News

The inflation that has loomed over the economy and restricted many Americans’ purchasing power of late has doubly affected low-income people who already struggle to get by. A recent survey by Feeding America has shown that increased demand has affected nearly 80% of U.S. food banks, as higher prices cause more families to seek assistance.

Many still have a hard time seeing sexual misconduct by pastors as abusive. Particularly when the one abused is an adult, Baptists and other faith groups often view the survivor as the tempter — a sinner who led a holy man astray — rather than as a church member in need of care. Meanwhile, the fallen pastor is just another sinner who needs Jesus.

We review a book each month at A Public Witness and for this installment, Beau Underwood examines a memoir on family histories, racism, and what our society needs to do now. He highly recommends Lisa Sharon Harper.'s Fortune: How Race Broke My Family and the World — and How to Repair it All.

Since being elected to lead the World Council of Churches earlier this month, the Rev. Jerry Pillay, former general secretary of the Uniting Presbyterian Church in Southern Africa, has been rebuffing critics who accuse him of making antisemitic remarks by referring to Israel’s treatment of Palestinians as tantamount to apartheid.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to strike down Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that made abortion legal nationwide, has prompted lawmakers in Israel to make it simpler to terminate a pregnancy. On Sunday, the parliament’s Labor Welfare and Health Committee approved new regulations to reduce the bureaucracy and intrusive questions that Israeli women have long faced when seeking an abortion.

While the plan to split the mainline Protestant denomination over its disagreement about the ordination and marriage of LGBTQ United Methodists will likely still be considered at the next General Conference meeting, wavering support for the protocol leaves the church either imagining a new way forward or plunging into chaos, depending on whom you ask.

A Black Baptist preacher in Dallas, Texas, offered a fiery call at the general assembly of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship for Christians to engage in social justice even if they get attacked for being “heretics.”

In defiance of some U.S. bishops, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi reportedly received communion during a mass presided over by Pope Francis on Wednesday for the celebration of the feast of St. Peter and Paul. The Catholic congresswoman is banned from receiving the sacrament in four U.S. dioceses due to her abortion rights stance.

Robert D. Cornwall reviews Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible by Dietrich Bonhoeffer with a new introduction from Walter Brueggemann. While Bonhoeffer was thoroughly trained in the historical-critical method of biblical interpretation, in his book on the Psalms he reads them as if they are Davidic in origin.

In this issue of A Public Witness, we introduce the likely Republican gubernatorial nominee in Illinois. Then we revisit previous examples of interparty primary meddling before warning about the potential dangers of fueling Christian Nationalism for partisan gain.