The Heart of Project 2025: Christian Nationalism
If you’re not familiar with Project 2025 by now, it’s time to stop binge watching House of the Dragon and pay attention—because if implemented, the Heritage Foundation’s 900-page plan for the next conservative administration could dramatically change the way you work, worship, openly love who you love, and raise your family. That’s because Project 2025 is firmly rooted in Christian nationalism.
What is Christian nationalism?
Christian nationalism is the conviction that America as a nation is defined and should be governed by traditional Christian values, and that Christianity should hold a privileged position in public life. Christian nationalists believe that:
The United States was founded on Christian principles. Never mind that the First Amendment of our Constitution reads, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
Christian values should directly guide our laws and policies.
Secularism is evil and there should be no separation of church and state.
Patriotism and faith go hand-in-hand. Love of country and love of God are one and the same.
True Americans are Christian Americans, and that this national identity reigns over other religions, beliefs, and even non-belief.
So-called traditional Christian values and biblical teachings underpin every policy in Project 2025, from what constitutes a family to one’s sexual identity, though it’s important to note that many mainstream Christians vehemently oppose Christian Nationalism and consider it antithetical to the teachings of Jesus. After all, Jesus never punched down on a transgender youth, slung an AR-15 over his shoulder, or wrapped himself in a flag. Some of us even remember that he was put to death for being an enemy of the state.
Project 2025 wants to center conservative Christianity in every sphere.
1.) Defining what family means.
Project 2025’s first promise is to "restore the family as the centerpiece of American life and protect our children." They assert that the “next conservative President must get to work pursuing the true priority of politics—the well-being of the American family.” (page 4)
Family, that is, as they define it.
What is the right kind of family? A married man, woman, and their children. Project 2025 sees this as the only true acceptable kind of family and promotes policies that reinforce heterosexual marriage and strip away resources and protections for non-traditional ones, such as same-sex couples and single-parent families.
According to the Pew Research center, non-traditional families now outnumber traditional ones, and Project 2025’s goal is to turn back the clock to an era when this wasn’t the case: “It’s time for policymakers to elevate family authority, formation, and cohesion as their top priority and even use government power, including through the tax code, to restore the American family.” (page 4)
2.) Making the Workplace 1950 Again
The Project 2025 playbook calls for purging diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs from the workplace. It proposes changes to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, effectively eliminating protections against discrimination due to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, and national origin.
To center pro-family values, Project 2025 says we must “Keep anti-life ‘benefits’ out of benefit plans,” (p. 585) meaning that states can prohibit employers from providing medical coverage for abortions, even life-saving ones, as well as coverage for contraception.
It exhorts the government to protect the rights of businesses to discriminate against same-sex couples and provide “robust protections for religious employers,” including federal conscience protection laws which pertain to medical professionals who don’t wish to perform procedures such as tubal ligation, provide end-of-life care, or prescribe contraception; pharmacists who won’t dispense medications they are morally opposed to; or first responders who refuse to administer naloxone to reverse opioid overdose because they object to drug abuse
Scarily, there’s more. But you get the point.
Centering toxic Christianity in schools and in community life
Project 2025 also wants to ban or limit discussions of gender identity, sexual orientation, and other LGBTQ+ topics in schools:
“The noxious tenets of “critical race theory” and “gender ideology” should be excised from curricula in every public school in the country. These theories poison our children, who are being taught on the one hand to affirm that the color of their skin fundamentally determines their identity and even their moral status while on the other they are taught to deny the very creatureliness that inheres in being human and consists in accepting the givenness of our nature as men or women.” (page 5)
And in public institutions:
“The next conservative President must make the institutions of American civil society hard targets for woke culture warriors. This starts with deleting the terms sexual orientation and gender identity (“SOGI”), diversity, equity, and inclusion, gender, gender equality, gender equity, gender awareness, gender-sensitive, abortion, reproductive health, reproductive rights, and any other term used to deprive Americans of their First Amendment rights out of every federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant, regulation, and piece of legislation that exists.” (pages 4-5)
They also plan to eliminate and criminalize anything they consider pornographic.
Trump has tried to distance himself from Project 2025, but we have the receipts
While he’s recently tried to disavow himself from The Heritage Foundation, 140 people from Trump’s administration—including the architect of Trump’s border policy, Stephen Miller—served as authors, editors, and advisors on Project 2025. And a hidden camera caught Project 2025 co-author, Russell Vought, saying that Trump has “been at our organization, he’s raised money for our organization, he’s blessed it…he’s very supportive of what we do.” Vought brags that they are working on the transition documents right this minute. And he also doesn’t shy away from calling himself a Christian nationalist.
Make no mistake, the core of Project 2025 is Christian nationalism
By proposing that our government break down the barriers between church and state and force their morals on us, the authors of Project 2025 are engaging in a dangerous, disgusting, and anti-American agenda that must be rejected in November.
This is one in a series of posts about Project 2025. Read about Project 2025 and pornography and plans for the Department of Education.
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