Is the President Saving Religion?
The president spoke to the National Prayer Breakfast on February 6, 2026. The event is sponsored by a Christian organization, but its official website says that it is open to people of all faiths. It is supposed to bring national leaders of faith together regardless of political affiliation.
As a Christian pastor, I would like to respectfully offer some reflections on the president’s 77 minute speech. This essay is long because the speech was long.
What’s In the Speech
What was the tone of the speech? Uplifting? Inspiring? Unifying? Spiritual? I would characterize it as political. It’s tone matched the tone of all his speeches, if you know what I mean. Most of it echoed themes and talking points common to every speech he makes. Little of it had any bearing on on the purpose of the assembly, and I can’t begin to address those parts of the speech. Simply put, I found much of it objectionable.
But what about the rest, the parts that talked about religion? In over 12,000 words, the president used the word religion 20 times, God 12 times, Christian 12 times, faith 11 times, and believer 3 times. The word Christian always pertained to people, not to Christian beliefs or practices or to the teachings of Jesus. Believer is a common term in evangelical circles for true Christians. In the context of the speech, the word Christian identifies a monolithic people group. Religion is a generic term for what they do. The speech does not acknowledge religious diversity in any way.
The president mentioned Christmas twice. He saved Christmas during his first term. More recently, he insisted that the bombing of Muslim fighters in Nigeria take place on Christmas Day to send a message. Peace on earth, good will to men indeed.
What words don’t appear in the speech? The president never mentions the name of Jesus or uses the word Christ. He mentions antisemitism, but doesn’t use the words Jew or Judaism. You will not find anything about grace, mercy, charity, compassion, forgiveness, reconciliation, sacrifice, grief, healing, repentance, righteousness, marital fidelity, chastity, integrity, or morality. Justice appears only in the title Department of Justice. Love and devotion appear only once in the final paragraph of the speech, a section that someone else surely wrote for him. It doesn't have his voice at all. In other words, it was a speech about religion, not a speech born from religion. More accurately, it was a speech that occasionally mentioned religion.
What was the main idea that he shared with the prayer breakfast attendees? What did he want them to know? That he is a great benefactor of religion. The greatest ever. “You know, I’ve done more for religion than any other President,” he said. He protects religion. He promotes religion. His predecessors were the enemy of religion and his opponents hate religion.
The President’s Own Faith
The president extolled the importance of religion for the country. “You have to have religion. You have to have it. You have to have faith. You have to have God.” The speech, however, reveals little about the president’s own faith. Or perhaps it does.
He seemed very proud of the fact that he is willing to say the word God.
Some major politicians refused to say the word God. They don’t want to say it. I say it.
He is courageous enough to say the word God, but he doesn't know the Bible. He recognized his own ignorance of the Bible when he quoted pastor Robert Jeffress’ 2016 endorsement.
He may not have read the Bible as much as some of [the candidates]. In fact, he may not have ever read the Bible, but he will be a much stronger messenger for us and he will get things done.
He quoted the Bible exactly twice, both from the Beatitudes that begin Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. He started with “Blessed are the pure in heart,” which appeared to confuse him.
Scriptures always tell us that ‘Blessed are the pure in heart.’ I don’t know if that applies to me, necessarily. I’m not so sure. I don’t know, Paula. Does that apply to me? I’m not sure. I try.
The president quoted the Beatitudes a second time when he spoke about peace.
As the Bible tells us, “Blessed are the peacemakers.” That’s true. The peacemakers are very important. But you can only have peace, I find, through strength. If you don’t have strength, peace is very hard. And we have strength. In one year, I’ve ended eight raging wars.
Choosing to quote the Beatitudes, of all things, is quite a choice. I invite the president to read all the Beatitudes, and reflect on what kingdom-shaped repentance might look like for the most powerful man in the world.
Commenting on his recent doubts that he might not get into heaven, he said that he decided that he would. Why? “I’m not a perfect candidate,” he said, “but I did a hell of a lot of good for perfect people.”
Are these good things of which he speaks the kind of works Jesus commanded? When he finishes reading the Beatitudes, he should keep reading for just a few more verses. Jesus said, “For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."
What about the place of prayer in his life? His remarks about the Speaker of the House are telling.
You know, Mike Johnson is a very religious person, and he does not hide it. He’ll say to me sometimes at lunch, “Sir, may we pray?” I say, “Excuse me? What happened to lunch?” You know, the old — it’s okay with me. But he’s a very religious person, and he is popular, and he’s doing an unbelievable job. So, I think God is watching over you. God is watching over him. I don’t know about me, so I hang around with him because I feel I’m protected a little bit.
