America's 250th birthday is supposed to be a celebration for everyone. But the way the Trump administration is planning the party has historians, religious scholars, and civil liberties advocates raising some serious red flags.

At the center of the controversy is Freedom 250 — a quasi-government group Trump created to shape the nation's semiquincentennial events. And from where critics are standing, the programming looks a lot less like a national celebration and a lot more like a Christian revival tour.

A Prayer Book With a Problem

The White House released a prayer anthology as part of the festivities, and it opens with a dramatic scene: English colonists arriving at Cape Henry near present-day Virginia Beach, planting a wooden cross, and dedicating the land to God.

Sounds powerful. There's just one catch — it didn't happen. The anthology itself admits there's no evidence the prayer ever took place.

That's not a footnote-worthy oops. For historians, it's a symptom of something bigger: a deliberate effort to paint America's origins as fundamentally and exclusively Christian.

The booklet contains 18 references to Christianity, three to Judaism, and zero to any other religion. A passage also implies that a single prayer at the Constitutional Convention broke the deadlock among the Founding Fathers, leading to the Constitution. Historians say that's simply not accurate — the debates over slavery, taxation, and representation dragged on for months after that prayer. No divine intervention ended them.

Who's Actually at the Table?

Take a look at Freedom 250's partner list and a pattern emerges fast. About a quarter of those partners are explicitly Christian organizations — groups like the Museum of the Bible, Pray.com, Angel Studios, and Wallbuilders, a nonprofit founded by David Barton, who has openly argued the U.S. should function as a Christian nation.

As of early March, not a single non-Christian faith organization appeared on that list.

Freedom 250 says their partners are simply the organizations that reached out to collaborate. Fair enough — but critics argue the outcome still reveals where the priorities lie.

The upcoming National Prayer event planned for May on the National Mall is being billed as a large-scale revival. The White House description of the event mentioned streaming to "parishes" and featuring "prominent Christian artists." References to synagogues, mosques, temples, or musicians of other faiths? Nowhere to be found in the original language — though a White House spokesperson later said other faiths would be represented.

"Freedom Trucks" and $10 Million in Government Money

The administration tapped conservative media nonprofit PragerU and Hillsdale College — a small Christian school in Michigan — to develop exhibits for six mobile museums traveling the country. The project used $10 million in government funds.

These "Freedom Trucks" tell stories about the American Revolution and feature exhibits framing America's foundational principles as rooted in "Western and Judeo-Christian values." One exhibit states the founders "believed God created humans for liberty."

PragerU's CEO said the goal was to emphasize the founders' love of God and the Christian perspective on America's founding. Hillsdale's rep argued that leaving out Christianity's influence would have been historically dishonest.

And honestly? They're not entirely wrong that faith influenced the founders. The problem, critics say, is in the framing — presenting one version of history as the version, while leaving other perspectives on the cutting room floor.

Is This Really That Different?

Presidents invoking God during milestone moments isn't new. Grant, Coolidge, and Ford all did it during centennial and bicentennial celebrations. But religious historians draw a clear distinction between what those presidents did and what's happening now.

Past presidents typically kept their religious language broad — the kind of general, inclusive references where people of different faiths could see themselves in the message. What's different now, experts say, is the specificity. The administration isn't just nodding to God in a speech. It's building programming, choosing partners, spending government money, and crafting educational content through an explicitly evangelical Christian lens.

The Interfaith Alliance has already filed a lawsuit over what they describe as an illegally imbalanced Department of Justice Religious Liberty Commission — one that includes Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish members, but no Muslims or members of other minority faith groups.

The Bigger Picture

At its core, this debate isn't really about prayer or the Founding Fathers. It's about which version of America gets told — and who gets to tell it.

As one religion scholar put it, governments are always in the business of creating national myths. The question America is wrestling with heading into its 250th year is which myth wins: one where everyone has equal footing under the Constitution, or one that frames the country as built by and for white Protestant Christians.

That's not a small question. And how it gets answered in this anniversary year may say a lot about where the country is actually headed.

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