Officers enforcing immigration laws now are authorized to arrest undocumented suspects in churches, schools and hospitals after the Trump administration lifted restrictions on enforcement in sensitive locations.

Benjamine Huffman, acting secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, issued a directive Jan. 20 rescinding the Biden administration’s guidelines for Customs and Border Protection and for Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.

“This action empowers the brave men and women in CBP and ICE to enforce our immigration laws and catch criminal aliens—including murderers and rapists—who have illegally come into our country,” Huffman said.

“Criminals will no longer be able to hide in America’s schools and churches to avoid arrest. The Trump administration will not tie the hands of our brave law enforcement, and instead trusts them to use common sense.”

Matthew Soerens, vice president at World Relief and national coordinator of the Evangelical Immigration Table, responded on social media to the policy change.

“I’m offended that my government is accusing churches of sheltering murderers,” Soeren posted on X, the platform previously known as Twitter.

“The real effect of this change is that people will be afraid to go to church on Sunday.”

Changes to humanitarian parole

At the same time, Huffman announced humanitarian parole to migrants will be granted on a case-by-case basis.

“The Biden-Harris Administration abused the humanitarian parole program to indiscriminately allow 1.5 million migrants to enter our country. This was all stopped on day one of the Trump administration,” Huffman said.

During President Joe Biden’s time in office, the United States broadly extended humanitarian parole to migrants fleeing Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela due to “urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit.”

The Homeland Security directives were issued in response to a series of executive orders that also included temporarily halting the U.S. refugee resettlement program, shutting down the CBP One app and cancelling all asylum appointments in that system.

Refugees International issued a statement condemning the executive orders.

“Make no mistake, these orders are not just about stopping irregular migration—they also target long-standing legal migration pathways in ways that will endanger vulnerable people, undermine border security, and harm the U.S. economy,” the advocacy group stated.

“The orders seek to remake U.S. refugee and immigration policy by closing off virtually all pathways for people to seek refuge in the United States, while threatening the safety and stability of newcomers and long-established immigrant families alike.”

WASHINGTON (RNS)—An executive order President Donald Trump signed on his first day in office appears to keep all but a few refugees from entering the country, saying that the United States lacks the resources to absorb them.

The measure, titled “Realigning the United States Refugee Admissions Program,” was among a blitz of executive orders Trump signed in the hours after he was inaugurated.

“The United States lacks the ability to absorb large numbers of migrants, and in particular, refugees, into its communities in a manner that does not compromise the availability of resources for Americans, that protects their safety and security, and that ensures the appropriate assimilation of refugees,” the order reads in part.

“This order suspends the USRAP until such time as the further entry into the United States of refugees aligns with the interests of the United States.”

The order still allows for some refugees to be admitted, but only “case-by-case” exceptions that require sign-off by the secretary of state and the secretary of homeland security.

The number of refugees allowed into the United States is set by the president in consultation with Congress and varies from year to year, usually based on world events. By the end of Trump’s first term, that number reached 18,000, down from a historic average of about 95,000 a year. The Biden White House had set the number at 125,000 for 2025.

The reduced numbers during the first Trump administration gutted the nonprofit agencies that contract with the government to resettle refugees in the United States, six of which are sponsored by religious denominations or are run by religious groups.

‘It’s about people’—not politics

The leaders of these faith-based agencies were quick to condemn Trump’s new executive order and rejected its claims, saying the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, created under the Refugee Act of 1980, partly in response to the refugee crisis after the Vietnam War, is designed to address the concerns the executive order raises.

“Refugees undergo rigorous vetting, including multiple background checks by national security agencies, before ever setting foot on American soil,” said Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, head of the Lutheran group Global Refuge.

“Their integration is coordinated through close collaboration between federal agencies, local stakeholders, and nonprofit organizations, including many faith-based groups, positioning them to quickly become vital contributors to their new communities.”

Vignarajah said the refugee program is about “living up to our nation’s humanitarian values,” adding, “This mission has never been about politics; it’s about people.”

Matthew Soerens, vice president of advocacy and policy at World Relief, an evangelical Christian group, said the order runs counter to the values of Christians who voted for Trump.

“They did so heartened by pledges that he would secure our borders and protect Christians from persecution, but most did not anticipate that he would halt a long-standing, legal immigration program that offers refuge to those persecuted for their Christian faith,” he said. “We hope and pray he will reconsider.”

Refugee status is offered to people “who have been persecuted or fear they will be persecuted on account of race, religion, nationality, and/or membership in a particular social group or political opinion,” according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and “who are of special humanitarian concern to the United States.”

Many of the immigrants who arrive at the U.S.-Mexico border are asylum-seekers, not refugees, though to be granted asylum they must meet the same qualifications of distress at home.

Citizens of some 17 other countries deemed unsafe due to war, natural disasters or other conditions can be awarded temporary protected status. Most of the Haitian migrants living in Springfield, Ohio, whom Trump and his now-Vice President JD Vance accused of stealing and eating pets during the 2024 presidential campaign, were admitted under temporary protected status.

The distinctions among the different categories of migrant were raised by Mark Hetfield, head of HIAS, a Jewish resettlement agency, who said in a statement that he was “appalled by the callousness that this administration is taking toward victims of violence and persecution.”

Sean Rowe, the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, and Julia Ayala Harris, president of the denomination’s House of Deputies, released a statement expressing frustration with Trump’s various actions on immigration, and noted Episcopal Migration Ministries is among the groups tasked with helping resettle refugees.

“Our true citizenship is not here on earth but in heaven,” the prelates argued, adding, “this vision of God’s kingdom, this new reality, is the one to which we Christians are pledged in our baptism above any political preference or policy, and to which our church must bear witness through word and deed.”

“This sacred call shapes both our churchwide commitment to stand with migrants and the ministries of congregations across our church who serve vulnerable immigrants and refugees in their communities.”

WASHINGTON (RNS)—The second inauguration of President Donald Trump was marked by the language of faith, as the former president marked his return to the White House with religious services and prayers from a range of faith leaders, albeit with one notable absence.

“The golden age of America begins right now,” Trump said during his inaugural address, which was delivered inside the U.S. Capitol Rotunda instead of outside due to cold temperatures. “From this day forward our country will flourish and be respected again all over the world.”

Trump recalled the assassination attempt on his life during the campaign.

“I felt then, and I believe even more so now, that my life was saved by God to make America great again,” Trump said.

He later added that his administration “will not forget our country, we will not forget our Constitution and we will not forget our God.”

Trump insisted the United States will be respected and admired again under his leadership, “including by people of religion, faith and good will.”

Cardinal and Franklin Graham offer invocation

The inauguration featured a series of prayers, beginning with an invocation from two faith leaders who prayed at Trump’s last inauguration. Cardinal Timothy Dolan, head of the Archdiocese of New York, joined Franklin Graham, the son of evangelist Billy Graham and head of Samaritan’s Purse, in offering the invocation.

Dolan, who submits his retirement to the Vatican next month, called on God to offer Trump wisdom, saying, “We blessed citizens of this one nation under God, humbled by our claim ‘in God we trust,’ gather on this Inauguration Day to pray.”

Graham began his remarks by addressing Trump directly, saying, “Mr. President, the last four years, there are times I’m sure you thought it was pretty dark, but look what God has done.” The line sparked applause.

Graham then offered a prayer thanking God for aiding Trump, saying, “When Donald Trump’s enemies thought he was down and out, you and you alone saved his life and raised him up with strength and power.”

