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Religious anti-abortion center finds opportunity in town without OB-GYNs
The Science of Reading is non-negotiable in Ohio. Why do some religious schools get a pass?
Ohio's Science of Reading mandate was sold as an all-or-nothing overhaul. A new Senate carve-out for eight private classical academies is blowing a hole in that promise.
Trump to join prayer gathering criticized for promoting Christian nationalism
Organizers expect thousands of people to attend Rededicate 250, which will include worship music, prayers and speeches from Cabinet heads and other Republican officials, along with religious leaders and others.
A year of Trump is backfiring on the religious right
Americans don’t really want “Christian nationalism.”
Garland business owners say they may have to paint over previously approved religious mural
North Texas business says says a previously approved religious mural may need to be painted over
CAIR Releases Analysis of Anti-Muslim Oklahoma Politics
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation's largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today released a new analysis detailing a multi-front effort to push Oklahoma Muslims outside the circle of the state’s protected civic and religious life — through legislation, thro
For Our Religious Fractures, Science May Be a Healing Salve
On specific points of belief, Christians and Jews are not mutually understandable to each other. But the cosmic foundation of scientific evidence is equally accessible to us all, on the very same terms.
Papal peacemaker? Making nice with Pope Leo is Rubio’s latest job
A potential political problem of President Trump’s own making hangs over Marco Rubio's visit with Pope Leo: Catholics are America's largest religious group.
Private, religious and charter sports teams may play in own playoffs in Pennsylvania
YIGBY could be Connecticut’s solution to health and housing crisis
This bill would make it easier for religious organizations like churches and synagogues to build affordable housing on their own land.
Having a religious affiliation doesn’t prevent betting on sports
Having a religious affiliation doesn’t stop people from betting on sports in the United States, according to a new study.Results showed that people who infrequently attend religious services are more likely to gamble on sports than people who attend services at least weekly or who never worship publicly. Catholics – and especially Catholic m...
Religion and the Politics of Masculinity
Dr. Lauren Horn Griffin is a 2025-2026 PRRI Public Fellow focusing on racial justice and white supremacy. She is also an Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy & Religious Studies and the…
Learning From the Archives: Louisiana’s Long History of Reproductive Rights, Health and Justice Advocacy
Despite having some of the most restrictive laws and among the worst reproductive health outcomes in the nation, Louisiana has a long history of reproductive rights and justice advocacy that spans religious, racial and cultural lines. A recent archival exhibit hosted by the Newcomb Institute at Tulane University showcased physical and digital archival collections at Tulane, along with personal and organizational records from community partners, documenting a history of activism from the 20th century to today in Louisiana and the broader Gulf South. By placing items from the historical archives alongside materials from current community organizations, the exhibit offered a reminder of how long Louisianans have fought to expand and defend reproductive rights and justice within the state.
Week in cartoons (opinion): Religion and politics mix with ink
Religious controversies involving President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the pope inspire political cartoonists.
Trump, Pope Leo And A New Chapter in America’s Religious Politics
(ANALYSIS) American religion has rarely, if ever, seen anything quite like these past weeks. Start with President Donald Trump’s profane Easter Sunday message to Iran: “Open the [unprintable F-bomb] Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell - JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah." The l
Supreme Court will hear from religious preschools challenging exclusion from taxpayer-funded program
The faith-based facilities argue it's unconstitutional to bar them from a taxpayer-funded free preschool program because of their admission restrictions on LGBTQ+ families and kids.
How Pa.'s falling school vaccination rates and enforcement failures put thousands of children at risk
A six-month Pittsburgh Post-Gazette investigation found that school leaders have allowed thousands of children into schools without all the required vaccines even though they had no special exemptions that let them forgo the shots on religious or philosophical grounds — a violation of state vaccine laws.
University of Pittsburgh team's FRED model tracks measles
Pitt's Framework for Reconstructing Epidemiological Dynamics program was instrumental in convincing lawmakers to pass rare legislation that took away the ability of residents to skip vaccines because of religious or personal beliefs.
Democrats want Colorado colleges to provide medication abortion
A bill proposing to require Colorado colleges and universities to provide abortion medication services cleared a legislative committee on Thursday. Advocates said the measure — which exempts religious-based institutions but applies to public, private, and community colleges — will improve access to abortion, while opponents argue it would force educational institutions to take a side […]
Popes have spoken out on politics before. But with Trump and Pope Leo it's different
President Trump's attacks on Pope Leo are unprecedented, religious experts told NPR. Here's how the situation differs from other popes' political critiques.
Kelly vetoes sports tourism program, allows religious freedom bill to move forward
Gov. Laura Kelly vetoed legislation to create a sports tourism grant program focused on expanding state investment in sporting events.
Trump post appearing to depict himself as Jesus sparks backlash from religious right
Evangelical and Catholic allies call the post “blasphemous” and urge its removal in a rare public break from a base that has largely stood by Trump.
Note to Colorado lawmakers — parents protecting kids isn’t abuse, it’s their job
By Matt Sharp and Sharon Supp During the last few years, the U.S. Supreme Court has made at least one thing clear: Colorado is consistently overreaching to apply its laws in unconstitutional ways. Colorado treated a cake artist with hostility because of his religious beliefs in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission. The state […]
Agriculture secretary’s religious Easter message to all employees sparks internal backlash and a formal complaint
A “Christ is Risen” Easter message sent by the secretary of agriculture has sparked backlash inside the department, angering some of its nearly 100,000 employees and prompting a formal complaint against the secretary for the religious message.
