Belief

President Donald Trump has provided “a stunning example of political pandering and exploiting religious faith for personal profit,” said a religious freedom advocate on Tuesday after financial disclosure forms revealed one of the latest ways in which the president has profited from the presidency: this time, by licensing his name to the “God Bless the USA” Bible sold by supporter and country music star Lee Greenwood.

The Bible bearing the president’s name is being sold for $99.99—as are the “First Lady Edition” and the “Vice Presidential Edition.”

According to his latest financial disclosures, the president has earned a total of $1,514,521 from placing his name on the religious text in a package that also includes copies of the US Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, the Pledge of Allegiance, and the handwritten chorus of Greenwood’s 1984 song “Good Bless the USA.”

About $1.3 million was earned while the president was campaigning ahead of the 2024 election, while about $208,000 flowed to the president in 2025.

Anna Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), said that “Trump wraps himself in Christianity, wraps the Constitution inside a Bible, and is persuading supporters to finance his political brand while enriching himself to the tune of more than $1.5 million.”

“As all things are with Trump, this has always been about money,” said Gaylor. “It is a stunning example of political pandering and exploiting religious faith for personal profit.”

Hemant Mehta of The Friendly Atheist noted that the disclosure also showed about $1.4 billion that the president made last year from “crypto-related schemes” and $80 million from lawsuits against media companies including CBS and ABC.

Trump has suggested the Bible venture is closest to his heart, saying in a video promoting the basic version of the “God Bless the USA Bible”—which retails at $59.99—that the religious text is his “favorite book.”

“Christians are under siege,” he added in the video. “We must protect content that is pro-God. We love God, and we have to protect anything that is pro-God… Our Founding Fathers did a tremendous thing when they built America on Judeo-Christian values.”

The notion that the country was founded as a Christian nation has long been a fixation of the far right and has been deeply embedded in the president’s celebrations marking the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence—but historians say there is no evidence for the claim.

“The only rules they wrote about religion were ones that keep religion at arm’s length,” Princeton University professor Kevin Kruse told The Washington Post as the White House planned an all-day prayer event on National Mall in May. “There’s a difference between saying America is a nation with many Christians in it and that America is a nation dedicated to Christianity and defined by it.”

Both Mehta and FFRF noted that Trump has “struggled to discuss even the most basic aspects of the Bible, declining on multiple occasions to identify a favorite verse or even express a preference between the Old and New Testaments.”

“Trump’s Bible enterprise demonstrates how easily religious symbolism can be weaponized to enrich politicians while undermining the constitutional principle of state/church separation that protects believers and nonbelievers alike,” said FFRF.

Gaylor added that “religion should never be a marketing strategy.”

“Nor should the office of the presidency become a platform for selling religious merchandise,” she said. “Americans deserve leaders who respect both religion and government enough to keep them separate—not presidents who see faith as another licensing opportunity.”

A Tennessee church thinks that it's fighting Satan when it's fighting the political culture war, and the modern crusade has turned a "charismatic" movement into politics.

Extreme churches and beliefs that trend toward the more bizarre are those that often get ignored by politicians who don't want to be associated with something far outside of the mainstream. But the Tennessee church is using its charisma to turn culture wars into a very real battlefield where Satan is active in public life and Christians are called to fight back through prayer, prophecy and political engagement.

An extensive report from The Atlantic details the journey of Andrea and Mike Brewer, the founders of the Well, where they promote their belief that the Earth is the battlefield on which Heaven and Hell fight. Mike Brewer tells a story about his addiction to adult videos and was leading an unhappy life. While praying, he heard voices calling to him and felt what he believes was a demon being removed by God and replaced with the Holy Spirit.

"He and Andrea came to believe that God was unleashing new signs and wonders and raising up modern-day apostles and prophets, including, it turned out, them," the report said.

The couple belongs to a group of ministries called "Global Awakening," and Andrea has begun "studying demon history and hierarchies." The couple then started a demon hunt, finding it in a local bookshop and cafe. The owner discovered that the Brewers were accusing her of demonic activity when a customer flagged it. It happens to be across the street from the Brewers' new church.

Mike Brewer released several videos of himself sitting behind a desk and "he explained in a calm and methodical manner that the bookstore had been identified as a 'regional demonic stronghold.' A high-ranking demon named Lilith was involved, [owner Lisa] Misosky would learn, and the bookstore was being targeted for something called 'strategic-level spiritual warfare,' the goal of which was to 'remove the enemy.'"

Misosky was born in the town, she's a Catholic, a Democrat and she's gay. It might be the reason that the Brewers didn't first approach her to offer help or conduct their own blessing. They simply went to war.

“This is probably the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,” said Misosky.

These are the same phrases coming from President Donald Trump, however. His ally, far-right firebrand Steve Bannon called Lutheran and Catholic people helping immigrants "demonic." His vice president, JD Vance thinks that "aliens" and "UFOs" are actually demons. One FEMA official claimed that he was transported through time and space to a Waffle House.

