When Jack Posobiec took the stage at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) ahead of Donald Trump last week and called for the overthrow of American democracy, he held up a Christian symbol, a cross, making clear that like many on today’s far-right, his goal is to replace democracy with a Christo-fascist regime.
One could argue they’ve already made this goal the Republican Party’s platform. They’ve been generous enough to spell it out in a Christian Nationalist manifesto from the conservative Heritage Foundation called Project 2025.
Mainstream media outlets have begun to expose Project 2025’s radical vision: A gutted federal government; immigrants rounded up in work camps and deported; a military response to peaceful demonstrations; oppression of women, minorities, the poor and the disadvantaged. For the media, it is simply an extreme conservative plan.
When I read Project 2025, I recognized immediately that it is a 1,000-page Christo-fascist screed.
How do I know? I am a product of Christian Nationalism.
In 1975, my parents joined a southern Christian Nationalist church and enrolled me in their kindergarten. For thirteen years, I was indoctrinated with Christian Nationalist, Moral Majority-era dogma: America is a white, Christian nation; the founders intended for Christianity to be our national religion; it was our responsibility as Christians to compel everyone to live by the truths of the Bible; I might one day have to fight and maybe die to defend my faith.
It has been a 20-year process to deprogram that worldview. As hard as it is to follow the news and read online articles, nothing prepared me for how thoroughly Project 2025 hammers home the religious indoctrination of my earlier life.
From the very beginning, Project 2025 invokes Christo-fascist language. In its preamble, Project 2025’s director Paul Dans calls for plans to “move out upon the President’s utterance of the words ‘so help me God’ on Inauguration Day.”
Dans closes his introduction with: “As Americans living at the approach of our nation’s 250th birthday, we have been given much. As conservatives, we are as much required to steward this precious heritage for the next generation.”
I know from my Bible studies he is channeling Luke 12:48: “From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded.”
Project 2025 is riddled with this type of Christo-fascist language. Christian Nationalists do not write or speak without referencing the Bible. It is a language American voters would do well to understand before November, or it will be the language of our government.
To help the cause, I have been writing about the religious dogma underpinning Project 2025. Take Project 2025’s opening salvo, their so-called Conservative Promise—which they assert are the “four broad fronts that will decide America’s future.”
Promise 1: Restore the family as the centerpiece of American life and protect our children.
“The next conservative President must get to work pursuing the true priority of politics— the well-being of the American family. In many ways, the entire point of centralizing political power is to subvert the family. Its purpose is to replace people’s natural loves and loyalties with unnatural ones.” - Project 2025, page 4
Project 2025’s use of natural and unnatural is deliberate Christo-fascist language, drawn directly from the Bible:
“For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: 27 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another.” -Romans 1:26-27 KJV
To a Christian Nationalist, marriage can only exist between one man and one unrelated woman. A man’s natural use is as husband and head of the home. He is the breadwinner. A woman’s natural use is to stay home, have and rear children, and submit to her husband. Project 2025 intends to impose this Christian Nationalist view of marriage and family nationwide.
According to their Bibles, a woman’s God-given purpose is to be a wife and mother without human intervention. This is the basis for their opposition to abortion, IVF and even hormonal birth control. It is also the foundation for their goal to end no-fault divorce.
Promise 2: Dismantle the administrative state and return self-governance to the American people.
“The next conservative President must possess the courage to relentlessly put the interests of the everyday American over the desires of the ruling elite. Their outrage cannot be prevented; it must simply be ignored.” - Project 2025, page 9
The media has highlighted Project 2025’s promise to gut the federal government- but they are not explaining its Christo-fascist designs.
Christian Nationalists believe the Bible is God’s infallible law and so it should be the basis for all laws. They will not compromise this position because they believe God commands them to follow his perfect law to the letter.
This is why they disregard unfavorable voting outcomes like the Ohio referendum on abortion. They don’t care about polls or what American voters support. It’s why they are willing to ignore judicial decisions and election results they don’t feel serve God’s commands.They believe their Bibles give them the right to deny anyone and anything that conflicts with their interpretation of God’s law. They are already governing this way in many red states; it is how they will govern nationally if they win in November.
Promise 3: Defend our nation’s sovereignty, borders and bounty against global threats.
“Intellectual sophistication, advanced degrees, financial success, and all other markers of elite status have no bearing on a person’s knowledge of the one thing most necessary for governance: what it means to live well. That knowledge is available to each of us, no matter how humble our backgrounds or how unpretentious our attainments. It is open to us to read in the book of human nature, to which we are all offered the key just by merit of our shared humanity.” - Project 2025, page 10
In Project 2025’s draconian section on immigration, they buried this gem: Their book of human nature is the Bible. It is yet another veiled statement that the Bible should be the basis for our laws.
This is also why Christian Nationalists deplore education and expertise. They believe everything God meant for humans to know is contained in the Bible, so there is no need for any other means of enlightenment.
This is the basis for their attacks on public school classrooms and libraries, as well as secular colleges and universities. These are heretical places that teach humans to question their Bible.
Promise 4: Secure our God-given rights to live freely - what our Constitution calls “the Blessings of Liberty.”
“The American Republic was founded on principles prioritizing and maximizing individuals’ rights to live their best life or to enjoy what the Framers called “the Blessings of Liberty.” - Project 2025, page 14
Many Americans might say, “I’m living the good life,” or “I’m living my best life,” to mean career success, financial security, good health, or a relaxing vacation. When Christian Nationalists talk about living a good life or living their best life, they mean the Christian life or a holy life.
By conflating a good life with a holy life, the framers of Project 2025 embedded their idea that America is a Christian nation into Promise 4. They intend to force every American to live their definition of a good life through government edict, a goal they weave throughout Project 2025’s policy recommendations.
Calling Project 2025 a Republican Christo-fascist manifesto seems too aggressive for some people. We are conditioned to avoid confronting the religious passions of others, but I spent years in the pews hearing the sermons, the warnings of Christian persecution. I’m not exaggerating. It’s not hyperbole.
Christian Nationalists believe the Bible is the infallible word of God, his perfect law. That is their right. They are convinced they are called by God to overturn any law that contradicts the Bible. It’s why they seek to override voter referendums, question election outcomes, and ignore polls that indicate the unpopularity of their policies.
Project 2025 is their playbook. They are engaged in Christian warfare, and they will not compromise their positions. If they are empowered by this November’s election, they will force every American to live under Christo-fascist governance and laws drawn from their narrow interpretation of the Bible. Democracy will be replaced with theocracy. For the American experiment to reach 250 years, it is our right—and responsibility—to make sure that does not happen.
