World Religions News

(RNS) — A new report created by a pair of evangelical Christian organizations is raising alarms about the effects of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation effort on families, arguing that more than 1 million people could be “torn apart” from their families if current immigration policies continue at expected rates.

The report, which was released on Monday (May 4), was produced through a partnership between two prominent evangelical Christian organizations: World Relief, which helps resettle refugees, and the National Association of Evangelicals, an umbrella organization that represents a broad swath of evangelicals. Titled “Joined Together, Torn Apart: How U.S. Immigration Policies Are Separating Families,” the report argues Trump’s controversial immigration policies are harming families by separating spouses as well as children from their parents through deportations and detentions.

The authors stress they are “not saying that all deportations are unjust or unwarranted,” but cite Scripture to argue that “Jesus makes abundantly clear that what God has joined together in marriage, human institutions should not separate.”

On a press call with reporters on Monday, NAE President Walter Kim said family is a critical concept for evangelicals like himself.

“Evangelical concerns about immigrants, about widows, orphans — these are public policy concerns,” he said. “But more fundamentally, they’re theological concerns. They’re biblical concerns.”

The report draws its conclusions from the administration’s own goals — namely, plans to deport 1 million people a year and “an indefinite pause on immigrant visas for 75 countries.” Using that rubric, the report argues that 910,000 U.S. citizen children would be separated from one or both of their parents by early 2029, and 272,000 U.S. citizen spouses would be separated from their partner. What’s more, because of the ongoing pause on immigrant visas from some countries, 150,000 spouses and children would also remain separated abroad from their U.S. citizen spouses and children during that time.

Altogether, the report argues, 1.3 million people would be impacted.

“The grief and trauma U.S. citizen spouses and U.S. citizen children are experiencing is unimaginable,” the report reads. “Part of the church’s responsibility is to come alongside families inside and outside of their congregations.”

Myal Greene, head of World Relief, noted many of those detained and deported during the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaigns do not have criminal histories — and some, he said, entered the country legally.

“Family separation is not only happening among those who entered unlawfully,” he said, adding that even families that are reunited can be “permanently scarred.”

Asked about the criticisms in the report, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson suggested the Trump administration has no plans to abandon its broader mass deportation agenda.

“President Trump was elected as the President of the United States based on the many promises he made to the American people, including his promise to deport criminal illegal aliens,” Jackson said in a statement. “He is keeping his promise to the American people.”

The report builds on a separate study released last year by the NAE along with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which argued that 1 in 12 Christians in the U.S. were vulnerable to deportation or live with a family member who could be deported.

The press call also featured two Texas pastors — Pastor Elias Rodriguez, who leads Casa Nueva Voz and founded the group Hope Invasion, and the Rev. Walter Thompson, head of First Presbyterian Church in Midland, Texas. The two detailed how they have worked to care for the children whose parents have been deported or detained, with Rodriguez and Thompson each caring for children in their own homes.

Thompson noted that, although he lives in an “overwhelmingly red conservative Christian community,” he was surprised by how quickly people rushed to assist the two girls he cared for. Many locals offered diapers and other supplies such as DoorDash credits and home-cooked meals.

“Every time I shared the story of these little girls and what we were doing — their separation from mom and dad — the response was that they wanted to help,” Thompson said.

The girls were recently reunited with their family in Venezuela, the pastor said, but he fears the same situation will befall others.

“We are thankful that they’re home, but we remain very concerned about policies and systems that allow for this kind of separation,” he said, referring to the girls.

Despite recent drops in support for Trump’s immigration policies among many religious groups, he continues to enjoy robust backing from evangelicals — particularly white evangelicals. According to a March poll from the Public Religion Research Institute, 69% of white evangelicals expressed favorable views of how Trump is handling immigration — more than any other religious group. White evangelicals were also more likely to voice support for more extreme immigration proposals, with 63% voicing support for detaining immigrants in internment camps, and were the only group to show majority support (51%) for detaining and relocating undocumented immigrants without due process.

