(RNS)—More than 50 faith, civil rights and other organizations launched a joint initiative to oppose the death penalty in the United States as the groups’ leaders say they have been alarmed by increases in its use over the past year.

Laura Porter, executive director of the new initiative, the U.S. Campaign to End the Death Penalty, announced the initiative to media in a Dec. 3 virtual event.

“In this moment, we see a very clear disconnect between the handful of politicians pushing for more executions and the expansion of the death penalty and current public sentiment on this issue,” she said.

Porter noted members of the coalition will work to build joint advocacy and messaging strategies “to coordinate a national response to executions.”

Sister Helen Prejean, a longtime Catholic anti-death penalty activist and the author of Dead Man Walking, was one of several who spoke at the announcement.

“When you look at the death penalty itself, it epitomizes all the deep wounds in our society, and top-most among that is that you use violence and cruelty to solve social problems,” she said.

Eleven states executed inmates this year

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, 44 prisoners have been executed in 11 states in the United States in 2025, an increase from 25 prisoners executed in nine states in 2024.

Porter, who also is the executive director of the 8th Amendment Project, and other speakers criticized the Trump administration and states—especially in the South, including Florida, which has had the most death penalty executions in 2025. Texas and Alabama each executed five prisoners in 2025, tying for the second-highest number.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on the day he began his second term that called capital punishment “an essential tool for deterring and punishing those who would commit the most heinous crimes and acts of lethal violence against American citizens,” and sought to enforce its use for certain crimes.

The coalition includes a combination of faith-based organizations, conservative groups and civil rights organizations.

“By showcasing this partnership and collaboration publicly for the first time, we are able to build more trust and broaden our outreach to work directly with a range of faith communities that we weren’t able to reach before and connect them with campaigns in their state or local areas,” Porter told Religion News Service.

“Each of our partners speak to different faith-based communities, including evangelicals, Catholics, Black and Indigenous faith leaders, Spanish-speaking faith communities, youth ministries, and Protestant denominations allowing us to share information more widely than ever before.”

Variety of faith groups part of coalition

The faith-related groups involved include Prejean’s Ministry Against the Death Penalty; Catholic Mobilizing Network; Mission Talk, a Florida-based evangelical Latino group; Faith Leaders of Color Coalition, which includes Black and Indigenous opponents of capital punishment; and Live Free, a national group mobilizing faith leaders to help end mass incarceration.

The coalition pointed to declining American support for the death penalty. A Gallup poll published in October found 52 percent of Americans favor the death penalty for a person convicted of murder—the lowest level of support since 1972, although the change was not statistically significant over the past two years.

Support for capital punishment was highest in 1994, when 80 percent of Americans were in favor of using it for someone convicted of murder.

In 2021, Pew Research Center found that 60 percent of Americans favor the death penalty for people convicted of murder.

Looking at religious affiliation, it found opposition to the death penalty was highest among atheists (65 percent) and agnostics (57 percent), followed by Black Protestants (47 percent), white Catholics (43 percent), Hispanic Catholics (37 percent), white non-evangelical Protestants (27 percent) and white evangelical Protestants (23 percent).

Opinions on the death penalty also vary based on political affiliation. According to the 2021 Pew study, 77 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents support the death penalty for convicted murderers compared to 46 percent of Democrats.

Connecting pro-life and anti-death penalty groups

Demetrius Minor, executive director of Conservatives Concerned, a network opposing capital punishment, said he is working with “pro-life groups” and joining with other anti-death-penalty partners to raise their concerns about cases of prisoners scheduled for execution where issues like innocence, prosecutorial misconduct, severe mental illness and intellectual disability are factors.

“More and more conservatives across the country are questioning the death penalty and advocating for change,” he said. “In the past two years, Republicans have introduced repeal or moratorium legislation in Indiana, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Oklahoma.”

Barry Scheck, co-founder and special counsel of the Innocence Project, a nonprofit that works to exonerate wrongly convicted people, cited bipartisan and religious support for Robert Roberson, a Texas prisoner with autism convicted of murdering his 2-year-old daughter, whose scheduled October execution was stayed by an appeals court.

He has maintained his innocence for more than 20 years on death row, and the Innocence Project has argued his case was “riddled with unscientific evidence, inaccurate and misleading medical testimony, and prejudicial treatment.” Scheck said the campaign to save him from death was “infused” with faith leaders.

“It was quite moving and extraordinary to see these Republican legislators go to prison and pray with Robert,” he said.

Prejean, a veteran of the movement, expressed her appreciation for other long-term death penalty opponents in the new coalition as they continue their work in a new partnership.

“I am full of hope on this issue, despite the harshness and terribleness of what’s going on,” she said. “When you build a fire, you need a fire in each log to build on the rest to keep the fire going.”

WASHINGTON (RNS)—House Speaker Mike Johnson dismissed religious freedom concerns on Wednesday, Oct. 29, about clergy protesting mass deportations being shot with pepper rounds and pepper bullets by Department of Homeland Security agents, saying the agents have conducted themselves in a “measured” manner.

“Religious freedom does not extend and give you the right to get in the face of an ICE officer and assault them, if indeed that was what happened there,” said Johnson, a Southern Baptist, in response to a question from Religion News Service.

“What I’ve seen is a measured approach by the people who are trying to enforce our border laws, our immigration laws, and that was desperately needed and desired and demanded by the American people.”

In recent incidents at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency detention center in Broadview, Ill., and at a Coast Guard station in Oakland, Calif., ICE and Border Patrol personnel have been filmed shooting clergy with pepper balls, pepper rounds or rubber bullets, or faith leaders have reported agents doing so.

In a lawsuit filed in Illinois earlier this month against DHS, a group that includes journalists, clergy and demonstrators argue federal agents have violated the religious freedom of faith-based protesters, among other claims.

A federal judge quickly sided with the plaintiffs and issued a temporary restraining order on Oct. 9 limiting the agents’ ability to use violence against protesters, including “religious practitioners.”

David Black, the pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Chicago who was filmed being shot in the head with pepper balls, is a plaintiff in the suit.

The House speaker was asked about one of the incidents in a press conference earlier this month but claimed no knowledge of the incidents when first questioned about them on Wednesday, before outlining his understanding of the religious freedom issues involved.

He later added, referring to ICE agents: “Thank the Lord that there are people who are willing to do that difficult job or put on the badge and show that kind of courage. We should be on the side of law enforcement.”

The treatment of faith leaders at immigration protests has drawn attention this month after footage of DHS agents shooting Black with a pepper ball was widely shared on social media.

Another clip, filmed last week, shows Jorge Bautista, a United Church of Christ minister, being shot in the face with a pepper round by an agent in Oakland, Calif., who stood only a few feet away, leaving the minister’s face bloodied and covered in pepper dust.

Three other Christian clergy—two United Methodist pastors and another PCUSA—have told RNS they, too, have been shot with pepper balls and rubber bullets while demonstrating at the Broadview detention center.

Other faith leaders also have said they have encountered tear gas fired by agents to disperse demonstrators at that facility.

More than 250 Chicago-area clergy have signed a statement criticizing ICE’s actions in the city and pledging to put their “bodies on the line” to advocate for immigrants, citing their faith.

Cardinal Blase Cupich, the Catholic archbishop of Chicago, issued his own statement last week, declaring “the Church stands with migrants.”

Mainline Christian and Jewish clergy have been among the most vocal opponents of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation effort.

At a service at the Washington National Cathedral after Inauguration Day, the Episcopal bishop of Washington, the Rt. Rev. Mariann Budde, asked Trump in a sermon to “have mercy” on immigrants.

Since then, more than 55 religious organizations, including the leadership of several Christian and Jewish denominations, have filed lawsuits against the president’s administration, most of them challenging aspects of his immigration policies.

(RNS)—Paul Ostapa, a Southern Baptist, was on the job in 2022 as a heating and air conditioning technician in upstate New York with a couple of colleagues when one of them left, leaving him alone with a female co-worker.

For years, he’d abided by the so-called Billy Graham Rule—vowing never to be alone with a woman who was not his wife.

Not wanting to make a fuss, Ostapa finished his work and left as soon as he could.

When it happened again, Ostapa complained to a dispatcher, saying his bosses previously had agreed to accommodate his beliefs after hiring a female technician.

That led to a report being filed with human resources by the dispatcher—and eventually to Ostapa being fired.

