KJS 10.25 Washington DC ⛪️

Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing”. Luke 23:34

The same people who invoke God’s name in every speech just violated the most basic biblical principle: care for the vulnerable.

The same people who talk endlessly about “family values” just made it harder for families with disabled kids to get help.

The same people who claim to be “pro-life” just eliminated critical support for disabled children who are already born.

The same people who want prayer in schools just made those schools less accountable for educating children with special needs.

The Secretary Who Presided Over This

Linda McMahon runs the Department of Education. She’s a former wrestling executive who donated millions to Trump’s campaign and has been embraced by the Christian Right as part of the MAGA movement’s takeover of education.

The same Christian conservatives who claim moral authority on every issue from abortion to school prayer are cheering as McMahon dismantles protections for disabled children.

Last Friday, her department fired nearly everyone in the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services . An education department staffer said the agency laid off just about every employee who works to administer funding for IDEA—the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act , the primary federal law supporting students with disabilities.

Gone. Almost the entire office responsible for getting federal money to schools so disabled kids can learn.

This happened under a Secretary celebrated by evangelical leaders. This happened with the full support of the Christian Right. This happened in Jesus’s name.

The Numbers They Don’t Want You to See

The Department of Education’s 2025 budget included $15.7 billion for special education programs —primarily funding for IDEA. That represents about 25% of the department’s K-12 spending .

Out of a total department budget of around $80 billion in discretionary funding, special education accounts for roughly 20% of the money actually going to schools.

So we’re not talking about some bloated bureaucracy here. We’re talking about funds that go directly to helping 7.6 million children with disabilities get the education they’re legally entitled to.

Here’s what we’re “saving” by gutting special education oversight: The salaries of a few hundred federal employees who stewarded, managed, processed and monitored $15.7 billion in funding for disabled children.

Let’s be generous and say those employees averaged $100,000 per year in total compensation. If they laid off 400 people, that’s $40 million annually.

$40 million “saved” by eliminating oversight of $15.7 billion in critical funding.

That’s 0.25% of the special education budget. A quarter of one percent.

One education department leader told ABC News: “If this RIF notice is carried out, the Department of Education can no longer administer IDEA. I have no staff to put the money out and to monitor the states.”

We didn’t save money on special education. We eliminated the people who make sure the money gets where it needs to go.

The Christian Right calls this “stewardship.” I call it abandonment.

What Jesus Actually Said About This

Jesus spent his entire ministry with people society rejected. The blind. The lame. The deaf. Those possessed by demons—what we’d now recognize as mental illness or neurological disorders.

He didn’t just pray for them from a distance. He touched them. Healed them. Elevated them. Made them visible.

In Matthew 25:40, Jesus is explicit: “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”

Children with disabilities are the definition of “the least of these.” They can’t advocate for themselves. They can’t organize. They can’t vote. They depend entirely on adults to fight for their rights.

And the Christian Right—the same people who plaster Matthew 25 on church bulletins—just fired the federal employees responsible for protecting those rights.

Let’s say it again: The MAGA movement, backed enthusiastically by evangelical Christians, just eliminated federal oversight of special education and called it God’s work.

The Fifty-Year Betrayal Made Worse

When IDEA was enacted in 1975, it proposed that federal funding would cover up to 40% of the cost of special education. The current reality is that federal funding covers approximately 14.7% of the costs .

We’ve been systematically underfunding special education for fifty years. States and local districts have been picking up the slack, stretching resources, cutting other programs to meet federal mandates we never fully paid for.

And now we’re eliminating even the basic oversight that ensured that inadequate funding reached the kids who needed it.

Glenna Wright-Gallo, who served as assistant secretary in the office from 2023 to 2025, explained the stakes: “The system is designed to happen at the school level, with oversight from the district, with oversight from the state, and then with oversight from the federal level. Now we’re losing that checks and balances system.”

Without federal oversight, who ensures states follow the law? Who protects parents when school districts deny their children services? Who investigates when disabled kids are warehoused instead of educated?

Nobody. That’s the point.

MAGA cheers the cuts. Still talking about efficiency and limited government and ignoring what Jesus actually commanded.

Christian people: are we really fine with this? The President co-branded a Bible, that wasn’t enough.

I’m livid. I’m ashamed of Christian leaders and politicians all across this land who have lost their values and think we’ve lost ours.

The Hypocrisy Is Suffocating

The education department is the smallest cabinet-level agency in the U.S. government. At the start of the Trump administration, the department had just over 4,000 employees. After buyouts, early retirements, voluntary separations and a Reduction in Force, the agency was shrunk nearly in half earlier this year .

It was already lean. Now they’ve gutted it further, specifically targeting the office that serves the most vulnerable students.

This Isn’t Fiscal Responsibility

This isn’t about saving money. The “savings” are negligible compared to the harm. This is about abandoning disabled children because they can’t fight back.

This is about the MAGA movement’s complete capture of conservative Christianity—to the point where “Christians” now actively harm the vulnerable and call it righteousness.

Linda McMahon isn’t a theologian. She’s not an educator. She’s a political operative who got this job because she wrote checks and pledged loyalty. And evangelical leaders lined up to support her. To defend her. To claim this is all part of God’s plan.

What Happens Next

It’s not God’s plan. It’s cruelty disguised as efficiency, wrapped in a flag, and blessed by people who’ve forgotten what Jesus actually taught.

Schools will still be legally required to provide special education services. But federal oversight is gone. Federal support is crippled. The money will be harder to access. Compliance will be impossible to enforce.

Parents will sue. Districts will claim they can’t afford services. Kids will suffer.

And the Christians who did this will claim they had no choice, that we needed to cut spending, — God’s will again.

The Christianity I Know

The Christianity I was raised in cares for widows and orphans, feeds the hungry, clothes the unsheltered and tends to the sick.

Thus this represents actual evil.

If your version of Christianity allows you to gut services for disabled kids to save 0.25% of a budget—while celebrating a political appointee who’s never taught a day in her life—then i challenge you in front of Jesus’ core principles.

Because my Jesus said we’d be judged by how we treated the least among us.

Right now, the Christian Right has no clothes, it is failing every test catastrophically.

My heart is telling me Christians everywhere cannot explain this wickedness and many don’t know how to act right now. Caught between politics and religion.

Let’s be reminded of how courageous Jesus was in His lifetime and what He really stood for.

The courage to stand tall. That’s all we have to do. And the truth will find you.

It’s why we are here. To stand for those who cannot stand for themselves. It’s how we are measured.

Real Christians know this.