Florida may soon embark upon a dreadful new experiment in tearing down the wall between church and state. This month, the state’s legislature passed a bill that would allow schools to bring volunteer religious chaplains onto campus to provide students with counseling. If Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican who delights in activist education policy, signs the bill, it will become law.
Florida’s Republican lawmakers have argued that chaplains provide a suitable — if not superior — alternative to trained school counselors. “I believe that sometimes the issue is with the soul and not of the mind, and that’s why I believe that this is a good option for our students in today’s day and age,” state Sen. Danny Burgess said of the bill, as if the business of the government is saving children’s souls.
The emerging crusade to install school chaplains should be understood as an outgrowth of rising Christian nationalism.
This radical movement began in Texas, where in 2023 the state legislature passed a bill that allows school districts to bring chaplains into schools for counseling students. That bill required school districts to vote on whether to bring chaplains into their districts, and fortunately the largest school districts in the state have voted no. Even so, Texas’ bill spurred copycat legislation in at least 14 states, including Ohio, Maryland and Kansas. As Axios reports, right-wing lawmakers are capitalizing on a shortage of school counselors across the country and pushing the narrative that religious guidance is the real salve to the issues that young people face.
The emerging crusade to install school chaplains should be understood as an outgrowth of rising Christian nationalism, and an alarming threat to America’s students. It violates the spirit of the First Amendment for public schools to hire religious administrators who have the opportunity to indoctrinate students with their religious beliefs.
The Florida bill’s requirements for serving as a…
Read the full article here