Now he’s suing, alleging his employer, the air-conditioning giant Trane U.S. Inc., violated his civil rights by failing to accommodate his religious beliefs and then fired him because of those beliefs.

Alleged violations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act

Both the failure to accommodate and his firing, which Ostapa’s attorney described as retaliation, were violations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, the complaint alleges.

“There is a direct and causal connection between Paul’s sincerely held religious beliefs, his request for those religious beliefs to be accommodated, and Defendant’s adverse employment actions against Paul,” Ostapa’s lawyer wrote in a mid-October complaint filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York.

In an email, a spokesperson for Trane said the company was aware of the lawsuit but could not comment about ongoing litigation. According to the complaint, the company has claimed Ostapa was fired for insubordination, rather than religion.

The complaint alleges that for most of the 15 years he’d worked for Trane, he’d had mostly male colleagues as technicians. When he learned a female technician had been hired, he went to his boss, identified as a Mr. Audette in the complaint, and detailed his beliefs and asked for an accommodation.

Avoiding ‘the appearance of evil’

At first, according to the complaint, Mr. Audette allegedly laughed off Ostapa’s concerns, saying the new staffer was a lesbian, and so there would be no worries.

“Paul quickly retorted that his sincerely held religious beliefs based on Scripture must be obeyed irrespective of the woman’s looks or sexual preferences and that they were not contingent on the potential for sinful conduct,” the complaint alleges.

“As Scripture compels Paul to believe, his presence alone with a woman carries with it the appearance of evil from which he is to abstain.”

Kristina Heuser, an attorney for Liberty Counsel, a Christian legal group, said Ostapa worked mainly on commercial projects, rather than residential ones, and his beliefs never had caused a conflict with clients. Heuser said her client had made a verbal arrangement with his supervisor, but nothing had been put in writing.

She also alleged the company jumped the gun in firing Ostapa and should have taken time to learn more about his accommodation request, a claim also made in the complaint.

“They didn’t even engage in the interactive process that they were required to,” Heuer said in a phone interview. “They just said: ‘We don’t want to hear it. We’re not discussing that. And you’re fired.’”

‘Provide reasonable accommodations’

 The Civil Rights Act requires employers to provide reasonable accommodations, but not if doing so creates an undue hardship.

Most legal disputes over religious accommodations, such as the case of a postal worker who objected to working on Sundays for religious reasons, hinge on determining the line between a reasonable accommodation and a hardship. In 2023, the Supreme Court ruled in the postal worker’s favor.

According to the complaint, Ostapa came to the United States from Ukraine in 2001, in part because of concerns about religious liberty.

“His family were devout Christians and fled their home country in pursuit of religious freedom, which they thought they would find here in the United States,” according to the complaint.

The complaint alleges when Ostapa first heard his company had hired a female technician, he went to his supervisor to ask for an accommodation, which initially was granted.

“Paul was one of sixteen technicians in his unit, and the location where he worked employed approximately 25-30 technicians, so assigning another technician to work with the new female technician in his place would not have caused Defendant undue hardship,” according to the complaint.

Seeking to avoid scandal

Named for the famed evangelist who died in 2018, the Billy Graham Rule was part of a code of ethics called the “Modesto Manifesto” designed to avoid scandal. Other rules included being transparent and meticulous when handling money, avoiding criticism of other pastors and refusing to inflate crowd sizes or other details about his ministry.

Though common in evangelical circles and beyond—former Vice President Mike Pence is an adherent—the Billy Graham Rule rarely has been tested in the courts.

In 2019, a sheriff’s deputy in North Carolina sued after being fired for refusing on religious grounds to ride alone with a female colleague, but that suit eventually was settled before going to trial.

In 2013, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled a male dentist had not violated discrimination laws when he fired a female assistant at the urging of his wife. The dentist and his assistant had been texting, which his wife saw as a threat to their marriage, according to the ruling.

As part of their ruling, the Iowa justices said the friendship between the two—and not the gender of the hygienist—was at issue. They also noted the dentist may have treated his assistant badly by firing her, but had not discriminated.

A 2017 poll, taken in the aftermath of a controversy over Pence’s adherence to the Billy Graham Rule, found a quarter of Americans said it was inappropriate to have a work meeting alone with someone of the opposite sex, with more frowning on having meals or drinks together.

The complaint cites the example of Pence and the biblical story of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife, as well as one of the letters of Paul, in detailing Ostapa’s religious belief.

Before filing suit, Ostapa had filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which ended its investigation without ruling on the merits of Ostapa’s claim.

The EEOC did issue Ostapa a right-to-sue letter. Heuser said the delay between Ostapa’s firing and the lawsuit was due to delays in the EEOC process.

(RNS)—Samuel Rodriguez, a Hispanic evangelical adviser to President Donald Trump, is urging government leaders to recognize the “innocent people” who are being swept up in detention quotas.

Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference and pastor of New Season Church in Sacramento, Calif., cited significant drops in church attendance in the face of immigration raids and mass deportations.

In an Oct. 16 interview, he noted some churches in the NHCLC network are seeing Sunday attendance drop by 25 percent to 35 percent due to fear of immigration raids.

Other leaders of Latino and immigrant congregations throughout the United States have reported drops in Sunday attendance, especially in Washington, Chicago and Los Angeles, where the Trump administration has launched major federal operations.

“In my conversations with the White House, with members of Congress and so forth, there is a constant affirmation that the priority is deporting the criminal element,” Rodriguez said.

 But, in his view, “the 25 percent to 30 percent that are being deported that are not the criminal element are a direct result of a daily quota of 3,000 deportations,” referring to goals set by the Department of Homeland Security.

Urging support for the Dignity Act

Rodriguez said he has been mobilizing Latino evangelical Christians to support the bipartisan immigration reform known as the Dignity Act, urging them to gather at church to pray for Congress to pass the bill, led by U.S. Reps. María Elvira Salazar, R-Fla., and Veronica Escobar, D-Texas.

Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in late September, 70 percent of Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees are “criminal illegal aliens who have been convicted or have pending charges in the US,” but data at the time of her statement shows 36 percent of those arrested have no criminal record.

Rodriguez supports the deportation of criminals but claimed ICE is forced into making arrests of criminals and non-criminals alike, because leaders in blue states won’t grant ICE access to their incarcerated populations.

“Let’s say, hypothetically speaking, they reach 2,500 a day that are complete criminals, gang bangers, pedophiles, rapists, drug dealers, et cetera,” Rodriguez said.

“If the blue states primarily don’t cooperate and give ICE access to their prisons and jails, then they have to find the other 500 because they have a quota of 3,000. … Not that I’m affirming that. I’m not celebrating that.”

Hold asylum seekers in ‘humanitarian campuses’

At the NHCLC’s annual summit on Oct. 14, the organization heard from Salazar, whose bill would increase enforcement resources at the U.S. borders while allowing unauthorized immigrants without criminal records who have been in the country more than five years to earn legal status if they pay taxes and $7,000 in restitution.

The bill would expedite the asylum process but would hold asylum seekers in “humanitarian campuses,” rather than releasing them into the United States while they wait for a court decision, as has been the practice for decades.

It would pay for U.S. citizens to receive workforce training, funded by the immigrants’ restitution payments. It would also make changes to immigration visas.

“There’s never been a more conservative proposal. None ever, ever, ever,” Rodriguez said. “This does not grant citizenship. This is the opposite of amnesty.”

‘Don’t have to live in fear’

Instead, he said, it offers the chance for immigrants who have entered illegally to work legally.

“You don’t have to live in fear,” he said. “It gives people dignity, and that dignity status to me is beautiful. It’s because we’re all created in the image of God.”

Rodriguez did not express confidence in the bill’s swift passage.

“Right now, I think I have faith, and hopefully that faith will convert to hope, because faith is the conviction of things hoped for and the assurance of things not seen.”

He asserted “the same administration that brought an end to a war in Gaza” was capable of immigration reform, calling it “a layup in comparison.”

Focus on antisemitism

The Dignity Act is just one priority of the NHCLC’s newly launched Center for Public Policy, which will focus on antisemitism through a partnership with the Anti-Defamation League.

“Latino evangelicals must be at the forefront of protecting our Jewish brothers and sisters around the world, speaking up on behalf of the nation of Israel,” Rodriguez said.

“It doesn’t mean that we are in perfect alignment with everything (Israeli Prime Minister) Benjamin Netanyahu says or does. That’s silly. No politician is perfect. No administration is above criticism, but we are in favor of the state of Israel.”