"In that beginning moment, though, Misosky was simply wondering what the accusations meant for her bookstore and the people who went there. Why was she being targeted? What, precisely, was demonic about Southland? The mah-jongg? The romantasy section? A drag performer called Icky Stardust? Her? She wondered if she needed to worry about security," the story read.

Misosky looked up her own demonology for answers and to prepare for what she could expect. A group known as the New Apostolic Reformation has devised its own "end times" narrative where they believe the Bible's tales of an afterlife are wrong and they're supposed to build their own Heaven on Earth while they await the return of Jesus Christ.

The Atlantic story noted that the narrative follows the political goals of the MAGA movement. "The Kingdom would have limited government, free markets, two genders, one kind of marriage, and one kind of God." The movement is no longer a marginal one. There are now Tens of millions of American Christians drawn into these kinds of ideologies and the explicit goal is to "dismantle the secular state," the American government itself.

Churches are no longer a place of peace but a "war room" and services are rallying cries. There are maps and battle themes and prayers that constantly focus on "victory over evil" language, the latter of which is government, education, the media, and businesses.

Trump's political victories have become signs of divine triumph over those they consider to be not fellow citizens but enemies in some kind of cosmic struggle.

The group has become a politically potent force, and the conflict between the Tennessee church and the local bookshop is only the beginning.

For centuries, Christianity has been having ideological battles, with fundamentalists expressing very different views from the more moderate Protestants and Catholics. In 2026, these heated debates among Christians continue, and an article for the conservative website The Bulwark examines the intense conflict between far-right Christian nationalists and those with a more inclusive view of Christianity.

According to Philip D. Bunn (a political science professor at Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, Georgia), Eli McGowan (a conservative Presbyterian), and Presbyterian professor Emily McGowan, "Christian nationalism" has "ballooned" in the MAGA movement.

"There's an irony here: Mainstream media accusations of the menace of Christian nationalism encouraged the hard right to own the moniker for themselves," Bunn, Eli McGowan and Emily McGowan explain in The Bulwark. "Advocates of the term range from evangelicals to Orthodox Christians, who never seem able to agree on an exact definition, leaving alarmed pundits struggling to hit a perpetually moving target. Gen-Z shock influencers like Nick Fuentes, a Catholic, have called themselves Christian nationalists as well. Hop online and ask ten people what Christian nationalism means, you'll get eleven answers — and maybe a death threat or two."

The writers note that Christian nationalism "has become a clickbait gold rush."

"The movement, heavily online but simultaneously entrenched in small groups and churches, has developed its own media ecosystem of influencers, podcasts, films, merchandise," Bunn, Eli McGowan and Emily McGowan observe. "It also has its own style of performative aesthetics. Beards, demonstrating patriarchal authority and hiding poor 'physiognomy,' are omnipresent. Christian nationalism has sometimes overlapped — in terms of adherents and imagery — with other rapidly evolving movements and subcultures, such as 'tradwives,' 'redpilled' online spaces, and the 'Manosphere.' For example, it's not unusual in Christian nationalist circles to encounter the slang term 'soy' as a pejorative for unmanliness, extrapolating from a semi-serious belief that soy-based foods are a testosterone-lowering marker of coastal liberalism. You can even compete in Christian nationalist athletic events."

But the writers stress that many Catholics and Mainline Protestants vehemently reject Christian nationalism. Presbyterian scholar Matthew D. Taylor, for example, was part of a study that included a passionate "defense of the values of liberal democracy."

"Blake Callens, a writer and early public critic of Christian nationalism, has noted that 'one can consider authoritarian Christian nationalism to be fringe enough that it will never gain traction within the broader American system while being keenly aware that it is a growing movement within the conservative church,'" according to Bunn, Eli McGowan and Emily McGowan. "As Christians, we find that Callens' warning speaks to us directly…. We feel a pressing duty to speak out about this malignant ideology."

President Donald Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission released a draft report on American religious history that, according to experts, gets a lot of basic facts wrong about its purported subject.

“A new draft report from a Trump administration task force presents a competing vision of America’s tradition of religious liberty — one that argues that the founders wanted as much religion, everywhere, as possible — and that makes the case that our understanding of religious freedom has been corrupted by 20th-century European secularists and radical progressives aiming to eliminate religion from public life,” Vox’s Christian Paz wrote on Sunday. The report also claims that the Founding Fathers’ seminal documents like the Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights were based explicitly on religious concepts.

Paz spoke with experts who push back against that narrative.

“The First Amendment is also about a practical response to the fact that you have 13 colonies that you need to unify, and many of them have established churches, but they’re different churches,” historian Matthew A. Sutton told Vox. “The First Amendment is not this kind of high ideal about freedom of religion. It’s simply about how can we keep these people from killing each other when we know for the last 300 years, different groups of Christians have killed each other in Europe.”

This was ultimately why the 13 colonies forming a new nation settled on the statement that in America “there will be no establishment of religion.”

He also placed in context the fact that Benjamin Franklin asked to open one of the early Continental Conventions with a prayer.

