Catholic bishop responds to critics of Texas’ inclusion of the Bible in public school curriculum
A Catholic bishop who served on the White House Religious Liberty Commission is pushing back on concerns about the inclusion of the Bible in public school curriculum in Texas, insisting that “we cannot understand Western morality apart from the Scriptures.”
Bishop Robert Barron, who leads the Roman Catholic Diocese of Winona-Rochester in Minnesota, published an X post Tuesday responding to critics of Texas’ new public school curriculum.
The Texas Board of Education approved the new curriculum last week that will require public school students to read at least one Bible passage per year beginning in fourth grade. Younger students will be exposed to a picture book based on the Bible passage about David and Goliath, while older students will read a variety of passages, including the Beatitudes and the Book of Job.
In an X post published Saturday, Michael Shermer, the publisher of Skeptic magazine, pondered whether Texas students would “learn about the morality of the biblical warlords who had no qualms about taking multiple wives, adultery, keeping concubines, and fathering countless children from their many polygamous arrangements.”
Steven Pinker, a cognitive scientist at Harvard University, shared Shermer’s X post on Sunday.
“Anyone who insists that the Bible is the source of morality either has not read it or is not intellectually serious about the question," Pinker wrote.
Barron disputed the analysis of both Shermer and Pinker in his response.
“Both Steven Pinker and Michael Shermer reveal that they have no idea how to read the Bible,” Barron wrote. “First, they fail to make the elementary distinction that Biblical theologian William Placher insisted upon, namely, that not everything that is in the Bible is what the Bible teaches [...] It is a commonplace of Biblical interpretation that there are elements in Scripture that reflect cultural practices of the time but are not the stuff of revelation.”
Barron also alleged that Pinker and Shermer “neglect the fundamental moral framework that emerges from attending, not to features of particular narratives taken out of context, but rather to the overarching patterns, themes, and trajectories of the Bible as a whole.”
“Who can seriously doubt that the exhortations to worship God, to respect parents and authorities, not to kill, steal, or commit adultery, to love one’s neighbor as oneself, to care for the weakest and most forgotten, to sympathize with the victim, to turn the other cheek, to respect the dignity and freedom of the individual, etc., have been bequeathed to us from the Bible?” he asked. “It is simply the case that we cannot understand Western morality apart from the Scriptures.”
While Texas' new curriculum will not take effect for another four years, secular advocacy groups are already decrying the inclusion of the Bible in public school curriculum.
Americans United for Separation of Church and State CEO Rachel Laser warned that the new curriculum would “impose one narrow set of religious beliefs and indoctrinate a new generation of Americans in the lie that America is a Christian country.”
David Closson of the conservative Christian think tank Family Research Council (FRC) believes the Bible deserves a place in public school curriculum because it is “the most influential book in Western history.”
“We routinely teach students the works of Homer and Shakespeare and other foundational texts because they have enduring cultural significance,” Closson stated on X. “[T]he Bible should not be excluded from that list.”
Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: ryan.foley@christianpost.com
