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The third installment of the ‘Knives Out’ series examines the spiritual warfare within American Christianity and looks at writer-director Rian Johnson’s struggle with the essence of faith.

Two recent books, each co-authored by two pastors, offer insight to church leaders who feel stuck and congregations struggling to muster hope in a time where maintaining a successful religious community is more difficult than ever.

Through honest storytelling, spiritual reflection, and practical wisdom gained from a pilgrimage journey, Andy and Kara Root offer parents and pastors a refreshing alternative to the exhausting cycle of trying to control outcomes.

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Videos

Church

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.

A vote to abolish the SBC’s public policy arm, known as the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, also failed on Wednesday afternoon.

Casting a pall over the gathering is the recent death of one of the most high-profile whistleblowers in the Southern Baptists’ scandal of sexual abuse.

Nation

Paul Ostapa, an HVAC technician, says he told his bosses the Bible will not let him work alone with women. When he refused to work alone with a female co-worker, he was fired. He’s suing in federal court for religious discrimination.

This issue of A Public Witness looks at the danger of religious attacks against politicians as MAGA comes after Republicans for non-Christian beliefs or for offering kind words to Americans celebrating a non-Christian religious holiday.

Latino Christian leaders meeting in Southern California discussed how best to pastor congregations newly traumatized by the Trump mass deportation policy.

World

This issue of A Public Witness looks back at Anabaptism and what it still offers for Christians on the 500th anniversary of stirring the waters of a little fountain in Zürich.

Christians around the world are being attacked and killed, forced to flee and driven underground, the annual report finds.

A growing list including the United Nations, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Doctors Without Borders, and dozens of Holocaust scholars have concluded that Israel is committing genocide.

Editorials

Editor Brian Kaylor reflects on getting his second COVID-19 vaccine and recent polling showing that White evangelicals are the least likely demographic to get vaccinated. Thank God, love neighbors, and get vaccinated!

Editor Brian Kaylor tells the Good Friday story as if set this year in Richmond, Virginia. As the Bible tells the story, Barabbas and the two men crucified along with Jesus are insurrectionists (not thieves).

Editor Brian Kaylor reflects on the Ever Given container ship that got stuck in the Suez Canal. And he connects this modern parable to biblical stories about Egyptian pharaohs and other rulers seeking more wealth and power.

Word&Way Voices

For the first entry on Advent in a time of violence in Lebanon, Nabil Costa reflects on how Christmas should be about moving out of our comfort zone.

For our final entry on Advent in a time of dangerous pregnancies, Sarah Miller reflects on the places where new life feels improbable and suffering surpasses speech.

This action would ensure that no federal prisoner faces execution despite being intellectually disabled, mentally incompetent, or convicted in proceedings riddled with racial bias.

E-Newsletter

This issue of A Public Witness unpacks President Donald Trump’s invoking of God during his speech announcing the U.S. had dropped massive bombs on Iran, thus joining Israel recent war against Iran.

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.

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Recent Episodes

Books

Matthew Taylor makes a compelling case that the New Apostolic Reformation, whose leaders and ideas have migrated from the fringes to the center of American evangelicalism, is a dangerous threat to democracy.

In “The Quest of the Historical Muhammad and Other Studies on Formative Islam,” scholar Stephen J. Shoemaker attempts to approach the figure of Muhammad in a manner comparable to efforts to recover the historical figure of Jesus.

In “One Lost Soul: Richard Nixon’s Search for Salvation,” Daniel Silliman cuts to the heart of Nixon’s tragedy: Nixon wanted to be loved by God but couldn’t figure out how.

In “The Hero and the Whore: Reclaiming Healing and Liberation Through the Stories of Sexual Exploitation in the Bible,” trauma-informed educator and minister Camille Hernandez dives deep into the Bible’s stories of abuse.