The state of Oklahoma ranks 49th in education, according to one review (there are many such reviews that come up with different values, but none of them place the state higher than near the bottom of the barrel.) The superintendent of the Oklahoma school system, Ryan Walters, is surely aware of their abysmal reputation, and surely wants to make the schools in his state better, right? That’s his job! Walters has taken bold, radical action to fix Oklahoma schools.
Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters issued a directive to all public schools ordering them to incorporate the Bible
as an instructional supportin the classroom.Doing so is
a crucial step in ensuring our students grasp the core values and historical context of our country,Walters said.
…
In remarks to the board, Walters went further than his own memo, saying thatevery teacher, every classroom in the state will have a Bible in the classroom and will be teaching from the Bible in the classroom.
If I were teacher in Oklahoma, this is the point where I’d be sending my CV to schools in other states, and be preparing a lesson plan that, if I had to stay in the state for a while, would reveal what a pile of archaic shit the Bible was. That counts as teaching from the Bible
, right?
The sad thing is that there are a lot of conservative Republicans who heard Ryan Walters’ plan and clutched their precious Bible and shouted “Hallelujah!” because they’re religious dumbasses, and they would run any teacher who criticized their holy book out of town.
Even sadder: thanks to the Republicans, the rest of the country wants to become Oklahoma.
From the linked article:
You’d think this kind of thing could convince the religious why separation of church and state is a good idea. Do you really want the state to determine what is correct bible instruction?
I’m certain they will have the teachers only instruct the students on the good parts of the bible. They will ban the parts of the bible that would make people uncomfortable.
They do so over joy at a book they may wave and clutch but have never taken the time to actually read, taking the word of conmen and grifters as to what is in it.
I suppose they’ll have bible cops who audit every class to insure these fatwahs are being obeyed.
Does this fascist even have the legal power to do this?
Maybe, but I doubt it.
This seems to be an authoritarian directive that lacks any legal authority and due process behind it.
That is like the Attorney General in Missouri who kept issuing emergency decrees with new laws in them. In turns out the AG in Missouri had no legal authority to create new laws by issuing emergency decrees. He did it anyway.
He knows he will be sued for violating the US constitution. That is probably the whole point.
This is forced indoctrination of the xian religion.
It is like something that would happen in Iran or Afghanistan.
I’m sure some people in Oklahoma will be appalled by this.
Might not be too many though.
Here’s what happened in Dover, Penn. back in the day. The Dover Area School District voted to teach “intelligent design” creationism in science class and obtained a creation science textbook recently converted to say “intelligent design” instead of creationism. The science teachers said “No.” So, the administration at the school read a two sentence statement about “intelligent design” and told the students they could find the textbook in the library.
The science teachers refused the mandate on the grounds that it violated their Professional Code of Ethics, and they received no reprimand or blowback of any kind.
Fast forward, Tammy Kitzmiller sued the school district with her daughter the lead plaintiff, and the court found in favor of Kitzmiller awarding the plaintiffs $2 million. The entire Dover Board of Education was voted out at the next election. Kitzmiller ruled that “intelligent design” creationism was religious creationism with no secular value and violated the Establishment Clause.
Teachers in Oklahoma could Just Say No. Would we get fireworks or hot air? Bang or whimper? One thing is for sure, this move by Walters is blatantly unconstitutional as ruled by several SCOTUS cases. I can only imagine that the buckle-hatted Calvinists are really feeling their oats after Dobbs et al.
SCOTUS cases? Who the fuck cares about SCOTUS cases anymore? The court doesn’t care about precedent or law anymore anyway.
Perhaps the curriculum should include Critical Bible theory (CBT) which would include a long, hard, skeptical review of the many less savory parts of the Old Testament which Walters and his ilk are wont to ignore, if they were ever aware of them in the first place.
Critical Bible Theory would also include the fact that much of the bible is fiction and mythology.
The Garden with the magic Trees of Knowledge and Life never existed.
Neither did its two original inhabitants, Adam and Eve.
The Big Boat flood genocide never happened either.
The genocide of the Canaanites by the incoming Israelis escaping slavery in Egypt never happened either.
The early Israelis were just another tribe of…Canaanites.
This is the case I was comparing to Oklahoma’s fatwa on forced religion.
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey issued an emergency rule prohibiting medical care for Trans people in Missouri.
It turns out that the Attorney General has no such power to issue any sort of emergency rules about anything.
AGs enforce the laws. They don’t make the laws up as they go along.
A judge in Missouri promptly blocked him.
These christofascists are simply power mad and don’t care one bit about the rule of law.
Like Family Values, the GOP claim to favor Law and Order is a lie.
In the state that orders schools to display the ten (or eleven, ot twelve depending on how you read them) commandments there are many ideas on how to interpret the law to frustrate the intent while obeying the letter of the law. You could have a font that highlights certain words that put the commandments in an unpleasant light, you could place posters of other excerpts of the bible next to it to rob the commandments of attention, you could post the commandments in reverse order or upside down.
