Weekly Roundup: July 31
Here’s the weekly roundup from A Public Witness. This week we published the only report by any outlet on the latest Pentagon worship service.
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Top 5 at wordandway.org
A Town Full of Churches: What Happens When Institutions Fail to Address Addiction? Michael Mellette reflected on the problems in a small Arkansas town that’s full of churches but also of poverty and substance abuse.
Challenging Trump’s Efforts to Whitewash Our History. Edward Walsh wrote about the need for Americans to know about the nation’s record of slavery and racism.
Review: Gratitude to God. Robert D. Cornwall reviewed Gratitude to God: The Heart of Christian Formation by Kent Dunnington.
Released Texas Pastors Say Immigration Agents Threatened Family Separation. Two Assemblies of God pastors in Texas shared their story of being detained by federal agents after being nabbed while traveling to a retreat with the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.
Booted From Evangelicalism, a Progressive, ‘Post-Evangelical’ Church Blooms in Texas. Kathryn Post reported on the success of an Austin church led by Zach Lambert.
by Brian Kaylor, Word&Way Editor-in-Chief
On Monday (July 27), a federal judge appointed by President Donald Trump dismissed a lawsuit challenging the legality of Trump’s so-called “Religious Liberty Commission.” But he did so by basing a key part of his argument on a complete misunderstanding of religion.
The lawsuit was brought by various groups, including Interfaith Alliance, Muslims For Progressive Values, Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund, and Hindus For Human Rights — with legal representation by Democracy Forward and Americans United for Separation of Church and State (where I serve as vice chair of the national board of trustees). One victory from the suit is it previously forced the commission to follow the law and actually release documents related to its work.
The judge this week rejected the claim that the commission’s creation violated federal law that requires a diverse membership. All of the members are rightwing supporters of Trump, and the group was a bunch of Christians with one Orthodox Jewish rabbi. Not only were most religious traditions not included, but much of the diversity of Christianity was excluded beyond rightwing evangelicals and Catholics.
“The RLC’s membership is fairly balanced,” the judge countered. “Its members include workers in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors, have widely varying life experiences — from a former host of a popular television show to a State Lieutenant Governor, are religious leaders as well as rank-and-file congregants, and — to the extent that it matters — encompass adherents of at least five different religions.”
Let’s put aside the notion of diversity being a former TV talk show host and a lieutenant governor (who are both White Texans born in 1950) and instead focus on his claim of “at least five different religions.” The judge added a footnote to “prove” this, but quickly shows he doesn’t know how to define religion: “Rabbi Meir Soloveichik is an Orthodox Jew, Pastor Franklin Graham is an Evangelist, Pastor Paula White is a non-denominational Christian, Cardinal Timothy Dolan is a Catholic, and Scott Turner is a Baptist.”
Read that again to count the religions and you’ll see you have three fingers to spare on your hand. “Evangelist” is not a religion but a profession. And non-denominational Christian, Catholic, and Baptist are not religions but different groups within the religion of Christianity.
This Trump-appointed judge apparently knows about as much about religion as the so-called “Religious Liberty Commission” knows about religious liberty. When your religion is power, facts don’t matter.
Other News of Note
In an interview with PBS, Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch rejected the idea that the United States was founded as a “White Christian nation,” insisting that “We were never supposed to be a nation that was about one race or one religion.” His remark was surprising given some of his decisions when he’s attacked church-state separation and pushed Christianity in public schools.
9News in Colorado reviewed past sermons and speeches by Republican gubernatorial nominee Victor Marx to document how he’s frequently claimed to perform exorcisms of demons and even Satan.
A Republican candidate for a Missouri state House seat refuses to answer questions about his time on staff at the International House of Prayer-Kansas City, a charismatic ministry that has been roiled in recent years by allegations of sexual abuse by its founder.
A charismatic church in Tennessee used its Sunday worship service, in violation of IRS tax rules, to endorse multiple Republican candidates and bring them on stage to speak after the pastor claimed a Christian cannot vote for Democrats.
A Republican state legislator running for governor of Tennessee said he wants to ban mosques.
The best headline of the week comes from Texas Monthly: “Sharia Law Is Not Coming to Texas, No Matter What Deuce Bigalow, Male Gigolo, Says.”
“I do not understand how it is that people who claim to be people of faith, people who say the name of Jesus more than anybody, the loudest voices of the Christian faith in our country, are often the meanest voices.” —Rev. Raphael Warnock, also a U.S. senator from Georgia, in remarks at the Progressive National Baptist Convention meeting in Washington, D.C.
Wu Shaoping, a Chinese human rights lawyer who has represented persecuted Christians, is speaking out after he was detained by ICE in Pennsylvania and is now targeted for deportation.
Emma Maple of FāVS News reported on how some rural mainline churches in the Pacific Northwest are sharing pastors across denominational lines.
After being lost for centuries, two sermons by Augustine of Hippo have been rediscovered.
Photo of the Week
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