Christians Can Finally Breathe Sigh of Relief With Trump Return on Horizon

Along with inflation, crime, and the border, one of the most shameful legacies of the Biden administration will be four years in which the federal government used every tool at its disposal to shame, slander, and persecute Christians. With Trump set to take office in just a few weeks, people of faith can expect not only relief, but justice for those wrongdoings.

There have been plenty of overt instances of anti-Christian bigotry from the Biden administration since 2021. Perhaps the most egregious was the infamous 2022 FBI raid on the home of Mark Houck, a pro-life activist and father of seven whose only crime was defending his young son from an aggressive pro-abortion activist hurling expletive-laden insults. The Biden Department of Justice also tossed a 76-year-old grandmother in prison for praying outside an abortion clinic while doing nothing to bring to justice the pro-abortion radicals terrorizing churches and pro-life pregnancy centers.

In other cases, the administration’s war on Christians has been more subtle. Biden has, for instance, backed the radical left-wing “Equality Act,” which, as the Charlotte Lozier Institute puts it, would “treat religious believers as second-class citizens” and force faith-based organizations to support abortion and gender ideology. Another Biden policy, which a federal judge ultimately struck down, would have forced doctors to perform gender transition surgeries even if doing so violated their sincerely held religious beliefs. Biden likewise backed policies forcing schools to allow boys to compete in girls’ sports and use female restrooms and locker rooms.

The Biden administration has also been engaged in a quiet crusade to financially destroy prominent Christian colleges and universities. This effort was detailed in a November report from the American Principles Project (APP), a Virginia-based conservative advocacy group.

According to APP, the Biden administration increased the budget for the Office of Enforcement (OEC) at the Department of Education by nearly 600 percent in 2023 and has requested another 230 percent increase. The OEC has since used its renewed power and funding to unfairly scrutinize and target Christian students and schools, transforming it into “a weapon to single out and penalize schools that the administration disfavors.”

The OEC traces its roots to the Department of Education’s Student Aid Enforcement Unit, established during the Obama administration ostensibly to hold colleges and universities accountable for failing to provide “clear and accurate” information to prospective students. After the first Trump administration “deprioritized” the unit, Biden restored it under the new name of the OEC in October 2021.

According to APP, under the Biden administration, “Nearly 70 percent of penalties imposed by the Office of Enforcement have been against Christian institutions and career colleges, even though these schools represent less than 10 percent of college students.” Moreover, while OEC fined Christian schools $815,000 on average, it fined public schools an average of $228,571.

Two of the OEC’s most notable “enforcement actions” include “record fines against two of the nation’s most prominent Christian universities—Grand Canyon University ($37.7 million) and Liberty University ($14 million)” which “total more than all other penalties assessed by the Department of Education over the past seven years.”

Notably, the OEC’s targeting of Christian colleges comes as religious schools are gaining popularity nationwide. Faith-based learning institutions saw an 82 percent rise in enrollment from 1980 to 2020, even as Americans’ confidence in public schools was on the decline.

With Trump set to return to the White House, however, Christians can finally expect equal treatment under the law once again.

“They’re weaponizing law enforcement to target parents, conservatives, and Catholics, Catholics more than anybody,” Trump said during remarks at the National Religious Broadcasters conference in Nashville this past February. “Nothing is more important than to defeat this wicked system and to return to fair, equal, and impartial justice under the constitutional rule of law.”

To address the problem, Trump has pledged to create a “task force on fighting anti-Christian bias” focused on “investigating all forms of illegal discrimination, harassment, and persecution against Christians in America.” While prior administrations have formed task forces aimed at stopping Islamophobia and antisemitism, Trump’s anti-Christian bias task force would be the first of its kind.

Trump’s return to the Oval Office also means he will have the opportunity to once again appoint judges who are committed to upholding religious liberty and protecting the conscience rights of religious Americans.

But perhaps most importantly, Trump will have the chance to work with a Republican Congress to enshrine new protections for Christians in federal law. Democrats have for years been attempting to use government power to undermine the right of Christians to live their faith through radical bills like the Equality Act, and now the GOP has an opportunity to turn the tables.

Ultimately, while executive actions are needed, it is only through legislation that Trump and congressional Republicans can stop the next Democrat administration from once again weaponizing the government against Christians. This should be an urgent priority in the new year.

Ben Solis is the pen name of an international affairs journalist, historian, and researcher.