News

In 1993, the Rev. Jerry Falwell Sr., founder of Liberty University and co-founder of the Moral Majority, promoted a book called “The Myth of Separation” by a Texan named David Barton. According to a Christian Century report, less than a month later on Falwell’s television show, “The Old Time Gospel Hour,” he preached a strident sermon in which he said, “Let everyone know that this separation of church and state business is bogus.”

On the final day of the 2022 Baptist World Alliance annual gathering, the BWA presented the 2022 Denton and Janice Lotz Human Rights Award to Daniel L. Buttry. Established in 2006, the annual award is given by the BWA for significant and effective activities to secure, protect, restore, or preserve human rights.

During the annual gathering of the Baptist World Alliance in Birmingham, Alabama, members of the body’s general council passed resolutions on the war in Ukraine, last year’s coup in Myanmar, racial justice, and slavery reparations.

Lawyer and activist Bryan Stevenson challenged Baptists from around the world to be truth-tellers about racial injustices. He spoke to a special session of the Baptist World Alliance’s annual gathering on Thursday.

Michael Flynn, a former military general implicated in helping foment the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, has a text he hopes preachers will utilize for sermons. The U.S. Constitution.

A fact-finding commission of the Episcopal Church will research the history of the denomination’s role in operating boarding schools for Native American children — part of a system the church now acknowledges was rooted in White Supremacy and caused generations of trauma.

As the Baptist World Alliance’s annual gathering opened this week in person for the first time since 2019, Baptists from around the country came together at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama, for a weeklong meeting focused on “standing for racial justice.”

In this edition of A Public Witness, we audit the conservative evangelical organizations now claiming the banner of “church” for tax purposes. Finally, we argue this tax scam harms the Christian witness as it undermines core theology about what it means to be a church.

Robert D. Cornwall reviews What Is My Calling?: A Biblical and Theological Exploration of Christian Identity by William W. Klein and Daniel J. Steiner. The book’s message can be helpful for those who are struggling to make sense of their desire or inner compulsion to pursue vocational ministry because calling does not equal a job.

A prominent mainline Christian denomination plans to divest from five oil companies it believes are not doing enough to address climate change. The vote to divest from Chevron, Exxon Mobil, Marathon Petroleum, Phillips 66, and Valero Energy comes after years of debate in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).