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Rev. Carl McCrae, bishop and founding pastor of Exousia Lighthouse International Christian Ministries in Lithonia, Georgia, remembers that his grandfather was one of the first people to vote in Georgia’s Montgomery County. Government officials attempted to prevent his grandfather from voting — until a white man vouched for him. Now, McCrae sees his ministry as continuing his grandfather’s fight for Black and brown Americans’ voting rights.

“I don't see a discontinuation between what I do in the pulpit on Sundays and what I do every day of the week,” McCrae told Sojourners. “That is to advocate for people of color and marginalized people as the systems that are rigged against them seek to destroy them.”

Jeremiah Givens — better known as the rapper JGivens — suggests that you think of him as “your favorite rapper’s favorite rapper.” He makes the suggestion with a smile, in some jest, but he still means it.

Givens, now a veteran emcee, has been a premier rapper in the niche genre of Christian hip-hop (CHH) for the last decade. Musically, Givens is known for his smooth and sporadic delivery, his lyrical wordplay, and his willingness to share his life transparently on the microphone. But during the beginning of his career, there were parts of his life he had to keep hidden.

“I have spoken personally directly with His Holiness Pope Francis to press upon him how important it is not just that he makes an apology but that he makes an apology to indigenous Canadians on Canadian soil,” Trudeau told reporters in Ottawa.

“I think there are aspects of people attempting to discuss politics in Christian terms, or people interpreting their politics through a Christian lens, that’s always going to lead to terrible arguments,” she said. God cares about politics, Coaston said, but not in such a literal way that God has an opinion on something like Medicaid expansion. To those using God-talk to drum up votes, Coaston asks: “Why would you want God to be that small?”

In 1855, the Ojibwe people signed a treaty in Washington, D.C., that retained extensive land use rights in the Great Lakes region for hunting, gathering, fishing, and worship rights for the community. Today, the Ojibwe, who live throughout Minnesota, North Dakota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ontario, Canada, still retain these 1855 treaty rights, which are separate from reservation land.

But the Line 3 Replacement Project is seeking to cut through the land, which activists say would directly violate those treaty rights.

Earlier this year, the Vatican said that its priests and ministers cannot bless same-sex unions. For LGBTQ Catholics, this was a setback for what many saw as the church’s more welcoming trajectory under Pope Francis. But not everyone is following the instructions; in the United States and across the globe, Catholics have directly disobeyed the Vatican’s instructions.

On the first day of June — which marks the beginning of Pride Month in the United States — DignityUSA, an organization supporting LGBTQ Catholics, hosted a Catholic Pride Blessing, where LGBTQ Catholics could be blessed by clergy.

“This solidarity has the potential and the power to propel us into a new future as a community,” Rev. Ingrid Rasmussen, pastor at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Minneapolis, told Sojourners.

“As Black American activists are being increasingly heard and amplified, so is this message about linking national contexts and the importance of recognizing the global scope of anti-racism activism beyond national boundaries,” Roger Baumann said.

In his book PreachersNSneakers: Authenticity in an Age of For-Profit Faith and (Wannabe) Celebrities, published last month, Ben Kirby does more than throw stones at ultra-wealthy pastors; he asks readers to self-audit and consider where they’re spending, lest they throw that stone and shatter their glass houses.