The New York Times reports:

Thousands of people gathered on the National Mall on Sunday for a daylong rally blending Christian prayer and political fervor, a gathering President Trump had touted as an opportunity to “rededicate America as one nation under God.”

The crowds came to the heart of Washington to hear from spiritual and elected leaders and members of Mr. Trump’s cabinet. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth appeared in a recorded video message, early in the day, exhorting the crowd to “pray without ceasing,” a phrase that appears in the New Testament.

He recounted an apocryphal account of President George Washington praying at Valley Forge in the winter of 1777-1778, a moment that has become a touchstone for some Christians who argue that the founders envisioned America as an explicitly Christian nation.

“Let us pray for our nation on bended knee and let us ask our Lord and savior Jesus Christ, as Washington did on that momentous day, so help us God,” Mr. Hegseth said, to cheers from the crowd.

With speeches and Christian music performed on a Sunday against a symbolically potent backdrop at the heart of American government, the rally aims to crystallize the narrative that the nation’s founding was an intentionally Christian project, a framing disputed by many scholars. The separation of church and state has long been a bedrock principle of American democracy. The First Amendment states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

Attendees waited in an hourslong line along the Mall between the Washington Monument and the Capitol Building to enter as Christian worship music wafted from the stage. Inside the event space, many in the crowd raised their hands in praise, with some waving flags and banners in ecstatic expressions of worship. Some had laid out blankets on the lawn, where they picnicked, read from Bibles and prayed in small groups.

“Events like this let us see that we’re not alone,” said Teresa Johnson-Hernandez, who is running for the Texas House of Representatives as a Republican in the border district of Laredo on a platform that includes “biblical beliefs and family values,” as she described it.

Onstage in the morning session, evangelical pastors prayed and preached against a stage whose backdrop included large lancet cutouts reminiscent of Gothic church windows.

“When you look at American history, you can see God has been at the center of our nation since its founding in 1776,” Gary Hamrick, a pastor from Virginia, told the crowd.

“Today, friends, we are in a spiritual war,” he continued. “This is a battle in our day between good and evil, between right and wrong, between truth and lies, between light and darkness.” [Continue reading…]