A good indication on how church-state issues will play out in Donald Trump’s second presidential term can be found in his shameless hawking of an “Inauguration Day Bible,” part of a merch promotion from which he’s personally receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in royalties. In marketing this book ($69.99, not including shipping) Trump has insisted, “We must make America pray again.”

This unsavory mix of church, state and personal hucksterism foretells how brazenly we can expect Trump to continue to exploit religion and pander to his base of white evangelicals, 82% of whom voted for him.

Trump, who appears to have never read the First Amendment with its promise that the government must not favor any particular religion, has vowed that one of his first actions will be to root out “anti-Christian bias” and protect “pro-God context and content.”

We know from Trump’s first term how amenable he is to redefining “religious freedom” to mean the freedom to discriminate. He signed countless executive orders blurring the distinction between church and state, including orders granting faith-based contractors and health care workers a religious exemption from discrimination claims.

All executive departments and agencies were tasked with adopting “religious liberty protections” that likewise advanced the right to discriminate based on religious grounds. We can expect expansion of such special privileges for the “right” kinds of believers.

For example, Trump will undoubtedly repeat his unfounded claim that he has “repealed” the Johnson Amendment. That federal law, which enjoys popular support, ensures that nonprofits, including churches, are not engaging in partisan electioneering with their tax-free donations. Without the Johnson Amendment, churches — which are exempt from reporting requirements applying to other charities — could become dark money political operatives.

In a nation predicated on a Constitution that bars religious tests for public office, we can expect another unconstitutional executive order, similar to the one he signed in 2017, banning travel to the United States based on a religious test primarily applied to Muslims from certain nations.

While Trump may be cynically using his Christian nationalist base, leaders of that movement are even more cynically exploiting Trump to attack the secular foundations of the United States. They have made no secret of their agenda in documents such as Project 2025, a 900-plus page policy agenda with an overtly Christian nationalist laundry list. Key agenda items include instituting universal vouchers for religious schools, which Trump has endorsed.

Project 2025, Vice President JD Vance and other ideologues are also calling to resuscitate the 1873 zombie Comstock Act, which would ban the mailing and shipping of contraceptives or abortifacients, thereby abolishing access to most contraception and abortion. And Project 2025 advocates for a “biblically based” definition of marriage and family and dismantling nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ+ Americans in the name of “religious liberty.” It even suggests amending the Fair Labor Standards Act to establish Sunday as the “Sabbath.”

Many of Trump’s cabinet selections and other appointments, including his controversial defense secretary pick, Pete Hegseth, adhere to Christian nationalism. A slew of Trump’s nominees to environmental, energy and other vital posts either deny human-caused climate change or plan to look the other way.

This also placates the views of many white evangelicals, 68% of whom largely deny that climate change is tied to human activity. Trump is also expected to continue his radical changes to the makeup of the federal judiciary, including the Supreme Court, which brought America the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade.

“My life was saved for a reason,” Trump said in his inauguration speech, referring to his attempted assassination. “I was saved by God to make America great again.” He said his administration’s mission is to “give the people back their faith,” framing his presidency as not just an electoral mandate but a divine mission.

As the second Trump administration brazenly bulldozes the vaunted wall of separation between church and state, such destruction will also erode precious individual liberties which depend on keeping dogma out of government.

Americans who treasure what has truly made our country great — a secular Constitution that keeps religion out of our laws and social policies — must speak up to safeguard democracy for ourselves and future generations.

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Annie Laurie Gaylor is co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation (www.ffrf.org), a national association of 40,000 members whose purposes are to protect the constitutional principle of separation between state and church and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism. This column was produced for Progressive Perspectives, a project of The Progressive magazine, and distributed by Tribune News Service.

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