NORTH WILKESBORO, N.C. (RNS) — Each week, in a hulking warehouse in this small, western mountain town, Samaritan's Purse employees load semi trailers full of supplies for the people of Ukraine: medicines, food, tarps, blankets, hygiene kits and school bags for kids. The trucks are then driven 80 miles east to the Piedmont Triad International Airport where they are loaded onto the nonprofit's DC-8 aircraft specially configured to carry up to 84,000 pounds of cargo. From there the goods are airlifted to Poland and then trucked across the border into Ukraine.

https://religionnews.com/2022/09/09/franklin-graham-samaritans-purse-shoeboxes-humanitarian-aid-powerhouse/

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(RNS) — Every week the smiling faces pop up on Zoom. Everyone is greeted by name. There's joking as we all log in. Someone says, 'Sorry that I don't have my video on but I'm in the car and I didn't want to miss it!' A woman with short silver hair gets serious, saying, 'Alright everybody, we have a lot on the agenda and not a lot of time, so let's get going.' Quickly, everyone reintroduces themselves: a woman from a church on the South Side of Chicago with extra room in their parsonage, a synagogue in the nearby suburbs involved in immigration reform, a resettlement nonprofit stretched thin with asylum-seeker cases, a married couple with a spare bedroom.

https://religionnews.com/2022/09/30/the-hidden-interfaith-networks-key-to-the-migrant-justice-movement/

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(RNS) — Florida Governor Ron DeSantis sent two planeloads of migrants to Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, on Wednesday (Sept. 14) to protest a rise in illegal immigration under President Joe Biden. Each plane carried about 50 immigrants, including children who appear to have mostly come from Venezuela and Colombia, two South American countries experiencing severe economic and political turmoil. After the planes unexpectedly landed on the island, many of the passengers said they had been misled, claiming they thought they were being sent to Boston, where they would be provided with help attaining work permits and English language lessons.

https://religionnews.com/2022/09/16/southern-governors-sending-migrants-north-face-a-crisis-of-faith/

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(RNS) — Jon Lee has some words for evangelical leaders who argue that Christian ethics like kindness, honesty and loving your neighbor don't apply to culture-war politics. 'Good luck,' said Lee, a principal at Lerma, a cross-cultural advertising agency based in Dallas. Lee is one of the chief architects of the 'He Gets Us' campaign, a $100 million effort to redeem Jesus' brand from the damage done by his followers, especially those who say one thing and then do another. Launched earlier this year, ads featuring black-and-white online videos about Jesus as a rebel, an activist or a host of a dinner party have been viewed more than 300 million times, according to organizers.

https://religionnews.com/2022/10/10/a-100-million-ad-campaign-wants-to-fix-jesuss-image-his-followers-remain-a-problem/

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(RNS) — Threats against the Florida judge who signed the warrant allowing the FBI to search former President Donald Trump's home earlier this week have led the synagogue where he is a member to cancel Friday's beachfront service. U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart has been the subject of a massive right-wing social media attack after he signed off on a search warrant for Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate Friday (Aug. 5). The judge's address and other personal information were shared online, and threats on his life were made.

https://religionnews.com/2022/08/12/synagogue-of-judge-who-approved-trumps-search-warrant-cancels-shabbat-service/

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(RNS) — The gruesome stabbing of the author Salman Rushdie in the peaceful intellectual retreat of Chautauqua, New York, raises critical questions about the increasing conflict between religious conceptions of blasphemy and freedom of speech. This is not a new conflict by any means, but the attack on Rushdie on American soil signals a disturbing turn of events. Rushdie first shot to global notice in 1989 after the former supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa, or Islamic edict, calling for his death for writing 'The Satanic Verses,' a novel that offended many Muslims with its depiction of the Prophet Muhammad.

https://religionnews.com/2022/09/02/rushdies-right-to-blasphemy-not-free-speech-was-attacked-at-chautauqua/

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(RNS) — Brittany Muller didn't intend to invite Christianity back into her life when she began using tarot cards as part of her daily spiritual practice nearly a decade ago. As a teenager and a faithful Catholic, she had even been told that using the cards could invite evil spirits.  But after leaving college, where she said her faith had become a casualty of the same doubts people have wrestled with for thousands of years, Muller found in tarot the ritual and reflection she missed in religion. Eventually, she found her way back to Christianity — and Christianity and the cards turned out to be, she writes in her new book 'The Contemplative Tarot: A Christian Guide to the Cards,' a 'natural pair.

https://religionnews.com/2022/09/13/brittany-muller-combines-christianity-and-the-cards-in-the-contemplative-tarot/

