“The Handmaid’s Tale” had a remarkable ending — for real-world reasons; CNN, May 28, 2025

Brian Stelter, CNN; “The Handmaid’s Tale” had a remarkable ending — for real-world reasons

"The show’s producers leaned in. They didn’t hesitate when asked about real-world comparisons to the radicalism portrayed on screen.

“We’re on a very, very slippery slope toward Gilead,” executive producer Warren Littlefield told me back in 2019...

“In early Handmaid’s days,” Littlefield said, “we present a world that was too preoccupied staring into their phones to see Gilead coming until it’s upon our characters and taken over their lives.”

Over the years, many reviewers have pointed to that as one of the enduring takeaways from the show.

“Handmaid’s” “showed the ease with which the unthinkable can become ordinary — a lesson crucial in the age of the Big Lie,” The Atlantic’s Megan Garber wrote in 2021...

One of the showrunners, Yahlin Chang, posited in a recent interview with TheWrap that the show “kind of failed” to serve as a cautionary tale, “or we didn’t caution enough people.”

“It’s shocking to me, when I think about when I joined the show, I had more rights as a woman than I have now,” she said...

The final episodes manage to be uplifting, at least in part, and Littlefield said, “Our message this year, in hopefully a compelling dramatic way, continues to be — like June, don’t give up the fight.”"

‘This Moment Is Critical.’ Whither Progressive Christians After Pope Francis?; The New York Times, April 24, 2025

 Elizabeth Dias and Ruth Graham, The New York Times; ‘This Moment Is Critical.’ Whither Progressive Christians After Pope Francis?

"For 12 years, Pope Francis was the most powerful Christian on the world stage, using his voice to elevate the poor and the marginalized.

Millions of progressive Christians in the United States, Catholics and non-Catholics alike, considered him to be a powerful counterweight to a rising conservative Christian power. He was the magnetic center for their values.

His death on Monday leaves behind a question gnawing inside their minds.

In a world without Pope Francis, where their values feel particularly vulnerable, where do they go from here?

“This moment is critical now,” Bishop Sean W. Rowe, the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, said. “For those of us who want to embody the Sermon on the Mount, and the Beatitudes, and the love that Jesus showed in the world, this is now more important than ever.”

Pope Francis stood in contrast to a brand of Christianity that has increasing power in the United States. It is mixed with nationalism and, according to Bishop Rowe, is “not only fundamentally not Christian” but “also dangerous.”

“We have to begin to step up and communicate this message in ways that are winsome and compelling,” he added. “Politics are certainly co-opting Christian language and the Christian story. It is now ours to take that back.”...

Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, the leader of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, went to Mass on Monday night with her husband, who is Catholic. After her sermon at the inauguration prayer service when she pleaded with Mr. Trump to have mercy, many Christians have turned to her as a moral pillar...

“Whatever happens in the rest of my lifetime or yours, some of us have to keep a candle burning. We can’t let this go,” she said. “Someday the pendulum will swing back.”"

What did Pope Francis think of JD Vance? His view was more than clear; The Guardian, April 23, 2025

Jan-Werner Müller , The Guardian; What did Pope Francis think of JD Vance? His view was more than clear

"We might never quite know what Pope Francis said to the US vice-president during their very brief meeting on Sunday. In the widely shared video clip, it was hardly audible. The morning after, Francis died, and Vance jetted to visit India, finding time to tweet that his heart went out to the millions of Christians who loved Francis (implying, I suppose, that not all Catholics loved him) and patronizing the dead pontiff by calling one of his homilies “really quite beautiful”).

Francis had been as outspoken as could be without naming names, when he criticized Vance in his February letter to US bishops; but he was not just registering his rebuke of Trump and Vance’s cruel treatment of refugees and migrants; he was reacting to a broader trend of instrumentalizing religion for nationalist and authoritarian populism...

Francis, in a letter to US bishops, instructed the flock that “Christian love is not a concentric expansion of interests that little by little extend to other persons and groups. In other words: the human person is not a mere individual, relatively expansive, with some philanthropic feelings!”

He added, driving home the rebuke without naming names, that “the true ordo amoris that must be promoted is that which we discover by meditating constantly on the parable of the ‘Good Samaritan’ … that is, by meditating on the love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception.” Apparently, Cardinal Pietro Parolin was dispatched on Saturday to explain all this to Vance again.

Vance is not the only far-right populist who has smuggled nationalism into what he touts as the correct notion of Christianity. Viktor Orbán, a great model for Vance and other self-declared US “post-liberals” (meaning: anti-liberals), has been declaring for years that a proper understanding of “Christian Democracy” is not only “illiberal”, but nationalist."

Sean Rowe wants to realign the Episcopal Church; Religion News Service via AP, November 19, 2024

YONAT SHIMRON , Religion News Service via AP; Sean Rowe wants to realign the Episcopal Church

How do you see the church in the next four years vis-à-vis the Trump administration?

I’m gonna continue to call the church to stand with the least of these. We have for many years had a significant ministry with refugees. We’re one of 13 federal agencies that resettles refugees. We will continue that work. We want to stand with those who are seeking refuge in this country and stand on our record of success, resettling asylum-seekers and refugees. We’re Christians who support the dignity, safety and equality of women and LGBTQ people. We understand that not as a political statement but as an expression of our faith. We may disagree about immigration policy in the pews. We’re largely united about our support of people who are seeking refuge and asylum and inclusion of all people.

Has the church taken a stand on Christian nationalism?

Our House of Bishops has at least a theological report on Christian nationalism, which I think is well done. We’re after creating an inclusive, welcoming church that helps to transform the world. Christian nationalism really has no place. We will bring forth an understanding of the kingdom of God that is entirely in opposition to those ways of thinking and the values of Christian nationalism.

You yourself were once an evangelical. You went to Grove City College, a conservative evangelical school. What happened?

I attended Grove City College but I did not learn Christian nationalism there. I learned about the rule of law as a core fundamental and that’s what I don’t see in a lot of the thinking that is there now. I always struggled with a lack of an expansive or inclusive worldview that did not account for the complexity of human nature and the world around me. It felt limiting and narrow to me. I had friends who came out as LGBTQ, I traveled to see how other cultures lived and thought. As my world expanded, I came back to new understandings. I’ve gone from being an evangelical Christian, as the term is understood today, to someone who understands God as much broader and the world as much more complex than I once thought."