The grim satisfaction of AI doomsaying

 Opinion

The grim satisfaction of AI doomsaying

(Sightings) — Like depictions of the horrors of war may ennoble it, dire warnings about the AI future only make the technology seem inevitable.

(Photo by Simon Hurry/Unsplash/Creative Commons)

Russell P. Johnson

February 20, 2026

(Sightings) — In the early 1960s, science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke published a short story in Playboy titled “Dial F for Frankenstein.” In the story, set in the not-too-distant future of 1975, an automated global network gets complex enough that individual phones start to act like neurons in a brain, and the system achieves consciousness.

One researcher asks, “‘What would this supermind actually do? Would it be friendly — hostile — indifferent?” Another replies “with a certain grim satisfaction” that like a newborn baby, the artificial intelligence will break things. This prediction quickly comes true as planes crash, pipes explode, and missiles are launched. The story ends with the extinction of the human race.

Years later, Tim Berners-Lee credited “Dial F for Frankenstein” for inspiring him to create the internet.

That may seem strange, but the Venn diagram of people who are worried that smarter technology will destroy us all and people who are developing smarter technology has more overlap than you might expect.

In their new book “The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech’s Hype and Create the Future We Want,” Emily Bender and Alex Hanna discuss the trend of researchers worrying publicly about AI causing human extinction. “Strangely enough,” they write, “despite these visions, nearly all AI Doomers think that AI development is a net good. Many of them have built their careers off the theorization, testing, development, and deployment of AI systems.”

Looking at the signatures on public statements about AI risk, Bender and Hanna note that some signatories are genuinely concerned, but “for some of them, it’s not really about trying to save humanity, but rather a running of the con: the supposed danger of the systems is a splashy way to hype their power, with the goal of scoring big investments in their own AI ventures (like [Elon] Musk and [Sam] Altman) or funding for their own research centers (like [Malo] Bourgon).” The people most vocal about the dangers of AI research tend to be the ones most interested in pursuing that research, or as Bender and Hanna put it, “Scratch a Doomer and find a Booster.”

(Photo by Lucas Andrade/Pexels/Creative Commons)

Adam Becker makes a similar point in a recent article in The Atlantic. “Those who predict that superintelligence will destroy humanity serve the same interests as those who believe that it will solve all of our problems,” writes Becker. Technology experts who invoke apocalyptic AI scenarios like “WarGames” (1983), “Terminator” (1984), or “The Matrix” (1999) are usually “grifters,” but even those who are sincere ironically feed into the same pro-AI sentiment they are trying to challenge.

A book titled “If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us All” may seem like an unambiguous warning against developing Artificial General Intelligence, but for Becker the book plays into the same “fantasy of oversimplified technological salvation” that tech CEOs are preaching. That book’s co-author may be a “prophet of doom,” but like the biblical prophet Jonah, predicting people’s destruction only makes them more devoted.

A recent Super Bowl commercial continues this unsettling trend. In it, actor Chris Hemsworth expresses a worry that his Alexa+ AI technology will murder him. Viewers then see Alexa+ killing Hemsworth in a variety of ways, before being reminded in the closing seconds that this is a commercial for Alexa+. The producers of this technology think you’ll be more inclined to purchase it after you watch it kill Thor four times.

We hear an echo of François Truffaut’s remark that anti-war movies ironically glorify war. Depictions of the horrors of war may be intended as cautionary tales, but they ennoble war and wrap it in tragic necessity. Likewise, visions of AI apocalypses make the technology seem powerful and inevitable. Rather than convincing people to avoid developing “superhuman” AI, some people are driven to ensure this technology ends up in the right hands (their own).

Like Becker, who invokes the prophetic tradition, Bender and Hanna use religious language to describe AI predictions. They explain that some techno-optimists “deify AI” and that extinction scenarios make AI seem “godlike.”

This curious phenomenon of pro-AI doomsaying shares similarities with religious predictions of the end times. For some believers, speculating about the end of the world is actually reassuring, because it testifies to God’s power in the here and now. Rather than making people feel powerless, people feel empowered because they are on the side of the one who is capable of such destruction.

As the philosopher Jerry L. Walls has written, some Christian dispensationalists respond “with a certain grim satisfaction” to indications that their apocalyptic predictions are coming true. Coincidentally, perhaps, Clarke used the exact same phrase in “Dial F for Frankenstein.”

In both religious apocalypticism and AI doomsaying, there tends to be an “if” clause — at least some of us will be spared if we are faithful, or if we align AI with human values. Those who prophesy destruction encourage others to repent, while those who speculate about AI apocalypse encourage developers to factor the “alignment problem” into their software. Fears of human extinction don’t really seem to make AI “Boosters” reticent to develop Artificial General Intelligence; rather, these fears convince them that even more money and effort should be expended to make sure the AGI we will inevitably create will not turn us all into paperclips.

The term “apocalypse” derives from Greek words that mean “uncovering.” In many religious contexts, sci-fi stories, and technological prognostications, what sounds like a prediction of the future is actually an attempt to express something true but hidden about the present. For some, the prospect of an AI causing human extinction uncovers the truth that the desire for profit and discovery are often alienated from considerations of the well-being of humanity. But for the AI “Boosters” and those who buy into the hype, these apocalyptic scenarios uncover the truth that AI technology is powerful and worth investing in. To paraphrase Job 13 — though it slays us, we will trust in it.

