What are Texas students learning about Judaism in their public school Bible courses? Often these courses present Judaism as flawed and incomplete — incomplete without Jesus. Even worse, perhaps, are those courses that portray — intentionally or not — Jews as responsible for the death of Jesus. Such portrayals were long used to justify the […]
Religious Freedom
The Texas Freedom Network supports the constitutional guarantee of the separation of church and state, which protects the right of all Americans to practice the faith of their choice, or none at all, free of government interference.
Unfortunately, efforts to knock down that wall are a constant in Texas. Politicians and extremists continually work to impose their views on others, especially around issues like abortion, access to contraception, and LGBTQIA+ equality. And in a distortion of the principle of religious freedom, far-right groups have supported legislative efforts to allow people to use religion as an excuse to ignore laws they might not like and even as a weapon to discriminate against others.
Resources
- Prayer in Public Schools: A Primer (2001 report)
- The Texas Faith-Based Initiative (2002 report)NDOP_Report_2005_Revised
- A Report on The National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools (2005 report)
- Reading, Writing & Religion: Teaching the Bible in Texas Public Schools (2006 report)
- Reading, Writing & Religion II (2013 report)
- Can This Class Be Saved? The ‘Hobby Lobby’ Public School Bible Curriculum (2014 report)
‘Commit Your Way to the Lord’
Here’s another example of what students are learning in Texas public school Bible courses. Looks more like Sunday School, yes? Nope. This PowerPoint slide is from the Ector County Independent School Districts in Odessa. From the above PowerPoint slide: Sad to say mainstream anti-God media do not portray these true facts in the light of […]
‘Racial Origins Traced from Noah’
What are Texas students learning in their public school courses about the Bible? Here’s an excerpt from instructional materials used in Bible courses taught in two school districts: The long-discredited claim that racial diversity today can be traced back to Noah’s sons — and particularly the supposed link between his cursed son Ham and “African […]
New TFNEF Report: Texas Public School Bible Classes Teach Races Come from Noah’s Sons, Biblical Literalism, 6000-year-old Earth
In 2007 the Texas Legislature passed a law encouraging the state’s public schools to teach about the influence of the Bible in history and literature. Schools can do that either by weaving such instruction into existing social studies and literature courses, or they can create full courses about the Bible. Today the Texas Freedom Network […]
2012 in Quotes: Church, State and Science
Whether on prayer in public schools or creationism in science classrooms, we heard plenty from politicians and activists who see no problem mixing religion and state. Our review of what the far right had to say in 2012 continues. You can read more quotes from 2012 and previous years here. “In 1962 we kicked prayer […]