Religion

Faith Leaders Standing in the Gap

As political extremism corrodes American public life, this commentary spotlights faith leaders who are reclaiming moral courage, risking arrest, and physically standing between state power and the vulnerable in defense of justice, dignity, and democracy.
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By Dr. Wornie Reed, Ph.D

Substantial numbers of people who call themselves Christians have aided and abetted the current deep rot in American political life. This phenomenon has been led by the so-called Evangelical Christians.

Over three-fourths of these Evangelicals voted for Trump in 2016, and the proportion of such voters increased to 81 percent in 2020 and held at 81 percent in 2024. Also, in 2024 Trump received 62 percent of the Catholic vote. This despite his unfamiliarity with the Bible, his vulgar rhetoric, his association with porn stars, and his attacks on nonwhite people around the world.

To illustrate this cultural rot, I will refer to two prominent religious anti-Trumpers—Russell Moore, a former top official of the Southern Baptist Convention, and Tim Alberta, a journalist and best-selling author who grew up in the evangelical tradition. Moore reports that several pastors had told him that they had been admonished by their parishioners for preaching about the Beatitudes, a key facet of Christian teaching, calling it “weak” and “leftist.”

In 2019, Tim Alberta started warning about the division of Christians into two camps—those who view issues through the eyes of Jesus versus those who process everything through a partisan Right-Wing filter.

According to Alberta, Trump did not create the problem in the evangelical church, it had started before him.

However, I am pleased to note today that many faith leaders are “standing in the gap.” “Standing in the gap” is a phrase rooted in the biblical concept of defending a breached city wall, symbolizing intercession, advocacy, and taking responsibility for others. It means courageously filling a void, offering protection, or providing support to those in need, such as the marginalized, children, or the broken.

Clergy members made the news when they, along with community activists, stood in 20 degrees below zero weather on January 23, 2026, at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, calling on airline companies to speak out against the immigration enforcement surge of federal agents in the Twin Cities. An estimated 100 members of the clergy were arrested.

The Rt. Rev. Mariam Budde started it off in her sermon on January 21, 2025, at the Washington National Cathedral that traditionally concludes the presidential inauguration festivities. “In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now,” Budde said. “There are gay, lesbian, and transgender children in both Democratic, Republican, and independent families who fear for their lives.” The majority of immigrants, Budde said, are not criminals, but “people who pay taxes, and are good neighbors.” The Union Theological Seminary, characteristically, announced its support of Reverend Budde’s plea.

Among those who have become a fixture at anti-ICE/anti-Trump protests across the country are religious leaders. During the early clashes with federal officers in Los Angeles, pastors, ministers, imams, rabbis, and priests have stood between police and protesters.“We cannot be ministers in this moment and ignore what’s going on,”said Bishop William J. Barber, II.

As tensions rise over Greenland and other U.S. foreign policy moves, some of the nation’s top Catholic leaders issued a rare moral warning. Chicago’s Cardinal Blase Cupich and the Cardinals of Washington and Newark, Robert McElory and Joseph Tobin, released a joint statement questioning a force-first approach to U.S. foreign policy, and urging leaders to follow the teachings of Pope Leo XIV, who has said that he was troubled by the violent and a times “extremely disrespectful ways migrants have been treated in the United States.

An Episcopal bishop in New Hampshire, Rob Hirschfeld, demonstrated the importance and the danger of standing in the gap, as he and several community and faith leaders gathered in Concord, N. H., for a vigil for Renee Good, just days after she was fatally shot by an ICE agent in Minneapolis. He urged the clergy to prepare their wills “because it may be that now is no longer the time for statements, but for us with our bodies to stand between the powers of this world and the most vulnerable.”

Yes, many faith leaders are standing in the gap.