Top Trump administration officials will speak at a mass prayer meeting in downtown Washington on Sunday, where organizers are proposing to reclaim the country’s religious base but critics are calling it a quasi-official rally of Christian nationalism.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and House Speaker Mike Johnson are among the speakers listed. President Donald Trump is expected to address the crowd via video.
The gathering was organized by the White House as part of America’s 250th birthday celebrations, and Hegseth said in a video message inviting Americans to attend that it was an opportunity to “rededicate this republic to God and country.”
Strong Christian nationalism has enjoyed a significant platform since Trump returned to power, with evangelicals forming a core element of the president’s support base.
Hegseth is a member of an ultraconservative evangelical church, and his briefing on the Iran war was notable for its use of militant Christian rhetoric.
The U.S. Constitution expressly prohibits the establishment of any official religion, but the expression of any religion is also expressly protected.
While successive administrations and presidents have regularly held and participated in faith-based rallies, Sunday’s event remained unusual for its size and the presence of senior Cabinet officials.
With the exception of a rabbi and a retired Catholic archbishop, almost all of the 20 “faith leaders” on the list who will speak are evangelical Protestants.
“It’s not unprecedented for a group of evangelical pastors or conservative clergy to come together and blend some kind of nationalism with some kind of conservative Christianity,” said Sam Perry, a professor at Baylor University in Texas.
But Perry added that “this massive celebration spearheaded by the Trump administration is different from previous events.”
The organizers’ website said the prayer gathering was for “Americans of all backgrounds,” but Julie Ingersoll, a religious studies professor at the University of North Florida, said the list of speakers indicated “a notion of American identity that is rooted in whiteness and Christianity.”
Ingersoll said the event “sends a concrete message… that they are the mainstream of Americans while the rest of us are marginalized.”
The National Mall, which stretches from the U.S. Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial, is a common site for mass rallies and protests, most notably the 1963 March on Washington, when an estimated 250,000 people listened to Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech.
Sunday’s gathering is expected to last about nine hours.
“This is about the history and foundation of our country, which is founded on Christian values and the Bible,” televangelist Paula White, director of the White House Office of Faith and Trump’s so-called spiritual adviser, said during a webinar last month.
“This is truly a rededication of the country to God.”
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