Word And Way

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.