Religion: Christian nationalism on the Mall

The nation just got “a preview of what American theocracy would look like,” said Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons in MS.now. Thousands of people gathered on the National Mall last week for Rededicate 250, a White House–backed and taxpayer-funded prayer event that featured “a who’s who of religious-right figures,” including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, House Speaker Mike Johnson, and evangelical preacher Franklin Graham, who blasted America as “sick with sin, transgenderism, same-sex marriage.” The kickoff for a series of events celebrating America’s 250th anniversary, the rally framed the U.S.’s founding as an explicitly Christian project. It’s the most aggressive attack on the Constitution’s guarantee of religious freedom “that the Christian nationalist movement has yet attempted on American soil.” And it’s one based on a lie: The U.S. was founded 250 years ago as a secular democracy, not a theocracy. “We cannot rededicate something to God when the nation was never dedicated to one narrow religious movement.”

President Trump, who was busy playing golf, appeared in a prerecorded video reading from the biblical book of Chronicles, said Sarah Posner in Talking Points Memo. Still, his supporters spent the day “trying to turn the anniversary of our independence from a king into a spectacle of worship of their wannabe king.” Evangelical podcaster Eric Metaxas even claimed in his speech that God had “raised up” Trump to build a White House ballroom. But Rededicate 250 made it clear that not all Christians are welcome under Trump’s tent, said Amanda Marcotte in Salon. Sure, there was “a smattering of token Catholics” among the speakers—and even one rabbi. But the event was dominated by white, far-right evangelicals. “Promoting voices like these sends a message loud and clear: The rest of you don’t matter.”