(SRN NEWS/AP/97.5 Glory FM) – Conservative lawmakers across the country are pushing to introduce more Christianity to public school classrooms, testing the separation of church and state by inserting Bible references into reading lessons and requiring teachers to post the Ten Commandments. And they have at least one member of the Hall County state legislative delegation in their corner.
The efforts come as President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take office pledging to champion praying and reading the Bible in school, practices that are already allowed as long as they are not government-sponsored.
Speaking with 97.5 Glory FM’s Mike Wofford Friday on Community Forum, State Rep. Emory Dunahoo mentioned the Ten Commandants near the outset of the program as being among his top priorities when the legislature is gaveled into session Monday.
“We’re working on putting the Ten Commandments in every school, and that gives the opportunity for teachers to put them up in the classrooms,” Dunahoo said. The veteran lawmaker who is entering his 14th year in the legislature said another possibility would be to have them posted at the main entrance to schools.
This push to incorporate more Christianity into the mainstream public schools that serve the overwhelming majority of students, including those of other faiths, has found favor already from some judicial appointees from President-elect Donald Trump’s first presidential term, as courts have begun to bless the notion of more religion in the public sphere, including in schools.
But there are those who are firmly against this.
“The effect of even Trump being the president-elect, let alone the president again, is Christian nationalists are emboldened like never before,” said Rachel Laser, the president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
Large numbers of Americans believe the founders intended the U.S. to be a Christian nation. A smaller group, part of a movement widely called Christian nationalism, champions a fusion of American and Christian identity and believes the U.S. has a mandate to build an explicitly Christian society.
Many historians argue the opposite, claiming the framers created the United States as an alternative to European monarchies with official state churches and oppression of religious minorities.
“And a lot of people will argue that ‘well, no, we’d have to put (references to all faiths in there) if we put the Bible or God’s law (in the schools’ but no. This nation was founded on Christian principles, and we need to get back to the ground and the foundation of how this country and this state (were founded),” Dunahoo said.
Efforts to introduce more Christianity into classrooms have already taken hold in several states.
In Louisiana, Republicans passed a law requiring every public school classroom to post the Ten Commandments, which begin with “I am the Lord thy God. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” Families have sued.
In Texas, officials in November approved a curriculum intertwining language arts with biblical lessons. And in Oklahoma, the state superintendent of education has called for lessons to incorporate the Bible from grades 5 through 12, a requirement schools have declined to follow.
Utah state lawmakers designated the Ten Commandments as a historic document, in the same category as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, so teachers could post it in their classrooms. Many other states have seen legislation that would put them in more classrooms. And attorneys general from 17 GOP-led states recently filed a brief supporting Louisiana’s Ten Commandments mandate.
Schools are permitted — and even encouraged — to teach about religion and to expose students to religious texts. But some say the new measures are indoctrinating students, not educating them.