Allow me to begin this article with some food-for-thought comedy (with a huge nod to comedian Jeff Foxworthy).
You might be a Christian Nationalist…
1. If you think the Constitution should be replaced with the Bible, you might be a Christian Nationalist.
2. If you believe the separation of church and state means the church should run the state, you might be a Christian Nationalist.
3. If you think “freedom of religion” only applies to Christianity, you might be a Christian Nationalist.
4. If your idea of religious diversity is different denominations of Christianity, you might be a Christian Nationalist.
5. If you believe America was founded as a Christian nation, despite historical evidence to the contrary, you might be a Christian Nationalist.
6. If you think pledging allegiance to the flag and pledging allegiance to God should be the same thing, you might be a Christian Nationalist.
7. If you believe political candidates should be chosen based on their ability to quote scripture, you might be a Christian Nationalist.
8. If you think “religious freedom” means the freedom to impose your Christian beliefs on others through law, you might be a Christian Nationalist.
9. If you believe school prayer should be mandatory, but only for your specific denomination, you might be a Christian Nationalist.
10. If you think “In God We Trust” on currency means the government should legislate based on biblical law, you might be a Christian Nationalist.
If you are new to this blog, I previously posted an introduction (Part 1) to this series here, and for some context, I offered a bit of my connection to religion here (in Part 2), so feel free to catch up before proceeding. Part 3 below is, by necessity, a longer post. So grab yourself a cup of coffee or a snifter of scotch, and read on. You may learn something. I know I did.
I’d like to reiterate that this series is not about bashing Christianity and specifically, Catholicism, although some might see me recounting certain facts about the roots of Christian Nationalism as such. I can’t help that. The facts are the facts. The history is what it is. You’ll just have to deal with it.
This is just my personal effort to get all of my readers to start seeing, to start thinking, and start worrying about Christian Nationalism and its personification in what we now know as Project 2025. So, let’s take a look at the roots of this political movement, because that is what it is. Although originally driven by religion, Christian Nationalism is not a religious movement. It is now driven by the lust for power, which makes it a political movement, regardless of its origins.
Much of what I have to say below about the background of Christian Nationalism and its connection to Project 2025, comes from a video titled, “A Duty to Warn,” by Frank Schaeffer. The video is around 20 minutes long. I highly recommend you watch it! I hope that I, in some small way, am able to add some supporting evidence and possibly additional insights to the valuable information Frank shares with us in his video. I can tell you this: I was concerned about Project 2025 before. Now I am very concerned about it. To say this information is disturbing is to put it mildly.
The Roots of Christian Nationalism
Frank Schaeffer was born in Switzerland and grew up in an evangelical family, headed by his evangelical minister father, a friend and associate of ultraconservative William F. Buckley, a.k.a. “Bill Buckley,” the founder of National Review Magazine, a conservative rag that you may have come across before, and the host of “Firing Line (1966-1999).” I used to watch that show periodically, as he would often have guests appear who held opposing views.
Bill Buckley was an intellectual, a good interviewer, and an asshole. I remember one of his shows specifically, where he said he wanted to punch Noam Chomsky in the face. I also remember a wonderful comedy skit on SNL, I think, where Robin Williams imitated Buckley melting into his chair. Hilarious! (If you saw his show in its final years, you’d notice that the muscles in Buckley’s face and neck all seemed to atrophy before your eyes, sagging noticeably.)
Buckley and his ilk believed that our country was being taken over by the “liberal elite.” It’s an interesting side-note that the term “liberal elite” originated a few years earlier than Firing Line, during the Reagan-Goldwater presidential contest. Reagan criticized liberals for believing that an “intellectual elite” could do better planning than individuals themselves. It’s also interesting that two of the hottest topics conservatives then thought worthy of eliminating were the pro-choice movement and women’s rights. Sound familiar? Both Buckley and Schaeffer’s father believed that this represented a “secular humanist direction” that our culture was heading towards and that this was very bad for the country.
Buckley was a Catholic and Schaeffer’s father was a reformed Calvinist Protestant who became a Presbyterian minister, and both strongly supported “a strong Christian tradition.”[i] Frank says that Buckley and his father would have been happy living in a Roman Catholic-dominated world where there was no abortion, contraceptives, or sex before marriage. He reminds us that at the same time that Buckley was pushing his ultraconservative ideology, there was a “break-away bishop of the Roman Catholic Church named Archbishop Lefebvre (1905-1991).
