WASHINGTON (RNS)—Fewer Christians fleeing persecution in their native countries have found a safe harbor in the United States in the past half-decade, according to a new report from a pair of Christian nonprofits.

The report cites the effects of the pandemic and the dismantling of U.S. refugee resettlement programs during the Trump administration.

The report, “Closed Doors,” found the number of Christians coming to the United States from countries named on a prominent persecution watchlist dropped from 32,248 in 2016 to 9,528 in 2022—a 70 percent decline.

The number of Christian refugees from Myanmar dropped from 7,634 in 2016 to 587 in 2022, while the number of Christian refugees from Iran dropped from 2,086 in 2016 to 112 in 2022.

Christian refugees from Eritrea dropped from 1,639 in 2016 to 252 in 2022, while refugees from Iraq dropped from 1,524 to 93 during the same timeframe.

All four countries are among the 50 nations on the annual World Watch List published by Open Doors, an international Christian charity that tracks persecution. The new report was written by Open Doors and World Relief, an evangelical charity that resettles refugees.

“The tragic reality is that many areas of the world simply aren’t safe for Christians, and Christians fleeing persecution need a safe haven in the United States,” the report stated.

Religious persecution on the rise

The decline in Christian refugees comes at a time when the persecution against Christians is on the rise, said Ryan Brown, CEO of Open Doors.

According to the Watch List released earlier this year, about 360 million Christians face what Open Doors calls “high levels of discrimination and persecution.” That’s up from 260 million reported in a 2020 edition of the “Closed Doors” report. Much of the increase has come in sub-Saharan Africa, he said, driven by political instability and internal conflict in countries like Nigeria.

“Tragically, that’s the area where we are seeing the most intense violence as it relates to persecution,” said Brown.

Many Christians in countries where there is persecution want to stay there, often feeling called to minister in difficult situations, Brown said. But some are forced to flee.

In 2016, according to the “Closed Doors” report, 32,248 refugees from countries on Open Doors’ World Watch were resettled in the United States. That number dropped to 11,528 in 2018 and then to 5,390 in 2020.

Refugee resettlement numbers declined

While persecution is on the rise, both the annual refugee ceiling set by the U.S. president each fall and the total number of refugees resettled yearly in the United States have dropped. In 2016, according to the “Closed Doors” report, about 97,000 refugees were resettled.

That number declined to just under 23,000 in 2018. Canada, despite having a much smaller population, managed to resettle about 28,000 refugees that year.

“In the calendar year 2020, the U.S. resettled fewer than 10,000 refugees for the first time in the resettlement program’s history,” the report stated.

The lowering of the refugee ceiling began under President Trump, and the sudden drop, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, dismantled much of the infrastructure needed to resettle refugees, including the work done in the United States by faith-based groups, including World Relief, Church World Service, and HIAS, the latter founded as the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society.

In 2021, President Biden set the refugee ceiling at 15,000—the lowest since the passage of the 1980 Refugee Act, which sets the parameters for the current refugee resettlement system. That ceiling was later raised to 65,000 after faith groups protested.

This past year, the ceiling was set at 125,000. However, the United States only resettled about 60,000 refugees in fiscal year 2023, according to the “Closed Doors” report.

That shortfall is due in large part to the aftereffects of the pandemic, said Matt Soerens, director of church mobilization for World Relief. The screening process for refugees, which takes years, was shut down during the pandemic and was slow to restart.

World Relief, which has resettled just over 7,000 people during the past year, including refugees from Afghanistan and Iraqis with Special Immigrant Visas, and the other resettlement agencies closed down offices and laid off staff when the refugee resettlement program shut down. Restarting those offices and adding staff has taken time as the agencies rebuild their domestic infrastructure.

“We are expanding,” he said. “I wish I could have the confidence to expand even more, but it’s very expensive to raise the space and hire staff and then have to lay them all off three years later.”

Calling the resettling of 60,000 refugees a sign of progress, Soerens credits the Biden administration with helping the agencies to rebuild the overseas resettlement infrastructure, but added, “They didn’t start nearly as quickly as we would have liked them to.”

Need for continuing progress in refugee resettlement

Part of the impetus for the “Closed Doors” report, he said, was to put pressure on the Biden administration to continue that progress.

Soerens said that he hopes in the future, the refugee resettlement program will be more stable. For years, he said, the program enjoyed bipartisan support and was seen as a source of pride for American leaders—and a sign America was living up to its ideals.

“We’ve had a history of being a refuge for those fleeing persecution for any number of reasons, among them, religious persecution,” he said. “I think that we’re at risk of losing that.”

While the report focuses primarily on Christian refugees, resettlement groups also worry about those from minority faiths, including Jews and Yazidis, who have “largely been shut out of refugee resettlement in recent years,” according to the report.

“As Christians, we believe that all people have the right to religious freedom and that religious minorities of any sort—not just those who share our Christian faith—should be protected,” the report said.

Brown said that some of his fellow Christians may have lost sight of the importance of refugee resettlement, in part because of the current polarization over immigration and the surge of asylum seekers and migrants at the border.

They may not be aware restricting refugees affects persecuted Christians, he said.

In the 1950s, when Open Doors was founded, the concern was mostly about religious persecution behind the Iron Curtain. The group’s late founder, Andrew van der Bijl, better known as Brother Andrew, spent years smuggling Bibles into Communist countries.

Today, persecution continues under authoritarian regimes, but it also happens in countries where there’s internal conflict and strife, Brown said. And while countries like China have experienced economic prosperity, he added, that prosperity hasn’t been accompanied by the expansion of human rights.

Brown hopes the report will lead Christians to pray and to assist refugees when they arrive in the United States. He also hopes they will support refugee resettlement programs.

“We’d love to see America take its place again on that global stage—to be that beacon of freedom and religious liberty.”

WASHINGTON (RNS)—The National Association of Evangelicals has launched a new resource to help Christians assess where they stand on racial justice and then take appropriate next steps to further race relations.

The online Racial Justice Assessment tool, posted on the organization’s website Sept. 25, is designed to provide users with suggestions of books, videos, articles and online courses to consider based on their answers to a brief survey about racism and equality.

Recommendations include books by best-selling Christian authors Jemar Tisby and Tim Keller, the writings of Ta-Nehisi Coates and Martin Luther King Jr., a video on race in the United States by VeggieTales creator Phil Vischer and a New York Times video series on conversations about race with people of different racial and ethnic groups.

“We at the NAE have developed this tool to help you explore opportunities for growth and to engage in topics that might challenge, encourage and inspire you,” said NAE President Walter Kim in a brief video message that welcomes viewers to the three-minute assessment.

