Weekly Roundup: Jan. 9
Here’s the weekly roundup from A Public Witness. In addition to a roundup of Christian responses to the U.S. attack on Venezuela that is free for anyone to read, paid subscribers to A Public Witness received a look at church services held by President Richard Nixon in the White House.
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Top 5 at wordandway.org
What ‘The Testament of Ann Lee’ Teaches Us About Religious Liberty Today. Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons reflected on the new musical film The Testament of Ann Lee.
Review: The Fourth Synoptic Gospel. Robert D. Cornwall reviewed The Fourth Synoptic Gospel: John’s Knowledge of Matthew, Mark, and Luke by Mark Goodacre.
Minneapolis Clergy Exposed to Pepper-Spray After Rushing to Scene of Deadly ICE Shooting. Jack Jenkins reported on clergy on the streets after an ICE agent killed an unarmed woman, Renee Good, in her car.
Judge Rules Americans United Can’t Intervene in ‘Johnson Amendment’ Case. An advocacy group faced a setback in their effort to ensure the IRS actually enforces the law.
Joy Moore Steps Down As Northern Seminary President After Months of Confusion Over Status. Bob Smietana reported on the latest news after months of confusion at a Baptist school in Illinois.
Dangerous Dogma
This week’s episode features a conversation between Brian Kaylor, Angela Denker, and Beau Underwood about the U.S. attack on Venezuela and how Christians are responding, Pete Hegseth’s pledge to change the military chaplaincy program, and how people are now betting on the return of Jesus and pretty much everything else in life. Listen to the audio version here (or wherever you listen to podcasts) or watch the video version here.
by Brian Kaylor, Word&Way Editor-in-Chief
Last year, Texas legislators passed a requirement that public school districts vote on whether to adopt a state-organized prayer time. A coalition of more than 160 faith leaders from across the state this week released an open letter urging school districts to reject state-organized prayer and instead protect the religious liberty rights of all students.
“Public education is both a place where students of all faiths come together to learn and a vital institution that prepares students to live in a society of many religions,” the letter reads. “We also understand that the responsibility for religious instruction lies with students, their families, and their local faith communities — not with public schools, and not organized or directed by the state.”
Noting that there are already existing laws that protect the right of students to pray, the faith leaders noted the new law “threatens to drive a wedge into public school communities and create unnecessary administrative burdens.”
Rabbi David Segal, policy counsel at Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty (which helped lead the open letter effort), explained in a statement that the new law is “a solution in search of a problem” that will create “a bureaucratic circus.” He added, “Religious freedom must be voluntary and personal — never organized or coerced by the government.”
We don’t need Caesar to tell us when and how to pray. Christians who take their faith seriously and who worry about the heresy of Christian Nationalism should speak out against efforts like the one in Texas.
Other News of Note
In the pilot episode of the new podcast Reign of Error, host Sarah Posner spoke with Brad Onishi about the Department of Homeland Security’s use of religion to justify its militarized tactics.
Indiana’s governor and attorney general want a federal judge to reverse a decades-long ban on a Ten Commandments monument at the Indiana Statehouse. Meanwhile, a state legislator introduced a bill to require a highly edited version of the Ten Commandments be posted in all public school classrooms.
U.S. Rep. Andy Ogles, a Republican from Tennessee, created an AI video of himself as a medieval crusader ready to fight for the U.S. as a “Christian nation.”
Rev. Angela Denker, a Lutheran minister in Minneapolis, wrote for The New Republic about seeking a better world than the violent one being pushed by the Trump administration.
“Vance’s twisted and wrongheaded view of Christianity has been repudiated by two popes. His Catholicism seems to be little more than a political prop, a tool only for his career ambitions and desire for power. The vice president’s comments justifying the death of Renee Good are a moral stain on the collective witness of our Catholic faith.” —John Grosso in a National Catholic Reporter editorial criticizing Vice President J.D. Vance for justifying the ICE killing of Renee Good in Minneapolis.
Catholics in Panama are helping people from various nations who were deported to that nation by the Trump administration.
Mia Staub of Christianity Today wrote about how churches in Palisades, California, have spent the past year worshiping without their own buildings that were destroyed in a wildfire.
Evangelical author Philip Yancey confessed to an eight-year-long affair and announced his retirement.
Despite claims by some conservatives of a “revival” among younger Americans, new data from the Pew Research Center shows that’s not happening.
Photo of the Week
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