The Boundless Deep: Young Tennyson, Science, and the Crisis of Belief by Richard Holmes
Pantheon Review by Walter Cummins The image of Alfred Tennyson I’ve carried for decades goes back to the childhood card game of Authors that depicts him with a stately continence sharpened by a jutting black beard. He’s formidable, his aura superior. Holmes opens his biography of the youthful Tennyson by describing the similar formality of the imposing Tennyson statue at Trinty College Cambridge, sharing the honor with other Trinity greats, including Isaac Newton, Francis Bacon, and Thomas Babington Macaulay. Holmes doesn’t want to chip away at that statue but rather reveal its inner youthful core of the man—tall, handsome, and talented but unformed, emerging from a disturbed family of addicted or insane male siblings and four unusual sisters struggling under a violent alcoholic clergyman father. Alfred was certainly statuesque, but would he end up a block of unformed stone like his equally promising brothers? He was youngest of three equally regarded Tennyson brothers at Cambridge, all bright, handsome, and talented, in fact Alfred regarded by some as less promising than his elders who also wrote poetry. Yet Alfred wrote one of his major poems, “The Kraken,” at twenty, revealing both his talent, his interest in geological forces, and the haunting creature that embodied his anxieties. While Holmes focuses on Tennyson of the 1830s and 1840s, he can’t tell his story without exploring his involvement with the Victorian intellectual upheaval. Tennyson was fascinated by new scientific perspectives, following the latest findings as soon as books and articles were published. He was especially taken with Charles Lyell’s deep studies of geology and the discovery of fossils and a timeline of the planet’s development that did much to question fundamental religious assumptions. The impact of these discoveries is reflected in Tennyson’s poetry and led to the crisis in belief he shared with so many contemporaries. He was especially taken by the cycles of destruction and renewal that informed the struggles he confronted in In Memoriam, Maud, and Idylls of the King. Tennyson was only one of the eventual major figures at Cambridge at the same time, young men just beginning to realize their potential. Charles Darwin was at Christ College, although there is no evidence that he and Tennyson even met as students or later in life. Yet evolution became significant in Tennyson’s thinking and the issues of his poetry. One of Tennyson’s best and most important Cambridge friends was Edward FitzGerald, who became the translator of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám and in their on and off relationship served as Tennyson’s harshest critic. FitzGerald was also a friend of the novelist William Makepeace Thackeray, the two of them partying in Paris as undergraduates. That connection led to a friendship between Thackeray and Tennyson. Others who came to play significant roles in Tennyson’s life were Thomas Carlyle, the Brownings, and the Pre-Raphaelites. Tennyson’s deepest friend at college was Arthur Hallam, who at twenty wrote a glowing review of Tennyson’s first poetry collection, travelled on European adventures with him, and fell in love with his sister Emily. Hallam was also regarded as one more very promising Cambridge student. His sudden death at twenty-two in Vienna from a stroke while travelling with his father devastated many friends, but perhaps Tennyson most of all. He did not write immediate poems of grief but took years to compile those collected in In Memoriam A.H.H., published in 1850, almost twenty years after Hallam’s death For all of Tennyson’s early poetic successes and successes, Holmes reveals him as an often troubled young man suffering periods of depression, fearing planetary upheaval, concerned about supporting himself, disappointed in romances, and worried that he would inherit the family’s mental illness tendencies. Yet despite his seeming withdrawals, he was always writing poetry that he kept private and would not let go, constantly revising. 1850 became a transformative year for Tennyson. He finally consented to publishing In Memoriam with a last-minute prologue that acknowledged God and perhaps convinced the religious Emily Sellwood to marry him after years of pursuit.. He opened up to Emily, revealing his struggles with fears of depression and “weird seizures.” The devastating event of that time was the stillborn death of his unnamed first son. It shook him, but Emily’s faith brought them closer and convinced him to believe in an afterlife. Two later sons survived. With the death of William Wordworth in April of 1950, Tennyson was named poet laureate at age forty-one, reluctantly accepting. It’s as if Tennyson’s life split in half in that year. He lived another forty years, now a recognized success, with the prestige of being an official poet writing patriotic verse, wealthy and revered, no longer the insecure young man seeking an outlet for his immense talent. He earned a place in the Authors deck, now dignified and in 1884 elevated to the peerage as Arthur, Lord Tennyson. Richard Holmes is the author of twenty previous books on the Romantics and Victorians, several of which received awards. The Boundless Deep was shortlisted for the 2025 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction. He captures the complex vicissitudes of Tennyson’s youth, illustrated by frequent excerpts from the poetry, placing that life in the full context of the shattering discoveries that led to an upheaval of thought in the Victorian age.
Trump invokes religious rhetoric in praise of Iran rescue, drawing criticism
Critics say Trump blurs line between faith and policy.
Iran conflict to forefront of UK religious and political leaders’ Easter messages
Archbishop of Canterbury to issue urgent call for peace, as PM exhorts Britons to ‘choose community over division’
Dear Abby | Brother's beliefs are incompatible with sister's reality
Dear Abby: My son is getting married next year. He and his future wife are extremely religious. My daughter (his sister) is also engaged -- to a wonderful woman. Because
Eve-of-election hearing set for lawsuit to delay Surfside runoff due to Passover
Judge Lourdes Simon will weigh religious liberty claims against risks of disrupting an election already in motion.
Judge Blocks Deal Allowing Churches to Endorse Political Candidates
The Trump administration had sought looser rules for religious groups.
Takeaways from the Supreme Court decision on Colorado law banning ‘conversion therapy’ for trans and gay minors
The Supreme Court on Tuesday endorsed a religious counselor’s challenge to Colorado’s ban on “conversion therapy” for gay and transgender minors, saying it likely violates the First Amendment, handing the LGBTQ community another setback in a decision that will reverberate in nearly half the country.
Supreme Court backs challenge to ‘conversion therapy’ ban
The Supreme Court endorsed a religious counselor’s challenge to Colorado’s ban on “conversion therapy” for gay and transgender minors, another legal setback for the LGBTQ community that will reverberate in nearly half the country. Follow for live updates.
