It is no secret that Donald J. Trump is intent on exacting retribution on his perceived enemies. Top of his list is former President Joe Biden. While the recently released report by the Justice Department’s Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias takes aim at the Biden administration for what it calls “anti-Christian bias,” more alarming are the report’s conclusions about which expression of Christianity in America is the true faith and which version of American history matters.
Those of us who identify as Christian and do not adhere to the government’s preferred version of Christianity are in this administration’s crosshairs. We must recognize this moment for the theological crisis it is; we must understand that our expression of Christian faith is under attack and act accordingly.
This report and the government’s elevation of a form of Reformed Theology as the normative expression of the faith is a direct consequence of Christian nationalism.
“This report and the government’s elevation of a form of Reformed Theology as the normative expression of the faith is a direct consequence of Christian nationalism.”
It is one thing for people to abide by Reformed Theology (or Calvinism). It’s another for the government to promote this version of Christianity.
There is a lot to digest in this report titled Eradicating Anti-Christian Bias Within the Federal Government. I urge everyone to read it for themselves. Here are three things that should alarm every Christian in America.
The federal government is elevating the work of pseudo-historians to sow doubt about our nation’s founding.
The report’s first substantive footnotes under the section titled “America’s Rich Historical Legacy of Religious Freedom” list works that inform their (false) assertions about America’s founding history. The list includes works by several pseudo-historians and pseudo-intellectuals.
- The Light and the Glory by Peter Marshall and David Manuel (both deceased), claims to present American history from a Christian perspective and argues for divine intervention for and a divine call to the nation.
- Faith of our Founding Fathers by Tim LaHaye, the author of the Left Behind series, argues that the country was founded as a Christian nation.
- America’s God and Country Encyclopedia of Quotations by William J. Federer, evangelical author, is self-published under his imprint Amerisearch Publishing and is a compilation of quotes intended to prove America was founded as a Christian nation.
- Original Intent: The Courts, the Constitution, and Religion by David Barton, Christian Reconstructionist and founder of Wallbuilders, continues to make false claims after his book on Thomas Jefferson was pulled by the conservative publisher Thomas Nelson, for unsubstantiated historical claims.
- America’s Christian Heritage by Gary Demar, Christian Reconstructionist, is self-published under his imprint The American Vision and the book contends “America’s original founding was rooted deeply in the things of Jesus Christ and his kingdom.”
In elevating the works of pseudo-historians — individuals whose opinions were not formed in university settings and whose research skills are woefully lacking — the report continues this administration’s efforts to denigrate the value of higher education and expert knowledge.
It further erodes the virtues of intellectual honesty and truth. It chips away our shared, actual history. In the eyes of those behind the report, truth is subjective and their version of it — however unsupported by facts — should be uplifted.
“The report relies solely on these pseudo-historical sources in its retelling of our country’s origins as a Christian nation.”
It isn’t just that the report lifts up pseudo-historians as equal to actual historians, but the report relies solely on these pseudo-historical sources in its retelling of our country’s origins as a Christian nation.
In addition to the sources above, the report leans heavily on a paper by Mark David Hall published by the right-wing think tank behind Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation, titled “Did America Have a Christian Founding?” Notably, Hall is a frequent expert witness for the states attempting to post the Ten Commandments in classrooms in violation of the First Amendment.
In August 2025 in the Western District of Texas, under questioning in the Texas case (of which I am a plaintiff), Hall conceded that he holds a Ph.D. in government rather than history and is not trained in the methodologies of historical research. Yet in the report on anti-Christian bias, the U.S. government leans heavily on his theories about America’s founding to weave an alternate narrative of our country.
Elsewhere, the report mischaracterizes and misreports the debates between the Founders over what kind of constitutional republic we should have in America. The report highlights the voices of the few who were pushing for the new country to be declared a Christian nation while ignoring the fact that the majority — many of whom were Christian — understood the importance of separating government from religion.
This mischaracterization, like the pseudo-history presented in the report, is intended to gaslight the American public into believing we’ve somehow misunderstood the Constitution and Bill of Rights for the last 250 years.
“Constitutional Convention,” painting by Granger
Furthering their claim, the report’s authors point to the personal lives and prayers of the founders like George Washington. One of the report’s conclusions is that since Washington and others spoke of their personal faiths while in office, they clearly meant for America to be a Christian nation.
