RELIGION HEADLINES SUN – 5-31-26

(SRN NEWS)  At least four states have adopted laws this year making it a crime to disrupt worship services — a reaction to a high-profile anti-Trump protest inside a Minnesota church that prompted outrage across the nation.  The Republican lawmakers sponsoring most of the legislation say those gathering at sacred sanctuaries deserve protection beyond what existing trespassing laws provide.  They also say these new statutes will prevent escalating clashes between congregants and protestors.  Many churches, synagogues and mosques remain on edge over recent mass shootings and acts of violence which have targeted people of faith.

(  )  An initiative aimed at keeping boys out of girls sports in Maine has been removed from the ballot because of invalid signatures.  The proposal from the parents’ group Protect Girls Sports in Maine was slated to go before the people in November.  It would have asked voters if they wanted to require public schools to restrict access to bathrooms and sports based on a student’s actual, biological sex.  Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, who is running for governor as a Democrat, says the invalid signatures leave the amendment a few hundred short of the 68,000 required for it to make the ballot.

(  )  America’s churches are grappling with the decline of marriage and family.  For centuries, marriage and child-rearing have been among the main ways adults are integrated into congregational life.  Couples who share the same faith tend to be more observant, and they often raise children within that tradition.  But today, 42 percent of adults are not married or living with a partner — the highest percentage in U.S. history.  And this shift is unlikely to change soon:  A quarter of 40-year-olds have never been married, and a third of Generation Z are projected to never marry.  The national birth rate has also been declining for decades.

(  )  New Jersey’s Nassau Presbyterian Church will host the five-lecture Samuel Adams Herr Series to mark the 250th anniversary of the nation’s birth.  Organizers say the event will also highlight the unique role Presbyterians played in moving New Jersey from indifference to independence.  During the American Revolution, King George called the drive for independence “the Presbyterian Rebellion,” and loyalists blamed Presbyterians for starting it.  Nassau Presbyterian, located in Princeton, was home to two signers of the Declaration of Independence and five members of the Continental Congress.