TRIVIALIZING THE BIBLE
They finally did it. They found a way to trivialize the Bible in Tennessee.
After years of attempting to make the Bible the official state book, state legislators figured if they grouped a version of the Bible with a bunch of other books — some not even books — with some (or no) specific relation to Tennessee they might get enough votes to pass the measure.
They did, with the House passing the bill 73-18 and the Senate approving it 26-6.
All five members of the Hamilton County House delegation, including Democrat Yusuf Hakeem, voted for the bill. State Sen. Bo Watson, R-Hixson, also voted for it, but state Sen. Todd Gardenhire, R-Chattanooga, abstained.
The legislation now goes to the desk of Gov. Bill Lee, who has not said whether he planned to sign in.
When last a bill designating the Bible as the state book reached the desk of a Tennessee governor in 2016, Bill Haslam correctly vetoed it, and the legislature was unable to override his veto.
He said at the time what we had emphasized. “[T]his bill trivializes the Bible, which I believe is a sacred text,” Haslam wrote in his veto letter. “… Our founders recognized that when the church and state were combined, it was the church that suffered in the long run.”
At the time, the then-attorney general, Herbert Slatery, had said it would be improper to make the Bible the official state book.
“It is our legal opinion,” he wrote, “that the bill would violate not only the First Amendment of the United States Constitution but the Tennessee Constitution as well. Interestingly, the Tennessee Supreme Court has held the Tennessee Constitution to be more restrictive than the federal Constitution.” The Tennessee Constitution says “no preference shall ever be given, by law, to any religious establishment or mode of worship.”
Nevertheless, efforts to align the Bible with the state fossil, the three state insects and the state firearm persisted.
This year’s attempt tossed in a book by a Black writer (“Roots” by Alex Haley), two publications about slaveholding Tennessee President Andrew Jackson, a book about the Civil War (or, to legislators, perhaps The War of Northern Aggression) and, among others, a book by national treasure Dolly Parton.
For once, we find ourselves agreeing with grumblesome state Rep. Justin Jones, D-Nashville, who wondered why works by other Tennessee writers were excluded from the list.
“We just have a random amalgamation of books that you want to put as our state books that you said represent the diversity of Tennessee,” he said on the House floor. “Only one author is Black. Only one author is a woman. So this is not diversity, this is just you trying to promote a certain narrative — and a certain dominant narrative — of what Tennesseans should be.”
The Bible that was selected, the Aitken Bible, a King James version printed during the Revolutionary War era, was named after a Philadelphia bookseller who petitioned Congress — before the adoption of the Constitution — to endorse it.
Even the adoption of that Bible, though, doesn’t change the fact that the King James version doesn’t represent all religious adherents, or even all Christians. And it still seems to go against the attorney general’s now 9-year-old opinion about the adoption violating the U.S. and state constitutions.
As Jones noted, “We have people of all faiths represented in this state, and yet we’re trying to slip in the Bible as a state book.”
State Rep. Gino Bulso, R-Franklin, in answering Jones, made us a little queasy when he suggested a good reason for passing the bill was that “we’ve got state songs, state poems, state reptiles, but we have no official state books,” and that the list of 10 books was only a starting point.
Most homes don’t have salad spinners, espresso machines or electric s’mores makers (yes, they’re a thing), but because they don’t have them is no reason they should get them.
And to Bulso’s mention of a starting point, Tennessee — as of the end of the legislative session in 2023 — had 12 state songs, a national record. Now there are more. “Tennessee Moon” by Kelly Lang has been added during this legislative session, and it appears “Tennessee, In My Dreams” by Makky Kaylor and “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” by Georgia native Brenda Lee may be awaiting only the governor’s signature.
Expect more songs and more books to be added in the future, and the Bible (the Aitken Bible), once promoted solely as the state book “for its historical and cultural contributions to the state,” will be listed alongside Parton’s “Coat of Many Colors.” We love Miss Dolly and her rags-to-riches story like the rest of America, but we hardly believe the two belong on the same shelf.
So, legislators, congratulations. You have finally succeeded in trivializing the Bible.