The Trump administration is intensifying efforts to root out what it calls “anti-Christian bias” in the government.
The White House in February established the Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias in the federal government, led by the attorney general Pam Bondi, aimed at protecting the “religious freedoms of Americans” and ending the “anti-Christian weaponization of government.”
This week, the task force held its first meeting, at which attendees discussed how they were allegedly “unfairly targeted by the Biden Administration for their religious beliefs,” according to a Justice Department press release.
The veterans affairs department (VA) has now reportedly established its own task force and is ordering staff to report colleagues to the unit for instances of “anti-Christian bias,” according to The Guardian.
Why It Matters
The launch of the task forces comes as part of a broader push by Donald Trump to embed a conservative Christian agenda within the federal government.
What To Know
In an internal email seen by The Guardian, VA secretary Doug Collins said his department had launched a task force to review the Biden administration’s “treatment of Christians.”
Newsweek has not seen the email, but has reached out to the VA department via email for confirmation.
“The VA Task Force now requests all VA employees to submit any instance of anti-Christian discrimination to Anti-ChristianBiasReporting.@va.gov,” the email read. “Submissions should include sufficient identifiers such as names, dates, and locations.”
The email added that the department will review “all instances of anti-Christian bias” but that it is specifically seeking instances including “any informal policies, procedures, or unofficially understandings hostile to Christian views.”
In addition, the department is seeking “any adverse responses to requests for religious exemptions under the previous vaccine mandates” and “any retaliatory actions taken or threatened in response to abstaining from certain procedures or treatments (for example: abortion or hormone therapy).”
It comes after the State Department earlier in April issued a directive asking employees to report instances of alleged anti-Christian bias that may have occurred during the Biden administration.
The VA taskforce is separate from the one led by Bondi. In February, Trump said Bondi’s taskforce would work to “fully prosecute anti-Christian violence and vandalism in our society and to move heaven and earth to defend the rights of Christians and religious believers nationwide.”
At the first meeting of the taskforce, Trump administration officials and religious leaders presented a series of allegations claiming widespread anti-Christian bias under the Biden administration. Attorney Michael Farris, speaking on behalf of a Virginia church, said the IRS had investigated it for alleged violations of the Johnson Amendment, which requires churches to refrain from participating in political campaigns if they want to keep their tax-exempt status. Representatives from Liberty University and Grand Canyon University also claimed their institutions were unfairly fined because of their Christian worldview.
Additional allegations included the denial of religious exemptions to COVID-19 vaccine mandates for military personnel, biased treatment of Christian Foreign Service Officers, and efforts to suppress Christian expression in federal schools and agencies. Critics further accused the Biden administration of marginalizing Christian holidays while giving prominence to non-Christian observances, and of sidelining faith-based foster care providers.
Speakers also alleged that Christian federal employees were retaliated against for opposing DEI and LGBT-related policies that conflicted with their religious beliefs.
There is no current evidence that such discrimination took place under the Biden administration.
Nonetheless, Trump has previously claimed that then-President Joe Biden weaponized the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) to attack his political opponents, including Christians.
In a video posted to his Truth Social platform in December 2023, Trump accused the FBI and DOJ of sending undercover spies to churches to persecute people of faith.
“Under Crooked Joe Biden, Christians and Americans of faith are being persecuted like nothing this nation has ever seen before,” Trump wrote.
“Catholics, in particular, are being targeted and evangelicals are surely on the watch list as well. Over the past three years, the Biden administration has sent SWAT teams to arrest pro-life activists. The FBI has been caught profiling devout Catholics as possible domestic terrorists and planning to send undercover spies into Catholic churches, just like in the old days of the Soviet Union.”
A leaked FBI document from February 2023 said the bureau’s Richmond, Virginia, office had warned agents of an extremist threat posed by “radical-traditionalist Catholics,” whom the bureau said were a small minority within the Catholic Church. The memo was then removed because the federal agency said it failed to meet the “exacting standards of the FBI.”
Last April, the FBI was exonerated by a DOJ review that found investigators did not intend to target traditional Catholics as potential “racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists,” Fox News reported. The DOJ Inspector General review noted that analysts “incorrectly conflated” an investigative subject’s religious views with his alleged domestic terrorism activities.
What People Are Saying
Attorney General Pamela Bondi said: “As shown by our victims’ stories today, Biden’s Department of Justice abused and targeted peaceful Christians while ignoring violent, anti-Christian offenses. Thanks to President Trump, we have ended those abuses, and we will continue to work closely with every member of this Task Force to protect every American’s right to speak and worship freely.”
Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said in a statement: “If Trump really cared about religious freedom and ending religious persecution, he’d be addressing antisemitism in his inner circle, anti-Muslim bigotry, hate crimes against people of color and other religious minorities.
“This taskforce is not a response to Christian persecution; it’s an attempt to make America into an ultra-conservative Christian nationalist nation.”
What Happens Next
Further details about the VA taskforce have not yet been released.
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