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CHICAGO (RNS) — When the Daughters of St. Paul received permission from Chicago's then-Cardinal John Cody to open a bookstore in downtown Chicago in 1979, they hurried to make it happen in time for Pope John Paul II's visit to the city later that year. By the time the pope's motorcade drove down Michigan Avenue that October, the first floor of an old storefront had been successfully converted into Pauline Books and Media, and the pope's books lined the front windows. Above the display the sisters unfurled a huge banner across the front of the building: 'We love you, John Paul II.

https://religionnews.com/2022/09/12/media-nuns-say-goodbye-to-sweet-home-chicago-after-more-than-40-years/

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(RNS) — These days, politics can influence everything from the dairy products you consume (Ben & Jerry's? Chick-fil-A milkshake?) to whether you drink Pepsi or Coke. For some Christian families, politics are also revamping the college decision process, swaying them away from colleges marked 'too liberal' or 'too conservative.' Though there are Protestant colleges that welcome political labels, others strive to remain as apolitical as possible. For the latter, it's an increasing challenge to preserve their religious identity — which invariably has political implications in today's supercharged environment — while welcoming students of all political backgrounds.

https://religionnews.com/2022/10/07/are-the-culture-wars-changing-how-christian-students-choose-colleges/

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(RNS) — For nearly his entire life, Ian Williamson played the part of someone he wasn't. When his parents separated at a young age, Ian moved to a rougher part of town and found himself feeling powerless and afraid. He responded by building a false persona of toughness and used comedy as a mask. Throughout high school and beyond, Ian found the right balance of drugs and alcohol that would make him feel safe instead of lashing out in aggression and fear. By the early 2000s, he had become a Christian, enveloping himself in prison ministry and pastoring.

https://religionnews.com/2022/10/10/why-church-leaders-can-and-must-address-their-own-mental-health/

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(RNS) — Raised by evangelical Christian missionaries, Kara Erickson struggled for years with anxiety, depression and eating disorders that two decades ago landed her in inpatient treatment. It wasn't until three years ago, however, that she stumbled onto the term 'religious trauma' in Jamie Lee Finch's 2019 book 'You Are Your Own: A Reckoning With the Religious Trauma of Evangelical Christianity.' That's when she connected the dots between her religious upbringing and her physical symptoms. 'I had been approaching my depression and eating disorder from this place of ‘You are broken and need to be fixed.

https://religionnews.com/2023/01/12/religious-trauma-conference-beyond-the-wound-equips-survivors-for-recovery/

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JERUSALEM (RNS) — In 2019, Baruch Lanner, a former rabbi convicted of sexually abusing students at a New Jersey high school in the 1970s and 1980s, began delving into the possibility of applying for Israeli citizenship. Before long, Shana Aaronson heard about it. 'I was contacted by people in the community in the U.S. and also here,' said Aaronson, director of Magen, an organization that deals with sexual abuse in the Orthodox Jewish community in Israel. 'People who knew him or knew of him.' When Lanner, a former Orthodox rabbi, youth director and school principal who served three years in prison, showed up in Israel earlier this year on a tourist visa with the intent of moving to the country permanently, Aaronson and Hannah Katsman, another advocate for sexual abuse victims, sprang into action.

https://religionnews.com/2022/07/27/israel-seen-as-a-safe-haven-for-abusers-like-baruch-lanner/

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(RNS) — More than a year ago, Pope Francis announced the Synod on Synodality, an initiative to take the pulse of the Catholic Church. The U.S. Catholics have been mostly silent about this effort, but in several countries, including Australia, France, England and Wales and Germany, things are moving full steam ahead. Two major problems have come up time and time again: clericalism and the place of women in the Church.  If you haven't heard much about this effort, which completes its first phase this summer, you are not alone.

https://religionnews.com/2022/08/01/catholics-reports-on-the-state-of-the-church-are-in-heres-what-they-have-to-say/

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(RNS) — Just weeks after his mother was one of seven killed by a white supremacist at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, Harpreet Singh Saini testified before a U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee in 2012 to lobby the federal government to start tracking hate crimes against Sikhs. He was 18 at the time. 'He killed my mother while she prayed. He shot and killed five more men. All of them were fathers and all of them had a turban like me. Now people know all of our names,' Saini said during his testimony.

https://religionnews.com/2022/08/02/sikh-americans-honor-10th-anniversary-of-oak-creek-shooting/

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(RNS) — Friday (Sept. 30) is the 815th birthday of the world-renowned Muslim poet, Rumi. We can talk about this medieval teacher and poet in the present tense because, like his contemporary St. Francis of Assisi, Rumi's life and writings continue to inspire millions of people around the world. In fact, Jalaludin Muhammad Rumi remains this country's best-selling poet, in company with the likes of Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, and Robert Frost. Rumi might be pleased to hear that he and his work are playing a central role in a new online creative writing program designed to unleash the power of self-expression for young displaced people and Muslims in the United States.

