Trump Attacks Anti-Christian Bias In Executive Order

I was aware of this new EO, but—for reasons to be explained—I was feeling cynical. Jeff Childers picked up on this yesterday, in a substack that also focused on the confirmation of Russ Vought—the director of OMB who considers the USA to be “one nation under God.” Vought just happens to be the only holdover from Trump 1.0 to Trump 2.0.

Here’s the good news about the EO that targets anti-Christian bias, taken from Childers’ account:

Yesterday, the Associated Press ran another unintentionally encouraging story headlined, “After prayer breakfast, Trump creates task force to root out 'anti-Christian bias.’” The left’s howls of protest were so loud they could be heard as far as Greenland and all across the Gulf of America.

After attending the annual Prayer Breakfast yesterday, President Trump announced his new task force, which would “immediately halt all forms of anti-Christian targeting and discrimination within the federal government, including at the DOJ, which was absolutely terrible, the IRS, the FBI — terrible — and other agencies.”

It is remarkable enough that a U.S. President felt such an order was necessary.

Any American who has engaged in politics to the extent of becoming POTUS is well aware of the pervasive, even mandatory anti-Christian bias that has become part of the fabric of American public life. What’s truly remarkable is that this president believes he can tackle that problem and survive—and even thrive—politically. Rather than simply knuckling under, saying perhaps one thing to get Christian votes, tossing Christians a few political bones, but doing little if anything to address the roots of anti-Christian bias. And that, of course, is part of what USAID—and all the rest of the funding abuses that Russ Vought and Musk will be rooting out—has been all about: anti-Christian bias.

The President explained that his new Attorney General, Pam Bondi, will work to “fully prosecute anti-Christian violence and vandalism in our society and to move heaven and earth to defend the rights of Christians and religious believers nationwide.” Then he signed an executive order directing the newly formed task force to identify “unlawful policies, practices, or conduct by all executive departments and agencies, and recommend any additional presidential or legislative action.”

It was virtually an all-of-government action. The two-year task force will be headed by the Attorney General, but includes the heads of dozens of other agencies, including the Secretaries of State, Treasury, Defense, Labor, HHS, HUD, Homeland Security, and nearly every other agency you could think of. Hilariously, the EO began by reciting a long list of the Biden Administration’s weaponized misconduct:

The EO continues in that vein for several more paragraphs. The detailed and extensive description of Biden’s transgressions was politically savvy; it is hard evidence that blunts any potential criticism of the EO for focusing on one faith (although the order was broadly written to encompass all faiths).

In other words, the temporary Task Force was smartly framed as a necessary correction rather than a special privilege for Christians. The Trump Team continues exhibiting intelligence and political discipline.

As you could imagine, the AP found some people who don’t like it. Let Christians fend for themselves. Americans United for Separation of Church and State said, “blah blah blah destroying democracy.” According to its most recent Form 990, the atheist group paid its CEO —who provided the quote— a $320,000 salary in 2022. But I digress.

🔥 In related news, the CDC’s website now, for the first time, provides a link to “adoption services” when users search for “abortion:”

Setting aside that minor but encouraging victory, imagine what that small change says about what is happening inside the CDC right now. Remember, the white coats at the Centers from Disease Control are muted, squelched, ordered to not communicate with anyone outside the agency. This little change in the CDC’s search results hints at massive reorganization inside the bloated health agencies.

OK, this all looks good, so why was I feeling cynical? The answer is to be found—partly—in the fact that Childers thought that it was “smart” to frame the Task Force as “a necessary correction rather than a special privilege for Christians.” Yes, I get that a special religious based privilege would not be acceptable to most Americans. A framing of the matter as a defense of widely accepted “rights”—a correction—was certainly the “smart” approach. And I do appreciate the correction—as far as it is likely to go. But there remains an inherent problem in this framing.

Russ Vought is reported by Wikipedia to consider himself to be a “Christian nationalist.” I take that to mean that he believes that, as a matter of historical fact, America was founded as a nation based on general Christian principles. I believe he’s right about that, as a matter of historical fact—that this was the assumption behind the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Of course, even at the time of the American founding the nation was deeply divided on a religious basis—as a matter of historical fact, some few states continued to have an established (Christian) church for a short time.

Also of course, part of general Christian principles is the principle of toleration for the individual conscience in matters that don’t adversely affect public life and order from a Christian perspective. I’ll offer two examples of what can happen when the inevitable conflicts do arise. At a certain point in American history a critical mass of Americans decided that the institution of human slavery conflicted with general Christian principles (I understand that there may be readers who will disagree with that assessment, but it is an historical fact, even if the Christian impulse behind that anti-slavery movement was perhaps more residual than explicit). The result was a horrific civil war. The second example is that of Aztec (and other Amerindian) human sacrifice. Far from being tolerated, this religious practice was actively and violently suppressed by Christians—regardless of sincerely held beliefs.

What I’m saying is that any nation—to the extent that it is made up of human beings—has a religious basis as part of its public order, including when that religious basis is misleadingly, and sometimes quite deliberately, framed as anti-religious. There is simply no question but that our laws, constitution, and institutions reflect the Christian traditions of the West—no matter what the explicit beliefs of most Americans may have become. The social changes in America in that regard have led to tensions in the public order, including efforts to reject our fundamental institutions, such as the constitution. Or to reinterpret them in light of changing beliefs. That religious basis of the public order may or may not be explicitly sectarian, but at a certain point there will be pushback against challenges to that religiously based public order by those seeking change.

