Baptist Minister: Texas Education Board Wrong to Back Bible Curriculum in Elementary Schools 

Interfaith Alliance, a leading advocate for healthy boundaries between religion and government, is alarmed by the Texas State Board of Education’s decision to support a new elementary school curriculum that imposes material drawn from the Bible onto reading and language arts lessons.

In response to the ruling, Interfaith Alliance’s president and CEO Rev. Paul Brandeis Raushenbush shared the following comment:

“This is the latest example of an ongoing effort by Christian nationalists to coerce students in public schools to believe as they do. Parents, and not the government, should be responsible for the religious education of their children. By forcing the Christian Bible and a narrow religious viewpoint into public classrooms, their agenda aims to force people of diverse faiths and beliefs to abide by their theology. The result is to tear down all healthy boundaries between religion and government and flouting our nation’s religious freedom protections guaranteed by the Constitution.

“The majority of people of faith in our country reject this harmful agenda. While the election of Donald Trump may have emboldened these efforts to trample on our Constitutional rights, people of diverse faiths and beliefs across the country are mobilizing to protect religious freedom and diverse, multi-faith democracy. Together we can and will do everything in our power to ensure that no one religious group is allowed to impose their viewpoint on all Americans.”