https://religionnews.com/2022/09/30/how-the-great-muslim-poet-rumi-is-helping-todays-displaced-youth-find-themselves/

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(RNS) — When I was young boy in the 1950s, cowboy movies were popular. It was easy to tell the good guys from the bad guys because, in the movies, the good guys wore white hats and rode white horses, and the bad guys wore black hats and rode dark horses. Sadly, in real life, too many of us want to divide people into the good guys and the bad guys. The good guys are our friends and neighbors, the bad guys are anyone who is of a different nationality, creed, color or political party. The good guys are members of our church, the bad guys are not.

https://religionnews.com/2022/08/29/christian-nationalism-is-un-christian/

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Anti-abortion protesters gather outside the Supreme Court in Washington, June 24, 2022. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana) (RNS) — A few days ago, a good friend wrote me to share an experience that pro-lifers on college campuses have become very familiar with over the last few years. Her colleague was presenting on examples of structural racism and claimed as a matter of fact — with no need for argument — that anti-abortion laws were examples of structural racism. Of course, pro-lifers know the truth is precisely the opposite.

https://religionnews.com/2022/08/30/erasing-pro-life-christians-of-color/

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(RNS) — When Imran Siddiqui's name was put forward for vice president of the largest Lutheran denomination in the United States, he figured, why not fill out the paperwork? He didn't expect to make it far in the process. After all, every one of the more than 800 voting members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's Churchwide Assembly could nominate up to three candidates for vice president, he said. And nobody knew who Siddiqui, a senior investigator for the U.S. Department of Labor and current vice president of the Southeastern Synod of the ELCA, was.

https://religionnews.com/2022/08/19/meet-imran-siddiqui-the-first-asian-american-vice-president-of-the-elca/

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(RNS) — Not long after Russia's invasion of Ukraine in late February, Orthodox Jewish Rabbi Yonatan Neril found himself surrounded by 25 different religious leaders, including bishops, rabbis and sheiks, in Jerusalem's Moscow Square as he affixed a letter calling for peace to the wall of the Russian Orthodox church. The letter, signed by more than 150 religious leaders worldwide, including the Dalai Lama, called on Patriarch Kirill, the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church who has close ties to President Putin, to implore the Russian president to de-escalate the armed conflict and seek peace.

https://religionnews.com/2022/08/19/god-is-life-rabbi-yonatan-neril-on-ecological-conversion-and-the-war-in-ukraine/

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VATICAN CITY (RNS) — Pope Francis will be traveling to Kazakhstan, a country nestled between Russia and China, on Tuesday for a 'pilgrimage of dialogue and peace,' as he attends a summit of global religious leaders. But the Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill's recent cancellation casts a shadow over the pope's hope to mediate peace in the Russia-Ukraine conflict at the gathering. 'It will be an opportunity to meet many religious representatives and dialogue with brothers, moved by the common desire for peace, a peace our world thirsts for,' Pope Francis told the thousands gathered at St.

https://religionnews.com/2022/09/12/in-kazakhstan-pope-francis-is-expected-to-appeal-for-peace-in-ukraine/

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LOS ANGELES (RNS) — Naasón Joaquín García, the leader of La Luz del Mundo, is facing a new lawsuit filed by five women who allege he sexually abused them while other church members groomed them and used the religion as ammunition against them. The five women are identified as Jane Does in the civil lawsuit that was filed Thursday (Sept. 8) in Los Angeles Superior Court. The women, who range in age from 20 to 28, were also the Jane Does included in the criminal charges filed against García by the California Attorney General's office, attorneys said.

https://religionnews.com/2022/09/12/la-luz-del-mundo-leader-faces-new-lawsuit-in-los-angeles/

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This is the first in a series of eight profiles of American religious leaders who are still making an impact after the age of 80. (RNS) — At 8 a.m. on Tuesdays in July, as usual, John Perkins was participating in his weekly Zoom Bible study. Officially the leader and the attraction for the more than 200 who log on each week, Perkins is far from the sole speaker, and that's the way he wants it. 'I'm learning from them because they are doing really good research,' said Perkins, 92, of his co-leaders, both pastors and lay people, each of whom teaches from their perspective.

https://religionnews.com/2022/08/04/john-perkins-at-92-still-modeling-preaching-christian-community-development/

