What Constitutes a Government Established Religion?

Two states have decided to challenge the definition of religion and states’ rights in education. Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry has signed into law that all public school classrooms display the Ten Commandments while Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters has mandated that a Bible is mandatory in every public school classroom.

As expected, groups like the ACLU are outraged, and they will be fighting both states in court. The ACLU and others against these measures are using the First Amendment and Establishment Clause as their weapons of choice. Landry’s and Walters’ opponents believe that having the Ten Commandments on display and a Bible in every classroom manifests government bias and an overt overreach of governmental religious choice.

My question to the ACLU: Which religion is being forced on public school students?

The Ten Commandments derive from the Torah (or what Christians would call the Old Testament), which is the basis of Judaism. The New Testament centers on the fulfillment of prophesies in the Old Testament regarding the arrival of a savior—a.k.a. Jesus Christ—who takes the Ten Commandments and pares them down to revering one God and loving your neighbors. Put together, they create the Bible. Furthermore, the Qur’an has the same prophets of those found within the Torah with a particular reverence for Moses though Mohammed, an add-on prophet, reigns supreme. If the Ten Commandments is merely placed in a room, atheists and agnostics won’t read or believe them anyway. So, what’s the problem?

In the case of Bibles being placed in every classroom in Oklahoma, Ryan Walters explains that Bibles are key to,”…to ensur[ing] the teaching of our standards and the role the Bible played in American history, dating back pre-Constitution, whether it's Mayflower Compact, the pilgrims, all the way up through Martin Luther King Jr. and civil rights movement, where he repeatedly quotes the Bible as a directive for what he's trying to do there” (PBS News). So, the Bible becomes a primary source to teach American history. Moreover, it should also used in the study of comparative religions, English literature, music, and art.

The irony of the Bible fight is two fold. For example, to understand the idea of slavery students must have an understanding of the Bible in its entirety to compare it to the Slave Bible originally called Select Parts of the Holy Bible, for the Use of the Negro Slaves, in the British West-India Islands, which omitted anything that showed human equality.

Slaveholders most certainly wanted compliant slaves, so Moses was problematic. So, in the Slave Bible, Moses’ leading slaves to freedom had to go. Additionally, in the Slave Bible, “The editorial choices favored chapters that presented models of or arguments for obedience, accepting one’s place in the world, and honoring those God had set in positions of authority”(The Online Library for Liberty).

It would benefit students to learn how the Bible was usurped as a justification for slavery in the first place while, on the other hand, how abolitionists used the Bible to free slaves.

The other ironical twist comes from the liberal viewpoint that “book banning” should cease. Although we know that there really is no book banning going on if “banned” books can be found in public libraries or purchased on Amazon, the mere idea enrages Leftists. Pornographic LGBTQ+ novels in school libraries is supported by liberal governors, legislators and school librarians. They encourage LGBTQ+ materials to be readily available to students, encourage transgenderism, and encourage the use of alternate pronouns. All of which can be kept secret from parents.

Of course, there has been an attempt by parents to make their voices heard at school board meetings. But, oftentimes, their mics are shut off, or they are escorted out when reading aloud from the very same books they are fighting against being allowed in school libraries. So, all those claiming that kids should learn about sex changes and gender identity to be their authentic selves equate concerned parents with Hitler while banning the Bible from classrooms or school libraries.

So, how do history instructors teach the important archeological findings of the Dead Sea Scrolls without an understanding of the Bible? Perhaps they just skip that part of archeology and focus more on the Rosetta Stone in order to avoid offending people of various religions or no religion at all.

How do art teachers discuss masterpieces without the context of biblical stories. Perhaps they omit discussions of Michelangelo’s frescos on the ceiling of Sistine Chapel and da Vinci’s Last Supper mural. Apparently, last month’s archeological discovery of a 1,500 year old pyx found in an ancient, Christian church in Austria need not be mentioned.

Do music teachers only teach secular music without regard for some of the finest works by Bach?

Equally, in literature classes, are writings by Dante, Shakespeare, Dickens, Dostoevsky, Lewis, or Tolkien allowed?

