Home - Word&Way
logo
mobile-logo

Featured

This issue of A Public Witness considers how the military chaplain who authored a war prayer and the secretary of defense who appropriated it for himself performed violence against Scripture to justify violence against people.

The president mixed Christian claims with threats of war and insults to immigrants during Holy Week, including a threat to send Iran to 'Hell' on Easter.

Restrictions imposed by Israel against large gatherings due to the Iran war is casting a long shadow on Easter celebrations, but Palestinian Christians may be feeling it most acutely.

No posts were found.

Videos

Church

U.S. District Judge Jerry Blackwell will hear Friday from attorneys for Minnesota branches of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the United Church of Christ, and a Catholic priest.

Fountain Street Church, founded in 1869 through the merger of two Baptist congregations, has a legacy of rejecting dogma and pushing the envelope.

Carl Ruby, pastor of Central Christian Church, takes pride in the fact that Springfield’s resistance to Trump’s immigration crackdown is faith-based.

Nation

In the last week, faith leaders were offered some of their first glimpses into ICE facilities, making use of a degree of access denied to most people — even members of Congress.

In this edition of A Public Witness, we dig around between the couch cushions to explore the relationship between religion and politics as American Christians are confronted with what belongs to God when Caesar becomes more demanding.

‘Within the Christian tradition, Holy Week is a week that reminds us that ultimately, love prevails, death does not win,’ said Rev. Brian Henderson, executive director of the Association of Welcoming & Affirming Baptists.

World

Since hostilities erupted last month between Israel and Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group — in the shadow of the wider, U.S.-Israeli war on Iran — over 1,400 people have been killed in Lebanon, and more than 1 million have been forced to flee their homes.

He said God doesn't listen to the prayers of those who make war or cite God to justify their violence, just after Israeli police prevented the Catholic Church’s top leadership from entering the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Sarah Mullally's appointment instantly makes her one of the most recognized Christian figures in the world, alongside the pope.

Editorials

We should all be concerned about government officials anointing themselves as the arbiters of what a Nativity scene should look like. Sadly, too many Christians today willingly side with Herod.

Editor-in-Chief Brian Kaylor reflects on the Christmas narrative in the Gospel of Matthew and an upcoming Christmas program at the Kennedy Center in the aftermath of Donald Trump taking it over.

The remarkable part of the Christmas story is that God decided to come as one of us. The incarnation means Jesus cried out at birth, announcing the breath of life in the one who breathes life into us.

Word&Way Voices

From the beginning, the U.S. has prided itself on being a haven for persecuted believers. But it has also demanded those believers demonstrate their loyalty in ways that blur the line between conscience and citizenship.

In our familiarity with the birth narrative, we often do not consider the long-term consequences for the secondary figures in the story. It was an unsettling time that left long and permanent scars on their lives.

Advent reminds us that God comes into a world already organized by power and exclusion — and does not accept its terms. If Christianity is used today to justify separation, the gospel calls us back to its center.

E-Newsletter

In the first Defense Department service since the start of the Iran war, Pete Hegseth prayed that God would ‘break the teeth’ and kill those ‘who deserve no mercy’ and should be ‘delivered to the eternal damnation prepared for them.’

Americans United for Separation of Church and State filed two lawsuits against the Trump administration today as part of their investigation into government worship services.

The defense secretary’s tattoos of the Jerusalem Cross and “Deus Vult” are frequently invoked as literal signs of his Christian Nationalism — and rightly so. But the same symbols on his Bible were overlooked until now.

Sign up to receive full essays in your inbox!

Recent Episodes

Books

Political theorist Laura Field provides an intellectual tour of the MAGA New Right, a movement that has twice carried Donald Trump into the White House.

Combining gifted storytelling with keen analysis, Ryan Davis illuminates lived experiences within the LDS community and offers thoughtful reflections on what it might mean to share one heart and one mind in today’s polarized world.

Jennifer Houston McNeel explores the literary, historical, feminist, and theological significance of mothers and motherhood in the New Testament.

Drawing on cutting-edge work in biblical studies and ethics, David Dault makes the case that the recent rise in Christian Nationalism and religious violence demands new approaches to scriptural interpretation.