At Labor Department Prayer Service, MAGA Preacher Says Employees are Working for God and Trump
During the third monthly Christian worship service held inside the U.S. Department of Labor’s office building in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday (Feb. 11), a Trumpian pastor baptized the work of the federal agency. Leon Benjamin, a charismatic preacher who leads a nondenominational church in Richmond, Virginia, and another in Tulsa, Oklahoma, also urged government employees to faithfully follow the DoL’s secretary to bless President Donald Trump.
Benjamin, who lost three races as the Republican nominee for a U.S. House of Representatives seat in the last five years, was a frequent speaker at the ReAwaken America Tour, a traveling carnival of MAGA conspiracies, anti-vax rhetoric, and Trumpian preachers. Benjamin attended Trump’s rally on Jan. 6, 2021, and even walked with the crowd to the Capitol grounds. He also spoke the day before the insurrection at a “Jericho March” that was part of the effort to overturn the presidential election.
With Wednesday’s prayer service centered on the theme of “love and charity” in honor of Valentine’s Day, Benjamin read from 1 Corinthians 13, among other passages, to urge people to live and work in such a way they’re like a band of instruments, each making the right sound. Then, he argued, the DoL could lift up both Trump and Jesus.
“I pray that this whole department be so anointed that it takes President Trump to another level. The music from the DoL, the band at the DoL is causing America to sing the praises of God again. So clap your hands. Give God the glory. Give yourself some glory,” Benjamin declared. “I want to prophesy. I’m going to just leave this with you: You’re going to have the gift of prophecy in the Department of Labor. How would you like that?”
After reading 1 Corinthians 15:58 about people doing “the work of the Lord,” Benjamin suggested DoL employees are really working for God: “What the Lord does for us is also exemplified by what we do in his name. There is a correlation between your work here at the Department of Labor and what you do in the name of your faith.”
Noting how often “labor” and “work” are mentioned in the Bible, Benjamin also told DoL employees they needed to get “America to understand that [work] is something that God expects us to do.” He added, “Everybody has to work. God expects [it]. I, even in my home, I expect my rabbit to work. I want my rabbit to come and greet me.”
Benjamin, who started by giving “honor to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ,” frequently urged the employees in the room to act like parishioners at his church. He instructed them to repeat key phrases, declare something to their neighbor, or applaud something he just said. On several occasions, he told the employees they needed to do whatever DoL Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer said, work hard for her and Trump, and not spread rumors.
He did not mention personal scandals currently swirling around Chavez-DeRemer, so it wasn’t clear if that was why he instructed employees to serve God by following her leadership. Last month, news broke of an internal DoL investigation into allegations that Chavez-DeRemer had an “inappropriate” relationship with a subordinate, had been drinking on the job, and used taxpayer funds to make personal trips. Two of her top aides were placed on administrative leave during the investigation since they are accused of helping facilitate her personal travel. A separate investigation led to the government paying nearly $100,000 last year to settle an employment discrimination claim arising out of Chavez-DeRemer’s congressional office.
“We thank God for our wonderful secretary, Lori Chavez-DeRemer,” Benjamin said before urging employees to “have faith” in “the mission and assignment of DoL” and work in godly ways so that “the whole nation begins to understand why President Trump chose [Chavez-De-Remer].”
“Genesis Chapter 13, hate to say it, but God says that man has to work of the sweat of his brows. So if Secretary says, ‘Go do it,’ you just have to get some vigor in there. And if you do a little bit of sweat, just put it in a cup and show it to her and let her know that you’re working,” he added, apparently referring to Genesis 3. “I want you to know that what Secretary [Chavez-DeRemer] is doing right now, she is setting you up for a breakthrough. She is setting us up, this nation up. What she did in her own state is now going to be magnified 100 times. She is setting up this nation for a breakthrough when it comes to real labor, to fairness, to the equity, and what people, what, you want to get paid for a good day’s work, right?”
During his sermon on working hard, Benjamin even offered a bit of a theology of salvation by works as he tied the importance of laboring with eternal life.
“This is why we have this promise of the Resurrection. Because if you work real hard now, you won’t have to work so hard later on. There’s a promise that God gives through our labor,” he said. “I want everyone here to just feel this anointing that I’m going to leave here on you that you will get credit for your work.”
Adding in a dose of prosperity-gospel preaching, Benjamin told DoL employees to offer words of prophecy to each other so that everything will “turn out for good.”
“Don’t worry about the bills. God is going to send you some money,” he said, modeling what he thought they should tell each other. “I want us all to walk out of here saying that no matter how much I run my mouth, somebody is going to be blessed. Come on. No matter what I say all day long, somebody is about to get their rent paid. Somebody is about to get a brand-new car. You’ve been running around in that hoopty up here in D.C. You know that car is about to break down, but God says I’m going to give you another car, I’m going to put you in a real nice apartment. That one little bedroom thing that you got right now, it’s just you and your goldfish and, come on, one little pair of shoes. Come on, somebody. But you have to be able to think and believe that somebody can tell you it’s going to get better.”
