On Memorial Day, 2026, I am remembering four great-uncles, all sons of the same father and mother, all Christian men, all honorably discharged US combat veterans of WWII.  If they were alive today to respond to a call to rededicate themselves, what would their stated pledge be?

I have been disturbed by the call of “Rededication 250,” a call for citizens to rededicate to an imaginary story about the founding of the United States.  This call misrepresents our national origins.  “Rededication 250” is a political movement shrouded in a religious invitation.  The nationalist organizers invested in an exclusionary call of dedication to an imagined past rather than a rededication to an actual past.

The colonies that eventually became the United States were different denominational expressions of the Christian heritage.  Each colony had its own unique orientation as each chose to escape some oppressive form of Christianity.  The first of the 13 colonies was established in 1607 and the last was established in 1732.  The American imagination holds the 13 colonies having been established in rapid succession and soon became one colonial America, which completely overlooks the 125 years between the establishment of the first to the last colony.

The First Continental Congress gathered delegates from 12 of the 13 colonies in 1774.  Their insistence on gathering and forming a resistance had nothing to do with a uniform declaration of Christian faith against their sovereign, the Christian British crown.  The delegates were not debating theology like the great councils of the Church.  Does the Declaration of Rights (1774) get to stand alongside the Nicene Creed, Apostles’ Creed, or Athanasian Creed as a creed of the Christian Church in America?  It is a well-known fact that several significant signers of the Declaration of Independence were Deists and Unitarians, not Orthodox Christians.  Even without a founders roll call on Christian piety, the voices that called for founding this nation were not calling for a Christian Reformation!

Pete Hegseth, the U.S. Secretary of Defense, encouraged the nation to pray as George Washington did at Valley Forge.  Washington’s posture of prayer in the woods is a myth that carries sympathy instead of being a documented prayer for the nation.  What is, however, documented is Washington’s refusal to emancipate the woman he enslaved named Ona Judge.  This we can read about in his years as President of the young United States of America.  Along with the painting of him praying at Valley Forge, there are other paintings of him maintaining slavery rather than life and liberty.

Mike Johnson, the Republican US House speaker, supports a call to exceptionalism and triumphalism by denying the importance of confession while affirming the hiding of America’s sins throughout American history.  He stated:

“In recent years we’ve seen sinister ideologies sow confusion and discord among our people. We’ve witnessed attacks on our history, on our heroes and the cherished moral and spiritual identity of this great nation. These voices insist to the young and impressionable that our story, the American story, is one of oppression and hypocrisy and failure and that this story can only be understood through the lens of our sins. Father, we reject that. We rebuke it in your name.”  The Guardian 17 May 2026

Many Christian liturgies each Sunday include a request, “Let us confess our sins.”  Confessing our sins is always followed by the assurance of forgiveness and encourages the believer to sin no more.  Many who gathered on the National Mall declared a Christian Nationalist faith that completely, and continuously, overlooks and denies the words of James 5:16, “Therefore confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, so that you may be healed” (New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition).  Those who advocate hiding rather than healing promote the bondage of secrecy!

Freedom arises out of truth-telling; so, hiding the truth leads everyone away from freedom, and that is sinister!  Does the greatness of the Apostle Paul become more or less extraordinary by hiding the deeds of Saul?  Most confess that knowing Paul’s conversion story makes him a more credible witness of the faith.  Those who are committed to revising American history through denying American history are unable to accept the faith principles of repentance and conversion.

The people who gathered to dedicate themselves to a nationalist faith were a small concert gathering, at best.  May 17, 2026, 15 thousand gathered for “Rededication 250.”  The organizers failed to achieve the broad-based national support hoped for.  To place the size of the gathering in perspective, consider other recent and historic gatherings.  March 28, 2026, 100 thousand gathered for the “No Kings” rally in St. Paul, MN.  Compare “Rededication 250” to other gatherings on the National Mall.  In 2023, ~300 thousand gathered for the “March for Israel.”  In 2017, 470 thousand gathered for the “Women’s March.”  In 1995, ~1 million gathered for the “Million Man March.”  In 1963, 250 thousand gathered for the “March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.”

Throughout American history, many laws and policies were created that disregarded women, removed Indians for settlers to claim lands, created Indian boarding schools, legalized American slavery, promoted auction blocks, enacted an exclusion of Chinese, alienated Mexicans, detained children, interned Japanese, and used marriage to define human beings.  Is this what America wants to rededicate itself to?  Recounting these does not deny American heroes, especially the heroes and heroines who fought to reform the unjust laws and policies in the course of human events.

Who will rededicate themselves to the beliefs and feelings of President John Quincy Adams?  Adams, also one of the signatories of the Declaration of Independence, stood against the nation’s ill-treatment of Indians.  He wrote in his diary, 30 June 1841, that he believed the nation’s treatment of Indians was “among the heinous sins of this Nation.”  Who will rededicate themselves to Adams’ belief and feelings that this nation is not Christian in governance as stated in the 1797 Treaty of Tripoli, Article 11: “As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion.”

I affirm the value of rededicating ourselves to faith, purpose, and principle; yet to my ears, I have heard the nation calling for a rededication to American Exceptionalism and Christian triumphalism.  Exceptionalism and triumphalism are religious values not affirmed by the Iliff School of Theology.  Iliff affirms a rededication to a progressive faith that is ecumenical and interfaith and not to the regressive vision that is currently guiding America.  Iliff affirms a rededication that welcomes the stranger and extends lovingkindness to all regardless of race, color, or creed.  Iliff affirms a rededication that does not seek to hide “the heinous sins of this Nation,” rather advocates freedom through compassion and fellowship.