South America
(ANALYSIS) Understanding this distinction can help get past oversimplified narratives. The Middle East’s conflicts are not simply ancient religious feuds. They are modern political struggles shaped by history, identity and political interests. Here’s what you need to know about Sunni and Shia Islam — and how it impacts Iran and the current situation there.
(REVIEW) An early childhood educator reviews three children’s books that nurture faith and resilience: “Zeke’s Sunday” by Chantelle Marie Swayne, “When I Talk to God, I Talk About Feelings” by Chrissy Metz and Bradley Collins, and “Fail-a-bration!” by Brad Montague and Kristi Montague, highlighting their value for spiritual growth and learning through mistakes.
(ANALYSIS) Three rounds of nuclear talks between the U.S. and Iran failed to persuade President Trump that a solution to the nuclear impasse lay in diplomacy, rather than military action. A perceived lack of progress on Feb 26, was enough to prompt Trump to green-light a massive onslaught of missiles that has degraded Iran and killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
(ANALYSIS) An intriguing religious issue is raised by an odd space-age colloquy in mid-February between Barack Obama and Donald Trump. Out of the blue, political podcaster Brian Tyler Cohen asked Obama, “Are aliens real?” He immediately replied, “They’re real, but I haven’t seen them” and he knows of no proof that extraterrestrials exist.
In Kenya, you may often encounter religious sisters in classrooms, hospitals or churches. But Sister Immaculate Muthoni occupies a different space. She is a Catholic nun and a practicing lawyer of the High Court of Kenya, working within the country’s formal legal system while drawing firm limits around the kinds of cases she will handle.
With a U.S.-Israel bombardment underway and President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu openly pressing for regime change, related questions now loom large: What are the Iranian people prepared for — and who, exactly, is positioned to lead them if the Islamic Republic falls?
(ANALYSIS) Imagine a world where crimes are stopped before they even take place. Science fiction has imagined this world, most famously in the 2002 film “Minority Report,” where society can predict criminal acts and allow authorities to intervene in advance. Thanks to AI, this dystopian reality could be coming to your neighborhood in the not-so-distant future.
The assassination — announced by President Trump hours after Saturday’s airstrikes — is expected to throw the Islamic Republic of Iran’s future into doubt and raises the prospect that the country’s theocratic government could be overthrown after nearly five decades. Trump said the airstrikes and Khamenei’s death is “the single greatest chance for the Iranian people to take back their country.”
(ANALYSIS) The joint U.S.–Israeli strike on Iranian targets on Saturday marked a dramatic escalation in the decades-long confrontation with the Islamic Republic — and raised two profound questions: Is this a real attempt at regime change? What would that mean for religious freedom inside Iran?
(ANALYSIS) Recent events in Minnesota have exposed a thin understanding of religious freedom, reducing it to boundary enforcement rather than sustaining institutions that form moral life. The moment calls for deeper discernment: protecting worship without criminalizing dissent.
(ANALYSIS) Be warned — this one is super nerdy and goes very deep into the weeds of survey methodology. I want this newsletter to be really accessible to the average American, but I think it’s helpful every once in a while to pull back the curtain on stuff that I see in the data that just doesn’t sit right with me.
The U.S. vice president of Acts 29 has confessed to a “long-term extramarital relationship.” The church planting network removed Tyler Jones from leadership, citing “clear standards of integrity, transparency, and biblical conduct.”
Greenland, a remote, ice-covered territory three times the size of Texas, has just one Catholic church, Christ the King, in Nuuk, where Pastor Tomaz Majcen serves a tiny, mostly immigrant congregation. Amid harsh conditions, social struggles and global attention, the Catholic community provides faith, support and connection in the world’s least-Catholic land.
As the calendar prepares to flip to March, the race to secure a spot in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament has intensified. With Selection Sunday scheduled for March 15 looming, schools across the country are jockeying for position — some fighting to improve their seeding, while others want to remain on the bubble hoping to be selected.