The American civil religion as it has developed is often described as “secular humanism.”

Secular humanism is a philosophy, belief system, or life stance that embraces human reason, logic, secular ethics, and philosophical naturalism, while specifically rejecting religious dogma, supernaturalism, and superstition as the basis of morality and decision-making.

The American civil religion of secular humanism is not established in law but the courts have recognized that secular humanism is a religion that is widely embraced in the United States. One of the tenets of secular humanism—counter factual—is that the US Constitution somehow erected a wall of separation between Church and State that entails a rejection of Christian beliefs and morality and requires the imposition of what adherents of secular humanism regard as rational or reason based practices. This opposition of secular humanism to the generally Christian religious basis of the American founding is what has led to our Culture Wars. It’s a fact and it was inevitable. There is simply no question but that secular humanists vote in ways that support the eradication of Christian principles and morality from public life and the establishment of secular humanist principles as normative—especially in the fundamental institution of indoctrination in secular humanist religion, the Public School system. Perhaps not coincidentally, Trump is seeking to turn the matter of education back to the states.

I have a third example, which arises precisely in the context of Trumpian executive orders and American public life within the past few months.

The US House of Representatives, within the past year, a law targeting anti-Semitism that codifies the definition of anti-Semitism in such a way that it would include criticism of a foreign nation: Israel. Some American Jews hailed the law, while others were strongly opposed. For example:

If passed by the Senate and signed into law, the bill would broaden the legal definition of antisemitism to include the “targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity.” Critics say the move would have a chilling effect on free speech throughout college campuses.

“Speech that is critical of Israel alone does not constitute unlawful discrimination,” Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., said during a hearing Tuesday. “By encompassing purely political speech about Israel into Title VI’s ambit, the bill sweeps too broadly.”

Given that the state of Israel does understand itself to be a “Jewish collectivity”, Nadler’s concerns—and not his alone—seem to be well founded. In point of fact, what Nadler is reacting against is the highly controversial “working definition” of anti-Semitism that has been advanced by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, which would include criticism of the state of Israel as a “manifestation” of anti-Semitism. What that means is that criticism of the state of Israel would seem to raise a presumption that one is an anti-Semite whose views should be suppressed, or removed from the public square, social media.

There’s another aspect to this proposed legislation, which brings us back to Christianity—or maybe not. The fact is that major backing for this legislation came from self identifed “Christians” of a highly particular but distinctly minority and sectarian type. The major backer of the legislation in Congress was the Speaker, Mike Johnson—a Baptist. To the extent that the legislation subtly supports Baptist beliefs (on which I am not terribly well informed) or the beliefs of self identified “Christian” Zionists who view the state of Israel in terms of an apocalyptic vision of world history, the law appears to be an attempt to establish a state enforced sectarian belief that would cover American public discourse concerning foreign policy. It would chill free debate in that field based on a sectarian belief, and that could ultimately have consequences for war and peace. Undeterred by such considerations, Trump has also issued an EO that is supposed to target anti-Semitism. In doing so, the EO also explicitly invokes the controversial “working definition” of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance that has raised concerns among Jews as well as non-Jews.

For my own part, as a Christian, I consider Zionist ideology to be fundamentally incompatible with Christian principles. I resent attempts to force me into compliance with Mike Johnson’s views. I also resent Trump’s ill advised efforts to chill free speech as regards the state of Israel—an initiaative that he almost certainly undertook to please his major donor base. The serious concern is that the combination of the anti-Semitism EO with its controversial definition, along with the identical views expressed in the House, could form the basis for lawfare harassment or suppression of speech in social media. To that extent, Trump’s anti-Semitism EO appears to be in conflict with his new EO against anti-Christian bias. It also appears to conflict of his broader initiatives to combat censorship.

The bigger point here, of course, is that such conflicts are inevitable and have become a fundamental part of Western public life since the Enlightenment. Each side will seek to reflect their principles in the public order. Part of the American mythology, if you will, a belief widely held, is that We Can All Just Get Along—if religious matters are never mentioned in public. That, of course, is rooted in the fundamental tenet of secular humanist religion, namely that all non-secular humanist beliefs are purely matters of subjective opinion without any rational basis and should be kept to oneself. They are strictly private views, as opposed to the supposedly rational and objective views of secular humanism. And, in fact, adherents of secular humanism have been active for many decades in directing public funding and public law enforcement—both civil and criminal—toward the active suppression of views that conflict with the de facto establishment of secular humanism.

Willy nilly, everyone will be forced to pick a side. Which side are you on? as the refrain of the old union organizing song went. As we know all too well, the radical adherents of secular humanism will not leave anyone alone. Again, this is what the Trumpian reaction is largely about. These people really are coming for you—and especially for your children. Defunding is a great first step, but a fundamental conversion of spirit and belief is also needed. Non-explicit or vague opposition to “taking things too far” is not sufficient, given the duplicitous methodology of Gramscian based Cultural Marxist social action—which now fundamental to social humanist activism. Constant vigilance based on explicit and discerning principles are needed to prevent matters from getting to this point ever again. As Vladimir Putin has discerned, these are existential matters. Existential for human nature and human thriving.