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The flags emblazoned with “Jesus 2020” and the cross, the most easily recognizable symbol of Christianity, were hard to miss amid the mob of Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol on January 6. But they weren’t the only religious symbols that appeared during the siege.

One of the most photographed rioters was a shirtless man wearing fur, horns, and red, white, and blue face paint. Jake Angeli, better known as the “QAnon Shaman” or “Q Shaman,” also sported several tattoos of symbols associated with Norse paganism, known as heathenry.

An Israeli government initiative to help vaccinate Holocaust survivors worldwide against COVID-19 is drawing praise for its intentions but also skepticism.

The initiative, announced by Diaspora Affairs Minister Omer Yankelevich on January 12, seeks to vaccinate the estimated 200,000 Holocaust survivors who live outside of Israel. The vast majority of survivors are in their 80s and 90s—the age group most at risk for COVID-19 complications and death. 

For decades, the redbrick Gothic Revival church where Martin Luther King Jr. once preached has been a monument to the history of Black Americans’ fight for civil rights and the legacy of an activist icon.

But it was a high-stakes Senate race and a Trump-era cultural debate that thrust Ebenezer Baptist Church into the center of the current political debate.

For some, the term monasticism may bring up images of chanting monks or helpful nuns. For Matt Scraper, monasticism is an important part of his life and faith as an elder in the Oklahoma Con­ference of the United Methodist Church. Scraper leads the Order of St. Patrick, an order for clergy and lay contemplatives.

Dina González-Piña has been named executive director of  Mennonite Central Committee’s West Coast regional office. Previously, she served as the ethnicity and gender equity specialist for MCC’s US national office.

On January 14, Patrick O’Neill reported to the Federal Cor­rectional Institution near Elkton, Ohio, to serve a 14-month sentence for breaking into a nuclear submarine base as part of a symbolic nuclear disarmament action he took with six other Catholic pacifists more than two years ago.

On his way to prison, O’Neill took up a new cause: protecting inmates from COVID-19.

Moments before the assault on the US Capitol began on January 6, a mass of Trump supporters gathered at a northwest entrance. As throngs surged toward a barricade manned by a handful of police, a white flag appeared above the masses, flapping in the wind. It featured an ichthys—also known as a “Jesus fish”—painted with the colors of the American flag.

Above the symbol, the words: “Proud American Christian.”

Los Angeles activists held car caravans in late December to block evangelical recording artist Sean Feucht from holding outreach events in two homeless communities in LA, including the large one in the 54-block area known as Skid Row.

Stephen “Cue” Jn’Marie, who founded the Row Church, also known as the Church Without Walls, in Skid Row, and Pete White, founder of the Los Angeles Community Action Network, were among the organizers taking part in the blockade.

In its final weeks, the Trump administration rushed efforts to build wall structures along the US-Mexico border—a project the Biden administration is ex­pected to cancel. According to NPR, contractors at 29 construction sites added shifts and began working through the night in order to meet Trump’s personal goal of completing 450 miles of the wall before the end of his term.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was hit with several lawsuits in late December for allegedly covering up decades of sexual abuse among Boy Scout troops in Arizona, marking the latest litigation before the state’s end-of-year deadline for adult victims to sue.

The church “must be held accountable in order to bring healing and closure to Mormon victims of childhood sexual abuse,” Hurley McKenna and Mertz, a law firm that focuses on church sexual abuse, said in a statement.