Texas gives initial approval of school reading list that includes Bible chapters

(LifeSiteNews) — The Texas State Board of Education has given preliminary approval to a list of literary works all school children must be exposed to, including more than a dozen passages from the Holy Bible.

The Christian Post reports that the board voted 9-5 to approve the draft of the Literary Works List, which, if it clears a final vote in June, will be required for all students starting in 2020.

Among the Bible chapters and passages deemed necessary for a balanced grounding in Western literature are the Golden Rule, the Parable of the Prodigal Son, the Road To Damascus, Do Not Be Anxious (Matthew 6:25-34), Jonah and the Whale, the Definition of Love (1 Corinthians 13), the Shepherd’s Psalm, the Eight Beatitudes, David and Goliath, the Tower of Babel, To Everything There is a Season, and the Book of Job.

Secular works on the list include Little Red Riding Hood, Peter Rabbit, Fahrenheit 451, The Odyssey, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, A Wrinkle in Time, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, and more. If approved, all will be added to the Texas Essential Knowledge & Skills for English Language Arts & Reading standards.

Critics of including religious material frame such mandates as an impermissible effort by state agencies to impose religious beliefs through the force of government to captive audiences. But religion has always been a part of public education dating back to the Founding era of the United States. The Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which established the governance of the Northwest Territories and set standards for the expansion of the country in its early days, called for the establishment of schools specifically because “[r]eligion, morality, and knowledge” were “necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind.”

Supporters say that such religious content is especially integral to civics given the role of faith in America’s formation and prosperity dating back to the nation’s founding, and does not constitute an impermissible “establishment of religion.”

The phrase “separation of church and state,” frequently invoked in opposition to religious content on public grounds, is not an official legal clause anywhere in the Declaration of Independence or U.S. Constitution but comes from a letter Thomas Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptist Association on January 1, 1802, reassuring the group of his belief that “religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only & not opinions.”

“I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church & State,” Jefferson said in the correspondence.

When taken literally, “‘separation of church and state” is accurate shorthand for one of the practical effects of the First Amendment: recognizing that churches and the state are two distinct entities, and neither may control the affairs of the other. Today, however, left-wing activists claim that it means religious ideas and values cannot in any way inform, influence, or be recognized by government and that any expression of faith on government time, on government land, or with government resources is illegal, no matter how benign or voluntary. That interpretation is without basis in the words or actions of America’s Founding Fathers, who viewed religion as vital to America’s success.