White House
White House science adviser to be sworn in on a 500-year-old Jewish text
By Jack Jenkins — June 2, 2021
WASHINGTON (RNS) — ‘The minute we realized the question was values, we all went to tikkun olam,’ said Eric Lander, incoming director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
Biden signs executive order reestablishing White House faith office
By Jack Jenkins and Adelle M. Banks — February 14, 2021
(RNS) — The order reappoints Melissa Rogers, who headed the office under President Barack Obama.
The desecration of the House
By Mark Silk — January 8, 2021
(RNS) —The sacrilege lay not in the invasion of the Capitol but in the fact that it had been incited by the president of the United States.
Jentezen Franklin, Trump adviser and prominent Georgia pastor, tests positive for COVID-19
By Emily McFarlan Miller — December 21, 2020
(RNS) — The announcement comes days after Franklin attended a Christmas party at the White House, though a spokesperson for Free Chapel said his illness had no connection to the White House event.
Ben Carson, Seventh-day Adventist, tests positive for coronavirus
By Jack Jenkins — November 9, 2020
WASHINGTON (RNS) — The Seventh-day Adventist website stresses health as a spiritual concern, saying, 'we believe God calls us to care for our bodies, treating them with the respect a divine creation deserves.'
Rattled by Trump’s COVID? Try the Bible’s anti-anxiety treatment
By Max Lucado — October 8, 2020
(RNS) — We’ve had a lot of fear the last few months. Take a lesson from the biblical King Jehoshaphat.
Trump evangelical advisers exposed to COVID-19 flout CDC guidelines, preach in public
By Jack Jenkins and Emily McFarlan Miller — October 5, 2020
WASHINGTON (RNS) — A number of high-profile Christian leaders attended recent Washington, D.C., events with people who have since tested positive for COVID-19. Some have chosen to quarantine out of precaution, but others continue to travel and even to preach in front of their congregations.
Evangelical hobnobbing at the White House spreads more than the Gospel
By Maina Mwaura — October 5, 2020
(RNS) — The irony in this is that these men who came to see Judge Amy Coney Barrett be nominated for the Supreme Court support Judge Barrett precisely because of her pro-life stance.
His RNC prayer was neutral, but Franklin Graham says the choice for president is not
By Yonat Shimron — August 28, 2020
(RNS) — Graham said the choice in November is clear: Democrats will steer the country toward the socialism of Venezuela or Cuba.
Bishop Mariann Budde appeals to ‘better angels’ in Democratic convention prayer
By Jack Jenkins — August 18, 2020
(RNS) — The Episcopal bishop of Washington, D.C., said her appearance is not partisan, and said she declined a request to film her Democratic convention prayer in front of St. John’s, where President Donald Trump held up a Bible.
With Bibles and flash grenades, Trump walks the Christian nationalist walk
By Andrew Whitehead — June 2, 2020
(RNS) — It won’t be in spite of authoritarian bluster that many white Christians support Donald Trump. It will be because of it.
Trump’s Bible walk to church was an act of ‘sacrilege,’ says former Bush advisor
By Alejandra Molina and The Associated Press — June 1, 2020
After calling for governors to call out the National Guard, President Trump walked to St. John's church, where a fire had been set during unrest. Before the president left the White House, law enforcement broke up a peaceful protest with tear gas.
In reversal, White House tells CDC to post church guidance
By Zeke Miller and Mike Stobbe — May 22, 2020
WASHINGTON (AP) — After refusing for weeks to release reopening guidance for churches, the Trump administration on Thursday abruptly changed course — with the president saying he had instructed health officials to put the advice out.
White House takes low-key approach to churches that ignore coronavirus advice
By Jack Jenkins — March 18, 2020
WASHINGTON (RNS) — A senior Trump administration House official said faith communities ‘may not be able to physically gather for the foreseeable future.’
US rabbis from three Jewish movements call for Stephen Miller’s firing
By Yonat Shimron — November 22, 2019
(RNS) — The statement follows a report from the Southern Poverty Law Center that revealed emails Miller sent to the conservative website Breitbart before he worked at the White House.
