When the podium becomes a pulpit.

At a Pentagon press briefing this week, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth closed his remarks with a reading from the Book of Psalms and ended with "Amen." Press briefings don't usually end that way. RNS reporter Jack Jenkins joins Amanda Henderson to trace how we got here — from monthly worship services in the Pentagon auditorium to biblical scripture overlaid on weapons systems to a Secretary of War who told his troops the nation needed to be "on bended knee, recognizing the providence of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ."

When the podium becomes a pulpit, what happens to everything else? That question hasn't gotten easier.

00:00 — Introduction: When the Podium Becomes a Pulpit

01:27 — The Original Episode: Setting the Scene

02:41 — The Generals' Meeting and the Warrior Ethos

05:14 — Christianity in the Military: Civil Religion vs. Hegseth's Faith

06:57 — "SecWar's Worship Service": The Pentagon Prayer Series

07:59 — Bible Verses Over Fighter Jets: The Social Media Campaign

10:15 — Recruitment, Viral Content, and Capital-B Believers

12:50 — The Theological Question: Faith as Military Doctrine

15:17 — Pushback — and Why It's Hard to Find

17:14 — Closing: The Baptism of the Military

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When empathy became toxic and cruelty became strength for Christian women.

Christian womanhood has changed—and not in the ways many expected. In this episode, Amanda Henderson talks with the co-hosts of the Saved By The City podcast Katelyn Beaty and Roxanne Stone about the shift from 1990s purity culture to today’s trad wives, MAGA moms, and warnings against “toxic empathy.”

They unpack how pandemic burnout, influencer culture, and widening political gender gaps reshaped the ideal Christian woman—and why empathy itself has become a flashpoint.

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Are six decades of solidarity giving way to generational strain?

For much of the last half-century, support for Israel was a defining pillar of American Jewish life. It shaped institutions, philanthropy, politics, and identity. The consensus wasn’t always quiet — but it was broad.

Today, that consensus is under strain.

Younger American Jews — many raised in synagogues, camps, and on Birthright trips — are expressing a different relationship to Israel than their parents and grandparents. Some are building alternative communities. Some are challenging legacy organizations. Some are questioning whether Israel should remain the organizing center of American Jewish life at all.

Meanwhile, established institutions are responding with urgency — and anxiety – warning of rising antisemitism, political danger, and fractures that could reshape the community for decades.

This tension didn’t begin on October 7. But October 7 — and the war that followed — has intensified it.

Religion reporter Yonat Shimron joins us to trace the full arc: from postwar American Jewish flourishing, to decades of near-consensus, to the generational and institutional rupture unfolding now.

What changed? Who gets to define Jewish responsibility? And what happens next?

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"We're the people everyone hates." That's what Rabbi Steven Burg hears when he asks young Jews who they are.

October 7 accelerated this. In the aftermath of the attacks, lines were drawn between support for an occupied Gaza and the security of the Jewish state and people. Progressive coalitions found themselves fracturing. Interfaith partnerships strained to stay together. Students found themselves abandoned by people they thought were allies. But Burg says the problem runs deeper than politics.

In this episode, host Amanda Henderson talks with Rabbi Steven Burg about what happens to religious identity when an entire generation can only define themselves by who hates them—and what it takes to move from trauma to something they're actually for.

RELATED: Rabbi Steven Burg: "We cannot allow ourselves to be reduced to victims." 

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Complexified welcomes the Rev. William Barber II, architect of the Moral Monday movement in North Carolina, as he sets out to reclaim voters that ran to the right in the last presidential election.
Who are these voters?  Low-income voters earning less than $50,000 who favored Donald Trump by roughly 1% in 2024. That margin, according to Rev. Barber, is reversible, by campaigning being for something instead of against.
Join host Amanda Henderson as she and Rev. Barber discuss the presumptions around low income voters, movement strategizing, modes of resistance, and responds to a challenge issued by the Speaker of the House Mike Johnson to debate immigration theology.

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The applause was muted when Trump appeared on video. One year ago, the March for Life felt like a rock concert. This year, JD Vance had to contend with detractors from the stage.

The pro-life movement got what it wanted—Dobbs overturned Roe. But abortions in America have actually risen since the decision. Nearly two-thirds now happen through medication abortion, mifepristone prescribed via telehealth, accessible even in states with bans. The Trump administration won't restrict it.

Vance called that choice "prudential"—politically wise. The crowd wasn't buying it. One man said he trusted Trump's negotiating skills, then started crying.

Reporter Aleja Hertzler-McCain takes us inside a movement with profound conviction confronting political calculation, and only one person in thousands holding a sign about immigration.

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Trying to put smoke in a box

That's what it feels like to map why churches are dying. Most people who leave can't tell you why. They drifted. Three times a month became twice, then never. Ryan Burge, a sociologist and pastor, tracks the contradictions: the religiously unaffiliated climbed to 30% and stopped. Some churches that should close stay open. Others with resources fold anyway. Organizations scratch and claw past their expiration dates in ways no model captures. New Atheism ran out of steam. Baby boomers are aging out. And nobody can predict what happens next because the data reveals patterns but can't explain the drift.

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Faith leaders thought their collars would protect them. They were wrong.

The Presbyterian minister was wearing his collar. DHS shot him with pepper balls anyway. Across American cities—LA, DC, Chicago, Minneapolis—clergy are learning their moral authority no longer protects them as they resist Trump's mass deportation raids. Faith communities have built sophisticated networks: ICE observers, whistle brigades, cross-city organizing. In Minneapolis, where federal agents nearly double the police force, religious resistance is everywhere. Reporter Jack Jenkins tracks the collision between one of the largest faith-based movements in modern history and federal power that refuses to recognize the old rules.

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A Special Episode from The State of Belief!

A special crossover from The State of Belief: RNS reporters Jack Jenkins and Adelle M. Banks join Rev. Paul Brandeis Raushenbush to break down the biggest religion stories of 2025 — from faith-based pushback to immigration enforcement, to fights over DEI, to how communities are surviving economic upheaval. They also look ahead to 2026: an American pope, shifting “religious freedom” battles, and the rising entanglement of religion, technology, and politics.

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Religious leaders stayed mostly silent when the U.S. seized a foreign dictator — except for the pope.

Religious leaders stayed mostly silent when the U.S. grabbed Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and flew him to New York. The loudest response didn’t come from Washington or American pulpits, but from Rome, where Pope Leo warned about sovereignty, dignity, and the rule of law.

In this episode, Amanda Henderson talks with Religion News Service editor-in-chief Paul O’Donnell about why so many religious voices paused, why the pope didn’t, and what that contrast reveals about power, politics, and faith in real time. It’s a conversation about silence, authority, and what happens when moral instincts lag behind geopolitical force.

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