Return to Table of Contents | Proceed to Part VI

School Times for End Times

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

The perceived threats and opportunities presented by the major transformations of U.S. society of the mid-twentieth century contributed to the emergence of the New Christian Right and the acceleration of the two-prong strategy of deinstitutionalization and re-Christianization.

The New Christian Right

Pop Quiz #8: Who said each of the following? (Betsy DeVos; Jerry Falwell, Sr.; Ralph Reed; Pat Robertson; Phyllis Schlafly)

(a)  “I hope I live to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won't have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them.”

(b)  “It is no exaggeration that Christian bashing is the last acceptable form of prejudice in America.”

(c)   The Bible is a “workable guidebook for politics, government, business, families, and all the affairs of mankind.”

(d)  “There are not enough philanthropic dollars in America to fund what is currently the need in education… Our desire is to confront the culture in ways that will continue to advance God’s kingdom.”

(e)   “What I am defending is the real rights of women. A woman should have the right to be in the home as a wife and mother.”

Keep reading to see the answers.

Hand in hand with the Conservative Movement, and in response to the intersecting events of the Cold War, technonationalism, the Civil Rights Movement, and federal intervention in education, occurred the most significant change in organized Christianity in the modern era, namely the Fourth Great Awakening. During this period from around the 1960s to 1980s, the U.S. Christian population shifted dramatically Rightward, and what emerged was the New Christian Right.[64] The mainline Protestant churches were still growing but peaked in memberships around 1970 and then began to decline, while in their place other types of churches—particularly those that were more conservative Protestant, conservative Catholic, and non-denominational Pentecostal—saw their memberships skyrocket starting in the 1970s. Although there was variation in terms of how these churches functioned, there was nonetheless quite a bit of similarity of theology and political orientation.

A significant reason for this growth was technological: although Christian programming was aired on the radio from the 1920s, and on broadcast television from the mid-20th century, televangelists were able to reach larger and larger audiences as new, more accessible communications technologies became widely available.[65] This expansion happened first through satellite and cable television (as with Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network, launched in 1961, which several years later would air his popular show, 700 Club) and more recently through the Internet and social media.

Image: “Radio and Television News” cover, January 1949 (public domain)

(A) Theological and Political Developments

The New Christian Right that began to emerge in the 1970s was akin to a vast tent of varied churches that were nonetheless unified theologically and politically in key ways. Theologically, the New Christian Right coalesced around three major developments in the 1970s to 1990s. First was Christian Reconstructionism, the view that emerged in the 1970s that Christians must first build the Kingdom of God here on Earth before the Rapture and salvation can happen, and more specifically, that the United States must be reconstructed in line with the Bible. Reconstructionism elevated two guides for doing so: dominionism (the notion that God calls on Christians to take control of all aspects of society) and Biblical Worldview (the notion that the Bible gives a strict and literal blueprint for organizing and running society, or as Pat Robertson put it, a “workable guidebook for politics, government, business, families, and all the affairs of mankind”).[66] One of the leading developers and proponents of Reconstructionism was the previously mentioned Rushdoony, who admired antebellum-era theological positions that supported slavery and who believed that the Social Gospel was unorthodox and that the Franklin Roosevelt-era New Deal was an even bigger evil. Rushdoony was well-connected with other leaders of Christian Nationalist and Conservative organizations, having served on the board of the Council for National Policy.[67]

Second was the New Apostolic Reformation, the movement starting around the 1980s and 1990s that aimed to, as suggested by the name, organize around new apostles, which happened through the formation of many new neo-Charismatic Pentecostal churches that were mostly non-denominational and independent of the mainline churches. Coined by C. Peter Wagner, the New Apostolic Reformation held the view that the world must first experience a second apostolic age (and is experiencing it now) in order for the Second Coming of Christ to occur, and furthermore, that there is urgency to shape the world and bring it closer to the End Times in the here and now. The dominionist notion of Kingdom Now conveys this urgency by suggesting that the sooner that Christians build towards the Kingdom of God on Earth, the sooner the Second Coming can happen, hence the fervor with which followers engage in Christian Nationalism, including in the political realm, as illustrated more recently when New Apostolic Reformation leaders united behind Trump in his presidential runs. Not all in the New Christian Right believe in the second apostolic age, and therefore the New Apostolic Reformation was and is a subset of the New Christian Right, albeit a large one, a more racially diverse one, and one with increasing impact on education through its networks.[68]

Third was the popularization of dispensationalism, a notion that had existed for centuries but mainstreamed with the rise of the New Christian Right. In contrast to the postmillennialism of Christian Reconstructionism, dominionism, and the New Apostolic Reformation was the premillennialist notion of dispensationalism, or the notion that God divided history into different periods known as dispensations, each with its own chosen people (including Israel and the Christian Church) with a unique role to play at the time of the Rapture, or the End Times, when true believers will rise to Heaven. Christian leaders like Jerry Falwell and Tim LaHaye helped to popularize elements of dispensationalism, including the prophetic role that the state of Israel will play in approaching the End Times. Dispensationalism fuels the fervor with which adherents support the state of Israel, including among the growing numbers of Christian Zionists today, such as U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.[69] Although dispensationalism differs on key theological elements with Christian Reconstructionism and the New Apostolic Reformation, adherents agree on a number of policy priorities, as will be described shortly.

