NASHVILLE (RNS)—In an evening filled with apocalyptic rhetoric, patriotic songs and campaign promises, former President Donald Trump promised religious broadcasters he would make a triumphant return to the White House next year and restore Christian preachers to power in American culture.

“If I get in, you’re going to be using that power at a level that you’ve never used before,” Trump told the annual gathering of National Religious Broadcasters at Nashville’s Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center on Feb. 22.

Speaking to a packed ballroom of radio and television preachers and other Christian communicators, Trump described himself as a friend and fellow believer and someone ready to restore God to his rightful place in American culture.

“With your help and God’s grace, the great revival of America begins on November 5th,” he said.

Pledge to root out ‘anti-Christian bias’

In a speech that lasted more than an hour, Trump portrayed evangelical Christians as a persecuted group under President Joe Biden’s administration, a status he told them he shared in his 2020 election loss, which he said had been “rigged.”

He told the religious broadcasters one of his first acts in a second term would be to set up a task force to root out “anti-Christian bias.”

Trump said he also would come to the aid of “political prisoners,” referring to those imprisoned for their actions at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Some of those convicts were heard in a recorded rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner by the self-described J6 Prison Choir as Trump was being introduced.

Trump appealed to the religious audience with Bible verses and promises of world peace.

“The Bible says blessed are the peacemakers,” said Trump, quoting from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. “I will be a peacemaker, and I will be the only president who can say—and I say this with great conviction—I will prevent World War III.”

Though he admitted he wasn’t a very good Christian and didn’t know much about the Bible, Trump told broadcasters he shared their faith and always would stand up for God—lines that brought thunderous applause.

But Trump’s biggest applause lines came when he promised to promote school vouchers, seal the U.S. southern border and prevent transgender men from participating in women’s sports. With him as president, he vowed America would have only two genders—male and female.

‘Make America Pray Again’

Conference attendees stood in long lines as they waited to be screened by the Secret Service and security personnel before being admitted to the ballroom. Kelley Paine, from Rockport, who wore a “Make America Pray Again” baseball cap, said Trump had been a great president and could be one again.

“He’s a businessman, and that is what our country needs,” she said.

While a representative of Pray.com touted the slogan on Paine’s hat, on the whole, the NRB gathering was less tricked out in MAGA gear than normally can be found at a Trump campaign event, and the coarser messages that have popped up among Trump supporters in recent years were not in evidence.

One vendor in the NRB exhibition hall turned a MAGA chant of “Let’s Go Brandon”—meant to send an obscene message to President Biden—into “Let’s Go Jesus” flags, hats and shirts.

Analia Anderson, who said she has sold T-shirts at MAGA-themed “Reawaken America” events, is a fan of President Trump, but she said some rhetoric at those events went too far.

“It’s not very Christian,” she said.

Trump’s arrival at the Opryland resort was delayed for more than an hour, and a Southern gospel group, Ernie Hass & Signature Sound, was pressed into an impromptu concert of gospel songs, at one point leading the crowd in an a cappella rendition of “God Bless America.”

Just as attendees had begun to drift out of the room, Trump arrived and was greeted with a standing ovation.

NRB President Troy Miller began the evening session, labeled a president forum, by saying the group had reached out to all presidential candidates, inviting them to speak. He also said, because the NRB is a nonprofit, the group did not endorse candidates—and any comments made by speakers were not official statements of the NRB.

Talk show hosts praise Trump

Conservative talk show host Hugh Hewitt and Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, also spoke before Trump took the stage, praising the former president and warning that the country and conservatives face grave perils from their political foes.

Hewitt called Trump the “best interview in America.”

“I have no idea what he is going to say—nobody does,” he said, a line that drew thunderous applause.

Hewitt took aim at the term Christian nationalism, a movement that promotes the belief that the United States should be run by and for the benefit of Christians. Hewitt called the term a “slander on the church and on Christians who want to be involved in politics.”

Roberts dismissed concerns expressed by Trump’s foes about corruption and authoritarianism if the former president returns to office. But Roberts alleged Democrats act in corrupt and authoritarian ways themselves.

“They want to fundamentally transform America, because they don’t like this country,” he said. “The establishment does not hate Donald Trump, because he’s a threat to America. They hate him, because he is a threat to them.”

‘I’m being indicted for you’

Trump made similar comments, saying the greatest threat to the United States came from inside the country, not from external enemies. Those enemies, he said, had let the country fall apart since he left office.

He referred repeatedly to “Marxist” district attorneys who were suing him, framing his legal troubles as a form of political attacks against him.

“I have been indicted more than any times than the great gangster Al Capone,” he told the religious broadcasters.

He also claimed he was being indicted for standing up on behalf of Christians and conservatives.

“I am being indicted for you,” he said.

He claimed “bad things” were being done to Christian crosses, another thing that would stop if he became president again. And he would work to reverse the decline of organized religion and church-going in America.

“We have to bring back our religion,” he said. “We have to bring back Christianity.”

WASHINGTON (RNS)—When Pastor Stephen Green began planning a march from Independence Hall in Philadelphia to the White House to urge an end to the war in Gaza, he settled on what he hoped was an auspicious start date: Wednesday, Feb. 14, Douglass Day.

The day, honoring the life and legacy of famed 19th-century abolitionist and orator Frederick Douglass, seemed an appropriate occasion to make a moral case to President Joe Biden and his administration to stop supporting Israel’s ongoing assault in Gaza that has killed 28,000 Palestinians.

The Peace Pilgrimage, an eight-day march, expanded to include a host of sponsors, including the National Council of Churches and other interfaith groups. But at its core, it is an effort led by the organization Green founded four years ago, Faith for Black Lives.

For many Black Americans, the Palestinian cause has emerged as a central plank in the ongoing struggle for civil rights. In November, more than 1,000 Black pastors representing hundreds of thousands of congregants bought a full-page ad in The New York Times calling for a cease-fire and the release of Israeli hostages in Gaza.

Black writers, athletes, celebrities and elected officials have spoken in support of Palestinians. Some have even likened the renewed energy in support of Palestinians to the fervor of the Black Lives Matter movement that came in 2020 after the killing of George Floyd.

“We’re carrying this message to remind America of the values that she was birthed in and to be a leader in this moment to provide a moral vision for the world,” said Green, pastor of St. Luke AME Church in New York City’s Harlem.

The 25 or so supporting organizations that will march on average 10 miles a day include a few groups with Muslim members—the Maryland chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights.

It also includes a host of Jewish-led organizations and synagogues, all on the far left of the U.S. Jewish scene. Conspicuously absent are mainstream Jewish organizations that have resisted calls for cease-fire, believing Israel’s war on Gaza is just.

Tense relationship between Black and Jewish progressives

While U.S. Jews and Black Americans often see themselves as like-minded progressives, they historically have had a fraught and often tense relationship, and they part ways when it comes to Israel.

