A 2023 slide deck that appears to have been obtained from the Florida Department of Education instructs teachers to push Christian nationalist ideology, including from extremist figures involved in various conspiracy theories and antigovernment advocacy, reported Popular Information investigator Judd Legum on Tuesday.
This comes at a moment when public schools across Florida are already facing financial crises and enrollment shortages because Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has nudged families toward religious private schools and homeschooling.
"A three-day training course on civic education, conducted throughout Florida in the summer of 2023, included a presentation on the "Influences of the Judeo-Christian Tradition" on the founding of the United States. According to speaker notes accompanying one slide, teachers were told that 'Christianity challenged the notion that religion should be subservient to the goals of the state,' and the same hierarchy is reflected in America's founding documents," Legum posted on X.
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Also quoted was "Peter Lillback, the president of Westminster Theological Seminary and the founder of The Providence Forum, an organization that promotes and defends Christian nationalism. The group's executive director, Jerry Newcombe, writes a weekly column for World Net Daily — a far-right site known for publishing hundreds of stories falsely suggesting Obama was a Muslim born in Africa."
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Christian nationalism has virtually no support among legitimate historians, who note that the founders — though many where Christian in private life — overwhelmingly based the United States on secular philosophy from the Enlightenment era, with many, like second President John Adams, explicitly disavowing any religious purpose in U.S. law in international treaties.
This slide deck was only part of the program to indoctrinate teachers with Christian nationalism, wrote Legum.
"Along with the in-person training, the Florida Department of Education offered a 50-hour online civics training. Teachers who successfully completed the online training received a $3K bonus," wrote Legum.
When he interviewed one teacher who took the program, "the teacher said, 'there was a real emphasis and focus on the idea of the 10 Commandments underlying our governmental principles.' She noted that most of the online instructors were 'from private Christian colleges outside the state of Florida.'"
One of the segments also came from Matthew Spalding, a former Trump adviser and professor at Hillsdale College, "a right-wing Christian institution seeking an overhaul of K-12 education that aligns with its conservative ideology."