Oklahoma’s top education official has ordered schools in the state to begin incorporating the Bible into lessons, in the latest US cultural flashpoint over religion in the classroom.<\/b><\/p>\n
A directive sent by Republican state Superintendent Ryan Walters said the rule was compulsory, requiring “immediate and strict compliance”.<\/p>\n
The rule will apply to lessons for all public school students aged from around 11-18.<\/p>\n
It comes a week after Louisiana’s governor signed a law directing all public schools in that state to display the Ten Commandments.<\/p>\n
In a statement on Thursday, Mr Walters described the Bible as “an indispensable historical and cultural touchstone”.<\/p>\n
“Without basic knowledge of it, Oklahoma students are unable to properly contextualize the foundation of our nation, which is why Oklahoma educational standards provide for its instruction,” he added.<\/p>\n
Mr Walters, a former public school history teacher, was elected to his post in 2022 after campaigning on a platform of combating “woke ideology” and eliminating “radical leftists” from Oklahoma’s education system.<\/p>\n
His announcement, which covers grades five to 12, drew criticism from civil rights organisations and groups that advocate for a strict separation of church and state.<\/p>\n
“Public schools are not Sunday schools,” Rachel Laser, head of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said in a statement quoted by AP news agency.<\/p>\n
“This is textbook Christian Nationalism: Walters is abusing the power of his public office to impose his religious beliefs on everyone else’s children. Not on our watch,” she added.<\/p>\n
Mr Walters has previously argued that secularists in the US have created a state religion out of atheism, by driving faith away from the public square.<\/p>\n
In an op-ed last year for Fox News, he wrote that US President Joe Biden and the teacher unions had supplanted biblical values with “woke, anti-education values that tell students that they should treat their classmates differently depending on their race and sex and that they should be taught graphic sexual content at a young of an age as possible”.<\/p>\n
In a statement, the Interfaith Alliance – a US group that seeks to protect religious freedoms – called the Oklahoma superintendent’s directive “blatant religious coercion”.<\/p>\n
\u201cTrue religious freedom means ensuring that no one religious group is allowed to impose their viewpoint on all Americans,” the statement added.<\/p>\n
It comes a week after Louisiana ordered all classrooms up to university level in the state to display a poster of the Ten Commandments.<\/p>\n
Days later, nine families in the state sued Louisiana, marking the start of what some expect will be a protracted legal battle.<\/p>\n
The complaint, backed by civil rights groups, argues that such a display violates the First Amendment of the US Constitution, which guarantees freedom of religion, and that the display “pressures” students into adopting the state’s favoured religion.<\/p>\n
There have previously been legal battles over the display of the Ten Commandments in public buildings, including in courts, police stations and schools.<\/p>\n
In 1980, in the case Stone v Graham, the Supreme Court struck down a Kentucky law requiring that the document be displayed in elementary and high schools. This precedent has been cited by groups contesting the Louisiana law.<\/p>\n
In its ruling, the Supreme Court said the requirement “had no secular legislative purpose” and was “plainly religious in nature” – noting that the commandments made references to worshipping God.<\/p>\n
Source: bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"