WASHINGTON (RNS)—The Conference of National Black Churches has called on African American congregations to embrace a list of priorities—from “government-sponsored reparations” to improved access to health care—as they move out of a pandemic era and into an election year.

“We believe Black life must be valued and the humanity of all descendants of African descent must be affirmed,” said the conference’s board in a statement approved Dec. 12.

The listed priorities also call for a constitutional amendment to protect and guarantee the right to vote and for community policing policies that will prevent “stop and frisk” activities.

Approval of the statement highlighted the opening day of the organization’s national consultation, titled “Coming Out of Darkness, Finding Light: The Black Church Responding to the Continuing Pain of the Pandemic.”

“The Conference of National Black Churches presents ‘Ten Black Faith and Justice Ideals’ for uniting and mobilizing to push for reparative justice, freedom, global healing, empowerment and flourishing,” the statement said.

The consultation, held in Orlando, Fla., included speeches from Mandy Cohen, director for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Brandi Waters, senior director of African American studies in the College Board’s Advanced Placement Program. About 300 people attended.

The Conference of National Black Churches is a coalition of leaders of historically Black denominations, including the African Methodist Episcopal Church, African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, Church of God in Christ, Progressive National Baptist Convention and National Baptist Convention, USA.

“The Black Church, and this entire nation, find themselves still at a pivotal crossroads as it relates to our future,” said CNBC Chair W. Franklyn Richardson. “There are so many pressing issues, from the future of COVID-19 and mental health to gun violence and voting rights, that must be addressed.

“The CNBC board of directors entered this consultation committed to adopt a common set of principles that provide practical steps for our congregations to act on social justice issues from a civic and personal standpoint.

“We are showing that the Black church stands as a single unit against threats to our health, our vote, or our future.”

In a keynote speech at a consultation dinner, Al Sharpton, president of the National Action Network, announced a new joint get-out-the-vote initiative with the CNBC that will start training clergy and other organizers early next year.

Other specific concerns among the CNBC principles included economic equity, Black maternal health, a criminal justice system “driven by restoration rather than retribution,” and equitable funding for public schools and historically Black colleges and universities.

The CDC has partnered with the CNBC to address vaccine hesitancy in the Black community and to increase vaccination access, with some denominational leaders appearing in public service announcements to dispel misinformation.

Cohen, who became the new CDC director in July, thanked the Black church leaders for developing more than 600 vaccine sites at churches and helping get more than 1 million vaccines administered.

Cohen told consultation attendees she learned firsthand when she was North Carolina’s top health official that faith leaders thought the initial response to African American communities at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic was insufficient. She said lessons from that time, when the state started to work to enhance equitable vaccinations in communities of color, will guide her in her new role.

“Truly improving and protecting health requires connection and collaboration—across public health, health care, social services, education, religion, business and others,” she said in her speech. “This work to protect health can only be accomplished if we do it as a team.”

During her remarks, Waters described the revised framework of the Advanced Placement course on African American studies that has been offered as a pilot program in hundreds of schools prior to its official launch in the 2024-25 academic year.

She noted students learn about the Black church and Black faith traditions, including the Christian history of Africans prior to the transatlantic slave trade; gospel music; and newspapers published by denominations.

“We know that Black churches have been foundational for our communities in terms of building leadership, giving us a chance to express ourselves, political organizing, and also sustaining our spirits,” Waters told consultation attendees. “So this comes up in every unit of the course.”

WASHINGTON (RNS)—The last time Kenneth Smith was slated for execution, he was strapped to a gurney for an hour while workers repeatedly attempted to insert intravenous lines in his chest, hand, arm and neck to execute him by lethal injection. His was the third botched execution in Alabama last year.

Smith, who was convicted in 1996 for his role in the 1988 murder of Elizabeth Sennett, is scheduled again for execution on Jan. 25, this time via nitrogen hypoxia. If it occurs, it will be the first time a person is executed by this method in the United States.

But in a lawsuit filed Dec. 13, Smith’s spiritual adviser, Jeff Hood—an activist priest in the Old Catholic Church who has Baptist roots—argues the restrictions imposed on him via waiver would violate his right to the free exercise of religion.

That waiver, which is included in the lawsuit, informs Smith that “in the highly unlikely event that the hose supplying breathing gas to the mask were to detach,” free-flowing nitrogen gas could create a “small area of risk.” The waiver therefore instructs Hood to remain 3 feet from Smith’s mask.

These instructions not only demonstrate the risk posed to witnesses of the execution, Hood’s lawyers argue in the lawsuit, but inhibit Hood’s right to minister to Smith by forcing him to stand apart from Smith during the execution. The lawsuit names the commissioner of the Alabama Department of Corrections and warden of Holman Correctional Facility as defendants.

“Here, the ADOC’s (Alabama Department of Corrections) actions are not neutral,” the lawsuit says. “They are hostile toward religion. Indeed, they deny a prisoner his chosen spiritual advisor’s touch at the most critical juncture of his life: his death.”

Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Ramirez v. Collier that a spiritual adviser is permitted to touch prisoners during execution.

In a news conference, Hood said Smith, whom he described as a “follower of Jesus” with a “deep love for God,” comes from a tradition where the laying on of hands “is a means by which a deeply spiritual moment happens.”

“I don’t think it’s our place to question the value of certain religious exercises,” Hood added. “I think it’s our place as a free society to protect them.”

Hood, who opposes the death penalty, isn’t alone in speaking out about Smith’s case. A petition opposing “the introduction of the gas chamber as a form of execution” had been signed by nearly 12,000 Jewish community members as of Thursday afternoon.

Hood’s lawsuit asks the District Court for the Middle District of Alabama to issue declaratory judgments that the defendants’ actions to inhibit the plaintiff from having contact with Smith in the execution chamber violate Hood’s First Amendment rights.

It also asks for a preliminary injunction that stalls Smith’s execution until it can be performed in a way that provides for Hood’s safety and allows Hood to have contact with Smith during the execution.

During Thursday’s news conference, Hood recalled that when Smith first requested him as his spiritual adviser, Smith asked, “Are you willing to die to do this?”

“This is what I do. This is what I feel called by God to do. I think that the message of Jesus is very clear,” Hood said. “What you have done to the least of these, you have done to me. We are called to be in these spaces. So, I felt like I couldn’t say ‘no.’”

