https://sojo.net/feeds/articles Sojourners Online Articles en https://sojo.net/articles/culture/attending-rosal-concert-teresa-avila Fri, 09 Oct 2026 16:33:21 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/articles/culture/attending-rosal-concert-teresa-avila https://sojo.net/articles/opinion/how-christians-can-protect-midterms-trumps-interference I need to level with you: The 2026 midterms are not a normal election.Faith groups like Sojourners have long talked about the importance of elections. I have written about elections extensively in the past. But this year is different.Specifically, there is a great risk that the Trump administration and its allies will attempt to disrupt or deny the election results; these attempts could very well succeed if we don’t act—or if they create enough chaos and fear to deter people from voting. It’s critical that Christians commit to pushing back on these attempts with faith-inspired activism—not just up to Election Day, but all the way through the seating of a new Congress on Jan. 3. Wed, 07 Oct 2026 13:28:35 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/articles/opinion/how-christians-can-protect-midterms-trumps-interference https://sojo.net/articles/opinion/three-years-after-oct-7-are-there-any-words-left I’m at the point where I’m a bit at a loss for what to say about Palestine. It has been three years since the on Israel on October 7, 2023, when Hamas killed more than 1,100 Israelis and abducted another 251 people.That date also marks the beginning of the genocide in Gaza, which continues despite the ceasefire. More than 70,000 Palestinians have been killed by the state of Israel. Palestinians are losing faith in nonviolent resistance, and I honestly can’t blame them. Settlers and their allies in government are determined to annex the entire West Bank, and Israeli politicians are openly imagining a world where Palestinians are no longer in Palestine. The word “bleak” does not even begin to describe the situation in Israel/Palestine—a situation that is only made worse by the U.S. continuing to provide military aid to Israel. Perhaps “catastrophe” is a better word. Wed, 07 Oct 2026 13:16:32 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/articles/opinion/three-years-after-oct-7-are-there-any-words-left https://sojo.net/articles/opinion/tennessees-botched-executions-offer-no-justice-no-execution-does The recent botched attempted executions of Christa Pike and Tony Carruthers in Tennessee have laid bare what it is we are doing in my state in the name of justice—and people of faith are horrified by it. Mon, 05 Oct 2026 16:42:07 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/articles/opinion/tennessees-botched-executions-offer-no-justice-no-execution-does https://sojo.net/articles/opinion/my-coming-out-felt-more-inviting I was 20 years old before I told anyone else in my life that I had gender dysphoria. Or, as I said back then, “all these gender feelings.”It wasn’t that I didn’t want to tell anyone. Throughout many different seasons of my childhood and teen years, I’d tried to write letters and speeches to tell my parents and friends what I’d been experiencing. From what I’d absorbed in media, though, “coming out” was a dramatic proclamation. My understanding was that it meant you were confidently displaying your “true self” to the world—being “brave,” letting your flag fly, making a grand statement that said, “I’m here, this is me, and you’ve gotta deal with it.” To be sure, many people do not think about coming out this way—and in the years since that time, I’ve been moved by countless examples of coming out that occurred in gentler, more intimate ways. But that was what I had internalized then. Mon, 05 Oct 2026 15:03:55 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/articles/opinion/my-coming-out-felt-more-inviting https://sojo.net/articles/culture/new-documentary-shows-why-ccm-was-never-safe-whole-family We’ve seen it before: the tale of a Christian disillusioned with evangelicalism and its culture of exclusion. What we are still learning, however, is the assuredness with which Christian communities will shun one of their own—even one of their most skilled artists.Jason Ikeler’s new documentary Safe for the Whole Family: How to Make a Christian Superstar, which premiered Sept. 27 at the Nashville Film Festival, offers history and commentary on Contemporary Christian Music from authors and scholars including Leah Payne, Jane Hong, and Kristin Kobes du Mez. The film focuses on artists Jennifer Knapp, Nikki Leonti, and Michael Passons as they revisit their rise in the Christian music industry—and the blows dealt to them on their way out of evangelical spaces. Fri, 02 Oct 2026 19:07:51 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/articles/culture/new-documentary-shows-why-ccm-was-never-safe-whole-family https://sojo.net/articles/culture/train-green-lantern-way-he-should-go Toward the end of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, he notes that his young protégé Timothy will be visiting soon and goes out of his way to tell the church to be nice to him. “When Timothy comes, see that you put him at ease among you, for he is doing the work of the Lord” (16:10). Fri, 02 Oct 2026 14:05:36 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/articles/culture/train-green-lantern-way-he-should-go https://sojo.net/articles/opinion/your-churchs-liturgy-can-honor-trans-lives “You need to wait for people to catch up,” the pastor said.It was 2015, and I was visiting the church offices to talk with this pastor about changing parts of the liturgy to make it more inclusive for genderqueer parishioners in this open and affirming congregation. The well-meaning pastor’s response hung heavy in the church office. Over the first few years of my coming out as transgender in a Christian church, pastoral