Hand in hand with the theological orientation of the New Christian Right was the political orientation that would emerge at the same time, made possible by a unification across the various churches in order to have greater policy and social impact. Again, we can look at the 1970s to 1990s to see two successful efforts to coalesce. First was the 1979 formation of the Religious Roundtable that convened many of the leading figures in the New Christian Right to serve on its board, and that then hosted the 1980 National Affairs Briefing with the goal of unifying the broader movement to support the election of Ronald Reagan.[70] Second was the 1986 founding of the Coalition on Revival that aimed to unite evangelicals across denominations to facilitate communication and coordination.

The resulting convergence included some diversity of theology (they included, for example, both postmillennialists and premillennialists), diversity of church (they included both Catholics and Protestants), and even diversity of race (they were predominantly White, including segregationists and White supremacists, but included people of Color as well). Yet, this diversity was nonetheless unified in key ways, particularly by their ideology of Christian Nationalism and their politics of vigorous and vociferous political engagement. As a more unified social movement, the New Christian Right entered the 1990s with far more capacity to upend various pillars of society. As before, public education would be a primary target, as illustrated by Jerry Falwell, Sr., who in 1979 wrote, “I hope I live to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won't have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them. What a happy day that will be!”[71]

(B) Three Culture Wars

How did the New Christian Right grow its base so significantly and to have such passion? One theme that continued from previous decades and would help to mobilize Christians was that of persecution and victimhood. Drawing comparisons to the persecution of people of Color and other groups in the past were such leaders as Ralph Reed, the first executive director of the Christian Coalition, who argued that, “It is no exaggeration that Christian bashing is the last acceptable form of prejudice in America.”[72] But perhaps the most significant strategies to build their base would be the waging of culture wars. Culture wars are what result from inflaming controversies in the social and cultural realm that can have policy impact, particularly controversies that increase social anxieties about cultural and social diversity and differences in order to mobilize a base into political activism. The Christian Right built its base around at least three types of culture wars over the past half a century: abortion and gender; LGBTQ+ people; and (with no sense of the irony, perhaps) immigrants and refugees.

First, abortion and gender. As previously mentioned, the initial catalysts of the New Christian Right’s convergence and politicization were the religion- and segregation-related court decisions in the 1960s and 1970s. The 1973 Roe v Wade decision that legalized abortion did not initially serve as a lightning rod for the movement. It was not until the late 1970s that abortion was added to conservative and Christian Nationalist policy priorities. Why? The New Christian Right leaders realized that the mainstream might no longer rally publicly in favor of segregation, but that abortion could very well prove to be the culture war that builds their base.[73]

In this regard, important figures in helping to grow the movement were women like Phyllis Schlafly, founder of the Eagle Forum and a conservative Catholic, who not only helped lead the movement to defeat the proposed Equal Rights Amendment, but also played a significant role in galvanizing conservative White women and elevating the domestic role of women within Christian Nationalism. She argued, for example, “What I am defending is the real rights of women. A woman should have the right to be in the home as a wife and mother.”[74] Leaders like Weyrich and others drew on her strategies to shift away from the blatant defense of segregation to the “softer” issues of the home, including sex, pregnancy, gender, sexuality, womanhood, motherhood, and wifehood as some of the topics on which to mobilize a base.[75] This messaging strategy complemented the previously mentioned, centuries-old narratives of Americanness that were equally gendered but that had focused on the dominion of men, masculinity, and violence, that is, the need for America to have “strong men.”

The gendering of Christian Nationalism was made more extremist in recent years by three developments. First, in the 2010s came the popularization of the “Seven Mountains Mandate,” also called “Seven Mountains Dominionism.” Initially credited to several leaders in the 1970s, including the previously mentioned Bill Bright of Cru, the concept was popularized in the mid-2010s by evangelist Lance Wallnau (who campaigned heavily for Trump). This concept called on Christians to take control of seven aspects of society in order to bring about the End Times: family, religion, education, media, arts and entertainment, business, and government. This offered a framework for operationalizing dominionism that presupposed and elevated traditional gender roles for men and women.[76]

Second, in the 2020s came the popularization of Christian theocracy (a theocracy is an autocracy in which a deity or deities rule, but do so by giving divine authority to human intermediaries, of whom some people believe, in this moment, include Trump). One of the more influential of such theocrats was and is evangelist Doug Wilson. His career stretched back decades—he cofounded in 1998 the Confederation of Reformed Evangelicals, now called the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, with over 150 congregations worldwide. Prior to that, he cofounded in 1993 the Association of Classical Christian Schools, a related network of “classical” academies, now numbering over 500 across the United States. But for much of this time he was considered fringe, even by other Christian Nationalists because of, among other reasons, his justifications of slavery and of men’s violent control over women. In 2020, however, he leapt into the national spotlight when claiming religious reasons for opposing things like COVID-related public-health measures, and he has since been connected to many religious and political leaders and organizations. Notable adherents include Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and the TheoBros, discussed immediately below.[77]