Do you recognize this man’s name? He was quite a controversial figure back in his day. Lefebvre was born in France, ordained as a priest in 1929, and served as a missionary in Africa for many years. In 1947 he was appointed Vicar of Dakar, Senegal, and was an Apostolic Delegate for French-speaking Africa. Lefebvre was also a participant in the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) and a leading conservative Catholic voice, opposing many of its reforms. His opposition increased after the church started implementing some of the reforms ordered by the Council, particularly changes to the Mass (from Latin to local languages).
Lefebvre later created an organization called the Society of Pope Pius X (SPPX) to support his push to continue using the traditional Latin Mass and Latin pre-Vatican II liturgical books for the sacraments. He even established a seminary in Switzerland.
Initially, SPPX was recognized as a pious organization, but then in 1976, Lefebvre’s rabble-rousing caused him to finally be relieved of his priestly duties by Pope Paul VI. Later, in 1988, Lefebvre got a bit too big for his britches and without permission from the pope, consecrated four bishops. He and his followers were soon excommunicated for their efforts. However, in 2009, the group’s excommunications were suddenly lifted by… wait for it… Pope Benedict XVI… under the guise that this would somehow foster a “real and final unity” of the church. For those like me, who remember this pope, all I can say is, “Yeah, right.” Lefebvre died an excommunicated archbishop in 1991, yet SPPX still is in existence and Lefebvre remains a divisive figure even today.
Both Lefebvre and Shaeffer’s father talked about how bad the modernization of the Catholic Church was. They made a point of drawing comparisons to what happened to evangelical protestants when “liberal mainline denominations” took over institutions like Princeton University and replaced the fundamentalists who had been in charge in the 1920s with “liberal mainline evangelicals and later liberal protestants.” Horrors!
Pulling the Threads Together
Frank tells us that we need to fast-forward to the 1970s to understand the connection to recent events. He recounts the effort he and his dad were making at that time to create an anti-abortion project with C. Everett Koop[ii] called “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?[iii]” He had several meetings with Archbishop Fulton Sheen of New York to discuss it. At the time Sheen had a very popular television program. Some of you may remember seeing it or his face on television periodically.
He says that Sheen told him that he and his dad were “…like a cavalry coming over the hill to rescue our movement.” By “our movement,” he meant conservatives and Roman Catholics “…standing up for what they considered to be “the ancient traditions,” i.e., No abortion; no contraceptives; no sex before marriage; anti-gay; no homosexual marriage; no tolerance of any deviance from the Roman Catholic vision of a theocratic state.” They hoped to push the country right back to the Middle Ages, “,,,pre-reformation; pre-enlightenment; pre-science; superstition all the way down!”[iv]
Shaeffer says that Sheen introduced him to the Knights of Columbus[v], some of whom were members of… wait for it… Opus Dei. If you’ve read any of author Dan Brown’s books or seen his movies, this will be a familiar name. He describes Opus Dei[vi] as the “deep-seated fascistic, intolerant wing of the Catholic Church.” Frank explains that he means “Spanish fascist,” or “Francisco fascist,” references to Spanish dictator Francisco Frano, not the German fascist flavor. “Franco” is what he was called here in the states. After he died, Saturday Night Live would parody his death in its “Weekend Update” segment saying, “Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead,” because his death went on for so long in Spain.
Franco was against modernism[vii]. Opus Dei was founded by “a shadowy, secret organization” (see footnotes). Their intent is to replace modernism with a centralized Roman Catholic agenda that will give “a place of precedence[viii]” to so-called religious liberties over things like freedom and democracy. Of course, this was “…just for one religion.[ix]” Several writers have written extensively about Opus Dei[x], if you are interested in further information.
Schaeffer mentions his work with Richard John Neuhaus, a Lutheran pastor who later converted to Catholicism. He founded a journal called, “First Things[xi].” He was an influential figure in the intersection of religion and politics.[xii] He says he introduced Neuhaus to a number of people who had published articles with the conservative religious Gateway Publishing, an outfit he says brought forth people like Chief Justice Amy Cony Barrett, who grew up reading a lot of their books.
He remembers that Neuhaus’ program was also to “bring the Church back.” They viewed the modern Vatican as the enemy, standing in their way. They wanted the mass returned to Latin; no women in the priesthood, not even girls serving at the altar; priests facing the altar and not the people, etc. Neuhaus had his own right-wing project underway as well – to save America from democracy and replace it with theocracy and what they regarded as the law of God. But, their program went even further, because they wanted to undermine and overthrow the government “as it existed.”[xiii] Think sedition.
