OKLAHOMA CITY — Two state lawmakers said this month they want to study God.
The pair announced last week they want to have a ‘robust discussion’ about the importance of acknowledging the Lord in government – so much so that they are conducting an interim hearing about the idea.
State Reps. Chris Banning (R-Bixby) and Kevin McDugle (R-Broken Arrow) issued a media statement announcing an interim study examining God in the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the Pledge of Allegiance in Oklahoma’s public and private schools.
“It is well-noted that our nation’s founders were devoted to godly principles as they established a new system of government and way of life,” McDugle said. “They relied heavily on their relationship with the Lord, and yet there’s been a move recently to remove God from the public forum. We want to have a robust discussion about the importance of acknowledging the Lord when discussing our nation’s founding.”
The legislative study comes on the heels of a controversial decision by the Statewide Virtual Charter School Board to approve the nation’s first religious public charter school. That vote has drawn complains from several state officials and sparked at least one lawsuit.
Banning said the country’s biblical beliefs “started being exhibited centuries ago” to include the 1820 concept of the National Monument to the Forefathers.
“Our nation’s founding documents and our Pledge of Allegiance has inspired generations of Americans in devotion to both their country and to God as their creator,” he said. “It’s important that there is a set-aside space for faith in a school environment, if a student so chooses.”
Rick Tepker, an emeritus professor of law from the University of Oklahoma, said Banning and McDugle’s study was much more about politics than about the Almighty’s role in state and federal government.
Other experts, including the conservative Heritage Foundation, agree that while the country’s Founding Fathers were profoundly influences by Christianity “they did not design a constitutional order only for fellow believers.”
“They (the founders) explicitly prohibited religious tests for federal offices, and they were committed to the proposition that all men and women should be free to worship God (or not) as their consciences dictate,” a posting on The Heritage Foundation’s website noted.
The principal that best emerges from concepts such as the First Amendment, Tepker said, was best expressed by the author of the amendment, James Madison.
“He believed the relationship between God and the individual is prior to and more important than the relationship between the state and individual,” Tepker said. “But basically, it is designed to say that the state shouldn’t get in the way of relationship between God and the individual and to do that you have to respect the rights of the individual to think for themselves and that includes the rights of individuals who are not persuaded of God’s existence.”
Banning said the including of the word “God” in the Pledge of Allegiance reinforces the nation’s commitment to its religious heritage, “values, and the belief that our rights and freedoms are rooted in something greater than ourselves.”
Interim studies will be conducted by lawmakers through Nov. 16.