Millions of Christians throughout the country are marking Holy Week, which covers the week between Palm Sunday and Easter. The White House recognized Holy Week with a presidential message on Sunday.
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President Donald Trump’s statement wasn’t just some milquetoast appreciation of Easter and those Christians who celebrate the resurrection of Jesus this coming Sunday. Instead, there’s a theological richness that was surprising and refreshing:
During this sacred week, we acknowledge that the glory of Easter Sunday cannot come without the sacrifice Jesus Christ made on the cross. In His final hours on Earth, Christ willingly endured excruciating pain, torture, and execution on the cross out of a deep and abiding love for all His creation. Through His suffering, we have redemption. Through His death, we are forgiven of our sins. Through His Resurrection, we have hope of eternal life. On Easter morning, the stone is rolled away, the tomb is empty, and light prevails over darkness—signaling that death does not have the final word.
The penultimate paragraph was remarkably Trinitarian:
As we focus on Christ’s redeeming sacrifice, we look to His love, humility, and obedience—even in life’s most difficult and uncertain moments. This week, we pray for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon our beloved Nation. We pray that America will remain a beacon of faith, hope, and freedom for the entire world, and we pray to achieve a future that reflects the truth, beauty, and goodness of Christ’s eternal kingdom in Heaven.
“Now, what stands out in that? What should grab our attention?” Dr. Albert Mohler asked in his podcast on Tuesday morning. “Well, number one, it’s a presidential statement calling for and praying for and outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon our beloved nation. That’s pretty unprecedented in language. You now have clear explicit Trinitarian language as the structure for this statement.”
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Later, Mohler referred to the last statement in that paragraph, saying, “That reference to Christ’s eternal kingdom is very, very interesting because it places the kingdom, so to speak, represented by the government of the United States of America, in a very different context than most presidents ever discussed them.”
The president also reiterated his commitment to protecting religious freedom in the U.S.
“This Holy Week, my Administration renews its promise to defend the Christian faith in our schools, military, workplaces, hospitals, and halls of government,” the statement asserted. “We will never waver in safeguarding the right to religious liberty, upholding the dignity of life, and protecting God in our public square.”
Related: Faith All Over the Place, Episode 6: Our Lenten Perspectives
Such a statement from the White House is refreshing enough on its own (even though there’s some phrasing that I don’t 100% agree with theologically), but it catches my attention even more when I compare it to the Biden White House’s treatment of Easter last year. If you forgot, Easter coincided with the left’s high holy day, “Transgender Day of Visibility,” and of course, Biden gave the transgender lobby more attention than the resurrection of Jesus.
Last year, I wrote:
By now, we’re all aware that the White House managed to commit the most sacrilegious act imaginable — or at least made the biggest possible slap in the faces of Christians — by emphasizing “Transgender Day of Visibility” over Easter. While the holiday honoring our secular state religion of transgenderism is fixed on March 31, it could have and rightly should have taken a backseat to the moveable feast that celebrates the resurrection of Jesus.
Instead, Joe Biden, his handlers, and the rest of his administration chose to double down on honoring a tiny minority of transgender Americans over the millions of Christians who celebrate Easter Sunday. The White House statement on Easter was only 94 words, while the proclamation of “Transgender Day of Visibility” clocked in at a whopping 635 words. On the president’s X/Twitter account, the “Transgender Day of Visibility” tweet was twice as long (45 words) as the Easter tweet (20 words).
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Aren’t you glad that we don’t have to put up with that sort of nonsense this year? Thank you, President Trump, for standing up for believers and recognizing the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus as the ultimate turning point in history.
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