How and why did all these threads, as Frank calls them, come together? It was because Frank Schaeffer’s dad wrote, “A Christian Manifesto.”[xiv] Ring any bells? This book sold a million copies. Frank tells us that although virtually unnoticed in the press, this book led to a movement that further led to the formation of two organizations we have come to know and despise, “The Heritage Foundation,” and the “Federalist Society.” Frank now wants us to fast-forward again, this time to Project 2025.
Where did Project 2025 Originate?
Given what I’ve just laid out for you above, this becomes an interesting question, doesn’t it? If you’ve been watching the news lately, you may have heard the name, Kevin Roberts. Kevin Roberts is the head of the Heritage Foundation and also the architect of Project 2025. Oh, and he’s also a member of Opus Dei. This fascinating piece of data was collected through research carried out by The Guardian in an article titled, “Kevin Roberts, architect of Project 2025, has close ties to radical Catholic group Opus Dei.[xv]” You can see his picture on the left. I can definitely imagine him wearing a hair shirt with thorns under his suit and flagellating himself at night.
Have you heard of Leonard Leo, an influential lawyer and conservative activist? Leo is best known for his work with the Heritage Foundation. You can read more about him in the Guardian article, but let it suffice to say that he “…led the Republican mission to install the rightwing majority in the Supreme Court.”[xvi] Being a really rich man, Leo funds many of the groups who signed on to Project 2025. And guess what – he’s connected to an well-known Opus Dei group, the Catholic Information Center (CIC), where he served on the board. “In a 2022 speech accepting the CIC’s highest honor, the John Paul II New Evangelization award, Leo praised the center while also referring to his political opponents as “vile and amoral current day barbarians, secularists and bigots” who were under the influence of the devil.”[xvii] An interesting perspective, heh? Just what you’d expect from a devout practitioner of an Iron Age religion.
Somehow, Project 2025 found its way into the light of day. And we are damned fortunate it did.
Project 2025 is supported by over 100 conservative groups. According to the Guardian article, “Gareth Gore, the author of a forthcoming book on Opus Dei, said members of the Catholic organization are engaged in ‘a political project shrouded in a veil of spirituality’”. The group’s founder, Saint Josemaría Escrivá, saw his followers as part of a “rising militia”, Gore said, who were seeking to “enter battle against the enemies of Christ”.[xviii] I look forward to reading this book.
It is interesting to watch the Democrats today under Kamala Harris pleading with people, shouting, “We’re going forward, we’re not going back!” while behind all the doom and gloom being told to us by the Republicans, under the shadow of Donald Trump, is the clear message that we need to stop that forward momentum, we need to turn back, way back, back to the Dark Ages. Make no mistake, Project 2025 is a roadmap to take us there.
The Trump Factor
Frank Schaeffer reminds us that groups like the Heritage Foundation and Opus Dei, after spending 50 years grooming the people who now fill positions of power, like the Supreme Court, were growing somewhat despondent in recent years. He says they’d given up on trying to change our culture. This makes sense. They were facing their own dark days. They thought Hillary Clinton was going to get elected, which was scary enough; but then Obama, the first black president, got elected which had to be one of their worst nightmares. But, just when things seemed their bleakest, along comes Trump!
Trump is a man that none of these ultraconservative theologians, businessmen and women, so-called intellectuals, would cross the street to piss on Trump if he were on fire. Frank agrees, saying that they would have been disgusted by “low-life con artists like Trump[xix].” Frank goes through a litany of Trump’s failures, which you and I are all too familiar with. He is not the kind of guy they would want to be associated with. Frank believes his father, Neuhaus, and his old buddy, Bill Buckley, would have “vomited at the prospect of the Maga movement following this cult leader and con artist.”[xx] I think he’s right on this.
Move ahead now to this current presidential run by Trump and things have changed. Now, groups like Opus Dei, the Heritage Foundation, and the Federalist Society are keeping their real thoughts about and disgust with Trump behind closed doors. They know what a douche he is. But, they also know, as we all do, that Trump can be easily manipulated. Ralph Reed[xxi] learned this early on when Trump first ran for president. He gave Trump a list of judicial candidates created by the Federalist Society. Reed offered Trump the promise of evangelical votes from the pro-life movement, telling him that he’d get their vote even if he wasn’t a pro-lifer. The evangelicals would pretend he does support it and that all his sexual foibles were fables. All he had to do was one small thing: get them appointed to the bench! And isn’t this something we’ve been watching unfold before our eyes these past years? They did it! And now we’re paying the price.