Another partner will be the Faith & Freedom Coalition, an evangelical voter-turnout organization long aligned with the GOP.

“We don’t lean right. We don’t lean left,” Rodriguez said. “We stand on the finished work of Christ.”

The center’s other priorities will include “issues that impact life from womb to tomb,” family tax credits, early childhood education and parental rights, a priority often intertwined with anti-LGBTQ+ positions.

Last year the organization launched the Center for Ministerial Health, which hosted 15 mental health symposiums in the past year.

“The response has been more than amazing, literally saving families, marriages, ministries and lives,” Rodriguez said.

The NHCLC celebrated its recent expansion internationally, an effort to establish chapters in Latin America, Spain and Latino diasporas in other Western countries, led by Colombian pastor Iván Delgado Glenn.

Build a ‘firewall’ against encroaching Marxism

“We’re going to build a firewall against ideologies that take away our rights, our freedom of speech, our freedom of religious liberty, and so if the church rises up, light wins and darkness loses because we believe in the image of God,” Rodriguez told RNS.

“The majority of countries already have the national evangelical alliances. We’re not there to replace them at all. We’re there to resource them.”

The new initiative will assist in “building a firewall against the encroachment of Marxism” in foreign policy, including in Venezuela, said Rodriguez.

On this score, Rodriguez blamed the leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva for the seizure of prominent Brazilian pastor Silas Malafaia’s passport, calling it a religious liberty issue.

Malafaia, who has been linked to dominion theology—the idea that Christians should control all aspects of society—is an ally of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, recently sentenced to 27 years in prison for planning a coup.

While fighting on these fronts abroad, Rodriguez advised his organization’s constituents to brave the pressures of immigration enforcement at home, telling them to go to church.

“Church is the safer space. There is no safer space than the church,” Rodriguez said. “We need to come together and believe that the God of the impossible who changed the hearts and minds of leaders in the Old and New Testament will do it again for us.

“He doesn’t change. So, we believe the Holy Spirit is still moving. He can change hearts and minds. So, go to church.”

(RNS)—A federal judge in Illinois has issued a temporary restraining order that bars government agents from using some forceful tactics against faith-based demonstrators who have been protesting outside a Chicago-area U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility.

The order hands a win to activists who say their right to religious freedom has been violated by law enforcement who repeatedly shot them with pepper balls and other projectiles.

The order, handed down Oct. 9, came three days after the complaint was filed against Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

Although the suit was primarily brought by journalists who allege they have been targeted by federal agents, the list of plaintiffs also included Pastor David Black, a Chicago-area Presbyterian minister.

Sprayed with pepper balls

According to journalist Dave Byrnes, Judge Sara Ellis mentioned Black during court proceedings, recounting an incident that took place last month when Black was filmed praying in front of the ICE facility in Broadview, Ill.

As the pastor finished his prayer, footage shows federal agents firing at him using pepper balls, which can cause eye irritation and respiratory distress. Black was struck multiple times, including in the head.

Other faith-based demonstrators and clergy say they have also been pelted with nonlethal rounds while protesting at the facility, as religious activists have been a regular presence at the location for the past few weeks.

Byrnes reported Ellis said during court proceedings the plaintiffs had sufficiently argued the federal government’s use of force against people praying at the site “substantially burdens their exercise of religion.”

In her order, the judge barred agents from using a list of “riot control weapons” on “members of the press, protesters, or religious practitioners who are not posing an immediate threat to the safety of a law enforcement officer or others.”

The order also prohibits the firing of “compressed air launchers” and similar weapons at “the head, neck, groin, spine, or female breast, or striking any person with a vehicle, unless the person poses an immediate threat of causing serious bodily injury or death.”

In addition, agents, who have been criticized for wearing face masks, are instructed by the order to wear “visible identification.”

The 14-day order is limited to the northern court district of Illinois, which encompasses roughly a third of the state, including Chicago.

Protesters accused of ‘impeding operations’

Asked by Religion News Service about Black and the lawsuit, Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin responded with a statement, shortly before posting the same statement on her X feed.

McLaughlin said Black was among demonstrators “blocking an ICE vehicle from leaving the federal facility—impeding operations.” Referring to “agitators,” not Black specifically, she said they were verbally warned.

“If you are obstructing law enforcement you can expect to be met with force,” McLaughlin said in the statement.

Amanda Tovar, the person who filmed the widely shared video of Black being shot with pepper balls, disputed McLaughlin’s description of events in an interview with CNN.

McLaughlin also referred to Black as a “pastor,” using quotation marks. RNS confirmed Black is an ordained minister of First Presbyterian Church in Chicago, operating under the Presbytery of Chicago.

Religious leaders criticize immigration policies

A wide array of religious leaders have criticized President Donald Trump’s immigration policies throughout his second term. Meanwhile, the administration has used Bible quotations to support its immigration enforcement efforts on social media.

Clergy have participated in protests supporting immigrants in several cities, confronted apparent federal agents on church property and filed lawsuits in opposition to the president’s mass deportation agenda.

Pope Leo XIV, like his predecessor Pope Francis, also recently spoke critically of Trump’s immigration policies, referring to the treatment of immigrants in the U.S. as “inhuman.” He also told Latino Catholics who work with immigrants that their work is “perhaps especially” important in the U.S., and he urged American bishops to speak out.

However, faith leaders in Chicago say tensions surrounding the Broadview facility have escalated over the past few weeks.

Pastor unnerved by Homeland Security agents

Pastor David Swanson of New Community Covenant Church on Chicago’s South Side, declined to comment directly on the lawsuit, explaining that he’s only been a part of demonstrations at Broadview on one occasion.

But he said that during his visit, when large numbers of demonstrators assembled near the facility last Friday, the behavior of DHS agents left him unnerved.

At one point, he said, senior Border Patrol official Gregory Bovino—who has become a visible presence in DHS immigration enforcement—walked over to where Swanson and others were standing and began shoving the pastor while yelling in his face.

Swanson, who was wearing a clerical collar, said Bovino yelled, “I’m not going to tell you again,” even as the pastor continued to move back. Part of the incident was documented by an Associated Press photographer. DHS officials did not respond immediately to comment on the interaction.

Swanson said the experience differed dramatically from demonstrations elsewhere he has attended. In the past, he said, he has tried to be “a presence for peace in situations that can get volatile” and a “person who different sides can be able to approach and talk with and have conversations with.” But his experience at Broadview felt different.

“This was the first time that I felt like there was absolutely no regard and no respect for a person who was visibly associated with a faith tradition,” Swanson said. “It did not seem like it made one iota of difference.”

CHICAGO (RNS)—Pastor David Black stood in front of a Chicago-area U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility and spread his arms wide. Adorned in all black and wearing a clerical collar, he looked up at a group of masked, heavily armed ICE agents on the roof and began to pray.

“I invited them to repentance,” said Black, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Chicago. “I basically offered an altar call. I invited them to come and receive that salvation, and be part of the kingdom that is coming.”

But when Black began to lower his arms a few seconds later, the agents responded to his spiritual plea by firing pepper balls, or chemical agents that cause eye irritation and respiratory distress, video footage shows.

One struck Black in the head, exploding into a puff of white pepper smoke and forcing him to his knees. Fellow demonstrators rushed to his aid, and as the pastor rubbed his face in pain, the agents continued to fire.

“We could hear them laughing,” Black said.

Demonstrators confront ICE; agents respond with force

It was one of several dramatic and violent scenes that unfolded in recent weeks near an ICE detention facility in Broadview, Ill.

About 12 miles from downtown Chicago, the suburban site has seen scores of demonstrators repeatedly confront ICE agents—sometimes jeering at agents or using acts of civil disobedience to block the entrance to the facility as part of a groundswell of protests against President Donald Trump’s ongoing immigration crackdown in the city.

The agents, mostly masked, have often responded with force, arresting demonstrators, tossing gas canisters, firing nonlethal rounds at activists and journalists and sometimes throwing protesters—including at least one local Democratic congressional candidate—to the ground.

Despite the potential danger, religious leaders and faith activists have been a visible presence at the protests, some waving signs with slogans such as “Love thy neighbor” and “Who would Jesus deport?”

Many argue they are compelled by their religious beliefs to advocate for immigrants, but as officers continue to respond with violence, some claim their religious freedom is increasingly at risk—even, they say, as they pray for the souls of ICE agents.

“One of the chants that has become ubiquitous at these protests at Broadview is, ‘Love your neighbor, love your God, save your soul and quit your job,’” Black said. “Everybody chants that.”