“The Bible teaches the essential dignity of all humans and our shared desire to live in community. Yet the reality of sin results in the denigration, alienation and injustice that we see before us.”

The NAE hired Mekdes Haddis last year as project director of its new Racial Justice and Reconciliation Collaborative.

She said she has spent months meeting with representatives of some of the dozens of NAE member denominations and other partners to learn what would be most helpful. Some said they wanted to “help people realize that they lack an understanding” of race-related matters or hoped participants would be convinced to get more engaged on topics of racial justice.

“We didn’t really want to recreate the wheel,” said Haddis, in an interview with Religion News Service. “We wanted to bridge a gap that was existing.”

She said the tool is designed for people who’ve already read a book or watched a webinar and want to move on to next steps but also for those who haven’t taken any steps yet.

“Whether you’re curious and kind of unengaged or suspicious or whether you’re very excitingly pursuing justice,” she said, “for everybody, we’re recommending a step forward.”

Gaps between religious groups on racial issues

Recent research has shown gaps between how different religious groups view racial matters, including when they are asked which is the bigger problem in the U.S.: people overlooking racism when it exists or seeing racism where none exists.

Majorities of white evangelicals (72 percent), as well as white Catholics (60 percent) and white mainline Protestants (54 percent), told Pew Research Center that claims about racism where there is none was the bigger issue. Far fewer Black Protestants (10 percent), non-Christian religious Americans (31 percent) and unaffiliated Americans (35 percent) agreed.

Haddis, who is an Ethiopian American, said she hopes the assessment and the recommended resources will give participants a sense of what is being said inside and beyond church circles about these issues.

“We felt like it was important to engage in what’s happening outside of our Christian bubble,” she said.

The collaborative hopes to continue to expand its offerings, including a fall retreat for Black and Indigenous people of color that aims to provide “spiritual encouragement” for evangelical leaders who work on racial justice and reconciliation, lead predominantly white organizations or are involved in starting multiethnic churches.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This article contains a reference to bodily mutilation of children.

LYNCHBURG, Va. (RNS)—A collection of state legislators and local government officials from across the country gathered in southern Virginia this summer with one unifying purpose.

They’re members of the National Association of Christian Lawmakers, which in past years has distributed at least 15 pieces of model legislation to conservative lawmakers in various states—measures to ban abortion, restrict “gender-affirming” care and condemn gay marriage.

The group’s goal is to change the social fabric of the country and return America to what it says are its Judeo-Christian origins, and members are capitalizing on the momentum that the long-sought end of Roe v. Wade has given them to pass their vision of biblically informed law.

Jason Rapert, a former Arkansas state senator, founded the group in 2019. He pushed for construction of a Ten Commandments monument at the Arkansas Statehouse and has opposed gay marriage.

He describes the National Association of Christian Lawmakers as a place for lawmakers to debate, construct and distribute model legislation from a “biblical worldview.”

“We believe that with all the troubles facing our country, with Democrats and leftists that are advocating cutting penises off of little boys and breasts off of little girls, we have reached a level of debauchery and immorality that is at biblical proportions,” Rapert said in an interview with News21.

National Association of Christian Lawmakers members must sign a pledge voicing their opposition to gay marriage, affirming belief in life at conception and endorsing the idea that Christianity shaped America and made it what it is today.

Well-connected and well-financed

The nascent group is well-connected. Funders have donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the effort, and Rapert has wooed U.S. congressional representatives, prominent lobbyists and GOP officials to serve on his board of advisers and to speak at meetings.

The organization also receives funding from conservative legal powerhouses such as the Alliance Defending Freedom, First Liberty Institute and similar outfits.

National Association of Christian Lawmakers members have advanced legislation at the forefront of America’s culture wars, from Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill to South Carolina’s six-week abortion ban.

Texas’ 2021 abortion ban, which allows private citizens to sue providers and those assisting people seeking abortions, was sponsored by National Association of Christian Lawmakers member Sen. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola.

The National Association of Christian Lawmakers adopted that bill as model legislation. Seven of 12 similar bills introduced in statehouses across the country and reviewed by News21 were sponsored or co-sponsored by legislators who are now association members.

A myriad of special interest groups organize meetings for lawmakers and distribute model bills. But the National Association of Christian Lawmakers is unique in its scope.

Republican state Rep. John McCravy of South Carolina said he joined because of the organization’s focus on social issues such as abortion and gay marriage. At the core of McCravy’s beliefs is the idea that Christianity should be at the center of how the United States is governed.

“There’s nothing wrong with being a Christian in office,” he said. “There’s nothing wrong with taking values that are revered and applying them to government. … That was what all our laws are founded on anyway.”

Guard separation of church and state

But those ideas have been contested by people of faith and secular advocates who say specific religious beliefs shouldn’t govern all Americans. They’re also not popular with the broader American public, a majority of whom believe the government should enforce the separation between church and state, according to the Pew Research Center.

Holly Hollman, general counsel of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, is one such critic.

“I think the idea that the government is the best to evangelize what we think religiously is a terrible idea,” she said. “Christians have had a great impact on the law in the history of America, but we’ve never been a Christian nation officially, legally.”

Hollman said making laws shaped by a legislator’s view of Christian values can be harmful for both the government and people of faith because it erodes the separation of church and state.

That phrase was popularized by Thomas Jefferson in a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association of Connecticut in 1802. He wrote that the establishment clause in the Constitution created a “wall of separation” between religion and government.

But for some, the separation of church and state doesn’t prohibit established religious beliefs from becoming law.

“It doesn’t say there’s a separation of church and state. There’s nothing in the U.S. Constitution that says that. A lot of people think there is, but there’s not,” McCravy said. “However, it does say that we are not to establish a state religion.”

‘A spiritual battle’

In June, the National Association of Christian Lawmakers held a national policy conference at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va. Home to the late Moral Majority founder Jerry Falwell, the city is an important place for Christian conservatives.

Standing in front of a large sign with the phrase “In God We Trust” emblazoned across it, Rapert kicked off the livestreamed portion of the conference.

“Beginning tomorrow, you’re going to be engaging not only in policy discussion, my friends, you’re going to be engaging in spiritual battle,” he said.

Throughout the conference, lawmakers discussed and proposed modifications to a number of model bills and resolutions that would ban gender-affirming care, condemn gay marriage and enshrine fetal personhood.

In all, the group approved eight new model bills. News21 requested copies of the measures from Rapert, but he did not respond.

Rapert said his group doesn’t track the effectiveness of its model bills, nor does it know the number of times they’ve been introduced in state legislatures.

