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... President Donald Trump is scheduled to appear in a video message while senior Republicans including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth will speak on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. According to organizers, the event is meant to "prepare for the nation's 250th birthday with Scripture, testimony, prayer, and rededication of our country as One Nation to God."

The gathering is organized by Freedom 250, a public-private partnership created by the White House to coordinate 250th anniversary celebrations alongside federal agencies.

Advocates of church-state separation say the event blurs government and religion.

"This government-sponsored prayer fest is the epitome of exactly what our secular Constitution forbids our government from doing," said Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, in a statement.

"It is a fusion not only of church and state, but also of our federal government with Christian nationalism," said Gaylor, whose organization advocates for the separation of church and state.

Some critics have pointed to the absence of religious groups such as mainline Protestant churches including Lutherans, Methodists and Episcopalians. Also not represented are the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Orthodox Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism.

More than a quarter of all U.S. adults identify as religiously unaffiliated, according to figures from the Pew Research Center. About 23% and 19% identify as evangelical Protestant and Catholic, respectively, and about 11% identify as mainline Protestant. ...