Praying for immigrants

Hannah Kardon, a United Methodist pastor who leads United Church of Rogers Park in Chicago, has also protested at the Broadview facility on several occasions.

She, like Black, said she has been shot multiple times with pepper bullets, including while she was praying with her eyes closed and hands lifted, wearing a clerical collar and stole. She said she often prays for the ICE agents, but especially for the immigrants detained inside.

“I am praying for all of the people inside to be returned to their communities,” she said. “These are our friends, our family, our cousins, our uncles. These are our community members, and they are being stolen.”

At least once, Kardon said, agents fired a pepper ball at her without warning, leaving her with a bruise on her abdomen that has lasted for weeks.

“Every time we have been attacked with pepper bullets or tear gas or pepper spray that I have been present, it has felt like it came from anger that we were there, and not from any determined safety need or protocol,” she said. “They are unhinged.”

Faith-based pushback to deportation

The pastors’ efforts are part of rising faith-based pushback to the Trump administration as the president seeks to implement plans for mass deportation of immigrants. Prominent religious leaders—including two popes—have criticized Trump’s policies.

Clergy were a fixture at protests in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., after the president flooded the cities with federal agents and tasked National Guard troops with deporting immigrants and combating what he claimed was rising crime, a point of heated dispute.

Churches with immigrant-heavy populations have seen attendance drop, and others have had direct encounters with ICE. Federal agents have conducted immigration enforcement near or on the grounds of U.S. churches at least 10 times this year, prompting one California pastor to confront apparent federal agents as they apprehended people in her church parking lot in June.

Clergy sign on to lawsuit

Dozens of faith groups and denominations have also filed lawsuits challenging Trump’s various immigration policies, and the treatment of religious demonstrators at the Chicago facility has become a legal flashpoint.

Black is listed as a plaintiff in a lawsuit filed this week against Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem alleging violations of the First and Fourth Amendments. Although most of the plaintiffs are journalists, Black is named as one of multiple clergy and faith-based demonstrators who, lawyers argue, have fallen victim to violence that violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

The lawsuit accuses ICE agents at the facility of enacting a “policy, pattern, and practice” of “targeting Rev. Black and other similarly situated Religious Exercise subclass members with violence.” The result, the complaint alleges, “substantially burdens their exercise of religion.”

Speaking to RNS the same day the lawsuit was filed, Black said his “freedom to minister Christianity and to proclaim the good news in the United States of America is very much being infringed and threatened.”

He also said he still suffers from respiratory issues weeks after agents shot him with pepper balls, an act he framed as “retaliation of my federal government (against) my acts of ministry.”

“I absolutely feel that my First Amendment rights have been infringed, and anticipate that there is a plan to do so more,” he said.

‘It’s fundamentally wrong’

Kardon agreed, saying she believes her religious freedom is one of several rights that have been infringed upon by agents at Broadview.

Even so, Kardon said she is determined to continue protesting and plans to participate in an ecumenical Communion service outside the facility. Her desire to advocate for immigrants, she said, is rooted in “stuff that God put in every single one of us.”

“We’re a faith of immigrants. Jesus was an immigrant,” she said. “But to me, this is basic created-being stuff. When you see what is happening here, your whole body and heart resists it, because it’s fundamentally wrong.”

DHS did not respond to questions about the new lawsuit, nor did officials directly respond to questions about the incident in which Black was shot with pepper balls.

DHS official say ‘rioters endanger’ others

However, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin sent a statement calling the protesters “rioters” and accusing them of assaulting law enforcement by throwing “tear gas cans, rocks, bottles, and fireworks” at officers.

She added, “these rioters endanger the safety of our brave law enforcement officers and the illegal aliens inside the facility.”

Black and Kardon reacted with frustration to the agency’s claims and characterizations, dismissing the idea that protesters like themselves could be considered dangerous.

“I’m a mom of two who bakes stuff and wears rainbow glasses,” Kardon said. “No one in their life has ever been scared of me.”

But DHS continued its negative characterization of protesters on Oct. 3, when Noem visited the Broadview facility.

In a speech to agents recorded by activist Benny Johnson, the secretary argued the protesters outside the facility were “advocating for violence against the American people” and were “victimizing people every day by the way that they’re talking, speaking, who they’re affiliated with, (and) who they’re funded (by).”

In his post containing the video, which was retweeted by the official DHS X account, Johnson said that “left-wing extremists” had surrounded the ICE facility but that “federal agents crushed the threat immediately.”

Religious activists rejected the claims and dismissed the idea that they are funded by anyone.

“The idea that we have funders is ludicrous,” Black said in a text message.

Homeland Security launches faith-based campaign

DHS has invoked faith to promote its actions. The agency has produced promotional videos that overlay Scripture on top of images of ICE agents conducting raids.

In a new video with religious themes, as the song “Revival” by recording artist Zach Bryan plays, footage rolls of a recent ICE raid on a Chicago apartment building. The video then shifts to images of federal agents and local police pushing back protesters in front of the Broadview facility.

Underneath the video, which ends with protesters—not people detained in an immigration enforcement raid—sitting with their hands bound, DHS responded with another post: a link to sign up to join ICE.

Quincy Worthington, another Presbyterian minister in the northern Chicago suburbs who has participated in the Broadview protests, called the DHS videos “horribly misguided.”

“It’s an affront to the gospel, plain and simple,” Worthington said.

Worthington said he, too, has endured pepper bullets and tear gas while protesting at the facility.

At the protests, he tends to spend his time in the crowd offering care to fellow participants. Sometimes that care is physical, such as helping people wash tear gas from their eyes. Other times he offers spiritual care, such as when a woman at the protest suddenly embraced him before bursting into tears.

“She was just so relieved that a member of the clergy was there, because it showed her that God hadn’t abandoned them,” Worthington said. “If just my presence can be the presence of Christ to someone, who am I to say ‘no’ to that?”

(RNS)—The Trump administration’s deportation of more than a hundred Iranians held in ICE custody on a flight that touched down in Tehran on Sept. 29 includes Christian converts and other religious minorities who may face harsh penalties for their religious beliefs upon return to the Islamic Republic, advocates warned.

“Among those deported were four women and a 72-year-old man who had lived in the United States for nearly 50 years,” said Pastor Ara Torosian in a Facebook post after the flight, in an account attributed to an anonymous witness on the flight.

The Iranian-born evangelical Christian pastor has been protesting the detainment of several of his congregants for months.

“The group included an estimated 15 Iranian Christian converts, along with political and ethnic asylum seekers,” Torosian wrote.

In July, Torosian held a hunger strike outside the White House, advocating for the rights of an estimated 200 Iranian Christians held in ICE custody.

The account Torosian posted on Facebook was corroborated in part by Ali Herischi, an immigration lawyer in Maryland, who explained that two of his clients were on the flight, including a convert to Christianity whose name he declined to reveal to protect her safety in Iran.

The Christian woman’s husband has been released, Herischi said, splitting the family. The New York Times has also reported Iranian officials were told of the flight’s impending arrival, though the number of passengers differed.

Iran in Top 10 on Open Doors watchlist

Though they account for less than 1 percent of the country’s population, Christians represent Iran’s largest religious minority. According to a January report by Open Doors, a watchdog organization that tracks persecution of Christian’s worldwide, Iran ranked in the top 10 on their 2025 watchlist, just ahead of Afghanistan and not far behind North Korea and Yemen.

While some protection is afforded to churches with a longstanding history in Iran, such as the Armenian Apostolic Church, Assyrian Church of the East and Chaldean and Aramean churches, Protestant and evangelical Christian groups have no such protections.

Christian worship in Farsi—as opposed to Armenian or Syriac Aramaic—is outlawed, and proselytizing and conversion are punishable by fines, corporal punishment, jail time or, potentially, the death penalty under Iranian law.

“The unrecognized converts from Islam to Christianity bear the brunt of religious freedom violations, carried out by the government in particular and to a lesser extent by society and the converts’ families,” noted Open Doors’ report.

“The government sees these Iranian Christians as an attempt by Western countries to undermine Islam and the Islamic regime of Iran. Both leaders and ordinary members of Christian convert groups have been arrested, been prosecuted and received long prison sentences for ‘crimes against national security.’”

Many sought asylum in United States

In recent years, there has been an increase of Iranian nationals entering the United States through the southern border, with many appealing for asylum status. Under the Biden administration, asylum seekers used a cellphone app, CBP One, to streamline their claims, but they have been systematically cancelled or ignored under the Trump administration.

