Attention to the Unseen

  For decades, Britain seemed to be leaving Christianity behind. Then a controversial report suggested church attendance was on the rise, published just as far-right figures such as Tommy Robinson began seizing on Christianity as a symbol of national identity. So is the UK really experiencing a Christian revival and to what extent is it being driven by Christian nationalism? To find out, the Guardian visited churches across the country and uncovered a growing schism over how Christianity is being…

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The New York Times reports: Thousands of people gathered on the National Mall on Sunday for a daylong rally blending Christian prayer and political fervor, a gathering President Trump had touted as an opportunity to “rededicate America as one nation under God.” The crowds came to the heart of Washington to hear from spiritual and elected leaders and members of Mr. Trump’s cabinet. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth appeared in a recorded video message, early in the day, exhorting the…

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The Washington Post reports: The Trump administration is hosting an all-day prayer festival on the National Mall on Sunday that organizers say will reflect the country’s Christian origins and, they hope, spark “a movement of renewal” in America. “Rededicate 250: National Jubilee of Prayer, Praise & Thanksgiving” is partly funded by millions in public dollars earmarked for the nation’s 250th birthday celebration, organizers said. It will feature mostly evangelical Protestant leaders and members of the Trump administration, many of whom…

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Miami Herald reports: The Trump administration has abruptly canceled an $11 million contract with Catholic Charities to shelter and care for migrant children who enter the U.S. alone, ending a relationship between the Catholic Church and the U.S. government dating back to the first arrivals of Cuban exiles in South Florida. The development comes amid rising tensions between the administration and American Catholics over President Donald Trump’s heated criticism of the Vatican’s first American pope, Leo XIV. The pontiff has…

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The Washington Post reports: After white smoke in the rafters of the Sistine Chapel signaled the rise of a new pope last May, President Donald Trump heralded the first U.S.-born leader of the Catholic Church by declaring the choice “a Great Honor for our Country.” But now the two most influential Americans on the world stage — Trump, the leader of 340 million Americans, and Pope Leo XIV, with a global flock of 1.4 billion Catholics — are locked in…

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The Catholic Observer reports: The Defense Department summoned the Vatican’s ambassador to the U.S. to the Pentagon in January and subjected him to a “bitter lecture warning that the United States has the military power to do whatever it wants — and that the Church had better take its side,” according to published reports. Elbridge A. Colby, the Defense Department’s undersecretary for policy, summoned Cardinal Christophe Pierre, who had served as the Holy See’s apostolic nuncio to the U.S. for…

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Joshua Zeitz writes: It’s no secret that Israel is losing ground in American public opinion on both the left and the right, even as many American Jews feel newly besieged by rising antisemitism. On much of the left, activists and intellectuals increasingly interpret Israel and Zionism through anti-colonial and anti-racist frameworks, casting the conflict in the moral language of oppressor and oppressed. On the right, a different but equally consequential shift is underway. Influential conservatives like Tucker Carlson have come…

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