Head of the White House Faith Office Paula White sings as she stands next to President Donald Trump and other religious leaders during a National Day of Prayer event in the Rose Garden at the White House on May 1, 2025, in Washington, DC. The National Day of Prayer is a congressionally recognized observance that calls on people of all faiths to participate in a day of prayer and reflection. | Andrew Harnik/Getty ImagesThis weekend, an array of Christian religious leaders and government officials are scheduled to gather at the National Mall. They’ll convene to pray, yes, but this rally — organized as part of the White House-backed Freedom 250 celebrations tied to this coming July 4 — will also serve as a “rededication of our country as One Nation under God.” If you’ve been following the cultural resurgence of religiosity in the United States, this ceremony shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. The religious right has been ascendant during the second presidency of Donald Trump, and they’ve harnessed his disdain for rules and norms to blur the lines between church and state.Inside the White House, the secretary of defense has framed the war in Iran and American military action abroad as sanctioned and guided by God. Outside the government, this alliance between church and state often skirts near the edge of outright idolatry. Conservative pastors are erecting golden statues of Trump (but insisting it does not mirror the infamous golden calf of the Old Testament). They’re extending their hands over the president in prayer after comparing him to Jesus and standing by him, with some mild criticism, after he cast himself as an AI-slop Messiah. Through it all, these conservative and evangelical religious leaders seem confident that their vision of Christianity, or a more religious America, is on the rise. Yet, a new report from the Pew Research Center suggests that these activists — who tend to agree with a range of beliefs that can be described as “Christian nationalist” — are not in line with the reality of what the American public wants.Instead, Americans broadly reject many of the precepts of this more conservative ideological vision of America. They agree that religion is a force for good, but large majorities stand by the principles of Thomas Jefferson’s wall of separation between the sacred and the secular. In other words, instead of being persuaded or converted by a bolder and louder religious right, many Americans don’t like what they’re seeing.A year of Christian conservatism hasn’t won over hearts and mindsThe Pew report shows a historic high in the share of Americans who say that religion is gaining influence in public life, rising 19 points in two years. And the reaction to this trend isn’t necessarily negative. Overall, views of the role of organized religion remain positive at about 55 percent. View LinkStill, none of this suggests that the particular worldview of the religious right is catching fire. Though awareness of the term “Christian nationalism” has increased in the past four years, the additional attention hasn’t boosted its net popularity. Both positive and negative associations with the term have risen, and its precepts still remain unacceptable to the vast majority of Americans.View LinkHere, it’s useful to define “Christian nationalism.” Though it’s a newer term often used by religious liberals or atheists to deride fundamentalist, evangelical, or conservative Christian interpretations of the Bible that link faith and patriotism, there are a handful of more specific ideas that fall under this umbrella. The Public Religion Research Institute, for example, laid out five metrics they use in their polling to define Christian nationalism: the beliefs that American law should be based in Biblical principles; that the federal government should formally declare America a Christian nation; that Christianity is central to American identity; and that God has a unique mission for America and its Christians.Yet, even with these fairly expansive definitions, these views don’t carry much public support. The Pew survey found that support for Christian nationalist ideas has remained steady for the last few years; there’s been no Trump bump for the most conservative Christian views.The Pew researchers also noted that a steady majority of Americans want churches and houses of worship to “stay out of day-to-day politics and not endorse candidates.” And there has been basically no change in the share of Americans who want the federal government to abandon the separation of church and state — an explicit goal of the most conservative Christian nationalists like the chair of the White House’s infamous Religious Liberty Commission, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick. Similarly, there has been statistically no change in the share of Americans who believe American laws should be primarily grounded in the Bible. Those who oppose any Biblical involvement or weigh the will of voters first still outnumber Biblical fundamentalists by the same margins over the last six years.View LinkAnother tenet of Christian nationalist ideology has seen little movement: the sense that a Christian God uniquely favors or blesses the US over other countries. There, the percent who agree is unchanged over the last five years.View LinkThere has been a slight change in the share of Americans who would be comfortable with Christianity being declared an official religion — 17 percent, up from 13 percent in 2024 — though it’s still a small minority.These results align with survey findings from the Public Religion Research Institute, which found little public support among most Americans for Christian nationalist beliefs or change over the last four years, its president and founder Robert P. Jones told me.Trump’s welcoming of the most conservative and evangelical Christian believers is him fulfilling a campaign promise, Jones, who is writing a book about this topic, said. “He’s speaking to a group that knows they’re in decline, knows their grip on power demographically speaking has been slipping for decades, and he has made the big promise that he’s going to bring them back into power,” he said. Yet, the Pew findings, as well as PRRI’s own work, suggest that this deal between the religious right and the White House to prioritize “one sector of Christianity,” as Jones put it, might not be reaping the rewards that may have been expected.“It hasn’t resulted in major shifts in the landscape,” he said. “In other words, they’re not pulling people into that worldview. They’re basically just appealing to a small subset of Americans who already hold those views and who just happen to be their political base.”