A panel of Heritage Foundation scholars explained to Heritage Action’s Orlando Sentinel Summit attendees on Saturday how faith fuels the organization’s public advocacy mission.
“This constitution will NOT work without a faith-filled people,” E.J. Antoni, Heritage Foundation chief economist, said on Saturday. “Faith builds our four cornerstones, then all of our public policy stems from our four cornerstones.”
Matt Crouch, vice president of operations at Heritage Action, added that faith is “interwoven in every single element” of the organization’s mission. The scholars’ remarks came after an attendee at the event asked the speaker panel, which included Antoni and Crouch, why there is no cornerstone for faith, given that “it touches on everything” Heritage stands for.
The Heritage Foundation’s cornerstones are the dignity of work and free enterprise, national security, the American heritage and citizenship, and the American family.
The event featured speakers who showcased how their Biblical commitment and understanding have fueled their legislative efforts, championed by Heritage Action and The Heritage Foundation, in advocating against political wrongdoing.
Some of those speakers included Anne Fundner, an Angel Mom and fentanyl-awareness advocate. Fundner’s son, Weston, died at age 15 in 2022 from an accidental fentanyl overdose.
She has since used her experience to advocate against the widespread fentanyl crisis that consumes America’s cities when politicians are allowed to champion their amnesty and open-border policies.
“They called it an overdose, I don’t,” Fundner said. “Calling an overdose excuses it, it was criminal.”
Despite all the pain that came after, Fundner added, she found the courage to realize that there was a God-given purpose in Weston’s death and has raised awareness since.
“An open border did not protect the vulnerable,” she stated. “That is not compassion for illegal immigration, that is recklessness. That is negligence, and that negligence has a body count.”
Drug overdoses are now at a historic low in the United States.
Her God-given courage, she said, led to President Donald Trump’s signing of the HALT Fentanyl Act in 2025, which her testimony and advocacy helped pass.
Vanessa Sivadge, another speaker at the summit, said that her faith in God has taught her to always do the next right thing.
In recent years, while working as a nurse at Texas Children’s Hospital, Sivadge was motivated by her biblical understanding and committed to blow the whistle on widespread healthcare fraud while advocating for the Bible’s understanding of gender and sexuality. She was fired by the hospital in 2024 for raising concerns about what she alleged was the improper use of Medicaid funds for puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for minors in violation of Texas law. The hospital reached a settlement with the state in August, which includes the creation of the country’s first “detransition clinic.”
