The Bible has always been part of American history. After all, for a long time we were known as God’s New Israel. Lincoln claimed we all read from the same Bible (technically not true for Catholics and Jews).
Now there is a new emphasis led by Christian Nationalists to teach the America Revolution as a Bible-based event and to insert biblical texts into the classroom.
OKLAHOMA
The initial effort was led by Oklahoma State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters. He sought to have all Oklahoma schools incorporate the Bible including the Ten Commandments into the curriculum. This led to a reaction by the American Historical Association (AHA) among others. Ironically, the AHA pointed out that many Oklahoma public schools already include the Bible in the classroom due to its influence in United States and global history (“AHA Statement on Oklahoma Mandate for Religious Content in Public School,” Perspectives, September 2024). The Bible is included here based on merit; it is the mandating that was the issue with Walters. In addition, the Oklahoma mandate specified teaching a “uniformity” about the influence of the Christian (Protestant) Bible.
When Walters issued the specifications for the Bible to be used it included some unusual items:
1. the Pledge of Allegiance
2. the Constitution of the United States.
It was to be bound in leather or leather-like material. As it turns out there was one Bible (and apparently only one) that met these specifications: the Donald-Trump-endorsed Lee Greenwood God Bless the USA Bible costing $59.95/piece. It also included a handwritten version of the chorus to Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA.” Oklahoma was seeking 55,000 copies. Walters asked the state legislature for the funding. Naturally, there were lawsuits.
This issue along with others led to Walters resigning in 2025.
The new superintendent rescinded Walters’ mandate. Many school districts already had decided not to comply with it anyway, a reminder of the power of local schools.
PS. The rescinding included the requirement to have out-of-state teacher applicants, especially from New York and California by name, be screened for woke values.
TEXAS
Texas also has been promoting the display of the Ten Commandments. Governor Gregg Abbott signed a law in 2025 mandating such displays. The posters of the Ten Commandments had to be at least 10 inches wide and 20 inches tall. Posters could be donated to the schools if they chose not to purchase them. Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton has been encouraging schools to display the posters. No guidelines have been provided as to what a teacher should do if a student asks how many of the commandments Paxton has violated or if Texas will make adultery illegal.
The latest legal ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals in April upheld the law by a 9-8 vote.
Texas has now released a suggested reading list for k-12. The Bible is part of the reading list in grades 1-12. The proposed reading list is very ambitious. It comes at a time when reading in the United States is on the decline. The subject was a cover story in the August 2026 The Atlantic, “The Age of Reading Is Over: Can Civilization Survive the Postliterate Era,” Rose Horowitch, 12-24 (print). According to her 9000 word article, people don’t read books anymore, at least not compared to the way they used to. Furthermore the books are simpler. She sites the New York Times best seller lists where sentence length has shrunk by about one-third.
Amanda Kordeliski, board, American Association of School Librarians reports that school librarians have had to buy new books to adjust to the diminished reading levels of he students. Reading is limited to online social media which is short and from which there are multiple distractions. Maryanne Wolf, UCLA cognitive neuroscientist, asserts students are losing the higher-order abilities of comprehension and synthesis. These findings make the attempt by Texas to establish a k-12 reading quite an audacious undertaking even if no biblical readings were involved. Proportionately,
Parents don’t read to children.
Children don’t learn nursery rhymes.
Students don’t read for fun.
Attention spans have shrunk.
Teachers don’t assign and students can’t read an entire book cover to cover.
Not surprisingly, reading skills have declined.
Margaret Rennix, Assistant Director for Humanities and Social Sciences Support, Harvard, reports the amusing but scary story of a student struggling to read a book in Old English. The book was A Clockwork Orange (1962) by Anthony Burgess. That means readers of this blog may date to the time of Chaucer! College students are not hesitant on course evaluations to criticize professors who assign reading which is too dense. As one looks to the Texas reading list in the upper grades, one imagines the same results if there are course evaluations.
Horowitch opines “(f)aced with shrinking attention spans and declining comprehension, schools might have been expected to resist the impulse toward shorter passages and shallower reading. Instead, they spurred it on.” The Texas reading list takes an old-fashioned approach to reading. And it is doing so to a school population of over 5.4 million students where English is not the first language for many and it is not instituting the reading list simply at an elite private school but for all students.
One should not overlook the declining level of writing either. Writing is thinking. It is a window into the mind of a person. Organizing thoughts/data in a coherent manner is a lost art. The transfer of thinking onto a blank piece of paper is an act of magic. Where once there was nothing suddenly there is YOU. The Texas book list makes no mention of writing in the list I read in the New York Times.
To understand the place of the Bible in the Texas reading lists more information is needed. Information is needed about the role of writing in the teachings of these readings. Information is needed about the remedial needs of the students struggling to read and decipher the material. Will students already be behind when they enter kindergarten? What will Texas do to help them catch up?
The issuance of the Texas reading list has generated a highly charged overreaction especially from those critical of the Bible in the classrooms in any form. A review of the actual texts selected demonstrates no such Protestant indoctrination. Eight are from the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. These biblical texts comprise only a small portion of the texts assigned. Most of the readings are in American History. One also can’t help but wonder at the reading level required to complete these assigned readings and if the list is really meant for all students anyway.
The biblical reading by grade will be reviewed in the next blog.