Shortly thereafter, Trump was sworn in by Chief Justice John Roberts. The first lady held up two Bibles, a family Bible and the one used by President Abraham Lincoln at his 1861 inauguration, although Trump did not place his hand on them. Then the band broke out into the “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” whose refrain declares: “Glory, glory, hallelujah! His truth is marching on.”

Michigan imam not included

After Trump’s remarks, the benediction was offered by three different religious leaders: Rabbi Ari Berman, president of Yeshiva University; Pastor Lorenzo Sewell of 180 Church in Detroit; and Frank Mann, a priest in the Diocese of Brooklyn.

Missing was Imam Husham Al-Husainy, leader of the Karbalaa Islamic Education Center in Dearborn, Mich., who expressed support for Trump during the campaign before the president went on to win an unexpected victory in Dearborn.

Al-Husainy originally was announced as one of the faith leaders who would be part of the benediction but was not introduced during the proceedings. The reason for his absence was not immediately clear, and Al-Husainy could not be reached for comment.

In his prayer, Berman referenced the prophet Jeremiah, recalling his blessing for Jerusalem: “Blessed is the one who trusts in God.”

“America is called to greatness, to be a beacon of light and a mover of history,” he said. “May our nation merit the fulfillment of Jeremiah’s blessing, that like a tree planted by water, we shall not cease to bear fruit.”

He was followed by Sewell, who thanked God for calling Trump “for such a time as this, that America would begin to dream again,” before he began to recite pieces of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, a nod to Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which coincided with Trump’s inauguration.

Finally, Mann asked God to “inspire our new leaders to be champions for the vulnerable and advocates for those whose voices are often silenced.”

Mann closed out his prayer with a quote from Trump, referencing a line the president used on the campaign trail: “Americans kneel to God and to God alone.”

Trump and the faith leaders spoke while flanked by Vice President JD Vance, members of the Trump family and a group of tech CEOs: Elon Musk, head of SpaceX and the X social media platform; Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, which owns Facebook; Tim Cook, CEO of Apple; Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon; and Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google.

Seated behind them were Trump’s various cabinet nominees, such as Fox News host Pete Hegseth, an evangelical Christian and the president’s pick to run the Department of Defense.

All living former presidents were in attendance, along with the former first ladies, with the exception of Michelle Obama, who in her 2024 Democratic National Convention speech sought to juxtapose Trump against values she held dear, such as “do unto others” and “love thy neighbor.”

Began day at ‘church of the presidents’

Earlier that morning, Trump, who won a second term in November over former Vice President Kamala Harris after being defeated by former President Joe Biden in 2020, began his day with a service at St. John’s Church, Lafayette Square.

The Episcopal church, which sits near the White House and sometimes is referred to as the “church of the presidents,” traditionally hosts a service on Inauguration Day for incoming presidents, as it did for Trump on the morning of his first inauguration in 2017.

After being greeted by Robert Fisher, the church’s rector, Trump—who was raised Presbyterian but began identifying as a nondenominational Christian in 2020—took his seat in the front pew.

The service included participants associated with Trump and Vance, such as Pastor Jack Graham of Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, who has long supported Trump. Graham read Proverbs 3:5-8, 13-18.

In addition, Henry Stephan from the University of Notre Dame—a Dominican priest whom Vance credits with helping him convert to Catholicism—read 1 Peter 4:10-11, and Alveda C. King, founder of Alveda King Ministries, read Galatians 3:25-29.

The service also included a brief benediction from Fisher, in which he called on God to guide Trump and Vance before invoking Micah 6:8.

“May they, and we all, heed the words of Micah who proclaimed that, ‘What the Lord asks of us is to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God,’” Fisher said, according to an email exchange with Religion News Service.

Fisher also noted in the email that he had final say over which prayers and Scripture readings were selected for the service, and his goal was to choose things that were “unifying, elevating, and nonpartisan.”

Hymns and songs sung at the gathering included “O God, Our Help in Ages Past,” “This Little Light of Mine,” “My Country, ’Tis of Thee” and “America the Beautiful.”

During the service, Trump sat next to his wife, as well as Vance and second lady Usha Vance, who was raised Hindu.

Members of the extended Trump family sat nearby, prominent podcaster Joe Rogan was seen across the aisle, and Sen. Marco Rubio, Trump’s nominee for Secretary of State, sat behind the first family.

In addition, a trio of tech titans who voiced various levels of support for Trump after his victory in November—Zuckerberg, Cook and Bezos—were spotted sitting alongside each other in the pews. Pichai sat behind them.

Musk was not spotted in photographs of the service, despite attending the inauguration later. Musk, an enthusiastic supporter of Trump who spoke at his victory rally in Washington on Sunday night, was raised Anglican and now identifies as a “cultural Christian.”

Unlike 2017, when Dallas pastor Robert Jeffress preached a sermon during the service voicing support for a border wall, this year the church chose to nix a homily altogether. Fisher said in a message to church members, this change was an attempt to return the service to its “original, simpler nature.”

After the service, Trump joined Biden at the White House for tea—a traditional ritual in the transfer of power that did not occur in 2021, after supporters of Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.

Trump was scheduled to attend another interfaith prayer Jan. 21 at the Washington National Cathedral, featuring a sermon from Mariann Budde, the Episcopal bishop of Washington, who has been critical of Trump in the past.

Inauguration coincided with MLK Day

Trump’s inauguration coincided with MLK Day, a federal holiday. Some of Trump’s longtime religious critics used the moment as an opportunity to both celebrate King’s legacy and voice pushback to Trump.

In Atlanta, at Ebenezer Baptist Church, where King once preached, Pastor William Barber II, an activist who preached at Biden’s inaugural prayer service, described a “schizophrenic America” that waffles between different ideals.

“In this moment we must remember whose we are and who we are,” Barber said. “We are not of those who shrink back into destruction.”

Referencing the inauguration, Barber rejected claims by Trump and his allies that the president won a “mandate” in the November election. “You never win a mandate to violate justice. You never win a mandate to hurt people with your power,” Barber said.

He added: “We come today to remember Dr. King but more so to commit ourselves to the spirit, to the commitment … that every day we’ve got life in our bodies, to tell America who she is supposed to be.”

WASHINGTON (BP)—Laws in 20 states aimed at shielding minors from online pornography are under fire as the U.S. Supreme Court hears a legal challenge Jan. 15, with the Texas Baptists’ Christian Life Commission joining the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission among many interceding for the Texas law at the center of the case.

At issue in the case, Free Speech Coalition, Inc. v. Paxton, is Texas House Bill 1181, one of a string of 20 such laws passed since Louisiana began the charge in 2022 to require websites containing at least 33 percent pornographic materials to verify that a user is at least 18 years old.

The Free Speech Coalition, an adult entertainment industry trade association, is challenging the laws and has a hearing before the High Court, arguing the regulations endanger free speech and privacy rights of site users. The Texas case is appealed from the U.S. Fifth Circuit, which upheld for Texas.

The public policy organizations’ brief said the U.S. Constitution does not prohibit states from regulating materials that are obscene to minors and presented historical evidence dating to the 17th century.

“The Fifth Circuit’s decision aligns with the history of State regulation of obscenity and this Court’s tradition of respecting the broad police powers enjoyed by the States to protect minors from obscene entertainment,” the brief stated.

“While Texas might have done more, it legislated only as much as was necessary to protect children from exposure to harmful, obscene sexual materials. H.B. 1181 accords with the history of State regulation of material that is obscene for minors, and so it is plainly constitutional.”

