President Donald Trump (Screenshot of C-SPAN video)

(CNSNews.com) - In a speech at the Faith and Freedom Coalition Conference on Thursday, President Donald Trump told attendees that government bureaucrats think they can overrule people's values and tell them how to live, but families and churches know best how to create a strong community, because Americans don't worship government, they worship God.



"Bureaucrats think they can run over your lives, overrule your values and tell you how to live, but we know that families and churches - not government officials know best how to create a strong and loving community. We know that parents, not bureaucrats know best how to raise children and create a thriving society, and above all else, we know this: in America, we don't worship government. We worship God," Trump said.





The president talked about how he repealed the Johnson Amendment, which made prohibited nonprofits - including churches - from endorsing political candidates and participating in political campaigns or risk losing their nonprofit status.



Trump said as long as he's president, "no one is going to stop you from practicing your faith and from preaching what is in your heart."



"No federal worker should be censoring sermons or targeting pastors. These are the people we want to hear from them. How about the people we do hear from every night on television. You want to hear from them? I don't think so," he said.



Furthermore, he said, "School should not be a place that drives out faith and religion." Instead, "they should welcome faith and religion with wide open, beautiful arms."



"Faith inspires us to be better, to be stronger, to be more caring and giving and more determined to act in selfless and courageous defense of what is good and what is right," the president added.



"It is time to put a stop to the attacks on religion. We will end the discrimination against people of faith. Our government will once again celebrate and protect religious freedom," he said.



"Family is the foundation of American life, and we are proud to stand together with all of you to promote and protect family values. We're here today to celebrate two values that have always been linked together, and where Ralph frankly has done such a great job in linking them - faith and freedom," Trump said, referring to Faith and Freedom Coalition Founder and Chairman Ralph Reed. "They're linked together because liberty comes from our creator.



"Our rights are given to us by a divine authority, and no earthly force can ever take those rights away," the president said. "That is why my administration is taking power out of Washington and giving it back to the people where it belongs. For too long, politicians have tried to centralized authority among the hands of a small few in our nation's capital."



The president detailed the ways that religious liberty was enshrined by the Founding Fathers.



"Our religious liberty is enshrined in the very first amendment in the Bill of Rights. The American founders invoked our creator four times in the Declaration of Independence," he said. "Don't worry. We're not going to let them change it. You see what goes on nowadays, right?



"Benjamin Franklin reminded his colleagues at the Constitutional Convention to begin by bowing their heads in prayer. Inscribed on currency are the words: in God we trust. And we proudly proclaim that we are one nation under God every time we proclaim that we say the Pledge of Allegiance," the president said.