Here are 10 notable moments from the RNS 90th anniversary symposium and gala.
1. Religion remains an important American story
Martin Baron, legendary editor of The Washington Post and The Boston Globe, was the featured speaker in conversation with RNS national reporter Adelle M. Banks during the gala dinner. Under Baron’s leadership at the Globe, the “Spotlight” team won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for public service for its coverage of Catholic clergy sexual abuse and the church’s cover-up.
Baron said religion is an important story, despite the decline in dedicated religion reporters. “Fifty percent of the American population identifies themselves as being religious, 60% say they pray every day, 30% say they’re spiritual. … I’ve never felt that the press did a very good job of covering religion, for a variety of reasons. One reason is that it’s incredibly complex. … It’s beneath the surface, not on the surface. Because it motivates and drives so many people and informs their behavior, I always felt it was incredibly important to cover,” he said.
2. Journalism must portray the humanity amid every crisis
Sister Norma Pimentel, executive director of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley, has been caring for migrants at the southern border for more than a decade. She described pleading to be allowed into a detention center at the U.S.-Mexico border to pray with migrant children who had been separated from their parents. Pimentel said that as children surrounded her, crying for her help, she and the immigration officers were moved to tears.
After exiting the cell, the Border Patrol officers told her: “Sister, thank you. You helped us realize they’re human beings.
3. Authoritarianism can hold an appeal to members of hierarchical religious structures
The intermingling of Christian nationalism with pockets of Catholicism is tied to authoritarianism, said panelist Anthea Butler, professor at the University of Pennsylvania. There are broader issues of race at play, she said, which journalists may be bypassing in their typical focus on abortion and Catholicism.
“We are talking about a whole group of Latino Catholics who are willing to go and vote for Trump because they are hearing this from their priest,” she said. “They are used to authoritarianism in the countries they emigrated from to come to America. … [There are Catholics] sitting in Spanish Masses and hearing about why Trump is going to be good for them, because Trump is going to make sure that their families are taken care of and that their daughters get married to somebody who’s not gay.”
4. America is seeing the rise of a political religion
In a session on religious dynamics and authoritarianism, author Ruth Ben-Ghiat, professor at New York University, discussed the power of “authoritarian bargains,” and how all the components of an authoritarianism playbook are present in the U.S.
“Most authoritarians are depraved, impious people — the more corrupt they are, the more violent they are, the more they need the moral legitimacy provided by the religious institution. … They need that aura of holiness for their personality cult,” she said. “And once these bargains are struck, they’re very durable. … In the American context, we find that Republicans who view Trump favorably have a more authoritarian view, and these views mirror the extremist things Trump has been preaching for them. With Trump being anointed as ‘there by the will of God,’ we see the same kind of political religion [and] deification of the leader as was true under fascism.”
People attend the “Depolarizing Churches: Engaging Politics With Grace” session in New York City. (RNS photo/Kit Doyle)
5. Interfaith dialogue has taken a hit in the midst of the Israel-Hamas war
Rabba Rori Picker Neiss, senior vice president for community relations at the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, said one of the biggest struggles for Jews involved in interfaith work the past year is to be asked to engage when they are still in the midst of ongoing trauma.
“The story hasn’t ended to talk about what we do next,” she said. “For most Jews … they’re sitting with this conflict of how they talk about Israel and the Israeli government and the atrocities of what they’re seeing happening to innocent children in Gaza while also holding the pain and the fear of what it meant to see the Jewish community in Israel. What’s our response supposed to be?”
6. Faith leaders can be chaplains of democracy
In an emotionally heavy session on navigating interfaith fractures, Najeeba Syeed, executive director of Interfaith Institute at Augsburg University, addressed the work of chaplains on university campuses.
“One thing I learned in this space is that we have to begin to ask about … the chaplaincy of democracy,” she said. “What do we do when people don’t want to engage politically in this moment? … How do you show up for people who have that feeling instead of bullying and pushing and prodding and hurting and shaming and blaming? [We must begin] to approach this idea that I’m a chaplain for democracy, not just for my community. … Part of what that means is to listen, and that part of that listening is to hold space for the trauma of whoever is speaking. When I occupy a space of power, it doesn’t mean your community has lost power. That’s part of the chaplaincy of democracy. … and if faith leaders cannot begin to model it … we will only destroy this country.”
7. The majority of Americans reject Christian nationalism and authoritarianism
In a session on data-driven insights about authoritarianism, Public Religion Research Institute’s president and founder, Robert P. Jones, shared alarming findings from PRRI’s latest report on the connections between authoritarianism and Christian nationalism.
But he also offered hope: “An overwhelming majority of Americans reject these views — 2-to-1, Americans reject Christian nationalism. It’s 60-to-40 that Americans reject authoritarianism. Now, that still leaves a sizable minority to worry about … [and] the challenge is … that nearly one-third of Americans are dug in, who tend to be white, non-Hispanic and Christian, and who are tied into this hierarchical Christian nationalism worldview. But there are churches on the ground doing things to solidify and support democracy.”
8. When it comes to AI and ethics, there are no shortcuts to doing things well
How does artificial intelligence play into ethics and human values in different areas of our lives? In a session on “Religion, Values,and Ethics on the Forefront of AI,” Kenyatta Gilbert, dean of Howard University’s School of Divinity, discussed what concerns him about the use of AI when it comes to ethics and values.
“In my profession, there are really no shortcuts to doing things well,” he said. “What’s most concerning is that … we seek to manage reality as opposed to allowing God to invite us into God’s reality. And doing that holy work pushes against our inclination to commandeer God in a way that accommodates our selfishness, self-centeredness. I think we have to really be mindful that there’s a difference between having an administrative assistant use AI to send an email and using AI to write a sermon. They’re serving two different purposes.”
People mingle during the RNS 90th Anniversary Symposium and Gala on Sept. 10, 2024, in New York City. (RNS photo/Ira Fox)
9. Faith-based volunteerism must innovate and diversify as religiosity declines
In the panel discussion about the changing face of faith-based volunteerism in America, all the panelists agreed that the decline of adherents of organized religion equates to a decline in volunteerism. But there are ways to address this.
Anju Bhargava, a White House adviser and founder of Hindu American Seva Communities, advised modernizing how faiths like Hinduism are taught. “If we teach from a traditional perspective about Hinduism, [volunteerism] doesn’t quite resonate from there. So there is a movement to look at engaged Hinduism, in which you are taking the principles and explaining them in a way that a modern, global Hindu would be able to understand. We can’t rely on all the [sacred] texts as they were originally written. They provide the root of [the Hindu faith] but we have to translate it for the new generation of children coming here and growing, [where] service and seva is still a common thread.”
10. Religious integrity is more important than influence
Russell Moore, a producer of The After Party project, which aims to provide resources to help people of faith “approach divisive partisan issues with a biblically faithful approach,” made the case in a session on “Depolarizing Churches” for leaning on Christian values of neighborly understanding, love and faith.
“Long-term integrity is more important than influence, [as is] having a group of people with such a confidence in the gospel that they are willing to ask, ‘How do you maintain a Christian witness that does not see our neighbors as our enemies, that sees the tools of the gospels as being persuasion and witness, not coercion and power?” he said.
