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The Native American International Caucus, which advocates for Native Americans both inside and outside of the UMC, is calling on lawmakers to get rid of Columbus Day. To replace the federal holiday, which this year falls on Oct. 10, the caucus is asking Congress to approve several bills formalizing Indigenous Peoples Day as a legal public holiday, according to a statement from the caucus posted on it website Tuesday.

On the morning after an explosive news report that Senate hopeful Herschel Walker paid for a girlfriend’s abortion in 2009, the Georgia Republican attended a closed prayer event at First Baptist Church in Atlanta. Journalists who showed up at the church were told by church staffers they had to leave. But Word&Way found photos and videos shared on social media by attendees that give insights into the campaign event.

Although Doug Mastriano stands out for his extreme embrace of Christian Nationalist ideas, his co-opting of Esther 4:14 for his campaign is actually fairly standard campaign fare. So, in this issue of A Public Witness, we listen to the Esther moments showing up all the time in our politics today. Then we look in our Bibles to see what the passage actually teaches before offering a warning about the political misuse of this popular verse.

Robert D. Cornwall reviews "Theology and the Star Wars Universe" edited by Benjamin D. Espinoza. This book is part of a larger series of academic studies that explore the relationship between theology/religion and pop culture. The idea here is to invite a series of religion scholars to engage in conversation with Star Wars, where a universe centered in the Force has always provided intriguing theological possibilities.

Several students, faculty, and staff held a protest outside an event being held by Samford’s Office of Spiritual Life. The protest requested that LGBTQ-affirming churches be welcome at the ministry fair, that the school approve a gay/straight alliance, and that the school pass anti-discrimination policy to protect LGBTQ students. Advocates say that while Samford’s anti-LGBTQ stance might not be new, its rejection of ecumenism is.

Liz Cooledge Jenkins unpacks the hypocrisy in voicing support for Iranian women who protest oppressive patriarchy in their context while remaining strangely silent about oppressive patriarchy — and even hostile to those who speak up against it — in our own U.S. context. People in complementarian churches often hear feminist critique and feel like the good-hearted men in their lives are being personally attacked.

Though many congregations in the U.S. are relatively homogeneous, others are sharply divided. In some cases, divisions are becoming more pronounced as midterm election season heats up, leaving clergy to keep the peace while still meeting the spiritual needs of all of their members.

When it comes to memorializing the nation’s Civil War legacy, Americans are nearly evenly divided over whether to preserve Confederate symbols, memorials, and statues, according to a new Public Religion Research Institute survey. The country’s divisions over the legacy of the Confederacy are bigger than geography – they exist in all parts of the country and can best be predicted by party affiliation, race, and religion.

In this edition of A Public Witness, we take a look at Samford University’s past and find that its current justifications for excluding other Christians from campus rest on a revisionist whitewashing of its own history. After naming Samford’s struggle to face the ghosts in its proverbial closet, we look at attempts by other Christian institutions of higher education to exorcize similar demons.

An interfaith group of activists and religious advocates voiced concerns about the rise of Christian nationalism on Wednesday, arguing the ideology is a threat to democracy during a briefing on Capitol Hill. Speakers at the hourlong briefing outlined what they said were specific threats posed by Christian nationalism, a fusion of faith and national identity that swelled during the tenure of former President Donald Trump.