Third, also in the 2020s, was the emergence of these TheoBros. Back in the 1980s and 1990s, in contrast to the New Apostolic Reformation (but similarly descending from the theories of Rushdoony) coexisted a strand of reformed Protestantism that rejected the idea that God spoke through apostles, arguing instead that God spoke entirely through the Bible. This strand grew exponentially in the 2020s because of the rapidly growing online following of the TheoBros, a set of mostly White men aged thirty- and forty-something who themselves were followers of Doug Wilson. Echoing the colonial-era narrative of the chosen-ness of the White Protestant man to lead the nation and the world towards the Kingdom of God—and related concerns about the supposed declining status of men, of White people, of America, and so on—this group successfully politicized many more younger White men (including current Vice President J.D. Vance) into an even more conservative segment of the New Christian Right, particularly by criticizing the older generations of evangelicals as not bold enough and out of date.[78]

As suggested by the closeness in name to TechBros (wealthy leaders of tech industries), the TheoBros valued the latest developments in Big Tech, and more specifically, the science and technology at the heart of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The Fourth Industrial Revolution is the period beginning around the 2010s when the world transitioned from the Information Age to a period when advanced technologies were becoming more and more integrated with human beings, including artificial intelligence, simulated realities, and embedded robotics. Reversing the centuries-old tendency of Christian Nationalism to view technonationalism as a threat, the TheoBros conjoined the two, highlighting how technology could not only transform the human experience, but also accelerate the world towards the End Times.[79] Elevating the role of technology in building a Christian utopia was another reason for their popularity with the younger generations, among whom some felt a strong familiarity and affinity with such advanced technologies.

Closely related to gender roles was the second culture war: LGBTQ+ people. As previously mentioned, the moral panics and policing of gender and sexuality have occurred in U.S. schools for centuries, particularly regarding women as teachers. But it was during the Cold War that efforts escalated to purge schools of teachers and other employees who were suspected of being LGBTQ+, catalyzed by the Lavendar Scare of the late 1940s but continuing for decades in the form of policy and court battles regarding, among other issues, employment discrimination just for being LGBTQ+. Some Christian Nationalists claimed that LGBTQ+ people posed several threats: not only might they be, as described earlier, a security risk regarding communist infiltration, but perhaps more fundamentally, they threatened the Christian family by destabilizing the traditional gender roles for men and women.[80]

As gay-rights and then LGBTQ+ rights movements grew in size, visibility, and impact in the second half of the 20th century, the attacks also broadened in scope. In addition to the purges of LGBTQ+ employees in schools:

• there were efforts to erase LGBTQ+ existence from the curriculum, particularly in the battles over comprehensive sex education that erupted nationwide in the 1980s, but continuing today in restrictions over teaching “divisive concepts”;

• there were efforts to reinforce bans on same-sex marriage that erupted nationwide in the 1990s;

• there were efforts to increase extracurricular activities that were explicitly anti-LGBTQ+ in the early 2000s, as will be described in a moment;

• there was the wave of “bathroom bills” in the 2010s that aimed to restrict trans youth from using school facilities that aligned with one’s gender identity (pushed by the Family Research Council, as well as the Family Policy Alliance, which was the policy arm of Focus on the Family);

• and in the 2020s there was and still is the parallel wave of anti-trans bills that aim to restrict access to gender-affirming health care as well as access to sports teams and facilities that align with one’s gender identity (pushed again by the Family Policy Alliance, as well as the Alliance Defending Freedom).[81]

Image #1: “Federal Court Rulings Eroding the Ban on Gays in the Military,” by Joe Hoover, 1994 (Myotus, Cartoon-glbt-94--Federal court rulings eroding ban on gays in the military, CC BY-SA 4.0)
Image #2: “Close the Gate” (a Red-Scare cartoon advocating for immigration restriction, symbolized by the wall, to keep dangers out), by Carey Orr, Chicago Tribune, 1919 (public domain)

The third culture war focused on immigration. As previously mentioned, Christian Nationalists have, since colonial times, held the view that they were chosen by God to claim the New World for themselves. This Nativist Protestantism is what helped to distinguish themselves from the later immigrants who differed in faith, such as in the wave of immigration that included many Catholics and Jews from Europe in the early 20th century. But four things would happen in the later 20th and early 21st centuries that would both exacerbate and reorient the anti-immigrant sentiment among Christian Nationalists in an explicitly racialized way. First were the legislations that opened the door to another large wave of immigration and naturalization, especially of non-Whites, including the 1965 Immigration Act (which, among other things, lifted previous restrictions for immigrants from Asian and African countries) and the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (which, among other things, legalized over 2.7 million undocumented immigrants). Second was the coalescing across denominations and of nondenominational Christians into the New Christian Right in the 1970s, which meant that Nativism would no longer primarily target non-Protestants and would instead shift to non-Europeans—Christian or otherwise.

Third was the end of the Cold War in 1991, the lessened fear of communism (at least temporarily), and the search for a new enemy against which to define Americanness. This search would be crystalized in 2001 with the attacks of September 11, the subsequent framing of Muslims as the new enemies, and the beginning of the War on Terrorism. This war was waged not only abroad, but at home as well, illustrated by the founding in 2003 of ICE, or Immigration and Customs Enforcement, that immediately set about detaining and deporting thousands of mainly Muslim, Arab, and South Asian men.[82] Fourth was the mainstreaming of the Great Replacement Theory, the notion that non-Whites were taking over White-dominant countries, which was an idea that had circulated in Europe and the United States for well over a century but would begin to significantly echo in political rhetoric and the media starting in the 2010s. American Nativism had always included a heightened concern about national borders, but the Great Replacement Theory turned the national gaze southward, especially with goading by the Trump-era tropes about Latinx criminals flooding across the southern border. The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 prioritizes halting immigration and increasing deportations, which is exactly what is happening now—this is not surprising, given that one of its contributing writers was former Heritage Foundation visiting fellow Tom Homan, the current “border czar” in the Trump Administration.[83]

A central theme across all culture wars was to shift the gaze away from systems to individuals—such as, away from systemic racism to “colorblindness,” away from state violence to “perverted” individual sex acts, away from colonization abroad to “legal and illegal” ways to cross borders, and away from structural wealth inequality to laissez-faire policies and blaming the victims for their own poverty. As will be discussed in a moment, the notion that God’s plan includes the free market would figure centrally in policy priorities.

