The White House is planning to host a nine-hour Christian prayer festival at the National Mall on Sunday that pushes the view of the United States as a Christian nation.House Speaker Mike Johnson, as well as Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, are slated to speak at “Rededicate 250: National Jubilee of Prayer, Praise & Thanksgiving,” which is partly funded by taxpayer dollars set aside for the country’s 250th birthday celebrations.The other speakers are overwhelmingly Protestant Christian, with notable exceptions being Catholic leaders Bishop Robert Barron and Cardinal Timothy Dolan, as well as Rabbi Meir Soloveichik. The Reverend Paula White-Cain, President Trump’s spiritual adviser, said in a webinar about the event on April 28 that the festival “is about the history and the foundations of our nation, which was built on Christian values, on the Bible.… This is really truly rededicating the country to God.”White-Cain, who has compared Trump to Jesus, added that the celebration would not include leaders “praying to all these different Gods.”“We are focusing on our heritage as a Judeo-Christian nation,” Brittany Baldwin, executive director of the White House’s 250 Task Force, also said in the webinar. “We worked very hard with the faith leaders we trust … to ensure that we hear their concerns and we have the right focus for our community of believers, across the country. So I think if you do see another religion represented, it would probably be in a modest way.”The taxpayer-funded event seems to be at odds with the First Amendment to the Constitution’s establishment clause, which is supposed to guard against a state religion, and has senior members of the government participating. White-Cain’s involvement suggests that the festival will be full of reverence to Trump, even if he isn’t there. Considering that Trump just celebrated a golden statue of himself at his Florida estate that is definitely not an idol, the event seems a little hollow too.