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Given Pete Hegseth’s insistence on co-opting a biblical term and employing it out of context as an insult against reporters doing their job, this issue of A Public Witness takes a look at the real Pharisees and the lesson the ‘secretary of war’ is missing.

Join us as we celebrate five years of our ‘A Public Witness’ newsletter and highlight the best from the 115 pieces we’ve published over the past 12 months exploring the intersection of faith, culture, and politics.

‘Most — nearly all — serious historians agree that America was not founded as a Christian nation in any meaningful legal, philosophical, or constitutional sense,’ says the group Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

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Church

Over a year since Donald Trump and JD Vance spread falsehoods about the city’s migrants eating pets, Haitians’ temporary protected status is set to run out Feb. 3.

An American Baptist church is just one block from where nurse Alex Pretti was executed Saturday by federal agents in the street. The church held a joint worship service the next morning elsewhere, but opened up its own building to serve those coming or leaving the memorial to Pretti.

Minneapolis-area AME Church officials stated Renee Good’s death ‘never should have happened’ and listed more than a dozen ways they have tried to meet community needs there.

Nation

Rev. Caleb Morell, a Southern Baptist, offered an evangelistic message about the resurrection of Jesus that stopped just short of a formal altar call as he urged government workers to follow Jesus.

Biblical stories like Jonah and the whale would be required reading for Texas public school students under proposals that are putting the state at the center of another contentious wrangling over the role of religion in classrooms.

‘For an administration that has been using religious language to justify the war, it’s remarkable that they have completely avoided engaging Christian moral theology on this point,’ said Robert P. Jones, a Christian Nationalism scholar.

World

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz has been trying to rally fellow evangelical Christians and urge Congress to designate Nigeria as a violator of religious freedom with unfounded claims.

Anyone trying to build a bridge between faiths is liable to invoke Abraham — revered as a founding figure in Christianity, Islam, and Judaism — as someone they hold in common.

Proudly Palestinian, Taybeh’s Christians struggle with the threats of violence from Jewish settlers and the intensifying restrictions on movement imposed by Israel. Many also say they fear Islamist radicalization will grow in the area as conflicts escalate across the region.

Editorials

As the Jan. 6 insurrection showed, our democracy is under attack. And Christian nationalism, which seeks to privilege one faith tradition over others, has fueled the anti-democratic efforts. Rather than serving as a balm for our fractured nation, religion is being used to further divide us.

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

Word&Way Voices

Contributing writer Rodney Kennedy makes the case that the best approach to this question is investigating how Jesus interacted with the Pharisees, Sadducees, Herodians, and Zealots throughout the Gospels.

Contributing writer Sarah Blackwell reflects on the tragic juxtaposition of running in the beautiful Charlotte Marathon while ICE agents racially profiled and terrorized neighbors over the weekend.

A Russian Orthodox nun who has lived in the West Bank presents a powerful argument that the fragile ceasefire in Gaza is not an end, but rather the beginning of a new chapter of peace and justice.

E-Newsletter

This issue of A Public Witness explores biblical ‘peacemaker’ rhetoric from the Trump administration and how it wildly misrepresents what Jesus actually taught.

This issue of A Public Witness explores what the Foursquare Church, a Pentecostal denomination, could learn from how United Methodists, Southern Baptists, and Catholics have spoken out against immoral politicians who sit in their pews.

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.

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Recent Episodes

Books

Old Testament scholar Michael B. Shepherd explores the world of ancient exegesis, focusing on how early Jewish and Christian readers understood the Hebrew Bible’s prophetic literature.

This book is ideal for Jews, Christians, and Muslims who wrestle with the moral dilemmas of our time while drawing wisdom from the most challenging and inspiring stories in the Bible’s first five books.

Longtime pastor Austin Carty makes the case that the power of a sermon is found not in novelty, but in the mandate it gives preachers to collect their thoughts every week and put them down in a succinct, coherent fashion.

In her new book, ‘Spellbound,’ the historian of religion traces the mysterious force that is charisma from the Puritans to Donald Trump.