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This issue of A Public Witness reflects on Genocide Awareness Month and how we can’t stop atrocities if we refuse to see them.

During the heyday of American churchgoing, some presidents sought to use religion to unite the country. In the age of Trump, it is one more thing to fight over.

The protest, organized by Christians for a Free Palestine, followed a Communion service held on Capitol grounds.

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Dangerous Dogma

Church

A prominent Southern Baptist church in Fort Worth, Texas, will host a two-day event this weekend featuring disgraced former Lt. General Michael Flynn and other activists who have pushed QAnon conspiracy theories about alleged sex trafficking rings.

These are the latest in a series of expulsions in recent years, most notably when it ousted one of its largest, California's Saddleback Church, and a Louisville, Kentucky congregation for having women in ministry leadership roles.

For nearly a century, Southern Baptist churches have banded together to raise funds for mission in the US and around the world, raising more than $20 billion through their Cooperative Program. But the trust that once held the program together is fraying.

Nation

This issue of A Public Witness looks at recent and dangerous efforts from Donald Trump, Michael Flynn, Charlie Kirk, and others to define religious adherence by partisanship.

In the wake of gun violence that left three adults and three children dead, the students and their families have formed tight bonds out of their shared suffering.

Catholic Charities locations have become the target of far-right media personalities, conspiracy theorists, and even members of Congress.

World

Many of the salt-making families are Christian. Reconciling Christian faith with Native Hawaiian spirituality can be challenging, but it often happens organically.

The only Baptist church in the Gaza Strip — and one of just four Christian congregations in the besieged territory — received significant damage from an Israeli attack on Tuesday.

The change, enacted in legislation signed by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in July, reflects both Ukrainians' dismay with the 22-month-old Russian invasion and their assertion of a national identity.

Editorials

Editor-in-Chief Brian Kaylor reflects on comments made about school prayer as the U.S. Supreme Court agrees to hear a significant church-state case. Some conservative Christian groups are wrongly calling public prayer just a “private” act.

As a Jewish legal advocate and a Baptist minister, we support the arguments of Boston in this critical First Amendment case that Supreme Court justices will hear on Jan. 18. Read the Boston Globe op-ed by Rachel Laser (president/CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State) and Brian

In day 18 of our Unsettling Advent devotional series, Word&Way Editor-in-Chief Brian Kaylor reflects on the news of a camel escaping from a live nativity in Kansas.

Word&Way Voices

Despite the horrors of ancient and current tyrannies, genocidal regimes, profit-driven greed, religious charlatans, social bigots, and political hypocrites, the heart of Advent is that God will not give up on humanity and the world.

Rev. Lauren Bennett reflects on her experience with a state execution this year and how faith requires us to bring softness to hard places while opening ourselves to meet Jesus in unlikely faces.

Many things have changed since ‘Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her’ was written, but not who receives the harshest punishments: those with the least social power.

E-Newsletter

This issue of A Public Witness tracks which members of Congress are no longer part of the United Methodist Church to consider what that reveals about Methodist life as well as religion and politics more broadly.

This issue of A Public Witness heads to the border to consider an ongoing legal controversy and an obscure theological theory some hope will migrate into our political system.

This issue of A Public Witness considers a recent case for “our Christian nation” made by Republican U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri to unpack where he’s wrong and why it matters.

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Podcasts

In episode 71 of Dangerous Dogma, Sarah Posner, author of God's Profits and Unholy, talks about covering religion and politics. She also discusses issues of Christian Nationalism, the U.S. Supreme Court, Donald Trump, and ongoing threats to democracy.

Bekah McNeel, an education journalist, talks about her new book Bringing Up Kids When Church Lets You Down: A Guide for Parents Questioning Their Faith. She also discusses the impact of COVID-19 on education, debates about critical race theory, and reacting to the Uvalde, Texas,

In episode 69, Jack Jenkins, a national reporter for Religion News Service about his work reporting on religion and politics on both the right and left. He also discusses his book American Prophets: The Religious Roots of Progressive Politics and

In episode 68, Angela Denker, a Lutheran pastor and journalist, talks about her book Red State Christians: A Journey into White Christian Nationalism and the Wreckage It Leaves Behind. She also discusses Lutherans, racism, and the need for pastors to speak

Books

In his timely new book, noted scholar David Gushee brings his incisive ethical lens to defending democratic commitments and articulating the need for Christians to recommit themselves to its practices.

In "Every Step Is Home: A Spiritual Geography from Appalachia to Alaska," globetrotting travel writer Lori Erickson explores spiritual sites and experiences closer to home.

In "bell hooks' Spiritual Vision: Buddhist, Christian, and Feminist," Nadra Nittle offers readers a window into religion's role throughout the prominent social critic's writings.

In "My Body, Their Baby: A Progressive Christian Vision for Surrogacy," Grace Kao assesses the ethics of surrogacy from a feminist perspective, concluding that certain kinds of arrangements should be embraced.