Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth will headline a faith rally this weekend on the National Mall alongside speakers whom experts identify as Christian nationalist or extremist figures, marking a notable convergence of religious and political power within the Trump administration.
The event, called Rededicate 250, is billed as the faith component of America's semiquincentennial celebrations. It is being hosted by Freedom 250, a private nonprofit launched by the White House in December 2025 as a partner to Congress's bipartisan semiquincentennial commission. Hegseth will be joined by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and House Speaker Mike Johnson.
The speaker roster includes a Detroit pastor who called the Democratic platform "demonic" and launched a memecoin after praying at Trump's second inauguration, a rabbi who has defended torture and written about the "virtue of hate," and a Christian author and radio host who said in 2020 he would die fighting to keep Joe Biden out of the White House. The lineup includes no Muslims, no representatives of historically Black churches, no Indigenous faith leaders, and no mainline Protestants.
Matthew D. Taylor, author of several books on Christian nationalism, characterized the speaker list as featuring "some of the most active Christian nationalist leaders that you can find in the country."
Hegseth's own religious commitments align closely with the event's ideological texture. He is a member of Pilgrim Hill Reformed Fellowship in Goodlettsville, Tennessee, part of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, or CREC. He regularly attends Christ Kirk DC, a CREC congregation on Pennsylvania Avenue. CREC founder Douglas Wilson told the Guardian in April 2026 that he identifies as a Christian nationalist and that Hegseth's "worldview is broadly the same as ours."
Hegseth's 2020 book American Crusade depicts Islam as a historic enemy of the West and calls for an "American crusade" against "domestic enemies" as well as enemies of Israel. He has the Latin phrase "deus vult," the slogan of the first crusade, tattooed on his arm. He has also hosted monthly Christian prayer services at the Pentagon since May 2025. At a service on February 17, 2026, he prayed that God would "break the teeth" of US enemies.
The Speakers
Jentezen Franklin, a televangelist and pastor of Free Chapel in Gainesville, Georgia, has been a member of Trump's religious liberty commission advisory board since May 2025. His 2013 book Spirit of Python attributed America's ills to "concentrations of demonic atmospheres" in cities. He has written that homosexuality is a "demonic sexual addiction" and grouped "Scientology, Buddhism, Islam, New Age, Kabbalah" together as "false religions." In his view, teaching evolution "leads many to sink into wasted, unproductive lives."
Meir Soloveichik, a rabbi and senior member of Trump's religious liberty commission, has argued in print since at least 2003 that hatred of enemies is a religious duty. In a 2003 First Things essay titled "The Virtue of Hate," he wrote that "God despises the wicked" and Jews therefore "hate the wicked." In a lecture delivered between 2005 and 2008, Soloveichik argued that "terrorists do not have a right not to be tortured" and cited Israel's 1994 torture of a Palestinian driver as a positive precedent for US policy. He attacked Pope John Paul II's classification of torture as an intrinsic evil.
Lorenzo Sewell, senior pastor of 180 Church in Detroit, told Fox News that while not all Democrats are demons, "the Democratic platform is demonic." In an interview with the Guardian, he doubled down on the claim, saying "you can't honor God and be a Democrat." He spoke at the 2024 Republican National Convention, delivered an invocation before the Michigan House in January 2025, and gave one of three benedictions at Trump's second inauguration on January 20, 2025.
Hours after his inauguration prayer, Sewell launched a memecoin bearing his name and solicited his followers to purchase it. Within 24 hours, Lorenzo spiked from a fraction of a penny to a peak market value of approximately $4.5 million, then collapsed roughly 93 percent. Sewell said the coin was not his initiative and that proceeds went to his church and charitable work, including helping young men from foster care, to the tune of $30,000 on the first day.
Freedom 250, which is organizing Rededicate 250, is currently under congressional investigation over the redirection of federal funds and the sale of access to Trump.
Author James Rodriguez: "This is what happens when religious authority becomes a direct extension of executive power, unchecked by any accountability structure or theological diversity."
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