Hingham Schools Eye Business Curriculum Expansion as Class Size Concerns Mount
HINGHAM - March 23, 2026 - The Hingham School Committee moved to modernize its high school offerings Monday night, reviewing a comprehensive plan to expand the “small but mighty” Business Department while simultaneously grappling with data that places Hingham as an outlier in elementary class sizes. Director of Social Studies Andy Hoey presented a two-year program review that highlighted the department’s success in community partnerships but warned that high student demand is testing current staffing limits. Meanwhile, committee Chair Jen Benham presented independent research showing Hingham is the only benchmark district with second-grade classes hitting a 25-student cap, sparking a directive for the Policy Subcommittee to review class-size standards. Editors note: South Shore News is going paid in April, subscribe now to make sure you don’t miss a story. Reach out for group or organizational pricing. Subscribe The Full Story The meeting opened with a look into the future of Hingham High School’s (HHS) curriculum. Andy Hoey, who oversees the Business Department, presented the first formal program review for the department since 2009. [15:09] Hoey characterized the department as a vital elective hub that currently serves between 14% and 27% of the HHS student body in any given year. [31:31] “We are very proud of our business department here at Hingham High School... while we’re very proud of it, we are always striving to make improvements and enhancements.” [15:55] — Andy Hoey, Director of Social Studies A key highlight of the presentation was the announcement of a new AP Business with Personal Finance course launching next year, pending enrollment. [20:08] The review team found that while the program is “well-aligned” to national standards, it remains a high-school-only offering. Hoey outlined an action plan to explore “vertical articulation,” potentially introducing business or financial literacy units at the middle school level to fill a “gap” identified between fifth and eighth grade. [41:48] However, the department faces “smoke and mirrors” regarding student GPA, according to Hoey. Currently, most business courses are “unleveled” and do not count toward a student’s GPA, which survey data suggests may deter some students from enrolling. [28:15] The committee discussed the possibility of offering Honors or College Prep (CP) credit for advanced courses, such as investing or marketing, to better reflect their academic rigor. [38:27] The discussion took a sharp turn toward elementary education during an enrollment update. Superintendent Dr. Katie Roberts noted a net gain of four students mid-year, but it was Jen Benham’s “rabbit hole” data analysis that caught the committee’s attention. [50:35] Benham researched 13 benchmark towns—representing 34 elementary schools—and found that Hingham was the only district with a second-grade section reaching 25 students this year. [51:36] Benham’s findings suggested that while many districts lack formal class-size policies, Hingham’s current cap of 25 for second grade may be too high. “I think if we could at least have 23 at a cap for grade two,” Benham suggested, noting the importance of that grade level for literacy development. [53:09], [54:55] Dr. Roberts cautioned that smaller classes require more staff, which is a significant hurdle following a budget season where nine general education positions were cut across the district. [55:56] The committee also finalized the 2025 Town Report, which was updated to be more “student-centered” and highlight staff early in the document. [11:12] Additionally, a series of food service policies were approved to align with Massachusetts’ universal free school meal mandate, including new protocols for meal modifications due to allergies or religious needs. [59:23] Share Why It Matters The meeting underscored a tension between Hingham’s desire to offer elite, specialized programming and the foundational pressure of class sizes. The expansion of the Business Department—including potential Microsoft certifications and AP courses—aims to prepare students for a “real world” where credit scores and financial literacy are paramount. [46:20] However, the revelation that Hingham’s second-grade classes are larger than those in all neighboring benchmark towns suggests a potential strain on early education that could impact long-term student performance if not addressed by the Policy Subcommittee. Official Minutes & Data Key Motions & Votes Motion: To approve the Hingham Public Schools 2025 Town Report. [13:16] Vote: Unanimous (7-0) ([01:13:28]) Motion: To approve the Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) for summer counselor work regarding course placement. [57:33] Vote: Unanimous (7-0) ([57:50]) Motion: To approve Policy EFBA (School Food and Nutrition/Meal Modifications). [01:00:32] Vote: Unanimous (7-0) ([01:00:44]) Motion: To approve Policy EFC (Universal Free School Meals). [01:00:54] Vote: Unanimous (7-0) ([01:01:07]) Public Comment No members of the public spoke during the meeting or via the remote link. [01:02:30] What’s Next The Policy Subcommittee will take up the review of elementary class-size caps over the next year to determine if the Grade 2 limit should be lowered from 25 to 23. [52:18] The Business Department will monitor enrollment for the new AP Business course and continue exploring dual-enrollment partnerships with Quincy College. [38:13] Source Video: Harbor Media South Shore News is a reader-supported publication. 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Brian Miller on the Need for Emotional Intelligence in Science
The context is when students with a religious background enter the sciences at the undergraduate or graduate level.
The unreligious religiosity of Christian identity politics
The new religious right is distinct from the one that was once led by evangelicals.
Political commentary on religious radio, and what listeners think about it
Most religious radio listeners say keeping up with news and politics isn't a major reason they tune in. Still, some stations have a heavy focus on political commentary.
James Talarico Responds With ‘Love’ To Hegseth Pastor’s Criticism
James Talarico, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Texas, said, “You may pray for my death, Pastor, but I still love you.” The pastor said he was calling for Mr. Talarico’s religious conversion.
What growing up in an end-times church taught a science communicator about dispelling misinformation
A passion for snakes opened a crack in the religious beliefs science communicator Paul Martin Jensen grew up with in a end-times Pentecostal church.
Is Britain ready for US-style religious politics?
Fuelled by new funding and transatlantic links, Christian groups are playing an increasingly prominent role on the UK right
3 Democratic pastors in Iowa are running for Congress, a snapshot of a national trend
More Democrats are openly running on faith, as progressive clergy and other religious candidates push back on the idea that Christianity belongs to the right
Yakima considers business license fee changes, might remove nonprofit exemption
The proposal would change how businesses are charged based on number of employees, and add non-religious nonprofits to list of businesses charged.