staff and close friends tried to be the community I needed them to be. But I needed more than this cisgender community was able to offer. Months later, the same pastor and I cried together as we concluded that I would find the all-encompassing, life-giving support I needed elsewhere. Wed, 30 Sep 2026 16:01:36 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/articles/opinion/your-churchs-liturgy-can-honor-trans-lives https://sojo.net/articles/news/wed-rather-be-prepared-faith-leaders-organize-ahead-tense-midterms Faith-based organizers across the U.S. are mobilizing with increasing fervor to protect the integrity of the 2026 midterm elections. Wed, 30 Sep 2026 13:32:53 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/articles/news/wed-rather-be-prepared-faith-leaders-organize-ahead-tense-midterms https://sojo.net/articles/culture/primetime-and-christian-politics-protecting-kids “What would have happened if I wasn’t here?” The question oozes out of Robert Pattinson’s Chris Hansen as a rhetorical killshot. Primetime, Lance Oppenheim’s movie about the rise and fall of Dateline NBC’s 2000s ratings juggernaut To Catch a Predator, depicts Hansen as savoring every syllable. Their “predator”—a creep lured onto a TV set disguised as a suburban home by a grownup posing as a teen in online chatrooms—is stunned by Hansen’s sudden appearance, shrinking under his righteous inquisition, and finally left to ponder his inhumanity as law enforcement swarms. This was the conceit of To Catch a Predator, the short-lived but enormously popular NBC show that partnered with an anti-child exploitation group called Perverted Justice to ensnare would-be pedophiles into online chatting, sexting, and, ultimately, visiting adults posing as underage teens. Once inside, the faux-teen “decoy” excuses themself before Hansen appears, armed with withering putdowns and transcripts of the lurid text exchanges. “I’m Chris Hansen with Dateline NBC,” he announces. “You see how this looks, right?” Tue, 29 Sep 2026 11:43:22 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/articles/culture/primetime-and-christian-politics-protecting-kids https://sojo.net/articles/culture-interview/american-doctor-takes-you-inside-interfaith-fight-save-palestinian-lives Director Poh Si Teng’s damning and incisive documentary, American Doctor, follows three American physicians and the medical work they do for those suffering in Gaza. Mon, 28 Sep 2026 14:40:43 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/articles/culture-interview/american-doctor-takes-you-inside-interfaith-fight-save-palestinian-lives https://sojo.net/articles/culture/joy-oladokun-hope-heavy-thing Living in an age where rage is a currency, where anything and everything is a financial stressor, and where our political machine’s main function is to sow division, clinging to positive platitudes like “Things will get better!” or “Just hold out hope!” can feel like an expression of wilful ignorance, or at best, stupid naivety. It’s hard, nearly impossible, to remain hopeful in such uncertain times; a feeling encapsulated in the fifth album from Joy Oladokun (they/she), fittingly titled Hope is a Heavy Thing. The Arizona-born singer-songwriter’s career has burgeoned from her pensive lyricism, a marriage of the personal and political: their Nigerian-Christian upbringing as a queer person in their 2019 single “Sunday”; the unique pain of the African-American experience in the piano-led pandemic anthem “Who Do I Turn To?”; or her dependence on self-medication in “Drugs.” Fri, 25 Sep 2026 05:50:18 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/articles/culture/joy-oladokun-hope-heavy-thing https://sojo.net/articles/opinion/pro-labor-gospel-back-ballot In the months leading up to the U.S. midterm elections and in the shadow of today’s headline-dominating Christian Right, a lost gospel is getting a new hearing. In red states across the country, devout Christians running for office on the Democratic ticket are making the case, as Jesus himself once put it, that “The laborer deserves to be paid” (Luke 10:7). Thu, 24 Sep 2026 09:11:17 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/articles/opinion/pro-labor-gospel-back-ballot https://sojo.net/articles/news/interfaith-coalition-brings-20000-names-children-killed-gaza-uns-doorstep Earlier this month, a coalition of advocacy groups unveiled the Gaza Children’s Shroud, a linen assemblage bearing the names of 20,000 children killed in Gaza between October 2023 and August 2025—a staggering physical testament that when laid end-to-end, is 328 feet long. The names were handwritten by nearly 50 congregations and organizations across the U.S. and nine in Ireland, including churches, mosques, Buddhist centers, interfaith, and secular groups. Wed, 23 Sep 2026 12:00:21 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/articles/news/interfaith-coalition-brings-20000-names-children-killed-gaza-uns-doorstep https://sojo.net/articles/opinion/partisan-priests-and-gospel-resentment “You know what happens if you don’t vote?” President Donald Trump asked the crowd gathered at the Republican midterm convention in Dallas. “You go to hell!” Mon, 21 Sep 2026 16:40:19 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/articles/opinion/partisan-priests-and-gospel-resentment https://sojo.net/articles/opinion/western-civilization-has-always-been-harmful-christian-lie The Emperor Constantine, who in the fourth century made Christianity an instrument of Roman imperial cohesion, valued Christianity for its capacity to unite an empire under his authority. For many oppressed Christians, this use of Christianity to build empires still exists today, yet in a different form. Today, empire-building is deployed through the language of protecting what many call “Western civilization.” And it is an empire-building