Myself I suggest posting that other, rival set of commandments.
Also, post the parts of killing children by smashing their heads against stones.
On the contrary — They care very much about the law, which explains the mad push of all this regressive bullshit in various states in the hopes of getting it taken up by a very christofascist-friendly SCOTUS.
Let the teachers read the sleep-inducing parts. Or the fun stuff about she-bears killing teenagers who made fun of a bald prophet.
The devil showing Jesus the whole (flat) world from the top of a mountain is my favv part.
seversky@9,
Why just the “Old Testament” (more accurately, the Jewish Bible or Tanakh)? I’ve just finished a years-long project to read the entire KJV* and believe me, there’s plenty of nasty stuff in the “New Testament” – above all, but by no means alone, the final “Book of Revelation”, a prolonged sadistic reverie. And despite what you may have heard (even from many atheists including Dawkins), Jesus as portrayed in the Gospels is a rather unpleasant character, forever sneering at his disciples – who according to the text gave up everything to follow him – for failing to understand who he is and what is going on.
*OK, I admit I skimmed a bit in Numbers.
Given Project Blitz which may soon be superseded by Project 2025, I can only think that Christian Nationalists are inviting lawsuits in the hopes of getting establishment clause jurisprudence reversed and exercise clause made ascendent under a friendlier SCOTUS that may aid and abet the sledgehammering of Jefferson’s wall.
John 14:15 If you love me, keep my commandments. – Jesus Christ
Why the ten commandments in our schools? Mark 10, Luke 18, Matthew 19. Jesus tells us to follow them. But they leave off the punch line. Sell all you have and give to the poor. You want Bible in the schools, yes, lets do that, but the whole Bible including all the commands of Jesus.
Christian nationalists: “Jesus didn’t mean ME!” Yes he did.
Mark 10, Luke 12, 14, 18, Matthew 19.
my new hobby horse. Plus Matthew 6:5-6 No public praying.
Matthew 5, no religious oaths. Like the Pledge Of allegiance with its “under God”.
Matthew 25. Help the poor, the unfortunate or burn. No slashing Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, ACA. My new hobby horses starting this year. Wait until the kiddies start learning Jesus commands we all sell everything we have and give to the poor. That will make Christianity real popular. Ryan Walters has no e-mail address on his official site. But he has an X account he uses. I just resurrected my old Twitter account I set up but never used. It is time to ask Walters to walk that Jesus walk. No more spiritual counterfeits, false Christianity that ignores Jesus’s commands.
Jesus commands it. Thee Bible proves it. That settles it! Long term, doing stuff like this might be the only way to take the fun out of all this religious demagoguery.
Even as the Nazis learned from American race laws, so may Iran learn theocratic methods from the likes of these Okies.
Raven and KG have a point.
If teachers were really to teach the bible, the state would have to contend with an unstoppable flood of young atheists, post haste. Partic’larly when they dwell on those juicy episodes of slavery, murder, infenticide, genocide et al.
It seems quite counter-productive and in fact the catholic church, no complete suckers they, forbids unsupervised scripture reading – ya need a priest to bowdlerize it for you. If not, bad things happen…
The NYTimes editorial board has decided that, since Trump is too great a danger to democracy, Joe Biden should drop out of the presidential race. I suspect they have grasped the wrong end of the horse.
To Serve His Country, President Biden Should Leave the Race
Strongly guarded as is the separation between Religion & Govt. in the Constitution of the United States, the danger of encroachment by Ecclesiastical Bodies, may be illustrated by precidents [sic] already furnished in their short history.
– James Madison Detached memorandum.
Ryan Walters (and others) are claiming separation of religion and government is a myth. Despite specific claims to the contrary from Madison, Jefferson and other founding fathers. Willful militant ignorance. Madison’s detached memorandum, the part on religion tells us how some founding fathers want to cram Jesus into governement and were repeatedly voted down. Worth reading if one want real history of all of this.
I am now post on X on Walter’s account. I am posting there as Oona Crabeyes. He can reply to Oona. He will lose. Or ignore Oona, who will educate the hoi polloi without interference.
Yeehaw! I am finding Ryan Walters to be incredibly ignorant. No, I am not harassing Ryan. I am educating him. And his followers.
@#21 cheerfulcharlie
” I am finding Ryan Walters to be incredibly ignorant”
A critical error in thought. He knows his audience, he knows what he wants. And since the Oklahoma Supreme Court said he can’t give tax money to the Roman Catholic Church for their church school in the Charter Schools program and he’s been told he can’t use department funds to hire PR companies for self promotion, what else can he do? Free self promotion. I just bought 6 pounds of popcorn in preparation for the coming show.
It turns out as I suspected, that Ryan Walters the christofascist, in fact doesn’t have the legal authority to require that the bible be taught in Oklahoma schools.