AUSTIN (BP)—Current lawsuits by expectant mothers in Texas and Kentucky highlight the complex legal landscape of abortion across the nation. A mother’s address sometimes impacts whether an unborn child is carried to term.

In Texas, where abortions are banned at six weeks, a district court judge granted Kate Cox a temporary restraining order Dec. 7 allowing an abortion under a medical exception. When the Texas Supreme Court stayed the ruling, Cox traveled to another state for the procedure.

In Kentucky, a mother identified as Jane Doe is seeking class action status in a lawsuit filed in December, expressing her personal desire for an abortion, the Associated Press reported Dec. 8.

Her unborn baby has since died, AP reported Dec. 12, but her attorneys, including the American Civil Liberties Union, continue to pursue a class action lawsuit.

In Texas, Cox sought a medical exemption because her child’s condition of Trisomy 18, her doctors said, coupled with Cox’s history of cesarean section deliveries jeopardizes her life, according to her lawsuit.

“Ms. Cox is currently 20 weeks pregnant, and she has been to three different emergency rooms in the last month due to severe cramping and unidentifiable fluid leaks,” CNN quotes the lawsuit. “Because Ms. Cox has had two prior cesarean surgeries (‘C-sections’), continuing the pregnancy puts her at high risk for severe complications threatening her life and future fertility, including uterine rupture and hysterectomy.”

A ‘true culture of life’

While Southern Baptists consistently have advocated for life for more than half a century, Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission President Brent Leatherwood points out the delicacy of the case.

“Even as we have pushed for the defense of innocent lives, we also know that there are rare times where a doctor must intervene in order to save a mother’s life, as has been stated in multiple SBC resolutions,” Leatherwood said. “But what is the extent of that? That is the question being raised here. It should be answered within a framework that seeks to preserve life.

“And in those grievous cases involving life-threatening pregnancies, it is right to ask whether we have come far enough in establishing a true culture of life in policy and practice that wraps care and support around these mothers and families.”

Cox expressed her concerns in an editorial in the Dallas Morning News.

“I do not want to continue the pain and suffering that has plagued this pregnancy or continue to put my body or my mental health through the risks of continuing this pregnancy,” Cox wrote. “I do not want my baby to arrive in this world only to watch her suffer.”

The Texas case is believed to be the first challenge to the state’s narrow medical exemption window since the reversal of Roe v. Wade, and does not pursue a class action as in Kentucky. There, the case seems to hinge solely on the mother’s personal desire.

“I am a proud Kentuckian, and I love the life my family and I have here, but I’m angry that now that I’m pregnant and do not want to be,” the plaintiff said in a statement the ACLU released. “The government is interfering in my private matters and blocking me from having an abortion. This is my decision, not the government or any other person’s.”

Laws vary from state to state

Depending on where a pregnant woman resides, legal protections for her unburn child begin at six weeks of gestation, 20 weeks, 24 weeks, the child’s viability or at birth.

The child’s life might or might not be protected if the mother were a victim of rape or incest, or if the pregnancy compromises a mother’s mental health. The mother’s health might or might not trump the health of the child.

When disputed in court, decisions can be made by democratically elected judges that have declared allegiance to a particular political party, or by judges appointed by a U.S. president representing partisan politics.

The June 2022 reversal of Roe v. Wade saved the lives of an estimated 32,000 unborn babies in the United States in the first half of 2023, according to the pro-choice Guttmacher Institute’s Monthly Abortion Provision Study.

In some cases, pregnant women have traveled across state lines to get abortions when the procedure is no longer allowed in their home state. Nearly 20 percent of U.S. abortions were conducted out-of-state in the first six months of 2023, compared to 10 percent over the same time span in 2020, Guttmacher said Dec. 7.

Abortions are banned or restricted in 22 states, according to tracking sites, and largely protected in 28 states and the District of Columbia.

Leaders of the Evangelical Immigration Table urged Congress to be guided by two principles as they consider immigration reform: “ensuring secure borders” and “respecting the God-given dignity of each person.”

In a Dec. 11 letter to Congress, Evangelical Immigration Table leaders asked Congress to “oppose proposals that would either make our borders less secure or would erode existing legal protections for those vulnerable to persecution, human trafficking or other significant harm.”

“Our federal government has a responsibility to know who is entering the United States, to do whatever is reasonably possible to prevent the entry of anyone seeking to do harm, and to enforce laws governing who is and is not allowed to enter the United States,” the letter stated.

“Equally important, we believe that God has made every human being in his image with inherent dignity. This means that human life is worth protecting, regardless of one’s nationality, ethnicity, religion, gender or any other factor.”

In particular, the evangelical leaders asked lawmakers to ensure due process for asylum seekers who demonstrate “a real fear of persecution.”

“As your negotiations continue, we ask that you make certain all asylum seekers are treated with the dignity they are owed as image-bearers, preserve a clear and orderly due process for asylum, and facilitate more efficient processing to ensure that those who qualify for asylum are able to access permanent protections more quickly and those who do not qualify are not incentivized to present a marginal claim by a legal process that often takes many years to complete,” the letter stated.

The evangelical leaders also appealed to Congress to make certain “extra caution” is taken to protect the well-being of unaccompanied children.

Member organizations of the Evangelical Immigration Table are the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, the National Association of Evangelicals, Bethany Christian Services, the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, the National Latino Evangelical Coalition, World Relief and World Vision.

Recommendations to consider

The Evangelical Immigration Table offered four ideas for lawmakers to consider:

• Increase opportunities for legal migration “that are accessible without the need to reach the U.S. border to seek asylum.” These include expanding refugee resettlement and employer-sponsored visas.
• Expand personnel and technology at ports of entry. Fully staffed and equipped ports of entry will help ensure “asylum requests can be adjudicated without returning individuals to dangerous conditions” in northern Mexico. They also will help to “halt the trafficking of fentanyl and other dangerous drugs” through those ports of entry, evangelical leaders noted.
• Appropriate funds to staff and equip Border Patrol. Provide resources, technology and training to enable Border Patrol to “intercept individuals seeking to enter the United States without inspection.”
• Invest in and partner with international NGOs. Work with nongovernmental organizations in Mexico, Central America and elsewhere “that are doing effective work to address the root causes of poverty, violence, environmental changes and corruption that lead many to feel they have no option but to leave their homeland and seek a new life in the United States,” evangelical leaders urged.

