The Department of Labor Launches Its First-Ever Worship Service for Federal Employees

First it was the Department of War; now it is the Department of Labor, as yet another federal agency joins a growing shift to engage religion within the nation’s political institutions. This first-ever worship service in the Department of Labor—featuring Bible readings, hymn singing, prayers, and rosary beads—reflects the current administration’s posture toward faith in government spaces. This event illustrates what the Trump administration means when it speaks of restoring America’s identity as a “nation under God.” We now have a Department of Labor that is seeking to protect American workers by uniting Christian faith with labor law.

On December 13, 2025, CNN News reported the following:

• “The Department of Labor held its first-ever prayer service for its employees this week, in a highly unusual move that mirrors an initiative at the Pentagon.” [1]

• “Many employees were taken aback by the service, sources told CNN, and some felt like it should not be happening in a government building during work hours.” [1]

• “The event—held in the building’s biggest space, bearing a stage and podium with the department’s logo—also included prayers by three employees of the DOL’s Center for Faith, one Labor Department employee who attended the service told CNN.” [1]

• “Another agency employee sang hymns and tried to lead the crowd in singing along, according to the employee. Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer spoke at the service, telling the crowd she has a rosary with each bead representing a state.” [1]

• “Department leadership promoted the prayer service in an email, from the account faith@dol.gov.” [1]

• “They did scripture readings from the Bible. They did the Lord’s prayer. They sang ‘Amazing Grace,’ … and then ‘God bless America,’” the Labor employee told CNN.” [1]

• “The service comes as the Trump administration has sought to reinterpret the idea of separation of church and state in federal workplaces. In July, the Office of Personnel Management issued a memorandum allowing federal workers to promote their religious beliefs to colleagues, display religious items at work and pray together or individually.” [1]

• “One of the employees who spoke with CNN said they have served in the Labor Department under multiple administrations … ‘I’ve been in government for decades, and we don’t have religious ceremonies sanctioned by political leadership’.” [1]

What we are witnessing is a campaign leading up to America’s 250th anniversary, aimed at transforming the nation’s future by making it greater, stronger, more unified, and more “Christian” than ever before. Central to this effort is the deliberate integration of church and state—bringing Christianity into the nation’s civic life and governmental identity and presenting the teachings of the church as integral to the nation’s purpose and moral direction.

An unholy alliance is taking shape as the Church and the State draw ever closer, presenting their collaboration as a necessary means for the nation to return to its “Christian” roots. This movement will precede the formation of the image of the beast: a system in which religious authority once again directs civil power to impose spiritual objectives. When the State adopts the moral and doctrinal priorities of the Church and uses its authority to promote or enforce them, it revives the very tyranny that characterized Papal supremacy during the Dark Ages.

“In the movements now in progress in the United States to secure for the institutions and usages of the church the support of the state, Protestants are following in the steps of papists. Nay, more, they are opening the door for the papacy to regain in Protestant America the supremacy which she has lost in the Old World” (Great Controversy, p. 573).

Sources

[1] https://www.cnn.com/2025/12/12/politics/department-of-labor-hosts-first-prayer-service-emulating-regular-pentagon-events