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      After Fire at Sanctuary, First Baptist Dallas Church Mourns What’s Lost

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      As officials work to determine the cause, many lament the damage at First Baptist Dallas, a church that grew along with the downtown around it.The red brick outer walls of First Baptist Dallas Church were singed black on Saturday morning, and though they were still intact, along with the steeple at the front of the historic building, there was no sanctuary within. The roof, windows and interior were gone. And the smell of smoke lingered.Larry Smith and his wife, Rita, two members of the church, drove 20 miles from Arlington, Texas, to see firsthand the destruction of the fire from the previous night. Other members also gathered outside.Ms. Smith wiped tears from her eyes with a tissue as she talked about the sanctuary, with its dark wood pews and ornate carvings. There was a library in the church, she said, along with a printing shop and the offices of former pastors. “A lot of history in that building,” she said. Mr. Smith began to talk about what was lost when he trailed off, looking at the smoldering remains.Church members and other residents of the Dallas area mourned on Saturday the severe damage to the sanctuary, a landmark in the heart of Dallas where many of the megachurch’s members have been baptized, married and memorialized.On Friday night, the blaze, which caused the church’s roof to collapse, grew to a four-alarm fire that sent smoke billowing over the city. More than 60 firefighting units responded to the scene.No injuries or fatalities have been reported, according to Dallas Fire-Rescue. The fire occurred in the old part of the church’s sprawling complex, where the main Sunday services are no longer held, but which has been in use since its construction in 1890.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Alito and Roberts, Secretly Recorded at Gala, Share Markedly Different Worldviews

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      The two justices were surreptitiously recorded at a Supreme Court gala last week by a woman posing as a Catholic conservative.Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. told a woman posing as a Catholic conservative last week that compromise in America between the left and right might be impossible and then agreed with the view that the nation should return to a place of godliness.“One side or the other is going to win,” Justice Alito told the woman, Lauren Windsor, at an exclusive gala at the Supreme Court. “There can be a way of working, a way of living together peacefully, but it’s difficult, you know, because there are differences on fundamental things that really can’t be compromised.”Ms. Windsor pressed Justice Alito further. “I think that the solution really is like winning the moral argument,” she told him, according to the edited recordings of Justice Alito and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., which were posted and distributed widely on social media on Monday. “Like, people in this country who believe in God have got to keep fighting for that, to return our country to a place of godliness.”“I agree with you, I agree with you,” he responded.The justice’s comments appeared to be in marked contrast to those of Chief Justice Roberts, who was also secretly recorded at the same event but who pushed back against Ms. Windsor’s assertion that the court had an obligation to lead the country on a more “moral path.”“Would you want me to be in charge of putting the nation on a more moral path?” the chief justice said. “That’s for people we elect. That’s not for lawyers.”Ms. Windsor pressed the chief justice about religion, saying, “I believe that the founders were godly, like were Christians, and I think that we live in a Christian nation and that our Supreme Court should be guiding us in that path.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Jürgen Moltmann, Who Reconciled Religion With Suffering, Dies at 98

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      Considered one of the leading Christian theologians of the 20th century, he insisted that any established set of beliefs had to confront the implications of Auschwitz.Jürgen Moltmann, who drew on his searing experiences as a German soldier during World War II to construct transformative ideas about God, Jesus and salvation in a fallen world, making him one of the leading Protestant theologians of the 20th century, died on Monday at his home in Tübingen, in southwest Germany. He was 98.His daughter Anne-Ruth Moltmann-Willisch confirmed the death.Dr. Moltmann, who spent most of his career as a professor at the University of Tübingen, played a central role in Christianity’s struggle to come to grips with the Nazi era, insisting that any established set of beliefs had to confront the theological implications of Auschwitz.As a teenage conscript in the German Army, he barely escaped death during an Allied bombing raid on Hamburg in 1943. The horrors of the war led him to chart a path between those who insisted that faith was now meaningless and those who wanted a return to the doctrines of the past as if the Nazi era had never occurred.Though his work ranged widely, including ecological and feminist theology, he specialized in the branch of theology known as eschatology, which is concerned with the disposition of the soul after death and the end of the world, when Christians believe that Christ will return to earth.Dr. Moltmann outlined his eschatology, and established his reputation, with a trilogy of books, beginning with “The Theology of Hope” in 1964.“Theology of Hope” (1964), the first book in a trilogy, established Dr. Moltmann’s reputation.Fortress PressDr. Moltmann’s next work, “The Crucified God” (1972), tackled the question: Does God suffer, or, as the all-powerful being, is he incapable of experiencing pain and sorrow?Fortress PressWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Palestinian Christians Mark Easter in Gaza’s Only Catholic Church

