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What Separation of Church and State?
By J. Jeff Toler for Shenandoah Christian Alliance
Annual appropriations are bills allocated to fund federal agencies and programs for a full fiscal year, which runs from October 1 to September 30.
Originally its mission was to promote economic development, humanitarian assistance, and democracy worldwide. But lately, there have been controversial shifts in priorities and strategies based on US foreign policy, global events, and political leadership. Ostensibly those shifts are the result of deliberate political course changes.
USAID’s budget is allocated through the Foreign Assistance Budget, which is part of the larger US federal budget. Funding is approved by Congress through the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act. (H.R. 8771) [https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/8771/text]
Congress may direct USAID to fund specific programs, countries, or initiatives based on U.S. foreign policy priorities. USAID also receives funds through public-private partnerships, working with non-governmental organizations, (NGOs) international corporations and organizations.
With President Trump attempting to dismantle USAID and return it to its original mandate, Congress (including some Republicans) is pushing back. This, once again, ostensibly because of concerns about national security and global stability. And so we can be certain that legal challenges and budget negotiations will determine whether USAID continues operating at full capacity, or even in its current capacity and configuration.
Congress does not directly control USAID’s daily operations but retains influence through funding, oversight, and lawmaking—which means it can protect, restrict, or reshape USAID based on political priorities.
USAID seeks, at least in theory, to help put unimaginably poor, misgoverned societies on the path to free-market capitalism and political liberty through poverty-reduction programs, public-health initiatives, and humanitarian assistance, Historically, it could be said America has at times burnished its reputation abroad this way at a relatively affordable price—if you consider $40 Billion affordable. [citation link here]
But sometime during USAID’s 64-year history—like so many other well-intentioned government programs and organizations, it fell prey to mission creep.
USAID spends billions of dollars in countries all over the world, but it’s become evident the money is rarely for the purpose of promoting economic development, humanitarian assistance, and democracy.
Instead, the evidence reveals the promotion and promulgation of a woke ideology and agenda. In his Conservatism: A Rediscovery, Yoram Hazony,the award-winning political theorist, argues that in woke, there is a convincing link to Marxism.
History reveals how liberalism was reimagined after the Second World War—in large part because Enlightenment liberalism was gradually replaced until it would no longer be recognizable to Edmund Burke and the American Federalists who wrested power from the English monarchy. [https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2023/04/25/what-is-the-relationship-between-wokeism-marxism-and-liberalism/]
Over time, even well-intentioned Christians and Jews believed that liberalism was the superior political force of our time. Hazony contends that the best hope for Western democracy is a return to empiricist, religious, and nationalist traditions established in America, and Great Britain. But liberals have made nationalism the dreaded n-word to silence those too afraid to openly question what they mean.
The whirlwind of the Trump administration may one day be described as the single greatest political strategy ever achieved in peace-time history. The Democratic Party has been unable to mount anything resembling coherent opposition—even threatening another impeachment.—just three weeks in to the new administration.
Putting the genius of Elon Musk in charge of reducing government waste and fraud is just that—genius. Employing the same managerial style he used to completely transform Twitter, Musk and his team of brilliant young student academics targeted USAID and quickly discovered the malignancy defrauding US taxpayers.
It’s probably safe to say that JFK did not envision his agency would be allocating $1.5 million for LGBTQ+ workplace inclusion in Serbia, or $1 million to support French-speaking LGBTQ+ groups in West and Central Africa, or a grant of $446,700 to promote atheism in Nepal. These have rightly sparked debate over the appropriateness of funding religious or anti-religious activities. [https://foreignaffairs.house.gov/press-release/chairman-mast-exposes-outrageous-usaid-and-state-department-grants/]
Investments in cultural initiatives, such as a transgender opera in Colombia and a transgender comic in Peru, have been rightly criticized by many as misuse of taxpayer funds.
Ominously, reports have now emerged of USAID-branded packages found among Hezbollah’s weapons cache in Lebanon, raising concerns about aid potentially reaching unintended recipients—if they really were unintended. [https://nypost.com/2025/02/10/world-news/packages-from-usaid-found-in-hezbollah-safe-house-by-idf/]
But from my perspective, and those allegiant to Christian orthodoxy, USAID should not be doling out serious sums of money to organizations identifying as Christian, but occupying only a fringe version of it. To the discerning—which is a spiritual gift I would remind you, the names and organizations will not be surprising. I would argue, it’s all because we were not supposed to know.
Megan Basham, author and investigative journalist
In an amazing interview from Allie Beth Stuckey of Relatable with Megan Basham—author of Shepherds for Sale: How Evangelical Leaders Traded the Truth for a Leftist Agenda, [https://www.amazon.com/Shepherds-Sale-Evangelical-Leaders-Leftist/dp/0063413442] they discussed the revelations uncovered by the DOGE team and others just in the last few days. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lax3GZTqopE] (start at the 10:45 mark)
In 2023, Christianity Today was discovered to have received $1.8 million. Another revelation involved funding directed to the controversial, politically woke-driven Bible study based on the book The After Party by author Curtis Chang, and joined by Christianity Today Senior editor, Russel Moore and New York Times writer and editor, David French.
Why was this selected for USAID money? Why not conservative Christian magazines, organizations, and leaders?
World Relief has been funding the Strengthening Community Health Outcomes through Positive Engagement (SCOPE) project through USAID. SCOPE actively encourages the use of contraceptives and abortifacients in many African nations—including Kenya, Malawi, and South Sudan and other Christian dominant places like Haiti, using “training modules adapted from USAID-approved curricula.”
SCOPE received $29Million from 2019 to 2024 through World Relief.
We can understand, even expect, secularist influencers like Bill Gates to approve abortion and birth control in third-world countries, but true Christians should have no part in SCOPE’s coercive tactics that encourage native populations to abandon rich family traditions and customs that oppose such things.
There is so much more to these brand-new revelations that deserve our understanding and our intervention. In future newsletters in this space, we will. For now, I believe we should pray that God uses the people he has anointed for His purposes—even if they themselves don’t qualify as pastors and theologians.
- The Lord works out everything to its proper end—even the wicked for a day of disaster. —Proverbs 16:4
We may not fully understand why the leaders of our day are exposing evil as they are, but lovers of the truth should be awed by what God will do in these days.
