Oklahoma Education Chief Who Promoted Bibles in Schools Will Resign 25SEP25

 

AND it seems he brought PORN into the office, though he feels it wasn't porn because it was just a Jackie Chan movie with some nudity in it ( self-righteous clarification ). ryan walters has a history of authoritarianism, fascism, lying, deception, manipulation and hypocrisy, some might even suggest apostasy, that is typical of self-righteous"christian" nationalist. Fortunately for Oklahoma's children he is leaving them to be raised by their parents as they see fit, not indoctrinated in "christian" nationalism as mandated by the state government. From the New York Times.....

Oklahoma Education Chief Who Promoted Bibles in Schools Will Resign

Ryan Walters had drawn criticism from liberals and conservatives alike over his push to place Bibles in classrooms and bring more prayer into public schools.

By Dana Goldstein

Sept. 25, 2025

Ryan Walters, a right-wing educator who drew criticism from across the political spectrum for his efforts to inject religion into public schools, will resign from his post as Oklahoma’s school superintendent.

He will join the Teacher Freedom Alliance, a nonprofit that seeks to limit the influence of teachers’ unions, as its chief executive.

“We’re going to destroy the teachers’ unions,” he said in a Fox News appearance Wednesday. “We have seen the teachers’ unions use money and power to corrupt our schools.”

The resignation is expected to take effect by the end of the month.

Mr. Walters was elected state superintendent in 2022. Throughout his tenure, he staked out conservative positions that often drew national controversy. In June 2024, for example, he issued a directive that all Oklahoma public schools must teach the Bible, including the Ten Commandments.

He recently said that all Oklahoma high schools would have a chapter of Turning Point USA, the right-wing youth group founded by Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated earlier this month. And during his tenure, the state adopted social studies learning standards that echoed President Trump’s claims of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election.

When President Trump was assembling his current cabinet, Mr. Walters was discussed as a possible nominee for secretary of education. He has also indicated interest in running for governor. He was clearly politically ambitious, but consistently drew criticism from liberals and also some conservatives. They worried that his policies blurred the separation of church and state, and injected ideology into the classroom.

He announced this year that Oklahoma would require teacher job candidates from out of state to pass a test meant to screen for what he called “woke indoctrination.”

Mr. Walters, 40, is the son of an Oklahoma minister. He began his career as a celebrated Advanced Placement history and government teacher in his hometown, McAlester, Okla. At the time, he kept his personal beliefs fairly quiet. He ascended into politics after taking a role leading an education nonprofit focused on issues like expanding access to charter schools and private-school vouchers.

In his political career, he has been a champion of a rising movement of younger Christian conservatives who seek to inject religion into public life. He has spoken about his own churchgoing and his belief in traditional family structures. He has also said that he was shaped by the experience of seeing social studies educators across the country push liberal ideas into the classroom, including critiques of the nation’s founding.

His tenure as state superintendent has been rocky, and his policies have regularly put Oklahoma’s schools at the center of the nation’s culture wars.

Mr. Walters promoted prayer in schools and sought to remove classic works of literature from libraries, deeming them pornographic. He supported a plan for a publicly funded religious charter school in Oklahoma, but the Supreme Court rejected the plan earlier this year.

He has also been accused of running a disorganized state education department, and has had trouble holding onto staff.

Most recently, he has had a tense relationship with members of the state Board of Education, the body he leads. The board met without him several weeks ago, after he was accused of having inappropriate material playing on his office television during an official meeting. After an investigation, the Oklahoma County sheriff called the incident “purely an accident,” and said the images were from a Jackie Chan movie.

The organization Mr. Walters is joining, the Teacher Freedom Alliance, was founded this year by the Freedom Foundation, a conservative group that seeks to limit the influence of public sector unions.

Aaron Withe, chief executive of the Freedom Foundation, said Mr. Walters would help raise up a grass-roots movement of teachers hoping to stop paying union dues, in part because of the unions’ support for liberal politics.

