'The Value of the Bible': Utah School District Reverses Ban, Returns Holy Book to Shelves
Warning: This news report contains graphic material that may be unsuitable for some readers.
Bibles will return to the shelves in a northern Utah school district that provoked an outcry after it banned them from middle and elementary schools last month.
Officials from the Davis School District located north of Salt Lake City, said at a board meeting Tuesday that the district had determined the sacred text was age-appropriate for all district libraries.
The vote was unanimous, according to KSL-TV.
The board sided with 70 people who filed appeals after it was banned last month. Now Bibles will be accessible to students regardless of their grade level.
"Based on their assessment of community standards, the appeal committee determined that The Bible has significant, serious value for minors which outweighs the violent or vulgar content it contains," the committee wrote in a decision published along with school board materials.
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The committee's reversal is the latest development in the debate over a Utah law allowing parents to challenge "sensitive materials" available to children in public schools. Parents' rights activists successfully lobbied for the legislation in 2022 amid a wave of new laws targeting the materials accessible in schools and libraries — particularly about obscene, graphic sexual content.
The 2022 Utah law has been used to question dozens of books across the state considered by some to be inappropriate for children and in some cases even pornographic. In protest to those attempts to protect children, an effort to ban the Bible sprung up, reigniting debate about the standards used to judge the content in books.
As CBN News reported, an unidentified parent had requested the school district remove the Holy Bible from its schools for inappropriate content through the district's website.
"Incest, onanism, bestiality, prostitution, genital mutilation, fellatio, dildos, rape, and even infanticide," the parent wrote in their request, listing topics they believe to be in the religious text, according to The Salt Lake Tribune. "You'll no doubt find that the Bible, under Utah Code Ann. § 76-10-1227, has 'no serious values for minors' because it's pornographic by our new definition."
"Get this PORN out of our schools," the parent wrote in an anti-Bible complaint dated Dec. 11. "If the books that have been banned so far are any indication for way lesser offenses, this should be a slam dunk."
The parent specifically requested the Bible's removal from Davis High School in Kaysville, according to Fox News.
The request included 49 verses from the Bible that the individual claims to be inappropriate under the law, according to KTVX.
Parents Group Called Request 'A Political Stunt'
Fox News also reported at the time that the parent who sent the request to review the Bible also smeared Utah Parents United – a group that has spearheaded efforts to remove sexually explicit books from school libraries – as a "white supremacist hate group."
In a Facebook post, Utah Parents United, called the parent's request challenging the Bible a political stunt.
"Someone wants the Bible removed from Davis County school libraries. NOT US! We take book challenges seriously. We recognize challenges take resources and time away from teaching. If we do not believe a book violates the law we don't waste the time of teachers and parents by challenging it."
They pointed out that Representative Ken Ivory called the challenge of the Bible "a backhanded slap to parents that are simply trying to keep a healthy learning environment for all students in the schools."
Ivory reportedly said, "I have every confidence that no school district is going to consider the Bible as violating 76-10-1227," because it's only intended to address descriptions of sexual immorality.
In an interview with The Associated Press earlier this month, Ivory said lawmakers should revise the law to ensure book-removal decisions have to be overseen by elected officials at open public meetings, not the kind of committee that decided to remove the Bible from middle and elementary schools in the Davis School District.
School board members at the Davis School District's board meeting Tuesday, chided lawmakers for blaming the majority-parent committee, which it said was convened and had made its initial decision — and weighed appeals — in line with the law.
"The magnitude of the value of the Bible as a literary work outweighs any violence or profanity which may be contained in the book," Davis School District Board Vice President Brigit Gerrard said.
The district later issued a statement also denying it tried to undermine the state law.
"Some in the community have intimated that the initial committee's decision or the district's policy/process have been intentionally manipulated to undermine Utah's sensitive materials law (HB 374). This is wholly untrue," the district's statement said.
The Christian Perspective
Theologians also point out that while some cautionary stories in the Bible do mention some sexual sins, the accounts are not intended to be salacious or to glorify these sins, which is what other school books in question have done. Rather, the biblical accounts point to the behaviors that God has rejected because they are harmful to humans and violate his natural law for the universe.
Ultimately, these stories that point out sins committed by biblical characters reveal God has a better design for humanity and a merciful ability to use broken people to accomplish his plans on earth. Every account contributes to a more complete understanding of the sinful nature in every person and our need for a savior – Jesus Christ.
