North America
As executive orders from President Trump, budget slashing by tech billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency and cuts enacted by Cabinet secretaries or the Office of Personnel Management reduce the federal workforce, area Christians and congregations feel the impact.
The world became familiar with Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Suni Williams’ unplanned nine-month stay at the International Space Station. Only recently, though, are we learning the tenuous story of how they got there. In an interview, Wilmore shared never-before-heard details on the Boeing Starliner craft’s approach with the ISS last June and the “very precarious situation” he and Williams encountered.
Former Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger has joined Gloo, the technology platform that serves churches and ministries, as its executive chair and head of technology. Gelsinger has been an investor and board member for Gloo for 10 years but now will take on the expanded role of leading the Gloo product and engineering efforts, including Gloo AI.
(ANALYSIS) The math is bright red: The “Snow White” reboot was a box-office bomb in week one and things went straight downhill in week two. It’s possible that, if Disney gets honest about the production and promotion costs, this movie could be the biggest and most painful elite Hollywood bust of all time.
Most immigrants at risk of deportation are Christian, researchers deduced, with 61 percent of them Catholics. But 13 percent are evangelicals, seven percent are from other Christian groups, seven percent are from other religious groups and 12 percent have no religious affiliation.
(ANALYSIS) As a medievalist, I appreciate Francis’ contrasting approach: A religious leader who embraces history and scholarship, and encourages others to do the same — even as book bans and threats to academic freedom mount.
Many stopped attending churches in January when the sensitive locations limitations were lifted on ICE arrests — impacting churches and schools. But the end of the humanitarian parole program, and the Temporary Protected Status program in August, will together inflict a multilayered wound upon churches, families and Gospel witness.
Under the direction of Trevor Nunn, “The Score” serves up a fascinating dynamic between the king, who harbors his own musical ambitions, and Bach. Over time, despite their contrasting personalities and roles, a mutual respect does develop — despite their religious differences, lifestyles, ambitions and motivations — between the men, culminating in Bach composing a musical offering inspired by Frederick.
As more religious scholars and practitioners engage with AI-powered tools, the conversation will likely continue — blending the old with the new in a way that mirrors the very essence of religious progress. Whether as a study aid, a scholarly resource or a spiritual guide, creations like JainGPT represents both the promise and the challenge of faith in the digital age.
Hoping to persuade Missouri lawmakers to end nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) and the statute of limitations for child sex abuse victims, multiple survivors of abuse at two evangelical ministries testified powerfully in a hearing last week.
(ANALYSIS) When the National Urban Ministry Conference began in the 1990s, the focus was on starting churches and ministries that would reach the urban poor in the downtown areas of large cities. Yet, the city — speaking in a general sense — is constantly changing.
The number of deaths is likely to rise further, as many parts of the country have been cut off. Getting help to those in need — and even assessing the extent of the destruction — has proved difficult in a country where key infrastructure was badly damaged and where a civil war had already been raging before the 7.7 magnitude quake struck last Friday.
(OPINION) Where does sacrificing end and enabling the irresponsible begin? Isn’t it possible that by endlessly serving we’ll just burn ourselves out? These are legitimate questions. But living that Jesus kind of life is hard. It’s risky. It can be deeply frustrating. It requires more faith than I possess.
(REVIEW) Janis Ian’s songs are known for their sharp social commentary, but what director Varda Bar-Kar uncovers in her new documentary “Janis Ian: Breaking Silence,” is how central Ian’s Judaism was to her activism. Ian, who was born in New Jersey, legally changed her name from Janis Fink to Janis Ian in 1964, adopting her brother Eric’s middle name as her last name.
Worship centers in Kenya are increasingly facing scrutiny for conducting activities at noise levels that exceed acceptable limits. Concerns have been raised in various parts of the country about religious services blatantly violating existing regulations, disturbing the peace and quiet of neighborhoods.