“Just a couple of weeks ago, the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled that local school boards have the final say to determine which books and instructional materials are deemed to be appropriate in Oklahoma classrooms.”
The local school boards determine which books and instructional materials are deemed to be appropriate.
Which actually is just as bad or worse than having the clown Ryan Walters decide. I’m sure some of the local school boards in Oklahoma make him look like a woke liberal.
Yes, but he is actively posting on X. He wants an audience? he gets one. But his nonsense gets answered. Yes, Jesus commands, Ryan must obey! Obviously he has not really read the Bible carefully. Oona Crabeyes is reading those bits to him. and his followers. He is an easy target. So far I am just getting started. I doubt he will answer back because all he will have is name calling. I am starting in on Greg Abbott also. Sell all you have and give to the poor, No public prayer. Matthew 25. Help the poor or burn! Gormless Christian: “WTF? For Real? Jesus says I have to sell all I have?”. Make all these goof READ the Bible, really read it for the first times in their lives.
Maybe I should poke at Charlie Bigmouth Kirk a bit.
This is pretty vague. Vague to the point of being meaningless.
What is an instructional support. It’s not defined.
This is an assertion and it is obviously wrong.
The bible has more or less nothing to do with the core values and historical context of the USA.
Democracy isn’t mentioned in the bible despite the concept being well known during biblical times. Jesus says to obey the secular authorities which at the time were the Roman conquerors.
About the only core value the bible has anything to do with was the economic system that used slavery. The bible condones slavery and it is all through the bible from the start to the end. Jesus was OK with slavery, never said one word against it.
He doesn’t have the legal authority to make anyone do that.
He just lost a court case on exactly that point.
Jesus also said males should cut off their testicles “if they can bear it.”
No one is ever brave enough to do it though.
<peers>
(https://sde.ok.gov/about)
I see the problem.
Jesus’ teaching regarding personal gifts vs the poor: John 12:8
Surely then, for ‘historical context’, students must learn Yahweh’s behavior when people fail to do everything he commands…
SAB – Jeremiah
He’d threatened as such in Leviticus 26 / Deuteronomy 28.
On to the threats!
In an interview with NBC, Walters stated that any teacher who refuses the mandate could lose their teaching license. He chairs the panel that can revoke teaching licenses.
Where are the other Christians? There should be a fight amongst them to determine which bible is placed in the classroom. (Similar with which Ten Commandments in LA.) If they are push stupid policy, might well have them fight amongst themselves so that I can spend more time in the garden.
Acts 4:32-35:
Blatant communism. This is exactly why it’s so important to the theocrats that the bible is taught “correctly”.
“Alright class,settle down. Today we’re going to learn about Adam and Eve, and why you should, at the very least, put a pool fence around the things you don’t want your children to touch.”
“Onan was a practicing catholic. Unfortunately, god is a bit petty.”
“… and that’s why if you think the world has ended, don’t get your dad drunk so that he’ll impregnate you. That’s all kinds of wrong.”
@#32 LykeX
“This is exactly why it’s so important to the theocrats that the bible is taught “correctly””
And from the proper version which your quote is not.
I once tried to give someone a commentary by John Calvin, but he refused it because John Calvin did not use the King James Version.
@#31 whywhywhy
“Where are the other Christians? There should be a fight amongst them…”
not time yet, see Philadelphia, 1844, they have to be installed and in use.
@#25 raven
“This is an assertion and it is obviously wrong”
not only that but according to the bible, George III was God’s choice to rule over the colonies. Any revolution would be directly against God’s will.
Oh, and another thing, Walters got OSDE a Truth Social account so people can get the straight truth.
@raven #26,
I’m getting an orchiectomy soon. I look forward to my VIP privileges in the kingdom of heaven.
In remarks to the board, Walters went further than his own memo, saying that “every teacher, every classroom in the state will have a Bible in the classroom and will be teaching from the Bible in the classroom.”
Even in physics, math, and US history classes?
PS: I notice that when I selected the above quote to copy & paste in here, the quotation marks were not included in the selected text, even though they were well within the range of my selection. Not a big deal, just kinda weird.
My very favorite Wolf Blitzer interview, after a tornado in Oklahoma:
Wonder how many others there are like her.
Oops, sorry for embedding the video.
I would suggest they start with Ezekiel 23:20.
If I were teacher in Oklahoma, this is the point where I’d be sending my CV to schools in other states,
Hell, try a new country, Australia sounds nice. Or A friend says good things about New Zealand.>
The woman in the tornado aftermath video is Rebecca Vitsmun, who was later assaulted by David Silverman. That makes the story rather less heartwarming, sorry to say.
If only America had places dedicated to teaching the bible where parents could take their children so they didn’t have to rely on public schools…
Infuriating but informative :
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/oklahoma-education-head-discusses-why-hes-mandating-public-schools-teach-the-bible
I wonder if they’ll teach (preach) this:
“I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet.”
~ 1 Timothy 2:12