NASHVILLE (BP)—Churches and their members have essential roles to play in helping women and preborn children in a post-Roe world, Christians involved in pro-life ministry say.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s June 24 reversal of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision has given states the authority to put into effect abortion bans for the first time in almost 50 years. Nearly half of the states already have laws prohibiting abortion either throughout pregnancy or at some stage of pregnancy, although courts have blocked enforcement of some.

In states with abortion bans, the change in the legal landscape has placed a renewed focus on pro-life work—and on the ministry of the local church, Christian pro-life advocates said.

“What we want to see is the church is the first place that [a woman with an unplanned pregnancy] goes, that she feels that love and that compassion, that she feels that the church is going to be a refuge for her,” said Elizabeth Graham, vice president of operations and life initiatives for the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.

Her comments came during a June 13 panel discussion about the future of the pro-life movement that took place on the eve of the SBC’s annual meeting in Anaheim, Calif., and before the overruling of Roe.

Churches can offer community, support

Rick Morton, vice president of engagement for Lifeline Children’s Services, said: “We love crisis pregnancy centers [and] believe that there’s great necessity [in them]. And we believe in the church. We believe that ultimately the place that those women need—they need to be discipled, they need to be surrounded by community—is in the local church.”

Lifeline has prepared discipleship resources to provide churches with “the building blocks” to engage in ministering for the long term to women with unplanned pregnancies, Morton said.

Even before the Supreme Court overturned Roe, churches were asking how they could serve after a draft opinion annulling the 1973 decision was leaked in early May.

Churches reached out to Lifeline after the leak to say: “We are recognizing that we need to do more. And so, can you help us learn how to do more? Can you help us figure out ways that we can get engaged?” said Chris Johnson, the ministry’s national director of church partnerships.

Lifeline’s work includes pregnancy counseling, adoption and family restoration in the United States, with offices in 16 states. The 41-year-old ministry, based in Birmingham, Ala., offers international adoption in 18 countries.

Beginning, not the end

In some ways, this is “a beginning” and “not an end,” Morton said. “Maybe some of the hope out of this actually is that there are people that are rethinking and reframing the issue in their own mind, and maybe some folks that haven’t been as active and haven’t really related their pursuit of Christ and the gospel to this issue.”

It may be “a beginning point” for such Christians to say, “I’ll begin to get in and minister to women in crisis, to minister to those women and their unborn children, adoptive families,” he said. “I think there are all kinds of people that potentially God’s using this just to wake the church up.”

Sometimes that ministry is simple and practical, said Lori Bova, who has participated in pro-life work for more than two decades.

“I have learned that creating a culture of life often looks like meeting needs—driving women to appointments, buying diapers and wipes, providing childcare, etc.,” said Bova, chair of the ERLC trustees and a member of a Southern Baptist church in New Mexico. “We have a Savior who came to serve. It should be no surprise that this is our best means to change hearts and minds toward life, and ultimately the gospel.”

Address ‘systemic drivers’ of abortion

Churches can seek to address the “systemic drivers” that pregnant women often say push them to choose abortion, including the need for affordable housing and childcare, as well as a sufficient salary, Graham said. Church members can provide childcare, help women find jobs, volunteer with need-meeting programs and open their homes to pregnant women to offer a “continuum of care” for the long term, she said.

“We just need to connect with her, help her to feel safe, help her to know that she has other options and to walk alongside her,” Graham said. “These women know that the decision that they’ve made is a sin against God, but we can be there to show them compassion and grace and the cross.”

Herbie Newell, Lifeline’s president, said churches need to be “long-suffering and patient” and “lean in on” God’s call to disciple women and children, “walking with them through the long term and being the place where women and children find help, healing and rescue. And that’s in the arms of the gospel and Christ Jesus.”

“One of the greatest things the church can do is to be a resource of social capital to a woman in crisis,” he said. “The truth of the matter is most of these women have nowhere to turn in their darkest hour and their need. And there need to be churches that they can turn to and that will be there and will do the hard and will do the messy.”

Partner with pregnancy resource centers

Churches can partner with gospel-focused pregnancy resource centers in serving vulnerable women, pro-life advocates said.

The centers form the “front line in this battle,” Carol Everett said in a phone interview. “I would really like to see the Baptist church come to the forefront and every church get involved with a pregnancy resource center. That doesn’t mean they have to start one. They can get involved with their local one, and then they can have volunteers in there that serve as local missionaries. It’s a wonderful place for us to act as missionaries without going to a foreign mission field.”

The Heidi Group, which Everett founded in 1995, is working to open pregnancy resource centers in unserved locations, such as the 21 counties in Central Texas and West Texas without one, said Everett, a member of a Southern Baptist church.

Pregnancy resource centers in Texas already have experienced what ministry will be like when abortion is prohibited during much of pregnancy. The state’s ban on abortion when a preborn child’s heartbeat can be detected—as early as five to six weeks into pregnancy—took effect in September 2021.

That ban produced an increase of 50 percent “in girls and women walking through the doors of our pregnancy centers in Texas, almost across the board” and eventually up to 90 percent in some cities, Everett said. Now that Roe has been reversed and “people start thinking that [abortion is] wrong, we expect another rush,” she said.

Provide ultrasound tech to centers

One way Southern Baptists have supported the work of pregnancy resource centers is through the Psalm 139 Project, the ERLC’s ministry to help provide ultrasound technology to pregnancy centers and train staff members in its use.

The ERLC has nearly reached its goal of 50 ultrasound placements between December 2020 and January 2023, which would have been the 50th anniversary of the Roe ruling had it not been overturned.

The Psalm 139 Project has 49 machines placed or committed to be placed by January and funding for machines to surpass that goal. Since 2004, Psalm 139 has helped place ultrasound equipment at centers in 16 states and one other country, Northern Ireland.

Lisa Cathcart, executive director of the Pregnancy Care Center in Old Hickory, Tenn., for more than 13 years, said advocating for and financially supporting pregnancy resource centers is a way churches can conduct pro-life ministry. Other ways churches can be pro-life in a post-Roe era, Cathcart said, include teaching a “whole-life, pro-life view of human dignity” to their members and ministering in a gospel-based way to the congregation, which includes post-abortive women and men.

PCC has “always worked for the dignity and welfare of both [mother and child], and our work starts with her—the woman who needs compassion, hope and practical help to consider alternatives to abortion,” Cathcart said after Roe was overturned. “Our work will continue, even increase, and we are prepared to meet this moment.”

Pro-life ministry also includes Christian families welcoming children born to vulnerable women into their homes in a post-Roe world, pro-life advocates say. Newell testified before committees of lawmakers in both Alabama houses in support of legislation to prohibit abortion.

In both chambers, Newell said, Democrats on the committees asked him: “If we ban abortion in our state, there will be more kids in foster care and there will be more kids that need to be adopted. Are there enough families?”

“And I unequivocally looked them in the face and I said, ‘If you take this bold step and you dignify life, we will be ready and there will be families for these children.’ And I wholeheartedly believe it.”

WASHINGTON (RNS)—For nearly five decades, abortion opponents held two truths to be self-evident: Abortion ends the life of a human being, and women who have an abortion are “second victims.”

