Word&Way News: April 12
Here’s the weekly roundup from Word&Way. In addition to an alternative proposal for a “Christian Visibility Day” that is free for anyone to read, paid subscribers to A Public Witness received a reflection on a Holocaust memorial in Lithuania.
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Top 5 at wordandway.org
The Lord Was Not in the Earthquake. Brian Kaylor responded to claims God was sending a message through a small earthquake in New Jersey and a solar eclipse.
As Trump Hawks Bible, Debate Over ‘Christian America’ Spreads Outside Church. Bob Smietana wrote about the debate over Donald Trump selling a “God Bless the USA” Bible, with comments from Kristin Du Mez, Jim Wallis, Sarah McCammon, Brian Kaylor, and more.
Review: A Quilted Life. Robert D. Cornwall reviewed A Quilted Life: Reflections of a Sharecropper’s Daughter by Catherine Meeks.
Dozens of Christians Arrested After Shutting Down Senate Lunch in Protest of Gaza Famine. Aleja Hertzler-McCain reported on a protest and communion service at the U.S. Capitol.
For Christians Raised in ‘High-Control’ Settings, Elections May Trigger Religious Trauma. Kathryn Post wrote about people helping those experiencing religious trauma amid this year’s presidential campaign.
Dangerous Dogma
This week: Derek Kubilus on Holy Hell
Another noteworthy show this week:
Angela Denker and Sarah McCammon talked about Donald Trump and evangelicals on NPR’s 1A.
by Jeremy Fuzy, Word&Way Digital Editor
Like many others across North America, I was lucky enough to witness Monday’s solar eclipse in its totality.
Though I had read up on everything that would happen and remembered images and videos from 2017’s eclipse, witnessing it in person for the first time was a truly incredible experience. The goosebumps on my arms from the suddenly cooled air. The crickets waking up early to sing to the odd, dusky light. The stars emerging in the midday sky above what looked like a 360-degree sunset. The solar flares whispering around the edges of a pitch-black moon. It was all nothing short of miraculous.
Since I was there with longtime friends and their children, there were “dad jokes” aplenty. Do you know which star is the brightest in the sky? The sun. But when we ran out of these, the passage of time naturally made its way into our conversations. It was here that I realized something: for the next major eclipse that would pass over this very same field in 2045, the young teens present would all be about the adult’s ages now and we would be in our fifties.
We live in an uncertain time where thinking about the future can easily be terrifying. But something about this thought struck me as surprisingly beautiful. Just imagining the possibilities for each of our lives during a brief window of celestial spectacle was moving — whether they represented futures that will actually come to pass or not. For the first time, I felt viscerally what Matthew wrote about worry not adding a single hour to our lives.
Natural wonders like an eclipse have the power to shake us from our everyday routine and allow us to reflect differently on the universe and our place in it. I don’t know what I will be doing in a little over two decades, but I hope I’m still taking the time to blow off work (sorry, Brian), gather with loved ones, and look up in wonder.
Other News of Note
Eric Killelea of the Houston Chronicle reported on a conservative activist meeting at a Southern Baptist megachurch where Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick urged pastors to run for office.
Controversy erupted in Arizona after a state senator (who previously tried to overturn the 2020 election) led a group on the Senate floor to pray in tongues.
CNN talked to pastors in Wisconsin who refuted Donald Trump’s claims that Christianity is under attack.
Chris Lehmann of The Nation reported on the New Apostolic Reformation and the movement’s support of Donald Trump.
Harvest Prude of Christianity Today reported on some evangelicals embracing third-party candidates.
“Younger, left-leaning, or moderate Americans who might have formerly identified as ‘Christians’ in decades past are growing up in a world where the most famous representative of conservative Christian values is Donald Trump. They’re saying, ‘No thanks,’” Samuel Perry, co-author of The Flag and the Cross, in a Bloomberg article about how Trump might be hurting churches.
Robert F. Worth of The Atlantic reported on the clash between the head of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Ecumenical Patriarch of the broader Orthodox world.
The Missouri Senate passed a bill to ban child marriage (a bill previously covered by A Public Witness).
Katie Moore of the Kansas City Star spoke with Matt Frierdich, a United Church of Christ minister who served as the spiritual advisor for Brian Dorsey during this week’s execution of Dorsey in Missouri.
Cheryl Mann Bacon of The Christian Chronicle reported on trademark litigation involving names of Christian schools in Michigan and Louisiana.
Kelsey Dallas of the Deseret News wrote about the faith of South Carolina Women’s Basketball Coach Dawn Staley.
Photo of the Week
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