What is CREC? The Christian nationalist group has a vision for America − and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's support
As a scholar of the Christian right, I have studied the CREC. Hegseth's membership in a church that belongs to the CREC drew attention because prominent members of the church identify as Christian nationalists, and because of its positions on issues concerning gender, sexuality and the separation of church and state.
The CREC is most easily understood through three main parts: churches, schools and media.
The CREC church is a network of churches. It is associated with the congregation of Doug Wilson, the pastor who founded Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho. Wilson grew up in the town, where his father was an evangelical minister.
Wilson co-founded the CREC in 1993 and is the public figure most associated with the network of churches. Christ Church operates as the hub for Logos Schools, Canon Press and New Saint Andrews College, all located in Moscow. Logos is a set of private schools and homeschooling curriculum, Canon Press is a publishing house and media company, and New Saint Andrews College is a university, all of which were founded by Wilson and associated with Christ Church. All espouse the view that Christians are at odds with – or at war with – secular society.
While he is not Hegseth's pastor, Wilson is the most influential voice in the CREC, and the two men have spoken approvingly of one another.
As Wilson steadily grew Christ Church in Moscow, he and its members sought to spread their message by making Moscow a conservative town and establishing churches beyond it. Of his hometown, Wilson plainly states, 'Our desire is to make Moscow a Christian town.'
The CREC doctrine is opposed to religious pluralism or political points of view that diverge from CREC theology. On its website, the CREC says that it is 'committed to maintaining its Reformed faith, avoiding the pitfalls of cultural relevance and political compromise that destroys our doctrinal integrity.'
CREC churches adhere to a highly patriarchal and conservative interpretation of Scripture. Wilson has said that in a sexual relationship, 'A woman receives, surrenders, accepts.'
In a broader political sense, CREC theology includes the belief that the establishment clause of the Constitution does not require a separation of church and state. The most common reading of the establishment clause is that freedom of religion precludes the installation of a state religion or religious tests to hold state office.
The CREC broadly asserts that the government and anyone serving in it should be Christian. For Wilson and members of CREC churches, this means Christians and only Christians are qualified to hold political office in the United States.
Researcher Matthew Taylor explained in an interview with the Nashville Tennessean, 'They believe the church is supposed to be militant in the world, is supposed to be reforming the world, and in some ways conquering the world.'
While the CREC may not have the name recognition of some large evangelical denominations or the visibility of some megachurches, it boasts churches across the United States and internationally. The CREC website claims to have over 130 churches and parishes spread across North America, Europe, Asia and South America.
Like some other evangelical denominations, the CREC uses 'church planting' to grow its network. Plant churches do not require a centralized governing body to ordain their founding. Instead, those interested in starting a CREC congregation contact the CREC. The CREC then provides materials and literature for people to use in their church.
The CREC's expansion also owes a debt to Wilson's entrepreneurship. As the church expanded, Wilson founded an associated K-12 school called 'Logos' in September 1981, which since then has grown into a network of many schools.
In conjunction with its growth, Logos develops and sells 'classical Christian' curriculum to private schools and home-school families through Logos Press. Classical Christian Schools aim to develop what they consider a biblical worldview. In addition to religious studies, they focus on classic texts from Greece and Rome. They have grown in popularity in recent years, especially among conservatives.
Logos' classical Christian curriculum is designed to help parents 'raise faithful, dangerous Christian kids who impact the world for Christ and leave craters in the world of secularism.' Logos press regularly asserts, 'education is warfare.'
According to the website, Logos schools enroll more than 2,000 students across 16 countries. Logos also has its own press that supplies the curriculum to all of these schools. On the heels of Logos' success, Wilson founded the Association of Classical Christian Schools in 1993 as an accrediting body for like-minded schools. The ACCS now boast 500 schools and more than 50,000 students across the United States and around the world.
Additionally, Wilson founded New Saint Andrews College in Moscow, Idaho. New Saint Andrews is a Christian university that takes the classical Christian approach to education championed by Wilson into higher education.
The New Saint Andrews College is consistent with other CREC institutions. It considers secularism a weakness of other universities and society more generally. Its website explains: 'New Saint Andrews has long held a principled and clear voice, championing the truth of God's word and ways, while so many other colleges veer into softness and secularism.' The school is governed by the elders of Christ Church and does not accept federal funding.
In addition to the Logos Press, which produces the CREC school curriculum, Wilson founded Canon Press. Canon Press produces books, podcasts, a YouTube channel and assorted merchandise including apparel and weapons, such as a flamethrower. The YouTube channel has over 100,000 followers.
Books published by Canon include children's picture books to manuals on masculinity. A number of books continue the theme of warfare.
The politics page of the press contains many books on Christian nationalism. Christian political theorist Stephen Wolfe's book 'The Case for Christian Nationalism' is one of the most popular among books on Christian nationalism. The website has dozens of books on Christian nationalism and media dedicated to the construction of a Christian government.
Author Joe Rigney, a fellow of theology at New Saint Andrews College and an associate pastor at Christ Church, warns of the 'Sin of Empathy.' Rigney claims that empathizing with others is sinful because it requires compromise and makes one vulnerable in the fight against evil.
