Historians say the White House prayer book and 250th anniversary celebrations promote a Christian-centered view of American history.
President Trump signs executive order for IndyCar race in Washington, D.C.
The IndyCar race is part of President Trump’s plan to celebrate the nation’s 250th anniversary.
The first page of the White House’s new devotional book begins with a myth. It depicts English settlers landing on Cape Henry, near present-day Virginia Beach, hoisting a tall wooden cross and dedicating the land to God in prayer.
The event “reveals the extent to which Christianity, especially Protestantism, has accompanied Britain’s colonial enterprise from its inception,” the booklet says.
However, there is no evidence that the prayers were ever performed, as the document later acknowledged.
Historians and religious experts have warned that the inclusion is a sign of a broader effort by President Donald Trump’s administration to rewrite the country’s origins as explicitly Christian in the year of the nation’s 250th anniversary.
more: President Trump launches Freedom 250 to add his own stamp to USA250 celebration
President Trump has announced several faith-focused events that feature almost exclusively Christianity, including his “America Praise” initiative to encourage Americans to join 10 people in prayer each week and a national prayer event in May that will turn the National Mall into a “massive revival.”
The program is sponsored by Freedom 250, a quasi-governmental organization founded by President Trump to realize his vision for the nation’s 250th anniversary. This is separate from America250, a nonpartisan organization created by Congress in 2016 to plan the year’s signature events.
The White House and Freedom 250 say the show is intended to celebrate the protection of religious freedom enshrined in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Presidents including Ulysses S. Grant, Calvin Coolidge, and Gerald Ford have cited God and religion in speeches marking other milestones.
But some historians argue that Trump’s efforts push the limits of the First Amendment, which prohibits the government from establishing an official state religion.
“We are witnessing this effort to undermine the institutional separation of religion and government,” said Guthrie Graves Fitzsimmons, vice president of programs and strategy at the Interfaith Alliance, a national nonpartisan civil and religious rights organization. “It goes to the core of what it means to be an American: the freedom to worship, the freedom to pray, or the freedom not to pray.”
Freedom 250 Religious Connections
A quarter of the partner organizations listed on the Freedom 250 website are Christian-related, including National Religious Broadcasting Corporation, Angel Studios, the Museum of the Bible, and Pray.com. Another partner is Wall Builders, a nonprofit founded by activist David Barton, who has long advocated that the United States should be run as a Christian nation.
When President Trump launched America Plays in September with a speech at the Museum of the Bible, attended by many of our Christian partners, he also pledged to “defend our nation’s founding Judeo-Christian principles.”
As of March 4, Freedom 250 has no partners representing non-Christian faith groups, according to its website.
Freedom 250 spokeswoman Rachel Reisner told USA TODAY that the partnership mirrors the organization’s offer to work with the 250 President’s Task Force.
“We welcome collaboration with all who share our determination to commemorate our nation’s 250th anniversary in a way that uplifts and unites America,” Reisner said in a statement.
Christine du Mez, an American historian and author of “Jesus and John Wayne,” argued that the lack of equal representation showed that the regime had “no appetite for religious pluralism.” By repeatedly mentioning Christianity, she said, President Trump appears to favor Christianity over other religions in taxpayer-funded programs.
A description of May’s national prayer event on the White House website says it will be streamed to “dioceses” across the country and will include “prominent Christian artists.” Although the document refers generally to “major religious leaders,” it does not specifically mention synagogues, mosques, or other types of worship spaces, nor does it name musicians of other religions.
A White House press secretary told USA TODAY that religions other than Christianity will also participate in the event. Freedom 250 organizers say the organization has not yet decided on the program, but is consulting with religious leaders from a variety of religions, including Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Islam and Buddhism.
more: Is America a Christian nation, or should it be? One-third say yes
Other materials produced by the White House and Freedom 250 similarly reference Christianity.
Freedom 250 enlisted PragerU, a conservative media nonprofit, and Hillsdale College, a small Christian school in Michigan, to create exhibits and educational materials for six traveling museums touring the country. Using $10 million in government funding, a mobile museum was built and transported for a year.
“Freedom Trucks” tells the story of the American Revolution and influential American heroes. They also frequently note the role that God played in the founding of the nation. One exhibit on “American Roots” states that “America’s fundamental principles are rooted in Western and Judeo-Christian values.”
Marissa Streit, CEO of PragerU, told USA TODAY that the references to faith in the exhibit are intended to emphasize “the Christian perspective of America’s founding and the love of God and the faith in God that our founders had.”
