School Times for End Times:

A Brief History of U.S. Christian Nationalist Activism and Public Education

An interactive report by Kevin K. Kumashiro, Ph.D.

Scroll down to see: Endorsements | Abstract | Contents | Citation | Acknowledgments

Endorsements:

“This is a period of considerable danger in education. The growing influence of rightist movements, and especially Christian Nationalism, on educational policies and practices threatens all too many of the gains that have been made in creating and defending a critically democratic education worthy of its name. Given what is happening, socially committed educators and community activists have two responsibilities. The first is to more fully understand what is happening and why. The second is documenting the ways in which these conservative movements can be and are being interrupted. School Times for End Times: A Brief History of U.S. Christian Nationalist Activism and Public Education takes up both of these responsibilities. And Kevin Kumashiro does so in a way that is both clearly written and offers us important ways forward.” — Michael W. Apple, John Bascom Professor Emeritus of Curriculum and Instruction and Educational Policy Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison and author of Can Education Change Society?

“As we experience the rise of fascism in the United States, Kevin Kumashiro is right on time with his latest project, School Times for End Times. Here he deftly traces the origins of Christian Nationalism in the United States - and its intersections with white supremacy and patriarchy - and shows us how it is being used to launch a devastating attack on the public education today. Written with Kumashiro's typical clarity and political sharpness, School Times for End Times should be read by everyone who cares about or is connected to the struggle over public education in our country.” — Wayne Au, Dean and Professor, University of Washington Bothell School of Educational Studies, and author of Race, Curriculum, and the Politics of Educational Justice

“The world burns and the overlapping crises flare up in every direction threatening to overwhelm us. But putting our heads in the sand won’t save us nor extinguish the flames. We need to make sense of the depth and extent of the conflagration, and then gather to pass the buckets of water down the line, hand-to-hand. Kevin Kumashiro is a fire-fighter—he faces reality with honesty and courage, and he invites us to get smart and join the movement toward a humane and just future. This interactive report offers a deep understanding of the fierce urgency of now—the history and the threat of Christian Nationalism—and points a way forward.” — Bill Ayers, author of When Freedom Is the Question, Abolition Is the Answer: Reflections on Collective Liberation

“Once I started binge-reading Kevin Kumashiro’s thorough excavation of the rise of Christian nationalism in public education, I could not put it down. Kevin Kumashiro has delivered the urgent analysis we need right now to understand how our democratic institutions are being systematically dismantled. This work is a riveting look at how Christian nationalism's rise in U.S. public education is part of a larger, centuries-long agenda. Kumashiro not only shows how public education has long been intertwined with a Christian nationalist agenda, but he also uncovers how the modern Religious Right was built to defend white supremacy after the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision. He meticulously explains why targeting marginalized groups on the basis of race and gender is a go-to tactic. But this isn't just a story of decline; Kumashiro leaves us with a powerful insight: Christian nationalist forces have recently succeeded by studying and adapting tactics from our own civil rights movements. This indispensable report reminds us that we must tap into our history of resistance to fight for our public schools and our democracy.” — Sumi Cho, Director of Strategic Initiatives, African American Policy Forum

“Kevin Kumashiro has gifted ‘We the People’ with a timely, earnestly crafted narrative of truthful history. School Times for End Times is enlightenment in this darkened moment of White identity politics as it illuminates and challenges the ideology and practice of Christian Nationalism and its demand of dominance and privileging of whiteness throughout every (national) effort to establish freedom and justice for all, starting before the birth of the nation and continuing its disruption throughout Reconstruction, the Civil Rights Movement, the Black Lives Matter Movement, and the George Floyd Movement, to the present day of resistance to returning voting rights for People of Color back to a time before the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed. Kevin’s commonsensical grammar and honest reporting of history is crucial to disrupting the narratives of White supremacy, including its symbols, myths. and policies.” — Carl A. Grant, Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and author of Examining Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun as Counternarrative: Understanding the Black Family and Black Students

“In School Times for End Times, Kevin Kumashiro maps how American schooling became the frontline of a sprawling political project. From the common schools to the New Christian Right, he traces a two-prong strategy—deinstitutionalize public education and re-Christianize what remains—through court fights, curriculum wars, vouchers, charters, and coordinated campaigns stretching from school boards to the Supreme Court. This is also a piercing account of how Christian Nationalism has always been inseparable from white supremacy in U.S. education. Kumashiro shows how attacks on Black education—from Reconstruction schools to Brown v. Board to today’s bans on Critical Race Theory—and assaults on Indigenous education, from Hawaiian annexation to boarding schools, have been central to this project. With clarity and urgency, he demonstrates that Christian Nationalism is both an anti-democratic ideology and a vehicle for racial retrenchment. This report is indispensable for anyone committed to racial justice and educational freedom.” — Jesse Hagopian, award-winning educator, activist, and author of Teach Truth: The Struggle for Antiracist Education

