President Joe Biden issued an executive order Feb. 14 reestablishing the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood initiatives, and he reappointed a prominent Baptist expert in church-state relations to direct it.

The Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Initiatives—which has operated under several slightly different names since President George W. Bush established it 20 years ago—will “work with leaders of different faiths and backgrounds who are on the frontlines of their communities in crisis and who can help us heal, unite and rebuild,” Biden said in a statement accompanying the announcement of the executive order.

The office initially will focus on partnerships to address the COVID-19 pandemic and boost economic recovery, as well as “combat systemic racism, increase opportunity and mobility for historically disadvantaged communities, and strengthen pluralism.”

The Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships largely remained unstaffed during most of the Trump Administration. In 2019, President Donald Trump announced Paula White—a Pentecostal evangelist and member of Trump’s informal council of evangelical advisers—would lead what he renamed the Faith and Opportunity Initiative.

“The American people are key drivers of fundamental change in our country, and few institutions are closer to the people than our faith-based and other community organizations,” Biden’s executive order states.

“It is important that the federal government strengthen the ability of such organizations and other nonprofit providers in our communities to deliver services effectively in partnership with federal, state and local governments and with other private organizations, while preserving our fundamental constitutional commitments guaranteeing the equal protection of the laws and the free exercise of religion and forbidding the establishment of religion.

“The federal government can preserve these fundamental commitments while empowering faith-based and secular organizations to assist in the delivery of vital services in our neighborhoods. These partnerships are also vital for the success and effectiveness of the United States’ diplomatic, international development, and humanitarian work around the world.”

Melissa Rogers, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and former general counsel at the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, will return to the post she held from 2013 to 2017, during former President Barack Obama’s second term. Rogers also will serve as senior director for faith and public policy on the White House Domestic Policy Council.

Josh Dickson, who led faith outreach efforts for the Biden-Harris campaign during the election, will be deputy director of the reestablished office.

Trey Baker, formerly national director of African American engagement for the campaign, will serve as the office’s liaison to Black communities, including historically Black religious groups.

BJC Executive Director Amanda Tyler applauded the announcement, saying Rogers “has the expertise and experience necessary to lead the reestablished White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships at a crucial time when our country is facing multiple crises.”

“Her appointment to the Domestic Policy Council also shows that the administration recognizes the complexity and intersection of religious freedom concerns across a number of domestic policy issues,” Tyler said.

She added Dickson and Baker “both have strong records of collaborating with a number of religious and community organizations representing the full breadth of our pluralistic society.”

Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, likewise affirmed the executive order and Rogers’ reappointment to the office.

“Rogers’ mastery of church-state law and policy and her track record of finding shared values make her exceedingly qualified for both positions. When she served in the Obama administration, Rogers successfully worked with people across faiths and the nonreligious to adopt policies that protect the religious freedom of people who use federally funded social services,” Laser said.

“Americans United looks forward to working with the administration to restore church-state protections that safeguard everyone’s religious freedom. Government partnerships with faith-based organizations must be evidence-based, inclusive and equally welcoming for people of all faiths and the nonreligious. They must prohibit taxpayer-funded employment discrimination. And social service providers accepting government funds must not be allowed to discriminate against people in their programs or force them to participate in religious activities in order to receive vital services.”

Religious minorities and others fleeing persecution are among the world’s most vulnerable people, and the United States needs to reclaim its position of moral leadership in responding to refugees and asylum seekers, a panel of experts insisted.

Representatives of refugee resettlement agencies and others testified in a Feb. 10 virtual hearing before the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.

Witnesses and commissioners cited the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees report saying 1.4 million extremely vulnerable refugees around the world—many of whom fled religious persecution—urgently need to be resettled.

Religious freedom and displaced people

“At a time when 80 million people are forcibly displaced around the world—the highest number in recorded history—strong U.S. leadership is needed now more than ever to provide humanitarian assistance and protection to those who are persecuted and to promote religious freedom abroad,” said Jenny Yang, senior vice president for advocacy and policy at World Relief, the refugee resettlement and humanitarian aid agency of the National Association of Evangelicals.

Globally, more than 340 million Christians face high levels of persecution for their faith, and religious minorities such as the Rohingya in Burma and the Uyghurs in China particularly are threatened, she noted.

“The nexus between the lack of religious freedom and forced migration is undeniable,” she said.

The U.S. refugee admissions program historically received bipartisan support and has been “a lifeline of protection for those who have been fleeing religious persecution,” she noted.

Yang and several other witnesses pointed out the U.S. refugee admissions target plunged in the last few years from its historic norm of about 95,000 to 15,000—the lowest level in the history of the refugee resettlement program.

Priority given to persecuted Christians?

Although the Trump Administration prioritized Christian refugees fleeing religious persecution, the drastic reduction in the overall number of refugees admitted meant fewer refugees who fled their homelands due to religious persecution were resettled in the United States.

While the percentage of refugees resettled to the United States who are Christian soared from 44 percent in 2016 to 79 percent in 2019, the actual number of Christians resettled in that timeframe dropped from 37,521 to 23,754, said panelist Mark Hetfield, president and CEO of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society.

“This underscores that the best way to help refugees who have fled religious persecution is to help more refugees—not replace one form of discrimination with another,” Hetfield said.

In fiscal year 2020, only 2,811 Christian refugees were resettled from the 50 countries on Open Doors USA’s World Watch List of nations that are the worst in terms of religious freedom—an 83 percent decrease since fiscal year 2016, Yang reported.

The number of Jewish, Yezidi, Rohingya and Baha’i refugees showed similar precipitous decreases during that time, she continued.

“The ability of the United States to effectively promote religious freedom is directly tied to our ability to welcome and protect those who are fleeing religious persecution,” Yang said. “At a time of unprecedented forced migration, the U.S. has a moral responsibility to do as much as it can to meet the needs of our vulnerable neighbors.”

‘A good start’

She and other panelists applauded the first steps President Biden has taken to raise the refugee resettlement ceiling, but they insisted the White House and Congress must work together to restore the refugee resettlement and asylum programs.

“President Biden is off to a good start, but it is just a start,” Hetfield said.

He affirmed the executive order to expand possibilities for family reunification, as well as allowing remote videoconferencing to expand the capacity of refugee adjudication.

Hetfield noted the United States since 2001 resettled—without any known security incident—more than 33,000 Jews, Christians, Baha’i, Mandaean and other refugees from Iran with the assistance of his agency in Vienna, Austria.

“Since February 2017, presumably due to complications related to U.S. vetting procedures, this longstanding escape route has been totally shut down—not by Iran, but by the United States,” he said.

While the Biden Administration reports progress in reopening that avenue, it still remains closed at this point, Hetfield said.

Vetting process has ensured security

Immigration attorney Leon Rodriguez, the former director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, emphasized vetting procedures have been successful from a national security standpoint, but they stand in need of continuing improvement.

“The vetting process has worked to prevent threats to the U.S.—not just from refugees, but also from other immigrant populations, as well,” Rodriguez said.

In the years after Sept. 11, 2001, the screening process developed into a robust and multi-layered process that relies on the best information available from national and international intelligence sources and law enforcement, he said.

For example, tens of thousands of refugees from Syria and Iraq were admitted into the United States between 2014 and 2017, and not a single one has engaged or attempted to engage in any act of terrorist violence in the country, he said.

Rodriguez, the Jewish son of Cuban refugees, asserted the United States not only has an obligation on humanitarian and moral grounds to welcome individuals fleeing religious persecution, but also as a matter of global security.

“It is a critical element of how the United States is seen around the world,” he said.

‘We have to move faster’

Elizabeth Neumann, senior adviser with the National Immigration Forum and former assistant secretary for threat prevention and security in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, echoed that same theme.

“Over the last four years, the United States has acted against its own national security interests and retreated from the growing refugee challenge with policies rooted in xenophobia and discrimination,” Neumann said.

About 85 percent of the 80 million forcibly displaced people in the world—many of whom are fleeing religious persecution—are hosted in developing regions as defined by the United States, she said. She added 27 percent are in least developed countries—regions that face significant economic challenges and areas where terrorist movements often are present.

“In such economic and politically unstable environments, forcibly displaced individuals are vulnerable prey to ideological extremism and abusive exploitation,” Neumann said.

To protect national security, the United States not only should conduct efficient security vetting, but also expediently resettle refugees into a safe environment, she explained.

“Despite recent rhetoric, refugees are the most thoroughly vetted individuals who come to the United States, but we have to move faster,” Neumann said. “The sometimes decade-long wait for resettlement is not only inhumane, but also increases an individual’s susceptibility of being radicalized.”

She voiced support for the Biden administration’s efforts to raise the refugee resettlement ceiling and modernize the refugee admissions program, as well as its stated intent to address root causes that lead to displacement.

‘Broken’ people enduring ‘unimaginable suffering’

Murad Ismael, co-founder and former executive director of Yazda, a global Yazidi organization, specifically addressed the plight of his people.

Six and a half years after the beginning of the Yazidi genocide, 65 percent of the population of the Sinjar district in northern Iraq remains displaced, with about 210,000 in refugee camps in Kurdistan, he reported. About 70,000 have migrated from Iraq, mostly to Europe.

“The Yazidi community continues to endure unimaginable suffering,” Ismael said.

Those who remained in Sinjar or returned there lack basic services and job opportunities, he noted.

They also continue to feel the effects of trauma, he said, pointing to rising incidents of suicide. Yazidis—and other religious minorities—“are broken” and need trauma-informed psychological and social support, he insisted.

He asked that the United States accept 25,000 Yazidi refugees for resettlement.

“The Yazidi community is one of the ancient religious minorities in the Middle East, a community that suffered killing, enslavement, displacement, abuse and torture—for no reason of their own but for who they are,” Ismael said.

WASHINGTON (RNS)—The message of the 2021 National Prayer Breakfast can be summed up in the title of a book by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Nobel Prize-winning South African cleric: No Future Without Forgiveness.

Indeed, Andrew Young, civil rights leader and former ambassador to the United Nations, referenced the title of the book in his prerecorded message during this year’s National Prayer Breakfast on Feb. 4. The theme came up again and again at the virtual event.

Despite the nation’s past struggles, prayer and forgiveness can help Americans find a way forward, Young asserted.

Young, a longtime participant in the National Prayer Breakfast and in congressional prayer events, said praying with other leaders led him to form friendships with those he disagreed with.

“Our prayers were always confession. We talked about our needs,” he said. “We prayed for each other and we became friends.”

‘The path of forgiveness’

He cited the words of Jesus in the Lord’s Prayer, which was recited during the virtual prayer breakfast by participants around the world, from Kenya and Russia to Fiji and Costa Rica.

That prayer, Young said, links a person’s forgiveness to the person’s ability to forgive others. That is wise advice for divided Americans to follow.

“We are commanded, we are advised and we must find a pathway to unity, and that path is the path of forgiveness,” he said. “America has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”

Held annually since the 1950s, the National Prayer Breakfast has been controversial in recent years, mainly because of the secretive nature of the Fellowship, the nonprofit that runs the event with help from members of Congress. Always on the first Thursday in February, the breakfast draws thousands of leaders from around the world and features a host of side events and meetings before and afterward.

This year’s event was stripped down, due to the pandemic. It featured no in-person meetings and a focused, bipartisan message of national unity and faith. Among the participants who spoke by video were three former U.S. presidents: Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and George W. Bush, who filmed messages to participants. Former President Jimmy Carter also sent a letter that was read aloud during the meeting. Former President Donald Trump did not participate.

Bipartisan expressions of faith

Politicians who are political foes read Scripture and spoke of the power of faith.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who like President Joe Biden is Catholic, read a passage from the prophet Isaiah, about God’s glory and the passing nature of human power and a reminder that those who trust in God “will soar on wings like eagles.”

Sen. James Lankford, a Southern Baptist Republican from Oklahoma, read from a passage in the New Testament book of Second Corinthians, about the “ministry of reconciliation.”

Obama cited from the same book, with a message about enduring hardship: “We are hard-pressed on all sides, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed.”

Biden, in brief remarks, noted the bipartisan nature of the event and the long tradition, dating back to Dwight Eisenhower, of presidents taking part in it. He thanked Americans for their prayers and recounted the challenges facing the country: a global pandemic, economic struggles, racial justice long deferred and an assault on the Capitol.

“For so many in our nation, this is a dark, dark time. So, where do we turn?” he asked. “Faith.”

He then quoted a phrase from the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard about faith and suffering, one Biden has used in the past: “Faith sees best in the dark.”

“I believe that to be true. For me, in the darkest moments, faith provides hope and solace. Provides clarity and purpose as well,” Biden said. “It shows the way forward as one nation in a common purpose. To respect one another, to care for one another, to leave no one behind.”

Biden then went on to say faith and a common sense of purpose could help Americans make a way forward, despite the country’s challenges. He repeatedly emphasized the COVID-19 virus and the fallout from the pandemic have affected all Americans, not just those of one party.

“These aren’t Democrats or Republicans losing their lives to this deadly virus. They are fellow Americans—fellow human beings,” he said.

“This is not a nation that will stand by and simply watch this. That is not who we are. That is not who faith calls us to be. In this moment we cannot be timid or tired. There is too much work to do. It is by our work and not just our words that we are going to be judged.”

Biden closed his remarks with another of his favorite Bible passages, one he cited in his inaugural address: “Weeping may endure for a night but joy cometh in the morning.”

The event also included music from We the Kingdom, an up-and-coming Christian band from Nashville, Tenn., and a video excerpt from Amanda Gorman’s inaugural poem.

Former South Carolina Gov. David Beasley, now head of the World Food Program, reminded participants at the breakfast that COVID-19 has left tens of millions without food. His prayer called for action to feed the hungry and asked God to remind people that “when we fail to feed the least of these, we fail to feed you.”

Raising the refugee ceiling sends an important signal, but much more is required to rebuild the nation’s resettlement system after it practically was dismantled during the past four years, a national security expert and representatives from several evangelical groups agreed.

President Biden announced prior to his inauguration his intention to increase the refugee admissions cap substantially from historic low levels during the previous administration.

In anticipation of a new policy announcement from the White House, Elizabeth Neumann, senior adviser to the National Immigration Forum on national security matters, participated in a Jan. 27 teleconference regarding refugee resettlement.

Other participants included Travis Wussow from the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, Matt Soerens with World Relief and the Evangelical Immigration Table, and Nate Bult of Bethany Christian Services.

‘The problems don’t go away’

Restoring and strengthening the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program is essential to national security, said Neumann, former assistant secretary for counterterrorism and threat prevention with the Department of Homeland Security during the Trump administration.

“When we close our doors, … the problems don’t go away. They’re still out there, and it makes people more bitter against the United States,” Neumann said. “The best way to protect ourselves is to be a welcoming society.”

Both on humanitarian grounds and in the interest of national security, the United States needs to reclaim its seat at the table globally in addressing the problem of 80 million displaced people, she asserted.

“People that are left in limbo are vulnerable,” she said. “They can be trafficked. They can be recruited into gangs and criminal enterprises. They can be recruited into terrorism if they are not cared for and their needs are not addressed.”

During the teleconference, Neumann referred several times to a white paper she wrote in December for the National Immigration Forum, “Robust Refugee Programs Aid National Security.”

“The United States’ posture toward immigrants, asylees and refugees during the Trump administration has damaged our nation’s security,” she wrote. “Much of this damage is from xenophobic rhetoric, reducing the refugee ceiling to historic lows, and immigration restrictions cloaked in arguments of security but clearly designed to prevent people from predominantly Muslim countries and poor countries from coming to the U.S.”

Raising the ceiling on refugee admissions will send “a very strong signal to a lot of our partners overseas who feel like the United States has abandoned our previous commitments,” she said during the teleconference.

“It’s about that signal to the rest of the world that we’re back—and we’re not just back; we’re back with a vengeance, and we’re going to take this seriously,” she said.

‘Lost a lot of infrastructure’

However, she and the other speakers emphasized raising the ceiling on refugee admissions is just the first step in rebuilding the resettlement infrastructure after the last four years.

“This is a problem that is more significant than just raising a number,” said Wussow, vice president for public policy and general counsel at the ERLC. “It’s also about rebuilding the pipeline for refugee admissions internationally and rebuilding the pipeline in resettlement programs here domestically.”

World Relief has closed eight of its offices in the last few years and shut down resettlement operations in several locations, Soerens noted. Overall, resettlement agencies report a 38 percent reduction in operations and significant decrease in staff, he added.

“We have lost a lot of infrastructure in recent years. … We are eager to rebuild, but that’s not something that happens overnight,” Soerens said.

Biden has pledged to set the refugee admissions ceiling at 100,000 this year and at 125,000 in 2022. However, teleconference participants emphasized the refugee ceiling as a goal—not a hard number automatically achieved when it is set. Resettlement is a complex process involving extensive vetting of applicants, they noted.

Rebuilding broken infrastructure includes support centers and nongovernmental organizations overseas, as well as the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services system that was “defunded” during the past four years, Neumann said.

Historic bipartisan support for refugee resettlement

The modern U.S. refugee program was birthed under President Gerald Ford in response to the fall of Vietnam and significantly expanded under President Jimmy Carter, who set the admission ceiling at about 200,000, Soerens said.

While the number has fluctuated somewhat over the past four decades, its historic average was about 95,000, and it exceeded 125,000 at times under President Ronald Reagan and President George H.W. Bush, he added.

“In the past, refugee resettlement had broad bipartisan support,” he said.

In the final full fiscal year of the Trump administration, the ceiling was set at 18,000. In the current fiscal year, the ceiling was set at 15,000—a historic low, Soerens said.

After a period of neglect and retrenchment, it is “time for the United States to reassert global leadership” in refugee resettlement, Bult asserted.

“Despite an estimated 1.4 million people in urgent need of resettlement worldwide, only 22,000 were resettled” through the United Nations High Commissioner of Refugees last year—just 1.6 percent of the global need,” he reported.

Call for compassionate response

Noting his agency’s mission to demonstrate the love and compassion of Jesus by serving the vulnerable, he said, “no one is more vulnerable than the 34 million child refugees around the world.”

While research shows a majority of Americans support refugee resettlement, Soerens acknowledged his agency does not want to send refugees to any place where “there is a segment of the population that is misinformed and that makes them unwelcoming.”

Pastors and other Christian leaders can help dispel misinformation and help their congregants understand the strict safety provisions in place for screening refugees, speakers added.

“The fear-mongering that has taken place over the last four years was not founded in actual threat,” Neumann stressed.

Many churches and individual Christians stand ready to help refugees once the broken pipeline is repaired and the dismantled infrastructure is restored, Wussow observed. He characterized Southern Baptists as a whole as “very tenderhearted toward those who are fleeing persecution.”

“Pastors and churches are eager to serve and pick back up where they left off,” he said.

OKLAHOMA CITY (RNS)—After more than 1,100 people received the coronavirus vaccine in the fellowship hall of a Black church in Oklahoma City, its pastor credited trust and teamwork for the accomplishment.

Organizers fell just 16 arms short of their goal as Pastor Derrick Scobey of Ebenezer Baptist Church worked to make sure they could inoculate as many people as possible in the Black community where his church is located—even when they had some no-shows.

“We plugged in another 40 or so people that did not have appointments,” said Scobey, who said he was “ecstatic” about the outcome of the vaccination “pod” at his church building on Jan. 26.

“We got on the phone, texted and called pastors around the city probably the last hour of the day and just said, ‘If you do have anyone else 65 and older, send me their name and their age and tell them to come now.’”

Across the country, Black faith leaders and other clergy of color are engaging in educational forums, videotaping themselves getting vaccinated and offering their church properties for vaccine distribution. Their efforts are underlined by research showing that people of color in the United States have died of COVID-19 at rates disproportionately higher than white Americans.

Scobey, whose church is affiliated with the National Baptist Convention of America, said the operation at his church came together in a matter of weeks, starting with a text from an executive of Integris Health, an Oklahoma City-based hospital network, and continued with cooperation from the Oklahoma City-County Health Department.

Shots of the Pfizer vaccine were administered in the fellowship hall—after an early morning visit from the governor and the mayor—and the church’s classrooms became temporary offices for the health care workers.

Overcoming doubts and fears

So many people participated, the Church of the Living God next door offered space for the hundred or so volunteers to eat a lunch provided by a local insurance agency.

Efforts similar to the one in Oklahoma City are being offered by a range of religious groups across the country, including a recent joint proposal by leaders of the National Association of Evangelicals and the Orthodox Union, a Jewish organization.

But faith leaders have expressed particular concern about equitable vaccine distribution as Black and Latino Americans have been disproportionally sickened by COVID-19. They have also sought medical experts’ advice in online forums about how to conquer hesitation and fears among their congregants.

The specter of the U.S. government’s past medical mistreatment and experimentation on African American patients, including during the decades-long Tuskegee syphilis study, have played a role in some worshippers expressing doubt about getting the vaccine.

Adam Jefferson Richardson, bishop of African Methodist Episcopal churches in Florida, said two AME churches, one in Tallahassee and another in Fort Lauderdale, were vaccination sites on Jan. 10. Between the two, he estimated more than 1,000 people were vaccinated, the majority of them Black recipients.

A few days before, Richardson got vaccinated and announced it on Facebook, stating: “The vaccine, I believe, is the answer to prayer. Science and faith met and the world will benefit to mitigate the continued spread of a dangerous, deadly bully—COVID-19.”

Richardson said that he and his wife, a nurse practitioner, hoped publicizing their receipt of the Moderna vaccine would inspire others to take similar action.

“A lot of people in our community, we’re just distrusting of the process, distrusting of the government, distrusting of the vaccine, relating all the way back to Tuskegee; that’s a real matter in our community,” he said. “And the Tuskegee experiment didn’t really come to an end until the early ’70s. It hasn’t been that long ago.”

‘Deep mistrust … deeper racism’

A week before President Joe Biden took office, U.S. surgeon general nominee Vivek Murthy spoke in an online conversation with clergy of color to dispel misinformation about the vaccine and strategize about providing access in harder-to-reach areas, such as communities with many immigrants and places that are “pharmacy deserts.”

Murthy acknowledged a “deep mistrust that has been sown over time partly as a result of a longstanding and deeper racism that many of us have seen in our own lives and experience. It has infiltrated medical research and led to the Tuskegee experiments, which many know, but others as well in the medical system and in the country at large.”

He said it’s time to confront that history and sought faith leaders’ assistance in rebuilding trust.

“We have to see it for what it is and figure out how to heal despite those offenses of the past, because in very literal ways our lives depend on that right now,” Murthy told the more than 1,000 people who joined the Zoom videoconference hosted by the Biden-Harris transition team.

A Baltimore pastor suggested using church parking lots in urban and rural settings for vaccinations in the same way some have been used for COVID-19 testing. Murthy called it “a fantastic idea.”

Dr. Anthony Fauci, who has been making the rounds virtually at various discussions with Black medical experts and Black clergy, has also endorsed the direct involvement of religious groups, among other possibilities, for vaccine distribution in communities of color, agreeing with Bishop T.D. Jakes of Dallas at an “Unpacking the COVID-19 Vaccine” discussion on YouTube.

“You can do it by community centers,” said the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. “Church, as you mentioned, bishop, is very important, faith-based organizations getting involved, but also mobile units to go out into those communities which are not readily accessible.”

Scobey, who has already put a version of those ideas into practice, said the successful turnout at his church was fueled in part by offering people a variety of ways to register. While about 300 of those inoculated used the state health department’s online vaccine registration portal, others used Signup Genius or called and texted, prompting people as old as 97 to show up.

He said Black people amounted to about 71 percent of those vaccinated during the daylong vaccination pod. According to Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, just 2 to 3 percent of African Americans in his state overall had received the vaccine.

The church had already been reaching out to the community in other ways, giving out boxes of food donated by Christian relief organization World Vision to help people who lined up to receive assistance during the pandemic.

Scobey, who noted his church’s name, Ebenezer, is a biblical word that means “stone of help,” said the church and medical workers are preparing to provide the second of the two-part vaccine three weeks to the day from when the first shots were distributed.

“Who knows our community more than we do, and who does our community trust more than anyone?’’ he said, adding that he’s ready to recommend another Black pastor in his area whose church could serve as a future vaccination pod.

“There’s going to be a remnant of pastors that the people trust. Those are the people you have to tap into.”

WASHINGTON (RNS)—For those who have been tracking Christian nationalism in the United States, the siege of the U.S. Capitol was shocking, but it wasn’t surprising, according to Andrew Whitehead, co-author of Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States.

It’s clearer than ever Christian nationalism is a threat to both faith and democracy, Whitehead and Christian leaders agreed at a Jan. 27 virtual event addressing the topic.

But the question remains: What can Christians do about it?

“Christian nationalism is not new, but the frequency of violent acts inspired by Christian nationalism and a resurgence in attempts to legislate and govern from a position infused with Christian nationalism has been on a dramatic uptick in recent years,” said Amanda Tyler, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Freedom.

“We believe that Christians bear a special responsibility to understand and to root out Christian nationalism.”

The heads of two of the largest mainline Protestant denominations in the United States Bishop Michael Curry of the Episcopal Church and Bishop Elizabeth Eaton of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America—joined Whitehead and Tyler for the panel discussion “Democracy and Faith Under Siege: Responding to Christian Nationalism,” hosted by Christians Against Christian Nationalism, an initiative spearheaded by BJC.

They shared thoughts on what Christians can do to counter Christian nationalism and to “de-radicalize” those who believe in the cultural framework that privileges primarily white Christians in American civic life.

Prevalent across Christian traditions

It’s important for Christians to push back against that idea, Whitehead said, because of its prevalence across Christian traditions—and because it impacts everything from people’s attitudes toward racism to their behaviors regarding the COVID-19 pandemic.

The majority of evangelical Protestants, he said, may not be overtly Christian nationalist in their beliefs, but they accommodate that attitude—and it’s not just evangelicals, according to his research.

“As we think of Christian nationalism and how to face it, we have to be attuned to the fact that within Christian religious traditions, Christian nationalism is prevalent and is a part of the people that worship with us,” he said.

One good first step for Christians is to learn more about Christian nationalism—and why it conflicts with Christianity, Eaton said. The presiding bishop of the ELCA pointed to Whitehead’s book as a good place to start.

“Christian nationalism is different from being a patriot. God knows I love my country,” she said. “But my primary allegiance as a Christian isn’t to my country, but to God.”

Curry pointed to the famous words of Martin Luther King Jr.: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.”

Offer positive alternative

That means Christians should offer a positive alternative to Christian nationalism, he said.

“We must counter these negative perversions of Christianity and of our humanity. We must counter them with an affirmative, positive way of being Christian,” he said. “Christianity must re-center itself on the teachings, the example and the spirit of Jesus of Nazareth.”

The presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church also suggested Christians rebuild relationships across differences of politics, race and religion.

“Everybody who knows somebody who’s different than they are, get to know them, spend some time with them, let that become a personal value for your life. Then maybe we can begin to chip away,” he said.

“Everybody won’t get on board, but somebody will.”

In addition to those individual actions, Whitehead said, there also are structural changes that need to take place. People in positions of relative power need to advocate for those who are marginalized in terms of race, religion, gender, sexuality and in other ways.

Hold people accountable for what they value

At a separate event Wednesday, Al Vivian, son of C.T. Vivian, said some of the practices his father used as a civil rights activist on King’s executive staff should be applied in the wake of the storming of the Capitol.

“When Dad was training me, he always talked to me about holding people accountable for what they say they value,” Al Vivian said at an online news conference about the forthcoming posthumously published memoir of his father, It’s in the Action: Memories of a Nonviolent Warrior.

“’There are two documents that white America consistently says that it values: the Constitution and the Bible, he said. So, every argument we ever used lined up with those two documents,” he said.

Those include constitutional rights and freedoms, as well as biblical instruction to love one’s neighbor.

“You find out what people value, you hold them accountable to that, and you do not back down,” the younger Vivian said of the principles that can be applied by church and corporation leaders. “You hold them accountable to live the values they say they believe in.”

WASHINGTON—As one of his first official acts, President Joe Biden issued an executive order repealing his predecessor’s travel ban on some Muslim-majority countries and certain African nations—an action applauded by religious liberty advocates.

On his first day in office, Biden signed the executive order ending the travel ban on citizens from Burma, Eritrea, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Libya, Nigeria, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tanzania and Yemen, along with North Korea and Venezuela. Six of his 17 initial executive orders, memoranda and proclamations dealt with immigration policy.

In his “Proclamation on Ending Discriminatory Bans on Entry to the United States,” Biden called the previous administration’s policy “a stain on our national conscience” and “inconsistent with our long history of welcoming people of all faiths and no faith at all.”

‘A victory for faith freedom’

Amanda Tyler, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, hailed the repeal of the travel ban as “a victory for faith freedom.”

“Since the first week of the Trump administration, we’ve seen various versions of this policy rooted in anti-Muslim bias, targeting individuals based on their religious identity. The specifics and wording changed over the years, but no aesthetic adjustments could alter the religious discrimination inherent in the ban,” Tyler said.

“Religious freedom is threatened when our leaders use fear and othering to exclude entire groups of people from our country based on their religious identity.”

Tyler called the repeal of the ban “an important step,” but she said the executive order “does not undo the damage this policy has done to religious freedom.”

“If we want to truly preserve faith freedom for all, we as Americans must loudly and clearly denounce religious bigotry in all its forms—now and in the future,” she said.

‘Crucial first step’

Rachel Laser, president and chief executive officer of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, similarly praised the travel ban’s repeal as “a crucial first step.”

“President Biden’s swift action to end the Muslim and African ban, which was driven by clear hostility toward Muslims and their faith, rights a terrible wrong. It is a crucial first step toward reuniting families and demonstrating President Biden’s commitment to protecting the rights of religious minorities,” Laser said.

“We look forward to a government that will protect everyone’s religious freedom and our nation’s unfulfilled vision of equality and inclusion for all.”

Concerns about national security

Not everyone praised Biden’s executive action.

Andrew Arthur, resident fellow in law and policy with the Center for Immigration Studies, agreed review of the Trump Administration policies “may have been called for,” but he said “outright repeal is likely in error.”

“What’s done is done. What comes next, however, remains to be seen,” Arthur wrote. “I fervently hope that the national security will not be impacted. But I cannot guarantee it.”

However, Biden insisted national security would not have to be compromised by lifting the travel ban.

“Make no mistake, where there are threats to our nation, we will address them,” he stated in his official proclamation. “Where there are opportunities to strengthen information-sharing with partners, we will pursue them. And when visa applicants request entry to the United States, we will apply a rigorous, individualized vetting system. But we will not turn our backs on our values with discriminatory bans on entry into the United States.”

WASHINGTON (RNS)—House Majority Whip James Clyburn plans to introduce legislation to designate the song “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” long a staple in the Black community, as the country’s national hymn.

“To make ‘Lift Every Voice and Sing’ a national hymn, would be an act of bringing the country together,” a Jan. 12 tweet from @WhipClyburn states. “The gesture itself would be an act of healing. Everybody can identify with that song.”

“Lift Every Voice and Sing,” sometimes called the unofficial “Black national anthem,” is featured in hymnals of different faith traditions. The hymn, with lyrics about liberty and faith, often is sung on occasions marking Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Black History Month.

But Clyburn, a Democratic congressman from South Carolina, thinks it should be sung more beyond predominantly Black communities.

USA Today quoted Clyburn as distinguishing the hymn from the national anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

“You aren’t singing a separate national anthem,’’ he said. “You are singing the country’s national hymn.”

USA Today reported Clyburn asked his staff to create draft legislation last month, before the recent storming of the U.S. Capitol by insurrectionists and after a surge in racial tensions concerning police brutality and racial injustice.

‘Black experience … wrapped up in that hymn’

The song traces its roots to a 1900 celebration of Lincoln’s birthday in Jacksonville, Fla., according to a 2000 book, Lift Every Voice and Sing: A Celebration of the Negro National Anthem. James Weldon Johnson penned the words for the occasion; his brother, J. Rosamond Johnson, set them to music.

The lyrics are not explicitly tied to a particular faith tradition but do mention “God” several times in the hymn’s third verse.

The song has played at the start of recent gatherings of the “Beyoncé Mass,” been used to awaken astronauts aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery and was included in the closing prayer of President Barack Obama’s 2009 swearing-in ceremony. This fall, a decision to feature it at NFL games drew praise and criticism.

“It had historicity; it had the religious context,” said Joseph Lowery, when asked by Religion News Service in 2009 why he borrowed the third verse of “Lift Every Voice and Sing” in the inaugural benediction.

Lowery, who died in 2020, said he often used its third stanza as a hymn of praise in his worship services. “The Black experience is sort of wrapped up in that hymn.”

In USA Today, Clyburn echoed Lowery and said his plan is not merely a symbolic one.

“It’s a very popular song that is steeped in the history of the country,” he said.

He added “I’ve always been skittish” about it once being described as the “Negro national anthem.”

Rather, he thinks it’s a song for all and not just some in the nation.

“We should have one national anthem, irrespective of whether you’re Black or white,” he said. “So to give due honor and respect to the song, we ought to name it the national hymn.”

Lyrics to the first verse of the hymn:

Lift ev’ry voice and sing,

Till earth and heaven ring,

Ring with the harmonies of liberty;

Let our rejoicing rise

High as the list’ning skies,

Let it resound loud as the rolling sea,

Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,

Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;

Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,

Let us march on till victory is won. 

LENOIR, N.C. (RNS)—On a cold, gray January morning, health care workers at the field hospital Samaritan’s Purse erected on the asphalt parking lot in the rear of the hospital in Lenoir, N.C., were ready to do battle with COVID-19.

In addition to 30 hospital beds set up in four heated tents, the mobile medical unit outside Caldwell UNC Health Care was equipped with a pharmacy tent, a medical supply tent, a PPE “donning” area, a PPE “doffing” area and a trailer for showering.

Outside the tents, workers attached bright magenta tape to the ground around the asphalt lot to mark off the areas where personal protective equipment—gowns, masks, gloves, face shields and bouffant surgical caps—were required, the so-called “hot zone.”

By now, Samaritan’s Purse has it down. Nearly a year into a raging pandemic that has killed nearly 2 million people worldwide, the evangelical humanitarian relief organization has trained health care workers or treated COVID-19 patients in 30 countries around the world, including erecting four field hospitals.

North Carolina COVID-19 cases escalate

The new unit, in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains 75 miles north of Charlotte, is among the smallest. It does not have an ICU equipped with ventilators like previous field hospitals in Cremona, Italy, and New York City.

But it’s just as needed. North Carolina’s case count is breaking records each day. The state is seeing, on average, 100 deaths a day, bringing the total since the pandemic began to 7,567, according to the state Department of Health and Human Services.

The Lenoir field hospital will serve patients from five regional hospitals that are nearly full or have reached capacity. Hospital administrators said in the past week alone, hospitalizations rose by 20 percent. Statewide, nearly 3,800 are hospitalized.

On Jan. 7, the field hospital admitted its first patient, a 58-year-old man. By Jan. 11, it had treated 23 patients and discharged four.

This latest field hospital is close to home. Samaritan’s Purse, founded and led by Franklin Graham, is based in Boone, just 30 miles north. As Edward Graham, one of Franklin Graham’s four children, told those assembled for a short opening ceremony in Lenoir, the organization wants to share its resources.

“I believe here at Samaritan’s Purse we’ve been entrusted with talent,” Edward Graham said. “God expects us to go out and use that.”

Samaritan’s Purse field hospitals have been much in demand. The organization has just agreed to open another, larger 50-bed facility on the grounds of Antelope Valley Hospital in Lancaster, Calif. On Jan. 11, a cargo plane airlifted components of the mobile field hospital to Los Angeles.

Health care workers serve all who need help

Some 20 to 25 health care workers—doctors, nurses, paramedics—work at the Lenoir site, most of them contract workers who have committed to a two- or three-week rotation, which they described as part of their service to God. The medical team receives a per diem stipend.

Despite a storm of criticism leveled at Samaritan’s Purse for requiring contracted workers to sign a statement of commitment to traditional heterosexual marriage, the organization’s health care team said they were ready to serve all-comers—including non-Christians and LGBTQ people.

“We’re going to treat every patient exactly the same,” said Erin Holzhauer, medical director for the Lenoir field hospital. “We will not deny anyone care. We’re medical professionals. That’s normal for us.”

Holzhauer, a nurse who was stationed at a Samaritan’s Purse trauma unit in Iraq a few years ago, said she treated Sunni militants from the Islamic State group the same way she has all her patients.

Nurses at the field hospital do pray with patients who want it. But they said they will seek out alternative chaplains for patients who are not Christians. They’ll also coordinate kosher or halal meals for Jews or Muslims.

“We ask, ‘Can we pray with you?’” said Shelly Kelly, a 49-year-old nurse practitioner from Tulsa, Okla., who is working a three-week rotation in North Carolina. “If they say no, we don’t pray with them. We’re very respectful of their faith.”

Filling the gap as hospitals reach capacity

Laura Easton, the Caldwell UNC Health Care president and CEO, said as hospital beds began to fill up in mid-December, she and other regional hospitals reached out to Samaritan’s Purse. The organization is well-known in the area, and some of its employees live in town.

Easton said administrators at the hospital system also called the CEO of Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York City, which partnered with Samaritan’s Purse last spring, to ask about its experience with the charity. What they heard reassured them of the organization’s professionalism.

“They’re highly competent and compassionate caregivers,” Easton said. “All my clinical staff—my doctors, my nurses, all the folks on the front line of our organization—feel nothing but gratitude and appreciation for the help they bring to patients.”

While some patients are initially wary of receiving care in a field hospital, rather than a steel and concrete building, Samaritan’s Purse nurses said most of those concerns are allayed quickly once they see how much attention each patient receives.

“They’re quite spoiled,” Kelly said. “They get whatever they want, whenever they want it. They have a nurse on hand almost immediately because the beds are so close together in the ward.”

Passing on ‘the love of Jesus’ to patients and families

In fact, many patients prefer it. That’s because hospitals isolate coronavirus patients in individual rooms with no in-person visitation. At the field hospital, patients are in wards with other patients and allowed to move about the hot zone.

And while there’s no in-person visitation at the field hospital, the nurses help facilitate video phone calls, such as FaceTime, with loved ones back home.

“We nurse the family as much as the patient,” Kelly said. “It’s every nurse’s job to keep in touch with the family and keep them in a realistic mindset. We don’t just paint rainbows and unicorns for the family. We’re very honest with them.”

With the number of patients rising dramatically from day to day, Easton said, the field hospital will allow the hospital to attend to the most critically ill COVID-19 patients as well as non-COVID-19 patients.

“If the current projections for a continued climb in the number of hospitalizations occurs, we will be able to meet that need,” Easton said.

Samaritan’s Purse plans to stay in Lenoir as long as needed, though typically its field hospitals remain in one area four to six weeks.

Kelly, who works at an urgent care clinic in Tulsa most of the year, said she loves nursing. But working for Samaritan’s Purse was more personally rewarding.

“It’s not just about the work we do, it’s about how we develop as individuals through our service and how we experience the love of Jesus ourselves so we can pass it on to our patients,” she said. “It’s very gratifying.”

Signs of Christian nationalism—not to be confused with honest-to-God biblical faith—were hard to miss when a violent mob stormed the U.S. Capitol, some advocates for separation of church and state observed.

One of the first rioters to enter the Senate Chamber carried a Christian flag. Some in the crowd that seized the Capitol waved “Jesus Saves” banners. Others displayed a banner that said: “Jesus is my Savior/Trump is my president.” A flag reading “Proud American Christian” with an American flag inside an ichthus—an ancient Christian symbol—also was seen.

Amanda Tyler, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, noted the misappropriation of Christian imagery and called on fellow Christian Americans to “dismantle Christian nationalism.”

“Like nearly all Americans, I watched in horror yesterday as a violent, unlawful and delusional mob attacked the seat of America’s representative democracy. My outrage increased when I saw photos of the rioters, cloaking their destructive acts in Jesus’ name and Christian imagery,” Tyler said.

“What we all witnessed yesterday was un-American and un-Christian. Those of us who claim both identities have a special responsibility to repudiate these actions to continue the work to dismantle Christian nationalism, a dangerous ideology that permeates our society and demands a privileged place for Christianity and its adherents.”

The Baptist Joint Committee launched a Christians Against Christian Nationalism initiative last summer, condemning it as “a distortion of the gospel of Jesus Christ and a threat to American democracy.”

“This egregious display [at the U.S. Capitol] can serve as a wake-up call, but we shouldn’t be complacent about the less obvious but still insidious displays of Christian nationalism in our communities,” Tyler said.

‘Unholy alliance’

Americans United for Separation of Church and State issued a statement linking the mob that seized the Capitol to Christian nationalism and white supremacism.

“Make no mistake: These rioters threaten every freedom we claim, including religious freedom. The noose hung on the West Lawn of our Capitol and the signs calling on Jesus only re-emphasize the unholy alliance of this president with White Christian nationalists,” Americans United stated.

“The same people who profaned Black churches in Washington, D.C., three weeks ago are responsible for today’s abhorrent actions with the blatant backing of the president they support.”

On Twitter, Americans United Executive Director Rachel Laser was equally direct.

“What went on is not just an attempted coup but also the product of White Christian nationalism that knows no limits in pursuing its power,” Laser tweeted.

‘Conflating of religion and politics’

In an opinion article in the Baptist Standard, Jack Goodyear, dean of the Gary Cook School of Leadership at Dallas Baptist University, condemned the “acts of domestic terror” at the Capitol by a mob “primed by the sitting president” who created a false narrative about a stolen election.

“But for those who believed the falsehoods, the narrative became set in stone,” Goodyear wrote in the Standard “Voices” column.

“On Jan. 6, these beliefs spilled over into chaotic madness as a mob descended upon the Capitol, smashing windows, tearing through offices, disrupting sessions of Congress and leading to four reported deaths. Numerous flags were paraded through the Capitol, including the Confederate flag, Trump flags of various sorts and even a flag declaring, ‘Jesus Saves,’ which indicates the close intertwining of politics and faith,” he continued.

Christian nationalism has led directly to increased political instability, Goodyear wrote.

“Politics and religion have increasingly aligned for Christians in America, leading to the belief that to be a good Christian one must vote for a certain party. Or that certain politicians are God’s chosen instruments. However, this conflating of religion and politics comes with a heavy price,” he wrote.

“One of the dangers of a society determining a leader is divinely chosen—whether viewed as King David or King Cyrus—is that the standard of righteousness morphs to become whatever that ‘chosen’ leader determines it to be.”

Goodyear urged Christians—particularly Baptists, who historically have been committed to separation of church and state—to resist the blending of religious and political identity.

“We as Christians must reflect, repent and lead in a new direction away from Christian nationalism, which leads to further injustice and instability,” he wrote. “We can and must remain involved in politics as salt and light, but we must not find our identities in a political tribe. We must not swear allegiance to a politician.”

‘Christian Nationalism on display’

Some Baptist pastors likewise noted the Christian symbols displayed by rioters.

In his weekly email newsletter to members of Green Acres Baptist Church in Tyler, Pastor David Dykes wrote: “I was saddened by the scenes of protesters breaking windows and storming their way into our nation’s seat of government and occupying the House and Senate chambers. I was more saddened to see the flags that associated the matchless name of Jesus on the same flag as Trump.”

Dwight McKissic, pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church in Arlington, pointed to the irony that Southern Baptist Convention leaders focus on attacking critical race theory while Christian nationalism is demonstrated at the U.S. Capitol.

“Christian Nationalism on display, while the SBC debates CRT,” McKissic tweeted.

Anthony B. Bradley, professor of religion at King’s College in New York, offered a similar perspective.

Bradley tweeted: “Critical Race Theory will never turn into 1812 lawlessness. Four people are dead because of Christian Nationalism, not CRT.”

He called on Southern Baptist leaders and others to “fight the right fight for once.”

Christian humorist Phil Vischer, one of the creators of “VeggieTales” and co-host of the Holy Post podcast, sardonically tweeted: “Watching protesters invade the Capitol with Christian flag and a giant ‘Jesus 2020’ banner. Lawmakers are in hiding because of marauding … Christians?? Anyone still unsure Christian nationalism is an issue??”

WASHINGTON (RNS)—The 117th session of Congress got off to a testy start Jan. 3, including an opening prayer from an ordained member whose pairing of “A-woman” with the traditional “Amen” raised both hackles and questions about the meaning of the word.

But what is rarely at question is the religious composition of Congress, as the House and Senate remained overwhelmingly Christian (88 percent), and heavily Protestant (55 percent), the Pew Research Center found.

A total of 294 House and Senate members are Protestant Christians, out of a possible 535—nearly the same as the last Congress.

Whereas about a quarter (26 percent) of U.S. adults are religiously unaffiliated—describing themselves as atheist, agnostic or having no particular religion—Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., was the only member of Congress to identify as religiously unaffiliated. Rep. Jared Huffman, a California Democrat, describes himself as a humanist. Both Sinema and Huffman have said they do not consider themselves atheists.

Pew found a growing number of congressional members do not identify with a particular denomination, with 96 members of Congress simply identifying as Christian or Protestant. By contrast, in 2009, during the 111th Congress, only 39 members described themselves this way.

The Pew analysis relied on CQ Roll Call data on the religious affiliations of members of Congress.

It found several religious groups are overrepresented in the new Congress compared to the general population. Jews make up 2 percent of the U.S. population but 6 percent of the new Congress—33 members. Catholics, who make up about 20 percent of the U.S. population, comprise 30 percent of the new Congress—158 members. Likewise, Presbyterians, Episcopalians and Methodists also were overrepresented.

Others were underrepresented. Pentecostals make up 0.4 percent of Congress but 5 percent of all U.S. adults. Nondenominational Christians represent 2 percent of Congress but 6 percent of adults in the United States. Baptists make up 12 percent of Congress but 15 percent of the U.S. adult population.

Among other findings:

• There are nine Mormons, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in the 117th Congress.
• The new Congress, like the old, has three Muslim representatives—Reps. André Carson, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib.
• It also has two Buddhists, Rep. Hank Johnson and Sen. Mazie K. Hirono, the same two who served in the previous Congress.
• There are two Hindus in Congress—Rep. Ro Khanna and Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, both returning members. (Washington state Rep. Pramila Jayapal, was among those who refused to identify a religious affiliation.)

Nearly all the non-Christian representatives (with the exception of three: two Jews and one who declined to state his religious affiliation) were Democrats.

Invocation sparks social media firestorm

Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II, D-Mo., delivered the opening prayer for the 117th Congress, riffing on the priestly blessing from the biblical Book of Numbers.

He caused a Twitter-storm when he closed his prayer in the name of “God known by many names by many different faiths—amen and a-woman.”

That closing drew the ire of some conservative pundits. The president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., tweeted that the use of “a-woman” was “insane.”

“Amen means ‘So Be It’ in Latin. It isn’t a gendered word, but that didn’t stop them from being insane,” he tweeted.

“Amen,” a word “used to express solemn ratification,” according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, comes to English from Hebrew. It has no etymological connection to the English word “man.” It is most likely connected to the Hebrew word for faith, emunah.

Others have pointed out that kind of wordplay is common in many religious traditions and Cleaver, who earned a master of divinity from St. Paul’s School of Theology of Kansas City, likely knows the meaning of the word “amen.”

LYNCHBURG, Va. (RNS)—A petition from a group calling itself Liberty United Against Falkirk is calling for Liberty University to shut down the Falkirk Center, a conservative political think tank at the evangelical Christian school in Lynchburg, Va.

The petition reportedly had been signed by more than 400 Liberty students and recent graduates as of Dec. 29, according to The Christian Post.

“Students at Liberty are tired of having our witness tarnished by association with a center that is trying to undo Liberty’s mission,” the petition said.

“We want to be known as people who were given an education to not only enter our desired fields, but also to live as people chosen by the Father, united to the Son and regenerated by the power of the Holy Spirit—not as people who were educated to become champions for Trump and Western Civilization in the ‘cultural battlefield.’”

Center focused on ‘cultural battlefield’

The Falkirk Center was founded last year by then-Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. and Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk to equip Christians “to be courageous champions for Christ to advance his kingdom and preserve American freedom,” according to its website.

“Although we do, as Jesus taught, turn the other cheek in our personal relationships, we cannot abdicate our responsibilities on the cultural battlefield,” it reads.

The petition pushed back on this, saying signers believed Jesus’ words should impact all parts of a Christian’s life and adding, “The mission for the church is not to wage war on the ‘cultural battlefield,’ but to make disciples and to build one another up.”

The petition also expressed concern about a number of the “fellows” associated with the center, calling it a “gateway for many wolves in sheep’s clothing—people who claim Christ’s name because it is convenient for their personal or political gain.”

Closely tied to Trump Administration

It pointed to quotes from several Falkirk fellows defending President Donald Trump and demeaning Democrats, including Christian author and radio host Eric Metaxas, former Trump adviser Sebastian Gorka and current Trump attorney Jenna Ellis.

“Associating any politician or political movement with Christianity bastardizes the gospel of Jesus Christ,” the petition said.

The petition’s signers join a growing chorus of voices that have expressed concerns about Liberty’s association with the Falkirk Center, including student body President Constance Schneider, student body Vice President Joel Thomas, former professor Karen Swallow Prior and historian John Fea.

“When an organization like (the Falkirk Center) is attached to Liberty, it impacts the reputation of not just our school, but our students as well. … We have had dozens of conversations with students who are embarrassed to claim the name of our school due to the rhetoric that comes from this center,” Schneider tweeted.

Politico also reported earlier this month the center had purchased at least $50,000 in campaign-season ads that promoted Trump and other Republican candidates and were designated by Facebook as political.

Scott Lamb, a spokesperson for Liberty University, told Politico, “While any academic think tank will have its detractors, the university and the center have received hundreds of supportive emails.”