As the church network has grown, it has drawn attention and scrutiny. Wilson's 1996 publication of a book positively depicting slavery and claiming slavery cultivated 'affection among the races' drew national attention.
Accusations of sexual abuse and the church's handling of it have also brought national news coverage. Vice's Sarah Stankorb interviewed many women who talked about a culture, especially in marriage, where sexual abuse and assault is common. The Vice reporting led to a podcast that details the accounts of survivors. In interviews, Wilson has denied any wrongdoing and said that claims of sexual abuse will be directed to the proper authorities.
Hegseth's actions as secretary of defense concerning gender identity and banning trans people from serving in the military, in addition to stripping gay activist and politician Harvey Milk's name from a Navy ship, have brought more attention to the CREC. I believe that given Hegseth's role as secretary of defense, his affiliation with the CREC will likely remain a topic of conversation throughout the Trump presidency.
This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Samuel Perry, Baylor University
Read more:
The term 'lone gunman' ignores the structures that enable violence
How Christian nationalism played a role in incorporating the phrase 'so help me God' in the presidential oath of office
Talk of 'Christian nationalism' is getting a lot louder – but what does the term really mean?
Samuel Perry does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
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For about two hours, NYU's homepage displayed links to stolen data, as well as charts that allegedly categorized test scores on the SAT and ACT by race. At least 10 class action lawsuits have been filed as a result. The US has expansive and notoriously punitive anti-hacking laws — and these hacks are big boy crimes. The FBI declined to comment on this story. During the Columbia hack, Trump's face appeared on some computer screens across campus During the Columbia hack, Trump's face appeared on some computer screens across campus. That's notable, because Columbia has been in the crosshairs of the Trump administration, which has frozen $400 million of funding while accusing the university of failing to protect Jewish students during protests against the Israeli war in Gaza. The government has targeted Columbia student protesters; one was snatched by ICE and imprisoned in a detention facility, others have had their visas revoked. (Meanwhile, the university has suspended, expelled, and revoked degrees from student protesters). It's not just Columbia; elite universities have been targeted by the right broadly. Harvard's student data has been subpoenaed, and its accreditation threatened by the Trump administration; right-wing activists had previously forced the resignation of president Claudine Gay, who had been the first Black president of Harvard. University of Virginia president James E. Ryan was forced out in June, after a battle with the Trump administration over the university's diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. At Johns Hopkins University, Stephen Miller's America First organization lodged a complaint claiming that making the medical school free for students whose families make less than $300,000 amounts to 'mask[ing] racial preferences behind income thresholds.' The Republican offensive against and 'wokeness' and 'DEI' (diversity, equity, and inclusion programs) is part of a general movement to undo the Civil Right Act. It's an extension of the Republican campaign against affirmative action, admissions policies meant to improve representation among groups that had previously been discriminated against. The Johns Hopkins suit widens the scope beyond taking down efforts towards racial equality, but is ultimately a much more honest expression of what the anti-affirmative action movement is about: to retrench universities as the gated playgrounds of the rich. Trump advisor and billionaire Marc Andreessen sent messages to a group chat in May saying, 'The combination of DEI and immigration is politically lethal,' according to The Washington Post. 'When these two forms of discrimination combine, as they have for the last 60 years and on hyperdrive for the last decade, they systematically cut most of the children of the Trump voter base out of any realistic prospect of access to higher education and corporate America.' Andreessen also said that 'my people are furious and are not going to take it anymore' and that 'universities were ground zero of the counterattack.' The universities, he claimed, are 'BOTH actively discriminating against us AND primary origin points and propagation vectors' for diversity policies he says are discrimination. College admissions officers frequently have institutional priorities beyond test scores and GPA, according to US News and World Report, which maintains a list of the most-prestigious universities in the US. That may include recruiting athletes, musicians, or artists who may not otherwise meet admission requirements; it may also include legacy admissions, or maintaining a mix of in-state and out-of-state students. In university admissions, one group is consistently discriminated against: women. For more than 20 years, admissions officers have put 'a thumb on the scale to get boys,' as The New York Times puts it. There, the institutional goal is to maintain a desirable gender balance. Discrimination in favor of men does not appear to be something that interests either Andreessen or the Anime Nazi. The focus on elite universities obscures something else. Many schools have more relaxed admissions policies, and some admit every student who applies. This is to say nothing of community colleges and trade schools. If Americans want 'access to higher education,' they're not short of options — at least, if they have the money for it. But elite universities are places where power concentrates, which may be why the right wing is so interested in who gets to attend. People who attend those schools often have the connections to take prestigious jobs, especially political office. Which makes the pivot from admissions data broadly to the admissions files of specific individuals — like Zohran Mamdani — a new, more dangerous turn from the hacker. How many other future politicians are in that data? And how disruptive might it be