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      The only Catholic church in the Gaza Strip held somber Easter celebrations on Sunday for hundreds of displaced Palestinian Christians who have been sheltering within its compound since the war began nearly six months ago.The Holy Family Church is in Gaza City, in the northern part of the strip, an area that has suffered some of the heaviest Israeli bombardment since October and where the global authority on food security says a full-scale famine is imminent.Children ride their bikes past the Holy Family church compound on Sunday. Church officials said Israeli rockets hit a convent on the compound in December and rendered it uninhabitable.Mohamed Hajjar/EPA, via ShutterstockThe families who have taken refuge at the church have been “scraping to get by” for months with limited food and “almost nonexistent” medical supplies — the same as all Palestinians in northern Gaza, including Muslims celebrating the holy month of Ramadan, said Father Davide Meli, the chancellor of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem. “It’s a high holiday for all of us,” he said.The priest of the Holy Family parish, Father Gabriel Romanelli, was in Bethlehem when the war began on Oct. 7, and Israeli authorities have repeatedly denied him permission to return to Gaza, according to Father Meli.The Holy Family Church is the only Catholic church in the Gaza Strip.Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesA nun prays during Easter Mass at the Holy Family Church.Dawoud Abu Alkas/ReutersMore than 500 people are sheltering at the Holy Family Church and approximately 300 others are at the historic Saint Porphyrius Greek Orthodox Church nearby, Father Meli said. Together, he added, they make up the vast majority of Gaza’s tiny and tight-knit Christian population.Both churches have been attacked during the war. An Israeli airstrike killed 18 people at the Saint Porphyrius church in October, according to the Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, which condemned the attack as a war crime. The Israeli military later said it was targeting a nearby building.Hundreds of displaced Palestinians have sought shelter at the church in northern Gaza.Mohamed Hajjar/EPA, via ShutterstockAt the Holy Family Church in December, Israeli snipers killed a mother and daughter inside the church compound and injured seven others who rushed to help them, according to the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem. Church officials said Israeli rockets also hit a convent within the compound earlier that day, destroying the building’s sole generator and leaving some of the dozens of disabled people living there without working respirators that they needed to survive.The Israeli military denied knowledge of the incident, which Pope Francis condemned as an attack on a church “where there are no terrorists, but families, children, people who are sick and have disabilities, sisters.” He called for an immediate cease-fire in his Easter address on Sunday. More

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      Trump’s Bible Misunderstands Christianity

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      The presumptive Republican nominee for president of the United States, who weeks ago started selling shoes, is now peddling Bibles. During Holy Week.What’s special about this Bible? So many things. For example, according to a promotional website, it’s the only Bible endorsed by Donald Trump. It’s also the only one endorsed by the country singer Lee Greenwood. Admittedly, the translation isn’t distinctive — it’s your standard King James Version — but the features are unique. This Bible includes the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, the Pledge of Allegiance and part of the lyrics of Mr. Greenwood’s song “God Bless the USA.” Perhaps most striking, the cover of the Bible does not include a cross or any symbol of the Christian tradition; instead, it is emblazoned with the American flag.While part of me wants to laugh at the absurdity of it — and marvel at the sheer audacity — I find the messaging unsettling and deeply wrong. This God Bless the USA Bible, as it’s officially named, focuses on God’s blessing of one particular people. That is both its danger and, no doubt for some, its appeal.Whether this Bible is an example of Christian nationalism I will leave to others. It is at least an example of Christian syncretism, a linking of certain myths about American exceptionalism and the Christian faith. This is the American church’s consistent folly: thinking that we are the protagonists in a story that began long before us and whose main character is in fact the Almighty.Holy Week is the most sacred portion of the Christian calendar, a time when the church recounts the central events of our faith’s narrative, climaxing in the death and resurrection of Jesus. That story, unlike the parochial God Bless the USA Bible, does not belong to any culture.Holy Week is celebrated on every continent and in too many languages to number. Some of the immigrants Mr. Trump declared were “poisoning the blood” of America will probably shout “Christ is risen!” this Easter. Many of them come from the largely Christian regions of Latin America and the Caribbean. They may have entered the country with Bibles in their native tongues nestled securely among their other belongings.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Donald Trump and the ‘Dune’ Messiah Have Some Things in Common

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      It is fitting that the biggest movie in the world this year is the story of a messiah gone wrong.I’m speaking, of course, about Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune” sequel, the story of a savior who broke bad in a specific way: He manipulated prophecy to unleash the religious fervor of an entire people against a hated foe.The “Dune” movies present a beautifully shot, marvelously acted, fantastical tale set in a distant future, but they’re very much grounded in the dark reality of human nature here and now. When people are angry and afraid, they will look for a savior. When that anger and fear is latched to faith and prophecy, they will yearn for a religious crusade.There’s a version of this same story playing out in the United States, but because the anger and fear are so overwrought, the prophecies so silly, and the savior so patently absurd, we may be missing the religious and cultural significance of the moment. A significant part of American Christianity is spiraling out of control.The signs are everywhere. First, there’s the behavior of the savior himself, Donald Trump. On Monday of Holy Week, he compared himself to Jesus Christ, posting on Truth Social that he received a “beautiful” note from a supporter saying that it was “ironic” that “Christ walked through his greatest persecution the very week they are trying to steal your property from you.”On Tuesday, he took to Truth Social to sell a $60 “God Bless the USA Bible” (the “only Bible endorsed by President Trump”), an edition of the King James Bible that also includes America’s founding documents. “Christians are under siege,” he said. The Judeo-Christian foundation of America is “under attack,” Trump claimed, before declaring a new variant on an old theme: “We must make America pray again.”Two weeks ago, Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, told a Christian gathering that Democrats “want full and complete destruction of the United States of America.” Kirk is a powerful Trump ally. He has millions of followers on social media and is hoping to raise more than $100 million in 2024 to help mobilize voters for Trump.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Book Review: ‘Devout,’ by Anna Gazmarian

