Op-Ed: BRINGING BACK THE BIBLE…TO SCHOOL

By James Wilson • February 12, 2025

The following Op-Ed was submitted by James Wilson. Op-Eds do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of those at the Idaho Dispatch.

The Idaho Family Policy Center is floating an initiative to bring the Bible back
(for reading) to public schools. The IFPC hopes its “School Sponsored Bible Reading
Act,” builds on “the legacy of a…law…adopted by the Idaho Legislature in 1925,”
remaining in effect until 1963, when the US Supreme Court outlawed school sponsored
prayer and Bible reading in public schools.
Over the years the principle of forbidding school sponsored religious activity has
remained intact, but federal law has opted for equal access, whereby if non-faith-based
activities are permitted then Christians need to be given equal access. Under this
principle courts have approved Good News Clubs, Child Evangelism Fellowship, and
Young Life chapters. Some kinds of financial aid to parochial schools, have made the
grade. (Clubs must be voluntary, and school facilities are used.) On the other hand, anti-
Christian lawsuits and lobbying are forever challenging access.
What distinguishes the IFPC proposal is the idea that school based Bible reading
might also be school sponsored Bible reading. Idaho’s leftists – led by The Idaho
Statesman – are howling over the “encroachment” of church into the affairs of the state.
“Talk about indoctrination in public schools,” they begin, with self-righteous
indignation. The piece, written and signed by the paper’s entire editorial board, goes on
to mock the IFPC claim that readings would be without instruction or comment and
would include appropriate conscience protections for students and teachers alike. They
opine, “But no one is being excluded from access to the Bible. Are there no bookstores?
Are there no churches? Are there no libraries? The government isn’t arresting people
who possess the Bible, or go to church…As usual, the Idaho Family Policy Center has
things backwards.” They add – as it were, a parting shot – “The First Amendment…says,
‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.”
Actually, as usual, it is the Idaho Statesman – and other WOKE media bigots –
who have things backwards.
The First Amendment continues, “or restricting the free exercise thereof; or
restricting the freedom of speech, or of the press; or of the right of the people to
peaceably assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” Nothing
in the Constitution – especially in the Bill of Rights – can be reasonably interpreted to
exclude religious exercises anywhere, including in schools. Reality is public schools as
we know them were the brainchild of Dr Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of
Independence. Rush launched the first free-of-charge schools in America, calling them
Sunday Schools, and intending them for encouraging Biblical literacy. He expanded on
his own vision after the Revolutionary War, writing in 1786, “Our schools of learning, by
providing one general and uniform system of (public) education, will render the mass of
the people more homogeneous and thereby fit them more easily for uniform and
peaceable government.”

Rush makes it clear deeper into his document that he specially commends the
Christian religion as the sole authentic guarantor of freedom in a democratic and
constitutional republic. This has not meant – over the last two hundred fifty years – that
only Christians are guaranteed freedom of faith – quite the contrary – but it does declare
the Christian Faith (not one or more of its denominations) to be the model for free
exercise of faith, and certainly the first among equals in its expectation of welcome in
every dimension of the Public Square. In fact, Sunday worship – Christian worship –
services were conducted in the US Capitol Rotunda for more than a century after
adoption of the Constitution. Rush was no anomaly; his viewpoint was near unanimous
amongst the founders, and down the decades of American history, until all hell broke
loose following World War II.
President Franklin Roosevelt – although a leftist – remembered well in whose
image human beings are crafted, and especially during that war. He declared, as we
began to retake what nazis of Germany and fascists of Japan had trampled, “The belief in
man, created…in the image of God – is the crucial difference between ourselves and the
enemy we face today. In it lies the absolute unity of our alliance, opposed to the oneness
of the evil we hate…” President Harry Truman proclaimed a day of prayer, as did
Woodrow Wilson, Abraham Lincoln, and George Washington before him, urging, “Let
us give thanks to Him, and remember that we have now dedicated ourselves to follow in
His ways.”
President Dwight Eisenhower declared – October 24, 1954, “Atheism substitutes
men for the Supreme Creator and this leads inevitably to domination and dictatorship…It
is because we believe that God intends all men to be free and equal that we demand free
government.” He said – February 20, 1955 – “The Founding Fathers…recognizing God
as the author of individual rights, declared that the purpose of government is to secure
those rights…” Truth is, every American president until Obama – and founding father
and mother – has publicly acknowledged American dependence on our God and Father of
King Jesus by calling for prayer, fasting, and acknowledgement of that dependency.
It’s been more than sixty years since SCOTUS banned officially authorized
expressions of faith in public schools; times have changed as surely as when “separate
but equal” was thrown down by the same branch of government that enshrined such
blasphemy. Our nation is experiencing the advent of a great awakening – a resurrection
of our roots in the God of the Bible – and a political and cultural renaissance grounded in
those roots. Let those who will mock what they cannot comprehend. Let us remember
freedom of faith is for all faiths – and remembering that, let us educate our children in the
Book of the Lord that makes that freedom possible. It is time to restore the Bible to its
central role in our culture and our schools.

James A. Wilson is the author of Living As Ambassadors of Relationships, The Holy
Spirit and the End Times, Kingdom in Pursuit, and his first novel, Generation –
available at Barnes and Nobles, Amazon, or at pr************@gm***.com