ArticleThere’s been a lot of public praying going on in Washington lately, with plenty more to come. But what exactly are the faithful praying for? And to whom?
U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s infamous prayer in the Pentagon—a mashup of the biblical prophet Ezekiel and a speech from Pulp Fiction’s hitman Jules Winnfield— was hard to watch. Then again, we seem to have adjusted to all kinds of unorthodox public pronouncements these days. The gathered Pentagon pray-ers, heads bowed and eyes firmly closed while Hegseth called down divine vengeance and furious anger, provided a fitting symbol of the MAGA believers who are faithful devotees to a political cause, refusing to see any contradictions to their faith as they lash themselves to the Trumpian mast, come what may.
In February, Donald Trump announced with much fanfare that he was inviting Americans to the Mall in Washington on May 17 for a National Day of Prayer to rededicate America as “One Nation Under God”. This is part of the 250th birthday celebrations for the nation.
Coming, as it does, hot on the heels of the White House’s dust ups with the Pope and the AI Trump-Jesus scandal that made even some of the President’s fiercest evangelical supporters wince, it’s fair to ask:
“What on earth will the key players in this melodrama be praying for?”
When it comes to the President and the flavour of the “prayers” he might offer up (it’s not clear that he will actually attend), a clue can be found in his speech at the annual Washington Prayer Breakfast earlier this year. I forced myself to watch it. There was a lot of the usual off-script pontificating and precious little theological reflection. That’s hardly surprising. The President is famously inept when it comes to articulating anything related to the Bible or actual Christian faith.
On that morning Trump declared with characteristic immodesty that he has “done more for religion than any other president”. He then proceeded to list off his political achievements—increasing the drilling for oil, growing the military, (apparently) ending eight wars and personally bringing the Olympics and the FIFA World Cup to the US.
It’s unclear how any of this fits a religious gathering but this President knows his audience. His political posturing was met with warm applause. He even took time to question why any Democrat would be present at what has always been a bi-partisan gathering.
So we may reasonably expect any presidential petitions to the almighty to be laser- focused on himself and his own interests.
What about the Secretary of War? Pete Hegseth will no doubt be digging into the Old Testament, as he has done recently, again at the Pentagon—terribly misusing Psalm 18—to pray for vengeance, “overwhelming violence” and remorseless destruction of “the enemies of righteousness and our great nation.”
If JD Vance turns up, he will presumably just say “Amen” to whatever the President has prayed.
Up on stage, waiting their turn, will also be a litany of actors from the administration who will claim God’s favour on the nation, at least while it remains under Republican Party control.
What about those representing faith communities? On the official program there is only one speaker—Rabbi Meir Soloveichik—who is not from the Christian constituency, and virtually the whole lineup come from a narrow selection of evangelical supporters of Trump.
The President’s spiritual advisor, the pastor Paula White-Cain, will join in. At the White House at Easter time, she bizarrely likened Trump’s journey and suffering to that of Jesus. “Because of his victory you will be victorious in all you put your hand to”, she said. Billy Graham’s son Franklin Graham, a close and loyal supporter of the President, will play a prominent role as will media personality and author Eric Metaxas.
What each of these participants have in common is that they represent a large cohort of believers, and an important voting bloc, who have embraced Trump pragmatically as a mechanism, an (imperfect) instrument of divine favour. They find in his championing of religious freedom a reason to close their eyes to pretty much anything else he does, even when it clashes blatantly with their professed beliefs.
None of these people appear the least bit troubled by the President’s moral failures, by the regime’s brutal deployment of ICE agents in its efforts to rid the country of undesirables, nor by such actions as the overnight drastic cutting of USAID that left huge numbers of vulnerable people around the world without medication they rely upon, the hospitals that cared for them, and the programs that were lifting them out of poverty.
Distant observers of the church could be forgiven for feeling confused about all this talk, particularly if they have any familiarity with Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.
There he declared that in God’s eyes it is the peacemakers, the merciful and those who display radical love for the other who are blessed.
I’ve just been in the U.S. and I can report that there are many Christians who are as bewildered as anyone else about the current administration’s engagement with and misuse of faith—something the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has described as “demonic”. More than one person apologised to me!
They, along with many others of us are asking, “How did we get here?”
It’s a complex story that involves the marriage of the Christian Right with the Republican Party in the wake of huge social change in the 1970s. That firm political coupling created disastrous impacts for Christianity in the US and has been a major turn-off for young people especially.
One part of this story also involves the growth of Christian Nationalism. Much of the enthusiasm of the MAGA base stems from this relatively recent phenomenon.
There are different versions of Christian Nationalism, some more alarming than others. But at its core, in the U.S., it is a belief that America is uniquely chosen as a light to the nations and that a particular version of conservative Protestantism should be privileged in law and culture. It might involve actual devotion to the faith but may just as easily be a vague commitment to Christian “values” or morality.
As Nick Spencer from London’s Theos Think Tank explains, it is best understood as seeing the two terms, “Christian” and “Nationalist” as somehow codependent:
Being a Christian Nationalist means believing that my country (or sometimes my civilisation) is Christian, not just in any contingent, partial or historical sense, but in an essential, perhaps even theological, way. And it means that to belong properly to my nation you need at least to assent to, and ideally embrace that cultural, social or political Christianity.
Often quite theologically thin, Christian Nationalism is largely driven by political and cultural concerns rather than anything key to the faith itself, and it’s obvious how it is fundamentally incompatible with a pluralist environment.
We can be sure that those in the thrall of such thinking will, on May 17, be praying for, and working to gain control over, key spheres of influence in the culture.
Whatever you make of that, it’s hard to avoid the feeling that it comes with a prioritising of one nation above all others, and the kind of power that sits very uncomfortably with the cross of Christ.
Central to the religion of Jesus is the notion of God’s power being made perfect in weakness; the weak things of the world shaming the strong. It’s hard to imagine a principle less congruent with the outlook of Donald J. Trump.’
What could people pray for? The American Pope has made it clear that he will continue to pray for those in need and that the privileged and powerful might recognise their responsibility to “the least of these” and that they are in fact “their brother’s keeper”. He will pray that those who wage war will seek peace and that those who hunger for conflict will be thwarted.
This might not be a bad time to consider Jesus’ own words when it comes to understanding prayer. Warning against hypocrites making a show of their prayers, he suggested going into your room, closing the door and offering your prayers from a place of privacy. In a famous parable he contrasted the prayers of a self-righteous religious person with those of a despised outsider who simply prayed, “Have mercy on me, a sinner.” It was that person who gained God’s approval, according to Jesus.
And no matter your beliefs, surely the simple but profoundly egalitarian and hopeful line of “The Lord’s Prayer”, “forgive us our sins as we forgive others,” speaks to this moment. This challenge to recognise our own failures also invites us to see others in a different light. In other words, it speaks to, not a call for God to fulfill your personal or political ambitions, but an encounter with the other, through which you are willing to be changed yourself.
Many sincere believers will be offering up that kind of prayer for the nation on May 17. All of us can say Amen to that.
Simon Smart is the Executive Director of the Centre for Public Christianity and the host of the Life & Faith podcast.