Word&Way News: March 1
Here’s the weekly roundup from Word&Way. This week at A Public Witness, we announced a new book by Brian Kaylor and Beau Underwood, and we published a report on a QAnon-themed conference traveling around to churches.
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Top 5 at wordandway.org
Hateful Faith and Violence Against Palestinians in the ‘Holy Land.’ Allan Boesak and Wendell Griffen argued that people who care about love, justice, and peace should be disgusted by U.S. complicity in the Israeli oppression of Palestinians.
Review: Reviving the Ancient Faith. Robert D. Cornwall reviewed James L. Gorman’s fresh edition of Richard T. Hughes’s classic work, Reviving the Ancient Faith: The Story of Churches of Christ in America.
How Hakeem Jeffries’ Black Baptist Upbringing and Deep-Rooted Faith Shapes His House Leadership. Darren Sands looked at the faith of the leading Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives.
LifeWise Academy Offers Off-Site Bible Instruction at Various School Districts Across Ohio. Megan Henry reported on Christian curriculum for public school students being used in 12 states.
The Alabama Ruling on Embryos Claimed to Be Christian. Christians Aren’t So Sure. Jack Jenkins reported on divergent theological opinions about IVF.
by Brian Kaylor, Word&Way Editor-in-Chief
As Houston megachurch pastor Ed Young Sr. preached on Sunday, he went on an anti-immigrant rant. A former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, Young called migrants coming in from Mexico “undesirables” and “garbage.” In his sermon full of misinformation, he also pushed rightwing conspiracy theories about progressives supposedly letting migrants into the country to establish a communist dictatorship.
It’s not Young’s first partisan screed dressed up as a sermon. Nor should it be surprising that this MAGAchurch pastor is parroting Trumpian talking points. After all, he appeared on stage recently at a Donald Trump rally to bless the event and the candidate with a prayer.
But it is still despicable that while talking about people made in the image of God, he called them “garbage.” Stunningly, he did so while preaching about “the parable of the lost sheep” in Luke 15!
In the New Revised Young Translation, the lost sheep is the U.S. that is “lost though foolishness” by not keeping migrants out. Somehow the pastor read a story about a sheep wandering and at risk but didn’t connect that to people wandering through a nearby dangerous desert. Unlike a good shepherd, Young would rather stay comfortably with the 99 in his massive church building.
What Young offered on Sunday wasn’t biblical exposition but partisan talking points taped onto an out-of-context reading from Scripture. Ironically, he was elected SBC president as part of the group claiming they were the ones who truly believed the Bible. But as he proved on Sunday, using the Bible as a prop doesn’t equal actually reading it.
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Other News of Note
Brian Kaylor wrote a column for the Missouri Independent about “when bad theology leads to bad laws.”
Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons wrote for MSNBC about Speaker Mike Johnson’s sermon-like presentation to his Republican colleagues (and quoted Brian Kaylor in the piece).
Steve Raby reported for Baptist News Global about an event in Colorado where “prophets” insisted God is backing Donald Trump in the 2024 election.
Bekah McNeel of Texas Monthly reported on Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s effort to shut down a Catholic charity ministering to migrants despite his claims he supports religious freedom.
A Republican gubernatorial candidate in Missouri defended being in a photo with a burning cross at a KKK event by insisting it was “a private religious Christian Identity cross lighting ceremony.”
“As Capitol Police officers zip-tied my wrists behind my back, I sang louder and thought to myself: ‘This is what it means to be a Christian. This is what pacifism meant to my Mennonite ancestors.’” —Greta Lapp Klassen of Sojourners about getting arrested for singing hymns in a congressional building as part of an effort of Mennonite Action (an advocacy effort that was also covered in a recent episode of Dangerous Dogma).
Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby recently refused to meet with Rev. Munther Isaac, a Palestinian pastor in Bethlehem. Welby has since apologized and will meet with Isaac, who has been a leading Christian voice against the genocide in Gaza.
Jayson Casper of Christianity Today reported on the first Christian prayer service in Petra, Jordan, in 1,400 years.
Starlette Thomas of Good Faith Media reported from the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference in Chicago, Illinois.
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