White House to host taxpayer-funded Christian Nationalist rally in D.C.

The “Rededicate 250” event blends patriotism, government power, and conservative Christianity into one disturbing spectacle

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The White House will host a Christian Nationalist rally this weekend to honor the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. That’s not me exaggerating what’s actually happening; that’s quite literally the plan.

“Rededicate 250: National Jubilee of Prayer, Praise & Thanksgiving,” taking place this Sunday on the National Mall, is described as a way for all Americans to come together “with Scripture, testimony, prayer, and rededication of our country as One Nation to God.” And of course they’re referring only to the Christian God because this administration has made clear religious freedom only applies to conservative Christians. (It’s happening shortly after many of those same Christians celebrated a right-wing Supreme Court ruling allowing states to suppress the power of the Black vote—another item on conservatives’ longterm wishlist.)

They’re calling it a “rededication” but that’s also a misnomer. America was never dedicated to the Christian God in the first place. Not legally. Not metaphorically either.

There can’t be a “rededication” because the country was never dedicated to God (screenshot via YouTube)

Nor is this by any means a private gathering. There are numerous corporate sponsors, and funding for the massive event comes in part from “millions in public dollars earmarked for the nation’s 250th birthday celebration,” according to the Washington Post. (The exact amount isn’t clear.) The event will technically be organized by the non-profit Freedom 250, but that’s a White House-affiliated group that some senators have already said could “violate federal bribery, conflict of interest, and ethics laws.”

The nine-hour event—capped by a literal worship service—will feature a slew of right-wing religious zealots, all of whom have looked the other way because Donald Trump pays them lip service while going against damn near everything the Bible teaches.

But it begins on Saturday with warm-up acts, including MAGA-aligned conspiracy theorists Sean Feucht, Eric Metaxas, Mark Driscoll, and Greg Locke.

Feucht referred to the event back in February after getting off a planning call with the White House. He said at the time, “I never would have imagined our own government getting behind revival meetings!”

Even the White House is echoing that idea. This is how the government’s website describes this event:

At sunrise, the National Mall will transform into a large-scale revival, beginning with worship, testimonies, and music, and culminating in a powerful national moment of prayer. Streamed to parishes, the event is amplified through coordinated media and a lead-up series with pastors and partners highlighting the Church’s role in history and civic life. A main stage and faith-based activations will set the scene for high-energy praise, prominent Christian artists, and major faith leaders, creating an energized moment of unity.

Right Wing Watch has a helpful rundown of all the “Christian Nationalists, Grifters, Charlatans & More” who will participate in this charade.

Outside of administration officials, the speakers include Dr. Larry Arnn (president of right-wing Hillsdale College), singers from Liberty University and Grand Canyon University, evangelist Franklin Graham, MAGA pastor Robert Jeffress, the actor who played Jesus in The Chosen, and dozens of other bootlickers. Pete Hegseth is also on the lineup, though it’s unclear if he’ll be reading from the Bible or the Pulp Fiction screenplay. There are a few non-Protestants in the lineup—former New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan, Minnesota Bishop Robert Barron, Orthodox Rabbi Meir Soloveichik—but all of them are conservatives who have a history of promoting Christian Nationalism. As the Guardian put it, “The lineup includes no Muslims, no representatives of historically Black churches, no Indigenous faith leaders and no mainline Protestants.”

Nightmare blunt rotation

And driving home the point that this now represents the country’s quasi-official religion, music will also be provided by the Air Force, Navy, and Marines.

But none of this paints an accurate portrait of the country—not now and not in the past.

“I’m unaware of anything like this, with this involvement of senior government officials, on this scale, trying to paint this false picture of the United States as a quote unquote Christian nation,” said Amanda Tyler, executive director of BJC, a Baptist group that aims to promote religious liberties through church-state separation as outlined in the First Amendment. “Trump’s rhetoric in the past 18 months is how he’s ‘going to make America Christian again,’ that it’s his job to push religion. This is all part of that piece.”

…

To say people who wrote the Constitution believed in God or prayed in public, said Princeton University historian Kevin Kruse, is as revelatory as saying they “wrote by candlelight.”

“It’s not causal,” he said. “Look at the document. The only rules they wrote about religion were ones that keep religion at arm’s length. No establishment, no limits on free exercise, no religious test for office.”

“There’s a difference between saying America is a nation with many Christians in it and that America is a nation dedicated to Christianity and defined by it,” Kruse said. “Those are very different things.”

The irony is that the Trump administration is seriously pretending this is absolutely not a Christian-only event:

The White House directed questions about the jubilee to Freedom 250. An adviser to the group, Danielle Alvarez, said the organization “welcomed input from faith leaders and communities across the country” and the event “will bring together diverse voices from many faiths, backgrounds, and communities to reflect on the extraordinary story of America.”

“Diverse voices from many faiths”! Right. Everyone from far-right Christians to further-right Christians.