He said the Teacher Freedom Alliance would provide its members with liability coverage and access to alternative professional development opportunities aligned with conservative goals, like maintaining stricter classroom discipline.

He declined to name the group’s financial backers.

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, the nation’s second-largest teachers’ union, pointed out that education remains the nation’s most heavily unionized profession.

She celebrated Mr. Walters’ resignation as “a good day for Oklahoma’s kids.”

“It’s no surprise that Mr. Walters, after failing on the job, is leaving the state,” she added.

In Oklahoma, many of the battles Mr. Walters waged are not over.

Summer Boismier was teaching high school English in Norman, Okla. in 2022 when a parent complained about her effort to refer students to books that the state had banned, by providing them with a QR code for the Brooklyn Public Library in New York.

Ms. Boismier resigned, and Mr. Walters called for the state Board of Education to revoke her teaching certificate, which the board did last year. Ms. Boismier is suing to have her certification reinstated, and said she hopes to teach again in Oklahoma.

She said Mr. Walters’ leadership had been “symptomatic of a larger coordinated effort to dismantle public education and silence dissent.”

The state law she was accused of violating, HB 1775, limits what educators can teach about race and gender, and is similar to dozens of laws in other states.

Debates over free speech and the school curriculum have become increasingly national in scope. The Trump administration is withholding funding from schools and colleges that have diversity programs that the administration opposes, and it has sought to drive television personalities who are critical of the president off the air.

Dana Goldstein covers education and families for The Times. 

A version of this article appears in print on Sept. 26, 2025, Section A, Page 17 of the New York edition with the headline: Education Chief Who Pushed Bibles in Schools Will Resign. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

Oklahoma parents fight new curriculum on 2020 election ‘discrepancies’ 29MAI25

 

The best way to "teach" others Christianity is to live it, not mandate it through lies, deception and manipulation. The gop / greed over people-republican "christianity" with it's alt-jesus and gospel of selfishness and self-righteousness promoted by ryan walters is the kind of witness that drives people from the Church, not to it. And ryan, watch your prayer video again and reflect on the New Testament lesson on grandstanding public prayer. From the Washington Post....

Oklahoma parents fight new curriculum on 2020 election ‘discrepancies’

A lawsuit alleges that state superintendent Ryan Walters added a provision on election questions without notifying some board members before they voted.

May 29, 2025 at 4:51 p.m. EDTYesterday at 4:51 p.m. EDT

By Justine McDaniel

 and 

Anumita Kaur

A battle is roiling Oklahoma over new social studies standards that include teaching high-schoolers that there were “discrepancies” in the 2020 presidential election, as a legal fight unfolds over allegations that the state superintendent added the provision to the standards without notifying some education board members before they voted to pass them.

An Oklahoma County judge is considering a request to block the standards from being enacted and heard arguments Wednesday in the lawsuit, which was filed against state education officials by a group of teachers and parents. Meanwhile, other parents opposed to the standards’ content are circulating opt-out forms to remove their children from the future lessons.

Under the curriculum, high-schoolers would be asked to analyze debunked theories related to the 2020 vote and election security, such as “security risks” of voting by mail and “batch dumps” of ballots — references to the disproven theory circulated by President Donald Trump that he did not lose that election.

High-schoolers will also be instructed to “identify the source of the COVID-19 pandemic from a Chinese lab,” a theory that Trump has pushed but on which intelligence analysts and scientists remain divided. The standards also mandate teaching about the Bible in history lessons, escalating an ongoing debate over the use of the Bible in public schools in Oklahoma and elsewhere.

Oklahoma’s public schools have been launched into the national news repeatedly by state superintendent Ryan Walters (R), who made a push to put Bibles matching those endorsed by Trump in classrooms, asked school districts to show students a video of himself praying for Trump and backed the effort to create a publicly funded religious charter school in Oklahoma that went to the Supreme Court last week.

