The U.S. Supreme Court upheld on Friday anti-camping laws used by authorities in an Oregon city to stop homeless people from sleeping in public parks and public streets — a ruling that gives local and state governments a freer hand in confronting a national homelessness crisis.

Mitchell Atencio 6-27-2024

Faith leaders have supported abortion rights since before 1973, but after Roe, even some theologically conservative denominations supported the ruling.

It’s easy to be skeptical, even cynical, about the value of sign-on statements as vehicles for achieving any true progress. The key criticism I hear is that these statements and resolutions don’t actually do anything. To some folks, signing on to statements might seem performative or even harmful: a way to soothe our consciences over the brokenness we see all around us by making us feel an illusory sense that we have done something, a sense that creates the permission structure for us not to take any real action to solve the issue in question. To others, these statements aren’t useful because they don’t change anyone’s mind on the issue in question, and instead merely “preach to the choir.”

With presumptive Republican nominee Donald J. Trump and presumptive Democratic nominee President Joe Biden preparing for their upcoming presidential debate on June 27, what do Generation Z Christians hope for in the 2024 election?

Betsy Shirley 6-25-2024

Over nearly three decades, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove — a self-described “preacher, author, and community builder” — has often played Baruch to Rev. William J. Barber II’s Jeremiah. Through efforts like the Moral Mondays movement and the Poor People’s Campaign, the pair has worked to articulate what they describe as a “Third Reconstruction,” reflected in an agenda that unites the nation’s poor to confront “the interlocking injustices of systemic racism, poverty, ecological devastation.”

Simón Cázares 6-21-2024

Walking into Iglesia La Gloria de Dios Internacional, a Latino Pentecostal church in the heart of Hialeah, Fla., I felt nervous to be on church grounds. I’m Mexican American, but I don’t speak Spanish; I’m an autistic person who really doesn’t like new situations. And even though it’s now been a year since I moved back home to Miami from Minnesota, I am still a bit self-conscious of my Midwestern accent. But most importantly, I am an atheist and an openly queer and trans person living in Florida.

It was a simple wave that changed things for Frankie Leigh. Last summer’s Douglas County Pride festivities were wrapping up. It had been eight hours in near 90-degree heat, eight hours of picketers yelling at Leigh that they were going to hell. And just as the crowds were scattering, a protester called to Leigh. “See you next year!” Leigh couldn’t help but laugh. “It was that realization of like, I am going to see you every year,” Leigh said. “And I’ll probably see you in the grocery store and at the school board meeting and at these other places, too.”

Mitchell Atencio 6-17-2024

At the beginning of their book, Baptizing America, Brian Kaylor and Beau Underwood return to the Christian nationalist display at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2022. No, that’s not a typo. 

Jim McDermott 6-14-2024

Early in his adult life, Lau-Lavie is outed in a news article as gay, prompting him to move from Israel to New York in search of a spiritual life that makes more sense than his Orthodox heritage.

Zachary Lee 6-14-2024

On June 1, for the North Carolina residents of downtown Durham, the morning’s new mercies came in the form of Chappell Roan’s song “HOT TO GO!” being played from the century-old bell tower of Duke Memorial United Methodist Church.