This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on May 18, 2026.
Evangelicals flocked to Washington, D.C., over the weekend to attend the Trump administration’s “Rededicate 250” event on Sunday, which was billed as “rededicating” the country to being “one nation under God.”
The night before Trump’s official event — funded by public money — Sean Feucht led his annual worship event on the National Mall at the Sylvan Theater in front of the Washington Monument. That was not an officially sanctioned event.
One of the controversies that has spread on social media in the wake of both events is about how many people attended. That is was the most commonly asked question I have received by far.
While Feucht claimed to have thousands of people at his event, many online observers said the videos made the crowd look sparse. While Trump officials haven’t released any attendance numbers for Sunday’s event, lots of empty chairs were visible on video footage. The Daily Beast reported that the attendance was so low that Trump was “humiliated” as he “spoke via video to a sea of empty seats.”
I was in attendance at both events. And whatever the final numbers were at either event, the videos didn’t do them justice. Remember, the National Mall is a huge space.
Feucht’s gathering had thousands in attendance. And Trump’s gathering had so many people it took three hours to get through security. At one point during the day, I stood in line an hour and fifty minutes to buy lunch.
One reason the chairs were sparse was that they were reserved for specific people. Another was that it was blistering hot outside. So many people were cramming around the perimeter of the event underneath the shade of trees. Any reporting that Trump would’ve felt humiliated by the crowd size doesn’t make sense compared to what I experienced.
What matters, though, isn’t crowd size, but the message being preached by those whom these crowds put in power.
While the two events were organized separately and had different atmospheres, they featured overlapping speakers and both had a similar message. They were sacralizing a theocracy by emphasizing a created order under God that requires rewriting history, redefining freedom, redefining equality and promoting the rise of conservative Christian men.
A created order under God
Throughout Sunday’s event, between the worship and the speaking, videos played of earth being seen from space while a narrator read from Genesis 1. Then when the narrator quoted God saying, “It was good,” the video showed U.S. soldiers.
Various speakers mentioned how creationism is no longer taught in public schools. One speaker went so far as to say that many years ago, the Bible was the only textbook used in U.S. schools.
Whether discussing history, freedom, equality or gender roles, everything ultimately went back to being under God as the Creator. God was writing our history and defining our freedom and equality under a hierarchy of authority and submission.