Link: https://www.salon.com/2026/07/01/texas-republicans-may-regret-mandating-bible-in-classes/

It’s also likely to backfire on the religious right. They better hope that the kids skip the assigned reading, much less actual discussion and debate about it in class. As many an ex-evangelical can tell you, direct exposure to what the Bible actually says is often the first step to walking away from Christian fundamentalism altogether.

There’s a reason conservative Christians prefer quoting solitary Bible verses out of context: Not only does this allow them to twist the meaning for their own personal or political ends, but it also makes it much easier to avoid the critical thinking that engaging with longer passages can provoke. On my YouTube show “Standing Room Only,” the scholar and former evangelical Brad Onishi pointed to 2 Chronicles 7:20, a passage Christian nationalists often deploy to argue that America is meant to be a Christian nation by relying on the verse’s violent implications of God promising to “pluck” the unbelievers “up by the roots out of my land.” The larger context reveals that this story is about the ancient king Solomon, and it has nothing to do with the modern nation-state, much less one on a continent unknown to the writers of the Bible.

I've heard nothing encourages atheism better than Catholic School.

People learn nothing makes sense and everything is a sin. So why bother anymore?

That would require self-awareness and reflection. Never gonna happen. Not in Texas.

Unfortunately, I can confirm this.

I can personally attest to this. Once I critically engaged with the Bible, I almost instantly became an atheist.

But it wasn’t until I read Milton’s paradise lost that I saw the Bible more as a piece of literary work, and really related to the character of Lucifer and engaged with the philosophy of rebellion

Obviously they need to use the new "Bible According to St. Trump", not that woke old thing.

When you force students to read something, there is no book so good the students won't hate it. The Bible is miserable to read even when you're not forced.

Actually, Tess of the D'Urbervilles wasn't so bad, I guess.

Donald Trump photo op at St. John's Church

Read the Bible in full the summer before sixth grade because, well, it's the actual word of God, and eternity is infinitely more important than some 70-odd years. Besides, I'd already read Genesis and Exodus, and those were pretty interesting on their own.

I did not spend sixth grade as a Christian.

Edit: I will say, though, that Genesis has some crazy red flags I sort of just glossed over at the time, like the Levite's concubine.

catholic school turned me into a idealistic hippie xD

They plan on teaching them out of context and only including those about obeying. This will be like going to a mega church.

Turned me into a Orthodox Agnostic

I also quite enjoyed Mary Renault's "The King Must Die" in high school.

I took an AP level world theology class my senior year of high school, and it was taught by the senior priest at my school. She, thankfully, taught it from a quite just dispassionate point of view, placing Christianity on an even level with every other religion we discussed, showing it both no favoritism, and positioning it, alongside the others, with no particular validity.

She could clearly see that I was quite quickly progressing towards a position of atheism, and I was very much getting the feeling that it was a position she, even as a priest, held as well. There was a silent understanding between us. And I felt a bit of camaraderie with her.

I learned an awful lot from that class. About different cultures and different societies and how different belief systems were formed. About how and why different people came to believe the things they do and why. It taught me a lot about different people and different perspectives. It might’ve been the best humanities course I ever took. and, because I was the only one who took the course, it was pretty much one on one.

YMMV. There's layers to this cake. One of the most notable is in how it's deliberately excluding other religious beliefs. If you are a practicing Muslim, for instance, you get singled out and tormented by state officials if you demonstrate any kind of piety that isn't state-approved. Similarly, outspoken atheists (or squishy liberal Methodists or Unitarians) become lightening rods for school admins looking to prove they're zealous enough in their Christianization to drop the hammer on non-believers.

All lot of the second order effects of this won't be just annoying students with Christianity until they dislike it as much as they dislike Math. It's going to be opening up naked harassment and bullying of non-Christians, while turning the school bureaucracy against anyone who is outwardly non-conforming.

I vividly remember this happening in my own Middle/High School life, way back in the 90s, when Evolution and Gay were the whipping kids of the religious right. The end result was lots of good people being purged from the system for petty and arbitrary reasons, while a lot of utter assholes got cushy positions in the school board and upper wings of the administrative offices to rubber stamp the abuse.

Twud be hilarious if that's what they needed this whole time in order to be more Christ like. 12 years of homework to read their one book.

I don't think conservatives have the, like, object permanence, to regret their decisions

I, an atheist, was forced to study the bible in a Catholic school I attended. First, it turned me into an atheist. Second, it made me realize that Jesus was a hard core anti establishment communist.pacifist.

The more you learn about religion in general, the clearer it becomes that it is entirely a mechanism to control the people. It is such a good mechanism for it, in fact, that literally EVERY culture throughout history has employed it for that very use.

Holding it upside down, such a perfect metaphor. He probably didn’t know how to hold it because he doesn’t know what the fuck a book actually is.

As soon as they get to Numbers or Judges students will see some big problems with American Christianity.

Christiofascists HATE when you quote the actual Bible to them

@switcheroo @VetOfTheSeas I have quoted the Bible to some people online who leapt to the conclusion that I was Christian. When I told them that I was not, they generally freaked out. One of them threatened to kill me.

When I was 12 it was customary in my family's religion to become baptized. It isn't done for babies but for older children and adults to decide for themselves. I decided I should read the whole Bible before I committed. I ended up leaving the religion. My parents were starting to question it as well and also left around that time. Many of the people I know who have left that or other Christian religions have done so after they finally read the Bible themselves and not the select verses in church services. Not everyone who reads it leaves, some find what they need to stay, but from personal experience it is many more leaving than staying.

Texas is such a fly over state...

He looks like a baby who shit his pants

I suspect the new law was not actually considered at length but was, as Dan McClellan might suggest, used by legislators as costly signaling to show their campaign contributors that they are true white Christian nationalists and therefore worth the money being thrown their way.

But yes, kids will get impatient at bible passages just as much as they were impatient with Animal Farm or The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas or To Kill A Mockingbird

(I speak from experience. I was introduced to classics in elementary grammar school and entirely unable to appreciate why they were so profound until much later in life when I could think about them critically.)

And yeah, those kids smart enough to think about bible passages critically will be on the fast-track to personal faith deconstruction.

There's a lot of guns there, make sure you fly at a higher altitude so they don't try to make you join them.

I feel like you have a different definition of "fly over state" than is commonly used.

As I understand it, FOS are states in which no one lives, no cultural value, and there is nothing much to see; like tornado alley or Nevada. Texas has 4 of the top 10 most populous cities in the US, and Austin, which has a million residents, is probably gunna break into that list soon. Because of this large population, there is a fuckload of cultural diversity.
Texas has coastal vies as well as a couple super underrated national parks. There is a solid 12 hrs of driving between that with nothingness, which may be what you're referring to, but its just a big state.

That being said, if you're making this statement due to that massive void in the middle of the state, then add Cali to the list of FOS, but good luck getting that idea into the public square unscathed.

He always looks like that

I dug The Crucible.