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Mandatory Bible reading in Texas public schools?

Mandatory Bible reading in Texas public schools?

Last updated on: June 30, 2026 at 3:14 pm by Dan Peterson

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Mandatory Bible reading in Texas public schools? 2026-06-30T15:14:24-06:00 Dan Peterson

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A monument at the temple site in Far West, Missouri
(Wikimedia Commons public domain photograph)

I call your attention, once again, to our series of Becoming Brigham videos. The latest of them (Becoming Brigham, Episode 23 — Brigham Young Was Sent Away from Leadership?) is up online now and, as always, it’s brief, manageable, accessible, and open to viewing at no charge. What is there to lose? You can do difficult things. Watch it.

A 1938 WPA poster depicting an Amish family from the Lancaster County area (Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

As we approach the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, we should take the opportunity to reflect upon our nation’s legacy and its future. Here’s a useful article for that from the Deseret News: “Opinion: Can churches renew the ‘Pursuit of Happiness’? Building a movement to fix the American family: 250 years ago, Thomas Jefferson enshrined ‘the pursuit of Happiness’ in the Declaration of Independence. But today, the news is grim on the happiness front.” Although it implicitly alludes to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at one point, at least, it’s written by a pair of non-Latter-day Saints. Still — and I realize that, from another point of view, this would be worthy of the Christopher Hitchens Memorial “How Religion Poisons Everything” File™ — it’s interesting to consider while reading the article how well the Church is doing with respect to the authors’ checklist, and to contemplate how we might do better. Much hinges on this.

The new/old Provo City Center Temple — the aboveground portion of it, anyway; much is underground — from the south. (Wikimedia Commons public domain image). Constructed within (and beneath) the ruined Provo Tabernacle after a catastrophic fire, it is one of two Latter-day Saint temples within Provo’s city limits.

During my tenure as the bishop of a YSA (Young Single Adult) ward some years ago, I had two or three occasions to interact in a fairly serious way with the Provo office of the Employment Services operation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. To say that I was positively impressed would be a gross understatement. I was amazed at the kinds of help that were available to people of any age (and, so far as I could tell, any degree of involvement or uninvolvement in the Church) who were on the job market. And it was all free. Plainly, this too belongs in the Hitchens File, but I mention it here because I’m hoping that people who might be helped by Employment Services will avail themselves of the opportunity.

The Texas State Capitol in Austin (Wikimedia Commons public domain photograph)

The Texas State Board of Education has now issued a mandate requiring passages from the Bible to be incorporated into the state’s public school curriculum: “Required Bible stories for Texas students challenge separation of church and state.”

Required biblical texts include about a dozen biblical excerpts that will be required at various grade levels:

Pupils in elementary school will read picture-book adaptations of the stories of “David and Goliath” and “Daniel and the Lion’s Den.”
Middle school students will read selections from Jonah and the Psalms, as well as the Sermon on the Mount from the New Testament.
High school students will read biblical excerpts concerning Adam and Eve, the Parable of the Prodigal Son, and the definition of love (1 Corinthians 13).

How do I feel about this?

I feel absolutely fine about it, in principle and insofar as I understand what Texas is doing, although I’m waiting to see how the new curricular requirement will actually work in practice. It would be very easy, for example, for non-Evangelical students to feel excluded by a certain kind of teaching in a state such as Texas, where Evangelical Protestantism — to say nothing of typically Protestant “Christian nationalism” seems (at least from the outside) to be on the ascendant. Already some Jews appear to be concerned: “New Texas Bible curriculum isn’t as ‘Judeo’ as advertised, local rabbis say: Jewish clergy warn required reading list for schools, pairing Bible with literature, crosses the line from teaching about religion to endorsing it.” Catholics might be, as well. As might Latter-day Saints — I’ve heard more than a few stories about the occasional marginalizing of LDS kids by Evangelical teachers and coaches; and I myself saw a painfully case when I was in high school in California — to say nothing of Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and others, as well as the children of unbelieving families.

Will the new curriculum be confessional or denominational or sectarian when actually put into practice? If so, it will arguably be unconstitutional. We shall see. I’m perfectly content to see biblical texts taught as literature or as cultural inheritance in the public schools. More than content. Pleased. In fact, I would welcome the teaching of a few passages from the Qur’an and other scriptural texts taught in public schools. On the other hand, their teaching as authoritative scripture must be left to churches, synagogues, mosques, temples, gurdwaras, families, and similar institutions (e.g., Latter-day Saint seminaries and religious colleges).

However, to more fully understand the new Texas curriculum, which will first be formally implemented during the 2030-2031 school year, people need to know that students across the state will be required to read over two hundred classic literary texts, of which only a few will be from the Bible.

In addition to the controversial biblical passages, the new reading list includes such notable authors and public figures as William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Martin Luther King Jr., and Margaret Thatcher. (The latter is a somewhat surprising choice but, as a longtime Thatcherite, I’m scarcely going to complain about it.) The biblical story of “Daniel and the Lion’s Den,” mentioned above, will be read alongside such titles as E. B. White’s Charlotte’s Web.

Homer’s Antiilochus, prince of Pylos and son of Nestor, one of the Achaean princes during the Trojan War, in a red-figure vase painting dating to ca. BC 470
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

Here’s what I found in one list of the highlights of the new Texas reading curriculum:

Kindergarten: The Very Hungry Caterpillar (Eric Carle), The Cat in the Hat (Dr. Seuss), and You Are Special (Max Lucado).

Elementary (Grades 1-5): Madeline (Ludwig Bemelmans), Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White), and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (C.S. Lewis).

Middle School (Grades 6-8): Excerpts from Aesop’s Fables and historical documents including The Declaration of Independence and the Federalist Papers.

High School (English I-IV): Antigone (Sophocles), Great Expectations (Charles Dickens), The Odyssey (Homer), and Martin Luther King’s “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop.”

Biblical Excerpts: Passages are required across most grade levels (e.g., David and Goliath in English I, The Tower of Babel in English II, and The Book of Job in English IV).

In my judgment, that’s a very admirable list. (Back on 9 June, with nary a thought about Texas or its State Board of Education, I posted a blog entry here — “David, Goliath, And The Navajo Tribal Police” — in which I contended that a knowledge of such things as the story of David and Goliath is fundamental to being a culturally literate person living in the West.) These texts are of fundamental importance for understanding western civilization, and I think that western civilization is a valuable thing to cherish, to preserve, and to transmit to future generations.

Even so, Texas education officials have explained that parents who object to these specific readings on the grounds of their personal or moral beliefs will be permitted to opt their children out of the assignments. (I don’t actually anticipate much protest over The Very Hungry Caterpillar, or The Cat in the Hat, or Charlotte’s Web. But we’re talking about Texas.) So, thus far, all of this seems to me not only good but very good.

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