Evangelical Magazine Christianity Today Takes Over $1 Million From Abortion Funder 

Though Billy Graham said he founded Christianity Today in 1956 to offer a conservative alternative to the liberal Christian Century, his magazine has developed a reputation for trending toward the Left, with its editorial staff making donations to Democrats. Despite that, Christianity Today has always claimed it maintains a pro-life ethic.

But financial records unearthed after Christian publisher Canon Press offered to buy the magazine call that commitment into question, showing that it is being heavily funded by a massive left-wing organization that spends millions to support the nation’s leading abortion advocate, Planned Parenthood.

Since 2022, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation has become a major patron of Christianity Today, donating well over $1,000,000 to the outlet, records show. Included in the contributions is $400,000 for general operating support, $75,000 to develop a mobile app, and $600,000 to cover U.S. elections. This makes Hewlett one of the magazine’s top disclosed donors, even though the NGO’s extensive abortion backing makes it a strange bedfellow for a Christian publication.  

As dark money watchdog groups like Influence Watch have noted, since its founding in 1967, Hewlett has continuously supported Planned Parenthood, eventually becoming its second largest private funder in the United States. Between 2000 and 2023, Hewlett granted Planned Parenthood over $100 million. After the 2022 Dobbs decision ended the constitutional right to abortion, Hewlett announced it was redoubling its efforts to ensure access in states that were moving to restrict the procedure, revealing that its board had approved a 30% increase in its annual budget earmarked for “reproductive equity work.” In particular, this funding would “strengthen support for state and local organizations focused primarily on abortion care.”

The announcement also noted that the goal of the reproductive equity funding would be to “back promising organizations to craft and test new narratives [and] access larger audiences,” perhaps explaining its interest in funding Christianity Today starting in November 2022, a few months after the Dobbs decision was handed down. 

Since Hewlett’s backing began, Christianity Today has published several articles challenging the traditional definition of pro-life as a commitment to protect the lives of babies in the womb, instead suggesting it should be expanded to include racial injustice and new federal entitlements like paid family leave.

Many pro-life activists have warned that expanding the definition of “pro-life” in this way minimizes the unique horror of killing preborn babies. Seth Gruber, founder of the White Rose Resistance, believes that liberals have slowly and intentionally changed the definition of “pro-life” in order to mute the effectiveness of the movement.

“All the other extensions of justice that progressives insist are pro-life issues already have dedicated organizations and funding that outstrips that of the pro-life movement considerably,” Gruber told The Daily Wire. “And yet, they insist that we divert our scarce resources from stopping the legal murder of babies toward helping people that it’s not legal to murder before we’re ‘really pro-life.’ The Left have taken huge advantage of this redefinition in order to smuggle in radical socialist priorities, all under the label of ‘pro-life.’ Leftists know that the best way to get naive Christians to jump on their bandwagon is to label their agenda as either a gospel issue or a pro-life issue. But he who fights everywhere fights nowhere.”

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Christianity Today editor-in-chief Russell Moore and news editor Marvin Olasky did not respond to inquiries into whether the magazine sees any moral inconsistency in partnering with a well-known abortion supporter.

In the past five years, Christianity Today has increasingly relied on donations rather than subscriptions for income, IRS filings show. In 2020, only about 20% of revenues came from grants and donations. Today, it’s more than half. The Lilly Endowment, founded by the Eli Lilly family of pharmaceutical fame, is another major backer, granting the magazine $8 million since 2016 for initiatives ranging from a “national storytelling grant” to developing tools for preachers. 

Hayden Ludwig, Executive Director of Research at Restoration America, has spent more than a decade researching dark money networks. He says major grants like Hewlett’s “act like a siren song – they can hook a grantee on Hewlett money and gradually reorient them around a ‘progressive’ agenda to keep the spigot open.”

“It’s absolutely troubling that Christianity Today would go hunting for grants from an undeniably leftist mega-funder with an anti-Christian axe to grind,” Ludwig told The Daily Wire. “But I can’t say I’m surprised, unfortunately, because bankrolling ‘conservative’ groups is the Hewlett Foundation’s m.o. as part of a larger strategy to infiltrate and undermine the Right. It’s sad to see a giant of Evangelical thought transform into just another pawn for the secular Left.”

Canon Press, which is known for its growing conservative publishing arm, made a $10 million bid to buy Christianity Today on September 29, highlighting its desire to restore the publication to Graham’s original intention. In their offer, they cited the evangelistic model of Charlie Kirk.

“[He] carried the torch of Christianity Today’s founder, Billy Graham, as a global evangelist, and it is his legacy that we see the future of Christianity Today,” the publisher said.

Canon Press founding partner, Aaron Rench, told The Daily Wire that under Canon’s ownership, the outlet’s reliance on the secular grant money that could be playing a role in reshaping its editorial outlook would stop. 

“When you look at CT’s financials, it is not the media side of the business that is growing, it’s the grants and giving, basically the NGO side, which almost doubled from 2022 to 2023,” Rench said. “The Hewlett Foundation is one such NGO, and they tout their 50-year commitment to promoting abortion services as well as efforts to support the transgender movement. So in a successful acquisition with new leadership, the Hewlett Foundation will not think of CT as a partner, nor will their funds be accepted by the new CT administration.”

Rench said Canon’s aim would be to restructure Christianity Today under explicitly Christian stewardship, severing or refusing secular funding that can be ideologically corrosive. Added Rench, “Christianity Today has lost the path and purpose of its founder, and we are dead serious about acquiring it and pushing it forward in the courageous spirit of Charlie Kirk.”

