Bible-Infused School Standards are not Christ-Like

Last updated on: July 1, 2026 at 10:09 am by Melanie Springer Mock

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Bible-Infused School Standards are not Christ-Like 2026-06-30T17:03:44-07:00 Melanie Springer Mock

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Last week, the Texas Board of Education passed a required reading list for its five million K-12 students, becoming the first state nationwide that will mandate what the Houston Chronicle describes as “Bible-infused school standards.” The reading list, which includes “classic” literary texts alongside biblical passages, was passed 9-5 by the board, which also rewrote the state’s social studies curricula to include “biblical concepts and figures.”

The rollout of this mandate will be staggered, starting with students in 2030. As Heather Cox Richardson reported in her June 30 politics chat, the mandate’s delayed start potentially betrays its true intent. It takes effect after the 2028 presidential election, when Republicans will need the continued support of evangelical voters to win. The entire mandate thus seems less about the urgency of teaching children to love Jesus, and more about power–a reminder that Christian nationalism is less about Christ than about empire.

The Houston Chronicle calls the Board of Education’s new requirements “the most aggressive efforts to mandate the teaching of Christianity in the country.” Some (primarily) evangelical and conservative folks celebrated this mandate, seeing the Bible as a cornerstone to the United States’ birth and to understanding the country’s founding documents. One of those founding documents, of course, establishes a separation between church and state—which is one reason why the board’s decision should unsettle us all, Christians included.

According to a PBS report, early elementary school children will be required to read picture books about David and Goliath and Daniel and the Lion’s Den, and fourth graders will be introduced to passages from the New Testament. By high school, students will study scripture in concord with literary classics, handpicked by the state’s education board. Critics of the mandate point out that the reading list also lacks diverse voices, providing an unalloyed view of American history and tying that view to scripture, reinforcing an ideology of American exceptionalism, one that is God-ordained.

Advocates for church and state separation were upset by the news, and rightly so. Speaking to The New York Times, Rachel Laser, president of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said “The government of Texas, let alone any American government body, should never be in the business of imposing one religion on everyone.” Rabbi David Segal pointed out that the mandated biblical passages were predominantly drawn from the King James Version of scripture, and risks “an unconstitutional endorsement” of religion.

Other news stories pointed to the challenges of requiring teachers to provide instruction on sacred texts with which they might have little to no familiarity. They are also being required to teach complicated passages of scripture about which Christians have disagreed for millennia—though, I imagine, given the mandate’s orientation, those disagreements will be downplayed in favor of interpretations that amplify a Christian nationalist worldview.

(Preparing to preach next week about a perplexing parable in Luke 19, I was reminded again about how confusing, complicated, and contradictory scripture can be. When people say “The Bible is clear,” they haven’t often grappled with scripture and how maddeningly opaque the Bible can sometimes seem. Given this, any mandated reading of the Bible in public schools feels even more problematic.)

Over the past year, I’ve been writing a book about the conservative school board takeover in my small town, and its attempts to Make Newberg Great Again by governing with Christian nationalistic impulses. In meetings, while they maligned teachers, railed against diversity efforts, and denigrated queer students, Newberg board members also referenced Christianity in their public remarks, quoted scripture, insisted that Bibles could and should be part of every classroom in the district.

When public commenters called out these seeming transgressions of church/state boundaries, a board director provided a short lesson on the First Amendment, reminded teachers and staff that they could have Bibles in their classes, then commented “So with that said, I can and I will continue to talk about God, when needed. And what is said in his word, which is the truth, that we are all missing.”

The Newberg-Dundee school board was unable to demand Bible-based instruction similar to that now required in Texas, perhaps because the state’s education board generally sets policy and standards, not local school districts. But having attended several years’ worth of school board meetings in our town, I know some people here would also have cheered biblically-based instruction. I also imagine that our local schools would have become an even more embittered battleground, further diminishing our school district and the kind of education we could have offered our children. As it was, the board’s two-year reign in Newberg, driven by a conservative ideology, has created generational damage, from which our community might never fully recover.

So much of what unfolded in Newberg, and what is unfolding in places like Texas, suggests a troubling intent. Not only does the Texas ruling abrogate a constitution it purports to defend, it seeks to reinforce Christian nationalist power. Rather than allowing children to discover for themselves the sacredness of scripture in the context of church and home, the Texas reading list makes the Bible little more than a weapon in an ideological battle, thereby diminishing its sanctity.

John Fugelsang, author of Separation of Church and Hate (Simon and Schuster, 2025) points out that conservative school boards often seek to require that the Ten Commandments be posted in every classroom. (Indeed, in 2025, the Texas legislature passed SB10, mandated that the Ten Commandments appear in every class; the Texas Court of Appeals upheld this ruling in April 2026.) Fugelsang rightly wonders why schools don’t ever fight to have the words from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount printed for each classroom, then answers his own query: “Care for the sick? No. Turn the other cheek? No. Render one’s taxes? No, sucker. Be kind to the incarcerated? Hell no. Welcome the stranger? Bitch, please. Modern right-wing Christians have been suckered into an anti-Christian trap of aligning with power, instead of challenging it. But conservative power was what Jesus stood up to—not for—time and time again.”

Image of Moses holding the Ten Commandments

Photo provided by Levi Meir Clancy for Unsplash

Fundamentally, the new mandate in Texas is about power, rather than about expressing a love for the Christ those with power say they serve. Had they really hoped to spread the Gospel message, Texas politicians probably wouldn’t have vetoed summer food aid for poor children, something Governor Greg Abbott did in 2025. In February 2025, Abbott also sought to punish schools where students were protesting. And the Texas Board of Education probably wouldn’t have mandated a reading list that erased Black and Brown voices, reinforcing white supremacy in a state still struggling with racism and discrimination.

Mandating the Bible in public schools has little to do with sharing the message at the heart of the Gospels, and everything to do with consolidating Christian nationalist power—an antithesis of the very sacred texts students in Texas will be required to read.

General Christian

Education and Religion

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