strategy that has brought many Christians together across the religious lines that once divided them—Roman Catholic, Protestant, and even “cultural Christians”—as a new ecumenical movement. Scholars like Leonard A. Schuette call this political ideology “Western Civilizationism.” In this ideology, the primary unit of belonging is not the nation, the state, or the country, but a broader Western civilization: “the West is defined by a specific geographic territory, a shared ancestry, and Christianity.” For adherents of Western Civilizationism, Christianity is a crucial component for organizing a civilization’s culture and values. Any threat to their version of Christianity must be considered a threat to the West itself. Fri, 18 Sep 2026 13:44:37 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/articles/opinion/western-civilization-has-always-been-harmful-christian-lie https://sojo.net/articles/opinion/pilgrimage-annie-dillard Annie Dillard, one of the greatest American writers, considered her own first book on writing a failure. At least, she called it “dull” and told an interviewer that she “never should have published it.” Thu, 17 Sep 2026 11:07:30 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/articles/opinion/pilgrimage-annie-dillard https://sojo.net/articles/culture/live-laugh-love-untangles-politics-white-christian-women The walls are covered in shiplap paneling. Over by the spare toilet paper, an essential oil diffuser hums quietly as it emits Young Living’s “Purification” into the air. Two wide-eyed Precious Moments figurines watch you from the windowsill. A framed Bible verse declares, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord,” but you already knew you were in the bathroom of a white Christian woman; the signs and wonders were all around you. In Live Laugh Love: The Secret History of White Christian Women and the World They Made, Kristin Kobes Du Mez dissects those signs—and their political implications. Du Mez, a professor of history and gender studies at Calvin University, landed on The New York Times’ bestseller list for Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation, her scorching dissection of white evangelical masculinity. With Live Laugh Love, Du Mez turns her eye to white Christian femininity. Because, “demographically speaking, women are the center of American Christianity,” writes Du Mez, “we should look beyond denominational seminaries and theological treatises and read Christian romance novels instead.” Tue, 15 Sep 2026 16:22:23 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/articles/culture/live-laugh-love-untangles-politics-white-christian-women https://sojo.net/articles/opinion/how-write-opinion-piece-sojourners Thinking about writing an opinion piece for Sojourners? Great! We're always looking for new voices. Tue, 15 Sep 2026 10:09:54 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/articles/opinion/how-write-opinion-piece-sojourners https://sojo.net/articles/opinion/no-james-talarico-not-christian-nationalist In a 2023 sermon, Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico called Christian nationalism “a cancer on our religion” and denounced Republicans for trying to transform America into a “Christian theocracy.” Yet, at the same time, Talarico—a Presbyterian seminary student—has made his Christian faith a core message of his campaign. He mentions biblical teachings like “love thy neighbor” when discussing partisan division. He talks about the angel Gabriel appearing to Mary as a model for consent and a justification for abortion rights. To some, these positions may seem to be in tension. If you oppose Christian theocracy, how can you use Christian theology to justify your political positions in the public sphere? When Christian beliefs are presented as the moral arbiter of politics, isn’t that the definition of Christian nationalism? Mon, 14 Sep 2026 18:15:24 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/articles/opinion/no-james-talarico-not-christian-nationalist https://sojo.net/articles/opinion/after-25-years-we-must-let-love-cast-out-fear Most people remember exactly where they were on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. I was in Nairobi, Kenya, a full day removed from the moment everyone else calls “that morning.” Fri, 11 Sep 2026 12:54:28 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/articles/opinion/after-25-years-we-must-let-love-cast-out-fear https://sojo.net/articles/news/vatican-planning-117-million-pivot-renewable-energy The Vatican will build a roughly $117 million renewable energy plant that could power the Holy See within two years via a system combining solar power and agriculture, sources involved in discussions on the project said. The agrivoltaic plant is expected to have a capacity of 80 to 90 megawatts, making it one of Italy’s largest such installations, the sources added. In such plants, solar panels are mounted several meters above the ground so crops can grow beneath them, with the shade helping to reduce evaporation and shielding plants from extreme weather. A joint Italian-Vatican commission met earlier this month to launch the project at the Vatican-owned Santa Maria di Galeria estate on Rome’s northwestern outskirts, after Italy ratified a 2025 bilateral agreement for development of the site this year. Thu, 10 Sep 2026 14:36:52 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/articles/news/vatican-planning-117-million-pivot-renewable-energy https://sojo.net/articles/culture/what-evolution-means-being-made-gods-image Janet Kellogg Ray is on a mission as an evolution evangelist. Her two prior books, Baby Dinosaurs on the Ark? and The God of Monkey Science, show how she can run with any biblical narrative (Noah’s flood) or historical event (the COVID-19 pandemic), and use these as launch points for crash courses on