The largest and most prominent display of Christian nationalism in the United States during the second Trump administration will take place on the National Mall on Sunday, with the full backing of the federal government in the White House and leadership in Congress.
This is what theocracy looks like.
The Rededicate 250 rally — featuring President Donald Trump, House Speaker Mike Johnson, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and a who’s who of religious right figures — has a stated purpose: to “rededicate our country as One Nation Under God.”
It’s the most aggressive repudiation of the Constitution’s guarantee of religious freedom that the Christian nationalist movement has yet attempted on American soil. And it begins with a lie hiding in plain sight, right there in the event’s name.
The United States was founded as a democracy with religious freedom, not a Christian theocracy. We cannot re-dedicate something to God when the nation was never dedicated to one narrow religious movement. As we celebrate 250 years since the Declaration of Independence, we need to reject this warped understanding of American history and instead recommit ourselves to the founding ideas of religious freedom for all and secular democracy.
The U.S. Constitution guarantees religious freedom for all with the establishment clause and the free exercise clause, which work together to allow every American to practice their faith freely — or to not practice any religion. The institutional separation of religion and government is what guarantees religious freedom for all in practice. The only reference to religion in the original text of the Constitution is in Article 6, which prohibits any religious test for public office.
The Treaty of Tripoli, ratified unanimously by the Senate in 1797, declared that the U.S. government “is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.”
It’s the most aggressive repudiation of the Constitution’s guarantee of religious freedom that the Christian nationalist movement has yet attempted on American soil.
The “rededicate” moment looks to much more recent history for inspiration. But “one nation under God” is not in the Constitution, it was inserted into the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954 during a moment of anti-communist Cold War anxiety. “In God We Trust” was adopted as the national motto in 1956, replacing the founders’ own E pluribus unum — “out of many, one.”
Rededicate 250 attempts to replace our “out of many, one” ethos with a declaration of one religion for all, pushing Christian nationalism past anything we have seen in modern American history.
The parade of bad history on the National Mall will be coupled with bad theology.
Some of the earliest understandings of religious freedom for all were articulated by Baptist ministers who understood how church-state separation benefits the church. Christian leaders tying themselves to any political regime — especially one as cruel, merciless and profane as the Trump administration — weakens the church’s independence and prophetic nature.
It’s not enough to throw up our hands and bemoan this unprecedented display of authoritarian theocracy. It’s long past time to fight back.
On Thursday night, my organization, Interfaith Alliance, partnered with protest artist Robin Bell to project images on the National Gallery of Art. The messages read “Rededicate America to Democracy” and “The Separation of Church and State Is Good for Both.” We ensured that the bright glow of the founding ideal of religious freedom would still be brightly displayed, despite the Christian nationalism coming to Washington.
We’re also taking the administration to court, challenging what we believe is the unlawful creation of the president’s Religious Liberty Commission, which is composed almost exclusively of conservative Christian leaders, some of whom are speaking at Rededicate250, and one Orthodox rabbi. We are arguing that the commission’s creation violates the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which requires such groups to be “fairly balanced in terms of the points of view represented and the functions to be performed by the advisory committee.” Democracy Forward and Americans United for Separation of Church and State are representing us, alongside our co-plaintiffs, Muslims for Progressive Values, Hindus for Human Rights and the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund.
We need to be clear-eyed about the threat of this theocratic pageant on the National Mall and use this moment to rededicate and recommit to fighting for religious freedom for all — not religious dominance for one extreme minority.
Rededicate 250 represents an assault on the U.S. Constitution, and the Christian nationalist alignment with the deeply immoral Trump administration betrays any basic understanding of Christian teaching. With guerrilla art, in courtrooms, via mass protest and at the ballot box, we must fight back. Our democracy and the rights of all Americans to be free to worship and pray however they want to are at stake.
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