When Faith Becomes Propaganda and Religion Becomes Performance

Guest Opinion by Alicia Boothe Haggermaker

There’s a point where belief stops being sacred and starts being scripted.

Where “faith” becomes a marketing strategy, “morality” becomes a brand, and “church” becomes a tax loophole with stained-glass windows.

That’s the moment religion shifts from compass to control.

America isn’t approaching that point—we’re living in it.

My friend Sherrie recently wrote an op-ed about radical Islam and radical Zionism—and she’s not wrong. Extremism is extremism, no matter who preaches it. But, there’s a third force she didn’t name, and it’s the one that hides most easily in the Bible Belt: Radical Christianity.

Not the faith—the political apparatus wearing the faith as a costume.

Right now in Alabama, that apparatus is expanding.

This Isn’t About Faith. This Isn’t About the Constitution. This Is About Power.

Earlier this week, the Alabama Policy Institute (API) published a Facebook graphic titled “2026Blueprint for Alabama.” Buried in the list—right between evergreens of the culture war—was a proposal to place chaplains in public schools.

Not counselors. Not licensed therapists. Not trauma-informed mental-health professionals.

Chaplains.

And before the synchronized pearl-clutching begins, let’s be honest: there is zero intention of allowing imams, rabbis, Buddhist monks, or Yoruba priests equal access.

This is not about spiritual care. This is about consolidating ideological authority.

It’s not chaplaincy. It’s state-sanctioned catechism, branded as “values.”

If the goal were spiritual support, the bill would explicitly protect all spiritual traditions. It doesn’t—because that’s not what this is.

This is the government attempting to install a religious hierarchy in the one place the Constitution explicitly forbids it: public education.

When Religion Becomes Performance Art: Alabama Edition

Remember the woman who called dozens of churches pretending she couldn’t afford baby formula? It wasn’t a scam—it was a stress test for compassion.

Who stepped up?

Not the giant white megachurches. Not the loudest “family values” institutions. Not the groups demanding Christian dominance in public schools.

The ones who offered help were Black churches and mosques—the very communities often treated as political afterthoughts in this state.

That’s the thing about performative Christianity. It preaches compassion while voting against it. It lauds charity while outsourcing it. It weaponizes morality but refuses to practice it.

If you want to know a belief system’s true values, don’t listen to its slogans—watch who it shows up for.

Meanwhile, Real Families Are Being Torn Apart by the System Our Lawmakers Ignore

While Alabama’s political class is laser-focused on drag shows, book bans, and putting chaplains in algebra classrooms, the real crisis is happening in the shadows: CPS and family court corruption, documented by advocates like Jessica Saxton. It’s a pattern so widespread that she’s now working with Tanawah Downing to expose it nationwide.

Children in Alabama’s foster system are ending up in abuse networks.

At least six children were involved in the Bibb County torture bunker case.

If the moral panic were truly about “protecting children,” these would be front-page issues.

They aren’t—because you cannot fundraise off nuance. You can only fundraise off fear.

We’ve Been Here Before. It Was Called Salem.

The Salem witch trials weren’t a historical glitch. They were a blueprint.

• A community convinced of its own divine mandate.
• Religious authority fused to civil authority.
• Rumor treated as revelation.
• Accusation elevated to evidence.
• Punishment delivered as worship.

And at the center of it all: when people in power believe God is on their side, they no longer need evidence—only obedience.

• The details change.
• The outfits change.
• The target changes.

But the psychology is identical.

• Every era has its witch hunt.
• Every era has its righteous mob.
• Every era has its leaders who wrap power in scripture and call it sanctified.

Today’s witch hunts come with ballots instead of broomsticks and hashtags instead of torches.

But the underlying mechanism? Unchanged.

If You Want Christianity in Schools, Start by Acting Like Christ

Here's the uncomfortable truth: you don’t get to demand Christian dominance in public spaces while ignoring the teachings of Christ.

You don’t get to push chaplains into schools while refusing to address the corruption harming real families.

You don’t get to legislate “morality” while embodying the exact behavior Jesus condemned in Revelation 3:9–those who claim righteousness but lie.

You don’t get to weaponize the faith while living out its opposite.

If you want Christianity taught, try practicing it.

If you want moral authority, try earning it.

Because right now, too many lawmakers have confused Christ with culture war.

Faith Should Be a Guiding Light — Not a Governance Strategy

This isn’t an argument against religion. It’s an argument against religion as theater, religion as political machinery, religion as the velvet glove over an iron fist.

When “faith” becomes propaganda, when chaplains become ideological officers, when schools become revival tents, when courts destroy families in the name of protection…?

That isn’t Christianity. That’s theocracy in drag.

And Alabama doesn’t need a theocracy. It needs leaders with integrity.

Let’s stop pretending this is about God. It’s about control.

The solution isn’t more religion in schools.

It’s more truth, more ethics, more civic literacy, more critical thinking, and more real compassion—the kind that doesn’t need a campaign ad or a church logo to exist.

If we want a generation that understands morality, justice, and community, we don’t need chaplains. We need courage.

Because when faith becomes propaganda and religion becomes performance…

What you’re worshiping isn’t God—it’s power wearing a cross.

Alicia Boothe Haggermaker is a lifelong resident of Huntsville, Alabama, and a dedicated advocate for health freedom. For more than a decade, she has worked to educate the public and policymakers on issues of medical choice and public transparency. In January 2020, she organized a delegation of physicians and health freedom advocates to Montgomery, contributing to the initial draft of legislation that became SB267.

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