Hobby Lobby-supported religious curriculum introduced into Oklahoma schools

April 28, 2014 • 9:39 am

About a week ago, news surfaced that a suburban district of Oklahoma voted to adopt a public-school curriculum prepared by the Museum of the Bible as a study guide to art, literature, and archaeology.  That, of course, raised fears about religious incursion and proselytizing in public schools, but the Bible folks assured everyone that this would not take place. From the San Jose Mercury-News:

The Mustang School Board in suburban Oklahoma City voted this month to place the Museum of the Bible’s curriculum in its schools as an elective for a one-year trial after being assured that the intent is not to proselytize but to use the Bible to explain key principles in the arts and sciences.

That’s not proselytizing? Then why use the Bible?

What was the school board thinking? Did they really think that Christians wouldn’t use this opportunity to spread the Good News? (More likely, they wanted this to happen.) The curriculum is both supported and promoted by Steve Green, president of the Christian Hobby Lobby chain of stores—the chain that didn’t want its employees covered by Obamacare because they had religious objections to the plan’s birth-control provisions. (Meanwhile, it’s been discovered that Hobby Lobby’s own 401k plan invests in companies that produce birth control devices and contraceptive pills. Beam in their eye?)

And, of course, the Mustang school board certainly must have reviewed the material.  You don’t adopt something without looking at it. The Associated Press did, too, and descried some disturbing things that were just reported(my emphasis):

While the course does explain the inspiration behind famous works of art and holds a prism to historical events, it also endorses behavior for religious reasons and implies that bad things happen as a direct result of disregarding God’s rules.

. . .”This is not about a denomination, or a religion, it’s about a book,” Green told Mustang school board members last November. “We will not try to go down denominational, religious-type roads.”

Among the topics covered by the curriculum are the role of religion in early America, discussing the New World as a haven for those seeking to escape religious persecution. It also talks about the role of religion in art, citing the role of patrons such as the Catholic church and wealthy families during the Renaissance.

The book also uses popular culture, mentioning songs written by U2 that it says are based in the Psalms, to illustrate the Bible’s modern relevance. It does not name specific compositions.

From the outset, the book describes God as eternal, “faithful and good,” “full of love” and “an ever-present help in times of trouble.”

“The first pages of the Bible spotlight God’s desire for justice and a just world,” the second chapter says, but adds, “When humanity ignores or disobeys his rules, it has to suffer the consequences.”

The course also says people should rest on the Sabbath because God did so after six days of creation. Green’s stores, following the same principle, are closed on Sunday.

The school board, in a masterpiece of dissimulation, defends the curriculum:

The superintendent of Mustang schools, Sean McDaniel, said if the board believed the curriculum crossed a line it wouldn’t have approved the course.

“We’re not asking kids to believe the stories,” McDaniel said. “This is a purely academic endeavor. If it turns into something beyond that, either we will correct it or we will get rid of it.”

Well, it’s too late: it’s already “turned into something beyond that.” But, thank Ceiling Cat, the Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF) is on the case:

Andrew Seidel, a lawyer with the Freedom From Religion Foundation, wrote to the Mustang district this week complaining that “negative aspects” of God, such as jealousy or punishing children for the actions of their parents, are not mentioned in the course.

The book phrases contradictory questions and answers — such as references to the Israelites being slaves — in ways designed to favor Christianity, Seidel said. He said it also poses Christian thought as rhetorical questions, such as asking, “How do we know that the Bible’s historical narratives are reliable?” rather than, “Is the Bible historically accurate?”

Welcome to America, where Christians just can’t keep their grubby hands, and their faith, out of the public schools. Isn’t indoctrinating kids in church, or in their homes, enough for them? Apparently not, for, like many who think they’re in possession of the Absolute Truth as well its moral dicta, they have a duty to missionize.

