[Post has been updated.]
In an article published on Christmas Day of 2025, reporter Ashley Ahn of the New York Times pointed to a remarkable series of holiday wishes from a number of departments of the federal government of the United States of America.
Ahn notes that government officials of the past often issued statements of holiday cheer worded vaguely enough to avoid offense to non-Christians. But this year, significant change occurred. The Department of Defense announced, “Today we celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.” Three other departments issued similar statements, including the Department of Homeland Security.
The use of the word “we” as shown above applies the celebration of the birth of Jesus to every citizen of the United States. A federal government official speaks for the entire nation whenever he or she makes official statements.
If the American government acts on a policy decision, every American is acting the same way. If the federal government goes to war with “X” country, then “we” are all going to war. The government we voted for represents all of us.
So now, according to the federal government, every American celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Of course, this is not literally true. America is perhaps 65% Christian, and the numbers of Christians are falling. But officially, now, America is 100% Christian, according to the current administration.
It is estimated that 95-99% of the people of Western Europe from perhaps 800 AD to 1500 AD were Roman Catholic. But these percentages are meaningless because individuals during this period of Catholic dominance had no choice of religious affiliation. Catholicism was the official state religion. If a person chose otherwise, that person would have been a heretic, subject to the death penalty.
The Protestant Reformation eventually led to new ideas about religious freedom—that religion in America is a matter of choice. That Church and State are separate. That the conscience is free. According to current actions by the U.S. government, that separation has ended. Of course, no actual laws have been passed bringing an end to the separation of Church and State, but policy statements suggest that the separation is under serious threat.
We can understand why official statements by the government are of critical concern when we examine totalitarian governments around the world. In North Korea, for instance, 100% of the people are “committed” supporters of the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK). It does not matter what individual North Koreans actually believe or think. There is no freedom to choose one’s political ideology in North Korea. North Korea also promotes state atheism, and Christianity is a grave threat to the regime. Officially, every North Korean is an atheist.
In democratic countries, no party ever has 100% support. In the United States, if a political party wins an election with 55% of the vote, observers would proclaim a “landslide.”
The United States is now officially asserting that 100% of Americans are in some way under the banner of Jesus Christ. This would include, of course, every atheist, Muslim, or Hindu. Every practicing Jew. They are all “Christian” in some vague sense. They have all been “converted” by their government whether they like it or not.
This new way of viewing the United States is anathema to the country’s founding principles. We can logically ask, if Christianity is the national faith, how far are we from religious laws favoring Christianity?
For example, the Department of Labor is considering a national Sunday law. Such a law has never existed in the United States, although such a law was seriously considered in 1888 (see the Blair bill). If enacted, a Sunday law would apply to every American, Christian or not. A Muslim or a Hindu businessperson would be forced to “honor” Sunday as a day of rest.
A Sunday law would, in a real sense, create a pseudo-Christian nation. The God of the Bible never resorts to force, but Christian America would.
Is the United States on the brink of repeating the experience of Western Europe in the Middle Ages, a time when every person was either a Roman Catholic or a heretic?
If that occurs, a persecuting America can’t be far behind. Events will soon tell.
Update: December 29, 2025. A story appeared in today’s New York Times closely related to this post. Columnist Lydia Polgreen reports on the growing hostility toward Hindu Americans. She tells the story of Dr. Srinivasachary Tamirisa, a retired physician in Sugar Land, Texas, who has been in the United States for fifty years.
[Dr. Tamirisa helped create a Hindu temple in Sugar Land back in 2004. In August 2024, this temple added a 90-foot statue of Hanuman, a Hindu diety. Reportedly, it is now the fourth-largest statue in the United States. In Puerto Rico there is a 360-foot statue of Christopher Columbus; in New York, there is the Statue of Liberty (based on Libertas, a Roman goddess) at 151 feet; in Hallandale Beach, Florida, a statue of Pegasus and Dragon at 110 feet.]
According to Polgreen, Dr. Tamirisa is being taunted and questioned by neighbors, who doubt “his right to be an American.” Nationally, Indian Americans are experiencing a lot of bigotry and hatred, in spite of their tremendous success living the American dream. Their average incomes far exceed the average American income. The federal government and the State of Florida are attacking Indians as harmful to America. Highly trained Indians are being snubbed for employment opportunities.
When the statue of the Hindu diety was being dedicated, Christian protesters demonstrated outside the temple grounds. One politician wrote on social media, “Why are we allowing a false statue of a false Hindu God to be here in Texas? We are a CHRISTIAN nation” (cited by Polgreen).
These events signify the great danger to religious liberty represented by recent statements from the federal government advocating one religion over another. Such statements certainly demean Hindu Americans.
The Bible condemns forced worship. The Book of Daniel tells the story of Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar who forces ALL to worship the golden statue he has set up on the plain of Dura. Three Hebrews refused to worship this statue and were thrown into a fiery furnace. Miraculously, they were unharmed and survived.
In the New Testament, Babylon is code for pagan Rome. In the Book of Revelation, Babylon represents papal Rome, a power that seeks to force worship. See Rev. 12-14.
Revelation 18:4 contains a special call to all in the time of the end who are in Babylon to come out of Babylon. “Babylon” eventually becomes a confused combination of all religious forces which seek to control the human conscience. America seems headed for a rejection of religious liberty. Is America becoming a persecuting form of Christianity?
It is vital that you study the Scriptures for yourself. We are living in a time of deception and confusion. Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Put your faith in Him!