Walters has argued that the state’s new standards will remove alleged “liberal indoctrination” from classrooms. Opponents say Walters is the one trying to push false information on their children. (Walters has denied allegations of impropriety in the standards’ passage.)

“People are asking, ‘How do I make sure my kids don’t get taught this?’” said Erica Watkins, who leads We’re Oklahoma Education, a parent group that has circulated the opt-out letters.

As the Trump administration seeks to influence public school curriculums and right-leaning states move to incorporate Christianity into public schools, the Oklahoma standards present a possible test case. The inclusion of lessons rooted in a conspiracy theory has also raised questions among some Oklahoma parents about Walters’s leadership.

The new standards were passed by the state education board in February — but at least three board members said afterward they did not know Walters had added the election-related item to the standards before the 5-1 vote, the Oklahoma Voice reported in April.

“We were unaware that the version we received (almost 400 pages of documents) at 4 p.m. the day before the meeting had changes to what the public reviewed,” Christopher Van Denhende, one of the three board members, told The Washington Post.

Walters did not announce the changes to the publicly reviewed version at the meeting where the board voted, the suit alleges.

On Wednesday, Oklahoma County Judge C. Brent Dishman declined to rule on the plaintiffs’ request for a temporary block of the standards. A permanent ruling is expected within the next two weeks, said Michael J. Hunter, an attorney for the group that brought the lawsuit.

The draft shown to the public only mandated that high-schoolers “examine issues related to the election of 2020,” according to the lawsuit.

The version that was approved says students will “identify discrepancies in 2020 elections results” and will be instructed to analyze information including “the sudden halting of ballot-counting in select cities in key battleground states, the security risks of mail-in balloting, sudden batch dumps, an unforeseen record number of voters, and the unprecedented contradiction of ‘bellwether county’ trends.”

The board members received a copy at 4 p.m. the day before the morning meeting, and some raised concerns that they hadn’t had enough time to review the standards before Walters urged a vote, according to the lawsuit.

That prompted protest among some parents, who lobbied the legislature to send the standards back to the board — but a Republican-led attempt failed to get enough support in the GOP-controlled legislature, allowing the standards to move forward.

Through a spokesperson via email, Walters said the process was “fully transparent and above board for many months.”

“School board members were never denied access to the process at any point from the moment the standards were written to the moment they were voted on,” he told The Washington Post on Wednesday.

Van Denhende, the board member, said there should be transparency in the state’s development of the standards. He also said he believed the election language was “unnecessary” to include.

“The bigger issue is Oklahoma is 49th in the national for educational outcomes, and we need to be talking about how to improve reading and math scores, not the 2020 election,” Van Denhende said.

Hunter, the attorney for the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, said they are “confident that we’re going to be able to show the court the calamity which was the board’s review of the rules.”

He told The Post, “The process was completely mishandled and inconsistent with the responsibilities of the superintendent and the board.”

Valery Drazek, 31, an Oklahoma City mother of a 6-year-old who is not involved in the lawsuit, said she found We’re Oklahoma Education’s opt-out forms on social media and has been passing them out to fellow parents.

“I’m trying to raise a kid, and as she gets older, she will be going to these social studies classes. I don’t want her to think the 2020 election was rigged or that covid was man-made, things of that nature,” Drazek told The Post.

“I don’t want there to be a sentiment of distrust in our voting system,” she added. “I would like her to grow up to be an active member of society and know that her voice and her vote matters.”

There is no evidence that widespread corruption tainted the 2020 election results, and judges repeatedly said that Trump and his supporters did not provide evidence to back up their assertions, which included false accusations such as impropriety in Michigan’s ballot counts and illegal voting in Nevada.

In the email to The Post, Walters argued the curriculum on the 2020 election doesn’t “pressure or persuade students to have one opinion or another.”

“These academic standards will be based on facts as students are given graphs, charts and data points of the 2020 election and they can come to their own conclusion on what they believe the outcome was,” he said.

“Any critical thinking individual will look at the 2020 election and would understand there were discrepancies,” Walters added.