The organization’s rise comes at a time when a right-leaning U.S. Supreme Court has delivered ruling after ruling advancing Christian influence in public life and limiting anti-discrimination laws.

These decisions have created an opportunity for religious conservatives to push toward incorporating more conservative Christian views into law, which members of the National Association of Christian Lawmakers hope to do nationwide.

“We believe that America would be better served by Christians serving in public office at every level in the United States,” Rapert said.

This report is part of “America After Roe,” an examination of the impact of the reversal of Roe v. Wade on health care, culture, policy and people, produced by Carnegie-Knight News21.

WASHINGTON (RNS)—Over the past two years, a group of influential evangelical leaders broke away from their churches or denominations, mostly over their congregations’ solid support for former President Donald Trump and, more generally, conservative politics and messaging.

The moves by such people as theologian Russell Moore and Bible study teacher Beth Moore suggested deepening cracks between established evangelical leaders and ordinary believers.

But a new study published in the latest issue of Politics and Religion, a quarterly journal, shows there’s no evidence white evangelical clergy are less conservative politically than their congregations.

In fact, the survey found, white evangelical clergy are as conservative, if not more so, as the people in their pews.

The study, by Duke University sociologist Mark Chaves and postdoctoral research associate Joseph Roso, finds that 74 percent of white evangelicals reported that their political views were about the same as most people in their congregations.

Only 12 percent of white evangelical clergy said they were more liberal than their congregants, and 13 percent said they were more conservative.

“It really counters this idea that there are a lot of evangelical clergy who are more liberal than their people,” said Chaves.

The only other group where clergy and congregants neatly align is Black Protestants; 70 percent of Black clergy said they hold the same views as their congregants. But unlike white evangelicals, Black clergy and churchgoers are far more liberal and tend to vote for Democrats.

Consistent with decades of past data, the new study also shows a deep political gap between the views of clergy in more liberal Protestant denominations, as well as the views of Catholic priests and their parishioners.

More than half (53 percent) of mainline Protestant clergy say they are more liberal or much more liberal than their congregants. Among Catholic priests, 52 percent said they were more liberal than their parishioners.

The study relies on data from the National Survey of Religious Leaders conducted in 2018-2019, and the 2018 General Social Survey. The survey included responses from leaders across many religious traditions, but the study focused on a sample of 846 Christian clergy arranged in four different groups: evangelicals, Black Protestants, mainline Protestants and Catholics.

Those clergy were asked, “How would you compare your own political views to those held by most people in your congregation?” They were then asked who they voted for in the 2016 presidential race between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

Researchers then compared those answers to data from the General Social Survey on how monthly churchgoers in those four Christian groups voted for Trump in 2016.

Chaves pointed out that mainline Protestants have been considerably more liberal than their congregants for a long time—dating back to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s when many mainline clergy spoke out in support of justice and equality for Blacks and later publicly opposed the Vietnam War.

What isn’t clear from the study is whether evangelical pastors have long been politically aligned with their congregants or if that’s a more recent phenomenon. Chaves said there is no good national representative surveys to document that.

The survey suggests clergy who are more in sync with their congregants find it easier to mobilize as a political base into a potent constituency. And of course, white evangelicals have become arguably the most influential voting bloc in the Republican Party.

Many evangelical pastors embraced politics

Many evangelical pastors have embraced politics, railing about perceived threats from the secular world and using social media to expand their reach.

“It speaks to why the religious right is more politically effective,” Chaves said. “The more liberal-leaning clergy are in churches where the people aren’t with them.”

The study did not speculate on why white evangelicals were much more likely to be on the same page politically with their church members, but Paul Djupe, a political scientist at Denison University, said there probably were a few reasons.

White evangelical pastors are more likely to lead congregational type churches, where members choose their own ministers. In mainline and Catholic churches, clergy often are chosen by bishops or others in the denominational hierarchy one step removed from the local congregation.

Evangelical pastors also may have less seminary education than mainline or Catholic clergy.

“The very fact of going through higher education to get a master’s or even a doctorate in theology is something that probably makes them more liberal, or gives them an expansive view on a number of issues,” Djupe said of mainline and Catholic clergy.

That education may also lend mainline and Catholic clergy a wider lens on social justice issues from a national or global perspective.

By contrast, Djupe said, “evangelicals are thinking about the community and how to preserve the community, which are traditionally conservative notions.”

But Djupe said it would be a mistake to suggest mainline or Catholic clergy avoid political issues because their congregants are more divided.

“They might be a little bit more careful about how they talk about those issues, but they still talk about more issues than evangelicals do,” Djupe said.

The study did not address the relationship between congregation size and clergy political activism. The larger a church, the more likely it includes a diverse set of participants.

“Based on our analysis, it does not appear that pastors of large congregations differ substantially in their political involvement from pastors of smaller congregations,” Roso said.

WASHINGTON (RNS)—Jerry Falwell Jr., former president of Liberty University, is suing the school, arguing administrators are committing trademark infringement by using his late father’s likeness without consulting with the family.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court last week on behalf of Falwell and the family trust, accuses the school of misappropriating “for itself” the name and image of the elder Jerry Falwell, the conservative Christian evangelist who co-founded the evangelical university in 1971.

“The University has now-repeatedly distributed advertising and promotional materials that use the JERRY FALWELL trademark—as well as Dr. Falwell’s name and image—in a manner that is likely to leave consumers confused as to the relationship between Liberty University and the JERRY FALWELL brand and the Falwell Family Trust,” the lawsuit reads.

The lawsuit claims the school already has created a custom font based on the elder Falwell’s handwriting for advertising purposes and even created a hologram of the late evangelist.

It also notes the school’s intention to create a Jerry Falwell Center on campus as a welcome center for future students, a move it alleges also infringes on the trademark.

Falwell, pastor of Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Va., was a nationally known televangelist who emerged as a prominent political figure as founder of the Moral Majority. He ran Liberty University until he died at his desk in 2007.

The university struggled financially during his tenure but rebounded under his son, who invested heavily in online education. During his son’s tenure, Liberty became one of the largest Christian schools in the country.

Falwell Jr. resigned as president of the evangelical Christian school in 2020 in the wake of a series of scandals involving his family, including allegations that his wife, Becki, had a years-long sexual relationship with a business associate.

Asked about the lawsuit, a Liberty spokesperson said the school prefers not to comment on active litigation but sent along a statement to provide context.

The spokesperson argued the elder Falwell’s name is “synonymous with Liberty University, and for decades has been used across campus, including on buildings such as the Jerry Falwell Museum and the Jerry Falwell Library.”