“While the border challenges are significant and require congressional response, we also urge you not to neglect other urgent immigration priorities, such as ensuring opportunities for Dreamers, Afghan and other humanitarian parolees, and long-term beneficiaries of Temporary Protected Status to pursue legal status,” the letter stated.

Politicians ‘weaponize’ the immigration issue

J. Blair Blackburn, president of East Texas Baptist University, participated in a recent panel discussion in Houston sponsored by the National Immigration Forum about how Temporary Protected Status, DACA and similar programs present both opportunities and challenges.

ETBU and many other Christian higher education institutions have “embraced the opportunity to welcome” Dreamers, refugees and undocumented immigrants as part of their campus communities, Blackburn said.

However, those students face challenges due to the lack of federal and state financial aid, he noted.

“We’ve been intentional at our institution in raising scholarship funds to enable these students to come to ETBU,” Blackburn said.

Those students contribute both to the university and to the community, he added, pointing to a program in which first-year students volunteer at a nearby elementary school.

“So, we have Dreamers, we have refugees, we have undocumented immigrants among our campus population that are ministering to and serving the children of Dreamers in our schools and undocumented immigrants,” he said.

Elected officials need to seek real immigration reform and genuine solutions rather than “weaponize” the immigration issue to raise funds and mobilize voters, Blackburn insisted.

“I think for too long we have allowed political pundits, policymakers and politicians—our elected officials—to politicize rather than revolutionize immigration,” he said.

“It appears we have this perpetual decision among lawmakers to not make a decision because it fuels their campaigns.”

Voters should demand from elected officials a bipartisan “American solution” that provides pathways to legal status, he asserted.

WASHINGTON (RNS)—In the early 2000s, psychology professor Warren Throckmorton spent much of his spare time blogging about his academic work—especially his move in 2005 from supporting so-called reparative therapy and the ex-gay movement to believing attempts to change people’s sexuality were wrong.

Then David Barton changed his life.

Beginning in 2011, Throckmorton began critiquing Barton’s work—especially the popular writer, speaker and political operative’s attempts to turn Founding Fathers like Thomas Jefferson into modern-day evangelicals.

Throckmorton—who taught for years at Grove City College—would become one of Barton’s most influential conservative critics and played a key role in the downfall of The Jefferson Lies, Barton’s bestselling reimagining of Thomas Jefferson as a man on fire for Jesus.

The book was filled with so many mistakes—many of them detailed in Getting Jefferson Right, a booklong critique by Throckmorton and fellow Grove City College professor Michael Coulter published in 2012—that Barton’s publisher, Thomas Nelson, retracted the book, despite its appearance on the New York Times bestseller list.

Casey Francis Harrell, a spokesman for Thomas Nelson, told the Tennessean and other media outlets in 2012 conservative historians and critics had pointed out errors in the book.

“Because of these deficiencies, we decided that it was in the best interest of our readers to cease its publication and distribution,” Harrell said.

Had Barton—the founder of Wallbuilders, an Aledo-based nonprofit that promotes “education regarding the Christian history of our nation”—been an academic or trained historian, his career likely would have been over, said Throckmorton.

David Barton’s influence endures

But Barton, a longtime GOP activist, is more political operative than historian, argues Throckmorton, and is more concerned with telling stories about America’s past than in recounting the truth.

“Political operatives take a licking and keep on ticking,” said Throckmorton, who recently retired from Grove City, where he taught psychology for decades.

Despite the controversy of The Jefferson Lies, Barton’s influence has endured, finding an eager audience with the rise of Christian nationalism in the age of Trump.

Most recently, Barton has made national headlines because of his ties to Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, who shares many of his views about America as a Christian nation.

The rise of Christian nationalism—the idea that America belongs to Christians and Christians have a God-given right to rule—prompted Throckmorton and his co-author to go ahead with an updated version of Getting Jefferson Right.

The book takes on Barton, as well as other conservative authors like Eric Metaxas and Stephen Wolfe—all of whom promote what Throckmorton calls “Christian nationalists’ revisionist history.”

“It’s the attempt to create a usable past—a past that fits your ideology in the present,” Throckmorton said.

In the second edition of their book, published last month, Throckmorton and his co-author assert Christian nationalists want to reinterpret Jefferson to suit their own goals.

The book is needed, he said, because of Barton’s ongoing influence, built on what Throckmorton called bad facts and a faulty narrative.

Barton did not respond to a request for comment.

‘Getting the Founders on your side’

Robert Tracy McKenzie, professor of history at Wheaton College and author of We the Fallen People: The Founders and the Future of American Democracy, said Barton has used the criticism against him to his advantage.

McKenzie said Barton is telling two stories at once—one about America’s past, the other about America in the present. In that second story, Barton accuses academics of distorting the religious nature of America’s past and paints himself as a hero for rediscovering it.

“For at least some evangelicals, then, the more the academy challenges Barton, the more they rally around him,” McKenzie said. “It strengthens rather than weakens his brand.”

Messiah College historian John Fea, who endorsed the new edition of Getting Jefferson Right, said Throckmorton has done important work in pointing out Barton’s factual errors. He also said along with getting facts wrong, Barton lacks a historian’s perspective when interpreting America’s founding—acting as if nothing has changed between 1776 and 2023.

“He has no ability to think about the relationship between the past and the present in responsible ways,” Fea said.

Fea also said Barton is a marketing genius—using the criticism against him to build his brand and using his connections to corner the home-schooling market, where his ideas are often embraced by parents.

The fight over Jefferson also reflects the larger culture war that has raged in the United States for decades—a war in which retelling America’s founding plays a key role.

“The entire culture war in the United States is based upon getting the Founders on your side, and Barton is able to do that,” he said.

Along with the new book, Throckmorton is working on a podcast recounting the downfall of The Jefferson Lies. Both projects were driven in part by his concerns about the rise of Christian nationalism.