What, then, can be done?

Bender and Hanna recommend that we pay no attention either to utopian visions of AI future or dystopian visions of AI apocalypse. Rather, we should pay attention to real distributions of power in the present. The AI technology we already have is affecting the environment, employment, and (mis)information; we ought to focus on that rather than prognosticating about what could happen if we eventually develop superintelligent software. Just as the best eschatological reflection helps people act responsibly in the present, the best moral reflection on AI helps people respond to the current needs of other humans.

(Russell P. Johnson is associate director of the undergraduate religious studies program at the University of Chicago Divinity School. A version of this article first appeared on Sightings, a publication of the divinity school’s Marty Martin Center. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)

Opinion

Sacred marches and sacred music in a time of empire

(RNS) — Bad Bunny's joyful Super Bowl halftime show, a group of monks walking hundreds of miles for peace, protesters singing in the streets.

Bad Bunny performs during halftime of the NFL Super Bowl 60 football game between the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026, in Santa Clara, Calif. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)

Kaitlin Curtice
February 20, 2026
RNS


(RNS) — A combination of recent events has illuminated for me, once again, the power of sacred resistance in the face of cruelty and oppression. Sacred resistance is more than just protest, more than social media posting, more even than advocacy. Sacred resistance can include those things, but it is also embodied, it is done in community, it is aspirational in its call to joy, to the celebration of humanity, to justice. It embraces the prophetic power of art — in music, in poetry, in paintings, in film — alongside the strength of a crowd with a common purpose. Sacred resistance is subversive, but it is wholly human.

I have witnessed this sacred resistance in Bad Bunny’s defiantly joyful Super Bowl halftime show, in a group of monks walking hundreds of miles for peace, in protesters singing in the streets and in our very homes as we care for one another in a time of immense violence.

Each offers an example of how we can resist the status quo of hate, greed, colonialism, racism, xenophobia and sexism — by showing up with joy, movement, poetry, long walks, music, online and in-person presence and by holding space with one another to rest and to heal along the way.

During Bad Bunny’s halftime show — itself a stunning tribute to Puerto Rico — Ricky Martin sang the lyrics to “Lo que le paso a Hawaii,” a story of survival, grief and dreams living on despite colonialism.

Hawa’ii and Boricua, what we call Puerto Rico today, share a history of brutal colonialism. Puerto Rico has lived under colonial rule since 1493, when Columbus arrive on Taíno land. Today, the island holds the status of “territory” in the United States, with little agency and no congressional representation. The United States overthrew the monarchy of Hawa’ii in 1893, devastating the Native Hawaiian population and culture, which continues today through an extravagant and extractive tourist industry.

A few of the lyrics in Ricky Martin’s song spoke to the struggles in both Puerto Rico and Hawa’ii:

Quieren quitarme el río y también la playa (They want to take away the river and also the beach)

Quieren al barrio mío y que abuelita se vaya (They want my neighborhood and they want grandma to leave)

Que no quiero que hagan contigo lo que le pasó a Hawái (I don’t want them to do to you what they did to Hawa’ii)

Benito Ocasio’s halftime show was about more than music; it was a celebration of Puerto Rican culture and community, a celebration of the whole of the American continents, looking to the future while also speaking the truth about the past and about the present that we find ourselves in.

Buddhist monks participating in the “Walk For Peace” are seen with their dog, Aloka, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026, in Saluda, S.C. (AP Photo/Allison Joyce)

And then there was a group of Vietnamese Buddhist monks, nuns and their dog, Aloka, who walked from Texas to Washington, D.C., for peace, marching on bruised feet because they believed the world needed to bear witness not just to violence but to the power of spiritually grounded practices. Every time I saw the monks in a reel on Instagram or in the news, I was reminded of the power we hold in our very bodies — that our spiritual life, our commitment to justice and care in the world, happens not just through prayer but through action rooted in kinship and belonging. When we begin to understand the threads of community that build webs of resistance in the world, we can prepare ourselves for whatever is next.

I was recently with an elder who is the tribal chairman of the Grand River Band of Ottawa Indians, and he talked to me about The Long Walk, a march organized by the American Indian Movement in the 1970s from Alcatraz to Washington, D.C., over five months. They gathered together with their allies who joined them along the way to protest the United States government’s broken treaty promises, especially around land sovereignty and water rights. What began with around 3,000 people ended in more than 30,000, speaking to the power of building community through movement. The march was a political statement, but, like the monks’ walk, it was also a spiritual one. Along the way they passed a peace pipe, they danced, sang and educated the masses on Indigenous rights and care for the earth.

And now, Indigenous peoples dance in the streets of Minneapolis, holding vigil, praying and caring for their community through sacred resistance. Earlier this month, a group of Indigenous peoples led by Migizi Spears of the Red Lake Nation set up a prayer camp in front of the Whipple building, a building tied to the oppression of the Dakota and Ho-Chunk people, to protest the violence and wrongful detention of people by ICE. They held vigil, prayed, sang and named the truth of history so that it won’t be repeated. It was a form of sacred protest and a vision for who we should be in this time.

Indigenous people perform during a memorial honoring Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good, who were both recently fatally shot by federal agents, on Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Ryan Murphy)

In an era in which Donald Trump is president, the necessity of resistance is visceral and clear. But how do we show up to this moment in ways that will create change?

