The New Yorker:

At Wheaton College, a controversy around one of its graduates, Russell Vought, a Trump Administration official, shows how deeply the past decade has fractured conservative Christians.

By Emma Green

In early February, Wheaton College, a well-known evangelical school outside of Chicago, made a seemingly innocuous post on social media, giving a shout-out to one of its own for getting a prestigious job. An alumnus, Russell Vought, had just been confirmed as the director of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget. “Wheaton College congratulates and prays for 1998 graduate Russell Vought,” the post read. Vought, who also served at the O.M.B. in Donald Trump’s first Administration, has been credited as one of the intellectual architects of the President’s comeback: he contributed to the most recent Republican platform and helped establish the D.C. infrastructure for the maga-movement-in-waiting over the past four years. He also wrote the chapter of Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s blueprint for this Administration, about executive power.

Within a few hours, there were more than a thousand replies to the post, “primarily incendiary, unchristian comments about Mr. Vought,” a spokesperson told Religion News Service. So the college backpedalled. “The recognition and prayer is something we would typically do for any graduate who reached that level of government,” the college wrote in a statement the next day. “However, the political situation surrounding the appointment led to a significant concern expressed online.” In order to avoid a political dispute and honor the college’s commitment to nonpartisanship, the post was removed.

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