GOP senator condemns ‘hateful’ Fuentes rhetoric
​Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) condemned the “hateful rhetoric” of far-right nationalist Nick Fuentes, who, the senator said, does not represent the values of the Republican Party. In an interview Sunday on NBC News’s “Meet the Press,” moderator Kristen Welker asked the conservative senator about a recent interview that former Fox News host Tucker Carlson conducted with Fuentes, calling the far-right figure “a white nationalist” who “has expressed admiration for Adolf Hitler.” Lankford, a devout Christian who was a minister before his election to the Senate, said the country’s history of accepting people of all religions can be traced back to former President Washington, who wrote to a Jewish congregation in 1790, “to what he called the ‘children of the stock of Abraham,’ that they would live in peace with the people around them. They would live under their own vine, their own fig tree, and not be afraid,” Lankford said. (The Hill 11/10/25) READMORE>>>>>

TPUSA Doubles Down on Christian Nationalism
TPUSA Faith, the group’s religious organizing arm, is hosting a “pastor roundtable” featuring two Christian nationalists, Oklahoma state Sen. Dusty Deevers and author and former Trump administration official William Wolfe, according to a flyer Deevers posted on his X account Wednesday. Both men have connections to extreme Christian nationalist Doug Wilson, who has been in the news recently, both for his claim that women should not have the right to vote and for his efforts to strengthen his influence within the Trump administration.
Right Wing Watch noted recently, “Few elected officials can match Oklahoma state Sen. Dusty Deevers in their desire to see the United States turned into a Christian nationalist theocracy.” Deevers calls the separation of church and state “blasphemous.” In a sermon at Wilson’s Idaho church last year, Deevers declared that it is the duty of civil leaders to “submit” to the authority of Christ. He has called on Christian men to “make offensive war on the gates of hell” and “dominionize” the world. 
   (Right Wing Watch 10/10/25) READMORE>>>>

Government Funding for Christian Charter School Is A Bad Idea
Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments on April 30, 2025, about whether Oklahoma can operate the nation’s first faith-based charter school. If the Supreme Court decides their way, St. Isidore of Seville would be a virtual, K-12 school run by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa. Charter schools have carved out a small but growing niche in American public education. Charles Russo is Joseph Panzer Chair in Education and Research Professor of Law at the University of Dayton. Russo calls charter schools “public schools of choice, funded by taxpayer dollars. Unlike regular public schools, they are free from most state regulations on curriculum and teacher qualifications. Until now, however, charters, like other public schools, have been secular.” In other words, the St. Isidore case is important, even monumental. According to Russo: The litigation over St. Isidore reveals a built-in tension in the First Amendment religion clauses, under which “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” While the free exercise clause guarantees people the right to believe as they wish, controversy remains over what constitutes an “establishment” of religion.
 (Ministry Watch 5/2/25) READ MORE>>>>>   

Supreme Court set to hear case on religious freedom vs. separation of church and state
The U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear a pivotal case that could redefine the boundaries between church and state, as it considers whether religious institutions should receive public funding through charter school programs. The case, originating from Oklahoma, involves St. Isidore of Seville, an online Catholic school that applied to become a publicly funded charter school. The Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board initially approved the application, but the decision was challenged by Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond. Drummond argued that the approval violated state and federal laws prohibiting government funding of religious institutions.   (Baltimore Sun 2/4/25) READ MORE>>>>>

Will David Barton Fill Oklahoma’s Curriculum With Lies and Disinformation?
Earlier this month, Oklahoma’s Christian nationalist state superintendent of education Ryan Walters 
announced that he was creating an executive review committee to overhaul the state’s social studies curriculum and that it would be stocked with far-right activists and ideologues. Among those appointed to the committee was Christian nationalist pseudo-historian David Barton, a longtime religious-right activist who has repeatedly misrepresented his academic credentials and whose scholarship is so shoddy that one of his books was pulled off the marked by his own publisher in 2012 after it concluded that “basic truths just were not there.” Barton is notorious for misrepresenting history in order to bolster his right-wing political agenda and for continuing to repeat his false claims long after they have been debunked. Both of these tendencies were on display when Barton appeared on “The War Room” over the weekend.   (Right Wing Watch 7/22/24) READ MORE>>>>>

April 24, 2024: Christian Learning reported: ​Christian artist Lauren Daigle visited an Oklahoma prison and ministered to 300 women. She remarked, “When you go into prisons and sing, that is where you get a true sense of freedom.” PrisonThe Prison Fellowship shared on social media how the Christian singer Lauren Daigle used her talent to minister to women inside the prison. She was not indifferent but compassionate toward them.

June 3, 2024: CNN reported: It has been an especially active few weeks for news about religion in public schools. The Texas Education Agency proposed a new curriculum that would incorporate teaching Biblical stories into reading lessons in grades as young as kindergarten. On June 19, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry signed a law requiring the posting of the Ten Commandments in all public school classrooms in the state. One week later, Oklahoma’s State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters abruptly issued a memorandum requiring all schools in his state “to incorporate the Bible, which includes the Ten Commandments, as an instructional support into the curriculum” in grades five through 12, underlining “immediate and strict compliance.” What exactly is going on here? Public schools are not Sunday schools, and families should feel free to send their children to school without worrying about state officials interfering in their choices about religious instruction. These politically conservative state officials are seemingly making a show of testing the limits of government-sponsored religious instruction and exercise in public schools, emboldened by the US Supreme Court’s recent decisions.

July 12, 2024: Christian Post reported:  Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters is defending his decision to issue a directive that calls for the inclusion of the Bible in public school classrooms.   Recently, Walters garnered national attention when he announced that he was changing public school social studies standards to make the Bible more of a focal point in the curriculum. In an interview with The Christian Post, Walters defended his directive, explaining that “it is of the utmost importance that our kids get a full understanding of American history.” ​

Feb 7, 2023: Baptist Press reported: EDMOND, Okla. (BP) — Christian apologist and creationist Ken Ham has been dropped from the speaking lineup of a public university after a campus LGBT group complained to event organizers, Ham said in a Feb. 6 press release.

April 1, 2021: Christian Post reported: ​North Dakota bans gov’t officials from mistreating churches during pandemics. The House of Representatives in Oklahoma
​ passed a similar bill earlier this month that states that “no governmental entity shall substantially burden a person’s free exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability.”