Evangelical Pastors from Across the Nation Pray for Trump to Restore America as “One Nation Under God”

On March 5, 2026, U.S. President Donald Trump hosted a group of pastors and faith leaders from across the country at the White House. During the gathering, an evangelical leader offered the following prayer:
“I pray for your grace and your protection over him. I pray for your grace and your protection over our troops and all of our men and women serving in our armed forces. And Father, we pray that you will continue to give our President the strength that he needs to lead our nation as we come back to one nation under God.”

In recent years, evangelical and Christian nationalist pastors have openly prayed for the president and national leaders to “bring America back to God.” On the surface, this language sounds biblical and patriotic because Christianity is a faith that calls people to moral and spiritual awakening.

However, many of these appeals go beyond calls for personal revival. They often carry the expectation that government power should be used to advance Christian values through public policy. In this context, political leaders are seen as instruments to restore a Christian national identity—an America where the state actively promotes religious doctrines and practices.

Yet we cannot remove the historic and constitutional boundaries between church and state that have long protected religious liberty in the United States. When pastors encourage the government to promote religion, enforce Christian doctrines, or favor one faith tradition over others, the door opens for civil authorities to regulate matters of conscience that properly belong to the work of God’s Holy Spirit.

History shows that when governments attempt to “restore religion” through law, both civil and religious liberties suffer. What may begin as a call for moral renewal can eventually develop into policies that pressure citizens to conform to religious expectations, such as Sunday laws.

The danger is not religion itself, but the use of state power to advance it. When pastors ask political leaders to enforce religious ideals, they invite the government to engage in matters that fall outside its proper scope of authority. True faith cannot be produced by legislation; it grows only when God’s Word is studied and embraced through the conviction of the Holy Spirit.

If America moves toward a model in which the state promotes a particular religious identity, the result may be a nation that appears more outwardly religious while actually becoming less free. In that sense, calls for the government to “bring the nation back to God” can ultimately undermine the very religious freedom that has allowed faith to flourish in the first place.