Former Obama faith adviser launches Christian political organization

At 34 years old, Michael Wear has already been a faith adviser to an American president, written two books and developed a reputation as a thoughtful and connected leader in American politics and religion.

Wear is now launching an institution that will train Christians in public life to reject culture-war fights and to emphasize the public service aspect of politics.

Most Christian political organizations argue for politicians to take a position on a few issues of particular concern. Wear’s new group, the Center for Christianity & Public Life (CCPL), will argue that leaders in politics and elsewhere should emphasize personal character and service to the least fortunate.

“For far too long the ‘right’ Christian politics has meant you hold the right position on a narrow set of issues. And you could be the worst kind of person, but as long as you had that position you could be advancing a Christian politics,” Wear said in an interview with Yahoo News. “We think that has failed the country.”

CCPL is launching Monday, having raised an initial round of $1 million, with hopes of increasing that figure to $6 million for the next three years.

While Wear wants his organization to engage in political debates over issues, the centerpiece of the organization’s first year will be a fellowship program for a dozen individuals who are already civic sector leaders but are looking to apply their Christian faith more deeply to the way they live their lives, professionally and personally.

“We anticipate that participants in this program will range from postgrads to CEOs, and include individuals from various generational, racial and ethnic backgrounds,” Wear said.

The fellowship will focus on “spiritual formation,” he said, helping the leaders think more deeply about their faith and integrate it into every aspect of their lives more fully.

“Faithfulness is either for all of life, including politics, or it just doesn’t make sense to people anymore. And it shouldn’t,” Wear said. “The answer isn’t to try to muster up some new political platform that can be used to determine who’s in and who’s out. Again, that has been the problem.”

“How do we maintain integrity with our deepest values, carry those into politics with us, and remain integrated as people?” he said.

Wear worked for President Barack Obama, during his first term, in the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, and in 2012 he directed faith outreach for the Obama campaign. He then took a leadership position with the And Campaign, a group that advocates for more conservative positions on some cultural issues and for progressive positions that impact the poor and disadvantaged.

In 2020 he was a senior adviser to Not Our Faith PAC, a group that made the case that Christians should not vote for then-President Donald Trump.

Wear, who emphasizes that CCPL will include Republicans and Democrats, has organized a young-professionals network for the last year that includes members of five Senate staffs: three Republicans and two Democrats.

Much of the political engagement by American Christians, Wear argues, is disconnected from the faith’s teachings. As Donald Trump Jr. quipped a year ago to a group of young conservatives at a Turning Point USA conference, “We’ve turned the other cheek, and I understand, sort of, the biblical reference — I understand the mentality — but it’s gotten us nothing.”

Wear said comments like Trump Jr.’s represent a way of “approaching politics in ways that suggest their faith isn't up to the task of our public life.”

“What's actually communicated to people is that Jesus's teachings are applicable only if there's no resistance, or it's not difficult, or only if it gets you what you want,” he said.

“We have Christians who are disintegrated,” Wear said of those who say things like “It's great to be gentle with the person at the grocery store and your spouse, but gentleness in politics is naive.”

“That's not something that stays quarantined in the public part of ourselves,” he said. “That creeps back into people's private lives.”

CCPL represents a method of political engagement distinctly at odds with the flavor of Christian nationalism that is gaining favor among some on the right. Where Christian nationalists often speak of “taking back America for God,” Wear emphasizes “building a healthier politics and nation for everyone.”

This is an ethic, he says, of service rather than conquest, of seeking the common good rather than tribalism.