Deinstitutionalization and Re-Christianization

Just as the Conservative Movement set out to undo the legal advancements of the Civil Rights Movement, so too did the New Christian Right set out to undo the separation of church and state that had been clarified and strengthened during the Federal Era of the 1950s to 1970s.

(A) Shifting All Branches of Government Rightward

One of the pivotal strategies of the New Christian Right was to change who were in the seats of government at all levels (local, state, and federal) and all branches (legislative, judicial, and executive). For example, at the local level, the New Christian Right successfully organized conservative Christians to run for their local school boards, and voters to vote for them, so as to occupy the majority of seats on local school boards across the country, a strategy started in the 1970s that would meet its goal by the mid-1990s.[84] Simultaneously, the New Christian Right successfully used culture wars, including about abortion, LGBTQ+ rights, sex education, multicultural curriculum, and other controversial issues to mobilize voters to support candidates at all levels—local, state, and federal—who aligned with its policy priorities. Mobilizing to elect Reagan in 1980 was an example, as more recently was Trump, but so were the down-ballot elections with the expectation that friendlier state and federal legislatures and executives would increase the likelihood of passing the model legislation being pushed by the organizations previously mentioned—like ALEC, the State Policy Network, and the Alliance Defending Freedom—on such priority areas as vouchers and charters. Simultaneous to mobilizing certain voters was disenfranchising or suppressing other voters—a priority that has been voiced again and again, whether from Paul Weyrich in the 1980s, or Phyllis Schlafly in the 2010s, or Trump today.

The mobilizing of the public was useful not only for shaping elections, but also for pressuring whomever sat in decision-making positions. This was best illustrated with the wave of protests starting in the early 2020s at local school board meetings to push for the censorship, defunding, or disavowal of “divisive concepts,” like Critical Race Theory, DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion), Ethnic Studies, Gender Studies, trans rights, and so on.[85] Across the country, such efforts were led largely by groups like Moms for Liberty that purported to be grassroots but were better characterized as “astroturf” or front-groups for the Christian Nationalist and Conservative movements (in this case, with the Heritage Foundation as a primary funder). Although the analysis in this report focuses on K-12 education, it should be noted that a coordinated campaign has been waged against higher education that similarly focuses on censorship, defunding, attacking the rights of marginalized groups, and so on.[86]

Image: Supreme Court (Joe Ravi, Panorama of United States Supreme Court Building at Dusk, CC BY-SA 3.0)

Legislative and executive elections were not its only goal—the New Christian Right also targeted judicial appointments. Given the central role in the Federal Era played by the courts, the nominations and appointments of federal judges would figure largely in its strategies, with major advances made by way of Republican presidents reshaping the Supreme Court, most notably, with Reagan’s appointment of Antonin Scalia, George H.W. Bush’s appointment of Clarence Thomas, George W. Bush’s appointments of John Roberts and Samuel Alito, and Donald Trump’s appointments of Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. All six of the latter appointees who still sit on the Supreme Court have been members or leaders of the Federalist Society, all are conservative Christian (in fact, almost every Republican appointee to the Supreme Court since Reagan has been conservative Catholic), and all were pushed by conservative Christian leaders: Weyrich promoted the appointments for Reagan and the first Bush, and Leonard Leo (a leader of the Federalist Society) for the second Bush and Trump.[87]

Not surprisingly, Supreme Court decisions over the last thirty years have progressively weakened the Establishment Clause and partly or fully reversed the Federal Era decisions about religion and schools—decisions that were championed and celebrated by the organizations that invested significantly in building court precedent for precisely that. One key player was the previously mentioned Alliance Defending Freedom that led or supported dozens of court cases, particularly on abortion and education, and has experienced numerous wins at the Supreme Court, including:

• Rosenberger v. University of Virginia in 1995 (deciding that the university cannot withhold funding for a religious student newspaper);

• Good News Club v. Milford Central School in 2001 (deciding that religious clubs must have equal access to facilities); and

• Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer in 2017 (deciding that a public agency providing public funding for playground resurfacing cannot exclude churches from participating).[88]

Bolstered by the Rightward shift of elected and appointed decision makers, the New Christian Right engaged in a greatly accelerated version of its two-prong strategy of deinstitutionalization and re-Christianization, and it has done so increasingly successfully as time passed.

(B) Five Goals of Re-Christianization

Pop Quiz #9: Can you match each initiative below with one of the five re-Christianization goals (curriculum censorship, extracurricular inclusion, curriculum inclusion, Christian public schools, and Christian branding)?

(a)  2025 Drummond Case

(b)  Creation Science

(c)   Day of Truth

(d)  Kanawha County Protests

(e)   Project Blitz

Keep reading to see the answers.

