WASHINGTON (AP) — Conservative lawmakers across the United States are pushing to introduce more Christianity into public school classrooms, testing the separation of church and state by inserting Bible references into reading lessons and requiring teachers to post the Ten Commandments.
The effort comes as President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take office, promising to uphold the First Amendment right to pray and read the Bible in schools. These practices are already permitted as long as they are not government-sponsored.
Although the federal government is explicitly prohibited from telling states what to teach, Trump could indirectly influence what is taught in public schools, and his election could embolden state activists.
Trump and his fellow Republicans support school choice, hoping to expand the practice of using taxpayer-funded vouchers to help parents send their children to religious schools.
But there is a parallel push to integrate more Christianity into mainstream public schools, which serve an overwhelming majority of students, including those of other faiths. And with the help of judicial appointees during Trump’s first term as president, courts have begun to bless the idea of more religion in the public sphere, including schools.
“Having Trump back as president has the effect of emboldening Christian nationalists like never before,” said Rachel Lazer, president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. He said.
Many Americans believe that the Founders intended the United States to be a Christian nation. A small group, part of a movement popularly called Christian nationalism, advocates a fusion of American and Christian identities and believes the United States has the power to build an explicitly Christian society.
Many historians argue just the opposite, arguing that America’s founders created it as an alternative to European monarchies through an official state religion and suppression of religious minorities.
Efforts to introduce more Christianity into classrooms have been made in several states.
Louisiana Republicans passed a bill requiring all public school classrooms to display the Ten Commandments, beginning with “I am the Lord your God.” “You shall have no other gods before me.” The family filed a lawsuit.
In Texas, officials last November approved a curriculum that combines language arts and Bible classes. And when the Oklahoma State Superintendent of Education required classes to include the Bible in grades 5 through 12, schools refused to comply.
Utah lawmakers designated the Ten Commandments as a historic document, in the same category as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, allowing teachers to display them in their classrooms. Many other states have seen legislation putting them in more classrooms. And attorneys general from 17 Republican-led states recently submitted a brief supporting Louisiana’s Ten Commandments mandate.
It is permitted and even encouraged in schools to teach about religion and expose students to religious literature. But some say the new measures indoctrinate students rather than educate them.
Critics have also raised concerns about the proliferation of lesson plans. Some states have allowed teachers to use videos from Prager U, a nonprofit founded by a conservative talk show host, despite criticism that the videos put a positive emphasis on the spread of Christianity and contained Christian nationalist talking points.
During his first administration, Trump commissioned the 1776 Project, a report intended to promote a more patriotic version of American history. For example, historians and scholars have criticized Christianity for crediting many positive turns in American history without mentioning religion’s role in perpetuating slavery.
The project was developed into a curriculum at conservative Hillsdale College in Michigan and is now taught in a network of public charter schools that the college supports. This also affected South Dakota state standards.
Challenges to some state actions are now making their way through the courts, which have become friendlier to religious interests thanks to Trump’s judicial appointments.
In 2022, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of a Washington state soccer coach who was fired for praying with his players at midfield after a game. He said the school district violated his right to religious expression. Dissenting judges noted that some players felt pressured to join their coaches. But the high court said public schools cannot restrict employees’ religious activities simply because they could be interpreted as endorsing religion, overturning 50 years of precedent.
The ruling could pave the way for conservatives to introduce more Christianity into public schools, said Derek Black, a law professor at the University of South Carolina.
“Donald Trump’s judicial nominees have emboldened the nation to test the separation of church and state,” he said.
After the football coach’s case, courts are now analyzing the separation of church and state through the lens of history, said Joseph Davis of Becket, a public interest law firm that defends Louisiana against Ten Commandments mandates and focuses on religious liberty.
“The Supreme Court is OK with religious expression in public places,” Davis said. “And if it’s such a big part of our history, we should have some expectations of that.”
Critics say some steps to introduce more historical references to Christianity into classrooms have gone too far, needlessly inserting Biblical references while erasing the role Christianity played in justifying atrocities committed by Americans, such as the genocide of Native Americans.
This is one of the criticisms facing Texas’ new reading curriculum. School districts created by the state are not required to use them, but receive financial incentives to adopt them.
“The authors appear to be trying to incorporate detailed Bible lessons into the curriculum, even when they are unnecessary and unwarranted,” religious studies scholar David R. Brockman wrote in a report on the material. “Religious freedom is essential to American democracy, but the curriculum distorts its role in our nation’s founding while downplaying the importance of other fundamental freedoms Americans cherish.”
Texas Values, a conservative think tank that supports the new reading curriculum, said in a statement that the court’s move to allow more Christianity in schools and more taxpayer money to flow to religious institutions is a corrective action.
Jonathan Saenz, president of Texas Values, said the football coach’s case rightfully returns religious protections and freedom of expression to public schools.
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“Voters and lawmakers are tired of attacks on God and our heritage as ‘one nation under God,’” he said.
Associated Press writers Sara Cline, Kimberlee Kruesi and Peter Smith contributed.
