The tale opens in the New Braunfels High School in Oakwood, Texas as  teacher Jennifer Kendrick works her students along through the Gospel of Matthew. Kendrick's curriculum is loosely based on the more neutral of the two big national scope Bible course curriculae, "The Bible and It's Influence" that has been endorsed by a broad spectrum of religious scholars from across the religious spectrum and is credited my many as relatively nonpartisan. Kendricks considers the curriculum slanted though, telling Van Biema the curriculum "will bring up Catholicism and mention Gandhi, but you can tell it's written as if I am a Protestant Christian teaching Protestant Christians".

Van Biema sums up his quite favorable impression of Jennifer Kendricks' high school Bible class:

"I could find little to object to here and much to admire. Here was a conservative teacher going way beyond The Bible and Its Influence, but not in a predictable direction. She name-checked the Crusades, avoided faith declarations and treated the Bible as a living document to be pored over rather than blindly accepted. She even managed to fit in other faiths" [emphasis mine]

In what manner did Kendricks fit in other faiths ? Van Biema provides a few details:

"Explaining why Jesus' famous sermon took place on a mount, she reminds the students that Matthew was writing for Jews, and a mount is where Moses received the Ten Commandments. "So, supposedly," she says, "Jesus is the new covenant, the new law, for the Jewish people."

It's impossible to quite tell from the context how to read this, and it might be quite innocuous, but I have to wonder if there are any Jewish students in Kendricks class. Regardless, there's a vast gulf between Dave Van Biema's relatively warm and cuddly version of Bible classes in Texas public schools and political realities in Texas that may soon have a bearing on Bible classes in the Lone Star State.

As I've written up in what probably merits to be its own separate story, a bill coming up for a vote in the Texas State House would mandate that Texas high schools offer elective Bible courses and teach from a curriculum demonstrated to be baldy, religiously partisan and which promotes a falsified version of American history. Texas State Rep. Warren Chisum's House Bill 1287 may not make its way into law, but Texas has pioneered "Abstinence-Only" sex ed ( or mis-ed as it were )and "Faith Based" prisons and gave America George W. Bush, so there's no good reason for faith in this latest experiment.

Texas may be the epicenter of aggressive Christian nationalism in the United States (some would credit Oklahoma) and the Lone Star state also functions, in pioneering, developing and testing avante-guard approaches for advancing theocratic programs and legislation, much the same way as    California does in pioneering new fashions which then spread out across America.

Last Friday, in a conversation with a representative for the Texas Freedom Network, a nonprofit group that opposes the legislative agenda of the Texas Christian right, TFN Communications Director Dan Quinn told me about a bill, introduced by Texas State Rep. Warren Chisum, that would mandate that Texas public schools offer elective Bible classes and require those classes use the more overtly biased of the two national curriculum for Bible class, from the National Council On Bible Curriculum in Public Schools, an organization whose board members have openly advocated the need for an American theocracy. NCBCPS founder Elizabeth  Ridenour says she was commanded by God to bring the Bible back to public schools.

Now, to begin with, the NCBCPS Bible class curriculum has been accused of being openly religiously partisan, and a recent study of the NCBCPS's curriculum found much to worry about :

Dr. Mark Chancey, a biblical scholar at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, found numerous problems with Bible courses in Texas public schools, including:

• a failure to meet minimal standards for teacher qualifications and academic rigor;
  
• the promotion of certain religious beliefs over all others; and
  
• advocating ideological agendas hostile to religious freedom, science and public education itself.

In a February 24th Amarillo Times