Throckmorton—whose blog also played a key role in the fall of Mark Driscoll and Mars Hill Church by publicizing Driscoll’s plagiarism and the church’s toxic culture—first began investigating Christian nationalism long before the rise of MAGA.

He’d been blogging for years when he began to read about a proposed 2009 law in Uganda that would have outlawed homosexuality and jailed LGBTQ people. The law was backed by Christian groups in Uganda, many of whom had ties to American evangelicals.

Throckmorton began to work with other American bloggers and journalists to oppose the law and investigate the Christians working in Uganda, whom he described as Christian nationalists.

If Christian nationalist ideas—like imposing biblical laws on secular society—were growing in places like Uganda, he wondered where else they might be taking root. That led him to investigate groups in the United States with Christian nationalist leanings.

“All roads led to David Barton,” he said.

This story was reported with support from the Stiefel Freethought Foundation.

WASHINGTON (RNS)—Four Christian leaders and education advocates are seeking the Oklahoma Supreme Court’s permission to join a lawsuit filed by the state’s attorney general that aims to prevent the opening of an online Catholic charter school.

The plaintiffs—Melissa Abdo, Bruce Prescott, Mitch Randall and Lori Walke—contend the Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board’s decision to sponsor the St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School undermines religious freedom in the state and will lead to discrimination against nonreligious students.

“The separation of church and state is not the sole responsibility of the state. The church has to do its part to hold that line and continue to honor that separation,” Walke said.

St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School would be the country’s first publicly funded religious charter school.

Attorney General Gentner Drummond has argued in his own filings the decision violates Oklahoma’s Constitution. He has said he is ready to take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court if needed.

The Oklahoma faith leaders are represented in their effort to sway the case by Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Education Law Center and the Freedom From Religion Foundation. They previously filed a separate lawsuit in a district court this summer.

The board is represented by the conservative Christian legal group Alliance Defending Freedom.

Accountable to taxpayers

When she learned about the board’s decision to allocate public funds to St. Isidore, Abdo, a Catholic resident of Tulsa County, immediately felt the need to counter assumptions that the lawsuit was an anti-Catholic effort.

“I’m Catholic. This happens to be a Catholic school effort. But I would never expect people of another faith to pay for educating children in the Catholic faith,” she said.

A longtime public education advocate, Abdo sits on the public school board in Jenks, Okla., a suburb of Tulsa, and the Oklahoma State School Boards Association board of directors.

Besides her misgivings about religious freedom, she also expressed concerns about whether St. Isidore will be able to comply with all obligations imposed on public schools, such as holding open meetings and keeping records open.

“It’s a very big responsibility when we are accountable to the taxpayers because they’re paying for school,” she said.

The senior minister of Mayflower Congregational Church in Oklahoma City for the past 15 years, Walke said her advocacy for the separation of state and church stemmed from her Southern Baptist upbringing.

Her church, which is aligned with the United Church of Christ, counts many queer parishioners, and Walke said she is worried St. Isidore will discriminate against LGBTQ+ students.

“They explicitly state that they are going to be part of the evangelizing mission of the church. … Of course, they mean their particular flavor and brand of Christianity, which does happen to be homophobic, not to mention misogynist,” she said.

She said she also fears that support for St. Isidore will siphon funds from Oklahoma public schools.

St. Isidore arises from a joint effort of the Oklahoma City and Tulsa archdioceses. The board rejected the school’s application in April before approving it in June. In October, it issued a formal contract of sponsorship. The application is now in the charter agreement phase.

‘Open-door enrollment policy’

Brett A. Farley, executive director of the Catholic Conference of Oklahoma, said claims that St. Isidore will discriminate against certain students are unfounded.

“Catholic schools have always maintained an open-door enrollment policy, so claims of alleged discrimination are politically motivated and untrue,” he said in an email.

He estimated the student bodies of the Catholic schools in the state are 25 percent non-Catholic on average.

On its website, St. Isidore said it will offer “the best of the Catholic intellectual tradition” and comply with the Congregation for Catholic Education’s recommendations. This 1997 document promotes a religious education, respectful of parents’ inputs, and directed “toward the whole person—body, mind, soul and spirit.”

St. Isidore plans to open for the 2024-25 school year and aims to serve 1,500 students after five years of operation.

Farley noted that other Oklahoma religious schools are already receiving public funds through “the Lindsey Nicole Henry scholarship program, the Equal Opportunity Scholarship program, and the newly-created Parental Choice Tax Credit.”

St. Isidore’s right to exist is backed by the state’s superintendent of public instruction, Ryan Walters, who said the lawsuit “discriminates against some Oklahomans due to their faith.”

In February, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt also voiced his support for the Catholic charter school. “Am I supportive of the Catholics going out and setting up a Catholic charter school? 100 percent. I think that’s great,” he said at a news conference, adding, “Just like I don’t shy away from my faith, I don’t expect anybody to shy away from their faith, either.”

Discrimination ‘funded by government money’

Like Walke, Randall said he was inspired by his own Southern Baptist education. A Baptist minister and CEO of Good Faith Media, Randall is also a citizen of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, a Native American tribe located in Okmulgee, Okla.

“When I hear about public funding of religious education, it really concerns me not only as a Christian but also as an Indigenous person, that discrimination will be funded by government money,” he said.

Randall’s grandmother attended Chilocco’s Indian school, a missionary boarding school for Native Americans that operated from 1884 to 1980. At Chilocco, students endured forced assimilation and were encouraged to cut their hair, exchange their clothes and abandon their native tongue, Randall said.

“I know from the stories of my grandmother and her relatives what happens when the church is given federal dollars to assimilate a large swath of people towards their belief,” said Randall.

Prescott, a retired Baptist minister, is primarily concerned that St. Isidore will be unable to welcome students with special needs. During the 1960s, Prescott worked as an educator in a private religious school in Houston and said the institution struggled to meet disabled students’ needs.

He said public schools are better positioned to welcome these students and should receive the entirety of public funding.

“Religion and religious education need to be paid for by their constituents. Voluntary contribution is how we’ve always done it,” he said.

SAN FRANCISCO (BP)—Meta’s social media platforms including Facebook and Instagram intentionally target children and teens with features that harm mental health, attorneys general in 42 states and Washington D.C. said in lawsuits Oct. 24.