The primary re-Christianization strategies over the past fifty years centered on five goals: curriculum censorship, extracurricular inclusion, curriculum inclusion, Christian public schools, and Christian branding. The first goal was to censor and ban supposedly anti-Christian instruction in the curriculum, that is, to prohibit and remove classroom lessons, school programming, and other materials like library books that could be considered oppositional to Christian ethics. One of the primary strategies for doing so was inflaming culture wars as a way to mobilize the public to push for such censorship. The previously mentioned Scopes Trial about teaching evolution was an earlier example. So too were protests that spread to communities across the country that targeted school boards and that, with each cycle, would grow in size and intensity, starting with the 1950s protests led by the John Birch Society that accused schools of promoting communism (which they considered to be anti-Christian); followed by the protests sparked in 1974 by organized opposition to newly instituted multicultural textbooks in Kanawha County, West Virginia that some Christians considered to be blasphemous;[89] and more recently, the protests about Critical Race Theory, Ethnic Studies, and DEI initiatives. Court battles have continued as well, most recently with the 2025 Supreme Court decision in Mahmoud v. Taylor, which elevated homophobia to a sacred parental right, and in doing so, required districts to allow parents to object to and opt out of readings and lessons to which they object on purportedly religious grounds, including about LGBTQ+ people.[90]

The second goal was to promote extracurricular activities that could indirectly teach Christian ethics, especially activities that countered what was already happening in schools. For example, in opposition to LGBTQ+ affirming activities like Gay-Straight Alliances and Day of Silence observances, Christian groups organized Truth and Tolerance clubs and Day of Truth observances (the latter of which was pushed by the Alliance Defending Freedom).[91] Other examples included lawsuits that fought for—and won—the rights of students to engage in overtly Christian activity while in school, including the use of school facilities for student-led religious clubs, the distribution by students of religious materials, and the participation in student-led religious practices like prayer and Bible study.

The third goal was to protect and expand overt Christian instruction in the formal curriculum, ultimately overturning the Federal Era rulings that prohibited overt religious instruction and practices. One such strategy was primarily rhetorical and involved reframing previously fought policy battles as a way to justify the inclusion of overt Christian teachings, as when calling creationism a form of science (“creation science”) or when calling for Bible instruction under “equal time” policies. But the more wide-reaching strategy was litigative. As previously described, the Supreme Court decisions in the 1960s and 1970s interpreted the Establishment Clause to prohibit school-led prayers and devotional Bible readings in public school curriculum, emphasizing not only that schools must not endorse any religion, but also that schools must not coerce students into any religious practices (including through indirect or “subtle coercive pressure”), as can happen when teachers lead these activities as part of their jobs. However, a decades-long line of cases trimmed away at those earlier precedents, culminating in the 2022 Kennedy v. Bremerton case that a school official can effectively lead a prayer with students as part of schooling (in this case, a football coach on the 50-yard line after a game, even though some students felt subtly coerced to join). The opinion by Neil Gorsuch held that the restrictions on school prayer under question were a form of faith-based discrimination—in this case, restricting the free-exercise right of the coach.[92]

In Oklahoma, another example is the recent directive by the state Superintendent of Public Instruction that every classroom must have a Bible and must incorporate the Bible (and the Ten Commandments) into instruction as “instructional support.”[93]

The fourth goal was to establish Christian schools or services within the public school system. One such strategy was to end the restrictions on granting charters to churches to create religious charter schools. All states’ charter laws include such a prohibition, as does the 1994 federal law creating the charter school program that funds charter-school openings and growth. The Alliance Defending Freedom co-led litigation aimed to bring a case before the current Supreme Court, to find these prohibitions in violation of the Free Exercise Clause. The resulting challenge to Oklahoma’s restriction, however, fell slightly short (Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond, 2025) because Justice Barrett did not participate and the Supreme Court thus split 4-4—meaning that the Court has not yet weighed in on the issue.[94] But the Alliance Defending Freedom will undoubtedly continue this effort; we can expect a similar case in the next 2-3 years. Another strategy has been to allow Christian services or services by church providers in public schools. The 2023 Texas law that allowed for replacing school counselors with chaplains is one example, and although the largest school districts have thus far opted not to do so, there are schools that have.[95]

The fifth goal was to brand public schools as Christian, such as through public displays of Christian teachings and symbols. The recent wave of state legislation to mandate the public display of the Ten Commandments is being spearheaded by organizations like Project Blitz and Wallbuilders that offer model bills on these and related issues.[96]

(C) Three Strategies of Deinstitutionalization

Alongside the re-Christianization strategies were three complementary strategies of deinstitutionalization: Christian schools, homeschooling, and school funding. Regarding Christian schools, a significant change was about to occur. For much of the 20th century, the largest percentage by far of Christian schools were Catholic church-run schools. Catholic school enrollments peaked in the 1960s at well over five million but then declined sharply in the decades to follow. In their place emerged two alternatives that each would come to enroll millions: Christian schools that were not Catholic, and homeschooling. The growth of non-Catholic Christian schools was intertwined with the growth of the New Christian Right, and these schools varied significantly, with some of its most recent iterations being the “classical” academies mentioned previously, many of which are charter schools with Christian Nationalist curriculum.[97]

