President Trump on Thursday criticized Democratic governors for not allowing churches to open back up and said his administration will be addressing the issue soon.

Trump made the comments to reporters outside the White House, moments before he left for a trip to Michigan.  

“I want to get our country back to normal. … One of the other things I want to do is get the churches open,” he said. “The churches are not being treated with respect by a lot of the Democrat governors. I want to get our churches open. And we’re gonna take a very strong position on that very soon.” 

Asked about mosques, Trump responded, “Mosques, too – including mosques.”

Trump’s comments came the same week the Department of Justice sent a letter to California Gov. Gavin Newsom, telling him the state’s ban on in-person church services likely violates the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment. Newsom is a Democrat.

“Simply put, there is no pandemic exception to the U.S. Constitution and its Bill of Rights,” the three-page letter said. 

It argued churches can apply social distancing and health rules just as well as businesses and factories that are allowed to be open can.

“Religious gatherings may not be singled out for unequal treatment compared to other non-religious gatherings that have the same effect on the government’s public health interest, absent the most…

A ban on religious gatherings in France is unlawful, according to France’s supreme court for administrative justice.

The French Council of State ruled Monday that “the general and absolute prohibition [on religious gatherings] is disproportionate” because the government is allowing secular gatherings of fewer than 10 people, The Christian Post reports.

The Council of State said in its ruling that the policy “constitutes a serious and manifest violation of the freedom of worship.”

The government has eight days to lift the ban on religious gatherings.

The policy banned all gatherings in worship places until June 2, except for funerals, which only allow up to 20 people.

The ruling came after complaints from organizations and church members. Supporters of overturning the ban said the ruling was “good news.”

“The decision of the Council of State to order the lifting of the ban on assembly in places of worship is good news for freedom of worship which is a fundamental right,” tweeted Sen. Bruno Retailleau, leader of the right-wing Republicans.

In February, France had an outbreak of coronavirus cases and officials pointed to an international evangelical conference for causing the cluster of cases.

In the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control said that religious organizations considering reopening in-person services “should be aware of the potential for high rates of…

A new documentary on the woman famously behind Roe vs. Wade states that she faked her pro-life stance for the sake of money.

On Friday, FX will release a documentary titled “AKA Jane Roe” on Hulu, made by filmmaker Nick Sweeney who interviewed Norma McCorvey prior to her death in 2017.

McCorvey served as the plaintiff in Roe vs Wade – the famous court case that afforded women the right to have an abortion – in 1973 under the legal pseudonym “Jane Roe.”

In the 90s, however, McCorvey became a Christian and began promoting the pro-life movement.

According to the Los Angeles Times, in 2016, as Sweeney began work on the documentary of McCorvey’s life, he started making visits to her.

In the documentary, Sweeney claimed that during one of those visits McCorvey made a self-described “deathbed confession,” in which she alleged that she was paid to become pro-life.

“I was the big fish. I think it was a mutual thing,” she reportedly said. “I took their money and they’d put me out in front of the cameras and tell me what to say.”

“It was all an act,” she allegedly asserted.

“I did it well too. I am a good actress,”

In this confession, McCorvey also allegedly voiced her support for abortion.

“If a young woman wants to have an abortion, that’s no skin off my a**. That’s why they call it choice,” she is reported as saying.

Evangelical minister and former…

A majority of teens and young adults say they are praying more or thinking about spiritual issues more than they were prior to the coronavirus pandemic, according to a new survey.

The poll of 800 high school students and 800 post-secondary students found that 67 percent said they’re either praying more often or thinking about spiritual issues more compared to the time before the virus. 

Specifically, 39 percent said they’re praying “more often,” 28 percent said they’re pondering spiritual issues more, and one-third (35 percent) said neither option applies to them.

The survey was conducted April 24-27 by Echelon Insights for Young America’s Foundation and The Federalist.

“I believe that young people are far more interested in prayer and spiritual issues during the COVID-19 [pandemic] than before because everything they focused on or sought for security has come to a halt and is quickly fading,” the Rev. Anthony Thompson, pastor of Holy Trinity Reformed Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., told Just the News. Thompson’s wife was killed in a 2015 church shooting, and he was featured in the 2019 documentary Emanuel. He also wrote a book, Called to Forgive.

“Schools, businesses, corporations as well as churches are closed,” Thompson added. “Corporations, businesses and states are losing money every day, and unemployment is very high. All the…

(RNS) — It’s become almost a foregone conclusion that young adults are leaving organized religion in high numbers. Newly published findings from the National Study of Youth and Religion don’t challenge that conclusion — not exactly. But they do offer a fuller picture of what’s happening, including some possible good news for mainline Protestants.

The NSYR tracked more than 3,000 young people from 2002, when they were ages 13 to 17, through their young adult years a decade later. The fourth and final book about this research, “Back-Pocket God: Religion and Spirituality in the Lives of Emerging Adults,” looks at the most recent data as well as interviews from when the research subjects were in their 20s.

Religion News Service spoke with co-authors Melinda Lundquist Denton and Richard Flory about their findings and what is happening with religion in America. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

You write that the biggest “winner” is the growth of the nonreligious. Only 11% of these kids were not religious when they were teenagers, compared to 35% as emerging adults. Were you surprised?

Flory: I think that the volume of the change was more than I would have expected. What’s particularly surprising is that overall, more than half, 51%, never show up at any kind of religious service at all. I thought that more would have hung on in various…

Countless Christians expressed their thankfulness for Ravi Zacharias after the well-known apologist passed away this week at the age of 74. Zacharias spent his life defending the Christian message against the objections of skeptics and helping people through their objections to faith in Christ. He died at his home in Atlanta Tuesday after a battle with sarcoma.

Vice President Mike Pence tweeted that he was “Deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Ravi Zacharias, a Christian apologist whose ministry for the gospel of Jesus Christ impacted millions around the world. Ravi was a man of faith who could ‘rightly handle the word of truth’ like few others in our time & he was my friend.” Pence continued, saying, “Upon the death of Abner, the Bible tells us David said, ‘Do you not know that a great prince & a great man has fallen today?” Ravi was such a man & he will be missed. Karen & I send our deepest sympathies to his family and know he heard “Well done good and faithful servant.”

Deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Ravi Zacharias, a Christian apologist whose ministry for the gospel of Jesus Christ impacted millions around the world. Ravi was a man of faith who could “rightly handle the word of truth” like few others in our time & he was my friend.

— Mike Pence (@Mike_Pence) May 19, 2020

White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany testified to CBN News to the…

VATICAN CITY (RNS) – Once again, the Vatican issued a statement reinforcing its support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, after the recently installed government of Israel announced plans to vote for the annexation of the West Bank territory.

“The Holy See reiterates that respect for international law and the relevant United Nations resolutions, is an indispensable element for the two peoples to live side by side in two States, within the borders internationally recognized before 1967,” read the Vatican statement, sent to journalists on Wednesday (May 20).

The chief negotiator and secretary-general of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Saeb Erekat, called the Vatican’s equivalent of the minister for foreign affairs, Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, to inform the Holy See of the possibility of Israel  unilaterally claiming sovereignty over the contested territories, the statement read.

The statement said the Vatican “is following the situation closely” in the hope that with the help of the international community, Israel and Palestine may resume peaceful negotiation “so peace may finally reign in the Holy Land, so beloved by Jews and Christians and Muslims.”

An emergency government in Israel, set to grapple with the coronavirus pandemic and led by Benjamin Netanyahu of the nationalist Likud Party and Benny Gantz of the centrist…