A group of 33 states including California, New York, Pennsylvania and Illinois filed a federal lawsuit jointly in the Northern District of California, while nine states and Washington D.C. filed individually, according to press releases and court filings.

Depression, anxiety, insomnia, body dysmorphia, unhealthy prolonged use of sites, and interferences with education and daily life are alleged results of Meta’s manipulative algorithms and other features targeting youth as their brains are still developing.

Meta “has profoundly altered the psychological and social realities of a generation of young Americans,” the joint lawsuit alleges. “Meta has harnessed powerful and unprecedented technologies to entice, engage, and ultimately ensnare youth and teens. Its motive is profit, and in seeking to maximize its financial gains, Meta has repeatedly misled the public about the substantial dangers of its social media platforms.”

Southern Baptist educator and ethicist Jason Thacker said the lawsuits illustrate how society—including Christians—can jointly work to protect our children.

“If we have learned anything from the past few years, it is that social media and other technologies are not neutral tools but ones that are profoundly shaping every aspect of our society—including the lives of children and teenagers,” said Thacker, assistant professor of philosophy and ethics at Boyce College, and a senior fellow at the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.

“This bipartisan litigation illustrates that these concerns are not just limited to certain groups and that protecting young people online is something we should all be able to support.”

Thacker urged bipartisan state and federal legislation to help protect children and teenagers from future and further harm.

“From debates over the nature of parental rights and the role of government in checking the power of this industry, there are vital questions that we must consider as Christians living in an increasingly digital public square,” he said.

Meta showed disappointment with the lawsuit, expressing a shared “commitment to providing teens with safe, positive experiences online,” and saying it has introduced more than 30 tools to support teens and their families.

“We’re disappointed that instead of working productively with companies across the industry to create clear, age-appropriate standards for the many apps teens use, the attorneys general have chosen this path,” Meta said in a statement.

Claims against Meta

Some details of the federal lawsuit released to the public are redacted, but among the claims asserted are:

• Meta’s business model is designed to maximize the time young users spend on its social media platforms, with the extended time earning Meta more in advertising dollars.
• Meta has developed and refined a set of “psychologically manipulative” platform features to maximize time spent on the site, ignoring the company’s own knowledge that the brains of children and teens are especially vulnerable to such manipulation.
• Meta has intentionally and falsely represented its products as safe for children’s mental health, downplaying harsh outcomes.
• Meta has broken the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act by unlawfully collecting children’s personal data without parental consent.

The lawsuits are the result of a bipartisan, nationwide investigation led by attorneys general Jonathan Skrmetti in Tennessee and Philip Weiser in Colorado, Skrmetti said in a press release. Tennessee is among states filing individual lawsuits, while Colorado is included in the multistate federal action.

“Targeting kids with a harmful product and lying about its safety violates the Tennessee Consumer Protection Act,” Skrmetti said. “Meta knows every last design decision that made Instagram addictive to kids, and that means it knows exactly how to fix the problem. We’re suing to make the company fix the problem.”

Most of the states have worked together since 2021 to investigate the social media industry, Skrmetti said, and are also investigating TikTok for similar concerns.

Other states suing individually are Florida (U.S. District Court for Middle District of Florida), Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Utah and Vermont.

In addition to California, Colorado, Illinois, New York and Pennsylvania, other states in the combined federal lawsuit are Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

WASHINGTON (BP)—Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., the newly elected Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, is a Southern Baptist who served as a trustee of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.

Johnson’s Southern Baptist supporters praised him as a “principled conservative” with a “Christian worldview” who “loves his church, his country, his family and his Lord.” Critics called him an “extremist” who will advance a “Christian nationalist political agenda.”

“It is the honor of a lifetime to have been elected the 56th Speaker of the House. Thank you to my colleagues, friends, staff, and family for the unmatched support throughout this process,” Johnson posted on social media.

ERLC President Brent Leatherwood offered his congratulations to Johnson.

“Leading Congress is never an easy task, but it is especially challenging given how fractured the U.S. House of Representatives is at this moment,” Leatherwood said in written comments. “Mike Johnson, a name familiar to many Southern Baptists, has been tapped to lead the chamber, and I want to offer my personal congratulations to him.”

Johnson comes to the role following weeks of the House’s inability to elect a speaker following the ouster of Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., on Oct. 3.

In a speech on the House floor after his election, Johnson told colleagues he is aware of the gravity of the challenges facing the nation.

“I want to say to the American people, on behalf of all of us here, we hear you,” Johnson said. “We know the challenges you are facing. We know that there is a lot going on in our country, domestically and abroad. We are ready to get to work again to solve those problems, and we will. Our mission here is to serve you well. To restore the people’s faith in this House, in this great and essential institution.”

Johnson served as an ERLC trustee from 2004 to 2012. Leatherwood said he turned to Johnson in the early days of his role, noting “the first meeting I scheduled on Capitol Hill as ERLC president was with him in his office.”

“It was clear to me he carries an abiding devotion to our convention of churches, subscribes to the principles that are dear to so many Southern Baptists, and has a deep pride in our nation. There is no doubt this will continue in his role as Speaker of the House,” Leatherwood said.

Johnson is a member of Cypress Baptist Church in Benton, La., where John Fream is senior pastor.

“Mike is the real deal, and God’s hand is all over him and his family,” Fream told Baptist Press. “I am so excited and hopeful for our nation with this great man of God leading. Mike loves his church, his country, his family and his Lord.”

Steve Horn, executive director of the Louisiana Baptist Convention, said in comments to Baptist Press: “To have someone with Mike’s intellectual acumen, love for America, principled convictions and Christian worldview as Speaker of the House gives me great hope.

“This is an exciting day for Louisiana,” Horn continued. “This is an exciting day for Louisiana Baptists. More than anything, this is an exciting day for America.”

Both Horn and Leatherwood encourage people to pray for Johnson.

“He deserves our earnest prayers, along with all of our political leaders, as many significant decisions lie ahead about America’s future and its role in the consequential events occurring across the globe,” Leatherwood said. “Clear-eyed leadership, based in reality, that works to build consensus around these issues is needed now as much as ever from the Speaker’s chair.”

Concerns raised about Johnson

In his speech Wednesday, Johnson referred to God’s sovereignty and pledged to uphold the nation’s founding principles.

