Pastor Mike McBride, the leader of Live Free USA, who has long sought political support to especially help the nation’s urban centers, hailed the signing as an opportunity to address gun violence deaths that do not always make national headlines.

“It’s been a very difficult task to get the death of Black men in this country, much less the death of any Black folks, to receive national attention and intervention,” said McBride. “Even among Democrats — Democrats have not been the most political champions for this work. So it’s taken us 10 years to get to $250 million committed in a bipartisan way.”

On hand were Rabbi Jonathan Perlman and others who endured a mass shooting in 2018 at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh and the Rev. Sharon Risher, whose mother was among the nine African American worshippers killed during the 2015 shooting at Mother Emanuel AME church in Charleston, South Carolina.

“That was beautiful — to see all these heroic people, survivors that have been working for change,” said Shane Claiborne, co-founder of the group Red Letter Christians and leader of an effort that melts down guns into garden tools in observance of the biblical call to turn “swords into plowshares.”

But Claiborne added that he understood that the bipartisan legislation “is the most substantial gun reform bill that we’ve seen in 30 years. But what we also heard is how dysfunctional our political process is — because there’s so much more that’s needed.”

“We need a ban on assault rifles,” he added.

The legislation includes a variety of interventions into gun purchasing, including expansion of background checks for people younger than 21, $250 million for community-based violence prevention initiatives and $500 million to increase the number of mental health staffers in school districts.

President Joe Biden, in remarks from the White House’s South Lawn, decried the violence that has turned houses of worship, schools, nightclubs and stores into places of death.

“Neighborhoods and streets have been turned into killing fields as well,” said the president. “Will we match thoughts and prayers with action? I say yes. And that’s what we’re doing here today.”

Claiborne said he presented a Christian cross made from a melted-down gun barrel to second gentleman Douglas Emhoff, as well as to a friend of President Biden.

McBride said his efforts with faith leaders on this issue date back to a 2013 meeting at the Obama White House, when Biden was vice president.

“In 2013, we asked for $300 million, and we were told no,” he recalled. “And so some 10 years later, we’ve gotten close to that original ask.”

He said the programs for which groups like the Fund Peace Foundation seek support are “targeted for Black and brown communities that are dealing with the highest rates of gun violence,” including from gangs and intimate partners.

Other faith groups have responded to the passage of the legislation with statements of support.

“The investments in mental health services and reasonable measures to regulate guns included in this bill are positive initial steps towards confronting a culture of violence,” said Archbishop Paul S. Coakley of Oklahoma City, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development.

“We are heartened that after almost three decades of gridlock, Congress has finally taken bipartisan action to address America’s gun violence epidemic and end violent crime,” said Melanie Roth Gorelick, senior vice president of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs. “This is a huge victory, but we cannot allow this to be the end.”

While calling himself grateful for this historic development, McBride said he and his partners will be pushing for far more support.

“This will be a failure if this is the only thing they do for the next few years,” he said.

Biden seemed to agree that further action was needed.

“We have so much more work to do,” he concluded. “May God bless all of us with the strength to finish the work left undone, and on behalf of the lives we’ve lost and the lives we can save, may God bless you all.”

This article was originally published in Religious News Service. 

The dignitaries stopped in front of St. John’s Church, where presidents, including Trump, have traditionally attended services on their Inauguration Day. St. John’s, which had suffered a minor fire the day before, was closed. But Trump took up a position in front of its sign and turned toward the cameras, a Bible held aloft.

“We have the greatest country in the world,” Trump said. In the distance, sirens wailed.

Washington’s Episcopal bishop, whose diocese includes St. John’s, condemned Trump’s stunt, saying it left her “horrified.” But White House chief of staff Mark Meadows declared he was “never prouder” of the president than in that moment, calling it a rejection of “the degradation of our heritage or the burning of churches.” Trump’s evangelical Christian advisers were similarly effusive, lauding the photo op as “important” and “absolutely correct.”

In retrospect, the “symbolic” message of Trump’s Bible photo op, as he termed it, operates as a bookend to the Christian nationalism on display at the attack on the U.S. Capitol seven months later. It communicated, however histrionically, that the president was leading an existential fight against politically liberal foes calling for a racial reckoning, but at the center of which was an attack on Christian faith. From that moment on, Christian nationalism — in the broadest sense, a belief that Christianity is integral to America as a nation and should remain as such — provided a theological framework for the effort to deny Democrats the White House.

As Trump’s poll numbers dipped the same month as the photo op, his campaign redoubled efforts to stir up support among his conservative Christian supporters. Then-Vice President Mike Pence embarked on a “Faith in America” tour, while Trump conducted interviews with conservative Christian outlets and held rallies at white evangelical churches.

Referring to “American patriots,” Trump told rallygoers at Dream City Church in Phoenix: “We don’t back down from left-wing bullies. And the only authority we worship is our God.”

In August at the Republican National Convention, Trump described early American heroes as people who “knew that our country is blessed by God and has a special purpose in this world.” Pence, in his speech, adapted Christian Scripture by swapping out references to Jesus with patriotic platitudes.

Despite then-candidate Joe Biden’s public discussion of his Catholic faith, and the overt religiosity of the Democratic National Convention, Donald Trump Jr. told the GOP crowd that “People of faith are under attack” in the United States, pointing to restrictions on large gatherings due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Yet it was Trump’s religious supporters who did the attacking the final night of the RNC. After leaving the convention’s fireworks-filled celebration at the White House, conservative Christian commentator and Trump loyalist Eric Metaxas was filmed punching an anti-Trump protester off his bike and fleeing into the night, only admitting to the assault days later in an email to Religion Unplugged.

