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On Easter Sunday, we Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins sent an email with the subject line “He’s Risen!” To the entire agency. In the email, Rollins calls a story Jesus Christ “The greatest story ever told, the foundation of our faith, and the enduring hope of all humanity.”

A USDA employee described the email as “weird” and said the wording made them think it was written by an artificial intelligence.

“This has never happened before,” says the employee, who, like others WIRED spoke to for this article, was granted anonymity due to fear of retaliation. “I’ve never received a message like this from anyone.” The employee says this behavior would not be normal even for military chaplains, for whom faith is part of their job.

The email sparked an internal complaint to the Office of Special Counsel by USDA employee Ethan Roberts. In his complaint, Roberts, who is also president of the local Federation of Federal Employees, alleged that the email “eroded the separation of church and state.” According to CNN.

“The Secretary has the right to send a message to employees and the public over the Easter holiday. Just as Agriculture Secretaries and Presidents have done in the past,” a USDA spokesperson told WIRED.

The USDA is not the only agency to openly embrace religious rhetoric: At the Department of Health and Human Services, the Small Business Administration, and the Department of Labor, federal employees have been alarmed to watch Christianity creep into the government since President Donald Trump returned to office.

On February 7, 2025, Trump signed the agreement Executive order Establishment of the official White House Faith Office in addition to faith offices across government agencies. The White House Faith Office is headed by Paula White Cain, a well-known pastor and televangelist Controversial invitations Throughout Trump’s various presidential campaigns.

From then on, religious offices emerged across agencies, and Christianity began to appear in office life. A July 2025 note From the Office of Personnel Management’s title “Protecting Religious Expression in the Federal Workplace” federal employees are allowed to essentially proselytize to their colleagues, as long as the attempt to “convince others of the validity of their religious views” does not cross the line into harassment. The memo also allows workers to “encourage” their colleagues “to participate in religious expressions of faith, such as prayer.” In response to a request for comment, an OPM spokesperson referred WIRED to the July 2025 memo.

At the Department of Labor, Kenneth Wolfe, director of the agency’s religious center, hosts monthly worship services. These prayer services are “very abnormal,” says one DOL employee, who spoke to WIRED on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.

“In general, people who work for the government understand that their job is to work on behalf of all Americans,” they say. “This is something completely different. This is something that is very clearly Christian, and even in the world of Christianity, a very narrow representation of that.”

On January 12, Alveda Kingniece of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., former state representative from Georgia, and A.J Senior advisor On faith and community outreach at USDA, he told Department of Labor staff during the monthly worship service, “We have different denominations, different religions, and some don’t have faith — and those are the things I would be most concerned about.”