CONSERVATIVE MAKING SENSE / From the blog of Cindy Allen
Let’s just cut to the chase. Oklahoma Superintendent Ryan Walters is Oklahoma’s Christian Nationalist Indoctrinator-in-Chief. Walters has been vocal about his stance against what he perceives as left-wing indoctrination in education. Walters has consistently framed his actions and policies as a countermeasure to what he describes as a pervasive influence of left-wing politics in the classroom. He claims that liberal activists and media have politicized education.
He has said time and again that the classroom is no place for “left-wing radical indoctrination.” He has taken stances that certain books should be banned because they are “pornographic” or promote an LGBTQ agenda.
He apparently sees no problem with Christian religious indoctrination being pervasive in the public classroom. In fact, Walters’ perspective closely aligns with Christian Nationalism, a movement that advocates for a privileged position of Christianity in public and political life in the United States in direct defiance of the founding of our country.
Walters has taken significant steps that align with Christian Nationalist ideals, prominently through his mandate requiring public schools to teach the Bible. This directive was issued on June 27, 2024, and applies to grades five through 12 across the state.
He claimed in an interview with NewsNation that the Bible had “been removed from classrooms, and we’re saying, listen, we’re proud to be the first state to bring it back.”
In reality, federal law has never prevented public schools from including the Bible as an appropriate aid in the teaching of secular subjects. Rather, what current Supreme Court precedent forbids is use of the Bible as part of religious training in public schools.
Oklahoma standards allow teaching of the Bible in its historical context; yet, Walters has gone so far as to threaten school districts that don’t change their current policies regarding the Bible to fit his new mandate.
He’s taking a page right of out of the Christian Nationalist handbook, which contends that the Bible has significance as a cornerstone of Western civilization, which Christian Nationalists associate with white European advancement.
Walters has also promoted other types of religious indoctrination in public schools. Last year he called for a series of steps to promote Christianity and “Western heritage” in every classroom, including a display of the Ten Commandments. He leans on a group calling itself the Oklahoma Advisory Council on Founding Principles who also recommended requiring a “Western civilization” course for graduation “to strengthen the heritage which was integral to the nation’s founding and its western culture, as well as to foster gratitude and informed citizenship.”
Not all religious leaders agree with Walters’ mandate. Several religious leaders have rejected Walters’ demands that every classroom should have a bible and that it be taught, saying teachers don’t have the religious training to teach scripture, nor should they be required to.
Many Oklahomans support “bringing God back” into schools. However, we are a country of immigrants with many different religious or non-religious views. It’s been the wise judgement that public schools are not the place for specific religious teachings of any kind. In the U.S., religious teaching has been the role of parents and churches, as it should be.
Critics argue that Walters’ mandate blurs the line between secular education and religious indoctrination, and they are right.
Organizations like Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the ACLU have condemned his actions as unconstitutional and representative of Christian Nationalist efforts to erode the separation of church and state. They argue that public schools should not impose religious teachings on students, as it infringes on religious freedom and violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
Walters has supported other initiatives that align with Christian Nationalist goals, such as backing the creation of a religious charter school in Oklahoma. Walters’ consistent efforts indicate a broader agenda to integrate Christian principles into public education and governance.
Christian Nationalism is more than theological or religious beliefs. According to the Book “Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States,” it includes several cultural assumptions including: strict moral traditionalism focused on sustaining social hierarchies; support for authoritarian control, including the threat (or use) of violence; a desire for ethno-racial boundaries around who is a “true” American. Unfortunately, for many groups that align themselves with Christian Nationalist ideals, that means non-white and non-natural born citizens are viewed as “lesser than.”
This trend is part of a larger national movement seen in states like Louisiana, Texas, and Florida, where similar laws and mandates seek to incorporate religious elements into public education systems. These efforts are often justified under the guise of historical education but are viewed by many as attempts to promote a specific religious viewpoint within public institutions.
So, for a guy who supposedly believes classrooms aren’t the place for “indoctrination,” he’s become the poster child for exactly that — infusing Christian teachings into public schools and challenging the legal boundaries that currently exist separating church and state.