“In 1774, it’s not clear there’s going to be a revolution,” Sutton told Vox. “They have not left, and the clergyman they chose for this prayer is a member of the Church of England. They were trying to signal to England that they did want to maintain their unity, that they wanted to keep their religious bonds together. It was very practical. But this is the selective cherry-picking that the Trump people do. They didn’t have a prayer at the Constitutional Convention. So you can’t have it both ways. If you’re going to talk about when you do, you need to talk about when you don’t and see those as equally valid.”

University of Notre Dame politics and religion scholar Dave Campbell also pointed out that it is misleading to describe the “Founding Fathers” as a monolithic group, as they often had wildly varying opinions about what American religion should look like in a free society.

“It’s a misnomer to speak of the Founders as though they had one view,” Campbell told Vox. “They had different views, but they did agree, even though they had to compromise, on the wording of the First Amendment. Whatever this amorphous group that the Founders is, they disagreed, and yet they nonetheless could come to consensus that there should be no established religion, which was very novel at the time, and there should be as much latitude given to the free exercise of religion as possible.”

In contrast to this, he characterized the Trump administration’s attitude as being biased toward one particular approach to religion.

“To them, religious freedom means not respecting all religions equally, but instead ensuring that Christianity and particularly their flavor of Christianity has a favored place in the public square and in law,” Campbell said.

Sutton echoed that view.

“The Bremerton decision on the high school football coach being allowed to pray [at games], the recent debates about whether or not Christian charter schools are going to receive state financing, debates about the Ten Commandments on school grounds — we can see just a concerted effort by attorneys through these religious organizations that have made this kind of document essentially marching orders and used it to try to reestablish or bring us back to a world in which the Protestant majority can try to impose its will on everybody else,” Sutton told Vox. “The courts seem more open to that than they have been in a couple of generations.”

Back in May, Paz also drew attention to the Trump administration’s numerous mistakes when it comes to accurately representing the Christian faith it claims to propound.

“The religious right has been ascendant during the second presidency of Donald Trump, and they’ve harnessed his disdain for rules and norms to blur the lines between church and state,” Paz reported on Thursday. “Inside the White House, the secretary of defense has framed the war in Iran and American military action abroad as sanctioned and guided by God. Outside the government, this alliance between church and state often skirts near the edge of outright idolatry. Conservative pastors are erecting golden statues of Trump (but insisting it does not mirror the infamous golden calf of the Old Testament). They’re extending their hands over the president in prayer after comparing him to Jesus and standing by him, with some mild criticism, after he cast himself as an AI-slop Messiah.”

In April a former staffer for a different Republican president, Ronald Reagan, also argued that Trump’s behavior and that of his supporters is anti-Christian.

"The past few days have featured the vice president of the United States lecturing the pope on morality and church doctrine; Sean Hannity making it official that he worships at the Church of Trump; Pete Hegseth quoting made-up verses from Pulp Fiction as if they were actual scripture; and Trump styling himself as Jesus Christ," The Bulwark’s Charen wrote. "A few years ago, one might have wondered how these acts of contempt toward Christianity would go down with the religious right, but after 10 years of cultishness, it would be foolish to expect many defections."

President Donald Trump is increasingly making moves that even his subservient followers in the GOP cannot abide, and according to a new report from The i Paper, his latest blunder involves the detention of a beloved Catholic nun.

Republicans in Washington have largely gone along and supported Trump's mass deportation agenda, even as innocent immigrants and lawful U.S. citizens have gotten swept up in the process, souring public sentiment. Now, his ICE agents have detained a Catholic nun, Sister Leticia "Letty" Ugboaja, prompting even conservatives to lash out against the president's handling of his immigration agenda.

The i Paper detailed the arrest of the nun, described as a "well-known source of goodness," in a report from Saturday.

"Sister Leticia Ugboaja, known as Letty, was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials while walking to a service at Our Lady of Sorrows Church in southern Texas, near the Mexican border," the outlet detailed. "The Washington Post reported that officers confiscated her rosary and put her into handcuffs. The church confirmed the Nigerian nun, who was dressed in her habit at the time, had been taken into custody before the story quickly spread beyond the local community after it was shared on social media."

The report continued: "The backlash was swift and unusually bipartisan. Democrats and Republicans, including South Texas Congresswoman Monica De La Cruz, intervened directly with federal officials to secure her release. By Monday, following intervention from De La Cruz and other members of Congress, Sister Letty had returned home."

Church spokesperson Brenda Riojas confirmed to the media that she volunteers her time as an "extraordinary minister of holy communion" at Our Lady of Sorrows, and stressed that she had entered the U.S. legally. Bishop Daniel Flores also added in an official statement that Sister Letty “is a well-known source of goodness and hope in our community, and I am grateful she has been released”.

Trump's newly appointed DHS Secretary, Markwayne Mullin, was quick to address the situation, saying in his own statement that "As I have repeatedly said, our immigration enforcement should target violent criminals. A Catholic nun on her way to church is not a threat to our community." He was far from the only conservative voice to speak out.

