A couple of weeks ago, Sen. Raphael Warnock appeared on NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” where host Kristen Welker gave the Georgia Democrat, who’s also the senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, an opportunity to react to the deadly shooting at Brown University that had happened a day earlier.
“As I make my way to my own pulpit this morning, I’m going to say a special prayer for Brown University and for our nation,” Warnock said.
Donald Trump was unimpressed. Three days after the interview aired, the president published a message to his social media platform that complained about the senator delivering a sermon. “What ever happened to separation of Church and State?” the president asked.
As a factual matter, Trump’s whining was odd. In fact, it suggested he was struggling to understand the underlying constitutional principle at a basic level.
Seven days later, however, Trump’s question about what became of the separation of church and state took on an even greater significance when his own administration released official statements on the Christmas holiday. My MS NOW colleague Anthony L. Fisher reported:
The Department of Homeland Security, for example, posted two videos to X with ‘Christ is Born!’ as the text. But DHS posted another one that was far more menacing than Christ-like.
With the message ‘Merry Christmas, America. We are blessed to share a nation and a Savior,’ this post featured a 85-second video with hundreds of smash cuts of ‘American family’ Christmas imagery, snippets of Charlie Brown and Bruce Willis in ‘Die Hard’ and, of course, Trump iconography.
When a local church celebrates Christmas with a “Rejoice, America, Christ is born!” message, that makes sense. When religious leaders do the same thing, no one is surprised. But when the Department of Homeland Security publishes an official statement, followed by a related official statement in which DHS declares as fact that Americans share “a Savior,” it’s far more problematic — legally, politically, culturally and even theologically — in a pluralistic country with a First Amendment that requires government neutrality on matters of faith.
DHS, however, wasn’t alone. As Fisher’s MS NOW piece added, “Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth posted an image of an American flag waving in the snow with the adorning message, ‘Merry Christmas to all. Today we celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.’”
Four days earlier, JD Vance declared at a far-right gathering that “the only thing that has truly served as an anchor of the United States of America is that we have been, and by the grace of God we always will be, a Christian nation.” The vice president’s claim was ahistorical nonsense, but let’s not miss the forest for the trees: Top administration officials and departments are telling the public — explicitly and in no uncertain terms — that they see one faith tradition enjoying a dominant position over others, constitutional law be damned. After all, to hear Team Trump tell it, this is a “Christian nation” in which Americans share a “Savior.” It is a perspective rooted in radical Christian nationalism, in which minority faiths (as well as those who have chosen no religious path) are effectively told, “You’ll be tolerated, but you’re still the Other, relegated to second-class status.” The week before Christmas, the president rhetorically asked the public, “What ever happened to separation of church and state?” but it was a question better left to his own team, which appears to have fundamentally rejected the constitutional principle. This post updates our related earlier coverage.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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