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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.

Many faith leaders were dismayed when the government announced last January that federal immigration agencies can make arrests in churches, schools, and hospitals, ending the protection of people in sensitive spaces.

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Videos

Church

Jahleel Hills, a 27-year-old filmmaker and sixth-generation member of Berean Baptist Church, has teamed up with church elders to ensure its story reaches and inspires the next generation.

Newell Presbyterian is part of a growing trend of declining congregations with underutilized space, excess land or deteriorating buildings that are selling or leasing some of their land for affordable housing.

The Rev. Yehiel Curry, a former lay church planter, will be installed as presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America in October.

Nation

President Trump has become harsher with his contemptuous rhetoric and policy proposals, blaming immigrants for problems from crime to housing shortages and demanding “REVERSE MIGRATION.”

The fake ‘war on Christmas’ examples ginned up by culture war talk show hosts in recent years are nothing compared to misusing the birth of Jesus — and Christmas celebrations in general — to justify anti-immigrant policies.

At AmericaFest — where ICE merch is sold beside ‘Jesus Won’ T-shirts — the idea that conservative values are God-ordained may be the biggest unifying factor.

World

Joining this year are dozens of leaders from different Christian denominations, making the journey not only an expression of personal devotion but a public show of unity and spiritual leadership in a region challenged by political instability, poverty, and insecurity.

This issue of A Public Witness looks at what’s happening with U.S. refugee resettlement and the South African Christians pushing back against the apartheid theology propping up the Trump administration.

The 69-year-old Chicago-born missionary who spent his career ministering in Peru and belongs to the Augustinian religious order caught the world by surprise when he was elected to be the 267th pope.

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

Exploring the politics behind a new commission built on Christian privilege reveals competing understandings of religious liberty that have consequential implications for public schools.

Since the popular screen adaptation of “Pride & Prejudice” is back in theaters for its 20th anniversary, it is worth thinking about how this enemies-to-lovers story can offer us a unique glimpse into peacemaking.

Contributing writer Rodney Kennedy makes the case that there is more to the recent Pete Hegseth national security breaches than just political blunders — we are experiencing a shift in the moral universe of right and wrong.

E-Newsletter

This issue of A Public Witness takes you to the heart of Texas to consider the promise of public education and church-state separation.

As Sen. Josh Hawley makes a push to require every federal building across the country to post “In God We Trust,” this issue of A Public Witness looks back at the real history of our national motto.

In life and in death, Charlie Kirk represented the worst of American politics. He stoked dangerous conspiracies, attempted to silence voices he disagreed with, and utilized violent rhetoric mixed with a godly veneer. Then, someone decided to respond with evil by picking up a gun to silence a life.

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Recent Episodes

Books

In “Trust in Atonement: God, Creation, and Reconciliation,” Teresa Morgan offers a fresh exploration of what it means to restore a right relationship with God.

In “The Wounds Are the Witness: Black Faith Weaving Memory into Justice and Healing,” Yolanda Pierce, dean of Vanderbilt University Divinity School, weaves together her own memories, vignettes from Black life, and scenes from scripture.

In “Karl Barth — A Life in Conflict,” Christiane Tietz compellingly explores the interactions between Barth's personal and political biography and his theology.

Katherine Stewart has created a collection of dispatches from the front lines of the current assault on American democracy.