In Caddo, Oklahoma, it seemed inevitable that the Bible would find its way back into the classroom. In this small town near the Texas border, a modest two-block stretch houses churches of four different denominations: Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist, and nondenominational. Moreover, in the last national election, more than 80% of voters in nearby counties cast their ballots for Republicans. Yet, as The New York Times reported, the idea wasn’t met with the praise its proponents anticipated. Instead, it hit a wall of quiet, resistant voices.
“I didn’t expect it,” says Lee Northcutt, superintendent of Caddo Public Schools, shaking his head as if to shake loose the surprise. “The number of people who’ve come up to me and said, ‘That’s not what schools are for. That’s why we have churches, isn’t it?’”
It was the parents who startled him the most. In Caddo, it turns out, religious conviction doesn’t equate blind acceptance. “That’s my job,” some of them said. A preacher-teacher, someone Northcutt thought would be an ally in this cause, flatly rejected the idea. “No, we shouldn’t do that,” the preacher told him. The role of the Bible, it seems, belongs within the stained-glass walls of Caddo’s churches—not its classrooms.
The movement, led by fervent conservative Christian figures, was supposed to be a national revival. For years now, these groups have battled against what they perceive as the erosion of Christian values in America’s schools. They’ve been vocal, casting a spotlight on the supposed liberal bias of curriculums and arguing that America’s democracy should rest on a Christian foundation. The Bible, they say, is not just a religious text but a moral compass. Ryan Walters, Oklahoma’s schools chief, has been leading the charge, unapologetic in his belief that “the left doesn’t like it, but it will be taught.”
But what Walters and his allies didn’t foresee was the rebellion rising from within the very communities they considered their own. In towns like Caddo, where Republican votes and Christian faith flow like rivers, the people are resisting. Not from political defiance, but from a more personal place—a belief that the church’s work belongs in the church and in the home, not in the public sphere of education.
Bartlesville, a town not too far away, echoes the sentiment. Chuck McCauley, superintendent of Bartlesville Public Schools, leans into his conservative beliefs in private, but the classroom is sacred ground of a different sort. “We educate everybody that shows up,” McCauley says. For him, teaching the Bible should remain “up to the family, up to the parents and up to the church.” The school’s job is something else entirely. There’s a line he won’t cross, a separation between his personal faith and his professional duty that feels almost as immutable as scripture itself.
It’s not just Oklahoma. In Texas, superintendents are facing the same pressures, and some are standing just as firm. The proposed curriculum, peppered with biblical stories, is rubbing educators the wrong way, even in districts where Christianity feels as big as the Texas sky. There’s a discomfort, a hesitancy to open the floodgates to something that might be harder to control than it seems.
Rob Miller, superintendent of Bixby Public Schools, admits his own unease. A Christian who raised his children in the faith, he understands the value of scripture. But his mind can’t quell the anxiety about what happens when the Bible becomes a schoolbook. What if teachers interpret it differently? What if, as in his own experience, one denomination’s belief system is forced upon students who follow another? His own son, barely ten at the time, was once told by a well-meaning Sunday school teacher that he couldn’t “enter the kingdom of God” because of an infant baptism—an affront to Miller’s Lutheran faith. “There are different interpretations even within the Christian faith,” he says, his voice tinged with quiet frustration. “Who’s going to dictate what’s right?”
The air feels heavy with that question in these rural communities. The Bible has always held weight in the lives of the people here, but if its lessons were taught at school—what would happen if beliefs clashed?
At the heart of this struggle is a tension about the boundaries between faith and public life, the ever-delicate balancing act between personal conviction and public responsibility. At the same time that religious conservatives advocate for more Christian-based lessons, some are also working alongside free-market proponents to promote voucher programs, which would allow parents to use public funds for private religious education. Yet even this effort faces resistance from Christian educators like Brandon Dennard, superintendent of the Red Lick Independent School District in northeast Texas. “I’m a conservative Christian man,” Dennard said. “But I’m in public education because I want to serve all kids.”