Maybe it begins with looking up the lyrics to a song in Spanish or learning about the history of places like Puerto Rico, Cuba or Hawa’ii, histories that will make clear how borders are a colonial construct. We learned this in Bad Bunny’s halftime show, and as a lesson that many Indigenous people have taught again and again. Constructed borders keep us from recognizing the humanity present in those beyond our colonial boundaries and markers.

Listen to the stories of the oppressed. Read books and celebrate art created by those on the margins, whose stories don’t often get told. When we diversify the stories we take in, especially during a time when those stories are being suppressed, we expand our perspective and grow our community.

Grieve what America isn’t — and never has been. Many people are afraid to grieve the loss of an image of America they deeply wanted to be true. We have to come to terms with the foundational violence of this country: the genocide of Indigenous peoples, the enslavement of Black people. Those violences did not simply end; they are perpetuated through racist policing strategies, discriminatory housing and lending practices, the extraction of natural resources from Indigenous lands. Grief is essential in resistance work.

But you don’t have to do it alone. Show up to a community meeting, to a vigil, to a march, get involved in resistance art (like this Philadelphia art community knitting anti-ice hats once a week). Our resistance movements fall apart if they aren’t sustained by communal care and joy.

One of my favorite elders, Choctaw teacher Steven Charleston, writes in his book “Ladder to the Light”:

“When we share our questions together, we become our own answer. We discover there is no one right way to do everything. We understand that no single plan will encompass the way forward. If we seek to bring light into darkness, then we must rely on the wisdom of us all.”

May we ask the questions we need to ask, and may we realize we are also capable of the answer.

(Kaitlin B. Curtice is an award-winning author and poet. She is the author of several books, including “Native: Identity, Belonging and Rediscovering God” and “Living Resistance: An Indigenous Vision for Seeking Wholeness Every Day.” She is also the director of the Aki Institute. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)

'The divine will come': On Lord Shiva's night, Hindus channel deity's energy at the heart of creation

(RNS) — Mahashivratri, which means “the Great Night of Shiva” in Sanskrit, takes place as Lord Shiva's cosmic energies are said to be at their highest.

People attend a Mahashivratri celebration, Sunday, Feb. 15, 2026, in New York. (RNS photo/Richa Karmarkar)

Richa Karmarkar
February 16, 2026
RNS

NEW YORK (RNS) — Manirag Reddy Gaddam, a 30-year-old data analyst from Hoboken, New Jersey, said he had never anticipated his sudden turn to the Hindu faith in his 20s. Equally unexpected, he said, was pulling an all-nighter last year as he celebrated Mahashivratri, the daylong Hindu holiday dedicated to principle deity Lord Shiva.

“I was planning to exit at 2 a.m.,” said Reddy Gaddam, “but the air was so electric that I just stayed. By the time I went home, it was 8 a.m. It was crazy.”

This year’s celebration of the holiday, which fell on Sunday (Feb. 15) and ended early Monday, was no less of an exertion. “Today, I’m fasting as well, like I haven’t eaten anything today, I didn’t drink anything,” said Reddy Gaddam. “I don’t know how I’m surviving, but I have a lot of energy.”

From a rented event space in New York with nearly 300 others, Reddy Gaddam watched a Mahashivratri celebration livestreamed by the Isha Yoga Center in southern India. The celebration, hosted by the renowned guru and yoga teacher Sadhguru, drew an estimated 140 million followers around the world, who chanted, meditated and danced in remote locations for 12 hours.

Manirag Reddy Gaddam. (RNS photo/Richa Karmarkar)

Mahashivratri, which means “the Great Night of Shiva” in Sanskrit, takes place as Lord Shiva’s cosmic energies are said to be at their highest. Falling as the new moon of the lunar month of Phalguna is dark in the sky, the festival is traditionally marked by staying awake for 12 or 24 hours, as devotees deepen connection with themselves and Lord Shiva. Sometimes the 12 hours are spent in meditation, or in “marathons” of devotional singing to the deity of destruction and transformation.

“When you sit with your spine straight, there’s an upsurge of energy,” said Reddy Gaddam. “When we’re doing this whole meditation together, it is magnetic, like you can feel that energy. I was just feeling ecstatic. We kept dancing the whole night, we sat down for 30 minutes, and then we just kept dancing up until morning. We felt the presence of Adiyogi,” he said, using an alternative name for Shiva that refers to the god as the first ascetic yogi, from which all yogic wisdom arose.

Mahashivratri also marks the divine marriage of Shiva and the goddess Parvati, the embodiment of feminine energy, which is called Shakti. Devotees of Shiva, called Shaivites, worship both the masculine Shiva and feminine Shakti together as Paramashiva.

RELATED: The worship of Shiva, Hinduism’s ‘inconceivable’ deity, finds a home in the tech sector

In Los Angeles, Tripurasundari, an initiate of a Shaivite Hindu community, Kailasa USA, has been preparing for Mahashivratri for months. On the biggest night of the year for the “Hindu micro-nation,” as the group calls itself, almost 100 devotees offered milk, ghee, flowers and fruits to the Shiva Lingam — the stone obelisk that represents Shiva in his transcendent form.

Swami Nithyananda, himself considered an incarnation of Paramashiva, the union of feminine and masculine Shakti, oversees Kailasa’s temple, which is home to the largest Shiva Lingam in North America.

