Ryan Walters who served as Oklahoma’s appointed Secretary of Education between September 2020 and April 2023 and is now Oklahoma’s elected Superintendent of Public Instruction, on Thursday decreed that every teacher in the state must have a Bible in their classroom and teach from it.
Speaking at a Department of Education board meeting, Walters said, “Every teacher, every classroom in the state will have a Bible in the classroom, and will be teaching from the Bible in the classroom to ensure that this historical understanding is there for every student in the state of Oklahoma,” especially the Ten Commandments.
At this point, I should point out that the Establishment Clause of the US Constitution’s First Amendment prohibits governments from sponsoring or establishing any religion. The Oklahoma Constitution also says that all public schools and the expenditure of state funds must be nonsectarian, and not promote “any sect, church, denomination, or system of religion.”
As Reuters pointed out, on Tuesday, the Oklahoma Supreme Court struck down Walters’ move to establish a state-funded religious charter school, citing the above clause of the state constitution.
Walters, a conservative Christian, is also on the record as supporting prayer in public schools.
On Thursday, Walters called the Bible “a necessary historical document to teach our kids about the history of this country, to have a complete understanding of Western civilization, to have an understanding of the basis of our legal system.”
I’ve shared with you in the past that I am a registered Democrat and a small L liberal – meaning I am curious about other people’s views and delighted to hear views with which I disagree. And so, you might be surprised to learn that I agree with Superintendent Walters’ position. Not because I have an iota of respect for the Christian Bible, including the King James’s version of the Ten Commandments. I agree with him because of the founder of Hasidism, Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer the Ba’al Shem Tov.
Before the Ba’al Shem Tov would board a carriage driven by a Gentile, he would check to see if the driver wore a cross on his neck. If he didn’t, the “Besht” won’t get on his carriage. Repugnant as it is, the cross represented the carriage driver’s belief in a higher power, without which he could easily turn into a wolfhound.
As a Jew, I expect that Ryan Walters is less likely to turn into an animal than many others in the country’s educational system.
