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Sinead O’Connor, 1989 Grammy Awards, via MPTV through Reuters.
Known as much for her outspoken views on religion, sex, feminism, and war as for her music, she will be remembered in some quarters for ripping up a photo of Pope John Paul II during a 1992 television appearance on “Saturday Night Live,” declaring: “Fight the real enemy.”
Original photo of Derek Webb courtesy Webb. Graphic by Tiarra Lucas/Sojourners
Musician Derek Webb, who started out with the band Caedmon’s Call in the 1990s, has “spent a career gnawing on the hand that feeds me in the evangelical Christian world,” he told Sojourners. From his time in Caedmon’s Call to his work as a solo artist for the past 20 years, Webb has outlined a winding and vulnerable journey of doubt, love, grief, and freedom. Most recently, Webb has been reckoning with his evangelical past, writing what he calls his “first Christian and Gospel album in a decade.”
Children raise their arms during a church service. Erika Giraud/Unspalsh
In May, Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy declared social isolation to be a U.S. public health crisis for its link to depression in youth and increased risks for many health conditions in older Americans.
Little Engineers Day Nusery at The Engine Room, community centre and and church at the heart of the new housing development in the Hale Village, Tottenham Hale, North London, U.K., 2017. Via Alamy.
As congregations age and shrink across the U.S., churches find their sizable buildings often become underutilized. The solution might be found in addressing the child care crisis.
Delegates attend the Church of England General Synod meeting in London, Britain, Feb. 9, 2023. REUTERS/Toby Melville
The Church of England will work towards drafting new pastoral guidance and other material needed to allow same-sex couples to receive blessings from priests over the next few months, it said on Saturday.
In the last century, Southern California has warmed by three degrees. The region is increasingly vulnerable to water scarcity, wildfires and coastal erosion. Small changes like those on St. Mary’s campus are an integral part of the wider Episcopal Church’s response to climate change. Photo: Courtesy of St. Mary’s
Over the past two years, St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, which sits on a hill four blocks away from the Pacific Ocean in Laguna Beach, Calif., has overhauled its property, adding drought-resistant native plants to its gardens and installing a drip irrigation system to avoid water runoff.
Web designer Lorie Smith, plaintiff in a Supreme Court case who objects to same-sex marriage, poses for a portrait at her office in Littleton, Co., Nov. 28, 2022. REUTERS/Kevin Mohatt
In a blow to LGBTQ+ rights, the Supreme Court on Friday ruled that the constitutional right to free speech allows certain businesses to refuse to provide services for same-sex weddings, ruling in favor of a web designer who cited her Christian beliefs in challenging a Colorado anti-discrimination law.
Students attend the 367th Commencement Exercises at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., May 24, 2018. REUTERS/Brian Snyder
The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday struck down race-conscious student admissions programs at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina in a sharp setback to affirmative action policies often used to increase the number of Black, Hispanic, and other underrepresented minority groups on campuses.
An aerial view of Ascension of Our Lord Orthodox Church in Karluk, Alaska, on Kodiak Island. (Courtesy photo)
In the United States, many church congregations face tough decisions about their future—and, to an extent, the future of the planet. Demographic changes over decades have led to many congregations becoming older and smaller than they once were. In many cases, that can leave a handful of people taking care of a large, older building in need of often expensive upkeep and repairs.
The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby attends the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland Jan. 22, 2016. REUTERS/Ruben Sprich
The Church of England Pensions Board said it had decided to divest its holding in Shell over what it said were insufficient plans to align its strategy to the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
A participant wears an LGBTQ+ flag as people take part in the Annual Mermaid Parade in Brooklyn, N.Y., June 18, 2016. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz
A Christian-owned wellness center is exempt from the federal law prohibiting employers from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, a federal appeals court ruled on June 20.
Former Pittsburgh Bishop Dorsey W.M. McConnell and Rev. Noah H. Evans bless the solar panels installed at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Mt. Lebanon, Pa. Courtesy St. Paul’s Episcopal.
