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This issue of A Public Witness takes you inside a hyperpartisan church for a taste of how the gospel of Jesus is being supplanted by an imperial lust for political power.

Across rural America, the same pattern repeats: high church density, persistent poverty, substance abuse crises, and the absence of systems capable of addressing problems at scale. Why do individual Christians often appear more effective than the organizations built in Christianity’s name?

The service marked the third time in 15 monthly services that the sermon was delivered by Brooks Potteiger, a member of Doug Wilson's Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches.

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Videos

Church

Led by Zach Lambert, Restore church is part of a small but growing countertrend.

From encrypted apps to legal clinics: How an immigrant-majority church is responding to protect its congregation.

In an open letter, a group of survivors and advocates say that comments by SBC President Willy Rice and Texas pastor Jack Graham make it harder to address the issue of abuse in churches.

Nation

Judge John P. Cronan said the commission is diverse through including both clergy and lay people and has 'adherents of at least five different religions' — by citing the one Jewish member and members of various Christian denominations.

Shaw University Divinity School hopes to be the first theological school accredited by the Association of Theological Schools to offer a doctoral degree in AI. Its first cohort begins in January.

At a Sunday service after their release, which was backed by a range of Latino evangelical groups, the Assemblies of God pastors urged Christians to speak out for immigrants.

World

Despite the fact that many Venezuelan faith leaders have been impacted themselves by the ongoing disaster, they’ve sprung into action to provide food, psychological support, and other basic needs to the large population of victims.

‘For three years, the police saw me as a nudnikit (pest),’ said Yisca Harani, founder of the Religious Freedom Data Center, which tracks and aims to prevent incidents targeting Christians in Israel. ‘After the incident with the nun, I feel they are taking me a little more seriously.’

A group including leaders from the World Council of Churches, the Anglican Communion, the World Methodist Council, and the PCUSA recently paid a solidarity visit to Cuba, aimed at highlighting Cuban suffering and condemning U.S. sanctions.

Editorials

Editor-in-Chief Brian Kaylor responds to Doug Wilson’s defense of Pete Hegseth holding Christian worship services in the Pentagon, including the one Wilson preached at earlier this month.

After President Donald Trump rambled, lied, and cursed for 77 minutes at the National Prayer Breakfast, a prominent Christian musician went to the piano to bless it.

In 1845, a group of pro-slavery Baptists created the Southern Baptist Convention to defend enslavers serving as missionaries. One hundred and eighty years later, SBC leaders defend a pastor serving as an ICE leader. Editor-in-Chief Brian Kaylor reflects on this through line.

Word&Way Voices

A new Netflix series captures the edginess of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s books while also reconsidering the narrative in the face of frontier America’s actual history.

James Talarico’s attempt to make the election about ethos — character, credibility, and integrity — throws a Nolan Ryan fastball at Ken Paxton and MAGA and showcases their departure from 1990s conservative Christianity.

The Israel-U.S.-Iran conflict has seen an appeal to scripture from many of the involved leaders. But the moment God is invoked as argument rather than moral motivation, the willingness to be wrong is surrendered.

E-Newsletter

In detailing the evolution of homeschooling in the United States, this book is an enjoyable and enlightening read that challenges preconceptions and invites new, more informed questions.

This issue of A Public Witness documents several outlandish events beyond those named in a recent church-state lawsuit by employees or a complaint from the Freedom From Religion Foundation.

This issue of A Public Witness treks to The Six to cover the recent gathering of the Baptist World Alliance.

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Recent Episodes

Books

Author Jerry Zehr, a longtime interfaith leader, draws on his practical wisdom to explore the part of us that refuses to let fear have the final word.

This groundbreaking study digs beneath the surface of one of early Christianity's most enigmatic documents and finds there two texts hidden side by side for nearly two millennia.

Warren Throckmorton, whose fact-checking of David Barton's book 'The Jefferson Lies' convinced the publisher to pull it from the shelves, picks a fight with fables told about the past by those who are trying to erase the separation of church

Drawing from personal experience, theological insight, and psychological depth, Richard Beck challenges the fear-based, legalistic interpretations that have long dominated many Christian traditions.