Americans United for Separation of Church and State President and CEO Rachel Laser issued the following statement in response to the announcement that the National Prayer Breakfast will return to its roots as an unholy alliance between government officials and the Christian Nationalist organization The Family, also known as The Fellowship or the Fellowship Foundation:

National Prayer Breakfast flouts church-state separation

“The National Prayer Breakfast is deeply problematic because members of Congress are directly involved in hosting a religious event – one that overwhelmingly favors one narrow version of Christianity at the exclusion of all other beliefs. Add a Christian Nationalist organization directing the event from the shadows and President Trump habitually using the platform to launch partisan attacks on his political opponents, and you have an event that corrupts rather than celebrates religious freedom. The National Prayer Breakfast has flouted America’s promise of church-state separation and religious freedom since the event began during a wave of Christian Nationalism in the 1950s. 

“Members of Congress and faith leaders who truly care about protecting freedom of religion, preventing government corruption of religion, and safeguarding our pluralistic democracy should boycott the National Prayer Breakfast and instead join Americans United’s call for a national recommitment to church-state separation. As America’s founders knew, the separation of religion and government is the only true guarantee of religious freedom.”