“It’s really easy to stay up all night,” said Tripurasundari, a California native. “You have so much bhakti because there’s so much energy,” she said, using the Sanskrit word for love of the divine. “And of course, a lot of us wake up and we do puja (ritual worship) and we do yoga, and we meditate, and our kundalinis (primal energies) are awakened. There’s so many aspects of that energy staying alive within us.”

According to many Shaivites, the ultimate goal of enlightenment in “Paramashiva’s economy” can come from connection with Shiva — the primordial energy which is not only a god, but a representation of all metaphysical existence. “So much healing can happen when we just realize that we are consciousness, that we are Shiva, and this is how we’re empowered, and how Swamiji empowers us,” she said.

People in New York City watch a Mahashivratri celebration livestreamed by the Isha Yoga Center in southern India, Sunday, Feb. 15, 2026. (RNS photo/Richa Karmarkar)

But like interpretations of Lord Shiva, Mahashivratri celebrations are diverse. Rishik Dhar, the head of the online educational community Shaivite.org, practices Kashmir Shaivism, a largely philosophical approach to Hindu life that overlaps with science and astronomy. These Kashmiri Pandits, as these devotees are called, celebrate the day of Shiva and Parvati by indulging in a feast, a “tantric” way of marking the holiday that, Dhar said, “scandalized” the many Hindus who either fast or refrain from eating meat on the day.

Despite the “surface level” differences, he said, “the philosophical idea or ideology is more similar than different. Paramashiva is that absolute consciousness of which everything else emerges, and what we are praying for is that oneness with that absolute consciousness.”

On Mahashivratri, Hindus celebrate the cosmic coming together of Shiva and Shakti, said Dhar. What’s important across many paths of devotion, is that “we worship and ask for that same realization to occur in us as well. It is the same idea that we all want to realize that we are just an extension of Shiva, basically.”

Yogiraj Utkarsh, CEO of the World Yoga Federation, which certifies yoga instructors and was founded by the modern Indian Swami Vidyanand, held his first-ever 24-hour kirtan, or devotional sing, on Sunday. A broad range of yoga teachers, Hindu and non-Hindu, celebrated at a yoga studio near Los Angeles with 30 musical artists, among them the Grammy-nominated kirtan singer and producer Dave Stringer.

Utkarsh said some people he invited had wondered if anyone would be willing to come sing and dance for 24 hours straight.

“But I said, the Divine will come,” he said. “That is enough for me. The real kirtan, you don’t do for an audience, you do for the Divine. And if you do with that intention, there is no force on the earth that can prevent the Divine from coming.”

RELATED: Smoke and Shiva: Young Hindus observe deity’s ‘great night’ as a high holiday

At Brazil's Carnival, the country's religions fight for respect on a global stage

(RNS) — Carnival, a spectacle celebrating African deities and Catholic saints alike, has become a battleground for religious groups in Brazil.

A performer from the Grande Rio samba school parades on a float during Carnival celebrations at the Sambadrome in Rio de Janeiro, Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)

Helen Teixeira
February 20, 2026
RNS


(RNS) — Rio de Janeiro’s lavish Carnival parades, which burst to life in the days before Lent begins, are famous for their colorful costumes, giant floats and the driving rhythm of samba that is a hallmark of Brazilian culture and a magnet for tourists from around the globe. Each parade is produced by one of Rio’s samba schools, which work year-round to prepare them, and each has its own “plot” — enredo in Brazilian Portuguese — that guides its aesthetic. Themes range from tributes to historical figures or artists to pop culture to social and political critique.

These parades all compete on craftsmanship, choreography, rhythmic precision, narrative coherence and the poetic quality of their original song lyrics. They are broadcast nationwide and make headlines around the world.

What is less known about the samba communities behind the parades is their Afro-Catholic religiosity — Afro-Brazilian spirituality that coexists with popular Catholicism: Each school has an orixá — an African deity and a catholic saint of devotion — and at the altars found in the rehearsal halls, the schools’ spiritual guides perform rituals and Masses.

“They are recreational organizations, but religion is present in their social life throughout the year,” said Lucas Bártolo, anthropologist and author of a study titled, “On the Altar of Samba: Religion in the World of Carnival.” “Both the worship of orixás and the devotion to Catholic saints organize the religious life of carnival groups and ground their symbolic dimension.”

In Brazil, as in other Latin American countries, the Catholicism of the Iberian Peninsula arrived with colonization. The church maintained strong links with the state, setting dates and festivals that structured the calendar. Carnival begins the Saturday before Ash Wednesday and ends on Shrove Tuesday, also known as Fat Tuesday, or Mardi Gras, before Lent’s 40 days of fasting start.

“It is a festive period, deeply religious, representing an opposition between Carnival and Lent, which is very strong in Iberian culture, and has also been appropriated by African-derived groups,” Bártolo said.

Performers from the Mocidade samba school parade on a float during Carnival celebrations at the Sambadrome in Rio de Janeiro, Monday, Feb. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Bruna Prado)

Afro-Brazilian religions have interacted with Catholicism and Christian festivals since the Portuguese arrived, reinterpreting the colonial religion through their own practices and worldviews, even observing aspects of Lent.

“The origins of Carnival in Brazil are linked to enslaved Africans who were brought here and came together to create samba using percussion instruments,” Aydano André Motta, journalist, screenwriter, writer and Carnival researcher, told Religion News Service. “Samba gave rise to samba schools as community spaces in the neighborhoods where these people settled after abolition — predominantly low-income communities, known as favelas.