Martin Luther King Jr. enjoyed good relations with American Jews and famously was flanked by Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel in his 1965 Selma to Montgomery march. In 1964, two Jewish civil rights workers and a Black man were murdered trying to register Blacks to vote in Mississippi.

But that period of civil rights alignment between Blacks and Jews was short-lived.

The Black Power movement of the 1960s backed Palestinians over Israelis, creating tensions with U.S. Jews. Malcolm X visited Gaza in 1964 and expressed anti-Zionist views soon after.

The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the Black Panther Movement were solidly pro-Palestinian, said Michael Fischbach, a historian who wrote Black Power and Palestine: Transnational Countries of Color.

“They understood that there was a worldwide uprising of what today we call people of color,” said Fischbach. “They were rising up, they wanted revolution, they wanted independence and freedom on their own terms.”

That meant siding with stateless Palestinians who either fled or were violently displaced during Israel’s War of Independence in 1948. Later, many more Palestinians became an occupied people when Israel captured the West Bank and Gaza in 1967.

Group links Palestinian and African American experiences

Today, many Black Americans who support the Palestinian cause are not doing so out of the revolutionary fervor of the 1960s. The group Faith for Black Lives defines itself as “grounded in the principles of Kingian nonviolence.” They view the Palestinian cause in the context of the African American experience of oppression and subjugation.

“This is a spirit journey for us to call the nation into consciousness as it relates to poverty, war and racism,” said Green, the group’s founder.

Numerous polls show that African Americans—and more generally people of color—are more likely than whites to side with Palestinians. A Gallup poll from November showed 64 percent of American people of color (including Black, Hispanic, Asian, Pacific Islander and Native American adults) disapproved of Israel’s actions in Gaza, compared with 36 percent of white Americans.

For Lisa Sharon Harper, a prominent evangelical activist, the war in Gaza spurred her to action. Since the start of the war, she has kept a commitment to post something about the war to Instagram every single day—now more than 120 posts.

She also joined multiple campaigns, including the global Gaza Ceasefire Pilgrimage, a Lenten walk now planned in 85 cities in 12 countries.

“When I look at what’s happening right now in Gaza, what I see is a war against the image of God on earth. And so, of course, I will stand and defend it,” she said.

Harper sees Palestinians as dispossessed people living behind walls and security fences, unable to vote or travel, and now homeless and starving. And she is furious that the U.S. administration is supporting this attack on a minority group.

“When we look at what’s happening in Gaza and we see our country saying, ‘that’s OK,’ well, that means that we’re not that far from our country saying, ‘that’s OK,’ if it happens to us,” she said, speaking of Black Americans.

“Dr. King said injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. This is an existential threat for people of African descent in the West.”

The United States earmarked $3.3 billion in assistance to Israel in 2022. It has given Israel more aid than any other nation since World War II, about $260 billion. On Feb. 13, the Senate passed a foreign aid package that includes $14.1 billion for Israel’s war in Gaza. It’s not clear if it will pass in the House.

‘Pulls on the threads of the Civil Rights Movement’

A growing, but still minor, group of American Jews will march in the Peace Pilgrimage from Philadelphia to Washington, believing like African Americans and others that a cease-fire is imperative.

“This pilgrimage pulls on the threads of the Civil Rights Movement,” said Rabbi Alissa Wise, founder of Rabbis for Ceasefire. “It updates the Black Jewish alliance but also expands it further.”

The Jewish contingent includes Rabbi Alana Alpert of Congregation T’chiyah in Ferndale, Mich., north of Detroit. The congregation meets in a United Methodist Church and recently posted a banner outside the church building that reads “Jews and Christians praying for ceasefire now.”

Alpert said she was joining the march to be with like-minded people of different faiths in prayer and protest in favor of cease-fire and against the funding of U.S. tax dollars to Israel’s military.

“I have so few colleagues who are on the same page or who are even having the same conversation,” said Alpert, speaking of fellow rabbis in Michigan. “I know it will feel grounding and nourishing to have this time with other colleagues. The situation is so heartbreaking that I’m saying ‘yes’ to any opportunity that I can.”

WASHINGTON—On Sunday, millions of Americans will gather with friends to eat snacks, laugh at the latest TV commercials and watch a little football as the Kansas City Chiefs take on the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl LVIII.

More than a few will place bets, often on their cellphones.

Americans are expected to bet $1.3 billion on the big game, according to online gaming industry news site Legal Sports Report, thanks to the explosive growth of legalized sports gambling, which has spread to nearly 40 states.

But not to Alabama or Texas, who are among the holdouts, and where faith leaders in particular have been working to keep legal sports betting out.

For Greg Davis, a Baptist pastor and president of the Alabama Citizens Action Program, that has meant opposing any changes to the state’s constitution, which bans lotteries and most forms of gambling. Davis said he knows that people bet informally on sports in Alabama.

But those wagers are relatively low-stakes, he said, compared to industrial-strength sports gambling. Davis said he and other faith leaders in Alabama believe sports gambling is harmful and addictive. They object to the idea of the state profiting off the gambling losses of Alabama’s citizens.

“We don’t think the state government should be in business with corporate gaming to prey on its own people,” he said.

Some of the nation’s largest faith groups have long considered gambling immoral, or a “menace to society,” as the United Methodist Church social principles put it.

Fighting against the odds

But faith leaders like Davis are likely fighting an uphill battle, said longtime Boston College professor and Jesuit priest Richard McGowan.

McGowan, who has been nicknamed “the Odds Father” because of his research on gambling, said faith leaders were caught flatfooted by how fast legalized sports gambling became commonplace.

After New Hampshire started the first state-run lottery in 1964, he said, it took nearly 60 years for 40 other states to follow suit. Legalized sports betting took five years to get that popular—after the Supreme Court struck down a 1992 federal law limiting legal sports betting to Nevada.

Instead of having to jet off to Las Vegas to place a legal bet, in most states, people can pull out their phones and use an app to place bets on the outcomes of games along with almost anything else that happens in a game.

The ease of legalized betting coincided with what McGowan called “the ethics of tolerance.”

“The ethical theory a lot of people go by is you should be able to do what you want as long as you don’t harm somebody else,” he said. That makes it hard to argue against activities like gambling, which many people see as harmless entertainment but can have harmful side effects when people become addicted.

The states that have legalized gambling, he said, also see gambling as a pain-free source of revenue, which is then used for popular social causes like funding college scholarships. That also makes it hard to raise ethical questions about gambling.

“People have been doing it for years and years and years illegally, and now the government is basically saying, all right, it’s fine to do it legally, and by the way, we’ll make lots of money,” said McGowan.

Sports books also have an added advantage, McGowan said, in that they allow people to combine two things they like to do—gambling and cheering for their teams.

