WASHINGTON (AP) 鈥� Thousands of people streamed onto the National Mall for a Sunday billed as a 鈥渞ededication of our country as One Nation under God.鈥�
Against the backdrop of the Washington Monument, worship music blared from a stage that made clear the event’s Christian focus. Arched stained-glass windows, set underneath grand columns resembling a federal building, depicted the nation’s founders alongside a white cross.
President Donald Trump was expected to address the gathering, which got underway as a light rain fell, in a video message. Other top Republicans, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., were also on the schedule as part of the celebrations this year marking 250 years of U.S. independence.
Only one name on the Rededicate 250 program was not Christian. Most were among Trump鈥檚 longtime evangelical supporters, including Paula White-Cain of the and evangelist Franklin Graham of Samaritan鈥檚 Purse.
鈥淲e are deeply concerned that what is really being rededicated is a nation to a very narrow and ideological part of the Christian faith that betrays our nation鈥檚 fundamental commitment to religious freedom,鈥� said the Rev. Adam Russell Taylor, a Baptist minister who leads the progressive Christian organization Sojourners.
The conservative Christian lineup featured guests who often argue that the United States was founded as a , a narrative disputed by many historians and other religious traditions.
Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, noted the religious diversity of early America, including Jews, Muslims and Indigenous people. 鈥淚 want to shine a light on America鈥檚 history as a nation that welcomes, celebrates, and protects people of all faiths and those of no faith,鈥� Pesner said.
Hegseth has infused with his .
鈥淥ur founders knew two simple truths,鈥� Hegseth said in a promotional video for the event. 鈥淥ur rights don鈥檛 come from government; they come from God. And a nation is only as strong as its faith.鈥�
Orthodox Jewish Rabbi Meir Soloveichik was the only non-Christian religious leader listed on the program. He serves on the Trump administration鈥檚 along with White-Cain, Graham and Cardinal Timothy Dolan and Bishop Robert Barron, Catholic clerics also featured on the program.
The event was organized by Freedom 250, a public-private partnership backed by the White House. Congressional Democrats have questioned the nonprofit鈥檚 , which they see as a Trump-controlled end run around a separate commission charted by Congress a decade ago to prepare semiquincentennial events.
Progressive groups planned counterprogramming. Among them were the Freedom From Religion Foundation, which advocates a strict separation of church and state, and the Christian group Faithful America.
On Thursday evening, the Interfaith Alliance projected protest slogans onto an exterior wall of the National Gallery of Art. 鈥淒emocracy not theocracy,鈥� said one. Another said: 鈥淭he separation of church and state is good for both.鈥�
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Associated Press writer Peter Smith in Pittsburgh contributed to this report.
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