Jesus is coming back — to the walls of the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy.
In a sharp reversal of the Biden administration’s campaign to scrub religious symbols from public institutions, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced last week that a painting of Jesus covered up in 2023 would be restored to public view. The announcement drew cheers from merchant mariners gathered at the academy.
Under the previous administration, erasing Jesus from the walls was just the beginning. But that all changed the moment President Trump took office.
The painting, titled “Christ on the Water,” dates to the 1940s and was created to honor mariners lost at sea during World War II. But in early 2023, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation sent a letter to then-Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, calling the artwork a “sectarian painting illustrating the supremacy of Jesus Christ” and demanding that it be removed as an unconstitutional endorsement of religion.
Naturally, Buttigieg complied. Joanna Nunan, the academy superintendent — whose biography boasted of her efforts to expand “diversity and inclusion” in the Coast Guard and Merchant Marine — ordered the painting…
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