James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown is a striking film. Centered on a young Bob Dylan (Timothée Chalamet), the biopic chronicles the folk music community that bounced in and around 1960s New York City, offering stellar musical and acting performances in the process. But its wisest scene takes place off stage in an intimate conversation between Dylan and Pete Seeger (Edward Norton).
This January, Trump was once again sworn in as president of the United States, propelled to office by the unwavering support of countless evangelical Christians.
For me, the results of the 2024 presidential election felt like the punchline to an incredibly cruel joke. I grew up in the church and still remember the lessons taught to me by my old mentors. I was told that following Jesus meant that truth mattered, justice mattered, how I treated women mattered, and how I treated my neighbor mattered. Later, when I came out as a gay man, my Christian peers insisted that I put aside my personal feelings and desires in the name of biblical fidelity. I spent years of my life making painful and irreversible sacrifices in order to do what I thought was right at the time. Then Trump came along, and suddenly the narrative changed — truth was pliable, character was irrelevant, and justice was getting in the way of “winning.”
Within hours of coming into office, President Donald Trump rescinded a 14-year policy prohibiting Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers from arresting migrants near “sensitive locations,” including schools, hospitals, and places of worship. Here’s how church leaders responded
In an interview with Fox News, Vice President JD Vance claimed that the old Christian teaching of "ordo amoris" justifies the Trump Administration's treatment of immigrants. But a closer look at the writings of Augustine show that "ordo amoris" doesn't mean what Vance claims it does. In fact, it teaches almost the exact opposite.
Whatever multitasking, social media doomscroll, or email hell you’ve got yourself in right now, I want you to slow down, take a deep breath, and give your full attention to this interview.
“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.
Trump's barrage of executive orders, policy decisions and campaign appointments is overwhelming in its extremism. It is designed to provoke a feeling of panicked helplessness among those who oppose his plans for immigrants, LGBTQ+ people, and other targets of his vision for our country. But we do not have to give Trump what he wants and, by staying rooted in our faith, can undermine his campaign of shock and awe.
Mary wraps the child in cloth and lays him in a manger. When churches tell this story, we focus on the tenderness embodied in this routine act. Swaddling helps babies feel safe and secure while sleeping—mimicking the uterine embrace.
Democratic Party leadership presented the 2024 presidential election as a choice between Donald Trump and democracy. That messaging seemed not to resonate with the majority of voters as Trump is now president. Despite his extreme policy stances, Trump captured nearly two-thirds of the Christian vote. Trump and his ilk will accelerate the nation’s lurch toward authoritarianism, Christian nationalism, and fewer rights for already marginalized communities. The campaign promises of then-candidate Trump — many of them already being enacted — will devastate millions.
In 2019, poet and reporter Eliza Griswold began reporting on Circle of Hope, a church founded in the spirit of a radical evangelicalism that motivated the likes of Tony Campolo, Ron Sider, and Jim Wallis. Her new book, Circle of Hope: A Reckoning with Love, Power, and Justice in an American Church documents her experience.
The church, founded in 1996 by the couple Rod and Gwen White, had spread to four locations by 2019. Griswold saw the flourishing, growing community as an intriguing example of evangelicalism untied from the Religious Right.