“When they bet,” he said, “people think they’re supporting the team that they’re betting on.”

Sports leagues cozy with gaming industry

Public approval of gambling has grown steadily in recent decades. In 2009, Gallup, which has measured public views on gambling and other moral issues since 2003, found that 58 percent of Americans said gambling was morally acceptable. In 2023, 70 percent of those surveyed said it was moral to gamble.

Legal sports gambling has become a lucrative business, according to a recent report from the American Gaming Association. Commercial sports betting companies took in $9.2 billion in revenue on more than $106 billion in bets from January to November of 2023.

Laura Everett, executive director of the Massachusetts Council of Churches, said faith leaders who raise questions about the downsides of legalized gambling can feel like they are facing overwhelming odds. She worries that sports leagues have become too cozy with the gambling industry.

“The sports leagues—not only didn’t oppose this—they rolled over and said, ‘Scratch my belly,’” she said.

Still, she said faith groups that don’t agree on all kinds of other issues can find common ground in raising concerns about the ubiquity of sports gambling. And they still can have a voice, she said.

For example, Massachusetts is looking at allowing bars to install sports-betting kiosks, and faith leaders like Everett have been asked to give public feedback about their concerns.

High human cost of gambling expansion

She worries the human cost of expanding gambling is too high.

“Every time you expand gambling, there is a percentage of the population whose lives will be destroyed,” she said.

The National Council on Problem Gambling estimates that about 2 million Americans—or 1 percent of the population—have a severe gambling problem, with between 4 and 6 million having moderate or mild gambling problems.

John Litzler, director of public policy of the Christian Life Commission for the Baptist General Convention of Texas, said those with gambling addictions often show up at the door of churches or other faith groups when their lives fall apart.

Texas Baptists oppose making sports betting legal in their state—which, with California, remain the two largest untapped markets for the gaming industry. Legal Sports Report estimated that those states could generate half a billion dollars in bets on the Super Bowl alone.

Litzler agrees opponents of expanded sports betting face a perception problem. Many people believe sports betting is a harmless pastime, while a series of recent commercials from the gaming industry portray gambling as a way to give games more meaning and excitement.

When he talks to churches or legislators about gambling, Litzler stresses the potential for harm, especially in the use of betting apps. When people had to go to a casino to gamble, they had to be more intentional about what they were doing. And if they lost money, they would have time on the ride home to cool off.

That’s not the case when a bet is a click away, he said.

“What you have to do is say, ‘I know it doesn’t seem like it’s harming you, but here’s how it’s harming your neighbor,’” Litzler said.

In Alabama, where the issue of gambling is about to come up in the next session of the state Legislature, Davis, of Alabama Citizens Action Program, said he also talks about gambling as a threat to the integrity of sports.

He pointed to the recent case of Brad Bohannon, the former coach of the University of Alabama baseball team who was fired last year in a betting scandal. This week, the NCAA ruled Bohannon had told a bettor the team’s starting pitcher was injured and would miss a game. That led the bettor to try to place a $100,000 bet on the game, according to ESPN.com.

According to the sanction imposed by the NCAA, any team that hires Bohannon as a coach must suspend him for “100 percent of the baseball regular season for the first five seasons of his employment.”

Davis said that scandal was a sign of things to come.

“It is going to ruin sports,” he said.

WASHINGTON (RNS)—A former CVS Health employee filed a federal lawsuit in Florida against the company after she was fired for refusing to prescribe contraceptives due to her religious beliefs.

The employee, nurse practitioner Gunna Kristofersdottir, joins three other former CVS workers who sued the company for religious discrimination after being fired for similar reasons.

Kristofersdottir is being represented by the Plano-based religious freedom-oriented legal group First Liberty Institute.

Its lawyers argue that the company’s refusal to exempt religious employees from filling contraceptive prescriptions constitutes religion-based discrimination and a Title VII violation.

The Title VII law of the 1964 Civil Rights Act protects employees and job applicants from discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin.

“It’s important that nurse practitioners are able to serve their patients in a way that doesn’t require them to violate their religious beliefs,” said Stephanie Taub, senior counsel at First Liberty Institute.

A Roman Catholic, Kristofersdottir believes “the procreative potential of intercourse” shouldn’t be “subverted by the device or procedure,” according to the complaint filed by First Liberty. The court document quotes portions of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which summarizes the Catholic Church’s doctrine.

Religious accommodation revoked

During her eight years at various Florida CVS clinics, Kristofersdottir benefited from a religious accommodation. After informing her managers of her wishes and filling out a form, she was excused from prescribing hormonal contraceptives and abortion drugs. When clients asked Kristofersdottir for guidance on contraceptive products, she referred them to another employee.

But three years ago, her religious accommodation was revoked as part of a broader change in the company’s policy on religious exemptions.

In August 2021, CVS’ chief nursing officer, Angela Patterson, announced all employees would be required to perform functions deemed essential, including all services related to sexual health.

When Kristofersdottir learned about the new policy, she said, she asked to be sent to another CVS Health facility. Her demand was denied, and she was fired in March 2022.

Taub argued that the company had legal obligations to explore alternatives to accommodate Kristofersdottir.

In an email statement, Mike DeAngelis, CVS Health’s director of communications, wrote that the company still has a specific policy to grant “reasonable” religious accommodations “unless it poses an undue hardship on the business and our ability to provide convenient, accessible care to our patient.”

“We continue to enhance our MinuteClinic services, growing from providing urgent care to offering more holistic care,” wrote DeAngelis.

Other employees file suit

First Liberty Institute specializes in cases related to religious freedom and regularly raises funds to finance its defense of clients in similar situations. Earlier, the firm filed a suit on behalf of Robyn Strader, a Baptist nurse practitioner from Texas who was fired from CVS for similar reasons.

In an article published on the First Liberty Institute website, Jorge Gomez wrote that CVS’ refusal to grant religious exemptions sends a message “that religious health care workers are not welcome and need not apply” and that “instead of following the law, CVS preferred to join the ranks of the ‘woke’ corporations rendering religious employees second class citizens.”

Since CVS enacted the new policy, two other nurse practitioners also sued the company, alleging religious discrimination. In September 2022, Page Casey, a former CVS employee from Virginia, sued after she was fired for refusing to prescribe contraceptives. She is represented by Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian conservative legal group.

In October 2022, Suzanne Schuler, a former CVS employee from Kansas, sued the company after her religious accommodation was revoked. In October 2023, both parties settled.

In January, CVS and Walgreens announced they would be selling the mifepristone abortion pill after the Food and Drug Administration dropped a 20-year rule that prevented drugstores from doing so. The pill, available on the market since 2000, can be used through the 10th week of pregnancy.

Since November 2022, the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, an anti-abortion group, has been challenging the FDA’s approval of the drug at the Supreme Court. The group includes religious organizations such as the Catholic Medical Association, the Christian Medical & Dental Associations and the Coptic Medical Association of North America.

