A stunning photo from 1895 shows eight “sabbath-breakers,” alongside other criminals, in a Tennessee chain gang.
As America entered the 20th century, nearly every state had some form of Sunday “blue law” on the books. These laws enforced penalties for working on Sunday, “the Sabbath” for most American Protestants. Jews, Seventh-day Adventists, and other dissenters were frequently fined or prosecuted for engaging in secular labor on Sunday.
Today, a new policy agenda could lead to the marginalization of those who worship on Saturday: The 2025 Presidential Transition Project. Nicknamed “Project 2025,” it seeks to overhaul the executive branch with conservative policy recommendations in the first 180 days of a Trump presidency.
One of those recommendations involves “amending the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) to require that workers be paid time and a half for hours worked on the Sabbath.”
Project 2025 and “the Sabbath”
The blueprint for Project 2025 is a 900-page policy guide called “Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise.” It offers “specific reforms and proposals for Cabinet departments and federal agencies, pulled from the expertise of the entire conservative movement.” The first edition was released in 1981 for the incoming Reagan administration.
On page 589 of the latest edition, a new mandate for “Sabbath Rest” is proposed:
“God ordained the Sabbath as a day of rest, and until very recently the Judeo-Christian tradition sought to honor that mandate by moral and legal regulation of work on that day. … Congress should encourage communal rest by amending the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) to require that workers be paid time and a half for hours worked on the Sabbath. That day would default to Sunday, except for employers with a sincere religious observance of a Sabbath at a different time (e.g., Friday sundown to Saturday sundown); the obligation would transfer to that period instead.”
What could be wrong with giving people who want to keep the Sabbath a tool “to negotiate directly with their employer to achieve their desired schedule”? A few things.
A Few Red Flags
First, as the proposal itself goes on to say, “some people” would be incentivized by the “higher wages … to work on the Sabbath” (though hospitals, first responders, and other employers required to operate around the clock would be exempt). Thus, a policy that claims to “honor” the Sabbath “by moral and legal regulation of work on that day” could have the opposite effect.
Second, the words “legal regulation” in reference to the fourth commandment should concern anyone who understands the history of religious persecution, even in “the land of the free.” The first Sunday law in America, enacted in Virginia in 1610, required people to attend “divine service” morning and afternoon. Not doing so resulted in the death penalty for the third offense. Later, clashing with fellow Puritans over the government’s role in matters of worship, Roger Williams argued that only the second table of the Ten Commandments, involving our civic duties, belongs to Caesar. Enforcing the first table, which strictly involves how we worship God, would, at worst, lead to murder (as in Virginia’s colony) and, at best, to hypocrisy (because forced worship doesn’t enlist the heart).
Finally, the proposed Sabbath mandate misapplies “the Judeo-Christian tradition” by defaulting to Sunday, although a religious exemption is allowed for those who keep Saturday—at least for now. It was Jesus’ “custom” to attend “synagogue on the Sabbath day” (Luke 4:16), a tradition that didn’t change with the establishment of the Christian church. The apostle Paul, “as his custom was,” attended synagogue on the Sabbath—not only to reason with the Jews (Acts 17:1, 2) but to preach to the Gentiles (13:42). If God intended to change the day He had set apart at creation (Genesis 2:2, 3), it would be, in the very least, surprising that both Jesus and His apostles would be nuanced about it.
Reacting to “the Left”
The change from Saturday to Sunday was a deliberate act of the papacy—the power that would, during the Dark Ages, “persecute the saints” and “intend to change times and law” (Daniel 7:25). According to Revelation 13, such persecution will happen again when the United States enforces that changed commandment—the one relating to time—upon “all the world” (v. 3).
(For a thorough explanation of these events, see our Study Guides “The Mark of the Beast” and “The USA in Bible Prophecy.”)
How could Sunday worship be enforced in a country where religious liberty is enshrined in its constitution? Perhaps the answer is best observed in a two-party system that is becoming increasingly polarized between a “secular left” and a “religious right.” When the events of Revelation 13 finally take place, it may be done in reaction to the Left’s “radical” agenda.
Project 2025’s “About” page states, “The actions of liberal politicians in Washington have created a desperate need and unique opportunity for conservatives to start undoing the damage the Left has wrought. … If we are going to rescue the country from the grip of the radical Left, we need both a governing agenda and the right people in place, ready to carry this agenda out on day one of the next conservative administration.”
To start undoing the Left’s supposed damage to America, what could be better than enforcing a communal day of rest?
Will the next Republican administration, in its reaction to “the radical Left,” be the one to enforce Sunday worship? Although President Trump has previously distanced himself from Project 2025, calling some of its proposals “ridiculous and abysmal,” his recent speech at the Republican National Convention was more subdued. “I stand before you in this arena only by the grace of Almighty God,” he said.
As expected, some conservatives are exploiting Trump’s survival of an assassin’s bullet to advance a political agenda.
This article contributed by Milo Jones