Amid celebrations of America’s 250th anniversary, assertions of the country’s religious, and specifically Christian, character have grown louder in political discourse.
In May 2026, House Speaker Mike Johnson and other prominent officials participated in a prayer service in Washington, D.C. Johnson proclaimed, “We hereby rededicate the United States of America as one nation under God.” Though planners invoked the nation’s “Judeo-Christian” heritage, most religious leaders at the event came from the evangelical Christian tradition. In a prerecorded video, President Donald Trump read from the New Testament book of 2 Corinthians.
