In the Dec. 10 edition of the Brooking Register, Bernie Hendricks offered his defense of the actions of the Oklahoma secretary of education in directing the purchase and distribution of the King James Version of the Holy Bible to all public school classrooms at state expense.
The choice of the King James Version came only after controversy arose with the earlier decision to purchase the only Bible endorsed by Donald Trump. Hendricks Speakout defended both the King James Version of the Holy Bible and its state-financed purchase and distribution. I claim no expertise regarding different versions of the Holy Bible, so I will offer no comment regarding that subject other than to note that my version is the New American Bible Catholic edition. I suspect that version was not given serious consideration by the Oklahoma official in making his purchasing decision as it probably has limited appeal to Christian Nationalists.
A few years ago, I would have noted with confidence that the U.S. Supreme Court will strike down the Oklahoma action as state promotion of the establishment of religion prohibited by the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. Relying on the 1971 Lemon vs Kurtzman ruling, the court could have determined that the state purchase and distribution of the Holy Bible to public school classrooms served a primary religious purpose and had a primary religious effect as opposed to serving any valid secular purpose.
Put another way, the court might ask Whose business is it to purchase Bibles and distribute them to the public. Is that the business of the church or the business of the state? However, the Roberts Supreme Court conservative majority of six appeared to abandon the Lemon test in a 2022 ruling and inserted a vague original meaning and history test in its place. The constitutional validity of the Oklahoma action now depends on the uncanny skill of the Roberts Court to peer into the minds of the 1789 framers of the First Amendment and declare the meaning attached by the framers to the words Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion.. Although I hope otherwise, I would not be surprised if the justices conclude that the framers would not object to the Oklahoma action.
I have my own thoughts on why the Oklahoma official ordered the purchase and distribution of the Holy Bible to all public school classrooms. I speculate that he did so because he hoped to compensate for the growing failure of Christian churches and parents to familiarize children with the sacred wisdom of the Holy Bible.
The Public Religion Research Institute reports that the number of Americans self-reporting as Christian has declined from 90% to 63% during the last 30 years. Of the 63% who identify themselves as Christian, over 50% reveal that they are inactive.
That leaves approximately one-third of our population who are active Christians and might encourage children to read and embrace the Bible. The solution to this situation in Oklahoma is to have the public schools pick up the slack. Just add Bible study to the list of other tasks other failing institutions have assigned to the public schools such as providing child nutrition, mental and physical health care, basic hygiene direction, pre-school and after- school care and juvenile offender retention and reform.
Of course, human institutions that look to the public schools to perform functions initially assigned them slowly lose their purpose in being and the public schools with limited resources struggle to perform their primary education function while simultaneously performing functions previously assigned to other institutions.
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