I have a feeling this curriculum won’t last long.

h/t: Mark

______

By the way, if you aren’t a member of the FFRF, I’d urge you to consider joining. They’re this website’s Official Secular Organization™ because they actually get stuff done instead of making a lot of noise but accomplishing little, as many such organizations seem to do. And they don’t get embroiled in internet drama. You can join here; it’s only $40 a year and the monthly newspaper is worth that by itself.

34 thoughts on “Hobby Lobby-supported religious curriculum introduced into Oklahoma schools”

    2. See, that’s why you need to take their course. I’m sure it will explain to you why, whenever there is a conflict in Judeo-Christian culture, the Judeos are always wrong.

  3. “use the Bible to explain key principles in the arts and sciences.”

    Hey, great idea! And why don’t they use The Lord of the Rings to explain ancient geopolitics? Maybe Flowers for Algernon can be used as a neuroscience text.

    1. I’ve been waiting 70 years for a biblical explanation of some science, any science. So far all I can say is I’m glad I didn’t hold my breath!

  5. High school is much too early to have a single-text course. Would anybody devote an entire semester in high school to just the Odyssey? Hell, for that matter, how many high school students are ready for a semester just on the complete works of Shakespeare?

    There’s certainly a place for the Bible in a literature curriculum, and it probably even warrants a week or so in the high school curriculum, somewhere amidst Beowulf and Chaucer and Shakespeare.

    But an entire semester?

    I’m also rather puzzled about the “archeology” bit. Aren’t they aware that archaeology has utterly demolished any and all significant historicity of the Bible? What’s left to discuss about Biblical archaeology, other than that archaeology completely disproves the historical fact claims central to the religious narrative?

    b&

    1. I was in high school in the 1970’s, and one of the courses the English department offered was a single-text course analyzing Eliot’s The Waste Land. (It wasn’t a full semester course because our year was organized in trimesters.) Unfortunately it was an elective and not enough students elected it, so it wasn’t taught when I could have taken it.

      1. AFAIK the same scenario plays out with these bible courses 90% of the time. Specifically:
        1. Some parent/student agitates for it, and scrounges up barely enough student interest to justify the school making it an elective.
        2. Its taught…once.
        3. The agitator graduates, and there is not enough real student interest within the rest of the studend body to justify it being taught again. So it dies.

    2. Ben, you beat me to it. Apparently the hobbie guys (and numerous other fundamentalists) haven’t got the news that the field of “biblical archaeology” died about 50 years after it started once they found out > 99% of the stories in the bible had no basis in fact. And, having read the whole thing, I can assure them it’s pretty low-level literature compared to Shakespere, or Tolstoy, or Dante. As you said, a week’s probably plenty.

  6. … the intent is not to proselytize but to use the Bible to explain key principles in the arts and sciences.

    Iirc we had a section on the Bible in one of my high school English classes. It did just what such a class ought to do: introduce some of the primary Biblical themes, references, stories, and quotations and show how they had inspired or influenced specific literary works. This was a working understanding of the Bible and as a nonchristian I never felt that the class was treating this work any differently than the Iliad before it. The school had a wide diversity of students and for some it was pretty much all new info.

    But we all know that’s not what we ought to expect, is it?

    “We will not try to go down denominational, religious-type roads.”

    This is a very common approach to religion: make sure you don’t promote a variation but let the main issue slide in as a given.

    The existence of God is a common fact, but there are personal ways of interpreting it. Or Christianity is assumed and we make a big song and dance about how we’re not being sectarian. Religion is Man’s Way of understanding God and thus we avoid ‘religion’ if we only show what God has said and done. There are no divisive or contentious issues in this course. We allow both kinds of music here: country AND western.

    Every Christmas and Easter Hobby Lobby has a full-paged ad in the local paper with nary a word on arts and crafts but lots and lots about JESUS who is LORD. The odds of this group coming up with a non-proselytizing Bible course for public schools is imo slim to none.