A Government-Run Christian Worship Service
Like the sermon, the rest of the service was explicitly Christian and suggested the DoL exists to serve God. Chavez-DeRemer, who spoke before Benjamin, talked about the importance of religion in ways that seemed to assume all DoL employees are people of faith.
“Once a month, we take time out of our busy schedules and set aside a few moments to pause, reflect, and come together. As people of faith, all of us believe in something, a higher power or perhaps a divine influence in our lives,” she said. “While many of us worship in different ways or belong to different denominations, we are all blessed to be here in the United States of America, working at the Department of Labor.”
“We have a lot resting on our shoulders here at Labor, and I want you to know that we cannot do it alone. We are stronger together, and we are stronger through our faith,” she added. “So I hope you will carry that with you as you continue your work today and every day moving forward. I hope you will think about the blessings we have as American citizens, our freedom to worship, and the incredible opportunity to serve our fellow Americans through the work we do here right at the Department of Labor.”
Kenneth Wolfe, the director of the DoL’s Center for Faith, opened the service with the same traditional Catholic prayer he started the previous two services with: “Direct, we beseech thee, O Lord, all our actions by thy holy inspiration, and carry them on by thy gracious assistance so that every work and prayer of ours may begin from thee and through thee be happily ended. We ask this in thy name, amen.”
Prior to joining the Trump administration in his role at DoL, Wolfe wrote for various traditionalist Catholic publications, arguing for Mass to be in Latin. The Latin Mass has proved popular among some rightwing Trumpian Catholics in recent years, including Steve Bannon, Candace Owens, and Harrison Butker. Benjamin mentioned he had known Wolfe for some time and appreciated the invitation coming from him to preach.
Alberto Calimano, a Catholic anti-abortion activist and senior advisor for the DoL Center for Faith, led those gathered in saying the Lord’s Prayer, which he introduced as “the Our Father.” He also led people in communal reciting of two biblical passages he introduced as “from the Old Testament”: Leviticus 19:18 and Proverbs 10:12. Later in the service, the DoL Center for Faith Deputy Director Brent Perrin read 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 and John 15:12.
The service also included the singing of “All Creatures of Our God and King” and “It Is Well With My Soul.” As with the previous two services, the closing song was “God Bless America,” which Perrin urged people to sing as a prayer “for our troops, for our law enforcement personnel, and for our leaders.”
Part of Broader White Christian Nationalist Effort
After attending a Christian worship service at the Pentagon in October, Chavez-DeRemer decided to start a similar monthly prayer service at DoL. The first one was a Christmas service full of Christian prayers and hymns. It also included a recognition of Hanukkah with remarks by a Trump-backing rabbi who used the occasion to attack same-sex marriage, transgender people, and abortion. Chavez-DeRemer later also attended a second Pentagon worship service in December, during which Franklin Graham gave a “Christmas” message about the importance of following a “God of war.” The second DoL worship service was entirely Christian. Anti-abortion activist Alveda King, the guest preacher, told employees they must work without complaining or not eat, and she criticized people who aren’t religious.
In addition to the controversial services and allegations against Chavez-DeRemer, the DoL has also sparked criticism recently for social media posters featuring muscular White men as the face of the nation and slogans seeming to echo Nazi propaganda. Multiple of those social media posters include Christian churches as part of this “American dream.” Numerous DoL staffers found the shift in social media messaging concerning.
“We’re used to seeing posts about things like apprenticeships, benefits, and unions,” Helen Luryi, who was on the communications team for the DoL’s Women’s Bureau until she left in April, told the New York Times. “All of a sudden, we get White-nationalist rhetoric.”
Similarly, Omar Algeciras, a DoL employee who is also an official in the American Federation of Government Employees (which represents Labor Department staff members), told the New York Times, “These posts made public service harder.”
The communications staffer responsible for the White nationalist social media posts — including the ones with churches — is a former staffer for Chavez-DeRemer when she served in Congress before losing reelection in 2024. Once Trump picked Chavez-DeRemer to lead DoL, she brought her social media staffer into the department. However, earlier this month, he left DoL to now help run social media for the Department of Homeland Security, where he’ll have a significantly larger platform to push White nationalist and White Christian Nationalist messages.
During today’s service, Wolfe announced that next month’s preacher will be Monsignor Charles Pope, a Catholic priest and writer in Washington, D.C.
As a public witness,
Brian Kaylor
Learn more about various worship services at the Department of Labor and the Pentagon on our “Government Worship Watch” page.
It appears the Department of Labor now works thumbing through the Bible to cherry-pick scripture passages. Well done, good and faithful servants.