Torosian’s Facebook post noted several of the deportees were in the final stages of immigration court and already had received pre-approval before their deportation.

Torosian’s report added many of those deported, who had been held in Louisiana, were told that they were being moved to another detention facility in the U.S. before being herded onto a plane that made its way to Puerto Rico, Qatar and finally Iran. The lawyer said he has been unable to contact his client since her deportation.

According to Associated Press, the flight was the result of a rare deal struck between the Trump administration and the Islamic Republic, even as the United States continues to push sanctions on Iran and bombed its nuclear facilities just months ago.

“There was no (pre-existing) deal between Iran and the U.S. to accept deportees from the U.S., and we didn’t know this deal existed,” Herischi told Religion News Service. “Unfortunately, prior to this agreement, neither Iran nor the U.S. informed the public about it.”

High anxiety among Iranians in United States

Herischi said the news of the flight has raised anxiety among Iranians and Iranian Americans in the United States.

“We are devastated, because this is only going to increase. It’s opened the door for a huge number of deportations from the Iranian community, for those who are here for years.”

Torosian’s source maintained in his Facebook report that the converts faced harsh treatment upon arrival in Iran.

“When the plane landed in Tehran, Iranian state media was already waiting. Refugees were lined up, searched, and their belongings seized. Particularly alarming was the targeting of 10-15 Christian converts, who were forced to display their Bibles and crosses on camera while being interrogated,” read the Facebook report.

“They were then separated into individual rooms where they were coerced into making video confessions, statements discrediting their conversions, claiming they were misled by pastors, and admitting they had sought Christianity merely to gain asylum.

“These staged confessions are expected to be broadcast soon by Iranian state television as part of propaganda against both Christianity and the United States,” read the Facebook post.

But they may face more dangers, the lawyer said, due to how the United States handles deportations. Deportees’ possessions, said Herischi, are normally in the custody of the U.S. government and are sent ahead of the deportees to their destination.

In this case, that means all their court documents, including case files detailing their asylum claims, would have been handed over directly to the Iranian government.

“So in those packages, there may be a copy of their files, all sorts of documents that they had to support their immigration case. So that’s very dangerous, and there may also be Bibles,” Herischi said.

“Based on how much information [Iran] has about their immigration process and what they have been provided, they can charge them with allegations of working with a foreign government, working against national security and apostasy claims, which can be up to execution—capital punishment.”

The deportations come just months after Republican lawmakers passed a joint resolution condemning the treatment of Christians in Muslim-majority countries such as Iran.

“This is going to really normalize the human rights situation in Iran, and basically ignores the reality of what’s going on in Iran and those who are applying for asylum—especially for political and religious crimes,” Herischi said.

Torosian’s report accused the administration of delivering “elderly residents, women, and recognized asylum seekers into the hands of a regime known for religious persecution and political imprisonment,” calling the action “not only inhumane but also a grave betrayal of America’s longstanding commitment to protect the persecuted.

“The world must pay attention. These refugees are not numbers. They are fathers, mothers, believers and survivors. Their forced return to Iran places them at extreme risk of imprisonment, torture, and even death. Silence in the face of this injustice is complicity,” the anonymous source said.

NASHVILLE (BP)—Pro-life advocates protested the U.S. Food & Drug Administration’s approval of another generic abortion drug.

Produced by Evita Solutions, the drug named ANDA received approval Sept. 30 as a generic to Mifeprex, which was approved in 2000.

The drugs are designed to end pregnancies through 10 weeks’ gestation. They prevent the fetus from being able to attach to the uterine wall while preparing the uterus for contractions that typically come about by combining another pill, misoprostol, that induces strong cramps. Mifepristone, the first generic of Mifeprex, received FDA approval in 2019.

‘Dangerous, life-taking drug’

Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission Interim President Gary Hollingsworth said the act “should weigh heavy on the hearts of Southern Baptists, who boldly and bravely speak the truth of God as the creator and giver of life.”

“We affirm that life is a sacred gift, not a commodity to be regulated or discarded,” Hollingsworth added. “In response, the ERLC is sending a letter to [Health and Human Services] and the FDA, urging them to take action with the ultimate goal of removing this dangerous, life-taking drug from the market for good.”

A report issued in the spring by a watchdog group called attention to the rate of “serious adverse reactions” to mifepristone, namely that it can be as high as 22 times more than that claimed by the drug’s maker.

The Ethics & Public Policy Center said it found 10.93 percent of women who used mifepristone experienced sepsis, infection, hemorrhaging and similar effects within 45 days, as opposed to the less-than-.5 percent previously reported.

‘Fanning the flames of the culture of death’

At the June annual meeting in Dallas, Southern Baptists passed a resolution condemning “the moral evils and medical dangers” of abortifacients.

“As we made clear in [that] resolution … Southern Baptists want this dangerous drug taken off the market altogether,” said Miles Mullin, ERLC executive vice president.

“Unfortunately, this decision by the FDA moves in the other direction, expanding its availability and fanning the flames of the culture of death that still persists in our country over three years since the Dobbs decision.

“The FDA needs to reverse this decision, otherwise, all the good work done to overturn Roe will come to naught as more and more women are harmed and more and more babies die.”

‘Grave misstep by the FDA’

ERLC Senior Policy Manager Katy Roberts urged the FDA to fulfill its “explicit, self-reported responsibility to promote and protect our health.”

“Their decision to approve generic mifepristone completely circumvents this responsibility. The chemical abortion pill is in no way ‘safe’ or ‘effective’—for women, or for the preborn. Taking this pill results in abnormally high rates of adverse physical events for women, leaves a lasting mental, emotional and spiritual toll and robs innocent children of the right to life. Approving this drug is a grave misstep by the FDA.”

Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr. commented on social media, saying federal law requires FDA approval “when an application proves the generic is identical to the brand-name drug.”

He pledged to “review all the evidence—including real-world outcomes—on the safety of this drug.” Kennedy added that recent studies have indicated “serious risks when mifepristone is used without proper medical oversight.”

Call to reverse the decision

Former Vice President Mike Pence called the approval “a complete betrayal of the pro-life movement that elected President Trump.”

“Earlier this year, I opposed RFK’s nomination because he was unfit for the role and particularly over the concern that he would expand access to abortion, as he has done today,” added Pence, who called on Trump to “immediately reverse this decision.”

The Guttmacher Institute reported in 2023 that chemical abortion accounted for 63 percent of all U.S. abortions.

“Let us continue to pray,” Hollingsworth said, “for our leaders, for our nation, for mothers and fathers facing unexpected pregnancies, and for a renewed culture of life that cherishes every person as made in the image of God.”

(RNS)—A week before he was shot and killed while speaking at an event at Utah Valley University, Charlie Kirk, the head of Turning Point USA, posted to his more than 5 million followers on X, “No civilization has ever collapsed because it prays too much.”

“But a civilization that abandons God will deteriorate and ultimately collapse from the inside out, or because it loses the will to repel a malicious, external force,” Kirk tweeted.

It was one of dozens of religious messages Kirk tweeted or said publicly over the past few years, each promoting an uncompromising form of evangelical Christian faith fused with his famously bellicose political conservatism.

Initially known for his work with college students, Kirk’s Christianity became a central part of his public life in recent years.

Mentored by and connected with prominent conservative pastors, Kirk’s take on religion seemed to be one he hoped would permeate American society from education to culture to politics.

His approach proved deeply controversial but also powerful. In the wake of his killing, Kirk leaves behind a vast faith-rooted network of politically active religious leaders that will likely continue to influence politics for years to come.

‘Unparalleled on the Christian right’

“Turning Point USA is an organization that is unparalleled on the Christian right today,” said Matthew Taylor, a senior scholar at the Institute for Islamic, Christian, and Jewish Studies in Baltimore.

It’s a somewhat unexpected legacy for Kirk, whose fervent embrace of evangelicalism came near the end of his life. Kirk, who died at age 31, grew up attending a congregation in the Chicago suburbs affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (USA), a liberal mainline tradition.

It wasn’t until 2019 his evangelical shift became apparent in his public work, when he joined then-Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. to create the Falkirk Center for Faith and Liberty at the evangelical Christian school.

While that project ultimately faltered after Falwell was involved with a series of scandals, it was around the same time Kirk met Rob McCoy of Godspeak Calvary Chapel in Newbury Park, Calif. McCoy said the two found common cause in a desire to join their faith with their politics.

