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This issue of A Public Witness explores the theology behind viewing the United States as a nation that God asks to perform miracles, as expressed in the State of the Union address on Tuesday.

The day of action, titled “Faithful Resistance,” was planned months ago, and organizers settled on their schedule before the date for this week’s State of the Union was announced.

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.

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Church

This issue of A Public Witness covers a 1979 Sunday School lesson from President Jimmy Carter — with concerns eerily fitting for 2025 — taught at the First Baptist Church of the City of Washington, D.C.

A new White House initiative encouraging people to pray for America claims to have the backing of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination. But a spokesperson for the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee told Word&Way that’s not accurate.

Churches across Chicago braced for Trump’s threat of a National Guard deployment and apocalyptic force, even as Chicago’s rates of violent crime have dropped substantially in recent years as part of a national trend.

Nation

The same board had supported opening a Catholic charter school in recent years, but a deadlocked U.S. Supreme Court allowed the state Court decision against it to stand.

No references to Jesus, claims of ‘discrepancies’ in the 2020 elections, nor disputed allegations about the origin of COVID-19 were included in a new draft of academic standards for social studies courses in Oklahoma public schools.

Several of these groups are connected with ZOE, an emerging network of progressive Christian student ministries.

World

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, created within the past year, is a private group, formed with Israel’s blessing after it sought to circumvent the aid relief previously provided by the United Nations.

Christian pilgrimage walks are a way for Berliners and visitors of all ages to engage with their faith without stepping foot in a church.

This issue of A Public Witness explores a monument that upsets the political and historical stories being told (or not told) and challenges the religious claims we often make.

Editorials

Editor-in-Chief Brian Kaylor argues that as the delta variant of COVID-19 fuels a new spike in cases in some parts of the U.S., conservative Christians who refuse vaccination are putting people at risk and undermining the teachings of Jesus.

In a guest piece for Americans United, Editor-in-Chief Brian Kaylor writes why on the Fourth of July, which falls on a Sunday this year, he won’t be attending church.

Russell Moore deserves many of the accolades he received recently, but Brian Kaylor argues the hagiographers miss the real lesson of this morality tale. As Southern Baptists gather this week for their annual meeting in Nashville, it is important to see there is more to the story.

Word&Way Voices

Contributing writer Sarah Blackwell makes the case that the culture of flopping has spread beyond sports. Who are the biggest floppers right now? Christian Nationalists.

Contributing writer Rodney Kennedy addresses climate denial among a subset of Christians and how this demonstrates a surrender of truth.

A delegation of young Palestinian Christian leaders are traveling through the American South to explore the deep parallels between racial injustice in the U.S. and the oppression Palestinians face in their homeland.

E-Newsletter

With the weaponization of Scripture regularly making headline news, “The Bible According to Christian Nationalists” officially releases today to point to better ways of reading and applying sacred texts.

This issue of A Public Witness flips to the maps section of the Bible to see who should really control the ‘biblical heartland.’

In the first of a three-part special podcast series produced in partnership with Moravian Theological Seminary, Randall Balmer discusses how church-state separation has been good for both government and religion.

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Recent Episodes

Books

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.

In “Journey to Eloheh: How Indigenous Values Lead Us to Harmony and Well-Being,” Randy and Edith Woodley help readers learn lifeways that lead to true wholeness and justice.