The examples in the report of mischaracterizations and gaslighting are numerous. The dangerous narrative the report weaves is that our country was intended to be a Christian theocracy in which there is no separation of church and state.
The federal government is elevating a form of Reformed Christianity as the true expression of the Christian faith.
The report includes a section called “Background on Christian Beliefs” and uses as its source materials the following texts:
- A publication from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops titled What We Believe: The Nicene Creed
- A book by Jen Wilkin and J.T. English titled You Are A Theologian
- The Westminster Shorter Catechism (1647)
- A book by John Piper titled Why Jesus Came to Die
- A paper by Al Mohler titled A Call for Theological Triage and Christian Maturity
The Wilkin and English book is the primary source used in the report to explain Christian doctrine — fitting given the report’s elevation of pseudo-intellectualism. The book is written by a disgraced pastor and one of his congregants who never has studied religion at a university.
With the exception of the publication by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, all the texts from which the report derives its theological arguments fall in the Reformed and fundamentalist branches of the faith.
Some key doctrinal statements that the report articulates as the normative, true version of the Christian faith include:
Christians believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and that, along with God the Father and the Holy Spirit, created the world and everything in it. They believe that Jesus, being both fully God and fully human, came to Earth and was killed by crucifixion to bear the punishment once and for all for humanity’s sins. Three days later, God the Father raised Jesus from the dead. …
Christians have different opinions on doctrinal issues, but the Biden administration targeted only ones holding certain views. Relevant here, many Christians have long held so-called “traditional” views of marriage and sexuality. For many such Christians, their deep-seated beliefs on sex, marriage, intimacy, and sin, among other topics stem from the Bible’s text and teachings.
Here, the report inserts a footnote that reads:
See WILKIN & ENGLISH, supra note 178, at 70–78 (describing the Bible and Christians’ understanding of scripture as God’s word, which is authoritative, inerrant, infallible, necessary to Christian life, sufficient for a life of godliness, and understandable to the reader)
The report continues its description of normative Christian doctrine:
Under Christian doctrine, when a believer confronts and repents for the extent of their own sin, they can see the measure of love and grace that God showed in forgiving their sins, and this good news motivates them to share this news with others. Indeed, Christians are commanded to “go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that (Christ) (has) commanded” them.
While the report includes a number of disclaimers about how the federal government is no way outlining what is religious orthodoxy, by articulating a single version of Christian doctrine as the one, true doctrine, it is. This should alarm every American of any faith or none. The federal government is weighing in on which version of Christianity is the true one.
“The federal government is weighing in on which version of Christianity is the true one.”
What if I don’t believe in total depravity, which is a hallmark of this theology (which I don’t)? What if I don’t believe in the penal substitutionary theory of atonement outlined above (which I don’t)? What if I don’t believe homosexuality is a sin (which I don’t)? What if I don’t believe the Bible is inerrant and infallible as articulated by this theology (which I don’t)? What if my understanding of “The Great Commandment” conflicts with the colonialist view articulated by this theology (which it does)?
The federal government has now said my Christian faith is not traditional, orthodox or the one preferred by this administration.
It’s no coincidence that this administration prefers the high-control, patriarchal Reformed theology over other expressions of Christianity. As BNG contributor Marv Knox recently wrote, in this theology “exercising absolute authority — in a church, across a denomination, over a country — is logical and practical if you believe you know the mind of God and can assert God causes everything to happen. What you will becomes God’s will. And then the ends justify the meanness.”
The federal government contends it is OK to discriminate against others as long as one is doing it from a place of sincere religious conviction.
According to the report’s authors, when the government enforces nondiscrimination policies in the public square, it is infringing upon religious liberty. The logic behind this is that:
Religious beliefs may require (Christians with traditional views) to object to conduct that violates their faith while still respecting the person engaged in the conduct itself. On that basis, some Christians have refused to provide wedding services for same-sex couples, while other Christian employers have sought to hire only co-religionists who not only share their beliefs, but act in accordance with them. … Celebrating or participating in conduct they view as sin carries a “‘very real threat of undermining’ … religious beliefs” and may exert “pressure to conform” to certain viewpoints. … Policymakers and courts have often conflated these religious believers’ objections to conduct with objections to a protected status. For example, in the context of issues related to human sexuality, Christians focus on the underlying sexual conduct, while those in favor of gender ideology or same-sex marriage view such conduct as an inherent part of their identities, which they view as equal to other protected classes like race, national origin, or sex.
