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Baptist News Global | May 5, 2026
A new Justice Department report accusing President Joe Biden of discriminating against Christians is “absurd” on multiple levels, said Melissa Rogers, who led faith-based initiatives under the former administration.
The April 30 study, “Eradicating Anti-Christian Bias within the Federal Government,” claims Biden systematically weaponized the federal government against Americans who share a “Christian worldview.”
But that and other accusations contained in the 208-page report are ridiculous given that the former president was a devout Catholic who attended Mass weekly throughout his term in office, Rogers said. “It’s absurd to say that President Biden’s administration was anti-Christian. He firmly believes, as I do, that we must protect religious freedom for everyone, everywhere, in equal measure.”
Rogers made her observations during a virtual press conference called to challenge the report’s Christian nationalist perspective, methodology and claims. The event was hosted by the Center on Faith and Justice at Georgetown University.
Melissa Rogers
She was joined in the May 1 presentation by Amanda Tyler, executive director of Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty; Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons, vice president of programs and strategy with Interfaith America; and Robert P. Jones, president of Public Religion Research Institute.
A major error in the study is its claim that “traditional” Christians share a unified worldview, Rogers said.
“Anyone who knows anything about Christians knows we sometimes differ on certain issues of law and public policy. For example, some Christians are pacifists, while others believe particular wars can be just. Christians hold a variety of views about taxation and reproductive rights, just to cite two other examples.”
The fact that the values of some religious groups clash with a given president’s policies has been the case with every presidency and does not constitute an anti-religious or anti-Christian posture on an administration’s part, she added. “I should also say that President Biden always urged us to work with Christians and all other people of faith on law and policy when we agreed, and to hear from these communities and try to find common ground where there was disagreement.”
DOJ’s assertion of a “Christian worldview” on contested policies amounts to taking sides on theological beliefs “which is something the government should never do,” Rogers said.
“The report fundamentally misunderstands religious freedom and how it is legally protected in this country.”
Those concerned about a president’s attack on faith, she said, should consider Donald Trump’s tirade against Pope Leo XIV, his AI-generated self-portrayal of himself as Christ, and his Easter Sunday social media warning to Iran: “Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell.”
“It’s also worth noting that President Biden spent Easter and Orthodox Easter wishing Christians worldwide joyful Resurrection Sundays, not by pretending to be Jesus, by tweeting profanities and by attacking the pope,” Rogers said.
The authors of the report consistently misconstrued and misstated U.S. and constitutional history while promoting religious privilege for a narrow category of Christians, Tyler said. “The problems with this report start on its very first page. The report fundamentally misunderstands religious freedom and how it is legally protected in this country.”
The report also promotes “the mythology of the U.S. as a ‘Christian nation,’” a false narrative created to privilege Christianity in policy and law, Tyler added.
One example is the study’s claim that “faith, particularly Christianity, had a significant influence on America’s colonial origins, the text of the Declaration of Independence, and the formation and ratification of the U.S. Constitution.”
Amanda Tyler
“In reality,” Tyler explained, “the original U.S. Constitution makes no mention of Christianity, and its only reference to religion is to ban religious tests for public office. So, from the beginning, our country has considered religion and government to occupy separate spheres of influence.”
The report presents a skewed understanding of the Establishment Clause that enables government support for a particular form of Christianity, she said. “In its misguided advocacy for a particular subset of Christians, the administration perpetuates the very bias it purports to eradicate.”
The Christian nationalist bias in the report should be surprising to no one, Graves-Fitzsimmons said. “Christian nationalism has never been about following the way of Jesus. It thrives on using the Bible as a prop, or to be held up as a poster on the wall, not a way of following Jesus’ teachings.”
For instance, Episcopal Bishop Marriann Budde was vilified for preaching mercy at President Trump’s inauguration, and Pope Leo was insulted for quoting “blessed are the peacemakers” in reference to the Iran war, he said.
“When Christianity looks like Jesus — mercy, peace, humility — this administration moves to discredit it.”
Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons
Instead, the report casts reproductive health care, protections for trans people and pandemic-era health measures as anti-Christian, Graves-Fitzsimmons said.
“The greatest threat to Christians exercising our religious liberty in the United States today is the Trump administration itself.”
“Meanwhile, actual Christian persecution takes place all around the world and this administration has gutted the refugee program that allowed many Christians to flee real persecution,” he added. “The greatest threat to Christians exercising our religious liberty in the United States today is the Trump administration itself.”
The report’s reference to the U.S. as a majority Christian nation is correct, with nearly two-thirds of the nation claiming the faith, Jones said. But the report is wrong in suggesting the majority of Christians agree with the Christian nationalist values it promotes.
According to PRRI research, 61% of Americans agree abortion should be legal, as do 58% of all Christians except white evangelicals. Among that group, only 27% say abortion should be legal in most or all circumstances.
The breakdowns are similar when it comes to support for same-sex marriage and laws that protect LGBTQ people, Jones said. And again, opposition to those causes is greatest among a minority of Christians, namely white evangelicals.
“They only make up about 20% of Christians in the country today. So they’re not a majority of Christians. They’re nowhere near a majority of the country, and yet they are the ones that tend to stand in every time you see the words ‘traditional Christians’ in this report. That’s really what they are pointing to.”
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has put itself at odds with the majority of the nation’s Christians by allowing immigration agents to conduct raids in and around churches, hospitals and schools, Jones added. “It resulted in a large group of — wait for it — Christian denominations suing the Trump administration over this policy because they said it violated their religious liberty.”
Even 53% of white evangelicals said they are opposed to allowing raids in sensitive locations, as did 68% of all Christians and 72% of Americans, he noted.