WASHINGTON (RNS)—President Joe Biden vowed to keep working and praying for resolutions to global conflicts as he addressed the National Prayer Breakfast.

He also urged congressional leaders not to treat those with whom they disagree as enemies.

“My prayer, my hope, is we continue to believe our best days are ahead of us, that as a nation we continue to believe in honesty, decency, dignity and respect,” he said Feb. 1 in Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol. “We see each other not as enemies but as fellow human beings, each made in the image of God, each precious in his sight.”

The event, sponsored by the National Prayer Breakfast Foundation for the second year on Capitol Hill, follows a tradition that dates to the Eisenhower administration when U.S. presidents began attending the annual event long held on the first Thursday of February.

“We’re all blessed to live in a nation where we can practice our many faiths and practice them freely and where we can come together and lift up our nation and each other—each other—in our own prayers, especially in tough times,” Biden said in remarks carried by C-SPAN2 and CBN News.

As other presidents have, he used the occasion to give thanks for others’ prayers for him, even as he described the subject of his own petitions.

Biden said his prayers are with the families of three U.S. service members killed in an attack in Jordan at a military base near the Syrian border.

“Not only do we pray for peace, we are actively working for peace, security, dignity for the Israeli people and the Palestinian people,” he said.

“I’m engaged in this day and night, working as many of you in this room are, to find the means to bring our hostages home, to ease the humanitarian crisis and to bring peace to Gaza and Israel—an enduring peace with two states for two peoples—just as we worked for peace, security and dignity for the Ukrainian people as they show incredible resolve and resilience against Putin’s aggression. We must continue to help them.”

Biden also described standing against hate—including antisemitism, Islamophobia and discrimination against Arab Americans and South Asian Americans—as a “calling.”

“We’ve never as a nation fully lived up to that and we’ve never walked away from it either,” he said. “It’s a covenant we have with one another to hold this nation together.”

One of two prayer events

The refashioned National Prayer Breakfast is a scaled-down version of an event that has drawn thousands to the Washington Hilton and previously was hosted by a group often known as “The Family,” but that called itself the International Foundation.

Since last year, there have been two events, one sponsored by the new National Prayer Breakfast Foundation, after years of controversy following the 2018 breakfast and accusations the gathering of national and international political and religious leaders had become vulnerable to espionage.

The second event, dubbed the NPB Gathering, and held again this year at the Hilton, drew about 2,000 people from more than 125 countries, including heads of state, and featured a livestream of Biden’s remarks, said A. Larry Ross, media representative for the International Foundation.

Rwandan President Paul Kagame was the keynote speaker at that event, and former Reps. Jim Slattery, D-Kan., and Zach Wamp, R-Tenn., were the co-emcees.

The first event, however, had a shift of location, and there are proposals for it to have another.

Last year, it was held at the Capitol Visitor Center. This year, it was held in Statuary Hall, which is just south of the Rotunda.

Rep. Tracey Mann, R-Kan., introduced a resolution in November to authorize use of the Rotunda for the event. It has been referred to the House Committee on House Administration.

Mann and Rep. Frank Mrvan, D-Ind., were honorary co-chairs of the 2024 breakfast, where they jointly read a prayer and members of Congress from both parties read Scripture and prayed for the president. House Chaplain Margaret Grun Kibben said the closing prayer and Senate Chaplain Barry Black was the keynote speaker.

Black described how people working on Capitol Hill turn to fasting and prayer, especially in times of crisis, including the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Hamas-Israel war and the last two U.S presidential elections.

“I’m talking about representatives, senators, chiefs of staff, waiters, waitresses, janitors were fasting and praying,” he said. “Hundreds of us have been doing that.”

Some criticize prayer breakfast

The existence of the breakfast on Capitol Hill—and at all—has been opposed by some church-state separationists.

“Using the U.S. Capitol as the venue would incontrovertibly give the distasteful appearance that this private, Christian-dominated event is an official governmental function of Congress,” said Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the Freedom from Religion Foundation, in a statement ahead of the events.

“Conducting a ‘National Prayer Breakfast’ at the conspicuous seat of federal government is what would be expected in a theocracy, not a republic predicated on a secular Constitution.”

On X, formerly Twitter, Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said: “As the Senator Chaplain opens the National Prayer Breakfast w/a sermon, American flags as his backdrop, I ask again: Why do we have chaplains in Congress? Why do we have a National Prayer Breakfast? Church-state separation protects religion as much as taxpayers’ religious freedom.”

WASHINGTON (BP)—More than 90 percent of surveyed American adults say they support religious pluralism, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty found in its latest Religious Freedom Index, contrary to acts of religious hatred and intolerance amid the Israel-Hamas War.

When surveyed, 94 percent said people should be able to choose a religion of their choice and to practice their religion in daily life without discrimination or harm from others.

Nearly as many, 90 percent, expressed tolerance and respect for a broad array of beliefs and ideas about God.

The vast majority (86 percent) said people should be free to express their faith even if it is contrary to popular practices, such as not consuming certain foods or wearing religious-specific clothing.

Becket conducted the survey in the week immediately preceding Hamas’ attack on Israel.

Acts of anti-Semitism rose 388 percent in the beginning weeks of the Israel-Hamas War, according to statistics from the Anti-Defamation League, including physical assaults and violent online messages.

Acts of violence against Muslim, Palestinian and Arab Americans also rose, ADL said. The organization noted the Oct. 14 murder of an 8-year-old Palestinian boy in Illinois and the shooting of three Palestinian college students who were walking near the University of Vermont campus. Two of the students were wearing kaffiyehs, headdresses traditionally worn in the Middle East.

Look at six dimensions of religious freedom

In its fifth edition of the annual index, Becket polled respondents in six dimensions of religious freedom, including religious pluralism, religion and policy, religious sharing, religion and society, church and state, and religion in action.

Becket’s composite religious freedom index of the findings rate Americans’ support of religious liberty at 69 on a scale of 0 to 100, with religious pluralism rating highest at 84. Religious sharing (sharing one’s faith outside the home or places of worship) rated 72.

Religion in action (practicing one’s beliefs outside the home or places of worship) rated 68. Religion and policy (considering how religion should intersect law and public policy) rated 66.

Religion in society (looking at religion’s contributions to society) rated 65. Church and state (addressing the boundaries between religion and the government) rated 59.

“This year, our findings indicate that American support for religious freedom is coming back strong after a COVID-era slump,” Becket said in its executive summary.

“This year’s results also show ways in which younger Americans’ ideas of religious freedom are different—both in ways that are positive and more concerning,” Becket said in its executive summary.”

