Josh Calloway doesn’t just want to legislate his beliefs. He wants to embed them into the very foundations of Kentucky’s public education system. Through a calculated mix of religious fundamentalism, state-sponsored surveillance, and a fetish for authoritarian control, Calloway is helping to lead the charge in transforming schools from places of learning into instruments of ideological enforcement. Faith-Based Counseling Without Accountability It begins with the deceptively soft pitch of “pastoral counselors” in schools. On the surface, this might seem like a compassionate gesture toward addressing student trauma and mental health. But these counselors aren’t licensed professionals. They’re faith-based actors, selected not for their credentials in psychology or therapy, but for their alignment with a narrow, sectarian worldview. And under current proposals, they would be embedded directly into public institutions, paid with public funds, and granted access to vulnerable students, witho...

 In Kentucky and across the country, public education is under attack. But the threat isn’t just budget cuts or teacher shortages. It’s a coordinated effort to gut public schools by funneling public dollars into private, often religious, institutions. At the center of this push in Kentucky is Rep. Josh Calloway , a lawmaker who blends far-right ideology with evangelical zeal, all while cloaking his agenda in the language of “parental rights” and “school choice.” Calloway’s legislative record reads like a blueprint from national dark-money think tanks. He backed House Bill 208 , a bill that opens the door for Kentucky tax dollars to subsidize private religious schools. Though marketed as a way to give families more “freedom,” the real agenda is clear: defund and destabilize public education while using the state to prop up a narrow, sectarian vision of schooling. The Hope Academy Connection: Religious Rehab as Public Policy One of the clearest windows into Representative Josh Callow...

  From Pulpit to Power The Rise of a Kentucky Culture Warrior Rep. Josh Calloway isn’t just another small-town lawmaker. He’s the spearpoint of a growing movement to fuse Christian fundamentalism with state power, and Frankfort is his pulpit. If you’ve never heard of Rep. Josh Calloway, that’s by design. He doesn’t showboat like some of his far-right colleagues. He doesn’t need to. While others chase cable news hits, Calloway quietly builds a theocratic infrastructure, one bill, one board appointment, one fire-and-brimstone soundbite at a time. Calloway’s rise from pulpit to power reflects a broader strategy playing out across red states: reshape public life to reflect a narrow, often authoritarian brand of Christianity. The stakes for Kentucky? Public schools, LGBTQ+ rights, reproductive freedom, and the very idea of secular government. Who Is Josh Calloway? To understand Rep. Josh Calloway, you have to understand his mission: this is a man who didn’t run for office to govern. He ...