"The arrest of a Catholic nun by US immigration agents has become the latest flashpoint exposing growing unease among Republican politicians, with several moving swiftly to distance themselves from an administration whose hardline immigration agenda they have long supported," The i Paper noted. "The backlash has fuelled a wider debate over whether Trump’s political grip on his own party is beginning to loosen."

It continued: "With midterm elections looming and primary contests now largely concluded across much of the country, political analysts say many Republicans are making increasingly pragmatic electoral calculations. Free from the immediate threat of being challenged by Trump-backed primary opponents, some lawmakers are becoming more willing to criticise the President publicly on issues where they believe he has drifted away from public opinion."

In Texas, MAGA Republicans and evangelical Christian fundamentalists have been pushing for Bible study to be mandatory in public schools — a move that, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), violates the separation of church and state outlined in the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment. The GOP-controlled Texas State School Board, on June 26, added Bible stories to mandatory public school reading lists. But according to Salon's Amanda Marcotte, using public schools to promote evangelical fundamentalism will "likely backfire" for Texas Republicans.

Texas State School Board member Brandon Hall, at a news conference, told reporters, "Our nation was founded as a Christian nation." But that claim, Marcotte stresses, is a blatant "falsehood" — as the Founders "clearly forbade" an "establishment of religion" in the U.S. Constitution.

"The school board hired David Barton, a discredited writer who falsely claims to be a historian, as an adviser," Marcotte explains in her early July article for Salon. "Barton has no training and less than zero credibility, having been caught repeatedly peddling easily disproved lies. But because Republicans are pleased by his intellectually dishonest interpretation of America's past, they continue to choose his nonsense over actual history developed by real scholars. This is Christian nationalism in a nutshell."

Marcotte continues, "The use of Barton by the GOP and the Texas State School Board is not about faith or belief; it's about power. Specifically, it's about pushing their belief that certain people — white right-wing Christians — are the 'real' Americans. In practice, it means that everyone else deserves second-class status. Forcing kids to read Bible passages signals to anyone outside the white evangelical tribe that they don't belong, which is a grotesque violation of American values of equality and freedom."

The Establishment Clause in the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment reads, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

Marcotte emphasizes that the First Amendment "violation" in Texas Public Schools is "likely to backfire on the Religious Right."

"They better hope that the kids skip the assigned reading, much less actual discussion and debate about it in class," Marcotte argues. "As many an ex-evangelical can tell you, direct exposure to what the Bible actually says is often the first step to walking away from Christian fundamentalism altogether. There's a reason conservative Christians prefer quoting solitary Bible verses out of context: Not only does this allow them to twist the meaning for their own personal or political ends, but it also makes it much easier to avoid the critical thinking that engaging with longer passages can provoke…. It's also worth remembering that many students — and even some teachers — aren't Christian, which means that classroom discussions will not always been favorable to an evangelical interpretation of scripture."

Marcotte adds, "In short, Texas Republicans have likely created opportunities to expose Christian kids to other people’s points of view, which may not have happened otherwise."

Christian conservatives are cheering last week’s announcement by the Texas Board of Education mandating readings from the Bible in the state’s K-12 literature curriculum starting in 2030, but a curriculum studies scholar says they appear to be forgetting that this puts Bible myths under a microscope.

Kids will be dissecting it like a tadpole, and squaring that with the reality that snakes don’t, in fact, talk. Nor do they hand out apples.

“The decision might not be the victory they think it is,” Nicholas Mitchell tells MS NOW. “If such stories from the Bible are appropriately taught as literature, then students will be encouraged to question and challenge Christianity’s holy text, not accept it and believe it without question.”

“As a curriculum studies scholar, I can see that the education board’s decision will create a predicament for schools and teachers that they will not be able to avoid: the inevitable outrage from Christian fundamentalists when the Bible is taught as something other than truth, that is, something other than religious instruction.”

Mitchell said some parents and politicians may be cheering this mandate now and he said he’s doubtful they’ll be as “gleeful when classroom implementation begins and teachers are made to treat the Bible not as a divine text but as a book.” And teaching the Bible as literature, rather than settled fact, will open it up to being analyzed the way any other book gets analyzed — complete with hard scrutiny of its philosophy, contradictions and shortcomings.

“Consider the Texas teacher in 2030 who is teaching high school sophomores excerpts from the Book of Job,” said Mitchell. “According to that story from the Hebrew Scriptures, Satan bets God that if God lets him inflict immense suffering on an innocent man named Job, then Job will curse God. A person teaching Job as literature would prompt students to think about what accepting that wager say about God’s character and Satan’s character? How does the story attempt to make sense of human suffering? A good literature teacher would also push students to think about why this character, God, let such awful things happen to a person as good as Job and then scolded him when he complained. A teacher who does that is likely to offend some people’s religious sensibilities.”

Some fundamentalist students and parents will inevitably see critical analysis of the biblical text as “tantamount to blasphemy,” said Mitchell because such engagement would challenge their belief that the Bible is “a flawless sacred text that leads to salvation.”

“Thus, the people who seem to be clamoring the most to bring the Bible into schools may be the least pleased if it’s taught in accordance with the law,” Mitchell said.

