Home - Word&Way

Featured

Churches are calling for restraint, humanitarian support, and law and order as xenophobic unrest deepens.

The anthropologist discusses her new book, why many Western countries are having trouble responding to climate issues, and how theological motifs relate to fossil fuels and artificial intelligence.

Scholar Anthony B. Pinn offers a revelatory exploration of what the Bible's underdogs and forgotten figures can teach us about our humanity.

No posts were found.

Videos

Church

Jones is stepping down as president of Union Theological Seminary after 18 years. Her tenure has been defined by difficult, sometimes unpopular decisions that helped stabilize the institution even as mainline Protestantism declines.

Translating the Bible into Cherokee began early in the 19th century, shortly after Protestant missionaries arrived in the Cherokee Nation – centered mainly in what are now western North Carolina, north Georgia, and eastern Tennessee.

‘We need accountability. We need to set goals, track registrations, follow up to ensure that those who register actually vote,’ a Church of God in Christ bishop said at an ‘emergency’ meeting.

Nation

Jonathan Morris, a former priest and current Fox News commentator, and Washington Nationals pitcher Trevor Williams led the service in Pete Hegseth’s absence.

The chosen readings, to be voted on by the State Board of Education, draw heavily from Christian perspectives.

Jackson Lahmeyer, who founded Pastors for Trump and leads Sheridan Church in Tulsa, exchanged thousands of romantic text messages with a woman who is not his wife.

World

The worldwide Anglican Communion, which includes the Episcopal Church in the U.S., has no formal head, but the archbishop traditionally has been seen as its spiritual leader.

This issue of A Public Witness highlights important voices of opposition to imperial plotting from a variety of religious groups, ranging from Lutherans to Baptists, Anglicans, Catholics, and others.

Historic Christian churches representing the predominantly Arab Christian community and mostly U.S. evangelicals who support Israel are at odds with each other.

Editorials

In this issue of A Public Witness, Brian Kaylor introduces us to 10 gifts the proud “Christian Nationalist” on your list will love. But please don’t buy these unless you want to end up on the naughty list (and make the baby Jesus cry). Instead, these gift suggestions show us

For day 1 of our Unsettling Advent devotionals, Brian Kaylor reflects on the importance of learning from those who have lived under authoritarian occupation like what is happening today in Ukraine.

Editor-in-Chief Brian Kaylor reacts to being called a "Marxist pastor" by political trickster Roger Stone. The incident arose because of Kaylor's critiques of the ReAwaken America Tour at which Stone has spoken.

Word&Way Voices

Despite the tough-on-crime adage that prisoners enjoy 'three hots and a cot' during their time behind bars, this paints far too rosy a picture of the meager portions of low-quality and ultra-processed foods available.

When we have created — and allowed — a world where the fearmongering of scarcity is rewarded far and above the possibility of abundance, we are indeed facing Advent in a time of starvation.

The good news of Advent is this: Christ entered the violence of human life, the very violence that says some folks are more valuable than others, and took on these abstractions.

E-Newsletter

The story about Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reading a prayer based on a scene in a Quentin Tarantino film really did go viral in the U.S. and elsewhere. And it all started with our newsletter A Public Witness.

In addition, ‘The Surprising Story of How Speaker Johnson Read a Fake Jefferson Prayer’ won the magazine feature category and Best in Class for Writing for Periodicals and our Unsettling Advent devotionals won the editorial series category and Best in Class for Specialized Writing.

Pete Hegseth, who likes to call himself ‘secretary of war,’ read a prayer during the latest government worship service that echoes a scene written by Quentin Tarantino calling for ‘great vengeance and furious anger.’

Sign up to receive full essays in your inbox!

Recent Episodes

Books

Scholar Matthew Boedy exposes a dangerous plan driven by prosperity preachers, extremist politicians, and right-wing power brokers to destroy democracy and turn America into a Christian Nationalist state.

Beth Felker Jones offers a theologically grounded reflection on the beauty and complexity of the Protestant tradition, inviting a deeper understanding of Protestantism and its place in the broader Christian community.

In this book, Baptist theologian Myles Werntz explores the landscape of twentieth-century ecclesiology and shows how the four marks of the church were remade, contested, and reaffirmed in surprising ways.

Beau Underwood reviews The Seven Mountains Mandate: Exposing the Dangerous Plan to Christianize America and Destroy Democracy, which Matthew Boedy wrote to alert those who were ignorant or complacent about what was going on and what was at stake.