Council for National Policy

The Council for National Policy is the coordination layer most Americans have never heard of. Founded by Tim LaHaye in 1981, it brings together the major figures of the Christian right — televangelists, politicians, mega-donors, think tank heads — in private, twice-yearly meetings with no press access and no public records. The CNP's membership roster has included Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, James Dobson, Oliver North, Edwin Meese, and many major Republican donors. Policy positions developed at CNP meetings appear in Republican platforms and legislation. Its existence is not conspiracy theory — it is documented — but its secretive operation is by design: strategic coordination that can be denied.

Documented themes

• Christian Nationalism
• Anti-Democratic
• Political Strategy

Connections from Council for National Policy

• influenced → Republican Revolution (1994) (1994) — The Council for National Policy served as the strategic coordination body for the Religious Right coalition in the years leading up to the 1994 midterm elections that gave Republicans control of both houses of Congress for the first time in forty years. The CNP's private, twice-yearly meetings allowed major donors, evangelical leaders, think tank directors, and Republican politicians to align on messaging, resource allocation, and candidate support without public disclosure of the deliberations. In the early 1990s, as Ralph Reed built the Christian Coalition into a mass membership organization with sophisticated voter guide distribution and church-based get-out-the-vote operations, the CNP provided the coordination layer connecting those ground operations to major donor networks and Republican leadership. The 1994 'Contract with America' and the evangelical mobilization that helped deliver it operated on organizational infrastructure and strategic relationships cultivated through CNP networks. Sara Diamond documented the CNP's coordination role across this period in 'Roads to Dominion' (1995).

Connections to Council for National Policy

• Steve Bannon influenced (2016) — Steve Bannon addressed the Council for National Policy in August 2016, shortly after being named Trump campaign CEO. The CNP address signaled to the network's evangelical leaders and major donors that the Trump campaign understood their priorities and would serve them — specifically on Supreme Court appointments, religious liberty executive orders, and social conservative policy. Anne Nelson's 'Shadow Network' documents the CNP meeting's role in consolidating evangelical establishment support for Trump.
• Joseph Coors funded (1981) — Joseph Coors was among the founding donors and members of the Council for National Policy when it was established by Tim LaHaye and others in 1981. His participation was natural: Coors had already funded the Heritage Foundation and Paul Weyrich's Free Congress Foundation, and the CNP was the coordination layer that brought together the donors, politicians, and Religious Right leaders whose institutions he had been funding since the early 1970s. Coors's presence in the CNP connected its network to his broader portfolio of conservative institutional investment, providing the organization with the donor credibility that attracted other major funders.
• Betsy DeVos influenced (1995) — DeVos's mother, Elsa Prince Broekhuizen, was a member of the Council for National Policy's board of governors and a listed 'Gold Circle Member,' connecting the Prince/DeVos family financial network directly to CNP's coordinating function among Religious Right donors, leaders, and politicians.
• Richard DeVos Sr. funded (1981) — Richard DeVos Sr. funded the Council for National Policy as part of his systematic investment in Religious Right coordination infrastructure. The CNP served as the meeting ground where DeVos's financial capacity intersected with the political and theological leadership of the movement — the organization where major donors, politicians, and evangelical leaders could align strategy without public disclosure. DeVos's CNP involvement was consistent with his broader pattern of funding organizations that combined Christian conservative values with practical political organizing, including Focus on the Family, the school voucher movement, and the Republican National Committee.
• Michael Farris promoted (1990) — Farris is a documented longtime member of the Council for National Policy, connecting his educational infrastructure (HSLDA, PHC) to the CNP's broader Religious Right political coordination network that also includes Dobson, Robertson, and Falwell Sr.
• Tim LaHaye founded (1981) — LaHaye co-founded the CNP to create a private coordination infrastructure for the Christian right.
• Patrick Henry College influenced (2004) — Patrick Henry College alumni were systematically placed in the institutions of the Religious Right and Republican government: in spring 2004, 7 of approximately 100 White House interns were from PHC; 22 conservative members of Congress had employed PHC interns; graduates populated conservative advocacy organizations, Republican staffs, and movement legal organizations. PHC functioned as a finishing school for the movement's leadership class.
• Scaife Foundations funded (1981) — The Scaife Foundations were among the donors whose support sustained the Council for National Policy and the broader network of conservative coordinating organizations that CNP represented. Scaife's funding of Heritage Foundation, Free Congress Foundation, and multiple state-level policy organizations created the think-tank and advocacy infrastructure within which CNP operated as the coordination layer. Richard Mellon Scaife was himself a participant in the elite conservative donor networks that overlapped with CNP's membership. His foundations provided the financial floor that allowed the New Right's institutional ecosystem to develop its full operational capacity.
• The Family / C Street (Fellowship Foundation) influenced (1990) — The Fellowship Foundation (C Street/The Family) and the Council for National Policy operated as parallel but complementary coordination mechanisms for the Religious Right political network: the CNP coordinating organizational strategy among institutional leaders and donors; The Fellowship building intimate, unaccountable spiritual relationships among politicians at the individual level. Individual figures — including CNP members who were also Fellowship participants — connected the two networks.
• David Barton influenced (1995) — David Barton is a documented member of the Council for National Policy, connecting WallBuilders' historical revisionism to the broader coordination network of Religious Right financiers, strategists, and politicians who meet privately twice yearly.
• Paul Weyrich founded (1981) — Paul Weyrich was a co-founder of the Council for National Policy in 1981, alongside Tim LaHaye and other key figures of the Religious Right. The CNP was designed as the coordination layer above the public-facing organizations like the Moral Majority — a private, invitation-only forum where major donors, politicians, think tank leaders, and evangelical figures could meet twice yearly to align strategy, share intelligence, and coordinate resources without public disclosure or press access. Weyrich's role in founding the CNP reflected his consistent strategic instinct: he understood that durable political power required coordination infrastructure that operated behind the scenes, insulated from the pressures of public accountability that shaped the behavior of mass membership organizations. The CNP formalized and institutionalized the relationships Weyrich had been building since the early 1970s.

Sources

• Jesus and John Wayne — Kristin Kobes Du Mez (2020), pp. 122-130