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At least one other religious leader, Muslim hospital chaplain Ayman Soliman, had been detained earlier by ICE as part of President Donald Trump’s ongoing mass deportation effort.

While Christians are among those targeted, analysts say the majority of victims of armed groups are Muslims in Nigeria’s Muslim-majority north, where most attacks occur.

We’re excited to announce this year’s themes for our award-winning Unsettling Advent series, which begins in one month: Advent in a time of religious nationalism, starvation, and soldiers in the streets.

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Videos

Church

The Rev. Charles Graves IV is part of a younger, more diverse generation of Episcopal priests who believes the denomination can thrive — as long as it continues to evolve.

Overall, besides worship services, participation in other religious activities and programs has increased or remained the same in the last five years.

The Rev. Tanya Lopez says a masked man pointed a weapon at her while she was filming a group of unidentified men detaining a man in her church's parking lot.

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

“Christian love is not a concentric expansion of interests that little by little extend to other persons and groups,” Francis wrote in a letter to U.S. bishops.

This issue of A Public Witness explores what Trump’s outburst about taking over the Gaza Strip reveals about the oligarchic values of the new administration as well as the immorality of prominent MAGA Christians.

This issue of A Public Witness looks at the evolution of the WHO, its religious connections, and why it matters in the face of Trump ordering the U.S. to leave the valuable global agency.

Editorials

Editor-in-Chief Brian Kaylor reflects on legislation pushing the teaching of the Bible in public schools. He explores significant church-state problems that would arise from such efforts.

Editor-in-Chief Brian Kaylor reflects on news that DNA evidence tested FOUR years after the execution of a Black man in Arkansas suggests the state killed an innocent man. Kaylor also highlights the Baptist prophet who tried to stop the execution.

Editor-in-Chief Brian Kaylor responds to a claim by Al Mohler of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary that Methodists who disagree on LGBTQ issues are from “two different religions.” Perhaps Mohler is right.

Word&Way Voices

What can we say about Divine hope and love when the mountains of western North Carolina tremble?

It’s not too late for Christians to see that those who lead us into violence, greed, dehumanization, and Earth destruction are not leading us on good and fruitful paths.

The promise of Christmas is this: as many of us experience the bleakest time of year, we remember a baby who was born to be our light and our warmth.

E-Newsletter

This issue of A Public Witness goes inside the first meeting of the White House Religious Liberty Commission this week to warn about their effort to turn religious freedom upside down.

This issue of A Public Witness opens a Bible and a (digital) newspaper to consider Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s roaring use of scripture to start a war.

While a few sprinkles dampened Trump’s birthday military parade, millions of Americans across the country showed up at rallies to declare “No Kings” and show opposition to the administration’s authoritarian rule.

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Recent Episodes

Books

The upcoming election is certainly important, but the journey of addressing Christian Nationalism in our churches and nation will continue in the weeks, months, and years to follow.

In “Hope Is Here!: Spiritual Practices for Pursuing Justice and Beloved Community,” Luther E. Smith Jr. prepares us to engage racism, mass incarceration, environmental crises, divisive politics, and indifference.

Jerome Copulsky’s “American Heretics: Religious Adversaries of Liberal Order” is a tour de force documenting the religious illiberalism that has challenged democratic values from the very beginning.

In “The Violent Take It By Force: The Christian Movement that is Threatening Our Democracy,” Matthew Taylor shows how some of the more extreme beliefs of American evangelicalism have begun to take hold in the mainstream.