Trump's excited about 'Bible literacy classes.' Their legality is fiercely debated.

President Trump enthused on Twitter Monday morning about the prospect of biblical literacy classes in public schools, apparently inspired by a concurrent Fox & Friends segment on the subject:

The president's tweet didn't offer a lot of details, but he's likely referring to legislation under consideration in a handful of states which would either allow or require public schools to offer elective courses on the Bible as literature. A North Dakota state senate bill, for example, would require high schools to offer "One-half unit of the old testament of the Bible or the new testament of the Bible, or one-half unit of instruction covering both the old and new testaments of the Bible."

The proposals are fiercely debated on First Amendment grounds, with critics arguing the classes would violate the "establishment of religion" clause. But the courses are likely immune from court challenge so long as they focus on the Bible's historical and literary import and eschew proselytization, remaining agnostic toward the book's religious claims just as a course teaching Homer's Odyssey could not push students toward belief in Zeus.

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Three biblical literacy class bills failed to pass state legislatures in 2018, but if any do succeed, Trump himself might want to sign up. He infamously bungled his way through a biblical reference at Liberty University, compared the Bible to a "great movie," and declared "an eye for an eye" his favorite verse.