Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters announced on June 27 that all public schools in the state must incorporate the Bible in their curricula. It’s still unclear how Oklahoma schools will follow the new directive. But according to Walters, schools “are [now] required to incorporate the Bible, which includes the Ten Commandments,” for fifth-through-12th-grade programs. The mandate is effective immediately.

“The Bible is a necessary historical document to teach our kids about the history of this country,” Walters said. He claimed the Bible is necessary “to have a complete understanding of Western civilization, to have an understanding of the basis of our legal system.” Walters called the Bible “one of the most foundational documents used for the Constitution and the birth of our country.”

Secularist advocacy groups panned the law as infringing on religious freedom. Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AU) said it will push to change the law. “Americans United will do everything in our power to stop Christian nationalists like Ryan Walters from trampling the religious freedom of public school children and their families,” AU ceo Rachel Laser stated. “This nation must recommit to our foundational principles of church-state separation before it’s too late. Public education, religious freedom and democracy are all on the line.”

“True religious freedom means ensuring that no one religious group is allowed to impose their viewpoint on all Americans,” Interfaith Alliance told cnn. “The vast majority of people of faith in this country reject these dangerous, intimidating efforts to force a Christian nationalist agenda into our schools, our courts and our government.”

It is still early. But one of these advocacy groups could take the Oklahoma State Department of Education to court. These groups claim Oklahoma is violating the Constitution’s First Amendment, which reads: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

What the Constitution Says

In the 18th century, established religion meant something very different than it does today. It meant the government grafted in religion as an arm of the state. Living in England without attending the Church of England, or in Russia without attending the Russian Orthodox Church, came with penalties: One would be marginalized in society at best, persecuted as a heretic or heathen at worst. Spain ended its Inquisition in 1834. Germany’s religious wars claimed millions of lives. Even in colonial America, jurisdictions like Massachusetts practiced similar policies. The First Amendment was to protect America from this kind of tyranny and turmoil.

The First Amendment was not a national disavowal of anything to do with God or religion. The Declaration of Independence demonstrates this: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” The nation started on the premise that there was a God who ultimately had authority over all.

But it is not the Bible’s place in Western civilization that opponents of Oklahoma’s new rule reject. Few serious scholars reject the Bible’s role as one of the world’s most influential texts. What is riling everybody up is the idea that the Bible should be a guide for life. They don’t want its teachings to become a component of students’ moral development. To many in the progressive camp, “Christian nationalism” is standing in the way of homosexual, multicultural and Marxist indoctrination in the educational system.

But opposition to the Bible in the classroom goes even deeper than culture wars.

The Real Target

The first verse in the Bible, Genesis 1:1, reads: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” A simple statement, but think about what it implies. The root word for God means “Mighty One.” The first verse in the entire book sets the stage for everything to follow and introduces the concept of an all-powerful Mighty One who caused reality to exist.

If God exists—if Genesis 1:1 becomes “one of the foundational documents” of a child’s education—that implies each and every person has an obligation to acknowledge God as Creator. It implies we have to acknowledge God as being intimately involved in His creation. This by extension includes our own lives. It implies we have to accept God’s superiority and rule over us.

On July 3, Walters appeared on Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast. Walters implied in his interview that America is suffering so many political crises because it is leaving the Bible out of the classroom. “[O]ne of the things that [the radical left] has done is they’ve taken the Bible out of schools,” he said. “The left doesn’t want our kids to know about our traditions. They don’t want our kids to know about our history. And that’s where you’ve seen our republic completely go off the rails here. I mean, you see what’s happening to President [Donald] Trump right now, where they’re arresting him, they’re giving this banana republic nonsense in a courtroom. Look what they’re doing to Steve Bannon right now.”

Walters focused on progressivism’s attack on the Bible as a campaign to erase America’s memory from the next generation. But what else happens when humanity cuts God out from education?

What the Bible Says

“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,” the Apostle Paul wrote. “[B]ecause what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse” (Romans 1:18-20; New King James Version).

Proponents of keeping God out of education claim religion is outside the realm of science and therefore is irrational. See here and here for proof that this is not the case. The God of Genesis 1:1—the God who created every star, every microbe, every atom—left His fingerprints on His creation. He intended mankind to follow those fingerprints back to their source.

But, Paul continued, “although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools …. Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator …. For this reason God gave them up to vile passions …” (Romans 1:21-22, 24-26; nkjv).

Paul was focusing on sexual sins, but the same can apply to mankind’s problems in general. When mankind rejects God as ruler and the source for all knowledge, nothing but curses results. Adam and Eve made that choice in the Garden of Eden, and the result is the millenniums of evils we have seen ever since.

These curses aren’t from a spiteful God furious that man didn’t bow to His every whim. God merely lets rejecting Him have its course in our lives. This is because of our choices. God states in Deuteronomy 30:19: “… I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live.”

“Man started off in the wrong direction,” Trumpet executive editor Stephen Flurry writes in Education With Vision, “and even though some of the knowledge acquired along the way has been good, it’s all based on the wrong premise. Therefore, man has yet to arrive at the desired result, or effect! … Man has acquired enormous amounts of knowledge, but he has rejected the knowledge that is most important—the revelation of who and what is God and His purpose for man.”

Perhaps men like Walters are catching a small glimpse of what Paul was writing about: Society’s problems are a symptom of rejecting God as the foundation of learning.

Oklahoma’s law is a small step in the right direction. Much more would have to happen to halt America’s current trajectory. But even if the country doesn’t about-face, individuals have a choice. God didn’t say He set the choice before the collective nation; He set it before you—the individual.

God reveals the foundation of knowledge through the pages of the Holy Bible. It’s this knowledge that God promises will bring healing—to nations and to individuals. He intended mankind to live—live abundantly—by His Word (Luke 4:4; John 10:10). This is the real foundation that each and every student needs to build in his or her life.

To learn more, request a free copy of Education With Vision.