News

For this issue of A Public Witness, we tuned into the latest ReAwaken America Tour event so you wouldn’t have to watch. We’ll show you how Lahmeyer and others are trying to push Christians to accept Christian Nationalism as the only alternative other than atheism. Then we’ll look at the madness of their false gospel and the response needed from Christians outraged by such cynical logic.

Former U.S. Sen. John Danforth, a longtime Missouri Republican politician and Episcopal priest, urged those attending a Methodist church in Kansas to not make an idol out of politics. Danforth also warned of the dangers of “holy war” politics as he spoke virtually on Sunday at the Church of the Resurrection, a large United Methodist congregation that has multiple locations in the Kansas City metro area.

The Hamilton-Garrett Center for Music and Arts in the Roxbury neighborhood in Boston has been for the past year a recipient of funds through a Negro Spiritual Royalties Project of the nearby United Parish in Brookline. It is one of at least a dozen churches and organizations across the country committed to monetarily acknowledging spirituals that have been sung for centuries.

The acting general secretary of the World Council of Churches met this week with Patriarch Kirill, the Russian Orthodox Church head who has drawn global criticism for lending spiritual support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The meeting followed months of controversy surrounding the Russian Orthodox Church’s membership in the WCC.

In just a couple weeks, voters in five states will consider proposed amendments to their state constitutions that would remove the slavery exception for prisons. In this issue of A Public Witness, we look at state-level efforts to undo the slavery exception with a focus on clergy in Tennessee who are speaking out. Additionally, we consider how Christians elsewhere can also advocate for prison reform.

Robert D. Cornwall reviews "Strength for the Fight: The Life and Faith of Jackie Robinson" by Gary Scott Smith. The book not only serves to demonstrate the importance of religion in this story but also comes at the right moment, at a moment that many in the United States have forgotten how difficult it has been, and in many ways still is, for people of color to navigate a nation that has been defined by people of European descent.

Welcome to Branson, Missouri, where the holy trinity of faith, flag, and family reign supreme and where an inspirational, God-and-country style of Christian nationalism serves as comfort food for the American soul. For more than a century, weary pilgrims have sought spiritual renewal and rest from the troubles of modern life here in the heart of the Ozarks — hoping to find a nostalgic vision of a beautiful America.

This issue of A Public Witness examines the political attacks on Warnock’s faith during this campaign and his previous run, and also considers similar attacks on King. This rhetoric exposes how some preachers and politicians supporting the dominant power structures seek to excommunicate the Black church as not really Christian.

Before attending the packed Sunday morning service, Queen Sonja of Norway praised Mindekirken congregation for having maintained worship in Norwegian for all 100 years that the church has existed in Minneapolis.

Rev. Jonathan Lee Walton, an academician, preacher and administrator who has served on the faculties of Wake Forest and Harvard divinity schools, has been named the next president of Princeton Theological Seminary. He will be the first Black president of the seminary.