Tennessee’s law, originally scheduled to take effect Jan. 1, was allowed to take effect late in the day on Jan. 13 when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit stayed an injunction the Free Speech Coalition had secured in December to block the law’s implementation. In Georgia, a law passed in 2024 is set to take effect in July.

In response, the most-visited adult website Pornhub has blocked access to its site in most of the states where age verification laws have been passed, leaving access available in Georgia, Louisiana and Tennessee, CNN reported.

Much support for Texas law

Nearly 60 lawmakers from 15 of the states where laws are in effect jointly filed an amici brief in support of the Texas law—and by extension their own.

“In sum, speech regulations are scrutinized more leniently, and First Amendment protections are at their weakest when children are at risk; where no criminal prosecution or total ban or prior restraint or viewpoint discrimination is present; where the law regulates conduct; and where the content is sexually graphic and is broadly disseminated in a manner that may expose children,” reads the brief submitted by lawmakers. “H.B. 1181 is just such a law. Its sole purpose is to restrict children’s access to sexually graphic material.”

Legislators signing the brief, filed Nov. 15, 2024, represented Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North and South Carolina, Tennessee and Utah. In addition to the aforenamed states and Texas, similar laws are in effect in Virginia, South Dakota and Oklahoma.

“As articulated in their statement of faith, Southern Baptists believe that God gave all of humanity free choice when it comes to questions of morality,” the ERLC wrote. “But minors often lack the developmental capacity or moral maturity to know how to exercise that free choice responsibly.

“Thus, Southern Baptists believe it is important to structure society and society’s rules to maximize the ability to educate and train minors on their social and moral responsibilities.

“And while it is primarily the role of families to provide this education and training, the States certainly have an important role to play in this process—most significantly by protecting the ability of families to perform their role.”

Scholars from the Wheatley Institute at Brigham Young University and the Institute for Family Studies—affiliated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints—recently analyzed research studies of pornography use conducted over the last 20 years, documenting “trends in pornography use among children and teens and to identify how its use may be harmful to their development in significant ways,” a press release explained.

The researchers used their findings to submit an additional amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in Free Speech Coalition, Inc. v. Paxton.

The report, released Jan. 14, concludes that “not only is pornography linked to development risk for minors, but it is actually more dangerous for young people than acknowledged in some research studies,” the press release reads.

Laura Schlegel, a Republican Louisiana representative who authored the first successful online age verification law in the nation, is also a licensed professional counselor and certified sex addiction therapist. Exposure to porn harms children and adolescents, she said in her brief.

Girls who view pornography are more likely to see themselves as objects of male pleasure, struggle with self-esteem issues, have higher rates of self-harm and suffer more vulnerability to sexual exploitation. Boys develop unrealistic and harmful attitudes toward sex and relationships that lead to increased aggression and difficulties in forming genuine intimate connections, Schlegel said.

Anxiety, depression and engagement in risky sexual behavior are pronounced.

“Protecting minors from obscene content isn’t just a compelling interest legally,” Schlegel noted. “It is a compelling, bipartisan issue at every kitchen table in this country.”

With additional reporting by Calli Keener.

WASHINGTON (RNS)—Speaker Mike Johnson celebrated the House passage of a bill banning transgender students from girls’ sports on Jan. 14 by linking opposition to transgender rights with a passage from the biblical book of Genesis.

Johnson made the comments shortly after the House passed the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act in a 218-206 vote, with all House Republicans and two Texas Democrats—Reps. Vicente Gonzalez and Henry Cuellar—voting in favor of the bill.

The legislation bars transgender athletes from competing in girls’ and women’s sports from elementary school through college.

Johnson points to Genesis

“We know from Scripture and from nature that men are men and women are women, and men cannot become women,” Johnson said in a news conference immediately after the vote.

He spoke while flanked by Rep. Greg Steube, who introduced the bill, as well as Riley Gaines, a former college athlete who is known for advocating against transgender women in sports.

Gaines has credited a Christian “spiritual awakening” with informing her activism and likened her work to fighting a “spiritual battle.”

Johnson said he was referring to a passage in Genesis, and when asked by RNS how he responded to different interpretations of that passage by Christians, including traditions that ordain openly transgender people, he said the Bible was “pretty clear.”

“Well, it goes back to the first book—Genesis. Male and female, he made them,” Johnson said. “I’m not sure there’s another interpretation, but everybody’s open to interpreting Scripture however they will.”

Johnson then argued that the bill “comports with common sense as well.”

“We know it from our religious tradition, which I believe is the truth. I’m a Bible-believing Christian and make no apology about that,” he said. “But whether you regard that as truth or not, it’s also nature. It’s biology, and biology is not bigotry, as we say.”

Johnson, a Southern Baptist, voiced the same scriptural claim in November during debate over whether to bar people from using bathrooms that do not correspond with their sex assigned at birth.

The debate was tied to then-incoming Rep. Sarah McBride of Delaware, a Democrat and a Presbyterian, who became the first openly transgender member of Congress when she was sworn in earlier this month.

‘About bullying children’

Johnson, who ultimately did institute the ban, quickly garnered pushback from religious leaders such as Bishop Gene Robinson, the first openly gay Episcopal bishop. Robinson preached a sermon in defense of McBride at the Washington National Cathedral in November and derided Johnson’s interpretation of Scripture as “absurd” in an interview with RNS.

On Jan. 14, shortly before the vote, Democrats spoke out against the bill, including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, who is Catholic, and Greg Landsman of Ohio, who is Jewish.

Ocasio-Cortez condemned Republicans for what she said amounted to pretending to “care about women,” and Landsman, a Harvard Divinity School graduate, likened it to bullying.

“This bill is about bullying children,” Landsman said.

The bill, which advocates said President-elect Donald Trump is willing to sign after he is inaugurated next week, now moves to the Republican-controlled Senate.

The Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty and several other religious groups filed a brief Jan. 6 challenging a Louisiana law that mandates displaying the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms.

“When the government mandates the posting of a preferred version of a religious text to hang on each classroom wall, it is acting beyond its authority,” said BJC General Counsel Holly Hollman.

In contrast, Kelly Shackelford, president and chief counsel for First Liberty, defended the Louisiana Ten Commandments mandate.

 “Placing this historic document on schoolhouse walls is a great way to remind students of the foundations of American and Louisiana law, and it fits perfectly in the history and tradition of America,” he said.

Requires posting in every public school classroom

HB 71, signed into law by Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, requires every elementary, secondary and post-secondary public school in the state to display an approved version of the Ten Commandments in every classroom.

Roake v. Brumley, a lawsuit brought by nine Louisiana families with children in public schools, asserts HB 71 violates both the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.

The families are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Louisiana, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and the Freedom from Religion Foundation.

In mid-November, a federal district court issued a preliminary injunction prohibiting the implementation of the law.

However, Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill asserted the decision applied only to five districts named in the suit and instructed other districts to implement the mandate.

The matter now is before the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which is scheduled to hear the case in New Orleans on Jan. 23.

The law has ramifications beyond Louisiana. After HB 71 was signed into law last summer, Texas Gov. Dan Patrick pledged to pass a similar bill in the Texas Legislature in 2025.

Joining the BJC in its brief opposing the Louisiana law are the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the General Synod of the United Church of Christ, along with Jihyun Oh, stated clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A., and Sean W. Row, presiding bishop and primate of the Episcopal Church.

