20-03-2025
I'm a Christian. Don't force educators to teach the Bible.
Some things cannot be taken by force without losing the very essence of what makes them worth having. A butterfly pinned is no longer a butterfly; its wings, once free to dance on the wind, become nothing more than colored paper. A river pressed into a pipe is no longer a river, but a stream in chains, stripped of its wild song. Wonder cannot be ordered into existence, nor can love be legislated.
And faith — true, living faith — once wielded as an instrument of law, becomes something brittle and false.
I did not grow up in a Christian home. Quite the opposite. My family was poor, trying to provide for six people on a yearly income of $20,000. Our home was marked by heartache, by brokenness, by something hollow where life should have been. Where God belonged, a longing for possessions took His place — an odd type of idol, not present in reality but worshiped nevertheless. If we could just get more, maybe things would be different. But more never came, and even if it had, I doubt it would have been enough.
It was public school, and the freedom it provided for students to embrace whatever religion they wanted, that led me to a friend who invited me into the family of faith. Looking back, I see now that my teachers had something different about them, something I couldn't name at the time but recognize now for what it was. Most of them weren't in it for the high social status that comes from being a teacher, for the six-figure salaries, the company cars, the respect reserved for kings and queens. No, they were in it for something deeper — something selfless, caring, humble, something profoundly Christlike. They were there to serve, to give, to instill in children like me the ability to think, to read, to understand, with the quiet conviction that all of life — including our spiritual lives — would be better for it. I didn't know it at the time, but my teachers were ministering to me without ever explicitly stating their faith.
And that's what I observe now as my own daughter is in the public school system. I remember the first day I took her to kindergarten. As a Christian parent, I was nervous. This was our first child to reach school age, and I'd heard all the horror stories — stories of critical theory being slipped into lesson plans, of ideas that burden young hearts before they even have categories to make sense of them. I sought counsel from friends, prayed about it, but still, I walked uneasily into that school on Meet the Teacher night, unsure of what I would find.
Opinion: Poor math and reading skills in our public schools must improve — and quickly
And what I found was worse to my intellect than I cared to admit: I was wrong.
I did not find teachers eager to fill children with the empty promises of ideology. I found teachers overwhelmed by the sheer number of students in their classrooms, stretched thin by a lack of resources but resolved to pour out their energy for the good of my child. To my surprise, I found a large presence of people who radiated Christian compassion without coming out and saying it — servants' hearts ready to labor in love for the benefit of children. They weren't there to indoctrinate. They were there to serve. To teach. To care. And as I stood there, watching them kneel beside my daughter's tiny desk, showing her where to place her name tag, I saw something I hadn't expected: God's quiet presence, not in policy, but in people.
And that is exactly how faith flourishes — not by force, not by mandate, but by quiet witness, by a life that speaks louder than words, by truth that is lived before it is preached. The Bible is the source of all true life, but it is not a vaccine that can be injected into society by sheer force of policy. It is not a plate of vegetables we can set before children with the command: Eat, because it is good for you. If it is to be embraced — not as a mere text, but as the wellspring of life — it must be received willingly, volitionally, in accordance with the freedom we all possess to search and to choose.
Opinion: Oklahoma's AG: Transparency is the heart of democracy
And that means persuasion. The Bible is not upheld by compulsion, but by truth made evident, by history that speaks louder than skepticism, by the endless scroll of those who have found life in its words — kings and beggars, scholars and children, the broken and the whole. It must be presented to the next generation not as a cold requirement, not as a moral chore, but as a feast for the soul — a dish so fragrant, so craveable in every sense, not merely sweet but rich and hearty, deeply satisfying. It is not meant to be tolerated but desired, not meant to be swallowed but savored. And for that to happen, it must be discovered, not dictated.
Now, let me be clear: I am not saying there is no place for Christianity in government. I believe there is, and I believe we need more of it. But its presence is something deeper, something more subtle, something that cannot be written into lawbooks or printed onto classroom walls. It is not in the compulsion of religious mandates but in the quiet work of justice, in a care for human flourishing that transcends the bonds of materialism and greed, in a fierce advocacy for the weak, the poor and the marginalized. It is not a government-issued faith, but a faith that transforms government — not through coercion, but through goodness. And most of all, it is a presence in power without the corruption of power, a kind of leadership that rules not to be served, but to serve.
This is why we have freedom of religion — not simply to ensure that all beliefs are protected, but to protect faith from the rough hands of government. The same hands that uphold justice are not fit to uphold the sacred. A judge may rule with wisdom, but he cannot order a man to believe. A law may punish wrongdoing, but it cannot shape the heart toward goodness. Romans 13 tells us that government has a role — to restrain evil, to keep the world from falling into chaos — but it was never meant to bring heaven to Earth. That is not its work. It cannot give life to the soul. It can only make a world where life may take root and grow.
History bears witness to what happens when faith and government become entangled. Every time faith has been wielded as a tool of conquest, it has been bruised and twisted into something unrecognizable. Whenever rulers have clothed themselves in religion as a means of control, the result has been the same: faith reduced to force, beauty exchanged for power, truth lost beneath the weight of politics.
And here is the question we must ask: If today's leaders may mandate one book, what stops tomorrow's from mandating another? If we welcome the government's hand in enforcing the Bible, what will we say when that same hand enforces something else? If we give the state the power to decide which faith must be taught, we also give it the power to decide which faith must be silenced.
Faith, like fire, moves best when left free. The Bible does not need government backing to endure. If it is what it claims to be, it will stand on its own. And those who seek to share its light should do so as it was always meant to be shared — not by force, but by love. Not by compulsion, but by the quiet, steady witness of lives transformed.
A butterfly pinned is no longer a butterfly. A river confined is no longer a river. And a faith imposed is no longer faith at all.
Brian Montgomery is a licensed occupational injury examiner in Oklahoma, with significant experience in both insurance and ministry. A native of Cyril, Oklahoma, Brian holds a bachelor's degree from East Central University and a master's degree from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Teaching the Bible in OK schools is a slippery slope | Opinion