In 2014, Shepherdstown Presbyterian Church in West Virginia installed an array of 60 solar panels with a scrappy financial model, hoping to lead by example and inspire other communities in Appalachia to transition to solar energy as well.
The Navajo Nation flag and a customized American flag are flown in Monument Valley, Utah on March 27, 2017. Alberto Zanoni/Alamy
On June 15, in a 7-2 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Indian Child Welfare Act when it ruled in favor of the federal government and tribal governments in the case Haaland v. Brackeen. The case, which originated with a Texas couple’s attempts to adopt two Navajo children despite the tribe’s ability to find a placement for the children within Navajo Nation, was seen by many as an attempt to fundamentally dissolve tribal sovereignty
The pro-choice activist group, New York City for Abortion Rights, held a rally outside the Basilica of Old St. Patrick in New York on May 7, 2022 in opposition to a pro-life faith group, Witness for Life, that routinely tries to harass patients seeking abortions at the nearby Planned Parenthood. Karla Ann Cote/NurPhoto via Reuters
After the June 2022 Supreme Court ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization which overturned Roe v. Wade,the landscape of abortion access in the U.S. shifted dramatically. In the past year, many Republican state governments have moved to further restrict or fully outlaw abortion, while some states with Democratic legislatures and/or governors have written abortion protections into law. In every state, pregnant people face difficult decisions and shifting barriers to receiving abortion care.
Members of the Aymara community of Ichu pray and take the Virgin of the Clouds on a pilgrimage to ask for rain in the area due to the drought they are facing in Puno, southern Peru, on November 28, 2022. JUAN CARLOS CISNEROS / AFP via Getty Images via Grist
Rabbi Dean Shapiro recalls considering the future as he looked down at a baby’s head while giving her a Hebrew name and welcoming her into the covenant of Israel. She was born into a megadrought in Arizona that is only getting worse. As one infant after another is welcomed into his congregation, he finds himself reflecting on their future well-being amid a growing climate emergency. If this child spends her entire life in Phoenix, she could experience 146 days each year with a heat index topping 100 degrees by the time she reaches 30.
Holistic doula Ciara Clark, 34, labors in her birthing pool at her home birth in Toms River, N.J., Sept. 11, 2022. REUTERS/Joy Malone
For 30 years before she was ordained, Rev. Morgan Gordy was a nurse in Georgia, Mississippi, and Tennessee. She saw the link between poverty and death firsthand, and it often came down to lack of access to affordable health care.
Glad Tidings International Church, April 2023. (Photo: Facebook/Glad Tidings International Church of God in Christ)
A Black church in California has set out to develop a microgrid that could generate up to $1 million annually. The project, spearheaded by Gemini Energy Solutions and Green The Church, is part of a larger effort to empower Black churches — and their communities — to join the clean energy movement.
Political activist Cornel West announces his candidacy for the U.S. presidency via social media, as the candidate for the People's Party, June 5, 2023, in this still image obtained from a social media video. CornelWest via REUTERS
Cornel West, a progressive political activist and philosopher, announced on Monday that he is launching a third-party 2024 bid for the U.S. presidency.
Gerald Smith, principal at St. Thomas More Academy in Washington, D.C., poses with one of the 88 trees planted at the Catholic school in May 2021 through the Laudato Trees program. (Courtesy of St. Thomas More Academy)
As the school year sets at St. Thomas More Academy in southeastern Washington, D.C., students spring into action for a day of tree-tending. Eighth graders at the Catholic elementary school swap books and computers for shovels, rakes, and hoses and head outside to tend to the more than six dozen growing trees around their campus. They remove old mulch, add some new, and water each of the trees.
A father comforts a crying baby. Photo: Ink Drop / Alamy
In a country with the weakest parental leave standards of all its economic peers, church policy to support new parents is rarely more generous than what one might get from a public school, an architecture firm, or a dentist’s office. In many cases there is no set policy, and ordained and lay staff are sometimes treated differently.