America's 250th turns into a fight over God and country
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The White House and its allies are steering America's 250th birthday toward prayer, repentance and divine guidance, with critics saying a national celebration is becoming a Christian one.
Why it matters: One side sees Trump politicizing a national birthday party. The other sees a long-overdue chance to restore faith to the center of America's founding story.
Trump-aligned organizers are leaning into prayer events, conservative Christian partners and language about rededicating America as "one nation under God."
- Interfaith leaders, historians and democracy scholars say the anniversary is elevating a narrow vision of U.S. identity at a time when the country is more religiously diverse — and less religiously affiliated — than ever.
Catch up quick: Rededicate 250, a National Mall prayer event last month tied to the administration's 250th anniversary push, featured Trump allies, administration officials and mostly conservative Christian voices.
- Critics noted the absence of Muslims, Reform Jewish voices and leaders of mainline Protestant denominations.
- Robert P. Jones, founder of the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), tells Axios he also saw no representatives from historically Black Protestant denominations.
- Jones said the event also didn't have any representation from many of the founders' mainline Protestant Christian denominations.
Zoom in: An alternative interfaith effort, Faith250, is organizing clusters of synagogues, churches, mosques and other houses of worship to study American texts, eat together and hold local July 4 celebrations around religious liberties.
- Faith250 now has about 40 clusters and roughly 260 congregations participating.
- The group is focusing on four texts: the Declaration of Independence, "America the Beautiful," Emma Lazarus' "The New Colossus" and Frederick Douglass' "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?"
What they're saying: "We don't wait for the national politicians to create something. We can do it ourselves," Rabbi Michael Holzman, the group's founder, tells Axios.
- He said Faith250 is a way for people of faith to study some of the country's most significant texts together.
The other side: Speakers at Rededicate 250 argued that the founders understood the country as dependent on God.
- "President Trump is ensuring that America gets the spectacular 250th birthday it deserves — and Freedom 250 will execute on the president's historic vision," White House spokesperson Davis Ingle tells Axios.
- "Faith has played a significant role in America's founding and enduring strength, which is why Freedom 250 has incorporated faith-based programming into many of our signature events," Freedom 250 spokesperson Julia Friedland tells Axios.
- Friedland said Freedom 250 "welcomes Americans of all faith traditions and beliefs."
Between the lines: America's founders were more influenced by the Enlightenment than religion. But the ones most often invoked by Christian nation advocates would have been complicated messengers for Christian causes.
- George Washington wrote often about Providence. But Jesus was largely absent from his public and private writings, historians say.
- Thomas Jefferson rejected core Christian doctrines, created his own cut-and-paste New Testament that removed the miracles and championed a "wall of separation between Church & State."
- John Adams valued religion as essential to public morality, but he was a Unitarian who rejected the Trinity and was staunchly anti-Catholic.
