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White House press secretary Sarah Sanders urged religious groups on Monday to "open their doors" to undocumented families, after several prominent conservative evangelicals criticized the Trump administration for separating children from their parents at the border. "I think any evangelical, or any church for that matter, that feels strongly about that, should open their doors and facilitate some of these individuals," Sanders told reporters during a tense late afternoon briefing. "That’s their calling, and if they want to change the laws they should call their members of Congress," she added.

More than 600 members of the United Methodist Church signed on to a letter Monday condemning Attorney General Jeff Sessions for the Trump administration's policy of separating migrant parents and children at the U.S. border. In the letter, the group of churchgoers, including clergy and church leadership, accuse Sessions of child abuse, immorality, racial discrimination and dissemination of doctrines contrary to the standards of the doctrine of the United Methodist Church. They note in the letter that Sessions is a member of Ashland Place United Methodist Church, in Mobile, Ala.

Over 16,000 pro-life Christians have recently signed a petition asking that the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge be protected from drilling. The reason we are speaking out is because we are "called by God to be a steward of America's majesty." And the Arctic Refuge is one of the most majestic places in our nation. Unfortunately, the Arctic Refuge has never been more imperiled. After four decades of attempts, last year drilling proponents succeeded in attaching an amendment allowing drilling to a must-pass spending bill. Even past staunch Republican defenders of the Arctic Refuge voted the wrong way this time. Before...

America’s largest Protestant group moves to cut ties with the Republican Party and re-engage with mainstream culture. It was immediately clear that change was afoot in Dallas. I’ve attended the annual gatherings of the Southern Baptist Convention dozens of times, but walking around the convention center this week, I was struck by how unfamiliar it all felt. When I was a child, the convention hall was a sea of silver combovers and smelled of denture paste. While the older, more traditionalist crowd was still present in Dallas, the younger, fresh-faced attendees now predominated. “The generational shift happening in the SBC...

We live in times where moral ambiguity can have devastating and even deadly consequences. When it comes to the reality of climate change, there is no ambiguity of the disastrous impact of human degradation of the planet. Just in the past two weeks, a Harvard University study estimates that over 4,500 lives were lost as a consequence of Hurricane Maria. Well over a decade following Hurricane Katrina, white New Orleans has recovered; black New Orleans has not. See a pattern here? The devastating effects of climate change are undeniable, as is this disproportionate impact on the most vulnerable communities throughout...

The Minnesota Conference of the United Methodist Church has removed the term, ‘Father,’ from the Apostle’s Creed in an attempt to be more gender inclusive to God. The ancient creed of the Christian Church reads: I believe in God, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried; he descended to the dead. However, United Methodists in the Minnesota Conference decided that referring to God as “Father” wasn’t inclusive...

The night before Shane Claiborne came to town to preach at a Christian revival, he received a letter from the chief of police at Liberty University warning that if he set foot on the property, he would be arrested for trespassing and face up to 12 months in jail and a $2,500 fine....to the leaders of Liberty, he was a menace to their campus. He and his national network of liberal evangelicals, called the Red Letter Christians, were holding a revival meeting to protest in Liberty’s backyard. Their target: Jerry Falwell Jr., Liberty’s president and a man who has played...

The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) cut relational and financial ties with the D.C. Baptist Convention (DCBC) for refusing to disfellowship a church with two lesbian pastors. The Executive Committee of the SBC issued a warning to the DCBC in February in which the D.C. convention was given 90 days to remove any church in its fellowship that “practice affirming, approving or endorsing homosexual behavior,” according to Baptist Press. The executive committee gave the warning specifically with regard to Calvary Baptist Church, which affirmed a lesbian couple as co-pastors in 2017, according to Juicy Ecumenism. The D.C. Baptist Convention failed to...

Bishop Michael Curry is using the attention he received while presiding over the Royal Wedding to lead a new anti-Trump protest. According to sources, Curry and other Chrisitan leaders will host a candlelight vigil to protest the “dangerous crisis of moral and political leadership at the highest levels of our government and in our churches” — crises that put “the soul of the nation and the integrity of faith” at stake. The event will kick off with a church service beforehand right in front of Lafayette Square, which is across the street from the White House. Who’s going?

Pope Francis has reportedly told a gay man that "God made you that way and loves you as you are," apparently pushing the pontiff's acceptance of homosexuality to a new level. Francis made the comments to Juan Carlos Cruz, a Chilean victim of priestly sexual abuse who recently spent days with the pope at the Vatican to discuss his ordeal as the pontiff moves to tackle decades of coverups and ostracism of victims in the Chilean church, according to the Spanish newspaper El Pais. Cruz was quoted as having discussed his homosexuality with Francis. "He told me: 'Juan Carlos, I...

