When Texas Governor Greg Abbott was promoting vouchers, he usually accused the public schools of “indoctrinating” students. This was untrue. The five million students in the state’s public schools come from every imaginable background, and teachers were not indoctrinating them about anything, neither in politics nor religion.
He wanted them to go to Christian schools, where they were certain to be indoctrinated into the doctrines of one faith. Now that he is spending billions for children who are in private and religious schools, the Texas State Board of Education just passed a measure that introduces religious indoctrination into the public schools.
Which Bible will be used? The Protestant Bible? The Catholic Bible? The answer is obvious.
What about children who are not Christian? Or children whose families don’t believe in religion? Isn’t their right to religious freedom violated?
The Dallas Morning News reported:
Bible passages will be taught in Texas public schools, the State Board of Education decided on Friday.
The Republican-majority board voted 9-5 in favor of a required reading list that includes Bible stories but no representation of other religions, wrapping up a monthslong battle.
Roughly 5.5 million children are enrolled in Texas public schools, and the new standards would affect students for years to come…
On Friday, board members decided to stagger implementation of the reading list: elementary school students will see the new standards in the 2030-31 school year, sixth graders in the 2031-32 school year, seventh and eighth graders in the 2032-33 school year, and high school students in the 2033-34 school year…
The new required reading list, mandated by the Texas Legislature in 2023, has over a dozen Bible passages or stories, with at least one biblical text in every grade except kindergarten. In first grade, students will read Noah’s Ark by Peter Spier, and in later grades, excerpts from the books of Luke, Matthew and Genesis.
The list does not include the central texts of any other religions, prompting critics to say the required reading is promoting Christianity, violating the First Amendment. Educators and parents warned that non-Christian students could feel excluded.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I’m fine with this as long as the xtians are fine with the Bible being taught the same way that every other piece of literature is taught. Who wrote it? When? For what purpose? In what historical context? Who is telling the story? Is the narrator reliable? Analyze the plot and characters (including the “divine” ones). Etc., etc.
LikeLike
Which Bible? Only the Protestant Bible and not the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Hebrew, or Coptic Bible?
LikeLike
Another law meant to divert attention from the corruption in the political leadership.
LikeLike
Like the article says these required religious texts are drawn exclusively from the Bible, reflecting the Jewish and Christian scriptural tradition. There are no required readings from other major world religions.
Here’s the list:
Middle school
High school
They should add Pandora’s Box from Greek mythology to the reading list, because that’s exactly what these zealots are opening.
I can already imagine the classroom discussion:
Student: “My parents say this story isn’t true and that God doesn’t exist. Are they right, teacher?”
Another student: “My pujari says there are many gods, not just one. Is that true?”
Once a public school begins teaching religious stories from only one tradition, teachers inevitably find themselves navigating questions of faith that are best left to families and religious communities.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Here’s Ricky Gervais reading a children’s book of Noah’s Ark. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anf-EfUD1So
LikeLiked by 1 person
Sorry if this offends any religious people on this blog, but here’s how I & many other critical thinking people feel–Religion is the greatest con scheme in the history of mankind.
From the Powers-That-Be from back whenever:
“Ok guys. We tell the masses that their suffering is just God’s will & they will be rewarded in heaven once they die for being obedient to our Leader, who we’ll say was chosen by God. Then we’ll set up a system where all aspects of their life must go thru the Church–Baptism, Communion, Matrimony, Death, and most importantly, Confession. That’s how our priests will know everything that’s going on with our townsfolk, so we can keep tabs on their transgressions cuz they’ll tell us anything bad that they do! It’s brilliant! This religion thing is the best way to keep them obedient & subservient, so they don’t come after us if they’re starving or mistreated or living in squalor, while we build our cathedrals & palaces with their money & labor. Ahhh, what a wonderful life we’ve set up for ourselves!”
Looks like history is repeating itself.
LikeLike
I used to view religion very negatively until I discovered Joseph Campbell. His perspective completely changed the way I think about it.
Campbell saw religious stories as metaphors that express the human experience—cultural road maps created by different societies to help people navigate life’s journey. He believed religion becomes problematic when people mistake the metaphors for literal historical or scientific fact.
Because technology has connected humanity as never before, Campbell suggested that our unifying symbol should no longer be a single tribe, nation, or religion, but the planet itself.
