Pastor networks recruit politically connected congregants to lead voter-turnout teams inside churches

Evidence

An FRC video encourages pastors to form “Culture Impact Teams across the country.” These “CITs” are, alongside the Pastors Briefings, central tools in the FRC’s campaign to turn out the vote. The idea is for pastors to create within their churches teams of congregants that will “advance Kingdom values in the public arena.” Pastors are instructed to figure out which members of their congregation are politically active, well-connected with other members, and motivated to persuade them to vote according to “biblical values,” and then draft them as team leaders “to accomplish the Culture Impact Team’s mission of defending and advancing faith, family, and freedom.” Congregants on the CIT can take lead roles in the areas of communications (including written and social media outreach), research, strategy, and mobilization. Other team members will encourage “grassroots participation” and “involvement in pregnancy support centers, school board meetings, civil government gatherings,” and the like. — Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers, 66

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Directly relevant to both ‘On Sacrifice’ and the broader project on how moral/religious architecture gets weaponized as organizational infrastructure, and to the graft metaphor of ‘Grafting & Growth.’
• XREF: connects to: Conservative churches function as the get-out-the-vote infrastructure of a shadow party — Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers: Inside the…, 38; Churches design culture-focused voter mobilization teams to evade IRS political-campaign rules — Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers: Inside the…, 67; Christian-right organizers merge church membership databases with voter records to target turnout — Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers: Inside the…, 107 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Christian-right organizers merge church membership databases with voter records to target turnout #expands (0.88) — Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers, 107
• Pastor-mobilization meetings are timed and placed to swing contested elections. #corroborates (0.78) — Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers, 358
• Free travel and fellowship lure pastors into organized political lobbying. #corroborates (0.75) — Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers, 406
• Congregational life generates communal belonging while steering clear of politics #contradicts (0.75) — Robert P. Jones, White Too Long, 212
• Decentralized Christian nationalist networks act as effectively as centralized ones #corroborates (0.72) — Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers, 604
• A centralized network of celebrity pastors controls conservative evangelical infrastructure #corroborates (0.70) — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 454