When a vote becomes
a test of faith.

First, what this case does not claim

Religious Americans keep their right to speak, organize, persuade, and vote. Churches may run voter education, registration, and turnout work that takes no side. The IRS draws a line when a 501(c)(3) favors or opposes a candidate. It weighs the full facts of each case. It does not treat every sermon, guide, or sign-up drive as campaign work.6

This case does not judge anyone's faith. It does not claim a tax-law violation. It asks a plain question. What changes when support for a flawed politician comes wrapped in church ties, trusted spiritual leaders, and good-versus-evil stakes?

The money layer

USATransform is the tax-filing name tied in public to Ziklag. On its 2024 Form 990, it reported $12,808,201 in grants it gave out inside the country. That is up from $5,111,359 in 2023. Its Schedule I lists the grants by name. It gave $570,000 to Lance Wallnau Ministries, $400,000 to Faith Wins, $300,000 to Family Research Council, $100,000 to Vision Charitable Trust doing business as My Faith Votes, and $650,000 to National Faith Advisory Board. It also lists $2,059,681 to Turning Point USA and $625,000 to Turning Point Action.1

The schedule does not say those grants paid for any quote on this page. Every listed purpose uses the same vague words: “To support and encourage the mission.” Shared money shows money ties and timing. It does not show orders, teamwork, or how the money was later used.

There is also a mismatch in the filing. We will not hide it. The 29 cash-grant rows on Schedule I add up to $12,887,989. That is $79,788 more than the grant total on the Form 990. You can read the named rows directly. Why the two totals differ is not established.

The divine-authorization layer

Lance Wallnau's own press page calls him the man who predicted Trump would be a modern-day Cyrus. It calls him an innovator of the “Seven Mountains of Culture.” It says his books and broadcasts swayed three to five million undecided Christian voters.2

Those are Wallnau's own words about himself. The reach figure is his own count. It is not outside proof of his influence or of divine choice. But you can see what the message does. It gives a religious reason to back a secular candidate, even one with character flaws. An imperfect ruler gets recast. He is not just the better pick. He is cast as a man God chose for a holy task.

The church-distribution layer

Faith Wins says its goal is to grow Christian “influence, votes and VOICES.” Its own report counts 124 pastor meetings in 20 states. More than 4,000 pastors came after the 2024 primaries. There, pastors learned voter registration and how to boost voting in their churches. The author calls Faith Wins a “spiritual and Biblical approach to influence elections and policies.”3

The same page also gives its best defense. It says candidates from both major parties were invited. It says eight presidential candidates took part in earlier meetings. It says the group does not play favorites. Those are the group's own claims, like its attendance counts. They matter. Meeting pastors and signing up voters does not prove they took a partisan side.

My Faith Votes made the stakes clearer five months before the 2024 election. The page promoted a biblical voting series for churches, small groups, and families. Its CEO said Trump or Biden would win. He called the moment “a battle that is not right vs. left but good vs. evil,” then called for an “unswerving commitment” to vote in November.4 The page did not call Trump “good.” It did not formally endorse him. It did not prove how any reader voted. But it did place a two-way presidential race inside a spiritual, moral frame.

The training and placement layer

The pipeline reaches past religious groups. Leadership Institute says that since 1979 it has trained more than 368,000 conservative “activists, students, and leaders.”7 That number is not a count of candidates. Its own site says it finds, recruits, trains, and places conservatives in government, politics, and media. Its programs cover candidate training, campaign leadership, school-board work, campus and media work, movement leadership, and a “Christian Leader” track.8

The often-repeated “200,000 candidates trained” claim squeezes those groups together too far. Fixing the word does not shrink the scale. It shows a wider training system. It turns out candidates, staff, activists, media figures, and institution leaders. That is a linked layer of capacity. It does not show that every trainee shares one theology. It does not show they take orders from one boss.

The conversion to a candidate

At an October 21, 2024 faith-leaders meeting, Trump told the crowd that his rallies tell Christians to “get out and vote.” He said Christian voters needed record turnout. Then he spelled out the payoff: “If they did or if Christians did, nobody could ever beat us, nobody.”5

Asking a religious group for its vote is fine on its own. But this statement finishes the sequence. Christian identity becomes a set voter pool. Church and pastor networks give reach. Biblical, good-versus-evil, or Cyrus language raises the stakes. Then the candidate turns that group into a request for his win.

Why accountability gets harder

Once support for a party is fused with faith, an attack on the politician can feel like an attack on the believer, the church, or God. We think that helps keep people loyal. That is our read of the pattern. These receipts do not measure it in real voters. To prove how much it changed people's commitment, you would need solid surveys, experiments, or person-by-person evidence.

The record is strong enough. We do not need to read millions of minds. The groups describe, in public, the audience, the channels, the spiritual framing, the training, and the vote goal. Voters can see that machine and still hold their faith fully. They stay free to reach any political view.

The strongest defense

Christians may truly prefer Republican policies. A biblical voter guide can lead different believers to different choices. Pastor meetings can take no side. A donor may fund groups without telling them what to do. Cyrus is a bible comparison. It is not a secret order. Training people to compete in politics is normal movement building. Candidates often organize voters by age, job, and religion.

All of that beats the lazy claim that religious voters were simply fooled. But it does not erase the smaller record. Political groups build Christian identity and church trust into turnout tools on purpose. Some raise the choice into a spiritual fight. And the candidate plainly asks that group to hand him the win.