fossilization, germ theory, and scientific methodology. In her new book, Fish with Feet, she not only places humans center stage in the story of evolution, but also sets out to explore how this impacts a core Christian doctrine enshrining the status and purpose of humans: the image of God. For many Christians, evolution threatens the concept of the imago Dei because it suggests we weren’t perfectly designed and set apart from animals by God. This is partly why apologetic enterprises like Answers in Genesis and the Institute for Creation Research exist to preserve our divine origins. Otherwise, these groups say we may as well toss out the Bible and act like animals. Fish with Feet challenges creationists directly but is primarily intended for those who grew up under their influence: Christians (deconstructed, deconverted, and otherwise) who grew up with little to no education related to evolution or an old Earth. This certainly works for folks like me, since I was homeschooled on creationism and intelligent design by Abeka Academy. Thu, 10 Sep 2026 12:27:56 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/articles/culture/what-evolution-means-being-made-gods-image https://sojo.net/articles/opinion/never-forget-easy-remembering-well-hard This September is filled with calls to collectively remember. It was one year ago, on Sept. 10, that conservative activist and Turning Point USA co-founder Charlie Kirk was killed at Utah Valley University. September 11, of course, marks 25 years since the attack on the World Trade Center towers in New York City. Amid these invitations to remember, I have wondered what it means, in this place and moment, to remember rightly. There is no doubt we remember these events. Yet, our memories differ. As the Catholic theologian Jean-Luc Marion writes, “Once things have happened, there remain only words.” Wed, 09 Sep 2026 12:36:58 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/articles/opinion/never-forget-easy-remembering-well-hard https://sojo.net/articles/culture/andrew-garfield-spiritual-power-and-peril-rage A humble ploughman walks across the countryside with a radical preacher and a former nun, with thousands of livid farmers and laborers following behind them. Together, the three travelers ponder the reason for the recent pandemic that swept across the land and killed half of the people they’ve ever known. “The sickness was [God’s] punishment for the crimes of the rich,” remarks the preacher, John Ball, rather matter-of-factly. “So why do we suffer also?” asks the ploughman. Wed, 09 Sep 2026 11:44:24 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/articles/culture/andrew-garfield-spiritual-power-and-peril-rage https://sojo.net/articles/news/idaho-pastor-found-guilty-trespassing-protest-anti-trans-bills Months after protestors wouldn’t leave the lobby of the Idaho governor’s office in an attempt to meet with him over anti-transgender bills, a jury on Tuesday found a local minister guilty on a misdemeanor trespassing charge. The jury found the Rev. Sara LaWall—who wore a clerical collar under a rainbow speckled blazer as she sat in court—guilty of trespassing after prosecutors said she remained in the governor’s office after being warned it was closed for the night during a protest of anti-trans bills this spring. After the jury delivered the verdict, LaWall, the minister for the Boise Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, told reporters that the possible prison sentence she could face would be less time than judges can dole out for violations of Idaho’s new criminal transgender bathroom ban. “That just feels wholly unfair and outsized and ridiculous,” LaWall told reporters after her trial. “… The jury found me guilty of staying in the governor’s office after being told to leave. I didn’t dispute those facts. But someone going to the bathroom now has a higher sentence, and that just feels so disproportionate and so wrong.” Wed, 02 Sep 2026 14:05:23 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/articles/news/idaho-pastor-found-guilty-trespassing-protest-anti-trans-bills https://sojo.net/articles/opinion/wendell-berry-comforted-me-through-my-gender-transition The late, great Wendell Berry found me at a unique time in my life: I was in the early stages of transitioning between genders. Up until that point, part of me had always assumed that I wouldn’t connect with Berry’s writing because the people who recommended it to me were usually vaguely conservative men who wanted to live self-sufficient agrarian lifestyles. These people certainly had softer sensibilities than the more overtly militaristic conservatives I knew, but nonetheless, it sometimes felt that their idyllic worldviews and theologies didn’t have much room for people like me. Wed, 02 Sep 2026 13:53:01 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/articles/opinion/wendell-berry-comforted-me-through-my-gender-transition https://sojo.net/articles/news/wendell-berry-voice-land-and-neighbor-dies-92 Wendell Berry, farmer, author, and activist died earlier this week. He was 92 years old. Berry’s death was first reported by The New York Times and confirmed by a statement sent to Sojourners by The Berry Center where his daughter, Mary Berry, serves as executive director. “The Berry Center and Berry family are heartbroken to announce the death of Wendell Erdman Berry, writer and farmer of Port Royal, Henry County, Kentucky. He passed suddenly and peacefully at home yesterday afternoon, August 31st,” the statement read. “His work continues, here and in every place where people aim to live according to nature’s measure, on and with and of their beloved home place.” Tue, 01 Sep 2026 17:18:24 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/articles/news/wendell-berry-voice-land-and-neighbor-dies-92 https://sojo.net/articles/opinion/most-welcoming-church-will-let-you-leave