Partisanship and science
I recently participated in a symposium of the Denver-based Institute for Science & Policy, during which I had a “fireside chat” with Tony Mills of the American Enterprise Institute. Mills has written extensively on the politicization of science, and the two of us had a very enjoyable hour-long conversation on the topic. You can watch it below. The main questions we dealt with are why there is such a vast partisan gap in trust of science, and to what extent this is a unique moment. Mills helpfully brings a good deal of data to the discussion, as he did in this useful piece at Issues in Science & Technology. Tusk depends on reader support. To support this work, please become a paid subscriber. Subscribe Note this graph, drawing on a range of survey data to demonstrate partisan attitudes toward science since 1970s. As it demonstrates, there’s been a very sharp partisan divergence in confidence in science during the Trump Era, starting prior to the Covid pandemic. At least in part, we can attribute this to a rise in populist anti-science rhetoric embraced by Trump, his appointees, and those in his media orbit. But as the graph also shows, the partisan divide has existed in the past, and it’s not always in the same direction. The largest divergence in party views toward science prior to 2016 was in the 1970s, when liberals equated scientific achievement with the military-industrial complex and thus trusted it less. That era of scientific mistrust is often overlooked. Indeed, as Mills notes, the Moon landings (1969-72), which today are considered one of the last great moments of national unity, were experienced nothing like that at the time. There was sharp debate back then over whether the Apollo missions were worth the vast expenditures when the country had so much else to deal with. It’s outside the dataset, and we don’t have the partisanship lens for it, but the 1950s was another deeply anti-science decade, with critics of intellectuals and college professors alleging their ties to communism and their lack of commitment to basic American moral beliefs. This was the subject of Richard Hofstadter’s 1962 book Anti-Intellectualism in American Life, in which he quotes religious leaders like Franklin Graham: [In place of the Bible] we substituted reason, rationalism, mind culture, science worship, the working power of government, Freudianism, naturalism, humanism, behaviorism, positivism, materialism, and idealism. [This is the work of] so-called intellectuals. Thousands of these “intellectuals” have publicly stated that morality is relative—that there is no norm or absolute standard.… This fervor was heavily whipped up by Sen. Joe McCarthy (R-Wisconsin), although it’s clear that not all his fellow Republicans were on board with his red-baiting. What ended that era? The simple answer is the 1957 launch of Sputnik. Americans became afraid that they were losing to Soviet scientists, and suddenly university researchers and government projects were awash with funding. In our conversation, I asked Mills about the possibility of us having a Sputnik moment again that would rally the American public in favor of science today. Mills argued that the COVID-19 pandemic was essentially a Sputnik moment — a terrifying threat to all Americans that required scientific advances to address. But thanks in part to political polarization and the populist and conspiratorial leanings of Donald Trump, we got the opposite of a unifying moment. Many Americans turned against science, despite science actually stepping up in that moment. As we discussed in the chat, it’s not clear what scientists could or should be doing in this moment to increase faith in their work. As Mills notes, one of the chief complaints against scientists and professors is that they’ve become too political; scholars becoming even more political might not help them achieve their goals. This (mainly Republican-driven) anti-science era will end, of course, but it’s not clear what event will bring that about. Share
Higher health insurance premiums spark interest in religious cost-share ministries
Enrollment in health care sharing ministries is on the rise in Florida, but research shows they have fewer consumer protections.
A priest helped her see her drinking problem. Talks with Jesus kept her sober. She’s not the only one
New research suggests that kind of connection may help others, too. A study published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry in February found that a person’s spiritual belief or a steady religious practice had a protective effect from addiction.
Key political and religious figures in Iran
After Saturday's major attack on Iran by the U.S. and Israel, U.S. President Donald Trump has called on the Iranian public to “seize control of your destiny” and rise up against the Islamic leadership that has ruled the nation since 1979.
Trump has chipped away at the long-standing wall between church and state. It’s just the beginning
A series of faith initiatives championed by the White House has led to a systematic religious revival within the government’s operations, culture and policy.
Senate approves bill to protect business franchisees' religious beliefs, operating days
It prohibits a franchisor from requiring existing franchisees with sincerely held religious beliefs to operate on religious days. There are a few exceptions, including when an original franchise agreement required operation on a religious day.
Chair of Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission removes member after heated hearing on antisemitism
The chairman of President Donald Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission said Wednesday that he ousted a member of the commission after she sparred with fellow members during a contentious public hearing on antisemitism.
Ohio politicians propose increase in penalty for disrupting religious services
This is in response to a recent anti-immigration enforcement protest that disrupted a service at a Minnesota church.
Voices: Before we declare religion harmful to women’s health, let’s look at the evidence
“Across religious traditions, the pattern is clear,” write three researchers in an op-ed. “In nearly every case — and across two distinct datasets — greater religious attendance is associated with better health.”
Protests inside churches are unusual despite long history of civil disobedience in the US
American religious history is rife with protest movements
Pastors, political prisoners released from Venezuelan prisons
World Outreach Church Pastor Allen Jackson joins ‘Saturday in America’ to discuss religious leaders released from Venezuelan prisons following U.S. action involving the Maduro regime.
ICE is forcing a reckoning among America’s religious leaders
A moment of truth in Minnesota.
Grand Forks business owner feels Ready4Work Program participation is 'a ministry'
Preston Dahl said he felt called by his religious convictions to get involved with Love in Action's newly established initiative, which is intended to help people overcome employment barriers.
Polis’ removal of sex ed funding endangers LGBTQ+ youth
By Shara Smith At a time when the LGBTQ+ community is attacked by public policy driven by religious extremists, I am deeply concerned by the removal of funding in the governor’s budget for Colorado’s Comprehensive Human Sexuality Education (CCHSE) grant program. I hope Gov. Jared Polis and the Joint Budget Committee will recognize the program […]
Jim Hunt’s Cross to Bear
The four-term governor and committed church-goer politicked with evangelical fervor. But Jim Hunt still struggled to sway the Religious Right.
