‘Testing ground for Project 2025’: behind Oklahoma’s rightwing push to erode the line between church and state

With Trump back in the White House, the state’s superintendent is making efforts to install Christian viewpoints in governance. Ryan Walters bowed his head in prayer at his desk in the Oklahoma state superintendent’s office. “Dear God, thank you for all the blessings you’ve given our country,” the rising star on the Christian right said in the mid-November video. “I pray for our leaders to make the right decisions. I pray in particular for President Donald Trump and his team as they continue to bring about change for our country.”.

Walters sent the video, in which he announces a new department of religious freedom and patriotism, to all public school superintendents in the state and told them to play the prayer for their students and send it to parents. Schools pushed back, as did the Republican state attorney general, who said Walter had no authority to require students to watch it and that it ran contrary to “parents’ rights, local control and individual free-exercise rights”.

Walters’ efforts exemplify attempts to erode the separation of church and state – an increasingly powerful push on the right, with elected officials at the local, state and federal level explicitly stating they don’t believe there is or should be a separation, and that they intend to govern that way.

Oklahoma has become a laboratory for this effort, and Walters, as state superintendent overseeing policy for K-12 schools, one of its most prominent proponents. He has pushed to create the country’s first Catholic public charter school. He bought Trump-branded Bibles that he wants to put them in classrooms. He has installed prominent rightwing figures such as the activist behind the anti-LGBTQ+ group Libs of TikTok and the leader of the Heritage Foundation on state education committees.

This is what Christian nationalism looks like in governance – rejecting church and state separation and installing Christian viewpoints – and it’s on the rise with Trump back in the White House. “If you support LGBTQ equality, if you are for inclusive and thriving public schools, if you believe science should dominate during a public health crisis, if you are for fighting climate change in necessary ways for human survival, then you are for church-state separation,” said Rachel Laser, the president and CEO at Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

Oklahoma is not alone in pushing these kinds of policies. Louisiana passed a law that would require the posting of the Ten Commandments in classrooms, which is on hold after a legal challenge. Texas lawmakers have signaled they want to pass a similar law. An Idaho lawmaker introduced a bill, written by a Christian lobbying group, to require daily Bible readings. A few states, starting with Texas, have passed laws to allow schools to hire chaplains. Some argue abortion bans passed in states such as Missouri violate church-state separation by imposing the religious view that life begins at conception.

The US supreme court agreed in January to hear a case assessing the ability of the Oklahoma charter school board to create the country’s first public religious charter school, a closely-watched test of church-state separation. Oklahoma’s supreme court ruled against the school.

After the high court decided to take the case, Walters, who did not respond to requests for an interview, told the rightwing Real America’s Voice: “There is no separation of church and state. Good luck finding that in the constitution or declaration of independence.”.

Several groups have coalesced to provide an intellectual justification for the erosion of the separation of church and state – but few have found more success than David Barton, the founder of the Christian group Wallbuilders and a longtime proponent of the idea that the founding fathers sought to create a Christian nation.

Through Wallbuilders, which was founded in 1988, Barton offers churches and activists a trove of materials with historical examples of US leaders who were outspoken Christians – evidence, Barton argues, that the US is a rightfully Christian country.

Barton’s claim that the separation of church and state is not a legal guarantee has been widely embraced by the Christian right. Activists like Barton focus on a few historical details to craft their case, like the fact that the phrase “separation of church and state” does not appear in the “free exercise” clause of the first amendment, which prohibits the state from establishing a religion.

But scholars reject that claim and point to the establishment clause in the constitution, which prevents the government from creating a state religion. “If you go back to the actual constitution, clearly the founding fathers did not want to privilege Christianity – or any religion for that matter,” said John Fea, a professor of American history who focuses on the role of Christianity in the country’s founding.

The 1947 landmark case Everson v Board of Education of Ewing Township established that not only federal but also state and local governments were required to adhere to the establishment clause of the first amendment. “The First Amendment has erected a wall between church and state. That wall must be kept high and impregnable,” wrote Justice Hugo Black, siding with the majority. The court eventually adopted a three-part test to determine whether the government had violated the first amendment’s establishment clause.