News
A pride flag hangs at the First Congregational Church United Church of Christ after a mass shooting at LGBTQ nightclub Club Q in Colorado Springs, Co., Nov. 23, 2022. REUTERS/Isaiah J. Downing
Thom Andreas was a gay Christian kid in the 1990s when his hometown of Colorado Springs, Co. was becoming known as the “evangelical mecca” or “evangelical Vatican.” And this gave Andreas a front-row seat as the movement advocated against LGBTQ rights and dignity in politics and faith.
A customer picks up a bag of free pastries from the worker-owned Arizmendi bakery in the morning. in San Francisco, Calif., March 17, 2020. Arizmendi, a worker-owned cooperative, is named after Fr. José María Arizmendiarrieta, the father of modern cooperatives. REUTERS/Stephen Lam
“I’ve realized that the current state of economics is violence, since it violates human dignity,” said Dani Bodette, senior coordinator of Catholic Campaign for Human Development in Chicago. “But cooperatives are a form of nonviolence — they’re a nonviolent economics.”
2022 Kennedy Center honorees including actor George Clooney, contemporary Christian and pop singer-songwriter Amy Grant, singer Gladys Knight, Cuban-born American composer, conductor and educator Tania Leon, U2 band members Bono, The Edge, Larry Mullen Jr., Adam Clayton, pose for a group photo with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Kennedy Center board members during the reception for Kennedy Center honorees ahead of the official gala at the State Department in Washington, D.C., Dec. 3, 2022. REUTERS/Sarah Silbiger
Brandi Carlile noted the U2 artists’ and Grant’s support for LGBTQ rights while representing their Christian faith to the world.
A protester waves an LGBTQ rights pride flag as activists gather outside the Supreme Court, where justices were set to hear arguments in a major case pitting LGBTQ rights against a claim that the constitutional right to free speech exempts artists from anti-discrimination laws in a dispute involving an evangelical Christian web designer who refuses to provide her services for same-sex marriages, in Washington, D.C., Dec. 5, 2022. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority signaled sympathy on Monday toward an evangelical Christian web designer whose business refuses to provide services for same-sex marriages in a major case pitting LGBTQ rights against a claim that freedom of speech exempts artists from anti-discrimination laws
Ukrainian law enforcement officers inspect one of churches of the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra monastery, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine Nov. 22, 2022. REUTERS/Vladyslav Musiienko
The Ukrainian government will draw up a law banning churches affiliated with Russia under moves described by President Volodymyr Zelenskiy as necessary to prevent Moscow being able to “weaken Ukraine from within.”
Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.) speaks during a news conference following the weekly Democratic caucus luncheon at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., Nov. 29, 2022. REUTERS/Sarah Silbiger
The Senate passed a bill on Tuesday that would protect federal recognition of same-sex marriage, a measure taken up in response to worries the Supreme Court could overturn a 2015 decision that legalized it nationwide.
Outside of the sanctuary at Congregation Beth Israel in Austin on Nov. 1, 2021. Late the night before, a fire was set at the synagogue. Franklin Barrett Sechriest, then a student at Texas State University in San Marcos, was charged in the incident. Michael Gonzalez/The Texas Tribune
As other kids in Austin, Texas recovered from trick-or-treating on Halloween last year, Sarah Adelman worried about white supremacists, her mom, and their synagogue. After a series of antisemitic incidents around Central Texas, someone set fire to Congregation Beth Israel, where Sarah’s mother, Lori, is a leader.
Delores S. Williams in 1996. Courtesy Union Theological Seminary.
Delores S. Williams, a trailblazer and founder of womanist theology, died on Nov. 18. She was the author of Sisters in the Wilderness: The Challenge of Womanist God-Talk and a professor of theology.
The U.S. Capitol is seen at sunset in Washington, D.C., Jan. 5, 2022. REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz
The bill garnered the 60 votes required to limit debate before a final vote on its passage. It would serve as a legal backstop against any future Supreme Court action by requiring the federal government to recognize any marriage that was legal in the state it was performed.
Filipinos respond following the October 2022 killing of journalist Percival Mabasa (also known as Percy Lapid). At least 22 January 2023 journalists were killed in the Philippines between 2016 and 2022. / Lisa Marie David / NurPhoto via Getty Images
Ritche T. Salgado, OCarm, is director of the Carmelite Center for Social Pastoral Communications in Quezon City, Philippines. He spoke with Sojourners’ Mitchell Atencio.
BEFORE I BECAME a priest, I was a journalist. I was writing for an alternative news outfit, Bulatlat. They asked me to write about a priest who was killed in Central Philippines. I was inspired by [his] story, and I wanted to be a priest. The [Carmelite order] I entered has very strong journalist and media advocacy. In fact, our patron saint in the Philippines, St. Titus Brandsma, is the martyr of press freedom and free speech. I never thought that I’d be in a congregation so involved in the pastoral care of media workers. As a priest, I continue as desk editor for Bulatlat.
