(Reuters) - People of Praise, a self-described charismatic Christian community, has faced renewed interest since U.S. President Donald Trump put one of its purported members, Judge Amy Coney Barrett of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, on his short list of candidates for elevation to the Supreme Court.[...]
The group has declined to confirm or deny whether Barrett was a member since a New York Times article in 2017 said she was in the group, citing unnamed current and former members. It says it leaves it to members to disclose any involvement. At the time, Barrett did not respond to requests for comment from the Times. [...]
People of Praise has about 1,700 members in 22 cities in the United States, Canada and the Caribbean, according to its website, and was founded in 1971 in South Bend, Indiana, also the home of the Catholic-led University of Notre Dame.
“We admire the first Christians who were led by the Holy Spirit to form a community,” the website says, tracing its origins to the late 1960s when students and faculty at Notre Dame experienced “a renewal of Christian enthusiasm and fervor, together with charismatic gifts such as speaking in tongues and physical healing.”
Its most devoted members make a lifelong commitment to the group, known as a covenant.
From 1970, women with leadership roles in the organization were called handmaids, but that changed following the popular 2017-to-present Hulu television series “The Handmaid’s Tale,” based on a 1985 book by Margaret Atwood. The dystopian story is set in a future United States where the rules of the male-dominated society are based on the leaders’ twisted interpretation of Old Testament scriptures.
“Recognizing that the meaning of this term has shifted dramatically in our culture in recent years, we no longer use the term handmaid,” the group said in 2018, without specifically attributing the change to the show.
Coral Anika Theill, a former People of Praise member, has been strongly critical of the group, calling it a “cult” and saying in an interview women are expected to be completely obedient to men and independent thinkers are “humiliated, interrogated, shamed and shunned.”
Theill, who last year wrote a blog post entitled “I lived the Handmaid’s Tale,” said she planned to call every U.S. senator to oppose Barrett should she become Trump’s nominee. [...]