Gov Sanders rejects demand from legal group to undo Christmas closure: 'I will do no such thing'
Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders fires back at religious freedom group over new Christmas proclamation controversy, defending state office closures.
Strengthening U.S.-Nigerian Health Cooperation under the America First Global Health Strategy - U.S. Embassy and Consulate in Nigeria
Strengthening U.S.-Nigerian Health Cooperation under the America First Global Health Strategy The United States signed a five-year, $5.1 billion bilateral health cooperation Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Federal Republic of Nigeria December 19 to advance the America First Global Health Strategy, supporting resilient, self-reliant, and durable health systems while promoting accountability and shared responsibility. Under the five-year MOU, the United States intends to commit nearly $2.1 billion in health assistance, with nearly $3.0 billion in new domestic health expenditures by the Government of Nigeria over the same five-year period. This represents the largest co-investment any country has made to date under the America First Global Health Strategy and underscore Nigeria’s commitment to greater national ownership of its health system. Under the MOU, the United States will continue to support surveillance and outbreak response, laboratory systems, health commodities; frontline healthcare workers, and data systems. Nigeria faces significant health challenges, including one of the highest maternal and child mortality rates globally and approximately30 percent of the global malaria burden. U.S. assistance under the MOU will expand access to affordable, preventive and curative services for HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis (TB), malaria, polio, and maternal and child health, strengthening health outcomes across Nigeria. The MOU places a strong emphasis on Christian faith-based healthcare providers, recognizing their indispensable role in delivering care to communities in need. Nigeria’s more than 900 faith-based clinics and hospitals serve more than 30 percent of the country’s 230 million people, often in areas where healthcare facilities are limited or absent. The MOU provides approximately $200 million in dedicated support to strengthen and support these Christian facilities, enhance workforce capacity, and expand access to integrated HIV, TB, malaria, and maternal child health services. Investments in Christian faith-based health institutions are uniquely positioned to complement public-sector facilities and reinforce Nigeria’s overall health infrastructure. The MOU was negotiated in connection with reforms undertaken by the Government of Nigeria to prioritize the protection of Christian populations from extremist violence. As with all U.S. foreign assistance, the President and Secretary of State retain the right to pause or terminate programs that do not align with U.S. national interests, and the United States expects Nigeria to continue making measurable progress in combating religiously motivated violence against Christian communities. This five-year MOU is the latest of several health cooperation MOUs signed in Africa this month. The United States will continue to sign multi-year Bilateral Agreements on Global Health Cooperation with countries receiving U.S. health assistance to advance the America First Global Health Strategy.
Amid extremist attacks, Senate must stop playing politics with Walker nomination
Each delay sends a message — not only to victims, but to their persecutors — that religious freedom is negotiable.
Trump's religious freedom nominee is being held up by a former political foe, his allies say
Eight months after being nominated for an ambassadorship, former Rep. Mark Walker hasn’t had a hearing because of a senator he once ran against, sources say. Now, Trump is involved.
How religious extremists have influenced science curriculum in Texas and beyond
AU Youth Organizing Fellow Ishan Kanaskar explains how religious extremists have tried to influence science curriculum in Texas.
South Korea's Lee calls for probe into links between religious group and politics
South Korean President Lee Jae Myung has called for an investigation into the suspected illegal links between a religious group and politicians, Lee's office said on Wednesday.
Some Mormons take issue with BYU's sports funding
NPR's Scott Detrow talks with Kevin Reynolds, who has reported on Brigham Young University's efforts to attract star athletes and coaches, which some say are in conflict with religious principles.
Is the religious right on the rise in UK politics?
Powerful Christian figures are emerging in Britain but there are important differences from the US, where evangelism has fuelled Trump
Continuing to Deliver on the America First Global Health Strategy with the Signing of the United States-Rwanda Bilateral Health Cooperation Memorandum of Understanding - United States Department of State
Today in Washington, Jeremy Lewin, Senior Official, Under Secretary for Foreign Assistance, Humanitarian Affairs, and Religious Freedom and Olivier Nduhungirehe, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation signed the Department of State’s second bilateral health cooperation Memorandum of Understanding, between the United States and Rwanda. The five-year, $228 million arrangement outlines a comprehensive vision to […]
WSU wine science students experience Moldovan winemaking traditions, culture
During a recent trip to Moldova, WSU students toured medieval ruins, a monastery, and subterranean caves where monks hid from enemies while protecting wine, a historically symbolic and religious product in the eastern European country.