Evangelical leaders are now pushing the story to their followers, to help them swallow a large bullshit pill made of a lie about Trump, that Trump is an imperfect man, saying, “Well, God has often picked imperfect men to do his handiwork before!” So, the masses of evangelicals thus become Trump cult followers, ignoring their own eyes, and believing the lies of their evangelical leaders.
As Frank points out in his video, Trump has bigger stakes this time around. Now he’s facing a real possibility of a prison sentence. He’s now scared shitless. You can see it in his all-night Twitter posts and Truth Social rants, his cognitive decline as the pressure mounts.
Schaeffer does an excellent job in his video because he knows what he is talking about. His family connections to the Republican Party and past Republican presidents like Ford, through his father, are numerous, and he names them all. It’s an impressive list. More impressive is that Frank somehow was able to overcome the extreme influences he faced growing up.
Future Shock
Frank tells us that as far as Project 2025 is concerned, “Should Trump become president again, and be kept out of jail by conservative 1930-style fascist Roman Catholics, because that’s what this is, he will reciprocate by undermining the entire Federal Bureaucracy and replacing it with people who agree with people who run Opus Dei. They will no longer be federal employees in any sense. They will be on a witch hunt for everyone who disagrees with them.”[xxii]
All we have to do to hear this from the horse’s mouth is turn on the TV. Trump tells us almost every day what he is going to do. With no real plan of his own for his next presidency, other than rake in millions of dollars and rubber stamp bills coming from the likes of the Heritage Foundation, he will just simply implement Project 2025.
Frank goes dark at this point in his video, telling us what we risk losing if Trump is elected. Medicare and Social Security will be eliminated or made unrecognizable and of little benefit to those who depend on them. Gay rights? Gone. Forget trans people, whose risk of physical harm will be greatly increased. Pardons will be in store for those who transgress against them. He reminds us that if we think he is kidding, all we have to do is look at the history of Spain under Franco. I’ve been to Spain a couple of times. There is a faction of people who are still in the Franco cult, enthralled by their dead leader. They even have a store that sells Franco memorabilia! Other older people not in thrall to Franco remember this regime, the fear, and the brutality. Younger people wonder what the worry is all about. Wake up, folks! This could happen here!
Birth control? Contraceptives? Take a look at the Project 2025 document yourself. It’s free, it’s also 900 pages. In it, you will find it stated that overturning contraceptives will be harder than Roe! In black and white! It is truly startling to see your fears written down and documented as a plan to be implemented. What I find more startling is that these people feel so confident in what they are about that they feel they could write it all down and pass it around! Just a month ago, the GOP thought they had the election in the bag, and I think they did, too. Hold your nose if you want to, but Biden and Kamala Harris may have helped us to dodge a life-altering catastrophe, for sure.
Schaeffer asks us to just think back 10 years. If we’d been told then that the Supreme Court would give the president the immunity to commit crimes in office without ramifications; that 50 years of legal precedent would be ignored and Roe overturned; that women in Texas who’d been raped would be forced to bear the child; that women with ectopic pregnancies who were dying in the wrong state, will die because unless they can get to a state that does abortions; we wouldn’t have believed it. And he’s right. He’s also right that this is “totally un-American! It’s straight out of Franco Spain.”[xxiii]
About the only thing you hear Trump talk about doing in his next term is to provide another major tax cut to billionaires and revise the tax system. Trump will be a puppet. The people pulling his strings will be the people he owes, the people who kept him out of jail. Join me in my next post that will delve deeper into the background and implications of the Christian Nationalist movement!
Frank tells us that he knows what he is talking about. Watch his video to the end. He really does!
[i] Youtube video, “Duty to Warn: May I Tell You What Project 2025 Really Is?” by Frank Schaeffer.
[ii] Ronald Reagan’s surgeon general of the United States from 1982 to 1989.
[iii] “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” is a book by Francis A. Schaeffer and C. Everett Koop, published by Crossway. The book addresses the devaluation of human life in society, particularly focusing on issues such as abortion, euthanasia, and infanticide. Schaeffer and Koop argue that these practices result from a departure from a biblical understanding of human dignity, emphasizing that all human life is valuable because it is created in the image of God. The book, originally written decades ago, continues to be relevant today as it discusses the moral and ethical implications of these issues from a Christian perspective. It includes chapters that explore the historical, medical, and theological aspects of the topic, encouraging readers to adopt a pro-life worldview and engage in social action to defend human dignity.”
