A new history curriculum for the federal school system serving military families appears designed to promote Christianity while presenting Islam as a threat to Western civilization.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation has written a letter to the Department of War Education Activity Director Paul Craft that expresses serious constitutional and educational concerns over the introduction of a new “Western Civilization to 1500” course. The department’s education arm reportedly operates approximately 160 schools in 11 countries, educating roughly 70,000 children of active-duty military personnel and civilian service members.
Beginning this fall, high school students may take the course to satisfy their world history graduation requirement. The course will use “The Golden Thread: A History of the Western Tradition, Volume I: The Ancient World and Christendom,” published by Encounter Books, with suggested lesson plans developed in partnership with Hillsdale College. Hillsdale College, a small ultraconservative Christian college in Michigan devoted to the “teachings and practices of the Christian faith,” has forged a close relationship with President Trump’s White House, including producing propaganda for America’s 250th anniversary. FFRF has previously warned about the Department of Education’s inappropriate history partnership with Hillsdale College.
Historians and educators who’ve reviewed excerpts of the textbook have warned that it misleadingly equates Western civilization with Christianity — and portrays Islam as a threat to both. For example, the book reportedly credits Christianity with promoting “humane cosmopolitanism” while characterizing Arabs as resentful or bitter toward Christians and Jews. A section on “Holy War and Martyrdom in Battle” reportedly defends Christian warfare, including the Crusades, with an accompanying depiction of Islam as glorifying violence and warfare.
“This is exactly the kind of religious favoritism that has no place in a federal public school,” says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “Military families represent the full religious — and nonreligious — diversity of our country, where Christians are 62 percent of the population, but religiously unaffiliated are 29 percent and other religions 7 percent.”
In fact, Gaylor points out, “18 percent of active military members are atheist/agnostic. Another 32 percent have no religious affiliation, according to researcher Ryan Burge, putting the ‘Nones’ overall at half of current military members! Their children do not deserve Christian nationalist disinformation dressed up as history.”
FFRF’s concerns extend beyond a single textbook. “War” Secretary Pete Hegseth has publicly advocated classical Christian education and has repeatedly linked Christianity with American identity and Western civilization. In his 2022 book, “Battle for the American Mind,” Hegseth characterized secular education as a threat to America and Western civilization and encouraged parents to send their children to classical Christian schools.
Against that backdrop, the leadership of the department’s education section has reportedly been reorganized to promote “patriotic values and classical learning.” Most significantly, Craft reportedly told his subordinates that classical learning was a priority coming directly from Hegseth and that the Department of War Education Activity had been tasked with determining how lessons from classical learning in private schools could be introduced into “a public school setting like us.”
FFRF stresses that maintaining this distinction is constitutionally critical.
“Private religious schools are free to teach students that Christianity represents the pinnacle of civilization, that American institutions are divinely inspired, or that other religions are theologically mistaken,” FFRF’s letter explains. “Federal public schools are not.”
The First Amendment requires the government to remain neutral toward religion. Public schools may objectively teach about Christianity, Islam and other religions and their roles in history. But government schools may not promote Christianity, disparage other faiths or use history instruction to inculcate students with a favored religious worldview.
As the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized, the First Amendment mandates governmental neutrality “between religion and religion, and between religion and nonreligion.” FFRF warns that the Department of War Education Activity must not place the federal government’s imprimatur on “religious apologetics masquerading as history.”
“Service members make extraordinary sacrifices for a Constitution that protects Americans of every faith and no faith,” adds FFRF Legal Counsel Chris Line, who authored FFRF’s letter. “Their children should not become a captive audience for an experiment in importing Christian education into federal public schools. Teaching about Christianity is appropriate in the right context. Teaching a preferred Christian version of history is not.”
FFRF is asking the Department of War Education Activity to immediately conduct a thorough constitutional and academic review of “The Golden Thread” and all accompanying curricular materials before allowing the course to proceed. Among other steps, FFRF is urging it to ensure that Christianity, Islam, Judaism and other religious traditions are presented objectively; submit the textbook and lesson plans for independent review by qualified historians and religious studies scholars; publicly release the curriculum, teacher guidance and textbook-selection materials; disclose who was involved in developing and selecting the course; and explain what safeguards are in place to prevent “classical learning” initiatives from becoming a vehicle for promoting classical Christian education. FFRF is also asking it to suspend any instructional materials that promote Christianity, disparage Islam or another religion, or otherwise violate the religious neutrality required of federal public schools.
Students of military families deserve rigorous history, not religious propaganda, FFRF concludes. The federal government must educate, not evangelize.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a U.S.-based nonprofit dedicated to defending the constitutional principle of separation between state and church and educating the public on matters relating to nontheism. With about 41,000 members, FFRF is the largest association of freethinkers (atheists, agnostics and humanists) in North America. For more information, visit ffrf.org.