SIGN: RED LETTER CHRISTIAN PLEDGE

After Trump lost the election in November, a report from the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty and the Freedom From Religion Foundation concluded that Christian nationalism, also referred to as white Christian nationalism, was used to “bolster, justify and intensify the January 6 attack on the Capitol,” according to BJC’s Amanda Tyler.

In the days after the vote, Florida pastor Paula White, leader of the White House faith office, preached a sermon from her home church in which she called on “angels” from Africa and other nations to assist in overturning the election results. The next night, insisting she was only addressing “spiritual” matters, White vacillated between the ethereal and the electoral: She entreated the Almighty to “keep the feet of POTUS in his purpose and in his position” and decry any “fraud” or “demonic agenda” that “has been released over this election.”

“We override the will of man for the will of God right now, and we ask, by the mercy and the blood of Jesus, that you overturn it, overturn it, overturn it, overturn it, overturn it, overturn it, overturn it,” she said.

The religious rhetoric ramped up with the effort to “Stop the Steal.” Thousands of Trump’s supporters descended on Washington in mid-November for the “Million MAGA March,” where Ed Martin, a conservative politician and an executive at the Eagle Forum, flanked by signs reading “Jesus matters,” argued that the United States was “founded on Judeo-Christian values” and should not be led by “CNN … or fake news.” Martin called on God to “bless us in our work” and asked God to “strengthen us in our fight” to defend Trump because the “powers of darkness are descending.”

Around the same time, activists began planning a series of  “Jericho Marches” across the country, invoking the biblical story of Israelites besieging the city of Jericho. In Pennsylvania, demonstrators marched around the state Capitol waving Trump flags and blowing on Jewish ritual horns called shofars. Verses of the hymn “How Great Is Our God” mixed with chants about electoral fraud.

The largest “Jericho March,” on Dec. 12 in Washington, was emceed by Metaxas and included Trump-circle figures such as disgraced former national security adviser Gen. Michael Flynn and current Pennsylvania gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano. Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the militant group Oath Keepers, who now faces sedition charges for his alleged role in the Capitol attack, called for the marchers to join him in a “bloody war” if the election results weren’t overturned.

Several groups took on a religious bent as Jan. 6 approached. Members of the Proud Boys, a right-wing group known for clashes with leftist protesters, prayed near the Washington Monument in December, comparing their “sacrifice” to Jesus’ crucifixion. “God will watch over us as we become proud,” one man shouted into a bullhorn. (The next evening, Proud Boys — after being prayed over by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones — tore “Black Lives Matter” signs from Washington-area churches, setting one on fire.)

Jericho Marchers were among the thousands who descended on Washington in January, some traveling on buses paid for by Mastriano. On Jan. 5, a group processed around the U.S. Capitol, holding signs emblazoned with Trump’s face while once again blowing shofars and singing “How Great Is Our God.” That night, Tennessee pastor Greg Locke —in addition to lifting up prayers for the Proud Boys — preached to a raucous crowd, describing America as “the last bastion of Christian freedom” and declaring that Trump would stay “for four more years in the White House.”

The next day on the National Mall and the Capitol steps, Christian nationalist iconography was unavoidable. Men and women waving flags that read “An Appeal to Heaven” or “Proud American Christian” surged past Capitol police as the officers tried to halt those entering the Capitol building. When people adorned in Oath Keepers attire stormed into the Capitol rotunda, they appealed to the Almighty for “letting us stand up for our country.”

In the Senate chamber, the invaders invoked Jesus’ name and bowed their heads as a self-described “shaman” associated with the QAnon conspiracy theory movement thanked Jesus for “allowing” them “to get rid of the communists, the globalists and the traitors within our government.”

As District of Columbia police officer Daniel Hodges, who was crushed in a door by insurrectionists that day, put it: “It was clear the terrorists perceived themselves to be Christians.”

That was certainly the case with Jenny Cudd, who was later tried and convicted for her actions at the Capitol. In a video posted to Facebook on Jan. 6, Cudd, draped in Trump-branded gear, said: “We were founded as a Christian country. And we see how far we have come from that. … We are a godly country, and we are founded on godly principles. And if we do not have our country, nothing else matters.

“To me, God and country are tied — to me they’re one and the same,” said Cudd.

This piece originally appeared in Religious News Service.

But when Bishop Walter Thomas stood before the hundreds of churchgoers and dignitaries who packed the pews of New Psalmist Baptist Church in Baltimore, Maryland, on Friday (Oct. 25) for Cummings’ funeral, he insisted the legislator’s “last official act of the Kingdom of God” was something else.

“His last act takes place today, when men and women from every aspect of life, from those who run corporations, those who stand in hallowed halls, those who sit with robes behind benches, those who pass legislation … have all made their way to the place he came every Sunday morning,” said Thomas, speaking from the pulpit of a church Cummings attended for nearly 40 years. “His last act … is that he wanted you to know why he came to church.”

He added: “Elijah has brought power to church … Every place of power, Elijah has called them in.”

The powerful were, in fact, well represented at the funeral, including Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who read scripture, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

During his sermon, Thomas also recalled his first meeting with Cummings, the son of sharecroppers who became pentecostal preachers, and pointed out different places where Cummings and his wife sat in the church over the years.

The congressman’s regular church attendance, Thomas argued, helped give him the spiritual inspiration to continue his work as a legislator — an inspiration he hoped would extend to the nation.

“Elijah would say, ‘As long as God gives me strength, I’m going to go back and fight another day,’” Thomas said. “Never fighting with despair, never fighting with pessimism, (but) fighting with the one weapon Jesus Christ made sure he had … an unshakable faith, a faith that God did not bring me this far to leave me now — that God didn’t bring our nation (this far) to leave us now.”

