The Freedom From Religion Foundation is condemning a new White House report that seeks to pressure the Smithsonian Institution to promote a Christian nationalist revisionist version of American history under the guise of restoring “truth and sanity.”
The 162-page report, “Saving America’s Story,” issued by the White House Domestic Policy Council pursuant to President Trump’s executive order on “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” repeatedly faults the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History for failing to portray Christianity as central to America’s founding and identity.
Far from offering an objective historical assessment, the report advances the same themes promoted by Christian nationalist organizations: that America’s rights derive primarily from Christianity, that museums should celebrate the nation’s “Christian roots,” and that any criticism of Christianity’s historical role constitutes ideological bias.
“The federal government has no business directing museums to promote a revisionist narrative of American history, especially not a preferred religious spin,” said FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “This report is not about historical accuracy. It is about using government power in part to privilege Christianity and promote Christian nationalist disinformation.”
Among its complaints, the report argues that Smithsonian exhibits improperly portray Christianity as connected to conquest and colonization while giving insufficient attention to what it calls Christianity’s “constructive role” in shaping America and its freedoms.
“Museum materials repeatedly suggest that Christianity functioned principally as an instrument of conquest, exclusion, or cultural erasure, while the constructive role of Christian belief and Christian institutions in shaping the Nation and its freedoms receives scant, if any, attention.”
It specifically criticizes museums for failing to emphasize Christian belief as foundational to the Declaration of Independence, constitutional government and the nation’s understanding of natural rights, broadly crediting Christianity for founding America and accusing The Smithsonian of treating “Christianity as a historical villain.”
The report attacks Smithsonian exhibits that critically examine the Pilgrims, Christian missionary activity and the role of Christianity in European colonization and the oppression of Native peoples. Instead, it argues that museums should portray Plymouth primarily as the birthplace of America’s Christian heritage and present Christian evangelism chiefly as the spread of “the love of Jesus Christ” and “the Gospel.”
“And describing early European conquest as motivated by ‘Christian religious fervor’ frames Christian evangelism and Christians’ flight from religious persecution in Europe as an intent to subjugate the New World, rather than flee life-threatening persecution, spread the good news of the Gospel, and share the love of Jesus Christ with those in this new land.”
The report ignores:
- the Vatican’s Doctrine of Discovery, which essentially decreed that non-Christians could be freely subjugated.
- the religious persecution in most of the original colonies, which led the Framers of the Constitution to separate religion from government.
- the godly doctrine of “Manifest Destiny” to conquer the continent and takeover Native lands; and the biblical basis for slavery.
Perhaps most troubling, the report faults museum exhibits for not sufficiently emphasizing that Americans’ rights are “granted by God, not men,” complaining that displays discussing the Declaration of Independence fail to adequately highlight “the divine source” of inalienable rights and the Creator referenced in the Declaration:
“And the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution are quoted selectively in ways that mute their claims about equality, ordered liberty, natural rights, and the divine source of those inalienable rights.”
Gaylor noted that the Declaration of Independence is a political, not religious, document that is profoundly anti-biblical in asserting the governed’s consent. Nevertheless, she added that the Constitution, not the Declaration of Independence, is our governing document and it deliberately omits any reference to God or Christianity, prohibits religious tests for public office and establishes a secular government. This report attempts to erase that crucial constitutional distinction.
The report demands a government-approved religious history, one that elevates Christianity while minimizing or dismissing the experiences of religious minorities, nonreligious Americans and those harmed in the name of religion.
While religion undoubtedly influenced many individual Americans throughout history, the United States was intentionally founded as a secular constitutional republic with no established national religion, where religious and nonreligious citizens have equal rights.
“Our government should never become an instrument for promoting Christian nationalism,” concludes Gaylor. “Taxpayer-funded museums exist to educate the public through rigorous scholarship, not to advance the White House’s preferred religious or political ideology.”
The Freedom From Religion Foundation will continue opposing government efforts to rewrite American history in ways that undermine the Constitution’s promise of religious neutrality and equal citizenship for believers and nonbelievers alike.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a U.S.-based nonprofit dedicated to defending the constitutional principle of separation between state and church and educating the public on matters relating to nontheism. With about 41,000 members, FFRF is the largest association of freethinkers (atheists, agnostics and humanists) in North America. For more information, visit ffrf.org.