In fact, the report’s authors actually subtly redefine the term “religious liberty”:
Critics of religious liberty often argue that freedom of religion is not absolute, that it does not give “license to discriminate,” and that religious liberty must end where harm to another begins. In practice, these arguments have been used to unduly limit religious beliefs and corresponding conduct with which policymakers hold political or policy disagreements. This framing of religious exercise and beliefs as discriminatory reflects several fundamental misunderstandings, both about the nature of Christians’ traditional beliefs and the scope of their legal protections.
Michael Farris, CEO of the conservative Christian group Alliance Defending Freedom, looks at the Supreme
court decision about a Colorado baker who refused to make a cake for a same-sex wedding. He stands in front of the Supreme Court on Monday, June 4, 2018. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Thus, from a Christian’s perspective, a Christian may object to participating in a wedding ceremony because she objects to the underlying conduct. But, to the same sex couple seeking the services, they may perceive the Christian’s objections as an affront to their status and identity. The second perspective — where status and conduct conflate — may then incorrectly presume Christians to hold bigoted views that must be curtailed to protect the rights of these communities. This mischaracterization provides policymakers with the necessary justification to prioritize identitarian policy goals over — and at the expense of — religious liberty.
The fusion of policy/politics and this form of Christian identity is striking. Anyone trying to enforce the rights of someone outside of this Reformed theology is attacking Christianity as a whole. This, of course, is a dangerous assertion to make.
Historically, the courts and policymakers have understood that one’s religious liberty ends where another’s religious liberty begins. However, the report says anyone who subscribes to that notion is a “critic of religious liberty.” And, in fact, to hold to this view is itself discriminatory of the government’s preferred expression of Christianity because “in practice, these arguments have been used to unduly limit religious beliefs and corresponding conduct with which policymakers hold political or policy disagreements.”
“The notion that one group can discriminate against another as long as they can justify it by sincerely held religious convictions isn’t compatible with a pluralistic democracy.”
The report rightly notes the tension all people of faith face when living alongside those of other faiths and none. But the notion that one group can discriminate against another as long as they can justify it by sincerely held religious convictions isn’t compatible with a pluralistic democracy. Which is, of course, the whole point of this report.
This concept of Christian supremacy (or Christian fascism) has been decades in the making. Its end-goal is the enshrinement of a Christian theocracy in which this Calvinistic expression of Christianity is the forced-religion of the land.
We are in a moment of theological crisis
As I read the report Eradicating Anti-Christian Bias Within the Federal Government, I couldn’t help but think of the excellent book by Mark Noll, The Civil War as Theological Crisis.
Many argue (rightfully so, I believe) that what we are witnessing today is a renewed fight over the Reconstruction era that came in the aftermath of the American Civil War. Since the recent Supreme Court’s decision to gut the Voting Rights Act, Southern states have moved swiftly to enact gerrymandered voting maps that disenfranchise minority voters. They do so under the guise that as long as they do it for sincerely held (political) beliefs, it’s fine.
The rot of the Trump administration’s preferred version of Reformed (or Calvinistic) theology is permeating every aspect of our shared lives. We are in the midst of a theological crises not unlike the one our country faced in the 1800s. We are in a fight over what it means to be Christian, whose version of Christianity is legitimate and the government’s role in ensuring true religious liberty for all.
As Christians, we must heed this moment for the crisis it is. Clergy and laity alike are called to this moment to articulate a vision for Christianity that upholds our democratic values and fights for each person’s right of freedom of conscience before it is too late.
Mara Richards Bim
Mara Richards Bim serves as a Clemons Fellow with BNG and as program director at Faith Commons. She is a spiritual director and a recent master of divinity degree graduate from Perkins School of Theology at SMU. She also is an award-winning theater artist and founder of the nationally acclaimed Cry Havoc Theater Company which operated in Dallas from 2014 to 2023.
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