"Chaplains" In Schools: the Right's Latest Battle in Culture Wars

The separation of church and state envisioned by the Founding Father remains under constant attack by the far right and Christofascists/white "Christian" nationalists within the Republican Party base.  Frighteningly, the right wing extremist majority on the U.S. Supreme Court seems only too willing to aid the push by evangelicals and their Republican puppets to make far right Christianity a de facto state religion, riding rough shod over the religious freedom of non-Christians and those who have walked away from organized religion in disgust over that hatred, cruelty and bigotry (and false piety) that are the defining features of "conservative" Christianity.  Now these would be theocrats have added a new push to their efforts indoctrinate school students and force their toxic religion on all: forcing "chaplains" into public schools.  It goes without saying that these "chaplains" market only one form of religion and display their contempt for true religious freedom.  With the younger generations walking away for religion in ever increasing numbers, the push to force "chaplains" on schools ignores conservative Christianity's biggest problem, namely the ugliness and hatred of others that is on daily display.  A piece in the Washington Post looks at this right wing effort.  Here are highlights:

Lawmakers in mostly conservative states are pushing a coordinated effort to bring chaplains into public schools, aided by a new, legislation-crafting network that aims to address policy issues “from a biblical world view” and by a consortium whose promotional materials say chaplains are a way to convert millions to Christianity.

The bills have been introduced this legislative season in 14 states, inspired by Texas, which passed a law last year allowing school districts to hire chaplains or use them as volunteers for whatever role the local school board sees fit, including replacing trained counselors. . . . One passed both houses of Florida’s legislature and is awaiting the governor’s signature.

The bills are mushrooming in an era when the U.S. Supreme Court has expanded the rights of religious people and groups in the public square and weakened historic protections meant to keep the government from endorsing religion. In a 2022 case, Justice Neil M. Gorsuch referred to the “so-called separation of church and state.” Former president Donald Trump has edged close to a government-sanctioned religion by asserting in his campaign that immigrants who “don’t like our religion — which a lot of them don’t” would be barred from the country in a second term.

“We are reclaiming religious freedom in this country,” said Jason Rapert, a former Arkansas state senator and the president of the National Association of Christian Lawmakers . . . . Its mission is “to bring federal, state and local lawmakers together in support of clear biblical principles … to address major policy concerns from a biblical world view,” the site says.

The group hosted House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) late last year at its gala at the Museum of the Bible in Washington. . . . Critics who compare such efforts with theocracy, he said, are creating “a false flag, a boogeyman by radical left to demonize everyone of faith.”

Rapert says he’ll push in the next round of chaplain bills to make the positions mandatory.

Heather Weaver, senior staff attorney at the ACLU Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief, called allowing chaplains into public schools “a constitutional time bomb.” “It definitely would be a much more direct route to promoting religion to students and evangelizing them than we’ve seen in the past.” she said.

Despite its popularity among some legislators, the campaign has drawn objections in some places where efforts to incorporate religion — Christianity in particular — into public life are normally welcomed. Texas’ law required all school districts to vote by March 1 on whether to accept chaplains, and the state’s biggest districts, in both red and blue areas, rejected the creation of a new chaplain position. Those districts enroll more than half of the state’s public school students.

Some experts on church-state relations say the pushback may reflect Americans’ complex and inconsistent relationship with the role Christianity should play in a pluralistic country. Polls show a majority of Americans say that the government should enforce church-state separation and oppose the government ever declaring an official U.S. religion. Yet, in a 2022 Pew Research poll, a strong minority, 45 percent, said the country “should be a Christian nation.”

Some opponents also said the bills lack specifics and at times alarmed even the religious because parents value trained, educated counselors for mental health and college preparation.

The Texas chaplain bill came amid a cluster of legislative efforts there to weave religion explicitly into public schools. . . . Democratic lawmakers filed amendments to the chaplain bill but the GOP majority rejected almost all of them, including one requiring parental consent to talk with a chaplain, one barring proselytizing and another requiring chaplains to serve students of all faiths. The bill as passed had no educational or accreditation requirements for chaplains, nor specifics about what they would do.

Texas state Sen. Mayes Middleton, one of the bill’s Republican sponsors, said Trump’s U.S. Supreme Court appointments were making “it possible for us to go win some of these fights and put God back in government so people can freely exercise their religious beliefs in government and in schools.”

Lawmakers in Texas and in other states advocating for chaplains said they have worked with the Oklahoma-based National School Chaplain Association . . . a subsidiary of a group called Mission Generation, which has said its goal is to use public school chaplains to convert millions to Christianity.

“The key is schools, the largest network of children on the planet. There is a fantastic opportunity to bring God’s word to millions of children through public and private schools,” says a voice-over on a Mission Generation publicity video.

Many Texas districts saw local clergy and chaplains of various faiths testify against the new positions, saying students need professional counselors, and that they were concerned about the lack of mandate for religious diversity.

Recent Supreme Court rulings have strengthened the role of publicly funded schools as the vanguard for breaching the traditional divide between church and state. The court has ruled that state-run voucher programs must fund religious schools and that public grant programs can’t exclude religious institutions.

Advocates for church-state separation say the number of bills seeking to fund and empower conservative religious beliefs has increased, to 1,200 now.

These efforts must be opposed.  While Christofascists long for a "Handmaid's Tale" society, the majority of Americans do not and the tyranny of the minority must be ended.