Leaders paint Kamala Harris as Jezebel, who is cast out – from a window, trampled by horses, and eaten by dogs
As the sky darkened on the National Mall in DC last Saturday, evangelical pastor Ché Ahn addressed the thousands of worshippers gathered there and issued a decree.
Trump, Ahn said, was a figure akin to the biblical King Jehu, and “Kamala Harris is a type of Jezebel, and as you know, Jehu cast out Jezebel”.
Continue reading...Jenny Donnelly, leader of anti-trans Don’t Mess With Our Kids, bills first pre-election event as rallying call for mothers
Tens of thousands of Christians poured onto the National Mall on Saturday to atone, pray and take a stand for America – which, in their view, has been poisoned by secularism and must be ruled instead by a Christian god.
Summoned to Washington DC by the multilevel marketing professional-turned-Christian “apostle” Jenny Donnelly and the anti-LGBTQ+ celebrity pastor Lou Engle, they streamed onto the lawn holding blue and pink banners emblazoned with the hashtag #DontMessWithOurKids – a nod to the myth that children are being indoctrinated into adopting gay and transgender identities.
Continue reading...Bible-bashing drug boss accused of targeting Afro-Brazilian religions and Catholic congregations
Reports that a powerful Rio drug lord known for his extremist religious beliefs ordered Catholic churches near his stronghold to close have spooked worshipers and security experts and exposed the advent of a “narco-pentecostal” movement made up of heavily armed evangelical drug traffickers.
Claims emerged in the Brazilian press over the weekend that Álvaro Malaquias Santa Rosa – a notorious gang boss known as Peixão (Big Fish) – had determined that three places of worship should shut down in and around the agglomeration of favelas that he controls in northern Rio.
Continue reading...Greg Slater is co-founder with his wife Sharon of Family Watch International, a US group accused of financing propaganda about sexual and gender diversity
A group of human rights organisations in Africa renewed their calls this week for the American multinational Intel Corporation to dismiss a senior employee over his alleged involvement in fanning the growing anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment in several countries, including Kenya and Uganda.
In a change.org petition, supported by more than a dozen organisations, the rights groups claim that Greg Slater, Intel’s vice-president of global regulatory affairs, has been “actively responsible for exporting, financing, and spreading hate, homophobia” on the continent for decades, through the American conservative organisation, Family Watch International.
Continue reading...The Inter-Religious Council of Uganda, which is openly homophobic, is a direct recipient of UK aid money
The UK government is helping to fund the work of a virulently homophobic religious organisation in Uganda, whose leaders have backed a proposed law that would make identifying as gay a criminal offence, a report has found.
Analysing official data given to the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI), the report by the Institute for Journalism and Social Change (IJSC) found a “staggering” number of connections between anti-LGBTQ+ organisations in Uganda and international aid donors, including the UK.
Continue reading...I first encountered TB Joshua as a teenager, when his preaching captivated my evangelical Christian community in Hampshire. Many of my friends became his ardent disciples and followed him to Lagos. How did he have such a hold over people?
On the second day of TB Joshua’s funeral in Lagos, his disciples took to the stage. A microphone was passed around as more than 60 disciples introduced themselves by name and nationality. They came from 18 different countries, among them Nigeria, South Africa, Indonesia, Mexico, the US and the UK. Some seemed barely out of their teens; others were in late middle age, having spent decades serving Joshua, the millionaire Nigerian pastor and self-proclaimed prophet being laid to rest. A senior Nigerian disciple, recently promoted to prophetess, began her tribute. “How to describe someone so indescribable?” she said. “How to define someone so indefinable? Human and divine?”
Joshua died on 5 June 2021, a few days before his 58th birthday. The news spread on social media, before the Synagogue, Church of All Nations, known as Scoan, made an official announcement. “God has taken His servant Prophet TB Joshua home,” the statement read, “as it should be by divine will.” Over a month later, his funeral under way, there had been no mention of a cause of death.
Continue reading...Thousands of Southern Baptists are gathering to elect their next president amid deep divides over addressing systemic racism and sexual misconduct
Thousands of Southern Baptists from across the US are heading to Tennessee this week to vote for their next president, a choice laced with tension that could push America’s largest evangelical Christian denomination even further to the right and potentially spark an exodus of Black pastors and congregations.
Each of the three leading candidates for president presents a unique vision for the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) and will help guide the Protestant denomination through the thorny issues it currently faces – declining membership, deep divisions over acknowledging the existence of systemic racism and fresh accusations of mishandling sexual abuse allegations.
Continue reading...State forbids preaching to under-18s without parents’ permission
The Israeli government is threatening to take off air a Christian television channel that launched in the country to preach to Jews, warning that it will be barred if it breaks strict rules around proselytising.
GOD TV, an evangelical media network that broadcasts across the world, signed a seven-year deal with a major Israeli cable television provider, HOT, to host its new Hebrew-language channel that began airing last month.
Continue reading...As evangelical Christians use their influence with Brazil’s government to cast their net ever wider, indigenous people vulnerable to common diseases face a growing threat
A radical group of evangelical Christian missionaries set on converting every last tribe on Earth has raised fears that deadly diseases – and even the coronavirus – will spread in the Brazilian Amazon. The group has based its newly bought helicopter right beside a reserve with the world’s highest concentration of isolated indigenous groups, who have little resistance to common illnesses.
