Return to Table of Contents | Proceed to Part II
School Times for End Times
Part I:
Introduction
Naming the moment and the movement
Inundating the news these days are stories that can leave us feeling despair—from the dismantling of education agencies and the defunding of schools and universities, to the censorship of teaching truths and critical thinking and the criminalization of protest; from the slashing of civil-rights protections and social-wellness programs for those in need, to the unprecedented funneling of public tax dollars to the wealthiest corporations, industries, and individuals, as well as public dollars for private and religious schools; from the culture wars and state violence about abortion access, queer teachers, trans youth, and immigrants and refugees, to the bipartisan inaction for or enabling of climate destruction, war, and genocide; and so much more. Naming the political moment that we are in can feel traumatizing—and overwhelmingly so—but I do see hope when piecing together how we got here, how these issues are all interconnected, and how the future is still in-the-making.
Naming this moment makes apparent that these attacks on education and democracy not only culminate long historical trends, but also were plainly laid out in the blueprint for the second Trump Administration called Project 2025—and similarly, that the blueprint for generating public and policy support for Israel and for silencing support for Palestinians in the current genocide was spelled out in Project Esther[1]—both published by the Christian Nationalist organization, the Heritage Foundation. Why might Christian Nationalism be so invested in such a broad range of issues? How did it come to shape government and public policy so profoundly? And, what exactly is Christian Nationalism?
Pop Quiz #1: Of these five flags that were either carried or worn during the insurrection of January 6, 2021, which one is the official Christian Flag?
Keep reading to see the answer.
Broadly speaking, Christian Nationalism is a world vision, a religious ideology, and a social and political movement based on the idea that Christianity (or at least, some people’s interpretation of Christianity) was, is, and should be the center of nation building; it is one form of Christian supremacy. Throughout this report, I use the term “Christian Nationalism” expansively—that is, I do not exclude people, organizations, events, or movements from this discussion simply because they fail to adhere to every criteria, and instead, I err towards inclusion in an effort to capture the richness, diversity, evolution, and contestation of its story. Christian Nationalism long preceded the founding of the United States and has long been embraced by groups of people in countries around the world. This report will focus on the U.S. version of Christian Nationalism, which additionally assumes three things: first, that the New World was chosen by God to be the Promised Land and that the original White male settlers in North America were chosen to lead; second, that the United States was founded as and should continue to be a Christian nation and that the institutions therein (like, education) should be governed by Christian ethics; and third, that there is a social order prescribed by God to follow this Christian path that should be maintained at all costs, including maintaining hierarchies of race and gender through means of righteous violence.[2]
From the Christianization of America and the racialization of Christianity, to the ordination of White Christian American men and the religious grounds for violence—all of this is “God’s plan.” As some put it, we are in a war between good and evil, and God has chosen certain people (like, say, Trump) to turn this country and the world around, including by putting Christian ethics back in the government and in schools. Not surprisingly, Christian symbols were prominent in the insurrection of January 6, 2021.[3] In a recent survey, Christian Nationalists were twice as likely as others to believe that political violence may be justified to “save the country.”[4] Even globally, people who adhere to Christian Nationalism are likely to believe that violence may be necessary to save the world, including some Christian Zionists who justify violence concerning Israel’s role in approaching the biblical End Times (end of the world).[5]
Throughout the past three centuries, signs of racial diversification and progress towards racial justice repeatedly stirred feelings of loss in status and galvanized political activity, particularly for White Christians, as will be discussed shortly. The recent slide from majority to minority status in terms of the percentage of the United States who are White Christians—from 54% in 2008 to 44% in 2022[6]—helps to explain why White Christians in particular may be increasingly likely today to consider “minorities” and “outsiders” as threats to their supposedly ordained status and role in nation- and world-building. Furthermore, given that democratic decision making is often shaped by the vote of the majority, the enfranchisement of people who are not White and Christian can be seen as cause for turning against democracy itself—hence the accelerating embrace of authoritarian politics among the political Right, as well as the struggle to silence any attempts to re-story America through multicultural education.
A number of high-profile political leaders in office today explicitly identify with Christian Nationalist organizations, and such organizations have long been involved in national politics. However, not all Christians—not even all conservative Christians or evangelical Christians—adhere to these core views of Christian Nationalism, and of those who do, there is variance or a continuum of how strongly so. There is much diversity within Christian Nationalism, including diversity of theology, of church and denomination, of race, and of political affiliation and activism, and much of the history of Christian Nationalism reflects longstanding tensions between different Christian groups as well as ongoing transformations of their core theological and political orientations. Christian Nationalism has always been tightly connected to White Nationalism, but it is not the case that all Christian Nationalists are White. White people are certainly the largest and most visible group, but in recent surveys:
Black people were more likely to hold Christian Nationalist beliefs than any other group;
Hispanic or Latinx Protestants were the group with the largest growth in support for Christian Nationalism in recent years; and
White evangelicals were far more likely to support Trump than any other group, but Asian American evangelicals were more zealous than White people in believing that Christianity is “the one, true faith.”
