USDA Secretary Sends Explicitly Christian Easter Email to All Staff, Sparking Backlash from Employees

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins sent an Easter email to all USDA staff that read less like a holiday greeting and more like a sermon, sparking backlash from employees who say the message crossed the line from personal faith into government-sponsored religious advocacy.

"Happy Easter -- He is Risen indeed," Rollins wrote in the Good Friday email obtained by CNBC. "From the foot of the Cross on Good Friday to the stone rolled away from the now empty tomb, sin has been destroyed. Jesus has been raised from the dead. And God has granted each of us victory and new life."

The email included an illustration of the rolled-away stone from Jesus' tomb with "Christ is Risen" written above it -- imagery that one USDA staffer, a devout Christian, told CNBC was offensive precisely because it weaponized religious symbolism for political purposes.

"People are not on board for her sort of brand from a Christian nationalist perspective," the staffer said, speaking anonymously out of fear of retaliation. "It misses the mark from a lot of angles. I find it blasphemous, actually, because it's contrasting Jesus' message."

The staffer noted they work alongside Muslims, Hindus, and people of other faiths -- none of whom were considered in Rollins' decision to send an explicitly Christian theological message through official government channels.

A Pattern of Mixing Faith and Federal Power

Rollins' email is not an isolated incident. It fits a documented pattern of Trump administration officials using religious language to justify policy decisions and frame political opponents as forces of darkness.

In a June 2024 interview with the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association's Decision magazine -- headlined "Fighting for the Soul of America" -- Rollins said, "God's hand has been the driving force in everything I've ever done." She described her policy work as built on "Biblical teaching" and said she once planned to become a youth minister.

In the same interview, Rollins revealed she participates in Bible study sessions with other Cabinet members. When asked about a guiding scripture, she cited Romans 13:12 about "putting on the armor of light."

"There is just a lot of darkness -- not with this White House or my current boss, President Trump, or our Cabinet, but with government in general, and with the other side fighting for the soul of America," Rollins said.

That framing -- casting political opposition as spiritual evil -- is textbook Christian nationalism, a worldview that conflates American identity with a specific strain of conservative Christianity and treats policy disagreements as cosmic battles between good and evil.

Trump and Hegseth Invoke God to Justify Military Action

The Easter email came during the same weekend that President Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth invoked God to justify U.S. military operations against Iran.

At a White House briefing on Monday, Trump was asked if he believed God supports the U.S. against Iran, a predominantly Shiite Muslim nation. "I do, because God is good," Trump replied. "And God wants to see people taken care of."

Hegseth went further, comparing the rescue of a downed U.S. airman in Iran to the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

"You see, shot down on a Friday, Good Friday; hidden in a cave, a crevice, all of Saturday; and rescued on Sunday," Hegseth said. "Flown out of Iran as the sun was rising on Easter Sunday, a pilot reborn."

The comparison of a military extraction to the central miracle of Christian theology drew widespread criticism for trivializing both the airman's ordeal and the religious significance of Easter.

On Easter Sunday, Trump posted on Truth Social warning Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz or "you'll be living in Hell -- JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah." The sarcastic invocation of the Arabic name for God in Islam was widely interpreted as mocking.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt opened a March 30 briefing by telling reporters, "Could you hear our 'amen' in there? We just had a little loud prayer as a team."

The Constitutional Problem

Federal employees are permitted to hold personal religious beliefs and even discuss them in appropriate contexts. What they cannot do is use their official positions to promote religion or create the appearance that the government endorses a particular faith.

The USDA spokesperson defended Rollins' email by saying "the Secretary is within her rights to send a message to employees and the public on the Easter holiday. Just like Secretaries of Agriculture and Presidents have in the past."

But past Easter messages from government officials have typically been inclusive holiday greetings, not theological declarations about sin being destroyed and Jesus granting "victory and new life." The distinction matters.

On Reddit, federal employees pushed back against the email. "I am a fed and a Christian and fully offended by this crap!!!" one wrote. "It makes me want to puke how they use Christ as an excuse to behave so badly."

Another commenter, identifying as Lutheran, wrote: "Christ is Risen indeed. But, that's as a Lutheran that I say that. It's disgraceful to advocate religion as a civil servant. My faith guides my life, it is immaterial for the service I provide as a government employee and I would be doing a disservice to the Warfighters who believe differently than me if I were to actively advocate for Christianity."

That distinction -- between personal faith and official advocacy -- is what Rollins' email violated. When a Cabinet secretary sends a theological message to thousands of federal employees through official channels, it creates pressure to conform and signals that religious belief is a criterion for belonging in the administration.

The USDA staffer who spoke to CNBC put it plainly: the email was offensive not because it mentioned Easter, but because it used the machinery of government to advance a specific religious worldview while dismissing everyone who doesn't share it.

In an administration where officials routinely invoke God to justify military strikes, cast political opponents as agents of darkness, and compare policy wins to Biblical miracles, Rollins' Easter email is less an aberration than a mission statement.