WASHINGTON — Crowds numbering in the thousands gathered on the National Mall Sunday for an all-day prayer event described as a “rededication of our country as One Nation under God.”
The gathering took place with the Washington Monument serving as a dramatic background, while Christian worship music played from a main stage. The staging featured ornate stained-glass windows positioned beneath towering columns that resembled government architecture, showing images of the nation’s founding fathers next to a white cross.
President Donald Trump was scheduled to speak to attendees via video message as the event began under light rainfall. Several high-ranking Republicans were also slated to participate, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., as part of this year’s commemorations of America’s 250th anniversary.
The Rededicate 250 program included almost exclusively Christian speakers. Many were long-time evangelical allies of Trump, such as Paula White-Cain from the White House Faith Office and evangelist Franklin Graham from Samaritan’s Purse.
“We are deeply concerned that what is really being rededicated is a nation to a very narrow and ideological part of the Christian faith that betrays our nation’s fundamental commitment to religious freedom,” said the Rev. Adam Russell Taylor, a Baptist minister who leads the progressive Christian organization Sojourners.
The conservative Christian speaker list included participants who frequently contend that America was established as a Christian nation, a claim challenged by numerous historians and other faith communities.
Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, highlighted the religious variety present in early America, including Jews, Muslims and Indigenous people. “I want to shine a light on America’s history as a nation that welcomes, celebrates, and protects people of all faiths and those of no faith,” Pesner said.
Hegseth has incorporated Christian language and worship into his Pentagon leadership role.
“Our founders knew two simple truths,” Hegseth said in a promotional video for the event. “Our rights don’t come from government; they come from God. And a nation is only as strong as its faith.”
Orthodox Jewish Rabbi Meir Soloveichik was the sole non-Christian faith leader included in the program. He participates in the Trump administration’s Religious Liberty Commission alongside White-Cain, Graham and Cardinal Timothy Dolan and Bishop Robert Barron, Catholic clergy members also appearing at the event.
Freedom 250, a public-private partnership supported by the White House, organized the rally. Congressional Democrats have raised questions about the nonprofit’s organization and funding, viewing it as a Trump-directed way to bypass a separate commission established by Congress ten years ago to coordinate semiquincentennial activities.
Progressive organizations arranged alternative events in response. These included the Freedom From Religion Foundation, which promotes strict church-state separation, and the Christian group Faithful America.
Thursday evening saw the Interfaith Alliance display protest messages on an outside wall of the National Gallery of Art. “Democracy not theocracy,” read one projection. Another stated: “The separation of church and state is good for both.”
