FFRF Action Fund’s “Secularist of the Week” is MSNBC anchor Ali Velshi for his compelling segment on how far-right forces are trying to impose Christian nationalism on the country.
In late November, Velshi reported on Oklahoma State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters’ latest attack on secular public education. Velshi described Oklahoma as “ground zero in the escalating national battle over the role of religion in public schools.” He chronicled how Walters recently required public school districts to “show students a bizarre video of himself praying for the President-elect Donald Trump” while announcing the Office of Religious Liberty and Patriotism at the Oklahoma State Department of Education.
Velshi detailed the “instant backlash” that the directive produced, including refusal from several Oklahoma school districts and disagreement from the state’s attorney general, who called it unenforceable and incompatible with free exercise rights. “Walters’ crusade to inject Christian nationalism into public schools is not new, and it comes at a time when Oklahoma’s educational system ranks as the second worst in the country,” Velshi continued. Velshi also recited some of Walters’ other offenses, such as his recently announced $25,000 purchase of more than 500 Trump-endorsed biblesintended to be placed in state public classrooms.
“Walters’ crusade is a part of a broader campaign by Christian nationalists to reshape public education in America,” Velshi said. He explained that Christian nationalists have a “two-pronged strategy,” which aims to undermine secular public education and pave the way for religious charter schools to be publicly funded. Velshi emphasized that this strategy is “part of a well-funded effort to fuse Christian nationalism into the fabric of American society.”
“The first prong seeks to attack secular public education by promoting Christian symbolism and prayer in schools, along with a religious-infused curriculum,” Velshi said. This is happening nationwide, with Louisiana’s (blocked) Ten Commandments law and Texas’ newly approved bible-infused school curriculum. Velshi explained that the “second prong” seeks to establish publicly funded religious charter schools that are “the first phase in the larger fight to do away with the U.S. Department of Education, which the far-right sees as a ‘woke cartel.’” Oklahoma is currently fighting to open the nation’s first publicly funded religious charter school, and the Alliance Defending Freedom is working to have the U.S. Supreme Court hear the case after Oklahoma’s highest court deemed the charter school unconstitutional.
Velshi explained how Christian nationalists helped shape the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority, highlighting that there is a “tight-knit network of donors and conservative activists who are working to advance a Christian nationalist agenda” through court decisions. The current court “has ruled in favor of religious claimants in 86 percent of cases,” Velshi said, which is a “sharp increase from prior eras” and has set dangerous precedents that erode “the long-cherished American principle of separation of church and state.”
“The Founding Fathers, who themselves experienced religious persecution, crafted the First Amendment to ensure America would be a nation where religious freedom could thrive without government interference,” Velshi asserted. He concluded that the “foundational principle” of American state/church separation is “being directly threatened by far-right forces that found a home in Trump’s Republican Party, like Oklahoma’s Department of Education and its leader, Ryan Walters.”
Velshi has spoken out against Christian nationalism before, including last March after Alabama Supreme Court Justice Tom Parker threatened “the wrath of a Holy God” in the concurring opinion of the court’s ruling that frozen embryos are considered to have the same rights as living children, endangering in vitro fertilization (IVF).
We commend Velshi’s commitment to raising awareness of Christian nationalism and its threats to our secular democracy. He has certainly earned his “Secularist of the Week” title.
FFRF Action Fund is a 501(c)(4) organization that develops and advocates for legislation, regulations and government programs to preserve the constitutional principle of separation between state and church. It also advocates for the rights and views of nonbelievers, endorses candidates for political office, and publicizes the views of elected officials concerning religious liberty issues.