“Every samba school has always included a priest or priestess from Candomblé or Umbanda,” Motta added, referring to two dominant Afro-Brazilian religions. “The social dynamics of samba schools are guided by (their) rituals.”

Before official parade competitions began in the 1930s, and before state authorities, the media, wealthy classes, corporate sponsors and tourists became involved, the samba schools were confined mostly to homes in the Afro-Brazilian community.

The rhythms of Carnival are derived from the drumming that is central to communication and spirit invocation in Africa. “The instruments used in ritual spaces are the same as those in the school’s percussion section,” said Carlos Monteiro, a journalist and sociologist from the Federal Fluminense University.

Samba brought together the descendants and the percussion of Africans with distinct languages and cultures. “What the diaspora separated, cultural diasporic practice united,” Monteiro said.

FILE – Performers from the Mangueira samba school parade with a depiction of a crucifixion during Carnival celebrations at the Sambadrome in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Monday, Feb. 24, 2020. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

Of the two main branches of Afro-Brazilian traditions, Candomblé focuses on orixás, while Umbanda is more given to blending Catholic and Indigenous spirituality, religious mixing that emerged when, under slavery, African practices were forbidden. The orixás each have Catholic equivalents: “Oxum is syncretized with Our Lady of Conception, Oxóssi with Saint Sebastian, Xangô with Saint Peter, and more than any other, Ogum with Saint George. Ogum is the orixá of war and metals, and Saint George is the most popular saint in Rio, and therefore in the samba schools,” said Motta.

The Catholic Church’s relationship with Carnival and samba schools has historically involved periods of “absolute rejection and condemnation of public discourse, including attempts to prohibit and criminalize these practices,” according to Bártolo. In Rio, city laws were proposed to restrict or regulate Catholic symbols in parades, claiming they profaned sacred images, and schools have often had to modify images of Mary and other Catholic saints to avoid clashes with religious authorities.

In 1989, when a samba school called Beija-Flor planned to depict Christ as a beggar, the church prevailed, but the float entered the Sambadrome — the stadium built for viewing the parades — covered in black trash bags with a banner reading, “Even forbidden, look upon us.”

The opposition has a racial element, given that samba schools have always been predominantly Black institutions. At times, this opposition takes theological form, particularly in the demonization of Afro-Brazilian deities. Exú, a central figure in Candomblé and Umbanda, is a messenger between the human and divine worlds and has long been associated with the devil by Christian groups. But Afro-Brazilian religions, which don’t have a concept of absolute evil, see Exú as playful.

Although African-derived religiosity has been embedded in samba schools since their origins, it was only in the 1960s that they began to explicitly incorporate Black Brazilian culture into their plots. “From there, numerous parade themes highlighted Black history and figures who had previously been invisible in Brazil’s official history,” Motta said.

FILE – Priestess Laura D’Oya Yalorixa, center, takes part in an Umbanda religious ceremony at the Casa de Caridade Santa Barbara Iansa temple in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Saturday, Feb. 6, 2021. The faithful of the Umbanda religion, brought to the Americas by West African slaves, perform spiritual protection rituals as part of pre-Carnival traditions. (AP Photo/Bruna Prado)

Under Dom Orani Tempesta, archbishop of Rio de Janeiro since 2009, and with the election of Pope Francis, the Argentine bishop who championed the Amazon and its culture, the church came to support Catholic-themed parade narratives. “Today, it is common for Masses to be held at samba school headquarters, for Carnival groups to be received in sanctuaries and for their flags to be blessed in churches,” Bártolo said, though he added that the rapprochment still has its limits.


The growth of evangelical Christianity in Brazil since the 1980s has added a new dimension to the religious disputes over Carnival. Initially, evangelicals avoided the celebrations, organizing spiritual retreats during this period. Later, as they became more publicly active and aligned with conservative Catholics in criticizing Carnival, they drew political and social criticism from samba schools, while framing themselves as victims of religious persecution.

RELATED: Brazilian evangelical Christians disrupt pre-Lenten partying with ‘Gospel Carnival’

When Rio elected Marcelo Crivella, bishop of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, mayor in 2017, “he tried, very hard, to destroy samba schools and Carnival,” Motta said.

The debate intensified recently when Pastor Gil, an evangelical Rio de Janeiro legislator, proposed a bill that would ban the use of sacred images or representations deemed disrespectful to Christian, Catholic or Evangelical faith in Carnival parades and events.

Still, Carnival has served as a space for coexistence of Brazil’s wildly divergent social, racial and cultural differences, allowing marginalized groups to gain legitimacy as they express their culture. In recent years, the parades have emphasized Afro-Brazilian religions, as if to say, Bártolo said, “This is religion, too, not just Afro culture or Brazilian culture.”

“The people of samba schools are experts in resistance,” said Motta. “They survived slavery, structural racism, state violence and state repression. The schools survived and will continue surviving.”

New Orleans celebrates Mardi Gras, the indulgent conclusion of Carnival season

NEW ORLEANS, La. (AP) — Mardi Gras, also known as Fat Tuesday, marks the climax and end of the weekslong Carnival season and a final chance for indulgence, feasting and revelry before the Christian Lent period of sacrifice and reflection.