Thomas was one of many who recounted the steadfast Christian faith of Cummings in the wake of his death, with everyone from clergy to congressional staffers to presidents remarking on how important religious devotion was to the crusading lawmaker.

Secretary Clinton referred to Cummings as “a man of faith and a man of the church,” arguing his life echoed his biblical namesake.

“It is no coincidence that Elijah shared a name with an Old Testament prophet, whose name meant in Hebrew ‘the Lord is my God,’” she said. “He weathered storms and earthquakes but never lost his faith.”

She then uttered a theological zinger that appeared to be a veiled reference to Donald Trump’s administration, of which Cummings was known to be a persistent gadfly.

“Like that Old Testament prophet, he stood against the corrupt leadership of King Ahab and Queen Jezebel,” Clinton said, sparking raucous applause throughout the church.

Secretary Clinton’s husband, former President Bill Clinton, spoke later in the program. He recalled Cummings’ faith and argued that his life reflected biblical exemplars.

“He really did sort of mirror Isaiah who had one of the greatest one-liners in human affairs,” President Clinton said. “When the Lord asked, ‘Who shall I send and who will go for me?’ Isaiah said, ‘Here I am, Lord. Send me.’ Elijah Cummings spent an entire lifetime saying, ‘send me.’”

President Clinton, too, recounted the biblical story of Elijah, recalling when God spoke to the prophet in a “still small voice.” Elijah Cummings, he said, could also be such a voice for others.

“We should hear him now, in the quiet times at night and in the morning,” he said. “When we need courage. … Let our Elijah, be for us, what he himself heard: the still small voice that keeps us going, keeps us grateful, keeps us happy, and keeps us moving.”

Former President Barack Obama spoke next, rooting his remarks in yet another biblical tale.

“The Parable of the Sower tells us to stand up for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by preserving, produce a crop,” he said. “Elijah Cummings came from good soil. And in this sturdy frame, goodness took root.”

Their words were echoed by others such as Maya Rockeymoore Cummings, the congressman’s wife, who described her husband as a man who “lived for God” and “is of God.”

Harry Spikes, one of Cummings’ congressional staffers, noted that the lawmaker often lived in pain but that “when it was time to address his audience, the congressman transformed into a spiritual warrior.

“It was as if he had received the cure to his pain,” Spikes said. “No armor. No shield. But God’s weapon of unconditional love for people.”

The funeral came after two days of remembrance services in Baltimore and at the U.S. Capitol, where Cummings became the first African American congressman to lie in state.

Speaking at the U.S. Capitol on Thursday, House Majority Leader Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-M.D.) also said Cummings was “like the biblical prophet Elijah,” who saw wronging and worked “to banish it from our land.” Cummings, he said, was “a man whose name meant ‘Lord is my God,’ who kept faith with God by keeping faith with his fellow men and women.”

Speakers invoked the spiritual on Wednesday as well, when Cummings was lying in repose at Morgan State University in Baltimore — where he served on the Board of Regents for 19 years.

Marc Terrill, president of the Associated Jewish Federation of Baltimore, lifted up the Jewish concept of a tzadik during services at the school. He defined the term as a person who stands for inclusion, evokes compassion and serves selflessly.

“If ever there was a tzadik, that tzadik was Elijah Cummings,” he said.

Speaking during a call with reporters Monday (July 1), the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, said his organization plans to launch a campaign to offer aid to immigrant children held in detention centers at the border.

The effort, which organizers are calling the “For His Children” campaign, will involve sending “shipments and cargo and truckloads of resources to the border,” including shoes, clothing and hygiene products, Rodriguez said.

“We have boots on the ground literally now working with our current administration in addressing some of the needs of these children coming over,” he said.

When a Religion News Service reporter asked if the campaign would involve churches providing shelter or foster homes for migrant children crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, Rodriguez said yes.

“That’s part of what we have in the rollout of the campaign,” he said. “It’s part of it.”

It was not immediately clear how many — or which — children the group might be able to take in. No details were available about what kind of government approval the process would require. It was also not clear whether the children would be housed just in churches or also in homes.

The Kairos Company, the communications firm that organized the call, told RNS churches who participate in the program plan to offer housing to children who would otherwise end up in detention centers, but noted they have not yet secured approval from the U.S. government to do so.

“In the meantime the churches will provide the necessary basic necessities and we are opening up churches to accommodate just in case the detention centers cannot hold the children or their families,” a spokesperson said in an email. “The church becomes a temporary housing facility for those seeking asylum or coming over the border undocumented and were captured in the process.”

The spokesperson also noted that the initiative will be led by the NHCLC, but not limited to their network.

RNS also asked the U.S. State Department about the potential program, but they deferred to the Department of Homeland Security, who also did not immediately respond. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services — which assists with similar programs — also did not immediately respond to request for comment.

Rodriguez said For His Children is “revamping” a previous partnership with the humanitarian organization Convoy of Hope. That partnership began in July 2014 when unaccompanied children arrived in the U.S. under former President Obama.

The NHCLC president listed as potential partners Gus Reyes, director of the Baptist General Convention of Texas’ Christian Life Commission, and Rev. Eli Bonilla, lead pastor at Bethel Christian Church in Orlando, Florida.

“Our preferable choice is for people to come here legally, not illegally. We want to stop all illegal immigration for a number of reasons, including the humanitarian reason. My heart broke when I saw these kids. I don’t want these kids to be in danger or to suffer at all,” Rodriguez said.

“If they do come here, we want to be a blessing to them. We really want to help them.”

