News

Leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention said Friday that several of the denomination’s major entities are under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice in the wake of its multiple problems related to clergy sex abuse.

On Friday, a group of religious leaders met outside First Baptist Church in Batavia, New York, to denounce the arrival of General Michael Flynn’s ReAwaken America Tour. What made this different from previous events put on by the group Faithful America is that the leaders speaking out against Christian nationalism came from both within and outside of Christianity.

The feuding that the Partition initiated between Indian and Pakistani Hindus and Muslims has not ceased. Increasingly it is fueled by governments on both sides that stoke religious nationalist feelings among their citizens. But in this 75th anniversary year of the Partition, many Indians and Pakistanis are looking to oral history to preserve the memory of interfaith collaboration as an essential part of their two countries’ histories.

A Christian pastor in western New York said he felt intimidated and harassed after the state’s attorney general, a Democrat, sent a letter saying she believed a planned far-right political event at his church this week could lead to racial violence.

A predominantly Black denomination and prominent union have joined forces in a new voter mobilization initiative ahead of the midterm elections. Reviving a partnership they had in the 1960s, the laborlab Convention and the AFL-CIO are launching a faith and labor alliance focused on battleground states.

In this edition of A Public Witness, we trace the evolution of CPAC. Then we examine the supposedly Christian practices and rhetoric that found expression deep in the heart of Texas, before testing the spirits of this witness.

When the Rev. Megan Rohrer was elected bishop of the ELCA’s Sierra Pacific Synod in 2021, the election was celebrated as a revolution in and outside of the denomination. But what followed is a "perfect storm" of charismatic personalities and a heightened awareness of racism, all brewing in one of the country’s whitest denominations.

Robert D. Cornwall reviews Freeing Jesus: Rediscovering Jesus as Friend, Teacher, Savior, Lord, Way, and Presence by Diana Butler Bass. This book is her attempt to free Jesus from the captivity she has experienced in life and in doing so invites us to do the same as a personal act of liberation.

We review a book each month at A Public Witness and for this installment, Beau Underwood examines and recommends Beth Allison Barr's The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth. He also discusses some of the strong reaction to the book by Barr's opponents.

Two of the most influential evangelical Christian magazines in the country named new leaders last week. Russell Moore, the former Southern Baptist ethicist, was named editor in chief at Christianity Today. Lynn Vincent, a motorcycle-riding Navy veteran and New York Times best-selling author, was recently named executive editor at World Magazine.