Jesus Wept

Still can’t fathom Oklahoma has become ground zero for religious zealots’ crusade to replace American democracy with theocracy? The last few weeks should have erased any lingering doubts.

First, in late September, state Superintendent Ryan Walters outlined plans to spend $6 million of your tax dollars equipping public school classrooms with Bibles – 55,000 copies.

Not just any Bible, mind you. Walters wanted a certain Bible that – surprise! – mirrored one promoted by Donald Trump, who gets a cut from each sale.

So far as we know, Jesus wasn’t physically present the day Walters publicized his scheme at a State Board of Education meeting. Thus, no tables were overturned. But it’s a safe bet Jesus wept.

Then, last week, the Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn an Oklahoma Supreme Court ruling that blocked the nation’s first publicly-funded religious charter school.

This is another step in the decades-long, far-right campaign to shift public dollars into private sectarian and/or for-profit education and eliminate what religious zealots revile as “government schools.”

In effect, the charter board is court shopping. It didn’t get the decision it wanted from Oklahoma’s highest court, even though five of the nine justices were appointed by Republican governors. So, it’s asking the nation’s highest court to upend the state Constitution’s strict ban on using public dollars for religious purposes.

It's true U.S. Supreme Court is radically rightwing, but that’s no guarantee the proposed St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School will be approved. After all, the court has stamped itself as devoted to states’ rights.

What could be more states’ rights than this: Not only has the church-state separation been a staple of the Oklahoma Constitution since statehood, voters also resoundingly rejected a statewide referendum – placed on the ballot by a Republican-dominated Legislature in 2016 – that would have lifted the ban.

It is a sad fact of early 21^st century life that Oklahoma politics and public policy are being steered by Christian nationalists who thump their Bibles and wrap themselves in the flag, insisting America has veered from its roots as a Christian nation.

Walters himself is a former high school history teacher of some renown. He, of all people, knows – or should know – a founding U.S. principle is freedom from official religion. We escaped the tyranny of the British crown, remember?

Of course, Walters’ sordid public tenure – first as Gov. Kevin Stitt’s cabinet secretary for education, now as the elected state superintendent – suggests the truth no longer is as important as the pursuit of personal political and financial power. Even if it means selling his soul.

He’s carrying water for all the usual far-right, fat-cats and their well-financed think tanks and campaign operations that seek to fundamentally remake America, creating a system that permanently benefits them and their future generations – to hell with everybody else. Let them eat cake.

The weapon they deploy is Christianity. Bibles in classrooms. Taxpayer dollars for religious instruction. Make America Great Again?

Actually, their vision undermines the American ideal of individual liberty. Religion or none? Protestant or Catholic? Islam or Hindu? Up to you – not to well-heeled demagogues with the cash to swing elections and spread disinformation.

All Oklahomans should be alarmed by this all-out assault on the separation of church and state. Christians, included. After all, which take on Christianity will become the state’s official version? It might not be the one that attracted many Sooners to Christianity in the first place.

And what about everybody else? Christian nationalists seem indifferent to those who don’t march in lockstep. Non-adherents to state-designated Christianity would be second-class citizens – or worse.

The idea Jesus would embrace such earthly empire-building is heretical.