Science must move from materialism to mystery
Theoretical physicist and neuroscientist Àlex Gómez-Marín argues that modern science has become trapped in a framework that mistakes matter for the whole of reality. In this wide-ranging interview, Gómez-Marín challenges the foundations of materialism, defends the scientific study of near-death experiences, and calls for a new type of science grounded in mystery and a renewed sense of the sacred. He suggests that abandoning materialism could open the door to a deeper understanding of consciousness, death, and the purpose of human existence. Simon Custer: You are both a theoretical physicist and a neuroscientist, and you have also been fiercely critical of materialist theories of mind and consciousness. What do you think the ultimate nature of reality is?Àlex Gómez-Marín: I don't know what the ultimate nature of reality is, but what I try to first assess is whether the stories that they [mainstream science] have told us about it are right, or maybe whether there are other alternatives. That's why I've been a fierce critic of materialism. As a scientist, I realized that they had sold us this idea that to be a good scientist you also had to subscribe to many other -isms, like materialism, reductionism, and even secularism. And so first I think one needs to unmount these -isms, and then, as is happening today in consciousness studies, we have a huge landscape where there isn't only one game in town, the idea that matter is the only thing that really exists. But because we are studying the hard problem of consciousness, it may be the case that other views of reality, like idealism, or even dualism, or other theories like dual aspect monism... these are philosophical ideas that now, I think, have room in science to be taken seriously. How does something like materialism relate to dualism or idealism? What is materialism in the first place?Well, materialism is the philosophical position that matter is the only really ‘real’ thing in the universe. And I think that worked kind of well because science started 400 years ago and Galileo made that split, I call it the foundational wound. It was a great business move.He said, let's start doing science on that portion of reality that lends itself more easily to mathematization and measurement. So, for some reason, the solidity of this table or the movement of planets lend themselves very well to this foundational idea of science. But as time went on, 400 years later, we realized that we had forgotten the other side, which is what really matters.What really matters is pain, is love, is feelings, sensation, consciousness, which is very hard to define, but very intimate. We all know what it is. It's that thing that disappears when we go into deep sleep and comes back in the morning. SUGGESTED VIEWING On the edges of knowledge With Michael Shermer, Rupert Sheldrake, Güneş Taylor It's what it is like to be, as Nagel said. It's the feeling of being alive. So, materialism is good to study certain things, but then when it ossifies into this ideology and then is dressed like science, now it's preventing us from understanding these key questions that are really that everybody wants to know.Why are we here? Why do we feel reality? Where do we go when we die? And so we need other ways. We need pluralism. I'm only asking for having more options on the table and taking them seriously. Why does materialism fail to explain consciousness? For example, if you were to lobotomize me, I would not be a functional human being. What do you say to someone who might think that materialism adequately explains the mind?Well, here we could speak about different things. We could talk about physics or about neuroscience. I happen to have training with both.For instance, for neuroscientists, 99% of them, I'm not included in that portion, believe that the brain can only be a productive organ. It's an organ that somehow, somewhere, consciousness emerges. It's like a lamp. And then something happens, magic happens, and then consciousness emerges.That's the position you need to be if you're a materialist because if the only really ‘real’ thing is matter, then you need to say, just give us some more time and money and we'll figure out how mind emerges or is produced from matter. There are many philosophically sophisticated ways of criticizing this.Now there's another option, which is the brain as a permissive organ. This was said by William James more than 100 years ago.Now then the brain wouldn't be like this machine, like for instance, a heat engine whose smoke is consciousness, which is what we would have in the first big model, the productive model. But in the permissive model, the brain would be a kind of a filter. And so the brain would still have a very important role in consciousness, but it wouldn't be a productive role.It would be permissive, much like a filter or much like a prism which would receive light. And - I'm speaking metaphorically - it would receive the light of the mind and then it could reflect it and refract it.Now, with these two big options on the table, I think we can make progress into what I call the edges of consciousness, which are all these experiences, weird experiences that many people have, but we don't talk about enough, like near-death experiences, precognitive dreams, synchronicities. These experiences are very important for humans and they have a place in the permissive hypothesis and they are literally impossible in the productive hypothesis. So that's yet one more reason to explore alternatives to materialism. There may be anecdotal evidence for near-death experiences, but is there robust evidence that would be accepted by the majority of scientists who subscribe to the scientific method?Sure. And the plural of anecdotes, someone said, is data.And there's a lot of data. Actually, this year is the 50th anniversary, half a century, since Dr. Raymond Moody realized that we have two ears and one mouth and started listening to what his patients had to say about their experiences while they were clinically dead.The heart had stopped, breathing had stopped in these patients. These patients would come back and tell him these amazing stories that some people may say are hallucinations, but for the patients were hyper-real, like seeing light at the end of the tunnels, seeing deceased family members waiting for them, feeling bliss.___I would say the evidence suggests that the mind can survive the death of activity of the brain.___And so he and others started taking them seriously and writing their accounts down. And then you can do a science based on that material of experience that people have. Now, on the more objective side, more recently people have started to measure what's going on in the brain when people are clinically dead and brought back. This has opened a proper field of study, which is near-death studies.Evidence is a difficult word, because sometimes people think that when you say evidence, this is just the final proof. Evidence is like in a jury. You bring testimony, you bring pieces of data that point in one direction or another.I would say the evidence suggests that the mind can survive the death of activity of the brain. When brains are broken or shut off, there can still be mind going on. And that's revolutionary.That would entail that when we die, it's not game over, which, by the way, is the thesis of materialism. If consciousness survives, materialism dies. It's game over for materialism if something of us continues after we die. Do you think that there is mental continuity after death?Well, I think so, and I believe so, and I could also say I may have experienced it myself, because four years ago I had a near-death experience. I was in the hospital, I lost a lot of blood, and I saw those beings at the end of the tunnel, three beings, and there was yellow light. I was in a well, I was looking upwards, and I hadn't read about NDEs by then, but when I came back from this experience, I decided I would try to integrate this also in my professional life. Not just my personal life, of course, but my professional life as a physicist and as a neuroscientist. So I may have had the experience of glimpses of what an afterlife would be, and I'm not ashamed to say it in this way, and then one can do science of it, and then one can do philosophy of it.One can think about what -isms we were discussing, what views on reality would allow those experiences to be really ‘real,’ as opposed to, well, poor guy, the brain was kind of broken, it must have been a hallucination. Do you have a view about whether individuality or “the ego” persists after death, or whether we sort of merge into some sort of cosmic consciousness instead?I don't know, but my view would be along those lines you're suggesting. I think we could speak about a kind of universal mind, and then the problem is not how we emerge from matter, but how we fragment from a more holistic consciousness into these individual eddies and then when we die, this kind of dissipates.But I'm not sure. For instance, idealism would promote that view, but then what would survive of us after these eddies just vanish and become again the big Consciousness, I'm not sure what that would be. I don't know for sure, but I would tell you I believe something of us survives.And there are other lines of research, not just near-death experience, that can address this really hard question of survival. For instance, there are children who remember previous lives. This was studied by Ian Stevenson at the University of Virginia for more than 50 years.