What Happened? Top Religion News Stories of 2025 — And What To Watch in 2026 (From The State of Belief)

A Special Episode from The State of Belief! A special crossover from The State of Belief : RNS reporters Jack Jenkins and Adelle M. Banks join Rev. Paul Brandeis Raushenbush to break down the biggest religion stories of 2025 ...

Religious leaders stayed mostly silent when the U.S. seized a foreign dictator — except for the pope. Religious leaders stayed mostly silent when the U.S. grabbed Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and flew him to New York. ...

In a world where attention is authority, who gets to shape faith, values, and public life? What does it actually mean to be an influencer in 2025 — and why does it matter so much for religion and politics? In this episode of ...

Sometimes a story breaks you open. While reporting on abuse and accountability inside the Southern Baptist Convention, RNS journalist Bob Smietana reached out to someone he’d interviewed many times before — publisher and whis...

What if your favorite wholesome mom account was also your quietest political radicalizer? Earlier this year, RNS Editor Roxanne Stone was in Austin, Texas talking about tradwife influencers—women whose soft, nostalgic aesthet...

When a 27-year-old streamer outruns the Church and spooks the political class, it’s worth asking how we got here. Nick Fuentes was supposed to be a fringe character—the kind of online provocateur national leaders could shrug ...