Violation of the First Amendment

In their brief, the BJC and others express their belief “the Ten Commandments represent the original law handed down by God to Moses, with explicitly religious instructions,” such as worshipping God alone and observing the Sabbath.

“HB 71’s posting requirement ensures that these religious instructions will be conveyed continuously, without exception, to every student in Louisiana’s public schools through their formative years,” violating the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, the brief states.

The brief also asserts “HB 71 grants preferential treatment to a single version of the Ten Commandments,” noting at least four distinct versions and ordering of the commandments—Jewish, Catholic, Lutheran and general Protestant.

“No single religion owns the Ten Commandments, nor can any single denomination claim authority over their proper translation or interpretation,” the brief states. “There are multiple versions of the Commandments, and theological debate continues among (and even within) different denominations about the correct translation and interpretation of the Commandments.

“Through HB 71, the Louisiana legislature declares a victor in this debate by selecting a ‘correct’ version to be imposed on every child in the Louisiana public school system, regardless of their religious beliefs.”

‘State-sponsored religious indoctrination’

Furthermore, the brief asserts a mandate requiring public schools to post the Ten Commandments creates “unavoidable state-sponsored religious indoctrination,” and it “imposes religious instructions on captive audiences” in classrooms.

“For Amici and other Christians, the Bible is holy and authoritative. Reference to its teachings provide direction for believers in daily life,” the brief states.

“Religious communities meet regularly to interpret and understand those religious teachings. It is not the province of the state to supplant that education.”

A separate amicus brief opposing the Louisiana Ten Commandments mandate was filed by the National Council of Jewish Women and 19 other groups representing Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs.

Their brief asserts the law privileges the Protestant interpretation of the Ten Commandments at the expense of other faiths. The brief also argues the law pressures students to venerate a text that may be distinctly different from what is taught in their religious communities.

WASHINGTON (RNS)—A prestigious group of mourners, including a slate of current, former and future presidents and vice presidents, assembled in the Washington National Cathedral on Jan. 9 for the state funeral of President Jimmy Carter.

They celebrated the life and legacy of the peanut farmer-turned-politician from Plains, Ga.

Carter’s casket, which had been lying in state at the U.S. Capitol since Tuesday evening, was welcomed at the door of the snow-covered cathedral by Episcopal prelates including Mariann Budde, the Episcopal bishop of Washington.

“Let us also pray for all who mourn that they may cast their care on God and know the consolation of his love,” Budde prayed from the Book of Common Prayer, her robes billowing in a frigid wind.

‘Most enduring attribute: Character’

A short time later, President Joe Biden offered his eulogy for Carter. The president noted when Carter ran for national office in 1976, then-Sen. Biden was among the first to endorse his candidacy. Biden said he was drawn to what he called Carter’s “most enduring attribute: character, character, character.”

Biden, like many who spoke at the state funeral, highlighted the importance of Carter’s faith, saying it overlapped with broadly held American ideals, including that “we all are created equal in the image of God.”

“Jimmy held a deep Christian faith in God … faith as a substance of things hoped for and evidence of the things not seen,” Biden said. “Faith founded on commandments of Scripture: Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and all thy mind and all thy soul, and love thy neighbor as thyself. Easy to say, very, very difficult to do.”

The spoken tributes to Carter, which included eulogies written by Carter’s predecessor and his vice president and delivered posthumously on their behalf, were interspersed with music.

In a testament to Carter’s long life and broad spectrum of allies, both the living and the dead shared reflections on a legacy of leadership, which one eulogist referred to as “a miracle.”

Besides “Amazing Grace” and the U.S. Navy hymn “Eternal Father, Strong to Save”—Carter was a U.S. Naval Academy graduate—the crowd heard a rendition of John Lennon’s “Imagine” by Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood.

Looking on somberly from the front pews were Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and recently reelected Donald Trump.

Several of their spouses, including Melania Trump and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, were also in attendance, as was former Vice President Mike Pence, who served under Trump, and current Vice President Kamala Harris, who lost her own presidential bid in November.

Seated nearby were foreign dignitaries, such as Prince Edward, Duke of Edinburgh, the brother of King Charles III, and Justin Trudeau, outgoing prime minister of Canada.

Joshua Carter, Jimmy Carter’s grandson, first addressed the gathering from the pulpit, recounting the late president’s history of teaching Sunday school—a tradition, he said, that began when Carter served in the Navy before his classes became a fixture of his time at Maranatha Church in Plains, a Cooperative Baptist Fellowship church where thousands have come to hear his weekly lessons. A longtime Southern Baptist, Carter disavowed the convention in 2000.

Carter outlived two who left tributes behind

Carter, who died at age 100 as the longest-lived U.S. president, had outlived many of his contemporaries. As a result, sections of the program were delivered by their descendants.

Steven Ford, President Gerald Ford’s son, read a tribute his late father wrote about Carter, detailing the warm friendship the two forged over the years despite being rivals in the 1976 election.

“God did a good thing when he made your dad,” Ford said to Carter’s children sitting in the front of the cathedral.

Ford explained that his father and Carter jokingly agreed to deliver eulogies at each other’s funerals, a promise Carter made good on when Ford died in 2006. Steven Ford said it had been left to him to return the favor.

“As for myself, Jimmy: I’m looking forward to our reunion,” he said, reading his late father’s words. “We have much to catch up on. Thank you, Mr. President. Welcome home, old friend.”

Ford was followed by Ted Mondale, a former Minnesota state senator and son of Walter Mondale, Carter’s vice president.

Reading a tribute written by his father, who died in 2021, the younger Mondale said: “I was also a small-town kid who grew up in a Methodist church where my dad was a preacher, and our faith was core to me, as Carter’s faith was core to him. That common commitment to our faith created a bond between us that allowed us to understand each other and find ways to work together.”

‘Brought integrity to the presidency’

Stuart Eizenstat, a former White House adviser, also addressed the power of Carter’s strongly held religious beliefs, saying they “brought integrity to the presidency” in the wake of the Watergate scandal and discord over the Vietnam War.

Eizenstat said Carter’s faith also “respected other religions,” noting he was the first president to light a Hanukkah menorah and hosted a Shabbat dinner at Camp David for the Israeli delegation while negotiating the historic Camp David Accords.

Carter’s religious values, Eizenstat said, “gave him an unshakable sense of right and wrong, animating his support for civil rights at home and human rights abroad.”

He added, grinning: “Jimmy Carter has earned his place in heaven, but just as he was free with sometimes unsolicited advice for his presidential successors, the Lord of all creation should be ready for Jimmy’s recommendations on how to make God’s realm a more peaceful place.”

Guided by love for neighbors

Jason Carter, another of Carter’s grandchildren and a one-time Georgia gubernatorial candidate, also spoke. Noting Carter and his wife Rosalynn spent more of their lives outside the halls of power than in them, he reflected on his grandfather’s dedication to the biblical edict to “love your neighbor as yourself,” and how it informed his work with the Carter Center, which observes democratic elections around the world and has helped eradicate disease.

“I believe that love is what taught him and told him to preach the power of human rights, not just for some people, but for all people,” he said.

“It focused him on the power and the promise of democracy, its love for freedom, its requirement and founding belief in the wisdom of regular people raising their voices, and the requirement that you respect all of those voices, not just some.”

He also recalled Carter’s efforts to broker peace between Israelis and Palestinians that resulted in the Camp David Accords, and his more controversial advocacy for the Palestinian people.

“His heart broke for the people of Israel,” he said. “It broke for the people of Palestine, and he spent his life trying to bring peace to that Holy Land.”

