Earlier this month, President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump participated in the annual lighting of the National Christmas Tree on the Ellipse in President’s Park. This event has become part of our “civic religion.” Its Christian roots are obvious, but the gospel of Jesus Christ has faded a bit into the background. As America has become more diverse, a consensus has grown suggesting it would be inappropriate to be too overtly Christian at the tree lighting.
In December 2024, then-President Biden lit the tree and dedicated it to “A Season of Peace and Light.” He spoke of “the peace we feel as we pause and reflect on our blessings and the light—the light we see as we gather with loved ones that cherish our time together.” He then referred to a phrase in the Christmas carol “O Holy Night” that says, “His law is love, and His gospel is peace.” The “His” in the song obviously refers to Jesus, but apparently saying the name of Christ would be in bad taste in diverse America.
At the very end, God did get a shout-out. Biden ended with the exhortation, “And may God bless you all. And may God protect—may God protect our troops.”1
This was fairly consistent with President Biden’s proclamations on other important Christian celebrations, including Easter and Thanksgiving. Finding the name of Jesus or any reference to the gospel message in his speeches is harder than solving a “Where’s Waldo?” search.
This trend of presidents keeping the ornaments of Christianity while relegating Jesus Himself to the sidelines fortunately ended this year. President Trump directly shared the gospel with the crowd at this year’s tree lighting. He said:
During this holy season, Christians everywhere rejoice at the miracle in Bethlehem, more than 2,000 years ago, when the Son of God, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, came down from heaven to be with us. Full of grace and truth, He brought the gift of God’s love into the world and the promise of salvation for every person and every nation.
Tonight, this beautiful evergreen tree glows bright on the dark and cold winter night and reminds us of the words of the Gospel of John: “In Him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.”
With the birth of Jesus, human history turned from night to day. His Word and His example call us to love one another, to serve one another, and to honor the sacred truth that every child is specially made in the image of God.
America has stood tall, in part, because millions of our citizens have heeded that call in their faith—and the service of Christians has been an essential part of America’s strength from the very, very beginning.2
That is a better presentation of the Gospel than you will hear from woke church pulpits these days. Here is a helpful hint: if there is a gay pride flag flying outside the sanctuary, you may not hear much about the God of the Bible and His Son, Jesus, in that church.
President Trump’s reminder that “every child bears the image of God” was extremely important. It is consistent with our Declaration of Independence, where our founders remind us that we are endowed by our “Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”3
What happened after the president shared the gospel on the Capitol Mall was a miracle of sorts. There was some criticism of his remarks by the usual radical secularists, but, by and large, the response was overwhelmingly positive.
President Trump’s words were consistent with those of past American presidents. Our first president, George Washington, said in his first inaugural address that without God, there would be no America. It has only been in recent years that the concepts of “diversity” and “tolerance” have led to an ill-conceived attempt to not tolerate open Christian participation in our nation’s public square.
Let us hope and pray that President Trump has started a new, more promising trend of celebrating our Christian heritage and spreading the Good News.
- U.S. Government Publishing Office, “Remarks on Lighting the National Christmas Tree,” December 5, 2024, GovInfo, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/DCPD-202401050/pdf/DCPD-202401050.pdf
- Donald J. Trump, “Trump & First Lady Light The National Christmas Tree | Festive 2025 Celebration,” streamed live on December 5, 2025, YouTube video, 11:04 (quoted comments begin at 4:27), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeTKIivC6Pw
- Library of Congress, “Thomas Jefferson, et al, July 4, 1776, Copy of Declaration of Independence,” Manuscript/Mixed Material, https://www.loc.gov/item/mtjbib000159/