Still, he said, he saw something “drastically different from the stories I’ve been hearing in our national discourse” when he requested a visit to a detention facility last week in El Paso, Texas.

“I was shocked at the misinformation of the crisis at the border.”

He and a delegation of pastors from the NHCLC had full access to the facility, which they toured for at least an hour, he said.

It appeared to be a “summer camp environment” where children had television and snacks and cordial relationships with guards, Rodriguez said. No one was sleeping on floors or cement, and storage areas were full of clothing and hygiene products.

Rodriguez said guards emphatically told him they had not altered the center for the visit but acknowledged he was not allowed to speak with the children.

James Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family, similarly grabbed headlines last week with a newsletter documenting his visit to the border at McAllen, Texas, alleging “the media and leftist politicians have not been truthful about what is going on there.”

Both Rodriguez and Dobson are represented by The Kairos Company.

The Evangelical Immigration Table also visited the U.S.-Mexico border in late June, as revelations about the dire conditions of children within detention centers made the news. Its delegation included the National Association of Evangelicals President Leith Anderson and World Relief President Scott Arbeiter, as well as representatives of Bethany Christian Services, the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities and the Assemblies of God.

The NHCLC is a member of the Evangelical Immigration Table.

Afterward, the Evangelical Immigration Table sent a letter addressed to President Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, Senate Leader Mitch McConnell, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and members of Congress.

That letter asks for immediate funding for border facilities, urges the U.S. to respect its own laws regarding asylum seekers and expressed concern about Trump’s so-called “Remain in Mexico” program.

In a recorded press call about the letter, Anderson said there are churches throughout the U.S. that are “eager to welcome families and provide for them.

“We just need federal policies that would allow them to be able to do that,” he said.

Anderson also asked Congress to “find a bipartisan solution to this tragic situation.”

One issue preventing churches and faith-based agencies from helping asylum seekers is the “Remain in Mexico” program, which is sending asylum seekers back over the border to Mexico while they wait for their cases to be heard in U.S. immigration court, according to Matthew Soerens, national coordinator of the Evangelical Immigration Table and U.S. director of church mobilization for World Relief.

Another issue is that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has run out of resources to place children with agencies like Bethany Christian Services that are authorized to provide foster care for children until they can be reunited with family, Soerens said.

Also, churches would need government approval and oversight to take in children. Not just anyone can show up and offer to foster a migrant child who has been separated from his or her family at the border, he confirmed — and that’s “for good reason.”

He added, “You have to protect children.”

“We are here to talk about right versus wrong,” the Rev. William Barber II, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, told hundreds of clergy and other people of faith gathered in Lafayette Square for a rally organized by Barber and Rabbi Arthur Waskow, director of the Shalom Center.

“We have come as a prophetic witness against what we are seeing in this nation, and to deliver a moral indictment against this president’s policies, this administration’s policies, the policies of his enablers, and the policies of the religionists who try to suggest that what is wrong is actually right,” said Barber, who is also president of Repairers of the Breach.

The rally began with an interfaith worship service that included representatives from Native American, Jewish, Christian, Muslim and other faith traditions at New York Avenue Presbyterian Church, who then marched toward the White House holding a banner that read “Moral Witness Wednesday.”

Waiting for them at Lafayette Square, which is across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House, was presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, mayor of South Bend, Ind. Buttigieg, who has spoken at length about faith on the campaign trail and expressed support for a “religious left,” was only attending the demonstration to bear “silent witness,” not to campaign, rally officials said.

When the crowd, which stretched more than two city blocks, arrived at Lafayette Square, where a stage had been erected for the rally, the Secret Service announced that the park was being closed for two hours without explanation. Access to Pennsylvania Avenue was also gated off.

A Secret Service spokesperson told Religion News Service the closure was a matter of “routine protective activities.” When asked, neither the spokesperson nor the initial announcement mentioned a security threat.

Undaunted, the faith leaders continued their demonstration on the sidewalk outside the park, with masses huddling around Barber and other leaders as speakers used a bullhorn to decry various Trump administration policies, focusing on issues such as the treatment of immigrants, climate change, the U.S. Census, and health care.

The Rev. Traci Blackmon, a Ferguson, Mo., pastor who protested against white supremacists in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017, discussed health care, gerrymandering and racism in her short speech, saying “America is not well” and that “we will be judged by how we have cared for the sick, how we fed the hungry, how we have sheltered the homeless, how we have welcomed the stranger.”

She later explained to RNS that she felt compelled to participate in the protest because “people of faith who are committed to the gospel” and other religious traditions have been “relegated to the left because we’ve been too quiet.”

She added, “We’ve never been a perfect nation … but we’re headed towards fascism and it is my role as a priest and a prophet to sound the alarm.”

Several speakers noted that the various faith communities shared many concerns. Wendsler Nosie, former chairman and councilman of the San Carlos Apache Tribe, noted that his faith is the “oldest religion of this country,” and he pointed to the overlap of Native American sacred land claims and environmental fights.

“Native Americans trust in you and this movement as long as it is spiritual,” he said.

Buttigieg, whom Barber asked to move into the crowd while the faith leaders spoke, remained silent and observant during the proceedings, sometimes nodding in agreement with what was said.

At one point the Rev. Jacqui Lewis of Middle Collegiate Church in New York approached Buttigieg to thank him on behalf of the LGBTQ members of her congregation and named him as one of her “favorite candidates” running for office (she later clarified this wasn’t an endorsement). She then handed him her business card, which he accepted.

Buttigieg left after about 45 minutes and tweeted about the protest later that day, calling it “important” and “moving.”

