The Freedom From Religion Foundation is calling attention to troubling rhetoric at a major recent evangelical gathering.
Prominent government officials and Christian nationalist leaders at the 2026 Pray Vote Stand Summit in Leesburg, Va., repeatedly portrayed political power as a vehicle for advancing their Christian nationalist political agenda. The assembly brought together Christian leaders, issue advocates and government officials for what organizers described as a time of “prayer, inspiration, and action.” The Christian nationalist group Family Research Council hosted the event, which featured elected officials alongside conservative Christian activists and attorneys.
Throughout the summit, speakers made remarkably explicit connections between Christianity, elections, government service and public policy.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, who is only two heartbeats away from the presidency, told Family Research Council President Tony Perkins that government officials should not separate their religious identity from their public roles. After Perkins suggested that openly Christian government leaders were “emboldening the church,” Johnson responded, “I hope so,” adding, “that’s the objective.” Johnson also touted what he claimed is a 24 percent increase in congressional references to God, faith and Christianity since he became speaker.
Johnson portrayed public service through an explicitly conservative Christian lens, telling the audience that leaders should represent the idea of “one nation under God” every day. He encouraged Christians to use their “sphere of influence” to speak openly about their faith and described religion and morality as essential to American government.
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., an archconservative Christian, similarly described his work in the U.S. Senate as a religious obligation. Discussing the pressures he faces over how he votes and what he says, Hawley said, “My first obligation’s to the Lord and then to my wife and then to my family.”
Hawley added, “I know that I’m accountable to the Lord,” before mentioning accountability to constituents. Hawley professed that his ultimate hope is to hear God tell him, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
That religious conception of public office was paired with calls to translate conservative Christian beliefs into federal law. Hawley hawked a “Declaration for Life” that Christian pastors and leaders developed “on the basis of the gospel of Jesus Christ”: to enact such policies as a federal ban on the medication abortion pill mifepristone. Hawley insisted that candidates who “want our support as Christians” should commit to the extremist anti-abortion position.
Perkins made the desired religious character of government officials even more explicit during another panel. Discussing state attorneys general, he declared that recent years have demonstrated “how important having attorneys general that have a constitutional foundation and a biblical worldview are.”
Perhaps the summit’s starkest illustration of its religious double standard came during a panel devoted to Islam and Shariah law. Perkins openly stated his desire for Christianity “to be the dominant religion in our country.” Yet speakers on the same panel questioned whether Islam should even receive the constitutional protections afforded to religion.
Christian Pastor (and former Muslim) Shahram Hadian told the audience, “The problem we have is as long as we label Islam a religion, we will never be able to stop it.” He accused Muslims of hiding “behind our First Amendment” when they lack political power.
The panel portrayed Muslim religious accommodations and civic participation as evidence of an Islamic takeover. Speakers objected to such things as prayer spaces, halal food, the Islamic call to prayer and Muslim representation in police departments. Hadian described Muslim participation in American institutions as evidence that Muslims were moving into a position of dominance.
Former Rep. Michele Bachmann went even further, declaring that Muslims “come into our country seeking to conquer our country and conquer it for Shariah.” She characterized Islam and communism as two totalitarian threats to the Constitution and framed the political stakes as nothing less than the “destruction of America.”
The contrast was striking: The Pray Vote Stand attendees again and again asserted that Christianity should influence government, Christians should use political power to implement their beliefs, government officials should have a “biblical worldview,” and Christianity should become the country’s “dominant religion.” Meanwhile, another faith was depicted as a threat whose claim to religious status itself should be questioned.
Fortunately, the First Amendment does not establish such a hierarchy.
Christian government officials have the same right to their personal religious beliefs as every other American. But public office is a public trust — not a Christian ministry. Government officials represent Christians, Jews, Muslims, atheists, agnostics and Americans of every other belief and nonbelief. Their obligation in office is to the Constitution and the people they serve, not to impose the dictates of any holy book.
The summit repeatedly blurred that critical distinction. Perkins explicitly characterized political disputes as “spiritual issues that are being played out in the political arena” and said there was “warfare” surrounding them. At another point, speakers described the conflict over Islam as a “spiritual battle” being fought through politics.
The Pray Vote Stand Summit offered a revealing vision of Christian nationalism in practice: Christianity elevated as the desired foundation of public life, elected officials encouraged to understand their offices through explicitly Christian obligations, public policy tied directly to biblical teachings, and minority religious beliefs treated with hostility.
That is precisely why the wall between church and state matters. The alternative is realistically not greater religious freedom; it is a government in which the politically powerful get to elevate their religion while deciding which beliefs deserve equal respect and protection.
FFRF will continue fighting for the constitutional principle the summit’s speakers so conspicuously rejected: No religion is entitled to rule, no religion is entitled to favored status, and no American should have to share a politician’s faith to be treated as a full and equal citizen.
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.