The expansion of homeschooling also began in the 1970s, spurred in large part by the previously mentioned leader of Christian Reconstructionism, Rushdoony, as well as by the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA). The HSLDA, founded in 1983 by Michael Farris (who would go on to lead the Alliance Defending Freedom from 2017-2022 as president and CEO), worked successfully in states across the country to expand parental rights to homeschool and to reduce government mandates and oversight (such as regarding reporting, assessments, immunizations, and child abuse monitoring). Not all homeschoolers were or are Christian, but the bulk are. The growth of homeschooling coincided with a burgeoning industry to provide Christian-related services, materials, and other resources for parents and students. By the end of the 20th century, the bulk of prepared homeschooling materials were Christian-related (some with Christian Nationalist teachings) and targeted specifically to mothers. Why mothers? As with public school teachers, homeschoolers tended to be White women, but their roles differed: when women were public school teachers, their role was far more public-facing than domestic, and they were bound to teach certain things and not teach other things that might conflict with Christian ethics; however, as homeschool teachers, if guided by the Christian materials, they could serve as mother, teacher, and religious servant all at once.[98]

Supporting this expansion of Christian schooling and homeschooling was the third strategy for deinstitutionalization, which focused on taking more and more tax dollars that historically had gone to public schools and reallocating them to Christian schools and homeschools though a variety of methods for expanding school choice, most notably vouchers.[99] Because this is today the primary education-policy priority for the New Christian Right, it is worth looking a bit more deeply at how this arose.

Post-Brown, it would not take long for opponents of desegregation to find a policy proposal with academic backing that would make mandatory desegregation programs sound unnecessary, namely, school choice (whereby students can choose from two or more schools rather than be assigned based on geography). According to this rationale, families of all backgrounds would want to get into the best schools, making the marketization of and competition for schools a more organic means to desegregate. In reality, school choice programs have proven time and again to exacerbate racial segregation, but such programs continued to expand, in part, by successfully framing the freedom to choose as a core democratic and capitalist value—at least when it comes to schools and not, say, abortion.

One of the key policy levers to expand choice to private schools was school vouchers (whereby a portion of the per-pupil spending allocation follows the student out of the public school system to their school of choice), thus treating schools like commodities for which families shop. More recent versions of vouchers are sometimes called neo-vouchers, including in the form of tax credits for any number of purportedly education-related expenses. This reframing of education from a public good to an individual commodity was largely credited to a 1955 essay by economist Milton Friedman that called for vouchers as a way not to improve public education, but to privatize it. Just as segregationists capitalized on this academic framework of marketization to push for choice and vouchers to upend desegregation, so too did Christian Nationalists embrace such neoliberal policies as tools to advance deinstitutionalization. Influential Christian Nationalist leaders, including Falwell, quoted from Friedman.[100] The link between Christian Nationalism and vouchers is helpfully illustrated by Betsy DeVos, who was appointed Secretary of Education in 2017, but long before then had led or affiliated with Christian Nationalist political and religious organizations pushing for choice, charters, and vouchers. As she explained in a 2001 interview, “There are not enough philanthropic dollars in America to fund what is currently the need in education… Our desire is to confront the culture in ways that will continue to advance God’s kingdom.”[101]

Prior to 2002, the federal courts had interpreted the Establishment Clause to prohibit states from supporting religion by funding religious schools through vouchers. However, the Supreme Court in the 2002 Zelman v. Simmons-Harris case held that a state could allow parents to use school vouchers at religious schools if nonsectarian public and private schools were supported as well. The Court then decided three other cases that have upended past understandings about Establishment-Clause hurdles to publicly funding religious schools and practices:

• The 2017 Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer case, holding that faith groups must be allowed to participate in a program providing public funding and materials for playground expenses if nonsectarian groups are eligible;

• The 2020 Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue case, holding that parents must be allowed to use vouchers (here, funded through tax credits) at religious schools if nonsectarian private schools are eligible; and

• The 2022 Carson v. Makin case, holding that parents must be allowed to use voucher-like state subsidies at religious schools—even those providing overt religious instruction—if non-religious private schools were eligible as well. Maine had long allowed vouchers for private schools in remote areas (where public schools were not available) but only if those schools offered an education that was comparable to the public schools, which therefore excluded overt religious instruction and practices. But no longer.[102]

In these cases, the majority opinions reflected not merely the support of Christian education but an attack on secular education. For example, in his 2022 Carson opinion, Chief Justice Roberts argued that there is no “historic and substantial state interest” in preserving secular education, while in his 2020 Espinoza opinion, he suggested that the separation of church and state is an idea that grew out of the anti-Catholicism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and that calls for sectarianism even today are really just a cover for underlying anti-Catholic bias. That is, as with the Gorsuch opinion described previously, Roberts considered Maine’s restriction to be a form of faith-based discrimination.

Pop Quiz #10: What is the name of the anti-taxation strategy of the Republican Party?

a)    Frosty the Frugal Snowman Strategy

b)    Golden Easter Egg Strategy

c)     Stockings Full of Coal Strategy

d)    Two Santa Clauses Strategy

e)     White Christmas Tree Strategy

Keep reading to see the answer.