‘Something of a miracle’

Andrew Young, a pastor, aide to Martin Luther King Jr. and congressman before serving as U.S. ambassador to the U.N. under Carter, was the last to offer thoughts on Carter’s life.

Referring to Carter as “something of a miracle,” he related that when Carter enrolled at the Naval Academy, the future president requested his roommate be the Black midshipman at the school.

“But that was the sensitivity, the spirituality that made James Earl Carter a truly great president,” said Young, who also previously served as head of the National Council of Churches. “James Earl Carter was truly a child of God.”

“Jimmy Carter was a blessing that helped to create a great United States of America,” he said, adding, “He may be gone, but he ain’t gone far.”

‘Did justly, loved mercy, walked humbly’

As the event concluded, Carter’s casket was slowly removed from the cathedral by members of the military, ending a multiday string of events and services in Washington, D.C., meant to honor the late president. The casket will return to Georgia for a final, private funeral at Maranatha Baptist before he is buried alongside his wife at their home.

In his eulogy, Biden blessed Carter’s final southern journey, pairing one of Carter’s favorite Bible passages—Micah 6:8—with one of the current president’s favorite hymns: “On Eagle’s Wings.”

“As he returned to Plains, Georgia, for his final resting place, you can say goodbye in the words of the Prophet Micah, who Jimmy so admired until his final breath: Jimmy Carter did justly, loved mercy, walked humbly,” Biden said.

“May God bless a great American, a dear friend and a good man. May he be raised up on eagle’s wings, bear you on the breath of dawn, make you to shine like the sun, and hold you in the palm of his hand.”

WASHINGTON (RNS)—Scores of lawmakers and other dignitaries huddled together in the U.S. Capitol rotunda Jan. 7 for a memorial service honoring former President Jimmy Carter.

Carter’s casket, draped in an American flag, arrived at the Capitol via horse-drawn caisson late Tuesday afternoon, completing its long journey northward from Carter’s home in Plains, Ga.

After service members outside offered a 21-gun salute that could be heard echoing across the rotunda’s cavernous walls, Carter’s remains slowly were walked into the building.

‘He made the world more palatable’

Once the casket was placed in the center of the room and members of Carter’s family took their seats, U.S. Senate Chaplain Barry Black offered an invocation.

“We proclaim your generosity to this nation and world for giving us the gift of someone with the ethical congruence to be salt and light to his generation,” Black prayed. “Lord, he made the world more palatable.”

A room packed with Washington’s most powerful looked on as he spoke, the bipartisan delegation a rare expression of unity in a historically polarized time. Senators Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock of Georgia were positioned closest to the casket, both nodding somberly throughout the service.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California, leaning on a walker she has used since undergoing hip surgery last month, stood amid a gaggle of House members that also included Republican Rep. Jim Jordan, who lingered near the back.

Across the room, Supreme Court Justices Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh and John Roberts stood behind members of President Joe Biden’s administration and a row of eulogists designated for the occasion: Senate Majority Leader John Thune, House Speaker Mike Johnson and Vice President Kamala Harris.

‘Not to be served but to serve’

Thune, like all speakers at the service, made a point to mention Carter’s faith, recounting a story about when the former president went on a mission trip in Massachusetts as a young man. Carter, Thune said, asked a fellow missionary about his secret to success, to which the man replied, “I try to have two loves in my heart: one love is for God, and the other love I have in my heart is for the person who happens to be in front of me at any particular time.”

Thune said Carter never forgot the advice, but added, “I think it’s fair to say that it’s also a statement he lived by,” citing Carter’s work with Habitat for Humanity after his presidency.

“The Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and Jimmy Carter did his very best to live according to the calling of his Lord and Savior,” Thune said.

Thune noted the mission trip was conducted by the Southern Baptist Convention, a denomination Carter belonged to for most of his life until 2000, when he disavowed the group after getting frustrated with its opposition to women’s ordination and its stance on women’s roles in general.

Carter and his wife Rosalynn were longtime members of Maranatha Baptist Church, a Cooperative Baptist Fellowship congregation in Georgia, where he taught Sunday school until late in his life.

In his eulogy, Johnson recalled Carter’s service in the U.S. Navy, noting a nuclear submarine, the USS Jimmy Carter, still bears his name. Johnson also highlighted Carter’s work to eradicate diseases in places such as Africa.

“In the face of illness, President Jimmy Carter brought lifesaving medicine. In the face of conflict, he brokered peace. In the face of discrimination, he reminded us that we are all made in the image of God,” Johnson said. “And if you were to ask him why he did it all, he would likely point to his faith.”

Johnson added: “I’m reminded of his admonition to live our lives as though Christ were coming this afternoon, and of his amazing personal reflection: ‘If I have one life and one chance, to make it count for something.’ We all agree that he certainly did.”

‘Left the world better than he found it’

Harris closed out the speaking section of the program. The vice president, who recently lost her presidential bid to President-elect Donald Trump, did not mention her bittersweet connection to Carter: He reportedly aspired to live long enough to cast a ballot for Harris, a goal he achieved in November before dying last month at age 100.

Harris opened her eulogy by referencing what she said was her favorite hymn, “May the Works I Have Done Speak for Me.” After pointing out that Carter grew up in a home without electricity and praising his various efforts after his single term in the White House, she focused her remaining remarks on Carter’s time as president.

Harris lauded his appointment of a record-breaking number of Black Americans to the federal bench, his energy policy and legacy of environmental protections, as well as his stewardship of the Camp David Accords, which Harris called “the most significant and enduring peace treaty since World War II.”

“He lived his faith, he served his people, and left the world better than he found it,” she said.

As she finished, the Glee Club of the U.S. Naval Academy—Carter’s alma mater—launched into an a cappella rendition of “My Country ’Tis of Thee,” their voices reverberating around the round room.

The eulogists—along with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Doug Emhoff, the vice president’s husband—then laid a series of wreaths around the casket before the Glee Club sang “Eternal Father, Strong to Save,” a hymn long associated with naval service.

U.S. House Chaplain Margaret Kibben, herself a retired rear admiral and former chief chaplain of the U.S. Navy, offered the closing benediction. She referred to Carter as a “good and faithful servant,” a phrase from Matthew 25.

As Kibben closed, she weaved in Micah 6:8, a Bible verse Carter cited in his own inaugural address 48 years ago, when he stood just outside the same Capitol and took his oath of office.

“Ignite in us the same passion for public service, the courage to champion the underserved, the strength to bear as faithfully the weight of the call to which you have called each one of us: to do as justly, to love mercy as unreservedly, to walk as humbly with you as we have witnessed in the testimony of President Jimmy Carter’s life of faithfulness,” she prayed.

Members of Carter’s family then rose and began paying respects to the late president, circling his casket, which will remain in the rotunda until it is moved to the Washington National Cathedral for yet another service on Jan. 9. Several of the family members wiped away tears as they passed.

A number of lawmakers also appeared emotional at the loss of Carter, each a window into the multifaceted aspects of his legacy. Some placed a hand over their heart, while others, such as Justices Roberts and Kavanaugh, crossed themselves, as did Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib, one of the few Muslim Americans in Congress and the only Palestinian American, grew visibly moved as she passed the casket, pausing for a moment to lower her hands and offer what appeared to be a private prayer.

She wore a Palestinian kaffiyeh, which the Democrat wrote in a later Instagram post was meant “to show my gratitude for his courageous stance in speaking out against apartheid and standing up for peace”—a reference to Carter’s advocacy for better treatment of Palestinians.

