News

This issue of A Public Witness reviews the position of congressional chaplain before analyzing last week’s House prayers during the battle to elect a new speaker. Then it offers a benediction contemplating a better way of thinking about religion and politics.

For years, Southern Baptist Convention leaders refused to listen to abuse survivors, ignoring their concerns and labeling them as enemies of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination. One of the first steps toward changing was setting up a confidential hotline.

Agape Boarding School announced it will shut down Jan. 20. The closure is long-awaited for dozens of former students who have gone public with their allegations of physical, mental, and sexual abuse at Agape, which opened in Missouri in 1996.

An 800-year-old puzzle about a set of 13th-century floor tiles has added to historians’ thinking about the relationship of Europeans and Arabs at the time of the Crusades. It is telling visual evidence that Christian Europe was more porous than historians have believed.

In this issue of A Public Witness, we look at the role of Christianity in Brazilian politics and consider what the violence on Jan. 8 means for churches. While many reporters and commentators draw comparisons between Jan. 6 and Jan. 8, religion is too often left out of the conversation.

Robert D. Cornwall reviews "Becoming Human: The Holy Spirit and the Rhetoric of Race" by Luke A. Powery. This book draws upon theology, especially the theology of the Holy Spirit, to provide a theological foundation for responding to the racialization present in society.

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, nearly every congregation in the United States shut down, at least for a while. For some Americans, that was the push they needed to never come back to church.

Just as the sun was rising over the U.S. Capitol building on Friday morning, several prominent Christian leaders gathered across the street for a prayer vigil. This event marked the second anniversary of the insurrection that followed the electoral defeat of then-President Donald Trump.

“Christian nationalist” once summoned images of fiery extremists — stark racists concerned with keeping immigrants out of the United States or politicians who argued that the Ten Commandments ought to coexist in law with the Constitution. Then came Jan. 6, and suddenly the term became a culture-war acid test.

Pope Francis joined tens of thousands of faithful in bidding farewell to Benedict XVI at a rare requiem Mass Thursday for a dead pope presided over by a living one, ending an unprecedented decade for the Catholic Church that was triggered by the German theologian’s decision to retire.