Word&Way News: Jan. 24
Here’s the weekly roundup from Word&Way. In addition to a report on prayers during inaugural events and a look at a sermon to the new president from Episcopal Bishop Mariann Budde that are free for anyone to read, paid subscribers to A Public Witness received a piece about the transformation of the U.N. health agency that Donald Trump now wants to defund.
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Review: The Anti-Greed Gospel. Robert D. Cornwall reviewed The Anti-Greed Gospel: Why the Love of Money Is the Root of Racism and How the Church Can Create a New Way Forward by Malcolm Foley.
Trump Administration Throws Out Policies Limiting Migrant Arrests at Sensitive Spots Like Churches. Rebecca Santana reported on a new move that would allow ICE and Border Patrol agents to arrest migrants inside houses of worship.
Faith-Based Aid Agencies Challenge Trump’s Order ‘Realigning’ Refugee Program. Jack Jenkins reported on the quick pushback to a new executive order blocking refugees from entering the United States.
Syrian Christians Want Their Identity and Freedoms Protected in Any New Constitution, Envoy Says. Menelaos Hadjicostis reported on efforts to create a freer Syria after the fall of dictator Bashar al-Assad.
After Helene, One Asheville Church Finds a Way To Step Up. Yonat Shimron reported on a Presbyterian church helping people after devastation from a hurricane and flooding.
by Brian Kaylor, Word&Way Editor-in-Chief
On Wednesday (Jan. 22), I trekked over to the Missouri Capitol to testify for the first time this legislative session. I usually find myself there several times each year to speak on church-state issues. This time, I went to the House Emerging Issues Committee to oppose a bill that would create a religious exemption to public health rules. I've testified against similar bills each year since the COVID-19 pandemic started to explain why there shouldn’t be a pandemic privilege for religion. (I laid out my basic argument for the Missouri Independent in 2021.)
While I waited for that bill to be heard, I listened as the committee considered another piece of legislation that would bar Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (or DEI) programs in state government departments. Republican Rep. Ben Baker, a lay Pentecostal minister and the former dean of students for a Pentecostal school, sponsored the bill. At one point, Democratic Rep. Aaron Crossley asked Baker what he would do to end inequities instead of trying DEI initiatives.
“I would say read the Bible,” Baker quickly responded.
As Crossley noted, that’s not a legislative solution (although Baker might try to mandate it). Of course, just reading the Bible isn’t the answer considering how some people read the Bible to justify slavery and Jim Crow discrimination — the things which created the lasting consequences that DEI programs today seek to undo.
White Christian Nationalism desires a society that isn’t diverse, equitable, or inclusive. And it invokes the Bible as a meaningless platitude to avoid doing real work. Such flippant responses also avoid actually engaging with the sacred texts. Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. reminded us of this as he mentioned in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail how he wondered about the way many White Christians read the Bible and viewed God.
“I have looked at the South’s beautiful churches with their lofty spires pointing heavenward,” he wrote. “I have beheld the impressive outlines of her massive religious education buildings. Over and over I have found myself asking: ‘What kind of people worship here? Who is their God?’”
Other News of Note
Mitchell Atencio of Sojourners wrote about the pre-inauguration service at St. John’s Episcopal Church (and quoted Brian Kaylor).
President Donald Trump pardoned about 1,500 people for their actions during the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. That included several pastors who had been charged and even convicted for their participation.
A pastor who campaigned for Trump and then prayed at Trump’s inauguration followed Trump’s lead in launching an eponymous meme coin (a particularly volatile type of cryptocurrency tied to a celebrity or online joke that can be an exploitive way for creators to make money).
Jason DeRose of NPR reported on Christians pushing back against efforts to compare Trump to biblical kings.
Rev. Angela Denker wrote for the Minnesota Star Tribune about participating as a Lutheran minister at a recent religious freedom event sponsored by a state humanist organization.
“Teaching the Ten Commandments as a basis for our laws, which is what this bill calls for, is clearly a violation of the right to religious freedom.” —Rev. Lauren Stanley, an Episcopal priest, testifying in the South Dakota House State Affairs Committee against a bill that would mandate posting the Ten Commandments in every public school classroom.
Adam MacInnis of Christianity Today reported on a proposal in Canada to end the tax-exempt status for houses of worship.
Rev. Jeff Hood, who is opposed to capital punishment, is protesting outside a Baptist church in Texas as it supports the upcoming execution of a man convicted of killing a pastor.
Metaphor alert? The building where the Southern Baptist Convention started is “in danger of structurally failing.”
Three competing Presbyterian groups in Pakistan that had split from each other reunited last week, coming back together as the Presbyterian Church of Pakistan for the first time since the schisms started in 2017.
The Mennonite Church USA published a guide to help congregations install electric vehicle charging stations.
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