The First Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits the government from establishing religion. That principle has governed American public life for more than two centuries. It is now being systematically dismantled inside the federal government, and the employees who work there are too afraid to say so publicly.

On Easter Sunday, the Secretary of Agriculture sent an agency-wide email titled "He has risen!" calling the story of Jesus Christ the foundation of our faith and the abiding hope of all mankind. A USDA employee who spoke anonymously said they had never received anything like it and that it would not even be normal behavior for military chaplains. An internal complaint was filed with the Office of Special Counsel alleging the email eroded the separation of church and state.

That email is one data point in a pattern that spans the entire federal government. Monthly Christian prayer services are being held at the Department of Labor, the Small Business Administration, and the Pentagon. A July 2025 memo from the Office of Personnel Management explicitly permits federal employees to try to persuade colleagues of the correctness of their religious views and to encourage them to participate in religious expressions of faith such as prayer. A senior USDA adviser told Department of Labor employees during a worship service that she was more concerned about employees with no faith. A Good Friday service at the Pentagon was held only for Protestants.

Federal employees across multiple agencies told WIRED they are uncomfortable, offended, and afraid to say so. Only 22.5 percent of federal workers in 2025 believed they could report wrongdoing without fear of retaliation, down from 71.9 percent in 2024. The prayer services are described as voluntary. They are happening in the middle of government workplaces, hosted by government officials, using government time and resources. The line between voluntary and coercive disappears when the people running the service are the people with power over your career.

None of this is the most dangerous manifestation of what is happening. That distinction belongs to the Pentagon. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has repeatedly framed the United States war with Iran as a holy war. He has called on Americans to pray for victory in the name of Jesus Christ. The Pentagon has platformed Doug Wilson, a Christian Nationalist preacher who has argued for the establishment of a theocracy and said women should lose the right to vote. A pastor associated with Hegseth's own church called last month for a Democratic Senate candidate to be crucified with Christ.

Framing a military conflict as a holy war is not a matter of personal faith. It is a diplomatic catastrophe, a recruitment tool for those who wish to portray the United States as conducting a religious crusade, and a direct violation of the constitutional principle that the government of the United States does not take sides in matters of religion. It endangers American service members. It endangers American alliances. And it is being done by the civilian leader of the most powerful military in the world.

The administration has said the prayer services are voluntary and that it supports religious freedom. Religious freedom includes the freedom of federal employees to work in a government that does not promote, endorse, or establish a religion. It includes the freedom of service members to fight under a civilian leader who does not declare their mission holy. And it includes the freedom of every American to be governed by institutions that belong to all of them, not only to those who share a specific set of religious beliefs.

Sign this petition to demand Congress investigate the administration's systematic promotion of Christianity across federal agencies, require the revocation of the OPM memo permitting proselytization in federal workplaces, and call on the Defense Secretary to immediately cease framing U.S. military operations in religious terms that violate the constitutional separation of church and state.