So our questioner asks, much as historically been made in liberal media circles about the teaching of the Bible in American public schools.

People will be taught religious history instead of scientific history, and the politics of the evangelical right will grow ever stronger with their massing legions of true believers.

But doesn't this apocalyptic perspective imply that teachers necessarily teach in a literal, anti-critical manner? And isn't there plenty of writing in the Bible that can imply

a left-wing redistributive politics? For example, the famous line,

it is easier for a camel to fit into the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into

heaven. While religious control over schools and the accompanying book banning is very scary,

is the essential problem not what particular texts are taught, but rather how they are taught.

I'd love to hear your thoughts. Look, obviously I agree, or at least sympathise with the

question as sort of, I agree with where they're going. Yes, it's true that the first Christians

were refractory communists. Yes, it's true that the first Christians were refractory communists. Yes, it's true

that the New Testament is laden with class politics. I almost said the new statesman is laden

with class politics. That would have been a big mistake. I think it's true, just not the class

politics we'd like. Mary's Magnificat from the Gospel of Luke actually goes a bit further than the line from Matthew

that the questioner quotes.

It may have been a Christian theologian, Gregory of Niso, who was the first to produce

an uncompromising critique of slavery.

Obviously, there is something scandalous and subversive in Christian doxa, which still retains a faint power of critique and rebellion today, despite official Christianity centuries of accommodation with empire and Mamun and what have you. But is that really what's at issue here? Because I don't think this is actually about teaching the Bible. You know, if it was, I would say, well, all right,

but why not also the Quran, the Upanishads, you know, the Torah? Why simply impose Bible reading?

But that's not what it is. When they invent Bible-based curricula, as in Texas, you have to notice

that it comes with a series of revisionist materials on, say, American national history pertaining

to race, slavery, and civil rights. The goal is white nationalist, not biblical. And putting the Ten

commandments on the walls of every classroom, as in Louisiana, what does that have to do with

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