Melanie Larson, 42, a substitute teacher in Edmond, Oklahoma, said she feels Walters is “overstepping the will” of teachers and parents. She has opposed efforts to incorporate the Bible into public schools.

She said her two children, who will be in middle and high school in the fall, asked questions about how the state could put “untrue things” in the standards, referring to the item on the 2020 election results.

“I understand, because I feel that way, too,” Larson said. “I had to talk to my kids about how the things you’re learning in class may or may not be true. This is wild.”

By Justine McDaniel

Justine McDaniel covers national news. She joined The Washington Post in 2022 after reporting for the Philadelphia Inquirer

By Anumita Kaur

Anumita Kaur is a national breaking news reporter for The Washington Post. She was previously a reporter for the Los Angeles Times and Guam Pacific Daily News.

After the Election, How Are Organizers Resisting Christian Nationalism? 25NOV24

"christian" nationalist apostate supporters of President Donald Trump hold a crucifix and flag during a “Stop the Steal” protest after the 2020 U.S. presidential election in Phoenix on Nov. 11, 2020. REUTERS/Jim Urquhart

 I am still very disgusted that the fascist authoritarian gop / greed over people republican party won the presidency and control of congress as well as many powerful state and local political offices. I am proud the supporters of the Democratic Party have not lowered ourselves to the level of the neo-nazi fascist authoritarian "christian" nationalist since the 2020 election falsely claiming election fraud and especially their treasonous  attack on the U.S. Capital building on 6 JAN 21.  Soon enough it will become crystal clear the only election fraud committed was the trumpf / drump-vance campaign and the fascist authoritarian campaign of  the gop / greed over  people republican party with the "christian" nationalist apostates. So as those who elected this hate and greed guided regime start to reap the results of their vote I will need to remember my faith, the teachings of Jesus Christ and provide what help I can. From Sojourners....

After the Election, How Are Organizers Resisting Christian Nationalism?

Sierra Lyons

Sierra is a reporter in the Fall 2024 Sojourners Journalism Cohort.

25 November 2024

For faith activists and leaders committed to continuing their work to oppose and resist Christian nationalism, President-elect Donald Trump’s return to the White House is disappointing but not a sign of total defeat. Ahead of Inauguration Day, many activists are continuing their coalition-building efforts and sounding the alarm on specific policies they believe Trump may sign executive orders on, day one in office.

Amanda Tyler, the executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, an organization that advocates for religious liberty, said she felt deep sadness and concern for those who will be most impacted by a second Trump administration. But she also felt a hopeful resistance.

“This is not the time to be defeated, but rather the time for people who are concerned for the well-being of all of our neighbors to join together to be sure that we are about creating the flourishing society that we all need,” Tyler said.

BJC’s work was never centered around the electoral cycle, Tyler said. She published her book, How to End Christian Nationalism, in 2024 knowing that the work would be difficult regardless of who was elected. However, BJC did spend this election season educating congregations on how they can help protect free and fair elections.

Before the results were known, Tyler and the organization were already crafting new strategies for tackling Christian nationalism, such as training people on how to speak to their school boards and testify before state legislatures about unjust education policies.

In places like Oklahoma, government officials have approved placing Bibles in public schools, which has been costly and sparked pushback from civil rights groups like the American Civil Liberties Union. Parents, teachers, and ministers in the state have banded together, filing a lawsuit last month to stop Bible lesson plans from being incorporated into public school curriculum.

As the results became clearer, Tyler said she began focusing on the looming threat of mass deportations. Trump has promised he will increase deportations by invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. Legal experts have said the president doesn’t have the authority to do so, since the law is for deporting noncitizens from a country considered an enemy of the U.S. during wartime. According to NBC, his team is planning to begin with undocumented Chinese immigrants.

