President Donald Trump and his administration are making people “uncomfortable” with their overt calls to religiosity, according to a recent report — and federal workers are sick of it.
“On Easter Sunday, US Department of Agriculture secretary Brooke Rollins sent out an email titled ‘He has risen!’ to the entire agency,” Wired reported on Tuesday. “In the email, Rollins calls the story of Jesus Christ the ‘greatest story ever told, the foundation of our faith, and the abiding hope of all mankind.’”
An employee for the Agriculture Department described the email as “grotesque” while another employee, Ethan Roberts, complained to the Office of Special Counsel by alleging that the email has “eroded the separation of church and state.”
“The secretary is within her rights to send a message to employees and the public on the Easter holiday,” a USDA spokesperson told Wired. “Just like secretaries of agriculture and presidents have in the past.”
“On February 11, the [Department of Labor] hosted pastor Leon Benjamin, who runs two churches and previously ran for Congress as a Republican, to speak to employees during the monthly prayer service,” Wired reported, and employees say they they're unnerved by the ubiquitous presence of religion.
"I've thought about complaining, but I would worry about some form of retaliation if I were to do that, to be honest," one employee told Wired. And recent data shows that in 2025 only 22.5 percent of federal workers believed they could report wrongdoing without fear of retaliation, down from 71.9 percent in 2024.”
On January 12, Wired reports that Alveda King, the niece of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., told DOL employees during a monthly worship service that "We have different denominations, different faiths, and some have no faith—and those are the ones I would be more concerned about.”
“People are uncomfortable. I know several who are offended and angry,” an employee told Wired. "... They always spend a lot of time carrying on like, ‘No one's forcing you to pray, these are voluntary. But it's happening in the middle of a government workplace.” The employee added that they were particularly concerned about King’s comments concerning atheists and nonreligious people, saying they felt King had implied atheists are for sure going to hell.
Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is hardly known for his religiosity, but his department has also reportedly become explicitly religious.
“Last year, HHS lent full support to religious exemptions for vaccines; in February, the agency announced the expansion of funding for ‘faith-based’ addiction treatments,” Wired reported. “In his announcement, Kennedy called addiction a ‘spiritual disease.’”
But of all the government departments, perhaps none have been so impacted as the Defense Department.
In a sermon delivered before Christmas, evangelical pastor Franklin Graham told members of the military that ‘God is also a god of war," reports WIRED. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has also framed the U.S. war in Iran as a ‘holy war,’ calling Iranians ‘barbaric savages’ and calling on Americans to pray for victory ‘in the name of Jesus Christ.’”