to leak, say, their admissions essays? The New York Times, which published the story about Mamdani's Columbia application, made no mention of the Anime Nazi in its report. The Mamdani data is credited to 'Crémieux,' a publicly known pseudonym for Jordan Lasker, a prominent internet eugenicist. As noted above, Lasker, under this pseudonym, has called the Anime Nazi 'the nicest possible hacker.' Lasker is among the Anime Nazi's followers and has openly thanked the hacker for their work, saying of the NYU hack in March, 'I hope you manage to do this to more universities.' Lasker wrote about the Columbia hack on June 24th and was, according to The New York Times, the intermediary by which the paper received Mamdani's hacked Columbia application. Reporting from Mother Jones suggests Lasker may have a neo-Nazi history of his own. Benjamin Ryan, the first byline on the Times' story about Mamdani, follows the alleged hacker on X. Ryan is the only non-staffer on the story and also the only non-political reporter. He typically writes about science for the Times, and often about trans kids in his newsletter. Ryan is a subscriber of Lasker's email newsletter, Cremieux Recueil, according to the 'reads' section of the Substack app. It is not terribly difficult to figure out why Ryan is credited on the story — he is the reporter most likely to have gotten ahold of the application. Ryan did not respond to a request for comment. Benjamin Ryan, the first byline on The Times' story about Mamdani, follows the alleged hacker on X It's not unusual for journalists to use hacked materials, or those from less-than-savory sources. But best practices around hacked materials means being judicious about what to use, and giving the audience context about what the hack was meant to accomplish. It is difficult to believe The New York Times doesn't know that — after all, a great deal of discussion around the ethics of using data from hacks sprang from the paper's coverage of leaked emails from a hack of Hillary Clinton's private server. In its story about Mamdani, The Times says the hack 'appears to have been carried out in order to see if Columbia was still using race-conscious affirmative action in its admission policies after the Supreme Court effectively barred the practice in 2023,' but that's it. The Times account makes no reference to the Anime Nazi. It does not even identify Lasker by name, nor does it note that his pseudonym is a reference to a politician who excluded Muslims from French citizenship. (Mamdani is Muslim.) Mamdani is one of Trump's new obsessions; the president has threatened to arrest the mayoral candidate, falsely suggested Mamdani is in the US illegally, and suggested that if Mamdani is elected, New York City's federal funding might be at risk. The alleged hacker took credit for the story. 'This wasn't some targeted thing based on 'beef' in the first place,' the Anime Nazi posted on July 7th. 'It was basically an accident.' After noticing Mamdani's application, the Anime Nazi told a chat about it 'because it was funny and it all spiraled from there.' The Anime Nazi also reposted someone saying, 'I don't really care what Mamdani put on his college admissions, the idea that a guy on Poast could prank Columbia and get The New York Times newsroom to start eating itself alive is hilarious to me.' The New York Times declined to comment on whether the paper knew there was a social media account taking credit for the hack, whether the ultimate source of the reporting was the Anime Nazi, the comments made by the Anime Nazi's social media accounts, whether Ryan was the source of the scoop, or whether Ryan informed the paper of Lasker's identity beyond the pseudonym. Instead, spokesperson Charlie Stadtlander provided a July 4 X thread from Patrick Healy, the assistant managing editor for standards and trust at the paper, and previous reporting from Lachlan Cartwright's Breaker Media. An email address associated with Lasker did not return a request for comment. The source of the leaked application was obvious to the Anime Nazi's followers The source of the leaked application was obvious to the Anime Nazi's followers. Curtis Yarvin, personal friend of Vice President JD Vance and neo-monarchist, commented on a screenshot of a Chris Hayes post from Bluesky, saying, 'He's upset they're not crediting [Anime Nazi].' Another person — a pseudonymous but influential account followed by Elon Musk, Yarvin, Lasker, and others — seemed to believe The New York Times knew about the Anime Nazi, posting, 'It's incredible opsec to have a hacker name so offensive that news media can't even refer to you by your pseudonym and they have to go through your designated 'intermediary' instead.' If all these crimes are indeed attributable to the Anime Nazi, the Columbia hack and Mamdani leak represent significant escalation. The Columbia hack happened as the school was under political pressure; the Mamdani leak occurred as Trump made him an administration adversary. The alleged hacker quotes Trump publicly as a way of exonerating themselves: 'He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.' It is not difficult to imagine the alleged hacker aligning themselves even more closely with the Trump administration's whims moving forward — either because they agree with Trump's ideology or because they are hoping to stay out of jail. It has certainly occurred to some of the Anime Nazi's followers that a hack can be used to humiliate political enemies. Derek Park — a cofounder of Nextnet, Inc, an AI company for life science researchers — tagged the alleged hacker into a discussion about getting ahold of Supreme Court Justice's Ketanji Brown Jackson's LSAT score. Park did not respond to a request for comment. Scrolling through the Anime Nazi accounts was taking a bath in cruelty, contempt, and hate. Notably missing from those posts was anything like joy or happiness. It was further confirmation, if anyone needed it, of the observations in 'Who goes Nazi?', an essay by Dorothy Thompson published in 1941. 'Kind, good, happy, gentlemanly, secure people never go Nazi,' Thompson wrote. 'Those who haven't anything in them to tell them what they like and what they don't—whether it is breeding, or happiness, or wisdom, or a code, however old-fashioned or however modern, go Nazi.' That's as true of security professionals as it is of anyone else. Additional reporting by Sarah Jeong.
