Those people that are most religiously/biblically literate are also often those least likely to have faith in the Bible.

It’s not really that biblical literacy itself leads one to turn away from it, usually. Rather, it’s that those who believe often don’t feel a need to know the whole Bible. Faith doesn’t require, or in fact encourage, understanding. But those who are subject to its overwhelming influence in society, yet are skeptical of its validity (or outright dismissive of it), often do seek to understand exactly what this cultural force is based upon.

Some Christian groups are very biblically literate, particularly Mormons and American Evangelicals. But they generally practice and build biblical literacy in their daily lives as a part of their faith, and typically in a church group or family that shares their faith.

I really wonder what happens when you shoehorn biblical literacy into the daily life of a bunch of unaffiliated, naturally skeptical kids and teenagers in a mostly secular setting. There will almost certainly be kids taking these classes specifically because they don’t believe. Because, as mentioned before, they have an interest in understanding. Their faithful “cafeteria Christian” counterparts do not, usually, share that interest. I truly wonder if these sorts of classes result in more or less biblical faith when the literacy doesn’t come with the isolation and reinforcement of the faithful. When the unfaithful are constantly questioning the doctrine and morality of the Bible in the presence of those faithful people learning it for the first time, I can easily see this leading to a loss in that faith for many.

I don’t encourage this boundary crossing blending of church and state under this Christian Nationalist political movement. But I will find it very funny if this is just another of their stupid ideas that bites them in the ass with the opposite outcome of their intention.

That’s not Jesus.

Pentecostals are a large majority of what makes modern Christianity anathema.