When Progressive Foundations Fund Evangelism

The political projects men like Christianity Today editor Russell Moore and New York Times columnist David French undertake involve a contradiction. While lamenting how partisan American Christianity has become (frequently accusing other evangelicals of shilling for “Christian Nationalism”), they continue to launch and participate in programs designed, albeit covertly, to inject progressive politics into the church. 

In the run-up to the 2024 election, they launched The After Party, a political Bible study designed for church groups and student clubs at Christian colleges, predominantly funded by secular-left foundations. Their pitch was genius: If conflict-leery pastors didn’t want to address difficult political matters with their congregants, they could simply outsource their shepherding responsibility to The After Party. That way, another of its founders, Curtis Chang, argued, pastors could enjoy “plausible deniability” if anyone took issue with the curriculum, which teaches Christians that they should not be single-issue voters on abortion, but that they are obligated to elect candidates who will reform America’s systemically racist structures. 

It was obvious which party this ostensibly nonpartisan program was promoting. As author and podcaster Natasha Crain noted, “The marketing is designed to attract churches who would like to simply encourage charitable communication, but the execution is designed to convince Christians that they shouldn’t be so conservative.”

Now, these same political actors are targeting pastors directly.

Last April, the American Values Coalition (AVC) launched their “faith outreach” initiative, the J29 Coalition. Its stated purpose is to “disciple the American Evangelical church in kingdom-shaped politics.” And not just any evangelical churches, but those whose pastors “self-identify as theologically conservative.” J29 offers pastors digital workshops, training retreats, and curated resources to help them “recapture the evangelical political imagination.” 

Yet a look into AVC’s background calls any claims of conservatism, theological or otherwise, into question. Formed in 2021, AVC has few public financial records, but those available all point to left-wing backers. As Capital Research has detailed, AVC relies on the pass-through funder Panorama Global to bundle its donors. Given that Panorama, which also directly awarded AVC $228,433 between 2021 and 2022, is best known for its deep ties to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Victory Fund to elect LGBTQ candidates, it makes a strange bedfellow for any organization purporting to have Christian objectives. 

Another strange bedfellow—The Hewlett Foundation. For the last two decades, Hewlett has been one of the foremost funders of pro-abortion efforts in the U.S., granting over $100 million to Planned Parenthood, $6 million to Catholics for Choice, and $17 million to lesser known abortion groups. Hewlett also prioritizes other leftist causes, including LGBTQ activism, climate change restrictions, and gun control. Only months before the 2024 election, it awarded AVC $100,000 to help Americans “counter extremism” in their “faith groups.” 

Finally, there are the backers that J29 openly cops to: atheists. In a press release that smacks of preemptive damage control, AVC acknowledged that a three-month J29 training cohort of pastors was funded by the Stiefel Freethought Foundation, a group whose other grantees include American Atheists Inc., the ACLU, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and the Freedom from Religion Foundation. 

As explanation for why a group antagonistic to religion is funding its faith project, AVC says it’s because they share the goals of “strengthening democracy and promoting civility.” But it’s reasonable to ask: If this is simply about civility, why have AVC and J29 (not to mention The After Party) been unable to find backers who share their Christian worldview? If they are not of the left, why do only left-wing foundations support their work? 

Hayden Ludwig, director of policy research at Restoration of America, says the answer is simple. After examining AVC’s and J29’s materials and funding ties, he told me they have all the telltale signs of being a Democrat front group. “It’s all there if you know where to look, as I’ve done for close to a decade,” he said. “Sophisticated self-image, hefty marketing budget, central casting-approved ‘conservative’ frontmen, and, of course, a big dose of funding from major progressive foundations—every inch of this project feels like the same, tired misdirection campaigns the Beltway Left is so talented at running.”

If AVC’s and J29’s aims were simply to combat extremism and foster civil political discourse among believers, one would assume their group would need to include at least one trainer, coach, or lecturer who voted for the candidate the majority of Christians supported in the last election. But the leaders of both groups are exclusively Never Trump.  

In 2020, Napp Nazworth, executive director of AVC, contributed to the book The Spiritual Danger of Donald Trump, edited by left-wing Christian activist Ron Sider. His chapter, titled “Race-Baiter, Misogynist, and Fool,” is a far cry from the kind of courteous dialogue Nazworth purports to champion. And while his organization’s political theology is not flexible enough to include anyone who supports the president, it does embrace Sojourners, a magazine that routinely runs such articles as “The Joy of Being Queer and Christian,” and “How the Pride Flag Speaks to the Promises of God.”

Other noteworthy AVC employees include founder Caleb Campbell, a pastor who has admitted that up to 80 percent of his congregation left due to his progressive politicking on immigration and race. Another, former digital director Daniel Green, argued in a now-deleted 2021 essay that Students for Life harmed transgender people when it stated “Men cannot be mothers.” Perhaps most noteworthy of all is board chairman Neal Rickner, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations whose Bill Gates-backed wind energy company received $1.2 million from Biden’s Department of Defense. (This likely explains why AVC chose Gates’s partner, Panorama Global, to handle its funding.) 

