The Center for American Reformer
On January 22, 2025, an extremist “Christian” political journal started by three Presbyterians—one who is a lodge president of a secret society started by a millionaire who muses about an “armed patronage network” of warlords after a United States collapse—registered an assumed name for their business in the state of Texas. They had already been operating under this assumed name for nearly a year, having recruited William Wolfe, a former low-level Trump administration official and former intern of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President, Albert Mohler, to be the “Executive Director” of the assumed name. They also recruited several reactionary Southern Baptist figures, including Tom Ascol and Dusty Deevers, to join an “advisory board.” On the website, they described it as an “independent center” and “national nonprofit,” though legally it’s nothing more than a Texas-registered pseudonym for the journal’s business entity. It’s unclear whether there was any legal registration of this name whatsoever before January of this year, though they’ve been presenting it as its own, “independent” entity for much longer. Most incredibly, this extremist political journal, under the guise of its pseudonym, “The Center for Baptist Leadership,” partnered with Ascol’s Founders Ministries to put on an event at last year’s Southern Baptist Convention, with the aim of lobbying messengers to vote for a series of amendments that aligned with the journal’s extremist worldview.
Describing the journal, American Reformer, as “extremist” is far from hyperbole. Among many other ridiculously authoritarian ideas, they have run multiple articles promoting the political philosophy of an unrepentant Nazi party member, its Editor-in-Chief published a manifesto on supposedly Christian “fortress building” that included the philosophy of a Nietzschean positive eugenicist (who has since publicly advocated for negative eugenics, including abortion to prevent miscegenation), and they ran an essay from Stephen Wolfe claiming that true hospitality is deporting the ethnic other. Their sister business, New Founding, where the secret society lodge president and Chairman of the journal is CEO and the journal’s Executive Director is Managing Partner, started another business with a literal Nazi pornographer. That Executive Director, Josh Abbotoy, is spearheading another initiative from this nebulous group of businesses, a real estate project to create what they describe as an “aligned community.” The first announced “aligned” resident started a company that markets audiobooks from a prominent white-nationalist publisher, including the autobiography of an unrepentant Nazi collaborator/soldier and Holocaust denier. In a similar move to “The Center for Baptist Leadership,” members of the “aligned community” created a fake X account claiming to be the local county GOP, and Abbotoy even held an election watch party posing as the organization, which was none too pleased to learn of it. This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the things these people and their allies are up to. As for the “Executive Director” of “The Center for Baptist Leadership” himself, among other things, he once compared a multicultural worship service to grooming gangs and has tweeted what clearly appears to be well-known neo-Nazi code-phrases.
Ever since what William Wolfe termed the “soft launch” of his “startup,” he has been on a crusade to lobby the SBC towards an American Reformer aligned platform. His travels have reached far enough to include a filmed workout session in the personal gym of SBC President Clint Pressley. With all of these things that American Reformer, its writers, employees and partners are saying and doing, it’s worth pointing out that the statement of faith of the SBC, The Baptist Faith & Message, which “The Center for Baptist Leadership” championed using to remove churches from the convention last year, states that “Christians should oppose racism.”
To say that it’s abnormal for an IRS-registered nonprofit to file a state-level assumed name, and then claim that pseudonym is a “national nonprofit,” when soliciting donations, would be a gross understatement. Many subsidiaries of nonprofits that act as “independent” organizations, soliciting their own donations, are IRS-registered entities with their own Employment Identification Number, an action that can cost as little as a few hundred dollars. From a legal standpoint, Wolfe is not a registered officer of “The Center for Baptist Leadership,” like Abbotoy is publicly registered as the director of American Reformer; there is no IRS-registered corporation named “The Center for Baptist Leadership.” He’s likely just an employee or contractor of American Reformer, which, though it has been publicly lobbying the SBC under the pseudonym “The Center for Baptist Leadership” for nearly a year, according to public filings, appears to have only officially been doing business in the state of Texas under that name for a few weeks.
Last year, when Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary professor Matthew Millsap pointed out public actions by American Reformer that were emblematic of this type of arrangement, Wolfe accused him of fabricating those things and insisted that “The Center for Baptist Leadership” was its own entity. I would show you Wolfe’s personal statements, but, conspicuously, he regularly scrubs his X timeline and generally blocks anyone who publicly questions his behavior. At the time of writing, he has no remaining posts before January 7, 2025. Fortunately, we have the “Center for Baptist Leadership’s” response (likely written by Wolfe) to Millsap’s claim that American Reformer is the “primary funding source,” writing that it was a “gross misrepresentation.” Ascol also took the opportunity to disparage Millsap’s character, over this claim.
Now we know that not only was Millsap correct that American Reformer is the primary funding source of “The Center for Baptist Leadership,” but there is no legal distinction between the two entities, beyond one being a registered pseudonym of the other—there is no real “startup,” as Wolfe claimed. This also means that, legally, the “advisory board” of “The Center for Baptist Leadership” has no control. Since it’s only an assumed name used by American Reformer, on paper, their board has organizational control over Wolfe’s “independent center.” This means that “The Center for Baptist Leadership” is ultimately in the hands of the aforementioned Presbyterian founders.
The foremost question in all of this is, Why didn’t American Reformer register “The Center for Baptist Leadership” as its own, independent nonprofit, when they clearly presented it in a way that would suggest that it is one? What did they perceive as the financial, organizational and public relations benefits for doing this? When calling it an “independent center” and “national nonprofit,” something that they could have registered with the government in the traditional way through a minor formality, why didn’t they do that? When William Wolfe was pressed about the financial particulars, why did he go on the defensive?
At any rate, SBC messengers should be made aware of exactly who is trying to get them to vote a certain way.