President Donald Trump is firmly in decline as a "flailing lame-duck," and according to one Fox News analyst, his high-profile feud with Pope Leo XIV has contributed significantly to his loss of support from all but his most devoted base.

Juan Williams is a longtime political analyst for Fox News, serving as one of the highly conservative network's few Democratic voices, and one who is not shy about speaking out critically against Trump. In a Monday morning piece for The Hill, Williams wrote that Trump is "sinking deep into disapproval with voters outside his far-right base," with his numbers sinking into "negative territory on the war in Iran, on the economy, and on immigration."

Amid that decline, Williams argued that there has been "a surprise political player" contributing to Trump's lame-duck downfall: "Chicago-born Pope Leo XIV."

"With the midterms approaching, the first American pope’s defiant opposition to Trump is coming into view as contributing to Trump’s status as a flailing lame-duck," Williams wrote. "Pope Leo is clear in saying Trump is out of step with Christianity’s core teachings: concern for the poor, skepticism of the rich, embrace of the refugees, and love for thy neighbor. These teachings are diametrically opposed to Trump starting war with Iran."

Williams further highlighted an April social media post from the Pope's official X account: “God does not bless any conflict. Anyone who is a disciple of Christ, the Prince of Peace, is never on the side of those who once wielded the sword and today drop bombs.”

Despite initially attempting to celebrate and take credit for the first-ever American Pope, Trump has since been engaged in a bitter and often one-sided feud with the Catholic leader, taking personal offense to his remarks calling for immigrants to be treated with dignity and opposing war. In response, the Pope has continued to issue statements construed as direct attacks against Trump's rhetoric, while mostly avoiding ever directly referring to the president.

"While Trump slides in the polls, the pope has climbed to be the most popular leader among Americans with a 57 percent favorability, according to Gallup," Williams added. "The Economist-YouGov polling has the pope with a net favorability of plus 32 while Trump has a rating of negative 22. Most Catholics, regardless of religious observance or demographic group, view Pope Leo favorably. That includes Catholics who regularly attend Mass and those who seldom or never do, according to Pew."

He contined: "When asked about Trump’s approach to Pope Leo in a June survey by the Pew Research Center, far more Catholics say Trump has been too critical of Leo (51 percent) than say he hasn’t been critical enough (4 percent). Trump’s response to the pontiff is to share offensive memes on social media suggesting he should be pope. He also falsely claimed that Pope Leo wants Iran to have a nuclear weapon. That’s not true, Mr. President."

Williams concluded with an argument that, in a political age "focused on the high cost of daily life, the rising power of super-rich autocrats and the dominance of artificial intelligence," voters in the U.S. are beginning to yearn for "the pope’s old-school Catholic teachings," as opposed to Trump's way of doing things.

"That hunger is far greater than support for Trump’s new wing on the White House, his bumbling renovation of the reflecting pool or building a golden archway entrance to Washington," he wrote. "Trump seems to have met his judgment day courtesy of the Chicago kid who became pope."

As education officials in Texas ban hundreds of books that run afoul of their interpretation of Christian morality, the State Board of Education on Friday approved a required reading list that forces the state’s more than 5 million public school students to read from the Bible.

The Republican-controlled SBOE voted 9-5 with one abstention to approve the list, which includes passages from the Book of Exodus as well as the Shepherd’s Psalm and the myths of Adam and Eve and David and Goliath.

“We’re going to stop watering down American history. We’re going to teach the truth. Our nation was founded as a Christian nation, and Texas is a Christian state,” Republican board member Brandon Hall—who is also a youth pastor at Cavalry Baptist Church in Springtown—said during a Thursday press conference in Austin.

That “truth” omits or marginalizes climate change, US imperialism, women’s history, the genocide of Indigenous peoples, slavery, and racism.

Evelyn Brooks, the only Republican SBOE member to vote against the required reading list, told CNN on Friday that she believes the board’s move is “unconstitutional.”

“Teachers need to have their autonomy,” she said. “They’ve been selecting books for decades.”

In 2023, Texas’ Republican-controlled Legislature passed HB 1605, which mandated the creation of a K-12 required reading list and directed the Texas Education Agency to develop state-owned textbooks. Those texts, called Bluebonnet Learning, contain lessons on Christianity starting in kindergarten. The SBOE approved Bluebonnet Learning as an optional curriculum in late 2024 and is currently working to correct thousands of errors in the curriculum at a cost of over $8 million to Texas taxpayers.

The SBOE action comes amid a legal battle over SB 10, a law signed last year by Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott that requires public elementary and secondary schools to display the Ten Commandments in every classroom. US District Judge Fred Biery, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton, subsequently issued a preliminary injunction blocking the law. Texas families also sued to block the legislation. However, Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton—who is running for US Senate—demanded that schools comply with the law.

Public schools “exist to educate students with diverse faith backgrounds, as well as those who adhere to no faith doctrine,” the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) said Friday. “Public schools are not Sunday schools, and elected officials have no business using state power to elevate one religion above all others. A required reading list that overwhelmingly favors Christian texts while excluding the writings and literary traditions of other faiths, not to mention the perspectives of millions of nonreligious Americans, sends an unmistakable message about who belongs and who does not.”

