Government Workers Say They’re Getting Inundated With Religion

On Easter Sunday, US Department of Agriculture secretary Brooke Rollins sent out an email titled “He has risen!” to the entire agency. In the email, Rollins calls the story of Jesus Christ the “greatest story ever told, the foundation of our faith, and the abiding hope of all mankind.”

One USDA employee called the email “grotesque” and said the wording made them think it had been written by AI. “This has never happened before,” says the employee. The email sparked an internal complaint to the Office of Special Counsel by USDA employee Ethan Roberts, alleging it “eroded the separation of church and state.”

The USDA is not the only agency espousing overtly religious rhetoric. At the Department of Health and Human Services, the Small Business Administration, and the Department of Labor, federal employees have been alarmed to watch Christianity’s creep into the government since President Donald Trump’s return to office. On February 7, 2025, Trump signed an executive order establishing the official White House Faith Office led by Paula White-Cain.

At the Department of Labor, monthly worship services are hosted. Alveda King, a senior adviser at the USDA, told DOL employees during a service, “We have different denominations, different faiths, and some have no faith—and those are the ones I would be more concerned about.” Employees expressed discomfort, noting that while services are voluntary, they occur in the middle of a government workplace.

At HHS, Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has supported religious exemptions for vaccines and expanded funding for “faith-based” addiction treatments, calling addiction a “spiritual disease.” Recent data shows a sharp decline in employee confidence regarding reporting wrongdoing without fear of retaliation, dropping from 71.9 percent in 2024 to 22.5 percent in 2025.