In addition, the spokesperson alleged the lawsuit is a response to a request made by Falwell Jr. for Liberty “to pay $7 million dollars for his permission to continue to use the name of Liberty’s founder for the next four years” and allow the former president to maintain “total editorial control of Liberty’s use of the name of Liberty’s founder.” The school, the spokesperson said, denied the request.

“Liberty University is confident it will ultimately prevail in this case and the university will be able to maintain its use of the name of its founder,” the statement concluded.

WASHINGTON (RNS)—Jesse Jackson has transferred the presidency of his Rainbow PUSH Coalition to Pastor Frederick D. Haynes III of Dallas, another Black church leader long devoted to civil rights and social activism.

At the coalition’s annual convention in Chicago, Jackson, 81, became president emeritus of the organization he helped create, a decision he made due to an ongoing diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease, according to the coalition. Haynes, 62, was introduced as the new president on July 16.

“I am looking forward to this next chapter where I will continue to focus on economic justice, mentorship, and teaching ministers how to fight for social justice,” said Jackson, in a statement. “I will still be very involved in the organization and am proud that we have chosen Rev. Dr. Haynes as my successor.”

The coalition’s history dates to 1966, when Martin Luther King Jr. appointed Jackson to direct the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s Operation Breadbasket in Chicago, boycotting white businesses that did not employ Black Americans.

In 1971, Jackson founded PUSH, which first stood for People United to Save Humanity and later People United to Serve Humanity, according to the coalition’s website. In 1996, the Rainbow PUSH Coalition formed from the merger of PUSH with the National Rainbow Coalition, creating a civil rights organization with an aim for economic and educational equality.

Vice President Kamala Harris spoke at the coalition’s convention on Sunday as the transfer of power became official. She recalled Jackson’s early days of activism at a sit-in that sought to desegregate a local library in his South Carolina hometown, his work to gain freedom for American hostages overseas, and his role in his own presidential campaigns and those of Presidents Obama and Biden.

“So, more than 60 years after that first sit-in at that library in Greenville, Rev has remained tireless in the fight to expand voting rights, to encourage innovation and partnerships across the continent of Africa, and to secure economic justice for all Americans,” she said in remarks at the Apostolic Church of God in Chicago, where she also expressed confidence in Haynes’ leadership.

Haynes committed to justice and equality

Haynes, pastor of Friendship-West Baptist Church in Dallas for four decades, often has spoken at coalition events. He will continue to serve as the church’s senior pastor as he leads the organization.

The megachurch pastor and Jackson appeared together at a 2021 protest at the U.S. Capitol that sought a $15-an-hour federal minimum wage, immigration reform and voting rights.

They both signed on to a February letter from faith leaders to President Biden seeking an executive order to create a commission to study reparations for African Americans.

“As a student of Rev. Jackson’s, I am honored to be selected for this prestigious and important position,” Haynes said. “Our communities need organizations like Rainbow PUSH to not only continue the fight for justice and equality, but to shepherd the next generation of advocates into the movement.”

Haynes earned a Master of Divinity degree from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, as well as a Doctorate in Ministry from the Graduate Theological Foundation. Currently, he is a Ph.D. candidate at Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis, Ind., where he is studying African American preaching and sacred rhetoric.

Leader in community, advocate for education

He serves on the board of trustees of Paul Quinn College, where he has served as an adjunct professor. He also has taught college courses and led workshops at Texas Christian University, McCormick Theological Seminary, New Brunswick Theological Seminary and other schools.

In 2011, Haynes was the featured speaker at the Congressional Black Caucus’ Annual Prayer Breakfast. In 2012, Ebony Magazine named him to its Power 100 list of most influential African Americans. He was also inducted into the National Black College Alumni Hall of Fame. In 2016, Haynes was inducted into the International Civil Rights Walk of Fame.

Haynes has led Friendship-West to donate more than $1 million dollars to historically Black colleges and universities. In addition, Friendship-West has donated more than $2 million in scholarship aid to students who are members of the church and the greater Dallas community.

Faith and political leaders expressed gratitude for Jackson’s leadership in response to the announcement he was ending his time as coalition president.

Biden called him “a man of God and of the people; determined, strategic, and unafraid of the work to redeem the soul of our nation.”

Former President Clinton, in a tweet, said, “Rev. Jesse Jackson never faltered in the fight for justice, equality, and peace, always keeping hope alive.”

Chuck Currie, a United Church of Christ minister in Oregon, recalled welcoming Jackson to Portland 35 years ago when he supported Jackson’s second presidential campaign.

“Without Jesse Jackson, there likely would have been no Barack Obama,” he said in an Instagram post describing Jackson’s trailblazing campaigns. “As a presidential candidate and President of Rainbow PUSH, Rev. Jackson helped set the nation’s moral tone.”

Al Sharpton, who served as youth director of Operation Breadbasket as a teen, spoke of Jackson’s influence on other leaders and national organizations. In a statement, the National Action Network president called his mentor’s decision “the pivoting of one of the most productive, prophetic, and dominant figures in the struggle for social justice in American history.”

With additional reporting by Managing Editor Ken Camp.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled a Colorado Christian designer’s free speech rights under the First Amendment mean she cannot be compelled to design websites for same-sex weddings she does not endorse.

In its 6-3 303 Creative v. Elenis decision on June 30, the court ruled the First Amendment prohibits Colorado from using antidiscrimination laws to force a designer to create message with which she disagrees.

Lori Smith, doing business as 303 Creative, sought an injunction to prevent the state from “forcing her to convey messages inconsistent with her belief that marriage should be reserved to unions between one man and one woman.”

“All manner of speech—from ‘pictures, films, paintings, drawings, and engravings,’ to ‘oral utterance and the printed word’—qualify for the First Amendment’s protections; no less can hold true when it comes to speech like Ms. Smith’s conveyed over the Internet,” Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in the court’s majority opinion.

“In this case, Colorado seeks to force an individual to speak in ways that align with its views but defy her conscience about a matter of major significance,” he continued.

Gorsuch asserted “the opportunity to think for ourselves and to express those thoughts freely is among our most cherished liberties and part of what keeps our Republic strong.”

Brent Leatherwood, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, affirmed the ruling of the court’s majority.

 “If the government can compel an individual to speak a certain way or create certain things, that’s not freedom—it’s subjugation,” Leatherwood said. “And that is precisely what the state of Colorado wanted.

“Thankfully, the court has stepped in to say that individual rights may not be paved over by a zealous government. Colorado’s scheme of compulsion and coercion against creators has failed once more.”

