Trump will hold a prayer meeting to ‘recommit’ the US as ‘one country under God’ | Donald Trump News

The administration of the President of the United States, Donald Trump, has held a nine-hour prayer service on the National Mall in Washington, DC, as one of the ways to commemorate the country’s 250th anniversary.

Sunday’s event was called “Rededicate 250: A National Jubilee of Prayer, Praise and Thanksgiving”, and took place from 9am to 6pm Eastern US time (13:00 to 22:00 GMT).

On the jubilee website, the organizers explained that their aim was to show “the rededication of our country to be One Nation to God”.

The event featured actors, pastors and civil rights leaders, as well as Trump’s Republican ally, Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina.

“Our rights don’t come from the government,” Scott told the crowd. “No, our freedom comes from God, the king of kings.”

Members of the Trump administration, including the president himself, also recorded video messages that were broadcast on stage.

Trump’s video showed him sitting behind the Resolute Desk in the White House, reciting words from the book of Chronicles that God gave to King Solomon, promising protection to his followers and destruction to those who left him.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, meanwhile, used his video to describe the US as a country created exclusively by “Christian ideals”.

“Before Western Christianity, many societies – and civilizations, for that matter – thought in circles: the flooding of the Nile, the return of the rains, the cycle of the harvest. History for them was a wheel that went everywhere,” Rubio said.

“But our faith calls us out into the infinite darkness of the unknown, it tells us to go and preach the good news to the world as a witness to all the nations and to the ends of the earth.”

The event was not without controversy, however. Critics said that only one speaker, a rabbi, was not a Christian.

Some religious leaders even dismissed the event as a political distraction, rather than a sincere testimony of faith.

Paul Raushenbush, a reverend and president of the Interfaith Alliance, wrote on social media that his objections were not based on “religious hatred”. In fact, he said that his faith compels him to like “most of the faiths” that gather in the US.

“Rededicate 250 is a commitment to the founding principles of America guaranteed in the First Amendment – which clearly stated that there will be no establishment of religion and government and that each of us should be free to practice what we believe in our own way,” Raushenbush wrote.

Traditionally, the Establishment Clause of the United States Constitution has been interpreted as prohibiting the government from establishing or enforcing religious beliefs on its citizens.

But critics say Trump’s administration has eroded the separation between church and state, including permanent tenure. prayer meetings to the Department of Defense.

Trump, however, criticized the federal government “hatred of ChristiansHe set up a task force last year to end discrimination.

Evangelicals form the backbone of Trump’s right wing. Demographics are at their strongest during US elections, and Trump wants to rally Christian voters ahead of the big polls.

Their views could reshape how the US Constitution is interpreted. A survey from the Pew Research Center released last week found that the number of US adults who believe that Christianity should be recognized as the official religion of the country. Seventeen percent now have that view, up from 13 percent in 2024.

That said, Pew researchers found that a majority of Americans, about 54 percent, still believe in the separation of church and state.

About 52 percent said that “conservative Christians have gone too far in trying to push their religious beliefs into government and public schools”.