Ignore At Your Risk: The New Theocracy - How the Radical Christian Right is Dismantling Secular Foundation

Lately, because it worries me, I have been reading a fair amount about how the far Christian right has been working for decades to radicalize youth into extreme interpretations of Christianity. It appears they have been incredibly successful.

Full disclosure: I’m Catholic. However, I’m also a fully locked and loaded supporter of the Constitution, who believes deeply in the separation of Church and State.

I also think everyone should believe or not believe in whoever/whatever they wish. It literally makes no difference to me.

However, there are clear and present dangers with the Far Right Christianity movement, who believes in a form of theocracy or what they often call “a Christian nation.”

We were founded on the notion that the United States of America is a secular nation, not a religious based country.

We are all free to believe whatever we wish, but not free to require anyone to believe something they do not wish to believe. And yet, that is changing faster than you might think.

Quick History of “Separation of Church and State”

The phrase “separation of church and state” does not appear in the U.S. Constitution. It is a metaphor, famously used by Thomas Jefferson, to describe the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, which prohibits Congress from establishing a religion or prohibiting its free exercise.

Key Constitutional Principles

• The First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...”. This includes the Establishment Clause (preventing government-sponsored religion) and the Free Exercise Clause (protecting individual religious practices).
• No Religious Test Clause (Article VI): Article VI, Clause 3 states that “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States”.
• Supreme Court Interpretation: The Supreme Court adopted this metaphor in cases like Everson v. Board of Education (1947), using it to interpret the Establishment Clause as requiring a “high and impregnable” wall.

For centuries, the separation of church and state has served as a cornerstone of American democracy. But over the past 16 months, a coordinated movement by the far Christian right has accelerated its efforts to fundamentally reshape the United States into an explicitly Christian nation…and they’re winning.

In fact so much so, it is alarming.

The Blueprint: Project 2025 and Christian Nationalism

Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s 900-page presidential transition plan, represents perhaps the most explicit merging of Christian nationalist ideology with policy prescription in modern American history.

We all became aware of this document in 2024. Sadly, many Democratic leaders did not take it seriously. So here we are.

Key findings:

• Leadership connections: The project’s architects include numerous figures from Christian nationalist organizations. Russell Vought, a principal author and former OMB director, has explicitly stated that the U.S. is a “Christian nation” and that policy should reflect biblical principles (Religion News Service, 2023)
• Policy priorities: The document calls for:
  • Eliminating terms like “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” from federal legislation
  • Restricting abortion access nationwide with no exceptions
  • Embedding “biblical worldview” principles throughout federal agencies
  • Defunding secular education programs in favor of “faith-based” alternatives

According to Dr. Andrew Whitehead, sociologist and co-author of Taking America Back for God, Project 2025 “reads like a policy wish list that directly corresponds to Christian nationalist survey data we’ve collected over a decade” (NPR interview, March 2024).

Institutional Capture: Evidence of Radicalization

The Judiciary

The federal court system shows the most dramatic transformation:

Supreme Court:

• The Dobbs decision (2022) overturning Roe v. Wade cited historical Christian doctrine extensively
• Justice Alito’s majority opinion referenced Matthew Hale, a 17th-century theologian who executed women for witchcraft (Slate Legal Analysis, July 2022)
• Mahmoud v. Taylor (2025): The Court allowed parents to opt their children out of LGBTQ+ inclusive curriculum in public schools based on religious objections, which critics saw as enabling religious views to dictate public education standards.
• Catholic Charities Bureau Inc. v. Wisconsin Labor and Industry Review Commission (2025): The Court sided with a Catholic organization regarding tax exemptions, seen as a trend of forcing government benefits for religious organizations.

Lower Courts:

• 234 federal judges appointed since 2017 were vetted by the Federalist Society, which has increasingly aligned with Christian nationalist priorities (Alliance for Justice, 2024)
• 73% of Trump-appointed judges have ruled in favor of religious exemptions to civil rights laws (Pew Research Center, January 2024)

State Legislatures

Legislative explosion:

Between January 2023 and April 2024, state legislatures introduced:

• 450+ bills mandating Christian religious instruction in public schools (Americans United for Separation of Church and State, 2024)
• 120+ bills requiring the Ten Commandments to be displayed in classrooms (Freedom From Religion Foundation, March 2024)
• 89 bills restricting LGBTQ+ rights explicitly citing biblical justification in legislative language (ACLU tracking database, 2024)