A woman wears a jacket with a QAnon logo while hundreds of vehicles including 18-wheeler trucks, RVs, and other cars are parked as part of a rally at Hagerstown Speedway after some of them arrived as part of a convoy that traveled across the country headed to Washington, D.C., to protest coronavirus disease (COVID-19) related mandates and other issues in Hagerstown, Md., March 5, 2022. REUTERS/Stephanie Keith
About one in five Americans mostly agree with ideas consistent with the QAnon conspiracy theory, according to a new survey from the Public Religion Research Institute. That’s an increase from one in seven since last year.
A local fire chief and his daughter drop off goods for a neighbor in July near Drushal Memorial Brethren Church in Lost Creek, Ky. At least 39 people died due to floods in eastern Kentucky. / Seth Herald / AFP via Getty Images
Sally Monroe is an elder at First Presbyterian Church of Hazard, Ky. With her husband Lawrence, she spoke with Sojourners’ Mitchell Atencio.
OUR HOUSE IS completely gutted. All the Sheetrock is gone, the flooring’s gone. It’s just a shell. The water came very quickly. Our neighbor who had a house on River Caney got about two and a half feet of water in his house, but it came very rapidly, and their house was washed away. Our situation is different. We live in the valley a half-mile from the river. We had no idea how high the water could get. We didn’t get the current, and the water came up rapidly ... some pictures from this flood where buildings were just washed off their foundations — it’s horrible to see those homes like that.
Original image by Luis Cortés via Unsplash. Graphic by Mitchell Atencio/Sojourners.
If God is calling us to build more just communities, we are first called to know what is happening in those communities — and for that, we often need the work of journalists. But engaging news should not come at the expense of one’s mental health and emotional wellbeing. Here’s how engaging the news can be a personally and societally beneficial process.
Dylann Roof is escorted into the court room at the Charleston County Judicial Center to enter his guilty plea on murder charges in state court for the 2015 shooting massacre at a historic Black church, in Charleston, S.C., April 10, 2017. REUTERS/Grace Beahm/Pool
The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to hear white supremacist Dylann Roof’s bid to overturn his conviction and death sentence for fatally shooting nine Black people in 2015 at a church in Charleston, S.C.
People pass in a vintage car in front of a rainbow flag hanging beside a Cuban flag at the Health Ministry building in Havana, Cuba, May 17, 2021. REUTERS/Alexandre Meneghini
Cubans celebrated the results of a landmark referendum on Sept. 25 that legalized same-sex marriage, redefined the legal family, expanded rights for the elderly and children, and more.
Pope Francis receives a gift from Indigenous people during a meeting with Indigenous peoples and members of the Parish Community of Sacred Heart in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada July 25, 2022. REUTERS/Guglielmo Mangiapane.
Pope Francis’ July visit to the First Nations in Canada has rekindled conversations about the Catholic Church’s responsibility in blessing and legitimizing the colonization of Indigenous homelands.
Venezuelan migrants stand outside St. Andrew’s Church in Edgartown, Massachusetts, Sept. 14, 2022. Ray Ewing/Vineyard Gazette via Reuters.
When about 50 people found themselves stranded last week on Martha’s Vineyard, the island’s nonprofit social services agency called on local churches to help. “We rallied and did what any decent human being would do if strangers showed up,” local pastor Rev. Charlotte Wright told Sojourners this week.
Church pews by CHUTTERSNAP via Unsplash. Graph by Pew Research Center. Mitchell Atencio/Sojourners
The decline of Christianity in the U.S. has been documented by the Pew Research Center, which projects that Christianity may decline significantly over the next fourty years. On Sept. 13, Pew Research Center released four hypothetical scenarios that model what the religious landscape of the United States might look like if current demographic trends continue. The four models projected that the U.S. population who identify as Christian would decline from 64 percent in 2020 to between 35-54 in 2070. But that may not be a bad thing.
Courtesy of Seattle Pacific University.
A group of students, faculty, staff, and alumni from Seattle Pacific University filed a lawsuit against the university’s board of trustees after over a year of protesting policies that do not allow full-time staff and faculty in same-sex relationships to be hired.
Chaplain Steve Lee as seen in police body camera footage outside the home of election worker Ruby Freeman on Dec. 15, 2020, in Cobb County, Georgia. SOURCE: COBB COUNTY POLICE DEPARTMENT
Georgia election worker Ruby Freeman didn’t recognize the man who banged on her door. Terrified, she called 911. She had reason to fear.
By the morning of Dec. 15, 2020, when she saw the stranger’s red sedan parked in her driveway, she had received hundreds of threats from supporters of former U.S. President Donald Trump. Two weeks earlier, Trump’s campaign had falsely accused Freeman and her daughter, Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, of pulling fake ballots from suitcases at Atlanta's State Farm Arena to rig the 2020 election for Democrat Joe Biden.