(Anti-)Christian Politics

President Donald Trump has been in his second term for less than two months and has signed nearly ninety executive orders already.1 The sheer number, to say nothing of the content, is astounding. With each executive order and piece of federal legislation since January 20, 2025, I am, more than ever before, acutely aware that these actions have been undertaken in my name and on my behalf as a U.S. citizen, even if without my consent or assent. I feel overwhelmed by questions of responsibility and needful action.  

Until a few days ago, one executive order had escaped my notice – “EO 14202: Eradicating Anti-Christian Bias.” In this executive order, signed on February 6th, Trump promises to end the previous administration’s “egregious pattern of targeting peaceful Christians, while ignoring violent, anti-Christian offenses,” which include but are not limited to “hostility and vandalism against Christian churches and places of worship.”2 To rectify the situation, Trump proposes establishing a task force, housed within the Department of Justice, to study and subsequently eradicate anti-Christian bias. This executive order is relatively meager in terms of its immediate impact on the lives of U.S. citizens; yet, given my positionality as a Christian and scholar of Christianity, I feel a special obligation to contest this action undertaken in my name.  

I find this executive order especially problematic for the profound distortions it legitimizes and advances, which can and will be used to fuel troubling policies. For one, the executive order misrepresents the state of Christianity in the U.S. All religious communities can be and sometimes are targets of violence. However, despite the uptick in violence against Christian communities in recent years, there is nothing to justify a special intervention for Christians. In terms of discrete events, the Jewish community has long been the most targeted of U.S. religious communities.3 Further, if proportion of population is taken into account, Muslim communities are far more vulnerable to violence and harm than Christian communities.4 In addition, the executive order’s emphasis on recent and unique hostility to Christianity is unfounded. In truth, Christianity has been widely privileged in U.S. history and culture, though the level of authority granted has changed over time.5 As Khyati Joshi points out, 

“Because of a 1962 Supreme Court ruling, Engel v. Vitale, public school teachers can no longer force Jewish children to pray to Jesus. The Supreme Court has also ruled that county clerks who believe homosexuality is evil can no longer deny service to gays and lesbians (even if bakers still can)…[L]imits on Christians’ ability to use government to enforce their religion’s rules against others do not oppress Christians…nor is it anti-Christian to say that one’s right to practice faith ends at restricting another person’s freedoms.”6

While “this loss of primacy, dominance, or privilege in matters political, social, cultural, or legal can feel like persecution,” as Ken Chitwood observes, it is not evidence of pervasive anti-Christian bias or intractable violence.7 

This executive order also presents a distorting account of Christianity, in which one understanding of Christianity is set as a standard for all others. An even passing glance at Christianity should reveal its tremendous diversity. To speak directly to the executive order, not all Christians are anti-abortion.8 Further, the executive order justifies the task force by outlining several examples of how the previous administration forced “Christians to affirm radical transgender ideology against their faith.”9 Such a move not only misrepresents the plurality of Christian stances on sexual and gender diversity, but also co-opts broader fears around religious freedom to reinforce a particular political agenda.10 As the authors of the recent pastoral statement, “For Religious Liberty and Against Christian Nationalism,” rightly point out, 

“With the executive order for “Eradicating Anti-Christian Bias”, the federal government has given itself the authority and mandate to define what might be considered “anti-Christian,” and therefore also the authority to define what is Christian – a power which belongs to the Church alone, not the federal government. This executive order violates religious freedom…and creates a more hostile environment for Christians and all citizens who believe differently than the current administration and its religious advisors.”11

With Christianity’s long history of sectarian violence, there is legitimate reason to fear the implied favoring of one Christian group.12 Intra-Christian violence, particularly anti-Catholic and anti-Mormon, is a key feature of U.S. history.13 If the goal is to respond to anti-Christian bias and violence, this executive order is posed to do the opposite, energizing new opportunities for intra-Christian and sectarian violence. 

While there are other concerning aspects to this executive order, I focus on the aforementioned because I am a Christian and scholar of Christianity. I do not assent to EO 14202; in this, I suspect, I am not alone.

Notes:

1. Office of the Federal Register, 2025 Donald J. Trump Executive Orders, accessed March 14, 2025, https://www.federalregister.gov/presidential-documents/executive-orders/donald-trump/2025. 
2. U.S. President, Proclamation, “Eradicating Anti-Christian Bias, 2025, Executive Order 14202 of February 6, 2025,” Federal Register 90, No. 28, Wednesday, February 12, 2025, http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2013-11-05/pdf/2013-26670.pdf 
3. Sophie Hills, “Trump decries ‘anti-Christian bias.’ Which religions are targeted in US?” The Christian Science Monitor, February 12, 2025, https://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Faith-Religion/2025/0212/religious-bias-religious-freedom-christian-trump-antisemitism. 
4. Hills, “Trump decries ‘anti-Christian bias.’”
5. For more on Christian privilege, see “Christian Privilege: A 3-part reflection.” https://womenintheology.org/2023/07/18/christian-privilege-a-3-part-reflection/ 
6. Khyati Y. Joshi, White Christian Privilege: The Illusion of Religious Equality in America, (New York: New York University Press, 2020), 170-171.
7. Ken Chitwood, “Is Anti-Christian Persecution Real Or A Media Narrative?” Patheos, last updated on February 24, 2025, https://www.patheos.com/blogs/coalitionforfaithandmedia/2025/02/is-anti-christian-persecution-real-or-a-media-narrative/ 
8. One particularly visible example is “A Catholic Statement on Pluralism and Abortion,” a full-page ad commissioned by Catholic for a Free Choice (CFFC) and published in The New York Times on October 7, 1984.
9. “Eradicating Anti-Christian Bias.”
10. For more, see Justin Sabia-Tanis’s book, Transgender: Theology, Ministry, and Communities of Faith. 
11.  “For Religious Liberty and Against Christian Nationalism,” The Wisconsin Council of Churches, March 11, 2025, https://www.wichurches.org/articles/religious-liberty.
12.  For more, see Daughrity Dyron, “Everything to Fight For: A Brief History of Christianity and Sectarian Violence,” Religious Dialogue and Cooperation 1:1 (2020), https://www.doi.org/10.47054/RDC201029d.
13. At times, intra-Christian conflict finds political support. One example is Missouri Executive Order 44. 

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