Gillibrand Attends Antisemitic, Anti-Catholic, Anti-LGBTQ+, Misogynistic Bible Study
Bible-study leader says that Jews killed Jesus and Catholics aren't real Christians
To make my reporting possible and keep it free for everyone, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. Thank you.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) attends a Senate Bible study that teaches an antisemitic smear, led by a right-wing preacher with a history of denigrating Catholicism, women, and LGBTQ+ people.
Gillibrand, co-chair of this Thursday’s National Prayer Breakfast, has referred only vaguely to the Bible study (which is not affiliated with the breakfast). And she omits religious congressional meetings from her online calendar. But last year, NOTUS reported that one Bible study she attends is run by Capitol Ministries.
Capitol Ministries is an international organization run by Ralph Drollinger, a right-wing evangelical who leads Bible studies in the Senate, House, and White House, and claims to influence members of Congress, including Democrats.
His lessons include Biblical justifications for discriminating against women, LGBTQ+ people, and immigrants, and against government support for the needy. Drollinger has called Catholicism “one of the primary false religions of the world.”
In 2004, he said it was “sinful” for mothers in the California state legislature to leave home for four days of work in Sacramento. Homosexuality, he says, is an “abomination.”
Over the course of a two-week Bible study in June 2025, as I reported last year, Drollinger said of Israel, “they crucified their Messiah.” He also referred to “the present apostasy of Israel, having executed the Messiah.”
The smear of deicide, rejected by every major religion, historically has been the deadly driving force of antisemitism and gave rise to the antisemitic slur, “Christkiller.”
The specific, June 13, 2025, Capitol Ministries study guide that blames Jews for killing Jesus employs other antisemitic tropes in the form of praise. Drollinger calls modern-day Israel “smart” and good at “financial management.”
Drollinger distributed those Bible studies, as he does all of them, online, in videos, and by email to most of America’s leading Republican officials.
Sponsors of Drollinger’s Bible study include Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD), Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought, and many others1, even Alex Acosta, the former prosecutor who let Jeffrey Epstein off easy.
Drollinger teaches that the Bible forbids government aid for the poor but justifies official discrimination against LGBTQ+ people and immigrants. These lessons and more have been featured in his three 8am Bible studies, held in Washington every week that Congress is in session.
Only two Democrats are known to attend any of them: Gillibrand and Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA), who dissembled about her involvement when voters in her district asked her about my report that she was recruiting for Drollinger.
Drollinger’s Senate Bible study meets Tuesdays at 8am, in rotating locations, serving a hot breakfast. On Wednesdays, Drollinger leads a White House Bible study, also 8am, for cabinet members, ambassadors, governors, and others. They only get a “light breakfast.”
Drollinger’s 8am Bible studies for members of the House of Representatives are held Thursdays in a Natural Resources Committee room, 1334 in the Longworth House Office Building. Like the Senate, they also get a hot breakfast.
The mission of Capitol Ministries is to get politicians to agree with Drollinger about the Bible’s vision of the world, and politics. “Capitol Ministries exists to make disciples of Jesus Christ among the political people group in America and around the world,” the organization’s tax filing says.
Drollinger describes himself as pretty good at it. As Johnson put it in 2024, “[T]hese ministries in the Capitol, this is pivotal stuff. This is important work.”
Thune explains that Capitol Ministries “is there to instruct, admonish, encourage, exhort, and inspire elected officials to lead their lives and conduct themselves in a way that brings glory to God…”
Gillibrand apparently has been a participant of Drollinger’s Senate Bible study for at least eight years.
NOTUS reported in August 2025 that Gillibrand said she’s the only senator who attends Senate Bible studies Tuesdays and Thursdays and the weekly Wednesday prayer breakfast2.
The article said that her Tuesday Bible study was led by Capitol Ministries, but didn’t explain what Capitol Ministries is, or identify Drollinger. Here’s how NOTUS described Gillibrand’s comments about the Tuesday Bible study:
She’s usually the only Democrat at the Tuesday Bible study, which is a “rigorous” examination of scripture led by Capitol Ministries, an organization that leads similar study groups with lawmakers around the country.
Capitol Ministries does far more than that, far beyond U.S. borders. But the article appears to be the first time Gillibrand let on to her involvement. (Her office has not responded to my request for comment on this or prior stories.)
Gillibrand has referred to her Senate Bible studies before, but only vaguely. It’s not clear when she began attending Drollinger’s.
He didn’t start his House Bible study until after Gillibrand was appointed to the Senate in 2009. His Senate Bible study started in 2015.
The earliest instance I could find of Gillibrand alluding to her attendance was December 2017. In an anecdote at the time, Gillibrand described learning that Trump had Tweeted about her after her staff called her during a Bible study. Politico described it as a “bipartisan” Bible study in the Senate’s Hart Building, meeting on a Tuesday morning. The Washington Post described it that way, too.