READ: #MoralWitnessWednesday: A Call to Prayer and Prophetic Action

Shortly after his departure, officials reopened the park, allowing the group to assemble around the stage, and the speakers continued their criticisms of the Trump administration. Rabbi Esther Lederman, director of Communities of Practice and Congregational Innovation for the Union for Reform Judaism, blasted the administration’s use of the Homestead Center in South Florida to house immigrant children.

“I’ve lost track of how many times we’ve spoken out against the moral crimes committed by this White House and this administration,” she said as a crowd of preachers roared in response. “But I’m not tired! We’re not tired! We can do this every day until every child is released from Homestead — and that is a promise, Mr. President!”

After the speakers finished in the park, a column of volunteers approached the White House fence in an attempt to deliver a petition that called on Trump and his administration to “repent for its sins.” But even as Park Service officers assembled to detain protesters, and the Secret Service blocked the area in front of the White House with a barrier, informing demonstrators that crossing it would be a felony.

Barber eventually led the volunteers as far as the makeshift gate, chanting, “Your administration is under indictment!” and “Your court chaplains are under indictment!” After a back-and-forth with police officers, participants eventually began taping their copies of the petition to the gate.

As protesters dispersed, Barber noted that the Poor People’s Campaign will host a “Moral Action Congress” in Washington next week that is slated to include speeches from several Democratic presidential candidates. He also explained that, while neither the protest nor his organization endorses candidates, they are nonetheless unashamedly “political” and plan to hold future protests.

“The (faith) leaders are not going away,” Barber told RNS. “We are announcing today that we must be conspicuous — now — in the public square.”

Several clips of the encounter circulating on social media show a small group of Native American drummers, who were in Washington for the Indigenous People’s March, being surrounded by a much larger band of teenagers.

Most were young men who wore hats or shirts bearing Donald Trump’s campaign slogan “Make America Great Again.” Others wore clothing with references to the March for Life, an anti-abortion event convened on Friday (Jan. 18) that the students attended.

Some of the young men wore hoodies that bore the logo of Covington Catholic High School in Park Hills, Ky.

In one of the videos, the young men clap along to the drumbeat of a man whom Indian Country Today identified as Nathan Phillips, an Omaha elder and Vietnam War veteran. But the moment quickly turns confrontational as the mass begins mocking the elderly man by shouting a faux Native American chant used by the Atlanta Braves and other sports teams.

The crowd then begins to laugh and shout as one young man, donning a Make America Great Again hat, stands in front of Phillips and stares, grinning.

As the crowd continues to heckle and chant, Phillips stares back and continues to drum, seemingly unfazed. But his companions appear to grow increasingly agitated as the crowd encircles them.

“You guys are acting like a mob!” one woman yells at the camera.

Covington Catholic officials did not respond to multiple requests from Religion News Service for comment.

They released a joint statement with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Covington Saturday afternoon.

“We condemn the actions of the Covington Catholic High School students towards Nathan Phillips specifically, and Native Americans in general, Jan. 18, after the March for Life, in Washington, D.C.,” the statement read. “We extend our deepest apologies to Mr. Phillips. This behavior is opposed to the Church’s teachings on the dignity and respect of the human person. The matter is being investigated and we will take appropriate action, up to and including expulsion. We know this incident also has tainted the entire witness of the March for Life and express our most sincere apologies to all those who attended the March and all those who support the pro-life movement.”

Chase Iron Eyes, lead counsel for the Lakota Peoples Law Project and a spokesperson for the Indigenous Peoples Movement, witnessed the encounter.

In an interview with RNS, Iron Eyes said Phillips and several others were closing out the ceremonies of the Indigenous Peoples March by blessing the grounds of the Lincoln Memorial when they observed 30 or 40 teenaged boys taunting another smaller group in the area.

Iron Eyes said Phillips attempted to defuse the situation by offering a song, “trying to get young people to listen,” and video shows him walking over to the students while drumming. Iron Eyes called the AIM Song, associated with the 1970s American Indian Movement, a “spiritual symbol,” saying the wordless melody “is meant for all of us to sing.”

“To have our elders who are closing out, you know, a beautiful day — one that started kind of chilly and cold, but the sun came out and joined us and blessed us — to have them go through that was a particularly egregious ordeal,” he said.

Iron Eyes called the students’ behavior “unfortunate and sad.” He said they were following the example of President Trump.

“They’re just responding to a president that is giving license to racists and bigots who have no place in our society,” he said.

Still, he expressed concern for the students.

“I wouldn’t even wish ill will on those kids,” he said.

The Archdiocese of Cincinnati also criticized the students’ actions, tweeting that “incident at the March 4 Life was unfortunate & regrettable.”

According to Indian Country Today, Phillips is a former director of the Native Youth Alliance and holds an annual ceremony honoring Native American veterans in the Arlington National Cemetery.

A separate clip posted to Twitter appears to show him emotionally reacting to the encounter.

“I heard them saying ‘build that wall.’ This is indigenous land — we’re not supposed to have walls here; we never did,” he said. “Before anybody else came here, we never had walls.… We always took care of our elders, took care of our children.”

Phillips continued to speak over the sound of additional chanting in the distance: “I wish I could see the energy of that young mass of young men, put that energy into making this country really great — helping those that are hungry.”

Organizers of the Indigenous Peoples March condemned the incident.

“What we saw yesterday, the display surrounding Mr. Phillips, is emblematic of the state of our discourse in Trump’s America,” Darren Thompson, an organizer for the Indigenous Peoples Movement, said in a press release. “It clearly demonstrates the validity of our concerns about the marginalization and disrespect of Indigenous peoples, and it shows that traditional knowledge is being ignored by those who should listen most closely.”

March for Life president Jeanne Mancini insisted the encounter did not represent her organization.

