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President Donald Trump has appointed evangelical allies and a pair of high-profile Catholic clergy to join other faith leaders on a National Commission on Religious Liberty.

This issue of A Public Witness opens up the Aitken’s Bible to consider the tale of a flop and how Christian Nationalists misleadingly repackage it as ‘a Bible approved by Congress.’

The Southern Baptist Convention lost 259,090 members in 2024 — the 18th consecutive year of membership decline — according to the denomination’s Annual Church Profile report, released Wednesday.

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Church

One claim, about an allegedly defamatory tweet by another former denominational president, is still live. The SBC has spent more than $3 million in legal fees on the Hunt case.

Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Georgia, is best known as the church where former President Jimmy Carter taught Sunday School for decades. The church’s new pastor recently moved the U.S. and Christian flags out of the sanctuary.

They reject climate science but accept medical science, according to the National Survey of Religious Leaders published this week.

Nation

In a cable sent Friday to all U.S. diplomatic missions, Secretary of State Marco Rubio asked that staffers report any perceived discriminatory actions due to things like opposition to vaccines or personal pronoun choice.

U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich in Washington refused to grant a preliminary injunction to the plaintiffs, more than two dozen Christian and Jewish groups representing millions of Americans.

The judge’s ruling follows weeks of courtroom clashes between the government and three religious groups — HIAS, Church World Service, and Lutheran Community Services Northwest.

World

A growing list including the United Nations, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Doctors Without Borders, and dozens of Holocaust scholars have concluded that Israel is committing genocide.

While Trump fantasizes about retaking the waterway, this issue of A Public Witness digs into American colonialism and the roles Christian leaders and denominations played.

He’s been widely quoted — and misquoted. People have claimed Bonhoeffer would support their side on issues ranging from the Vietnam War to post-9/11 militarism to same-sex marriage to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection.

Editorials

With the 27th United Nations Climate Change Conference beginning this coming Sunday in Egypt, we are offering a piece originally published as the cover story of Word&Way magazine in October 2019 but which has never been published online. In addition to making an argument for why Christians should care about

MAGAchurch preaching occurs in sanctuaries across the country. But the prominence of First Baptist in Atlanta and his involvement in an important Senate campaign makes Rev. Anthony George a particularly important case study. So, in this issue of A Public Witness, I introduce you to George and his sermons before

This piece was originally published as the cover story of Word&Way magazine in October 2020, but which has never been published online. Read the piece online in our e-newsletter A Public Witness.

Word&Way Voices

Exploring Advent in a time of dangerous pregnancies, Angela Parker reflects on Black mothers dying preventable deaths.

Exploring Advent in a time of dangerous pregnancies, Angela Denker reflects on how pregnancy is both incredibly vulnerable and incredibly powerful.

For our first devotional on Advent in a time of dangerous pregnancies, Susan M. Shaw reflects on how John and Jesus’s births did not come without cost to the women who carried and bore them.

E-Newsletter

This issue of A Public Witness heads to the Cheese State to consider the church politicking of an Elon Musk-backed court hopeful.

This issue of A Public Witness looks at the U.S. government coming for a Palestinian student activist for exercising his free speech rights and the Christian and other religious voices speaking out for him.

Historian David Swartz unpacks his new seven-episode narrative podcast series on conversations in his Kentucky community about a local Confederate statue.

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Recent Episodes

Books

In "Imitating Christ: The Disputed Character of Christian Discipleship," New Testament scholar Luke Timothy Johnson reorients Christian living toward pursuing sainthood.

In “A Visible Unity: Cecil Robeck and the Work of Ecumenism,” Josiah Baker explores the efforts of Pentecostals towards reconciliation as something significant for how we understand the church.

In “American Christian Nationalism: Neither American nor Christian,” Michael W. Austin offers us a better form of civic engagement.

The upcoming election is certainly important, but the journey of addressing Christian Nationalism in our churches and nation will continue in the weeks, months, and years to follow.