Becket highlighted key findings of the report, noting 88 percent of Americans favor the Religious Freedom Restoration Act or an even higher standard of religious freedom. RFRA prevents the federal government from burdening religious freedom without a compelling reason, and it requires the government to choose the option least restrictive of religious freedom.

Regarding a specific case pending in federal court on the protection of Native American sacred sites, Apache Stronghold v. United States, pollsters found 73 percent of Americans strongly or somewhat support protecting such sites.

As society grapples with LGBTQ pronouns, pollsters found 58 percent of Americans disagree with school policies requiring employees and students to use a person’s preferred pronoun, up from 46 percent in 2021.

Among other specific findings:

• 58 percent of Gen Z said employees should be free to wear religious clothing at work and refuse to work on religious holidays aligning with their religion; while only 28 percent of baby boomers said so.
• 49 percent of Gen Z said employees should be allowed to refuse to do work that violates their religious belief, more than 10 points higher than baby boomers (38 percent) who voiced the lowest acceptance for such freedom.
• 65 percent said religious groups or organizations should be free to make their own employment and leadership decisions without government interference.
• 76 percent said religious service organizations including soup kitchens and homeless shelters should be eligible for government financial support.
• 53 percent said the government should be allowed to display religious symbols or language publicly.

Heart+Mind Strategies conducted the survey Sept. 28-Oct. 5, 2023, using an online panel of 1,000 adults.

WASHINGTON (RNS)—Chicago already was facing a homelessness crisis before Texas Gov. Greg Abbott began directing thousands of migrants entering his state to places that had declared themselves migrant-friendly sanctuary cities.

Since the transfers began in April 2022, more than 20,000 migrants—many of them destitute Venezuelans—have arrived. Many Chicagoans have expressed concerns the city’s resources are being drained and have accused government officials of failing to communicate about the migrants’ cost and their fates.

At the same time, advocates for the migrants, especially community organizers in more vulnerable neighborhoods, have pushed back against attempts to pit two marginalized groups against each other. These groups have stepped up to support the new arrivals and, in many cases, have found allies in local faith leaders.

When Pastor David Black of First Presbyterian Church of Chicago, in the city’s South Side, learned migrants would be housed at a shelter just two blocks from his church, he knew his congregation would need to help the neighborhood respond.

“There’s already plenty of need present in this community,” Black told Religion News Service. The challenge, he said, was “to support those who are coming into the community and also find ways that the situation can be a support to people who are historically living in the community.”

As Black considered what this support should look like, he was having conversations with local leaders such as Paula Gean, founder of Chicago4All, which works to connect long-term residents with new arrivals like the recent migrants.

Gean, who immigrated to the United States from Colombia when she was 3, said she owes her family’s success as immigrants to the support of neighbors in their new home. In her work today, she often looks to churches to play that role and frequently collaborates with faith leaders like Black.

“It’s been really a joy to be able to follow her leadership and vision, and she’s been very, very engaged,” Black said. “She rightly recognizes that in the South Side of Chicago, churches are a really important center of community and civic life.”

Through the partnership with Gean, Black mobilized First Presbyterian to host banquets and community conversations at the church so migrants and neighborhood residents could come together to build fellowship.

A banquet on Nov. 30, attended by more than 150 people, included translators to facilitate communication, and Stephany Rose Spaulding, a diversity and inclusion consultant, led conversations on neighborliness.

Challenge for the church

Pastor Edward Morris Sr. of Parkway Gardens Christian Church, in the nearby predominantly Black Woodlawn neighborhood, saw the arrival of the migrants as a natural challenge for his church, planted in the 1950s to serve residents of a nearby apartment complex. The congregation decided then to join the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) because the denomination has a history of mission.

“It’s always been a community-driven church,” Morris said. “On the very front of the church building, it says, ‘For all people.’”

Morris became involved in the issue of migrants in the city about a year ago, after a fellow community leader invited him to speak to local residents worried about migrants moving into a makeshift shelter in a former school. Morris talked about the importance of Woodlawn being a welcoming community.

Soon after, he met Gean and began organizing efforts at the Parkway Gardens church to provide hygiene packets and deliver food and clothes to the shelter where migrants were staying.

Morris understands the concerns of his congregants and their neighbors and supports their desire for more communication.

He wants to see city officials hold community forums where they could listen to residents and explain what the government is doing about the influx of outsiders. He also believes the government should work more closely with both the migrants and the neighborhood to find solutions that work for everyone.

“I think there still needs to be more open lines of communication, and that would deter a lot of the negative pushback that they’re getting,” he said. “It may not deter it completely, but at least people would feel they’re not being put upon.”

Plea for understanding

At the same time, Morris would like to see more understanding from community members.

“I would like to see communities, especially African American communities, understand the situation of the migrants is not that far from our own situation,” he said. “Years ago, when folks were coming up out of the South and then moving into Chicago, they were rejected by the white community.”

He cites the Bible’s Book of Deuteronomy, saying: “Remember the stranger when he is in your midst. Treat them with love and treat them with kindness, remembering that you, yourself, were a stranger in the land at one time.”

When he spoke with RNS, Morris had just finished preparing for the church’s food and clothing drive, which has been open for more than a decade and serves 60 to 75 people weekly—with an increasing number of migrants. As a result, the church has been training its volunteers to use a translation app on their cellphones to understand the newcomers.

Black said the majority of community residents want to find a way to both support the migrants and build support for a part of Chicago that has been historically underserved and under-resourced.

At the banquet at First Presbyterian, a speaker from Southside Together Organizing for Power, a community organizing group, talked about what it means to have Black and brown unity.

“It’s basically founded on this idea that there’s no scarcity,” Black said, asserting there is “enough for everybody—for the asylum-seekers, and the historically disenfranchised populations of South Side Chicago.”

“We have so much more to gain from our unity than from the division which is being manufactured and orchestrated by interests that don’t want these communities to get the resources they need,” Black said.

GREENVILLE, S.C. (BP)—The Evangelical Immigration Table and World Relief issued a letter Jan. 11 to U.S. presidential candidates urging them to consider biblical principles when drafting solutions to the immigration crisis.

The groups announced the letter, signed by more than 500 evangelical Christians, in a press call featuring leaders from Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina in advance of the Jan. 15 Iowa Caucuses.

Concurrently, the groups issued the “I Was a Stranger” Challenge, a 40-day Scripture reading and prayer guide designed to lead candidates and the Christian public to view immigration matters through a godly heart.

Biblical immigration policies would be nonpartisan and embrace a respect for both the law and immigrants, who are made in God’s image. Biblically based policies would promote family unity, civility and order, panelists said, and would avoid harsh, unbiblical language.

Anthony Beam served as a panelist in his capacity as a policy consultant for the South Carolina Baptist Convention and senior director of Church and Community Engagement and Public Affairs at North Greenville University.

Find a solution grounded in the Bible

Despite varying views, Christians should find some agreement among themselves in solving the complicated issue of immigration, Beam said, because any solution we choose should be grounded in Scripture.

