Christian Right Observer Weekly (Volume 6)

CROW's 7 stories on the Christian Right that you need read this week.

1. Chief Justice of Alabama Court that Imperiled IVF Promotes “Seven Mountains Mandate”

This week, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos (fertilized eggs that have not been implanted in a uterus) created during in vitro fertilization (IVF) have the same rights as children and that destroying them implicates Alabama’s “Wrongful Death of a Minor Act.” The decision has already prompted at least two Alabama fertility clinics to stop offering the fertility treatment. 

The Chief Justice of the court that rendered this decision, Justice Tom Parker, recently expressed his support of the “Seven Mountains Mandate,” as Media Matters (MMFA) reported a few days ago. As explained by MMFA, the Seven Mountains Mandate is a “‘quasi-biblical blueprint for theocracy’ that asserts that Christians must impose fundamentalist values on American society by conquering the ‘seven mountains’ of cultural influence in U.S. life: government, education, media, religion, family, business, and entertainment.”  

Jenny has written multiple articles warning about proponents of the “Seven Mountains Mandate,” including their involvement with the so-called “Stop the Steal” movement and alliance with high-profile MAGA influencers, such as disgraced retired Lieutenant General Mike Flynn, convicted felon Roger Stone, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), Pennsylvania Senator Doug Mastriano, and Moms for Liberty. 

The Alabama IVF decision demonstrates the alarming progress that proponents of the Mandate have made toward reshaping America in their own Christian fundamentalist image.  

2. Trump’s VP Short List Reflects Ongoing Courtship of Evangelical Extremists 

This week, Trump confirmed that his VP short list includes three evangelical extremists: Senator Tim Scott (R-SC), South Dakota Republican Governor Kristi Noem, and Representative Byron Donalds (R-FL). The news was likely well received by the Christian Right political power brokers who control the GOP. 

Scott, for example, has said that he would support a nationwide federal abortion ban, which would override state law where abortions currently remain legal. (So much for “states rights.”) He has also said that life begins at conception (fertilization), a position that would effectively ban all abortion and threaten access to IVF and IUDs. 

As for Noem, she has previously sponsored  a national “Life at Conception Act” (Again, given that “conception” refers to fertilization, such an Act would effectively ban all abortion and imperil both IVF and the IUD.) Noem has also threatened to criminally prosecute pharmacists who allow access to the abortion pill. And she has claimed that the separation between church and state prevents the government from interfering with the church, but that it allows the church to interfere in government.

Byron Donalds may be the most concerning of all. Similar to Noem, he has co-sponsored a “Life at Conception Act.” He’s also a close associate of convicted felon Roger Stone, Trump’s longtime confidante and unofficial advisor, who tweeted in January 2023 that, “I hereby endorse Byron Donalds for Speaker of the House. It’s time for a fresh start and new leadership. #FloridaMan.” In fact, Donalds’ own political advisor, James Blair, has been named as a defendant in the same defamation lawsuit as Jacob Engels, Stone’s longtime assistant who has had a warrant out for his arrest since September due to his refusal to produce documents in the case. 

Donalds has a criminal history of his own but reportedly found Christianity after attending his wife’s evangelical church. He’s listed as an “influencer” on the website of the so-called “Truth and Liberty Coalition,”  an anti-LGBTQ+ Christian supremacist organization that targets public schools for takeover and promotes the “Seven Mountains Mandate.” Truth and Liberty’s Board of Directors includes “Seven Mountain” proponents David Barton and Lance Wallnau, a high-profile leader in the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) dominionist movement. Wallnau co-wrote the book, Invading Babylon: The 7 Mountain Mandate. 

For more on Donalds and his wife (Moms for Liberty advisor Erika Donalds), please see Jenny’s reporting on this Christian Right “power couple” in the Bucks County Beacon. 

3. We’ll Say It Again: Project 2025 Imperils Birth Control

Project 2025 is a plan spearheaded by Heritage Foundation, a Christian Right juggernaut, for controlling (and in some cases dismantling) federal agencies in the event that a Republican wins the presidency. One such agency, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), includes the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which is responsible for approving and withdrawing approval of drugs. 