But Kim pointed out that there are many multiethnic evangelical churches with immigrants in their pews, and that the realities of the mass deportation policy are starting to be felt by churches he works with.

“What might have been an abstract policy decision that’s taking place in Washington now is actually impacting communities,” he said. “Churches that are multi-ethnic, who are seeing fellow members of youth groups coming in incredibly distraught because of what’s unfolding with parents — that’s happening on the local church level.”

Greene also expressed hope that the report itself could help change hearts and minds and referenced Trump’s dwindling approval numbers.

“As more information like this becomes accessible to people, whether they’re church leaders or just concerned citizens or church members, their opinions are frequently shifting,” he said. “I think that’s why we’ve seen a decline nationally in support for the current administration’s immigration policies.”

(RNS) — Sam Allberry, a pastor and apologist who advocates for celibacy as the faithful path for LGBTQ+ Christians, has been “disqualified from gospel ministry” following an “inappropriate relationship with an adult man in 2022,” according to a statement from elders at Immanuel Nashville, a nondenominational church where he has served as an associate pastor since 2023.

The Nashville, Tennessee, church’s statement, first reported by Protestia, said church elders were first made aware of the relationship between Allberry and another man in spring 2024, and based on “information available at the time and the posture of Sam and the other party,” the church determined it wasn’t disqualifying behavior. But after receiving new information this January, per the statement, the elders reopened an investigation into Allberry’s actions.

“(W)hile the relationship did not go as far as it could have, Sam’s conduct constituted a serious breach of trust and a failure to walk in a manner worthy of the gospel,” the statement said. “The Elders are unanimous in their decision that Sam is currently disqualified from gospel ministry. Sam agrees with this decision and has resigned from Immanuel Church.”

Neither the church nor Allberry responded to requests for comment in time for publication, and RNS could not independently verify the elders’ statement, but Allberry’s name has been removed from the church website.

Immanuel Nashville is led by evangelical Gospel Coalition council member T.J. Tims and three assistant pastors, including Barnabas Piper, son of evangelical heavyweight John Piper. Allberry also served as canon theologian (theological adviser) in the Anglican Diocese of the Western Gulf Coast until last month and remains ordained in the Anglican Church in North America.

On Sunday (May 3), The Gospel Coalition’s board of directors released a statement saying that Allberry had resigned as a fellow at The Keller Center for Cultural Apologetics over concerns about “an inappropriate relationship with another man a few years ago.”

“Per TGC policy and procedures, we immediately began to remove all of Sam’s content from our website and other content channels, and we deferred this statement until the church membership was informed,” the statement said. “We are heartbroken over this news, and we continue to pray for Sam, Immanuel Church, and everyone affected.”

Immanuel Nashville was founded by Reformed evangelical theologian Ray Ortlund in 2008, who, along with his son Gavin Ortlund and Baptist minister Russell Moore, serves as leader in residence for the church. Immanuel is also part of the Acts 29 Network, a Reformed evangelical church planting network.  

Allberry, who has written extensively for The Gospel Coalition and Desiring God, has described himself as “a Christian man who has experienced same-sex attraction,” but whose “sexual feelings and temptations” aren’t part of his identity in Christ. He is known for reframing singleness as a positive calling. His theology around human sexuality closely matches what has often been labeled a “Side B” sexual ethic, which teaches that being gay or attracted to the same sex isn’t sinful, while also teaching that God designs sex and marriage to occur exclusively between a man and a woman.

Living Out, a United Kingdom-based organization that aims to help “same-sex attracted individuals” to “flourish through faithfulness to biblical teaching on sexuality and identity,” posted Monday that it is praying for Allberry, one of its co-founders.

“We will be reaching out to Sam to better understand how we can support him, what has happened, and the implications,” the organization said in a statement. “In the meantime, we believe his many past contributions to this site retain their value, and they will not be taken down. … Living Out exists because of people like Sam, and for people like Sam. We continue to appreciate all that he has contributed to Living Out.”

Allberry is not currently facing any clergy misconduct proceedings in the Anglican Church in North America.

