Leith Anderson

Image via RNS/Reuters/Carlo Allegri

The centerpiece of President Trump’s religious freedom agenda, and the carrot he often dangled in front of Christian leaders as he sought their support during the campaign, was a pledge to overturn a 1954 law that says houses of worship can lose their tax-exempt status if they engage in partisan campaigning.

But a new survey of evangelical leaders — mainly pastors whose flocks were crucial to Trump’s victory in November — shows that close to 90 percent of those asked opposed the idea of clergy endorsing politicians from the pulpit.

Image via RNS/Reuters/Kevin Lamarque

Religious leaders, including some who spoke at President Trump’s inauguration, are calling on Congress to protect foreign aid that helps the needy across the globe.

Trump’s 2018 budget proposal calls for $25.6 billion in funding for the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development. That’s a decrease of $10.1 billion, or 28 percent, from the 2017 budget.

President Obama and Vice President Biden met faith leaders to discuss immigration reform. Photo: La Casa Blanca Twitter feed

Speaker of the House John Boehner signaled Wednesday that there would be no immigration reform this year, an announcement made the same day that some of the nation’s most prominent evangelical pastors met with President Barack Obama to try to advance the issue.

Only months ago, immigration reform seemed to enjoy strong bipartisan momentum.

It still does across the nation, said Russell D. Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, one of the eight clergy invited to the Oval Office meeting.

“I urged the president not to make this a divisive issue, but to work with House Republicans,” said Moore. “We need to work together to fix the system rather than just scream at each other.”

The Obama administration, in a statement issued after the meeting, squarely blamed House Republicans for the impasse. The Democratic-led Senate passed a bipartisan immigration reform plan in June.

Chris Lisee 6-18-2012

The National Association of Evangelicals is urging pastors to seek a common moral ground by uniting under a consistent code of ethics.

NAE leaders said the new code will provide uniform guidance to church leaders across the 40 denominations that comprise the nation’s largest evangelical group.

The new code is a good starting point for ministers in a profession that can be individualistic and entrepreneurial, said David P. Gushee, a professor of Christian ethics and director of the Center for Theology and Public Life at Mercer University.

“In some ways it’s the Wild West out there in terms of the context of preparation for ministry in the evangelical world,” he said. “Any effort to raise the moral bar and establish a minimal set of expectations for clergy — or any profession — is a very good thing.”

Photo by Sandi Villarreal / Sojourners

Evangelical leaders close in prayer at the Evangelical Immigration Table launch. Photo by Sandi Villarreal / Sojourners

Church leaders today gathered in Washington, D.C., to announce the launch of the Evangelical Immigration Table – a broad coalition of organizations, churches and pastors from across the political and religious spectrum coming together to advance a cohesive immigration reform message.

The Immigration Table was launched at a press conference, with speakers including Sojourners CEO Jim Wallis, Dr. Richard Land, President of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, Gabriel Salguero, President of the National Association of Latino Evangelicals and Tom Minnery of Focus on the Family, setting out a common set of principles reflecting the common ground that all members of the Table have found on the issue of immigration.

Read on to view photos from the press conference.

Jim Wallis 11-03-2011

People of faith -- including evangelical Christians -- will be voting both ways in the upcoming election. It is simply not true that they will be voting only on one or two issues.

And, if evangelicals focus on many of the issues central to their faith, rather than becoming partisan cheerleaders, they might be able to raise some critical issues in this election and to hold both sides more accountable, even in a campaign that both Richard and I suspect will be one of the ugliest in U.S. history.

At the end of the evening, Amy remarked that if the upcoming election debates were as civil and substantive as this evening was, we would all be very grateful.

Cathleen Falsani 10-31-2011

occupy london
On Sunday (10/30), the Anglican Bishop of London, the Rt. Rev. Dr. Richard Chartres, met with Occupy London protesters who have encamped for several weeks now on the ground of St. Paul's Cathedral in London, in an ongoing attempt to get the demonstrators to leave church grounds.

Chartres wants the Occupiers to vacate cathedral property and stopped short, in an interview with the BBC yesterday, of saying he would oppose their forcible removal. Other British clergy, however, are rallying behind the demonstrators, saying they would physically (and spiritually) surround protesters at St. Paul's with a circle of prayer or "circle of protection."

Jim Wallis 9-08-2010
The extremes now seem to dictate the political discourse -- extremists in caves who invoke their distorted brand of Muslim faith as they murder innocent people; and extremists in a Florida church w
Matthew Soerens 11-11-2009
A few weeks ago, I sat and listened attentively as a series of American religious leaders explained to several members of a http://www.faithandimmigration.org/blog/faith-leaders-testify-se
Jim Wallis 10-21-2009
After nearly two years of collective scripture study, discernment, and dialogue, on Oct.
Chuck Warnock 6-05-2009
In a http://www.nae.net/index.cfm?FUSEACTION=editor.page&pageID=569&idCategory=1" rel="#someid0" href="https://sojo.net/%3Ca%20href%3D"http://www.nae.net/index.cfm?FUSEACTION=editor.page&pageID=569&idCat">http://www.nae.net/index.cfm?FUSEACTION=editor.page&pageID=569&idCat
Jim Wallis 12-12-2008
Rich Cizik has been a pioneer in the "new evangelical" movement and a real hero, especially to the next generation of young believers.
Jim Wallis 11-08-2007

At its board meeting last month, the National Association of Evangelicals formally named Leith Anderson as its president. Anderson is senior pastor of Wooddale Church in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, and has been serving as interim president of the NAE for the past year.


I've had the opportunity to spend some time with Leith Anderson. I believe he is the kind of leader most needed these days, [...]