Welcome to G3 Weekly—a summary of this week’s top news stories on Christianity and the public square.
This week, the FBI conducted a raid against the residence of former President Donald Trump. President Joe Biden signed an executive order meant to aid women crossing state lines to obtain abortions. Meanwhile, an analysis reveals a growing fertility gap between religious Americans and the rest of the population, with some conservative-leaning Christians predicted to maintain higher birth rates than other groups.
FBI Raids President Trump’s Residence at Mar-a-Lago
“For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority?” (Romans 13:3).
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) conducted a raid of Donald Trump’s home at the Mar-a-Lago mansion in Florida, reportedly because the former President had copies of classified documents about nuclear weapons.
On Monday, dozens of federal agents spent the entire day at the property dressed in plainclothes and only notified Secret Service of the raid moments before it began, according to a report from News Nation correspondent Brian Entin. Agents reportedly broke open a safe in Trump’s office and removed documents related to their warrant, taking evidence to the FBI office in southern Florida.
“These are dark times for our Nation, as my beautiful home, Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, is currently under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents,” Trump said in a statement. “After working and cooperating with the relevant Government agencies, this unannounced raid on my home was not necessary or appropriate.”
On Thursday afternoon, Attorney General Merrick Garland told the nation that he “personally approved the decision to seek a search warrant” for Trump’s residence, adding that the agency “does not take such actions lightly,” per NBC News. Sources familiar with the investigation alleged to The Washington Post that sensitive nuclear documents were among the items sought during the raid.
Fallout from the raid could increase Trump’s favorability in the Republican primaries should he seek the party’s nomination for President in 2024.
President Biden Signs Abortion Executive Order
“All who hate me love death” (Proverbs 8:36).
President Joe Biden signed an executive order meant to help women cross state lines in search of abortions.
After the overturn of Roe v. Wade earlier this summer, many conservative states began tightening regulations on abortion—prompting some abortion clinics to close their doors. As a result, Planned Parenthood and other abortion businesses began expanding their operations in more progressive states in anticipation of women crossing state lines to murder their babies.
President Biden accordingly signed an executive order asking the Department of Health and Human Services to mandate that hospitals provide women with “stabilizing care, including an abortion, if that care is necessary to stabilize their emergency medical condition.” He likewise directed Health Secretary Xavier Becerra to try leveraging Medicaid for the purpose of helping women cross state lines for abortions.
Other policy proposals from leading Democrats have included tighter regulations on pregnancy resource centers seeking to help women keep their babies, as well as the construction of abortion clinics on federal lands located in conservative states.
Religious Americans, Including Conservative Protestants, See Highest Fertility Rates
“Your children will be like olive shoots around your table. Behold, thus shall the man be blessed who fears the Lord” (Psalm 128:3-4).
As birth rates in the United States continue to fall, the most severe declines are observed among the nonreligious, according to an analysis from the Institute for Family Studies.
Based upon data from the National Survey of Family Growth and the Demographic Intelligence Family Survey, the group concluded that “the fertility gap by religion has widened to unprecedented levels”—although “rates of conversion into irreligion are too high, and fertility rates too low, to yield stable religious populations.”
Americans who attend church weekly tend to be the most fertile, with the “nonreligious” seeing the sharpest declines since the financial crisis of 2008. Indeed, almost all of the fertility decline in the United States between 2012 and 2019 “can be explained through a combination of a growing number of religious women converting to irreligion, and declining birth rates among the nonreligious.”
Some conservative Christian denominations—including the Presbyterian Church in America—are predicted to “stave off serious decline” for the immediate future, while “nondenominational Christianity,” Pentecostalism, and “heterodox offshoots of Christianity” are witnessing significant fertility growth.
Indeed, the Institute for Family Studies cited prior research indicating that “beliefs about the Bible are a good indicator of fertility behaviors in general.”
