An Oklahoma school district has dropped plans for a pilot project by Hobby Lobby President Steve Green aimed at adding Bible study to the curriculum of public high schools nationwide.
Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AU) said Nov. 25 that superintendent Sean McDaniel of Mustang Public Schools near Hobby Lobby’s corporate headquarters in Oklahoma City responded in an email that implementation of a Bible course “is no longer a discussion item nor is there a plan to provide such a course in the foreseeable future.”
McDaniel reportedly added the final decision came after the district requested that Hobby Lobby agree to pay its legal expenses in the event of a lawsuit and Green refused.
AU Executive Director Barry Lynn said, “Education officials in Mustang (schools) did the wise thing.”
“Objective study about religion in public schools is permissible, but this curriculum was essentially an extended Sunday School lesson,” said Lynn, an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ.
The Mustang school board voted in April to beta-test the first year of the Museum of the Bible Curriculum, an ambitious four-year public school elective on the narrative, history and impact of the Bible.
In July the nonprofit started by Green announced it was postponing the August introduction of the curriculum after church-state groups reviewed some of the book and complained that it was biased toward a particular religious perspective — biblical inerrancy — and would likely be declared unconstitutional.
Ayesha Khan, AU legal director, said, “There is a right way and wrong way to teach about the Bible … in public schools. The Hobby Lobby curriculum is an example of the wrong way.”
Green said the curriculum would teach that the Bible is literally true. “The book that we have is a reliable historical document, and we are going to point that out time and time again.”
(BNG)
Share with others: