The Christian Takeover of American Government: What the Founders Feared Is Here

While Trump distracts us with his usual clown show, Christian nationalism is the guy in the background quietly changing the locks on the Constitution. It’s not a takeover with tanks, it’s Bible verses

Howard Chandler Christy’s “Scene at the Signing of the Constitution” (1940), depicting the moment the U.S. Constitution was signed in 1787.

Introduction: The Wall That Built a Nation

When Speaker of the House Mike Johnson recently claimed that “the separation of church and state is a misnomer,” he wasn't misinterpreting the Constitution. He was discarding it. His comment wasn’t a legal argument, it was a declaration of war on a foundational principle of the American experiment: that freedom of belief is only possible when government is restrained from endorsing, promoting, or enforcing any religion.

For more than two centuries, this idea stood as a constitutional guardrail. Thomas Jefferson called it a “wall of separation between church and state,” not to ban religion, but to prevent any faith from using state power to impose its will on others. James Madison echoed this, warning that entangling church and state had always produced “superstition, bigotry, and persecution.” The Founders weren’t writing a Christian nation into law. They were writing freedom from a Christian government into the DNA of the republic.

And yet, in recent years, that wall has been methodically dismantled. Under the Trump administration and a Supreme Court reshaped by his appointees, and with the backing of increasingly vocal Christian nationalist politicians, we have watched religious neutrality in government be redefined, eroded, and, in some cases, openly ridiculed. Policies once couched in secular language are now justified in overtly theological terms. Leaders claim that Christian values should dominate public life, that the Constitution was founded on biblical principles, and that opposing this vision is a form of persecution.

Christian nationalism is not simply a misreading of history. It is a political project aimed at replacing pluralism with theocratic control. It weaponizes faith to justify policies that privilege one religion over all others, while sidelining the very protections the First Amendment was written to guarantee. As Seidel (2019) notes, this movement doesn’t seek to restore the Founders' vision, it seeks to overwrite it entirely.

This article will trace that betrayal in two parts. First, we’ll look at what the Founders actually believed about religion and government, in their letters, their state constitutions, and the silence of their federal Constitution. Then we’ll examine how that legacy has been distorted in modern times: through executive actions, court rulings, state laws, and the public rhetoric of elected officials who now deny the very principle they swore to uphold. The goal is not just to defend a secular government. It is to reclaim the truth of what this country was meant to be.

1. What the Founders Built

To understand how far Christian nationalism has veered from the original vision of the United States, we must begin with the facts the Founders left behind. The U.S. Constitution, drafted in 1787, does not mention Christianity. It does not mention Jesus. It does not reference the Bible. In fact, the only time religion is mentioned in the original Constitution is to restrict it: Article VI prohibits any religious test for public office.

This omission wasn’t accidental. During the entire Constitutional Convention, Christianity was not discussed as a foundation for government. There were no calls to base the nation on scripture, and no efforts to name Jesus as a source of law. Instead, the Founders rooted the legitimacy of the new government in the people and their natural rights, not in divine revelation.

The Declaration of Independence famously refers to a “Creator,” but even this term was chosen with deliberate vagueness. The phrase used is “their Creator,” not “our Creator” or “the Creator,” which would have implied a shared, singular, or specifically Christian understanding. The language was designed to avoid theological specificity and respect personal belief systems. The broader philosophical tradition the Founders drew from was Enlightenment-era deism and natural rights theory, not biblical literalism (Seidel, 2019).

This same perspective appears in state constitutions of the time. Pennsylvania (1776), Massachusetts (1780), and New Hampshire (1784) all declared that people were born with “natural,” “inherent,” or “inalienable” rights, not rights given by God, but by nature and birth. James Wilson, one of the most active delegates at the Constitutional Convention, wrote in 1774 that “All men are, by nature, equal and free” and that no one has authority without the consent of the governed. He viewed equality and liberty as natural facts, not religious gifts.

This philosophical orientation was intentional. Rights derived from religion can be withheld by religion. Historically, that’s exactly what happened. Across centuries and denominations, religious authorities have denied rights to women, to LGBTQ people, to racial minorities, all in the name of divine will. The Founders, wary of that legacy, chose a different foundation: one based in human dignity, not theological decree (Seidel, 2019).

Their goal was not to exclude religion from society, but to exclude it from rulemaking. They believed that liberty required neutrality, that only by keeping religion out of the state could both the state and religion remain free.

2. Religion Was a Caution, Not a Command

Many of the Founders believed religion could play a constructive role in society, but almost none saw it as a legitimate foundation for government. In fact, when they addressed the power of religion directly, it was often to warn against its abuse. Religion, they knew, had been used not only to comfort and guide, but to dominate, divide, and oppress.

James Madison's Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments is one of the clearest examples of this caution. In it, he wrote that centuries of established Christianity had produced "pride and indolence in the clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, and in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution." He feared the entanglement of government with religion, warning that rulers had historically used the church as a tool to subvert liberty: "Rulers who wished to subvert the public liberty, may have found an established clergy convenient auxiliaries."

Thomas Jefferson expressed similar sentiments. In his original draft of the Declaration of Independence, he condemned King George III for allowing the slave trade to flourish, calling it "a cruel war against human nature itself" and explicitly blaming "the Christian king of Great Britain." This was the only mention of Christianity in any founding document, and it was critical.

Even George Washington, often mythologized as devout, studiously avoided religious declarations. According to Jefferson, when clergy tried to force Washington to affirm his Christianity publicly, he dodged the question entirely. "The old fox was too cunning for them," Jefferson remarked.

Benjamin Franklin took a utilitarian view: religion may be necessary for the uneducated or morally weak, but virtue could and should be cultivated through reason. He asked pointedly, "If men are so wicked as we now see them with religion, what would they be if without it?"

All of this points to a central truth: the Founders understood that religion, if given state power, could become a weapon. They didn’t ban it. But they refused to elevate it. As Seidel (2019) argues, their restraint was purposeful. They saw the church not as the cornerstone of a free society, but as an institution that had to be kept in check to protect that freedom.

3. How Christian Nationalists Rewrite the Founders

Today’s Christian nationalists insist that the United States was founded as a Christian nation. This is not a historical debate, it’s a political tactic. It recasts pluralism as betrayal and rewrites the secular foundation of the Constitution into a divine mandate. But to do so, they must ignore, distort, or outright erase the Founders’ own words.

They point to references like “Creator” in the Declaration of Independence as proof of biblical intent. But the language Jefferson used, “their Creator,'“ was intentionally vague. It was not “our Creator” or “the Creator,” which would imply shared religious doctrine. In fact, Jefferson’s own writings clarify that these rights were derived from the laws of nature, not scripture. In his 1774 Summary View of the Rights of British America, he asserted that Americans were “claiming their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.” These natural rights belonged to people by birth, not by baptism (Jefferson, 1774/1984).

Christian nationalists also capitalize on 18th-century grammar conventions to argue for divine influence. They cite capitalized words like “Creator,” “Providence,” or “Supreme Judge” as deliberate religious emphasis. But this misunderstands the writing norms of the time. In the Declaration alone, words like “Happiness,” “Powers,” “Consent,” and “Government” are also capitalized, hardly evidence of reverence. Capitalization was a matter of style, not sanctification.

Even when invoking religion rhetorically, the Founders took great care not to entangle it with law. Franklin once wrote that religion might be useful for keeping the “ignorant” and “inconsiderate” in check, but he made no claim that Christianity should shape public policy. Jefferson’s famous “wall of separation” was not metaphorical fluff, it was a clear warning about letting religion into governance. And Madison’s own words make it undeniable: “It is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties. … Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity…may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians to the exclusion of all other sects?”

The Constitution itself is the strongest rebuke to Christian nationalism. It is a secular document, beginning with “We the People,” not “In the Name of God,” and only mentioning religion to forbid tests of faith for office. There is no prayer. No Jesus. No Christian doctrine. And this was no oversight. During the Constitutional Convention, Christianity wasn’t even discussed as a potential basis for governance.

Yet Christian nationalists claim that omitting church and scripture from the founding documents was some kind of mistake. It wasn’t. It was a decision, and a defining one.

Their modern campaign rests on selective memory and sanctified myth. It denies that many of the Founders were deists or skeptics, that they embraced Enlightenment philosophy, and that their political writings often warned against clergy influence. By rewriting history, Christian nationalists aren’t honoring the Founders. They are replacing them.

