Lineup to include pastor who called Democratic platform ‘demonic’, Christian author who said he would die in fight to overturn 2020 election and rabbi who has defended torture
The defense secretary,Pete Hegseth, will this weekend headline a faith rally on the National Mall in Washington DC hosted by a private foundation operating in partnership with the White House, which includes some speakers that experts have characterized as Christian nationalist or extremist.
Rededicate 250, billed as the faith-based component of America’s semiquincentennial, features speakers including a Detroit pastor who has called the Democratic platform “demonic” and launched his own memecoin after praying at Trump’s second inauguration; a rabbi who has defended the use of torture and authored an essay titled “The Virtue of Hate”; and a Christian author and radio host who said in 2020 he would die in the fight to keep Joe Biden out of the White House and was later named in a defamation suit over 2020 election fraud claims.
Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and House speaker Mike Johnson are also scheduled to appear. The lineup includes no Muslims, no representatives of historically Black churches, no Indigenous faith leaders and no mainline Protestants.
Hegseth’s own writings foreground anti-Muslim rhetoric and envisage a US military “taking sides” in a coming American civil war, as previously reported inthe Guardian. His 2020 book American Crusade depicts Islam as a historic enemy of the west, calls for an “American crusade” against “domestic enemies” as well as the enemies of Israel, and idolises medieval crusaders. Hegseth has “deus vult”, the Latin slogan of Pope Urban II at the launch of the first crusade, tattooed on his arm.
Hegseth is a member ofPilgrim Hill Reformed Fellowshipin Goodlettsville, Tennessee, a congregation of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC) and a regular worshipper at the CREC’s Christ Kirk DC plant on Pennsylvania Avenue. CREC founder Douglas Wilsontold the Guardianin April 2026 he was a Christian nationalist, and that Hegseth’s “worldview is broadly the same as ours”.
CREC pastors who rotate through the Christ Kirk DC pulpit have publicly called for restricting the vote to heads of households, the overturning of Obergefell v Hodges, the restoration of state sodomy laws, the outlawing of mosques, and the application of biblical law through the courts, as previouslyreported in the Guardian.
Hegseth has hosted amonthly Christian prayer service at the Pentagonsince May 2025 and the 17 February 2026 service was presided over by Wilson personally, 11 days before US forces joined Israel in the first attacks on Iran. At a 25 March 2026 service, as previously reported inthe Guardian, Hegseth prayed that God would “break the teeth” of US enemies.
Rededicate 250 is one of a string of events organised byFreedom 250, a private nonprofit launched by the White House in December 2025 as a partner to thebipartisan US semiquincentennial commissionCongress established in 2016. Freedom 250 is nowunder congressional investigationover the redirection of federal funds and the sale of access to Trump.
Matthew D Taylor, the author of several books on Christian nationalism, including the upcoming Defying Tyrants, said of the Rededicate 250 lineup of speakers that they “are some of the most active Christian nationalist leaders that you can find in the country”.
Source: Drudge Report
