The battle for the soul of America, once waged subversively, is now being fought out in the open for all to see. The Democratic Party and the Left’s response to the Minneapolis Catholic school shooting highlights their shifting stance on faith and what really matters in America.

As children and teachers gathered for morning prayers, a tragic and senseless act of violence perpetrated by an individual in an apparent mental health crisis resulted in the heartbreaking loss of two children and left several others injured. While the nation grieved and faith leaders like Archbishop Bernard Hebda called for prayers to offer “comfort and hope,” Democratic leaders responded with sharp criticism of such sentiments.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey (D) shouted during the first press conference after the shooting, “These kids were literally praying” when the attack occurred, suggesting prayer was futile. Similarly, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) posted on X that the students were “literally praying as they got shot.” Former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki (a key advisor under Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden) openly mocked Vice President J.D. Vance’s call for prayers for the victims and their families.

It wasn’t always like this for the Democratic Party. Over the past 30 years, there’s been a slow and steady shift as leftists in the party push for an anti-God culture and a post-Christian America.

Historically, the Democratic Party was deeply rooted in the Protestant South, where alignment with Christianity was essential for electoral success. In the 1960s, John F. Kennedy, despite personal reservations, chose Lyndon B. Johnson as his running mate to secure the support of the party’s southern Christian base. By the late 1970s, Jimmy Carter, a Sunday school teacher, leveraged this Protestant stronghold to rise to the presidency. During this era, the Democratic Party and Protestantism were so intertwined that candidates had to visibly align with America’s faith community to win elections, even if their personal beliefs or actions didn’t always reflect Christian values.

The culture war over the direction of the party was waged behind closed doors until the Democratic National Convention in 2012. As President Obama prepared to accept the party’s nomination for a second term, Democrats also voted to remove all references to God in their party platform. After some pushback and three rounds of votes, the Democrats retained only a single reference to God. The vote narrowly passed, and when it did, loud boos erupted in the arena. This issue has been revived at every Democratic National Convention since. To this day, the Democratic Party platform retains just one singular reference to God. Clearly, the leftists in the party are not only flirting with the idea of abandoning God, but the abandonment is almost complete.

The leadership of the Democratic Party and the political left leaves very little doubt as they outwardly display a disdain for those who hold a faith in God. Hillary Clinton’s 2016 “basket of deplorables” remark dismissed millions of religious Americans as backward. Obama’s 2008 comment about people clinging to “guns and religion” framed faith as a crutch for the desperate. More recently, Biden’s decision to proclaim Easter Sunday 2023 as “Transgender Day of Visibility” struck many as a deliberate affront to Christian tradition. His administration also removed Nigeria (a nation where Christians face unparalleled persecution) from the State Department’s religious freedom watch list, downplaying a grave crisis. Most strikingly, Democratic leaders have been conspicuously restrained in condemning the October 7, 2023, terrorist attack on Israel, the deadliest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, while vocally defending Hamas. These actions collectively reveal a pattern of disregard, if not outright contempt, for those who hold faith in God.

A recent poll suggests that the faith community’s trust in the Democratic Party has largely eroded. Change Research (which counts labor unions and Bill and Hillary Clinton as clients) conducted a broad poll of over 1,700 self-identified Christians. The poll revealed that 75% of Christians say they have little or no trust in the Democratic Party. This mass exodus of believers from the party has sparked real concern, and they have labeled it the “God gap” and are struggling to find ways to bridge it.

Even the landscape within the Democratic Party has radically changed. Last year, a survey by Ryan Burge tracked the religious beliefs of those who identify as Democrats and Republicans. What was revealed was sobering, but not unexpected. He found that Democrats were growing less religious. In 2008, about 12% of Republicans claimed no religious affiliation compared to 28% of Democrats. By 2021, 45% of Democrats claimed no religious affiliation, while the number of Republicans had remained relatively unchanged. Statistically and practically, Democrats are moving further and further away from faith, God, and the Judeo-Christian values that America was founded on.

The Left’s creation of an anti-God culture within the Democratic Party is all but complete. The leftist worldview has an inherent disdain for faith and God and is a philosophy based on humanism and a belief that truth is subjective. According to their view, humanity is the center of the universe, and there is no such thing as absolute truth. These two ideas cannot exist in a universe where God is the center, and He is the source of all truth.

As a Christian, I believe that everything has a spiritual root. Every person of faith should view this as a spiritual attack on America’s political system designed to draw our country away from its Judeo-Christian foundation. Every American should unite and stand against anything that threatens our values and makes the United States a beacon of hope around the world.

Brad Brandon is the founder and CEO of Across Nigeria. Since 2018, he has been actively serving in the foreign mission field. He serves predominantly in high-risk, highly persecuted areas like Northern Nigeria and other parts of West Africa.