Case studies:

• Louisiana (August 2024): Became the first state to mandate Ten Commandments displays in every public school classroom, with Governor Jeff Landry declaring “if you want to respect the rule of law, you’ve got to start from the original lawgiver, which was Moses” (AP News, June 2024)
• Oklahoma (September 2023): State Superintendent Ryan Walters mandated Bible instruction in grades 5-12, stating “the Bible is a necessary historical document to teach our kids about the history of this country” (NBC News, October 2023)
• Texas (May 2024): Passed legislation allowing chaplains to replace school counselors, with 95% of applicants affiliated with evangelical organizations (Texas Tribune, May 2024)

The Military

• Evidence regarding a clear shift toward imposition of Christianity on military members:
  • Commands Framing War as Biblical Prophecy: The Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) reported receiving over 100 to 200 complaints from service members in early 2026 regarding commanders who described military operations against Iran as “God’s plan for Armageddon” and the “End Times”.
  • Pentagon Prayer Services: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has led monthly “Christian Prayer & Worship Services” in the Pentagon auditorium, often during work hours. These services have included speakers like Doug Wilson, a pastor identified with Christian nationalist views.
  • Christian Nationalist Rhetoric by Leadership: Secretary Hegseth has used his position to advocate for a “militant Christian theology,” calling for “overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy” and stating that America is a Christian nation that must “reclaim the Holy Land”.
  • Ongoing criticism of faith leaders by the Trump administration who speak out against the cruelty of ICE and its inhumane immigration policies.
  • “Spiritual readiness” programs at 37 military bases now feature exclusively Christian programming, with commanders citing “Christian values” as essential to national defense (Defense Department IG Report, December 2023) with no other faith services offered.

Historical Context: How We Got Here

The 50-Year Strategy

This movement didn’t emerge overnight and it started with radicalizing youth through Christian based teen programs.

1970s Foundation:

• Formation of the Moral Majority (1979)
• Christian schools boom as reaction to desegregation

1990s-2000s Institutionalization:

• Creation of Alliance Defending Freedom (1993), now with $100M annual budget
• Embedding in Republican Party infrastructure

2016-2020 Acceleration:

• Trump administration’s Faith and Opportunity Initiative
• Record judicial appointmentsMarie Newman Studio Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

The 16-Month Surge

Why now? Three catalysts:

1. Post-Dobbs momentum: The successful overturning of Roe emboldened activists that constitutional precedent could be dismantled (Brookings Institution, 2023)
2. State-level laboratories: Republican trifectas in 23 states enabled rapid policy implementation without federal oversight (National Conference of State Legislatures, 2024)
3. Funding surge: Christian nationalist organizations reported a combined 300% increase in donations between 2022-2023 (IRS 990 analysis by ProPublica, February 2024)

The Data: Measuring the Shift

Public opinion paradox:

• Only 31% of Americans support the U.S. being declared a “Christian nation” (Pew Research, February 2024)
• Yet 68% of Republican legislators in swing states have endorsed Christian nationalist platforms (Public Religion Research Institute, 2024)

The youth factor:

• White evangelical youth (ages 18-29) who support “biblical governance” increased from 34% (2019) to 52% (2024) (PRRI, March 2024) as a result of the surge in funding of Christian youth programs with a clear message against the LGBTQ community, reproductive healthcare and the separation of church and state.
• Christian nationalist content on TikTok generated 4.2 billion views in 2023, up from 890 million in 2022 (Media Matters analysis, January 2024)

Democracy’s Inflection Point

The separation of church and state isn’t collapsing—it’s being systematically dismantled by activists who view secular governance as illegitimate. With Project 2025 providing a ready-made blueprint, institutional capture already underway, and demographic radicalization accelerating, the America of 2026 looks fundamentally different from the pluralistic democracy enshrined in the First Amendment.

As historian Katherine Stewart, author of The Power Worshippers, warns: “This isn’t about religious freedom. It’s about religious dominance. And we’re watching it happen in real-time.”

The question isn’t whether this movement exists—it’s whether Americans who value a free democracy will recognize the threat before the transformation becomes irreversible.

One final point, it is not just that the far right Christian movement is radicalizing the government, it is they are clearly endangering other religious groups and non-religious belief groups. This is anti-American as it gets.

Don’t let powerful folks tell you what to believe. We have a say, so speak up.