Leftists are melting down over Florida's civics lessons on America's Judeo-Christian heritage

A failed Democratic candidate from Maryland working out of Washington, D.C., has raised the alarm that the Florida Department of Education might be providing some teachers and students with instruction about some of the many ways America has been shaped and influenced by Christianity.

Radicals still grieving the elimination of critical race theory and LGBT propaganda from the Florida curriculum have seized upon Judd Legum's report as an opportunity to once again concern-monger about so-called "Christian nationalism" and attack the DeSantis administration.

The LGBT activist publication Them, for instance, ran an article entitled, "Under Ron DeSantis, Florida Teacher Trainings Included Christian Nationalist Propaganda," noting, "As concerning as it is that Christian nationalists are trying to warp curricula from the inside, there's a reason they're targeting teachers: education works."

The Freedom from Religion Foundation took a break from attacking Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito online to note, "We will be working to debunk these Christian nationalist lies and to protect Florida's students from indoctrination."

Legum appears to have misled his fellow travelers with his report, which Gov. Ron DeSantis' office has called "nonsense" — not only with his framing of the curricular materials but by his omission of what else was being taught.

Not only do the offending slides appear to be accurate, they are part of a broader unit identifying other historic influences underlying America's founding ideas on law and government.

Background

Sociologists Samuel Perry and Andrew Whitehead defined "Christian nationalism" in their 2020 book, "Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States," as "a cultural framework that blurs distinctions between Christian identity and American identity, viewing the two as closely related and seeking to enhance and preserve their union."

'White Christian nationalism is a social construction the meaning of which depends on who is doing the constructing.'

It is easy to blur the distinction, assuming a distinction can be made, given the extent to which America, like the West in general, has historically been shaped and influenced by Christianity — an influence Alexis de Tocqueville and countless keen observers have noted. Also, there is great potential for overlap, given that roughly two-thirds of Americans today are Christians.

Kenneth Woodward, the former editor of Newsweek's religion section, recently highlighted in First Things that various exponents have given "Christian nationalism" an identitarian character — calling it "white Christian nationalism," distinct from "black Christian nationalis[m]," which Salon has ostensibly given a pass — and associated it with various "liberal mortal sins" such as support for having children, straight marriage, and "patriarchy."

"White Christian nationalism is a social construction the meaning of which depends on who is doing the constructing," wrote Woodward. "Not at all obvious is what same-sex marriage, patriarchy, and encouraging couples to have children (pronatalism) have to do with being white or Christian or nationalist."

Democrats and their allies in the liberal media and activists have seized upon this catch-all term to describe their ideological foes who also happen to be Christian. For instance, the Public Religion Research Institute characterized Christian nationalism last year as a "a major threat to the health of our democracy," suggesting that over 51% of Americans either sympathize with or support Christian nationalism.

Agreement with these statements apparently make one a Christian nationalist:

• "The U.S. government should declare America a Christian nation" — as the Supreme Court did in Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States.
• "U.S. laws should be based on Christian values."
• "If the U.S. moves away from our Christian foundations, we will not have a country any more."
• "Being Christian is an important part of being truly American."
• "God has called Christians to exercise dominion over all areas of American society."

Educating educators

In December 2019, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) tasked former Department of Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran with implementing a new civil literacy requirement for high school students, which came to be known as the Civics Literacy Excellence Initiative.

Extra to helping students with this initiative, the Florida DOE also offers learning opportunities to educators. There is, for instance, a three-day summer civics professional learning course.

Judd Legum, a leftist who used to write for ThinkProgress, recently obtained training materials from one such three-day course allegedly presented last summer, including "a presentation on the 'Influences of the Judeo-Christian Tradition' on the founding of the United States."

"Training materials produced by the Florida Department of Education direct middle and high school teachers to indoctrinate students in the tenets of Christian nationalism, a right-wing effort to merge Christian and American identities," wrote Legum. "Thousands of Florida teachers, lured by cash stipends, have attended trainings featuring these materials."