Churches are obsessed with doors. Churches bless these doors, paint them red, hold them open, photograph them, and put welcome signs on them. We tell the frightened person, the estranged child, the gay man, the addict, the doubter, the refugee, the person who has been made to feel impossible: Come in; there is a place for you here. I believe in that sentence. But to the end of that greeting we should add: “and you can leave whenever you want.” Tue, 01 Sep 2026 12:40:51 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/articles/opinion/most-welcoming-church-will-let-you-leave https://sojo.net/articles/culture/our-most-anticipated-movies-fall-and-winter Try as my mother did to instill the chronology of the liturgical calendar in me, I’ve instead opted to track the passage of time by the movie release calendar. Right now, we’re in anything but Ordinary Time. What thrills me about the fall and winter movie season is that, for the most part, the movies released in this window are the ones that will be in the conversation for the rest of the year (and even into the new year), whether it’s because they’re nominated for awards or just remain people’s personal favorites. It was around this time last year when I saw visions like Frankenstein, No Other Choice, Train Dreams, and Wake Up Dead Man. That’s not to say the movies of the summer and early months aren’t without substance or provocation (I still find myself thinking about scenes from 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, Leviticus, Disclosure Day, and, of course, The Odyssey). Maybe it’s something about the liturgical motions of the season itself, the way we move from bright days to crisp nights to winter chills, that makes the films that come out during this time weightier and cozier, a cinematic hearth that burns on the fuel of new releases. Fri, 28 Aug 2026 13:59:19 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/articles/culture/our-most-anticipated-movies-fall-and-winter https://sojo.net/articles/news/israel-denies-entry-delegation-palestinian-liberation-theology-center For the first time, a delegation with the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center was denied entry to Israel earlier this month. Sabeel, a registered nonprofit based in East Jerusalem, has nearly 40 years of history in the region. In the past three years, the group has welcomed more than 450 people in delegations and pilgrimages to the Holy Land. These trips are “learning experiences” for everyone involved, said Omar Haramy, director of Sabeel. They are inspired by the Bible’s repeated instructions to “come and see,” and “go and tell,” he said. The delegation of 13 travelers, all American citizens, was coordinated by Rev. Ed Phillips and Rev. Sara Webb Phillips, married United Methodist ministers from Atlanta, Ga. On Aug. 13, the group was entering Israel—nine delegates had been admitted into the country when border agents suddenly ordered them to re-enter the processing area, then detained the whole group in a holding room in the terminal at Sheikh Hussein Bridge. Thu, 27 Aug 2026 11:41:40 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/articles/news/israel-denies-entry-delegation-palestinian-liberation-theology-center https://sojo.net/articles/culture/dolly-parton-gave-me-courage-outgrow-my-faith-community At 28, I resigned from my dream job, packed up my life and made the 24-hour drive from Gilbert, Ariz., to Nashville, Tenn. I had wanted to work for a big Catholic ministry since high school when I went to a youth conference and saw speakers giving passionate sermons about how God changed their lives and could change mine too. Wed, 26 Aug 2026 15:14:18 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/articles/culture/dolly-parton-gave-me-courage-outgrow-my-faith-community https://sojo.net/articles/news/hes-suing-his-employer-violating-his-religious-right-climate-care A new lawsuit hopes to win religious accommodations for millions of American workers who wish to request fossil fuel-free retirement plans from their employers. Andrew Hartley, a Christian and statistical scientist, is suing his employer Thermo Fisher, arguing that Thermo “unlawfully forced him to compromise his religious values in order to receive the full benefits of his employment.” Brought by the environmental action group ClientEarth, the lawsuit claims that the Supreme Court’s Groff v. DeJoy ruling in 2023 means Thermo Fisher is violating Hartley’s religious liberty by not offering a retirement plan that doesn’t invest in fossil fuels. Wed, 26 Aug 2026 13:42:00 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/articles/news/hes-suing-his-employer-violating-his-religious-right-climate-care https://sojo.net/articles/opinion/parable-internet-bots A synthetic chorus has taken root across so much of the online world that it is getting difficult to tell the difference between human voices and manufactured ones. With the 2026 midterm elections approaching, the incentive to flood public spaces with manufactured consensus will only grow. In an age of astroturf-filled message boards, I would argue that the greater danger is the impulse to hunt for bots. Astroturfing is an activity performed by a person or a group in order to generate the surface texture of reasonable speech, but to do so in a way that overwhelms the ordinary human capacity to slow down and make appropriate judgments. The result is a culture of interpretation that begins with triage, where we read less for meaning and more for signs of inauthenticity; where the first question is whether the voice in front of us is even a person. Hunting for bots trains us to view the world with an extra amount of suspicion; a suspicion that deepens our collective alienation. Jesus’ parable about the weeds among the wheat offers our culture an important