Word&Way News: June 14
Here’s the weekly roundup from Word&Way. In addition to a look at how “under God” got added to the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance 70 years ago today that is free for anyone to read, paid subscribers to A Public Witness received a report from the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting.
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Reminder: Today at 3 pm ET (2 pm CT), Brian Kaylor will be on a free webinar hosted by Faithful America to talk about Flag Day, the Pledge of Allegiance, and Christian Nationalism. Sign up to join the conversation.
Top 5 at wordandway.org
Melodies of Hope: Arab Christian Band Pays Tribute to the Heritage of Jordanian Hymns. Daoud Kuttab wrote about a Jordanian worship band that has made it their mission to perform and record hymns composed around the middle of the 20th century that might have otherwise been lost to time.
Review: Machen’s Hope. Robert D. Cornwall reviewed Machen’s Hope: The Transformation of a Modernist in the New Princeton by Richard E. Burnett.
At Florida Homeschool Convention, an Education in MAGA Politics. Katherine Stewart reported on the politics at an event billed as helping homeschool parents.
Rev. James Lawson Jr., Civil Rights Leader Who Preached Nonviolent Protest, Dies at 95. Martin Luther King Jr. called James Lawson Jr. “the leading theorist and strategist of nonviolence in the world.”
In Secular France, Chaplains Prepare to Provide Olympians With Spiritual Support During the Games. Giovanna Dell’Orto reported on how chaplains from five major global religions will be ministering inside the Olympic village.
Dangerous Dogma
This week: Shirley Mullen on Claiming the Courageous Middle
Other noteworthy podcasts this week:
Brian Kaylor appeared on Footnotes with host Jemar Tisby to talk about Baptizing America.
Beau Underwood appeared on Church & Main with host Dennis Sanders to talk about Baptizing America.
Sarah Posner talked about Christian Nationalism and the “great replacement theory” on The Daily Blast with host Greg Sargent.
by Brian Kaylor, Word&Way Editor-in-Chief
The latest inquisition targets a popular 20-year-old book by an author who died last year. The Presbyterian Church in America voted at its annual meeting yesterday (June 13) to have two denominational committees study if Jesus Calling by Sarah Young is heretical or not.
The vote targeting the book came 10 months after the death of Young, who was part of the PCA. She graduated from the denomination’s seminary and was the wife of a PCA elder and missionary. Her widower, Steve Young, spoke during the meeting to insist that “her writings did not add to Scripture but explain it.”
But a majority of the pastors and church leaders disagreed, apparently upset by a literary device as she used the voice of Jesus in her bestselling devotional book. By that logic, there are a lot of worship songs that will need to be tossed for heresy for speaking from the perspective of God, not to mention other books and probably quite a few pastors who have used such an approach in sermons.
Denominations joining politicians in book bans is a horrible idea. But it is telling which books are investigated and which are not. In trouble is one by a popular and influential woman teaching people about God — and only after she could no longer defend herself. Left alone is The Case for Christian Nationalism, one of the most strident defenses of a dangerous heresy (and penned by a PCA member). PCA pastor Kevin DeYoung criticized the book for its vision “that ethnicities shouldn’t mix, that heretics can be killed, that violent revolution is already justified, and that what our nation needs is a charismatic Caesar-like leader to raise our consciousness and galvanize the will of the people.”
The PCA sparked headlines last month when they canceled a session for this week’s annual meeting that would’ve featured conservative columnist David French. Too many people had complained about the panel because of French’s opposition to Donald Trump and criticism of racism within the PCA that he used to be a part of. Trump and Christian Nationalism, good; a devotional by a woman, bad. When supporting a man convicted on 34 felony counts for falsifying business documents to cover up his hush money payments to a porn star he had an affair with becomes an article of faith, then it will become hard to hear Jesus calling.
Other News of Note
In a secret recording, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito said he agreed the U.S. needs to return to “a place of godliness,” while Chief Justice John Roberts rejected the idea the U.S. is a “Christian nation.”
Adam Wren and Megan Messerly of Politico reported on how evangelicals want Donald Trump to pick an anti-abortion vice president even while admitting Trump already has their support.
Mike Hixenbaugh and Allan Smith of NBC News documented Charlie Kirk’s shift from supporting the separation of church and state to promoting Christian Nationalism.
Tim Dickinson of Rolling Stone profiled Tim Dunn, a Texas oil executive bankrolling Christian Nationalistic politics.
“The Christian faith that I practice has little in common with White Christian Nationalists. I don’t want to practice my faith segregated with my own race. I want relationships across racial lines.” —Rev. Stephen Jones, co-pastor at First Baptist Church in Kansas City, Missouri, in a Kansas City Star editorial.
Mimi Swartz of Texas Monthly reported on how a possibly defunct Southern Baptist church is being used as a shell to pay anti-abortion legal bills.
Rev. Jeff Hood shared with the Kansas City Star about what went on inside the death chamber as he prayed this week while Missouri executed David Hosier.
Rev. Greg Smith reviewed Baptizing America, calling it a “timely and challenging volume” on “a topic that has been kept silent far too long.”
Diana Butler Bass wrote at her Substack newsletter The Cottage about Martha-Ann Alito’s preferred psalm:
Photo of the Week
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