FFRF co-president Annie Laurie Gaylor asserted that “a mandatory public school reading list should never function as a Bible lesson.”

“Texas is telling millions of children that one religion deserves the government’s seal of approval, while everyone else is an afterthought,” she added. “That’s government-sponsored religious favoritism—and the First Amendment strictly forbids it.”

Rabbi Joshua Fixler at Congregation Emanu El in Houston told CNN Friday that “this list is full of Christian texts that are inappropriate for public school classrooms.”

“As a rabbi and a parent of Jewish kids, I think it is vital that this board make a distinction between teaching about religion and teaching religion,” he added. “This list will force teachers to cross that line.”

Fort Worth high school teacher Chanea Bond told The Associated Press on Friday that the SBOE’s required reading list is “very old and very white.”

“It is very narrow and does not represent what classrooms in Texas look like,” she said. “Going through most of high school without ever having much value put into voices that sound like yours kind of sends a message that your voices aren’t valuable.”

For more than two decades, the Supreme Court has issued a long series of wins for plaintiffs seeking to protect their religious practices. On June 23, 2026, though, the majority delivered an uncommon defeat in this contentious area.

President Donald Trump has pulled an about-face after months of feuding with Pope Leo XIV, per a report from The Daily Beast, sharing the Catholic leader's words to try and defend his disastrous Iran deal.

The U.S. and Iran this week signed a major new deal to end their ongoing conflict and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, while also creating a 60-day ceasefire for further negotiations. Other provisions in the deal, including a $300 billion fund for Iran to rebuild and the lifting of sanctions on the Middle Eastern nation, were met with considerable vitriol from Republicans, with some tarring it as possibly the “worst foreign policy blunder in decades.”

"Under the framework, Iran would regain access to frozen assets, receive sanctions relief, and continue to use the Strait of Hormuz as leverage," The Daily Beast explained in its Thursday report. "But broader questions surrounding nuclear power, missiles, regional proxies and long-term enforcement remain unresolved, with some critics describing the deal as a monumental strategic failure."

One surprising figure who was supportive of the deal, prior to the release of its full terms, was Pope Leo, who shared a post on Monday praising the progress being made towards peace.

“I welcome with satisfaction the reaching of an agreement between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States of America, which will be signed on Friday, as an encouraging result of patient work in dialogue and negotiation,” the Pope's post read. “I hope that the agreement may help strengthen mutual trust, security, and stability in the Middle East, promoting paths of dialogue and cooperation among peoples.”

Prior to this, the Trump administration had been engaged in a seemingly one-sided feud with the first-ever American Pope, making public statements chastising him over comments calling for treating immigrants with dignity and decrying the violence of the war in Iran. In that context, then, it was surprising to see Trump take to Truth Social on Thursday with a post sharing news of the Pope's support for the deal, in an attempt at countering his own party's discontent.

“Oil is flowing, Iran can never have a nuclear weapon (the world will be safe!), the stock markets are roaring, jobs are at records, and prices are dropping (affordability!)," Trump's all-caps post read. "Our country is strong, safe, and respected like never before. 'you’re welcome!'"

In its report, the Daily Beast also highlighted further criticism of the deal from former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, now a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.

“This agreement is far worse than I expected,” McFaul said. “To reopen the Strait — a Strait that was open before the war — we and our partners are transferring billions to the autocrats. We get nothing else — no elimination of enriched uranium, missiles or terrorist support."

HOUSTON — Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick on Friday said Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate Rep. James Talarico will “go to hell” for his interpretations of the Bible, as Talarico has made his Christian faith a cornerstone of his campaign.

Speaking at the Republican Party of Texas’ convention in Houston, Patrick accused Talarico, an Austin state representative, of introducing faith into the contentious Senate race, expected to be expensive and brutal as Democrats seek to capitalize on anti-Trump sentiment to claim the minority party’s first statewide victory in more than three decades.

"It's James Talarico who decided to bring the Bible into this election. And let me tell you, that's not a Bible I've ever read. I've never seen so much blasphemy from anyone running for office,” Patrick said to an uproar of applause. “Let me tell you what, I'm going to pray for that guy, because when he loses the Senate race, if he campaigns against God as he's been doing, he's going to Hell, for sure. That's what we're up against. That's the darkness. That's the light. That's why we must be one."

In a statement Friday evening, Talarico responded saying that Patrick had "sold out the poor, the sick, and the vulnerable to enrich his donors" for decades.

"Love feels like blasphemy when you worship power," Talarico wrote in a social media post.

Attorney General Ken Paxton, Talarico's general election opponent, also spoke at the convention.

A GOP leader, Patrick has also been a staunch advocate for Christian values — often championing proposed legislation as the presiding officer of the Texas Senate that historically failed in the Texas House until recent victories, like requiring the display of Ten Commandments in public schools.

President Trump also tapped Patrick, a close ally, to lead the Presidential Religious Liberty Commission tasked with drafting policy proposals regarding religious freedom.

