Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) said that letting Oklahoma public school educators teach the Bible is a “slippery slope” if the teachers “may not be believers” themselves.
Mullin, who sits on the Senate committee that oversees education, said that he wants his kids to know the Bible, “but I want it to be taught by someone that was taught the Bible themselves, too. I think it's a slippery slope when you put it in the hands of teachers that may not be believers, that's going to be teaching the word that can easily be taken out of context.”
“So if the state is going to require that, then the state should also be it be required that this taught by someone that graduated from seminary school,” Mullin said during his Wednesday appearance on NewsNation’s show “The Hill.”
“If you just leave it in the hands of a public school teacher that may be not able to actually teach it because they weren't taught it themselves, then it can cause a tremendous amount of confusion,” he added.
The GOP senator’s remarks come a week after Oklahoma State’s Superintendent Ryan Walters did not shoot down the idea of a national mandate to require Bibles in schools.
“Look, I believe that if you’re teaching American history, the Bible absolutely has to be included. And we cannot allow left-wing activists to sit here and say we don’t like Christianity,” Walters said.
“You have to have it in the classrooms. We will ensure that history is taught in every class. That means kids will know American exceptionalism,” he said last week. “That means kids will know the role that faith played. We will be unapologetic about that here in Oklahoma. We want to make sure that every student knows the role that the Bible played in American history.”
Walters has garnered headlines because of the mandate in his home state of Oklahoma, which requires the Bible in all public school classrooms and that educators utilize lessons on the Bible's impact on American culture and history. In October, the state's top educator was sued over the policy by parents and other educators, arguing the mandate is unconstitutional.
When asked by NewsNation host Blake Burman on Wednesday if the state should “back off” of the mandate, the Mullin said that “unless they're going to require a person that was trained in the Bible and graduated from seminary school or a different type of Bible school, then, yes, I do believe that's probably the wrong move.”
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