For example, an exhibit about the Declaration of Independence states that the Founders “believed that God created man for freedom,” and notes that the Continental Congress added references to the “supreme judge of the world” and “divine providence” to the document.
Matthew Spalding, dean of Hillsdale School of Government and advisor to Freedom Tracks, said he felt the depiction of the nation’s founding would be inaccurate without mentioning Christian influences.
He said the reference to Christianity does not imply that people of other faiths do not have religious freedom, but rather focuses on the history of the nation’s founding religion.
“American history has been very much shaped by the Hebrews and Christians who focused on the sense that we have a certain human dignity,” he said. “There’s Christian influence, there’s Jewish influence, there’s also Enlightenment thinker influence, Deist influence. It’s all together.”
Du Mez said the Christian Right has historically overemphasized references to Christianity in the founding of the country.
“For more than half a century, conservative white evangelicals have expressed their own interpretation of America’s past,” Du Mez said. “These alternative histories depict the founding as uniquely Christian.”
Warren Throckmorton, an evangelical Christian and former psychology professor who has spent years studying Christian nationalism, said some of the Christian Right’s historical reinterpretation ultimately found its way into the “Prayers and Proclamations” toolkit released as part of America Prays.
This collection of poems contains 18 references to Christianity, 3 references to Judaism, and no mention of other religions.
A passage in the anthology suggests that prayer helped the Founders overcome their differences at the Constitutional Convention. After the prayer, the collection of poems says, “debate gave way to compromise, which ultimately led to the drafting of the United States Constitution.”
However, a detailed account of the treaty shows that bitter exchanges over slavery, representation, and taxation intensified in the months following the prayer.
Throckmorton said this depiction has been debunked by historians and is “a real problem.”
“The Freedom 250 people would like you to think that prayer saved the country. In reality, it wasn’t. It was more complicated than that,” he said.
Observance of faith at historical junctures
Trump is not the only president to discuss religion during a milestone celebration.
Former President Ulysses S. Grant told Americans that they should “give thanks to Almighty God” for the nation’s blessings on the centennial of 1876. Half a century later, former President Calvin Coolidge implored, “Unless the faith of the American people in these religious beliefs endures, the principles of our Declaration will disappear.”
And on the occasion of the nation’s bicentennial in 1976, former President Gerald Ford asked Americans to reflect on the “deep faith in God that inspired our Founding Fathers.”
But religious historians told USA TODAY that President Trump’s references to religion are different from those of the past.
Throckmorton said presidents typically “talk about God in a very general sense,” so “everyone can find themselves and their religion” in the message. He said the Trump administration has “specifically chosen people to be the faces of Freedom 250…evangelical Christians.”
Recent Republican presidents have sought to appeal to conservative Christians, with President Reagan once telling evangelical leaders, “You can’t support me, but I will support you.” However, there is no record of government-sanctioned and taxpayer-funded events promoting one religion over another.
“The president has the same First Amendment right to freedom of expression as everyone else. He has more influence because of his position,” Throckmorton said. “But none of them are trying to make the Constitution anything other than what it is.”
Graves-Fitzsimmons, who works with the Interfaith Alliance to promote religious freedom, expressed concern that the overt references to Christianity in the 250th document are part of a broader move by the administration to integrate Christianity into the government. In early February, the Interfaith Alliance sued the Trump administration, alleging an illegal lack of religious and ideological diversity in the Justice Department’s Religious Freedom Committee.
The Religious Freedom Commission includes Protestants, Catholics, and Jews, but not Muslims or members of other minority religious groups. The group’s advisory board of lay leaders also includes Muslim representatives. The Interfaith Alliance said the move violates federal law that requires such groups to have “a fair balance in terms of positions represented.”
Andrew Whitehead, executive director of the Association for Religious Data Archives at Indiana University’s Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture, said the debate over religious references in the 250th anniversary of the Confederacy is really about establishing a vision of what America represents.
“Governments are always working on creating national myths,” he says.
“At the end of the day, it comes down to what kind of national myth is upheld today: Does everyone have equal rights under the Constitution, or is this country created by or for white Protestant Christians? Those are contradictory narratives.”
Carissa Wadick covers America’s 250th anniversary on USA TODAY. Contact him at kwaddick@usatoday.com.
Contributor: Breanna Frank, USA TODAY. Liam Adams of The (Nashville) Tennessean