lesson in how to press toward face-to-face interactions that will make neighborliness possible again. Tue, 25 Aug 2026 16:02:26 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/articles/opinion/parable-internet-bots https://sojo.net/articles/news/ice-detains-beloved-haitian-pastor-ohio Immigration and Customs Enforcement has detained a “beloved” Springfield, Ohio, pastor Thursday morning, according to a local faith-based organization. G92, which advocates for their immigrant neighbors, said in a news release that agents detained Gilbert Joubert Adrien at a South Limestone Street gas station Aug. 20. Mon, 24 Aug 2026 10:02:29 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/articles/news/ice-detains-beloved-haitian-pastor-ohio https://sojo.net/articles/interview/catherine-meeks-says-christians-need-solidarity-not-racial-reconciliation I was born into a church in Chicago that was founded by fathers of the “racial reconciliation” movement in American Evangelicalism. Led by those such as the late John Perkins, racial reconciliation aimed to encourage primarily Black and white interracial relationships meant to reconcile people to each other and to God, in a post-Civil Rights Movement (but still deeply segregated) U.S. I was taught to understand reconciliation as a ministry, as Paul advises in 2 Corinthians 5, where Jesus bestows the “ministry of reconciliation” onto the church. As I grew up, I found the concept linguistically and historically fraught—misguided at best and destructive at worst. Reconciliation among contemporary racial groups implies a historical moment of racial harmony; the U.S. has none. Whatever Perkins and others envisioned for the movement, white evangelicals and others began to bypass the need for actual systemic change in favor of emphasizing spiritual harmony and claiming that the only way to true racial unity is through Christianity. Thu, 20 Aug 2026 09:42:49 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/articles/interview/catherine-meeks-says-christians-need-solidarity-not-racial-reconciliation https://sojo.net/articles/opinion/omniscience-does-not-belong-state On Jan. 24, 2025, U.S. Border Patrol stopped Samuel Tunick at the Hartsfield-Jackson Airport in Atlanta and demanded to search his phone. Tunick was part of the “Defend the Atlanta Forest” movement in Atlanta, opposed to the development of a police training center dubbed “Cop City.” He has been charged with a felony for giving a customs officer a duress passcode that deleted the contents of his phone when the officer entered it. Not only is the case chilling because of the aggressive nature of the prosecution, but also because the federal government wants to assume characteristics that are typically reserved for God. The point of government surveillance is not merely to know everything, but to fundamentally change what we do. Wed, 19 Aug 2026 15:03:10 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/articles/opinion/omniscience-does-not-belong-state https://sojo.net/magazine/september-october-2026/church-wilderness A LOT OF FOLKS on the Appalachian Trail come out here to escape something: a failed relationship, they got fired, they’re going through cancer, or they’ve recovered from cancer. They’ve gotten out of the military. You name it. We wanted to bring the church from the four walls out into the wilderness, to be among people walking the trail who are dealing with all that life throws out. Wed, 19 Aug 2026 13:56:51 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/september-october-2026/church-wilderness https://sojo.net/articles/news/philippines-christians-seek-justice-after-toboso-killings After the Armed Forces of the Philippines shot and killed 19 people in Toboso, Negros Occidental, Philippines, Christian clergy have been active in efforts to seek truth and justice for the slain, including one they knew intimately as a colleague in social justice. Lyle Prijoles was a Filipino American activist who worked alongside many Christian clergy in the U.S. Bay Area. Prijoles was in the Philippines working with sugarcane workers when he was one of the 19 killed—the Armed Forces have claimed that all those slain on April 19 were members of the New People’s Army, a revolutionary, armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines. But that account has been disputed. The Communist Party of the Philippines has claimed only 10 were part of the NPA. Grassroots organizations and independent fact-finding missions have found the same; Prijoles was one of at least nine people reported to be civilians. In the months following those deaths, many of those who once organized with Prijoles have joined in the resounding call for justice. In the months since, 11 members of Congress have called on the Philippine government to conduct an independent, impartial investigation into the killings. One of the groups that sought to perform such an investigation included several Christian clergy from the Philippines and the U.S. Tue, 18 Aug 2026 15:19:13 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/articles/news/philippines-christians-seek-justice-after-toboso-killings https://sojo.net/magazine/september-october-2026/consuming-news-without-letting-it-consume-you IT’S JULY 2017. I’m watching The Rachel Maddow Show while on a visit to my parents in Las Vegas. Maddow gives a long monologue detailing the background of a Trump administration official. She’s 15 minutes in before she explains why listeners should care. I don’t remember the details. I do remember yelling at the TV that Maddow needed to stop burying the lead. I would definitely fail her in introductory newswriting.I also remember marveling at how my hippie libertarian father had transformed from a George W. Bush voter into a Maddow devotee. My dad started watching MSNBC after he became disillusioned with the