A member of the Krewe of Zulu offers up coconuts on Mardi Gras Day, Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2026 in New Orleans. (AP Photo/Matthew Hinton)

Sara Cline
February 18, 2026

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — People leaned out of wrought iron balconies, hollering the iconic phrase “Throw me something, Mister” as a massive Mardi Gras parade rolled down New Orleans’ historic St. Charles Avenue on Tuesday.

Mardi Gras, also known as Fat Tuesday, marks the climax and end of the weekslong Carnival season and a final chance for indulgence, feasting and revelry before the Christian Lent period of sacrifice and reflection. The joyous goodbye to Carnival always falls the day before Ash Wednesday.

In Louisiana’s most populous city, which is world-famous for its Mardi Gras bash, people donned green, gold and purple outfits, with some opting for an abundance of sequins and others showing off homemade costumes.

The revelers began lining the streets as the sun rose. They set up chairs, coolers, grills and ladders — offering a higher vantage point.

As marching bands and floats filled with women wearing massive feathered headdresses passed by, the music echoing through the city streets, people danced and cheered. Others sipped drinks, with many opting for adult concoctions on the day of celebration rather than the usual morning coffee.

Each parade has its signature “throws” — trinkets that include plastic beads, candy, doubloons, stuffed animals, cups and toys. Hand-decorated coconuts are the coveted item from Zulu, a massive parade named after the largest ethnic group in South Africa.

As a man, dressed like a crawfish — including red fabric claws for hands — caught one of the coconuts, he waved it around, the gold glitter on the husk glistening in the sun.

Sue Mennino was dressed in a white Egyptian-inspired costume, complete with a gold headpiece and translucent cape. Her face was embellished with glitter and electric blue eyeshadow.

“The world will be here tomorrow, but today is a day off and a time to party,” Mennino said.

The party isn’t solely confined to the parade route. Throughout the French Quarter, people celebrated in the streets, on balconies and on the front porches of shotgun-style homes.

One impromptu parade was led by a man playing a washboard instrument and dressed as a blue alligator — his paper-mache tail dragging along the street, unintentionally sweeping up stray beads with it. A brass band played “The Saints” as people danced.

In Jackson Square, the costumed masses included a man painted from head to toe as a zebra, a group cosplaying as Hungry Hungry Hippos from the tabletop game and a diver wearing an antique brass and copper helmet.

“The people are the best part,” said Martha Archer, who was dressed as Madame Leota, the disembodied medium whose head appears within a crystal ball in the Haunted Mansion attraction at Disney amusement parks.

Archer’s face was painted blue and her outfit was a makeshift table that came up to her neck — giving the appearance that she was indeed a floating head.

“Everybody is just so happy,” she explained.

The good times will roll not just in New Orleans but across the state, from exclusive balls to the Cajun French tradition of the Courir de Mardi Gras, or Fat Tuesday Run — a rural event in Central Louisiana featuring costumed participants performing, begging for ingredients and chasing live chickens to be cooked in a communal gumbo.

Parades are also held in other Gulf Coast cities such as Mobile, Alabama, and Pensacola, Florida, and there are other world-renowned celebrations in Brazil and Europe.

One of the quirkiest is an international Pancake Day competition pitting the women of Liberal, Kansas, against the women of Olney, England. Pancakes are used because they were thought to be a good way for Christians to consume the fat they were supposed to give up during the 40 days before Easter.

Contestants must carry a pancake in a frying pan and flip the pancake at the beginning and end of the 415-yard (380-meter) race.

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

In Boston, US Jews envision a Judaism beyond Zionism

BOSTON (RNS) — At a ‘Jewish Left’ conference, attendees set out to build new institutions that they consider more ethically grounded in Judaism post-Oct. 7, 2023.

People attend the Conference on the Jewish Left at Boston University, Feb. 12, 2026, in Boston. (Photo by Melissa Ostrow/Boston University)

Yonat Shimron
February 19, 2026
RNS

BOSTON (RNS) — On Yom Kippur in 2024, one year after Israel began its fierce assault on Gaza, Rabbi Greg Hersh’s small Massachusetts synagogue voted to raise money to buy military gear for the Israel Defense Forces.

Hersh, a 40-year old graduate of the Reconstructionist Rabbical College, remembers feeling perplexed.

“This is the holiest day of the year,” Hersh remembers he told the synagogue’s board. “Do you really think we should be buying weapons for soldiers on this day?”



The board’s answer was a resounding yes. For Hersh, it was a sign that it was time for him to go.

Five months ago, Hersh started a new congregation called V’ahavtah, from the Hebrew, “You shall love.” Using the moniker “Judaism Beyond Zionism,” it meets in rented space, mostly in Cambridge.

Hersh’s new synagogue was among 30 mostly new Jewish organizations whose representatives came together to imagine a new Jewish future less defined by Zionism, if not entirely anti-Zionist, at the third annual Conference on the Jewish Left at Boston University last week (Feb. 12). Hosted by the university’s Institute on Culture, Religion and World Affairs, the conference drew nearly 1,000 people — 480 in person and the rest online.

Rabbi Ari Lev Fornari of Kol Tzedek, a synagogue in Philadelphia, wears a watermelon kippah, or head covering, a symbol of Palestinian solidarity, during the Conference on the Jewish Left at Boston University on Feb. 12, 2026. (RNS photo/Yonat Shimron)

Organizations like Hersh’s gathered in an exhibit hall to give out banners, books, stickers and other items to introduce participants to their post-Oct. 7 Jewish missions. The conference brochure announced, “None of us are free until all of us are free,” and participants milled about the conference wearing kippahs, or head coverings, featuring watermelons, the symbol of solidarity with Palestinians. Each of the main speakers in the big lecture hall offered a stinging rebuke of what they considered the American Jewish establishment’s unquestioning support for Israel and near complete disregard for Palestinian suffering.

