Tennessee Lawmakers Walk Out of Prayer Against 'White Christian Nationalism'
Republicans in the Tennessee House walked out of an invocation last month after the guest minister denounced “white Christian nationalism” and President Donald Trump during his prayer.
The highly politicized invocation — delivered by Michael Eric Dyson, who serves as an ethics professor at Vanderbilt University — occurred because of an invite from Tennessee Democratic State Rep. Justin Pearson, a member of the Tennessee House who has garnered national headlines with his left-wing stances on race and gun control.
Pearson introduced Dyson by saying that the minister believes “Jesus is not a token that gets taken off the shelf to separate, bludgeon or disparage people, but an example by which we should be living our lives fighting for the oppressed, the marginalized, the immigrant, the disinherited, the widow and the disenfranchised,” according to a report from The Christian Post.
🚨 Reverend Michael Eric Dyson delivers the invocation during the 51st Tennessee House floor session, attacking “white evangelicals,” Christian Nationalism, and President Trump’s “narcissism.” Dyson’s political and emotionally-charged prayer prompted some Republicans to walk out. pic.twitter.com/fVGk1LqFw7
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) March 27, 2026
The lawmaker even said that Jesus’ ministry was “all inherently a political act — so political that they had to lynch our Savior.”
Dyson then started his prayer, during which he used the anniversary of the Covenant School shooting to rebuke supporters of the Second Amendment.
“We are in the shadow of the third anniversary of the Covenant School shooting, and yet we still worship guns. In our country, we claim to love freedom, but we resent those who seek to practice it beyond mere creeds,” Dyson said.
He then asked God to “spare us from the hypocrisy of a breed of white evangelical piety that emphasized the adjective ‘white’ more than the noun ‘evangelical.’”
“The hatred of blackness circulates in the lungs of the beast of white Christian nationalism, and we can feel the fire flaming from the nostrils of the dragon of black animosity,” he added.
Dyson then indirectly referenced Trump, asserting that “too many of our white Evangelical brothers and sisters toss in with a petty, prevaricating pariah who is a callus on the heel of American government and a wound on the body of American democracy.”
Despite causing many Republicans to walk out of the prayer, Dyson and Pearson later defended the remarks.
“My job is to plant the seed,” Dyson told The Tennessee Holler in an interview. “I hope that they heard me. I hope that they understood that it’s rooted in a gospel imperative to love the vulnerable and the oppressed.”
WATCH: “My job is to plant the seed. I hope they heard me.”
We talked to TN House Chaplain of the Day @MichaelEDyson and Rep. @Justinjpearson, who invited him, after his 🔥 message today — a truth bomb that sent some Republicans running for the exits: https://t.co/EGqPMX4cXF pic.twitter.com/uDo3OyJrnr
— The Tennessee Holler (@TheTNHoller) March 26, 2026
Dyson also condemned “the hypocritical embrace of American ideals on the one hand, and the denunciation of them on the other.”
“You can’t say God says, ‘Love the stranger,’ and you treat people who are immigrants with total disdain,” he asserted.
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