That’s the Capitol Ministries Bible study.
One story identified the “bipartisan” Bible study as meeting in the office of Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT), a Drollinger Bible study sponsor then and now.
As for its reportedly bipartisan nature, Drollinger’s Bible-study pamphlet published online that month, December 2017, listed dozens of U.S. government officials as sponsors, including a murderer’s row of high-profile, far-right Christians — from Vice President Mike Pence on down — but not a single Democrat.
Two years later, running for president in 2019, Gillibrand discussed her religion, and her Bible studies, with Iowa Public Radio. There was no hint of the Bible study being overwhelmingly Republican, or led by a far-right Republican.
At the time, Gillibrand implied that the Bible studies she attends refute right-wing Christian positions on reproductive and LGBTQ+ rights. “I don’t think they’re supported by the Gospel or the Bible in any way,” Gillibrand said. “I don’t see it, and I go to two Bible studies a week.”
But Drollinger’s Bible-study lessons do cite — however arguably — specific Bible passages to support his positions on reproductive and LGBTQ+ rights and just about everything.
Citing her support for reproductive and LGBTQ+ rights, among other progressive positions, Gillibrand tends to say she was “raised” Catholic rather than “is” Catholic. She says she attends churches of multiple denominations.
Back in 2019, she told Iowa Public Radio that her religion is “not an issue that I talk about really, outside of a worship service or a faith-based community, because it can be offensive to some people, can be troubling to some people.”
The previous year, a Newsweek headline about Drollinger’s Bible studies read, “White House Bible Study Led by Pastor Who Is Anti-Gay, Anti-Women and Anti-Catholic.”
Gillibrand’s attendance was not yet public knowledge.
Learn More:
I’m an independent journalist whose reporting is made possible by reader support. As a former executive producer at MSNBC, I helped create Up w/ Chris Hayes and previously was a senior producer on Countdown w/ Keith Olbermann. Your paid subscription will help me keep digging.
The Capitol Ministries list of Bible-study sponsors:
WHITE HOUSE CABINET AMBASSADORS AND GOVERNORS
Alex Acosta DC
Mike Braun IN
Phil Bryant MS
Dr. Ben Carson DC
Mike Dunleavy AK
Greg Gianforte MT
Mark Gordon WY
Pete Hegseth DC
Mike Huckabee DC
Sarah Huckabee Sanders AR
Mike Kehoe MO
David Perdue DC
Sonny Perdue GA
Rick Perry TX
Jim Pillen NE
Tate Reeves MS
Kim Reynolds IA
Brooke Rollins DC
Kevin Stitt OK
Scott Turner DC
Russell Vought DC
Scott Walker WI
Glenn Youngkin VASENATORS
John Thune Senate Majority Leader
Marsha Blackburn TN
Katie Britt AL
Ted Budd NC
Bill Cassidy LA
Kevin Cramer ND
Steven Daines MT
Joni Ernst IA
William Hagerty TN
Cindy Hyde-Smith MS
James Lankford OK
Markwayne Mullin OK
Mike Rounds SD
Tim Scott SCREPRESENTATIVES
Mike Johnson Speaker of the House
Mark Alford MO
Robert Aderholt AL
Rick Allen GA
Brian Babin TX
Don Bacon NE
Nick Begich AK
Michael Bost IL
Josh Brecheen OK
Tim Burchett TN
John Carter TX
Juan Ciscomani AZ
Rick Crawford AR
Jake Ellzey TX
Ron Estes KS
Glenn Grothman WI
Pat Harrigan NC
Kevin Hern OK
Richard Hudson NC
Bill Huizenga MI
Dusty Johnson SD
Jim Jordan OH
Nathaniel Moran TX
Gary Palmer AL
August Pfluger TX
David Rouzer NC
John Rutherford FL
Marlin Stutzman IN
Glenn Thompson PA
Tim Walberg MI
Randy Weber TX
Daniel Webster FL
Bruce Westerman AR (Natural Resources Committee chair)
Roger Williams TX
Rob Wittman VA
Steve Womack AR
Rudy Yakym IN
The prayer breakfast is a function of the Fellowship Foundation, which Drollinger has criticized for being ecumenical.
It would seem to me that it would be FAR more beneficial if these people; Senators, representatives, cabinet members, THE PRESIDENT, got together twice a week for a Constitutional Study program. They should be doing buy-bull study on their own time, preferably in a church, synagogue, or mosque of their choice, and NOT anywhere near what is supposed to be our secular government that is run by man-made laws. None of them should be doing this crap in OUR government buildings. It's disgusting that this is allowed by anyone!
This Catholic news-fucker appreciates all of the coverage on this bizarre thang, while wondering what on God's green earth is with these people. But I am wondering about these people every day on a bushel worth of issues. Whisky Tango Foxtrot. Amen.