The allure of empire is so deeply baked into evangelical culture that it is expressed in compulsive and sometimes unconscious ways, author and scholar Karen Swallow Prior said. “We have this empire mentality,” Prior said during a Sept. 18 webinar…
Number of countries with blasphemy laws grows by 13%
A U.S. agency has added 11 nations to its list of countries willing to use fines, imprisonment or the death penalty to punish those accused of insulting religious beliefs or institutions. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Liberty increased its…
Judge again rules DACA illegal; humanitarian advocates call for congressional response
A U.S. judge in Texas has ruled the Biden Administration’s strategy for preserving DACA — Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals — is illegal. The decision eventually could threaten work and deportation protections enjoyed by hundreds of thousands of young undocumented…
Growth of Christianity in China may have stalled but no one knows for sure
The growth of Christianity in China has remained flat for more than a decade, according to polls conducted in the Communist nation and analyzed by Pew Research Center. “Christianity flourished after China entered an era of economic reforms and ‘opening…
Evangelical leaders condemn DeSantis for politicizing state executions
The presidential aspirations of Gov. Ron DeSantis have exacerbated the challenges facing Florida’s Death Row inmates and the activists trying to help them, said one of the state’s leading opponents of capital punishment. “Florida is a very dark place for…
What you haven’t been taught about Martin Luther King
Dedicating highways, schools, monuments and a national holiday to Martin Luther King Jr. often obscures his status as a radical bent on revolutionizing American race relations and faith, according to author and King scholar Lewis Brogdon. “Those are great things,…
Christ is now a threat to radicalized Christians, Gushee warns in new book
Christ has become quite the nuisance to Christians bent on overthrowing U.S. democracy to establish a white-led Christian nation, Mercer University ethicist David Gushee said during a Sept. 6 webinar hosted by Baptist News Global. “Jesus is a great inconvenience…
American belief in fixed binary gender is growing
The percentage of Americans who believe only two fixed genders exist is steadily increasing, and more than a quarter claim young people are being coerced into being transgender, according to new polling data from Public Religion Research Institute. Faced with…
On the other side of the pandemic, the report from America’s churches is mixed
Increases in attendance, giving and participation, and a decline in internal squabbling, may signal America’s churches are emerging from the dark days of the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath, new research shows. But the study — “Back to Normal? The…