Grad student essay contest 2024 — 2nd place: Austin Link

FFRF awarded Austin $3,000.

By Austin Link

After winning his second gubernatorial bid in 2022, Kevin Stitt  claimed Oklahoma as dominion of the Christian god on the steps of the state Capitol. With his eyes closed in prayer, he said, “Father, we just claim Oklahoma for you. Every square inch, we claim it for you in the name of Jesus. . . With the authority that I have as governor, and the spiritual authority and the physical authority that you give me, I claim Oklahoma for you, and we will be a light to our country and to the world, right here.”

Stitt’s statement at the Capitol is a blatant display of Christian nationalist ideology in action. Christian nationalism is a framework that seeks to integrate the Christian faith with the culture, public policies and identity of our nation. Much like other nationalist regimes that have blighted history, it pursues these ends in an exclusive, zealous manner. This impacts those that do not belong to the in-group in a profoundly detrimental way, making it an inherently dangerous ideology that marginalizes people from the out-group.

I am an Oklahoman. Over the course of my life, I have witnessed the war that people like Stitt have waged on the public, but the last few years have been alarming. Along with Stitt’s bigotry toward marginalized communities and asinine statements regarding Oklahoma belonging to the Christian god, policies regarding education have been particularly concerning to me.

Ryan Walters is Oklahoma’s current superintendent of public instruction. Walters has claimed that there is no such thing as the separation of church and state within America’s founding documents, has regularly advocated for “putting God back in school” and rails against policies and curriculum involving diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

In September 2023, Walters announced that his department will work with the alt-right organization PragerU to develop Oklahoma-specific educational materials that would encourage American exceptionalism and Christian nationalist ideals. Knowledge is power, and instilling extremist values within children is the key to what Christian nationalists want to achieve. They will do this by banning books, invading school boards, erecting the Ten Commandments in classrooms, forcing students to engage in prayer and denying scientific realities like evolution and climate change.

All these things are being attempted by Oklahoman officials right now. This is not a phenomenon restricted to my home state, however. These changes are being enacted across the entirety of America. This harms and squanders the potential of children belonging to marginalized communities, such as nonbelievers, people of color and LGBTQ-plus individuals. Indeed, it also woefully fails all children being raised under this oppressive umbrella, even those belonging to the in-group.

Christian nationalism, and theocratic nationalism in general, is dangerous even for those who hold the power within this system. This is due to the nature of culture itself. Much like the natural history of life on this planet, culture and religion are rife with evolution. Religions come into being, often providing a framework for social cohesion and control which benefits the in-group in a naturally selective manner. They are then enshrined in holy scriptures or dogmas that are analogous to biological genotypes, which then speciate into denominations with their own interpretations of scripture (and determinisms of which scriptures are canon) that are like divergent alleles. These genomic elements then get transcribed and translated into the proteinaceous machinery that affects the overall phenotype of the believer’s worldview and behaviors. Over time, the “genes” that construct religions change in co-evolutionary patterns alongside religious adherents and society.

This poses a pertinent question: Even if current Christian nationalist leaders were to fully ensnare America within theocratic rule, what happens in 50 years when they are outnumbered by theocrats who have a different idea of what it means to be a Christian? Similarly to how current Christian nationalists desire to strip away the rights of the out-group, they will become victim to their own methodology in time, having their human rights stripped from them in the same fashion.

Under the framework of Christian nationalism, those who hold the power at one point in time will always be under the thumb of the next oppressive theocracy that results from the inherent evolutionary properties of culture. This is why secular, humanistic ideals are paramount to securing the rights and prosperity of people from every background, religious or not. Consequently, it is of the utmost importance that we fight against oppression imposed on us by those who stand against freedom of, and from, religion.

Austin, 27, attends the University of Oklahoma, working on a degree in biology.

“I am an Indigenous student who volunteers with a program called YESOK (Youth Enjoy Science Oklahoma) that does science outreach for Indigenous students within the Central Oklahoma/Oklahoma City/Norman region,” Austin writes. “When I finish my master’s degree, I plan on entering a doctorate program within the same biology lab and department.”