United Church of Christ counters Project 2025 with aim to ‘welcome all, love all, seek justice for all’

Project 2025 has become well known as a set of extreme policies which could threaten basic freedoms and harshly impact some of the country’s most vulnerable people. The United Church of Christ has published a response with an alternative vision – one that uplifts values of inclusion, dignity, and freedom.

Countering Project 2025 With Love: A UCC Response is a new resource to assist in responding to some of the most extreme policies in Project 2025 from a faith perspective. It asserts that Project 2025 stands in direct opposition to the UCC’s values and work, and it highlights more loving ways to approach topics like LGBTQ+ rights, reproductive care and abortion, environmental justice, and racial justice, among others.

The Rev. Karen Georgia Thompson, UCC General Minister and President, highlights that this resource reflects the UCC’s commitment to seek justice for all.

“We have long been a voice in the public square declaring the love of God for all people and present with those whose rights were threatened or diminished,” Thompson said. “As a community of faith, we continue to seek a just world for all. Project 2025 envisions a world where the civil and human rights of many are suppressed by economic and social policies. “

‘Values we seek to live out’

The Countering Project 2025 With Love resource was created by the UCC Office of Public Policy & Advocacy in Washington, D.C. in collaboration with around twenty UCC National staff members, drawing from current work on the issues and General Synod resolutions. They sought to address requests from advocates over the past few months seeking guidance on how to respond to Project 2025.

Uplifting policies based in love rather than division is central to this resource and the UCC’s advocacy work, according to the Rev. Michael Neuroth, director of the Washington Office.

“Love, inclusion, dignity, diversity, freedom, and justice are all values we seek to live out in our daily lives as Christians, and these are the same principles we advocate to see included in bills and regulations here in Washington, D.C.,” Neuroth said. “While our hope with Countering Project 2025 With Love was to highlight the ten most egregious policy proposals of Project 2025, the hope was even more to offer a clear summary of what we as the UCC stands for; the values and priorities we proclaim that reflect our mission to welcome all, to love all, and to seek justice for all.”

Countering Project 2025 With Love does this by, in one example, describing how Project 2025 proposes criminalizing traveling for abortions and abortions by mail, while detailing how the UCC has spoken in support of the freedom of choice regarding pregnancy since 1971.

‘Bold vision to love’

“We believe it is our duty to speak out against injustice as we seek to build a just world for all,” said Abigail Cipparone, UCC policy advocate for domestic issues. “That is why we, alongside our colleagues, felt moved to write this document, which demonstrates how Project 2025 would strip away basic freedoms, punish the most vulnerable, and violate our deeply held faith values.”

She and others hope that articulating UCC values in the face of harmful alternatives will help move people to action.

“We hope many will use this resource to let their elected officials know: the principles outlined in Project 2025 stand in direct opposition to our faith,” said Cipparone. “And we hope this resource will help those who are less familiar with the UCC understand how our bold vision to love our neighbor as ourselves is reflected in our policy positions.”

“Even aside from Project 2025, the resource offers a useful summary of where the UCC stands on several critical issues of our time and highlights our consistent ethic and call to love all God’s people,” Neuroth said.

Political engagement

For those seeking more information about the guidelines around political engagement for churches and religious leaders, Neuroth joined Heather Kimmel, UCC general counsel, for a recently recorded webinar “Be Prophetic, Not Partisan: Navigating Election Do’s and Don’ts for Churches.”

Neuroth said that while churches – as 501(c)(3) organizations – should not speak against Project 2025 specifically as a party platform, “we can and must speak out against this document on the basis of its moral failures as a policy document.”

Countering Project 2025 With Love: A UCC Response is available here.

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