Leatherwood said the opinion’s implications “extend throughout the nation: People are free to speak, create, and operate in ways that are consistent with their deepest-held beliefs—even when those beliefs are deemed culturally unpopular.”

Voicing concern about broad exemptions

 Holly Hollman, general counsel for the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, disagreed.

“While the prohibition on government-compelled speech is an essential part of the First Amendment’s protections, it should not provide an end run around valid nondiscrimination laws that apply to businesses open to the public,” Hollman said.

“Colorado’s statute serves an important public interest in ensuring equal access to the commercial marketplace without regard to race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, national origin and other protected categories. BJC affirms the significance of laws like Colorado’s and rejects any attempt to portray them as an infringement on religious liberty.

“While Americans are free to express their religious and secular views about marriage, including those that conflict with nondiscrimination protections for same-sex marriage, BJC continues to believe that protecting religious freedom does not require granting broad exemptions that would undermine expectations for fair treatment in the commercial marketplace.”

Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, asserted the Supreme Court “handed Christian nationalists another victory” with the decision in 303 Creative v. Elenis.

By “allowing religiously motivated discrimination” against LGBTQ people in the name of free speech, the court opened the door for discrimination against racial and religious minorities, Laser insisted.

“Everyone should have equal access to goods and services, regardless of whom they love, who they are, how they worship, or what they look like. This is the longstanding promise of our civil rights laws. But today, the court negated those protections,” Laser said.

A unanimous decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in a case protecting employees’ rights to religious accommodations in the workplace drew broad-based support from groups spanning the religious spectrum.

In its June 29 ruling in Groff v. DeJoy, the Supreme Court said if an employer denies an employee an accommodation to his or her religious beliefs, Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act requires the employer to show an accommodation would result in substantial increased cost.

The court rejected rulings by a district court and by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit against U.S. Postal Service worker Gerald Groff, an evangelical Christian who refused to work on Sundays due to his religious beliefs.

When Groff took a mail delivery job in 2012, it did not regularly involve work on Sunday. However, that changed when the U.S. Postal Service agreed to begin facilitating Sunday deliveries for Amazon.

‘Substantial increased costs’

Lower courts cited Trans World Airlines v. Hardison, which stated “requiring an employer ‘to bear more than a de minimis cost’ to provide a religious accommodation is an undue hardship.”

The Supreme Court rejected the “de minimis”—meaning “small or trifling”—language as the governing standard, instead focusing on “undue hardship.”

“The Court thinks it is enough to say that what an employer must show is that the burden of granting an accommodation would result in substantial increased costs in relation to the conduct of a particular business,” the June 29 ruling delivered by Associate Justice Samuel Alito stated.

“Courts must apply the test to take into account all relevant factors in the case at hand, including the particular accommodations at issue and their practical impact in light of the nature, size, and operating cost of an employer.”

The Supreme Court ruling further stated: “Faced with an accommodation request like Groff’s, an employer must do more than conclude that forcing other employees to work overtime would constitute an undue hardship.”

In February, the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty and the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission joined in an amicus brief—along with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the National Association of Evangelicals and the Anti-Defamation League—asking the Supreme Court to revisit Trans World Airlines v. Hardison and the “de minimis cost” standard.

“Federal and state judicial reports are littered with cases where the lax ‘de minimis cost’ standard has put honest men and women in the intolerable position of choosing between their jobs and their faith,” the brief stated.

‘A victory for religious minorities’

Holly Hollman, BJC general counsel, said the Supreme Court’s June 29 ruling “upholds religious freedom protections consistent with congressional intent and clarifies the duties of employers.”

“This decision is a victory for religious minorities, who disproportionately claim the need for workplace religious accommodations,” Hollman said. “It provides guidance to lower courts to ensure the statute works as it was designed. ‘Substantial increased costs’ is an improved test for applying Title VII.

“Providing workplaces free from religious discrimination requires all businesses to consider how some religious observances conflict with general work rules and business operations. The statute requires religious accommodations that protect workers without undue harm to business. This decision clarifies that the statute means what it says.

“While there will certainly be future disputes, today’s unanimous decision points us in a positive direction where all Americans across ideological and religious differences can come together to defend faith freedom for all.”

On Twitter, ERLC President Brent Leatherwood called the Supreme Court decision “a win for religious liberty in the workplace” and “a win for people of faith at work.”

Kelly Shackelford, president and chief counsel of Plano-based First Liberty, called the court’s decision “a landmark victory.”

“No American should be forced to choose between their faith and their job,” Shackelford said. “The court’s decision today restores religious freedom to every American in the workplace. This decision will positively help millions and millions of Americans—those who work now and their children and grandchildren.”

John Bursch, senior counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom, applauded the Supreme Court’s decision to grant religious accommodations in the absence of “substantial increased costs” to a business.

“This standard protects all Americans’ right to live and work in a manner consistent with their faith.”

He also voiced approval that “coworker dislike of religious beliefs or practices is ‘off the table’ for consideration” when determining a religious accommodation.

WASHINGTON (RNS)—Three years after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis brought crowds into the streets for a summer of protests, Christian groups quietly are launching initiatives that address the still-fraught racial divisions among their members and in the wider society.

In New Orleans, leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention—which has been roiled by unrest over critical race theory and other racial issues in recent years—is holding a forum on racial reconciliation.

Meanwhile, representatives of mainline and historic Black Protestant denominations held a three-day meeting in Philadelphia to discuss plans for “eradicating racism.”

SBC needs ‘honest conversations’

“We need to have honest conversations with people who don’t look like us to find out why we have these differences,” said Fred Luter, a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention and the first African American to lead the group.

“We need to talk about it, we need to discuss it and we should be able to discuss it in a Christian-like manner and hopefully come up with simple steps of what we can do to bring about unity among the races in the SBC.”

As messengers to the SBC annual meeting gather, Luter said he expects about 300 people at the racial reconciliation event organized by the Unify Project, a campaign Luter founded with another former SBC president, Ed Litton, with the advice of Dallas megachurch pastor Tony Evans.

The Unify Project aims to bring pastors and churches together for meals and to help them speak out and jointly provide community service.

In 2018, in Memphis, Tenn., the SBC’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, then headed by Russell Moore, co-sponsored an event on racism marking the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. But since then, race has again become a sore point for the SBC.

Luter said he hopes the New Orleans gathering, co-hosted by the ERLC, will turn the SBC to a new direction.

“All we can do is hope,” he said. “That’s my hope, personally.”

Uniting to combat racism

In Philadelphia, the 10 denominations that comprise the 21-year-old Churches Uniting in Christ convened to address how its member groups can work on “a shared mission to combat racism.” It is one part of an eight-point agenda that also includes commitments to promoting unity, celebrating Communion together and continuing theological dialogue.

