WASHINGTON (RNS) — As House Speaker Mike Johnson stood before a crowd of thousands on the National Mall on Sunday (May 17), he did something not altogether unusual for the outspoken Southern Baptist: He closed his eyes, bowed his head and prayed.

But as Johnson began speaking, his frame dwarfed by enormous screens featuring patriotic and religious imagery, he made clear this particular prayer was meant to hold more weight than usual.

“Just as we in the beginning dedicated this land to your most holy name, today, here, Lord, in this 250th year of American independence, we hereby rededicate the United States of America as one nation under God,” said Johnson, a Republican, to cheers.

It was one of many such moments at the daylong event, titled “Rededicate 250: A National Jubilee Of Prayer, Praise & Thanksgiving.” The effort was one of several projects overseen by Freedom 250, an organization partnering with the White House and other branches of the federal government to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Like Johnson, the speakers largely advanced the ideas that the U.S. has a religious — and particularly Christian — founding and that its future success depends on prayer.

The event featured a video of President Donald Trump reading from 2 Corinthians, which he prepared for a separate event two weeks ago.

After the clip ended, Pastor Lou Engle led the crowd in chanting “Revival! Revival! Revival!”

The prayers moved Michelle Calhoun of Florida, a Catholic, to tears.

“I think they’re bringing on the Holy Spirit over our country, and I’m proud to be an American,” she said, voice shaking.

The Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference and longtime Trump adviser, formally opened the event in prayer, declaring “America is not done with God and God is not done with America.”

Rodriguez’s remarks kicked off an hourslong lineup of religious leaders, government officials, musical acts and media personalities who stood on top of a massive stage that featured towering columns and video screens that simulated stained-glass windows. The sprawling crowd — a sea of red, white and blue, dotted with banners of Jesus and MAGA hats — held arms high and sang along with the worship music featured throughout the event.

Most of those who spoke from the stage, either in person or on video, were evangelical Christians, with several longtime supporters of Trump, including Paula White-Cain, a Florida pastor who now serves as head of the White House Faith Office; Apostle Guillermo Maldonado of King Jesus International Ministry; Pastor Robert Jeffress of First Baptist Church in Dallas; and Pastor Jack Graham of Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas.

“America has become morally wrong, completely sick with sin,” the Rev. Franklin Graham, son of famed evangelist Billy Graham, said in a video, citing LGBTQ+ issues, mass shootings and violence. “We have an insatiable appetite for violence, and I believe this grieves the heart of God and will bring his judgment if we don’t repent as a nation.”

Several political leaders also spoke, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who is a member of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches; Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a Catholic; and director of intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, a Hindu.

Aside from Gabbard and one Jewish leader, the program was largely devoid of speakers from non-Christian faith traditions, such as Muslims, Sikhs or practitioners of Indigenous spiritual traditions.

Hegseth’s remarks, delivered via video, concluded with a story of George Washington kneeling in prayer at Valley Forge.

“Let us pray as he did,” Hegseth said. “Let us pray without ceasing. Let us pray for our nation on bended knee.”

While Washington was a Christian, historians — including the director of the George Washington Presidential Library at Mount Vernon — have long dismissed the story of his Valley Forge prayer as a likely fabrication.

Among the few Catholic speakers was Bishop Robert Barron, leader of the Winona-Rochester, Minnesota, diocese who has a large social media audience, including 3 million subscribers on YouTube. At a time when many U.S. Catholic bishops have criticized Trump’s immigration policies and war in the Middle East, Barron has applauded the administration’s efforts to honor the 250th anniversary, arguing the U.S. conception of rights is rooted in God and against understandings of freedom that allow for “self-invention.”

“As we reflect on our history,” said Barron from the stage, “we can see this consistent thread, the conviction that human dignity, equality, rights, freedom and the rule of law are all grounded in God.”

New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan spoke by video. He said, “Our founders knew that — they knew that in order to be faithful and productive citizens and true patriots, well, we must recognize that we’re children of God first.”

The speakers were met with a boisterous, supportive crowd. Some of those mingling about the National Mall said they had spent the night or rose early to get a spot. Many said they came from across the country. 

Standing in a line to enter that stretched multiple blocks, a woman who identified herself only as Dena chatted with two other women who traveled with her from West Virginia. All three wore shirts that read “One Nation Under God.”

Dena said she had come to Washington because she believed America was “founded on God,” but also, she said, to express support for Trump.

“It’s about time that it happened, and we’re not backing down,” she said, as her colleagues urged her on, with an occasional “Amen.”

