Why we should be concerned about Sunday's White House-sponsored Christian nationalist event on the National Mall

https://matthewdtaylor.substack.com/p/a-field-guide-to-rededicate-250?utm_campaign=post&triedRedirect=true

On Sunday, May 17th, 2026, tens of thousands of American Christians will gather in Washington DC on the National Mall for the White House-promoted, government-sponsored “Rededicate 250” — a nine-hour event. As a scholar who studies many of the people involved, I offer this field guide for reporters, commentators, scholars, and activists trying to decipher the leaders, symbols, and messages of the day. In short, this event promises to not merely be a backward-looking festival of Christian nationalism but an important beachhead for narratives of Christian supremacy in America.

What does “rededicate” mean — and why does it matter?

The organizers say they aim to enact the “rededication of our country as One Nation to God.” Grammatically, to rededicate something means it was already dedicated — so when do they think the United States was first dedicated to God?

Various Christian nationalist narratives locate America’s covenantal roots in colonial-era prayers, sermons preached at Jamestown or Massachusetts Bay, or in the founding moment of 1776 itself. Since this event is pegged to the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, expect a lot of Appeal to Heaven flags (a favorite contemporary Christian nationalist symbol) and exaggerated accounts of the founders’ piety.

In reality, the founding era was heavily shaped by Enlightenment philosophy. That’s how we got the First Amendment in the first place: the founders were quite aware of how many destructive and harmful models of established churches in Europe had led to religious wars and the persecution of non-conforming Christians (not to mention Jews, Muslims, free-thinking skeptics, etc.). They were courageous enough to try an experiment: what if we separated out the functioning of the government from religious arguments and intra-Christian power plays and just let the government be neutral.

Many founders identified as Christians, but they were a far cry from modern evangelicals, and narratives of their devotion to God tend to severely overreach. This myth of a Christian founding is nonetheless central to American Christian nationalism and is promoted most prominently by the pseudo-historian David Barton, who might not be a listed speaker for the event but whose fingerprints are all over Rededicate 250.

*snip*