second Iraq War, first religiously watching political commentator Keith Olbermann, then Maddow. Like many cable news viewers, he relished their emotional delivery, particularly their outrage and “can you believe this” shtick. Stuck at home due to a prolonged, terminal illness, he watched for hours and came to share their outrage. He voted Democrat for the first time in 2004, at age 50. Over time, even my father’s most strongly held views shifted.Fast forward to May 2025. As part of my academic research on Christian nationalism, I’m in Phoenix attending Freedom Night with Turning Point USA Founder Charlie Kirk. The event is held in the massive auditorium of Dream City Church. The woman sitting behind me sings joyously off key during the 15 minutes of worship music. Now she’s chirping along to Kirk’s commentary with amens and Fox News-isms, such as “Sleepy Joe.” Mon, 17 Aug 2026 15:47:02 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/september-october-2026/consuming-news-without-letting-it-consume-you https://sojo.net/articles/opinion/how-survive-christian-college-queer-student In the fall of 2013, my family drove from the city of Boston to Greenville, S.C. We visited Charleston, S.C., where Confederate flags could still be seen at government buildings and all over Fort Sumter. As I walked through the city in the humid southern heat, I thought about the negative aspects of white culture in the South—racism, misogyny, and homophobia. I continued thinking about those things as we pulled into the school my parents chose for me: Bob Jones University. A little less than a mile away, at a Jack in the Box, I had stepped into the restroom to trade my shorts and tank top for a tan maxi dress and sweater, well aware my knees and shoulders would not be a tolerated sight at the ultra-fundamentalist university. Besides knowing about the dress code, I went in unprepared for the dynamic cultural shift I was about to experience. Thu, 13 Aug 2026 17:34:20 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/articles/opinion/how-survive-christian-college-queer-student https://sojo.net/articles/culture/how-christians-learned-wrong-story-about-leprosy One day, after washing the feet and hands of men and women with leprosy, Angela of Foligno, the 13th-century saint and mystic, ate a leperous sore. “We drank the very water with which we had washed him,” she writes. “And the drink was so sweet that, all the way home, we tasted its sweetness and it was as if we had received Holy Communion. As a small scale of the leper’s sores was stuck in my throat, I tried to swallow it. My conscience would not let me spit it out, just as if I had received Holy Communion.” On the one hand, it’s a radical testament: that all bodies are holy, and those most marginalized and considered “unclean” are Christ’s truest flesh. But on the other hand—what was the man with leprosy thinking in that moment as he watched Angela do this? What was his story, his life, his human experience that Angela saw as a gateway to God? Wed, 12 Aug 2026 13:28:53 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/articles/culture/how-christians-learned-wrong-story-about-leprosy https://sojo.net/articles/news/white-sox-get-38000-people-dress-pope-lose-anyway The White Sox beating the Cincinnati Reds this week in Chicago? There isn’t a bigger sure thing in sports, right? Come on. Is the pope Catholic? More to the point, is the pope a White Sox fan from Chicago? As if that kind of divine firepower doesn’t already suggest some kind of winged assist from above for the White Sox’s sudden ascent into playoff contention this year after averaging 108 losses the past three, the White Sox promotions department rubbed it in with the Reds’ arrival to town for a series. They brought out a nun for the ceremonial first pitch of the series and gave away “pope hats” to fans who shrugged off inclement weather forecasts to produce only the ninth sellout of the season at the Sox ballpark with 38,000 Pope Leo impersonators wearing their new hats for the beer-boosted, fun-loving – if perhaps a tad sacrilegious – promotion. Wed, 12 Aug 2026 10:28:57 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/articles/news/white-sox-get-38000-people-dress-pope-lose-anyway https://sojo.net/articles/culture/netflixs-little-house-prairie-more-adaptation There's an early moment in the new Little House on the Prairie series that I keep thinking about. Mon, 10 Aug 2026 14:53:43 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/articles/culture/netflixs-little-house-prairie-more-adaptation https://sojo.net/articles/news/will-idahos-law-criminalizing-transgender-bathroom-use-affect-churches Progressive religious leaders in Idaho are pushing back against a new state law that would force transgender people to use bathrooms aligned with their sex assigned at birth, a measure that is partially on hold following a preliminary injunction issued in June. House Bill 752, which was scheduled to go into full effect on July 1, would require people to use bathrooms, locker rooms and other sex-segregated facilities matching their sex at birth, with criminal penalties for those who don’t comply. Six transgender Idahoans challenged the law in federal court, and a federal judge issued a temporary order predicting it would not survive legal scrutiny. The injunction also ruled that transgender people can use restrooms of their choosing if a single stall restroom is not readily available. The state’s attorney general said he plans to appeal. Although the law is backed by conservative Christians and was drafted by a legislature that opens most meetings with a Christian prayer, many progressive religious leaders have said it is unrepresentative of their faith and are speaking out against it. Some are also wrestling with separate questions: Does the bill apply to religious