This article first appeared on The Texas Tribune.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth drew strong criticism from Mormons and Utah lawmakers after releasing a new list of religious affiliations that didn't classify the Church of Latter-Day Saints (often described as the Mormon Church or LDS Church) as Christian. The Pentagon, Politico reported, walked back that part of its religious affiliation policy following the outcry from Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), Rep. Mike Kennedy (R-Utah), and others. But according to Salon's Amanda Marcotte, Hegseth's treatment of Mormons shatters MAGA Republicans' claim that they are promoting freedom of religion.

"In his eagerness to marginalize people of non-Christian faiths," Marcotte explains in Salon, "Hegseth accidentally exposed a major MAGA myth: that there's a coherent, much less peaceful, way to impose their theocratic views on the country. On the contrary, any effort to turn this into a 'Christian nation' is destined to reveal the deep divisions between Christian factions…. To recap, for those who missed the furor: the Department of Defense used to recognize 211 separate religious designations for service members, which help shape everything from chaplain services to what marker is put on a tombstone. Under the guise of 'streamlining' services, this number was reduced to 31. Anyone who looked at the new list, however, could see that Hegseth's unsubtle goal was signaling the superiority of Christians to everyone else."

Marcotte adds, "The new list gives Christians 21 subcategories to choose from, but Jews, Muslims and other major religious groups only get one option, ignoring the diversity within those faiths. Atheists, humanists, Wiccans, pagans and other belief systems that the Christian right believes are demonic, were erased entirely."

Hegseth, the Salon journalist laments, "has barely concealed his hostility to recognizing that anyone non-Christian could be a legitimate American, much less an honored military service member."

"What did seem to shock some people, however, was that Hegseth also kicked members of the Church of Latter-Day Saints out of his Christian tribe," Marcotte observes. "While all other followers of Jesus, from Quakers to Catholics, were officially designated as variations of 'Christian,' Mormons did not enjoy the Christian label. Mormon leaders should have seen this coming."

Marcotte adds, "White evangelicals don’t hide their belief that Mormons have no right to call themselves 'Christians.' In May at Rededicate 250, the Christian nationalist event backed by the Trump administration in Washington D.C., there were a couple token Catholics and one Jew among otherwise evangelical-led speaker list, but no Mormons were invited. On the contrary, many speakers are anti-Mormon, including Trump ally and Southern Baptist megachurch pastor Robert Jeffress, who has repeatedly called the Latter-Day Saints a 'cult'…. So, there was a widespread anger when Hegseth reminded Mormons that they'll never be part of the evangelical-led Christian nationalist in-group."

Pope Leo arrived on the world stage with a message of peace, but his American roots and plainspoken style quickly put him on a collision course with Donald Trump and Catholic Vice President JD Vance. As Trump doubled down on hard-line immigration policies, war rhetoric and personal attacks, Leo emerged as one of the few major figures willing to speak clearly on the Church's moral stance.

Writing for The iPaper, Andrew Buncombe commented on Pope Leo's folksy manner and Heartland roots. Speaking English means that it was just a matter of time before he clashed with Trump and Vance on the treatment of migrants trying to make their way into the U.S. for a safer and better life.

"It was not long before Leo spoke out against such policies – building on criticism by Francis," noted Buncombe. "A week after being elected, Leo told the world’s diplomats, the dignity of migrants had to be respected."

Vance noticed the remarks and gave a speech of his own, telling the Munich Security Conference that "Europe’s greatest threats were a failure to tackle immigration and a shift from conservative values."

Leo then criticized the U.S. and the war against Iran.

“This is the context in which the mission of the Christian soldier is situated,” said Pope Leo. “Defending the weak, protecting peaceful coexistence, intervening in disasters, operating in international missions to preserve peace and restore order.”

He also blasted the indiscriminate bombing of boats in the Caribbean that the Trump administration has alleged are drug boats.

That's when Trump struck, saying he didn't want a pope who supported Iran having a nuclear weapon. The president then started showing himself off wearing the traditional robes of a pope. It was followed by an AI-generated image of Trump depicted as Jesus Christ. Vance emphatically supported the president.

"In contrast, Leo has continued to be a straight talker," said Buncombe. "Asked about the President’s stern language, Leo said he had 'no fear' of Trump’s criticism and made clear he was not a politician."

“I do believe in the message of the Gospel – ‘Blessed are the peacemakers’ is the message that the world needs to hear today," said the pope. When he was asked about Trump's various TruthSocial attacks against the pope, Leo said, “It’s ironic – the name of the site itself. Say no more.”

Despite his slumping popularity and the pope "winning" their argument, Trump doesn't appear interested in stepping away, the report said.

"It’s all but certain Leo is going to remain one of his most significant opponents, even if Democrats manage to gain one of the chambers of Congress in the midterm elections this November. And should, two years from now, America elect as president JD Vance, someone who has shown he has no problem lecturing the head of a religion he purports to follow, the clashes could even intensify," closed Buncombe.

