OPINION:
Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters, who’s been whispered as President-elect Donald Trump’s secretary of the Department of Education — if Trump doesn’t get rid of the federal agency, that is — says the Bible should be taught in classrooms across the United States as a means of spreading the roots and causes of American Exceptionalism.
Bam. That’s the next big cultural battle in America — to bring back the Bible to the public square.
If American Exceptionalism can be summarized in a few brief words, it’s this: God-given rights and liberties.
Or, as framers of our form of limited governance put it: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness …” From that Declaration of Independence from Great Britain came the new world’s model of self-governance — the Constitution with its emphasis on inherent birthrights and its underscore of the authority of the individual over the power of the collective, the state, the government.
The challenge is to retain these God-given rights and liberties, no matter which political party holds the positions of leadership in public office. And the key to meeting that challenge is — as framers also told us — to have a nation filled with citizens who are godly and moral and virtuous, and therefore capable of self-governance. Once the people have disregarded God and put Him to the side and made biblical teachings and truths all about Sunday sermons, rather than Monday-through-Sunday principles of living, well then, that’s when the country would fall into moral degradation. The ensuing chaos would then bring clampdowns on liberty by those in power who wanted to restore order. And what clampdowns on an immoral citizenry are ever really removed?
An immoral people require Big Government bureaucrats and officers of the law and courts to keep them at peace.
An immoral people are given only those rights and freedoms they’re deemed worthy of possessing by government.
America’s big war is to preserve the God-given and beat back the government-granted.
And bringing the Bible to public schools is a crucial step in teaching the coming generations about the greatness of the God-given and the perils of the government-granted.
That’s what they’re doing in Oklahoma. Walters has spearheaded a mandate for public schools in the state to teach students how the Bible has played a role in the formation of America’s government, how it’s been a historical go-to for developing much of the nation’s policies and court standards and laws, and how it continues to impact the entire culture.
That’s not preaching.
That’s history and teaching.
“You have to have [the Bible] in the classrooms,” Walters said, The Hill reported. “We will ensure that history is taught in every class. That means kids will know American exceptionalism. That means kids will know the role that faith played. We will be unapologetic about that here in Oklahoma. We want to make sure that every student knows the role that the Bible played in American history.”
The Bible was traditionally part and part of America’s schools until a 1960’s-era Supreme Court ruling deemed it unconstitutional to mandate its reading. But secularism and atheism is not America’s DNA. the Bible was actually the first book used in America’s schools, followed by The New England Primer, which included lessons from the Bible.
“Education is useless without the Bible,” Noah Webster, dubbed the “Father of American Scholarship and Education,” famously wrote.
“The Bible was America’s basic textbook in all fields,” he wrote.
“God’s Word, contained in the Bible, has furnished all necessary rules to direct our conduct,” he also wrote.
If America is to stay free, then Americans must insist on their politicians acknowledging that it’s God, not government, who bestows the freedoms. If God-given rights are to be preserved, then citizens must demand politicians stay in their roles of humble service, and stop pretending as if they’re the ones with the power to grant rights — or take away rights.
This is the ultimate war Americans must win: Here in America, it’s God-given, not government-granted. And teaching students in public school about the direct link between Judeo-Christian principles and liberty requires their knowledge of the Bible.
This is not religious indoctrination.
This is American Exceptionalism and it’s a concept that belongs in every classroom across the nation.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter and podcast by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “Lockdown: The Socialist Plan To Take Away Your Freedom,” is available by clicking HERE or clicking HERE or CLICKING HERE.
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