Weekly Roundup: June 12
Here’s the weekly roundup from A Public Witness. This week, we published an analysis of how Pete Hegseth is misusing Isaiah 6:8 and a report on problems with how the Pentagon is categorizing religion.
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Top 5 at wordandway.org
Review: Baal and the Gods of More. Robert D. Cornwall reviewed Baal and the Gods of More: Rescuing Church Growth from Idolatry by Andrew Root.
The Challenges of Graduating From a Christian School in the Age of AI. Salam Madanat of Alliance Academy Jordan reflected on the challenges of Christian education today.
Christian Leaders in Lebanese City of Tyre Call for Quick International Action After Israeli Warning. Amid threats of Israeli attacks on a Christian community in southern Lebanon, church leaders are calling for help.
The Country’s Largest Protestant Adoption Agency Is Dropping LGBTQ Couples — Again. Five years after changing its policies to assist LGBTQ couples in fostering and adopting, Bethany Christian Services is reversing course.
At TPUSA’s Women’s Summit, Christian Influencers Say Feminism Threatens Motherhood. Kathryn Post reported in Texas from a rightwing Christian Nationalist event for women.
by Brian Kaylor, Word&Way Editor-in-Chief
This week, Southern Baptists decided to Southern Baptist.
About three-fourths of messengers to the annual meeting of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination voted for a constitutional amendment to restrict women from serving in a pastoral role. It has to pass again next year before it goes into effect.
In an appropriate historical throughline, the amendment was presented by Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. His school was founded by enslavers and Confederates. Those founders read Ephesians 5, Colossians 3, Titus 2, and 1 Peter 3 to justify enslaving people. Mohler reads the same chapters to justify subjugating women. He interprets the Bible like an enslaver, which makes sense considering he studies in a library named for an enslaver who fought for the Confederacy and preaches in a chapel named for an enslaver and Confederate chaplain.
Mohler not only continues to honor the enslaver founders of his school, he also insists they were champions of “biblical orthodoxy.” If defending a system of holding people in bondage (and whipping, torturing, raping, and killing them) is Mohler’s definition of “biblical orthodoxy,” then we shouldn’t be surprised to see him leading the charge to subjugate women.
Similarly, the SBC this week also brought the lead pastor of Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, on stage to praise him after protesters disrupted worship earlier this year. Left unsaid by the SBC’s president was the issue the protesters critiqued: that one of the other pastors also served as regional ICE field office director. A denomination literally founded to support enslaver missionaries now backs an ICE pastor. There really is nothing new under the sun.
Other News of Note
Judy Woodruff of PBS interviewed historian John Fea to push back against claims that the United States was founded as a “Christian nation.”
After Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, who is also a pastor, criticized Speaker Mike Johnson’s Christian faith given Johnson’s votes against helping the poor, Johnson requested a private meeting. Afterward, both said the conversation was good — and Warnock repeated his questioning of Johnson’s faith.
Writing for Sojourners and The 19th, Cassidy Klein profiled Carter Heyward, one of the first women ordained in the Episcopal Church, and her activism today against White Christian Nationalism.
“Human dignity has no passport and does not lose its value when crossing a border. … Today, here by the sea, every individual that arrives asks us what remains of our humanity.” —Pope Leo XIV as he urged assistance for migrants during a visit to the Canary Islands.
Randi Richardson reported for Christianity Today about how Black churches and denominations are beefing up their hurricane relief aid efforts, especially amid concerns about the Trump administration overhauling FEMA.
Religious construction spending is on the rise, but much of the increase is from churches refiguring their buildings as affordable housing.
Diana Chandler of Baptist Press wrote about a deaf church that started in Indiana with “music loud enough to feel.”
Leander Schaerlaeckens of The Guardian wrote about how outspoken many members of the U.S. men’s World Cup team are about their religious faith.
Photo of the Week
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