“The world is in turmoil, but a strong America is good for the entire world,” he said. “We are the beacon of freedom, and we must preserve this grand experiment in self-governance. … We are only 247 years into this grand experiment, and we don’t know how long it will last. But we do know the founders told us to take good care of it.

“The Bible is very clear that God is the one that raises up those in authority. He raised up each of you, all of us. And I believe that God has ordained and allowed each one of us to be brought here for this specific moment and this specific time.”

Some of those sentiments raised concern for Paul Brandeis Raushenbush, president and CEO of the Interfaith Alliance.

“As Speaker Johnson takes on the responsibility of leading the U.S. House of Representatives, he must remember that he was elected by the people, not by God as he appeared to be indicating in his speech in Congress today. I would remind the Speaker that he swore an oath to uphold the Constitution, not the Bible,” said Raushenbush, an ordained Baptist minister.

“Our nation includes people of diverse religions and beliefs, a wonderful mix which is the result of the promise of religious freedom found in the First Amendment. Unfortunately, America is faced with a rising tide of Christian nationalism that threatens the very foundation of our democracy, and the civil rights of our people.

“The fear that many Americans share today is that the Speaker’s worldview is ruled less by a commitment to the American people, but rather a desire to impose his narrow religious vision upon the rest of us. As a pastor and a citizen who loves this country, I am fine with the Speaker turning to his personal faith to inspire him, but he must use his leadership position to protect freedom of religion and civil rights, as well as the separation of church and state that make our nation a home to all.”

Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, posted on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter: “Religious extremists continue to have dangerous, outsized power in our government. Rep. Mike Johnson is one of them. Reminder: WE THE PEOPLE are the majority.”

Nathan Empsall, executive director of Faithful America, noted Johnson’s previous service with the Alliance Defending Freedom, which the Southern Poverty Law Center identifies as an extremist “hate group.”

Empsall, an Episcopal priest, referred to Johnson as “a far-right evangelical leader” and as a person who sees the government and secular law as a way to control and force religion on those different from him, advancing an anti-freedom, theocratic, Christian-nationalist political agenda.”

“It is certainly good for Christians to run for office and to let Jesus guide us in everything we do, including holding the values of love, equality, dignity and justice in public life. But that is not the same thing as using secular law to force others to adhere to our religion in their private lives, nor is it the same as trying to punish those who are different from us by stripping away their freedoms and their right to vote,” Empsall said.

“House Republicans can take God’s name in vain by slapping the words ‘Christian’ or ‘biblical values’ on these harmful, anti-democracy values if they want, but you can also call a goose a llama if you want, and it will still be a goose.”

With additional reporting by Managing Editor Ken Camp.

OKLAHOMA CITY (BP)—Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond has filed a lawsuit to block the nation’s first state-sponsored religious charter school.

St. Isidore Catholic Virtual School is preparing to open in 2024. Drummond filed suit Oct. 20 in the Oklahoma State Supreme Court against the Statewide Virtual Charter School Board, which approved the school in June. The board signed a contract Oct. 9 with the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City to sponsor the school, which will teach and stand on Catholic doctrine.

Drummond presented his case as his “duty … to protect religious liberty and prevent the type of state-funded religion that Oklahoma’s constitutional framers and the founders of our country sought to prevent,” according to the lawsuit filed in court.

“Make no mistake, if the Catholic Church were permitted to have a public virtual charter school, a reckoning will follow in which this State will be faced with the unprecedented quandary of processing requests to directly fund all petitioning sectarian groups.”

Drummond believes the board’s decision “will pave the way for a proliferation of the direct public funding of religious schools whose tenets are diametrically opposed by most Oklahomans.”

Drummond, a Republican, is on the opposing side of Gov. Kevin Stitt, also Republican, who considers the school a victory for religious freedom.

“Oklahomans support religious liberty for all and support an increasingly innovative educational system that expands choice,” Stitt said after the board approved the school. “Today, with the nation watching, our state showed that we will not stand for religious discrimination.”

Drummond bases his case on the Oklahoma Constitution and the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution. The school, which would receive state funding, would jeopardize more than a billion dollars the state receives in federal education funding, Drummond said, and goes against a 2016 voter referendum defeating a proposed constitutional amendment to allow public funding for religious entities.

“There is no religious freedom in compelling Oklahomans to fund religions that may violate their own deeply held beliefs,” Drummond said in his lawsuit. “The framers of the U.S. Constitution and those who drafted Oklahoma’s Constitution clearly understood how best to protect religious freedom: by preventing the State from sponsoring any religion at all.”

Drummond advised the board against approving the school shortly after his term began, reversing the recommendation of his predecessor John O’Connor. Drummond’s lawsuit is the second legal challenge to the school.

In August, a group of Oklahoma parents, clergy and public education advocates filed a lawsuit challenging the board’s decision. The Oklahoma Parent Legislative Action Committee, a statewide public education advocacy group, is joined by nine parents, educators and clergy in the suit to block the charter school from receiving public funding.

The plaintiffs, who include Protestants, Catholics, members of the LGBTQ community and parents of children with disabilities, argue that the school would discriminate against non-Catholics, students with disabilities and students who identify as LGBTQ, according to the lawsuit filed July 30 in Oklahoma District Court. Their case is ongoing.

St. Isidore Catholic Virtual School is gauging interest in the school in preparing to accept applications for its Fall 2024 term.

WASHINGTON (BP)—Religious freedom advocates lamented the loss of civilian lives in the Israel-Hamas war, antisemitism and Islamophobia on the 25th anniversary of the International Religious Freedom Act.

The bipartisan and multifaith U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, created by passage of the act in 1998, commemorated the 25th anniversary of the landmark legislation at an Oct. 23 event on Capitol Hill.

The event included an overview of commission accomplishments under the International Religious Freedom Act, panel discussions, congressional remarks and historical summaries of the act’s passage.

“As a clergy, as a man of faith, I am really disturbed by the loss of civilian life in Israel and Palestine,” said Commissioner Mohamed Magid, co-founder of the Multi-faith Neighbors Network to build bridges between Muslims, Evangelical Christians and Jewish communities.

