Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., called for restoring Christianity to the center of American life and the removal of the “trans flag” from federal buildings in a speech on Friday.

In the past week, American politicians and commentators have been sharply divided over a new Louisiana law requiring the biblical Ten Commandments to be displayed in classrooms. At The Faith & Freedom Coalition’s Road to Majority Policy Conference, Hawley argued that the Christian religion should be a core part of American life, including its classrooms, rather than LGBTQ identity politics.

Hawley made a spirited argument that religion is not what divides American society, but unites America, and that instead, “what is dividing America is their attempt to erase our heritage, to erase the foundation that this country has in, yes, the Bible.”

“Who is dividing America is the radical Left,” he told the conservative conference. “And that’s why I say to you, we don’t need less Christian influence in our society, we don’t need less Christian witness in our society, we need more, in every part of government, in every part of society. You know what we ought to do? We ought to take the pride flag out of schools and put the Bible back in. You know what? We ought to take the trans flag down from all of our federal buildings and over every federal building in America write the words, ‘In God we trust!’ ‘In God we trust!’ Amen!”

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Hawley noted that the phrase “In God we trust” has been America’s national motto since the 1950s under the Eisenhower administration.

“He said that this motto that we have will express that we are a unique nation called by God for a unique purpose. It’s time that we reclaim that,” he said.

Hawley also asked his audience to imagine what American life could be like if there were more Christian leaders running major companies and putting “America first.”

“I tell you what else, we need more Christians in business, and in the C-suite, we need more Christian CEOs,” he said. “You see all of these corporate CEOs, what are they doing? They’re hiring DEI agents, while at the same time they’re sending our jobs overseas and hollowing out this country, destroying our jobs, destroying our families.”

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“What would it be like if we had some Christian CEOs who would actually put America first, who would pay their American workers good wages that they could support a family on, raise a family? Wouldn’t that be incredible?” he asked. “Wouldn’t it be amazing if we had good Christian policy across the board, economic policy? What’s the Bible say? The Bible says you shall not charge your brother usury. We’ve got credit card companies that are charging 40% and 50% interest on their credit cards. They are, that’s outrageous.”

“If we had a little more Christian influence in our government, what we might say is, ‘We’re not gonna let you do that anymore!’” he said. 

“What they are doing is coming to us and saying, ‘Give me the inheritance of your fathers, give over the Christian foundations of this country, surrender the soul of this country,’ and our answer to them is, ‘The Lord forbid that we would give you the inheritance of our fathers,’” Hawley said.

Hawley is running for re-election to his Missouri U.S. Senate seat in November. He was first elected in 2018, defeating Democrat Claire McCaskill.