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      In “Devout,” an author who grew up in the evangelical church recounts her struggle to find spiritual and psychological well-being after a mental health challenge.DEVOUT: A Memoir of Doubt, by Anna GazmarianAnna Gazmarian did everything that millennial evangelicals were supposed to do: She wore a purity ring, listened to sanctioned bands and avoided Harry Potter. And yet, she believed, her faith was inadequate.Jo Lindsay CoIn “Devout,” Anna Gazmarian writes of being given a Christmas present she found impossible to keep: a pendant necklace holding a tiny seed. It was a reference to the passage in Matthew where Jesus tells his apostles that faith the size of a mustard seed can move mountains.Gazmarian, struggling with bipolar disorder and an accompanying affliction of doubt, threw the necklace into the trash. It didn’t matter that it had been a gift from her well-meaning mother — what it symbolized was of no use to her. “I wanted a faith as large as a deeply rooted oak tree,” she writes, “the kind where you had to lean back to see the highest branches in the sky.”The evangelical Christianity Gazmarian had been raised in, which had taught her to see depression as a symptom of spiritual weakness — possibly even the work of the Devil — could not help her realize this vision, and in “Devout” she tells of how she eventually found healing for both mind and soul.In this, her first book, she does not condemn what wounds her. “I’ve been breaking down and rebuilding my concept of faith, searching for a faith that can exist alongside doubt, a faith that is built on trust rather than fear,” she writes in the preface. “A faith with room for prayer and lament.” “Devout” is both of these, “offered in the hope of restoration.”The memoir begins shortly after Gazmarian, having started college in her native North Carolina, receives a diagnosis of bipolar II disorder. She takes this as yet another sign that her faith is at fault — despite having done all the things that millennial evangelicals were told to do. She’d worn a purity ring, listened to the sanctioned bands and stayed away from the supposedly occult- glorifying Harry Potter books.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Deification of Donald Trump Poses Some Interesting Questions

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      On Oct. 15, 2020, in a rare display of humility, Donald Trump told a campaign rally in Greenville, N.C., that he was not as famous as Jesus Christ.“Somebody said to me the other day ‘You’re the most famous person in the world by far.’ I said, ‘No, I’m not.’ They said, ‘Yes, you are. I said no.’ They said, ‘Who’s more famous?’ I said, ‘Jesus Christ.’ ”This exhibition of modesty was out of character.Trump, his family and his supporters have been more than willing to claim that Trump is ordained by God for a special mission, to restore America as a Christian nation.In recent weeks, for example, the former president posted a video called “God Made Trump” on Truth Social that was produced by a conservative media group technically independent of the Trump campaign. He has also screened it at campaign rallies.The video begins as a narrator with a voice reminiscent of Paul Harvey’s declares: “On June 14, 1946, God looked down on his planned paradise and said: ‘I need a caretaker.’ So God gave us Trump.”Why was Trump chosen? The video continues:God had to have someone willing to go into the den of vipers. Call out the fake news for their tongues as sharp as a serpent’s. The poison of vipers is on their lips. So God made Trump.The video claims to quote God directly:God said, “I will need someone who will be strong and courageous. Who will not be afraid or terrified of wolves when they attack. A man who cares for the flock. A shepherd to mankind who won’t ever leave or forsake them. I need the most diligent worker to follow the path and remain strong in faith. And know the belief in God and country.”The “God Made Trump” video was created by the Dilley Meme Team, described by Ken Bensinger of The Times asan organized collective of video producers who call themselves “Trump’s Online War Machine.” The group’s leader, Brenden Dilley, characterizes himself as Christian and a man of faith, but says he has never read the Bible and does not attend church. He says that Mr. Trump has “God-tier genetics” and, in response to the outcry over the “God Made Trump” video, Dilley posted a meme depicting Mr. Trump as Moses parting the Red Sea.The video, along with Eric Trump’s claim that his father “literally saved Christianity” and the image Trump himself reposted on Truth Social of Jesus sitting next to him in court, raise a question: Does Trump believe that he is God’s messenger or are his direct and indirect claims to have a special relationship with God a cynical ploy to win evangelical votes?We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More