[iv] Youtube video, “Duty to Warn: May I Tell You What Project 2025 Really Is?” by Frank Schaeffer.
[v] The Knights of Columbus is a global Catholic fraternal service order founded by Blessed Michael J. McGivney on March 29, 1882. [Perplexity, a generative AI search tool].
[vi] Opus Dei is Latin for “Work of God.” It was founded by a Spanish priest in 1928 and is now headed by Monsignor Fernando Ocariz. Their purpose is to promote the idea that everyone is called to holiness and that leading a normal life is the path to sanctity. They emphasize the integration of spiritual life with professional, social, and family responsibilities. John Paul II granted it “personal prelature,” which means that its organization is not bound by geography, but rather by the people in its ranks. The group has been subject to claims of secrecy, cult-like practices (some member wear “cilices,” under their clothes, a hair shirt often fitted with spikes). Despite the controversies, they are still considered in good standing with the Holy See and remain influential in the Catholic Church. The group operates various educational and charitable initiatives including universities and vocational centers.
[vii] Modernism was a significant cultural movement that emerged in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, characterized by a deliberate break from traditional forms and a quest for new modes of expression across various art forms, including literature, visual arts, music, and architecture. [Perplexity, a generative AI tool]
[viii] Youtube video, “Duty to Warn: May I Tell You What Project 2025 Really Is?” by Frank Schaeffer.
[ix] Ibid.
[x] “Opus Dei: An Objective Look Behind the Myths and Reality of the Most Controversial Force in the Catholic Church” by John L. Allen Jr.; “The Founder of Opus Dei” by Andres Vazquez de Prada; “L’Opus Dei : enquête sur le ‘monstre'” by Patrice de Plunkett; “Saints and Schemers: Opus Dei and its paradoxes” by Joan Estruch; “Ordinary Work, Extraordinary Grace: My Spiritual Journey in Opus Dei” by Scott Hahn.
[xi] “First Things is a journal aimed at advancing a religiously informed public philosophy for the ordering of society. It covers a wide range of topics, including theology, culture, politics, literature, and education, with a particular emphasis on the intersection of religion and public life.” [Perplexity, a generative AI tool].
[xii] [Perplexity, a generative AI search tool].
[xiii] Youtube video, “Duty to Warn: May I Tell You What Project 2025 Really Is?” by Frank Schaeffer.
[xiv] “A Christian Manifesto” is a book written by Francis A. Schaeffer. In this book, Schaeffer addresses the perceived decline of morality and freedom in society and calls for a movement to reestablish a Judeo-Christian foundation in government, law, and all aspects of life. He advocates for Christians to change the course of history by returning to biblical truth and allowing Christ to be central in all areas of life.” [Perplexity, a generative AI tool].
[xv] According to this article, “Kevin Roberts, the Heritage Foundation president and the architect of Project 2025, the conservative thinktank’s road map for a second Trump presidency, has close ties and receives regular spiritual guidance from an Opus Dei-led center in Washington DC, a hub of activity for the radical and secretive Catholic group. Roberts acknowledged in a speech last September that – for years – he has visited the Catholic Information Center, a K Street institution headed by an Opus Dei priest and incorporated by the archdiocese of Washington, on a weekly basis for mass and “formation”, or religious guidance. Opus Dei also organizes monthly retreats at the CIC.”
[xvi] “Kevin Roberts, architect of Project 2025, has close ties to radical Catholic group Opus Dei,” The Guardian, July 26, 2024.
[xvii] Ibid.
[xviii] Ibid.
[xix] Youtube video, “Duty to Warn: May I Tell You What Project 2025 Really Is?” by Frank Schaeffer.
[xx] Ibid.
[xxi] “Ralph Eugene Reed Jr. is an American political consultant and lobbyist, best known for his role as the first executive director of the Christian Coalition during the early 1990s. He has been a significant figure in conservative politics, particularly in mobilizing evangelical voters. Reed founded the Faith and Freedom Coalition in 2009 to bridge evangelical voters with the Tea Party movement, and he has been involved in various political campaigns, including serving as a senior advisor to the Bush-Cheney presidential campaigns.” [Perplexity, a generative AI search tool].
[xxii] Youtube video, “Duty to Warn: May I Tell You What Project 2025 Really Is?” by Frank Schaeffer.
[xxiii] Ibid.
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