Now, with Roe v. Wade overturned, a small but influential group of abortion foes believes women who have abortions should be prosecuted as criminals. Known as abortion abolitionists, they want to ban abortion with no exception. And they want women who have abortions to face jail time.

“You can’t abolish abortion without criminalizing the act of abortion,” said T. Russell Hunter, co-founder of Free the States Action Fund and Abolish Human Abortion, a pair of Oklahoma-based abolitionist groups.

The rise of groups like Free the States has complicated the post-Roe response of abortion foes, who have long positioned themselves as defenders of both unborn children and pregnant women.

Many established groups opposed to abortion find themselves fighting both supporters of abortion rights and abolitionists who want to ban abortion with no exceptions and oppose any incremental restrictions.

Carol Tobias, president of the National Right to Life Committee, said her group will support legislation to “save as many babies as possible.”

This would include bans on abortion in more conservative states and in states where abortion is legal, more education for women who seek abortions, as well as laws to protect the conscience of health care professionals who object to abortion.

She said her organization hopes to see an end to all abortions someday. For now, she said, it will support whatever restrictions are possible and push for tighter restrictions in the future.

“Our position has always been to save as many babies as you can, as soon as you can,” she said.

Tobias also encourages abortion foes to communicate to pregnant women they are not alone. For 50 years, she said, women have gotten the message abortion is the “easy solution” to an unwanted pregnancy. Now, she said, groups like hers want to stand by pregnant women and encourage them and provide assistance.

Abolition movement complicates life after Roe

In her opinion, the abolition movement complicates matters post-Roe, especially its willingness to oppose candidates who are anti-abortion but don’t support abolition.

“If they insist on going after penalties for women who have abortions, that’s going to be a problem,” she said. “We’re never going to give in on that. And what they will do is make life difficult for the candidates we need to elect if we’re going to pass legislation to protect the babies.”

Hunter mocked that approach.

“You could have saved all the babies,” he said in an interview.

Hunter blames “pro-life” groups and politicians for the continued practice of abortion, saying they should have pushed for complete bans on abortion rather than partial restrictions. He argues that states should have defied the Supreme Court’s initial ruling in Roe v. Wade and banned abortion—in the same way some states now defy federal marijuana laws.

He sees the Dobbs decision as a “pro-choice ruling.”

“The Supreme Court could have ruled there’s no constitutional right to an abortion and no state shall deprive any innocent human beings of life,” he said. “States do not have the right to allow abortions because they are murder.”

Abolition movement picks up steam in Bible Belt

Once considered a fringe part of the anti-abortion movement, the so-called abolitionists have become more influential in recent years, particularly in Oklahoma and other Bible Belt states.

An abolitionist-backed bill in Louisiana would have labeled abortion as homicide and imposed criminal penalties on women who choose to end their pregnancies. The bill was eventually withdrawn. Abolitionists have also pushed for bills that would ban abortion without exceptions for maternal health or rape and incest.

The idea of criminal penalties gained support this summer from Al Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky. When asked during the SBC’s recent annual meeting if women who have abortions should face criminal penalties, Mohler said yes, some of them should.

Mohler held a different view a few years ago. In 2016, Mohler pushed back against Donald Trump when the then-presidential candidate told journalist Chris Matthews that women who have abortions should face criminal penalties. Trump, Mohler wrote at the time, showed ignorance about “very significant moral arguments” that drive opposition to abortion.

In a recent email, Mohler said that while he agrees with the “long-term pro-life strategy,” he no longer sees women as victims of abortion. Many women, he said, “claim that they are indeed directly exercising their own moral agency.”

“But if you ask me if my mind has changed, I will say that I have come increasingly to the realization that the presentation of women seeking abortion as universally to be treated as victims flies in the face of what many of those women are telling us as they defend abortion, demand abortion, repeatedly seek the same abortion services, and defy a pro-life position with very clear statements of their own intentionality,” he said.

Jennifer Holland, a University of Oklahoma professor who studies the history of abortion, sees abolitionist groups as a continuation of the broader anti-abortion movement. Holland said abortion foes have long had disagreements about strategy—whether they should push for an all-out ban on abortion or take a more incremental approach.

But they had the same goal: zero abortions.

Holland said abortion foes have generally held the idea that abortion is murder but have mostly wanted to blame abortion doctors rather than women. In the 1980s, the movement began to describe women who have abortions as victims who need to be saved. That line of reasoning allowed abortion foes to see themselves as being pro-women.

“I think that that has been one of the most successful lines of argument that the movement has put forward,” she said.

Now, she said, abortion foes can no longer ignore the tension between their core beliefs.

Few nationally support criminal penalties for women

Timothy Head, executive director of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, dismisses the idea of criminal penalties for women who have abortions. He sees almost no support for that approach.

“I’m not aware of any state right now where that even looks realistically possible,” he said.

A recent Pew Research survey found that 14 percent of Catholics and 18 percent of Protestants—including a quarter of evangelicals (24 percent)—say a woman who has an illegal abortion should face jail time.

Head said his group would support a federal ban on abortion. But for now, the Faith and Freedom Coalition is still working through the implications of the Dobbs ruling before planning its next steps.

“We’re probably more in kind of a defensive analysis at the moment, to make sure that there isn’t anything from our perspective that is unfavorable to federal legislation,” he said.

The coalition is active in about two dozen states, where local partners will be working on legislation. Head said he expects to see about 15 different approaches to legislation post-Roe, depending on the state. He expects many of those states to implement laws banning most abortions and to set up criminal penalties for abortion providers. Head also expects more rules to regulate clinics, in places where abortion is still allowed.

Head said his group and other abortion foes would support what he calls “abortion alternatives” that give support to pregnant women and new mothers, such as supplying diapers and baby formula and organizing parenting classes.

He also expects to see more creative solutions to restricting abortion, such as the civil enforcement process in Texas, where private citizens can sue abortion providers or anyone who “performs, aids or intends to aid in an abortion,” according to The Texas Tribune. Head said such lawsuits would make it harder for abortion providers to get insurance and could eventually put them out of business.

Head also expects abortion foes to borrow from the playbook of environmental activists—and become more active at shareholder meetings for companies that support abortion rights or who offer to pay expenses for employees who travel to states where abortion is allowed.

He also said abortion foes will push for so-called long-arm statutes, which would allow states to prosecute out-of-state abortion providers who advertise across state lines.

“The glass is going to break in a lot of unexpected directions,” he said.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled a high school football coach’s post-game prayers at midfield are protected by the First Amendment, not a violation of its prohibition on the government establishment of religion.

Kennedy v. Bremerton School District involved whether the school district acted properly when it dismissed Coach Joseph Kennedy.

Kennedy—an assistant coach with the Bremerton (Wash.) High School varsity football team and head coach of the junior varsity team—began in 2008 walking to the 50-yard line after each game, where he would kneel and pray. Kennedy continued the practice for the seven years, often joined by players.

During the 2015 season, the school district superintendent sent a letter to Kennedy telling him to refrain from the post-game prayers, saying his practice likely violated the Establishment Clause.

After abiding by the mandate for a few weeks, Kennedy returned to his former practice of praying at midfield and was joined by others.

The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco twice ruled against Kennedy. Last year, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court said the school district would have violated the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause it if had permitted Kennedy to continue to engage in his on-field religious exercise after games.