“In School Times for End Times, Kevin Kumashiro does what he has always done so masterfully in all his work—distilling and framing complex developments in our society and culture, era by era, with surgical precision. We can now see more clearly the influence of Christian Nationalism and the intertwined constitutional dance between religion and public education that has reached a frenzied, almost oxygen-depleting tempo. By so ably chronicling the historical ebbs and flows of civil rights and civil liberties law and policy in the educational sphere, Kumashiro vastly aids our understanding of, and ability to grapple with, the current moment.” — Robert Kim, Executive Director, Education Law Center

“School Times for End Times shows how Christian Nationalist ideas and activism in the past and present propel contemporary projects designed to substitute indoctrination for education and to replace educational democracy with authoritarian theocracy. Kevin Kumashiro’s well-researched, accessibly written, and persuasively argued analysis explains how public education has arrived at this dangerous state and outlines what we can do to save and sustain quality schooling in the future. This report will be of immense value to everyone who cherishes the potential of schools to serve as sites for democratic inclusion, preparation for the responsibilities of shared citizenship, and cultivation of student capacities to be critical thinkers, creative problem solvers, and lifelong learners.” — George Lipsitz, author of The Possessive Investment in Whiteness and The Danger Zone is Everywhere

“In this cogent report, Kevin Kumashiro provides readers with the history of Christian Nationalism in the United States to detail the key intersections that paved the way to ‘now.’ After uncovering the roles of White Nationalism, militarized patriarchy, technonationalism, conservatism, and neoliberalism, Kumashiro points to reasons for hope as a call to action to shape the future. This report is an essential reader for promoting a deeper understanding of the tensions undergirding the American project—a necessary precursor to successful movement building.” — Francesca López, Jim and Georgia Thompson Distinguished Professor of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and co-author of Critical Race Theory and Its Critics

“Kevin Kumashiro’s School Times for End Times unmasks the crusade of Christian Nationalism as it marches into our schools, intent on converting classrooms into sanctuaries of submission where questioning is heresy and obedience is worship. He shows with precision and passion how this movement weaves White supremacy, militarized patriarchy, and neoliberal technocracy into a consecrated chain, binding public education to an authoritarian altar. What should be a hearth of democratic learning is instead threatened with becoming a pulpit of indoctrination, where the flame of knowledge flickers under the suffocating smoke of theocracy. Yet Kumashiro also sounds a trumpet of hope. He reminds us that schools can still be sanctuaries of freedom, workshops of citizenship, places where young people learn not to bow but to build, not to parrot but to imagine. Against the false gospel of Christian Nationalism, his report holds up the true covenant of education: to prepare citizens for shared life in a democracy. School Times for End Times is both warning and summons, urging us to defend schools as the fragile, luminous heart of freedom itself.” — Peter McLaren, Emeritus Professor, UCLA, and author of Che Guevara, Paulo Freire, and the Pedagogy of Revolution

“Accessible and razor-sharp, School Times for End Times is the essential resource we urgently need right now. With vivid history, smart quizzes, and powerful analysis, it invites collective study—and makes clear that understanding Christian nationalism is a step toward organizing, resisting, and reclaiming public education for all. Again Kevin Kumashiro has created radically useful and vibrant tools to support our movement to engage in critical work to build the schools and communities we need now.” — Erica R. Meiners, Professor, Northeastern Illinois University, and co-author of Abolition. Feminism. Now.

“In School Times for End Times, the brilliant scholar-activist, Kevin Kumashiro, reminds us what is at stake in this current moment, and that education continues to be a critical battlefield in the fight for freedom. He writes with a passion for justice, and a clarity of purpose, to outline the nefarious role of white Christian nationalists in advancing the larger goals of the right wing movement in this country. This history could not be more relevant in these present times. We owe a debt of gratitude to Kumashiro. Everyone concerned with the future of history and education should read it, and then leap into action.” — Barbara Ransby, professor, activist, historian, and author of Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement and other books

“Kevin Kumashiro's new report, School Times for End Times, is a major accomplishment. He describes the powerful networks that have taken control of our politics, our schools, and our courts. This very readable history of Christian nationalism and its impact on schools is a powerful critique of the greatest threat to our nation's future.” — Diane Ravitch, founder and president of Network for Public Education, and author of An Education: How I Changed My Mind About Schools and Almost Everything Else

“Kevin Kumashiro’s report adeptly documents, analyses, and challenges the impacts of Christian Nationalism on education and overall social power in the United States. Masquerading in many guises, the theology and ideology of this anti-democratic and authoritarian worldview are fundamental assaults on human freedom and collective decency. Extreme religiosity and repressive zealotry have teamed up with corporate power and fervent militarism to attack marginalized people while further enriching the already rich and further empowering the already powerful. School Times for End Times cogently spotlights these realities and shines a bright light on how they can be overcome.” — Norman Solomon, executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, and author of War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine.

