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This issue of A Public Witness treks to the Cornhusker State to consider a lost scroll that gained widespread news coverage and a denominational gathering that didn’t.

As today’s Supreme Court leans right, there is an ongoing push to infuse conservative Christianity into taxpayer-funded education. Advocates of religious diversity and church-state separation are countering it.

‘New York was the center of the slave trade in the United States,’ said the Rt. Rev. Matthew F. Heyd, bishop coadjutor of the Episcopal Diocese of New York. ‘That evil is part of the fabric of the diocese, and we’re trying to repair this fabric.’

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Videos

Church

There is so much history between the walls of Metropolitan AME, which has hosted funerals for Rosa Parks and Frederick Douglass and opened its pews to American presidents. It made history again this year.

Sociologist Ruth Braunstein recently decided to try a different way of analyzing religion, politics, and money: a documentary podcast exploring divergent evangelical responses to Christian Nationalism.

One claim, about an allegedly defamatory tweet by another former denominational president, is still live. The SBC has spent more than $3 million in legal fees on the Hunt case.

Nation

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.

Vance Boelter was trained for ministry at Christ for the Nations, an influential school among nondenominational charismatic Christians.

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.

World

In September, he said Israel's attacks in Gaza and Lebanon have been immoral and disproportionate and that its military has gone beyond the rules of war.

An investigation found that he failed to tell police about serial physical and sexual abuse by a volunteer at Christian summer camps as soon as he became aware of it.

In the last two years, the number of religious activists who are being held as political prisoners has sharply increased — part of a broader escalation of a campaign of repression that has also led to the arrests of journalists and other opposition figures.

Editorials

Editor Brian Kaylor reflects on the quick move by a Baptist church in Georgia to kick out the man who killed eight people at three massage parlors. And Kaylor wonders where Jesus would have instead shown up in Atlanta on Sunday.

Editor Brian Kaylor responds to a “reparations” plan unveiled by the Society of Jesuits on Monday due to their legacy of owning and selling enslaved persons. While Kaylor applauds reparations efforts, he argues this plan falls short.

Editor Brian Kaylor reflects on appearing in a new CBS News documentary about Christian Nationalism — and about a moment from filming that did not make the cut into the documentary.

Word&Way Voices

Christians often hear, share, and remember lies — but the light that exposes these lies doesn’t make their newsfeed. And this can make it difficult to be part of a faith community.

A Jordanian worship band has made it their mission to perform and record hymns composed around the middle of the 20th century that might have otherwise been lost to time.

Contributing writer Rodney Kennedy explores how the pilgrimages made by various politicians to Trump’s Manhattan trial are all about religion.

E-Newsletter

A Lutheran pastor in Bethlehem — yes, that Bethlehem — Rev. Munther Isaac denounced Trump’s recent Gaza proposal as “evil” on this week’s episode of Dangerous Dogma.

This issue of A Public Witness cracks opens the books to study problems with the new social studies standards where the wind comes sweepin’ down the plain.

Joe Blosser’s recent book is challenging because it takes seriously the idea that the only way to love God well is to love our neighbors more by re-evaluating how much we’ve fallen in love with ourselves.

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Recent Episodes

Books

We’ve once again asked several Word&Way writers to each offer two books perfect for curling up with at the beach, on your couch, or in your backyard as you listen to the singing of the cicadas.

In "Thinking About Good and Evil: Jewish Views From Antiquity to Modernity," Rabbi Wayne Allen traces the most salient ideas about why innocent people suffer, why evil individuals prosper, and God’s role in such matters of (in)justice.

In "Miracles for Skeptics: Encountering the Paranormal Ministry of Jesus," Frank G. Honeycutt draws out the deeper truths in the weird incidents from the Bible.

In "God After Deconstruction," Thomas Jay Oord and Tripp Fuller write for people experiencing the traumatic realities of discovering that what they once believed about God is no longer sustainable.