What a slippery slope we have gotten ourselves onto with a secular world view. Our modern public school system would rather ban any mention of the most sold book in the world than discuss its profound effect on the founding of our country, masterpieces, ancient artifacts, and the ending of slavery in the same way the Slave Bible removed biblical passages that might cause change.

The rationale, of course, is the division between church and state. But history is full of tensions between religions that need to be explored. Rationally, no one expects the mere posting of the Ten Commandments to suddenly create a mass of Jewish converts nor will studying the influence of the Bible on humanities and Western civilization cause students to convert to Roman Catholicism.

Students need to understand where our founding ideals stem from including the Bible, Magna Carta, Montesquieu’s belief in three co-equal branches of government, and the contrasting views of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke’s philosophies regarding human nature and the role of governance. All influenced the Founding Fathers and our Constitution.

Yet whenever religious materials and schools collide, fear is palpable. But, it’s unclear what the fear from the ACLU and liberals is about. If we look to precedents, the Supreme Court upheld the unconstitutionality of public school-sponsored Bible reading in 1963 with Abington School District v. Schempp and again in 2000 with Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe because in both cases the Court found that they crossed the Establishment Clause line.

In the first, the case revolved around whether Bible verses could be read aloud after the Pledge of Allegiance thereby supporting a Christian view, whereas the latter was decided based on who owned the loudspeaker used by students to pray prior to football games. Since the loudspeaker was public school owned, the students’ prayers were unconstitutional. Hopefully, those students found a way to pay for their own loudspeaker.

In any event, neither of these precedents have anything to do with the posting of the Ten Commandments or the use of the Bible as a primary source. Instead, I would argue, that the decision in the 1990 case Westside Community Schools v. Mergers would be more fitting. In it, the Supreme Court sided with students who wanted to create religious clubs after school hours writing that, “‘neutrality’ and no ‘hostility’ to religion is all that is required by the First Amendment” (uscourts.gov). So, as long as the Ten Commandments and Bible are used neutrally without condemning others’ religions or lack thereof, there should be no issue. Of the two, however, I believe that the posting of the Ten Commandments will cause the most consternation with courts.

As Marci Hamilton pointed out over twenty years ago in her article “The Ten Commandments and American Law: Why Some Christians' Claims to Legal Hegemony Are Not Consistent with the Historical Record,” our laws are not entirely based on the Ten Commandments. The fact that the first four deal with one God and how to honor Him is certainly not neutral. The Ten Commandments may be historical but are, also, religious. As seen in McCreary County, Kentucky v. American Civil Liberties of Kentucky, to post the Ten Commandments in county courthouses was unconstitutional because there was an absence of “secular legislative purpose”(Justia).

Both Louisiana and Oklahoma will be very interesting cases to watch unfold. Vox’s Ian Millhiser noted just over a week ago, “The Court has historically held that public schools have an unusually high obligation not to promote religious viewpoints, in large part because the young people educated in those schools are unusually vulnerable to coercion.”

And this statement interests me most. Those who argue that a display of the Ten Commandments are secular will have a difficult time proving that. However, if the Ten Commandments and Bible are deemed coercive, then we should also consider the influence of LGBTQ+, BLM, CRT, etc. idolatry within schools.

Teachers with multi-colored hair, LGBTQ+ flags hanging in classrooms, discussions about gender identities, or usage of gender pronouns are promoting a religion thus equally preying on the vulnerability of children. In addition, they are promoting biological lies. Moreover, teachers giving extra credit to students who skip a day of school to march in protests is equally coercive.

I commend both Gov. Jeff Landry and Ryan Walters for pursuing what will inevitably become lawsuits. Intentionally or not, the question of what constitutes a religion will come into play. When seventy-five percent of the Merriam-Webster definitions of religion do not use God, it says something about modern society.

Furthermore, the most important of Merriam-Webster’s definitions to challenge the Court is “a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held with ardor and faith.” Thus, schools should now be able to invoke the Establishment Clause to avoid the teaching of LGBTQ+, CRT, BLM, the 1619 Project, and climate change because they are, by definition, religions. Either the First Amendment and the Establishment Clause are meant to protect citizens from government established religions or not. And that will be put to the test.

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