Sometimes American history, the biblical, and politics overlap. I try to maintain separate distribution lists and not mix-up my blogs. But at times the real world prevents that.
On July 9, 2024, the American Historical Association has issued a statement condemning the recent order from the Oklahoma State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters on the compulsory teaching of the Bible in all schools and all classes. To date, 17 organizations have signed on to the statement.
The American Historical Association condemns the recent order from Oklahoma State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters requiring “all Oklahoma schools … to incorporate the Bible, which includes the Ten Commandments, as an instructional support into the curriculum.” This proclamation invokes the authority of state government to assert that the Christian Bible had a “substantial influence” on the founding generation and the Constitution, as if this were a settled question among professional historians, legal scholars, and the judiciary. This is not true, and Oklahoma students deserve history education that is accurate and consistent with professional standards.
The character and extent of the influence of the Christian Bible in the Founding era has stimulated decades of thoughtful historical investigation. This order, rather than helping students participate in and learn from those conversations, inhibits their ability to understand the culture of revolutionary America and the early republic. Moreover, the superintendent’s proclamation imposes a rigid and dangerously undefined assertion about the Christian Bible’s “influence” into a Constitution famously lacking even any direct reference to the Bible or Christianity. Indeed, Article 6 specifically guarantees that “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”
What will this order mean for Oklahoma students? The declaration fails to recognize that many Oklahoma public schools justifiably already teach about the Bible and its influence in both US and global history. The state’s Academic Standards for Social Studies require students to learn about the origins, beliefs, and influence of Judaism and Christianity alongside other major world religions. In this context, students consider and interpret the Bible as a historic primary source to help understand how religious principles have shaped their adherents and influenced American culture. To do so is consistent with broad and deep traditions of professional historical scholarship.
But Walters’s order goes far further. It demands that schools treat the “Bible, which includes the Ten Commandments,” as “Foundational Texts in [the] Curriculum” to guide instruction and specifies that Oklahoma’s Department of Education “may supply teaching materials” to “ensure uniformity in delivery.” When presenting his order to the state Board of Education, Walters insisted that “every teacher … in the state … will be teaching from the Bible in the classroom.” These requirements predict narrow and official assertions about the Christian Bible’s influence in revolutionary and early national America that students may be expected to learn by rote. This “uniformity” precludes wide-ranging, interesting classroom inquiry into the extent, character, and role of the Bible in a new republic awash with multiple Protestant, Jewish, traditional African, Catholic, Native American, and Islamic religious traditions.
The silence of the Constitution on religious matters beyond Article 6, and the provisions of the First Amendment guaranteeing no “establishment of religion or prohibiting its free exercise” did not go unnoticed in the republic’s earliest years. The 1796 treaty between the United States and Tripoli stipulated that the young nation’s government was “not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.” Writing to Baptist supporters in Connecticut in 1802 Thomas Jefferson described the First Amendment protection of the free exercise of religion as “building a wall between church and State.”
Oklahoma students deserve to learn about the complex and nuanced conversations among early national America’s already diverse religious traditions, the Constitution, and the First Amendment. This order violates that right, threatening the integrity of history instruction in public education and the basic constitutional rights of Oklahomans.
The following organizations have signed on to this statement:
American Academy of Religion
American Association of University Professors
American Society for Environmental History
Association for the Study of African American Life and History
California Scholars for Academic Freedom
Florida Freedom To Read Project
Historians for Peace and Democracy
Immigration and Ethnic History Society
Latin American Studies Association
National Council on Public History
National Women’s Studies Association
Network of Concerned Historians
North American Victorian Studies Association
Organization of American Historians
Society for French Historical Studies
Society of Biblical Literature
Society for the History of Children and Youth
The AHA also held a webinar on July 26 at 12:00 PM entitled “History behind the Headlines: The Role of the Bible in the Founding of the United States and Religious Mandates in Public Schools.”
Jon Butler, Yale University
He endorsed the statement. He commented that the Bible had been used to justify Jim Crow through the story of Ham. Suppose k-12 teachers decided to investigate the relationship between the Bible and slavery and Jim Crow, would that lead to pushback from the parents?
Butler said the decree was part of contemporary politics and not the teaching of history. Even in colonial times America had multiple religions among Protestants with different understandings of the Bible. What would happen if teachers pursed this?
The guidelines provide no classroom plans or materials.
He wonders what the reaction of the students will be.
Jon Fea, Messiah University
Fea notes that historians were missing from the effort to develop these guidelines while MAGA advisors were not. Non-historians are advancing a political agenda including voting for Trump as part of the culture war. History teachers know the difference between teaching and preaching.
He does not see the presence of the 10 Commandments generating spiritual change.
He questions whether teachers can do the kind of research that Butler advocates above.
He notes the lack of resources provided teachers.
Holly Brewer, University of Maryland
She observes a 2025 author on the panel creating the Oklahoma guidelines. She fears that teachers will be put on the spot. They will have to evaluate theology. After all the Anglican Church upheld the power of the king during the American Revolution. She wonders if Walters supports the establishment of religion. She asks where the classes in civics are.
Heath Carter, Princeton Theological Seminary
He wonders how teachers will handle such complex issues as slavery and American Exceptionalism.
He recalls that Catholics created a separate school system in the 19th century due to differences with Protestants.
And Martin Luther King and segregationists shared the same Bible in their preachings.
Jim Grossman. AHA Executive Director
He promised that he will seek out appropriate historians for future programming.
The issue is far from over. The devil is in the details if I may coin a phrase. Teachers who actually try to teach the Bible in Oklahoma will find that they are supposed to preach one particular Protestant view and support one particular presidential candidate. Here is where other organizations can help in the sessions offered at annual conferences and the webinars offered throughout the year. The National Museum of the American Indian provides an example of what can be done. Once the instructions and guidelines are issued and the Oklahoma curriculum is revised, there will be an opportunity to respond.
As a former member of the ASOR Education Outreach committee, I note that it never lived up to its promise and probably does not even exist anymore. Here is an example where silos and ruts helped to separate teachers and biblical scholarship. More needs to be done.