Majority emphasize Free Exercise and Free Speech

The Supreme Court on June 27 ruled 6-3 in Kennedy’s favor. Writing for the majority, Justice Neil Gorsuch asserted both the Free Exercise Clause and the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment protected Kennedy’s actions.

“Respect for religious expressions is indispensable to life in a free and diverse republic—whether those expressions take place in a sanctuary or on a field, and whether they manifest through the spoken word or a bowed head,” Gorsuch wrote.

In the Kennedy case, he asserted, “a government entity sought to punish an individual for engaging in a brief, quiet, personal religious observance doubly protected by the Free Exercise and Free Speech Clauses of the First Amendment.”

The school district’s action “rested on a mistaken view that it had a duty to ferret out and suppress religious observances even as it allows comparable secular speech,” Gorsuch concluded. He added, “The Constitution neither mandates nor tolerates that kind of discrimination.”

Dissent emphasizes No Establishment

In a dissenting opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor asserted the court’s majority paid “almost exclusive attention to the Free Exercise Clause’s protection for individual religious exercise while giving short shrift to the Establishment Clause’s prohibition on state establishment of religion.”

“This decision does a disservice to schools and the young citizens they serve, as well as to our nation’s longstanding commitment to the separation of church and state,” Sotomayor wrote.

The ruling “sets us further down a perilous path in forcing states to entangle themselves with religion, with all of our rights hanging in the balance,” she wrote. “As much as the court protests otherwise, today’s decision is no victory for religious liberty.”

‘Freedoms are not to be curtailed’

The Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission joined in three friend-of-the-court briefs in support of Kennedy.

A brief jointly submitted by the ERLC, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, the National Association of Evangelicals and others stated: “The Establishment Clause does not require public schools to be policed as religion-free zones, and a reasonable, objective person understands that teachers can act in private capacities, even while on school grounds and even during school hours. When teachers do so, their freedoms are not to be curtailed, and they are not to be punished.”

After the June 27 Supreme Court ruling was announced, ERLC Acting President Brent Leatherwood called the decision “rightly determined.”

“As any Christian knows, our faith is deeply personal and rightly shapes every aspect of our lives. We live out our faith in any number of ways, both privately and publicly. Today’s case centered on the latter, and the Supreme Court rightly determined that an individual employed by a school does not forfeit his or her constitutional right to free expression simply by entering ‘the schoolhouse gate’ or, as it were in this case, the field of play.

“Moreover, today’s decision reaffirms another aspect of constitutional law: our First Amendment rights travel together. We, and many others, have long held that religious liberty is our nation’s first freedom and that it bolsters and strengthens other foundational rights. The court today strengthened this perspective by writing that the clauses of free expression, establishment and free speech are all complementary. If it were not already clear enough, this court views religious liberty as a bedrock right in our free republic.”

‘Pressured to participate’

The Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty filed a friend-of-the court brief in support of the school district. It focused on protecting the religious freedom of students “from the press of government religious speech that government actors have attempted to recharacterize as private.”

The brief—jointly filed by the BJC along with the American Jewish Committee, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the General Synod of the United Church of Christ—asserted Kennedy was acting as a government employee who only had access to the 50-yard line of a football field because of his job.

The BJC brief also noted multiple parents complained their sons felt compelled to participate in the coach’s post-game, on-field prayers, even though they did not want to take part and their parents did not want them to participate.

Holly Hollman, BJC general counsel, asserted the court’s June 27 ruling opens the door to public school students being pressured to participate in religious exercises.

“Today’s Supreme Court ruling undermines religious freedom in public schools by holding that school officials must accommodate a public school teacher’s religious exercise at a school event. The decision flies in the face of decades of decisions that have allowed students to enjoy their religious freedom rights without fear of school-sponsored religious practices,” Hollman said.

“This court pays lip service to religious freedom but throws out any concern about avoiding government pressure on students. Students should not have to worry about whether their religious beliefs will be in or out of favor with their teachers, coaches and administrators, much less be pressured to participate in religious exercises at school.

“While the Supreme Court continues to erode the separation of church and state, public school districts should continue to ensure they protect all students from coercion and religious discrimination. Public schools serve diverse populations, and school officials are properly prohibited from encouraging or discouraging religious activity when acting in their official government capacities.”

In a split decision, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned landmark decisions that affirmed a constitutional right to abortion and instead ruled abortions may be regulated on a state-by-state basis.

As both pro-life groups and abortion rights advocates responded to the court’s ruling, their disparate reactions included one common refrain: “This is not the end.”

The Supreme Court ruled on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, upholding a Mississippi law that bans most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

Alito: Roe was ‘egregiously wrong from the start’

Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito rejected both the 1973 Supreme Court ruling in Roe v. Wade and the court’s 1992 ruling in Planned Parenthood v. Casey.

“We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,” Alito wrote in a lengthy opinion. “The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision, including the one on which the defenders of Roe and Casey now chiefly rely—the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.”

Until the latter part of the 20th century, the right to abortion “was entirely unknown in American law,” Alito continued. In the 19th century, most states had laws in place “criminalizing abortion at all stages of pregnancy,” he noted.

He and the court’s majority asserted Roe lacked “any grounding in constitutional text, history or precedent.”

“Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” Alito wrote. “Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences. And far from bringing about a national settlement of the abortion issue, Roe andCasey have enflamed debate and deepened division.

“It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”

Roberts rejects ‘viability’ rule; wishes for ‘judicial restraint’

In a concurring opinion on the judgment but not the entire majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts affirmed the court’s decision to discard the rule established in Roe and Casey that “a woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy extends up to the point that the fetus is regarded as ‘viable’ outside the womb.”

“Our abortion precedents describe the right at issue as a woman’s right to choose to terminate her pregnancy. That right should therefore extend far enough to ensure a reasonable opportunity to choose, but need not extend any further—certainly not all the way to viability,” Roberts wrote.

However, Roberts expressed his personal desire for “judicial restraint,” rather than a wholesale repudiation of a previously recognized constitutional right.

“The court’s decision to overrule Roe and Casey is a serious jolt to the legal system—regardless of how you view those cases,” Robert wrote. “A narrower decision rejecting the misguided viability line would be markedly less unsettling, and nothing more is needed to decide this case.”

Dissenters say decision discards ‘balance’

Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan offered a dissenting opinion, expressing their belief that Roe and Casey sought to balance the competing rights of the fetus and the mother.

“Today, the court discards that balance. It says that from the very moment of fertilization, a woman has no rights to speak of,” the dissenting opinion stated.

Turning the matter back to the states to regulate opens the doors to laws that outlaw abortion even when a woman is the victim of rape or incest or even when her life is endangered, the dissenting justices noted.

“Across a vast array of circumstances, a state will be able to impose its moral choice on a woman and coerce her to give birth to a child,” the dissenting opinion states.

It goes on to note that states may impose criminal penalties not only on abortion providers, but also on women who choose to terminate a pregnancy.

“And as Texas has recently shown, a state can turn neighbor against neighbor, enlisting fellow citizens in the effort to root out anyone who tries to get an abortion, or to assist another in doing so,” the dissenting opinion states.

Abortion opponents celebrate victory

Texas Baptists’ Christian Life Commission issued a statement celebrating the court’s decision as “a victory for the protection of the unborn.”