institutions, and should it? Mon, 10 Aug 2026 11:09:39 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/articles/news/will-idahos-law-criminalizing-transgender-bathroom-use-affect-churches https://sojo.net/articles/news/catholic-nuns-dont-have-comply-medical-aid-dying Several Catholic nursing homes in New York, including two in Westchester County, won’t have to comply with the state's newly-enacted Medical Aid in Dying Act while their lawsuit against it is underway. Thu, 06 Aug 2026 14:39:41 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/articles/news/catholic-nuns-dont-have-comply-medical-aid-dying https://sojo.net/articles/news/ice-says-detainees-have-religious-freedom-faith-leaders-dont-see-it Walking into the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Delaney Hall detention facility in New Jersey, Rev. Robin Tanner quickly noticed that the windows were blocked off. Tanner, a Unitarian Universalist minister in Summit, N.J., pointed out one issue for people inside: “For many people in their faith tradition, [prayer] is a daily act,” she said. Muslims are instructed to face the city of Mecca during their five daily prayers, and a Muslim detainee wouldn’t have any way to know which direction to pray. But for months, Amadou, a father and truck driver from Burkina Faso, whose full name Sojourners is withholding for his safety, struggled to convince guards to let him pray with other detainees at all. In Islam, Friday prayers, or salat al-Jumu’ah, are not only obligatory for every nondisabled man but are required to be performed in congregation. Amadou was detained 16 months ago and transferred to New Jersey last year. In Delaney Hall, it took four months for Amadou and other Muslim detainees to gain access to occasional gatherings for Friday prayer, finally prevailing in time for Ramadan. ICE has a stated duty to provide spiritual care for those in its custody. According to ICE manuals, detainees must be provided with “regular opportunities to participate in practices of their religious faiths, limited only by a documented threat to the safety of persons involved in such activity itself or disruption of order in the facility.” As ICE continues to fail even its own guidance, a host of faith leaders have emerged to chip away at the agency’s spiritual blockade of those in its custody. Wed, 05 Aug 2026 14:38:29 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/articles/news/ice-says-detainees-have-religious-freedom-faith-leaders-dont-see-it https://sojo.net/articles/ag-nominee-tells-faith-leaders-he-will-seek-restrict-abortion-drug-access Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche is one step closer to confirmation after the Republican Judiciary Committee voted to advance his appointment on a party-line vote on Tuesday, and based on promises he made to faith leaders around the country last week, that means national anti-abortion actions may be one step closer as well. In a conference call hosted by the White House Faith Office on July 30 with thousands of religious leaders around the country, Blanche said he was committed to achieving policy solutions so that the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision “becomes permanent in every single state.” A recording of the call was publicly available on YouTube as of Tuesday, posted by Intercessors of America, a religious group in Virginia, but was removed by late Tuesday afternoon. Tue, 04 Aug 2026 17:15:43 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/articles/ag-nominee-tells-faith-leaders-he-will-seek-restrict-abortion-drug-access https://sojo.net/articles/culture/brand-new-day-makes-peace-powers-surveillance Midway through Spider-Man: Brand New Day, Peter Parker (Tom Holland) needs to track down the escaped villain Scorpion, so he tells his NYPD contact, Detective Jean DeWolff (Liza Colón-Zayas), that he’s going to hack every security camera in New York City to find his face. Tue, 04 Aug 2026 12:15:30 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/articles/culture/brand-new-day-makes-peace-powers-surveillance https://sojo.net/articles/news/ice-moving-more-quietly-clergy-resistance-not Bee Moorhead was surprised by the turnout at a July 7 press conference in San Antonio, calling for free and fair elections. The event was simple: a group of clergy, standing in front of San Fernando Cathedral on the city’s Main Plaza, announcing their intention to ask individual lawmakers to sign commitments to defend constitutional voting rights. Important work, she knew, but not usually the stuff of headlines. Moorhead has been organizing clergy around the state as executive director of Texas Impact for more than 20 years, and she said she’s accustomed to being all but ignored by the media and everyone else. “Faith leaders all over the country, and certainly in Texas, keep speaking up and what comes back is, ‘Why aren’t you saying anything?’” she said. But suddenly, there were microphones and cameras. People were listening to what the group of interfaith pastors, imams, rabbis, and priests were saying about the need to protect voting rights. Something was changing. Moorhead had launched the policy initiative and called the press conference in coordination with national interfaith organizing group Faith In Us, which formed after clergy from multiple faiths in Minneapolis and St. Paul took a visible role in the resistance movement during Operation Metro Surge. In January, when Immigration and Customs Enforcement was overwhelming the Twin Cities, clergy there began to call for sustained national mobilization of their peers. Faith leaders invited colleagues from around the country to come and train with community organizers and unions in Minneapolis. Mon, 03 Aug 2026 14:12:38 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/articles/news/ice-moving-more-quietly-clergy-resistance-not