(2^nd April 2026)

After “Operation epic fury,” in which American and Israeli forces bombed Tehran on February 28, 2026, killing Iran’s Supreme Leader Khamenei[1], a collective blessing for the President of the United States was held in the Oval Office of the White House, in the presence of a large delegation of evangelicals, and administered by evangelical pastor Greg Laurie.

Episodes like these highlight the reciprocal instrumentalization between the political and religious spheres[2]. Already the appointment of Paola White as head of the Faith Office at the White House[3] by presidential decree on February 7, 2025, demonstrates the influence on the current administration of the evangelical current that believes in the realization “of the great Armageddon”[4] and the “American manifest destiny”[5]. Equally significant appears the appointment of Pete Hegseth as Secretary of the Department of Defense — later renamed Department of War — a supporter of conservative ideological positions close to “Christian Reconstructionism”[6].

Lance Wallnau, an evangelical pastor who described President Donald Trump as a modern “Cyrus the Great”[7]following his 2017 decision to move the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem[8], also carries similar views. This political move was followed on the occasion of the seventieth anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel, by the Israeli government’s decision to mint a commemorative coin depicting Trump and King Cyrus together, with the Third Temple in the background[9].

The evangelical religious right, already since the mid-1970s, has heavily relied on the rhetoric of moral decline, to the point of significantly influencing American politics and, in particular, the electoral campaigns that brought Ronald Reagan to the White House in 1980, George H. W. Bush in 1989, George W. Bush in 2000, and finally Trump in both 2016 and 2024.

A particularly emblematic case of the use of religious rhetoric was the explicit reference to the apocalyptic theme of the battle between “good and evil”[10] used by Bush Junior after his conversion to evangelical Christianity[11], on the occasion of the attack on the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001.

The protagonists of the recent prayer at the White House are today among the leading promoters of the “Seven Mountain Mandate”[12] which advocates the need for believers to exert their influence over seven areas of social reality: religion, family, education, entertainment, media, economy, and politics[13].

The purpose of this theory is to steer the society it addresses toward their Christian values, with clear repercussions on the traditional principle of separation between State and religion enshrined in the First Amendment of the American Constitution[14]. Its supporters, more specifically, draw inspiration from the prosperity gospel, a neo-Pentecostal evangelical doctrine based on the belief that God desires a life of abundance. The real problem with this line of thought is its interpretation in a strictly economic key, which affects the priorities of the faithful, pushing them over time to adopt strong and at times hostile positions toward poverty, illness, and everything that contributes to the notion of “unhappiness.” In the conceptual lexicon of these prosperity theologians, happiness, physical vigor, and individual success appear as tangible signs of divine blessing; their opposites, instead, embody the material manifestation of God’s judgment and curse.

This framework connects to the “pursuit of happiness” and fits into the broader tradition that, already in the 18th century, identified happiness as a central element in the relationship between the individual and power. In American tradition, “the right to happiness” is understood as the right to freely pursue one’s individual fulfillment, an objective for which the State’s role is primarily to remove obstacles that hinder its realization. The prosperity gospel, in this sense, offers a religious reinterpretation of the right to happiness, presenting it as a sign of divine blessing.

Conversely, some more recent reflections on the concept of happiness[15] emphasize its relational dimension, questioning the possibility that it can be considered an intimate and isolated aspiration. The individual can truly flourish only when contributing to the common good. The liberal and market-oriented vision promoted by the aforementioned evangelical current risks, in fact, betraying even the original meaning of felicitas, which refers to “the generativity of life and the cultivation of virtues”[16] and according to which the good of the individual cannot fail to accompany the good of the community. Only in this way can the balance between rights and duties of solidarity be respected.

The emerging risk is, ultimately, that of a sacralization of political activity, in which the action of the American executive seems not to be based on programmatic lines founded on rational strategic choices, but rather on an eschatological vision dictated by verses of sacred texts instrumentally interpreted to justify decisions.

In this fragile balance, it becomes an urgent challenge of our time to rethink the relationship between religion, politics, and collective happiness, and to reflect on how a democracy can welcome the religious dimension in the public sphere without undermining the principle of separation between State and religion.

Marco Spina

[1] https://www.ansa.it/sito/notizie/mondo/2026/02/28/media-riportano-che-khamenei-e-morto-a-teheran-applausi-alle-finestre_5bb5ba23-6006-4f7c-b2f5-5397d0197883.html.

[2] On the ecclesiastical policy of the current Donald Trump administration cf. Vincenzo Pacillo, Gli executive orders 14188/2025 e 1° maggio 2025: l’amministrazione Trump davanti alla religious liberty e alla lotta contro l’antisemitismo, in Il diritto ecclesiastico, 3-4, 2025, pp. 523-544.

[3] https://www.tgcom24.mediaset.it/mondo/trump-ufficio-fede-foto-ultima-cena_93604938-202502k.shtml

[4] Name used in Revelation 16:16 to indicate the place where the wicked kings, allied with the Beast, will gather on the great day for the war against God. Cf. https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/armageddon/#google_vignette.

[5] https://ilmanifesto.it/archivio/2003040467.

[6] https://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/2026/03/11/hegseth-salmo-biblico-iran-attacchi-notizie/8320177/ “who, among other things, has in some statements declared himself opposed to the participation of women in military operations. During his press conferences at the Pentagon, he has often referred to passages from the Bible, as he did in his most recent speech on March 10, 2026, in which he cited Psalm 144”.

[7] The choice of Donald Trump has in fact been compared to that of the Persian king, who was deemed worthy for having freed the prisoners from Babylon. Cf. https://lancewallnau.com/trump-is-a-modern-cyrus/

[8] https://www.ilsole24ore.com/art/trump-ha-deciso-l-ambasciata-usa-si-sposta-gerusalemme-AEhfNeND

[9]  https://ilfarosulmondo.it/verso-terzo-tempio-gerusalemme/

[10] https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2002/06/20020601-3.html -

“We are in a conflict between good and evil, and America will call evil by its name”.

[11] Bush Junior, in fact, after his conversion to evangelical Christianity, used to proclaim himself “new born in Christ”. Cf. Linda Fregoli, Dal fondamentalismo cristiano al movimento QAnon, in Antonello De Oto (ed.), Terrorismo di matrice religiosa, sicurezza e libertà fondamentali, Bologna University Press, Bologna, 2023, especially p. 73..

[12] https://arche.plus/it/

[13] Cf. Antonio Spadaro, Marcelo Figueroa, Teologia della prosperità: un vangelo diverso, in La Civiltà Cattolica, 4034, 2018, available at https://www.laciviltacattolica.it/articolo/teologia-della-prosperita-il-pericolo-di-un-vangelo-diverso/

[14] About the principle of separation between State and religion see Mario Tedeschi, s.v. Separatismo, in Novissimo Digesto Italiano, Appendice Segr-Z, Utet, Torino, 1987, pp. 70-76.

[15]  Declaration of Independence of 1776 - https://aulalettere.scuola.zanichelli.it/sezioni-lettere/interventi-d-autore/il-diritto-alla-felicita-1/.

[16] Maria d’Arienzo, Considerazioni sul concetto di felicità tra religione, diritto e politica, in Diritto e religioni, 2, 2019, p. 241 ss.