“The pro-life movement at its core is a movement of love and the reprehensible behavior shown in the video in no way represents the 46 years and millions of people who have peacefully and respectfully gathered in Washington, D.C., to stand up for the unborn,” she said in a statement sent to RNS. “Nor does it represent the vast majority of the marchers present at this year’s March for Life. Such behavior is not welcome at the March for Life and never will be.”

Rep. Deb Haaland (D-N.M.), the first Native American woman elected to Congress, decried the students’ actions on Twitter Saturday, saying they displayed “blatant hate, disrespect, and intolerance.”

Phillips was reportedly the victim of a separate incident of student harassment in 2015, when Eastern Michigan University students dressed as Native Americans allegedly threw a beer can at him and shouted racial slurs.

Priests, pastors, imams and rabbis knelt at the border south of San Diego in front of a row of U.S. Border Patrol agents clad in riot gear. Organizers said 30 faith leaders were arrested, but a U.S. Customs and Border Protection official put the number at 32.

CBP said most were charged with failing to comply with directions from federal officials and then released, but one was charged with assaulting or resisting an agent — a charge the protesters already dispute.

The “Love Knows No Borders” demonstration was organized by the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker group that assembled religious leaders from across the faith spectrum for the event. Participants said it was meant to express frustration about several border-related issues at once.

“It was about the militarization of the border, about the border wall itself and about calling for the rights of the migrant — particularly the migrant caravan,” said Lucy Duncan, an organizer and outreach director for the AFSC who was at the protest and was among those arrested.

“There were people there from all across the country from all faith traditions risking arrest and making a statement, saying this is not what our country stands for, this is not what our sacred traditions teach,” said the Rev. Liz Theoharis, co-chair of the progressive, faith-rooted activist group the Poor People’s Campaign. Theoharis participated in the demonstration but was not detained.

Duncan said AFSC had the idea for the protest after learning that authorities planned to close Friendship Park, a well-guarded stretch of the border where friends and family members on both sides commonly gather to talk through the fence and where religious groups often hold joint worship services.

In addition to Theoharis and Duncan, participants included United Methodist Bishop Minerva G. Carcaño; the Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray, head of the Unitarian Universalist Association; the Rev. Traci Blackmon, a pastor in Ferguson, Mo., and head of the United Church of Christ’s Justice and Local Church Ministries; the Rev. Bruce Reyes-Chow, former moderator of the Presbyterian Church (USA); Omar Suleiman, an imam and adjunct professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas; and Rabbi Brant Rosen, who serves on the rabbinical council of Jewish Voice for Peace. It could not be determined immediately whether they were among those arrested.

After an immigration-themed interfaith service on Sunday evening, the demonstrators gathered Monday about a mile from the border for a news conference before marching toward the protest site — a beach near Friendship Park.

The Rev. Julie Peeples, pastor of Congregational United Church of Christ in Greensboro, N.C., said the demonstration was split into two groups: roughly 100 who were willing to risk arrest, and roughly 200 who provided support behind them.

“I was there in the role that several of us played: as peacekeeper, to try to keep people moving, to try to keep things focused on why we were there,” she said.

Theoharis said the group stopped at one point to perform a ritual, where leaders “read the names of those who have died at the hands of Border Patrol or died trying to cross the border into the United States.” They then anointed several demonstrators before those risking arrest moved in groups of four into a restricted area.

A line of border patrol agents was waiting for them. The clergy eventually stopped and began to sing hymns and protest anthems. As some knelt in the sand, they sang, “Rise up my people, my condors, my eagles! No human being will ever be illegal!”

Theoharis said they squared off with agents for nearly two hours, with officials sometimes shoving them back as they advanced while singing and praying. But organizers said that as the group turned to leave — partly due to the presence of what were described as “alt-right” counterprotesters — agents began conducting “waves of arrests.”

Video of the incident shows Border Patrol agents pulling faith leaders through their ranks before throwing several to the ground and restraining their hands with zip ties.

Many of the clergy who assembled have been vocal in their support for immigrants in the past, and some are figures in the New Sanctuary Movement, which shelters undocumented migrants at risk of deportation in houses of worship in defiance of federal authorities.

“I follow Jesus Christ, who welcomed everyone,” said Peeples, whose church has offered sanctuary to at least two undocumented people. “That’s very basic, but it’s the truth. God throughout Scripture had a huge heart and concern for migrants.”

Duncan said she hopes their demonstration can capture the attention of lawmakers and that they respond with legislation.

“We want to defund ICE, defund Border Patrol, and defund hate,” she said.

This article originally appeared at RNS.

“Are you ready to say ‘I’m going to commit myself to Jesus,’” Campolo asked as many rose to their feet, some closing their eyes and raising their hands in prayer, “I’m going to be committed to the poor? I’m going to stand up for the refugee? I’m going to speak for those who feel oppressed by our society?”

Campolo, a leader of the Red Letter Christians advocacy group, knew his audience would appreciate that call, made Saturday (April 7) at the Red Letter Revival, a two-day gathering organized by progressive evangelical leaders near the campus of evangelical Liberty University.

In Lynchburg they aimed to fellowship, and to reaffirm their values — but also to serve as a thorn in the side of those who promote a conservative brand of their faith that has aligned itself with President Trump. (More than 80 percent of white evangelicals voted for the president.)

They organized to pray against “toxic evangelicalism,” and to offer a spiritual challenge to Liberty President Jerry Falwell Jr., whose steadfast support of Trump has drawn fierce criticism from other people of faith — and, in their view, not nearly enough evangelicals.

