Today

Wednesday's Church Briefing: A Jailed Father, Faith in the Courts, a Region's First Vote

By The FaithDaily Desk

Good morning. The day's most consequential story came from Hong Kong. Religion News Service reported that Sebastien Lai has pressed Pope Leo XIV to help secure the release of his father, Jimmy Lai, from jail. Sebastien Lai said his father's health is deteriorating after nearly six years in solitary confinement. The appeal puts a son's plea about a still-imprisoned man directly before the pope.

In the United States, Religion News Service published a tracker it built with the Law, Rights, and Religion Project. It found that eighty religious plaintiffs from 11 major faith traditions have joined lawsuits challenging the Trump administration's immigration policies. The breadth is the point. Opposition in the courts is not confined to any one tradition.

From Manila, Religion News Service carried an Associated Press report on the first elections in a Muslim region of the southern Philippines. Officials said turnout was over 80%. Five people were killed in election-related violence in the regional capital. Polling was extended to a second day in some precincts over a suspected effort to cheat.

Two items concerned the musician Macklemore. Religion News Service, citing the Associated Press, reported that he was dropped from Ed Sheeran's tour over pro-Palestinian comments made onstage. Macklemore said on Instagram that several U.S. venues told the promoter they would prohibit him from performing as Sheeran's opening act for the Loop tour. In a companion piece, Religion News Service set out five religion takeaways from the cancelation and noted that the charge that criticism of Israel amounts to antisemitism is highly contested.

Religion News Service, again through the Associated Press, reported from Namisindwa, Uganda, on rainmakers who are paid to bring rain. They have long served as spiritual leaders in their communities, performing rituals to ask deities to bring rain. When rain fails, or when it leads to floods, violence can follow.

The day's commentary ranged widely. Christianity Today ran a piece adapted from Russell Moore's newsletter arguing that the technology's unappealing promoters may be telling the truth about what is at stake. The Gospel Coalition examined an overlooked apologetics strategy from C. S. Lewis, which it called a first step toward turning modern minds in the direction of Christian faith. Anglican Ink reviewed Simon Sebag Montefiore's "The Cauldron, the Making of the Modern Middle East," published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson. Religion News Service offered two reflections: one on what an ancient Hindu text says about genocide, warning that justice pursued without compassion can become its opposite, and one on what the resistance can learn from Yom Kippur.

Charisma News, citing the New York Post, reported that Arthur Lundeen, 67, the man restrained aboard American Airlines Flight 618, has spoken publicly about the incident for the first time; the outlet linked the episode to Jonathan Cahn.

Religion News Service also published its Photos of the Week, which included the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks and the annual Hindu Ganesha festival. And in a press release carried by Religion News Service from Nashville Publicity Group, the faith-first platform ActsSocial reported a major surge in new-member registrations as it expands its global reach.