As the dignitaries began to file out and the crowd began to thin, the band struck up yet another tune, this time sparking a smattering of small grins among the otherwise somber crowd as they played “Georgia on My Mind.”

WASHINGTON (RNS)—On officially accepting his post, newly reelected House Speaker Mike Johnson recited a prayer he attributed to Thomas Jefferson, saying the third president prayed it every day.

Johnson had hardly finished his speech when the debunking began.

Journalists and others quickly noted the website of Monticello—Jefferson’s historic home in Virginia, currently operating under the Thomas Jefferson Foundation—had a dedicated page declaring the “National Prayer of Peace” is not, according to researchers, something Jefferson is known ever to have recited publicly or privately.

“We have no evidence that this prayer was written or delivered by Thomas Jefferson,” the website reads. “It appears in the 1928 United States Book of Common Prayer, and was first suggested for inclusion in a report published in 1919.” The site classifies the attribution among “spurious quotations” linked to Jefferson.

How the prayer became associated with Jefferson, a deist who famously edited Gospel accounts of miracles out of his own Bible with a blade, turns out to be a yarn unto itself.

Democratic Rep. Jared Huffman of California, a co-founder of the Congressional Freethought Caucus—a group dedicated to, among other things, the separation of church and state—published a post on X shortly after Johnson’s speech accusing the speaker of “mak(ing) stuff up.”

“The prayer that you read in the House Chamber today was not written by Thomas Jefferson and your claim that he recited it ‘every day’ is false,” Huffman wrote.

In a Jan. 7 interview with RNS, Huffman said other members of Congress have privately voiced frustration to him about the misattribution of the prayer, and at least one personally thanked him for speaking out.

“It created a stir,” Huffman said, referring to the prayer.

Johnson, who said he had offered the prayer earlier in the day at a bipartisan interfaith service, referred to the bulletin of the gathering when making the claim Jefferson read the prayer every day.

“I offered one that is quite familiar to historians and probably many of us,” Johnson said during his speech.

His office did not respond to multiple requests for comment on this story.

History of misattribution

Seth Cotlar, a professor of American history at Willamette University, writing on the social media website Bluesky, related what he called the “wild” history of the prayer, which repeatedly has been misattributed to Jefferson, including in one instance by a person who would at one point serve as head of the Jefferson Foundation—the same group that ultimately debunked the attribution.

But by the mid-20th century, the misattribution was common in some conservative circles and, Cotlar said, published as Jefferson’s in white nationalist publications.

“Political memes always have lives that work like a long game of historical telephone,” Cotlar wrote.

Speaking to RNS, Huffman said the prayer was an example of false quotes “curated by Christian nationalists, one of many intended to rewrite history and support their political agenda of institutionalizing Christianity as the official religion and the dominant political force of the United States.”

The prayer, he said, is part of “a series of relentless attacks on church-state separation and, quite honestly, truth.”

Jefferson insisted on separation of church and state

U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., co-founder of the Freethought Caucus, told RNS he did not believe Johnson “knowingly” misattributed the quote, but Raskin argued it was nonetheless a product of a larger “effort on the right wing” to attach modern conservative religious beliefs to the Founding Fathers.

“Our colleagues are constantly trying to enlist Thomas Jefferson to the party of theocracy,” said Raskin, who taught constitutional law before coming to Congress.

“He, of course, was a champion of the Enlightenment who insisted upon the separation of church and state,” Raskin added, noting the phrase “separation of church and state” originated in a letter Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptists in 1802.

Jefferson and his protege James Madison “took the position that the merger of church and state corrupts and degrades religion and prostitutes government—and distorts its operation,” Raskin said.

While Johnson appears to have selected the prayer on his own, at least one of his claims about the orison may have had a more immediate source.

In an email, Margaret Kibben, the House chaplain and a Presbyterian Church (USA) minister, told RNS she takes “responsibility” for the description of the prayer that appeared in the service bulletin (the prayer itself did not appear in the bulletin), which described Jefferson reciting it daily.

However, while she acknowledged there was a “question about provenance” regarding the prayer, she contended the wording in the bulletin—which begins “it is said”—leaves “room for both doubt and fact.”

Kibben, a retired U.S. Navy rear admiral, had just begun work as House chaplain days before the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol spurred by erroneous allegations of fraud surrounding the 2020 presidential election, and she offered pastoral care to lawmakers as they rushed to secure locations to escape rioters ransacking the building. That same day, Johnson was among the 147 members of Congress who objected to the 2020 election results.

Kibben has also garnered headlines for offering prayers critical of lawmakers, such as when, in 2021, she asked God to “forgive” for failing to unite around pandemic relief legislation.

Even so, Johnson and Kibben appear to have ultimately developed a cordial working relationship, as the chaplain has with members of Congress on both sides of the aisle. Johnson was spotted chatting with Kibben shortly before the vote to reelect him as speaker, and the two could be seen on live broadcast speaking again just before Johnson approached the podium to deliver his victory speech.

WASHINGTON (RNS)—A new Pew Research Center report on the religious composition of the 119th session of Congress reveals the majority of its members identify as Christian and 75 are Baptist.

The “Faith on the Hill” report draws on data gathered by CQ Roll Call, a publication that compiles congressional data and provides legislative tracking. For every new session, the website sends questionnaires to new members and follows up with reelected members on their religious affiliation.

“Christians will make up 87 percent of voting members in the Senate and House of Representatives, combined, in the 2025-27 congressional session,” reads the report.

Though the share of Christian members of Congress slightly decreased since the last session, 88 percent, and from a decade ago, 92 percent, the House and Senate are still significantly more Christian than the American public, which has dropped below two-thirds Christian (62 percent).

Less than 1 percent of Congress members identify as religiously unaffiliated, also called “nones,” though they account for 28 percent of the American population. Three Congress members reported being religiously unaffiliated, two more than in the previous session.

The new session includes 71 non-Christian members—six more than the 118th Congress—including 32 Jews, four Muslims, four Hindus, three Unitarian Universalists, three Buddhists, three unaffiliated and one humanist. All but five of the non-Christian members are Democrats.

More Baptists than any other denomination

The new Congress will have a total of 461 Christian members, including 295 members who identify as Protestant.

As in previous sessions, Baptists are the most represented denomination, with 75 Baptist members, eight more than in the last session. The report doesn’t specify which Baptist group members affiliate with.

The other most represented Protestant denominations are Methodists and Presbyterians, with 26 members each; Episcopalians, with 22 members; and Lutherans, with 19 members.

These four denominations have had dwindling memberships in recent decades and have also seen their share shrink in Congress. The report’s first edition, published in 2011 for the 112th Congress, counted 51 Methodists, 45 Presbyterians, 41 Episcopalians and 26 Lutherans.

The share of Baptists is slightly higher in the House, 15 percent, than in the Senate, 12 percent. Catholics, too, will be more present in the House than in the Senate, respectively 29 percent and 24 percent; whereas, there is a higher percentage of Presbyterians, Episcopalians and Lutherans in the Senate than the House.

Among the 295 Protestant members, 101 didn’t specify which denomination they affiliated with. The report noted that many gave “broad or vague answers” like “Protestant” or “evangelical Protestant.”

Over the last decade, more members of Congress have given similar answers. In 2015, when the 114th session of Congress started, only 58 members reported being “just Christian” without specifying a denomination.

Of the 218 Republican representatives and senators, 98 percent identified as Christians. Only five Republican members are not Christians—three are Jewish, one is religiously unaffiliated and one person responded “refused/don’t know.”

