In April 2023, The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, published a 920-page policy guide titled Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise. The book served as the blueprint for Project 2025, an effort by more than 100 partner organizations to prepare a conservative administration to assume control of the federal government. It was released in anticipation that a Republican candidate (especially Donald Trump) would win the 2024 election and take office in 2025.
The Mandate for Leadership detailed policy recommendations across almost every government agency. By some estimates, Trump has implemented 51 percent of Project 2025’s proposals. This is concerning, considering the steps proposed in chapter eighteen, “Department of Labor and Related Agencies,” written by Jonathon Berry. The specific section of that chapter that should raise eyebrows for everyone who values religious freedom is titled “Sabbath Rest,” found on page 589.
Are Federal Sunday Laws Coming?
Mr. Berry begins, “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.”
While God did ordain the Sabbath as a day of rest, He has not entrusted the civil governments of the world to enforce it. When mentioning “moral and legal regulation of work on that day,” Berry is referencing “blue laws,” which were used by states early in our country’s history to restrict work and other activities on Sundays. Many remain on the books today, and some states enforce them to some extent.
Berry continues, “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.”
Sunday is clearly favored as the “Sabbath” by Berry. And he wants the federal government to begin regulating work on that day.
On March 31, 2025, Trump nominated Jonathon Berry to be the Solicitor of Labor. He was subsequently confirmed by the Senate on October 7, 2025. The Solicitor of Labor is the Department of Labor’s (DOL) chief lawyer. Although his position is not a policymaking role, Berry’s views could still shape agency initiatives.
Will the DOL take Berry’s advice concerning Sunday labor laws?
A Uniform Day of Rest
On January 8, 2026, in anticipation of our nation’s 250th anniversary, the Heritage Foundation released the special report, Saving America by Saving the Family: A Foundation for the Next 250 Years. The 168-page document calls for pro-family policies and cultural changes to strengthen traditional marriage and family formation. Much of it, Bible-believing Christians can heartily agree with. However, the Sunday-sabbath issue rears its head again.
Under the heading, “Support for a Uniform Day of Rest,” it says, “As zoning laws allow a community to determine where one can operate certain businesses, ‘blue laws’ reflect the local judgments as to when one can operate certain businesses. In the case of McGowan v. Maryland (1961), the Supreme Court held by an eight-to-one vote that Sunday-closing laws that include the purpose of providing a uniform day of rest are constitutional and can accommodate the fact that the majority of people who take a day of rest for religious reasons do so on Sundays.”
And after presenting the benefits of a uniform day of rest, of which there are many, the report encourages, “Where new, planned communities or transitioning communities form, they should consider adding rest days as part of their master plans for balanced and thriving community life.”
A uniform day of rest was indeed meant to be beneficial for society. From the beginning of creation, God intended for us to observe the Sabbath (Genesis 2:3; Exodus 20:8–11). And if we want to get it right, on our modern calendar, the Sabbath begins at sunset on Friday and ends at sunset on Saturday (Genesis 1:5, 8, 19, 23, 31).
Nevertheless, the secular government has no right to regulate the Sabbath, whether they get the day right or not. Jesus said, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Mark 12:17). The Sabbath is God’s, not Caesar’s (Isaiah 58:13; Mark 2:28).
Repeating the Past
On January 18, the North American Division of Seventh-day Adventists issued a response to the Heritage Foundation’s push for a “uniform day of rest,” expressing that Adventists have always viewed any form of Sunday law “—whether at a local, state, or federal level—as attempts to compel conscience, even when they are defended on pretextual secular grounds such as promoting the health and communities of families.”
It also pointed out that “Sunday laws run counter to the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which preserves religious freedom for all Americans by requiring the government to remain neutral between different religious faiths.”
Although some states do enforce various local blue laws, there aren’t widespread Sunday laws. Neither is there an active Sunday-law bill being discussed in Congress. So, are the Adventists right to be concerned? History and the Bible say, “Yes.”
In 1888, the Blair Bill was introduced to Congress by Senator Henry W. Blair. The bill sought to establish Sunday as a national day of rest. Religious groups such as the National Reform Association and the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, among other Protestant Sabbath associations, supported the bill. However, Seventh-day Adventists and Seventh-day Baptists, along with secular voices, opposed it. Fortunately, the bill was defeated. That was the closest we ever came to a national Sunday law.
Is history about to repeat itself? Will another Sunday law bill be introduced to Congress? And if so, will it pass or fail again? These are the questions on the minds of many freedom-loving Americans.
According to the Bible, it’s only a matter of time until U.S. citizens are penalized and even threatened with death for refusing to submit to a national Sunday law (Revelation 13:15–17).
Learn how Sunday laws are related to the mark of the beast and what role the United States will play in end-time events.