“Charlie goes, ‘I didn’t know a guy like you existed,’” McCoy recalled in a 2023 interview with Religion News Service. “And I go ‘What?’ And he goes, ‘A pastor in politics.’”

Godspeak was the first church to invite Kirk to visit as a guest speaker, McCoy said. Soon, the two began organizing what would become Turning Point USA Faith, a religion-focused Turning Point USA project.

Connected to Seven Mountains Mandate

Matthew Boedy, a professor at the University of North Georgia who has studied Turning Point USA, said McCoy pushed Kirk to embrace a specific theology known as the Seven Mountains Mandate.

That particular evangelical movement centers on the idea that Christians should claim dominion over seven “mountains” of society—family, religion, education, media, entertainment, business and government.

“(Kirk) then moved Turning Point into all those seven areas,” said Boedy, author of the forthcoming book The Seven Mountains Mandate: Exposing the Dangerous Plan to Christianize America and Destroy Democracy.

By 2020, Kirk was referring to the concept publicly and tying it directly to his political projects. While discussing President Donald Trump at that year’s Conservative Political Action Conference, Kirk exclaimed to the crowd, “Finally, we have a president that understands the seven mountains of cultural influence.”

Kirk would invoke the phrase rarely over the next few years, but he became a fixture in a broader effort to create a distinctly conservative Christian America, with Turning Point USA leaning harder into evangelicalism.

By 2023, some churches openly affiliated with the organization on their websites. That year, a Turning Point Academy initiative offering “both a classic, pro-American curriculum as well as a Christian educational programming option” listed nearly 20 affiliated schools, many of them Christian.

Infused with Christian nationalist themes

One church in particular became a launching pad for Kirk’s religious work: Dream City Church in Phoenix, near where Kirk lived. For a time, Kirk hosted monthly “Freedom Night in America” events at the megachurch, a model that was eventually replicated at other houses of worship.

By 2023, Turning Point USA Faith was hosting conferences for pastors, encouraging them to preach far-right politics from the pulpit as part of a church-growth strategy. Boedy attended Turning Point’s most recent pastors’ summit this summer in Georgia and was struck by the spectrum of faith leaders who traveled from across the state to attend.

“What Turning Point was doing at Dream City and these Freedom Nights and at different pastor summits, I think the people (Kirk) brought there really helped the people in the audience—and the audience’s pastors—to see how they could do politics from the pulpit that they weren’t doing before,” Boedy said.

Kirk’s own brand of faith was deeply conservative and often appeared infused with forms of Christian nationalism. In a public appearance he promoted on his X feed, Kirk argued the “body politic” of the United States at its founding was so Protestant that the “structure of government was built for the people who believed in Christ our Lord.” He then argued the United States requires a Christian populace to properly function.

“One of the reasons we’re living through a Constitutional crisis is that we no longer have a Christian nation, but we have a Christian form of government, and they’re incompatible,” he said. “You cannot have liberty if you do not have a Christian population.”

Criticized religious leaders who differed

Much like his famously debate-focused politics, Kirk’s public religious appeals could be similarly contentious. He criticized religious leaders whom he disagreed with, such as Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., who Kirk, in a 2023 appearance, derided as “awful” and “not a good person.”

He also urged followers to pressure otherwise like-minded faith leaders who stopped short of embracing his politics to do so, such as when he chided pastors for not doing more to resist COVID-19 pandemic restrictions on churches or condemn abortion.

“If you are a pastor and you are not speaking out for pro-life ideas and policies and politicians, you should resign from the ministry, because every pastor needs to be speaking out about abortion in their church,” Kirk said in 2024 while speaking at a conference at Dream City.

He later added, “How many of you know a weak pastor that needs to be confronted by a believer and say, ‘Either you need to lead, follow, or get out of the way—and preach the word, or not be a pastor any longer?’”

Kirk also voiced frustration in a debate over Catholicism while speaking with Michael Knowles, a conservative political commentator, at Turning Point USA’s America Fest late last year. In a cordial but sometimes tense back-and-forth with Knowles, who is Catholic, Kirk referred to then-Pope Francis as a “Marxist” and suggested the pontiff was a heretic.

Boedy noted he has personal experience with Kirk’s willingness to single out opponents: Boedy was placed on a TPUSA “professor watch list” in 2016 for writing an editorial opposing legislation that would allow concealed weapons on college campuses.

Meanwhile, Kirk sometimes sparred with opponents further to his right, both politically and religiously. Nick Fuentes, known for extremist rhetoric that conflates white nationalism and Christian nationalism, feuded with Kirk for years, accusing him of being inadequately conservative. In 2019, followers of Fuentes—sometimes called “Gropyers”—regularly disrupted Kirk’s campus events.

Quickly built an influential network

But even when steeped in theological debate, Taylor and Boedy both said Kirk was focused on building a winning political coalition. He routinely worked with people he disagreed with theologically—including Knowles—so long as they overlapped with his right-wing political vision.

The result was building an influential network of conservative Christian pastors, leaders, churches and schools in a shockingly short amount of time.

That coalition has mourned Kirk’s killing with a zeal he long modeled. In the hours following his death, faith leaders and politicians alike—including Trump—declared Kirk not just a victim of political violence, but a martyr.

It’s that kind of fervor, experts say, that likely will keep Kirk’s religious network a force to be reckoned with for some time.

“I’d argue there might not be a more important institution on the religious right, right now,” than Turning Point Faith and Turning Point USA, Taylor said.

(RNS)—The lawn of Grand Canyon University near downtown Phoenix was filled with hundreds of students on Sept. 10 as the evangelical Christian school came out to grieve together the shocking passing of activist Charlie Kirk, who had been killed by a sniper’s bullet earlier in the day in Orem, Utah.

One by one, they spoke into a mic, many praying for Kirk’s wife and two children and sharing stories about his impact. Less than a year ago, many of these same students were sporting grins and red MAGA hats as Kirk, founder of the campus organization Turning Point USA, visited Grand Canyon on his “You’re Being Brainwashed” tour.

“His impact was astronomical,” said Gwyn Andrews, 22, who founded a Turning Point USA chapter at the University of West Georgia. “Every single person that is in my generation knows his name.”

Launched in 2012 when Kirk was just 18, Turning Point USA began as a way of educating students about fiscal responsibility and capitalism, but grew into a conservative powerhouse with more than 800 chapters on college and high school campuses.

His success came because as a speaker and debater he faced off against conservative Christian kids’ “woke” counterparts, tirelessly representing conservative, and, increasingly, Trumpian viewpoints.

He was doing just that at Utah Valley University when he was shot and killed at age 31 by an assassin.

“Turning Point realized the importance of explaining and debating and championing conservative ideals to people under the age of 30,” said Isaac Willour, a conservative journalist and commentator.

Kirk’s approachability and self-confidence touched something in the teens and 20-somethings he set out to lead, as did Turning Point USA’s cheeky merchandise and celebrity-studded events—answering the kind of glam that accompanied liberal visitors to campus.

Inspired loyalty, cultivated personal connections

Once he’d pulled them in, Kirk’s unswerving commitment to conservative values made them loyal. Framing his political convictions as rooted in biblical truth, he emboldened many who say they had been made to feel ashamed for having conservative values. Then he supported them with a robust, savvy, financially successful organization willing to go to bat for what they believed.

Students’ first encounters with Kirk were often social media videos and podcasts. But on his college tours and at his annual, convention-sized AmericaFest conference in Phoenix, Kirk cultivated personal connections.

Several students told RNS they admired Kirk in part because he wasn’t a politician. Barely in his 30s when he died, Kirk came off not as an idol, but as a “like-minded believer” who shook students’ hands, liked their social media posts and took them seriously, said Andrews.

Leading by example, Kirk gave permission for conservative students to speak their minds and equipped them with the skills to discuss conservative ideas about abortion, gun rights, race, gender and sexuality with their liberal peers, students said.

“So many students like myself at one point were so afraid to speak up, because they’re afraid of either getting rejected by different friend groups or their professors or people in their community,” said Claire Gorlich, 22, who started a Turning Point USA chapter at St. Mary’s Notre Dame, a Catholic college in Notre Dame, Ind.

“He really was the person that just made it, honestly, very cool to be conservative and made people feel confident.”

Many of his young followers aspired to debate like Kirk, said Matthew Boedy, a professor of religious rhetoric at the University of North Georgia and author of a forthcoming book on Kirk called The Seven Mountains Mandate.