AVC’s YouTube channel is brimming with anti-GOP videos entitled “Christians Threatening Democracy,” “Leaving MAGA,” and “Trump, Christians, and Political Extremism.” Given J29’s mission, its approach is surreptitious, avoiding mention of candidates or parties on its website. But the outlook of its coaches is impossible to disguise. 

Along with French, Moore, and Chang, J29 has brought in a host of political and theological liberals to fulfill its mission to “disciple” pastors on politics. It is beyond the scope of this article to detail the records of each coach, but here are some highlights: 

Justin Giboney: Democrat organizer of the similarly left-wing funded And Campaign who has argued that churches owe black people reparations.

Carmen Imes: Biola professor who has decried the “hegemony of white male scholarship in biblical studies and theology” and lamented Southern Baptist seminaries’ rejection of critical race theory. She has also endorsed the work of James Cone, a founder of black liberation theology, a synthesis of Marxism and Christianity that emphasizes social and economic equity between groups rather than the salvation of sinners. 

Joel Hunter: Former pastor and Obama advisor who now calls himself a “faith community organizer.” In 2017, he welcomed the Reformation Project, a group that seeks to change Christian doctrine to affirm homosexuality and transgenderism, to his church. In 2024, he endorsed Biden for president.

Dennis Edwards: Dean of North Park Theological Seminary, he promotes liberation theology and mystic Howard Thurman, who denied that Jesus was God. Edwards said in 2021, “Trump’s still the rockstar of people who feel threatened by brilliance like Obama’s. Never been a reason to compare these two—different leagues.” He has also said Trump is linked to Nazism and publicly wished to see Elizabeth Warren ascend to the presidency.

David Swanson: Founder and CEO of New Community Outreach, a non-profit “dedicated to healing community trauma.” He is the author of Rediscipling the White Church, in which he chides white Christians (who overwhelmingly vote Republican) for their “failure to prioritize racial justice.” 

Elizabeth Neumann: Board member of the National Immigration Forum, which promotes amnesty for illegal immigrants, she has argued that illegal immigration is not a security risk and endorsed Biden in 2020 and 2024. 

Scot McKnight: Anglican theologian who refused to sign the Nashville statement, which affirmed that marriage is between a man and a woman, but who happily endorsed critical race theory and liberation theology.

Gabriel Salguero: President of the National Latino Evangelical Coalition, he is also a Sojourners board member and served on Obama’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. He, too, is a proponent of liberation theology. 

This list could go on and on, but suffice it to say that none of the teachers associated with J29 and AVC share the outlook of the typical Christian conservative. Even its least partisan coach posts exclusively negative or neutral comments regarding the president. If these organizations were openly progressive, speaking to progressives, their funding and ideological commitments would cause little controversy. But that is not the case here. 

Asked if J29 could credibly claim to be conservative, Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, told me, “Absolutely not. And I think the average evangelical pastor should have the ability to connect the dots, and frankly, should ask questions as to who exactly is behind this, where’s the money coming from, and track not only the ideas, but the funding and the influence.”

AVC and J29 present themselves as conservative organizations speaking to conservatives. But what political conservative would rely on funding from prominent pro-abortion activists? What theological conservative would link arms with organizations that reject God’s created order for sexuality and marriage or promote liberation theology (widely regarded throughout both Protestantism and Catholicism as heresy)? What orthodox Christian endorses theologians who deny Christ’s divinity? Both politically and theologically, these groups are infiltrating the church in camouflage to gain political influence over America’s pulpits. Should parachurch organizations—by definition unaccountable to the churches they influence—be discipling America’s pastors on politics? Clint Pressley, president of the Southern Baptist Convention, minced no words when I asked him about AVC’s faith outreach program. “It’s a terrible, unwise idea,” he said. “Our pastors are discipled in our churches and in our seminaries.”

Kent Butterfield, pastor of First Reformed Presbyterian Church of Durham, North Carolina, concurred, and said while it’s fine for pastors to seek counsel on thorny political matters, signing up for the kind of tutelage J29 and AVC offer represents a dereliction of pastoral duty. “2 Timothy 3:16 shows that pastors need their fellow elders to keep them accountable by the authority of the Word,” he said. “The Bride of Christ is the church and these parachurch ministries act like the mistress who wants to displace the role and authority of the church. No pastor should submit to the parachurch but only to the elders of his church (and presbytery).” 

As we engage a culture that is Christ-curious but often doctrinally illiterate, the responsibility of the local church is not to outsource its political discipleship, but to return to the hard and holy work of forming believers according to the Word of God—not the ideologies of activist foundations.

Image by Ted Eytan, licensed by Creative Commons. Image cropped.