More broadly speaking, moving money out of the public sector into the hands of wealthy individuals and corporations to pursue Christian goals has long been a central reason for the alignment between Christian Nationalism and Republican (and libertarian) efforts to cut taxes for the rich. The “Two Santa Clauses Strategy” developed by conservative strategist Jude Wanniski in the 1970s became the dominant approach for Republicans from Reagan onward. According to this view, Democrats may look like Santa giving gifts when they spend on domestic social programs, but Republicans can also look like Santa when they enact tax cuts because the cuts sound like gifts—people often assume that they will benefit, whether or not they have in the past—and Republicans can then use the ballooning national debt caused by reduced taxes to pressure Democrats to agree to spending cuts.[103] Rallying Christian Nationalists around libertarian goals of shrinking the government and taxes was not only Falwell (as mentioned previously), but also Rushdoony, whose views on Reconstructionism heavily influenced the ultraconservative U.S. Taxpayers Party (later called the Constitution Party), as well as Gary North, son-in-law of Rushdoony, who argued that government regulation of markets was un-Christian, as was wealth redistribution through taxes.[104]

Image: “Santa Claus with List,” in Puck, 12/7/1904 (public domain)

What better way to deinstitutionalize than to slash the budget of the public sector and funnel money into other priorities, particularly Christian Nationalist ones. The slashing and redirecting of social spending, including the defunding of public schools and diverting of public funds to religious schools, were among the core priorities for the second Trump Administration as laid out in the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025. Prepared in collaboration with a coalition of Christian Nationalist and Conservative organizations and leaders, this 900-plus page blueprint for the administration delineated a range of policy priorities and institutional steps to get there. Regarding education, one of Project 2025’s key goals was to undo the Federal Era initiatives and capacity for leveraging federal funding to advance equity and civil rights. Project 2025 outlined four sets of strategies: slash federal funding (especially funding that addresses inequities, like Title I, IDEA, and so on); dismantle federal agencies (and limit the federal role in advancing civil rights); accelerate deinstitutionalization (through the expansion of school choice and vouchers); and accelerate re-Christianization (especially by banning what some believe to be antithetical to Christian ethics). At the start of the second Trump term, these four strategies were indeed the core of its earliest executive actions, and we can expect more from the Project 2025 playbook to come.

—-

[64] For more on the history and leaders of the New Christian Right, see Apple (2001). Petrovic, P. (2024, October 26). The genesis of Christian Nationalism. ProPublica. https://projects.propublica.org/christian-nationalism-origins.

[65] See Apple (2001).

[66] Robertson, P. (1982). The secret kingdom. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers (as quoted in Apple, 2001).

[67] For more on Christian Reconstructionism and Rushdoony, see Petrovic (2024).

[68] For more on the New Apostolic Reformation and Wagner, see Butler, K. (2024a, Nov-Dec). Christian Nationalists dream of taking over America. This movement is actually doing it. Mother Jones. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/10/new-apostolic-reformation-christian-nationalism. Sawyer, J. (2024). (Un)hidden from self: On LGBTQ students and the conspiratorial demonology of the New Apostolic Reformation. Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies. DOI: 10.1080/10714413.2024.2336828.

[69] For more on dispensationalism, Christian Zionism, Huckabee, and Hegseth, see Hummel, D. G. (2019). Covenant brothers: Evangelicals, Jews, and U.S.-Israeli relations. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Klein & (2025).

[70] See Petrovic (2024).

[71] Falwell, J. (1979). America can be saved! Murfreesboro, TN: Sword of the Lord Publishers.

[72] Reed, R. (1993, April). Putting a friendly face on the pro-family movement. Christianity Today, p. 28 (as quoted in Apple, 2001).

[73] For more on the shift to abortion, see Balmer, R. (2014, May 27). The real origins of the Religious Right. Politico. https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/religious-right-real-origins-107133.

[74] Quoted in Gregorian, D. (2020, January 11). The Equal Rights Amendment could soon hit a major milestone. It may be 40 years too late. NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/equal-rights-amendment-could-soon-hit-major-milestone-it-may-n1112581.

[75] See Balmer (2014).

[76] For more on the Seven Mountains Mandate and Wallnau, see Butler (2024a).

[77] For more on theocracy, Wilson, and Hegseth, see Toropin, K. (2025, August 8). Hegseth reposts video on social media featuring pastors saying women shouldn’t be allowed to vote. AP News. https://apnews.com/article/women-hegseth-defense-secretary-religion-d962f472910fb47a0c66cd37b01f550d. Ward, I. (2025, May 23). Doug Wilson has spent decades pushing for a Christian Theocracy. In Trump’s DC, the New Right is listening. Politico. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/05/23/doug-wilson-new-right-pastor-hegseth-trump-officials-00355376.

[78] For more on TheoBros and men, see Butler, K. (2024b, Nov-Dec). To understand JD Vance, you need to meet the “TheoBros.” Mother Jones. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/09/theobros-jd-vance-christian-nationalism. Denker, A. (2025). Disciples of White Jesus: The radicalization of American boyhood. Minneapolis, MN: Broadleaf Books.

[79] Ibid.

[80] For more on anti-LGBTQ+ attacks, see Kumashiro (2008, 2012). For more on recent anti-trans attacks, see the statement by a coalition of educators (2021), 17,300+ Educators to President Biden: Support Trans Youth. https://www.kevinkumashiro.com/supporttransyouth. For more on recent anti-DEI attacks more broadly, see the statement by a coalition of educators and organizations (2021), Understanding the Attacks on Teaching: A Background Brief. https://www.kevinkumashiro.com/attacksonteaching.

