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Trump’s Executive Orders Pave the Way for the Church to ‘Live Out Its Role’: Experts

January 22, 2025

Within the first 48 hours of his second term, President Donald Trump has signed a mountain of executive orders. This is not merely an outworking of fulfilling promises he made to the American people, but as Family Research Council’s Travis Weber put it, this is the beginning of a “resetting and realigning” of America as a whole.

On Tuesday’s “Washington Watch,” Weber and guest host Jody Hice discussed how many of Trump’s executive orders are pushing the country back in the direction “America … should be going.” Hice explained how the “batch of executive orders” Trump has signed so far stand in stark “contrast … from the Biden administration, whose officials literally struggled to define what a man and a woman are.” Clearly, he added, “we’re going in a different direction right now.”

“[W]e really are,” Weber stated. “These actions are focused on what we might expect, areas that he highlighted a lot during the campaign [such as] law and order, national security, the border, [and] the economy. America has gotten off the rails in recent years. We’ve been a nation in decline as our leaders, including the Biden administration, have let us languish and have failed to effectively lead the nation where we should be going. And so, a lot of President Trump’s actions are starting the process of resetting.”

Weber went on to explain how in order to “Make America Great Again,” as Trump has vowed, we need “an America First foreign policy, one that serves our interests and not the interests of diplomats or elite global circles, [which is only] to the detriment of the American people who do not know what is being discussed by those who are supposed to be representing them.” On the topic of foreign policy, Hice emphasized that “there’s no question President Trump has had his eye on the foreign aid that the Biden administration has been doling out.” Weber agreed, explaining one of the executive orders Trump signed “pauses foreign aid for a period of time until the whole system can be reformed.”

According to Weber, this order is significant because it takes a stab at some of the policies that, in recent years, have fed into the promotion of “LGBT … ideology … radical abortion positions, [and] climate positions.” Not only do these agendas hurt the U.S., Weber argued, but they often repel other countries who are not interested in “our insistence on pushing these policies on them.” Ultimately, “we’re shooting ourselves in the foot by promoting these ideologies,” and Trump’s order addresses that. Moving forward, he emphasized how “we need to see a rollback, a de-woking, of our foreign policy [that] gets us back to neutral.”

And “in place of that,” he continued, “we want to see foreign aid used to promote values that serve our interests and being a beacon to the world, a shining city on a hill, promoting true human rights, freedom, religious freedom and life and … family flourishing everywhere we can see fit. … [T]hat’s my hope and prayer for what will happen under this executive order,” especially considering how these “were human rights efforts that expanded and displayed globally the founding ideals of America. We’re coming up on the 250th anniversary of American independence. And so, this is an opportunity to bring some of those out again, bring them into the light, so that America may be a blessing [not only] to its people at home, but to all people who desire freedom around the world.”

Hice asked, “Are there any other executive orders that the president has signed or has promised to sign that you think would be of particular interest and concern to evangelicals?”

As Weber explained, “We’ve seen a number of good orders signed so far,” some of which establish “that [the] male and female biological reality shall be the policy of the federal government.” This also means that taxpayer money would no longer fund “[gender] ideologies at home or abroad.” There have been other provisions that “protect women in prisons and other contexts in which gender ideology has harmed women. [And] there are a number of other orders dealing with a lot of law and order issues, national security issues, the border,” and more.

Weber concluded that his hope is that these policies will continue to put “America back on the rails to give us a chance to clear the rubble” of the last four years. And as a result, “the American people can live up to their potential, can exercise their freedom, and the American church can live out its role in a robust way, seeking to bless the country and pray for the country as President Trump kind of clears ... the pathway ahead.”

Sarah Holliday is a reporter at The Washington Stand.



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