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The Trump administration acknowledges the important role religion plays in American life and history.
When discussing the nature of the fledgling United States in 1787, Elizabeth Willing Powel, an influential socialite in Philadelphia, asked Benjamin Franklin “[w]ell, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” Franklin famously responded that the United States is “a republic, if you can keep it.”
At the dawn of 2026, a similar question lingers amid controversy over the nation’s religious status following recent remarks by President Donald J. Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance. More specifically, it thus seems fair to ask, without putting too much emphasis on Christmas, whether the United States is a Christian nation. We can respond enthusiastically “yes, if we can keep it.”
At the same time, I must hasten to add that the recognition and acceptance of the United States as a Christian nation, a notion with which most American Christians agree, does not mean other faiths are, or should be, excluded because all religions are welcome in our democratic republic. Rather, my position is that an acknowledgement that even in the increasingly religiously pluralistic United States, a nation founded at least in part on an imperfect notion of freedom of religion typically reserved for members of the dominant Christian traditions in the American colonies, religious freedom remains a fundamental right, a first among equals.
Vice-President J.D. Vance made the first of the two statements that generated controversy about religion on December 20, 2025, in a speech at Turning Point’s USA’s AmFest in Phoenix, Arizona. Vance declared “we have been, and by the grace of God, we always will be, a Christian nation,” adding fuel to the controversy over the status of Christianity in the United States.
A week later, reacting to President Trump’s religious Christmas greetings, on December 27 the woke editors of the Washington Post published a column, “Trump aides’ official religious messages for Christmas draw objections.” The Post decried Trump’s words as a departure from recent government practices such as under the faux Roman Catholic Joseph Biden who openly violated many key the teachings of his professed Church, especially on matters involving sexuality, and nominal Christian Barack Obama, who had an ornament of Mao Zedong, hardly a supporter of Christian or any other religious values or freedom, disgracefully displayed on White House Christmas tree in 2009.
The Post preferred the secular, non-Christian messages of the previous administrations which typically focused on seasonal joy, peace, or Santa Claus imagery. The Post’s editors apparently refuse to celebrate December 25, the day on which Christians, representing 62% of the American population, according to a 2025 Pew Research Center report, celebrate Christmas Day, a federal holiday, honoring the birth of Jesus Christ.
Responding to the Post’s baseless criticisms, President Trump retorted that “[t]he First Lady and I send our warmest wishes to all Americans as we share in the joy of Christmas Day and celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.” Along with President Trump’s commemorating Christmas, officials at the Department of Homeland Security posted salutations on X proclaiming “Christ is Born!” and “We are blessed to share a nation and a Savior,” along with religious images such as a manger scene and crosses on its website.
Not surprisingly, the prejudice of woke anti-Christian media outlets exemplified by the Post and/or the unfounded fears of others on the Left warning that the attitude and actions of the Trump administration will lead to an unclearly defined “Christian nationalism,” to the exclusion of other faiths aside, nothing could be further from the truth. Rather, this manufactured controversy is about how critics at the Post and elsewhere ignore religious freedom and Christianity’s contributions to American life.