“Our hope is to set some goals for the next three years that will focus on how we can continue to work on racial equity together and how we can continue to dialogue with each other,” Jean Hawxhurst, a United Methodist ecumenist and vice president of CUIC, said prior to the Philadelphia gathering.

Bishop Jeffrey Leath of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, a member of the CUIC Coordinating Council, said participants wanted to discuss how their work fits with that of other ecumenical groups working on race issues and how their representatives can address a range of forms of biases.

“Black and brown communities should be committed to working on issues of anti-bias as we work along with our white brothers and sisters on anti-racism,” said Leath, who also is the ecumenical officer of the AME Church.

“The African American and various Black and brown communities are plagued with classism, colorism and xenophobia in ways that are just as egregious as racism.”

The meeting also included a prayer walk past some of the city’s historical sites related to slavery.

The inaugural National Unity Weekend, June 10-11, grew out of an event at the National Museum of African American History and Culture last September, when white, Black and Asian American evangelical leaders toured the museum together to raise awareness of systemic racism. The tour was organized by Let’s Talk, founded in 2021 by Bishop Derek Grier, pastor of a nondenominational church in Dumfries, Va.

For the past two years, Let’s Talk has sponsored first monthly and now quarterly Zoom calls for dozens of Asian, African American, Hispanic and white evangelical leaders.

“We began to talk heart to heart. We wanted to listen, as well as be heard,” Grier said. “And as important as conversation was, we recognized nothing changes without action.”

Over the weekend, more than 130 churches and ministries committed to help their communities perform local volunteer service, with some distributing food boxes.

On Sunday, the clergy of many of those same congregations delivered sermons about racial healing based on the same verse from the New Testament’s Letter to the Galatians: “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

“It’s vital that we not only preach it and teach it, but we also demonstrate it,” Grier said of the combination of community and worship services focused on racial unity that he hopes will become annual activities.

“Folks will no longer just be informed by CNN or MSNBC or Fox News. They would have heard from their pastor what the Scripture says, what Jesus teaches about these very, very important issues.”

WASHINGTON (RNS)—Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis strode onstage in Orlando and stood before a podium, silhouetted against a giant American flag.

The crowd, attendees at a gathering of the National Religious Broadcasters, a Christian group, leapt to their feet. Some applauded, while others held up cell phones to record the moment.

DeSantis began with a line he uses often—“Welcome to the free state of Florida!”—before launching into a stump speech recounting his proudest accomplishments as governor, such as removing books from public libraries and “waging a war on woke.”

In a nod to his audience, he sprinkled his remarks with religious references, lauding churches that refused to close during the pandemic and encouraging listeners to “put on the full armor of God.”

As he closed, DeSantis gripped the podium and leaned forward.

“We’re proud of what we’ve accomplished in Florida, but I can tell you this: I have only begun to fight,” he said.

Technically, it wasn’t a presidential campaign announcement. That happened two days later, when DeSantis joined Elon Musk for a glitch-ridden appearance on Twitter Spaces. But it was telling that DeSantis, a Catholic, chose to speak to a largely evangelical Christian audience the same week he launched his White House bid.

With growing uncertainty surrounding evangelical support for former President Donald Trump, DeSantis is courting one of the Republican Party’s most sought-after constituencies using a message that frames himself as a sort of spiritual warrior—a move that may attract faith leaders who traffic in similar rhetoric.

DeSantis beta-tested this approach in November, when the governor’s wife, Casey, tweeted out an advertisement that framed him as a “fighter.” The ad featured images of DeSantis and his family while a narrator—who, observers noted, had the feel of a mid-20th-century Protestant preacher—declared: “On the eighth day, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, ‘I need a protector.’ So God made a fighter.”

No formal outreach effort yet

Nothing similar has been produced by DeSantis’ fledgling presidential campaign, which, only a few days old, does not appear to have launched a robust faith outreach effort as of yet. His team also has not assembled a list of religious advisers or endorsers, nor is there a sizable outside effort to drum up support among conservative Christians, such as the “Pastors for Trump” group that formed around the same time the former president announced his 2024 bid.

But as the primary season begins in earnest, DeSantis may lean on an emerging group of culture-warrior religious leaders and influencers who, while not yet endorsing him, have shown affinity for his approach to politics in the past.

Among the governor’s more vocal religious fans is Tom Ascol, a firebrand, media-savvy figure known for leading the most conservative wing of the Southern Baptist Convention.

In November, Ascol tweeted out footage of himself leading a prayer at a DeSantis event alongside the caption “God has blessed the state of Florida by placing him in this office as His servant for our good.”

Ascol, who pastors a church in Florida, later wrote about the prayer on his blog. He again heaped praise on DeSantis, saying he stands “against the woke crowd and the intimidation and overreach of various federal officials over the last 4 years.”

He publicly lauded DeSantis again in February, tweeting out a video of him standing in front of a podium with a placard that read “Government of laws, not woke politics.”

“We need more governmental leaders like” the Florida governor, Ascol tweeted.

The two men share a similar disdain for what they deem to be “woke.” Ascol, head of Founders Ministries, has pushed back on what he sees as liberal ideologies in the SBC, and when he launched an unsuccessful bid to become the denomination’s president last year, his supporters issued a statement in which they declared “God is not Woke.”

Religion News Service reached out to Ascol to see if he intends to formally endorse DeSantis but did not immediately receive a reply.

Voices of support and concern

Other Christian leaders, who are widely seen as conservative crusaders, have also expressed support for DeSantis’ actions as governor. Bishop Joseph Strickland, a favorite among right-wing Catholics who has railed against COVID vaccines and been personally chastised by Vatican officials, has tweeted praise for DeSantis on multiple occasions, such as when the governor signed into law a ban on instruction having to do with gender identity and sexual orientation from kindergarten through third grade.

More recently, Strickland, who oversees a diocese in East Texas, celebrated DeSantis for pushing back on pandemic restrictions such as vaccine requirements at public schools, saying, “I pray (Texas) Governor Abbott and other good governors will follow your lead.”

Not that DeSantis’ style hasn’t run afoul of some conservative-leaning faith leaders. When Florida lawmakers passed a law earlier this year making it easier to sentence someone to death—a practice condemned by the catechism of the Catholic Church—the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops urged lawmakers and the governor to oppose it. DeSantis signed the bill into law anyway.

His immigration policies also have raised the ire of many Latino faith leaders in his home state.