“And also, I stand against antisemitism and Islamophobia in America, on campuses. Also the loss of many lives as we speak now, of civilians in Gaza, of children, and therefore we have to value all human life,” Magid said. “But I’m really standing with my brothers and sisters in Jewish community, and brothers and sisters in Muslim community.”

Commissioner Frank Wolf, a former U.S. representative who was instrumental in passage of the International Religious Freedom Act, addressed those attending an event marking the act’s 25th anniversary. Wolf applauded faith communities’ support of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, and he urged renewed multifaith vitality in the effort.

Frederick A. Davie, vice chair of the commission and senior strategic adviser to the president at Union Theological Seminary, reiterated the commission’s Oct. 11 call for an international prayer service in response to the Israel-Hamas war. Death tolls vary, but thousands have been killed and injured. The United States has confirmed the deaths of at least 33 Americans.

Davie offered the commission’s help in organizing and participating in such a prayer service that would acknowledge “the brutality and the horror and the depravity that is taking place in the region, calling for compassion for human life and innocent lives in the region, and calling for a just and peaceful resolution to the horrors that now exist there.”

‘We cannot be complacent’

No other country has a similar bipartisan and multifaith commission, Chair Abraham Cooper said. Through the commission and the International Religious Freedom Act, religious issues are integrated into U.S. foreign relations more than ever before, he said. Violations are documented and exposed, violators often sanctioned, some prisoners released and repressive governments improving laws and policies.

“Importantly the United States no longer stands alone in recognizing the significance of international freedom of religion or belief … for everyone everywhere,” Cooper said.

He characterized the commission as among the first to decry China’s persecution of Uyghurs as genocide, Russia’s antisemitism and Holocaust distortion, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Hamas’ attack on Israel.

In the five years since the commission marked the International Religious Freedom Act’s 20th anniversary, Davie said, the group has seen robust use of new tools to promote and achieve international religious liberty through the Frank R. Wolf International Religious Freedom Act and the Global Magnitsky Act. But he said much work is needed.

“We cannot be complacent,” Davie said. “State and nonstate actors around the globe continue to perpetrate or tolerate severe religious persecution. In too many countries, individuals and communities are still targeted for their religious beliefs, activity or identity, or for their religious freedom advocacy.”

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom monitors and documents religious freedom violations internationally, advocates for religious liberty, compiles frequent reports on religious freedom in numerous countries, compiles annual reports and designates certain countries as Countries of Particular Concern for their religious freedom violations.

Moving forward, the commission urged Congress to use the CPC designation more effectively and to apply more meaningful consequences against violators.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom urged more congressional oversight hearings on international religious freedom policy; urged Congress to be more vocal in referencing religious freedom issues in various settings including hearings, floor speeches and congressional delegations abroad; urged Congress to advocate for prisoners of conscience; to permanently reauthorize the commission through bipartisan support and increase its budget to support the body’s original intent.

WASHINGTON (RNS)—Author and researcher Seth Kaplan has some advice for Americans on how to address the country’s most vexing problems.

Get to know your neighbors. Then get to work making the community you live in better for everyone.

“Stop thinking that the best use of your time is to advocate for something in politics, or advocate for something far away,” said Kaplan, author of a new book, Fragile Neighborhoods: Repairing American Society, One ZIP Code at a Time, in a recent interview.

“Look for something close to home that you can do. You have to think of real people and real places and how you contribute to them.”

Kaplan, a professorial lecturer at Johns Hopkins University who studies so-called fragile states around the world, believes politics and advocacy matter. But he thinks too many Americans neglect the community right outside their door—to their detriment and the detriment of their neighbors.

Humans are innately social creatures and have long maintained close ties to the people and institutions in their immediate communities. Today, Americans have largely abandoned that approach, instead choosing to form community through more distant networks of friends and colleagues with similar interests, often online, with less involvement in the place they live.

That’s one reason, Kaplan argues in his book, American society has become fragile.

“Beyond the home, we don’t belong to place-based mutual aid societies, ethnic clubs, civic organizations, or religious congregations the way our grandparents did,” he writes.

“We don’t have the kind of close-knit relationships with our extended family and friends that we used to have, or interact much with our neighbors, leaving many without a support system to call upon in a crisis.”

Far-flung networks have helped many people get ahead, Kaplan said, but it’s rendered them materially rich and relationship-poor. People in crisis are more likely to turn to a smartphone app than to a neighbor.

“That may help you for one problem or two problems,” Kaplan said. “That doesn’t make you feel secure as a person. It makes you feel anxious. It makes you feel vulnerable. You’re afraid to show people that you have a problem, and that’s not a healthy way to live.”

Faith communities have thinned out

Many religious groups in the United States have tried to adapt to a network-based social structure by abandoning a parish model of congregational life. They have replaced houses of worship that have close ties to community with a consumerist faith that focuses on providing spiritual content. That approach fails to build “thick” community—one where people bond deeply and share tasks and rituals, Kapan asserted.

Worshippers instead get a sermon and programs they like but aren’t tied into a community where they belong outside of weekend services. Kaplan believes American faith communities have thinned out.

“For the most part, religion is very thin,” he said. “It doesn’t think of itself as having a large community-building role. I think this is a mistake. It weakens belief. It weakens the sustainability of religion.”

Kaplan has both professional and personal interests in promoting place-based community. He has spent much of his professional life in the broken places of the world, from Somalia to Bolivia to Sri Lanka, where governments are falling apart and humanitarian crises, conflicts or catastrophes are commonplace.

Ironically, he said, while those states are failing, their local communities are not. People often have deep social connections despite the chaos around them.

Things are different in the United States, he said. When people learn he studies fragile states, they often ask him about America’s own fragility, given the country’s polarization and disunity.

Kaplan tells them that, yes, the United States is fragile, but not in the way they think. America has free elections, thriving businesses, ever-advancing technologies and a higher living standard than almost anywhere else in the world.

Rebuild neighborhoods and social capital

America as a state is doing fine, Kaplan contends. America’s communities are not.

“It’s American society that is in trouble—from gun violence in Baltimore to teens committing suicide in Palo Alto to the opioid crisis in Appalachia,” Kaplan writes.

“Our families and communities suffer from social problems that shock the rest of the world, and ought to shock us: family disintegration, homelessness, school shootings, racial animosity, skyrocketing rates of loneliness and depression, and deaths of despair—alcoholism, drug abuse, and suicide.”

