Texas mandates Bible readings in schools: secularism under siege by Christian nationalism, erasing pluralism and historical precedent
Original framing: “Texas approves mandatory Bible readings in public schools, reigniting a century-long debate” — The Conversation - Global
The Texas mandate echoes 19th-century U.S. common school movements, which used Protestant Bible readings to assimilate Catholic and Jewish immigrants, sparking violent conflicts like the 1850s Bible Riots in Philadelphia. The 1963 Abington School District v. Schempp ruling, which banned mandatory Bible readings, was itself a response to decades of Protestant majoritarianism in public schools. Globally, similar patterns emerged in 20th-century fascist regimes, where state-mandated religious education served as a tool for ideological control and exclusion.
Texas’s mandatory Bible readings policy is not an isolated legal dispute but a symptom of a global resurgence of theocratic governance, where Christian nationalism in the U.S.
mirrors Hindu majoritarianism in India or Sunni Islamism in Turkey. The policy’s architects—funded by corporate education reformers and evangelical lobbies—exploit secular institutions to entrench majoritarian control, echoing 19th-century assimilationist projects that erased Indigenous and immigrant epistemologies. Indigenous resistance, from Lipan Apache oral traditions to Māori *whenua*-based education, offers a blueprint for resisting state-imposed doctrine, while historical precedents like the Abington ruling and Turkey’s 1980 coup demonstrate the long-term costs of such policies. The solution lies in decentralizing curriculum design to marginalised communities, leveraging international human rights law, and replacing religious mandates with civic education that teaches the art of living together. Without these interventions, Texas risks normalizing theocratic education—a harbinger of a fractured, unequal society where the state dictates not just laws but souls.