News

A Montana Baptist pastor who has spent years warning that liberals were taking over the Southern Baptist Convention and evangelical churches, was arrested on DUI and weapons charges. 

Republican Senate hopeful Mehmet Oz is stepping up his criticism of far-right candidates in Pennsylvania who are gaining traction ahead of Tuesday’s primary election.

Reconfirming the status quo in Jerusalem will require some hard diplomacy and a lot of goodwill. King Abdullah II of Jordan is the custodian of Muslim holy places in Jerusalem, via a religious trust known as the Waqf Council.

Doug Mastriano leads the crowded primary field in the polls ahead of voting on Tuesday. And should he win, a man who espouses Christian Nationalism, has spoken at QAnon events, and was at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, would be the Republican nominee in a swing state for a race that pretty much all political analysts call a “tossup” in the general election.

Alejandro Clemente González was talking with an electrician while preparing for weekend services at Cuba's most important Baptist church when an enormous explosion shook the building and shattered the 19th century dome towering far above the pews. 

Interfaith leaders, including a top White House official, gathered at Georgetown University on Tuesday to affirm engagement across faiths and urge more multireligious action to enhance democracy and diminish polarization.

Bishop Vashti McKenzie, a recently retired bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, has been named the interim president and general secretary of the National Council of Churches, the ecumenical organization announced Tuesday. McKenzie succeeds Jim Winkler.

A new report on critical race theory only added fuel to the dispute that has engulfed the Christian college. Stakeholders for Grove City College in Pennsylvania have both celebrated and balked at the report and its listed “remedial actions.”

In this issue of A Public Witness, we look at the few protests at churches that actually occurred over the weekend. Then we recall more significant political protests in sanctuaries in the past before considering what all of this might portend for free speech in sacred spaces during this charged cultural moment.

Robert D. Cornwall reviews The Mind in Another Place: My Life as a Scholar by Luke Timothy Johnson. The book serves as a memoir about the life of a scholar, written both for potential academics and for those who wonder what it is like to live a life committed to research, teaching, and writing.