Armed with the message that Americans have become too morally liberal and strayed too far from God’s light, a few Black conservative Christians, like Pastor Lorenzo Sewell, are trying to upend the historic support of Black Protestants for the Democratic party.
While evangelical political engagement remains solidly in favor of Republicans, a group of evangelical leaders are organizing their support for Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Tim Walz in the upcoming presidential election.
As Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump discussed abortion policy during their first debate, Harris vigorously defended her vision for federal abortion rights. While she did, she returned to a talking point meant to appeal to religious voters.
“[Under Trump’s abortion bans] a survivor of a crime — a violation to their body — does not have the right to make a decision about what happens to their body next. That is immoral,” Harris said, before connecting morality and faith. “And one does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree: The government, and Donald Trump certainly, should not be telling a woman what to do with her body.”
But while assessing who wins a debate can be fairly subjective, determining who wins the upcoming election can’t — or shouldn’t be. As we’ve learned since 2020, confidence in our electoral system has increasingly become a partisan issue, with over 70 percent of Republican voters believing that President Joe Biden’s win in 2020 was illegitimate, a belief fueled by the pernicious, big lie that the election was stolen due to widespread voter fraud. Changing these numbers and restoring bipartisan confidence in our electoral system will require real work — and leadership from our elected officials.
Following up his overwhelming victory in a rap battle with Drake earlier this year, and the news that he would perform at Super Bowl LIX next February, Kendrick Lamar dropped a surprise single last night, mentioning Christian rappers Lecrae and Dee-1 in the song.
As Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz continue to campaign across the country, pastors and organizers in Minnesota are reflecting on their work with the governor, saying that he has displayed an authentic willingness to collaborate with faith and community leaders over his tenure.
I was listening to BBC’s Focus on Africa this summer when I first heard Dausab interviewed about his role in the landmark court case to overturn Namibia’s anti-LGBTQ+ legislation. In a throw-away line, the host indicated that Dausab was a Christian — and Dausab didn’t equivocate.
“As a born-again Christian, I always go back to Jesus …,” Dausab told the host.
Who was this born-again Christian that brought down Namibia’s sodomy laws? I wanted to meet this guy.
Palm Springs, Calif., long known as a desert playground for the rich and famous of Los Angeles, has enacted a number of progressive measures to address homelessness. Then in July, the all-Democratic city council passed a ban on sleeping on public property that will expand police authority to arrest the unhoused, underscoring how even liberal cities have lost patience as the homeless crisis persists.
Christian engagement in American patriotism has often gotten a bad rap, and rightly so: All too often, a healthy love for one’s country (patriotism) seeps into a pernicious love of blood and soil (nationalism), with the latter often marked by a sense of superiority, domination, or ethnocentrism. But instead of offering a strong counter-witness to these toxic impulses, Christians in the U.S. have often led the way, twisting the gospel to support American nationalism. Understandably, some Christians — both now and in the past — have responded by rejecting nationalistic forms of patriotism as something incompatible with following Jesus. As a Christian, I believe the answer isn’t to altogether reject patriotism, but instead to redeem it.
Two queer pastors, Anna Blaedel and M Jade Kaiser, were having dinner together in 2017, when they posed a question to each other in the spirit of meaningful fun: What would it be like if they could create a public space for conversations about and liturgical resources for transformation, at the outer margins of Christianity and beyond?