4. Trump and the Rise of State-Sponsored Religion (2017–2025)

Christian nationalism is no longer just a fringe ideology, it has become a blueprint for governance. Under Donald Trump’s leadership, the long-standing wall between church and state has not only been weakened; it has been actively bulldozed by executive fiat, federal influence, and public rhetoric cloaked in biblical grievance.

In 2017, Trump issued an executive order titled Promoting Free Speech and Religious Liberty, which instructed the IRS to back away from enforcing the Johnson Amendment, a rule that prohibits tax-exempt churches from endorsing political candidates (White House, 2017). This signaled more than just a shift in enforcement; it was a public invitation for religious institutions to become campaign arms of the state without fear of consequence.

That same year, the Department of Justice announced the creation of a “Religious Liberty Task Force” under then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Its goal, ostensibly, was to protect religious freedom. But in practice, it weaponized religious grievance to justify discrimination, especially against LGBTQ people and reproductive healthcare access (The Guardian, 2019). This signaled a broader shift: religious belief was no longer just protected; it was prioritized, even when it conflicted with civil rights.

The trend accelerated in Trump’s second term. In 2025, a draft executive order leaked from the White House outlined sweeping actions to “combat anti-Christian bias” across federal agencies. While framed as a defense of religious freedom, the proposed policy mandated preferential treatment for Christian organizations in grants, education, and public messaging (White House, 2025). Secular institutions, by contrast, were seen as hostile to American values.

This wasn’t neutrality, it was state-sponsored religion with a favored creed.

Rhetorically, Trump and his allies embraced the role of spiritual martyrs. They painted Christianity as persecuted by an elite secular order and cast Trump as divinely protected. In early 2025, Speaker Mike Johnson gave voice to this fantasy narrative:

“Democrats spent years persecuting him on all fronts... Armed FBI agents raided his home... and multiple assassins tried to kill him, but God miraculously spared the president’s life. I think it’s undeniable... his presidency and his life are the fruits of divine providence.”

This was not a fringe belief aired in a church basement, it was the Speaker of the House invoking divine intervention as political validation.

Taken together, these actions represent more than just policy shifts. They reflect a reimagining of the American presidency as a spiritual office, one ordained, protected, and guided by God. And once a leader is viewed as divinely chosen, accountability becomes sacrilege and dissent becomes heresy.

As Seidel (2019) argues, the Christian nationalist movement does not seek religious freedom. It seeks religious privilege, enforced from the highest offices of power and justified by the language of divine entitlement.

5. The Supreme Court: Redefining Neutrality

While executive power has increasingly leaned into religious favoritism, the U.S. Supreme Court, particularly following its reshaping under Trump, has methodically rewritten what “religious neutrality” means in law. In doing so, it has elevated the Free Exercise Clause above the Establishment Clause, distorting a balance the Founders saw as essential to liberty.

The shift began subtly but gained speed after the appointments of Justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett. In Trinity Lutheran Church v. Comer (2017), the Court ruled that a church could not be excluded from a public benefit program simply because it was religious, opening the door to taxpayer funding for religious entities (CBS News, 2023). This paved the way for Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue (2020), where the Court held that if a state offers public funds for private education, it cannot bar religious schools from receiving them.

The line blurred further in Carson v. Makin (2022), in which the Court required Maine to fund religious instruction if it funded secular private schools. The ruling effectively compelled states to underwrite religious education, even if their constitutions prohibited it (Washington Post, 2022).

But it was in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District (2022) that the Court discarded a long-standing test used to evaluate church-state separation. A public school football coach, who led prayers on the 50-yard line after games, claimed he was punished for exercising his faith. The Court sided with him and overturned the Lemon test,a legal standard in place since 1971 that had helped define when government was unconstitutionally endorsing religion. The ruling reframed visible religious expression by public employees as private speech, even when done in official capacities or in view of students.

Then, in 303 Creative v. Elenis (2023), the Court prioritized a hypothetical Christian web designer’s religious beliefs over Colorado’s anti-discrimination laws. The majority ruled that she could deny services to same-sex couples based on what she might be asked to create, granting her a religious exemption to civil rights compliance without an actual incident of harm (ECS, 2022).

What connects these rulings is a consistent pattern: religious expression is increasingly privileged, while Establishment Clause protections are hollowed out. Religion is no longer something the government must avoid favoring, it’s something the Court now insists must be accommodated, funded, and even shielded from criticism.

