Texas Education Board Backs Curriculum With Lessons Drawn From Bible

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Source: New York Times

Texas Education Board Backs Curriculum With Lessons Drawn From Bible
School districts serving more than two million elementary-school children would be able to adopt a curriculum that draws on the Bible.


A new curriculum for kindergarten to fifth grade would be optional, but school districts would receive a financial incentive to adopt it. Sara Diggins/American-Statesman, via USA Today Network

By Troy Closson
Nov. 19, 2024
Updated 2:11 p.m. ET

Texas education officials backed on Tuesday a new elementary school curriculum that infuses material drawn from the Bible into reading and language arts lessons, a contentious move that would test the limits of religion's presence in public education. ... The curriculum, which will be optional, has already drawn protests in Texas, which has emerged as a leader in the ascendant but highly contested push to expand the role of religion in public schools. The new curriculum could become a model for other states.

The vote was preliminary. The board typically takes an initial vote on issues in smaller committees. But all of its 15 members were present on Tuesday and the final vote is expected to take place later in the week, with the same outcome. ... With the administration of President-elect Donald J. Trump promising to champion the conservative Christian movement in his second presidential term, the lessons may also offer a playbook for the White House.

Advocates of religious freedom say the new curriculum is the latest major effort by conservatives to explicitly tie the nation's history and politics to Christian values. Texas was the first state to allow public schools to hire religious chaplains as school counselors, and the Republican-controlled legislature is expected to try once again to require public-school classrooms to display the Ten Commandments.

{snip}

The Texas State Board of Education, which is led by Republicans, sets standards for what students must be taught and approves a selection of curriculums, and individual schools and districts choose which ones they will teach. ... On Tuesday, an effort to reject the curriculum failed in a narrow 7-to-8 vote, with three Republicans joining the board’s four Democrats to oppose it. The other members approved the lessons, as part of a review of a raft of curriculum options for several subjects.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/19/us/texas-bible-curriculum-public-schools.html

---

Hat tip, Joe.My.God.

Texas Board Approves Bible Lessons In Public Schools
November 19, 2024

https://www.joemygod.com/2024/11/texas-board-approves-bible-lessons-in-public-schools/

[Phoenix61]

1. Sadly, they won't be the Christian values Jesus preached

You know feed the poor, love thy neighbor, etc.

[oasis]

4. Hypocrite curriculum.

[canuckledragger]

2. And the religious cult indoctrination continues.

How do I know that before anything is even 'taught', it will consist mostly of demonizing LGBTQ folks? (And scapegoating them for the republicans' pedophile problem?)

[Lonestarblue]

3. Of course they did. Republicans want all public schools turned into religious indoctrination schools.

Paid for by taxpayers of course.

[cpamomfromtexas]

5. We need to force them to include tent

Stake lady!!

[Playingmantis]

6. Lessons on morality from the Bible

Will Texas give the complete story of what the Bible advocates or just the pleasant ,sanitized version? Here are a few examples of Biblical morals


In the book of Exodus chapter 12 verse 28,

So the people of Israel did just as the LORD had commanded through Moses and Aaron. And at midnight the LORD killed all the firstborn sons in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn son of Pharaoh, who sat on the throne, to the firstborn son of the captive in the dungeon. Even the firstborn of their livestock were killed. Pharaoh and his officials and all the people of Egypt woke up during the night, and loud wailing was heard throughout the land of Egypt. There was not a single house where someone had not died.

Here the death of the children is directly at the hand of God.

In Isaiah chapter 13, God paints this word picture:

Anyone who is captured will be run through with a sword. Their little children will be dashed to death right before their eyes. Their homes will be sacked and their wives raped by the attacking hordes. For I will stir up the Medes against Babylon, and no amount of silver or gold will buy them off. The attacking armies will shoot down the young people with arrows. They will have no mercy on helpless babies and will show no compassion for the children.


In Jeremiah chapter 49, verse 20, God paints a similar picture:

Therefore hear the plan which the LORD has made against Edom and the purposes which he has formed against the inhabitants of Teman: Even the little ones of the flock shall be dragged away; surely their fold shall be appalled at their fate. At the sound of their fall the earth shall tremble; the sound of their cry shall be heard at the Red Sea.

In Hosea chapter 13, God paints a similar picture:

Samaria shall bear her guilt, because she has rebelled against her God; they shall fall by the sword, their little ones shall be dashed in pieces, and their pregnant women ripped open.

In Numbers chapter 31, God paints a similar picture:

Moses said to them, "Have you let all the women live? Behold, these caused the people of Israel, by the counsel of Balaam, to act treacherously against the LORD in the matter of Pe'or, and so the plague came among the congregation of the LORD. Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man by lying with him. But all the young girls who have not known man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.

Here Moses, acting as an agent of God, specifies that thousands of male babies and children be killed, as well as thousands of women. The Bible states in verse 35 that the captured women numbered "thirty-two thousand persons in all, women who had not known man by lying with him." This was not a small attack. Tens of thousands men, women and children were massacred.

In Deuteronomy Chapter 3 we find this:

Next we turned and went up along the road toward Bashan, and Og king of Bashan with his whole army marched out to meet us in battle at Edrei. The LORD said to me, "Do not be afraid of him, for I have handed him over to you with his whole army and his land. Do to him what you did to Sihon king of the Amorites, who reigned in Heshbon." So the LORD our God also gave into our hands Og king of Bashan and all his army. We struck them down, leaving no survivors. At that time we took all his cities. There was not one of the sixty cities that we did not take from them�the whole region of Argob, Og's kingdom in Bashan. All these cities were fortified with high walls and with gates and bars, and there were also a great many unwalled villages. We completely destroyed them, as we had done with Sihon king of Heshbon, destroying every city�men, women and children. But all the livestock and the plunder from their cities we carried off for ourselves.

They massacred all the men, women and children in 60 cities at God's request.

https://whywontgodhealamputees.com/god16.htm