Weekly Roundup: March 7
Here’s the weekly roundup from A Public Witness. In addition to a report on new curriculum standards in Oklahoma and a conversation with a Palestinian pastor that are free for anyone to read, paid subscribers to A Public Witness received a look at a Lenten push highlighting the moral problem of income inequality.
Support our journalism ministry by upgrading to a paid e-newsletter subscription today!
Top 5 at wordandway.org
Review: Knock at the Sky. Robert D. Cornwall reviewed Knock at the Sky: Seeking God in Genesis After Losing Faith in the Bible by Liz Charlotte Grant.
Why Are Southern Baptists Still Arguing About Women Preachers? Bob Smietana wrote about the ongoing debate over women in ministry among those in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.
Most Greenlanders Are Lutheran, 300 Years After a Missionary Brought the Faith to the Remote Island. Luis Andres Henao reported on issues of faith and culture in a land under threat from U.S. President Donald Trump.
A Christian Town in Syria Keeps the Biblical Language of Aramaic Alive. But It Fears for Its Future. Kareem Chehayeb reported on a small, historic Christian community amid significant changes in a Middle Eastern nation.
This Lent, US Lutherans Are Learning a New Palestinian Practice: Sumud. Yonat Shimron reported on a Lenten devotional exploring Israeli and Palestinian issues.
by Brian Kaylor, Word&Way Editor-in-Chief
On Wednesday (March 5), state lawmakers in Oklahoma rejected a request from the State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters for $3 million to buy “patriotic” Bibles to put in public school classrooms. He unveiled the plan in September, hoping for $6 million to purchase 55,000 Bibles. And in November, he went ahead and purchased about 500 copies of the Donald Trump-endorsed “God Bless the USA Bible.” That book — which is printed in China and in a translation named for a British monarch — heretically stamps an American flag on the cover and includes nationalistic documents inside like the Constitution, Pledge of Allegiance, and lyrics to Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the U.S.A.”
Undaunted by the lawmakers’ rejection, Greenwood’s Bible company the next day rolled out a site so people can buy a copy of the “God Bless the USA Bible” (for $60) that will then be donated to the Oklahoma Department of Education. The site is also designed to add more states, since bad Christian Nationalistic ideas do tend to spread like bird flu from state to state.
To be clear, individuals buying the Bibles to donate is much better than taxpayer money being spent on them. But this is still bad. Public Schools are not Sunday Schools. And this is a gross grift because you can buy a Bible for a whole lot less than $60. It’s sadly ironic that some people who claim to be pro-Bible are really chasing after Mammon.
Survey Says…
Other News of Note
Robert Downen of the Texas Tribune reported on a Texas Senate committee hearing that led to the passage of bills to put the Ten Commandments in public schools and allow prayer in public schools.
Noel Sims reported for Popular Information about the “book-banning pastor” traveling across the country to speak at school board meetings.
ProPublica reported that Speaker Mike Johnson is living in a D.C. house owned by a Christian Nationalistic pastor.
As part of an effort to cancel foreign aid, the Trump administration is targeting Christian charities.
The Episcopal News Service reported on the “mountain of supportive mail” that Bishop Mariann Budde received after her sermon urging President Donald Trump to “have mercy” on LGBTQ children and migrant workers.
“The symbol of Lent is ashes, and we are definitively surrounded by ashes. … God loves us. God weeps with us. And God walks with us through the ashes.” —Rev. Grace Park, a pastor at Pacific Palisades Presbyterian Church in California which was destroyed by a wildfire in January, in an interview with NPR.
The Presbyterian Outlook found its Instagram account suddenly banned by Meta this week. After a public outcry, it was restored. But the publication has decided not to return.
After investigations showing a cover-up of clergy sexual abuse at the charismatic International House of Prayer in Kansas City, Missouri, a local police department and a local fire department dismissed all chaplains connected to the church.
Amid divisions in the United Methodist Church over same-sex marriage, members of the new Global Methodist Church in Liberia were arrested for allegedly disrupting Sunday services at United Methodist congregations.
Habitat for Humanity held an advocacy day with state lawmakers in Georgia — complete with volunteers framing a home on the Capitol lawn.
A state senator in Georgia filed legislation to replace a statue in the U.S. Capitol of the vice president of the Confederate States with one of former U.S. President Jimmy Carter.
Photo of the Week
Thanks for reading!