Legum noted that in one slide obtained through a public records request executed by the liberal advocacy group Florida Freedom to Read Project, teachers were told that "Christianity challenged the notion that religion should be subservient to the goals of the state."

Another offending slide quoted George Washington's Farewell Address, in which the archetypal American patriot noted, "Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports."

The slide also quoted Rev. Dr. Peter Lillback, president and professor of historical theology and church history at Westminster Theological Seminary, as writing, "To be free, you need a republic. To have a republic, you need a constitution. To have a constitution, you need morality (virtue). To have morality (virtue), you need religion."

Among the slides that evidently didn't sit well with Legum were two detailing various Judeo-Christian traditions and beliefs that have influenced the United States, such as the notions that government is necessary on account of man's sinful, fallen state; that man is created equal and in the image of God; and that humans, Americans in particular, are "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

Legum had so-called "Christian nationalism" expert Andrew Whitehead weigh in on the slides. Whitehead suggested the purpose of the training was to fuse "a very particular expression of Christianity with American civic life that the government upholds and vigorously defends" and to altogether advance a key goal of Christian nationalism.

Whitehead further said the slides were ahistorical because while the Declaration of Independence references a "creator," it does not explicitly mention Christ and because George Washington did not regularly receive communion.

Amanda Tyler, the executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty — another supposed expert in "Christian nationalism" — told Legum the presentation focuses "on the mythological founding of the country as a Christian nation, this use of cherry-picked history … is very much a marker of Christian nationalism."

What Legum failed to mention was that this civics lesson on "how the Judeo-Christian ethical ideas of justice, individual worth, personal responsibility and the rule of law influenced America's constitutional republic" was part of a broader unit on the "influences of ancient Greece, ancient Rome and the Judeo-Christian tradition on America's constitutional republic."

'That "report: is a bunch of nonsense.'

Extra to learning about the influence of biblical concepts on a predominantly Christian country, teachers and students apparently also learn about Rome's influence on American civic participation, republicanism, representative government, rule of law, or separation of powers, and the influence of ancient Greece on American legislative bodies, polis, voting rights and written constitution.

Bryan Griffin, Gov. DeSantis' communications director, told Blaze News, "That 'report' is a bunch of nonsense."

'And, of course, American history is inextricable from the positive influence of the Judeo-Christian tradition.'

"Florida under Governor Ron DeSantis has stopped the left from utilizing our education system for their campaign of radical indoctrination, and they can’t stand it," said Griffin. "We're refocusing education on core subjects like reading, writing, and math, and leaning into American history and civics, which help students become informed, prepared, and engaged members of society. And, of course, American history is inextricable from the positive influence of the Judeo-Christian tradition."

"Our efforts in Florida have made the state #1 in education and #1 in higher education (for the eighth year in a row)," continued Griffin. "This civics training program is a voluntary certification for teachers and comes with a $3,000.00 stipend upon completion. We encourage every educator in the State of Florida to take advantage of it."

Chad Ragsdale, academic dean at Ozark Christian College, tweeted, "This whole thread is revealing but not in the way that Judd believes. Mostly it reveals yet again that 'Christian nationalism' has become a vacuous term used for nakedly ideological purposes."

"I would genuinely encourage anyone to read this, just to see for yourself how divorced from reality those on the left are," wrote Mark Hemingway of RealClearInvestigations. "What they fear as 'Christian nationalism' is just an inability to acknowledge basic American history."

Woodward concluded his essay on so-called Christian nationalism by noting, "Despite the vagueness of the term 'white Christian nationalism' and the difficulty of identifying its adherents, we are certain to hear a great deal more about the threat it poses to American democracy as the election cycle churns on. ... But what will we hear of the Secularists, who are more numerous, wealthier, much better educated, and more politically active than those who have been labeled WCNs? What we will hear is the sound of silence."

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