How should Christians respond to Project 2025?

Project 2025, a conservative policy game plan for the future, has become a source of recent controversy as liberal politicians and commentators work to tie the contentious agenda to Donald Trump’s campaign, and Trump works to distance himself from it. Messaging surrounding the project is now central to President Biden’s campaign strategy as he seeks to persuade Americans that a second Trump term would be radical and dangerous. Biden’s campaign website vaguely frames Project 2025 as “the plan by Donald Trump’s MAGA Republican allies to give Trump more power over your daily life, gut democratic checks and balances, and consolidate power in the Oval Office if he wins.”

To better understand this unique political conflict, we need to evaluate the details of Project 2025, how it came to be, and its relevance in the upcoming election.

What is Project 2025?

The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank founded in 1973, is responsible for Project 2025, which they dub the “Presidential Transition Project.” The Foundation has been influential in conservative policy advancement for decades, with many of its most notable successes dating back to the Reagan administration.

Project 2025 serves as their comprehensive framework for a future conservative presidential administration, and it is organized into four pillars: personnel, training, policy, and playbook. The personnel and training pillars focus on developing a database of potential civil servants and training them through the “Presidential Administration Academy” to be ready on day one of a new White House.

The policy pillar, an extensive political agenda, and the playbook pillar, a 180-day presidential transition guide, are detailed in an 887-page book titled Mandate For Leadership: The Conservative Promise, which is digitally available on the Project 2025 website. The controversy surrounding Project 2025 stems from the content in the policy agenda and The Heritage Foundation’s efforts to see their platform adopted.

Mandate for Leadership opens with a forward that outlines a summary case for implementing Project 2025 by identifying key priorities for the next administration. These include tackling broad issues like the economy and illegal immigration, as well as specific actions like outlawing pornography and ensuring biological sex is the entry standard for girls’ athletics.

Chapters one through three of the Mandate for Leadership focus on the executive branch and an expansion of presidential authority over the bureaucracy, including the Department of Justice. The project seeks a reduced administrative state, including a decrease in government jobs and a mass replacement of government employees via Schedule F. While later revoked by the Biden administration, Schedule F is a Trump-era order that would have made termination of government employment easier.

Chapters four through 30 are dedicated to reforming or dismantling individual government agencies. One key instance of downsizing comes in drastic fashion in chapter 11: “Federal education policy should be limited and, ultimately, the federal Department of Education should be eliminated (p. 319).” The remainder of the chapter advocates for parent choice in education, pushes back on promoting critical race theory and gender ideology in classrooms, and details the exact steps for deconstructing the Department of Education.

A controversial example of agency reform is found in chapter 14, which focuses on the Department of Health and Human Services. Here, the authors laid out a radical shift in how the department would interact with the public. Abortion would no longer be deemed healthcare, abortion pill access would be greatly restricted, and a pro-life task force would be created. The nuclear family—anchored by a father and mother—would be viewed as the foundation for a healthy and stable society.

Detailed plans for border security, social welfare programs, and environmental protection policy are among the various other hot topics creating a buzz around the Project.

Reception on the Right and Left

Despite Project 2025 overlapping with Trump’s own “Agenda 47” as well as the new Republican Party Platform in many areas, the Trump team has intentionally distanced itself from the project. Many of the project’s contributors were previously employed in the Trump administration, and it is possible that the same could be true of a future Trump administration, should he win in November.

So why are they working hard to create a separation? First, as mentioned previously, the title “Project 2025” is now labeled as a radical right-wing agenda that endangers democracy. Whether that perspective is fair or not, it is clear that the Trump campaign is protecting itself from a damaging perception.

Secondly, the few areas in which Trump’s greatly simplified agenda does not overlap with Project 2025 are significant. A stance on abortion, for example, is absent entirely from Trump’s platform, while, in the most recent Republican Party platform, their stance was greatly watered down. By contrast, a more traditionally conservative stance appears within Project 2025.

The Biden campaign and other liberal activists, however, continue to paint Project 2025 and the Trump campaign as one and the same. A recent post on X from one of the official Biden campaign accounts refers to the agenda as “Trump’s Project 2025” and then hyperbolically describes the platform presented in the playbook. The idea that the project seeks a federal abortion ban, desires to put immigrants in mass detention camps, and wants Americans to lose their healthcare are among the mischaracterizations and inaccuracies in the post.

At the end of the day, the Heritage Foundation is proven to be an influential organization, but its playbook for the next administration is not connected to any current presidential campaign. Any hope or fear of a holistic implementation of Project 2025 can be quelled by evaluating the complicated nature of our political climate and the checks and balances of our government. Nothing of this scale happens overnight, or even within a four-year term, despite that being how it has been presented.

How Christians should respond

A policy book this large provides plenty to split hairs over. As with any dividing moment in politics, Christians have a duty to recall their primary identity within the kingdom of God. The apostle Peter refers to the church as God’s own nation and priesthood (1 Pet. 2:9-12), reminding believers that in this world, we are simply sojourners and exiles in a foreign land (1 Pet. 2:11).

An already-not-yet nature is inherent to the Christian life since we know that we are part of an eternal kingdom, but we reside in a temporary place. Yet, while we are here, we have a responsibility to seek the welfare of our community, just as God commanded the Babylonian exiles in their temporary homes away from Jerusalem (Jer. 29:4-7).

How do we adopt this kingdom-minded approach to our political engagement? We pray for our leaders, our nation, and our individual discernment. We intentionally seek out the truth, research consequential policies, have important conversations, and then vote accordingly. We guard our hearts against the corrupting tendency of political idolatry and the wicked desire to place our faith in ideology. Lastly, we actively work toward Godly solutions in our society rather than hoping for legislation and policymakers to do the work for us.

These principles should characterize every Christian’s approach to the culture, and living them out is an act of obedience to God that goes beyond personal politics. So, regardless of how you plan to vote this fall, commit to a kingdom-minded approach and trust that the Lord is not limited by who runs the government.

Where in your life do you need that reminder today?