Church-state separation is a 'lie,' says Trump's Religious Liberty Commission chair

The leader of President Donald Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission said that church and state separation is a falsehood at the group’s final meeting, drawing criticism from an advocacy group that supports it.

At a Monday (April 13) hearing at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C., Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a Republican and the chair of the commission, asked, “Would it not be a good recommendation that every school, every university, every business, has to have that one sheet on the bulletin board about protecting people’s religious liberty, and that the separation of church and state is the biggest lie that’s been told in America since our founding?”

His question was posed to Helen Alvaré, a law professor at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, as Patrick compared the notion of such a bulletin board announcement to the federal notices from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration that are posted in classrooms and other buildings that aim to promote safety and prevent hazards.

Religion & Politics

Photos of the Week: Orthodox Easter, Sikh pilgrims

Christian Orthodox pilgrims hold up candles during the Holy Fire ceremony, at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the site where, according to tradition, Jesus was crucified and buried, in the Old City of Jerusalem, Saturday, April 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

In Opinion

And finally, A California forest synagogue experiments with nature-based spirituality

On an unseasonably warm Friday evening in March, 40 people gathered for a Kabbalat Shabbat service in a grove of redwoods and California live oaks, about an hour and a half drive north of San Francisco. A group of musicians led the Jewish congregation in singing Hebrew psalms as an owl made its presence known from somewhere above.

For the silent Amidah prayer, the rabbi invited the congregants — dressed in jeans, hats and hiking shoes — to venture further into the forest for several minutes of private reflection.

“With your eyes, with your heart, please take a moment to greet the trees,” the rabbi said. “Shalom.”

Later, the group sat on picnic tables and shared a vegetarian potluck meal in semidarkness.

The service was part of Makom Shalom, a forest synagogue that launched during the High Holidays last year and has grown to 83 adult members. Rabbi Zelig Golden, a former environmental lawyer and nonprofit director, leads the nondenominational congregation in rural West Sonoma County. It’s a new iteration of an earth-based Judaism movement where Bay Area Jews are finding their spiritual home outside a traditional synagogue and with environmental and feminist ideals at the congregation’s center.

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