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On March 8, the Trump administration escalated its attack on free speech and protests by detaining a lawful resident for his role in Columbia University’s campus protests for Palestinian rights, saying that it was the “first arrest of many to come.” Sojourners spoke to seminaries, divinity schools, and Christian colleges and universities to try and understand how schools are defending international students amid the crackdown.

Before he was hospitalized for double pneumonia, Pope Francis was battling firm resistance from some of his own cardinals about how to plug a widening gap in the Vatican’s finances.

In late January, the Pew Research Center released a study of religious nationalism worldwide, including in the U.S. The results? Only 6% of Americans fit Pew’s definition of “Christian nationalist.” That's a smaller number that several previous estimates, but sociologists and researchers suggest it may just provide a shade of nuance to the way we think about religious nationalism in America.

Pastor Ben Squires did not have “baseless allegations of money laundering by Lutheran social service agencies” on his 2025 bingo card.

And yet, in the early hours of Sunday morning, Feb. 2, Squires found himself reading a flurry of social media posts about Mike Flynn’s unfounded accusations and billionaire Elon Musk’s promise that the Department of Government Efficiency would be “rapidly shutting down” supposedly “illegal payments” to a list of Lutheran groups including Global Refuge (formerly Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services), Pacific Lutheran University, and Lutheran Social Services organizations in Florida, Wisconsin, and South Dakota.

Across the U.S., 40 dioceses and religious orders have declared bankruptcy. The first was the Archdiocese of Portland, Oregon, in 2004. The most recent was the Diocese of Burlington, Vermont, in late September 2024. The cases vary, but they have one thing in common: The day the diocese filed its petition for bankruptcy is a new benchmark — no one is allowed to file claims against the church for abuses that happened before that date, even if a given state retroactively extends the statute of limitations.

Our team has spent a lot of time watching our activity on X, especially following Elon Musk's series of dramatic renovations. Now, our audience engagement manager explains why we've decided to move on to other platforms.

Now that President Donald Trump has rescinded longstanding policy limiting U.S. immigration enforcement in churches and other sensitive locations, some church leaders are wondering what they should do if an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer comes knocking.

While policies and culture associated with the Christian Right often value men’s leadership and patriarchal structures, it’s a misconception that men entirely run the movement. From the beginning, women have been influential leaders in right-wing Christian movements.

“It was chaos,” sighed Stacey Hall Burge, CEO of Found House Interfaith Housing Network, which provides emergency shelter and programs for families dealing with housing loss and insecurity in the Cincinnati area.

“From Monday to Friday, we had no specifics, no clarity,” said Burge, recounting the past week at her organization. “There are rents and supports for hundreds of families I am not sure how to pay right now. Families that worked hard to get off the streets, who may go right back. Many of them working, but unable to fully afford rent in the current housing crisis,” she told Sojourners in an interview over Zoom.