What I especially appreciate about Campbell’s philosophy is the idea that as society changes, our mythology should evolve with it, reflecting our current experience and helping us make sense of the world we live in today.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks. I hope Talarico can begin some positive changes. Penny
LikeLike
Gina Hinojosa is running for Governor. She is passionate about education.
LikeLike
I think they should teach the Bible “as literature,” and add Genesis 30:1-3, which was one of Margaret Atwood’s inspirations for “The “Handmaid’s Tale.”
LikeLiked by 2 people
I agree. The people pushing this want indoctrination, not education.
LikeLiked by 1 person
When I teach “Handmaid’s” to my students (at a Catholic university), there’s a lot of Biblical catch-up needed, and I do enjoy witnessing their shock at the Biblical passage and the monthly rape scene (“the Ceremony”) that Atwood describes.
LikeLike
When I was in college, I was required to take a “basic studies” program for the first two years including required English, math, science, foreign language and a social science elective. I ended up taking a course on world religions, not because I want to, but because it fit in my schedule. It turned out to be an interesting course. All cultures create a form of religion to help them cope with the unexplainable.
I view religion as a family responsibility, and I support secular public education. As a teacher, I see lots of “teachable moments” in the above reading list that could be taught in a context of ethics, character, community responsibility, etc.
Christian Nationalists supposedly have been exposed to all the above Biblical lessons, but they do not practice what they preach. They would let the poor starve, the weak get exploited, the wealthy hoard their wealth, and they worship convicted felon and suspected pedophile. Biblical studies have not made them better people.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I took a Bible class in college, where we compared origins, texts, dating. It was fascinating. There was no goal to make us religious or moral. It was reading the Bible as a scholar might. Very enjoyable.
LikeLiked by 1 person
AMERICANS’ FREEDOM OF AND FREEDOM FROM RELIGION —
AS WE PREPARE to celebrate the 250 anniversary of our Declaration of Independence, it is well to remember that the man who almost single-handedly wrote the Declaration, Thomas Jefferson, was a Deist, as was George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and many other of our Founding Fathers who also created and signed our Constitution. The ideas of personal freedom in our Constitution come not from the Bible, but come from the philosophy of The Enlightenment which so many of our Founding Fathers were adherents to.
Washington, Jefferson, Franklin and all the other Deists among our Founding Fathers hated that they were forced to enroll as members of England’s official government Christian Church, and that’s why they wrote the First Amendment that not only gives We the People freedom OF religion but also freedom FROM religion.
The First Amendment forbids government from “respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” In other words, in America there can’t be any government “respecting” of any religion in any way, and the government can’t prohibit people from practicing whatever religion they want to practice.
Our Founding Fathers also wrote into Article VI of our Constitution that “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.” Our Founding Fathers didn’t want anyone to have to belong to any religion in order to hold public office.
Our Founding Fathers made it unconstitutional for our government and public schools to support or teach any religion or to require any religious affiliation for anyone to hold public office, and THEY CAREFULLY AND DELIBERATELY LEFT ANY MENTION OF GOD ENTIRELY OUT OF OUR CONSTITUTION.
Our Founding Fathers left God entirely out of the Constitution so that Americans could define God in whatever way they wanted, or to hold that there is no God, because, as the history of the world shows time and again, whenever there is an official government religion, there is conflict and suppression of someone’s rights. And such fighting is about to break out in America as states like Texas begin to require teaching “the Bible” in schools — but WHOSE BIBLE? Catholics use the septuagint version of the Bible that includes Old Testament books that were used by the Apostles in their teaching and that are referred to in the New Testament by Jesus and in the Epistles. The Protestant Bible eliminated those OT books. Whose Bible will be taught in public schools? And whose Ten Commandments will be taught? Different Christian religions, as well as the Jewish religion, have different Ten Commandments.
Europe tore itself apart in bloody religious wars of Christian versus Christian that went on so long they are called “The Hundred Year War” in our history textbooks. The ancestral families of our Founding Fathers suffered in those wars, and that kind of bloody and ruinous religious conflict is what our Founding Fathers wanted to avoid by leaving any mention of God entirely out of our Constitution and forbidding any government involvement in any religion.
I’m a life-long practicing Christian, but I don’t want my religion unconstitutionally imposed on anyone.
(Share this.)
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks for this very well written history lesson that should be read & absorbed by every American citizen.
LikeLike