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In the opinion released Friday, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said it was too early to make a judgment call on the constitutionality of displaying a highly edited version of the Ten Commandments in public schools.

The head of the Missouri Senate Education Committee thinks we should force public schools to teach that the Constitutional Convention prayed after Benjamin Franklin said they should — even though it very much never happened.

A virtual media briefing titled ‘America at 250: Religion, Democracy, and the Promise of Pluralism’ covered solutions to the pressing issues of social isolation, political polarization, and bridging divides in the workplace and on college campuses.

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Church

‘I don’t know how many strategic plans I’ve led, and I tell people I’m never going to do another one because events simply wipe them out,’ said the Rev. Wes Granberg-Michaelson.

The split reflects the dilemma immigration poses for evangelical leaders. Most evangelicals want reform that both secures the border and provides a path to citizenship — and want limited deportation. But few leaders want to clash with the MAGA movement.

‘‘Forever in the Path’ calls us to renew our covenant to seek justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God,’ said the church’s pastor.

Nation

Coverage of Thursday’s event has largely focused on Trump’s rambling remarks — but the much more problematic and dangerous comments actually came later from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

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

Monday’s ruling came just over 24 hours before TPS status was set to expire for some 350,000 Haitians. The U.S. district judge wrote that DHS Secretary Noem’s ‘approach is many things—in the public interest is not one of them.’

World

Targeting a holy site ‘is a blatant affront to human dignity and a grave violation of the sanctity of life and the inviolability of religious sites, which are meant to serve as safe havens during times of war,’ the Church said in a statement.

The project has been criticized even by religious leaders in the East African nation.

Netflix released the documentary ‘Apocalypse in the Tropics,’ which seeks to understand how the far right mobilizes faith for political interest.

Editorials

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.

Editor-in-Chief Brian Kaylor offers some seasonal advice to the music director at First Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas, ahead of Sunday’s worship service that will include former President Donald Trump.

In day 18 of our Unsettling Advent devotional series, Word&Way Editor-in-Chief Brian Kaylor reflects on violent insurrections during the time of Jesus’s birth and what that can teach us today.

Word&Way Voices

Unless the international community acts decisively and swiftly, Al-Taybeh risks being overrun by Israeli settlers, its lands confiscated, and its people forcibly displaced.

Contributing writer Rodney Kennedy argues that Trump has outdone every shyster who ever told a tall tale, every con artist, every swindler, every unscrupulous insurance salesman, and every crooked televangelist.

The co-founder of the Prayers for Peace Alliance makes the case that Johnnie Moore, the recently appointed chairman of the embattled Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, is getting away with using the Gospel to justify genocide.

E-Newsletter

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.

This issue of A Public Witness hits the streets to consider what some recent creative protests can teach us about how to prophetically resist authoritarianism.

While some scholars argue over which theological positions to include in a definition of “evangelical,” religious studies professor William Stell finds such “belief-based models” too vague and problematic.

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Recent Episodes

Books

A congregational pastor who also serves as the UCC’s Minister for Disabilities and Mental Health Justice, Sarah Griffith Lund has long been a voice helping Christians gently and wisely wrestle with neurodiversity.

“The Church Must Grow or Perish: Robert H. Schuller and the Business of American Christianity” examines Schuller's indelible imprint on the American church.

In “Becoming the Pastor’s Wife: How Marriage Replaced Ordination as a Woman’s Path to Ministry,” Beth Allison Barr traces the history of the role, showing how it both helped and hurt women in conservative Protestant traditions.

In “Latter-Day Saint Theology Among Christian Theologies,” Grant Underwood asks the question: How do the beliefs of Latter-day Saints compare with traditional Christian theology?