Dena referenced an Anglican chaplain who was part of the early English settlement in Jamestown, Virginia, to argue the U.S. had a religious founding, then added: “I think God has graced us with a president who has opened the door up to allow it to happen again.”

Billy and Dorothea Ohlandt, a Southern Baptist couple from Franklinton, North Carolina, said they were some of the first to arrive on the site, having slept overnight outside a gate of the event.

“The reason we came here: because this is such an important thing for our nation, just to put Christ back first, and it’s the biggest thing our country needs to do is to turn to God,” Dorothea Ohlandt said.

Asked how they respond to critics of the event who said it was not inclusive of people of a variety of religious beliefs or none, Billy Ohlandt said that from his perspective, it was.

“I guess what I would say to them is try it for 30 – try Jesus for 30 days,” he said. “We don’t exclude anybody.”

Rabbi Meir Soloveichik of New York City’s Congregation Shearith Israel addressed the crowd during the event. He celebrated U.S. involvement in World War II and in the defeat of the Nazis.

“In the years that followed 1938, the prayer that is ‘God bless America’ was carried by American soldiers who defeated evil, liberating Europe and the world,” he said. “It is a reminder, as hatred of Jews makes itself manifest again, that anti-Semitism is utterly un-American.”

Gabbard, who addressed the assembly via video, did not reference her Hindu faith in her remarks. Instead, she appealed repeatedly to God in general, and seemed to reference the Lord’s Prayer — a Christian orison.

“On this day, let us humble ourselves before God,” she said. “Let us beg for his mercy and guidance. Let us be willing to forgive those who have offended us as we ask God to forgive us for our trespasses.”

Notably absent from the lineup were mainline Protestant speakers — despite those traditions being overwhelmingly represented among signers of the Declaration of Independence. According to Pew Research, while 62% of Americans identify as Christian, only 23% identify as some form of evangelical. An additional 19% are Catholic, 11% are mainline Protestants, 5% are historically Black Protestants and around 2% are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, who attends an evangelical church, was among several speakers who discussed the Black church tradition and the Civil Rights Movement in his remarks.

“The journey for justice for all was rooted in the Black church, a body of believers who refused to let go of God,” Scott said. He later added that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. “did not lead from merely a podium. He led from the pulpit.”

Scott was followed by Alveda King, a longtime anti-abortion activist and King’s niece. She also discussed the Civil Rights Movement, as well as the legacy of her uncle.

“Faith was the heartbeat of that struggle,” she said. “When doors of schools, buses and voting booths were closed, the doors of the church swung wide open. There your people prayed. There we preached. There we sang the throne of Zion and found courage to stand.”

Neither Scott nor King mentioned the Supreme Court’s recent ruling effectively gutting the Voting Rights Act, one of the seminal legislative achievements of the Civil Rights Movement.

Meanwhile, leaders of the Progressive National Baptist Convention, a historically Black denomination that Martin Luther King Jr. once called home, issued a statement on Saturday that appeared to decry the event as evidence of “the continued rise of White Christian Nationalism in American public life.”

“We are especially troubled by recent and upcoming public gatherings in the nation’s capital that merge Christian symbolism with exclusionary politics, extremist rhetoric, and partisan loyalty while excluding the rich diversity of faith traditions and communities that make up our nation,” the statement read. “Such displays do not reflect the fullness of the American faith experience nor the inclusive spirit of democracy.”

Throughout the crowd, small groups carried the Appeal to Heaven flag — which dates back to the Revolutionary War and was carried at the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol — or wore it on their shirts or hats. Kevin Wells of Tampa, Florida, who wore an Appeal to Heaven hat, told RNS he’d committed to come to the event months ago when he heard Dutch Sheets, a South Carolina pastor who is part of the New Apostolic Reformation, promote it on his YouTube show. 

Wells emphasized the importance of Trump backing the event. “When the highest leader of our nation says ‘we’re going to rededicate our nation back to the Lord Jesus Christ, back to the one true God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,’ that shifts things in the spirit world,” he told RNS.

A group of friends from Wyoming and North Dakota who wore Appeal to Heaven T-shirts also cited their desire to see Sheets speak at the event and expressed concern that immigration was hurting America by bringing non-Christians to the country.

A group of Christian immigrants from South America told RNS they were worried that Muslims were getting preferential treatment and that Virginia schools were promoting Indian and Chinese holidays. Natalie Sanchez Davidia, a member of that group who was attending with her Peruvian parents, said, “It seems to be a very great thing to see our nation united, especially knowing who our creator is and that his son also died for our sins.”

Nevertheless, Nigerian-born worship singer Blessing Offor was applauded by the crowd when he said, “No one is more appreciative of 250 than an immigrant.”