The National Strategic Center & Political Cells

Carawan and Forbes spent most of the call outlining the status of Project Blitz and their plans for growth. Carawan claims that their state legislative network now comprises some 950 legislators, organized into Prayer Caucuses in 38 states. They expect to have 42 state Prayer Caucuses by the end of 2019. Thirty two state Prayer Caucuses are said to be staffed with state directors. (Dale Witherington, the Minnesota State Director was on the call.)

Participants also learned about CPCF’s new “state of the art” National Strategic Center of which Forbes serves as “senior strategist.” The Center boasts 10,000 square feet of space. It’s not clear exactly who or what fills that space, but Carawan said its purpose is to provide “strategic, legal, and grassroots support” to the Prayer Caucuses. Forbes says it has the capacity to analyze “strategies that are being used against you.”

Forbes, a former Virginia state legislator and Republican State Party Chair, says legislators often can’t rely on official state legislative services to give them the “true information… on faith issues.” As a result, CPCF has an alternative team of lawyers from the National Legal Foundation, a small Christian Right non-profit law firm, to provide background research and legal analysis.

Forbes claimed that a “21st century strategy”–– analogous to national defense measures against terrorism–– is required because “things have geometrically changed in our country in terms of faith.” He emphasized that advances in “the ability to collect and analyze and disseminate information faster and more efficiently” could make these tools a “game changer.”

Forbes says they are making “faith assessments” of state political landscapes and making plans in consort with “virtual networks” of strategists. All this eventually takes the form of “Toolkits.” He emphasized that this also includes gathering intelligence on “the anti-faith groups, where they are located, what they are doing; and here’s the pro-faith groups, what they are doing, and where they are.”

Another element of their organizing plan has been the development (particularly in their headquarters city of Chesapeake, VA) of what they call “Faith Impact Groups.” These are essentially grassroots political cells, some of which have been started from scratch, and others developed from existing prayer or Bible study groups. Whatever the provenance of particular groups, he says, they “understand [that] faith is under attack in America.” Forbes’ intention to mobilize these groups toward his theocratic objectives is clear, even if the efficacy or extent of this network at this point is not.

According to the CPCF website, these groups “are the mechanism for articulating and implementing the strategies developed by some of our nation’s greatest strategists, getting equipped with specific training and resource materials, while also strengthening each other personally and spiritually.”

While Forbes and Caraway consistently frame their mission in terms of the “fight for faith,” the CPCF web site’s description of Faith Impact Groups goes deeper, by further conflating their contemporary faith with “the Biblical principles of our founding.” This is the method of Dominionist-driven Christian nationalism that has been central to Project Blitz, and is foundational to the ideology of the wider Christian Right. They claim that these are the principles they are fighting for.

BJC’s Amanda Tyler is concerned about the conflation of faith with vague notions of Biblical principles of the founding of the nation. “For one, the historical record of America’s founding is decidedly more mixed and nuanced than those driving a Christian nationalist narrative will acknowledge,” she said. “But even more troubling, for most Christians, our faith is much larger than any one country. To state the obvious, not all Christians are Americans, and not all Americans are Christians. Efforts to merge the two identities are just as dangerous to our faith as to our unity as Americans.”