___Research takes place within a selection mechanism that also sometimes reinforces things that are not very scientific.___It's amazing research. He went all over the world, especially in the East, and collected all these case studies, all these stories. In plural, these were data of kids, very young age, who would describe up to 40 items that then he could go and verify.There was no internet. There was really no way the kid could know. Why would the kid say that when I was living in this other body and I was a woman and that's how my house would look like or that's how I would die, right? Again, there is evidence, not proof, but there's evidence not only that something weird and interesting is happening as we cross the threshold, but also when we come back to this life.Scientists should not be afraid of studying this, but they are because there's stigma. There's usually stigma upon the enigma, and this is so unfortunate. And one of the reasons is because of the ideology of materialism, because those things cannot be possible. What is wrong with the politics of science such that they have generated this stigma?So many things. Science is a human activity to begin with.So it falls prey to all our passions and ego and greed. That's one thing. Science is a job for the good and for the bad.You need to get a salary. You need to get grants. Research takes place within a selection mechanism that also sometimes reinforces things that are not very scientific.And then, we didn't have time to unpack this, but science for many years become entangled, as I was suggesting before, to other -isms, materialism, secularism. So anything that smells like the afterlife, people may think has to do with God, and then they freak out.Anything that suggests that there's something about the mind that may not need a physical material substrate to exist, it smells like non-materialism. So, all these -isms are ideologically blocking that kind of research, and then there are all these sociopolitical constraints as to what should be studied and what shouldn't be studied.I call it the backstage of science. Sometimes we scientists or science communicators seem to speak as if the data is the only thing that matters. We say, well, data and theory.But then there's a third leg of this stool, which is all the politics that goes behind the scenes. And we often don't speak about this, and it's quite vicious and petty, and it's very real. Why is materialism so attractive to most scientists?Well, an easy answer is because we've grown up with it.It's what the educational system promotes, and that's what you hear when you go to university. So it's like growing in a culture. It feels like the air in which you breathe.So it's very hard to begin with to detect, well, maybe there's another alternative. Maybe there are other ways of doing science, other environments in which one could do science. That's one reason.And other reasons maybe are more profound, and I'm not qualified to explain them, but I could say, looking at this 400-year history of science, since it started around 1623 with Galileo's book The Assayer, that science went and coupled with all what's going on in the West.And so the fall of religion, you could say, and science presented us this new alternative that then could be coupled very well with other -isms, and this idea of growth, and then science losing its good twin brother, which was philosophy. There's a whole natural history of science starting as philosophy, kind of emancipating or breaking out from philosophy, and then marrying technology, and then marrying other social systems.From that point of view, materialism is a very convenient idea to propose. There were attempts, like the German idealists tried to do a more romantic science. But no, the idea prevailed, like Francis Bacon said: You should pursue nature through all her corners, he said, and make her spill her secrets.Our attitude towards nature in the science that dominates is very much reflecting how we treat nature in our society, in our culture, like a resource to extract secrets by force and then dominate it. How is materialism related to the notions of growth and progress? What's wrong with having a productive citizenry?This is another very interesting and very difficult question to answer.But there's this recent book coming out by Paul Kingsnorth. In it, he explains this idea of the machine and this idea of progress. And this, again, this conflation of more is better, of we need to go forward always, and convincing us that the way to do that is to continually extract more from nature. But because we don't have the religious context anymore, because God is dead, then what do we have? We have what we can do as humans with our own gadgets.It's kind of the story of the Promethean fire. We will just build anything to make ourselves God.A good example today is transhumanism. Transhumanism is this pseudo-religion dressed in technoscientific language whose goal is very religious. They promise immortality, they promise redemption, they promise transformation of the entire natural world, but it's done by human means through technology. Are you suggesting that we can't have ethics without religion?Well, we should have ethics with or without religion. That's another pruning that has happened in science. We say, forget about aesthetics, although some physicists still think that beautiful means probably true, and forget about politics. We pretend there's no backstage of science, and even let's forget about ethics.___Science needs to be in the service of mankind.___Scientists, when they become more like engineers, they're just thinking how to make things work so that they can go to the moon, go to Mars, make machines that think, but they don't think whether that's a good idea.And also consider metaphysics. Many scientists for a long time pretended, and maybe that comes from the stream of positivisms, that really one doesn't need metaphysics at all, except that materialism is always the metaphysics running the system.You see, it's not just ethics. It's the pruning of all of these, you could say, five main legs of philosophy that just makes a kind of unconscious science, a science that doesn't really know what it's doing. It's doing it very well locally, but it just doesn't know what it's doing globally. Do you think science has to have an ultimate vision and purpose behind it for it to be effective or for it to be meaningful and transformative?Yes, a way I would say that is that science needs to be in the service of mankind. And it hasn't been that. And we can see it through, you know, when we discovered the secrets of the atom, and all of a sudden, the Manhattan Project, and then we create nuclear weapons.And now we're trying to crack how machines may think, and now we're creating this mess, right? So science needs to be in service of mankind, not in service of a few ideas that maybe want to make more money or just dominate upon nature. What about planes, trains, automobiles, and modern medicine? Hasn't science served mankind by helping us develop those technologies?Yes and no. I see where you're going, and it's fair.I came here by plane, and it's a blessing. When I almost died, the surgeons did their job, and they saved my life. But these two