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2 days ago | 
churchleaders.com | Bob Smietana |To OnFaith
(RNS) — The Bible has made Donald Trump feel like a million bucks. The former reality-TV star turned president earned more than a million dollars in royalties for endorsing the God Bless the USA Bible, according to a newly released annual financial disclosure from the White House. That disclosure, dated June 13, showed Trump earned more than $600 million last year while running for the White House.
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3 days ago | 
churchleaders.com | Bob Smietana |To OnFaith
(RNS) — A new Texas law mandating that schools set a time for students to pray will likely be popular with many residents of the Lone Star State. A new report from the Washington, D.C.-based Pew Research Center found that 61% of adults in Texas say they approve of allowing teachers to lead Christian prayers in the classroom.
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1 month ago | 
churchleaders.com | Bob Smietana |To OnFaith
(RNS) — Gareld Duane Rollins, whose lawsuit accusing a legendary Southern Baptist leader of abuse sparked a crisis in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, died Friday (May 23). “The abuse he suffered by those touting their religion is unimaginable,” said Michael Goldberg, an attorney for law firm Baker Botts, which represented Rollins. “This could not have happened if not for supposed good people keeping quiet.
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1 month ago | 
churchleaders.com | Bob Smietana |To OnFaith
(RNS) — The future of a proposed homeless shelter at a New Jersey church — and the future of the church itself — remains unclear after a zoning board meeting ended without a vote. Since October, Christ Episcopal Church in Toms River, New Jersey, has sought permission from the town’s zoning board to open a 17-bed shelter in a building on the congregation’s property. But the project has been met with resistance from both neighbors and the mayor, and it remains stalled after months of public comment.
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1 month ago | 
churchleaders.com | Bob Smietana |To OnFaith
(RNS) — President Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office were filled with change and controversy — with the new president signing a record number of executive orders that included banning diversity efforts, feuding with some of the nation’s largest universities, launching high-profile deportations and imposing tariffs that sent the stock market yo-yoing. For many Americans, it appears to be too much.
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2 months ago | 
churchleaders.com | Bob Smietana |To OnFaith
(RNS) — Department of Veteran Affairs Secretary Douglas Collins has instructed the agency’s employees to report any instances of anti-Christian bias, including any policies that are “hostile to Christian views” or punishments for displaying Christian symbols. “The VA Task Force now requests all VA employees to submit any instance of anti-Christian discrimination to Anti [email protected],” Collins wrote in an email to employees on Tuesday (April 22).
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Mar 24, 2025 | 
churchleaders.com | Bob Smietana |To OnFaith
David Dummitt, who became pastor of Willow Creek Church at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, announced Sunday (March 23) that he is stepping down as leader of the influential Chicagoland megachurch. Shawn Williams, the campus pastor of Willow Creek’s South Barrington, Illinois, location, will succeed Dummitt as senior pastor starting April 1. Dummitt will remain on staff until July 31 to help with the transition.
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Mar 12, 2025 | 
churchleaders.com | Bob Smietana |To OnFaith
(RNS) — Theologians, preachers and best-selling authors have long tried to explain why bad things happen to good people. But there’s a second question that doesn’t get as much attention. What happens when a good person does something that seems unforgivable? That’s the question Tom King’s family faced on an early morning last fall as King was dying in a hospital room in Akron, Ohio, after he was hit on his motorcycle by a pickup truck. Would they respond in anger? Or with mercy?
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Mar 11, 2025 | 
churchleaders.com | Bob Smietana |To OnFaith
Ryan Walters is looking for 55,000 Bibles, and he is seeking $60 donations for each of them. Walters, who is Oklahoma’s state superintendent of public instruction, has made national headlines for his efforts to get Bibles into the hands of public school kids in his state.
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Mar 10, 2025 | 
churchleaders.com | Bob Smietana |To OnFaith
(RNS) — In mid-February, Southern Baptist Convention leaders received grim news. The denomination’s Executive Committee was essentially broke. Over the past four years, the committee has spent more than $13 million on legal fees and other costs related to a historic sexual abuse investigation by Guidepost Solutions, draining its reserves and leaving it unable to pay its bills for the following year.