“God’s word affirms the role of government in maintaining order and security, which is why evangelicals tend to insist on secure borders,” said Beam, an Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission trustee. “But it also affirms the dignity of each person as being made in the image of God.”

While the imago Dei often is cited in pro-life circles, Beam pointed out its application in all considerations of life, including immigration, immigrants and their families.

“Everyone, whether they be a sojourner—if we use the biblical term—whether they be an immigrant, someone coming to this country, a refugee, they are made in the image of God,” and they are important to God,” Beam said.

“And that’s why evangelicals also insist on the importance of making sure that we treat immigrants with respect and with love, and to try to help to meet their needs.”

Many refugees are fleeing religious persecution suffered for practicing their faith in Jesus, Beam emphasized.

“We want the United States to continue to offer refugees … that are fleeing persecution, a place for them to come and to be safe,” he said, “and a place for us to minister to them in the name of Jesus Christ.”

Joining Beam as panelists were Greg Christy, president of Northwestern College in Orange City, Iowa; Joel Kok, senior pastor of Covenant Christian Reformed Church in Sioux Center, Iowa; Neil Hubacker, director of Cornerstone’s Church Ambassador Network of New Hampshire; Kevin McBride, senior pastor of Raymond Baptist Church, a Conservative Baptist Churches of America congregation in Raymond, N.H.; and Mekdes Haddis, project director for the National Association of Evangelicals’ Racial Justice and Reconciliation Collaborative in Fort Mill, S.C.

Moderators Chelsea Sobolik, World Relief’s director of government relations, and Gabriel Salguero, president of the National Latino Evangelical Coalition, also added perspective to the Immigration Table’s goals.

Loving and welcoming immigrants

Loving, welcoming and seeking justice for immigrants should accompany secure borders, Salguero said.

“The Scriptures affirm the role of government, which is why we believe it’s appropriate to insist upon secure borders, but they also repeatedly command God’s people to love, welcome and seek justice for immigrants,” Salguero said.

“Most Latino congregations have done so for many years and have many immigrants among them as a result, so a commitment to immigration reforms has become very personal. And we take harsh, unbiblical rhetoric about immigrants personally, as well.”

“We don’t find it helpful for any candidate to use demonizing rhetoric about any community,” Salguero said. “We think the gospel has called us to, when we disagree, do it with deep conviction, but always with civility. It is for us at the National Latino Evangelical Coalition, profoundly disappointing and disconcerting when rhetoric around any community demonizes that community. We have said so publicly.”

While encouraging presidential candidates to take seriously the 40 Day Challenge, Sobolik said World Relief hopes other governmental leaders and congregational members will do so as well.

“We’re not, obviously, endorsing political candidates or policy recommendations with this challenge,” Sobolik said. “We are simply saying, ‘Let’s spend 40 days looking at what the Bible has to say on immigration.’”

Salguero expressed a need to disciple Christians on what the Bible says about immigration, particularly among church congregations. Hubacker said he has been able to promote biblical approaches to immigration among small group meetings with various candidates through his work with the Church Ambassador Network.

WASHINGTON (RNS)—For Black church leaders and multiracial coalitions, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, less than 300 days from Election Day, has come to represent the unofficial start to voter mobilization efforts.

Plans for what would have been King’s 95th birthday focused on overcoming increased restrictions on voting in some states that may discourage voters—especially younger ones—from casting their ballots.

“We are deeply concerned that our democracy and the right to vote is threatened in ways that we never even imagined,” said Barbara Williams-Skinner, coordinator of Faiths United to Save Democracy. “And at the same time, too many of our young people and also people who are disadvantaged are checking out of the system, do not feel like it is working for them.”

Her coalition plans to expand its activities beyond the Black church leaders who have traditionally been involved in its efforts to include Jews and Muslims, Asian American Pacific Islanders, Latinos and others. A diverse set of advocates representing those groups were scheduled to speak at a virtual forum on MLK Day called “Why Vote?” featuring a video message from NBA star Steph Curry.

“We’re starting early because we need to spend a lot more time educating people about how to vote, how to vote against the rising tide of misinformation and disinformation,” she said. “We need to make sure people understand what their rights are.”

Bishop William J. Barber II, who as president of Repairers of the Breach and co-chair of Poor People’s Campaign plans to make reducing poverty an election issue, was scheduled to deliver an address at Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem in New York as he seeks to build on King’s work. The speech is the first of seven he will give in cities across the country in coming weeks.

“Today, poverty is the 4th leading cause of death in America,” Barber said in a statement announcing his plans. “It is a death sentence for Americans. It is a moral travesty and a detriment to the soul of our nation that poverty kills more people than homicide yet the powers that be don’t want to address it.”

Al Sharpton’s National Action Network planned to host an MLK Day breakfast in Washington, where voting rights were to be a topic of the day. His organization and the Conference of National Black Churches announced a joint “Get Out the Vote” campaign in December that will focus on issues of concern to African American voters, including affirmative action and health care access.

“We are not simply celebrating Dr. King’s legacy this year but coming together to publicly vow to protect it from those who wish to undo his work,” said Sharpton in a statement about his organization’s observance of the King holiday.

“Right now, the Civil Rights Act he pushed President Johnson to pass in 1964 is under relentless attack, voting rights for Black Americans are being chipped away in dozens of states, and diversity in Corporate America is on the brink.”

The breakfast, said W. Franklyn Richardson, a New York-area pastor who chairs both the NAN and CNBC’s boards, was intended to kick off a joint campaign to connect with some 31,000 congregations affiliated with the Black church conference and the dozens of chapters of Sharpton’s network to train pastors to, in turn, educate congregants in the voting process.

“We plan to use every vehicle, every asset available to us to try to give attention to this election in November, and we’re starting early because we don’t believe we can do it in the last three months of the election season,” he said.

Richardson said using MLK Day to emphasize voting in the months ahead is appropriate because of the civil rights leader’s advocacy for voting rights.

“He used the process of political participation, driven by a clear mandate of social justice of the gospel to get our people to participate in elections,” he said. “I think Martin Luther King has set the paradigm for the church’s participation in this process. And we can’t go to sleep on it. We’ve got to sound the alarm that our participation is vital.”

WASHINGTON (RNS)—Standing outside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2023, Georgia McKee witnessed two very different responses on the second anniversary of the infamous mob attack.

Circled together and holding candles, one group of faith leaders condemned Christian nationalism, calling it a “poisonous ideology” and “gross distortion of our Christian faith.”

The other group marched in front of the Supreme Court building, shouting into megaphones, wearing MAGA hats, waving American flags and holding signs saying, “One Nation Under God.”

McKee took some videos on her phone, spliced them together to contrast the two gatherings and showed the final video to her co-workers at the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, a coalition of Baptist denominations that advocates for the separation of church and state.

