Just as quickly as President Donald Trump set in motion his controversial agenda for a new administration, leaders in the faith and civil rights communities began reacting. Within minutes of Trump’s fiery inaugural address, groups from Focus on the Family to the ACLU weighed in with praise and condemnation.
Others said nothing or close to nothing.
Southern Baptist Convention President Clint Pressley tweeted: “On this historic day, Southern Baptists join together in prayer for President @realDonaldTrump as he begins his second term. May his leadership be guided by biblical wisdom, fostering unity and justice for all. We also lift up Vice President @JDVance, asking for strength and discernment in his new role.”
Later, Pressley tweeted: “Such a strong inaugural address by @realDonaldTrump! Goodness!”
Firebrand Calvinist pastor Mark Driscoll tweeted simply, “Ahab is out and Elijah is in,” a reference to an evil king and a prophet of God in the Hebrew Scriptures.
Among the faith-based groups immediately most effusive over Trump’s first-day actions was Focus on the Family, the Colorado Springs-based mega-ministry founded by James Dobson.
Gender
Focus President Jim Daly issued a statement today about Trump’s executive order declaring the U.S. will recognize only two genders, male and female, and that males cannot become females and females cannot become males. Going after this relatively small portion of the population has been a top priority for Focus for several years.
“In the very first chapter of Genesis, we read that ‘God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.’ Any revolution of common sense must include an acknowledgement of this fundamental truth,” Daly said. “While we’re disappointed that it’s even necessary, we’re grateful that on his first day in office, President Donald J. Trump has prioritized this reality by issuing an executive order restating the obvious.
Jim Daly
He added: “We look forward to working with the Trump administration and the 119th Congress in the days to come, especially on policies and priorities that reject the radical ideological reengineering of recent years. We are long overdue in this effort to reestablish the exclusivity of two genders, thereby protecting our children and serving America’s families.”
Rachel Laser, president of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, linked the gender executive order to the Christian nationalist agenda of Project 2025.
Rachel Laser
“True to Project 2025’s mandate, Trump announced a coming order that would impose a narrow Christian nationalist view of gender, saying that it will be ‘the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female,’” she noted. “All Americans deserve to live according to our beliefs and identities so long as we are not hurting others, and that includes our gender-nonconforming and transgender children, coworkers, friends and neighbors.
“America doesn’t need more Christian nationalism. We need a national recommitment to keep church and state separate — our freedoms, equality and democracy depend on it.”
Addressing gender identity questions is a minefield among Americans, who offer pollsters sometimes conflict views on such questions.
In its most recent summary, Gallup noted: “A steady 51% of Americans think changing one’s gender is morally wrong, while 44% say it is morally acceptable, which is generally in line with readings in 2021 and 2023. At the same time, more than six in 10 U.S. adults oppose laws banning gender-affirming care for minors.”
What Trump attempts to do in his executive order is somewhat different than all that. Still appealing to conservative evangelicals like those who support Focus on the Focus, his order declares the federal government will recognize only two genders — male and female — which excludes the very small number of people who identify as gender neutral but does not necessarily exclude transgender people who still identify within the male-female binary.
Reportedly, that designation will come with a definition based on whether people are born with the ability to produce eggs or sperm, rather than on their chromosomes, but the exact wording of the order has not yet been made public.
Culture wars
This, like many of Trump’s promised executive actions on “day one,” will appeal to evangelicals concerned about the so-called “culture wars.”
Amanda Tyler
Amanda Tyler, executive director of Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, said on Monday Americans should “prepare for an onslaught of discriminatory policies, many of which will be cloaked in the language of Christian nationalism.”
Inspired by Martin Luther King — whose birthday holiday coincides with Inauguration Day this year — Christians should learn about “speaking truth to power and acting in faithful resistance to unjust systems,” she said. “We can remember that apathy and compliance to wrongs makes us complicit in wrongdoing. We can reclaim the zeal of early Christians who upset the status quo in the model of Jesus, who came to disrupt the powerful and preached that the first shall be last and the last shall be first.”
Immigrants and refugees
The biggest flurry of responses to Trump’s first day came on the issue of immigration, a key priority of Trump through both his presidential campaigns.
In his inaugural address, Trump said: “I will declare a national emergency at our southern border. All illegal entry will immediately be halted, and we will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came. We will reinstate my Remain in Mexico policy. I will end the practice of catch and release. And I will send troops to the southern border to repel the disastrous invasion of our country.”
Specific language is not yet public for the 10 executive orders Trump is slated to sign on immigration, including a likely unconstitutional effort to end birthright citizenship.
Jennie Murray
Jennie Murray, president of the National Immigration Forum, issued a statement about the general sweep of what’s happening: “President Trump’s immigration executive orders today are disappointing but not surprising. Some of his broader goals offer opportunities for better immigration policy that will improve Americans’ lives.
“The expected orders would separate families and weaken our country. They do not uphold American values. In particular, actions to diminish birthright citizenship, halt humanitarian protections and initiate expansive enforcement actions that pave the way for mass deportations directly contradict core immigration principles that have broad support from the American people, including the majority of Republican voters.”
Immigration reform is urgently needed, she acknowledged, but these are not the best solutions.
“We appeal to the incoming administration and Congress to listen to the strong majority of Americans, including Republican voters, who want Republicans and Democrats to work together on border and immigration solutions. Immigrants make important contributions to our nation as entrepreneurs, church members, neighbors, friends and parents. They fill gaps in the workforce and pay taxes.”
Myal Greene
World Relief, one of the largest refugee resettlement agencies in the nation, issued an unsigned statement in response to Trump’s inaugural address: “World Relief affirms the responsibility of the federal government to humanely enforce immigration laws, including removing individuals found to have committed serious criminal offenses or to otherwise pose a credible threat to national security. However, we are concerned that the actions previewed today will go well beyond those goals and are likely to affect many immigrant families who have resided for many years without having been convicted of any crime.”
The statement continued: “If the administration seeks to expand deportations as widely as within their legal authority, between 4 and 5 million parents of minor U.S. citizen children could face deportation, a reality that evangelical pastors and leaders across the country decried in a pre-election letter to President Trump as ‘family separation at an unconscionable scale.’ As noted in that letter, a 2024 study by Lifeway Research found that 91 percent of evangelical Christians believe that U.S. immigration policy should protect the unity of the immediate family.”
World Relief President Myal Greene added: “As Christians who believe that God established the family at the beginning of creation, we cannot sit silently as policies are proposed that would entail family separation on a horrifying scale. We urge the administration to prioritize deportation of those with violent criminal convictions and to find more humane alternatives, such as working with Congress to create a restitution-based legalization process, for longstanding members of our churches and communities, including the many for whom deportation could mean separation from their U.S. citizen family members.”
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