This message was delivered on Sunday, August 18, 2024, at All Souls Unitarian Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma, by Rev. Dr. Marlin Lavanhar, Senior Minister. You can watch the full message on YouTube (ASL version available) or listen on Spotify.
As Oklahoma’s students prepare to return to school, a new mandate from State Superintendent Ryan Walters has sparked considerable debate. Walters recently decreed that all public schools in Oklahoma must incorporate the Bible into their curricula. His exact words were, “Every teacher, every classroom in the state, will have a Bible in the classroom and will be teaching from the Bible in the classroom.”
Walters’ push for Biblical instruction doesn’t stop there. He emphasized that the Bible would be woven across various subjects, including history, literature, math, and science. According to him, students could explore the Bible’s influence on leading thinkers and ideas, even in subjects like math and science. Walters also suggested that Biblical instruction could be offered in younger grades when applicable, and he stressed that “every teacher across Oklahoma will be expected to have a copy of the Bible in the classroom.”
The Response:
This mandate has sparked a variety of reactions on social media, with some people getting creative. One of my favorite responses involved suggested math problems based on Biblical stories. For instance, from 1 Kings 11:3:
King Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines. If he lay with one wife or concubine every night, but took off one day per week for rest, how many days would it take him to lay with all of his wives and concubines?
Or consider this one from 1 Samuel 18:27:
King David captured the foreskins of 200 Philistines. If David split those foreskins into baskets of 40 foreskins each, how many baskets would he need?
Anyone familiar with the Bible knows that it contains stories filled with sex, drugs, and violence. There’s rape, murder, adultery, misogyny, and incest throughout its pages. Judging by Walters’ standards for other books, it would seem that the Bible itself might need to be banned from, rather than taught in, our schools.
The Larger Issue
Here’s one more math problem that I think every UU math and science teacher would definitely want to use to broaden their students’ minds about biology and arithmetic, but also about the absurdity of taking the Bible literally:
There are 8.7 million animal species on Earth. If Noah took two of each of them onto the ark, how many square cubits of space were required to accommodate all 17.4 million passengers?
To be honest, I don’t think my Baptist neighbors want their children’s Unitarian teachers teaching them the Bible any more than I know Unitarian parents don’t want the reverse. Not to mention, this mandate is unconstitutional—and bucketloads of our tax dollars are going to go into fighting this in court, at a time when our schools are severely underfunded.
A History Lesson
It’s crucial to remember that the United States was not founded as a Christian nation. The Constitution only mentions religion twice, and both times it’s to make it very clear that this country is secular. The first mention of religion is in Article VI, which states, “No religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.” The second mention is in the First Amendment, which reads:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
James Madison crafted this language specifically to ensure that in our country, religion is a matter of individual conscience and belief—it should not be dictated or coerced by the government.
Enlightenment and Religion: A Balancing Act
While it would be ahistorical and unrealistic to claim that religion in general, and Christianity in particular, were not significant influences in the formation of the United States, our country was founded at the height of the Enlightenment by some of that era’s greatest thinkers and philosophers. Enlightenment ideas, such as a belief in reason and democracy, superseded ideas of faith, theocracy, and monarchy. For the founders, a free society required neutral institutions, like the electoral system and the courts, created with the ideal of being fair to all involved.
Cultural historian James Davison Hunter explains in his book, Democracy and Solidarity, how American culture has always involved an active tension between Enlightenment values and religious faith. From the Puritans to religious voices like Unitarian Universalists who fought against slavery, advocated for women’s rights, and civil rights, the Bible has been central to both sides of the argument.
The Cultural Shift
However, since Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination in 1968, our country has drifted further into identity politics, where opponents are not just opponents but enemies. Fared Zakariah writes in his new book, The Age of Revolutions, that this shift has led to contrasting narratives about America’s past. On one side, America was racist, patriarchal, and puritanical until the 1960s. On the other side, a golden age of patriotism and duty was wrecked by draft-dodging, pot-smoking, hippie-turned-yuppie lowlifes.
By the 1970s, the culture war that divided the country was no longer focused on the Vietnam War and civil rights. Instead, it shifted to issues like abortion, contraception, feminism, and gay rights.
The Impact of Identity Politics
The rise of identity politics has deeply affected our democracy, undermining our sense of social cohesion. Democracy is based on the idea of debating opposing ideas to see which rise to the top. But if people believe that those who disagree with them are threatening their way of life and their very existence, the incentive to turn to violence or authoritarianism becomes more appealing and more likely.
Ryan Walters’ actions—placing Bibles and the Ten Commandments in schools—is about planting a flag in this destructive battle. Walters is a Christian Nationalist who believes that America was given by God to white European Christians. In America, they are entitled to their opinion, but they are not entitled to force it on anyone else.
Standing Up for Our Values
We have to push back because otherwise, we’ll lose our pluralistic democracy. We are a nation made up of people from all nations, so we have to find ways to fight this that do not increase polarization and that remain consistent with democratic values and norms. I’m planning to make this a central issue this year, and I want you to join me. Please click this link and add your email so we can work together to be a source of health and change in our community this year.
Join Us and Stand For Public EducationWe cannot let our children and their schools continue to be pawns in this culture war that is tearing our democracy and our system of public education apart. Our education system has real problems that need our time and attention. We have to work in this generation to re-establish a healthy balance between Enlightenment ideals and religious morality.
All Souls has a long history of supporting free and fair public education. As our children go back to school, let us have their backs. I cannot tell you how grateful I am to be part of a community that’s making a difference. I love you. Amen.