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United Methodist churches in central Florida have been among the congregations targeted in recent months by anti-LGBTQ protesters threatening to disrupt worship.

Bishop Dr Jonas Jonson, bishop emeritus of the diocese of Strängnäs in the Church of Sweden, and Dr Birgitta Rubenson visited the World Council Churches 8-10 April. 

[Episcopal News Service] The American flag still has a place at Calvary Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Missouri, but under new guidance from the bishop, that place is no longer near the church’s altar. Calvary is located near the Mississippi River in the northeastern Missouri community of Louisiana, population 3,200. Last month, during a Sunday service, the small congregation ceremoniously moved its American flag from the front next to the altar to the back of the nave, where it now is posted beside a columbarium, partly in honor of veterans who are interred there. “People felt like it was the right thing to do and the right time to do it, and it was done with no disrespect,” the Rev. Deb Goldfeder, deacon-in-charge at Calvary, told Episcopal News Service in a phone interview. Missouri Bishop Deon Johnson had issued his guidance on flag display days earlier in a message to his St. Louis-based diocese on March 19. In it he lamented the pernicious rise in the United States of Christian nationalism, a politicized distortion of Christianity that was most prominently on display in the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of Donald Trump supporters. The House of Bishop’s Theology Committee released a report in October on “The Crisis of Christian Nationalism,” urging all Episcopalians to do their part in countering such movements. Johnson referenced that report in announcing his guidance to Diocese of Missouri congregations to remove American flags from their altars. “Rooted in a conflation of faith and national identity, this ideological movement distorts the Gospel of Jesus, misusing Christianity to justify division, exclusion, inequality, racism and supremacy,” Johnson said. “This ideology further demands that laws, culture and public policies be based on a distorted interpretation of the Gospel that elevates power and control over love. These ideologies are in direct contradiction with our faith.” Johnson acknowledged that the flag can be “a symbol of national unity which honors the hard-fought freedoms won by brave women and men who willingly sacrificed for its purpose and the cause of peace.” At the same time, to conflate the flag with the cross – the Christian symbol of hope in Jesus’ resurrection – “intentionally blurs the division between our faith in a loving, liberating and life-giving God and national pride.” His guidance directs clergy and congregations “to contextualize the flag by properly placing it outside the altar area and next to rolls of honor, books of remembrance, or service memorials to those who served.” The House of Bishops’ report on Christian nationalism does not specifically advise moving American flags from altars, though it offers a range of other suggestions for responding to the crisis. “This challenge is not new or particular to this day and age,” the report says. “In the early church, gentiles had to renounce their allegiance and their participation in the Roman army when they became Christians. Each generation must explore and renew its understanding of life in Christ in its moment in history.” The full 128-page report, in English and Spanish, is available for purchase from Church Publishing. Former Presiding Bishop Michael Curry had asked the House of Bishops Theology Committee to study the issue in 2022, and Curry wrote a foreword for the published report. Christian nationalism “threatens our country’s soul,” Curry said in the foreword. “It is because we love God and it is because we love our country that we want to respond in ways that are healthy, holy, and true.” The report is one of the latest examples of The Episcopal Church’s ongoing response to the increasing threat of Christian nationalism. The church’s Executive Council, meeting in January 2021, less than three weeks after the Jan. 6 riot, passed a resolution committing the church to “deradicalization” efforts. The measure asked the church’s Office of Government Relations and Office for Ecumenical and Inter-religious Relations “to develop a plan for The Episcopal Church’s holistic response to Christian nationalism and violent white supremacy.” Curry, participating in a webinar on the topic later that month, called Christian nationalism “absolutely a threat to a pluralistic, democratic society, and something that needs to be wrestled with in order to move forward and not repeat the events of Jan. 6.” He and other leaders have continued to speak out on the issue in the ensuing years. The 81st General Convention adopted a resolution in June 2024 urging Episcopalians to educate and equip themselves for action in response to “the urgent, troubling, and deeply rooted issue of religious nationalism, the intersection of religious extremism and nationalist ideologies, both domestically and globally.” And last month, at the latest meeting of the House of Bishops, Atlanta Bishop Robert Wright spoke forcefully against Christian nationalism as “demonic.” “Christian nationalism is not an imperfect or evolving rendering of Jesus’ life and teachings, neither should it be characterized as simply a difference of theological or political interpretation or emphasis. Christian nationalism is a deceitful rendering of Jesus’ teaching for the purpose of manipulation and the increase of mammon,” Wright said, according to his notes provided to ENS. “This is not a fringe movement as the data shows. This is a deeply embedded, well-funded, strategic, compellingly argued appeal.” Johnson’s emphasis on flag placement in his Diocese of Missouri congregations raises what may be a sensitive issue at congregations across The Episcopal Church where American flags can sometimes be found posted on altars, either separately or alongside Episcopal Church flags. Spokane Bishop Gretchen Rehberg, in a personal reflection included in the “Crisis of Christian Nationalism” report, offered her own perspectives on this question. “A simple example of our perhaps inadvertent complicity in Christian nationalism is having a U.S. flag in our churches,” Rehberg said. “I have been clear that I do not believe that flags belong in churches, but I have not forbidden them. The diocese will also need to be willing to accept increased losses in our membership when those who are […]