“Kevin Kumashiro has taken it upon himself to name the names in the growing trend of white Christian nationalism in education. With an unflinching gaze, his excavation of the reemerging strategy to re-Christianize schools should trouble us. At the same time, it should also move us to think, talk and act with an unwavering urge for justice.” — David Stovall, Professor, University of Illinois at Chicago, and author of Engineered Conflict: Structural Violence and the Future of Black Life in Chicago

“In School Times for End Times, scholar par excellence Kevin Kumashiro offers a sweeping and necessary history of Christian Nationalism in the United States and its enduring entanglements with public education, tracing its intersections with White Nationalism, militarized patriarchy, technonationalism, and Conservatism across four centuries of struggle. From colonial notions of Whites as God’s chosen ones to contemporary battles over race-conscious curriculum, from the exclusion of girls in early schools to today’s culture wars over abortion, sex education, and LGBTQ+ rights, from clashes over science and religion to the embrace of technology as a tool for ushering in the End Times, Kumashiro demonstrates how Christian Nationalism has repeatedly reinvented itself in ways that deepen inequality. Yet he also turns to the lessons of social movements, reminding us that collective action, capacity building, and the reshaping of narratives have always made justice possible, and concludes with a powerful call to hope: that democracy is always in the making, that reactionary movements have never gone uncontested, and that our charge in this moment is to join the ongoing struggles for justice, peace, sovereignty, and liberation that shape the present and the future.” — Angela Valenzuela, Professor, University of Texas at Austin; Director, Texas Center for Education Policy; and editor of Growing Critically Conscious Teachers: A Social Justice Curriculum for Educators of Latino/a Youth

“We cannot understand present-day schooling and education policy without first understanding the role of Christian Nationalism. Kumashiro knows this. He follows the threads of Christian Nationalism from the Colonial Era through to the present day, compellingly explaining how we got to this point and thus helping us think through how we can move forward. I learned a great deal from this information-packed report.” — Kevin Welner, Research Professor, University of Colorado Boulder; Director, National Education Policy Center; and co-editor of The School Voucher Illusion: Exposing the Pretense of Equity

Abstract:

This report presents a brief history of Christian Nationalism in the United States: what and who is it, how have events over the past three and a half centuries shaped its evolution, how has it been engaged in public K-12 education, and what is to be done now? The timeline is separated into four main eras—the Common Schools Era, the Early Public Schools Era, the Social Movements Era, and the New Christian Right Era—and each will examine various ways that society was transforming, that organized Christianity was evolving, that public schools were developing, and that Christian Nationalists were engaging in education. Each era will also highlight how Christian Nationalism intersected with four other social developments: White Nationalism, militarized patriarchy, technonationalism, and Conservatism. One of the most salient themes repeated throughout this history is that, when feeling that its status or dominance in society was being threatened, including and especially by public schools, Christian Nationalism would evolve in ways that doubled down on what it considered to be its core identities of race and gender, making its evolution not only reactionary, but increasingly regressive. Another theme is that, because schools have always served as sites of ideological and political struggle over how society will evolve, Christian Nationalism has always been at the heart of struggles over public education, and has done so by developing a two-prong strategy for engaging with schooling—namely, deinstitutionalization and re-Christianization. Landmark court decisions from the 1940s through the 1970s that upheld the principle of separating church and state led to an acceleration of these two strategies, culminating in the legal and cultural struggles of today. The conclusion shares some thoughts about what it means to advance democracy and justice in education in these times. Throughout the report will appear sample historical artwork that reflects the cultural narratives of the time, as well as ten pop quizzes to test your knowledge of trivia!

Contents:

Part I: Introduction
Naming the moment and the movement

Part II: The Common Schools Era of the 1770s to 1860s
Establishing the Christian foundations of U.S. schooling

Precursor: The Colonial Era

The Common School and the American Enlightenment

The Christian Foundations of Teaching and Teachers

Part III: The Early Public Schools Era of the 1860s to 1940s
Developing the two-prong strategy for Christian Nationalist activism in schools

Northern Urbanization and Southern Reconstruction

Deinstitutionalization and Re-Christianization

Part IV: The Social Movements Era of the 1940s to 1990s
Further positioning public schools as sites of struggle

The Cold War and the Third Industrial Revolution

The Civil Rights Movement and the Federal Era in Education

The Birth of the Modern Conservative Movement

Part V: The New Christian Right Era of the 1960s to Today
Forming and accelerating the New Christian Right

The New Christian Right

(A) Theological and Political Developments
(B) Three Culture Wars

Deinstitutionalization and Re-Christianization

(A) Shifting All Branches of Government Rightward
(B) Five Goals of Re-Christianization
(C) Three Strategies of Deinstitutionalization

Part VI: Conclusion
What now?

Suggested Citation:

Kumashiro, K. K. (2025). School Times for End Times: A Brief History of U.S. Christian Nationalist Activism and Public Education. https://www.kevinkumashiro.com/schooltimes.

Acknowledgments:

Special thanks to Kevin Welner for his invaluable feedback and encouragement, and to all who generously provided endorsements.