The Christian nationalist program “FlashPoint” held a two-day “Truth and Freedom” event at Faith Life Church in New Albany, Ohio, last week. Airing on televangelist Kenneth Copeland’s Victory Channel network, FlashPoint was launched in support of former President Donald Trump’s reelection in 2020 and has been dedicated to spreading lies about the election, disinformation, and conspiracy theories ever since.
It what seems to be becoming a theme at these live FlashPoint events, Copeland delivered a sermon filled with false Christian nationalist talking points, baselessly claiming that “the first act of Congress was to enter covenant with the Almighty God.”
“[George] Washington invoked his [inaugural] oath and covenant unto the Lord and sealed it with ‘so help me God,'” Copeland claimed. “He bowed his knee to the ground in reverence and kissed the Bible. Afterward Washington called the senators and newly elected officials to join him, and they walked arm in arm down the streets of New York City [to St. Paul’s] Chapel. There they bowed together, prayed, and dedicated this land—our beloved America—to God.”
“The day that George Washington was inaugurated, this was the day covenant was invoked,” Copeland asserted. “America belonged to God Almighty.”
Copeland then went to so far as to include Washington among the Judeo-Christian patriarchs who made a covenant with God.
“Now it’s God, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob—who became Israel—Jesus, and George [Washington],” Copeland declared. “This nation, particularly to Christian people, should be completely, totally based on what George Washington said to Jesus. The first act of Congress—number one!—the first act of Congress was to enter covenant with the Almighty God based on the book of Genesis.”
Contrary to Copeland’s assertion, Congress never made any such covenant with God; not in its official capacity as a legislative body, nor during the “divine service” that followed Washington’s inauguration, which was presided over by Rev. Samuel Provoost, chaplain of the U.S. Senate, who merely read from The Book of Common Prayer.
While it is true that George Washington in his inaugural remarks expressed gratitude and devotion to the “Almighty Being” and “Great Author of every public and private good,” he did not mention Jesus or Christianity. Whatever Washington may or may not have “said to Jesus” in a personal moment of silent prayer—it seems unlikely that Copeland knows—it did not create a national covenant with God, something the authors of the Constitution under which Washington was elected could have done had they so desired. Instead, they chose to enshrine religious freedom, prohibit the establishment of a national religion, and forbid any religious test for serving in public office.
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