A different kind of evangelical political theology

Compared to other evangelical conferences that often boast larger numbers, the revival was small. Roughly 300 to 350 people crowded into the E.C. Glass High School auditorium — where Martin Luther King Jr. once spoke — Friday evening.

But those who sang and prayed over the weekend said they appreciated how the gathering was framed as an alternative to the theology of Falwell. One of the speakers, evangelical author Jonathan Martin, was escorted off Liberty’s campus by police in October while attending a concert days after calling for a peaceful protest of the school. In the months leading up to the revival, Martin referred to Falwell’s leadership style as “authoritarianism,” and the Rev. William Barber II — for many the most important leader of the religious left today — said Falwell is “justifying the GOP’s immorality” in the “same way” slaveholders used the Bible to justify slavery.

Similarly, sermons and slam poems at the revival included lengthy discussions of political topics, such as sexuality, white supremacy, and mass incarceration. There were also multiple condemnations of Christian nationalism, which the Rev. Brenda Brown-Grooms, a pastor from Charlottesville, Va., declared “apostasy.”

Each speaker tied their subject back to faith.

“I came to announce tonight that I am a theological conservative,” said Barber. He chided right-wing religious leaders and their support for policies he says hurt the poor, saying, “they call themselves conservative, but they liberally resist so much of God’s character.”

Others railed against conservative pro-gun arguments.

“Some evangelicals are more committed to the amendments than the commandments,” said the Rev. David Anderson, a Maryland pastor, triggering a chorus of amens.

For many in attendance, the speaker and workshop lineup itself functioned as a de facto critique of white evangelical Protestantism, featuring voices often underrepresented in evangelical circles — women, Native Americans, African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, and LGBT people.

Lisa Sharon Harper, who was among the faith leaders who protested white supremacists during the violent demonstrations last year in Charlottesville, said the focus on race and marginalized voices wasn’t a coincidence.

“Evangelicals continue to champion (President Trump), and the clearest manifestation of that is Jerry Falwell Jr.’s support for the president,” she said in an interview. “There is no way that we can look at his presidency and not see the manipulation of the political construct of race in order to secure the supremacy of whiteness, and that itself is an assault on the image of God.”

A strategy of “exposing injustice”

Despite the rhetoric against Falwell, author and revival organizer Shane Claiborne said the Red Letter Revival was not designed to “vilify” him, saying “we’re not here to protest, we’re here to pro-testify!”

Campolo also drew a distinction between religious disagreement and personal attacks, noting that Jesus’ disciples often had heated disputes. He pointed to his own televised debates with Jerry Falwell Sr. — Jerry Falwell Jr.’s father — as proof that theological sparring partners can disagree respectfully.

Falwell Jr. has taken a hard line with the group’s leaders, but remained mostly quiet about the weekend’s events. He has not replied to the group’s request for a formal debate, they say, and personally stifled efforts by the Liberty student newspaper to cover the revival, according to a student editor. Falwell did not respond to Religion News Service’s request for comment but provided a statement to the local Lynchburg newspaper, The News & Advance, which was included in a story about the event.

According to Claiborne, Liberty police also sent him a letter last week threatening fines and jail time if he visited the Liberty campus to pray with students or Falwell — which Claiborne says he requested in advance.

Claiborne said these reactions were disappointing, but strengthened Red Letter Christians’ argument.

“What Dr. Martin Luther King talked about is that sometimes we’ve got to expose injustice so that it becomes uncomfortable,” Claiborne said, noting they ultimately hand-delivered prayers for Falwell to his brother’s nearby church. “I think discomfort can be a good thing — our goal is certainly not to antagonize, not to manipulate, not to be inauthentic. But our goal is to expose some of this stuff.”

Highlighting tensions may prove to be an overarching strategy of the group, which holds little sway in more mainstream evangelical circles. Organizers say they may hold a similar gathering later this year in Dallas.

The city is home to the Rev. Robert Jeffress, a controversial pastor and religious adviser to Trump. Jeffress preached a sermon to the president entitled “When God Chooses a Leader” on Inauguration Day, and had his choir sing a song entitled “Make America Great Again” to celebrate the Fourth of July.

Reaching marginalized evangelicals

Many at the revival expressed frustration with modern evangelicalism, sometimes detailing a feeling of alienation.

“They’re placing the priority on the wrong things,” said Chris Miller, who drove 12 hours from Bluffs, Ill., with a friend to attend the event and used to work in an evangelical church.

The revival, by contrast, was widely seen as refreshing among the progressive crowd.

“I think we’re celebrating a new movement, and I’m very happy about it,” said Marianne, a Lynchburg resident who did not share her last name.

Liberty students were also present throughout the event, often sitting together in the crowd. Senior Sam Herrmann introduced Jonathan Martin, who he originally invited onto campus, on Friday evening.

The students voiced their own frustration with Falwell’s administration, which Herrmann said exhibits “toxic Christian nationalism.” Two seniors at the school — Nathanial Totten, an openly gay Liberty student who led a workshop at the revival, and Elliot Green — pointed to a specific moment in 2015 they say distanced them from Falwell: when he stood before the student body and responded to news of a terrorist shooting by reaching for a firearm he claimed to have holstered in his back pocket, suggesting students should carry guns so “we could end those Muslims before they walk in.”

“That was probably the moment that my awareness shifted to ‘this isn’t good, this isn’t okay,’” Totten said in an interview.

A new charge

Participants said it’s still too soon to say whether the revival was a success, or what success even looks like.

“Ask me in a year,” Claiborne said. “It’s not about a moment — it’s about a movement.”