Christian Nationalist ideas are widely shared not only among Christians, but among Americans as a whole—Christian or not:
about 40% of all U.S. adults indicated that the country should be a Christian nation, including 20% of non-Christians who felt that way;
about 50% of all adults indicated that America was God’s chosen nation;
about 50% indicated that the Bible should influence U.S. law, while over 25% indicated that the Bible should take priority over the will of the people; and
over 50% of all people, over 75% of evangelical Christians, and about 80% of Republicans either actively advocated for or at least supported some tenets of Christian Nationalism.
People who adhere to Christian Nationalist views were nearly twice as likely to live in Red states than in Blue ones, and more than three times as likely to identify as Republican than as Democrat.[7]
Not surprisingly, Christian instruction and practices have always pervaded U.S. public schools, even today, although in some ways not as explicitly so.[8] Examples range from including curriculum materials and lessons with Christian themes or references (like in history, literature, and the arts) to excluding materials referencing other religions and faiths; from extracurricular activities to student-led clubs involving prayer, Bible reading, and other devotional practices; from references to God in the Pledge of Allegiance and the national anthem and other patriotic hymns (like in America the Beautiful and in America, My Country Tis of Thee) to public displays with Christian figures or messages (like when hanging the Ten Commandments); from Christian holidays to other observances of Christian holy days and figures, including by way of celebrations and parties, decorations, costumes, foods, class projects, and musical concerts and theater performances; from faith-based services and partnerships in public schools to the diverting of public funds for religious providers; and so on. To be clear: these examples typically are not included in schools in order to learn about Christianity alongside other religions, or even to learn to engage in academic inquiry and analysis about different representations or aspects of Christianity. Rather, these tend to occur in ways that normalize and privilege Christianity, or at least a particular version of Christianity, as if it is supposed to be embraced in this form by all in public schools.
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!
Quiz #1 answer is (e):
(a) The Ichthys (fish outline) dates to the first two centuries of the Christian Church and remains today one of the symbols of Christianity. (Image: public domain)
(b) The red Crusades Cross, sometimes accompanied with the phrase, “Deus Vult” (God wills it), dates to the Christian Crusades of the Middle Ages (the White Christian wars against primarily Muslims and Jews) and has become a symbol of White Nationalism. (Image: public domain)
(c) The “An Appeal to Heaven” Flag, also called the Pine Tree Flag, dates to the American Revolution and has become a symbol of the New Apostolic Reformation. (Image: public domain)
(d) The Gadsden Flag, with the caption, “Dont Tread on Me” (originally without the apostrophe), also dates to the American Revolution and has become a symbol of anti-government militias. (Image: Christopher Gadsden 1724-1805, Lexicon, Vikrum, Gadsden flag, CC BY-SA 3.0)
(e) The Christian Flag, originally conceived in 1897, was adopted in 1942 by the interdenominational Federal Council of Churches, now called the National Council of Churches. (Image: public domain)
—-
[1] Baker, K. J.M. (2025, May 18). The group behind Project 2025 has a plan to crush the pro-Palestinian movement. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/18/us/project-esther-heritage-foundation-palestine.html.
[2] For additional definitions of Christian Nationalism, see Gorski, P. S., & Perry, S. L. (2022). The flag and the cross: White Christian nationalism and the threat to American democracy. New York: Oxford University Press. Southern Poverty Law Center. (n.d.). Christian Supremacy. https://www.splcenter.org/resources/extremist-files/christian-supremacy. Stewart, K. (2020). The power worshippers: Inside the dangerous rise of religious nationalism. New York: Bloomsbury.
[3] For more on the insurrection, see Tyler, A. et al. (2022). Christian Nationalism and the January 6, 2021 Insurrection. Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty (BJC) and Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF). https://bjconline.org/jan6report.
[4] For more on the statistics presented throughout Part I, see Pew Research Center. (2022). 45% of Americans Say U.S. Should Be a “Christian Nation.” https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2022/10/PF_2022.10.27_christian-nationalism_REPORT.pdf. Public Religion Research Institute. (2025). Christian Nationalism across All 50 States. Insights from PRRI’s 2024 American Values Atlas. https://prri.org/research/christian-nationalism-across-all-50-states-insights-from-prris-2024-american-values-atlas.
[5] For more on the End Times, see Klein, N., & Taylor, A. (2025). The rise of end times fascism. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2025/apr/13/end-times-fascism-far-right-trump-musk.
[6] Pew Research Center (2022). Public Religion Research Institute (2025).
[7] Ibid.
[8] For additional overviews of Christian Nationalism and U.S. schools, see Apple, M. W. (2001). Educating the “right” way: Markets, standards, God, and inequality. New York: RoutledgeFalmer. Burke, K. J., Juzwik, M., & Prins, E. (2023). White Christian Nationalism: What is it, and why does it matter for educational research? Educational Researcher, 52(5), 286-295. Stewart, K. (2017). The Good News Club: The Religious Right’s stealth assault on America’s children. New York: Public Affairs.
Return to Table of Contents | Proceed to Part II