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For the second time in six weeks, a pastor was struck in the head with a pepper round fired by a US immigration agent as faith leaders protested the arrival of more than 100 US Customs and Border Patrol agents.

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is being phased out, said Samaritan's Purse CEO Franklin Graham. Johnnie Moore, the evangelical PR guru who has served as GHF chairman, recently stepped down.

On Saturday (Oct. 18), millions of people attended “No Kings” rallies at about 2,600 locations across the country. Here are the remarks by Brian Kaylor at No Kings rally on the steps of the Missouri Capitol in Jefferson City.

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Church

The First Baptist Church of Williamsburg officially established itself in 1776, although parishioners met before then in fields and under trees in defiance of laws that prevented African Americans from congregating.

‘It is featured in over 40 different Christian hymnals and sung in churches all across America, not just during Black History Month or Juneteenth,’ said musician Theodore Thorpe III.

As survivors gathered Tuesday, they invited another congregation that knows the pain of murderous hatred to join them: members of the Tree of Life synagogue.

Nation

This issue of A Public Witness looks at four recent promotional videos created by the DoW that co-opt Bible verses to glorify the U.S. military.

The superintendent of public instruction, who recently pledged to put a Turning Point USA chapter in every high school to honor Charlie Kirk, will now ‘destroy the teachers unions’ from the private sector.

Many Black pastors in the largest African American Christian denominations linked the veneration of Kirk — who used his platform to denigrate Black people, immigrants, women, Muslims, and LGBTQ+ people — to the history of weaponizing faith to justify colonialism, enslavement, and bigotry.

World

One theologian said Africa’s celebrations of the Christian framework would exhibit the continent’s rich theological heritage and highlight new ways of thinking about faith unbound by colonial legacies.

Most Greenlanders are proudly Inuit, having survived and thrived in one of the most remote and climatically inhospitable places on Earth. And they’re Lutheran.

A Lutheran pastor in Bethlehem — yes, that Bethlehem — Rev. Munther Isaac denounced Trump’s recent Gaza proposal as “evil” on this week’s episode of Dangerous Dogma.

Editorials

Editor-in-Chief Brian Kaylor reflects on the call to “never forget” 9/11, as well as the ways we seem to struggle to even remember or acknowledge deaths today.

Now that the trustees at Southwest Baptist University dropped their push for new governing documents, Brian Kaylor offers six next steps that leaders of the school and the Missouri Baptist Convention should take.

Editor-in-Chief Brian Kaylor responds to critics of a Word&Way clergy statement urging Christians to get a COVID-19 vaccine. And Kaylor challenges the anti-vaxxer message of “faith over fear.”

Word&Way Voices

Contributing writer Rodney Kennedy makes the case that the story of Titus in Crete is the best metaphor for what has happened to America since Donald Trump was elected again.

The event included a keynote presentation by Rev. Dr. Miguel A. De La Torre, who highlighted the dangers of using religious texts to justify oppression.

Contributing writer Sarah Blackwell reflects on how we can continue to move forward when equality, respect, and truth seem like they are evaporating in front of us.

E-Newsletter

This issue of A Public Witness treks to the Cornhusker State to consider a lost scroll that gained widespread news coverage and a denominational gathering that didn’t.

This issue of A Public Witness features a guest essay centered on four creative proposals to disrupt Christian Nationalism within a distinctively Christian vernacular.

This issue of A Public Witness takes you inside the recent CBF annual gathering to consider how Christians can speak truthfully about the past and speak truth to power today.

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Recent Episodes

Books

In “American Christianity Today: Establishment, Decline, and Revival,” Dyron Daughrity gives readers a panoramic view of current Christianity in the U.S. — its people, conflicts, differences, and common ground.

In “John of History, Baptist of Faith: The Quest for the Historical Baptizer,” James F. McGrath sheds new light on the historical John the Baptist and his world.

Amanda Tyler draws on her experiences, conversations with pastors and laypeople, research, Scripture, her Baptist convictions, and her work as a constitutional law expert to help us confront Christian Nationalist fervor.

In his latest book “Religion for Realists: Why We All Need the Scientific Study of Religion,” Samuel Perry challenges some of our most cherished assumptions.