But if the conference had a main theme, it was building new institutional containers for what they say is a more ethically grounded American Judaism.

In its 16 workshops, conference-goers considered building philanthropic infrastructure, creating theologies around the concept of exile and learning lessons from Jewish activists who helped build New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s winning coalition.

Participants heard from Palestinian-born political activist Fadi Quran, who urged them to push ahead: “If we want to take ourselves seriously, not just to liberate Palestine, not just to liberate Jewish people from fear, but also to move towards a world that most humans everywhere truly want and yearn for, we need to build that institutional power,” he said.

More than 70,000 Palestinians have been killed during Israel’s invasion of Gaza, and most of the southern enclave has been demolished. The war has also ruptured a Zionist consensus among the majority of U.S. Jews. While most U.S. Jews increasingly supported Israel and the Zionist cause of building a Jewish state, especially after its decisive victory in the Six Day War in the late 1960s, a growing segment no longer does. A February survey by the Jewish Federations of North America found that only one-third of American Jews identify as Zionist, although almost 9 in 10 said they supported Israel’s existence as a Jewish and democratic state. And a Washington Post poll last year showed 61% of American Jews believe Israel has committed war crimes in Gaza.

Displaced Palestinians return to Rafah, Gaza Strip, Jan. 20, 2025, a day after a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas went into effect. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi, File)

As the JFNA poll suggests, U.S. Jews do not necessarily endorse the dismantling of Israel, but many argued at the conference that they no longer want to support what they consider a supremacist political project premised on a demographic Jewish majority that oppresses Palestinians.

Across the U.S., and especially in Boston, new institutions are slowly coming into being that reflect this change. They include dozens of budding congregations like V’ahavtah, consisting of Jews who no longer want to pray in synagogues that hoist the Israeli flag in their sanctuaries or recite the “Prayer for the State of Israel” during Shabbat services.

In Boston, there are also plans to open an alternative Jewish day school whose website proclaims it will “decouple Judaism from nationalism” and focus on the Torah’s mandate of justice. The school, which would be the first of its kind, expects to open in 2029 with a kindergarten class.

Leah Robbins, its 32-year-old founder, said she wanted to create a new model for Jewish day schools that could be replicated in Brooklyn or Berkeley, California.

“We need robust, thick Jewish education to be a real force in the conversation, to take back the monopoly on Jewish life from the mainstream, organized Jewish community,” said Robbins, who exhibited at the conference.

Nationwide, half a dozen congregations under the banner Synagogues Rising have publicly declared themselves committed to Palestinian liberation and have anti-Zionist rabbis. A new association for diasporic Jewish organizations is expected to be announced within the next few months.

Gina Coplon-Newfield of Cambridge, Mass., foreground, attends the Conference on the Jewish Left at Boston University on Feb. 12, 2026, in Boston. (RNS photo/Yonat Shimron)

Most of these new congregations say they strive for a “liberatory Judaism” that honors the inherent sacredness of all life and is rooted in core values of justice, equity and solidarity.

At the same time, many older U.S. Jews are not about to break away from their existing synagogues. Recognizing that reality, members from 26 established Massachusetts Jewish congregations formed a group to support individuals who want to open their synagogues to a more critical view of Israel. The Massachusetts Synagogue Network on Israel Palestine provides resources to help them push for change, foster respectful dialogue, start reading groups and create other learning opportunities. That group was also exhibited at the conference.

“These are folks who are not looking to blow up their relationships, but rather want to figure out how within the synagogues that they know and love, they can expand space for dialogue on this issue rather than ignoring it and turning away,” said Mneesha Gellman, one of the group’s members.

Younger Jews are not interested in fighting that battle. Rakeea Chesick Gordis, a 25-year-old program manager at a community building organization, joined Minyan Zayit, an anti-Zionist prayer group in Somerville, about 4 miles north of Boston. The group holds monthly Friday night services in a local synagogue, drawing some 70 people. It recently started a monthly Shabbat morning service. Its name uses the Hebrew word for “olive,” zayit, a symbol of Palestinian culture.

“It just feels like there’s this energy and thirst for a values-aligned community that is not exclusively about political organizing, but about being with people who hold the same truths as you,” she said.

Scholars say this younger generation is more interested in Jewish practice than their elders, many of whom disaffiliated and dropped out of Jewish institutions altogether.

“The progressive left is becoming more ritually and Jewishly engaged than a lot of the standard synagogues themselves,” said Shaul Magid, a professor of modern Jewish studies at Harvard Divinity School.

Hersh, the rabbi of V’ahavtah, sees this, too. The day after the conference, he held his monthly Friday night service — this time in a rented classroom at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He spread out a kaffiyeh over a lectern. On top, he laid out Shabbat candlesticks and a laptop so he could livestream the service to people at home.

About 22 people showed up for the service, mostly in their 20s with a handful of retirees. They blessed the candles, the wine and two loaves of challah. They recited the traditional liturgy and some modern poems using a 25-page handout that Hersh provided. They ate a buffet-style vegan meal of Indian food: saag, tofu curry and rice.

