The Freedom From Religion Foundation is calling out U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins for sending an explicitly Christian devotional email, apparently to almost 100,000 USDA employees.

FFRF has received multiple complaints from USDA staff regarding the April 5 message, sent as an official message from the “Office of the Secretary OSEC,” which proclaimed Easter as “the greatest story ever told, the foundation of our faith, and the abiding hope of all mankind.”

FFRF has sent a formal letter to Secretary Rollins demanding that she refrain from using official communications to promote her personal religious beliefs in the future.

The purely scriptural message was headlined: “Happy Easter – He is Risen indeed!” Rollins’ email went far beyond a simple greeting, instead delivering an extended theological message about Jesus’ resurrection, sin and salvation, and invoking other explicitly Christian doctrine.

Rollins reiterated Christian faith as fact, writing: “From the foot of the Cross on Good Friday to the stone rolled away from the now empty tomb, sin has been destroyed. Jesus has been raised from the dead. And God has granted each of us victory and new life. And where there is life — risen life—there is hope.”

Then Rollins counseled: “No matter the very real trials and hardships we face, fear and sin and death do not get the last word. Because on Easter morning, ‘Hell took a body, and discovered God. It took earth, and encountered Heaven. It took what it saw, and was overcome by what it did not see.’ Now that is reason to rejoice!”

Continuing in this vein, Rollins sermonized: “And so like the very first disciples to encounter our risen Lord in the Upper Room almost two thousand years ago, this Easter let us too be alive with hope, full of Paschal joy, and confident in the mission each of us has been called for.”

Finally, Rollins ended with this devotional wish: “I hope you and your loved ones have a truly blessed and happy Easter. May God continue to bless you, your families, and our exceptional country, One Nation, Under God.”

Employees who contacted FFRF described the message as inappropriate and insulting, noting that public servants should not be confronted with overtly religious messaging from the head of a federal agency. Those affronted and excluded by Rollins’ rant would include significant numbers, since 29 percent of U.S. adults identify as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular,” Another 7 percent subscribe to non-Christian faiths. Additionally, many federal employees, regardless of personal beliefs, would be shocked by Rollins’ disregard of the separation between religion and government.

Writes FFRF Legal Counsel Chris Line: “No government employee should be subjected to religious preaching as part of workplace communications. By framing Easter as part of ‘the foundation of our faith,’ your message signals governmental endorsement of Christianity and conveys to employees that adherence to a particular religion is favored.”

Reminds FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor,“No federal employee should be subjected to a Christian sermon from a cabinet secretary. Our secular Constitution bars a religious test for public office, and certainly bars a religious test to be a USDA employee.

“To see such an inappropriate message — using official email channels and the imprimatur of our federal government,” adds Gaylor, “really shows that Christian nationalism has run amok in the Trump Administration.”

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 more than 41,000 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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