There are more than 100 isolated indigenous groups in Brazil, all highly vulnerable to common diseases such as measles and flu, and 16 of them live in the same reserve in the Javari Valley, a vast, remote area the size of Austria. Covid-19 could wipe out any of them.
Continue reading...The group played a key role in the election of the country’s far-right president and have become increasingly assertive
With drummers pounding out samba rhythms through the rain, this might almost have been just another one of the hundreds of street parties of Rio’s world-famous carnival.
But nobody at the I’m Full of Love Samba Street Party on Copacabana Beach was drunk or in costume, few bystanders were dancing – and the group on the sound truck was singing about Jesus.
Continue reading...Trump has handed his ultra-loyal evangelical base policy victories and in return they turn a blind eye to his scandals
Joanne Craig, a lifelong evangelical Republican and resident of Sioux City, Iowa, couldn’t be more satisfied with the first three years of Donald Trump’s presidency.
Donning a large, blue “Christians for Trump” button on a blue pantsuit, the 80-year-old Craig emerged from the Country Celebrations Event Center in this small Iowa city satisfied to have heard Mike Pence and a cadre of Baptist pastors coo about the president’s policy victories.
Continue reading...The fast-growing religious right – both Catholic and Protestant – see the president’s exit as a first step in transforming the country, leaving many indigenous Bolivians horrified
Some blame the defenestration of Evo Morales on a racist, rightwing coup. Others credit a popular revolt against a leader who had overstayed his welcome.
Related: Bolivia's Evo Morales lands in Argentina after being granted asylum
Continue reading...Friday’s rally recognized Trump’s need to retain the loyalty of the evangelical voting bloc that propelled him to victory in 2016
They came to pray with their president, though in truth many came just to worship him. Donald Trump’s Friday launch of his so-called “coalition of evangelicals”, an attempt to shore up the support of the religious right ahead of November’s election, had the feel of any other campaign rally, except this time with gospel music.
An estimated 7,000 “supporters of faith” packed the King Jesus international ministry megachurch in Miami to hear the word of the president, and decided that it was good. The Maga hat-wearing faithful cheered Trump’s comments on issues calculated to resonate with his churchgoing audience, including abortion, freedoms of speech and religion, and what he claimed was a “crusade” from Democrats against religious tolerance.
Continue reading...Recent, high-profile defections have left the president and his campaign spooked about losing a key component of his base
The US president going to church on Christmas Eve should not have attracted much attention. But it was the specific church Donald Trump chose to attend on Tuesday that raised eyebrows.
Instead of attending his usual service at the liberal church in Palm Beach, Florida, where he married his third wife, Trump instead went to a conservative Baptist-affiliated church in West Palm Beach.
Continue reading...President wants to apportion aid based on how countries treat religious minorities
White House officials are reportedly drafting plans to make US foreign aid conditional on how countries treat their religious minorities, in an effort that is seen as a sop to Christian evangelicals in Donald Trump’s base.
The move, which threatens to impose further constraints on a US foreign aid policy already heavily restricted under the Trump administration, was first reported by Politico after briefings from White House aides.
Continue reading...As a scandal-ridden presidency lurches towards impeachment, Ben Howe offers valuable insight into how it came to this
In his new book, Ben Howe attempts to explain something that should never have occurred: why most white evangelicals voting in 2016 chose Donald Trump.
Many observers thought Trump could not win because evangelical Christians could not support someone whose life (and tweeting) was so at odds with their beliefs and practices. Indeed, Trump failed to win a majority of evangelicals in any Super Tuesday primary.
Continue reading...Trump ally’s political influence may be on the wane as he calls for investigation at evangelical university
Since January 2016, when the head of Liberty University, Jerry Falwell Jr, endorsed Donald Trump for president, the influential evangelical university has been on a fast-track to the heart of American politics. Since being credited with helping Trump earn the loyal support of the Christian right, Falwell has become a regular presence at the White House.
Meanwhile, the university, founded in 1971 by his late father, the Rev Jerry Falwell Sr, has expanded exponentially. Under Falwell Jr’s leadership, the Lynchburg, Virginia, not-for-profit university’s assets have reportedly grown from $259m in 2007 to over $3bn and it has more than 100,000 students.
Continue reading...White evangelical Christians are on the frontline of the US's anti-abortion movement. But not so long ago this group was not interested in the politics of terminations. Its members are a crucial faction of Donald Trump's base, motivating him to further restrict abortion rights. How did it all change? Leah Green investigates how a group of men turned abortion into a tool that shaped the course of American politics
Continue reading...Joshua Harris says his marriage is over and apologises to LGBT+ people for promoting bigotry
The American author of a bestselling Christian guide to relationships for young people has announced that his marriage is over and he has lost his faith.
Joshua Harris, whose biblical guide to relationships I Kissed Dating Goodbye sold nearly 1m copies around the world after it was published in 1997, has also apologised to LGBT+ people for contributing to a “culture of exclusion and bigotry”.
Continue reading...Evangelical backing for a thrice-married celebrity is not as odd as it seems: on abortion, the supreme court and more, the president keeps delivering
After bowing his head in prayer, Donald Trump addressed faith leaders in the sunshine of the White House rose garden.
Related: Trump wants Barr to consider investigating Biden – Giuliani
Continue reading...