“We will continue to support all policies and practices that enable a dignified and worthy life for all,” the statement continued. “Following the commands of Micah 6:8, we call on all Texas Baptists to reaffirm their commitment to making abortion unimaginable, not merely illegal.”

The statement noted the CLC works with pregnancy centers across Texas providing financial support and partnership.

Brent Leatherwood, acting president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, called the Supreme Court’s decision a “true turning point in the pro-life movement.”

“More lives are now protected today than yesterday,” Leatherwood said, calling the court’s Dobbs decision “the most significant victory in the history of the pro-life movement.”

However, he added: “As this chapter comes to a close, we must understand this is not the end of our important work. The issue of abortion has now been turned over to the states, many of which have either implemented or are considering some of the most abhorrently permissive pro-abortion proposals ever.

“A consistent, convictional pro-life witness is needed now more than ever in state legislatures and local communities. So, let us rejoice that we live in a nation where past injustices can still be corrected, as we also roll our sleeves up to save preborn lives, serve vulnerable mothers, and support families in our communities.”

‘We are on the front lines’

Cultural analyst Jim Denison, chief executive officer of the Denison Ministries and theologian-in-residence for the Baptist General Convention of Texas, said, “This is a day for which pro-life supporters have long prayed and worked.”

He emphasized the importance of pro-life Christians making their influence felt at the state and local levels.

“Now that the court has returned this issue to the states, where it should have been all along, we are on the front lines,” Denison said.

Bart Barber, pastor of First Baptist Church in Farmersville and newly elected president of the Southern Baptist Convention, said Southern Baptists “rejoice at the ruling” of the court in the Dobbs case.

Southern Baptists’ beliefs about the sanctity of human life “have motivated both our consistent support of the pro-life movement and our consistent support of crisis pregnancy centers, ministries to low-income families, foster care and adoption agencies, and other ministries of mercy to people in need,” he said.

Barber quoted from a resolution passed at the recent SBC annual meeting, pledging to “stand with and pray for abortion-vulnerable women” and “to eliminate any perceived need for the horror of abortion,” as well as stand against abortion providers that “exploit vulnerable women for profit.”

“State by state, mother by mother, heart by heart, we will continue our sacred work toward this goal,” Barber said.

Some see ruling as assault on religious liberty

In contrast, Amanda Tyler, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, tweeted: “As a woman, as an American, and as a Christian, I am mourning today’s devastating SCOTUS decision in the Dobbs case. I look with dread at what the future might hold for the health and welfare of women, for our individual rights and liberties, and for equality under the law.”

In the Twitter thread, she continued: “I fear it also will sow political discord over religion, particularly as some states pursue anti-abortion laws reflecting an explicitly religious agenda.”

She added: “Religion does not speak with one voice on abortion rights. There’s a range of views within my own Baptist tradition. But the right to abortion has existed for nearly 50 years, and for many, that right serves a vital religious freedom interest.”

Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, pledged to challenge abortion bans on religious liberty grounds.

“This Supreme Court abolished the constitutional right to abortion in an opinion that is a direct attack on the separation of church and state. Religious freedom demands the right to an abortion so people can make their own reproductive decisions according to their own principles,” Laser said.

“Abortion bans undermine religious freedom by attempting to impose one religious viewpoint on all of us. Americans United is readying religious freedom litigation which will bring this argument to our courts.

“The court’s decision to eliminate the right to an abortion is an assault on our equality and freedom. It’s a major win for religious extremists and a green light to bring other extreme, retrogressive cases. … Religious extremists and their lawmaker allies are willing to destroy our democracy to force all of us to live by their narrow beliefs. None of our rights are safe.

“The foundational principle of separation of church and state is meant to protect us against that future and to safeguard our right to live as ourselves and believe as we choose. Our laws must not allow anyone to use their religious beliefs to harm others. Allowing one person’s religious beliefs to dictate another’s personal medical and moral decisions is the very definition of harm. We’ll say it again: Reproductive freedom is religious freedom.”

Val Benavidez, president and executive director of the Texas Freedom Network, similarly pledged, “Our fight to ensure legal, permanent abortion access for all will not stop.”

“We know that the majority of the country opposes abortion bans, but far-right politicians continue to criminalize and weaponize our bodies for political power and control—a tactic we’re all too familiar with in Texas, where a six-week abortion ban has been in effect since September 2021,” Benavidez said.

“We will never stop fighting for policies that let all people know they are trusted to make their own pregnancy decisions,” she continued. “Abortion is health care and it should be a protected, accessible right for everyone.

“While today we mourn this loss and the court’s failure, we must transform our grief into action by caring for our communities, taking our rage to the ballot box, and continuing to fight in the courts, in Congress, and at the state legislature for changes that protect our right to abortion once and for all.”

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled July 21 a state tuition assistance program in Maine cannot exclude religious schools.

In a 6-3 decision regarding Carson v. Makin, the court ruled Maine’s prohibition of aid to church-run schools violates the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment by discriminating against private parochial schools and their students.

The Maine tuition program focuses on rural communities without public secondary schools. The program allows tuition payments to a private school selected by parents provided it is a “nonsectarian” school.

Two families seeking tuition assistance to send their children to Bangor Christian School and Temple Academy sued the commissioner of the Maine Department of Education. They claimed the “nonsectarian” requirement violated their religious freedom rights under the First Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

‘Neutral benefit program’

Writing for the majority, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts stated: “A state need not subsidize private education. But once a state decides to do so, it cannot disqualify some private schools solely because they are religious.”

Roberts cited the court’s 2017 ruling in Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia v. Comer. In that case, the court ruled the Missouri Department of Natural Resources erred in denying the Trinity Lutheran Church Child Learning Center a grant to resurface its playground because the center was church-operated.

In the written court opinion, Roberts also pointed to Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, which focused on a state program that provided tax credits to donors who sponsored scholarships for private school tuition. Again, the court held the state’s exclusion of religious schools violated the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause.

A majority of the court ruled “a neutral benefit program in which public funds flow to religious organizations through the independent choices of private benefit recipients does not offend the Establishment Clause” of the First Amendment.

“The state pays tuition for certain students at private schools—so long as the schools are not religious. That is discrimination against religion,” Roberts wrote.

Dissenters voice concern about court’s direction

In a dissenting opinion, Justice Stephen Breyer asserted lawmakers in Maine recognized key differences between public education and religious education when they endorsed the state’s “nonsectarian” requirement.

“They did not want Maine taxpayers to finance, through a tuition program designed to ensure the provision of free public education, schools that would use state money for teaching religious practices,” Breyer wrote.

Breyer added his belief the “nonsectarian” requirement “supports, rather than undermines, the religion clauses’ goal of avoiding religious strife.”

In another dissenting opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor insisted the court “should not have started down this path five years ago” when it ruled in favor of Trinity Lutheran Church.

“After assuming away an Establishment Clause violation, the court revolutionized Free Exercise doctrine by equating a state’s decision not to fund a religious organization with presumptively unconstitutional discrimination on the basis of religious status,” Sotomayor wrote.

By applying its arguments from its Trinity Lutheran and Epinoza rulings and “ignoring decades of precedent,” the court “has upended constitutional doctrine, shifting from a rule that permits states to decline to fund religious organizations to one that requires states in many circumstances to subsidize religious indoctrination with taxpayer dollars,” she continued.