As Seidel (2019) explains, this isn’t a return to “originalism.” It’s a redefinition of rights that places theological identity above civic equality, reshaping the First Amendment from a shield against government-backed religion into a sword for religious preference.

This judicial revolution is not neutral. It tilts the scales, quietly, legally, and decisively, toward a Christian nationalist vision of America.

6. State-Level Theocracy in Action

While the federal government reorients the First Amendment from neutrality to preference, the most aggressive attempts to inject Christianity into law have come from the states. Across Republican-led legislatures, Christian nationalism is no longer an undertone, it is public policy.

Texas has become the most conspicuous laboratory. In 2024, lawmakers passed a bill mandating the display of the Ten Commandments in every public classroom. The law bypassed secular curriculum standards, asserting that these biblical edicts formed the “moral basis” of American law. Not coincidentally, it was paired with another bill offering financial incentives to schools that implement the state’s “Bluebonnet” curriculum, a program that inserts Bible content directly into classroom lessons under the guise of state pride (Texas Tribune, 2024).

Florida has enacted similar initiatives. State-sanctioned Bible electives are now offered in public high schools, along with new religious exemption laws that allow teachers and staff to opt out of LGBTQ-inclusive policies if they cite religious beliefs (The Guardian, 2019). In some districts, prayer is encouraged by local school boards, and the line between expression and enforcement grows ever thinner.

Louisiana recently passed a sweeping religious freedom law modeled on the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), giving wide berth for individuals and institutions to claim exemption from civil obligations based on faith. This includes healthcare access, education standards, and nondiscrimination statutes (EdWeek, 2025).

These laws follow a blueprint. As Seidel (2019) outlines, Project Blitz, a playbook developed by religious lobbying groups, encourages lawmakers to begin with “In God We Trust” displays in schools, then move toward Bible literacy bills, religious freedom exemptions, and eventually policies that codify Christian doctrine into civil law. It’s incremental, strategic, and entirely intentional.

The aim is not just to promote religion, it is to fuse it with public authority. Whether it’s school chaplains replacing guidance counselors, or students being led in classroom prayer under state law, these efforts transform Christianity from a private belief into a public mandate.

Even when these laws are challenged, the courts, reshaped by Christian nationalist influence, are increasingly sympathetic. The result is a creeping theocracy, not through a single authoritarian edict, but through death by a thousand local laws.

The Founders warned against exactly this. Madison wrote that religious entanglement begins with the “mildest forms of establishment,” but that these forms grow into coercion when left unchecked. Today, that trajectory is not hypothetical. It’s happening, in legislation, in classrooms, and in the lives of every student taught that a specific faith defines what it means to be American.

7. The Open Embrace of Theocracy

In the past, Christian nationalism cloaked itself in euphemism. Terms like “religious liberty” or “Judeo-Christian values” served as plausible deniability. But in recent years, that veil has been discarded. Key political figures now openly reject the constitutional wall between church and state, not as an oversight, but as a strategic objective.

Mike Johnson, current Speaker of the House and a self-proclaimed “biblical worldview” legislator, stated bluntly that “the separation of church and state is a misnomer.” He wasn’t making a mistake, he was signaling a mission: to reframe the First Amendment from a restraint on power into a license to impose religion (Axios, 2023).

Representative Lauren Boebert was even less subtle, telling a church audience, “I’m tired of this separation of church and state junk, that’s not in the Constitution!” Her applause line wasn’t a misunderstanding. It was a celebration of historical amnesia (Washington Post, 2022).

In Texas, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick has said that prayer and biblical principles are what make “better Texans.” State Senator Mayes Middleton declared flatly, “There is no such thing as separation of church and state.” These are not fringe voices. These are powerful elected officials using their office to redefine the nature of American government (EdWeek, 2025).

This rhetoric matters because it reflects a deeper transformation: the erosion of any pretense that religion and law are separate domains. It is not merely about allowing public expressions of faith, it is about aligning state policy with one faith, and one faith only.

Christian nationalism does not stop at cultural symbolism. It seeks control over school curriculums, moral legislation, healthcare decisions, and civil rights protections. It does not advocate freedom of religion, it advocates freedom for religion to rule. This shift is not only un-American in spirit, it contradicts the very framework the Founders labored to build.

As Seidel (2019) observes, once religion is elevated by the state, dissent becomes blasphemy, difference becomes deviance, and pluralism becomes a threat. The constitutional wall exists precisely because history shows us what happens when it’s removed.