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(RNS) — As many Americans are still processing Thursday's (Oct. 13) climactic latest hearing of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack, others want us to just move on already, claiming the committee is little more than political theater or fearing that subpoenaing — never mind indicting — a former president will render the United States a 'banana republic.' Full accountability for all participants in January 6th is not only a legal and moral necessity, but offers us a chance to break a toxic historical pattern that dates at least back a century and a half.

https://religionnews.com/2022/10/14/what-the-country-can-learn-about-the-jan-6-attack-from-the-civil-war/

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(RNS) — No small number of millennials was first introduced to personal technology tending to their tamagotchis during recess. Only later did the dot-com revolution, smartphones and social media invade every part of their lives, from relationships to health to music — and faith. Today, meditation podcasts, TikTok sermons and livestreams of Friday (Jumah) prayers are all at everyone's fingertips. A study out of Canada suggests that this last generation to experience a smartphone-free childhood is still keeping one foot firmly planted in the real world — at least when it comes to religion.

https://religionnews.com/2022/08/05/for-millennials-digital-religion-doesnt-replace-in-person-formats-new-study-finds/

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(RNS) — Prominent Wisconsin pastor Stuart Briscoe, recognized for founding the broadcast ministry series 'Telling the Truth' and authoring over 40 books, died on Aug. 3. Briscoe died of 'natural causes unexpectedly,' according to a Twitter post from his son, Peter 'Pete' Briscoe. He was 91. The British-born Briscoe transformed Elmbrook Church, in the Milwaukee suburb of Brookfield, into a megachurch with an attendance of 7,000 people, making it the largest in the state. But his evangelism went far beyond the congregation to encompass books and a radio ministry.

https://religionnews.com/2022/08/05/wisconsin-megachurch-pastor-stuart-briscoe-lifelong-broadcast-evangelist-dies-at-91/

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New developments on several fronts reinforce need for prompt attention President Biden restated this summer his administration's commitment to arms control with the ultimate goal of a world without nuclear weapons. He also prioritized reducing their role in the security strategy of the United States. In January 2022 the U.S. joined with other Nuclear Weapon States to affirm that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. Now, leaders of U.S. religious communities in an interfaith letter are offering their support for the President's statements and are calling on him to press for the resumption of arms control negotiations.

https://religionnews.com/2022/09/28/religious-communities-urge-president-biden-to-resume-arms-control-negotiations/

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JERUSALEM (RNS) — On a playground near the Gaza border where colorful bomb shelters surround the swings and slides, a group of Pakistanis put hard questions to a retired Israel Defense Forces colonel, asking about Hamas, Palestinians and whether the state of Israel is complicit in the suffering on both sides of the border.  The Pakistani visitors' passports all include a statement in bolded letters saying they are valid for all countries in the world but Israel; this unofficial delegation was in Israel in part to see if it could change that.

https://religionnews.com/2022/10/05/an-interfaith-journey-to-forge-ties-between-israel-and-pakistan/

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(RNS) — American Muslims breathed a sigh of relief when law enforcement authorities announced the arrest of a man suspected of killing as many as four Muslim men in Albuquerque, New Mexico, earlier this month. But then it turned out the suspect, Muhammad Syed, was himself a Muslim. (He has been charged in the killing of three of the men.) A new survey by the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, a think tank based in Washington and Dearborn, Michigan, corroborates a disturbing finding. While Islamophobia has declined among other American religious groups, it has increased among Muslims themselves.

https://religionnews.com/2022/08/31/new-survey-shows-us-muslims-have-negative-stereotypes-about-themselves/

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(RNS) — Citing the murders of a Sikh man and a Black churchgoer on the anniversaries of their killings, President Biden, at a White House summit Thursday (Sept. 15), addressed hate-fueled violence, committing to new and renewed measures to combat hate, including attacks aimed at people of faith. 'There's a throughline of hate, from massacres of Indigenous people to the original sin of slavery, terror of the (Ku Klux) Klan, anti-immigration violence against the Irish, Italians, Chinese, Mexicans — so many others laced through our history,' he said in an address at a daylong event called United We Stand.

https://religionnews.com/2022/09/16/biden-includes-faith-leaders-in-summits-charge-to-rise-together-against-hate/

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(RNS) — The student pastor at a South Carolina church has been placed on administrative leave after reportedly giving out stickers to students that read 'i (heart) hot youth pastors.' The stickers caught attention online after they appeared in a social media post from someone who claimed their 14-year-old sister had received the sticker from her 35-year-old youth pastor, who had given them out to students. Fairview Baptist Church, a Southern Baptist congregation in Greer, South Carolina, announced Sunday (Oct.

https://religionnews.com/2022/10/10/pastor-on-leave-after-reportedly-giving-out-i-heart-hot-youth-pastors-stickers/

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