“I do think that the work of on-the-ground organizing is even more urgent in preparation of a possible mass deportation strategy. I think that people of faith need to be working with their neighbors, regardless of religious affiliation, to protect the most vulnerable in our communities,” she told Sojourners. “Everywhere I go, I’m talking to people about the mass deportation policy and urging them to be working within their religious communities to discern what their place might be in providing safe harbor and resistance if members of their communities are targeted.”

Despite limitations to imposing the Alien Enemies Act, Robert P. Jones and other experts are concerned about whether Trump will sign an onslaught of far-reaching executive orders on his first day in office.

Jones is the founder and president of the Public Religion and Research Institute, which has conducted research on the intersection of religion, culture, and politics for over 15 years. Jones said PRRI has made a deeper commitment in the last five years to raising awareness about Christian nationalism and will continue to do so under this new administration.

“I think part of what a research organization does is it tries to get the best [information] and have our finger on the pulse of the population,” Jones said. “In terms of threats to democracy, that means sounding the alarm when we see things that are weakening democracy. It also means highlighting places where there’s resistance to those erosions.”

PRRI’s poll results by religious affiliation in the last three presidential elections have shown white evangelical Protestants’ steadfast commitment to Trump. Jones said that despite Trump’s campaign being the most overtly racist that he has seen in his lifetime, it wasn’t a deterrent for white Christians. “As far as we can tell from the exit polls right now, this extremist, racist, xenophobic language from a leading candidate did not move white Christian voters one millimeter.”

PRRI’s preliminary exit poll data, which can sometimes help researchers understand how population groups voted, found that 81% of white evangelical Protestants voted for Trump in 2024. By contrast, their preliminary exit polls found 86% of Black Protestants voted for Democratic candidate Vice President Kamala Harris. “I think we’re so accustomed to the great gulf between white and Black Christians in this country that we’re a little numb to what that means,” Jones said. “This ought to be a scandal.”

When asked what the steadfast support for Trump among white evangelicals means for all the work anti-Christian nationalism leaders have done for nearly a decade, Jones said that despite their continuous allegiance to Trump, white evangelical membership is shrinking. He also believes the work anti-Christian nationalists have done has influenced prominent figures like Beth Moore, David French, and Russell Moore’s decisions to leave their denominations. (French left the Presbyterian Church in America in 2024. Both Moores, who are not related, left the Southern Baptist Convention in recent years).

“I think we’ve got to face the hard facts that white supremacy has lived quite comfortably within Christianity for most of our country’s history. So I think on the face of it, people want to say, ‘Oh, well, white supremacy is antithetical to Christianity.’ But the hard truth of it is that most white Christian denominations have been quite comfortable with white supremacy up until our very recent history.”

Reverend Nathan Empsall, executive director of the digital grassroots organization Faithful America, said their focus in the coming months will be less on trying to change the minds of white evangelicals and instead ensuring that other Christians are speaking up for social justice and progressive values in Jesus’ name.

“In Jesus’ name, we will support and be for immigrants and refugees,” Empsall said. “We will support and be for LGBTQ rights, particularly employment protection and transgender rights, in Jesus’ name. We will support access to safe, legal abortion care. We will support racial equality, and we will support economic justice and prosperity for all, particularly the working class and those in poverty, as Jesus did.”

How will Empsall and others do this? “This is where there’s a lot to be figured out in the coming months, but we know that we will be grassroots, Christian-driven,” he said. Faithful America is planning to survey its 200,000 members to see what support they need to continue or begin this work.

Empsall said those resisting Christian nationalism must define what they are for, not just that they are against Christian nationalism. For Empsall, that includes racial equality, reproductive health care, and caring for the poor. Faithful America, which has always functioned as a national organization, is planning to do more on-the-ground work in local communities.

“Elections change who’s in charge, but they don’t change the country. The country changes the elections,” he said. “You’ve got to focus on the country, on its people, on the church, on spirituality, on culture.”

Empsall encouraged those who may be growing weary to not give into despair, saying, “We need to learn from past resistance movements and Christian resistance movements against fascism.”