Last week, we warned in our newsletter that Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts opposes contraception for religious reasons (he’s a fundamentalist Catholic) and that various other Christian Right influencers and organizations (including Project 2025 partner TPUSA) have begun messaging that hormonal birth control is toxic, carcinogenic, and otherwise unsafe. As we explained, this messaging suggests that Project 2025 may be paving the way to withdraw FDA approval of hormonal birth control. 

We have since compiled more evidence suggesting that the people and organizations behind Project 2025 (and, in fact, the GOP overall) would like to remove birth control from the market. 

Receipt number 1: In May last year, Heritage (the originator of Project 2025) tweeted that, “Conservatives have to lead the way in restoring sex to its true purpose, and ending recreational sex and senseless use of birth control pills.”

Receipt number 2: Last month, the Family Research Council (FRC’s), a partner of Project 2025, tweeted the following quote from Mary Szoch (FRC’s Director of the Center for Human Dignity): “Birth control has led to the objectification of women – to women being used as mere tools for men’s gratification. It has also led to the devaluing, and even hatred of, the natural consequence of sex – children.” 

Receipt number 3: In December last year, William Wolfe, a recent fellow at the Center for Renewing America (a partner of Project 2025) tweeted the following message: “Want to restore the American family? – End no-fault divorce – End abortion — Reduce access to contraceptives – Require men to provide for their children as soon as it’s determined the child is theirs – End ‘sex education’ in public schools — End surrogacy — Overturn Obergefell [which recognized a constitutional right to same-sex marriage.” (Italics added.) Wolfe deleted the tweet, but you can find a screenshot of it here. 

Receipt number 4: Last Summer, the “Ethics & Public Policy Center,” a partner of Project 2025, published an article in which it complained that hormonal birth control started the sexual revolution and suggested that  women were better off in the 1950s.

Receipt number 5: Catholic fundamentalist Alan Sears, who co-founded the Alliance Defending Freedom (a partner of Project 2025) told the New Yorker last year that, “We are on a winning trajectory…It may be that the day will come when people say the birth-control pill was a mistake.”  (The Alliance Defending Freedom previously served as “silent co-counsel” in the case that overturned Roe, as we reported last week.) 

Receipt number 6: In 2022, 195 Republican House members voted against a national “Right to Contraception” Act. A Republican Senator blocked a parallel bill in the Senate. 

For more on Project 25 and its Christian Nationalist agenda, we recommend this new article by Politico, which discusses William Wolfe and Wolfe’s colleague, Russ Vought, a Project 2025 co-author. We also recommend this piece by the Tattooed Theologian, @CruzControl72, which includes a screenshot of Wolfe’s deleted tweet (Receipt number 3). 

Finally, we recommend this piece by Thom Hartmann about the possibility/likelihood that the GOP will try to outlaw birth control. 

4. Yes, We Should Worry That Republicans Will Execute Women Who Obtain Abortions

Overturning Roe v. Wade was always just the beginning. For anti-abortion zealots, the logical next steps were criminalization, fetal personhood, abortion as murder, and then the death penalty. 

“This exposes a fundamental lie of the anti-abortion movement, that they oppose the criminalization of the pregnant person,” Dana Sussman, the acting executive director of Pregnancy Justice, told The Guardian's Poppy Noor last year. “They are no longer hiding behind that rhetoric.”

As The Guardian’s Noor noted in her article, 

“The bills being introduced in Arkansas, Texas, Kentucky and South Carolina look to establish that life begins at conception. Each of these bills explicitly references homicide charges for abortion. Homicide is punishable by the death penalty in all of those states.”

And more recently, as CROW reported two weeks ago, Oklahoma State Senator Dusty Deevers introduced the Abolition of Abortion Act, which would make abortion a homicide. 

"Prenatal homicide is what happens when a doctor or a mother or anyone has the intention to murder a child in the womb," said Deevers, an SBC pastor and vice president of the aforementioned Rescue Those.

Now some “mainstream” Republicans seem to have buyer's remorse for courting Christian anti-abortion crusaders for decades.

“Most Americans don’t want women or doctors imprisoned when it comes to the issue of abortion. And when you have state legislators, like one in my home state [South Carolina], who are advocating for the death penalty, for a rape victim who decides to not carry the child, then that is a political loser,” said former GOP Rep. Trey Gowdy, who is also a host on Fox News Channel. 

