News

Since 2018, the Southern Baptist Convention has lost a series of high-profile leaders whose tenures ended due to controversy or misconduct. The latest to depart is Ronnie Floyd, a former megachurch pastor who resigned as president of the SBC’s Nashville-based Executive Committee in mid-October.

In this issue of A Public Witness, we interrogate the arguments about military chaplains in the recent confirmation hearing by the Senate Armed Services Committee. We also testify to the proper role of military chaplains and the problems with a misguided, sectarian approach favored by some senators. 

Senior Editor Beau Underwood interviews Ann Hultquist, pastor of Augustana Lutheran Church in Denver, Colorado, for the latest installment of our “Behind the Pulpit” series intended to pull back the curtain on the minister’s life.

Voting rights advocate Stacey Abrams on Sunday (Oct. 17) urged Black churchgoers to turn out for Democrat Terry McAuliffe in next month’s Virginia governor’s election, saying that what happens in the most watched race this year will “show the world who we are” in future contests with even higher stakes.

A group of 17 missionaries including children was kidnapped by a gang in Haiti, according to a voice message sent to various religious missions by an organization with direct knowledge of the incident. 

A new survey of 15,278 religious congregations across the United States confirms trends sociologists have documented for several decades: Congregational life across the country is shrinking. 

While conservative evangelicals are the group most often criticized for equating American identity with adherence to Christianity, White progressive Christians have work to do to address their own Christian Nationalism, experts said at an ecumenical gathering this week.

In this edition of A Public Witness, we’ll brief you on Michael Farris’s career within the conservative Christian Right after stunning details emerged last week about his role in trying to overturn the 2020 election.

In Exodus 13, the Israelites carried the bones of Joseph as they left Egypt toward the promised land. This can be seen today as Jews in Poland buried the remains of a Jew who died during World War II.

Apostolic groups that infuse traditional beliefs into a Pentecostal doctrine are among the most skeptical in Zimbabwe when it comes to COVID-19 vaccines, with an already strong mistrust of modern medicine. But some members are trying to change that.