The Trump administration has repeatedly invoked Christianity to justify its agenda. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has framed warfare in Jesus Christ's name, while Trump himself has posted AI images depicting himself as a Christ-like figure and made public displays of Bible reading.
But across the country, faith leaders are mounting organized resistance to what they view as a fundamental distortion of Christian teaching. Anti-war activists, immigration advocates, and social justice Christians are mobilizing in record numbers to reclaim their religion from what they call a heretical theology.
"One of the things that was pretty stunning from the very beginning of this Trump administration is how hungry people are to hear faith voices pushing back against this heretical theology and the weaponization of faith," said Rev Dr Liz Theoharis, founder and executive director of the Kairos Center for Religions, Rights and Social Justice.
Since Trump's first term, Christian and Catholic groups have protested the militarization of ICE operations, provided shelter to migrants, and hosted vigils coordinated around their faith commitments. The second Trump administration has intensified these efforts, with faith-based resistance becoming perhaps most visible in immigration work.
In fall, footage of clergy being thrown to the ground and handcuffed while protesting at a detention center outside Chicago circulated internationally. During January's economic blackout organized by Twin Cities residents, 99 faith leaders were arrested at Minneapolis airport protesting ICE operations. After Trump ended immigration enforcement protections for places of worship, Christian, Jewish, Sikh and other faith groups representing thousands of churches sued the administration.
In El Paso, Texas, two Scalabrinian Sisters, Leticia Gutierrez Valderrama and Elisete Signor, operate a migrant accompaniment program that has supported over 1,000 people in immigration court and more than 300 in ICE detention. In Pennsylvania, Catholic Workers crafted symbolic ankle monitors in solidarity with migrants. Churches continue hosting Good Friday marches to ICE detention facilities.
These efforts draw from deep historical roots. The civil rights movement of the 1960s, led in part by Black Christians including Dr Martin Luther King Jr and Bayard Rustin, established a template for faith-based social justice organizing. Dorothy Day, co-founder of the Catholic Worker movement in 1932, was arrested dozens of times protesting war and marching with farmworkers. The Berrigan brothers, two Catholic priests convicted for burning nearly 400 draft cards in 1968 during the Vietnam War, later helped launch the Plowshares, an anti-war Christian movement that sabotaged nuclear weapons facilities.
"Christians that are interested in social justice now and want to confront the Trump administration are not inventing something novel," said Jonny Rashid, a pastor with West Philadelphia Mennonite Fellowship and national organizer with Mennonite Action. "Christians have been navigating against injustice for a long time. We stand on their shoulders."
Houses of worship have provided sanctuary dating back to the Underground Railroad and Vietnam War draft resistance. Berkeley, California established the first sanctuary city in 1971 following church organizing to protect draft dodgers. The sanctuary movement expanded in the 1980s when churches sheltered undocumented migrants fleeing U.S. proxy wars in Central America.
Contemporary organizing builds on liberation theology traditions, both Black and Latin American variants, alongside Catholic social teaching. These frameworks emphasize human dignity and opposition to war and militarization. In January, Minnesota church Dios Habla Hoy delivered over 14,000 boxes of groceries to migrants sheltering in homes to avoid ICE enforcement.
Faith leaders have also organized repeatedly against war. "Moral Monday" actions have long marched for funding the poor while opposing military spending. Last month, faith leaders rallied outside the White House against potential war with Iran. In mid-April, Catholic Workers, Mennonite Action, and Churches for Middle East Peace held a pray-in for nonviolence in Washington.
The Dorothea Project, named after Dorothy Day and Sister Thea Bowman, the only Black woman in her convent and a key figure in desegregating American Catholicism, formed last spring as a women-led organizing effort. The group hosts prayer circles, educates Catholic laywomen about social teaching, pressures church leaders on ICE, and provides scripts for contacting Vice President Vance, who is Catholic, demanding an end to war in Iran.
"We do this work collectively, but our small actions really can have a big impact," said Chrissy Kirchhoefer, a Catholic Worker currently protesting at a nuclear weapons parts factory in Kansas City, Missouri.
Some faith leaders acknowledge the challenge of reclaiming Christianity from its historical use as a tool of empire and repression, from manifest destiny and slavery to opposition to LGBTQ+ rights. Yet polling shows most Americans reject the Christian nationalism promoted by the right. Two-thirds of Americans are skeptical of or oppose Christian nationalism. Among major religious groups, white Evangelicals are alone in showing majority approval for Trump's job performance, according to Pew Research.
Political candidates are also staking claims to progressive Christian identity. Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico has built his platform on a progressive Christian vision, invoking faith to support LGBTQ+ rights and abortion access. More clergy are running as pro-social justice candidates anchored in their faith.
Pope Leo XIV weighed in directly this month, stating "God does not bless any conflict. Anyone who is a disciple of Christ, the Prince of Peace, is never on the side of those who once wielded the sword and today drop bombs."
Kirchhoefer pointed to Hegseth's call for "no mercy" toward Iran as fundamentally contrary to Christ's message. "That is radically different from nonviolence and turning the other cheek," she said.
Author James Rodriguez: "These faith leaders are reclaiming something real from generations of Christian resistance to power, not inventing cover for their politics."
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