(RNS) — President Donald Trump and the U.S. Supreme Court have destroyed decades of progress in American democracy by gutting the Voting Rights Act last week and instituting a gerrymandering war to win more elections in red states.

The Democrats have responded by gerrymandering blue states. The result will be fewer Black candidates elected to office and fewer competitive elections where the voters have a real choice between the parties.

How did this happen? 

Trump knows he and his supporters are going to be in trouble in the November midterm election. The party controlling the White House traditionally loses seats during midterm elections. These losses are greater if the president is unpopular, as is Trump currently. But the losses can only occur in districts that are competitive. It’s very unlikely districts that are overwhelmingly Republican will go blue.

So now, Trump and other Republicans are trying to protect their majority in the House of Representatives by asking Republican officials in red states like Texas to redraw the House district lines to find him additional safe Republican seats.

The process of redrawing electoral district lines to favor one party is called gerrymandering, after Massachusetts Gov. Elbridge Gerry in 1812 backed a redistricting plan favoring his own party, the Democrat-Republicans. One of the districts looked like a salamander, so the press combined the governor’s name with salamander to produce the name “gerrymander.”

In response to Trump’s request for five additional seats in Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott pushed the redistricting plan through a special session of the state legislature. But then, voters in California and Virginia adopted redistricting plans that give Democrats additional House seats.

Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis is now trying to get additional House seats for Republicans even though the state constitution forbids partisan gerrymandering. Other Southern states are moving in the same direction. 

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Rucho v. Common Cause in 2019 that partisan gerrymandering is legal under the U.S. Constitution. Whether it is legal under state law depends on a particular state’s constitution and laws.

Legal or not, gerrymandering is bad for democracy. It means that in the general election, the voters have no choice in most districts because one party has an overwhelming majority so that the other party does not have a chance.

In addition, even if a state is evenly split across parties, gerrymandering can give a large majority of the seats to the party that controls redistricting. As the League of Women Voters and others have noted, gerrymandering “allows officials to choose their voters rather than voters choosing who represents them.”

Meanwhile the Supreme Court has been gutting the 1965 Voting Rights Act since before last week. In Shelby County v. Holder (2013), it struck down the requirement that states with a history of racial discrimination get federal approval for changes to their voting laws. Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee (2021) made it harder for plaintiffs to challenge voter suppression laws. And now Louisiana v. Callais requires proof of “intentional” racial discrimination to challenge redistricting, something very difficult to prove.

Race has been integrally linked to politics from the founding of the republic. Black people were excluded from voting through Jim Crow laws in the South. Even when they got the right to vote, racial animosity kept poor white voters from joining with Black voters to improve their lot. Instead, after the Civil Rights legislation, white Southerners deserted the Democratic Party, and the party of Lincoln used fear of Black people as an organizing principle in both the South and the North.

The Republicans on the Supreme Court have put the final nail in the coffin of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Justices who claim to prize historical intent now interpret post-Civil War amendments to the Constitution as a defense of white rights. There is little hope that the Supreme Court will reverse itself in the near future. Nor is it likely Congress will reverse the court.

What then should voters do?

The solution is counterintuitive. Black and other Democratic voters in red congressional districts should register as Republicans. 

If general elections are now irrelevant, it is necessary to vote in primaries, where the real decisions are made. It does not matter who the Democratic candidate is in a red district. Democrats should therefore register as Republicans and vote in Republican primaries so that they can influence who will be nominated.

Since turnout in primaries is notoriously low, Democrats could have a real impact in Republican primaries. The result would be the election of more moderate Republicans, since the candidates would have to appeal to an electorate that does not only consist of conservative ideologues, as is the case in Republican primaries today.

Black churches and civil rights leaders must legitimize this party switch if it is going to happen.

Of course, Republicans can play this game, too. Republicans can register as Democrats in blue districts and vote in Democratic primaries. This could result in the election of more moderate Democrats.

But American voters need to take back their power to influence American politics. The current system has disenfranchised both Black and white voters. And to take back power, it may be necessary to change your registration.