Commentary: Donald Trump's $59.99 Bible is just what Oklahoma schools ordered. Isn't that special?

Randall Balmer, Los Angeles Times on Oct 10, 2024

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Who knew? Oklahoma needs Bibles.

Lots of them. Like 55,000. That’s the scale of the request issued by Ryan Walters, superintendent of public instruction for Oklahoma. Walters earlier mandated that every public school classroom in the state be equipped with a Bible and that the Bible be taught in those classrooms.

I suspect that the citizens of Oklahoma, located squarely in the Bible Belt, might have a Bible or two lying around that could be contributed to the cause. When I wrote about what was then called the Christian Booksellers Association several decades ago, I learned that many Christian families had as many as a dozen Bibles on their bookshelves, so I imagine that the good Christian folks in Enid or Tahlequah or Stillwater could send a few to school and save the taxpayers some money.

But Walters has other ideas. His original plan asked the Legislature for more than $3 million to purchase 55,000 Bibles. And not just any Bibles.

He at first specified that they be the King James Version and include the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Pledge of Allegiance. Once reporters made the plan public, he amended it — the Bibles may include all that.

Of course, that’s not your usual Bible.

But wait . . . didn’t I hear recently about a new King James Version that included those very documents? It was bound in a “leather-like” material, as I recall, which was (and is still) specified in Walters’ request for proposals.

Ah yes, the “God Bless the USA” Bible, endorsed by none other than Donald J. Trump. Interestingly, it retails for $59.99, and if you do the math, 55,000 Bibles at $59.99 a pop comes out to just about $3.3 million.

Speculation abounds that Ryan Walters, who styles himself a Christian conservative, wants to ingratiate himself with Trump in order to snare an appointment in a second Trump administration. Here I thought Betsy DeVos was a disaster as secretary of education — and make no mistake, she was — but can you imagine Ryan Walters in that role?

For the record, Amazon sells the ESV Economy Bible for $2.54 each. But it doesn’t carry the imprimatur of a thrice-married convicted felon. And am I the only one who finds it a tad ironic that any edition of the Bible carries the endorsement of someone guilty of the seven deadly sins: pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath and sloth?

I have no objection to the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence. I wish more Americans were conversant with their nation’s charter documents, including Oklahoma’s education superintendent. Actually, I commend to Walters the 1st Amendment to the Constitution. It says something about the establishment of religion.

He might want to familiarize himself with the Bill of Rights before mandating Bible teaching in public schools. And as Walters is perusing his “God Bless the USA” Bible, I’d also suggest a careful reading of Matthew 25, the Sermon on the Mount, and John 18:36, where Jesus declares, “My kingdom is not of this world.”

What’s next? Perhaps Walters will mandate that all student athletes in Oklahoma be required to wear Trump’s $499 gold sneakers. Another item the former president has probably never used himself.

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Randall Balmer is a professor of religion at Dartmouth and the author of “Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: A Journey into the Evangelical Subculture in America.”