Trump admin accused of blurring the road between church and state with overtly non secular Christmas messages | EUROtoday
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Top officers and federal businesses in Donald Trump’s administration used their official authorities social media accounts to share explicitly non secular messages and declare Jesus the nation’s savior in the course of the week of Christmas, drawing warnings from First Amendment advocates fearing a important breach of the church-and-state firewall.
The Department of Homeland Security shared two movies on X with the caption “Christ is Born!”
Another publish from the company included the caption “we are blessed to share a nation and a Savior” with an 85-second video with quickly cut-together American Christmas imagery with a cassette-like filter.
Both messages had been shared by the White House.
“Merry Christmas to all. Today we celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wrote. Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote that “the joyous message of Christmas is the hope of Eternal Life through Christ.”
In a video posted to X, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins claimed that “the very best of the American spirit … flows from the very first Christmas, when God gave us the greatest gift possible: the gift of his son and our savior, Jesus Christ.”
Education Secretary Linda McMahon wished “you and your family a day filled with lasting memories as we celebrate the birth of our Savior.”
“Let Earth Receive Her King,” the official account for the Department of Labor wrote.
Their messages and different posts throughout authorities accounts — sharply diverting from generalized greetings for non secular holidays — swiftly drew criticism from First Amendment and spiritual freedom advocates who warned that the Trump administration is as soon as once more showing to favor a spiritual state.
The First Amendment’s institution clause prohibits the federal government from establishing a faith or favoring one over one other, whereas the free train clause ensures the liberty to precise one’s religion. Thomas Jefferson had careworn the significance of a “wall of separation between the church and state” to stop non secular dominance in governance.
Justice Department civil rights division chief Harmeet Dhillon mentioned the company depends on the “principles of the First Amendment and religious freedom protections on “a daily basis to protect Christians,” pointing to authorized actions defending conservative Christians and anti-abortion activists.
The Trump administration’s social media posts are “one more example of the Christian Nationalist rhetoric the Trump administration has disseminated since Day One in office,” in keeping with Rachel Laser, president of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
“Our Constitution’s promise of church-state separation has allowed religious diversity — including different denominations of Christianity — to flourish in America,” she mentioned in an announcement.
Former Homeland Security spokesperson Alex Howard referred to as the messages an “inappropriate use of official government channels.”
“Americans don’t share a religion,” added Alex Nowrasteh, senior vp for coverage on the Cato Institute, a libertarian think-tank. “Our state is secular.”
Administration officers responded to criticism and requests for remark with “Merry Christmas.”
Nearly two-thirds of Americans establish as Christian, in keeping with the Pew Research Center’s most up-to-date Religious Landscape Study. That displays a roughly 16-point decline from 20 years in the past, whereas the biggest share of Americans who don’t establish themselves with any faith climbed up by greater than 13 factors to 29 p.c this yr.
Nearly one in 4 Americans establish as evangelical Christians, however they performed a vital function in Trump’s presidential elections, together with roughly 80 p.c of white evangelical voters in 2024.
In February, the president directed a activity power on the Department of Justice to “fully prosecute anti-Christian violence and vandalism in our society” and “move heaven and earth to defend the rights of Christians and religious believers nationwide.”
He additionally established the Religious Liberty Commission within the Justice Department and appointed televangelist pastor Paula White-Cain as a senior adviser to the White House Faith Office.
The Trump administration’s alignment with an evangelical base is also parallel to a rising effort amongst non secular right-wing particular curiosity teams to maneuver public funds into non secular teams and training.
The president has additionally lengthy promised his evangelical base that his administration would work to repeal tax code that prohibits tax-exempt charitable organizations from endorsing or opposing political candidates, which might upend a long time of federal legislation supposed to stop campaigns from utilizing church buildings as political instruments.
Earlier this yr, the IRS indicated that it could enable church buildings and homes of worship to endorse political candidates from the pulpit with out shedding their tax-exempt standing.
Amid a number of circumstances on the Supreme Court backed by Trump-aligned teams, liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor warned in 2022 that the conservative-majority courtroom “continues to dismantle the wall of separation between church and state that the Framers fought to build.”
She has warned that the courtroom is treating the separation of church and state as a “constitutional slogan, not a constitutional commitment.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-christmas-christian-church-state-b2891048.html