Following Kirk’s Murder And ICE Raids, Church Leaders Grapple With More Political Chaos
In a public landscape filled with minefields, clergy across the U.S. are meeting the moment with care and some angst as they try to build bridges through preaching, prayer and advocacy.
Members of Catholic communities, whether active or cloistered, have also been affected by the challenges of being faithful in a time of profound political and social uncertainty. But rooted as they are in ancient traditions of prayer and practice, these men and women say that part of their calling is to be a steady force for hope and trust among all the chaos.
In some churches, congregants may be directly or indirectly affected by the storms raging outside the sanctuary walls.
READ: Nuns And Priests Offer Advice For Navigating Difficult Political Times
A report released in 2024 by the Hartford Institute for Religion Research suggested that most congregations were not politically active, with many going to great lengths to avoid centering politics in the pews. But for churches in which there are different perspectives, whether within the congregation or between pastor and congregants, clergy say it can be challenging and emotionally costly to find ways to articulate a biblical message without becoming a lightning rod.
Last year, clergy from diverse congregations reflecting different cultural settings shared the multiple ways in which they were trying to find ways to navigate an often chaotic environment, in which many Americans had already deserted religious settings.
Whether the topic is President Donald Trump, ICE raids, a seemingly never-ending array of legal fights and contentious Senate hearings or the disruptive effects of the recent government shutdown, the currents of unrest affecting Americans seem to have only grown stronger. As we enter 2026, these issues aren’t going away.
American citizens are paying attention. In a New York Times/Siena University survey, a majority of those polled said they weren’t sure the political divide could be overcome.
Clergy leading congregations from Hanover, New Hampshire, to Los Angeles told Religion Unplugged that while it hasn’t gotten any easier, they are still focused on Scripture, corporate prayers and communion. If the preplanned readings seem to echo the moment we find ourselves in, so be it.
“The Gospel speaks in multiple directions and critiques multiple ways,” said the Rev. Vermon Pierre, pastor of the nondenominational Roosevelt Community Church in downtown Phoenix, Arizona.
This is a time, Pierre said, in which it’s important to show each other “some measure of grace, humility, and ability to each hear one another. But that’s not being found in many circles right now.”
To illustrate his point, he turned to a verse from the first chapter of the New Testament book of James: “You must understand this, my beloved brothers and sisters: Let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger, for human anger does not produce God’s righteousness.”
Changing the way to preach
Clergy who were interviewed said they are resolute in keeping advocacy out of the pulpit.
“We’re not driven by the news headlines, or someone’s Twitter feed, but the Gospel of hope, love and forgiveness,” said the Rev. Guy Collins, an Episcopal priest who is both rector of St. Thomas Church and Episcopal chaplain at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. “I think it’s a sign of our commitment to being constant in a time of churn that we continue to pray for our elected leaders, even when maybe 90% of my parish would much prefer not to hear the same of a particular elected one. “
The Anglican liturgical tradition is, he said, “a gift,’ providing a structure with room to navigate.
“We’ve just been continuing to follow our traditions, even when you know people have felt more upset than I can ever remember about certain things happening in other places,” he said.
He added that “part of our task as Christians is to listen to people who we don’t often listen to, and understand where they are coming from, the pain driving them to feel the way they do. These are difficult things to hear, but that’s part of our calling.”
Lead pastor Phyllis Myung arrived in Los Angeles at the nondenominational New City Church LA in February, following a pastor who had been there for seventeen years. She described the congregation as ethnically and socioeconomically diverse (approximately 20% are unhoused). While around sixty percent are progressive, she said, the remainder are theologically conservative.
Though she’s faced substantial resistance, said Myung, with the support of the congregational board of elders and pastoral staff, “I am trying to educate people to hold an expansive theology to accommodate the beliefs of a wide range of congregants.”
Situated in the city’s downtown, they have been affected both by ICE raids and the deployment of National Guard troops a few months ago, she said. That’s not even to mention the devastating effect of the wildfires earlier this year, she said. “I feel like it’s been a nonstop attack on us,” she said.
The congregation has added prayers of lament to its order of service and launched a book club currently reading “Welcoming the Stranger: Justice, Compassion & Truth in the Immigration Debate.”
“I’ve definitely changed the way I’ve been preaching. I’m trying to weave some of the themes we’re going through together with what’s going on – and to bring applicable Biblical principles to both,” Myung said.
As lead pastor of Desert Springs Bible Church, Caleb Campbell is sharply aware of the concerns of people in his congregation who may have green cards, education visas, or be vulnerable in other respects. “I feel a certain sadness and heaviness to the season we’re in, with all of the combativeness and division. At the same time, because of the work I’ve done, I see the field better than I did (in 2016 and 2020).”
The church has instituted the practice of weekly communion, even though the configuration of the sanctuary isn’t ideal for it.
Campbell said: “We felt that they needed to see one another each week when they took the elements … reframing what it means to be part of a church and to follow Jesus as a diverse people.”
The hope is that those who receive communion together will bring that same sense of unity and mutual respect into their civic life, he added.
