Blessed Are the Bigots, For They Shall Receive a Curriculum

Christian nationalism wants public schools, political power, and just enough Bible to make the fear look holy.

May 29, 2026

The following reflection was inspired by three news reports that arrived like a cursed gift basket from the Church of We Told You So: Indiana Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith reportedly saying America needs “permission to hate again” while calling Islam a “demonic death cult,” Texas officials weighing a curriculum that gives Christianity the stained-glass treatment while Islam gets shoved into the terrorism drawer, and the San Diego Muslim community grieving after a deadly mosque shooting while still having to remind America, “We’re just your neighbors.”

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America’s latest spiritual revival is apparently not “love your neighbor,” “blessed are the peacemakers,” or “whatever you did to the least of these.”

No, beloved pilgrims of the comment section, the new gospel seems to be: we need permission to hate again.

When the Mask Files Paperwork

Indiana Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith reportedly said, “I hate Islam. It’s a demonic death cult,” then added that “we need to be okay with hating again.”

Which is a bold theological move. Somewhere, Jesus is flipping over tables again, but this time it’s because the money changers have been replaced by podcast patriots selling fear in bulk.

The funniest part, if by “funny” we mean “deeply horrifying with a patriot filter,” is that this always comes wrapped in the language of defending Christianity. They are not spreading hate, you see. They are “protecting Western civilization.” They are not demonizing Muslims. They are “telling the truth.” They are not trying to make one religion dominant in public life. They are simply “returning America to its roots,” preferably with a school board, a campaign donation link, and a history curriculum written by people who think footnotes are woke.

Bible Lessons With a Side of Panic

Meanwhile in Texas, the Republican-led State Board of Education is considering a social studies overhaul that would weave Christianity and Bible readings throughout public school instruction. The Houston Chronicle reports that the standards would require students to read more than a dozen Bible passages and connect Christianity to major historical events, beginning as early as kindergarten with the claim that Pilgrims came “to advance the Christian faith.”

Kindergarten!

Because nothing says “let children be children” like handing a five-year-old a crayon and saying, “Now color the providential destiny of Protestant settlement.”

And yes, religion should be taught in history. Of course it should. Christianity shaped the West. Islam shaped world civilization. Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Indigenous religions, African traditions, and countless other streams shaped human culture too. A serious education would teach religion with honesty, context, humility, and actual scholarship.

But that is not what this smells like.

This smells like Christian nationalism with laminated worksheets.

Christianity Gets the Halo. Islam Gets the Mugshot.

The Chronicle notes that the proposed curriculum gives far fewer requirements to other religions, while lessons on Islam largely emphasize conflict, including jihad, terrorism, the Crusades, and the Reconquista. One curriculum preview says students would explain “the teachings of jihad” and “the rise of radical Islam.”

There it is. Christianity gets civilization, banking, abolition, Pilgrims, Moses, Abraham, and moral foundations. Islam gets conquest, terrorism, and the suspicious background music from every airport scene in a bad action movie.

Subtle as a brick through a stained-glass window.

This is the trick. Christian nationalism does not simply ask for Christianity to be remembered. It asks for Christianity to be airbrushed, perfumed, and handed a crown. Then it asks for Islam to be shoved into the “dangerous foreign threat” drawer, right next to “Marxists,” “globalists,” “woke teachers,” and whatever else keeps the fundraising emails moist.

If We’re Teaching History, Let’s Teach History

One historian quoted by the Chronicle said the curriculum shows a “selective emphasis on stopping Muslim expansion while glossing over disturbing behavior by Christian powers.”

There is the whole sermon, right there.

Because if children are going to learn about jihad and conquest, wonderful. Let us also teach Charlemagne forcing Saxons into baptism at sword point. Let us teach the Crusaders slaughtering civilians in Jerusalem. Let us teach colonial missions, residential schools, slavery defended with Bible verses, Jewish communities terrorized after Passion plays, and every empire that learned to say “God wills it” while counting stolen land.

But no, the bigots never want history. They want a museum exhibit where their side gets a halo and everyone else gets a mugshot.

This is not faith. This is insecurity with a choir robe.

Your Neighbors Are Not Your Demons

And while all of this is happening, Muslim communities are dealing with actual violence. In San Diego, after the mass shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego, The Guardian reported that three men were killed and that the attack is being investigated as a hate crime. Security guard Amin Abdullah helped keep two teenage gunmen from reaching about 140 children and 20 staff members at the mosque school.

Read that again before some patriot influencer starts screaming about “protecting the children.”

A Muslim security guard died protecting children.

Not in a meme. Not in a fever dream about Sharia. In real life.

And what did one community member say afterward? “We’re just your neighbors.”

That sentence should shame every professional panic merchant in the country.

“We’re just your neighbors.”

Not invaders. Not demons. Not a caliphate hiding behind a bake sale. Neighbors. People trying to pray, raise kids, build community, pay bills, bury their dead, and survive the latest wave of holy-branded paranoia from men who confuse bigotry with discernment because both make their faces look serious.

Love Is Not Conversion With Better Branding

The Christian nationalist imagination has become so spiritually constipated that it cannot recognize ordinary human beings unless they arrive pre-approved by Fox News, wrapped in a flag, and allergic to Arabic.

And now we have public figures talking about hating Islam while claiming to love Muslims because they make “great Christians” once converted.

That is not love. That is colonial customer service.

“I love you, provided you stop being you” is not compassion. It is conquest with a church smile.

If your love for Muslims depends on them becoming Christians, you do not love Muslims. You love the imaginary trophy version of them you can display after your ideology has eaten their identity.

Fear Is Not a Spiritual Gift

This is the sacred scam of Christian nationalism. It turns Christianity into a border wall around the ego. It calls domination “truth.” It calls fear “wisdom.” It calls cruelty “courage.” Then it has the nerve to act persecuted when decent people say, “Maybe stop calling an entire religion demonic while mosques are receiving threats.”

The old saints warned about passions. Hatred was not a virtue. It was a sickness of perception. A fog over the heart. A fire that burns the vessel carrying it.

But these boys have discovered a shortcut. Why purify the heart when you can monetize its disease?

Why repent when you can rebrand resentment as patriotism?

Why love your neighbor when you can accuse them of building a caliphate because they requested a zoning permit?

The Problem Was Never Islam

The truth is painfully simple. Christianity does not need the state to survive. It does not need public school curriculum committees to prop it up like a tired mascot. It does not need Muslims turned into monsters so Christians can feel brave.

If Christianity is true, it can survive honest history.

If Christianity is beautiful, it does not need propaganda.

If Christianity is rooted in Christ, it should produce mercy, courage, humility, and solidarity with the vulnerable.

But if your Christianity requires permission to hate, then maybe the problem is not Islam.

Maybe the problem is that your religion has become a mirror, and you do not like what is staring back.

May the fear merchants develop a sudden allergy to their own talking points. May the school boards discover historians before the worksheets go to print. May every mosque, church, synagogue, temple, and sacred weird little meditation room be protected from men who mistake paranoia for prophecy.

And may everyone demanding permission to hate be gently escorted back to the Sermon on the Mount, where the Wi-Fi is weak, the ego dies loudly, and Jesus keeps asking why his loudest defenders never seem to recognize him.Keep the Scrolls Unrolling

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