(RNS) — Like its politics, the United States’ religious scene could at times this year appear intractably stalled by partisanship and warring ideologies. But Americans of faith and observers of the religious landscape can also be encouraged and fascinated by the new voices that have emerged in past 12 months, in ancient faith traditions and new movements alike. These emerging faith leaders promise to take the country in new directions, whether offering new perspectives on immigrant rights in a new Trump administration, pushing young people to engage in faith-based environmental activism or fighting ableism.
Not all of the new names that came to our attention this year offer escape from our discord: Some are engaged in political fights over whether the country, or our households, should adopt a Christian polity to live up to our highest ideals.
Here are some of the newsmakers we’ll be keeping our eyes on in the year ahead.
Tia LevingsAuthor and social media influencer
Tia Levings. (Photo by Hannah Joy Photography)
Levings, author of the New York Times bestseller “A Well-Trained Wife,” married at 19 into a highly patriarchal form of Christianity that puts all authority in the hands of husbands and fathers. A former “trad wife” — a woman who lives according to hypertraditional notions of motherhood and domesticity — Levings, who now identifies as “spiritually private,” sheds light on the harms of that lifestyle, while warning that this little-known conservative Christian sector is increasing in political power as it promotes “dominionism,” the belief that Christians have a mandate to rule society.
Sister Josephine GarrettNun, podcaster
Sister Josephine Garrett. (Courtesy photo)
Raised Baptist, Garrett converted to Catholicism in 2005 and professed her final vows as a sister of the Holy Family of Nazareth in 2020. These days, the onetime Bank of America vice president is a sought-after speaker, as well as the host of the podcast “Hope Stories,” launched in 2023, focusing on Black Catholics in its first season. This year it focused on mental health and faith, drawing on Garrett’s background as a licensed counselor.
She brough …