Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters issued a memo last Thursday requiring a Christian Bible to be in every public-school classroom and that the Bible is to be used "as an instructional support into the curriculum across specified grade levels, e.g, grades 5 through 12".
The Christian theocrat Walters is under the delusion that the Christian Bible is a fundamental source for the US Constitution. If he ever read the US Constitution, he would realize it NEVER mentions the Bible, Christianity, Judaism, Jesus, Moses, nor does it state the Christian Bible is a fundamental pillar of the US Constitution. Walters, when confronted with this fact regarding the US Constitution, turned to the Declaration of Independence and pointed out that the Declaration of Independence states "our rights come from our creator". This is true. HOWEVER, the Declaration of Independence is NOT a Christian document, it is a Deistic document.
Knowledge is power. If the students who will be indoctrinated with Christianity in public schools in Oklahoma had the knowledge that America's Founders did NOT create the American Republic to be a Christian nation and had in fact stated that the United States of America is NOT a Christian nation, theocrats like Walters would not be able to brain-pollute children with the lies of the religious right. The document that makes clear the original intent of the Founders was not to create a Christian nation is found in the US Treaty of Tripoli. This treaty originated in the administration of George Washington and was unanimously ratified during the administration of John Adams. Article 11 of the treaty clearly and openly states: "As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion..."
If teachers who know the truth about America not being a Christian nation refuse to teach Christian lies to their students, they will lose their license to teach.
The theocrats of the religious right have been hard at work for decades to turn the US into a Christian nation. Walters believes that when public-school teachers teaching the Bible in Oklahoma is legally challenged in court, the theocrats will be victorious due to the pro-Christian US Supreme Court that was created by Donald Trump. Two key US Supreme Court decisions in 2022 should give Walters and other Christian theocrats comfort. Those cases are Kennedy v. Bremerton School District and Carson v. Makin. Both of these cases promote theocracy over democracy.
Walters made it clear that requiring public-school teachers to teach the Bible in school is not at all the end of the Christian theocrats' demands. He said that Trump has "helped provide a path for us to be able to do this as states" and that if Trump wins a second term in the White House "it will help us move the ball forward, even more so than this". Perhaps the religious right would like to have blasphemy laws and ecclesiastic courts?
One of the most important potential obstacles to the Christian theocrats who are turning the US into a Bible-based Christian theocracy is Deism. This is because many of America's key Founders were Deists. George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, etc., were not Christians, they were Deists. If this fact about America's key Founders was common knowledge, it would destroy their lie that America's Founders created the US as a Christian nation, and the Christian theocrats would not be able to do what they are doing and what they are planning on doing. Unfortunately, very few people know about Deism, let alone know the truth about America's Deist Founders. This is why it's important to openly teach objective truths about the Bible and all "holy" books, using as our example Thomas Paine's The Age of Reason.
