GAVEL GAMUT By Jim Redwine
THE FOUNDATION
AUGUST 10, 2024
I received my early secular schooling from the public schools in Pawhuska, Osage County, Oklahoma. My religious education was received from my family and the preachers and Sunday School teachers at the First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Pawhuska. There was a great deal of osmotic transfer in both directions, but my church never seeped into issues of government and my schools never wandered into matters of faith.
My favorite Sunday School teacher was Violet Willis who, as a child, had been taken from her Osage tribal home and indoctrinated into Christianity at the government school at Chilocco. My favorite high school American History teacher was Mike Burton who never let questions of historical fact be conflated with matters of religious faith.
My foundations of faith and fact were scrupulously kept separate by the responsible adults, both secular and sectarian. Science prevailed in public school classrooms and lessons of morality were the focus at home and church. Never did I hear nor see any religious material or teaching at school; that was the province of the clergy.
At school I did receive twelve years of education in the history and foundations of America. I learned that our Founders rebelled against religious tyranny and monarchial rule. The separation of our three equal branches of government and especially the separation of religion and government were the clarion call of our republican form of democracy. Although we had to be ever vigilant to keep faith from seeking to control fact.
Such issues as the Salem Witch Trials, the Scopes Monkey Trial and efforts to slip or demand the instillation of a particular doctrine into public curriculum are constant danger signs that our democracy is fragile. Our Founders feared religious intoleration or practice. The very first of our United States Bill of Rights demands:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
And to their credit, those Founders of Oklahoma’s Constitution provided in Article II of Oklahoma’s Bill of Rights:
“Public money or property–use for sectarian purposes. No public money or property shall ever be appropriated, applied, donated, or used, directly or indirectly, for the use, benefit or support of any sect, church, denomination, or system of religion, or for the use, benefit, or support of any priest, preacher, minister or other religious teacher or dignitary or sectarian institution as such.”
No god of any religion is mentioned in the U.S. Constitution and neither the Bible nor the Ten Commandments had any place in our Founders’ careful crafting of our form of government. If our public schools are to post and teach our history, they should post the Bill of Rights and explain to America’s students how our country has managed to survive as a democracy for well over 200 years because it has avoided allowing any religion to control our future leaders.
Perhaps, Oklahoma’s State Superintendent of Education, Ryan Walters, who on June 27, 2024 during a meeting of the State Board of Education called for the mandatory teaching of the Bible and the posting of the Ten Commandments in every fifth through twelfth grade public-school classroom in Oklahoma, was confused. The Oklahoma law that in 2012 established his position (70 O.S. 2011, §3-107) defines the powers and duties of the elected State Superintendent:
“Upon proper request, the State Superintendent shall advise school district superintendents (concerning) school laws, including court decisions, Attorney General opinions and ‘other informative matter relating to the school laws as deemed appropriate.’”
The United States of America was not founded on any religion’s dogma or doctrine and, in fact, it was specifically immunized against the dangers thereof. I thank my church and school teachers for understanding that and informing me.
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