Blue Tent readers who are among the 50% of American Christians who identify as either “moderate” or “liberal” (as opposed to the 44% who told Pew they identified as “conservative” in 2014) are likely to have seen at least one petition from Faithful America arrive in their email inbox. If not, they may be familiar with the organization through its successful campaigns, including the 2014 online petition drive that convinced MSNBC and CNN to drop anti-LGBT hate-group leader Tony Perkins as a commentator.
But even people who are familiar with Faithful America may not know that online petitions are just the first step in much of its work. And while the group is active in countering harmful messages from the Christian right—like successfully confronting televangelist Jim Bakker for selling a potentially dangerous “cure” for the coronavirus—Campaigns Director Nathan Empsall told Blue Tent that his goal is nothing less than to “build power long-term. Not just for us as an organization, but for the larger progressive and faith movements.”
Building power and making an impact
The work of giving a voice to the majority of American Christians who aren’t conservatives has taken Faithful America in several directions. More than 16,000 Christians signed the group’s petition opposing the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court, countering what it called the Republican portrayal of Barrett as “the consensus Christian choice.” When Donald Trump nominated Anthony Tata, who once called President Barack Obama “a terrorist leader,” to a Pentagon post, Faithful America was part of a coalition of more than 50 organizations organized by Muslim advocates that not only petitioned, but called and lobbied in an effort that led the Senate to cancel his confirmation hearing.
Trump bypassed the Senate and appointed Tata anyway, but Empsall said he feels pride in the victory “because it was won in the Republican-controlled Senate. Those folks in congressional offices knew they were hearing from actual constituents.”
Not all of Faithful America’s work garners a national audience. But working on a smaller scale, the group has had a hand in saving individual immigrants from either immediate deportation or long detention by ICE.
When ICE agents lied to coax Binsar Siahaan, who has lived in the U.S. for more than three decades, out of his home on the grounds of a Maryland church in September, Faithful America was one of the groups that sprang into action. Working with a coalition that included Siahan’s minister, the Congregation Action Network, Church World Service, the American Friends Service Committee and the United Methodist Church, Faithful America gathered petition signatures, successfully encouraged members to send “several hundred” personal letters to ICE leadership, and was part of a group of about 100 Washington, D.C., community leaders who marched to ICE headquarters.
ICE released Siahaan on Oct. 15.
“ICE said, ‘Whoa, this isn’t what we expected when we arrested this guy. We don’t need this attention,’ and they set him free, and a family has been reunited,” Empsall said.
Online petitions as a first step
Online petitions may seem like just another example of “slacktivism,” a somewhat empty gesture akin to “liking” something on Facebook or retweeting passion for a cause into the void. Nearly 5 million people signed the 2016 Change.org petition urging the Electoral College to make Hillary Clinton president. A petition to re-make the ending of “Game of Thrones” led to limited media coverage and reportedly hurt feelings among some of the cast. Despite those and other losses, though, experts say that well-done online petitions can be a powerful first step toward creating change, particularly as part of an overall campaign including other actions.
“Petitions are featured on our website because they’re the easiest thing for people to do,” Empsall explained. In addition, petitions help Faithful America identify the people among their 180,000-member mailing list who are interested in a particular issue. Then, “when we have extra steps” for people to do, like calling a target or attending an event with their coalition partners on an issue, “we’ll send [the request to participate] to people who signed the initial petition. So all of those campaign steps are still there.”
Faithful America also pays attention to the issues its members seem most interested in. Empsall and his team look at the issues that received the biggest response in the past, as well as paying attention to the feedback they receive. “Two letters are two letters, but if you’re hearing the same thing from a lot of people, you take it seriously,” he said. They also send test emails to samples of their list and weigh the likelihood of a victory and/or getting media attention for the effort.
Changing the media narrative about American Christianity
Empsall said one reason Faithful America looks at the likelihood of media attention is that the group is seeking to “change the media narrative” about American Christianity.