Turning Point USA encouraged that impulse for debate, preparing students to defend conservative positions, an approach that distinguishes the group from other conservative college organizations.

Resonated with Gen Z young men

Kirk’s insistence on the legitimacy of conservative viewpoints resonated particularly with men in Generation Z.

JJ Glaneman, a 20-year-old junior at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh who started an unofficial chapter of Turning Point USA after the school’s student government blocked an official one, told RNS society has pushed the narrative that men are not entitled to an opinion on abortion. Kirk never hesitated to express his own staunch opposition.

“He taught this generation of men that it’s not only all right to be masculine; it’s great to be masculine,” said Glaneman.

After Turning Point USA launched its Faith Initiative in 2021, partnering with churches to host religious conferences, Kirk’s emphasis on his evangelical faith became a more central message and his rhetoric about “reclaiming the country for Christ” grew bolder.

“If the church does not rise up at this moment, if the church does not take its proper role, then the country and the republic will be gone as we know it,” he said at a May 2021 Turning Point USA Faith event at Dream City Church in Phoenix.

Recently shifted focus to Christian colleges

Turning Point USA, which had begun at secular schools, focused more on Christian colleges in recent years. Between 2020 and 2024, Turning Point USA chapters appeared at more than 45 Christian colleges or universities; however, as of last year, only 21 chapters were active.

Boedy said Kirk became the “go-to” person for conservative college students looking to translate faith into action.

“He talked about moral topics. He talked about God. He tweeted about that. I think that more and more Christian students were attracted to him because of that,” Boedy said.

“There were some Christian colleges that didn’t want Turning Point chapters for various reasons, but the more conservative ones certainly did. And I think that they were part of the choir that he was preaching to.”

Naming his values as not just political, but biblical, resonated with many young people seeking clarity, direction and meaning. As a husband with two young children, Kirk exemplified to many young conservative Christians what their futures could look like.

Tied to a deep sense of purpose

He gave young people the sense that conservative values about family, stability, sexuality and gender were tied to a deep sense of purpose.

Gathered in arenas and standing shoulder to shoulder with other conservative youth from across the country, they heard fervent speeches about the promise of their generation.

“They put so much effort into the aesthetics and to making sure that everybody’s excited,” said Sarah Stock, 21, founder of the Turning Point USA chapter at Vanguard University in Orange County, Calif.

“They have flames coming up on stage. They have the president come to speak at their events, and everyone’s excited to see their favorite speakers.”

Stock added that Turning Point USA ensured that local chapters had the funds to host their own enticing events and pay for students to participate in national events. Tax filings from June 2023 showed Turning Point USA took in $81.7 million, up from $2.05 million in 2015.

After signing up to be president of her Turning Point USA chapter in 2023, Stock was flown out to West Palm Beach, Fla., to join a Chapter Leadership Summit for other chapter presidents. Turning Point USA covered the flight and accommodations.

“As a young person who just encountered politics online, the real-life events are what really makes you want to actually get involved,” said Stock.

Out of sync with social justice-oriented youth

Kirk’s more controversial takes, especially demeaning comments about Black and LGBTQ Americans—he was virulently against diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, called George Floyd a “scumbag” and said a Bible verse about stoning gay people to death was “God’s perfect law”—are out of sync with the social justice sensibility of many young adults.

But some conservative Christian students told RNS Kirk’s comments about race and LGBTQ issues had been taken out of context. Others simply agreed with Kirk.

“It sounds like all of those are valid points,” said Stock about Kirk’s views on race. She said while Floyd did not deserve to die, she did question his character. She added that affirmative action makes it difficult to always know about an individual’s qualifications.

But they universally denied characterizations of Kirk as racist. “He felt like the left was treating people differently based on skin color, and he would stand there and say: ‘No, this person is Black, this person is white. It doesn’t matter. We should all be treated the same.’ And people would take that and interpret it as racism,” Gorlich said.

In the wake of Kirk’s killing, students, while grieving the loss of a person many felt personally connected to, are concerned about the appalling rise in political violence.

The near-assassination of Donald Trump in Butler, Penn., in July 2024 already proved right-wing politicians could be targets. Now, students say, any person with right-wing or conservative beliefs could be at risk.

“We realize that, if they think that Charlie deserves to die for his views,” Stock said, “they think that we deserve that as well.”

(RNS)—White evangelical Christians long have been seen as President Donald Trump’s most loyal supporters. And they often believe everything is part of God’s plan.

It’s little surprise, then, that 7 out of 10 (71 percent) believe God played a role in putting Trump back in the White House after the 2024 election—or that the same number said God’s plan was also for Joe Biden to be president four years earlier.

Few evangelicals, however, believe either candidate’s policies played a role in God’s plans.

Those are among the findings of a new Pew Research Center report about how Americans view the role God plays in elections. The report, released Sept. 9, was based on a May 2025 survey of 8,937 Americans, with a margin of error of plus or minus 1.4 percentage points.

Overall, the report found that when asked about the results of the 2024 election, nearly half of Americans (49 percent) said God does not get involved in U.S. presidential politics, while another 14 percent said they don’t believe in God.

A third (32 percent) said that Trump’s election was part of God’s plan, but that God didn’t necessarily approve of the former real estate mogul and reality TV star-turned-politician’s policies. Only 4 percent say God chose Trump because God approves of Trump’s policies.

These percentages match results from the 2020, 2016 and 2012 elections. A third (34 percent) of Americans said Biden’s election was part of God’s plan in 2020. A previous survey found that 27 percent of Americans said Trump’s election in 2016 was part of God’s plan. And 29 percent said the same about Obama’s election in 2012.

Theological views lead to interesting survey results

Chip Rotolo, a research associate at Pew and author of the report, said that there appears to be some theological consistency in how religious Americans see the outcomes of presidential elections. He also said those theological views may have led to interesting results in the survey.

“It definitely introduces some interesting data points,” he said. “Republicans are twice as likely to say God played a role in Biden’s election than Democrats are.”

The survey found differences in the way religious Americans see God’s role in politics. White evangelicals and Black Protestants were most likely to say that the election results were part of God’s plan. Catholics (67 percent) and nonevangelical white Protestants (66 percent) were more likely to say God doesn’t get involved in presidential elections.

Ninety percent of Americans with no religious affiliation saw no role for God in the recent presidential elections.

“The vast majority of religiously unaffiliated Americans—a group made up of atheists, agnostics and people who say their religion is ‘nothing in particular’—say that God does not get involved in elections (45 percent) or that they don’t believe in God (44 percent),” according to the report.

Party affiliation also revealed differences in how Americans connect faith and political outcomes. Half (52 percent) of Republicans and those who lean Republican said that either it was God’s plan for Trump to become president in 2024 (44 percent) or that God chose Trump based on Trump’s policies (8 percent). Only 25 percent of Democrats saw God’s hand in Trump’s election.

How much does religion affect voting?

Researchers also found differences in how much religion impacts voting and beliefs about whether good Christians should oppose Trump.

“White evangelical Protestants and Republicans are especially likely to say religion shapes how they vote,” according to the report.

White evangelicals are much more likely (51 percent) to say religion shapes how they vote a great deal or quite a bit than are Americans overall (25 percent). So do 37 percent of all Protestants, 31 percent of Black Protestants and 30 percent of Jews. Only 20 percent of nonevangelical white Protestants, 24 percent of Catholics and 6 percent of the religiously unaffiliated say religion shapes their vote.

Researchers also asked Christians whether “good Christians” can disagree about Trump. Overall, 80 percent said good Christians can disagree. Eleven percent said opposing Trump was essential for good Christians, while 7 percent said supporting Trump was essential for good Christians.

“Large majorities of Christians across various religious traditions and political party lines say that good Christians can disagree about Donald Trump, ranging from 76 percent of Hispanic Catholics to 85 percent among White evangelicals,” according to the report.

Ten percent of white evangelicals and Republicans said supporting Trump was essential for good Christians. By contrast, 1 in 4 Democrats (24 percent) said opposing Trump was essential.

“Overall, there’s consensus among most American Christians that ‘good Christians’ do not need to take a particular view on Trump,” the report said.

White evangelicals and Republicans were also most likely to say religion affects how they treat others and how they view morality.

“White evangelicals and Republicans also stand out for the large shares who say religion shapes how they treat other people and think about morality,” according to the report.

