Curriculum battle in Texas

The usual suspects are up in arms over a proposed public school curriculum in Texas. “Bible-infused curriculum sparks Texas-sized controversy over Christianity in the classroom” reads the breathless headline from one education publication. From the ominous reports, one would think that classrooms in the Lone Star State were being converted into Sunday schools. One Democratic state representative called it “egregious.” But the reality is different.

The Texas Education Agency posted the educational curriculum in May. It’s still subject to approval by the Texas Board of Education. The materials are not mandatory, but there are incentives for school districts that opt in.

A cursory reading of the materials shows that while the curriculum features many stories rooted in the Bible, they are also joined by lessons from other religions. What’s more, there are connections between history and Christianity, such as Esther’s heroic advocacy for the Jewish people in Persia and contemporary anti-Semitism, analysis of the religious content in Martin Luther King Jr’s “Letter From Birmingham Jail,” and an explanation of Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper painting.

Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath told The Washington Post, “There is content, where relevant, that provides information on various religious traditions. For example, as students learn about Ancient Greece, they will also learn about the religion of the Greeks. Students will learn about aspects of most major world religions. Content does not include religious lessons as one would find in a religious school, and instead is designed to provide background knowledge and vocabulary to ensure our students can reach high levels of academic proficiency and comprehend great literature.”

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, not exactly an avowed theocrat, praised the new curriculum options.

What should American Christians think about Biblical teaching in state schools? On the one hand, it would be a violation of the establishment clause of the First Amendment for the government to mandate compulsory Christian education at the expense of other religions. And we should be wary of a state that is empowered to decide and teach right and wrong religion.

Richard Land, former president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, said it well, “You should never want the state to be deciding what is the correct understanding of religion. The last thing any devout follower of Jesus should want is government control of religion. The government will always get it wrong and pious followers of Christ will have their consciences violated.”

It is the job of the Church and parents to teach Christian doctrine, not the job of the state or its agencies.

At the same time, we must acknowledge that there is no such thing as a neutral public square. As Richard John Neuhaus said so eloquently four decades ago, the naked public square will not be naked for long. The hyperbolic reaction to any mention of Christianity or any reference to the Bible is also at odds with the American experiment.

America is not a secular nation. We are a country informed, in part, by Christian ideals. Consider George Washington’s “Farewell Address,” in which he stated, “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. … And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”

This idea has been repeated throughout American history by leaders from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Ronald Reagan. This is why G.K. Chesterton observed that America had “the soul of a church.”

Even the Supreme Court justices who rightly struck down mandated school prayer in state institutions issued a warning against a secularizing hostility toward religion. Justice Arthur Goldberg wrote that “untutored devotion to the concept of neutrality can lead to invocation or approval of results which partake not simply of that noninterference and noninvolvement with the religious which the Constitution commands, but of a brooding and pervasive devotion to the secular and a passive, or even active, hostility to the religious. Such results are not only not compelled by the Constitution, but, it seems to me, are prohibited by it.”

In recent years, the court has clawed back some of this hostility to religion, including discrimination against religious involvement in social work such as foster care and adoption as well as allowing volunteer, teacher-lead prayer in schools.

Optional curriculum, such as what we see in Texas, is in keeping with the wisdom of the American founders and our constitutional tradition. It doesn’t violate the conscience and honors the sacred, yet different, roles of church and state.