What we’re witnessing is not a misunderstanding of the Constitution. It’s a campaign to conquer it.

Conclusion: What the Founders Feared Is Here

The story of America’s founding is not one of religious dominance, but of deliberate restraint. The men who drafted its foundational documents knew the dangers of state-imposed faith. They had seen how religion, when fused with power, led to persecution, corruption, and violence. So they built a wall. Not to keep belief out of public life, but to keep government out of belief. That wall was not a misreading of the Constitution. It was its cornerstone.

Christian nationalism seeks to tear down that wall under the guise of “restoring” America. But what it offers is not restoration, it is redefinition. It reinterprets vague words like “Creator” into divine mandates. It converts cautionary references to religion into endorsements. It warps the Founders’ skepticism into supposed piety. And it uses this revised mythology to justify laws that privilege one religion at the expense of all others.

This is not patriotism. It is theocratic creep disguised as historical fidelity.

From Trump’s executive orders and the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence, to state-level legislation and the overt declarations of elected officials, the project is no longer subtle. It’s not about prayer in schools, it’s about power over law. Not about protecting faith, it’s about giving it dominion.

As Seidel (2019) warns, this is not the return of the Founders’ America. It is their warning come to life. The entanglement of church and state was not the vision they handed down, it was the danger they hoped to spare us.

Defending secular government is not an act of hostility toward religion. It is a defense of religion, of the right to believe or not believe without coercion, exclusion, or punishment. It is the only structure that allows pluralism to survive.

The wall is still standing. But it is crumbling. And the question before us now is not whether the Founders were right, it is whether we still have the courage to defend what they built.

References

• •ABC News (May 4, 2017). Trump signs executive order to ease restrictions on religious participation in politics. abcnews.go.com

• The Guardian (Jan. 14, 2019). ‘In God We Trust’ – the bills Christian nationalists hope will ‘protect religious freedom’. theguardian.com

• Axios (Nov. 15, 2023). Speaker Mike Johnson calls separation of church and state a ‘misnomer’. axios.com

• The Washington Post (June 28, 2022). GOP Rep. Boebert: ‘I’m tired of this separation of church and state junk’. washingtonpost.com

• The Texas Tribune (May 24, 2025). Texas will require public school classrooms to display Ten Commandments under bill signed by governor. texastribune.org

• The Texas Tribune (Nov. 19, 2024). State Board of Education approves Bible-infused curriculum. texastribune.org

• Education Week (May 28, 2025). What’s Behind a Legislative Push for Prayer and Bible Study in Public Schools. edweek.org

• CBS News (June 30, 2023). Supreme Court sides with designer opposed to same-sex wedding websites. cbsnews.com

• Education Commission of the States (July 20, 2022). Can Religious Schools Use Public Funds? Carson v. Makin Explained. ecs.org

• White House (Trump Administration Archive) (Feb. 6, 2025). Eradicating Anti-Christian Bias (Executive Order draft). whitehouse.gov

• Seidel, Andrew L. (2019). The Founding Myth: Why Christian Nationalism Is Un-American. Sterling Publishing.

• Madison, James (1785). Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments. In Gaillard Hunt (Ed.), The Writings of James Madison (Vol. 2, 1904–1910).

• Jefferson, Thomas (1776). Draft of the Declaration of Independence. National Archives.

• Jefferson, Thomas (April 21, 1803). Letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush.

  “The clergy, by getting themselves established by law and ingrafted into the machine of government, have been a very formidable engine against the civil and religious rights of man.”

• Jefferson, Thomas (Jan. 1, 1802). Letter to the Danbury Baptists. Library of Congress.

  “…thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.”

• Jefferson, Thomas (1904–1905). The Works of Thomas Jefferson (Vol. 1, Federal Edition).

  “The old fox was too cunning for them.” (on George Washington)

• Franklin, Benjamin (June 28, 1787). Speech at the Constitutional Convention.

  “If men are so wicked as we now see them with religion, what would they be if without it?”

• Wilson, James (1774). Considerations on the Nature and Extent of the Legislative Authority of the British Parliament. In Kermit L. Hall & Mark David Hall (Eds.), Collected Works of James Wilson, Vol. 1, collected by Maynard Garrison (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2007), p. 4.