The awfulness of required Bible readings

Compulsory Bible readings are not a solution to anything

I have friends in the Idaho Politickery who are thrilled with House Bill 162, which would mandate Bible readings in government-run schools every day in every classroom. That’s too bad. I am not. This legislation is the anthesis of freedom and a danger to the notion of a free society.

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez 🇨🇦 on Unsplash

Here’s what the bill calls for in its operative sections:

33-1604B. SCHOOL-SPONSORED BIBLE READING. Selections from the King James version, the new King James version, or the revised standard version of the Bible shall be read each morning of each instructional day in each occupied classroom in all public school districts. Such reading shall be without comment or interpretation. Each school district shall organize the daily selections in such a way that the entire Bible is read sequentially and completed over ten (10) school years. Any question by any pupil relating to the Bible reading shall be referred to the pupil's parent or guardian.

First, “school-sponsored” is a euphemism for “state-sponsored” or “government-sponsored.” That isn’t as pleasing to the ear, however but it’s the same. Government sponsorship of anything — TV shows, newspapers, books, art, or public readings — is the sort of thing that authoritarian nations are wont to do, not the stuff of countries or people that celebrate freedom.

Second, when politicians dictate an action, they are invoking the power of government to accomplish that task. Today, they argue that the power of government should be used to demand not only the daily readings of a particular book, but a particular version of that book. Tomorrow (meaning literally tomorrow or many years from now), it will be a different book or a different venue.

Why stop at public schools? Government owns all kinds of buildings everywhere. Why not mandate Bible readings in every city hall, fire station, park, playground, county road department, and agency office? Why not just use those buildings to install loudspeakers, as they do in Islamic countries, to blast Bible verses as far as the sound will carry every morning?

And why stop at a book? Shouldn’t every schoolchild in America watch Star Trek II through IV, Star Wars (the original trilogy), the Princess Bride, and Idiocracy? (Probably yes but not required to).

Proponents of the bill say that the historical use of the Bible in school makes it unlikely that someone years hence would be able to mandate readings of the Quran or other religious texts. They use the words of one former associate U.S. Supreme Court justice to make the case. From the Idaho Family Policy Center (IFPC), the bill’s chief architect:

Reading the Bible would not open the door to equal time for reading sacred texts from other religions. … In fact, reading other religious books (like the Quran) in public school classrooms could potentially run afoul of the ‘history and tradition’ test now used by federal courts. Neither our state nor our nation has the history or tradition of school-sponsored classroom reading of other religious texts

Court opinions, interpretations, and legal tests change over time. Even the IFPC recognizes the U.S. Supreme Court has shifted on religious questions over the last 100 years yet is so oddly confident that non-Christian religious texts would never ever make it to Idaho’s classrooms. As my old friend Ralph Smeed used to say, “interesting, if true.” It’s not. Obviously. No one should bet on a judge or a court to say or do anything, especially after decades or centuries.

But if there’s a constant in the universe, it’s that legislators will always use whatever power we grant it today to do something unintended in the future. Current policy is always a roadmap for the next policy. In the same way proponents of mandatory health insurance were able to say, “of course we can make people buy health insurance; we make them buy auto insurance,” be careful of what comes after. Grant government the power to compel readings of a particular book that we may like, wait until that same power is invoked to compel readings of something we don’t.

Next let’s look at the bill’s so-called “conscience protections.” It says:

33-1604C. CONSCIENCE PROTECTIONS. A public school shall provide a reasonable accommodation for daily Bible reading to the following: (1) Any teacher who is unwilling to read the Bible on religious or conscience based grounds, in which case the selections shall be read by another person each morning of each instructional day in each occupied classroom in all public school districts pursuant to section 33-1604B, Idaho Code; and (2) Any student whose parent or guardian provides a written request to the school to be exempted from daily Bible readings.

In practical terms, what this means is that each school district will need to keep a record of every teacher and every parent who requests and opt-out. (This legislation also means that students cannot, themselves, ask to opt-out, which is another interesting factoid). I don’t like the idea of government keeping tabs on religious and conscience objectors, and you shouldn’t either. Nothing good comes when government keeps track of the people who object to its policies.

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Yet the bill’s proponents make one point that is a reasonable one: Court decisions that have kept the Bible out of the education system are problematic. It seems it is far easier these days to find texts in government schools that extol the virtues of government than extol the virtues of Jesus Christ. God hasn’t been banned from schools; government has taken the place of God within those schools. That’s the real problem, not the lack of daily Bible readings.

At the same time, as the government schools have demonstrated that they’re not so good for learning math, reading, writing, and history. There’s nothing that leads me to believe biblical studies would be government schools’ super strength, and a proposal that requires daily doses of scripture confirms that suspicion.

The Bible is an ancient text with tremendous religious, historic, and literary value. Kids should have access to it and other sacred texts within government schools (if we are to have them), but without interference, manipulation, or use of force proposed by House Bill 162.

Want to know more? Strongly worded letter to “conservatives” and “conservative legislators” follows: