WASHINGTON (RNS)—When it comes to politics, white evangelical Christians stand apart from every other religious group, according to a new poll conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute and The Atlantic.

The poll found 61 percent of evangelicals say the United States is headed in the right direction. By comparison, 64 percent of the overall public—including majorities of other Christian groups as well as religiously unaffiliated Americans—believes the country is seriously off track.

“White evangelical Protestants are sitting in their own unique space in the religious landscape on a whole range of issues,” said Robert Jones, CEO of research institute.

The survey, conducted in June from among 1,000 people, asked questions about voting and political engagement. But it also broke down respondents’ answers based on religious affiliation—white evangelical, white mainline Protestant, nonwhite Protestant, Catholic and religiously unaffiliated.

Continued support for President Trump

An overwhelming 81 percent of white evangelicals voted for President Trump, and they have generally stuck by him during his first 18 months as president.

Evangelicals widely hailed Trump’s nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to fill retiring Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy’s seat.

In recent days, Robert Jeffress, one of Trump’s informal evangelical advisers and the pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas, called for an end to Robert Mueller’s investigation of possible collusion between the Russian government and the Trump campaign during the 2016 presidential election.

The PRRI poll showed 77 percent of white evangelicals view Trump favorably or mostly favorably, the highest percentage since the 2016 election. By comparison, 17 percent of non-white Protestants, a group made up of African-Americans and Hispanics, viewed Trump favorably or mostly favorably.

Least likely to view changing demographics positively

As a group, white evangelicals were also the least likely to view America’s changing racial demographic makeup positively. Fifty-two percent of white evangelicals said they felt negatively about the prospect that nonwhites would become the majority of the population by 2043. That fits with white evangelicals’ approach to immigration, their distrust of Muslims and support for a border wall with Mexico.

By comparison, all other religious groups in the survey viewed the changing demographics in mostly positive terms.

“I argued that white evangelical voters have really shifted from being values voters to being what I call ‘nostalgia voters,’” said Jones. “They’re voting to protect a past view of America that they feel is slipping away. That’s driving evangelical politics much more than the old culture-war dynamics.”

Brantley Gasaway, a professor of American religious studies at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pa., said white evangelicals’ fears about the nation’s growing racial diversity might be linked to their perception of religious diversity.

“They perceive that America becoming less white means America will become less Christian,” he said. “I don’t think that’s true. Many Latino immigrants are coming from predominantly Christian nations. But they perceive changes in racial demographics as being a threat to the predominance of Christians in the United States.”

As a group, white evangelicals are declining. A decade ago they made up 23 percent of the U.S. population; today it’s more like 15 percent, Jones said. But they have an outsize influence at the ballot box because they tend to vote in high numbers.

The one area where religious groups appeared united is in their support for legislation that would make it easier to vote—measures such as same-day voter registration and restoring voting rights for people convicted of felonies.

View media as biased

A majority of all religious groups, with the exception of nonwhite Protestants, saw media bias as a “major problem.” White evangelicals led the pack, with 79 percent saying media bias was a major problem. By contrast, 50 percent of religiously unaffiliated also said it was a major problem.

While most religious groups said they would prefer that presidential elections be decided by the national popular vote as opposed to the Electoral College, white evangelicals once again stood out: 52 percent said presidential elections should be decided by the Electoral College. (Trump won the Electoral College but lost the popular vote.)

The margin of error for the national survey was plus or minus 3.3 percentage points.

WASHINGTON (BP)—A federal appeals court ruling that protects a church’s internal communications buttressed both religious freedom and defense of the unborn, according to the Southern Baptist Convention’s public policy and moral concerns agency.

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans reversed July 15 a federal judge’s order requiring the Roman Catholic bishops and archbishops of Texas to turn over their private deliberations on what they describe as doctrinal and moral issues.

Although the case involved the Catholic Church, the SBC’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission had said in a friend-of-the-court brief a failure to vacate the order would also endanger the religious freedom of Southern Baptist and other congregationally governed churches.

ERLC President Russell Moore applauded the Fifth Circuit’s opinion.

“The court’s ruling, which affirms religious liberty, as well as the sanctity of human life, is a victory for all Americans,” Moore said. “Churches and religious organizations shouldn’t be forced to disclose private information that could sabotage their ability to protect human dignity and engage in the public square. I am thankful the court acknowledged this in their decision.”

Moore added he prays the bishops and other religious organizations “will continue to stand firm in their convictions as we work to ensure the state respects their constitutional rights.”

Abortion clinic network wanted bishops’ emails

The case involves a challenge by the Whole Woman’s Health abortion clinic network to a 2016 state law that requires fetal remains from abortions or miscarriages to be buried or cremated rather than discarded in a landfill or by other means.

The Texas Conference of Catholic Bishops is not a party to the lawsuit, but Whole Woman’s Health sought its emails seemingly because the bishops have offered free burial for fetal remains in the church’s cemeteries in the state.

Magistrate Judge Andrew Austin refused June 13 to suppress Whole Woman’s Health’s subpoena of emails and attachments involving Texas Conference of Catholic Bishops Executive Director Jennifer Allmon since Jan. 1, 2016, on the disposal of the remains of aborted babies.

The documents sought “do not address religious doctrine or church governance,” Austin wrote in his order.

On June 18, the Fifth Circuit Court halted the order at the Texas bishops’ request and called for the filing of briefs in the appeal by June 25.

Internal deliberations protected

In the Fifth Circuit’s July 15 divided opinion that blocked Austin’s order, Judge Edith Jones wrote for a three-member panel to say past U.S. Supreme Court opinions “have protected religious organizations’ internal deliberations and decision-making in numerous ways.”

While none of those decisions directly addressed discovery orders as in this case, “the importance of securing religious groups’ institutional autonomy, while allowing them to enter the public square, cannot be understated and reflects consistent prior case law,” she wrote.

Problems regarding both the First Amendment’s protection of religious free exercise and prohibition on government establishment of religion “seem inherent in the court’s discovery order,” Jones said. “That internal communications are to be revealed not only interferes with TCCB’s decision-making processes on a matter of intense doctrinal concern but also exposes those processes to an opponent and will induce similar ongoing intrusions against religious bodies’ self-government.”

Judge James Ho agreed with Jones and wrote in a concurring opinion, “It is hard to imagine a better example of how far we have strayed from the text and original understanding of the Constitution than this case.”

The abortion providers’ effort to gain the bishops’ internal communications causes the court to wonder if it is an attempt “to retaliate against people of faith for not only believing in the sanctity of life—but also for wanting to do something about it.”

Judge Gregg Costa dissented from the majority opinion, saying the documents sought by the abortion providers in this case “do not come close to the concerns” addressed in the Supreme Court’s line of decisions on religious free exercise and establishment of religion.

‘Private theological and moral deliberations’

Before Austin’s order, the Texas bishops provided more than 4,300 pages of external communications at the request of Whole Woman’s Health but they refused to grant about 300 internal communications that included “private theological and moral deliberations,” according to Becket, a religious liberty organization representing the TCCB.

Eric Rassbach, vice president and senior counsel at Becket, issued a public statement after the Fifth Circuit decision: “Letting trial lawyers put religious leaders under constant surveillance doesn’t make sense for church or state. The court was right to nip this abuse of the judicial process in the bud.”

In its brief in support of the Texas bishops, the ERLC—joined by the National Association of Evangelicals—said the SBC is not hierarchical, unlike the Catholic Church, but its cooperating churches and other congregationally governed bodies still “would face serious harm.”

“Religious deliberations over doctrine and mission and morality are just as protected by the church autonomy doctrine for congregational churches like the Baptists as for any other religious organization,” the brief said. “The threat posed by the subpoena in this case is equally menacing to religious freedom as if it had been levied against a Baptist minister, a state Baptist convention, a Baptist cooperative entity or any other religious body.”

WASHINGTON (RNS)—President Trump nominated U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Brett Kavanaugh to be his Supreme Court nominee to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy, setting the stage for a heated confirmation battle that likely will focus on his views regarding both law and religion.

Trump made the announcement from the White House on Monday evening July 9 after keeping observers guessing several days.

“Judge Kavanaugh has impeccable credentials, unsurpassed qualifications, and a proven commitment to equal justice under the law,” Trump said, as Kavanaugh stood nearby with his wife and children. “He is a brilliant jurist with a clear and effective writing style universally regarded as one of the finest and sharpest legal minds of our time.”

When Kavanaugh spoke soon after, he was quick to talk about his faith.

“I am part of the vibrant Catholic community in the D.C. area,” Kavanaugh said, after mentioning his Jesuit high school. “The members of that community disagree on many things, but we are united by a commitment to serve.”

Move the court to the right

Kavanaugh, who once clerked for Kennedy, has built a high-profile career tailor-made to please many stalwart conservatives: He helped author the Starr Report on then-President Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky, represented Cuban child Elian Gonzalez pro bono to keep him from returning to the island nation, and was a lawyer with the George W. Bush campaign during the Florida recount.

But since being appointed to the District Columbia Circuit of the Court of Appeals, Kavanaugh also has issued rulings that speak directly to hot-button issues among people of faith, such as abortion and religious liberty.

“He’s going to move the court to the right of the man who he clerked for,” said Micah Schwartzman, a University of Virginia School of Law professor who specializes in religion and the U.S. Constitution. He noted the most lasting impact of Kavanaugh’s appointment may be how it reshuffles the calculus of the court, saying his confirmation will make it “more likely Chief Justice John Roberts will be the swing vote.”

Many have noted Kavanaugh’s dissent in Garza v. Hargan, when the court allowed an undocumented teenager who had crossed the border from Mexico into Texas as an unaccompanied minor to get an abortion while residing at a government-funded shelter. He argued the 2017 ruling was “ultimately based on a constitutional principle as novel as it is wrong: a new right for unlawful immigrant minors in U.S. government detention to obtain immediate abortion on demand.”

Kavanaugh also wrote a lengthy dissent in another case when the court declined to take up a case brought by a group of priests who objected to the Obama administration’s rules regarding contraceptive coverage.

‘Not conservative enough’ for some

Some conservative observers, however, felt that his dissent wasn’t conservative enough. David French at the National Review argued Kavanaugh erred by purportedly suggesting the government has a compelling interest to provide contraception to a religious organization that opposes it.

“While the government may well deem that contraceptives provide many general benefits (and Kavanaugh outlines those benefits in his opinion), that is not the same thing as holding that those general benefits are sufficiently compelling as applied to the employees of a small religious nonprofit,” French wrote.

But in another National Review piece, Justin Walker—assistant professor at the University of Louisville Brandeis Law School and former clerk of both Kennedy and Kavanaugh—argued the D.C. circuit judge is ultimately a “warrior for religious liberty.”

Responding to an article in the conservative publication The Federalist critical of Kavanaugh, Walker noted Kavanaugh chaired the Federalist Society’s Religious Liberty practice group in the 1990s, offered pro bono work for “cases defending religious freedom,” and “represented a synagogue pro bono in a local zoning dispute.”

“Judge Kavanaugh believes his job is to apply the law objectively, without regard to his personal views,” Walker said in an email to Religion News Service. “Part of applying the law objectively includes applying the Constitution. He also understands that our founders believed deeply in religious liberty, and that the Constitution they wrote protects the free exercise of religion.”

Kavanaugh also reportedly volunteered his time on a Supreme Court religious liberty case with Kelly Shackelford, president and CEO of First Liberty Institute, and Jay Sekulow, one of Trump’s lawyers who has long opposed the portion of the IRS tax code that bars nonprofits from endorsing candidates for office.

A First Liberty Institute representative confirmed the 2000 case was Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe, where the court ruled a policy allowing student-led, student-initiated prayer at high school football games violated the establishment clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

America’s religious communities are failing children with chronic health conditions such as autism, learning disabilities, depression and conduct disorders.

And they have been doing it for a very long time, suggests a just-published national study following three waves of the National Survey of Children’s Health.

The odds of a child with autism never attending religious services were nearly twice as high as compared to children with no chronic health conditions. The odds of never attending also were significantly higher for children with developmental delays, ADD/ADHD, learning disabilities and behavior disorders.

Sanctuaries were much more sympathetic to children with health conditions such as asthma, diabetes, epilepsy or vision problems. Those children were as likely to be in the pews as youngsters with no health conditions.

But children with conditions that limit social interaction, those youngsters and their parents who are often excluded from other social settings and have the greater need for a community of social support, were most likely to feel unwelcome at religious services.

Continue reading this article at the Association of Religion Data Archives.

WASHINGTON (RNS)—As the summer heat waxes and state legislative sessions wane, the Congressional Prayer Caucus Foundation has scored a few small but significant victories.

This year, five state legislatures passed laws mandating every public school prominently display the U.S. motto, “In God We Trust.” The addition of Arkansas, which passed such a law in 2017, brings to six the number of states with public school mandates, including Alabama, Florida, Arizona, Louisiana and Tennessee.

Project Blitz gains traction

Those laws, mostly sponsored by legislative prayer caucuses in about 30 states, were inspired by the foundation’s 2017 manual known as Project Blitz, a 116-page guide for state legislators listing 20 model bills of which “In God We Trust” is the first.

For a foundation begun in late 2005 as an offshoot of the Congressional Prayer Caucus, that’s an impressive start.

The list of “In God We Trust” legislation doesn’t count states like Minnesota that passed a law allowing but not mandating public schools post the motto, or a new North Carolina law requiring the Department of Motor Vehicles to issue optional “In God We Trust” license plates.

Project Blitz has been likened to the American Legislative Exchange Council, which brings conservative state lawmakers together with corporate sponsors to draft model legislation.

The model bill project was conceived by the foundation based in Chesapeake, Va., alongside two partners—WallBuilders, the group headed by Christian nationalist David Barton, and the National Legal Foundation, a Christian public interest law firm.

The project’s stated purpose is to protect religious liberty, which the foundation says is a key American principle that has “weakened and come under increasing attack.”

Religious freedom for whom?

But the way Project Blitz defines religious freedom is misleading, said Frederick Clarkson, senior research analyst with Political Research Associates, a social justice think tank based in Somerville, Mass.

“Religious freedom in the sense that Project Blitz means it is not what the rest of us understand as the revolutionary aspiration of religious equality for all,” Clarkson said. “It’s more of a cover for some conservative Christians to promote their religious and political views via public policy and public institutions, and as a justification for broad exemptions from the law.”

In addition to the “In God We Trust” model bill for public schools, the Project Blitz manual offers a raft of other bills, including:

• A Religion in Legal History Act that endorses an “appropriate presentation of the role of religion in the constitutional history of the United States” to be placed in courthouses and other public institutions (Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin signed such a law in May).
• A state resolution on marriage that says the state “supports and encourages marriage between one man and one woman.”
• A Child Protection Act that allows religious exemptions for adoption and foster care agencies from serving same-sex couples (both Kansas and Oklahoma passed such laws this year).
• A Licensed Professional Civil Rights Act that would exempt “pharmacists, medical personnel and mental health practitioners from providing care to LGBTQ people, and such matters as abortion and contraception.”
• A Student Prayer Certification Act that would require states to certify they are not preventing students from engaging in constitutionally protected prayer.”

Repeated email and phone calls to the foundation were not returned.

Americans United for Separation of Church and State has been keeping track of Project Blitz legislation. It found 76 bills introduced in state legislatures nationwide in 2018 that were either identical or used similar language to the Project Blitz manual.

Some lawmakers see no harm

Many legislators said they saw no harm in “In God We Trust” measures.

“Our national motto and founding documents are the cornerstone of freedom and we should teach our children about these things,” said Tennessee State Rep. Susan Lynn, who sponsored the bill passed in that state in March.

Project Blitz writers acknowledge “In God We Trust” bills may seem symbolic, but they serve a larger purpose, which is to lay the foundation for future efforts.

“Despite arguments that this type of legislation is not needed, measures such as the ‘In God We Trust’ bill can have enormous impact,” reads the manual. “Even if it does not become law, it can still provide the basis to shore up later support for other governmental entities to support religious displays.”

Pushback begins

Some religious groups have begun to push back. In North Carolina, where an “In God We Trust” bill passed in the state House in June but stalled in the state Senate, the executive director of the North Carolina Council of Churches went on record opposing such a bill.

“For those who have no religious tradition, whose beliefs also are protected by the First Amendment, the motto is an affront,” wrote Jennifer Copeland in a blog post. “For those who do believe the tenets of Trinitarian Christianity, we don’t need a sign at school telling us who we trust.”

Last month, the Presbyterian Church (USA) passed by consensus a resolution at its General Assembly that said it will “stand against any invocation of ‘religious freedom’ (in the public sphere) that deprives people of their civil and human rights to equal protection under the law, or that uses ‘religious freedom’ to justify exclusion and discrimination.”

Regional affiliates of Americans United—including one in North Carolina—are watching developments closely.

“They’re destroying the integrity of religion in America,” said Rollin Russell, a retired United Church of Christ minister active with the Orange-Durham chapter of Americans United in North Carolina, referring to the prayer caucus groups. “It makes me crazy that people with that understanding of Christianity are enforcing their theological perspective on everybody else.”

(POLITICO) — Republicans have quietly imposed a new tax on churches, synagogues and other nonprofits, a little-noticed and surprising change that could cost some groups tens of thousands of dollars.

Their recent tax-code rewrite requires churches, hospitals, colleges, orchestras and other historically tax-exempt organizations to begin paying a 21 percent tax on some types of fringe benefits they provide their employees.

That could force thousands of groups that have long had little contact with the IRS to suddenly begin filing returns and paying taxes for the first time.

Many organizations are stunned to learn of the tax — part of a broader Republican effort to strip the code of tax breaks for employee benefits like parking and meals — and say it will be a significant financial and administrative burden.

Continue reading this article on Politico.

WASHINGTON (RNS)—The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld President Trump’s temporary ban on refugees and immigrants from a group of primarily Muslim-majority countries in a 5-4 decision, arguing it is within the executive branch’s power to “suspend entry of aliens into the United States.”

“The President has lawfully exercised the broad discretion granted to him … to suspend the entry of aliens into the United States,” the decision, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, reads, citing a statute in the United States code on inadmissible aliens.

“By its terms, (the statute) exudes deference to the President in every clause. It entrusts to the President the decisions whether and when to suspend entry, whose entry to suspend, for how long, and on what conditions. It thus vests the President with ‘ample power’ to impose entry restrictions in addition to those elsewhere enumerated in the (Immigration and Nationality Act).”

The decision, known as Trump v. Hawaii, spoke dismissively of the argument that the travel ban violates the Establishment Clause of the Constitution, which prohibits the government from establishing one religion: “Plaintiffs have not demonstrated a likelihood of success on the merits of their claim that the proclamation violates the Establishment Clause.”

Two dissents written

Four justices wrote two dissents to the decision. Justice Stephen Breyer, joined by Justice Elena Kagan, argued there is some evidence that exceptions to the ban are not being applied narrowly and show “anti-religious bias,” and would therefore “set the Proclamation aside.”

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, said review of the ban didn’t “cleanse (it) of the appearance of discrimination that the President’s words have created,” later adding, “Based on the evidence in the record, a reasonable observer would conclude that the Proclamation was motivated by anti-Muslim animus.”

Sotomayor also argued the ban violates the First Amendment to the Constitution, which guarantees religious liberty, saying, “The Court’s decision today fails to safeguard that fundamental principle.”

The court said it only considered the president’s executive order in making its decision, not Trump’s statements and tweets targeting Muslims, writing, “the issue before us is not whether to denounce the statements. It is instead the significance of those statements in reviewing a presidential directive, neutral on its face, addressing a matter within the core of executive responsibility.”

Widely varied reactions

The president was quick to celebrate the decision, tweeting, “SUPREME COURT UPHOLDS TRUMP TRAVEL BAN. Wow!”

Omar Jadwat, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, issued a scathing rebuke of the ruling.

“This ruling will go down in history as one of the Supreme Court’s great failures,” he said. “It repeats the mistakes of the Korematsu decision upholding Japanese-American imprisonment and swallows wholesale government lawyers’ flimsy national security excuse for the ban instead of taking seriously the president’s own explanation for his actions.”

Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United, likewise criticized the decision.

“The Supreme Court today has forsaken one of our most foundational and cherished values—that our government must never single out any one religion for discrimination,” Laser said. “Our hearts break for the millions of Americans who, because of the Muslim ban, will continue to be separated from their loved ones and face peak rates of hate crimes and maltreatment.

“We refuse to be Americans divided. We are Americans united in the belief that people of all faiths, and with no religious affiliation too, all deserve equal treatment in America. We know well that when it comes to religious freedom, as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stated, ‘Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.’ We call on all Americans to rise up and repudiate the politics of fear, hate and division coming out of this administration.”

‘Straightforward win for President Trump’

Micah Schwartzman, a professor at the University of Virginia School of Law who specializes in the religious clauses of the U.S. Constitution, called the decision “a straightforward win for President Trump.”

“My read is that the 5-4 decision by the majority is a broader victory than many people expected,” he said. “Many thought the court would dodge this case—but it didn’t.”

Schwartzman, whom Sotomayor cites in her dissent, expressed frustration at what he described as the court “burying its head in the sand” by declining to consider Trump’s various negative comments about Islam.

“This was the big case: This was when the court was faced with clear religious animus coming from the president of the United States,” he said.

Schwartzman also argued there was a disconnect in the court’s approach to the ban compared with a recent Supreme Court ruling in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission.

In that case, Justice Anthony Kennedy cited comments by CCRC officials supposedly deriding the religious beliefs of a baker who declined to make a cake for a same-sex wedding as evidence of anti-religious animus—something Schwartzman argued the court ignored in the travel ban decision.

“There is deep and profound inconsistency from the court between Masterpiece Cakeshop and this case,” he said. “The travel ban case casts Masterpiece under a deep cloud.”

Nelson Tebbe, professor at Cornell Law School, agreed.

“In the Cakeshop case, the court found that one or two statements by a multi-member board of officials sufficed to overturn its actions,” said Tebbe, who signed on to the same amicus brief as Schwartzman, in an email. “In the travel ban case, by contrast, overwhelming evidence of animus by a single decision maker, the president, was insufficient to overturn a policy with an obvious, discriminatory effect.”

Deluge of criticism

The travel ban has endured a near-constant deluge of criticism since then-candidate Donald Trump first proposed a “complete and total shutdown of Muslims” entering the country while campaigning for president in December 2015.

After he was elected, Trump signed an executive order instituting a more specific version of the idea on Jan. 27, 2017, banning refugees and migrants from seven Muslim-majority countries.

The order triggered widespread protests at airports across the country, and an unusually broad spectrum of faith groups—including the Council on American-Islamic Relations, National Association of Evangelicals, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism and the National Council of Churches—either rejected or outright condemned the ban.

Holly Hollman, general counsel of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, had joined 30 other legal scholars in a friend-of-the-court brief arguing the ban is unconstitutionally based in religious animus toward Muslims.

“We are deeply disappointed by the Supreme Court’s refusal to repudiate policy rooted in animus against Muslims,” said Amanda Tyler, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee.

In giving such broad deference to President Trump, the court neglects its duty to uphold our First Amendment principles of religious liberty. Safeguarding religious liberty requires the government to remain neutral with regard to religion, neither favoring one religion over another nor preferring religion or irreligion.

“More than ever, preserving American religious freedom requires the active involvement of all citizens to denounce religious bigotry in all its forms.”

Legal challenges

The ban was beset by legal challenges. Within days, courts issued a nationwide temporary restraining order restricting enforcement of large parts of the ban. Trump subsequently signed a new version of the executive order that, among other things, removed Iraq from the list of countries affected by the ban.

That, too, was met with lawsuits: The United States District Court for the District of Hawaii issued yet another temporary restraining order in March 2017 that prevented the amended version from going into effect.

The debate made its way to the Supreme Court, which issued a decision on June 26, 2017, that reinstated parts of the order and set oral arguments on the case for later that year. But a third version of the ban, also signed in September, prompted the court to delay the arguments. A Hawaii judge halted this version in October.

Oral arguments in the case finally were offered before the court on April 25, 2018, with a wide swath of faith groups signing on to several amicus briefs siding with those condemning the ban.

The government defended the ban, arguing that the president has the authority to create immigration policy, that the ban itself doesn’t amount to a “Muslim ban” that discriminates unconstitutionally and that Trump’s comments about Islam during the campaign were “made by a private citizen before he takes the oath of office and before … (he) receives the advice of his cabinet.”

But the state of Hawaii disagreed on several counts, arguing that since Trump has refused to disavow his previous remarks about Islam—such as “I think Islam hates us”—those comments still paint the ban.

According to a 2017 poll from the Public Religion Research Institute, 55 percent of Americans oppose the ban, compared with 40 percent who approve. Among major religious groups, only white evangelical Protestants expressed majority support (61 percent) for the ban, compared with 48 percent of white Catholics, 42 percent of white mainline Protestants, 37 percent of Hispanic Catholics and 31 percent of religiously unaffiliated Americans. Only 24 percent of black Protestants expressed support for the ban.

With additional reporting by Managing Editor Ken Camp.

EDITOR’S NOTE: On Wednesday afternoon, June 20, President Trump signed an executive order mandating that officials continue to criminally prosecute everyone who crosses the border illegally but requiring them to seek to find or build facilities that can hold families—parents and children together—instead of separating them while their legal cases are considered by the courts.

The recently implemented zero-tolerance immigration policy that separates children from their parents who cross the border without proper documentation prompted strong reaction from some Baptists—particularly after U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions cited the New Testament in support of the policy.

“People who violate the law of our land are subject to prosecution. I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13, to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained them for the purpose of order,” Sessions said at a June 14 gathering in Fort Wayne, Ind.

Sessions made the comments two days after messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting in Dallas approved a resolution calling for reform in the immigration system to “make it more just, humane, efficient and orderly.”

The resolution expressed messengers desire for reform that includes “an emphasis on securing our borders and providing a pathway to legal status with appropriate restitutionary measures, maintaining the priority of family unity, resulting in an efficient immigration system that honors the value and dignity of those seeking a better life for themselves and their families.”

‘Outrageous’ and ‘heinous’

Suzii Paynter, executive coordinator, expressed outrage both at the effect of the zero-tolerance policy and Sessions’ use of Scripture to justify it.

“The policy of ripping children from the arms of parents is outrageous, and quoting Scripture in its defense is heinous,” Paynter said.

“While it is necessary to control the flow of immigrants and refugees into the country, the use of tactics meant to traumatize and inflict irreparable harm to children and their parents is un-American and certainly do not appear anywhere in the Bible I read.”

Russell Moore, president of Southern Baptists’ Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, posted a photo of a crying immigrant child to his Twitter account June 18 with the tweet: “Father and mother are treated with contempt in you; the sojourner suffers extortion in your midst; the fatherless and widow are wronged in you” (Ezekiel 22:7).”

Later, Moore posted a recording obtained by ProPublica from inside a U.S. Customs and Border Protection facility. On it, listeners can hear crying immigrant children who were separated from their parents and the response of a Border Patrol official. Moore tweeted: “Are our consciences so seared that we do not hear the horror in this?”

Moore was among the religious leaders who signed a June 1 letter from the Evangelical Immigration Table to President Trump, urging his administration to reverse the zero-tolerance policy that separates families.

‘Need our prayers’

Gus Reyes, director of the Texas Baptist Christian Life Commission, issued a statement June 18 calling for prayer for everyone involved in the situation along the Rio Grande.

“These children and their parents need our prayers,” Reyes said. “This is a frightening time for them, because they have been separated in a strange land. Children and families hold special places in our hearts because of the teachings of Scripture.

“Our law enforcement personnel along the border need our prayers. They are in a difficult situation of having to enforce laws that are causing human suffering. It is always hard to see children suffer.

“Our political leaders in Washington need our prayers. Many are torn between competing interests related to securing our southern border, enabling needed workers to enter, upholding existing law and protecting families.”

‘Honor a higher authority’

Reyes noted he was in Washington, D.C., meeting with lawmakers about the matter, and he urged others to practice responsible Christian citizenship.

“Scripture instructs us to respect the laws of nations, but the Bible also indicates Christ followers are to honor a higher authority,” he said. “We obey the laws of governments unless they call on us to violate the instructions of God, then we seek to change the laws. God is sovereign over nations, and in a democracy Christians have a special responsibility to bring godly influence to government policies.

“Living in a democracy, Christians have a responsibility to seek to influence government in the direction of care and justice for all people, especially the ‘least of these,’ as noted by Jesus in Matthew 25.”

‘We can do better’

Kathryn Freeman, director of public policy for the CLC, participated in a June 18 call-in news conference organized by the Evangelical Immigration Table. It featured a panel of Christian women who discussed refugee resettlement and justice for Dreamers, as well as concern about the forced separation of immigrant families.

Freeman noted the plight of asylum-seeking parents who have fled violence in Latin America, only to find themselves criminally charged and separated from the children at the U.S. border.

“Texas evangelicals do not want this done in our name,” Freeman said. “To tear small children from their parents is absolutely heartbreaking, and it is not legally necessary. Every past administration has exercised discretion in these cases, especially when individuals have credible fears of violence in their home country and when their children are affected. We can do better as a nation.”

WASHINGTON (RNS)—The right-leaning Robert P. George and the left-leaning Cornel West may not agree ideologically, but they came to the nation’s capital to urge others to get to know people who are not like them, just as Martin Luther King Jr. did.

A Baylor University event marking the 50th anniversary of King’s assassination aimed to shed light on the minister and civil rights leader who is “so often evoked and so rarely studied in any detail,” said Dean Thomas Hibbs, director of Baylor in Washington, the school’s outpost in the capital.

Organizers said they arranged for the discussion of King’s legacy as a display of brotherhood from two people of widely different perspectives.

“Their friendship is a counter to so much of what ails our public life,” Hibbs told the audience at the luncheon at a Capitol Hill hotel.

‘Nobody has a monopoly on the truth’

Indeed, George, whose Twitter page features a photo of him embracing West, and West, who calls George “my conservative brother,” traded compliments as they each highlighted King’s theology.

“We’re a couple of guys with some pretty strong opinions, but we recognize nobody has a monopoly on the truth,” said George, professor of jurisprudence at Princeton University and a senior fellow at the Baylor Institute for Studies of Religion. “We have something to learn from each other, even across the lines of religious or theological or philosophical or political difference.”

George and West have worked together 11 years, first jointly teaching a class at Princeton—with reading material ranging from Sophocles’ “Antigone” to King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail”—and later drafting a statement on “freedom of thought and expression” on college campuses that reflects the stance they’ve been discussing together in public sessions.

West said he’s had to answer critics who can’t understand how he travels around the country with George: “I say, ‘Have you met him? Have you sat down and talked with him?’”

Search for Beloved Community

They sat onstage, comfortably taking turns highlighting how King had crossed divides in search of his goal of a “beloved community.”

West and George agree the emphasis on King should be on his role as a Christian minister, although his civil rights activism also is grounded in his being a product of the black community.

“The last thing we ever want to do with Brother Martin is view him as some isolated icon on a pedestal to be viewed in a museum,” said West, professor of the practice of public philosophy at Harvard University. “He’s a wave in an ocean, a tradition of a people for 400 years so deeply hated, but taught the world so much about love and how to love.”

Catholic theologian Thomas Aquinas, the Hindu leader Mohandas Gandhi and the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber influenced King’s approach, the two scholars noted. But that approach did not bring him broad appeal during his lifetime. King was criticized not only by racist segregationists, but also by black activists who didn’t agree with his commitment to nonviolence, George said.

“It wasn’t that everybody agreed we got a hero,” said George, who thinks King’s image has become “sanitized” over the years. “It was only after April 4, 1968, when he was assassinated, when he was martyred, that we began to have now the heroic King.”

Learn ‘heroic humility’

West added that King never received a majority vote in a popularity poll as he worked towards his beloved community—the idea that all people are equally deserving of justice and peace—but, he said, more people need to have that “unbelievable courage.”

“We learn from everyone, as Brother Martin, heroic humility,” said West. “That means that we ought to be jazz-like. We ought to not just lift our voices but recognize you can’t lift your voice without bouncing your voice off that of others.”

In brief interviews after their talk, the scholars said they hope their example will help others learn to listen to—and not just hear—people outside their individual tribes and silos.

“Listening means that you’re taking on more of what the person is saying,” said George. “You’re trying to understand it. You’re considering whether there might be some truth in it.”

West added that what’s unusual about their approach is that it’s public.

“There are examples of deep friendships and sisterhoods and brotherhoods across ideological, political lines,” he said. “People want to protect their image vis a vis certain constituencies.”

WASHINGTON—The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of a Colorado Christian baker who refused to design a cake for a same-sex couple’s wedding reception, but the ruling’s narrow scope prompted widely ranging responses—and even led opposing lawyers to claim at least partial victory.

The Supreme Court ruled 7-2 on behalf of cake baker Jack Phillips in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, but the justices focused primarily on how the commission handled the case rather than on broader questions of religious liberty and discrimination.

Commission showed ‘hostility’ toward religious convictions

The same-sex couple—David Mullins and Charlie Craig—filed a complaint with the commission, saying they were being discriminated against on the basis of their sexual orientation. Phillips insisted he should be granted an exemption to Colorado’s Anti-Discrimination Act based on his sincerely held religious views about marriage.

The state Civil Rights Commission’s consideration of the case was “inconsistent with the state’s obligation of religious neutrality,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion, noting the baker’s refusal was based on “his sincere religious beliefs and convictions.”

“The Civil Rights Commission’s treatment of his case has some elements of a clear and impermissible hostility toward the sincere religious beliefs that motivated his objection,” Kennedy wrote.

No ‘blanket exemption’ to nondiscrimination laws

The court failed to address the core question by basing its decision on the actions of the administrative commission charged with enforcing civil rights laws, rather than determining whether the business owner violated the law by refusing to provide a service, said Holly Hollman, general counsel for the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty.

“Religious liberty protects beliefs and actions related to marriage. It does not mean that religious beliefs provide blanket exemptions to nondiscrimination laws that protect our neighbors,” Hollman said.

At the same time, she added: “Religious objectors, like all Americans, have the right to be treated with respect and not to have their religious beliefs denigrated. As we consider these difficult issues in future cases, we all will fare better when we acknowledge the legitimate interests on both sides of these disputes and approach each other with civility and respect.”

Last October, the Baptist Joint Committee filed a brief with the Supreme Court arguing Colorado’s public accommodation law, as applied in the Masterpiece Cakeshop case, “strikes the right balance between respect for religious liberty and the protection of individuals’ right to participate in the commercial marketplace free from discrimination.”

‘A win for all Americans’

More than a month earlier, the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission had filed a brief arguing the “free exercise of religion by secular vocations in the marketplace should be no less protected than sacred vocations in the ministry.”

“The Supreme Court got this one right,” said Russell Moore, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, who called the court’s ruling “a win for all Americans.”

“At stake at this debate was the question of whether or not the state can force an individual to violate their conscience. We need to live in the kind of country where we can be free to persuade one another, not bully each other into silence,” Moore said.

“The Supreme Court’s responsibility is to protect Americans from governments and agencies that would make such and demand. I’m glad to see they have. My hope is that this will be a sign that the court will continue to uphold conscience freedom and personal liberty in future cases.”

Both sides claim partial victory

The American Civil Liberties Union, which represented Mullins and Craig during the appeal process, claimed at least a limited victory, saying the Supreme Court “did not accept arguments that would have turned back the clock on equality by making our basic civil rights protections unenforceable.”

“The court reversed the Masterpiece Cakeshop decision based on concerns unique to the case but reaffirmed its longstanding rule that states can prevent the harms of discrimination in the marketplace, including against LGBT people.” said Louise Melling, deputy legal director of the ACLU.

The Alliance Defending Freedom, a legal firm that aided Phillips early in the case, likewise claimed a victory in the court’s decision, saying its “makes clear that the government must respect … (Phillips’) beliefs about marriage.”

“Creative professionals who serve all people should be free to create art consistent with their convictions without the threat of government punishment,” said Kristen Waggoner, senior counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom.

Colorado and its Civil Rights Commission was “openly antagonistic” toward Phillips and toward his religious views about marriage, she added.

“The court was right to condemn that,” Waggoner said. “Tolerance and respect for good-faith differences of opinion are essential in a society like ours.”

WASHINGTON (RNS)—At a dinner last year with prominent evangelical Christians in the Blue Room of the White House, Ivanka Trump and husband Jared Kushner invited their guests to discuss the issues most important to them.

At the top of the pastors’ list was “bringing the nation together.”

“We could really do this, and we can do it way beyond the rhetoric. For example, let’s look at prison reform,” said Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference.

Johnnie Moore, founder of The Kairos Co., a strategy firm, who recently was appointed to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, described it as an “incredibly enthusiastic conversation.”

“Sparks were flying all around the table, and then Jared had this idea,” Moore said. “What if we got every church or synagogue to take responsibility for one prisoner re-entering society? You think that could work?”

First Step Act draws bipartisan support

That dinner planted the seed of what would grow to become the proposed First Step Act, aimed at reducing the number of people who return to prison after serving time.

That bill overwhelmingly passed the U.S. House of Representatives last week with bipartisan support from lawmakers and with the support of a number of prominent evangelical Christians and institutions.

While the bill’s fate in the Senate is uncertain, the support it’s gained from both sides of the aisle already is being counted as a major success on an issue evangelicals long have tried to put their stamp on.

“There’s never been greater interest in America in criminal justice reform,” said Craig DeRoche, senior vice president for advocacy and public policy at the evangelical organization Prison Fellowship. “We have a lot of hope.”

Prison Fellowship leads the way

Prison reform has been a signal issue for evangelicals since Charles Colson, a former aide to President Nixon, came to faith in Christ while serving seven months in Maxwell Prison in Alabama for Watergate-related crimes.

Colson, as White House special counsel, had first framed Nixon’s “political template of being tough on crime and long sentences,” DeRoche said. Colson’s prison experiences produced a change of heart.

“Within three years, he was saying that model was in conflict with our values as Christians and as Americans and that it would lead to failure,” DeRoche said.

Prison Fellowship, which Colson founded in 1976, is now the country’s largest Christian prison ministry.

The plight of prisoners has been a priority for churches large and small “almost as long as the church has existed,” Moore said.

After Colson’s death in 2012, many evangelical Christians picked up the cause of criminal justice reform, Moore said. As the U.S. prison population has swelled, he added, the issue has touched many Christians personally.

Working with the White House

Since Trump has taken office, DeRoche has taken part in meetings with Trump’s aides, including his son-in-law, Kushner, but also with Cabinet members and staffers from the departments of Justice, Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Housing and Urban Development.

It’s not unusual for the White House to welcome that input from Prison Fellowship, however, DeRoche noted. The organization has worked with every administration since President Carter.

The conversation about prison reform isn’t just a religious conversation anymore as the justice system, from the White House down to local prosecutors, has begun to weigh the cost of mass incarceration.

Seeking to reduce recidivism

First Step, an acronym for Formerly Incarcerated Re-enter Society Transformed Safely Transitioning Every Person, focuses on recidivism, the number of people who finish their prison terms or are paroled, only to land back in confinement.

Among other things, First Step would encourage prisoners to join programs, such as faith-based classes and job-training programs that have been shown to reduce recidivism. With “earned time credits” awarded for their participation, prisoners could be released early to halfway houses or home confinement. It also would assess which programs are most effective for individual prisoners.

In the year since the dinner in the Blue Room, the initial enthusiasm had to weather seemingly endless meetings, attempts to act through executive orders in place of legislation and other delays—a previous iteration, the Prison Reform and Redemption Act, foundered in April over its lack of sentencing reform provisions.

More than 20 Christian, Jewish and secular institutions had signed a letter of support for that bill, including Prison Fellowship, the Christian Community Development Association, the Faith and Freedom Coalition, the National Association of Evangelicals, the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference and the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.

First Step, not final destination

After some revisions, the First Step Act was ushered through despite similar objections that it treats only “back end” causes of mass incarceration—recidivism—and not “front end” causes such as mandatory sentencing. Heather Rice-Minus, Prison Fellowship’s vice president of government affairs, said there isn’t enough consensus among lawmakers now to get a bill including sentencing reform to the president’s desk.

“We’re still going to fight for that,” Rice-Minus said. “We consider the First Step Act just that—it’s a first step.”

Democrats in the Senate reportedly still are divided, saying the reforms aren’t enough without also looking at sentencing. So are some Christians, especially those on the left.

“There’s so much in the bill that gives false hope to people,” said Aundreia Alexander, associate general secretary for action and advocacy at the National Council of Churches.

Moving the right direction

Rodriguez, the head of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, said he too is disappointed that the bill overlooks sentencing reform. The disparity in sentencing—that people who are African-American or Hispanic are more likely to be incarcerated than people who are white—is something he said nobody can deny, no matter what their politics. Christians are compelled by the message of Jesus to speak against such injustice, he added.

When he mentioned the possibility to his multi-ethnic congregation, he said, “I had African-American men who started to weep and cry.”

At the same time, Rodriguez said the First Step Act is a step in the right direction.

Evangelical Christians also are glad to show they can have influence on justice and equity, matters the public may not associate with the religious right.

“While much of the media obsession has been on evangelicals’ role in pro-life issues or religious freedom, I think we’ve actually made the most consequential difference in these areas of social concern,” Moore said. “And we’re more involved in those conversations now than the other ones, honestly.”

WASHINGTON (RNS)—The Good Book is shaping up to be a good draw on the crowded landscape of museums in the nation’s capital.

The Museum of the Bible, the newest tourist attraction near the National Mall, has drawn 565,000 visitors since it opened six months ago, according to museum figures released May 17.

While that’s less than half as many as visited the National Museum of African American History and Culture in its first six months, it’s enough to assure organizers a robust audience is hungry for Bible-related exhibits.

“We are pleased that more than half a million people have walked through the iconic Gutenberg Gates since last November to experience the largest museum dedicated to the Bible,” said Museum of the Bible President Cary Summers.

“As we enter the peak of tour season, we look forward to welcoming new and returning guests to engage with the history, narrative and impact of the most influential book ever written.”

By comparison, other museums had a smaller draw in their first half-year. The Broad, a new contemporary art museum in Los Angeles, attracted fewer than 500,000 within six months of its 2015 opening.

More than 1,700 groups have visited the high-tech Museum of the Bible, which sits two blocks from the National Mall near the U.S. Capitol, art galleries and other museums. Officials said visitors travel an average of 260 miles to the 430,000-square-foot museum.

The museum cost $500 million and took three years to build. Co-founded by Steve Green, the president of the Hobby Lobby craft store business, it opened with 1,600 items in its permanent collection, about three-quarters of which are Bibles and biblical manuscripts.

In the months before it opened, Museum of the Bible officials distanced themselves from a Hobby Lobby settlement in which the company agreed to return 5,500 artifacts illegally imported from Iraq and to pay the Justice Department a $3 million fine. Museum officials had to ask partners to loan them items to complete an exhibit.

The museum has free admission to visitors, who reserve timed-entry passes or walk up to its doors, but it suggests a donation of $15 per person.

In August, the Museum of the Bible will sponsor a temporary exhibit, titled “Pilgrim Preacher: Billy Graham, the Bible and the Challenges of the Modern World,” about the evangelist who died in February.