This New Executive Order Helps Christians and Missions

Most Christians are unaware that American President Donald Trump took a major step this month to help missionaries and Christian NGOs when he issued an executive order to provide protection from unfair de-banking.

A silent war was launched against Christian missionaries and NGOs called Operation Choke Point. In theory, the secret war was launched to deny legitimate banking services to “high risk” or otherwise “objectionable businesses” that support drug dealers, prostitution, illegal gambling, money laundering operations, etc, but congressional investigations found that Operation Choke Point was also used to target firearms sales, tobacco sales, and politically conservative businesses.

During this same period, many Christians and Mission focused NGOs were also impacted, including Back to Jerusalem.

During the years that Operation Choke Point was in operation, BTJ bank transfers were blocked by US banks with no explanation. BTJ was debanked at two different banks with no logical explanation and though there is no proven links between Operation Choke Point and BTJ’s debanking, the finger prints of Operation Choke Point is all over the account closers and the stopping of funding from United States to BTJ accounts on field.

There was never an explanation from BTJ’s US bankers for why multiple transfer requests were canceled. In fact, after 2020, 100% of all BTJ US transfers to certain accounts were rejected without reason from the banks.

Not only was debanking a problem, but the world economy purposely pushed everyone away from cash. In fact, the congressional investigation found that any services that allowed customers to operate in cash were also targeted by Operation Choke Point such as ATM operators, coin dealers, home-based charities, and money transfer networks. This put more power in the hands of the bank and severely hurt international mission efforts since many mission efforts in closed countries rely on cash.

Operation Choke Point was an extremely sinister government program created by the Justice Department to “choke out” legal, legitimate companies with a goal to deny access to the banking and payments networks that every business needs to survive.

In BTJ’s case, due to US laws, banks were forced to terminate the relationship in spite of BTJ having a 30 year track record with a Premier status account.

Acting in coordination with Operation Choke Point, banks labeled a wide range of lawful merchants as “high-risk” and to avoid problems from the US Justice Department, they closed their accounts. As a consequence of Operation Choke Point, banks axed entire lines of business deemed “high risk” by the government and it wasn’t just in the US, but had an impact on banks around the world.

In 2023, banks were charged with discriminating against Christians. That was the claim of Richard Fothergill and Mike Davidson, both of whom are prominent Christians who had their bank accounts closed because of their unpopular Christian beliefs.

A vicar had his bank account closed after questioning the bank’s backing of Gay Pride. A Christian charity in Northern Ireland was given a £20,000 settlement after it was proven that their accounts were shut down following an online campaign.

Richard Fothergill, an Anglican minister and founder of Filling Station ministry, had his savings account with Yorkshire Building Society (YBS) closed down after for 17 loyal years after he his objections to transgender ideology was made known.

Operation Choke Point and Operation Choke Point 2 didn’t just hit American Christians, but also rippled throughout the world.

The hope is that President Trump’s new Executive Order will reverse that course. The new executive order that was passed last week targets “Financial institutions that have engaged in unacceptable practices to restrict law-abiding individuals’ and businesses’ access to financial services on the basis of political or religious beliefs or lawful business activities.”

The White House website states, “Bank regulators have used supervisory scrutiny and other influence over regulated banks to direct or otherwise encourage politicized or unlawful debanking activities. “Operation Chokepoint,” for example, was a well-documented and systemic means by which Federal regulators pushed banks to minimize their involvement with individuals and companies engaged in lawful activities and industries disfavored by regulators based on factors other than individualized, objective, risk-based standards.”

Regardless of where you stand politically, this executive order is a step in the right direction for the future of funding missions.