Thanks for Reading
Texas has voted to require Bible readings in public schools, while a federal Religious Liberty Commission is advancing recommendations that would further blur the line between church and state. Together, these developments reflect a broader effort to privilege Christianity in public life under the banner of "religious liberty", all at the expense of secular government and genuine religious pluralism.
Unbelief Brief
The Texas State Board of Education has voted to make stories and passages from the Bible required reading in public schools. The final vote to approve the measure was 9 to 5, with one Republican joining all Democrats on the Board to vote unsuccessfully against it. The measure is set to go into effect in 2030.
While topics of great theological complexity might be best reserved for high school or college, there is a case to be made that excerpts from religious texts could serve a useful purpose in public educational settings. Christianity has been enormously influential on the development of Western history, literature, and culture. A curriculum designed to make students aware of that—one that also includes readings from other major world religions, along with traditions of secularism and non-belief—could be defensible. This, unfortunately, is clearly not what Texas has in mind.
Instead, the texts that will become part of the curriculum are almost exclusively Christian, with the sole exception being a reading from the Jewish Tanakh. Islam and all non-Abrahamic religions are completely ignored, as are critical perspectives on Christian scripture. Whatever PR spin Texas officials put on it, this move’s intent is obvious: to further blur the lines between religious instruction and public education.
One only need look to Texas’s former Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick’s assertion that “separation of church and state is not in the Constitution” for an example of this mindset. He has made this claim more than once in the context of his work as Chair for the federal government’s newly-established Religious Liberty Commission. That Commission, consisting of eleven Christians and one Orthodox Jew, has now released a 224-page draft report with recommendations on how to safeguard religious freedom in the US.
Predictably, the report is a roadmap to attack the foundations of secularism in America. It suggests that the Department of Justice (DOJ) should “issue guidance clarifying” that “religious liberty” is the “bridge” between church and state. If the Department followed this recommendation, it would be an unambiguous federal statement of opposition to 250 years of secular thought stretching back to Jefferson. The Commission also recommends that the DOJ establish a “religious liberty task force” focused on prosecuting violations of religious freedom. The report entirely ignores religiously unaffiliated Americans and most minority faiths (except some guidance on combating antisemitism). It focuses instead on purported “anti-Christian” bias and persecution in public life.A period of public comment will follow before the Commission finalizes this report on or after July 12th.
While not impossible, it is highly unlikely the final document will fundamentally differ in its character from this draft. That is not the way the winds are blowing: not in Texas and not nationwide.
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Until next week,
The Team at Ex-Muslims of North America
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