During George W. Bush's presidency, the term "values voters" was used to describe socially conservative voters who were strongly motivated by their opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage. Other Bush supporters might have been motivated by national security or tax policy, but the "values voters" focused primarily on social issues — and GOP strategists, working closely with the Religious Right, made a point of getting them to the polls.

"Values voters," on the whole, favored Bush over Democratic nominee John Kerry in the 2004 election. But journalist E.J. Dionne Jr., in a New York Times op-ed, argues that a new type of "values voter" is emerging in the 2026 midterms: one that is being aggressively pursued by Democrats and dislikes the values of the second Trump administration and the MAGA movement.

"The assumption took hold that Americans who cared about 'values' were conservatives animated by opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage," Dionne explains in the Times. "The 2026 campaign is reminding us that this narrow view of how voters think about values is out of step with a long American tradition that gave rise to moral appeals for improving society as a whole, particularly at times of great economic and technological change. We are witnessing the return of a politics of morality organized around the injustices of the economic system and an array of related problems: the costs of technological change, the unraveling of community, civil rights, and financial and work-balance issues confronting families."

Dionne adds, "These themes are powerful in the campaigns of Democrats this year across the party's philosophical spectrum — and it's about time."

President Donald Trump and his MAGA allies often attack Democrats as anti-religion, but Dionne notes that religion has long played a role in liberal and progressive politics —including the Black church during the civil rights movement. And Dionne cites James Talarico, a Presbyterian seminarian and the Democratic nominee in Texas' 2026 U.S. Senate race, as the "most explicit" example of "the resurgence of a Christian left."

"He is inspired by Jesus' overturning of the money changers' tables outside the temple, described in all four Gospels," Dionne says of Talarico. "The top of his campaign website features Mr. Talarico's signature line, 'It's time to start flipping tables.' His campaign against the Republican nominee, Ken Paxton, will provide the starkest contest between the old values debate and the new one. Mr. Paxton has denounced Mr. Talarico's theology and issued familiar attacks from the Religious Right, notably around trans issues. The scandalous personal baggage weighing down Mr. Paxton will complicate his talk about morality. But it won't stop him from using it to appeal to the remnant of the old values voters who helped Mr. Trump win in 2024."

Other examples of Democrats with an appeal to "values," Dionne notes, include Georgia Sens. Raphael Warnock (a Baptist minister) and Jon Ossoff, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (who is Jewish) and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear.

"Americans have quarreled over Prohibition, birth control, abortion, sexuality and other aspects of individual behavior," Dionne argues. "But we have also confronted the corruption of political and economic systems and our responsibilities to put things right. We are in a transition in how we talk about values because now is a moment to tend to the demands of our common life — and our obligations to one another."

The Vatican has confirmed that Puerto Rican singer, Bad Bunny, held a private audience with Pope Leo on June 8 at the Santiago Bernabéu stadium, and MAGA did not take the news well.

Rich Raho Teacher-Theology Department at DePaul College Prep of the Lake Chicago, made the announcement on X, saying the meeting took place after the pontiff's gathering with the Madrid Archdiocesan community. The Catholic News Agency similarly confirmed the meeting. But before the end of the day on June 9, MAGA posters were already slamming the meeting.

“Just wonderful, the Pope hanging out with a gang-banger,” claimed one MAGA critic, before his post was buried on X by angry hecklers.

“Wait til you find out who Jesus hung out with ... also Bad Bunny isn't a gang banger,” one X user retorted.

“Not a gang-banger, weirdo,” replied another.

“The Chicago democrat pope meets with anybody. He's wonderful,” insisted another on X.

“So Pope Leo would rather have a meeting with Bad Bunny who promotes degeneracy than visiting the African countries where Christians and Catholics are being murdered by Islamists? Ok. Got it,” yowled another critic.

But the pope has his own standing on X, and his fanbase immediately pounced.

“Such a stupid uninformed comment,” one of them barked in reply on X.

MAGA’s hostility toward Pope Leo stems from the one-sided rivalry President Donald Trump has imposed on the Vatican.

In April, Pope Leo XIV chronicler Christopher Hale said he had confirmed that Trump’s Pentagon threatened to declare war on the Vatican. In January, the White House issued a threat behind closed doors at the Pentagon, when Under Secretary of War for Policy Elbridge Colby summoned Cardinal Christophe Pierre — Pope Leo XIV’s then-ambassador to the United States — and delivered a lecture, said Hale.

“America has the military power to do whatever it wants in the world,” Colby and his associates informed the cardinal. “The Catholic Church had better take its side.”

As the room temperature rose, Hale said he confirmed that one U.S. official “reached for a fourteenth-century weapon and invoked the Avignon Papacy, the period when the French Crown used military force to bend the bishop of Rome to its will.”

Hale said the report confirmed that the Vatican had reason to decline the Trump-Vance White House’s invitation to host Pope Leo XIV for America’s 250th anniversary in 2026 two weeks after the confrontation.

But the pope remains a much more popular figure than the combative president, and columnists noted Trump appeared to go down in a bitter trample of screeching beneath the wheels of the papacy.