It’s also important that this unconventional religious leader’s social ties to Epstein continued long after the financier became a convicted sex offender, after he pled guilty in 2008 to soliciting prostitution from an underage girl.
Overt antisemitism among online influencers has started to break into the real world. A notable recent example comes via Tyler Oliveira, a YouTuber who rose to fame with stunts like trying to absorb a swimming pool’s worth of water with paper towels before pivoting to “documentaries” that often purport to expose conservative bugaboos — and who has filmed two recent videos focused on Jews.
Former U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse reflects on his pancreatic cancer diagnosis and limited prognosis. In a Hoover Institution interview, Sasse speaks candidly about pain, mortality and Christian hope, urging believers to face death without despair while serving others with whatever time remains.
(ANALYSIS) Of Jesus’ 12 disciples, Saint Peter is one of the most important. In the Book of Matthew, Jesus declares that Peter is the “rock” on which “I will build my church.” Catholic tradition considers him the first pope. Martyred in the first century, Peter asked to be crucified upside down so he would not die the same way as Christ. That story, however, is not in the Bible.
In a nation defined by profound Christian commitment, theologians said that the construction and dedication of an LDS temple shows the growth of the faith in a country where many people still struggle to equate Mormons with other Christian denominations. The temple, which opens on March 1, will now serve as a home to the thousands of Mormons who live in Zimbabwe.
Nine of the families who tragically lost their children are now suing state officials who led the Texas Department of State Health Services for licensing Camp Mystic despite its emergency instructions that campers stay in their cabins in case of a flood.
Lewis’s 1945 novel “That Hideous Strength” was marketed as fiction, but it read like more like a prophecy. Lewis’ warning at the time cuts deep for modern-day readers. The danger is not artificial intelligence itself. The danger, Lewis argues, is what happens when humans regard tech tools as oracles. It’s about what happens when humanity stops kneeling before God and starts bowing to its own tools.
In Ukraine, Christian leaders say the war with Russia since 2022 is a fight for national survival and religious freedom. Citing clergy deaths and widespread casualties, advocates urge global prayer and support, calling Ukraine a vital hub for Gospel witness in Europe and the former Soviet region.
(OPINION) Conservative Christians want the Ten Commandments in our classrooms and courtrooms, while their preferred candidate and president shreds the Ninth Commandment’s order to not “bear false witness against our neighbor” with abandon.
(ANALYSIS) What do you envision when you think of meekness? You probably see a mousy doormat, someone sheepishly acquiescing to the will of the stronger. When Jesus says, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth,” you might think that those wimps will hand it over without a whimper or word of objection to stronger, more ambitious people.”
The Fifth Circuit ruled in Roake v. Brumley that Louisiana may proceed with its Ten Commandments school display law, holding that challenges are premature because no specific display yet exists. The court did not decide on the constitutionality, stressing that any judgment depends on the context and implementation of future displays.
Christian movies have a pretty negative reputation. But, in recent years, their Rotten Tomatoes scores have been on a steady uptick. What’s happening? The tide that has turned in the faith-based film industry is multifaceted. The studios have become willing to give Christian directors bigger budgets. Writers have started telling stories with more complicated heroes and honest portrayals of life.
The City of Mansfield, a suburb of about 80,000 in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, is the latest in a string of municipalities that have enacted regulations restricting the activities of Christian ministries.
Well, it depends on whom you ask — and what you consider a sin. WalletHub crunched the numbers to find the most sinful among the United States. A new report compared all 50 states across 54 key indicators of immoral or illegal behavior, ranging from the percentage of violent crimes to the share of the population with gambling disorders.
You don’t have to be a person of faith to be visited by or to express a desire to see a hospital chaplain. In fact, a 2022 Gallup survey found that approximately one in four Americans have encountered a chaplain, with half saying that the meeting occurred in a healthcare setting (a bit more than 10 percent of those polled mentioned the military).
(Opinion) It’s all about being faithful. You do what you can, and what you should, even if the results are out of your hands. Of course, the results are always out of your hands. You plant flowers even if the vandals trample them down.