Ordinary prayer is not for him, but he is close friends with people who pray, and that’s probably good for something.
That is the sum of his reflection on his own experience of faith, its place in his heart, and its impact on his life.
Religion is Back
Instead of speaking about his own faith, he talked about what he was doing for religion.
You know, religion is back now hotter than ever before.
Hot is good in presidential speech. The Congo is hot because he ended a war. The Saudi king said America is hot. Hot is good.
We’re the hottest country anywhere in the world right now. Nobody even close.
Religion is back. It’s hot, and he is due the credit.
Respectfully, true revivals are the work of God, not presidents. And we are not in a revival. Look a the Great Awakening in the 18th and 19th centuries. That’s not us, at least not nationally, and that’s OK. The awakening we need is different than the one we experienced 200 years ago. Filling misguided congregations with misguided believers in not what the doctor of our souls ordered.
Somebody gave the president a statistic about Bible sales that he thought demonstrated his impact on religion.
In 2025, more copies of the Holy Bible were sold in the United States but at any time in the last 100 years — now, how about that? How about that? Did you know that, Mr. Speaker?
I’m not sure how the president thinks he had anything to do with Bible sales, or why that is a sign of the kingdom.
He then offered a fabulous statistic about Christian conversions.
Some churches are seeing a 30 percent, 50 percent, or even 70 percent increase in the number of converts, and also the number of people going to church every week.
Could there be individual congregations that saw a 70% increase in converts? Across the whole country? Sure. If you baptize 10 people one year, and 17 people the next, that is a 70% increase. But that is not the trend, and I doubt these numbers have any meaningful foundation.
He continued:
In the last 12 months, young Americans attended church at nearly twice the rate as they did four years ago. And many churches — you see the stats. I mean, people are talking about it.
Four years ago. You may recall what was happening 4 years ago. Covid was killing 1.2 million Americans and overwhelming hospitals with very sick patients. Church attendance dropped dramatically, as did every other statistical indicator in the country. The president blamed the drop in attendance on Democrats, whom he called “dictators” and “the Gestapo.” "Everybody was arrested," he said. "They were arresting people for going to church."
The most dramatic retractions occurred, by the way, in 2020 right at the start of the pandemic during his first term as president.
The president then took credit for rebound, which, he said, made religion stronger than ever. Liberals, the president said, are opposed to the magnificent religious revival taking place under his presidency.
The radical left is not happy about it. Many Democrats are not happy about it. This, by the way, will be the last year that Democrats show up to this event, I tell you. I got to say, how the hell do you vote for these people?
This followed an earlier remark.
I don’t know how a person of faith can vote for a Democrat. I really don’t. And I know we have some here today, and I don’t know why they’re here, because they certainly don’t give us their vote.
That was the tenor of his remarks.
The president’s assertions about religious attendance are wrong. Overall, religious participation rates have not rebounded to pre-Covid numbers. The decades-long downward spiral of religious identity and practice in the United States continues unabated. That downward trend affects all denominations, both liberal and conservative. Moreover, the young are much less religious than their elders.
Anecdotally, it does appear to me that the president has unintentionally reinvigorated socially progressive Christianity. Conversely, the religious right’s embrace of the the president appears to be driving even more people away from Christ and his church.
And while worship attendance matters, the church of Jesus Christ hasn’t gone anywhere. The gates of hell itself will not prevail against it. The American church is broken, but not because of anything that the president claims to remedy. Nothing in the president’s speech has anything to do with bringing the church back from the brink of apostasy. Repentance and cross-shaped allegiance and faithful participation in the means of grace are what will bring the church back from its captivity to its particularly American sin.
Respect for Religion
“Religious leaders,” the president asserted, “are respected again.” He takes credit for that, too. The president, however, did not extend respect to all religious leaders. Religious leaders who oppose him are only pretending to be religious and their numbers make them inconsequential.
Respect is very important in the president’s universe. He talks about it frequently. What the president really wants for himself is respect, and so he thinks that’s what Christians want most as well. In truth, some do. Jesus, however, did not say, “Blessed are you when people respect you and say all manner of good things about you.” Respect is not the highest good for Christians.
Reviving Religion
What is the president doing to revive the practice of religion? He provided a laundry list.
- He is rededicating “America as one nation under God” by holding a prayer event on the National Mall on May 17, 2026.
