(RNS) — Last week, the Oklahoma Supreme Court ordered the state’s Department of Education to halt its effort to purchase 55,000 Bibles for distribution to public schools under the Bible Education Mandate that was issued last June by State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters, pending resolution of a lawsuit opposing the mandate filed in October on behalf of 32 Oklahoma clergy, parents and schoolchildren.
In the mandate, Walters calls Bible education “a crucial step in ensuring our students grasp the core values and historical context of our country.” With that in mind, consider these questions and their right answers from a graded, multiple-choice quiz given last August in an Oklahoma public high school.
Q: What is the main idea conveyed by the statement “a student of English literature who does not know the Bible does not understand a good deal of what is going on in what he reads”? A: The Bible has had a significant influence on English literature, making it a highly recommended reading for comprehension.
Q: What is the significance of the Dead Sea Scrolls being nearly identical to the traditional Hebrew text of the Old Testament? A: It suggests that Biblical scripture has been accurately transferred from ancient times to modern day.
Q: What does 1 Samuel chapter 16, verses 1 – 13 (where God instructed Samuel to anoint David as Israel’s future king) tell us about the God of the Bible? A: He looks at the heart, not outward appearance.
Q: What is a lesson that can be inferred from David and Goliath? A: It serves as a reminder that even the most formidable challenges can be overcome with faith, determination, and a willingness to fight for what is right.
Now consider an alternative set of Q&As.
Q: What is the main idea conveyed by the statement “a student of the Bible who does not know that science teaches that the universe is billions of years old and that life on Earth evolved over millions of years does not understand a good deal of the natural world.” A: The Bible’s account of creation should not be taken literally.
Q: According to the Documentary Hypothesis, what is the significance of the first five books of the Bible (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy) using different words to identify God? A: The Five Books of Moses were not transcribed by Moses.
Q: What does Leviticus chapter 19, verses 9-10 and Deuteronomy chapter 24, verses 19-21 (where God orders the Israelites to leave portions of their harvest for the poor, widows, orphans and resident foreigners) tell us about social obligations in biblical Israel? A: Providing for those in need was not to be left to acts of charity but was rather a legal requirement.
Q: What is a lesson that can be inferred from Jesus telling his disciples that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God? A: Rich people who want to be saved should give their wealth to the poor.
The takeaway from the first set is: “Read the Bible, an unchanging text that teaches good character.” The takeaway from the second is: “The Bible is a religious text written by humans that includes ideas that some people may not find acceptable.”
You can understand why plaintiff Rachel Hill, the secularist mother of the high school student who was given the above quiz, objected on the grounds that such Bible teaching would cause her children “to keep their dissenting views with respect to religion to themselves out of fear of being judged by their teachers and peers.” I expect she would be happier with the second set of Q&As, as would many of the other plaintiffs.
Not that other plaintiffs don’t have additional objections.
There are those who simply want to keep instruction in religion out of the public schools — like Mitch Randall, the Native American Baptist pastor who hews to the old-time Baptist belief in strict church-state separation. There are also those who object, as special education teacher Tamara Sanchez did, to “a Protestant version of the Bible being the official Bible of Oklahoma public schools.”
That would be the King James Version, which, as Walters insisted when he put his Bible purchase order out for bid, had to be provided “for historical accuracy.” What he presumably meant is that the KJV is the translation most widely used through American history, though it was hardly the one carried by the Spanish missionaries who first brought Christianity to the Oklahoma territory in the 16th century, or by the proselytizing French Jesuits in the 19th — to say nothing of the Bibles used by Catholics throughout the country to this day.
Indeed, if Walters wants to demonstrate the importance of the KJV in American history, he should stipulate that Oklahoma students be taught that the public schools’ use of it in the 19th century was what impelled American Catholic bishops to create parochial schools for the children of the faithful.
Come to think of it, I wonder what Walters’ mandate might mean for St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, the public charter school — to be managed by the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa — that was approved by the Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board in 2023, over the objections of the Oklahoma attorney general, and which the Oklahoma Supreme Court deemed in violation of the state constitution.
In January, the U.S. Supreme Court chose to take up the case, which will determine whether using public funds to create a charter school that has a religious educational philosophy constitutes an unconstitutional establishment of religion. Should the court find in favor of St. Isidore’s, will Walters require the King James Version to be used there (for historical accuracy) too?
If he did, he would be forcing a religious body to swallow a long-standing religious objection. If he didn’t, it would be an acknowledgment that mandating Bible education as he sees fit is a violation of religious liberty.