Trump announced February 6 during the National Prayer Breakfast that he will be launching a presidential commission on religious liberty and signing an executive order putting Attorney General Pam Bondi in charge of the initiative, which he said he is creating to confront the purported “weaponization” and “religious persecution” of Christians in the United States. He said that the task force will be directed to “immediately halt all forms of anti-Christian targeting and discrimination within the federal government, including at the DOJ, which was absolutely terrible, the IRS, the FBI — terrible — and other agencies.”
Trump, as he promised his Christian evangelical base, is taking steps to redefine and weaponize religious liberty to allow discrimination in the name of religion and the privileging of Christianity. The U.S. Constitution guarantees freedom of religion and a secular government — not special privileges for any one faith. It’s clear the executive order is nothing more than a political ploy to advance Christian nationalism and undermine the separation of church and state.
“Christianity is not under attack in this country — if anything, it enjoys overwhelming privilege,” said Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “We stand ready to fight back against this attack on our secular democracy and the rights of nonbelievers and others.”
Trump also announced the establishment of a “White House Faith Office,” which will be lead by Trump’s longtime spiritual adviser, Paula White. According to a story carried by MSNBC, White claimed during the presidential elections that “demonic forces” were at work to overturn Trump’s election. In the same story, MSNBC pointed to an earlier investigation from the New York Times about the Florida-based televangelist and her embrace of the “prosperity gospel,” which is based on the idea “that God blesses people he deems to be of strong faith with wealth, good health and other gifts.”
It also noted that many individuals of faith believe such teachings contradict the basic tenets of Christianity and referred to such teachings as “heresy.”
No statement has been forthcoming about how the office will interact with faith believers that are not Christians.
Trump’s order was without doubt issued to benefit conservative Christians in the United States, creating a privileged class for certain Christian churches and followers under his presidency. The Christian nationalists backing Trump have long depicted U.S. evangelical or Catholic Christians as being persecuted, arguing that Christian “traditional values” and Christianity itself are under attack, in a reported effort by the Christian nationalist crusade to remake our country.
FFRF says it will monitor the implementation of the order in the coming months and work on behalf of all Americans to oppose this unconstitutional overreach and demand that the government uphold its duty to remain neutral on matters of religion. The First Amendment protects against both religious persecution and religious favoritism.