Why Oklahoma’s plan to put a Bible in every classroom is so important.

Like the award-winning teacher he once was, the Oklahoma state superintendent of public instruction, Ryan Walters, arrived at his presentation with props in tow. Going beyond the text of his written memorandum, which states simply that Oklahoma schools must “incorporate the Bible … as an instructional support,” Walters announced that effective this fall, “every teacher, every classroom in the state, will have a Bible in the classroom and will be teaching from the Bible.” In late July, he doubled down, issuing a set of instructional support guidelines that decree that “a physical copy of the Bible, the United States Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the Ten Commandments as resources in every classroom.” Walters has leaned heavily on historically inaccurate claims that the Bible is, as he stated at the June meeting, “one of the most foundational documents used for the Constitution.” Yet Walters’ repeated insistence on a Bible in “every classroom” shows that his ideological roots lie not with 18th-century framers like Thomas Jefferson—who placed a library, not a church, at the center of his University of Virginia—but rather with evangelical mass media organizations formed during the 19th century. If you could just get the right books in the same room as young readers, the Sunday-School Union reasoned, “good little books” would take up space, money, and attention that might otherwise go toward “bad books.” This 19th-century history raises questions about what, exactly, Walters hopes to achieve by requiring a Bible in “every” Oklahoma classroom. Hopefully it’s not The Founders’ Bible, which Barton peppers with out-of-context quotes from historical figures including Thomas Paine, a Deist who once described the Bible as a “book of lies.” Obvious legal questions aside, the presence of Barton’s Christian nationalist book at the Board of Education meeting sends a damning message about Walters’ ability and willingness to uphold basic educational standards. In the wake of Walters’ mandate, advocacy organizations have stressed that “public schools are not Sunday schools.” But Walters would do well to take a cue from the American Sunday-School Union, which, for all its flaws, valued children’s “desire for knowledge” and believed, without a doubt, that free access to school libraries was of “vital importance” to the next generation’s future.