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In my favorite home video ever, it’s 2020 and my kids are opening their Christmas morning gifts while wearing new ski jackets, even though it was 75 degrees in South Texas, where we live. My son’s 4-year-old hands are still pudgy, and he hasn’t learned to glide his “l” sounds yet, so his raspy morning voice is extra adorable. As he unwraps his gifts, he shouts and cheers and stares at some Power Rangers in adoration.
When Ryan Medina stepped off the plane in San Salvador, capital city of El Salvador, he felt the thrill of being in a new country. He was eager to meet the fellow pilgrims he’d only known online and excited about the journey ahead. But as their van left the bustling city streets and began the drive to the gravesite of four U.S. churchwomen, the atmosphere shifted.
“I realized we were quite literally retracing the same route these women took after they were picked up from the airport on the night they were ambushed and killed,” said Medina, a teacher at Loyola Blakefield High School near Baltimore, Md.
For faith activists and leaders committed to continuing their work to oppose and resist Christian nationalism, President-elect Donald Trump’s return to the White House is disappointing but not a sign of total defeat. Ahead of Inauguration Day, many activists are continuing their coalition-building efforts and sounding the alarm on specific policies they believe Trump may sign executive orders on, day one in office.
An evangelical Christian, Huckabee has been a vocal supporter of Israel throughout his political career and a longtime defender of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank. A former Republican presidential hopeful, Huckabee hosted a weekly Fox News TV show for six years ending in 2015.
Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby resigned “in sorrow” on Tuesday, saying he had failed to ensure there was a proper investigation into allegations of abuse by a volunteer at Christian summer camps decades ago.
Rev. Jes Kast started planning for the Sunday after the election in midsummer, before her three-month sabbatical. She’d timed her leave intentionally, wanting to return to her congregation well-rested, right before one of most contentious elections in U.S. history. “I had a sense in my spirit that this next phase in ministering, whatever the outcome of the election, would require me to be as spiritually grounded as possible,” said Kast, who pastors Faith United Church of Christ in State College, Pa.
Trump’s campaign was marked by racist and misogynistic rhetoric, promises of authoritarian tactics including dramatic expansion of executive power and retribution for his political rivals, as well as policies that appealed to the anxieties of conservative religious communities, especially Christians.
As faith and justice leaders absorbed the news of a second Trump term, many pointed to the importance of fostering and caring for self and neighbor while figuring out what to do over the next four years.
President-elect Trump, according to the Associated Press, has won the White House. He won the election in part by courting conservative religious communities — and appealing to their anxieties — on the campaign trail. His policy agenda will likely be shaped by these groups, influencing the White House on a range of issues from education to reproductive rights.
“This to me is one of the most consequential things I’ve ever had an opportunity to do in my whole career,” Biden said in his apology at an outdoor football and track field in Laveen Village, Arizona, near Phoenix. “It’s a sin on our soul. ... I formally apologize.”
In an interview with NBC’s Hallie Jackson on Tuesday, Vice President Kamala Harris suggested she would not make concessions for religious exemptions on abortion laws, one of her strongest allusions yet to where she plans to take the abortion debate if she wins the White House in November.
The Biden administration's proposal to require private insurance agencies to cover certain over-the-counter contraceptives is getting nods of approval from faith-based reproductive rights advocates. But it’s unclear how other religious groups will respond.
Early in the morning on Oct. 3, reproductive choice advocacy group Catholics for Choice unfurled a 50-foot long, 41-pound quilt on the road leading to St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City. Their words, written in bold, large letters across the bottom of the quilt summed up their message: “POPE FRANCIS, LISTEN.”
As Republican Ohio Senator JD Vance and his Democratic opponent, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, compete for the vice presidency ahead of the November election, they bring distinct religious backgrounds — and distinct approaches to the role of faith in public life.
Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance attended a town hall outside Pittsburgh on Saturday hosted by a Christian nationalist televangelist who believes that Democrat Kamala Harris has an “occult spirit” that runs through her, that she represents the “spirit of Jezebel,” and that she used “witchcraft” during the September presidential debate.
Ruth Padilla DeBorst told her audience: “There is no room for indifference toward all who are suffering the scourge of war and violence the world round, the uprooted and beleaguered people of Gaza, the hostages held by both Israel and Hamas and their families, the threatened Palestinians in their own territories, all who are mourning the loss of loved ones.”
Less than 48 hours later, the director of the Fourth Lausanne Congress emailed all attendees, issuing a lengthy apology for Padilla DeBorst’s speech.
Early in The Book of Belonging, a long-anticipated children’s story Bible, author Mariko Clark includes this paragraph: “Think about how cozy and special you feel when someone asks you about your day or wants to learn more about your favorite foods or hobbies. God made us to belong with God! That means God wants to be close and cozy with us. So all questions are welcome!”
The amber appears to ooze across the floor like slow-flowing lava. Containing found objects and materials sourced from Salvadoran communities around Los Angeles, Eddie Rodolfo Aparicio’s artwork is expansive and expressive of the materiality of often-marginalized Central American migrants in Southern California.
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.”