[81] Ibid.

[82] For more on 9/11 narratives, see Kumashiro, K. (2024). Against common sense: Teaching and learning toward social justice. 4th ed. New York: Routledge.

[83] For more on the Great Replacement theory, see Wilson, J., & Flanagan, A. (2022). The racist “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory explained. Southern Poverty Law Center. https://www.splcenter.org/resources/hatewatch/racist-great-replacement-conspiracy-theory-explained.

[84] See Lugg (2001).

[85] See the statement by a coalition of educators and organizations (2021), Understanding the Attacks on Teaching: A Background Brief. https://www.kevinkumashiro.com/attacksonteaching.

[86] For more on higher education, see Kamola, I. (2024). Manufacturing Backlash: Right-Wing Think Tanks and Legislative Attacks on Higher Education, 2021-2023. Washington, DC: American Association of University Professors. https://www.aaup.org/manufacturing-backlash-right-wing-think-tanks-and-legislative-attacks-higher-education-2021-2023.

[87] For more on appointments, see Hamilton, M. A., & Griffin, L. C. (2023). How did six conservative Catholics become Supreme Court justices together? Justia. https://verdict.justia.com/2023/05/03/how-did-six-conservative-catholics-become-supreme-court-justices-together.

[88] For more on the Alliance Defending Freedom, see Kirkpatrick, D. (2023). The next targets for the group that overturned Roe. The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/10/09/alliance-defending-freedoms-legal-crusade.

[89] For more on Kanawha County, see Kincheloe, J. (1983). Understanding the New Right and Its Impact on Education. Bloomington, IN: Phi Delta Kappa Educational Foundation.

[90] See Lambda Legal. (2025, June 27). Civil Rights Organizations React to Supreme Court Ruling in Mahmoud v. Taylor. https://lambdalegal.org/newsroom/us_20250627_civil-rights-organizations-react-to-supreme-court-ruling-in-mahmoud-v-taylor.

[91] For more on student clubs and observances, see Kumashiro (2008).

[92] See Millhiser, I. (2022, June 27). The Supreme Court hands the religious right a big victory by lying about the facts of a case. Vox. https://www.vox.com/2022/6/27/23184848/supreme-court-kennedy-bremerton-school-football-coach-prayer-neil-gorsuch.

[93] Roddy, B. (2025, July 22). Are Bibles really required in Oklahoma public schools? News9. https://www.news9.com/story/687fd3da46c507797487267e/are-bibles-required-in-oklahoma-public-schools-.

[94] National Education Policy Center. (2025, May 22). Newsletter: Are Charter Schools Really Public? Will They Become Voucher Policies? https://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/newsletter-isadore-052225.

[95] Xia, A. (2024, April 4). A new Texas law allows schools to hire chaplains as counselors. So far, only one school has opted into the program. Texas Tribune. https://www.texastribune.org/2024/04/05/texas-school-counselors-chaplains.

[96] See Keierleber, M. (2025, July 18). 28 bills, Ten Commandments, and 1 source: A Christian Right “bill mill.” The 74. https://www.the74million.org/article/state-laws-requiring-ten-commandments-in-schools-are-the-product-of-a-far-right-bill-mill.

[97] For more on “classical” charter schools, see Network for Public Education. (2023). A sharp right turn: A new breed of charter schools delivers the conservative agenda. New York: NPE. https://networkforpubliceducation.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Sharp-Turn-Right-FINAL-6.6.23.pdf.

[98] For more on homeschooling and the HSLDA, see Apple (2001). Farley, A. C. (2021, March 2). How Christian schools and homeschooling teach supremacist conspiracies. Ms. https://msmagazine.com/2021/03/02/christian-schools-homeschooling-supremacist-conspiracies-qanon. NYCity News Service. (2022, March 12). When home is school: A lobbying group’s state-by-state fight against oversight. Chalkbeat. https://www.chalkbeat.org/2022/5/12/23067012/homeschool-lobbying-christian.

[99] For more on vouchers, see Cowan, J. (2024). The privateers: How billionaires created a culture war and sold school vouchers. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Welner, K., Orfield, G., & Huerta, L. A. (2023). The school voucher illusion: Exposing the pretense of equity. New York: Teachers College Press.

[100] Falwell, J. (1980). Listen, America! New York: Bantam Books.

[101] Rizga, K. (2017, Mar/Apr). Betsy DeVos wants to use America’s schools to build “God’s kingdom.” Mother Jones. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/01/betsy-DeVos-christian-schools-vouchers-charter-education-secretary.

[102] For more on Carson and its precedents, see Welner, K. G. (2022). The Outsourcing of Discrimination? Another SCOTUS Earthquake. Boulder, CO: National Education Policy Center. https://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/carson-makin.

[103] For more on Two Santa Clauses, see Hartmann, T. (2024). Here comes the Republican Santa scam again. The Hartmann Report. https://hartmannreport.com/p/here-comes-the-republican-santa-scam.

[104] For more on opposition to taxation, see Perry, S. L., & Braunstein, R. (2025). Not paying unto Caesar: Christian nationalism, politics, race, and opposition to taxation. Social Policy. DOI: 10.1093/sf/soaf041.

Return to Table of Contents | Proceed to Part VI