“Every year it gets more complicated,” said Methodist minister Todd Scranton, noting that his denomination had recently seen approximately one-third of its congregations leave in the wake of a dispute over the role of LGBTQ people. The head pastor of First United Methodist Church in Cheyenne, Wyoming, he leads a mainline Protestant church in a state where, he said, around 70 percent of residents voted for Donald Trump. “I do not share that political leaning, as many of my colleagues do not, and so I have to temper what I say and do.”
Scranton said he “lives with the constant awareness of how to say things that are biblically mandated without being partisan. That line is harder and harder to find. You have to point out the contrast between what the Gospel says and what we sometimes do.”
Recently, he’s been preaching from the Gospel according to Luke.
“Jesus is very critical of those who claim to follow him, but don’t do what he actually says. If we are going to say we are a country who follows Jesus, if we call ourselves a Christian nation and don’t treat the poor well or use our wealth for the benefit of those who have less, we are those people.”
Though he has had some “hard conversations” with those who accuse him of hammering the administration, he reminds them that he has never mentioned the Trump administration. “I’m serving in a good congregation,” added Scranton. “There are a lot of people who consider themselves conservatives, but look at some of the stuff that’s being done in the name of conservatism…and they don’t recognize it anymore.”
At Desert Springs, where they plan out sermon topics and texts six months to a year in advance, sermons are currently focused on the Beatitudes, said Campbell – juxtaposing signs of the Kingdom of God with those of the Roman Empire (or any empire a Christian might find themselves in, said Campbell).
He often reminds his listeners, he said, that “when you are in a congregation, the expectation is that you’re with people who vote differently, think differently, and spend differently. That’s a feature, not a bug. Jesus called his followers to practice his way when they disagree with each other. We need to practice the way of Jesus with each other.”
The Charlie Kirk effect
For some pastors, the assassination of right-wing Christian activist Charlie Kirk has been a difficult inflection point — particularly in the Phoenix area, where Kirk’s organization, Turning Point USA, is headquartered.
Campbell featured Kirk and his organization in his 2024 book, “Disarming Leviathan: Loving your Christian Nationalist Neighbor.” Following Kirk’s murder, Campbell prayed for the family. But he decided to wait several weeks to talk publicly about Kirk’s death. Nonetheless, he said, Kirk’s death “hit me harder than I expected. There are also pain points. I want to take some time and collect my thoughts.”
Some congregants, who viewed Kirk as a Christian apologist in the public arena, are concerned about whether people will be attacked for being Christian, he said.
Others, who saw Kirk as a Christian nationalist, are worried that those who may have authoritarian tendencies will see Kirk’s death as a pretext for more violence and attacks on civil liberties.
In the local area, said Pierre, “everyone knew who Charlie Kirk was.”
While he didn’t feel the need to preach about Kirk’s assassination, he said, he opened up the topic in the space he created for communal prayer.
“I think it’s okay to say we don’t know how we feel. His record is mixed in many respects,” he added.
The only way to figure out how to assess his legacy and move forward is to display some measure of grace, humility, and the ability to hear one right, he added. “But that’s not being found in many circles right now,” said Pierre.
Right now, he said, he’s preaching on the Gospel according to Matthew. That Gospel writer, he said, “provides insight, and a providential way to frame what’s happening out there. “At its best, the church brings together people from all sorts of backgrounds and cultures – and says there is a common identity we have that holds us together.”
Meanwhile, up at St. Thomas in New Hampshire, “it’s fair to say that many people didn’t know who Charlie Kirk was until he was killed,” Collins said. “No one came to me seeking pastoral advice.”
It’s clear that antagonism in the public arena has taken its toll on clergy. With burnout a real possibility, they are finding a variety of ways to make mental, emotional, and spiritual health a priority.
As a pastor “I take on a lot of the pain of the congregation, especially those pushed to the margins,” Campbell said. “I get text messages and emails from our terrified non-citizen congregants, and it weighs on me. “
At the same time, he said, he feels, in dozens of weekly conversations, the weight of tension his diverse congregation is experiencing corporately. “Sometimes I feel very thin, emotionally and spiritually,” he said.
Now he understands, he said, why Jesus went off to be by himself so often – and has been careful to integrate times for quiet into his own schedule.
Myung called upon her therapist as well as a spiritual director for support. She also gathers regularly with a small group of companions.
“We eat good food, and we laugh and cry together. The things that grieve my heart grieve their hearts,” Myung added.
She is also trying to focus on the young people who represent the next generation of Christians. While for them, she said, it’s a “no-brainer” that a church should support immigrants, they are asking for more spiritual formation, something deeper than activism.
As a pastor in a polarized time, she said, she’s trying to figure out how to be a leader in a church that embraces the divide. She ends the conversation with a question, one that might sum up the work being done by clergy in this hectic time:
“Do we live in that rupture, or do we try to reconcile it? I’m not sure what the answer to that is yet,” she said.
Elizabeth Eisenstadt Evans is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in Religion News Service, National Catholic Reporter, Sojourners, Christian Century, The Washington Post and Philadelphia Inquirer.