Next, she created a TikTok account and posted the video. In the year since, it’s had more than half a million views.

“That made us realize, oh, people like this content,” said McKee, digital communications associate at BJC. “We got lots of messages saying: ‘Thank you so much for showing this video. We need more of a Christian witness that is faithful to the message of Jesus.’”

Affiliated with BJC campaign

The @EndChristianNationalism TikTok account has gained more than 40,000 followers and earned 600,000-plus likes in the past year. The account is affiliated with BJC’s Christians Against Christian Nationalism campaign, a grassroots movement that provides training and resources for combating Christian nationalism.

“It’s not just about going viral for us,” said McKee, who runs the account.

Raised in Texas, McKee grew up attending a Southern Baptist church where an American flag flanking the pulpit was commonplace. But in college at Belmont University in Nashville, Tenn., McKee began to reckon with what she saw as exclusionary elements of her faith.

She deconstructed, became spiritual but not religious and then joined an Episcopal church for a season. Today, McKee is a seminarian at Wake Forest University School of Divinity, where she’s studying to become a Baptist minister in a more progressive Baptist tradition, like Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and Alliance of Baptists, “or whatever comes next,” she told Religion News Service.

After a year of making videos where she leans into her now-trademark tiny clip-on mic and gives play-by-plays of Christian nationalism in action, McKee can spout off a definition for the topic without hesitation.

“Christian nationalism is a political ideology and cultural framework that abuses the name of Jesus for a very specific American goal,” McKee said. “Christian nationalism is not Christianity.”

Designed to educate viewers

Many of her TikToks are intended to educate viewers on the topic. She’ll highlight the Christian nationalism of figures such as Sean Feucht, Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene, while also celebrating Christians, such as Shane Claiborne and BJC Executive Director Amanda Tyler, who oppose the ideology. McKee also uses the platform to connect people to resources for addressing Christian nationalism in churches and in local politics.

“We’ve really seen the impact of online to offline organizing with TikTok,” McKee said. “We multiple times have helped people develop their public comment that they’re going to go and share that evening at their local school board or city council meeting.”

After stumbling across the @EndChristianNationalism account, Megan Fanning, who lives in Mansfield, began connecting with McKee this spring after Texas lawmakers passed a bill allowing chaplains in public schools.

“We’ve communicated about the chaplain policy ever since the bill was signed, because the school boards had six months to vote for or against it,” Fanning said. “She offered resources, a chaplain toolkit, fact sheets, educational PDFs.”

The resources led Fanning to email her school board members referencing facts and information provided in the Christians Against Christian Nationalism toolkit.

Field organizer working in North Texas

Christians Against Christian Nationalism also hired its first field organizer, Lisa Jacob, to lead opposition to Christian nationalism in North Texas. Jacob delivered a rousing public comment condemning the chaplain bill at a Mansfield school board meeting in December, shortly before the board voted against implementing the chaplaincy bill in the school district.

“To have a field organizer from Christians Against Christian Nationalism come and speak at our school board meeting on behalf of our community against this chaplain policy meant so much,” Fanning said. “I like to think that community feedback might have made a difference in them voting against and rejecting the policy.”

Not just a ‘progressive’ issue

While the account certainly attracts mainline Christians, McKee said, it’s not just theologically progressive Christians who are engaged. McKee is intentional about avoiding theological or political debates that aren’t centered on Christian nationalism, an approach she says helps appeal to a broad audience.

“We’re seeing that even in the evangelical camp, even conservative Christians that I might not agree with on any other topic, are able to still say Christian nationalism is a topic that has to be talked about, that it has to be something that’s combated in all local churches, not just progressive churches,” said McKee.

“Fighting Christian nationalism, for it to truly end, it cannot be a progressive issue. It has to be a Christian issue.”

In addition to attracting a range of Christians, and even many non-Christians, the account engages people of a variety of ages, especially millennials in their 30s and 40s. Having a space explicitly dedicated to opposing Christian nationalism on TikTok is crucial, McKee asserted.

It’s especially true, given the influence of conservative Christian celebrities such as Allie Beth Stuckey and Sadie Robertson Huff, who, McKee said, have been influenced by Christian nationalism.

“We’re seeing like this old school fundamentalism almost become trendy and cute,” said McKee.

Tim Whitaker, creator of the nonprofit The New Evangelicals who runs the organization’s hugely popular TikTok account, said part of @EndChristianNationalism’s success on the platform can be attributed to its focus on giving people verifiable facts.

“What I like about their account is that they’re giving a lot of just data. You know, hey, here’s what this person said, here’s what this person did,” Whitaker said.

Simply reporting instances of Christian nationalism is critical in a time when the average American is likely unaware of the extent to which Christian nationalism is fueling national politics, he added.

“I think it’s really important, going into 2024 more than ever, that there are Christians who are loud about resisting such an ideology and movement for the sake of all their neighbors,” Whitaker said.

CHARLESTON, S.C. (RNS)—President Joe Biden denounced the white supremacy he said led to deadly violence at Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church almost nine years ago.

“The word of God was pierced by bullets and hate and rage, propelled by not just gunpowder, but by a poison, a poison that has for too long haunted this nation,” he said in an address Jan. 8 at the historically Black church. In 2015, nine people died there at the hands of a gun-carrying white supremacist church members had welcomed to their Bible study.

“What is that poison? White supremacy. All it is is a poison. Throughout our history, it’s ripped this nation apart. This has no place in America. Not today, tomorrow or ever.”

In his campaign appearance that mixed Scripture with election rhetoric, Biden spoke about his record of affirming African Americans and Black history. He cited his nomination of Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and other Black women to federal courts, and his establishment of the Juneteenth holiday and a national monument that honors lynching victim Emmett Till and his mother, Mamie Till.

Without calling Donald Trump by name, Biden called his Republican opponent a “loser” and, after offering his sympathies and prayers about a recent school shooting in Iowa, criticized Trump for saying, “We have to get over it.”

Biden crossed himself after repeating his opponent’s words and then offered his views.

“My response is: We have to stop it,” he said, drawing applause, “so your children, your family, your friends—you can leave your home, walk the streets, go to stores, go to the grocery store and go to church, to be safe from gun violence. There’s no excuse for this carnage. We have to ban assault weapons. I did it once before, and I’m going to come back again and do it.”

Biden’s remarks were interrupted by pro-Palestinian protesters shouting for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war. In return, people in the pews started calling out “Four More Years.”

“I understand their passion,” Biden responded. “And I’ve been quietly working, been quietly working with the Israeli government to get them to reduce and significantly get out of Gaza, using all that I can to do.”

South Carolina primary upcoming

As he looks ahead to the Democratic primary to be held in South Carolina, Biden credited people in the state—including those at Mother Emanuel and the support of Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C.—with his 2020 election.