“For example, 88 percent of White evangelicals say religion shapes how they treat others a great deal or quite a bit, and 86 percent say the same about religion shaping their morality – among the highest percentages of any religious group analyzed.”

Among the religiously unaffiliated, 17 percent said religion shapes how they view morality or how they treat people.

(RNS)—Charlie Kirk, an evangelical Christian activist and social media personality who rallied young Americans to Donald Trump’s MAGA cause, died Sept. 10 after being shot while addressing a crowd at a Utah university.

The founder of Turning Point USA and Turning Point Faith and host of the streaming “Charlie Kirk Show,” Kirk was shot while speaking in a courtyard at Utah Valley University in Orem, a city of 96,000 adjacent to Provo. He was 31.

“The Great, and even Legendary, Charlie Kirk, is dead,” President Trump announced on Truth Social, his social media platform. “No one understood or had the Heart of the Youth in the United States of America better than Charlie.”

The White House later said Trump had ordered that the U.S. flag fly at half-staff through Sunday in Kirk’s honor.

A native of Arlington Heights, Ill., near Chicago, Kirk co-founded Turning Point USA as an 18-year-old in 2012 with a Tea Party conservative, William Montgomery, who died in 2020.

The nonprofit sought to educate students about “the importance of fiscal responsibility, free markets and capitalism.”

With the help of Montgomery, a retired businessman who encouraged Kirk to get involved in politics after hearing him speak at a high school event, the organization grew into a conservative powerhouse. Within three years, it had 800 chapters on college and high school campuses around the country.

“There are young conservatives out there, and there have been for decades. But I just feel they haven’t been plugged in correctly,” Kirk told The Atlantic in 2015, as the organization was gaining national attention. “They haven’t been cultivated. They haven’t been properly equipped or trained.”

Growing influence among young conservatives

Trump’s election as president in 2016 cemented Kirk as a major power in conservative circles, and his influence continued to grow after Trump’s 2020 defeat through his 2024 comeback.

Claire Gorlich, 22, a recent graduate of St. Mary’s Notre Dame, a Catholic college in Notre Dame, Indiana, told RNS that she founded a Turning Point USA chapter there after meeting Kirk in 2016 during the Trump presidential campaign.

“I’m in a state of disbelief,” she said. “I just can’t believe that such a profound conservative activist and representative for the conservative movement has been taken from us just like that.”

Gorlich, who attended several Turning Point USA conferences and came to view Kirk as a mentor, added, “Everything that he believed was driven by his faith and his relationship with Christ.”

She said Kirk taught her to “remain strong” in her beliefs, “no matter what they do to try to silence you.”

‘Used political advocacy as evangelism’

In 2019, Kirk teamed up with Jerry Falwell Jr., then the president of Liberty University, to start the Falkirk Center, a think tank based at Liberty, to defend Judeo-Christian beliefs. Kirk left in 2021 after Falwell became mired in scandal. The center has since been renamed the Standing for Freedom Center.

Kirk was scheduled to speak at Liberty next month for fall convocation. Students there told RNS that campus was “rocked” by the news of his death. They are planning a prayer vigil on campus Wednesday evening.

“Gen Z is on fire for Christ, and it’s on fire for truth,” said Payton Stutzman, a junior at Liberty University who last year served as the Turning Point USA chapter’s president. “They want truth, and Charlie was giving it to them. He was revealing the truth to them not only politically, but spiritually.”

Last year, Liberty’s Turning Point USA chapter ballooned to over 600 students and became the largest in the U.S., Stutzman said. He predicted Kirk’s assassination would only make the movement he inspired stronger.

“Not only was he a political activist, he was an evangelist,” said Stutzman. “He used political advocacy as evangelism. And that’s what we’re trying to do here. We’re trying to replicate that.”

Constant presence on social media

Although Kirk often expressed concern about the way that social media affects people’s minds—at one point, he said TikTok was designed to make young Americans stupid—he was a constant presence on social channels, championing conservative positions.

His videos showing him debating the validity of his political or spiritual beliefs regularly drew millions of viewers.

Kirk became a proponent of the claim that America was founded as a Christian nation and needed to return to its spiritual roots.

“One of the reasons we’re living through a constitutional crisis is that we no longer have a Christian nation, but we have a Christian form of government, and they’re incompatible,” Kirk said in a clip he posted to X in 2024. “You cannot have liberty if you do not have a Christian population.”

In recent years, Kirk started Turning Point Faith to rally pastors and other Christian leaders to Trump’s cause and began speaking openly about his faith, especially during monthly Freedom Night in America rallies at the church he attended, Dream City Church in Phoenix.

Rob McCoy, who helped Kirk in organizing Turning Point Faith, told Religion News Service he met the young activist during a conservative radio convention. The two hit it off and became friends.

“My church was the very first church he was invited to speak at,” McCoy told RNS during a June 2023 interview. “He didn’t think any church would want him.”

Engaging with those who disagreed

He said Kirk would engage with folks who disagreed with him during speaking events.

“But that’s what I love about Charlie. Whenever he speaks, at a university, he has the folks that are in disagreement—they get to go to the front line,” he told RNS.

But Kirk showed a deep intolerance to other points of view, and other people. In a profile of Kirk earlier this year, RNS reported that Kirk “has questioned the qualifications of Black pilots, called the police brutality victim George Floyd a ‘scumbag’ and said a Bible verse about stoning gay people to death is ‘God’s perfect law.’”

Kirk was quick to politicize the Muslim faith of New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani after he won the city’s Democratic primary contest:

“It’s not Islamophobia to notice that Muslims want to import values into the West that seek to destabilize our civilization. It’s cultural suicide to stay silent,” Kirk wrote in a June 25 X post.

‘Under attack from within’

But his primary concern was always the effect of liberal thought on American culture and faith. In 2022, Kirk spoke at a breakfast for politically conservative pastors during the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting in Anaheim, Calif. There, he warned that liberal political causes such as Black Lives Matter were invading churches.

“Our beautiful faith is under attack from within,” he said.

Kirk, who grew up Presbyterian, urged Baptist leaders in the room to set aside their theological differences to focus on saving the country from liberals.

“If we don’t recognize that we all have to agree on liberty and the gospel, we’re all going to be sharing our theological disputes in prison,” he said.

Kirk used his platform to talk about his spiritual beliefs as well as his political positions. In a video posted earlier this year, he spoke about adopting what he called a “Jewish Sabbath every week,” after a pastor told him he needed to rest more.

“Every Friday night, I take a Jewish Sabbath—turn off my phone. Friday night to Saturday night,” he said. “The world cannot reach me, and I get nothing from the world.”

He added: “I’m not saying that that’s something you have to do. I’m saying it will make your life better. It was important enough that God put it as one of the 10 Commandments.”

Prayers urged for Kirk’s family

News of Kirk’s death prompted calls for prayers for his family as well as outrage condemning political violence.

“There is no place in our country for this kind of violence. It must end now. Jill and I are praying for Charlie Kirk’s family and loved ones,” former President Joe Biden wrote on X.

Karen Swallow Prior, author and RNS columnist, posted a photo of herself with Kirk at an anti-abortion rally, noting that the two disagreed but also found common cause.

“I marched with Charlie Kirk for life, probably one of the few things we agreed on,” she wrote. “But being pro-life means being pro-life for *everyone* because all human lives are inherently valuable.”

Clint Pressley, pastor of Hickory Grove Baptist Church in Charlotte, N.C., and president of the Southern Baptist Convention, told RNS his church would be praying for Kirk and the country this evening during Wednesday night events. Pressley said he hoped other churches would do the same.

“You don’t have to be a conservative Christian to see that this is tragic,” he said. “We’ll be praying for them and just praying that our country doesn’t just fracture and fall apart.”

While Pastor Jack Graham of Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano responded to the news of Kirk’s death by dubbing him “a martyr,” other evangelical leaders looked to offer more ordinary Christian comfort.

Robert Jeffress, who hosted Kirk at First Baptist Church in Dallas, where Jeffress is senior pastor, called the shooting a “cold-blooded murder” and said violence is never the answer.

“We were not close friends, but I admired his stand for truth on many issues,” Jeffress said. “His calling is different from a pastor’s calling, but I believe he was a follower of Jesus Christ and I believe we have the assurance that we’ll see him in heaven one day. And until that time, we ought to be praying for his wife, Erika, and their two small children.”

Jack Jenkins and Kathryn Post contributed to this report. The article was revised after initially posted to correct a name in the 10th and 12th paragraphs.