Rome has been all gussied up for the Catholic Church’s Jubilee Year. An extra 10 million pilgrims are forecast, adding to last year's record of 22 million. More than $8 billion has been spent to refurbish the city’s historic sites with their ancient ruins, spectacular churches and Renaissance fountains. Nothing of the like has taken place in Israel as it also awaits pilgrims.
Grief can take many forms — the echo of a loved one’s laugh, a favorite saying or even a silly joke. It’s a belonging on a living room table, clothes you can’t quite bring yourself to donate or a domestic animal who wanders the house aimlessly after a loved one’s death.
Ministry leaders point to several challenges that have limited the success of these efforts. Around two in five (42%) say parents don’t have time to prepare. Three in 10 (31%) believe the activities have been things parents did not want to do, while 27% say the students haven’t wanted to participate.
Two gospel singing groups, the Hardeman Boys and Cornerstone Quartet, crossed paths at a youth rally in Bremen, Georgia, in 1989. Three decades later, they shared a stage again. This time they performed — to a more gray-haired audience — a medley of gospel, country and oldies music to raise money for Project Rescue, an addiction recovery ministry in Priceville, Alabama, associated with Churches of Christ.
(ANALYSIS) I wanted to try and do some more data work on what drives religious attendance. So, that’s the point of this post — it’s just a journey through me trying to figure out what demographic factors make someone more or less likely to show up for church this Sunday.
While we were recording the podcast this week, I told Lutheran Public Radio listeners that I was well aware that much of the information I was sharing was rather complex, if not downright confusing. That was kind of the point. When it comes to statistical trends in religion, we live in a very, very confusing age.
As I take stock this year, I feel a foreboding of apocalypse. Maybe my own apocalypse, or maybe this country’s, or maybe the world’s. Things are falling apart. The center cannot hold. You can choose to think of all this bad news as great news, in a counterintuitive way.
(REVIEW) The fifth season premiere is great, and the best opener to a “The Chosen” season yet. Everything good about the series is here, and most of the weaknesses I’ve critiqued over the past four seasons are all but absent. This latest installment of “The Chosen” is a testament to how the faith-based industry can evolve in quality and how both Christians and non-Christians will embrace it when it does.
(OPINION) The international conversation about Gaza has long circled the same grim question: What would it take for the population to rise up against Hamas? We just might have the beginnings of a response: The resumption of war, after Israel broke a two-month ceasefire following 15 months of devastating conflict. The prospect of more death with no end date, all because Hamas refuses to free more hostages until Israel agrees to leave it in power as part of a more permanent truce, appears to be too much to bear.
Conditions in Afghanistan and India continued to deteriorate and remained poor in Nigeria and Vietnam, USCIRF commissioners said March 25 in its 2025 Report on International Religious Freedom, calling out countries where Christian minorities face murder, torture and other ills either sanctioned by the government or with little governmental intervention.
(ANALYSIS) Clergy need to grasp that smartphones are raising moral and spiritual questions they cannot avoid. Postponing complex and even controversial discussions of these digital dilemmas will not make the problems disappear.
(ANALYSIS) Many have spent years studying and teaching Japanese anime, exploring how its narratives intertwine with cultural, philosophical and religious traditions. One of the most compelling aspects of Japanese anime is its ability to merge thrilling action with deep spiritual and ethical questions. It’s this mix of Buddhist and Shinto traditions that have helped make anime the very popular storytelling form it is today.
In many countries around the world, a fifth or more of adults have left the religious group in which they were raised. Christianity and Buddhism have experienced large losses from this “religious switching,” while rising numbers of adults have opted to have no affiliation, according to Pew Research Center surveys of nearly 80,000 people across 36 countries.
Nearly half of the congregations that have been associated with a “Network” of churches overseen by Pastor Steve Morgan have either publicly announced their departure or removed any reference to the network from their websites.
A bill to stop the use of nondisclosure agreements to prevent sexual abuse victims from telling their stories has advanced in the Texas legislature. On March 19, the Texas House Committee on Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudence voted unanimously to report House Bill 748 favorably to the full House of Representatives and recommend passage.