Christians
Amazon Prime’s The Boys wrapped up its fifth and final season last week, and its overarching theme was: faith. After becoming the de facto CEO of Vought and president of the United States, antagonist Homelander—a narcissistic Superman foil, wrapped in the American flag and played to perfection by Antony Starr—still isn’t satisfied.
Craving what he’s craved since lab birth—unconditional love and devotion with no expectation of anything in return—he declares himself a god and uses Vought’s media machinery to convince the American public of his divinity. Guided by visions of his former boss, Madelyn Stillwell—a Mary-esque mother-figure who, before he murdered her in Season One, used to breastfeed him—he ultimately decides to kill (“cleanse”) anyone who doesn’t “in their heart of hearts” believe in his divinity.
On March 28, one day before celebrating Jesus’ procession into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, millions of Christians processed through the streets to declare “No Kings!”
Protesting the Trump administration’s authoritarianism, Christian nationalism, violence at home and war abroad, people of faith joined their neighbors to stand for democracy. More than 3,000 events took place across the globe, mostly in the U.S., with Minnesota—where there has been strong, communal resistance to immigration agents’ violence—serving as the flagship event.
Sojourners asked our readers to send us their photos and reflections from their own participation in No Kings protests. Below are your contributions.
I remember a distant past, almost too faint to recall with clarity. That season, so long ago, marked by the COVID-19 pandemic, has since been eclipsed by the pressing concerns of our day. We now live with the backdrop of global shifts, political instability, war, and domestic turmoil. But when I think back on that time, one overwhelming emotion returns with acuity: a deep concern for the safety of my friends and loved ones. Unfortunately, that same fear has crept back with suffocating weight due to rising measles cases in the U.S. But this time, the demographics I am most concerned with are not the elderly or those with preexisting conditions. I am most concerned for the most vulnerable among us: our children.
Since the first documented case in South Carolina in October 2025, the state has reported 979 cases, and the numbers are rising. The surge in outbreaks threatens to reverse the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s declaration that measles was eliminated in the United States in 2000. At this rate, we are on the verge of losing elimination status. The moral crisis deepens with reports that two detainees in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center have tested positive for measles.
Faith-based refugee resettlement organizations are raising alarms that Immigrations and Customs Enforcement is detaining lawfully resettled refugees in Minnesota, in an operation one resettlement official called “shameful and unpatriotic.”
“This is a five-alarm fire,” Myal Greene, president and CEO of World Relief, said in a press release. “These are not the ‘worst of the worst;’ these are innocent children and families who fled the worst wars and persecution imaginable, who were invited by the American people to become Americans under the terms of American law.
Concession speeches can reveal a glimpse of a politician’s soul, a rare look behind a curated facade. All they have poured their life into, with boundless ambition, hope, and relentless energy, has been lost. They are laid bare, vulnerable. And their words now don’t have to be calculated or pretested by a focus group.
Many of us are feeling fear, disorientation, or anger at this moment. As Christians, we need to meet perilous feelings with a resolve to follow Jesus and remember his teachings: The truth will set us free, and we must learn to love our enemies.
“The Lord is my shepherd: I shall not want.”
Over the phone, Ran Limbu quotes the words of Psalm 23. He is the pastor of Christ Believer Nepali Church, a Bhutanese refugee church on the west side of Madison, Wis. This passage has come alive for him over the past decade while living in the United States of America. This verse has encouraged him to trust that God is his home even in his displacement.
The real mystery of Killers of the Flower Moon is not who murdered so many Osage people, it’s how these murders can go on for so long — how the loss of life can be dismissed with such apathy.
Book-banning has always been about censoring the stories, histories, and information that push us to question the status quo.
I know some Christians do not fully share my theological convictions about gender and sexuality, but on issues of human dignity and civil rights, the church should be firmly united: Transgender and nonbinary siblings are God’s children made in God’s very image and likeness. Prohibiting lifesaving medical care, tolerating discrimination, or denying someone the ability to use their name is wrong; you cannot deny people those rights because you disagree with their beliefs about gender or sexuality. Christians should be standing in the breach in defense of the full humanity, dignity, and rights of their trans siblings.
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.
Societally we focus a lot on spanking, I think, because it seems to draw such a line between barbarism and civility, or, seen from the other perspective, between parents who are serious about discipline and those who are wishy-washy. But spanking isn’t the issue behind the issue. The issue behind the issue is authority — the right to exercise power.
If you or a loved one have been impacted by suicide or self-harm, there is nothing to be ashamed of. Scripture teaches us that when one person suffers, we all suffer. Yet if you are in a place of active suicidal ideation, or having self-harming thoughts, it can feel like you have been completely swallowed by the dark; it’s a lonely and terrifying place. But here is the truth: You are wanted on this earth.
Jesus’ “mission statement” when he begins his public ministry in Galilee includes a promise of liberation and release for those who are incarcerated. While the New Testament context of “captivity” wasn’t entirely the same as modern imprisonment, Jesus’ promise aligns liberation of prisoners with healing and good news for the poor and oppressed. Taking Jesus’ words in this text seriously forces us to ask: If God’s reign is characterized by freedom for prisoners, why are we supporting incarceration now?
Today is a day for magical thinking. The date — 2/22/22 — is a palindrome: Whether you read it forward or backward, the date is identical. Because the day also falls on a Tuesday, particularly enthusiastic followers of palindrome dates have been calling today “Twosday.”
As Baptist minister and CEO of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, Zeh has participated in plenty of “circular conversations regarding the moral absolutes of abortion.” But as she writes in her new book, A Complicated Choice: Making Space for Grief and Healing in the Pro-Choice Movement, these debates often overlook how abortion always “happens within a person’s real, full, and complex life.”
Due to climate change, people — entire tribes and cultures — are losing their homes and are being displaced from their lands. Indeed, the United States military needs to be held accountable for polluting the planet. For example, if preventive measures and legislation like the Green New Deal are not enacted to curb U.S. imperialism, more Indigenous peoples will perish due to climate disasters.
A Roman Catholic priest is collecting and saving hundreds of traditional pre-Christian religious artifacts in southeast Nigeria that new converts to Christianity had planned to burn.
The collection includes carvings of pagan deities and masks, some of them more than a century old and considered central to the pre-Christian religion of the Igbo people, who traditionally believed them to be sacred and to have supernatural powers.
“As Black American activists are being increasingly heard and amplified, so is this message about linking national contexts and the importance of recognizing the global scope of anti-racism activism beyond national boundaries,” Roger Baumann said.
The U.S. prison system is an afront to human dignity and in sharp contrast with God's vision for justice on earth. Christians' commitment to love, hope, and justice should inspire us to work toward abolishing the prison system.