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1 week ago | 
wordandway.org | Jeremy Fuzy |Jeremy Füzy
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s affiliation with the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches – commonly called the CREC – drew attention even before his confirmation hearings in January 2025. More recently, media reports highlighted a Pentagon prayer led by Hegseth and his pastor, Brooks Potteiger, in which they praised President Donald Trump, who they said was divinely appointed. As a scholar of the Christian right, I have studied the CREC.
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1 week ago | 
wordandway.org | Jeremy Fuzy |Jeremy Füzy
WILLIAMSBURG, Va. (AP) — The rebuilding of one of the nation’s oldest Black churches, whose congregants first gathered outdoors in secret before constructing a wooden meetinghouse in Virginia, started Thursday with a ceremonial groundbreaking. The First Baptist Church of Williamsburg officially established itself in 1776, although parishioners met before then in fields and under trees in defiance of laws that prevented African Americans from congregating.
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1 week ago | 
wordandway.org | Jeremy Fuzy |Jeremy Füzy
If you wanted to create a parody commission on religious liberty that actually undermined the stated goal, you’d be hard-pressed to top the actual White House Religious Liberty Commission that held its first meeting Monday (June 16). Although the phrase “religious liberty” appears in the title of the commission, it’s really advancing Christian Nationalism and working against true religious liberty for all.
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1 week ago | 
wordandway.org | Jeremy Fuzy |Jeremy Füzy
(RNS) — In the Buick sedan Vance Boelter left on a rural road outside Minneapolis, law enforcement found a letter addressed to the FBI identifying himself as “the shooter at large in Minnesota.”Police have also found a Ford SUV belonging to Boelter, filled with weapons, notebooks full of website names and other resources suggesting he stalked his victims, and a list of some 70 politicians that authorities say he also targeted.
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1 week ago | 
wordandway.org | Jeremy Fuzy |Jeremy Füzy
WASHINGTON (RNS) — “Lift Every Voice and Sing” is a hymn many African Americans of older generations just know. They’d sung it in church, learned it in school, and stood for what is dubbed the unofficial Black national anthem just like they might for “The Star-Spangled Banner.”“Lift every voice and sing/’Til earth and heaven ring/Ring with the harmonies of Liberty,” it begins.
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1 week ago | 
wordandway.org | Jeremy Fuzy |Jeremy Füzy
CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — People of faith gathered again at Mother Emanuel AME on Tuesday just like they did 10 years ago, searching for God’s truth and His love in the church fellowship hall. On that horrible night in 2015, nine Black church members were gunned down by a white man who hated them just for the color of their skin. He sat with them through their Bible study, then as they closed their eyes and bowed their heads, he started firing.
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1 week ago | 
wordandway.org | Jeremy Fuzy |Jeremy Füzy
(RNS) — On June 19, 1865, slaves in Galveston, Texas, finally got news of their liberation — two years after President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation abolishing slavery. Ever since, Texans have celebrated the end of slavery on Juneteenth, a melding of the words “June” and “nineteenth.” Juneteenth was designated as a day of observance in Texas in 1980, followed by Oklahoma, Minnesota, and Florida in the 1990s.
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1 week ago | 
wordandway.org | Jeremy Fuzy |Jeremy Füzy
NOTE: This piece was originally published at our Substack newsletter A Public Witness. On Thursday (June 12), Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu went to the Western Wall to place a note between the stones. The site, also called the Wailing Wall or the Kotel, is part of the ancient retaining wall built at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
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1 week ago | 
wordandway.org | Jeremy Fuzy |Jeremy Füzy
GREEN STREET IN BLACK AND WHITE: A Chicago Story. By Dave Larsen. Canton, MI: Reformed Journal Books (Front Edge Publishing), 179 pages. Sometimes, when we want to tell our own story, especially when it involves difficult moments in life, we might want to turn it into fiction. That way, you can include figures and dialogue that expand the story without revealing personal details. When discussing the impact of a community’s changing demographics, this can prove valuable.
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1 week ago | 
wordandway.org | Jeremy Fuzy |Jeremy Füzy
SHAKER HEIGHTS, Ohio (RNS) — On a drizzly Sunday in June, the scent of smoke wafted into the sanctuary of Christ Episcopal Church in Shaker Heights, Ohio, as a handful of parishioners prepared a post-service cookout on charcoal grills. The aroma added an immersive effect to the sermon of the Rev. Charles Graves IV, who was preaching about the Holy Spirit’s arrival on Pentecost via flames, wind and in multiple languages.
