Why should I be surprised? After all, Kentucky is the home of the Creation Museum. As reported in Washington Post, the state is at the forefront of pushing Bible Studies in public schools.
The model for many of these states is Kentucky, where state standards for elective Bible education became the law in 2017. The American Civil Liberties Union swiftly responded, issuing a letter that said it would closely monitor all school districts in the state. The organization flagged four school districts in Kentucky, warning that the materials used to teach the Bible in those schools suggested they were violating the Constitution and might lead to a future ACLU lawsuit.
The Bible Studies are being pushed nationally by the Congressional Prayer Caucus through a Republican Blitzkrieg called “Project Blitz.”
To protect the free exercise of traditional Judeo-Christian religious values and beliefs in the public square, and to reclaim and properly define the narrative which supports such beliefs.
But forget about the “Judeo” part of the equation. Project Blitz promotes a Christo-Fascist worldview. The curriculum does not include a survey of other faith traditions No doubt the students are told that President Trump was sent by God. Trump, who never read the Bible except for “Two Corinthians”, has been a major cheerleader for Bible Instruction in public schools.
Proponents of Bible instruction — such as Chuck Stetson, who publishes a textbook that he says is already in use in more than 600 public schools across the nation — are thrilled. “We’re not too far away from a tipping point. Instead of having to find a reason to teach the Bible in public schools academically, as part of a good education, you’re going to have to find a reason not to do it,” Stetson said. “When the president of the United States gives us a shout-out, that’s pretty crazy. . . . It’s got the momentum now.”
The program allows students to unlearn whatever they might have been taught in their Science classes:
Maggie Dowdy said she picked this course because she thought it would be easy. After all, she already knew the Bible from church.
When the class started with the very first Bible story — the story of creation — she was glad she had chosen it. Here at last was the story of human origins that she believed in — not the facts of evolution that she had been taught in her high school science class.
“When I started learning about [evolution], I thought: ‘That’s not true. Here’s what I believe,’ ” Dowdy said. “I just kind of push it aside now. I know what I believe in. It’s just something the teachers have to teach us, but, no, I believe in creation.”
Other students echoed her. “We’ve always in science learned that perspective, evolution and the big bang,” Morgan Guess said. “This is the class that allows us the other perspective.”
In terms of spreading ignorance and superstition, Project Blitz and the Bible Instruction initiative has been an unqualified success:
While Steenbergen was urging students to draw lessons from the Bible here in southern Kentucky, students in Paducah — halfway across the state — were reading from the Gospels as well, in a classroom where they drew pictures of the cross and of Adam and Eve walking with dinosaurs, hanging them on the walls.