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This issue of A Public Witness highlights important voices of opposition to imperial plotting from a variety of religious groups, ranging from Lutherans to Baptists, Anglicans, Catholics, and others.

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.

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Videos

Church

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.

‘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.’

During a mid-June event at Otter Creek Church, musicians and activists praised PEPFAR for saving millions of lives and urged evangelicals to call their representatives and show their support for the program.

Nation

This isn’t the first time Graham has been invited to speak at the Pentagon. Two previous occasions — one of which was canceled — each sparked controversy because of his comments about Islam.

At the movies this fall, Josh O’Connor plays a hot priest with a complicated past, Keanu Reeves is an angel who lost his wings, and Elizabeth Olsen has a romantic dilemma in the afterlife. Hollywood, it seems, has found God.

At least six white clergy and one seminarian — some from evangelical Christian backgrounds and others from mainline Protestant denominations — have declared to run as Democrats in 2026.

World

The religious freedom watchdog urged the new Trump administration to appoint a new ambassador-at-large to address religious restrictions and persecution around the world.

In Africa’s most populous nation, a deadly cycle of violence has unfolded for several years, with Christian clergy and laypeople as well as moderate Muslims falling victim to murder and kidnapping.

One theologian said Africa’s celebrations of the Christian framework would exhibit the continent’s rich theological heritage and highlight new ways of thinking about faith unbound by colonial legacies.

Editorials

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.

Editor Brian Kaylor reflects on the painting behind Georgia Governor Brian Kemp during the signing ceremony for a new law making it harder for people to exercise their right to vote.

Word&Way Voices

Exploring Advent in a time of violence in Lebanon, Mae Elise Cannon reflects on what it means to wait in hope.

Exploring Advent in a time of violence in Lebanon, Lina Sawan Raad reflects on rulers with hearts blinded by the love of power.

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.

E-Newsletter

Mara Richards Bim, the new Justice and Advocacy Fellow at Royal Lane Baptist Church in Dallas, spoke about how to bridge what we talk about in church and political action.

The opening chapter to “The Bible According to Christian Nationalists,” which officially releases in eight weeks, is fortunately (and unfortunately) quite timely. We are sharing an excerpt from it here.

With Pete Hegseth resurrecting a Confederate memorial in Arlington National Cemetery, this issue of A Public Witness looks back at how prayer was used to bless its White Supremacy ideology.

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Recent Episodes

Books

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.

In “The Moral Teachings of Jesus: Radical Instruction in the Will of God,” leading Christian ethicist David Gushee examines forty teachings of Jesus to clarify exactly what Jesus said about the moral life.