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Christianity Today’s floundering could be linked to the$1.8 million it received from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), courtesy of the Biden administration.

That 2023 funding came with strings attached.

This potentially explains why, under the tenure of CEO Russell Moore, CT has been sailing directly into the arms of the Marxian, Woke, Trump Derangement Syndrome abyss.

CT’s public relations nightmare is part of the fallout from Donald Trump’s common-sense cost-cutting initiative tackling USAID’s $72-billion-dollar slush fund.

Trump’s chainsaw-wielding government efficiency team, DOGE, froze foreign aid for 90 days on 20 January.

USAID, Musk said, was the first to be audited because they were the federal agency “violating Trump’s executive orders the most”.

The audit revealed that a host of USAID money was going to other government agencies and media organisations.

These included the BBC and Christianity Today.

Inadvertently damning CT’s association with the agency, Musk accused USAID of being both a “criminal organization” and a “radical left-wing psyop”. (See here and here.)

Slamming USAID in another post on X, Musk described the agency “as a viper’s nest of radical-left Marxists who hate America”.

It’s more than just USAID, but … yes https://t.co/FsZ9FhnraD

— Harry Bōlz (@elonmusk) February 5, 2025

Infiltration

Sharing Musk’s evidence-based criticism, Allie Beth Stuckey said that the receipts seemed to reveal “a concerted effort by USAID to infiltrate and undermine evangelicalism using our tax dollars.”

“It just doesn’t seem like a coincidence that the same government that insists ‘Christian nationalism’ is the biggest threat to democracy was also funding the ‘Christian’ organizations pushing the same message.”

Many of those organisations, including CT CEO Russel Moore, joined the left’s “hate Trump, because love trumps hate” dissonant symphony.

Outside Moore’s personal disapproval of Trump, many Christians were puzzled by CT abandoning its professionalism by leaning into progressive partisanism.

The USAID revelations seem to provide us with the answer.

$1.8 million dollars in government funding goes a long way towards explaining why even the Gospel Coalition went soft on the Gospel and hard after “social justice”.

It was confirmed by Matt Gaetz in 2023 that USAID was paying people to insert the Biden administration’s far-left political agenda into as many institutions as possible.

These included COVID mandates, questionable vaccines, LGBTQ+ism, so-called “gender-affirming care”, “reproductive rights”, and the Black Lives Matter Inc. grift.

Notable here are Christianity Today’s attacks on theonomy, Christian Nationalism, and Christians who support Trump “Making America Great Again”.

Defensive

Instead of issuing a press release explaining DOGE’s USAID findings, Christianity Today had a meltdown.

Quoting from former USAID staffer exclusives, CT portrayed USAID as a Christian ministry being defunded by despots.

In a paywalled piece, Russell Moore accused Musk of being part of the ‘tech broligarchs’ “wanting to get rid of Jesus.”

CT then defended Democrats and USAID.

Protesting Trump’s audit, CT published two articles slamming Trump for “overreach” and for “hurting the most vulnerable, such as AIDs patients in Africa.”

There was no mention of USAID’s $1.8 million in political support for Moore, CT, and its writers.

Nor has there been any comment from Moore about his organisation Redeeming Babel receiving $508,000 from USAID indirectly through the Rockefeller Foundation and Defending Democracy.

Let’s talk about the import of what @JoshDaws uncovered here. What he found is that @BillKristol‘s explicitly partisan, anti-Trump organization, Defending Democracy Together, gave $200k to Redeeming Babel, which developed @drmoore @DavidAFrench and @curtischangRB‘s church… https://t.co/6JAKbG7uvD

— Megan Basham (@megbasham) February 7, 2025

CT’s defensive posturing implied guilt, and only worsens the brewing PR crisis now being mishandled by Moore.

In an inadvertent indictment of the CT CEO, Franklin Graham backed Trump and Musk, stating on X,

“USAID, under the control of the Democratic left, has been pushing LGBTQ, transgender, and other godless agendas to the world in the name of the United States of America.”

The son of Christianity Today’s founder, the Rev. Billy Graham, then thanked Trump and Musk for exposing the abuse and bringing taxpayers justice.

He concluded his brief remarks by encouraging the Trump administration to continue to provide aid, where needed, with the best care possible.

USAID, under the control of the Democratic left, has been pushing LGBTQ, transgender, and other godless agendas to the world in the name of the United States of America. We the taxpayers have been paying for this to the tune of billions of dollars. Thank you @elonmusk for…

— Franklin Graham (@Franklin_Graham) February 6, 2025

Graham was addressing USAID’s new acting director, Trump’s Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

As Not The Bee’s Mik Olson wrote, the good news here is that despite Biden pushing anti-Trump propaganda onto the church, the church has proven that it’s not that easily duped.

Megan Basham was right!

The shepherds really were for sale.

They traded truth for falsehoods, and made Jesus Christ a slave to fanatical left-wing spite.