“Your voice was heard in shaping your destiny. That’s democracy. I’m proud to have led the effort to make sure your voice, the South Carolina voice, will always be heard. Because now you’re first in the primary,” he said, drawing more applause.

South Carolina’s Feb. 3 Democratic primary will be the first official 2024 ballot with Biden’s name on it, a change recommended by Biden and other Democrats who wanted the first primary to be held in a more diverse state.

While New Hampshire is still having primaries sooner, Biden’s name will not be on the ballot as the state’s leaders did not opt to follow the national party’s directive to delay their primary until after South Carolina’s. Instead, Democrats in New Hampshire launched a write-in campaign for Biden, Politico reported.

As he concluded his speech, in which he lauded the patriotism of the Black church, Biden drew on a song popularized by gospel artist James Cleveland—“I Don’t Feel No Ways Tired”—to round out themes about truth, democracy and faith.

“This is a time of choosing. So, let us choose the truth. Let us choose America,” he said. “I know we can do it together and, as the gospel song sings, ‘We’ve come too far from where we started. Nobody told me the road would be easy. I don’t believe he brought me this far to leave me.’

“My fellow Americans, I don’t think the good Lord brought us this far to leave us behind.”

Two days before Biden’s address at Mother Emanuel, Vice President Kamala Harris also visited South Carolina and spoke in a different African Methodist Episcopal setting.

Sounding similar themes as the president, Harris spoke at the annual retreat of the AME Church’s Seventh Episcopal District’s Women’s Missionary Society.

“In moments such as this, when we as a nation witness so much hate, conflict and attempts to divide, it is our faith that often guides us forward,” she said, “faith in what we cannot see yet know to be true; faith in the promise of our nation—freedom, liberty and equality—not for some, but for all.”

WASHINGTON (RNS)—A federal judge in Illinois ruled a state school district is not responsible for the actions of a teacher who allegedly proselytized students in a public school classroom, leading a Muslim student to convert to Christianity.

Judge Iain D. Johnston of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, ruled officials of Community Unit School District 300 were not responsible for the teacher’s actions, as he was disciplined and later resigned after being confronted by those public school officials.

The ruling is the latest twist in a long-running legal dispute over religion at Jacobs High School in Algonquin, Ill.—a northwest suburb of Chicago—and, in particular, the conversion of a teenage Muslim student.

Yosuf Chaudhry and Amena Alvi, who are Muslim, sued Community Unit School District 300 in 2020 after learning their then-teenage daughter converted to Christianity as a student at Jacobs.

While at the school, their daughter, referred to in a complaint as “B.D.,” allegedly met with a teacher named Pierre Thorsen, who taught world history and world religions and also sponsored a student Christian group called Uprising.

Thorsen, a popular teacher who was named Educator of the Year for Kane County, Ill., in 2015, also was named in the complaint.

Teacher allegedly criticized non-Christian faiths

According to the complaint, Thorsen, who taught classes in apologetics at local churches, allegedly promoted Christianity during Uprising meetings and criticized other religions.

“Thorsen would repeatedly engage in conversations with students before, during, and after school where he would advocate for his faith and cast doubt, belittle, or discount other faiths,” the complaint alleged.

After the couple’s daughter converted, Thorsen allegedly also introduced her to members of his church who offered to take her in if her family disowned her because of her change in religion. She also received a Bible from her teacher, according to a revised version of the couple’s complaint, filed in 2023.

The couple alleged the district should have been aware Thorsen had promoted Christianity for years and used his classroom to allegedly proselytize students.

In his answer to the lawsuit filed by Chaudhry and Alvi, Thorsen acknowledged giving lectures in churches but denied using his role as a teacher to try to convert students. He also denied that he criticized non-Christian faiths but did acknowledge giving the couple’s daughter a Bible after she requested one.

Thorsen said she had used a borrowed Bible during Uprising meetings. He acknowledged putting the daughter in touch with people outside the school who could help her if her parents were angered by the conversion.

“The goal was reconciliation and not legal emancipation,” according to an answer to the parents’ complaint. “The Bible and contact information were provided after B.D. already professed conversion to Christianity, and after B.D. read the Bible on her cell phone provided by her parents.”

Thorsen defended discussions of religion in a public school and said he did not try to persuade B.D. to convert but instead suggested she speak to other Muslims about her faith questions.

After Chaudhry and Alvi told their story to the Daily Herald, a suburban Chicago newspaper, Thorsen sued the couple for defamation.

School officials disciplined teacher

School officials argued that they confronted Thorsen about his actions after Chaudhry and Alvi complained and that he was disciplined and resigned soon afterward.

Johnston agreed. He said the couple repeatedly failed to make a case that the district was responsible. Johnston also said no other teachers appeared to have promoted religion, making it unlikely the district approved of such conduct.

“The fact remains that when the Parents informed the District of their concerns about Thorsen, he was investigated, disciplined, and transferred to another school—a sequence that hardly raises the reasonable inference that the District had previously known of and ratified Thorsen’s conduct,” Johnston wrote in his order, dismissing the case against the district.

The couple’s lawsuit against Thorsen remains active.

Zubair Khan, an attorney for the couple, was disappointed in the judge’s ruling.

“We disagree with this decision, and we will appeal it,” he said. That appeal will have to wait, he added, until the case against Thorsen is decided.

The place of religion in public schools long has been contentious and often led to drawn-out legal battles. While student-led religious groups are allowed at schools, and outside groups can run religious activities on weekends or after school, teachers and other school officials are barred from promoting their faith to students.

Last fall, Joe Kennedy, an assistant football coach in Washington state, returned to the sidelines after the Supreme Court ruled his postgame prayers on the field were allowed under the U.S. Constitution. Kennedy, who had fought a long legal battle to regain his job as a coach, resigned soon after his brief return to the sidelines.

Thorsen has also sued the school district, alleging school officials discriminated against his Christian faith and saying they misled him into thinking he would be fired if he did not resign. In his lawsuit against the district, Thorsen claims any discussion of religion took place in a “legitimate pedagogical way” and that he was pressured to quit because talking about Christianity made people uncomfortable.

More than 4,000 people signed a Change.org petition in support of Thorsen after he resigned.

Thorsen’s attorney declined to comment.

Johnston previously had dismissed some of Thorsen’s claims against the school district, but an amended complaint in the case was filed in late December.

That complaint alleges school officials restricted Thorsen’s ability to talk about religion with his students. According to a letter filed as an exhibit in his lawsuit against the district, Thorsen was told not to give preferential treatment to any particular religion in his classes and told not to sponsor or participate in student religious clubs. He was also told to end a Bible study that met in his classroom.

“Defendant otherwise created a hostile environment, intolerable conditions, and undue restrictions against Christianity,” Thorsen’s attorneys alleged in their recent complaint.