When President Trump announced the creation of the new Religious Liberty Commission (RLC), he described its mission as addressing the religious liberty concerns of all Americans. However, a fundamental question remains: Is this a commission to advance the president’s own views on religious freedom, or a commission to advise the president—whether it agrees with him or not—on how best to affirm and advance religious freedom in accordance with the United States constitutional framework and recognition that both free exercise of religion and no establishment of religion must be robustly protected?
Ostensibly it is the latter, although some of the examples offered in the Executive Order (EO) would seem to limit the commission’s capacity to have an independent voice. Further, on the face of it, it was to be distinct from an earlier Trump task force charged to examine and make recommendations to address anti-Christian bias in America. As to its subject matter scope, I would observe for a Berkley Center readership that the RLC’s mandate to advise on domestic religious liberty suggests a parallel to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF)’s mandate to advise on the international scene. (Albeit, of course, USCIRF is a congressionally created, independent commission with member appointments made from both parties and reports to the president, secretary of state and the Congress. The RLC is a presidential commission with all appointments made by the president and reports to the White House Faith Office and Domestic Policy Council.)
Indeed, several aspects of the commission are deeply concerning regarding its independence and its willingness to engage with and consider a broad range of viewpoints in a nation deeply divided on religious liberty issues. The first concern is the make-up of the members of the commission and its three advisory panels (of legal experts, lay leaders, and religious leaders). In a nation in which, according to a Pew Research Center 2023-2024 study, only 62% of Americans identify as Christians and some 23 million people belong to non-Christian religions, the make-up of the commission seems unfortunately limited. Across the globe, it is almost always minority religions and sects which face discrimination compared to majority religions. Polls indicate that the American public believe that to be true here by a significant margin. According to a Pew 2025 survey, Americans see Muslims (74%) and Jews (72%) as facing much more discrimination than for example, Evangelicals (43%).
For a commission charged to attend to the religious liberty of all Americans, there seems to be little religious or political diversity. The RLC is dominated by people with moderate to very conservative views on most policy issues connected with religious liberty (including some associated with what might be considered Christian nationalist views). None would reasonably be characterized as holding liberal views. Religious identity for commissioners and advisory board members must be imputed from titles, brief biographical descriptions, and on-line research. Of course, religion as a qualification for government appointment is barred by Article VI of the Constitution. But once appointments are made, it is insightful to consider how its configuration may reflect on the commission’s core work. It appears that twelve of the thirteen commission members (plus the three ex officio members) are Christians. While a number are highly respected, influential religious leaders, including one highly respected Jewish scholar, and there are experienced and skilled lawyers, the commission includes no Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Mormons, Sikhs, Indigenous religious voices, Seventh Day Adventists, or Jehovah’s Witnesses, nor humanists or atheists–all of whom face documented religious discrimination, with some being victims of hate crimes as well. On the advisory panels, there appear to be 20 Christians, six Jews and three Muslims. Again, non-Abrahamic faiths seem to have no representative voices. Apologies if I have surmised wrong on one or two–the pattern nonetheless holds.
The contrast with the inaugural appointees to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (on which I was honored to serve) is instructive: The nine members plus one ex officio (the ambassador for international religious freedom) included Jews, Catholics, Protestants (mainline and Evangelical), a Mormon, Muslim, and Baha’i. Ideologically, we ran the gamut from a strong liberal like myself to President Trump’s former National Security Advisor, John Bolton—and the full range in between. Despite this diversity, in our first report, 50 of 52 recommendations were unanimous, which gave them more impact than they would otherwise have had, precisely because of that consensus from such a diverse group. This commission’s primary charge is completing its report for the United States’ two hundred and fiftieth anniversary, with its current appointees finishing that task, making it harder to imagine the RLC making a similar effort looking for common ground to unify Americans around their recommendations. This commission could have been established in a way similar to USCIRF or the president’s appointments could have been chosen to ensure this kind of diversity. The president chose otherwise.
Of course, the fact that their members are overwhelmingly Christian does not in any way preclude their responsible attention to address religious liberty issues for all faith groups. Yet the discourse heard at the launch and at the first meeting suggests otherwise. Much of the discussion of liberty and discrimination focused on Christians and Christianity, rendering its function little different than the Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias.
Everyone should indeed be open to hearing and addressing the concerns of bias against Christians. Certainly, on an international level, we see that Christians whose missionizing activities took them across the globe establishing communities even in countries where they are a small minority and have often been subject to discrimination and persecution. The United States (somewhat unevenly) counters such treatment globally—albeit efforts to promote international religious freedom will likely be weakened due to recent changes at the State Department. And discrimination can be present even in a country where one group is a clear majority or strong plurality. Anti-Christian bias in the U.S. should be fought as vigorously as any other kind of bias. But, as to the RLC, beyond the acknowledgement of the alarming spread of antisemitism (no mention of Islamophobia) and several references to one specific Native American religious freedom challenge, there was very little mention of current challenges faced by any other religions mentioned above—despite the historian witnesses who lifted up the founders’ concerns for the challenges faced by numerous religious groups.
I believe that two narratives of religious freedom divide America today. The first asserts that the U.S. is—or at least was founded as—a Christian country and, thus, separation of church and state is a myth about the founders’ intent, and was given form by courts and legislatures as anti-God, anti-religious, and bad for America. This view calls on public schools to embrace overtly religious activities and government to directly fund pervasively religious institutions (houses of worship, parochial schools etc.). Yet religious institutions should be exempt from the same government regulations (including civil rights laws) and the same supervision that secular non-profits would be subject to when accepting government funding. A number of commissioners and witnesses at the first commission hearing seem to support this narrative of religious freedom.
The second religious liberty narrative was the normative view of the Supreme Court and the majority of Americans for much of the twentieth century into the twenty-first century: holding that church-state separation benefits not just the state but religion and religious liberty.
This narrative suggests that the wall of separation, by controlling or barring religious entities from using the coercive power of government to impose religious beliefs or values on society—particularly policies and values that are justified exclusively by faith beliefs rather than rational discourse—has enhanced democracy as well as religious liberty. By keeping government out of religion, including barring funding of actual religious activities (remembering that with government money, comes government rules, regulations, monitoring, and auditing) this separation has allowed religions to flourish freely with a diversity, robustness, and strength in America that is virtually unmatched anywhere in the democratic world, including those democracies that have government-established, government-preferred, government-funded religion.
Regarding the balance of civil rights protections and religious freedom claims, this perspective grants greater weight to ensuring that religious exemptions be carefully tailored to preserve the core structure of civil rights protections for vulnerable groups. Granting blanket exemptions, such as allowing religious dissenters to disobey civil rights laws, would undermine America’s entire civil rights structure.
So, too, this perspective would bar religious social service providers from requiring participation in religious activities or in proselytizing efforts as a condition of receiving government funded aid; and ensures that social service providers do not discriminate neither in whom they hire with government funding nor whom they serve, thus protecting the religious liberty of social service beneficiaries and employees.
No participant in the RLC’s work has yet raised any of the concerns this second narrative is asserting. Nor have they challenged the administration’s alarming attacks on religious charities (particularly those engaged in providing services to immigrants and their families). One can reasonably expect Jewish, Muslim, Catholic, and at least some Protestant commissioners to raise these concerns, particularly those commissioners affiliated with religious denominations providing key services to immigrants.
At minimum, one hopes these representatives will insist that diverse voices be heard during commission deliberations, ensuring a more comprehensive and truly representative approach to protecting religious liberty for all Americans.