5. Christians Engaged Bunni Pounds Climbs “Mountain of Government” with New Book

“This is one of the key ministries in America working to equip and empower believers to stand for truth and make an impact on public policy and the direction of our country. ‘For such a time as this!’” – House Speaker Mike Johnson who spoke at Bunni Pounds’ 2023 Christians Engaged Conference 

Pounds told her publisher Charisma House Steve Strang that she had been “having conversations about how we could work together” in regards to Johnson. In a October 24 Facebook post, Pounds, who leads the nonpartisan Christians Engaged, called Johnson “the real deal & a real conservative. If he gets in during the next vote, it will be the Hand of God.” After his confirmation, she said “This is why we're trying to raise up Godly leaders with a Biblical Worldview so that they will one day become Speaker of the House and be bold about it.”

In Pounds’ new book Jesus & Politics, she says “the mountain of government continues to beckon me to climb its high altitudes” (pg 3), a reference to New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) Apostle Lance Wallnau's Seven Mountain Mandate. In 2020, Pounds “met with Wallnau and connected with him on Christians Engaged and how his message on the seven mountains changed my life.”

Wallnau is not the only NAR Apostle Pounds has spoken with. Like Speaker Johnson, Pounds appeared last week on NAR Apostle Jim Garlow's World Prayer Network Call to promote her book. Michelle Bachmann, who works with Garlow, has spoken at Christians Engaged conferences and wrote the afterword to Pounds’ book: “With its voter mobilization communication system for Christians in all fifty states and a growing library of on-demand video courses to educate Christians on the issues and how to become civic leaders in their cities, states and nation, Christians Engaged is on the cutting edge.”

6. Christians Engaged is Networking & Mobilizing Nationally for 2024 Elections 

The Christian Engaged Biblical Justice video course series features Christian Dominionist, David Barton, who Pounds worked with on the national GOP platform committee in 2020. Barton both endorsed Pounds as a former Texas Congress candidate and with her new book. Pounds also works closely with NAR adjacent Intercessors for America (IFA). IFA is a strategic ministry partner with IFA President David Kubal serving on the advisory board.

So what does all this networking mean for local media and activists? Just read Christians Engaged 2023 Mid Year Report:

“Now with over 100,000 Christians across all 50 states receiving our resources, Christians Engaged is positioned for massive expansion as we approach the 2024 elections.”

"We are nonpartisan. We believe if Christians go into all political parties that we can TRANSFORM those parties…We've taken 1000 people through that [courses] in Texas. We're raising up a whole army. We've had four people run for office that took that class.”  – Pounds at 2022 Pennsylvania Christians Engaged event

Christians Engaged has currently two state chapters, Texas and Pennsylvania, as well as area Leaders in four other states including Florida, Arizona, Wisconsin, and Indiana. Nationally Christians Engaged also hosts annual Washington DC trips where they have private prayer meetings with Senators and US Congressmen. 2024 Speakers include United States Congressmen Michael Cloud and Nathaniel Moran.

7. A Christian Nationalist Summer Camp for Pennsylvania Teens

The PA Family Institute announced that registration is open for its annual City on the Hill (COTH) Youth Leadership and Worldview conference for teens. 

Bucks County Beacon writer Catherine Caruso wrote about last year’s event: “PA Family Institute’s ‘City On The Hill’ Camp Is Training The Next Generation Of Christian Nationalist Lawmakers”. This year’s Christian Nationalist summer camp will take place July 21-27 at Lancaster Bible College.

PA Family Institute is an anti-LGBTQ far-right Christian organization and a state branch of the Family Research Council – who the Southern Poverty Law Center has designated a “hate group.” PA Family has also used its legal arm, the Independence Law Center, to quietly write book banning and anti-trans policies for public school districts with Moms for Liberty and right-wing majorities, often flying under the radar because of offering their services pro bono, and having school board presidents (like in Bucks County) just decide not to share their role with district parents and taxpayers. In April 2022 the PA Family made a public call for students, parents and teachers to act as informants to report on so-called “political, sexual, or racist ideological indoctrination” in public schools for potential “grassroots and legal action.” 

With this annual summer camp, which has been running for over 20 years, they are training teens to be the next generation of holy warriors in their crusade to end secular public education, ban abortion, and ostracize if not criminalize the LGBTQ community.