While congressional Christians on either side of the aisle are more likely to be Protestant than Catholic, Democrats have a higher percentage of Catholics (32 percent) than Republicans have (25 percent).

Congressional Democrats are significantly more religiously diverse than Republicans. Though three-quarters are Christian, there are also 29 Jews, three Buddhists, four Muslims, four Hindus, three Unitarian Universalists, one humanist and two unaffiliated. Twenty congressional Democrats responded “refused/don’t know.”

The 119th session includes 150 Catholics and six Orthodox Christians. It also includes nine members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and one Republican member who identifies as a Messianic Jew.

The religious affiliation of 21 members remains unknown, as they either declined to disclose it or couldn’t be reached.

The analysis didn’t take into consideration Ohio Senator JD Vance, who will become vice president on Jan. 20, Representative Matt Gaetz, who resigned amid sexual misconduct allegations, and Representative Michael Waltz, who announced he would resign on Jan. 20 to serve in the Trump administration as a national security adviser. They all reported being Christians.

WASHINGTON (RNS)—Prior to Christmas, President Joe Biden commuted the sentences of all but three people on federal death row, converting their sentences to life in prison.

It represented a victory for religious advocates who have pressured the president to make the move during his final days in office—even as they call on him to “finish the job” by commuting the remaining three.

Biden, who campaigned on the promise of abolishing the federal death penalty, announced the move Dec 23. He framed the action partially as a response to remarks by President-elect Donald Trump, who has pledged to restart executions upon assuming office.

“Guided by my conscience and my experience as a public defender, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, vice president and now president, I am more convinced than ever that we must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level,” Biden stated. “In good conscience, I cannot stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I halted.”

The news comes 10 days after Biden announced he would commute the sentences of roughly 1,500 people who were released from prison and placed on home confinement during the pandemic, as well as pardoning 39 people convicted of nonviolent crimes—the largest single-day act of clemency in modern history.

The White House explained Biden believes “America must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level, except in cases of terrorism and hate-motivated mass murder—which is why today’s actions apply to all but those cases.”

Praised as an ‘act of mercy’

Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, celebrated the move as an “act of mercy” that brings the country “a step closer to building a culture of life.” He also called on lawmakers to eliminate the death penalty entirely.

“My brother bishops and I unite in expressing our gratitude that President Biden has commuted the federal death sentences of 37 men,” Broglio stated. “The bishops’ conference has long called for an end to the use of the death penalty. This action by the president is a significant step in advancing the cause of human dignity in our nation.”

Similarly, Gabe Salguero, head of the National Latino Evangelical Coalition, noted while he and other Latino evangelicals “grieve for the victims and unequivocally condemn these murders,” he nonetheless welcomed the news.

“Today’s Advent season decision by President Biden to commute the death sentences of 37 federal inmates is a reminder that as a nation we must still grapple with the inequities that plague this system,” Salguero said, noting NALEC became the first national evangelical group to call for an end to the death penalty in 2015.

The Catholic Mobilizing Network also celebrated the decision as “unparalleled.”

“Today’s historic decision by President Biden advances the cause of human dignity and underscores the sacred value of every human life,” read a statement from the group. “Praise God!”

’37 is good, but 40 is better’

But some of the advocates, including Shane Claiborne, a Christian activist who has spent years protesting the death penalty, noted that while the announcement allows 37 people facing capital punishment to instead serve life in prison, three men will remain on death row.

They are Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, convicted in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing; Robert Bowers, convicted in the 2018 Tree of Life Synagogue attack in Pittsburgh, Penn.; and Dylann Roof, who killed nine Black worshippers in 2015 at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C.

“The death penalty does not heal the wounds of violence, it just creates new wounds,” Claiborne said in a text message to Religion News Service. “We can honor the victims of violence without killing more people. It’s time to stop killing to try to show that killing is wrong.”

He added: “37 is good but 40 is better. No one—not even Dylann Roof—is beyond redemption.”

Claiborne was echoed by fellow advocate Sharon Risher, whose cousins and mother, Ethel Lance, were among the nine church members killed in the 2015 shooting at Mother Emanuel Church.

“Every time this case comes up, I am brought back to the day my mother and cousins were murdered, and I need that to stop,” Risher said.

“Politics has gotten in the way of mercy. You can’t rank victims, Mr. President. I am begging you to finish the job, not only with the three men left on federal death row, but also with those on the military death row. There’s still time. Finish the job.”

Anti-death penalty activist Jeff Hood did not consider commuting the death sentences of 93 percent of the inmates on federal death row a passing grade.

“Just when I thought Joe Biden was going to give our nation some ethical clarity, he has presented us with a new nightmare—the ranking of murder victims. Either Biden finishes the job and commutes all federal death sentences or we are left in the same place we were before—a moral abyss of federal sentencing that only pursues death sentences in rare cases, prioritizing some murder victims above all others,” Hood wrote on social media.

“This is not time for celebration. We are in the same moral abyss we were in before. Regardless of how many death sentences President Biden just commuted, by not commuting them all he has made sure that the killing will continue.”

Urged to act by faith leaders

Biden’s announcement comes after a blitz of public and private advocacy by faith leaders and activists.

In mid-December, a group of religious leaders, activists and law enforcement officials traveled to Washington to stage a day of advocacy around the issue. Members of the group held a vigil outside the White House and spoke at a hearing on Capitol Hill alongside lawmakers such as U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., who has cited her own Christian faith as part of the inspiration for her involvement.

The effort also got a high-profile boost from Pope Francis—who changed the catechism of the Catholic Church in 2018 to declare the death penalty “inadmissible”—when he devoted a section of a homily earlier this month to the subject. He asked Catholics to pray that Biden, a Catholic, would commute the death sentences of those on death row.

“Think of these brothers and sisters of ours and ask the Lord for the grace to save them from death,” Francis said.

In a letter sent to Biden last week, Risher, who also serves as chair of Death Penalty Action, expressed concern Trump would restart federal executions upon taking office next month.

“It is vital that you deny him that opportunity by commuting every death sentence remaining on federal and military death rows,” Risher wrote.

‘All lives are sacred’

Marshall Dayan, a retired federal public defender living in Pittsburgh and cochair of the board of Pennsylvanians Against the Death Penalty, said he was pleased with Biden’s 37 commutations but disappointed he didn’t commute all 40 death-row inmates.

“All lives are sacred. We’re all created with ‘t’zelem elohim,’ in the image of God. And yet, the message this sends is that there’s a hierarchy of values,” he said. “I don’t think the president believes that. But it is the message that he sends by saying, ‘I’m going to treat these three people differently.’”

But Dayan said he was aware that many in the Pittsburgh community did not want the sentence of Robert Bowers commuted, as views regarding the death penalty for the three men left on death row are not uniform.

Last year, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro explained his own opposition to the death penalty by citing conversations he had with the families of those killed in the Tree of Life shooting and members of the worship community, indicating several do not support capital punishment.

Even so, seven of the nine families involved have previously indicated support for the death penalty, and the sons of Joyce Fienberg, who was killed in the shooting, sent a letter to Biden this month asking the president not to commute Bowers’ sentence, arguing the shooter did not show remorse.

“In Judaism, T’shuvah—repentance, or a return to righteousness—requires confession, regret, and seeking to right the wrongs committed,” read the letter, signed by Anthony and Howard Fienberg. “Absent that, forgiveness is not even possible.”

