Saved by the City

A Special Episode from The State of Belief!

We’re sharing a special episode from The State of Belief — a wide-ranging conversation with Religion News Service reporters Jack Jenkins and Adelle M. Banks on the faith angles you don’t hear in the standard year-end news wrap. From immigration and church-state battles to DEI backlash, workplace shocks, and the shock of an American pope, they trace what 2025 revealed about power, justice, and public trust — and what questions we should be asking as 2026 approaches.
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Can we talk about the beard hair in the sink?

Getting engaged is exciting! But saying goodbye to singleness is not so straightforward — especially when you've spent years defending and celebrating the single life. On this episode, Katelyn and Roxy admit letting go of being single felt more complicated than they expected. Sure, you have someone else to eat with ... but you also have to figure out who is getting groceries. You gain a life partner ... but you lose a lot of alone time. Did we make an idol out of singleness? Maybe. But also our joy in that identity felt hard-won and we were proud of the lives we'd carved out on our own. 

But, hey, it's the end of a season (literally, it's our last episode of 2025!) and it's time to let go. Katelyn is getting married and moving in with a man and we are here for it. We talk all the logistics — and also the profound shifts that are bound to come when you merge your life with another person's.

Plus: a quiz to test just how chill Katelyn really is about cohabitation (spoiler: not very), some marriage advice from Roxy, and why it's OK to grieve a good season of life even when you're genuinely excited about what's next.
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There's even an ICE Nativity.

Baby Jesus in zip ties. Mary and Joseph in gas masks. Roman centurions wearing ICE vests. This December, nativity scenes are getting political. Lake Street Church in Evanston, Illinois sparked national attention with their ICE-themed nativity. Sean Hannity called it "woke" and a "war on Christmas." The Daily Show covered it. But it's just one example of clergy around the country participating in immigration activism — getting arrested outside detention centers, accompanying people to immigration hearings, taking food and the Eucharist to migrants too afraid to leave their homes. 

On this episode, Katelyn and Roxy talk with one clergy person, Michael Woolf, who has long been involved in immigrant activism and who was recently arrested outside an ICE detention center near Chicago. His church was responsible for the aforementioned provocative nativity and he believes clergy should be willing to put their bodies on the line in this moment. We are also joined by RNS reporter Jack Jenkins, who has been reporting on clergy efforts to resist ICE around the country.

 

GUESTS:


The Rev. Michael Woolf is a senior minister of Lake Street Church of Evanston, Illinois, and the author of “Sanctuary and Subjectivity: Thinking Theologically About Whiteness and Sanctuary Movements.” He also has an upcoming book, "Confronting Islamophobia in the Church: Liturgical Tools for Justice," co-written with his wife, Ana Piela.


Jack Jenkins is a national reporter for Religion News Service and has covered immigration issues and progressive clergy for a decade at least, including in his book on the religious left: "American Prophets: The Religious Roots of Progressive Politics and the Ongoing Fight for the Soul of the Country."

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There's even an ICE Nativity.

Baby Jesus in zip ties. Mary and Joseph in gas masks. Roman centurions wearing ICE vests. This December, nativity scenes are getting political. Lake Street Church in Evanston, Illinois sparked national attention with their ICE-themed nativity. Sean Hannity called it "woke" and a "war on Christmas." The Daily Show covered it. But it's just one example of clergy around the country participating in immigration activism — getting arrested outside detention centers, accompanying people to immigration hearings, taking food and the Eucharist to migrants too afraid to leave their homes. 

On this episode, Katelyn and Roxy talk with one clergy person, Michael Woolf, who has long been involved in immigrant activism and who was recently arrested outside an ICE detention center near Chicago. His church was responsible for the aforementioned provocative nativity and he believes clergy should be willing to put their bodies on the line in this moment. We are also joined by RNS reporter Jack Jenkins, who has been reporting on clergy efforts to resist ICE around the country.

 

GUESTS:


The Rev. Michael Woolf is a senior minister of Lake Street Church of Evanston, Illinois, and the author of “Sanctuary and Subjectivity: Thinking Theologically About Whiteness and Sanctuary Movements.” He also has an upcoming book, "Confronting Islamophobia in the Church: Liturgical Tools for Justice," co-written with his wife, Ana Piela.


Jack Jenkins is a national reporter for Religion News Service and has covered immigration issues and progressive clergy for a decade at least, including in his book on the religious left: "American Prophets: The Religious Roots of Progressive Politics and the Ongoing Fight for the Soul of the Country."

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They’re stylish, savvy, with podcasts, book deals, and massive Instagram followings. And they’re calling women back to the kitchen.

A new wave of conservative Christian women, many balancing high-powered platforms and hard-charging careers with old-fashioned family values, are gaining influence by promoting traditional gender roles, homemaking aesthetics, and “biblical womanhood.” But beneath the sourdough and matching family outfits is a politically resonant ideology that’s shaping national conversations around gender, faith, and power. On this LIVE Saved By the City episode, recorded in Austin at the Texas Tribune Festival, Katelyn and Roxy host a lively panel to look at what’s behind the rise of these “tradwife” voices, what their popularity says about the cultural moment and why women are leading the charge to rewrite women’s roles.

GUESTS:

Emma Goldberg is a reporter for The New York Times, covering cultural, societal and economic change. Her articles “‘Less Burnout, More Babies’: How Conservatives Are Winning Young Women”  and "The Moms of ‘Momcon’ Are Stressed, but Ready to Party" are essential reading on this topic.

Christine Emba is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a contributing writer for the New York Times, and author of the book Rethinking Sex.

Lauren Southern is a former political activist. Her new memoir "This Is Not Real Life" chronicles her experience as an online conservative influencer and how trying to be a tradwife nearly destroyed her.
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