Christian Conservatives Name Top 20 Groups Making a Difference: ACLJ, Billy Graham Org Top List
The American Culture & Faith Institute has compiled a list of the top 20 most effective organizations making a difference in culture, based on a survey among Christian conservatives.
Topping the list of mainly nonprofit groups were the American Center for Law and Justice (35 percent) and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (33 percent). Fox News was the only for-profit organization that made the list.
Samaritan's Purse ranked third with 29 percent, followed by American Family Association (27 percent), Focus on the Family (23 percent), and Family Research Council (22 percent).
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The full list, which includes pro-life groups and conservative think tanks, is available on the American Culture & Faith website. The survey had a sample size of 700 qualified adults — identified as Spiritually Active, Governance Engaged Conservatives (SAGE Cons) — and was conducted in January 2017.
"In RightView™ studies SAGE Cons are identified as adults who are registered voters; conservative on political matters; have accepted Jesus Christ as their savior; are active in pursuing their Christian faith; and are actively engaged in politics and government," the institute defined.
The ACLJ acknowledged its presence at the top of the list on its website, stating:
"This goes to the core of the ACLJ's mission to make an impact. That's what we are doing in courts all across America, at the Supreme Court, on Capitol Hill, at the U.N., and beyond. This is what you are making possible. We will not let up. We will keep fighting and making a real impact for faith and freedom."
The conservative law group has been highly active in advocating for persecuted Christians before the United Nations; in defending religious freedom in the U.S.; and campaigning for the release of Christians unjustly imprisoned overseas, such as the ongoing case of American pastor Andrew Brunson, who is in prison in Turkey.
ACLJ Chief Counsel Jay Sekulow recently met with President Donald Trump and asked him to advocate for Brunson's release on the international scene.
"I told the President about the hundreds of thousands of you who are calling for the release of Pastor Andrew. I respectfully urged him to bring up Pastor Andrew's case in the President's planned meeting with Turkey's president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, early next week," Sekulow said at the time.
Trump and Vice President Mike Pence brought up the case of Brunson three times during their meeting with Erdogan this week, a source told The Christian Post.
As the American Culture & Faith Institute noted, both the BGEA and Samaritan's Purse are being led by Franklin Graham, son of the famous evangelist Billy Graham.
Graham spent the Easter weekend in April visiting churches and towns left desecrated and destroyed by the Islamic State terrorist organization in Northern Iraq, reporting at the time that only about seven families remain in Qaraqosh, what used to be the largest Christian town in the country.
"I visited a church that had been burned and destroyed by ISIS and met with the pastor. Incredibly, in the ashes and debris, we discovered one of our Samaritan's Purse Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes that had been given to a child there at some point. I couldn't help but wonder where the child who received this box is today," Graham wrote then.
The BGEA hosted its first World Summit in Defense of Persecuted Christians in Washington, D.C., last week with hundreds of Christian leaders and persecution victims in attendance. Pence spoke at the summit, telling the victims that their faith inspires him and that he and President Trump stand with them.