Some of the movement’s contours have yet to be delineated. Preceding this weekend’s event was a social media debate over whether organizers were affirming of LGBT identities and relationships. While the revival ultimately included LGBT speakers, it remains unclear whether disagreements on the topic could split the budding movement. Strategic questions, such as how far to push their activism or how to approach reticent leaders like Falwell, also remain unresolved.

But for the few hundred who came to Lynchburg to assert a different sort of evangelical activism, the Red Letter Revival offered hope.

“Too many evangelicals hold these beliefs in their heart and don’t show up,” said Lisa Sharon Harper, speaking of those who criticize Falwell and his ilk. “(But) I think people are going to show up now.”

This article originally appeared at RNS.

Christian author and activist Shane Claiborne recently announced the event on Twitter, saying he and others plan to host a “Red Letter Revival” on April 6-7 in Lynchburg, Va. — the same city where Liberty University, a conservative Christian school led by Falwell, is located.

Claiborne, co-director of the progressive Christian group Red Letter Christians, told Religion News Service he’s heard Liberty students say they want their school “to be known for its love for Jesus (rather) than its love for Trump.”

Specifics for the event remain tentative, but he said the program would begin that Friday with a “three-hour hype-filled, fiery, beautiful worship (service with) preaching.” The next day would include “a whole bunch of different breakout sessions and music” and conclude with “another big service” Saturday evening — including a “call to action.”

“Gonna be epic,” tweeted Claiborne.

A separate statement emailed to RNS by a Red Letter Christians official did not mention Falwell or Trump by name but highlighted the target audience for the event.

“In word, worship and witness, this ‘revival of Jesus and Justice’ will stand in stark contrast to the distorted Christian nationalism that many white evangelical leaders have become known for,” the statement reads in part. “It is a gathering for people of faith or no faith who are curious about Jesus and troubled by the state of evangelicalism in America.”

It was not immediately clear what the “call to action” Claiborne mentioned would be, but the announcement comes as tensions continue to escalate between Falwell and more progressive Christians deeply critical of his steadfast support for Trump.

In an action Liberty officials defended as an attempt to maintain “safety and security,” evangelical speaker Jonathan Martin was removed from the campus when he visited to attend a concert in October shortly after calling for a peaceful protest of the school. Days later, Claiborne and others published an open letter in November challenging Falwell to a religious debate and accusing him of contributing to a conflation of the “Lord’s gospel” and “the religion of white supremacy.”

READ: An Open Letter to Liberty University to ‘Engage in Peaceful Debate’

Falwell, for his part, has ardently defended Trump since 2016, calling him a “dream president” for evangelicals. More than 80 percent of white evangelicals voted for Trump, and many consider him a champion of their values, including their opposition to abortion. In 2017, when the president was embroiled in controversy for saying that blame for the deadly violence in Charlottesville, Va., fell on “both sides” — meaning white supremacists and counterprotesters — Falwell declared that “President Donald Trump does not have a racist bone in his body.” In January, when allegations surfaced that Trump had an extramarital affair in 2006 with a porn star and paid her to keep quiet, Falwell told CNN “we are all equally bad, we are all sinners.”

He has also drawn a distinction between what he believes is a Christian’s personal responsibility and the responsibility of government, tweeting last month that “Jesus said love our neighbors as ourselves but never told Caesar how to run Rome.”

Claiborne did not offer any official statement about whether attendees will directly confront Liberty officials during the revival, but the outspoken author is no stranger to dramatic demonstrations. For instance, he was arrested in December for participating in a prayer-based protest in Washington, D.C., to express support for legislation that would protect immigrants who were brought to the United States by their parents when they were children.

Other faith leaders critical of Falwell are also scheduled to be part of the revival. Claiborne said the festivities will include an address by the Rev. William Barber II, a leading figure in the religious left and organizer of the Moral Mondays movement in North Carolina. Barber co-signed the letter calling for a debate with Falwell, and has repeatedly criticized prominent evangelicals who support Trump.

Although the event is being held near Liberty University, Claiborne said: “We’re not there to vilify Jerry Falwell (Jr.), we’re there to lift up Jesus — and that itself is the critique of toxic evangelicalism.” Still, Claiborne acknowledged the impetus for the event is partly rooted in criticism of Liberty — including by Liberty students and alumni frustrated by the perception that the school inherently supports the president, its commencement speaker last May.

READ: For the ‘Cause of Christ,’ Liberty Alumni Return Diplomas

Claiborne was quick to note that the event is being organized in cooperation with local Lynchburg clergy, two of whom are mentioned in the news release. He also hinted at possible participation by unnamed students and faculty at Liberty.

“(We are) building on some of the movement locally and different leaders there,” he said. “We really don’t want it to be just outside people coming in.”

The Red Letter Christians statement names other leaders expected to attend, including author and pastor Tony Campolo, also of Red Letter Christians; author Lisa Sharon Harper, founder of Freedom Road; the Rev. Brenda Brown-Grooms, pastor of New Beginnings Christian Community and minister with the Charlottesville Clergy Collective; and the Rev. S. Todd Yeary, pastor of Douglas Memorial Community Church in Baltimore and political action chair of the Maryland State Conference NAACP.

Claiborne said organizers are also reaching out to several musicians to ask about their participation, such as Jon Foreman of the band Switchfoot and Christian hip-hop artists Lecrae and Micah Bournes.

He said he hopes the result will lift up a different evangelical voice than that of Falwell and others.

“When evangelicals have lost our focus on Jesus, we end up talking a lot about things Jesus didn’t talk about and a lot of things … and supporting things that are a direct contradiction to Matthew 25,” he said, referencing Jesus’ call to help the vulnerable in the Bible.

This article originally appeared at RNS. Liberty University did not immediately return a request for comment on this story.