When White House faith adviser Paula White-Cain hyped up the event two weeks ago, Brittany Baldwin, executive director of the White House’s 250 Task Force, addressed common questions she had heard, such as what the event will look like and how different faiths would be represented. Her response? “We’re really focusing on our heritage as a Judeo-Christian… Christian Nation.”

White-Cain soon added that Christians had raised concerns that the event might honor different religions—God forbid!—but rest assured, she told them, that no other faiths would be honored: “They’re like ‘Well, are we going to be praying to, like, all these different gods and stuff?’ But really, it’s about the history and the foundations of our nation, which was built on Christian values, on the Bible.”

She came so close to getting it. It would be pretty damn frustrating if a government-sponsored event included prayers to gods you don’t believe in… but she failed to connect the dots that that’s precisely what this event involves for the majority of Americans who don’t subscribe to her rancid beliefs.

I guess it makes sense that a celebration of Christianity is built on lies. Because in no way does this event represent the breadth of religious beliefs across the country. It doesn’t even represent the variety of Christian beliefs in this country. If the country gave a damn about its founding ideals, none of this would be happening at all since we’re supposed to be a secular nation that doesn’t pretend to have a national faith at all.

Instead, this event is being run by the very people who have spent decades spreading lies about our history—and trying to get those lies taught in public schools in places like Texas.

The all-day event — gates open at 9 a.m. and it will wrap at 6 p.m. —includes military bands, six Christian musical performers and speakers organized around three “pillars,” which the web site listed as “miracles” God imparted on America in the past, “personal testimonies of God’s healing” and a “unified moment of rededication.”

It also will feature one of the six 18-wheeler “Freedom Trucks” created by Freedom 250, which are traversing the country to teach about the founding of the nation. The material was created by two organizations that have led efforts to inject conservative content in K-12 classrooms: PragerU, a nonprofit that offers “a pro-American, Judeo-Christian message,” according to its tax forms; and Hillsdale College, a Christian school in Michigan.

For what it’s worth, there are alternative events honoring the nation’s 250th, though none will be as massive as this one. In Philadelphia, for example, later this month, American Atheists will host an event called “America Beyond 250: Reclaiming the Promise of Pluralism.”

America Beyond 250: Reclaiming the Promise of Pluralism is a half-day event that will push back against the dangerous and exclusionary narratives of White Christian Nationalism and advance a vision of a more inclusive and democratic future.

At a time when debates over history, identity, and belonging are intensifying at all levels, this event brings together advocates on the front lines, public thinkers, scholars, and community leaders to confront the stakes of our current moment and to imagine what comes next — and what we need to do to make the vision a reality.

The Secular Coalition for America added in a statement:

“America’s strength has always come from its religious freedom,” said Steven Emmert, Executive Director of the Secular Coalition for America. “Events like ‘Rededicate 250’ aim to link patriotism to Christian nationalist ideologies, which is both false and deeply alienating to the growing number of nonreligious Americans. National commemorations should unite Americans across diverse beliefs, not elevate one religious belief over others.”

…

“At a time when we should be reaffirming our commitment to pluralism and constitutional values, efforts like this move us in the wrong direction,” Emmert said. “Our national celebrations must reflect all Americans - not just those who follow a particular faith.”

Unfortunately, these voices of reason don’t control the purse strings or have the power.

What makes this event so disturbing isn’t just the selfishness and ignorance of everyone involved, it’s the way they’re tying patriotism into a religious rally. As if everyone who doesn’t share their faith is inherently un-American. These people routinely complain that Christians are victims of religious discrimination—to the point where the Trump administration had a sham task force to study “anti-Christian bias”—and yet here they are using the levers of power to promote their religion over all others. The same levers they use to oppress atheists, Muslims, and even progressive Christians.

They will use a taxpayer-funded stage backed by the White House, military bands, corporate sponsors, and millions in public dollars to claim they’re victims of religious persecution.

That’s the core of Christian Nationalism: There’s nothing spiritual about it. There’s no compassion involved. It’s just about uniting conservative Christianity with every branch of government to elevate faith over non-faith and one faith over all others.

The organizers of this spectacle aren’t interested in honoring the First Amendment or the concept of religious pluralism that actually defines this country. They’re going to do on the National Mall what they’ve been trying to do in history classes throughout the country: exclude voices that aren’t theirs in order to rewrite history and make themselves look like the good guys. That’s why they’re bringing in propaganda outlets like PragerU and Hillsdale College. They want everyone to accept a mythological version of America that never existed.

This ought to be a time of real celebration, but we aren’t going to get it because the sort of people who would’ve proudly supported the Confederacy (and everything it stood for) are now in charge. This rally doesn’t represent America, historically or morally. If anything, the founders went out of their way to prevent exactly this kind of government-backed religious favoritism from taking root.

The best we can hope for is that this event will one day be seen as a perfect example of how we strayed from any founding ideals worth preserving.

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