Patricia Kaseca, Okmulgee

Secret Organization of Wealthy Christians Trying to Change the Country

Ted Streuli
First Watch
Published in
3 min readJul 15, 2024

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Pro Publica on Saturday published a long look at Ziklag, which they described as a secret organization of wealthy Christians trying to sway the presidential election and change the country. Oklahoma’s Green family, who own Hobby Lobby, are among the organization’s biggest donors.

From Pro Publica:

“A network of ultrawealthy Christian donors is spending nearly $12 million to mobilize Republican-leaning voters and purge more than a million people from the rolls in key swing states, aiming to tilt the 2024 election in favor of former President Donald Trump.

“These previously unreported plans are the work of a group named Ziklag, a little-known charity whose donors have included some of the wealthiest conservative Christian families in the nation, including the billionaire Uihlein family, who made a fortune in office supplies, the Greens, who run Hobby Lobby, and the Wallers, who own the Jockey apparel corporation. Recipients of Ziklag’s largesse include Alliance Defending Freedom, which is the Christian legal group that led the overturning of Roe v. Wade, plus the national pro-Trump group Turning Point USA and a constellation of right-of-center advocacy groups.

“ProPublica and Documented obtained thousands of Ziklag’s members-only email newsletters, internal videos, strategy documents and fundraising pitches, none of which has been previously made public. They reveal the group’s 2024 plans and its long-term goal to underpin every major sphere of influence in American society with Christianity. In the Bible, the city of Ziklag was where David and his soldiers found refuge during their war with King Saul.

“‘We are in a spiritual battle and locked in a terrible conflict with the powers of darkness,’” says a strategy document that lays out Ziklag’s 30-year vision to ‘redirect the trajectory of American culture toward Christ by bringing back Biblical structure, order and truth to our Nation.’”

Read the full story at Pro Publica.

More worth reading:

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Senate to Vote on Pro Tem Today
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“I still use the guitar pretty much just to hide my gut.”
— Garth Brooks

Ciao for now,

Ted Streuli
Executive Director, Oklahoma Watch
tstreuli@oklahomawatch.org

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Ted Streuli
First Watch

Investigative Journalist, Columnist, Photographer, writing on Oklahoma news at First Watch and personal essays and stories