The Freedom From Religion Foundation lambastes a wave of sectarian Christmas messages issued from government accounts by top officials in the Trump administration.

Multiple federal agencies and cabinet officials used official social media accounts for persuading Americans to observe Christmas as an official religious celebration of “our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.” These posts crossed a clear constitutional line by using the authority and platforms of the federal government to promote Christianity and specific Christian doctrine.

The Department of Homeland Security posted messages declaring “Rejoice America, Christ is born!” and stating, “We are blessed to share a nation and a Savior,” accompanied by videos featuring overtly religious imagery, including of Jesus, a manger and crosses. The Department of Labor posted: “Let Earth Receive Her King.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s official social media read: “The joyous message of Christmas is the hope of Eternal Life through Christ,” with a graphic of a star and manger scene and a quotation from Isaiah 9:6: “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given.”

“Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth posted a message saying, “Today we celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. May his light bring peace, hope, and joy to you and your families,” with the words “Merry Christmas” emblazoned over an American flag.

President Trump’s official White House Christmas message likewise crossed a constitutional line by transforming a presidential greeting into a sermon. Instead of offering an inclusive holiday message to all Americans, the statement repeatedly advanced Christian doctrine as government speech, describing Jesus as “our Lord and Savior,” “the living Son of God” and “the source of eternal salvation,” while invoking prayer and divine favor for the nation.

FFRF notes that these messages represent a sharp departure from the longstanding practice of issuing neutral, inclusive holiday greetings that focus on widely shared cultural themes rather than religious doctrine. Christmas trees, winter scenes and general well wishes have traditionally allowed government agencies to acknowledge the holiday without endorsing a particular faith.

The Trump administration’s decision to abandon that tradition — from Cabinet agencies to the White House itself — reveals a calculated decision to pander to its Christian nationalist base by misusing government authority to endorse and support Christian doctrine.

“These posts are not harmless greetings,” says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “They send a message that the federal government aligns itself with Christianity and that Americans of other faiths, or of no faith at all, are outsiders in their own country. That is divisive, unconstitutional and un-American.”

Gaylor points out that the largest single “denomination” by religious identification today in the United States is the religiously unaffiliated, at 29 percent of the population larger than any one sect, including Roman Catholic (at 19 percent) or evangelical Protestants (at 23 percent). Christians today make up 62 percent of the population, compared to about 90 percent in the 1990s.

FFRF emphasizes that the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause exists precisely to prevent the government from favoring one religion over others or religion over nonreligion. Federal officials remain free to celebrate and express their personal religious beliefs on their own time and on their personal platforms. What they may not do is use official government channels to proselytize.

“The promise of church-state separation is what allows religious freedom to flourish for everyone,” Gaylor says. “When government officials forget that, they undermine the very constitutional values they are sworn to uphold.”

The Freedom From Religion Foundation calls on the Trump administration to immediately cease issuing sectarian religious messages from official government accounts and to reaffirm its obligation to serve all Americans, regardless of belief.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a U.S.-based nonprofit dedicated to defending the constitutional principle of separation between state and church and educating the public on matters relating to nontheism. With about 42,000 members, FFRF is the largest association of freethinkers (atheists, agnostics and humanists) in North America. For more information, visit ffrf.org.

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