Efforts to quash what President Donald Trump’s administration perceives as “anti-Christian bias” were formally launched with a meeting among members of a task force established under a presidential executive order issued earlier this year.

The meeting, led by Attorney General Pam Bondi on April 22, invited Cabinet members and three Americans who identify as Christians to share specific experiences of anti-Christian bias in the federal government and brought clarity as to what the task force will be looking to eradicate.

“Together, this task force will identify any unlawful anti-Christian policies, practices or conduct across the government, seek input from the faith-based organizations and state governments to end anti-Christian bias, find and fix deficiencies in existing and regulatory practices that might contribute to the anti-Christian bias,” Bondi said during the meeting’s opening remarks.

While some experts welcomed Trump’s executive order on eradicating anti-Christian bias when it was announced in February, others raised alarm about what it meant for non-Christian groups, McClatchy News reported.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation called the task force a “sham” and said it’s encouraging Christian entitlement, according to an April 22 statement on X, formerly known as Twitter.

“The Constitution demands neutrality, not special treatment for one religion,” the organization said.

Nevertheless, a growing number of white evangelical Christians are concerned that Christianity is under attack in the U.S., according to data from the Survey Center on American Life, McClatchy News reported.

Sixty percent of white evangelicals said they believe evangelical Christians are regularly discriminated against in 2023, up 18 points from 2009.

What anti-Christian instances were brought up during the task force?

Three non-task force members — Scott Hicks, provost and chief academic officer at Liberty University; Phil Mendes, a former Navy SEAL; and Michael Farris, founding president of Patrick Henry College — were invited to speak about their experiences with anti-Christian bias, according to a U.S. Department of Justice news release.

Hicks spoke about how Liberty University and Grand Canyon University had been “singled out” under the Biden administration and received Education Department fines “due to the schools’ Christian worldview.”

Mendes said he was fired for not getting the COVID-19 vaccine because of his religious beliefs.

Farris brought up how his church had been charged by the IRS for violations against the Johnson Amendment, a tax code that prohibits churches and other tax-exempt organizations from participating in political campaign activity, according to the release. During Trump’s first term, he vowed to get rid of the amendment, NPR reported.

Other members of the task force also shared examples of anti-Christian bias they had seen.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke about retaliation against federal workers for opposing DEI and LGBT ideology on religious grounds, and Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs Doug Collins said a chaplain was reprimanded under the Biden administration for preaching a sermon from the Bible.

In a statement on Facebook later that evening, Farris said he was “blown away” by the “frank stories of terrible treatment of Christians by the prior administration.”

“If every believer could have seen this in person their hearts would be overflowing tonight,” he said.

How is Trump’s anti-Christian bias order already impacting the government?

Earlier this month, the Trump administration sent a cable out under Rubio’s name encouraging State Department employees to self-report on experiences with anti-Christian bias among their co-workers using an anonymous tip form, Politico reported.

Some of these findings were to be discussed at the inaugural task force meeting, according to the cable, Politico reported.

More recently, the Department of Veterans Affairs asked staff members in an email to “report any examples of anti-Christian bias,” Hemant Mehta, an American blogger and atheist activist, said in an April 22 statement on X.

According to Mehta, the email requested 11 things, including “adverse responses to requests for religious exemption under the previous vaccine mandates,” “any mistreatment or reprimand issued in response to displays of Christian imagery or symbols” and “any retaliatory actions taken or threatened in response to abstaining from certain procedures or treatments.”

Additionally, during the task force meeting, Bondi said three cases against people who are pro-life were dropped and the FACE Act was redefined.

“Protecting Christians from bias is not favoritism. It’s upholding the rule of law and fulfilling the constitutional promise,” she said. “We have an incredible opportunity — all of us around this table — to protect the rights of all citizens from discrimination based on their religious beliefs.”

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