- He stopped enforcement of the Johnson Amendment, which prohibits 501(c)(3) non-profits (including churches) from endorsing political candidates.
- He reinstated service members who were released for refusing the Covid vaccine, some of whom did so for ostensibly religious reasons.
- He is expanding support for private schools “so that every parent has a chance to send their child to a school that shares their values.”
- His Department of Education is issuing guidance to “protect the right to prayer in our public schools.”
- He stopped the use of tax dollars to promote “radical gender ideology” and cut federal funding for “any public schools that pushes transgender insanity.”
- He created a White House Faith Office and a Presidential Commission on Religious Liberty
- He set up a Department of Justice task force to fight “anti-Christian bias”
- He signed an executive order to fight anti-semitism (on college campuses, not among his base)
- He dropped some bombs on ISIS in Nigeria ostensibly to protect Christians.
The list will please his base, but none of this will do anything to make kingdom of God, its values and its blessings, more visible in this world. The God of the Bible is not an American god.
Empowering (Some) Pastors to Speak Freely
In his comments on the Johnson Amendment, he said:
We got rid of the cynicism. Mr. Johnson Amendment so that pastors can speak the truth and they can speak it without having their tax exempt status to revoke. … It’s gone as far as you can say anything you want. Now, if you do say something bad about Trump, I will change my mind and I will have your tax exempt status immediately revoked.
People laughed. I was appalled.
Protecting the Persecuted
The president did tell one uplifting story with a surprising punchline.
Miriam Ibrahim is a Christian from Sudan. … In 2014, a Sharia court in that country sentenced her to 100 lashes and death for marrying a Christian man. At the time, she was eight months pregnant with a daughter. Miriam was ordered to renounce her faith in Christ, but she refused to do so and gave birth to that daughter, Maya, while she was in shackles, being beaten, and living in a condition that nobody in this room would even be able to imagine. …
Believers all over the planet rallied to Miriam’s cause, prayed for her protection, and successfully pressured for her release. I did that. I did that. I did that with one phone call …
Miriam and Maya are here this morning and now live safely in America …
Living safely in America! The U.S. is providing shelter for immigrants who were persecuted in their countries of origin. Hooray. I approve. We should do more of that. There are many Christians suffering from persecution around the world, and they deserve to be protected. As a Christian myself, I will be waiting for the president to offer shelter to Christians suffering persecution in China, North Korea, Afghanistan, and Saudi Arabia. Even better, let’s provide shelter for people suffering religious persecution and other forms of violent oppression regardless of their religion.
The Power of Prayer
The president closed with a story of two Christian camp counselors, whom he oddly labeled patriots. It was not a story about patriotism. The counselors worked at Camp Mystic in Texas, during the 2025 flood.
Emma bravely helped lead 14 precious little girls to safety. And London, seeing the water rise, gathered with other girls at the top of their building and prayed. They just prayed and prayed. And as they prayed, the water miraculously stopped rising. …
Prayer works miracles. Prayer is powerful, and the president likes powerful things.
… the story of Emma and London shows us that faith of the American people remains unbroken. It actually became stronger than ever. And it reminds us that prayers strengthen, prayers heal, prayer empowers, and prayer saves. Quite simply, prayer is America’s superpower. It really is a superpower. And it always has been, and it always will be.
It bothers me when people say that prayer does things. It is the object of prayer that holds the power, not the prayer itself. Prayer itself does nothing. The triune God does marvelous things, sometimes in response to the prayers of the righteous. Or maybe even the undeserving. He hears his children praying.
Prayer is talking to God. Praising God. Thanking God. Listening to God. Opening your life to God. Sitting in God’s presence. Seeking the mind and the moral power of God. Learning to see yourself and your world through the eyes of God. Falling down in penitence before God. Offering yourself as a living sacrifice. Confessing your faith. Being transformed into the likeness of the Son through the power of the spirit. Prayer is both personal and communal, individual and collective. Prayer is the work of the church and the heart’s cry of the baptized. Prayer is seeking first the kingdom of God. Prayer is many things. Asking God for miracles is not the sole reason for prayer.
The faith of the American people? Prayer is America’s superpower? The wording of this last paragraph (surely written by someone else) takes us either to generic civil religion, in which all the differences between faith groups are glossed over, or to Christian Nationalism, in which one particular expression of Christianity becomes the official religion of the state. I prefer neither outcome.
And in conclusion
There is much more in the 12,000 word speech to critique, but I am too weary to continue.
Respectfully.