[Episcopal News Service] On Palm Sunday, April 13, All Saints Episcopal Church in Chicago, Illinois, will lead a procession through the Ravenswood neighborhood after its 11 a.m. Central worship service to bring attention to migrants who’ve been arrested and are being illegally detained in El Salvador and Louisiana. Many have disappeared from the U.S. detainee tracking system. The Rev. Courtney Reid, associate rector of All Saints, told Episcopal News Service that the post-worship procession is in line with the message of Palm Sunday, when the Galileans greeted Jesus as he entered Jerusalem with shouts of “Hosanna,” a word originating from Hebrew meaning “save us.” “Regardless if there are reasons that someone should be deported for a crime they’ve committed, treating people as if they aren’t human is absolutely antithetical to the Gospel, and yet that is what our government is doing, and our political leaders aren’t standing against it,” Reid said. Last month – under the Alien Enemies Act, a law not invoked since World War II – the United States sent 238 Venezuelan migrants to a maximum-security prison in Tecoluca, El Salvador, under a “renewable” one-year agreement with the Salvadoran government. The Trump administration alleges the detained migrants have ties to the Venezuelan gang known as Tren de Aragua. However, many of the migrants’ families and lawyers insist they have no gang ties. Documents show that about 90% of the incarcerated migrants had no U.S. criminal record. Moving the migrants to a prison in another country without due process has also sparked outcry from relatives, lawyers and immigration advocates. The prison, the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, has been criticized for alleged human rights abuses since it opened in 2023. CECOT allegedly denies inmates communication with family and lawyers, and inmates are permitted just 30 minutes a day to leave their cell, according to Human Rights Watch, an international nongovernmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The inmates also supposedly sleep on metal beds in overcrowded, windowless cells. “It’s such a breach of humanity; the level of dehumanization is obscene and immoral,” Reid said. Many immigrants who are legally in the United States with visas or green cards have also been arrested and have been deported or face deportation, including Rümeysa Öztürk, a Turkish doctoral student at Tufts University in Massachusetts, and Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian lawful permanent U.S. resident. Both are being detained in Louisiana. “When the image of God – a human being – is being violated, Christians must say something about that if we truly believe in the dignity of every human being,” the Rev. Suzanne Wille, rector of All Saints, told ENS. “Christians cannot be silent about what’s going on in our world.” During the post-worship procession, parishioners will carry signs protesting the migrants’ imprisonment. Some banners will include photos of Öztürk and Khalil, as well as Neri Jose Alvarado Borges and Andry Hernandez Romero. Alvarado Borges was sent to CECOT because the U.S. government alleges that his many tattoos are proof that he’s affiliated with Tren de Aragua. Hernandez Romero, a gay makeup artist, was sent to CECOT while his asylum case was pending, also for his tattoos allegedly representing Tren de Aragua affiliation. The other banners will include photos of anonymous women who, according to The New York Times, are at risk of dying from the Trump administration’s foreign aid freeze, and photos of anonymous CECOT prisoners being pushed down and frog-marched in their cells. “None of these people can reach their lawyers or loved ones,” Wille said. “It’s like our government is trying to make them disappear and wipe them from our consciousness.” On April 5, Reid and a group of parishioners gathered at Daley Plaza with more than 30,000 other people for Chicago’s “Hands Off” protest. “Hands Off” is an ongoing series of demonstrations held so far in every U.S. state and some European cities to protest the Trump administration’s policies and billionaire Elon Musk’s involvement in significantly downsizing the federal government. Coming off the same “energy” from “Hands Off,” Reid said, the plan for the Palm Sunday processional is to publicly walk outside of residential spaces to ensure that as many people as possible read the signs protesting migrant imprisonment. Jacob Farmer, a parishioner at All Saints who participated in “Hands Off,” told ENS he plans to participate in the Palm Sunday procession with the same goals for justice in mind. “I believe that it’s important as community members and as Christians to show up and demonstrate that we care about what’s going on, and that we do not agree with the current administration’s actions,” he said in a text message. Wille said the mistreatment of migrants reminds her of when she was in seminary 20 years ago, when the dean asked, “Where were the Christians?” when it was brought to widespread public attention in 2004 that the U.S. Army and CIA were torturing detainees at Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq during the Iraq War. “That question has haunted me for 20 years,” Wille said. “Where were the Christians speaking out against Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay then, and where are the Christians today now that we’re sending migrants to Guantánamo Bay as well as El Salvador and Louisiana? There’s power in speaking up.” -Shireen Korkzan is a reporter and assistant editor for Episcopal News Service. She can be reached at skorkzan@episcopalchurch.org.

Thousands have been displaced and two United Methodist churches have been damaged by flooding in Kinshasa, the country’s capital.

In its Easter message, the World Council of Churches (WCC) urges Christians to rise up in joy, emphasising a hope that enters the brokenness of the world. 

Professor Karol Hubert Karski, a distinguished evangelical theologian, lecturer, and ecumenical activist, passed away in Warsaw at the age of 84. 

A delegation from the Church of Sweden, let by its general secretary Camilla Asp, visited the World Council of Churches (WCC) from 9-10 April. 

Could the crisis of masculinity in culture, explored in Adolescence, be playing a role in young men turning to Christ?