Sotomayor called the court’s majority opinion “especially perverse” because it deals with “public education to which all of Maine’s children are entitled under the state constitution.”

In 2017, Sotomayor wrote in her dissenting opinion regarding the Trinity Lutheran case that the court was moving “to a place where separation of church and state is a constitutional slogan, not a constitutional commitment.”

“Today, the court leads us to a place where separation of church and state becomes a constitutional violation,” she wrote in her latest dissent, adding her “growing concern for where this court will lead us next.”

‘Religious discrimination will not be tolerated’

The Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission filed a brief in September of last year urging the justices to support the parents challenging the “nonsectarian” rule in Maine’s program.

Brent Leatherwood, acting president of the ERLC, tweeted support for the court’s ruling: “State should really quit wasting their time and effort with attempts to undermine religious liberty, especially in this area. … With today’s decision, the Court is continuing to demonstrate just how strong the fundamental right of religious liberty is.”

In a more formal public statement, Leatherwood said: “Maine’s attempt to sidestep the Constitution was halted in its tracks today, and rightly so. The justices’ decision here accurately comports with the fundamental nature of religious liberty in our nation.

“The court rightly decided that parents who choose to participate in a program like the one in Maine cannot have their constitutional rights abridged merely because they choose to send their children to a religious school. Similar attempts to curtail free expression have rightly been labeled ‘odious’ by the court in previous decisions, and Maine’s program can now be added to that infamous list.”

Kelly Shackelford, president/CEO and chief counsel for the First Liberty Institute in Plano, similarly praised the court’s decision.

“We are thrilled that the court affirmed once again that religious discrimination will not be tolerated in this country. Parents in Maine, and all over the country, can now choose the best education for their kids without fearing retribution from the government,” Shackelford said. “This is a great day for religious liberty in America.”

In contrast, the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty filed a friend-of-the-court brief in support of Maine and the provision that state tuition assistance be limited to “nonsectarian” schools.

‘Threatens our nation’s commitment to religious freedom’

“The court’s decision to require Maine to fund religious instruction threatens our nation’s commitment to religious freedom and the understanding of church-state separation that protects it,” said Holly Hollman, BJC general counsel.

“A majority of justices on the Supreme Court keep ignoring the distinctive role of religion in law and society, which is best served by separating the institutions of religion and government. That separation, which Maine sought to protect, is an important part of America’s religious liberty legacy, and it’s a key principle for historic Baptists and others who have long championed religious liberty for all and public education.”

The court’s ruling in Carson v. Makin “follows a recent trend away from treating religious institutions in distinct ways to avoid government involvement in religious matters,” she observed.

However, it “goes a step farther by requiring funding of religious education in Maine’s tuition program,” she added.

“BJC remains committed to our core principles of religious freedom. Forcing taxpayers to fund religious education undermines the secular nature of our government and the freedom of religious institutions to engage in ministry without government interference,” Hollman said.

‘Tramples the religious freedom of everyone’

Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, asserted the court is “forcing taxpayers to fund religious education.”

“This nation was built on the promise of religious freedom, which has always prevented the state from using its taxing power to force citizens to fund religious worship or education. Here, the court has violated that founding principle by requiring Maine to tax citizens to fund religious schools,” Laser said. “Far from honoring religious freedom, this decision tramples the religious freedom of everyone.”

Charles Foster Johnson, executive director of Pastors for Texas Children, called the court’s ruling a “faulty decision” and a “violation of the First Amendment” religious liberty protections. Directing state funds to religious schools is “a dangerous trend,” he added.

“This decision undercuts the principle of religious liberty, which is an eternal and universal moral truth of God. All authentic faith is voluntary and free. God has ordained it to be so. It can never be legitimately advanced or endorsed by human government. The proper function of government is to protect a free expression of religion devoid of any governmental role,” Johnson said.

“This protection of religious freedom is the foundation upon which our nation was founded and continues to be the civic value that holds our diverse population in national union and concord.”

Johnson—a Baptist minister—said Christians who see the court’s ruling on tuition assistance for sectarian schools as a victory for the free exercise of religion should ask themselves how they will feel when a Wiccan school demands tuition aid on the same grounds.

“State tax dollars should go to the public good, and that means neighborhood public schools serving all children,” he said. “Religious schools neither need nor deserve the help, assistance or preferential treatment of the state.”

Furthermore, by accepting tax dollars, a religious school invites government interference, Johnson continued.

“The public dollars channeled from the state treasury to those religious institutions will invariably be followed by the burden of accountability of those public expenditures, opening the Pandora’s Box of governmental intrusion into the private affairs of that religious school,” he said.

“The decision today will inevitably empower voucher proponents everywhere, including Texas, where our citizens have rejected voucher plans for decades. Therefore, we say loud and clear: We pledge again as pastors to prevent any private school voucher proposal from passing the Texas State Legislature. And we call on all Texans of good will to unify around their moral and constitutional duty before God to ‘make suitable provision for public free schools.’”

WASINGTON (RNS)—Secretary of State Antony Blinken, announcing a new global religious freedom report, said many governments are continuing to disregard the rights and the faiths of their citizens.

The 2021 Report on International Religious Freedom points out both failures and progress across the world on religious freedom, which Blinken called “a vital foreign policy priority” in remarks June 2.

Joined by Rashad Hussain, the new ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom, Blinken said signs of progress include Morocco’s launch last year of an initiative to feature Jewish history in its public school curriculum and to renovate synagogues, cemeteries and other heritage sites. He also noted Pope Francis’ journey to Iraq for the first papal visit there.

But Blinken said the 2,000-plus-page report notes numerous ways in which freedom of religion needs to be improved.

“From Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia; Jews in Europe; Baha’is in Iran; Christians in North Korea, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia; Muslims in Burma and China; Catholics in Nicaragua; and atheists and humanists around the world, no community has been immune from these abuses,” he said.

Blinken and Hussain, who was confirmed for his role in December, expressed concern about an increase in antisemitism and anti-Muslim hatred in many countries, including the United States.

Each year, most recently in November, the department designates “countries of particular concern” that it determines are the most egregious violators of religious freedom. Russia joined the last list that includes Myanmar (also known as Burma), China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.

Hussain said Russia, which began its war against Ukraine more than 100 days ago, has “doubled down on its violations of religious freedom rather than reverse course” since the designation.

“President (Vladimir) Putin sought to justify the unprovoked and unjustified invasion of Ukraine through the blatantly false pretext of de-Nazification,” he said. “The world clearly sees through this lie and is instead witnessing Russia’s brutal suppression, including suppression of religious leaders and the appalling destruction of religious sites.”

Blinken noted that when the State Department produced its first report in 1998, its religious freedom office was the only government entity focused on such monitoring. He said 35 governments and organizations now have similar offices advocating for religious freedom.

“We’ll keep working alongside other governments, multilateral organizations, civil society to do so, including next month at the United Kingdom’s Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom,” Hussain said.

WASHINGTON (RNS)—At a morning prayer service on June 3, stunned and shattered worshippers gathered to weep, pray, sing and mourn two young women killed at an Iowa church.

The service was hours after a fatal shooting in the parking lot of Cornerstone Church in Ames, home to Iowa State University. The shooting occurred on the night of the first summer gathering of the Salt Company, a ministry for college students. About 80 students were at the church that night.

Church leaders did not identify the women who were killed, citing the ongoing investigation.

“But I want you to know, even though people aren’t named, it’s not because they’re not known,” Mark Vance, lead pastor of Cornerstone, told mourners during the livestreamed prayer service.

“They’re known. They’re loved and treasured, and that’s why there are tears and there’s grief.”

Vance began the service with a prayer and readings from the Bible, with hymns like “It Is Well With My Soul” mixed in.

“Psalm 34:18 says that God is near to the brokenhearted,” Vance said. “So that might mean that maybe this is the room that God’s closest to in the world right now. Because we’re brokenhearted.”

After Vance spoke, a man who was identified as the father of one of the shooting victims stood up to speak on stage, saying his daughter “walked the walk” in living out her faith.

“I’m proud to have been her father,” he said.

‘Death is so hard, but it is not final’

About 1,300 students attend a weekday worship service at Cornerstone, according to a history on the Salt Company’s website. The ministry grew out of an Iowa State student ministry, which became so large that it led to the founding of Cornerstone in the 1990s. The church is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention.

The Salt Company is also connected to a church-planting group called the Salt Network, which partners with the SBC’s North American Mission Board.

During the service, Troy Nesbitt, Cornerstone’s founding pastor, read from several Bible verses about grieving, including John 11:35, which reads simply, “Jesus wept.” He also read a familiar passage from the Book of Revelation, often read at funerals.

“He will wipe away every tear from their eyes,” Nesbitt read. “Death will be no more.”

Before leading the congregation in prayer, Nesbitt tried to give words of comfort, at times nearly overcome with grief.

“Life is so short,” he said. “And death is so hard, but it is not final.”

Shooter bought ammo an hour before shooting

On Friday, the Des Moines Register identified the shooting victims as 21-year-old Vivian Renee Flores and 22-year-old Eden Mariah Montang. The 33-year-old alleged shooter died from “an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound,” according to the Register.

The two Iowa State students had been walking to the church when the shooter pulled up in a pickup truck to Montang, Flores and another woman just before 7 p.m. Thursday outside Cornerstone Church and began shooting with a 9 mm handgun, investigators said Friday.

The shooter had been involved romantically with Montang and faced a court hearing next week on a charge of harassing her, investigators said. Investigators said they found in his truck 9 mm ammunition and a receipt from a West Des Moines store that showed he bought the ammunition an hour before the shooting.

In a statement posted on the church website, leaders of Cornerstone said they are cooperating with law enforcement officials in the investigation.

“Our hearts break for all involved, and we are praying for everyone affected, especially the family of the victims,” the statement read. “Our Ministry staff are available to support all those impacted, and we will continue to fully cooperate with authorities as they complete their full investigation.”

Wave of gun violence

The Iowa church shooting comes during a wave of gun violence in the United States. On May 14, 10 people were shot and killed in a Buffalo grocery store; one person was killed and others wounded on May 16 at a Los Angeles church; 21 people, including 19 children, were killed on May 24 in Uvalde; four people were killed in a shooting at a Tulsa medical building on June 1.

On Thursday night, hours before the shooting in Iowa, President Joe Biden addressed gun violence in the nation, recalling his visits to Buffalo and Uvalde in the wake of the shootings there.

“At both places, we spent hours with hundreds of family members who were broken and whose lives will never be the same,” he said. “And they had one message for all of us: Do something. Just do something. For God’s sake, do something.”

WASHINGTON (RNS)—Twelve Republican senators sent a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken last week, asking to rescind the $1 million grants the State Department gives to “anti-Israel NGOs.”

The Republican senators’ staunch support for Israel is not surprising, according to a new Pew Research survey of U.S. attitudes toward Israel and Palestine.

Republicans and those who lean toward the Republican Party express far more positive views of the Israeli people and its government than do Democrats—78 percent of Republicans view Israeli people positively compared with 60 percent of Democrats.

But white evangelicals, most of whom are Republicans, have the strongest views of Israelis. A whopping 86 percent of white evangelicals said they felt warmly toward Israelis—more than any other Christian group. By comparison, only 58 percent of Black Protestants felt warmly toward Israelis.

Overall, the survey of 10,441 U.S. adults, taken in March, found two-thirds of Americans express at least a somewhat favorable view of the Israeli people. But it also found a modest warming to Palestinians among younger Americans, and a general lack of familiarity and support for the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions movement, which aims to press Israel to change its policies toward the Palestinians.

Support rooted in white evangelicals’ faith

As with so many other political issues—including abortion, immigration, race and gun control—white evangelicals stand out from other religious groups in their views. When it comes to Israel, those views appear firmly rooted in their faith.

The survey found 70 percent of white evangelicals believe God gave the land of Israel to the Jewish people. By comparison, only 32 percent of U.S. Jews felt God gave Israel to the Jewish people, according to a 2020 Pew survey, which asked a similar (but not identical) question.

“It’s important to their theological narrative,” said Arielle Levites, research assistant professor at George Washington University, referring to white evangelicals. “It’s important to their own sense of the arc of history.”

Many evangelicals view the creation of Israel in 1948 as a fulfillment of biblical prophecy that would usher in Jesus’ return, although the survey did not ask about this.

It’s perhaps not surprising evangelicals scored lowest in their estimation of Palestinians (37 percent), even as some Palestinians are fellow Christians (the majority are Muslim).

White evangelicals are also the religious group most likely to express a very or somewhat favorable view of the Israeli government (68 percent), compared with Catholics (50 percent), white Protestants who are not evangelical (51 percent), Black Protestants (43 percent) and religiously unaffiliated people (31 percent). The survey did not have sufficient respondents from Jewish, Muslim or other faith traditions to report on their responses.

A generational divide emerging

The survey, the second of its kind since 2019, also found a growing generational divide, with younger Americans feeling much warmer toward Palestinians. Americans age 30 and younger view Palestinians slightly more favorably than Israelis (61 percent vs. 56 percent).

Overall 67 percent of Americans expressed favorable views of Israelis and 52 percent expressed favorable views of Palestinians.

That generational change in U.S. attitudes toward Israel was reflected in another survey, commissioned by University of North Carolina at Pembroke researchers and carried out by Barna Group. That 2021 survey found younger evangelicals are much less supportive of Israel than older evangelicals. Support for Israel among young evangelicals plunged from 75 percent to 34 percent between 2018 and 2021.

“Clearly there’s more favorable views of Palestinians among younger people,” said Ariela Keysar, associate research professor at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. “I see it as a kind of generational memory.

“Older people see Israel pre-1948, before Israel was established as a democracy surrounded by hostile Arab countries. Younger people are shaped by current events. Many encounter anti-Israel views on campus. They encounter protests. Older people have not been exposed to that.”

BDS movement not gaining ground

Perhaps most surprising in the survey, 84 percent of Americans said they have heard “not much” or “nothing at all” about the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions movement.

The movement, launched by Palestinian groups in 2005, states that “Israel is occupying and colonizing Palestinian land, discriminating against Palestinian citizens of Israel and denying Palestinian refugees the right to return to their homes.”

Americans, both Democrats and Republicans, young and old, and of various Christian persuasions had relatively uniform views on the movement—that is, they professed ignorance.

The Boycott Divestment and Sanctions movement “gets a lot of heat among a very small percentage of people,” said Ari Y. Kelman, associate professor of education and Jewish studies at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Education. “It’s not galvanizing people as an organizational strategy, like divestment from South Africa managed to do for a much broader swath of the population.”

Overall, 5 percent of Americans say they support the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel.

Asked about possible outcomes for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the survey found 35 percent of Americans favored a two-state solution, in which the land would be split between Israelis and Palestinians, and 27 percent favored a one-state solution. More than a third—37 percent—said they weren’t sure what the solution to the conflict should be.

The margin of error for the full survey of 10,441 respondents was plus or minus 1.5 percentage points.

BUFFALO, N.Y. (BP)—Four miles from the Tops Friendly Markets mass shooting May 14, North Buffalo Community Church Pastor William Smith is comforting a crying community.

Church member Cashell Durham lost her baby brother Aaron Salter in the massacre—a 55-year-old retired Buffalo police officer and Tops security guard, who was among four employees killed. Smith’s daughter Lauren Smith is employed in Tops administration, but wasn’t at the 1275 Jefferson St. location.

“She said, ‘Daddy I cried all day yesterday,’” Smith said. “The impact rippled through all the city. … The church itself, we spent good time yesterday talking about violence and talking about pain.”

Durham is the widow of North Buffalo Baptist Associate Pastor Arriet J. Durham, who died in 2018.

“Cashell has been grieving now for quite a while. She’s had some help, but she’s still grieving from the loss of her husband,” Smith said. “And right now, she’s been bombarded with requests from different press agencies. … But she’s not really in any position to be able to speak with people. She’s just hurting so bad.”

Believed to be racially motivated hate crime

The alleged shooter arrested at the scene of the crime, 18-year-old Payton S. Gendron, is accused of having driven 200 miles strategically to find a public location full of African Americans in what police are calling a racially motivated hate crime. Eleven victims were Black; two were white.

Through a 180-page manifesto the shooting suspect posted online, police have connected Gendron to a fringe “replacement theory” conspiracy that says whites are being slowly and intentionally replaced by minorities and immigrants, multiple news outlets reported.

“We’re just trying to deal with the pain. So many of us Saturday were just crying. The pain was so hard,” Smith said. “And the Lord is the one who’s going to be near the brokenhearted. And when he’s near the brokenhearted, I really believe that that’s going to be what we need.

“We need the Lord’s guidance, and we need prayer. Which was very encouraging, we got prayer from all over the country from people.” Many offered to help in any way needed.

Beverly Flannery, wife of Frontier Baptist Association Associational Missionary Mike Flannery, emailed 900 contacts predominantly in northeast New York asking for prayer for Buffalo. Hundreds responded. The Frontier association is mobilizing ministry to those impacted by the shooting.

“I am currently trying to organize churches to deliver food in this geographical area that is a food desert,” Mike Flannery said May 16. “The Tops store will be shut down probably several weeks because of federal investigations. I’m working with another organization, Saving Grace Ministries, that wants us to work with them to deliver food.”

Appreciation for support

Smith appreciates Southern Baptists’ compassionate response. He wants Southern Baptists to understand the pain.

“This shooting has added to the negative mental health of African Americans wondering who’s going to shoot next,” he said. “We have our own crime in the city. We have our own shooters in the city. And then to add this to that, it’s a painful thing for us, for little kids, because you never know when this is going to happen again. That’s why we need the Body of Christ.”

He mentioned widespread support from Southern Baptists across New York, including the Frontier association and the Baptist Convention of New York.

“It was an outpouring of support,” Smith said. “Those people in our circle have reached out to provide any kind of resources that we might need. I would … say thank you (to Southern Baptists), from North Buffalo, for our partnership, because it’s made a major difference, in a few days, just a short period of time, to know that we’ve got people behind us, supporting us. I’m glad to be a Southern Baptist.”

In addition to Salter, Buffalo police identified the murder victims as 86-year-old Ruth Whitfield, 77-year-old Pearly Young, 72-year-old Katherine Massey, 67-year-old Heyward Patterson, 65-year-old Celestine Chaney, 32-year-old Roberta Drury, 52-year-old Margus Morrison, 53-year-old Andre Mackneil and 62-year-old Geraldine Talley.

Three others were injured, Buffalo Police said, namely 20-year-old Zaire Goodman of Buffalo, 50-year-old Jennifer Warrington from Tonawanda, N.Y., and 55-year-old Christopher Braden from Lackawanna, N.Y. Goodman and Warrington were treated and released from a local hospital. Braden remained hospitalized May 15, a local NBC news affiliate reported.

 “We don’t have any answers for these kinds of things. Biblically, I don’t see how this is going to get any better,” Smith said. “When I read the Bible, I see that as the last days—which I believe we’re in—the kind of violence, this is just going to get worse. I’m not plotting out these things on a graph, but I see, all across our world, things are just getting worse and worse.”

Public prayer meetings are scheduled to help the community grieve and heal.

LOS ANGELES (RNS)—One person is dead and five people were injured May 15 in a shooting inside Geneva Presbyterian Church in the south Orange County city of Laguna Woods, Calif., authorities said.

The Orange County Sheriff’s Department received calls just before 1:30 p.m. Pacific time, saying a shooting was underway on the 24000 block of El Toro Road.

The church is home to at least two congregations, including the Irvine Taiwanese Presbyterian Church, according to the church website.

About 30 to 40 members of the Taiwanese congregation were in the church at the time of the shooting, Undersheriff Jeff Hallock told reporters.

The gunman opened fire at a lunch banquet following the morning service, Hallock said. He said a group of churchgoers “hogtied” him, according to Hallock, tying his legs with an extension cord. Two handguns were taken from the shooter before the deputies arrived.

“Churchgoers displayed exceptional heroism and bravery in intervening to stop the suspect,” said Hallock.

The suspect has been identified as David Chou, 68, from Las Vegas, Nev., and has been booked on one felony count of murder and five felony counts of attempted murder, the Orange County Sheriff’s Department said.

All victims were adults and were taken to the hospital with gunshot wounds, authorities said. One victim, identified as Dr. John Cheng, 52, a Baylor University alumnus, died at the scene. Four were critically wounded, and one sustained minor injuries.

The injured victims—which included four men and one woman who were of Asian descent—ranged in age from 66 to 92 years old.

Laguna Woods spans about 3.1 square miles with more than 90 percent of its residents—an estimated 18,000—living in the 55-and-older community of Laguna Woods Village.

The FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are assisting in the investigation.

WASHINGTON (RNS)—The United States operated 408 boarding schools for indigenous children across 37 states or then-territories between 1819 and 1969—half of them likely supported by religious institutions.

That’s according to the first volume of an investigative report into the country’s Indian boarding school system that was released May 11 by the U.S. Department of the Interior.

“Our initial investigation results show that approximately 50 percent of federal Indian boarding schools may have received support or involvement from religious institutions or organizations, including funding, infrastructure and personnel,” Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Bryan Newland said at a news conference on the progress of the department’s Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative.

