Attention to the Unseen

David French writes: For all the talk of religious revival in American evangelicalism, there is an odd disconnect. Evangelicals might be growing in political power, but there is not much evidence that they are growing in devotion. For example, Ryan Burge, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis’s John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics, analyzed data from the Cooperative Election Study and found that the percentage of self-identified American evangelicals who “seldom” or “never” attend church has…

Read More Read More

The New York Times reports: For nearly three hours, Nigel Farage, the leader of Britain’s once-fringe populist Reform U.K. Party, commanded an audience in Congress on Sept. 3 as he testified against his own country’s free-speech rules. The presence of Mr. Farage, a longtime Trump ally, as the Republicans’ star witness in Washington was not merely a symbol of his growing political clout or the power of conservative populism. Rather, it was the result of a discreet, monthslong campaign by…

Read More Read More

Reuters reports: Pope Leo urged the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics on Sunday to care for immigrants, pressing ahead with a message of welcome for migrants days after criticizing U.S. President Donald Trump’s hard-line anti-immigration policies. Leo, the first U.S. pope, told thousands of pilgrims celebrating Mass in St. Peter’s Square that immigrants should not be treated with “the coldness of indifference or the stigma of discrimination”. The pope, who did not single out any country for its treatment of migrants,…

Read More Read More

The Washington Post reports: Federal employees can display religious items at work, pray in groups while not on duty and encourage co-workers to adopt their faith, according to guidance released Monday by the Office of Personnel Management, which manages the federal civilian workforce. In a memo titled “Protecting Religious Expression in the Federal Workplace,” OPM Director Scott Kupor said that the government workforce should be “a welcoming place” for employees who practice a religious faith. “Allowing religious discrimination in the…

Read More Read More

Hanif Abdurraqib writes: I sometimes say that I consider myself a junior-varsity Muslim. Whether this comes off as a joke or as an invitation for scolding (spoken or unspoken, loving or otherwise) depends entirely on the other Muslims in the room. But, hey, I say hands up and palms out: I take Ramadan very seriously, more seriously than I take anything. Inside me is still a child of rigorous routine. I don’t drink, or smoke, or use drugs, though I…

Read More Read More