    1. The quoted section explicitly mentions “science.” Can we have some examples of science explained vis-a-vis the bible?

      1. Given that the emphasis in my Bible-as-Literature class was familiarity with common stories and terms, any scientific concept or invention which referenced something in one of the stories — like naming a spaceship “Genesis” or “Goliath” or something — would technically have qualified as an explanation of sorts. But no, I can’t think of a “key principle” it would help with.

  8. What pisses me off is that the study of art should BROADEN your perspective. This faith-based curriculum is doing just the opposite.

  9. A number of Catholic/Protestant High Schools have had 4-year religion class requirements for a long time, but I can assure you they do not always teach religion. Very often, these classes integrate philosophy, psychology or straight up study halls.

    If a whole (semester) course is dedicated to one book, which is not particularly useful for learning vocabulary or mathematics, these students will be at a disadvantage to those who are learning real life skills. At every level this is a missed opportunity, whether one is headed to Stanford or Harvard or just learning home-ec or auto-mechanics, or farming (FFA classes), etc. The bible gets none of these across.

  11. This concept of “the Bible as literature” is simply (pick your word) a ruse, hoax, scam, transparent ploy to inject religion (back) into the public school system. On that I think we can all agree.

    It was tried in Odessa, Texas and ran afoul of a couple of things. First, there was a great ballyhoo about how this course was needed, etc, blah, yak. Then, when the dust settled, it was difficult to find a “qualified” teacher, not enough kids signed up and, finally, the syllabus went down the tubes after the Real Content was exposed by the press. So, lots of smoke, no fire.

    Kids in high school are mostly busy taking classes that will get them into college and don’t want to waste their time on a non-credit, elective, vacation Bible school.

    What is different about the Mustang District syllabus is that it’s being written by a uncredentialed amateur and that the religion that’s going to be pushed is Steve Green’s personal interpretation of evangelical Christianity. Ain’t that special!

    1. AFAIK there have been other bible-as-literature courses that have gotten over the content hump (i.e., they had a decent, secular curriculum). What kills these things most of the time is one of the other problems you mentioned: not enough kids want it, semester after semester, to justify a full time position or a regular course offering.

      1. This is, incidentally, IMO a very strong but overlooked tactical response to the creation movement. Which is to say: hey, you want it? You claim there’s nothing religious about it? Then design an elective for it and offer it rather than trying to sheohorn it in to biology. That puts the ball in the creationists’ court, to design a curriculum that will pass muster (they can’t) and then to show that students would actually want to take it in significant numbers (they don’t).

  12. Read all about it: “Hobby Lobby’s Steve Green launches a new project: a public school Bible curriculum.” Just Google — Hobby Lobby’s Steve Green.

    And, should you be buying your art supplies from Hobby Lobby just ask the poor soul at the register why Hobby Lobby does not use barcodes. I don’t know because no one would ever explain it to me.

    http://www.religionnews.com/2014/04/15/hobby-lobbys-steve-green-another-project-public-school-bible-curriculum/

    The comment section is a free-for-all.

  13. Thanks for the link to becomes a member of FFRF. I signed up myself and my wife. I’m also a new “addict” to Why Evolution is True; I just signed up last week. Truly the most informative, entertaining, profound, important (and cheapest) educational “classes” I’ve ever experienced. Go Truth!

  14. Well, there’s one reason to study the bible.

    Jeopardy.

    Seems to me that at least one Jeopardy category every couple of days is based on the bible.

    Never on the Koran or the Gita, oddly enough.

    1. I think that article makes it clear that Green’s objective is to push a fake history into schools – you know the sort where the USA was founded as a christian nation and where people read the bible and still believed despite the god being clearly portrayed as the worst asshole ever.

  16. Oh boy. The bible has absolutely nothing to say about science. Anything the bible says about nature is even more bizarre and unlikely than Aristotelian naturalism, and it’s really hard to get things more ass-backwards than Aristotle because you have to ignore reality to get to your starting point. Why, the imbecile god doesn’t even know that a whale isn’t a fish. Why do people waste time with The Book of Untruth?

Comments are closed.