the world. That’s why passages from the Bible are included, as well, in the Core Knowledge curricula developed by E. D. Hirsch, Jr., and his colleagues, including me.
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A typical handout that I shared with my English literature classes:
History of Ideas: Background to Puritan and Pilgrim Protestantism in North America | Bob Shepherd | Praxis
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