Though Billy Graham said he founded Christianity Today in 1956 to offer a conservative alternative to the liberal Christian Century, his magazine has developed a reputation for trending toward the Left, with its editorial staff making donations to Democrats. Despite that, Christianity Today has always claimed it maintains a pro-life ethic.

But financial records unearthed after Christian publisher Canon Press offered to buy the magazine call that commitment into question, showing that it is being heavily funded by a massive left-wing organization that spends millions to support the nation’s leading abortion advocate, Planned Parenthood.

Since 2022, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation has become a major patron of Christianity Today, donating well over $1,000,000 to the outlet, records show. Included in the contributions is $400,000 for general operating support, $75,000 to develop a mobile app, and $600,000 to cover U.S. elections. This makes Hewlett one of the magazine’s top disclosed donors, even though the NGO’s extensive abortion backing makes it a strange bedfellow for a Christian publication.  

As dark money watchdog groups like Influence Watch have noted, since its founding in 1967, Hewlett has continuously supported Planned Parenthood, eventually becoming its second largest private funder in the United States. Between 2000 and 2023, Hewlett granted Planned Parenthood over $100 million. After the 2022 Dobbs decision ended the constitutional right to abortion, Hewlett announced it was redoubling its efforts to ensure access in states that were moving to restrict the procedure, revealing that its board had approved a 30% increase in its annual budget earmarked for “reproductive equity work.” In particular, this funding would “strengthen support for state and local organizations focused primarily on abortion care.”

The announcement also noted that the goal of the reproductive equity funding would be to “back promising organizations to craft and test new narratives [and] access larger audiences,” perhaps explaining its interest in funding Christianity Today starting in November 2022, a few months after the Dobbs decision was handed down. 

Since Hewlett’s backing began, Christianity Today has published several articles challenging the traditional definition of pro-life as a commitment to protect the lives of babies in the womb, instead suggesting it should be expanded to include racial injustice and new federal entitlements like paid family leave.

Many pro-life activists have warned that expanding the definition of “pro-life” in this way minimizes the unique horror of killing preborn babies. Seth Gruber, founder of the White Rose Resistance, believes that liberals have slowly and intentionally changed the definition of “pro-life” in order to mute the effectiveness of the movement.

“All the other extensions of justice that progressives insist are pro-life issues already have dedicated organizations and funding that outstrips that of the pro-life movement considerably,” Gruber told The Daily Wire. “And yet, they insist that we divert our scarce resources from stopping the legal murder of babies toward helping people that it’s not legal to murder before we’re ‘really pro-life.’ The Left have taken huge advantage of this redefinition in order to smuggle in radical socialist priorities, all under the label of ‘pro-life.’ Leftists know that the best way to get naive Christians to jump on their bandwagon is to label their agenda as either a gospel issue or a pro-life issue. But he who fights everywhere fights nowhere.”

Get 40% off new DailyWire+ annual memberships with code FALL40 at checkout!

Christianity Today editor-in-chief Russell Moore and news editor Marvin Olasky did not respond to inquiries into whether the magazine sees any moral inconsistency in partnering with a well-known abortion supporter.

In the past five years, Christianity Today has increasingly relied on donations rather than subscriptions for income, IRS filings show. In 2020, only about 20% of revenues came from grants and donations. Today, it’s more than half. The Lilly Endowment, founded by the Eli Lilly family of pharmaceutical fame, is another major backer, granting the magazine $8 million since 2016 for initiatives ranging from a “national storytelling grant” to developing tools for preachers. 

Hayden Ludwig, Executive Director of Research at Restoration America, has spent more than a decade researching dark money networks. He says major grants like Hewlett’s “act like a siren song – they can hook a grantee on Hewlett money and gradually reorient them around a ‘progressive’ agenda to keep the spigot open.”

“It’s absolutely troubling that Christianity Today would go hunting for grants from an undeniably leftist mega-funder with an anti-Christian axe to grind,” Ludwig told The Daily Wire. “But I can’t say I’m surprised, unfortunately, because bankrolling ‘conservative’ groups is the Hewlett Foundation’s m.o. as part of a larger strategy to infiltrate and undermine the Right. It’s sad to see a giant of Evangelical thought transform into just another pawn for the secular Left.”

Canon Press, which is known for its growing conservative publishing arm, made a $10 million bid to buy Christianity Today on September 29, highlighting its desire to restore the publication to Graham’s original intention. In their offer, they cited the evangelistic model of Charlie Kirk.

“[He] carried the torch of Christianity Today’s founder, Billy Graham, as a global evangelist, and it is his legacy that we see the future of Christianity Today,” the publisher said.

Canon Press founding partner, Aaron Rench, told The Daily Wire that under Canon’s ownership, the outlet’s reliance on the secular grant money that could be playing a role in reshaping its editorial outlook would stop. 

“When you look at CT’s financials, it is not the media side of the business that is growing, it’s the grants and giving, basically the NGO side, which almost doubled from 2022 to 2023,” Rench said. “The Hewlett Foundation is one such NGO, and they tout their 50-year commitment to promoting abortion services as well as efforts to support the transgender movement. So in a successful acquisition with new leadership, the Hewlett Foundation will not think of CT as a partner, nor will their funds be accepted by the new CT administration.”

Rench said Canon’s aim would be to restructure Christianity Today under explicitly Christian stewardship, severing or refusing secular funding that can be ideologically corrosive. Added Rench, “Christianity Today has lost the path and purpose of its founder, and we are dead serious about acquiring it and pushing it forward in the courageous spirit of Charlie Kirk.”