FFRF Action Fund’s “Secularist of the Week” is U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley for his timely endorsement of the constitutional separation between state and church.
Quigley, representing Illinois’ 5th Congressional District, took to X last week to criticize the Trump administration’s overt Christian nationalism amid war with Iran and to reaffirm his commitment to state/church separation.
“One thing I’m very passionate about is the separation of Church and State,” Quigley wrote. “Pete Hegseth has said our service members are fighting #Iran ‘in the name of Jesus Christ.’ Religion is important to many Americans, but America was not founded on one religion.” Quigley further asserted: “With this Secretary of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security posting Bible verses, the Trump administration is trying to make America look like the exclusionary extremists we claim to be against.”
Over the weekend, Homeland Security’s official Facebook page put up a bible verse, “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord; and the people who he hath chosen for his own inheritance” from Psalm 33:12 and the additional supplication, “May God continue to shed his grace on our great nation.” Accompanying the post was a graphic highlighting the phrase “One Homeland Under God.”
As for Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary has continually centered his warrior brand of Christianity in his oversight of the U.S. military. Amid Trump’s war of choice with Iran, Hegseth has framed military action as divinely sanctioned, invoking “God’s almighty providence” and declaring that God is on the side of the U.S. military. Hegseth has also called on the American people to pray for U.S. victory in the “name of Jesus Christ.”
In the first Pentagon worship service since the war in Iran began, Hegseth prayed for “overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy.” Hegseth initiated worship services at the Pentagon in May of last year, an endeavor that the FFRF Action Fund is closely monitoring.
During a recent news conference covering the rescue of a crew member from a downed U.S. fighter jet in Iran, Hegseth again linked the needless warfare with his religion, professing, “Shot down on a Friday, Good Friday, hidden in a cave, a crevice, all of Saturday and rescued on Sunday. Flown out of Iran as the sun was rising on Easter Sunday, a pilot reborn.” Hegseth also repeated at this year’s National Prayer Breakfast a made-up story about George Washington to corroborate the myth that the United States was founded as a Christian nation: “Just as George Washington knelt in the snow at Valley Forge, appealing to heaven for guidance and protection, so too our warriors do today.”
Clearly, Christian nationalism and the erasure of constitutional state/church separation are central to the Trump administration and its war with Iran. FFRF Action Fund warmly thanks Quigley for his call-out.
FFRF Action Fund is a 501(c)(4) organization that develops and advocates for legislation, regulations and government programs to preserve the constitutional principle of separation between state and church. It also advocates for the rights and views of nonbelievers, endorses candidates for political office, and publicizes the views of elected officials concerning religious liberty issues.