As America marked 250 years since the Second Continental Congress called for a national “day of humiliation, Fasting and Prayer” ahead of the Revolution, President Donald Trump’s administration hosted a national prayer and rededication event that immediately triggered outrage from major media outlets and secular activist groups.
The backlash followed a familiar pattern: accusations that the administration was attempting to portray America as a nation founded on Christianity.
The New York Times framed the event as part of a broader “Christian founding” narrative, claiming the rally sought to “crystallize the narrative that the nation’s founding was an intentionally Christian project.”
But critics of the media response argue the historical record itself tells a far more complicated story than modern secular activists are willing to admit.
The original 1776 call for prayer was not symbolic or vague. The Continental Congress explicitly urged Americans to seek “the mercy of Almighty God” and repent for the nation’s sins as the colonies prepared for what became the American Revolution. George Washington himself publicly supported the observance.
That reality creates an obvious tension for modern narratives insisting religion played little role in America’s founding.
The same founding generation that drafted the First Amendment also routinely proclaimed national days of prayer, fasting, and thanksgiving. They openly discussed religion as essential to maintaining the republican system they were creating.
Even the founders’ own writings repeatedly connected religion — specifically Christianity — to the survival of the new nation.
John Jay wrote in Federalist No. 2 that Americans were “a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion.”
John Adams later argued the principles uniting the Founders during the Revolution were “the general Principles of Christianity.”
George Washington famously warned in his Farewell Address that religion and morality were “indispensable supports” for political prosperity, while Adams separately declared the Constitution was made “only for a moral and religious people.”
Even Thomas Jefferson — frequently cited by modern secularists because of his “wall of separation” letter — regularly attended Christian worship services held inside government buildings during his presidency.
Critics of modern “church-state separation” rhetoric argue that historical context matters enormously here.
At the time the Constitution was ratified, numerous states still maintained religious tests for public office, taxpayer-supported churches, or legal preferences favoring Christianity or Protestantism.
That does not mean the Founders created a theocracy. But it also complicates the modern claim that the founding generation intended religion to be entirely removed from public life or government institutions.
Nonetheless, media outlets and progressive advocacy groups sharply condemned the Trump administration’s event.
CNN described the gathering as another example of the administration “blurring separation of church and state,” while activists from Americans United for Separation of Church and State warned the event represented an attack on constitutional principles.
