Word&Way News: July 3
Because of the Fourth of July holiday, we’re wrapping up the week early. Enjoy the fireworks! This week at A Public Witness, we published a look at a “Freedom Sunday” service mixing God, country, and MAGA politics.
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Review: Baptizing America. Robert D. Cornwall reviewed Baptizing America: How Mainline Protestants Helped Build Christian Nationalism by Brian Kaylor and Beau Underwood.
Understanding the Role of Contempt in MAGA Christianity. Rodney Kennedy explored the danger of seeing fellow Americans and Christians as evil enemies.
After Morris Allegations, Texas Legislators Vow to Expand Statutes of Limitations on Abuse. James Russell reported on the continuing impact of the fall of conservative megachurch pastor Robert Morris after allegations he sexually abused a minor girl.
Thousands of Faith Leaders, Union Members, Activists Rally for Poor. Jack Jenkins reported from a Poor People’s Campaign event in Washington, D.C.
Presbyterian Church (USA) Votes to Divest From Israel Bonds. Yonat Shimron reported on the biennial gathering in Utah of the nation’s largest Presbyterian denomination.
by Brian Kaylor, Word&Way Editor-in-Chief
Americans will tomorrow celebrate the nation’s 248th birthday, remembering when colonists decided to throw off the rule of a king and create a different political structure. But some Americans apparently yearn for a system where a powerful sovereign sits above the law. As Justice Sonia Sotomayor put it in her dissent Monday (July 1) as she criticized the majority’s decision to grant immunity to presidents: “The relationship between the president and the people he serves has shifted irrevocably. In every use of official power, the president is now a king above the law.”
The longing for an authoritarian strongman is one that keeps popping up throughout time and around the globe. Christians are not immune to such temptation (as David Gushee documented in his book Defending Democracy from Its Christian Enemies). But if we read the Bible carefully, we’ll see the warnings against trusting in kings. When the ancient Hebrew people demanded a king, the prophet Samuel warned them with a blistering stump speech how it would go badly for them. He repeated the point in another speech, which included an incredible mic-drop moment as he called on God to bring thunder and rain to set the ominous tone.
But the people demanded a king anyway. And it turned out badly. May we today listen to the ancient warnings of the prophets.
Other News of Note
An Arizona Republican leader called for lynching a county official (who is Jewish) because the official isn’t a Christian. Arizona pastors Katie Sexton and Caleb Campbell responded with an Arizona Republic column decrying “this divisive violent rhetoric that manipulates our religious values, distorting the core tenets of compassion and understanding that define our faith.”
In response to efforts in Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas to push Christianity in public schools, Amanda Tyler wrote for CNN about how “public schools are not Sunday Schools.”
A judge denied Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s effort to close a Catholic ministry helping migrants, calling Paxton’s actions “harassment” and “outrageous and intolerable.”
A commission of Catholic leaders in the Middle East criticized the invoking of “just war” theology to defend Israel’s attacks on Gaza. They added, “Neither the attacks by Hamas nor Israel’s devastating war in response satisfy the criteria for ‘just war’ according to Catholic Doctrine.” (The Southern Baptist Convention continues to insist the war against Gaza is a “just war.”)
“It takes time and effort to change something that destroys life into something that grows life.” —RAWtools blacksmith Fred Martin during a Guns to Garden event in Salt Lake City, Utah, in conjunction with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) general assembly to invite attendees to help in beating guns into garden tools.
The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) installed Rev. Jihyun Oh as its first woman of color to be stated clerk (the denomination’s chief ecclesial officer).
Morgan Lee of Christianity Today reported how after violent government crackdowns on protesters in Kenya, some church leaders are disinviting politicians from church events and crediting Gen Z protesters for having “pricked the conscience of the church to purge the pulpits of our churches from undue influence by politics and politicians.”
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