Addressing the country’s social woes, Kaplan argues, must involve rebuilding the country’s neighborhoods and social capital.

Religious leaders and institutions have a role to play in that work, but they need to build trust before they can build community.

In the book, he profiles several religious innovators, such as Life Remodeled, a community organization in Detroit that grew out of a church founded by Pastor Chris Lambert in 2007. Life Remodeled began refurbishing houses, assisting local schools and generally bettering the church’s neighborhood.

By 2016, the nonprofit, whose staff was mostly white, took over a closed-down community school in an area with many Black families and converted it to a community opportunity hub.

When the deal was announced, neighbors reacted with anger, as Kaplan recounts, concerned that a group led by a white pastor and other outsiders had taken over a community asset, with little local involvement. That led Lambert and other leaders to meet with local groups and begin a slow but steady process of earning their trust.

That kind of trust-building takes time, Kaplan said.

“It would not be successful if no one trusted him,” he said. “It would not be successful if the people in the community did not have some stake and feeling of ownership in what he was doing.”

Kaplan has also experienced the power of place-based community in his own life. He recounted growing up uneasy in a middle-class New Jersey suburb. His parents, who were Jewish but not practicing, were divorced, and he struggled socially at school.

“I had relationships that were characterized by mistrust, stress, and frustration, leaving me with an overriding sense of insecurity,” he writes. “And while my material needs were always met, I frequently felt socially uncomfortable, even vulnerable.”

As an adult, he found what he’d been missing by becoming part of an Orthodox synagogue and living in a closely-knit community. It’s a neighborhood filled with joy, he said, filled with friends and neighbors whose names he knows and where people look out for each other in ways large and small.

When a friend’s daughter was diagnosed with cancer, he said, neighbors rallied around her. When one of his kids fell and cut their chin, his wife took the child first to a nurse who lives nearby before heading to an urgent care center.

That kind of support can’t be bought, but only comes through human relationships. That’s a lesson he hopes religious groups will remember—urging them to become countercultural by returning to their community-building practices.

“You cannot be like everybody else,” he said. “People of faith can offer not just a vision of a sermon once a week and a few services, but an alternative vision of flourishing that involves strong community.”

This story was supported by the Solutions Journalism Network, a nonprofit organization dedicated to rigorous and compelling reporting about responses to social problems.

WASHINGTON (RNS)—American evangelical Christian leaders responded Oct. 11 to the attacks on Israel by Hamas by issuing a letter calling for moral clarity, both supporting Israel’s right to defend itself and proclaiming the need to protect the lives of innocent civilians.

“In the wake of the evil and indefensible atrocities now committed against the people of Israel by Hamas, we, the undersigned, unequivocally condemn the violence against the vulnerable, fully support Israel’s right and duty to defend itself against further attack, and urgently call all Christians to pray for the salvation and peace of the people of Israel and Palestine,” the public statement reads.

The letter, signed by 60 institutional leaders, will be delivered to the White House, Congress and leaders at the United Nations, said Brent Leatherwood, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, which helped organize the letter.

Texas Baptists who endorsed the statement include Julio Guarneri, executive director-elect of the Baptist General Convention of Texas; Katie Frugé, director of the Christian Life Commission and the BGCT Center for Cultural Engagement; Katie McCoy, director of BGCT women’s ministries; and Robert Sloan, president of Houston Christian University.

‘Clear-eyed thinking and moral certainty’

In a phone interview, Leatherwood said the letter was prompted by what he said were responses to attacks on Israel that drew “false equivalence” between the attacks by Hamas, a group identified by the United States as a terrorist group, and the actions of Israel’s military.

“It is time for clear-eyed thinking and moral certainty,” he said.

SBC officials are strongly represented among the signers, including the SBC president, Pastor Bart Barber of First Baptist Church in Farmersville, as well as seminary presidents Al Mohler, Danny Akin, Jason Allen and David Dockery.

Two former ERLC presidents—Russell Moore, now editor of Christianity Today, and Richard Land, now executive editor of the Christian Post website—also signed the letter.

The letter draws on the Christian justification for war known as just war theory to support Israel’s right to defend itself from attacks.

It also ties the current violence to past attacks on Jews and Israel.

“Since the inception of the modern state of Israel in 1948, Israel has faced numerous attacks, incursions, and violations of its national sovereignty,” the letter reads. “The Jewish people have long endured genocidal attempts to eradicate them and to destroy the Jewish state. These antisemitic, deadly ideologies and terrorist actions must be opposed.”

Leatherwood said that just war theory clarifies Israel’s right to defend itself against attacks but also puts limits on the response to those attacks. Leatherwood said the letter’s signers are concerned about civilians who will be harmed in the current war in Israel.

“Our concern first and foremost for innocent, vulnerable individuals in Israel and throughout the region that are caught in the middle of this,” he said. “It is a war that is not of their choosing.”

Focus on ‘protecting the vulnerable’

Leatherwood said organizing the letter is part of the ERLC’s broader mission of “protecting the vulnerable.” That mission, he said, has become even more important to him in recent months—earlier this year, the school in Nashville, Tenn., that his children attend was the site of a mass shooting in which three students and three adults were killed. That shooting led Leatherman to push for gun violence reforms.

“The Lord has taught me to continually have an eye out for vulnerable individuals in a number of different contexts,” he said.

Evangelical Christians are among the staunchest supporters of the state of Israel. The ERLC cited a 2017 study of evangelical attitudes toward Israel from Lifeway Research, an evangelical firm, that found that 73 percent of those polled supported Israel’s right to defend itself from attacks.

Dan Darling, director of the Land Center for Cultural Engagement at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and one of the letter’s signers, was encouraged to see evangelical leaders speak out for Israel. He also said that evangelicals are concerned about Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza who will be harmed by the war.

He said there is no justification for the “atrocities inflicted on innocent Jewish people by Hamas.”

“The geopolitics of the region are complex,” he said. “Condemning what we are seeing from Hamas is not complex.”

Leatherwood drew a distinction between Palestinians, who include a number of his fellow Christians, and the actions of Hamas.

 “Hamas is the enemy, not innocent civilians,” he said.