This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on May 20, 2026.
Despite a lack of religious diversity among the speakers at the Trump administration’s “Rededicate 250” event held last Sunday on the National Mall, conservative Baptists played a prominent role.
The speaker lineup for the nine-hour religious festival included two Catholics and one Jewish rabbi, but all the rest were conservative evangelicals with proven loyalty to President Donald Trump.
Robert Jeffress, Jack Graham, Jonathan Pokluda, Jonathan Falwell and Mike Johnson all are Baptists. And even Franklin Graham is Baptist adjacent. These speakers do not represent the breadth of Baptists in America but do align with the Southern Baptist Convention and the independent Baptists that support Trump.
Here’s what these six speakers had to say about God and country.
Christian nationalists, victorious over their enemies
“In March of 1776, as the American colonies stood on the brink of war against the most powerful empire in the world, it was the second Continental Congress that called for a day of fasting and prayer. The day would be May 17, 1776, exactly 250 years ago today,” Robert Jeffress of First Baptist Dallas began. “It would be a day, our forefathers said, when we would call on God. It would be a day that we would repent of our sins. It was a day that we would boldly ask God to give us victory over our enemies.”
That’s quite an ironic prayer, given how Jesus called his followers to lay down their swords, turn the other cheek and love their enemies rather than claim victory over their enemies through the sword. But it’s an irony that seemed lost on Jeffress because he has more important concerns at hand — namely using religion to take power.
“These leaders who loved our country and loved our God would be called Christian nationalists today.”
“These leaders who loved our country and loved our God would be called Christian nationalists today. And it is a title they would’ve gladly embraced,” he asserted, as if he knew the minds of the Founders.
Then Jeffress added to the cheers of the crowd, “If being a Christian nationalist means loving Jesus Christ and loving America, count me in!”
Jeffress went on to say the strength of the United States lies in the “strength of our armies” and “the strength of our God.”
And as many speakers throughout the day did, Jeffress paired what he considered to be the actions of God at our nation’s past to the actions of God today. “The same God who gave us victory over our enemies in the past promises to give us victory today,” he declared.
The question is, who do men like Jeffress think are our enemies?
The second Civil War
“Today we are here to recognize those words. ‘Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord,” said Jonathan Falwell of Liberty University and Thomas Road Baptist Church.