President Donald Trump and many of his leading Christian supporters and top Republicans are taking part this week in a marathon reading of the Bible in an America 250-themed event that is being livestreamed from the Museum of the Bible in Washington and other locations.
The America Reads the Bible gathering is billed as an effort to encourage a return to the spiritual foundation that has shaped the country. On Tuesday evening, the event is slated to feature a video of Trump reading a passage that called for national repentance in ancient Israel, a text long used by those who say America has been, and should remain, a Christian nation.
The White House did not frame the event as a campaign-style appearance. Trump, in a statement marking the event, said the Bible is “indelibly woven into our national identity and way of life,” and pointed to historical figures such as Puritan leader John Winthrop as men who urged Christian settlers to stand as a beacon of faith for the world to see.
That message lands differently for critics, who say the participant list is highly partisan and that the event is part of a broader effort to link the country’s upcoming 250th birthday with a Christian nationalist vision. They argue that portrayal of the founding as essentially Christian runs against the view of many historians and deepens an already familiar political pattern around Trump’s coalition.
White Christians, particularly evangelicals, have been crucial to Trump’s electoral base, and the Bible reading gives that alliance a public stage at a time when the America 250 celebration is beginning to take shape. The result is less a neutral civic observance than a pointed statement about whose faith tradition is being elevated in the story of the nation.
Trump’s appearance on Tuesday evening is the event’s clearest marker of where it is headed. For supporters, it is a declaration that the country’s identity and its founding story cannot be separated from Christianity. For critics, that is exactly the problem.