It’s unclear whether DeSantis can convince evangelical surrogates to cross the rubicon between unofficial supporter to formal endorser the way Trump did in previous campaigns.

Some won’t endorse anyone in GOP primary

That may prove difficult this go-round for both men: Dallas Pastor Robert Jeffress, an evangelical leader who has long supported Trump, told Religion News Service in November he doesn’t intend to throw his support behind anyone during the Republican primary.

But other evangelical leaders have simply held back on an official endorsement, leaving open the possibility of backing DeSantis.

Samuel Rodriguez, head of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference and longtime Trump adviser, told RNS on Friday he is “not endorsing yet,” although he is willing to serve as an adviser to candidates “to advance an agenda of life, religious liberty, and biblical justice for all.”

Rodriguez has praised DeSantis but also been critical of some policies. In May, Rodriguez urged the governor to oppose an immigration bill that invalidates driver’s licenses issued to undocumented immigrants in other states.

Meanwhile, evangelist Franklin Graham, who has vocally backed Trump for years, also said he plans to avoid endorsing any candidate during the primary season.

However, Graham paused for a brief photo-op with DeSantis ahead of the governor’s appearance at the NRB conference earlier this week. He later tweeted out commendations that framed DeSantis as a fighter.

“I appreciate the Governor’s clear voice and that he takes a stand against the evil that is trying to overtake our culture,” Graham tweeted.

WASHINGTON (RNS)—Julie Green had good news when she stood up to speak during the ReAwaken America Tour’s latest stop last week at the Trump National Hotel Doral near Miami.

God had told her Joe Biden was on his way out, she said, according to videos of the event. And God’s people were going to win.

“We’re in the greatest battle for the soul of the nation this nation has ever been in since the founding of this nation,” said Green, an Iowa pastor known as a charismatic prophet and fervent supporter of former President Donald Trump.

God’s people, as Green’s theology makes clear, are her fellow Christians. And they would win, she added, because they would not give up.

“You’re not quitting on what is rightfully yours,” she told the audience.

Green’s comments captured an essential element of Christian nationalism: The idea that America belongs to and exists for the benefit of Christians.

Green’s fellow ReAwaken America Tour speakers—disgraced former Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Roger Stone, Eric Trump and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, alongside pastors and prophets—are some of the loudest and best-known proponents of the ideology, which helped fuel Trump’s rise to the White House and has made national headlines since the Jan. 6 riot.

But its ubiquity, and the charge it carries in the current political debate, has made Christian nationalism a seemingly infinitely malleable term, one directed at times at anyone who supports Trump or any part of his agenda, and adopted by some who call themselves Christian and take patriotic pride in their country.

Nearly everyone has an opinion about Christian nationalism

As a result, few people actually understand what Christian nationalism is, said University of Oklahoma sociology professor Sam Perry, co-author with Andrew Whitehead of Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States.

That doesn’t stop anyone from having an opinion about Christian nationalism, Perry said. “Either they’re very much for it or they’re very much against it.”

Perry argues Christian nationalism is not a synonym for evangelical Christians. And not everyone who “votes their values”—a term often used by politically active conservative Christians—qualifies as a Christian nationalist. Nor do people who want religion to play a part in public life, he said.

Perry and Whitehead have defined Christian nationalism this way: “a cultural framework that blurs distinctions between Christian identity and American identity, viewing the two as closely related and seeking to enhance and preserve their union.”

Different than civil religion

In an interview, Perry contrasted that view with “civil religion”—when Martin Luther King Jr. invoked the promises of the Declaration of Independence or President Barack Obama led a grieving congregation in singing “Amazing Grace.” These moments combined spiritual ideas and political moments.

Christian nationalism, Perry said, is more about who should be in charge.

“The difference between Christian nationalism and civil religion is Christian nationalism says this country was founded by our people for a people like us, and it should stay that way,” said Perry.

In order to see how many people subscribed to this idea, Perry and Whitehead looked at data developed for the 2017 Baylor Religion Survey, which asked Americans to respond to statements such as “The federal government should declare the United States a Christian nation” and “The federal government should advocate Christian values.” The Baylor researchers also asked about prayer in school and the separation of church and state.

Distinguish Christian nationalism from related beliefs

In an interview, Perry said some of the Baylor questions were a start, but the answers they yielded were too vague. He and Whitehead, along with other researchers, have fielded several national surveys in the past two years that Perry said have helped differentiate Christian nationalism from other, adjacent beliefs.

In 2022, the Pew Research Center found that 60 percent of Americans surveyed agreed the nation’s founders intended the country to be a Christian nation. Forty-five percent agreed the U.S. should be a Christian nation.

But even among those who say the country should be a Christian nation, only about a quarter said the country should be declared a Christian nation (28 percent) or should advocate for Christian values (24 percent). About a third said the government should stop enforcing the separation of church and state.

A recent survey from the Public Religion Research Institute found 10 percent of Americans embrace Christian nationalism, while an additional 19 percent are sympathetic to its ideals.

Paul Djupe, a political scientist at Denison University and co-author of an upcoming book called The Full Armor of God, recently retested some of the Baylor survey questions with some modifications. He wanted to know, for example, what people meant by America being a Christian nation and what it means to promote Christian values.

Does the latter mean promoting a more just society or one that sees everyone as made in God’s image? Does it mean values like loving your neighbor? Or does it mean enforcing Christian views over other views?

When Djupe modified Baylor’s statement “The federal government should advocate Christian values” to add “for the benefit of Christians,” he found there was little drop-off in support for that statement, leading him to suspect that those who support that statement had a more exclusive view of those values.

His survey also asked people to respond to the statement: “The Church should have a final say over whether legislation becomes law in the U.S.” Those who supported such a veto correlated highly with those who scored high on Baylor’s Christian nationalist scale.

Support for the ‘Seven Mountains Mandate’

Djupe found enduring support for a doctrine known as the “Seven Mountains Mandate,” which claims Christians should rule in seven sectors—home, religion, schools, business, media, entertainment and government.

The idea was popularized by leaders such as Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade, a prominent evangelical campus ministry now known as Cru, and Loren Cunningham, longtime leader of Youth with a Mission, whose “7 spheres of influence” echoed the seven mountains.

It was later adopted by charismatic leaders such as Lance Wallnau, known for his prophecies that Trump was God’s anointed.

“It’s like king of the mountain, only with much higher stakes,” Djupe said.

Matthew D. Taylor, a Protestant scholar at the Institute for Islamic-Christian-Jewish Studies in Maryland, says that the idea of dominion over all areas of life is central to what he refers to as Christian supremacy, a term he prefers to Christian nationalism.