forced choices between Luddites and Silicon Valley types, I think, of course, it's a false dichotomy.Progress, in a way, it's good, but we often don't speak about the dark side of the moon. We say the great things that progress has brought, and we don't speak about the disasters, the side effects that it has come with, and the same when we promise new technologies. We tend to think that any technology is great, that email is going to save us so much time because we don't need to write letters and send them anymore.Is that true? I spend so many hours a week writing emails. Let's just say there are great things about it and bad things about it. People like Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker, for example, argue that we've made moral progress over time because of the Enlightenment. Do you think that's totally wrong-headed?I think he's emphasizing a side of the moon, and he does that very well, and you can find tons of plots where there's a slope going up and say it's great. But I think he should also tell the not-so-friendly story.But if your ideology is just to resist and continue to explain that the Enlightenment is the best thing ever and reason is the best thing ever… this feels to me like you're worshipping these abstractions.I'm very critical of it and also of these, again, science communicators and scientists that say, Oh, science says, in the name of science, experts say. It's like, come on, let's be careful because we can shoot ourselves in the foot by putting forth to the people an image of science that we know is not really true. Recently there's been a resurgence of spirituality and of people who say that they're spiritual but not religious, especially in the United States. If materialism is going away, what is going to fill that gap? Are we going to return to traditional religion? Do you see that being connected with the rise of the political right?I'm not a fortune teller, so I don't know what's going to happen. But, yeah, we could say we're in this post-materialist age and even post-secular age. One cannot come back to the past, but maybe just to contact with the roots is a good idea.What do I mean by that? I think we need to do a science 2.0, a science that says thank you to Galileo and thank you to materialism, but we need to reinvent even a new kind of scientific method. We need to do so in a culture where we realize humans cannot thrive in a vacuum where there's this idea that the sacred has to be removed.Now, how do we do that without bringing in back all the vices of religion? I don't know. I'm from a Catholic country.Here we are in England, so there are differences and interreligious dialogue has always been a challenge. But I think maybe a way of putting it is: after all these conflicts and branchings I was quickly alluding to, science from philosophy and then also from religion, now there's a time of reconciliation perhaps and maybe debates in the proper sense, like exchange of ideas in service of learning and getting into something higher than both poles. We need science to talk to religious people and it's interesting when people say they're spiritual and not religious.I think this is just a way of saying, no, I don't want to go back, I want to go forward. But at the end of the day, religions have offered us practices and grounding that we now desperately need. Everybody can and should just meditate or pray or do whatever they want, but we're in a crisis and it's time for reconciliation. What do you say to critics that say you are merely projecting our need for meaning onto a fundamentally indifferent universe?Yeah, I know that the typical science communicator says something like this. But we're not projecting. Human beings feed on meaning.It's the other way around. If you're a materialist, because the only thing that there is is matter, all that comes next, free will, consciousness, meaning, this is a kind of illusion that we need to explain.They're just craving for meaning, but there isn't really for them. I would also like to remind my materialist friends that for decades, if not centuries, they've said in the name of science, we know that this and this and this doesn't really exist. I think now they sense they're forced to say, well, actually, we don't know. We've been saying, for instance, that there's nothing after you die, and now probably they need to admit that they don't know the answer.___We need to do a science 2.0, a science that says thank you to Galileo and thank you to materialism, but we need to reinvent even a new kind of scientific method.___So it's a moment to open up possibilities and also to gently but fiercely critique these claims that I think harm society. If you say in the name of science, get on with it, when your father dies, you'll never see him again. Well, what the F do you know about it? You haven't studied the literature, you haven't had any of those experiences, and basically what you're doing is you're just doing marketing on ideology. This needs to stop. Do you think that it's scarier for some people to entertain the thought that there might be life after death, compared to a materialist worldview where you just die, given that there might be consequences for unsavory behaviour?Well, death and dying is scary. It's maybe the ultimate ending. It's a limit on life, and when we're in this conquest mode, we don't like limits.And it also has, there's a shockwave backwards, so I think if you change your notion of what death is or may be, you live differently. It also has consequences, as you're saying, for the future because this is not our only goal here and we come back in whatever form. And again, different religions would say different things. I the East, they are more happy with the idea of reincarnation, and here in the West, there are other preferences. But in any case, it changes how we live, and that's really what matters.It's not about just projecting or imagining what we'll be after, but how we live now and also how we treat those who are dying. So it goes from the individual to the families, to the hospitals.Now in the near-death research I do, this has ramifications at all these levels, all the way to society.But our society is thanatophobic. It has a phobia of death. We don't want to hear about death, and this is another thing we need to put on the table and be willing to talk about it. Do you think that we might get closer to answering ultimate questions like why is there anything at all if we jettison materialism?That’s an excellent question, Simon. Two things: we should stop treating reality, I believe, as a great sudoku, as an enigma, as something that with intelligence, money, and time that we will crack and instead treat reality more like a mystery. And what you do for in front of a mystery is not to be the clever guy in a class and say “I’ll solve you” but more like “I will bow and you will transform me.”I know this sounds a bit like a scientist speaking like a mystic. But I think this reorientation is needed. In the end, we won’t crack the big questions, but they will transform us. If we free ourselves from this prison of materialism, the way we will explore these questions will be freer, more creative, and in service of mankind. Do you think exploring mystery is the reason why we are here?I think we are here because, and this pseudo-theological argument I’m making off the cuff, But the One, the Absolute, if there is such a thing, had everything except limitation. We are that absolute experiencing that contingency. It’s like an act of divine proprioception. It’s a wonderful adventure, it’s just incredible to be alive. Perhaps we have forgotten why we are here and the whole point is to experience the flesh.Let me end by saying this. I criticize materialism harshly. I bang on this dead horse, because I think it’s dead. But matter is a great mystery. So maybe my invitation is as follows: hey materialist friends, come here, let’s work on materialism 2.0! Consciousness is a mystery, but matter is also a mystery. The fact that we can have an intersubjective experience consensus, the fact that we can apply mathematics, that we can measure things... the physical world we take for granted, but it is a great mystery too.Maybe that’s related to your last question: why are we here? Why did spirit decide to incarnate? Being in the flesh may be a great thing if spirit decided to do so.Àlex Gómez-Marín, thank you very much.My pleasure.