Vought Publicly Announces 'Sound Christian Nationalism' Scoping Operation with Wolfe, Webbon, and Deevers Network at CRA

On January 25, 2023, Russell Vought — OMB Director under Trump’s first term and founder of the Center for Renewing America (CRA) — posted publicly on X: “I’m proud to work with @williamwolfe on scoping out a sound Christian Nationalism.” The tweet identified Wolfe and another figure (@wokal_distance) as visiting fellows at CRA. The post, addressed partly at commentator James Lindsay ("@ConceptualJames"), framed the operation as an answer to skeptics asking whether Christians could participate in anti-woke coalitions — and announced the answer as an affirmative, coordinated project.

Personnel and Institutional Roles

Russell Vought — CRA founder and Project 2025 central architect (author of Chapter 2, “Executive Office of the President”). Vought has described his governing ideology as Christian nationalism and told audiences in 2024 that he seeks to make the federal government “thoroughly Christian.” His CRA served as the institutional home for the scoping operation, providing visiting fellow status to Wolfe.

William Wolfe — Former Trump Pentagon and State Department official; at the time of the tweet, a visiting fellow at CRA. Wolfe subsequently founded the Center for Baptist Leadership (announced March 8, 2024), a self-described “change-oriented think tank for the SBC” (Southern Baptist Convention), which extended the Reformed-CN lane’s institutional footprint from a federal think tank into denominational politics. Wolfe contributed as an editor to the Statement on Christian Nationalism and the Gospel alongside Webbon.

Joel Webbon — Founder and president of Right Response Ministries and senior pastor of Covenant Bible Church in Georgetown, Texas. Webbon has 108,000 X followers and runs an annual Right Response Conference that hosts movement figures including Doug Wilson and Stephen Wolfe. Webbon served as contributing editor on the Statement on Christian Nationalism and the Gospel, whose policy demands include abolishing abortion, banning pornography, defining marriage as exclusively heterosexual, and withdrawing from the United Nations. Webbon has stated the envisioned Christian nation will be “distinctly Protestant” and has called for government power to “absolutely terrorize” political enemies.

Sen. Dusty Deevers (R-OK) — Oklahoma state senator and Southern Baptist pastor, elected via special election in December 2023, running as an unapologetic Christian nationalist who vowed to “apply the word of God to every issue.” Deevers co-authored the Statement on Christian Nationalism and the Gospel with James Silberman, with Wolfe and Webbon as contributing editors. Deevers represents the electoral-capture arm of the network: a sitting legislator whose platform is indistinguishable from the manifesto’s demands.

The Statement on Christian Nationalism and the Gospel

The network’s doctrinal product is a published manifesto available at statementonchristiannationalism.com. It defines Christian nationalism as “a set of governing principles rooted in Scripture’s teaching that Christ rules as supreme Lord and King of all creation, who has ordained civil magistrates with delegated authority to be under Him, over the people.” Specific legislative demands include abolishing abortion and pornography, defining marriage as the union of a biological male and female, and recapturing “national sovereignty from godless, global entities.” The document invites signatories and positions itself as theologically orthodox, explicitly distancing from iterations it “repudiates.”

Founding date note: The Statement does not carry a stated publication date on the live website. The Bucks County Beacon article (March 2024) references an archived version captured March 5, 2024, and describes it as an existing document. The 2023 date is inferred from Vought’s January 2023 tweet announcing the scoping collaboration and from reporting that places the manifesto in the 2023 operational period. Exact publication month is unconfirmed; flag for follow-up.

Significance

This event marks the public announcement of the Reformed-evangelical Christian nationalism wing’s coordinated institutional turn — distinct from the Catholic-integralist lane (Adrian Vermeule, Patrick Deneen) also operating in the Trump orbit. Vought’s tweet is the primary-source anchor: a federal-level policy architect announcing, by name, that CRA is formally “scoping” a doctrine of Christian nationalism in partnership with a denominational organizer (Wolfe), a media-movement pastor (Webbon), and — via the manifesto — a state legislator (Deevers). The CRA provides the executive-branch throughline; the Statement provides the doctrinal product; the Center for Baptist Leadership (2024) and Deevers’s Senate seat provide denominational and electoral reach.

Research Gaps

• Exact publication month/year of the Statement on Christian Nationalism and the Gospel (earliest archived capture needed)
• Whether Webbon or Deevers had formal CRA affiliations or only manifesto-collaborator roles
• Federal-level policy outputs from the CRA scoping operation beyond Project 2025 Chapter 2

Related Entries

• vought-russell — actor profile
• cn-wn-cabinet-faction — faction theme