During a heated argument on CNN on Tuesday, Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters supported a new law that says the Bible has to be used in school lessons.
“The Bible includes rape, beheading, and incest,” CNN host Pamela Brown told Walters at the start of the conversation. “Do you support teaching children about those topics?”
Walters did not directly answer Brown’s question, but he did say that the Bible was important for understanding historical documents and important events in our country’s past, from the founding to the Civil Rights movement.
It had a huge effect on the past of the United States. It sold more copies than any other book in U.S. history. “That’s not something that should be taught in school,” he told Brown.
As Brown kept asking him if the more violent parts of the Bible were okay to read in school, they got into a fight.
“Will you let teachers teach everything about the Bible?” They should know what parts of the Bible to teach, but how do they do that? She asked again, “Isn’t it a simple question?” and then brought up the conservative figure’s efforts to get pornographic books out of schools and libraries.
“Let me be crystal clear: The Bible is not on the same plane as ‘Gender Queer’ and ‘Flamer,’ Walters replied. “These are pornography.”
“We have academic standards that tell our teachers that you are to talk about the Bible in reference to the Mayflower Compact, letters from a Birmingham Jail, the Declaration of Independence,” he said. “It’s very clear from primary sources that these people in our history used the Bible as a source.” So, in short, we will definitely include something if it’s true to history. Thought about how silly it would be to teach about the Pilgrims without bringing up their reason for coming to the New World. It’s very important, and we won’t let the far Left keep teaching our kids a false past that says faith had nothing to do with it. Okay, read the past. It’s easy to see.”
Brown kept arguing against Walters’ points of view and giving different views on how the Bible and Christianity affected the founding of America.
“Note… The Constitution doesn’t say anything about God. The Declaration of Independence talks about God, but not a Christian God, right? It also says that all people are equal. She replied, “And one could argue that it’s not making people think, ‘If you’re a Christian and believe in the Bible, you are of higher stature,'”
And Walters told the CNN host, “People can be offended by that, they may not like it, but they can’t rewrite our history.”
“To censor the Bible out of our schools is to create our schools to be state-sponsored atheist centers,” he said more. “Our position is purely historical.”
As of now, the Oklahoma’s top education official has told all public schools that the Bible and the Ten Commandments must be used as “instructional support into the curriculum across specified grade levels.” The religious texts will be used as needed to study “history, civilization, ethics, and comparative religion,” the memo says. “They also had a big impact on our country’s founders and the basic ideas of our Constitution.”
In the memo, Walters said that his order is in line with the May 2019 educational standards that were passed.
Last week, Republican Gov. Jeff Landry of Louisiana signed a bill into law that says every school must have the Ten Commandments on display by 2025. However, Walters says Oklahoma is the first state that requires the Bible to be used in all classrooms right away.