A survivor of clerical sexual abuse has said Pope Francis told him that God had made him gay and loved him, in arguably the most strikingly accepting comments about homosexuality to be uttered by the leader of the Roman Catholic church. Juan Carlos Cruz, who spoke privately with the pope two weeks ago about the abuse he suffered at the hands of one of Chile’s most notorious paedophiles, said the issue of his sexuality had arisen because some of the Latin American country’s bishops had sought to depict him as a pervert as they accused him of lying about the...

The ceremony itself featured an African-American bishop who cited the American civil rights movement and quoted Martin Luther King Jr. as often as he did Jesus. The couple opted for a secular song, “Stand by Me,” performed by a predominantly black gospel choir—jaws literally dropped—in addition to old-school Christian hymns sung by the congregation. The traditional Anglican vows were altered slightly to allow the outspoken feminist Markle to opt out of the traditional promise to obey her husband. While the acceptance of people of color into the royal fold is a welcome and long-overdue change, the acceptance of divorce and...

I don’t think I have the skills to easily assimilate into Donald Trump’s America. And that can mean only one thing: I should be deported. It was a difficult conclusion to reach, but after listening to White House Chief of Staff John Kelly’s recent comments on undocumented immigrants, I see no other path forward. Maybe I should self-deport. That’s part of the hope, of course, that by making America inhospitable to outsiders, some will just leave. But I’m not going to do that. You know us unassimilated legal residents. We’re notoriously lazy. No, the government is going to have to...

The first senior African-American bishop in the U.S. Episcopal Church has been asked to preach a sermon at the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle this coming Saturday. Kensington Palace has announced that Prince Harry and Markle have asked The Most Reverend Michael Bruce Curry, the head of the Episcopal Church, to preach at the highly-anticipated wedding at Windsor Castle. "Prince Harry and Ms. Meghan Markle have asked that The Most Reverend Michael Bruce Curry, the 27th Presiding Bishop and Primate of The Episcopal Church, give the address at their wedding," the Palace stated in a tweet on May...

Karenna Gore, director of the Center for Earth Ethics at Union Theological Seminary, urged the Catholic Church and other “faith communities” to become climate change activists and preach about taking action on the issue. “I actually think that [preaching is] one of the main things that could actually break through on this issue. One of the ways that we could break through on this issue is if people really start to think deeply on another level about it; on a moral and spiritual level and are moved from a different kind of place to take action, to raise it with...

The Church of England is torn over plans by the The Episcopal Church (TEC) in the United States to efface the terms “husband” and “wife” – as well as references to “procreation” – from its marriage liturgy. The change is meant to make the church’s marriage ceremonies more “gay-friendly.” Gay and lesbian Episcopalians have complained that the language of the current liturgy is offensive and exclusionary. The move prompted a critical response from Church of England Secretary General William Nye last October, strongly urging the TEC to reconsider. The letter threatened to cut ties with the U.S. church if it...

NEW YORK – Theologian James Cone, who as a founder of black liberation theology linked Christian faith with the struggle against racism and oppression, has died. He was 79.

What does it mean to stop asking for police intervention?

WASHINGTON DC, April 27, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – Capitol Hill is in an uproar over House Speaker Paul Ryan’s request for the resigation of Jesuit, pro-gay chaplain Rev. Patrick Conroy as the official U.S. House of Representatives chaplain. Conroy resigned yesterday after allegedly being given an ultimatum by Speaker Ryan. According to a report by The Hill, “Four different sources—two from each party—say Conroy was told that he must retire or that he would be dismissed.” While those who serve as House Chaplain are expected to conduct themselves in a non-partisan manner, many sources are saying that Speaker Ryan wanted Rev....

During your daily poring over of The Babylon Bee‘s award-winning coverage of all theological camps, you may have found yourself wondering about the worldview known variably as “theological liberalism,” “liberal theology,” “liberal Christianity,” or “butter in sunshine.” Well, wonder no more! We have put together this short, accurate, plain-English crash course on the essentials of theological liberalism, just for you. What is theological liberalism? Theological liberalism is a movement that seeks to incorporate various aspects of modern thinking and trends into the Christian faith, while still staying true to the historical Doctrine of Things That Make Me Feel Good Are...