Christian supremacy, he said, is more about Christians ruling over others. Taylor, creator of the “Charismatic Revival Fury” podcast series, which looks at the role charismatic Christian beliefs played on Jan. 6, pointed to prophets such as Green, who supported Trump because God told them who he wanted to be president.

“That’s deeply anti-democratic,” he said. “You can say, God has appointed this person. But that is not how democracy works. “

Taylor said existing research into Christian nationalism is concerned with beliefs about the history and identity of the United States, but it misses the idea that “Christians should be privileged in society and should exert a coercive effect on society.”

 “I think a lot of times people are trying to say, ‘America was founded with Christian values, and these things are embedded within the essence of America,’” he said. “But it doesn’t say much about policy.”

Desire to ‘take American back’

Sarah Posner, a journalist and author of Unholy: Why White Evangelicals Worship at the Altar of Donald Trump, recalled seeing Christian nationalist themes in 2011, at the Response, a God and Country prayer rally organized by then-presidential candidate Rick Perry.

“It was definitely ‘we need to take back America,’” she said.

But before the Trump era, that meant using democratic means. Since 2020, Posner said, the focus has been on rejecting the results of elections. “Before Trump, no one had permission to stage a coup.”

Arguments over specific definitions of Christian nationalism can overshadow the movement’s main focus, which is power, she said.

“Christian nationalism is not a pejorative. It is a description,” she said. “They have said that America is a Christian nation. How much clearer do they have to be?”

Julie Ingersoll, professor of religious studies and author of Building God’s Kingdom: Inside the World of Christian Reconstruction, pointed out Christian nationalists don’t necessarily share a single theology.

Influential religious figures such as R.J. Rushdoony and other conservative social and political activists known as “reconstructionists” have long believed Christians should have dominion over the world. But their theology is different from that of charismatics like Julie Green.

“It’s fluid and messy,” she said. “People want to make it neat and clean and divide these groups up and put them into little boxes with labels on them. Because that is more comfortable.”

But Ingersoll said religious differences between Christian nationalism and the broader evangelical movement are less important because, she argues, both are as much political as they are theological.

Still, when Christian nationalists say that their candidate or party was chosen by God to win, they really mean it, she stressed. And they may not be willing to let democracy get in the way of God’s will.

“The niceties of democracy fall by the wayside when you are on God’s side fighting Satan.”

Public school students are free to pray voluntarily or read religious texts, while teachers and administrators can neither encourage nor discourage student involvement in religious activity, according to guidelines released May 15 by the U.S. Department of Education.

Students can organize religious groups to the same extent that they are allowed to organize other noncurricular school groups, and school officials can neither endorse particular religious groups or discriminate against them.

Teachers can pray privately—or with other teachers who choose to participate voluntarily—during the workday when they are not acting in their official capacities, but they cannot compel or coerce students to pray.

In other words, the Supreme Court’s ruling in Kennedy v. Bremerton did not dramatically change decades-long guidelines for prayer and religious expression in public school classrooms.

In that high-profile case, the Supreme Court ruled a high school football coach’s post-game prayers at mid-field were “doubly protected by the Free Exercise and Free Speech Clauses of the First Amendment.”

The Department of Education noted the latest guidelines were developed in consultation with its own general counsel and with the office of legal counsel at the U.S. Department of Justice to ensure the “updated guidance reflects the current state of the law concerning constitutionally protected prayer in public elementary and secondary schools.”

‘Welcoming and inclusive learning environments’

In addition to the detailed guidelines, Miguel Cardona, secretary of education, also released a letter to state school officials and to district and school leaders.

“Protecting First Amendment freedoms in public schools is essential to our democracy. The Department strives to foster welcoming and inclusive learning environments for all students,” Cardona wrote.

“Such environments are fundamental to the principle of religious freedom and necessarily entail respecting rights to engage appropriately in private prayer and religious expression in public schools. Schools are uniquely positioned to assist youth in developing the critical and necessary skills that foster such a culture of respect.”

Cardona also posted on Twitter a two-minute video regarding the updated guidelines.

“For many students, their faith is the core of who they are. Everyone should be free to learn and show up as their true selves,” he tweeted.

Some matters are clear, well-established governing constitutional principles. For example, the guidelines state, “A public school and its officials may not prescribe prayer to be recited by students or by school authorities.”

Neither coercion nor discrimination

At the same time, the guidelines draw a clear distinction between government-sponsored religious expression and private, voluntary religious expression.

“Nothing in the First Amendment, however, converts the public schools into religion-free zones, or requires students, teachers, or other school officials to leave their private religious expression at the schoolhouse door,” the guidelines state.

“The line between government-sponsored and privately initiated religious expression is vital to a proper understanding of what the Religion and Free Speech clauses of the First Amendment prohibit and protect.

“Although a government may not promote or favor religion or coerce the consciences of students, schools also may not discriminate against private religious expression by students, teachers, or other employees. Schools must also maintain neutrality among faiths rather than preferring one or more religions over others.”

Left unstated in the guidelines is whether those principles can be reconciled with the mandatory posting of a Protestant version of the Ten Commandments in classrooms or school districts hiring chaplains. The Texas Senate approved a bill requiring the Ten Commandments to be posted in public school classrooms, and both chambers of the Texas Legislature approved a bill permitting districts to hire school chaplains.

‘Faith freedom for all students’

Holly Hollman, general counsel of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, commended the Department of Education guidelines.

“The government should never tell students how, when or whether to pray. The U.S. Department of Education’s new guidance does a good job protecting students of all faiths and students who don’t practice a faith. It’s clear that the Biden administration understands the vital role that public schools play in ensuring faith freedom for all students,” Hollman said.

“While occasionally hard questions arise, most debates over legal and constitutional protections for religious expression in public schools have been settled for a long time. The Biden administration’s guidance is in line with that from prior administrations from both parties, going back to the Clinton years.”

Hollman added: “The Biden administration is correct to note that religious freedom protections were not altered by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Kennedy v. Bremerton. While we were critical of the decision, the court’s approval of a coach’s private, brief prayer while his players were otherwise occupied should not be read as opening the door to more government-sponsored prayer in public schools.”

Hollman commended the balanced approach of the guidelines—protecting the free exercise of religion, while guarding against coercion by government employees.

“Students should be free to express their religious beliefs by praying, wearing religious clothing and accessories, and discussing their faith with their peers. Religious groups should be free to meet on school grounds, and educators should teach about religion as an academic subject,” she said.

“Religious liberty in public schools is safeguarded by forbidding teachers and other government employees from leading students in religious exercises while on duty or otherwise coercing students in matters of religion.”