Weekly Roundup: Feb. 21
Here’s the weekly roundup from A Public Witness. In addition to reports on criticism of the Trump administration from Christian leaders in Jerusalem and a Black Baptist church in Virginia that are free for anyone to read, paid subscribers to A Public Witness received a look at New York City Mayor Eric Adams’s odd appropriation of the Lazarus resurrection story.
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Top 5 at wordandway.org
Review: Trust in Atonement. Robert D. Cornwall reviewed Trust in Atonement: God, Creation, and Reconciliation by Teresa Morgan.
Abuse Database Is No Longer a Priority for Southern Baptist Leaders. Bob Smietana reported on how the Southern Baptist Convention is backing away from an effort intended to prevent clergy sexual abuse.
33 Christian Reformed Ministers Take Oath to a Rival Denomination as Church Split Deepens. Yonat Shimron reported on the growing schism within the Christian Reformed Church in response to the body’s rightward shift on LGBTQ issues.
US Catholic Bishops Sue Trump Administration for Halt in Funding for Refugee Settlement. Peter Smith reported on the latest pushback to moves by President Donald Trump moves, adding to the long list of Christian groups suing the new administration.
Faith Groups’ Environmental Projects Halted by Trump’s Climate Funding Freeze. Aleja Hertzler-McCain and Adelle M. Banks reported on some of the impacts of the new administration’s policy shifts.
by Brian Kaylor, Word&Way Editor-in-Chief
As President Donald Trump and unelected billionaire Elon Musk continue to gut life-saving government programs, one cut that garnered attention this week was the dismissal of one-tenth of workers at the National Institutes of Health’s Center for Alzheimer’s and Related Dementias. Among those fired was its incoming director, a leading Alzheimer researcher known for her innovations in early detection of the disease.
“These people are experts and are irreplaceable,” one employee told The New Republic. “It’s devastating for us — and for anyone who is worried about getting Alzheimer’s, or has already gotten Alzheimer’s, and is hoping there will be better treatments in the future. It’s a huge blow.”
The full name of the impacted research center is the Roy Blunt Center for Alzheimer’s and Related Dementias. A Republican, Blunt was a U.S. senator from Missouri until retiring in 2023. As a senator, he was known as a champion of funding for Alzheimer’s research. Now, that part of his legacy is being dismantled. But he could’ve helped prevent it.
Had the Senate convicted Trump in his second impeachment trial (the one for trying to illegally stay in office by overturning the 2020 election), Trump would’ve never been able to serve again. But Blunt, like most Republicans, voted to acquit — even though he previously voted to impeach Bill Clinton on lesser charges. I wrote a Kansas City Star column in 2021 shortly after that vote to criticize Blunt and Sen. Josh Hawley for helping Trump escape accountability.
“As someone who volunteered on one of Blunt’s early congressional campaigns, I am left wondering what happened to the man I once admired. We graduated from the same Missouri Christian college, Southwest Baptist University in Bolivar, where he also served as president. And as Baptists, we’ve worshiped together in the same church,” I wrote. “Politics has become the end in itself, not a way of advancing justice and the common good. For him, polls trump principles. … As the Jesus that Blunt, Hawley, and I all profess to follow warned in Matthew 16:26: ‘What do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul?’”
Many people will suffer because of politicians who could’ve stood up but did not. It’s sadly appropriate that Blunt’s positive legacy could be forgotten because of his act of political and moral cowardice.
Other News of Note
Oklahoma state Rep. Mickey Dollens wrote a Kansas City Star column on the problems of putting chaplains in public schools (and quoted Brian Kaylor's testimony against such legislation in Missouri)
New state bills to post the Ten Commandments in public schools were introduced in Idaho and Georgia, while another was defeated in the Montana Senate.
A Senate committee in Oklahoma voted down a proposal to return a Ten Commandments monument to the state Capitol, while the Kentucky House passed a measure to install such a monument there.
Donald Trump said he offered administration jobs to Michael Flynn, who recently started attacks on Lutheran charities and was the headliner of the ReAwaken America Tour. Meanwhile, one of the tour’s regular speakers (Kash Patel) was just confirmed as FBI director and another speaker (Robert F. Kennedy Jr.) is now leads the Department of Health and Human Services.
A group of Iranian Christians who fled that nation and fear death if returned have been deported by the Trump administration to Latin America, where they could then be sent to Iran.
ProPublica reported on how the Trump official leading efforts to dismantle USAID previously violated U.S. policy to secretly meet with Christian Nationalists in Bosnia and Herzegovina (and also was part of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection).
“We must declare that no land is more sacred than the people who live on it, and no political agenda is more important than the lives it affects. The call of Christ compels us to be peacemakers, advocates for justice, and voices for the voiceless. To remain silent is to betray the very gospel we proclaim.” —Fares Abraham, a Palestinian-American who leads Levant Ministries, in a Sojourners column about Trump’s proposal to take over the Gaza Strip.
Even while hospitalized with bronchitis and double pneumonia, Pope Francis continues to call the Catholic parish in Gaza nearly every night.
Mark Wingfield of Baptist News Global reported on a Texas Supreme Court ruling that disgraced former Southern Baptist leader Paige Patterson can be held liable for defamation actions taken by others on his behalf against a student who was sexually assaulted by a fellow student at the seminary Patterson led.
Emily Belz of Christianity Today reported on efforts by Baylor University in Texas to memorialize those enslaved by its founders and other early leaders.
Cynthia Erivo is set to play Jesus in an upcoming performance of Jesus Christ Superstar.
Brian Kaylor appeared on the CBF Podcast with host Andy Hale to talk about Baptizing America and Christian Nationalism:
Photo of the Week
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