The report revealed nearly 40 more schools than the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition previously had identified in the United States—and nearly three times more than the number of schools documented in Canada’s residential school system by that country’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

It also recorded the deaths of more than 500 children and identified marked or unmarked burial sites at more than 50 schools across the American Indian boarding school system. The department expects those numbers to go up as it continues to investigate.

The findings also compiled previous reports describing an “unprecedented delegation of power by the Federal Government to church bodies.”

First-ever inventory of boarding schools

The Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative was announced last summer by Interior Secretary Deb Haaland to investigate the history and lasting consequences of the schools. That announcement came as groups across Canada confirmed the remains of more than 1,000 indigenous children buried near former residential schools for indigenous children there.

The Department of the Interior was “uniquely positioned” to undertake such an initiative, according to the report, because it had been responsible for operating or overseeing the boarding schools.

From 1819 through the 1960s, the United States implemented policies establishing and supporting Indian boarding schools across the nation. The report includes the first-ever inventory of those federally operated schools, including profiles and maps of each school.

The boarding schools supported a “twin United States policy” to culturally assimilate Native American, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian children and to seize indigenous land, according to Newland, a citizen of the Bay Mills Indian Community (Ojibwe).

“The report explains that the federal government pursued this policy of forced assimilation by targeting Indian children. Federal Indian boarding schools were the primary means to carry out this policy, and the report shows that all three branches of the federal government impacted the system,” he said.

Generations of children were “induced or compelled by the federal government” to attend the schools, which separated them from their families, languages, religions and cultures, he said.

Schools sought to assimilate children

The schools attempted to assimilate children in a number of ways, including giving indigenous children English names, cutting their hair, even organizing them into units to perform military drills, according to the report. They discouraged or prevented children from speaking indigenous languages or from engaging in their own spiritual and cultural practices.

Many children endured physical and emotional abuse. Some died.

“The consequences of federal Indian boarding school policies—including the intergenerational trauma caused by forced family separation and cultural eradication, which were inflicted upon generations of children as young as 4 years old—are heartbreaking and undeniable,” said Haaland, a member of the Pueblo of Laguna and the first Native American to serve as a Cabinet secretary.

The Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative’s work included collecting records and information related to the department’s involvement in the Indian boarding school program and consulting with tribal nations, Alaska Native corporations and Native Hawaiian organizations.

It also partnered with the National Boarding School Healing Coalition.

‘A historic moment’

Deborah Parker, a citizen of the Tulalip Tribes and chief executive officer of the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition, said their collaborative work had identified nearly 500 boarding schools total, including another 89 that received no federal funding.

“This is a historic moment as it reaffirms the stories we all grew up with, the truth of our people, and that often immense torture our elders and ancestors went through as children (was) at the hands of the federal government and religious institutions,” Parker said.

The Roman Catholic Church and a number of Protestant denominations already have begun investigating their own roles in those boarding schools.

The Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative report pointed to previous reports explaining that the government divvied up reservations among “major religious denominations.”

Those religious institutions and organizations were able to nominate new governmental liaison agents and direct educational and other activities on the reservations. They also were given tracts of reservation land to use for educational and missionary work and, at times, paid per capita for each indigenous child who entered the schools they operated.

Calling for Truth and Healing Commission

Several Catholic groups and Protestant denominations also have called for the United States to establish a Truth and Healing Commission similar to Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which issued its final report on its own residential school system for indigenous children in 2015.

They’re joined by lawmakers, who reintroduced the Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies in the United States Act last year.

The act would create a commission to investigate, document and acknowledge the past injustices of U.S. boarding school policy. A U.S. commission also would develop recommendations for Congress to help heal the historical and intergenerational trauma passed down in Native American families and communities and provide a forum for boarding school survivors to share their experiences.

At the May 11 news conference, Parker reiterated the call for a Truth and Healing Commission.

“We must be able to locate church and government records beyond the Department of Interior’s reach,” she said.

Next steps identified

Other speakers outlined next steps for the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative.

Newland said the next volume of the initiative’s report will approximate the total number of children that attended boarding schools, the amount of federal support for this system and the total number of marked and unmarked burial sites at schools. It also will attempt to identify the names, ages and tribal affiliations of children interred at those burial sites.

And Haaland announced the launch of “The Road to Healing,” a yearlong tour of the country to give American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian survivors of the federal Indian boarding school system the opportunity to share their stories. It also will help connect communities with trauma-informed support and facilitate the collection of oral histories.

“This is not new to us,” Haaland said.

“It’s not new to many of us as indigenous people. We have lived with the intergenerational trauma of federal Indian boarding school policies for many years. But what is new is the determination in the Biden-Harris administration to make a lasting difference in the impact of this trauma for future generations.”

WASHINGTON (RNS)—Interfaith leaders, including a top White House official, gathered at Georgetown University May 10 to affirm engagement across faiths and urge more multireligious action to enhance democracy and diminish polarization.

“Especially at a time of deep division and threats to our constitutional democracy, governmental leaders, for one, must demonstrate both in word and deed that they are committed to equal rights to religious liberty, religious liberty for everyone in equal measure,” said Melissa Rogers, executive director of the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, at the launch of Interfaith America. Rogers, a Baylor University graduate, is former general counsel for the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty,

The organization’s name is new, after 20 years as Interfaith Youth Core, a Chicago-based organization that has grown to include programs and service projects on more than 600 college and university campuses.

Eboo Patel, who founded the organization in 2002, pointed back to when “Judeo-Christian” work began in the wake of antisemitism and anti-Catholicism and “did good work for nearly a century.” Now, he hopes a broader array of people of faith will seek common good together rather than become further divided.

Interfaith America is expanding its work with upcoming events that Patel said will include former Vice President Al Gore in an initiative about the intersection of environmental stewardship and racial equity, and another with former President George W. Bush called “Our Vote is Sacred.”

“Will we become an ever-expanding city on a hill?” Patel asked, referencing the words of Jesus often invoked by politicians to symbolize America’s moral leadership. “Or will we be at each other’s throats?” He noted that his vision of that moral leadership includes mosques, gurdwaras, temples and secular humanist societies, in addition to Christian churches.

Assembled in a library at the Jesuit university that houses old church periodicals, representatives of the interfaith organization marked the new phase of its work with an array of blessings from officiants of Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Buddhist faiths.

Rogers noted that Patel’s organization worked with her office on building interest and participation in COVID-19 vaccinations among religious communities, where sometimes hesitation or resistance was higher.

‘Never been harder’ or more important

“I don’t think any of us thought that this work would be easy—none of us did,” she said, speaking to a room including dozens of attendees, some of whom have been committed to interfaith relationships and projects for decades. “But I think we all know now that this work has never been harder. It’s also never been more important.”

Acknowledging she was “preaching to the choir,” Rogers added: “There’s so much that unites us if we are only willing to look for that unity and work side by side. At a time of too much polarization—far too much—thank you for continuing to defend each other’s rights, no matter the climate.”

Jim Wallis, chair of Georgetown’s Center on Faith and Justice, challenged the participants to work toward new goals of interfaith cooperation, from addressing global vaccinations and immigration to reversing climate change.

“Religion can be the biggest block to a peaceful, multiracial, multicultural, multifaith future,” Wallis said. “Or we could be what enables that to happen. And at our best we could even lead the way.”