Illustration: Intelligencer; Photo: LeeGreenwood.com
If you look up the term “culture warrior” in some near-future encyclopedia, odds are you will see a photo of Oklahoma’s superintendent of public instruction, Ryan Walters, glowering at you. As an appointed secretary of education in the administration of hard-right governor Kevin Stitt, then as elected state school superintendent, Walters has been quite the zealot in fighting the alleged menace of wokeness in his deeply conservative state, as a recent profile explained:
In selfie videos from his car, Walters denounces “woke ideology” and frequently accuses teachers of pushing a radical agenda based on atheism, racial justice, and gender identity. In a series of provocative statements, he’s called the state’s teachers union a “terrorist organization” and dismissed the separation of church and state as a liberal “myth.”
The relentless focus helped push the small-town teacher who never ran a school or a district into the national spotlight. In July, he spoke along with other conservative luminaries at a summit in Philadelphia held by the right-wing parent group Moms for Liberty — a platform for several GOP presidential hopefuls.
He certainly doesn’t mind the language of warfare about his own agenda, as NBC News reported after he became superintendent:
“This is a war for the souls of our kids,” Walters declared shortly after his election last year at a banquet for City Elders, a national group that advocates for Christian-based government. He went on to claim that liberals are trying to make children hate their parents and the country. “I will do all I can to fight to get that nonsense out of schools and to put God back in schools,” he said.
At first Walters mostly talked about getting prayer back in public schools (which is constitutionally problematic) and displaying the Ten Commandments prominently, but then he turned to a crusade to place Bibles in every classroom so that teachers could share the Good Book’s many virtues with every student. He asked for and secured a $3 million appropriation to make that happen. And now he’s proposing to spend it not just on any old Bible, as the Oklahoman reports:
Bids opened Monday for a contract to supply the state Department of Education with 55,000 Bibles. According to the bid documents, vendors must meet certain specifications: Bibles must be the King James Version; must contain the Old and New Testaments; must include copies of the Pledge of Allegiance, Declaration of Independence, U.S. Constitution, and the Bill of Rights; and must be bound in leather or leather-like material.
Walters’s Bible specs aren’t that surprising. Conservative evangelicals typically prefer the King James Version or one of its derivative texts on grounds that it sticks most closely to a literal interpretation of the original Hebrew and Greek (Catholics never embraced the KJV and mainline Protestants typically utilize modern alternatives like the New Revised Standard Version). And as noted above, Walters believes church-state separation is a “liberal myth,” so why not go full God and country by placing American civic documents right in there before Genesis?
You can buy most Bible editions for next to nothing, but the specific book of scripture Walters is insisting on will cost a lot more. And as you might expect from a rabid Trump fan like Walters, there just so happen to be two particular Bibles that meet the criteria, as the Oklahoman notes:
A salesperson at Mardel Christian & Education searched, and though they carry 2,900 Bibles, none fit the parameters. But one Bible fits perfectly: Lee Greenwood’s God Bless the U.S.A. Bible, endorsed by former president Donald Trump and commonly referred to as the Trump Bible. They cost $60 each online, with Trump receiving fees for his endorsement. Mardel doesn’t carry the God Bless the U.S.A. Bible or another Bible that could meet the specifications, the We the People Bible, which was also endorsed by Trump. It sells for $90.
So Walters wants to waste a lot of money not simply to thumb his nose at church-state separation but to ensure that Oklahoma’s children consume their divine guidance in overt MAGA packaging, with Trump himself quite possibly getting a bit of the take. I don’t know a thing about Oklahoma public contracting law, but this sure looks like a procurement that should be challenged in court. But as advertising for Ryan Walters’s fidelity to Christian nationalism and to Donald J. Trump, it’s quite a bargain, though it’s a shame the taxpayers of Oklahoma are footing the bill.