Similarly, some parents of children who were killed and wounded during the Boston bombing publicly voiced opposition to the death penalty in the case, but others have suggested support for it.

Biden declared his desire to abolish the federal death penalty while campaigning in 2019, and placed a moratorium on federal executions in 2021. But he did not ultimately eliminate the death penalty, nor did he stop the Department of Justice from prosecuting capital punishment cases during his tenure, frustrating many advocates.

But religious activists who oppose the death penalty say they will continue to pressure Biden to commute the sentences of those still on death row, arguing their cause is ultimately a matter of faith.

“Rather than asking, ‘Do they deserve to die,’ we should be asking ‘Do we deserve to kill?’” Claiborne said. “As Jesus said, ‘Let the one without sin cast the first stone.’”

With additional reporting by Bob Smietana of RNS and Baptist Standard Managing Editor Ken Camp.

(RNS)—Jimmy Carter, who died Sunday, Dec. 29, at age 100, was known most as the 39th president of the United States. But he also will be remembered as the world’s most famous Sunday school teacher.

Carter, who spoke openly about his Baptist faith while campaigning for the White House in 1976, earned the votes of many evangelical Christians when he called himself “born again.”

Carter died at his home in Plains, Ga., surrounded by family, according to a statement on The Carter Center website.

“My father was a hero, not only to me but to everyone who believes in peace, human rights, and unselfish love,” said his son Chip Carter in the statement. “My brothers, sister, and I shared him with the rest of the world through these common beliefs.”

After leaving the White House in 1981, Carter spent decades as a humanitarian and advocate for peace—building houses with Habitat for Humanity, monitoring elections in dozens of countries, helping fight against Guinea worm disease.

Still, more Sundays than not, the former president had a regular appointment: teaching Sunday school in his rural Georgia Baptist church, Maranatha Baptist Church.

His wife of 77 years, Rosalynn Carter, died at the age of 96 on Nov. 19, 2023.

“Jimmy Carter’s identity is inseparable from his almost lifelong vocation—60, 70 years—as a Sunday school teacher,” said historian Bill Leonard, professor of divinity emeritus at Wake Forest University School of Divinity. “He has lived every week of his adult life in the study and teaching of the Scriptures.”

Only US president to teach Sunday school while in office

Carter was the only U.S. president to have taught Sunday school while in office, according to the White House Historical Association. William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt taught Sunday school before entering the White House, and Benjamin Harrison led a Bible study class after his presidency at First Presbyterian Church in Indianapolis.

Carter, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, spoke matter-of-factly about his long-term Bible teaching in a 2014 appearance at the LBJ Presidential Library.

“I belong to Maranatha Baptist Church and that’s where I teach Sunday school every Sunday—last Sunday and this next Sunday as well—about 35 times a year,” he said.

“I had been teaching Bible lessons since I was a midshipman in Annapolis, 18 years old.”

His practical lessons attracted hundreds to his rural Georgia church on a Sunday as he related the verses of the Bible to the challenges of modern times.

“What I try to do each Sunday is begin my lesson for about 10 or 15 minutes discussing current events, the recent experiences that I have had or where I’m going next week,” he told Religion News Service, in 2011. “And then seeing how that applies to biblical principles, basic moral values that apply to every human life.”

Through the Year with Jimmy Carter: 366 Daily Meditations from the 39th President, published that year, featured summaries of the 45-minute lessons he taught over the years, including at First Baptist Church in Washington when he was in the White House in the 1970s.

Born Oct. 1, 1924, in Plains, Carter graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1946 and served as a naval officer until 1953, including duty aboard the USS Pomfret, a submarine, according to his biography on the Carter Presidential Library website. He retired from active duty after the death of his father.

He returned to Georgia with his wife—whom he married the same year he earned his naval commission—and took over the family farm supply business. He also began a steady rise in Georgia politics, serving in several local roles before being elected to the Georgia Senate and moving to the governor’s mansion in 1971.

Five years later, he was elected the president. Abandoned by evangelical voters—who objected to his liberal stands on some issues—and dogged by a poor economy and the Iranian hostage crisis, he lost his bid for reelection in 1980 to Ronald Reagan. With Reagan’s election, the evangelical Christian bloc moved to the Republican Party.

Throughout Carter’s political career, he remained active in local church life.

Break with SBC

He eventually would make a public break with the Southern Baptist Convention after the denomination revised its statement of faith to call for women to submit to their husbands and banning women from serving as pastors. Still, he continued to attend Maranatha Baptist, which is affiliated with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.

Despite their significant theological disagreements, leaders of Carter’s former denomination admired his commitment to the teaching of Scripture.

“History will record that no president of the United States demonstrated a greater long-term commitment to identifying with the Christian faith and with even the teaching of the Bible than Jimmy Carter,” said R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., in a 2019 interview.

The small Plains church, which seats 300, drew its largest crowd to see Carter—878—in the 2000s. That’s more than the town’s population.

On such occasions, there was overflow seating in a fellowship hall.

“We stacked them wherever we could put ’em,” Maranatha member Jan Williams recalled of the day when nine motorcoaches arrived with the record number of attendees and some only heard audio piped into rooms outside the sanctuary. “Some of ’em just heard him. They didn’t see his face until after church.”

Maranatha members sometimes added chairs to the choir loft.

“People want this opportunity, and you don’t want to send them away,” Williams said.

Though the curious came to see him, Williams said Carter’s intention was that they leave with more than a photo with the former first couple.

“This has been part of his identity,” said Randall Balmer, author of Redeemer: The Life of Jimmy Carter. “He’s very proud of this. He numbers all of his lessons, so he knows how many he taught.”

Steven Hochman, who served as assistant to Carter and director of research at the Carter Center, said in 2019 that the former president had taught more than 2,000 Sunday school lessons.

Tony Lowden, former pastor of Maranatha Baptist Church, told Religion News Service in June 2022 that Carter was no longer attending in person at that time, but “I bring church to him,” ministering to the former president and his wife during the week.

“He’s more than Sunday school,” Lowden added. “His walk is every day with the Lord.”

BWA mourns his loss

In a release, the Baptist World Alliance spoke of Carter’s “long history of involvement with the Baptist World Alliance” and “his remarkable work for justice and peace around the world.”

He served as Honorary Chair of the BWA’s Special Commission of Baptists Against Racism in 1992, and he was the recipient of the first BWA Congress Quinquennial Human Rights Award in 1995.

Former BWA General Secretary Denton Lotz presented the award to Carter during the Baptist World Congress in Buenos Aires, Argentina, “in recognition of his outstanding contributions to the cause of human rights around the world and his commitment to Christian peace and justice.”

In his acceptance speech, Carter noted: “I’m proud to be part of the BWA—one hundred million men and women around the world who don’t let political values separate us from one another. We see ourselves as brothers and sisters, regardless of our ethnic or racial differences, our political philosophies. We are joined together in a common faith, and I’m proud to be a part of it.”

“On behalf of the BWA, we give thanks for the life of President Carter and his tireless work for human rights around the globe,” Elijah Brown, BWA General Secretary and CEO, noted in a statement on his passing. “Carter was a living embodiment that politics is not the pinnacle of public service.

“As a believer in the Baptist tradition, his faith was a call to all of us to remain deeply rooted in a local church community while working for peace and serving our neighbors with the good that each one of us can do.”

Brown concluded, “We hold the Carter family in our prayers, and we commit to honor the legacy of our brother in Christ by continuing our work for human rights and religious freedom worldwide.”

With additional reporting by Calli Keener.