“So many people, when they think of faith—more specifically, Christianity—unfortunately think of the religious right, because the religious right built the infrastructure earlier to get involved in social issues, and it’s really affected the media outreach,” he said.
The modern Christian conservative movement was first organized in 1979—six years after Roe v. Wade—to oppose the re-election of then-President Jimmy Carter and to protect the tax-exempt status of racially segregated and discriminatory schools like Bob Jones University.
As a result of that early start, “They’ve got decades of organizing and infrastructure head start over the religious left.”
The Christian right also has an easier time forming and communicating its message because, Empsall said, members of the religious left and moderate Christians are “much, much more leery to speak about their faith in public, social or political settings,” in part out of consideration for people of other faiths—or of no faith—who are probably in their audience.
For example, he explained, a progressive Christian may support the separation of church and state, but think to themselves, “Even though I came to this position because of my Christian values, I’m not going to talk about that part. I’ll just talk about the position itself.”
“So the messaging isn’t there for the media to cover, even if the media wanted to. Well, how can the media cover you if you don’t even say you are who you are?”
The right may have a head start, but the Christian left is catching up
Federal officials won’t necessarily be moved to act by a Faithful America petition alone, Empsall said, but petitions can still be effective when the target is a corporation, a church or another organization that isn’t “used to the kind of pressure and attention that 5,000 to 10,000 signatures bring. They’re not used to the media attention that petitions can get.”
Even a friendly petition can bring a corporation’s attention to an issue its executives may not have been aware of. That’s what happened in the case of Jim Bakker. After Faithful America collected more than 16,000 signatures from Christians concerned about Bakker hawking a supposed “cure” for the novel coronavirus on his show, two networks reportedly dropped him from their programming.
The fallout didn’t end there. The FDA told Bakker to remove all solicitations for the product from his show, his website and his social media, and he has been sued by the states of Missouri and Arkansas.
“I could see how it would be easy for folks at DirectTV and Dish to miss [the fact that Jim Bakker was potentially breaking the law during his broadcasts on their networks],” Empsall said. “Our petition certainly brought that to their attention, and AT&T suggested that all their DirectTV channels review the Bakker programming, see if they really want to continue that in light of the risk it might bring them as a channel under FCC regulations.”
Faithful America is also growing financially. After reporting donations of a bit more than $112,000 and net assets of $58,139 in 2018, Empsall said that their 2019 return will show revenues of $237,657 and that “2020 has already surpassed $300,000, all thanks to individual grassroots donors, whose gifts average less than $60.”
Faithful America hasn’t received grant support since 2013, when the Open Society Foundations made the last of two yearly $75,000 grants to the organization. Empsall said that he would “definitely be open” to major gifts and foundation grants, but the pursuit of those kinds of gifts hasn’t been a major priority “because there has been untapped individual donor low-hanging fruit, so to speak, of fundraising tactics we haven’t pursued.”
The religious right fires back
Faithful America’s efforts have definitely been noticed by America’s conservative Christians. In a May YouTube video, followed by a July online article, the Christian Broadcasting Network simultaneously accused the group of “trying to force Christians off the air” and of being “a few thousand grumpy left-wingers who will complain about anything if you give them a little poke.”
In May, Faithful America reported that it had been attacked on Pat Robertson’s “700 Club.”
Empsall says he should thank both Bakker and Robertson, because prior to the election, their attacks “led to our best fundraising ever,” adding that “the idea that we’re trying to silence Christians” is about “this false witness, this dishonest claim that all Christians are Republicans or conservatives. We’re not forcing Christians off the air. We are trying to reduce the political power of dishonest conservative Christian leaders.”
“When Jim Bakker says, ‘They’re attacking the church,’ and Pat Robertson says, ‘They’re attacking Christians,’ you, sir, are not the entire Christian faith. Stop lying.”
Correction: An earlier version of this article referred to Nathan Empsall as Executive Director of Faithful America. He is the Campaigns Director.
