Oklahoma’s state school Superintendent Scott Walters has made headlines for his new policy requiring the teaching of the Christian Bible and the Ten Commandments in the public schools. The policy will no doubt be intensely litigated and adjusted, but there are methods of teaching the Bible to public school students that are unquestionably legal. Surprised? The first is known as released-time instruction.
Christian ministries purchase land adjacent to public school campuses, build ministry centers on it and transport kids to them for Bible lessons. Evangelization is the goal of these organizations, and their efforts are often successful: Public school children are hearing the word and converting to Christianity on the spot. The clunky term “released time” was coined in the context of the U.
S. Supreme Court decision Zorach v. Clauson that laid out how this off-campus religious teaching process works and how it can be constitutionally sound.
Zorach got up to bat at the court for a test because a previous decision, McCollum v. Board of Education , held that it was unconstitutional for ministers in Illinois to come to public schools and teach religious classes during the school day. In response to McCollum, a ministry in New York started a program where children instead went to the ministers.
In released time, kids are temporarily released from the school campus during non-instructional periods and receive Bible teaching nearby, but only with express parental permission. Zor.