What you need to know about Project 2025 the focus of talk at Downers Grove church

With the nation’s election a little more than a month away, a theologian will be on hand at a Downers Grove church Sunday to give an informative talk about Project 2025.

John Dorhauer, former president of the United Church of Christ, will speak from 3 to 4:30 p.m. Sept. 29 at the Downers Grove First United Methodist Church, 1032 Maple Ave.

He will outline Project 2025 including who is involved, how it impacts individuals and the proposal’s goals. An informal discussion will take place from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m.

The 2025 Presidential Transition Project, or Project 2025, is a 900-page manual that calls for reorganizing the federal government based on a conservative agenda, organized by The Heritage Foundation.

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has claimed that he is not connected to Project 2025.

However, at least 140 people who worked on Project 2025 previously worked in the Trump administration, including Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts, who served on Trump’s transition team in 2016, according to CNN.

Project 2025 calls for hundreds of individual policy changes including severely limiting abortion access, mass deportation, increasing warrantless surveillance, limiting voting access, censoring academic discussions about race, gender or systemic oppression, and removing the rights of transgender students, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.

Project 2025 also aims to give the president more control of or dismantling independent government agencies, according to the BBC.

In February, Dorhauer, spoke to a packed audience at Downers Grove First United Methodist Church regarding Christian nationalism and how it is infiltrating churches, school boards and local politics.

Both events were organized by the Mission, Justice and Community Work Area of the Downers Grove First United Methodist Church.

“We wanted to give people the opportunity to learn about it and be informed, before they voted this fall,” said Debbie Anderson-Phillips, a Downers Grove resident and member of the church’s committee.

“They can do their own research and make their own decisions,” she said. “We are not trying to tell people who to vote for or advocate for a certain candidate, but we want people to be informed.”

The event will be recorded and available on the Downers Grove First United Methodist Church’s website. In addition, the previous discussion about Christian nationalism is available to watch on the church’s website.