As the Texas State Board of Education prepared to vote last month on whether to allow public school districts to opt in to a new elementary school curriculum featuring Bible-based lessons, board member Staci Childs asked her pastor for prayer.
“I’d think that learning some things about the Bible on a historical account is not necessarily bad. But if I’m saying less Christianity, what kind of Christian am I?” Childs said last week. “This was conflicting for me.”
The material won narrow approval in a Republican-led 8-7 vote, although three Republican members joined the four Democrats on the board, including Childs, in opposition.
“In the law, there is a clear separation of church and state,” Childs, an attorney who represents the Houston area on the board, said of her decision.
If the constitutionality of mixing religious doctrine with public school education had seemed to be largely decided, with U.S. Supreme Court rulings in the 1960s and ’80s limiting how religious activity and teachings can be enforced, a wave of new laws and mandates in states, particularly in the South, is stirring debate and testing the bounds of what may be legally permissible.
Officials, educators and parents in those states are now being confronted by what, if any, amount of religious-infused lessons they want children to have access to at a time when many conservative Christians have been emboldened by President-elect Donald Trump and embraced the ideology of Christian nationalism, which considers the Bible a key facet of America’s history and tradition.
“Bible wins in Texas!” Jonathan Saenz, president of Texas Values, a conservative and religious think tank, posted on X after the school board’s curriculum vote. “Liberal efforts to Target, Deny & Ban the Bible’s influence on English literature/history FAILS!!”
Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a Republican, responded on X that the approval of the curriculum, known as the “state-developed” Bluebonnet Learning, “will ensure all students are receiving appropriate grade-level instruction and is an important step to boosting student outcomes statewide.”
School districts won’t be forced to introduce the curriculum in their kindergarten through fifth-grade classrooms, but if they choose to do so, they would earn a financial incentive of $60 per child beginning next year.
While the material itself mentions other religions, including Judaism and Islam, the Bible-related lessons and Christianity are more prominent, said Mark Chancey, a religious studies professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. That’s problematic, he added.
“When a public school plays religious favorites by emphasizing Christianity more than any other tradition, and by teaching about Christianity in a way that’s likely to promote encouragement of Christianity’s religious claims, then that violates all of our religious freedom,” Chancey said on NBC News Now.
Although the material is optional, Childs believes it may still be challenged in court.
Litigation is already playing out in other states that have recently adopted Bible-based rules in schools.
In Louisiana, a law set to go into effect on Jan. 1 that would require all public K-12 schools and colleges to display posters featuring the Ten Commandments was temporarily blocked after a group of parents sued in federal court. The state is appealing and arguments are expected in January.
This year, Oklahoma’s top education official began ordering public schools with students in grades five through 12 to incorporate the Bible into lesson plans. State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters, a Republican, has purchased 500 Bibles and asked for $3 million from the state to buy copies for every classroom.
A group of parents filed a lawsuit in October challenging the state, arguing the mandate violates the Oklahoma Constitution.
Plaintiff Erika Wright, the founder of the Oklahoma Rural Schools Coalition and a mother of three children, said the state, which is consistently at the bottom of nationwide educational rankings, needs to prioritize the basics and leave discussing religion to families at home.
“Public school is not Sunday school,” Wright said.
Walters has suggested teachers who don’t want to comply may lose their licenses.
In a recent interview with NBC News, the former high school history teacher said he believes the requirements would “absolutely” hold up if the litigation were to reach the U.S. Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority.
“We want our kids to understand American exceptionalism, what made America great,” Walters said, adding: “You can be offended by Christianity, you can not agree with Christianity, but that doesn’t give you the right to take Christianity out of American history. And that’s what we’ve seen the left do.”
State officials like Walters have relied on national Republican leaders to show support for their initiatives. Trump on social media endorsed Louisiana’s Ten Commandments law as the “first major step in the revival of religion,” while last year, House Speaker Mike Johnson decried people’s understanding of the separation of church and state as a “misnomer,” saying on CNBC after he had prayed on the House floor that the founders “did not want the government to encroach upon the church — not that they didn’t want principles of faith to have influence on our public life. It’s exactly the opposite.”
While the words “separation of church and state” are not written explicitly in the Constitution, legal scholars say the phrase refers to the establishment clause in the First Amendment, which prohibits the government from validating an official religion or favoring one over another.
Joshua Blackman, a constitutional law professor at the South Texas College of Law Houston, said public schools that explicitly teach how Christianity or any religion is the “one true faith” will fall afoul of the Constitution. But, he said, arguments could be made that “passive” actions, such as having a Bible in the classroom or the Ten Commandments on the wall, could be viewed as acceptable if “you don’t have to do something with it.”
Rachel Laser, the president of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a nonprofit advocacy organization supporting the lawsuits in Louisiana and Oklahoma, agreed that teaching about the Bible or religion has a place in the correct context. Older students, she said, can question and discern what they are taught, but younger students are more impressionable.
“There’s nothing wrong with teaching a comparative religion class,” Laser said. “It’s a problem when you teach one religion as truth or give preference, including preference of religion over nonreligion.”
Meanwhile, lawmakers and school officials in other states are reviewing religion-related proposals that may not be considered as extreme as requiring Bibles in classrooms but are still drawing scrutiny.
A bill being debated in Ohio could mandate that all school districts make policies allowing for students to be released during the school day for religious instruction.
In Florida, school boards are considering whether to allow volunteers to serve as chaplains or religious representatives for willing students after a law was passed this year.
Childs, the Texas State Board of Education member, sees the current push for increased religious influence in public schools as concerning, as it comes amid a dialing back of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives at companies and institutions.
“It’s ironic that we’re OK with one group, but you don’t want your kids exposed to others,” she said. “Where’s the lesson in that?”