Rabbi Greg Hersh conducts a Friday night Shabbat service on Feb. 13, 2026, in Cambridge, Mass. Hersh started V’ahavtah, a Judaism Beyond Zionism Synagogue, five months ago. It meets in various rental spaces, mostly in Cambridge. (RNS photo/Yonat Shimron)

Hersh said about a third of the participants were first-time guests who had heard about the congregation at the conference.

“The demand is so strong and the supply is so limited for communities like this,” he said. “There is this unserved Jewish population that should have the right to do Judaism, the ability, the access to Jewish ritual in the same way that every other Jew has access. And I’m really proud to be creating that.”

Hegseth frames Trump policies as ‘biblical’ in address to Christian broadcasters

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (RNS) — During an address at the National Religious Broadcasters convention, the defense secretary told attendees that President Donald Trump is fighting for their faith and returning America to its Christian foundations.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth addresses the annual National Religious Broadcasters convention at the Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center, Thursday, Feb. 19, 2026, in Nashville, Tenn. (Video screen grab)

Bob Smietana
February 20, 2026
RNS

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (RNS) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth greeted the annual convention of the National Religious Broadcasters on Thursday (Feb. 19) by quoting from a famed Christian hymn, often sung on Palm Sunday: “All glory, laud and honor to you, Redeemer King. To whom the lips of children made sweet hosannas ring.”

“No matter what we have accomplished, what levels of success we may have reached, what joys or what trials are in our lives, it is to God alone that the glory belongs,” Hegseth told convention attendees, most of whom are evangelical Christians, in a ballroom at the Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center in Nashville.

Hegseth, who was greeted with cheers and music from an Army band, was a headliner of a patriotic celebration at the Christian communications convention, anticipating the 250th anniversary of America’s founding later this year. After an opening prayer from a pastor who thanked God for protecting the country from “pandemics and plan-demics” — a reference to conspiracy theories about COVID-19 — and asked God to protect the United States from communists and foreign invaders, Hegseth took to the stage.

“My fellow Americans, patriots, brothers and sisters in Christ, I bring greetings from a fighter for the people of faith, President Donald J. Trump,” Hegseth said.

The defense secretary then launched into listing Trump’s accomplishments in office and his dedication to conservative Christian causes, like providing funding for religious charter schools, restricting abortion and gender-affirming care, and fighting anti-Christian bias.

Trump addressed the NRB in 2024 while on the campaign trail, appealing to attendees to help him save America and promising to serve their interests. “If I get in, you’re going to be using that power at a level that you’ve never used before,” he said in 2024.

In an address that lasted just under a half hour, Hegseth repeatedly tied the founding of the U.S. to the Christian faith and the Christian Bible and attacked what he called “the Godless left.” He said that the country was based on a “sacred covenant” with God and pointed to references to God in the Declaration of Independence and from early American leaders.

“As you know, there’s a direct throughline from the Old and New Testament Christian gospels to the development of Western civilization and the United States of America,” he said.

Hegseth said he’d brought an emphasis on faith back to the Pentagon, including through a monthly prayer service. Among the speakers at those services has been Brooks Potteiger, who was the pastor at the church Hegseth attended in Tennessee, and Douglas Wilson, a pastor known for founding Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho, and defending slavery, arguing that women should not be able to vote, and promoting Christian nationalism.





“We do it because I need it more than anybody else, a time where we pause during a very busy day to give thanks, praise and glory to God in the name of Jesus Christ,” Hegseth said.

Hegseth also said he had helped strengthen the military Chaplain Corps and had eliminated diversity, equity and inclusion and climate change programs. He also said the military is stronger spiritually since he took office.

The secretary urged the pastors and religious broadcasters in attendance to be bold and to speak about politics and social issues, knowing that God is on their side. He also promoted the Trump administration’s immigration policies. “Protecting our borders from criminals who steal from us, assault our loved ones and poison our citizens, is not political. It’s biblical,” he said. “Protecting our culture and our religion from godless ideologies and pagan religions, not political. It’s biblical.”

He ended by telling attendees that “Christ is king.”

Vince Haley, director of the White House’s Domestic Policy Council, who also spoke at the event, told attendees about plans for faith events celebrating the nation’s 250th anniversary, including a prayer event on May 17, aimed at rededicating the U.S. to God.

Other speakers included David Barton, a popular Christian nationalist author whose book on Thomas Jefferson was retracted by its publisher after historians pointed out its factual errors, as well as Seth Dillon, CEO of the Babylon Bee, a Christian satire site.

Barton and his son, Tim, warned attendees that Americans were forgetting the role religion played in national history. They encouraged attendees to come to D.C. and other patriotic sites to recall that history — but told them to ignore tour guides because “they don’t know what they are talking about.” (The Bartons conduct patriotic tours of their own.)

“The reason we are on shaky ground right now is because we have secularized our nation more than at any point in our history,” Tim Barton said.

Dillon told the story of the Bee’s battle with Twitter — the website was suspended from the social media platform in 2022 after a joke about transgender Biden administration official Rachel Levine was deemed as hateful content. That led to an unexpected friendship with billionaire Elon Musk, who, after he bought Twitter, now known as X, the same year, let the Babylon Bee back on the platform.

“We have to stop caring what freedom might cost us,” Dillon said. “If you aren’t willing to pay a price for freedom, you don’t value it.”