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Featured
Federal Employees Sue USDA Secretary Over Christian Messaging
Asked to comment on the suit, a USDA spokesperson said: ‘While we do not comment on pending litigation, we will keep the plaintiffs in our prayers during this process.’
Review: Emotion in Early Christianity
In this groundbreaking book, Andrew Crislip illuminates how emotion shaped Christian identity, community practices, and theological understanding.
Rededicating to the Wrong Example
This issue of A Public Witness unpacks why the upcoming ‘Rededicate 250’ gathering was planned for May 17 and the Christian Nationalist fight to remake the past and present.
Church
Franklin Graham Quits Membership in Financial Accountability Group
Graham said the standards mandating a leader care plan ‘puts ECFA into the role of trying to be the moral police of the evangelical world.’
Largest US Lutheran Denomination Installs Yehiel Curry As Its First Black Presiding Bishop
Curry succeeds the Rev. Elizabeth Eaton, who served the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America for 12 years and was the first woman to lead the mainline Protestant denomination.
Sarah Mullally Named the First Female Archbishop of Canterbury in History of Church of England
Naming a woman to the position is a major milestone for a church that ordained its first female priests in 1994 and its first female bishop in 2015. Mullally follows 105 men who have led Anglicans worldwide.
Nation
From Bush to Obama to Trump, White House Faith Office Persists at 25 Years
‘It’s unusual for a president to continue a signature White House office of his predecessor of a different political party,’ said Melissa Rogers, twice director of the White House faith-based office.
3 Democratic Pastors in Iowa Are Running for Congress, a Snapshot of a National Trend
After years of white Christians overwhelmingly supporting Republican Donald Trump, a striking number of clergy are currently running for political office as Democrats.
Interrupting Worship for a Candidate
This issue of A Public Witness heads down to Georgia to consider the devil in the details of the race to determine who will be the next Republican nominee for governor.
World
Most Greenlanders Are Lutheran, 300 Years After a Missionary Brought the Faith to the Remote Island
Most Greenlanders are proudly Inuit, having survived and thrived in one of the most remote and climatically inhospitable places on Earth. And they’re Lutheran.
Palestinian Pastor Confronts Empire Theology in U.S. Politics & Churches
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.
A Christian Town in Syria Keeps the Biblical Language of Aramaic Alive. But It Fears for Its Future
Maaloula is one of the world's few places where residents still speak Aramaic, the language that Jesus is believed to have used.
Editorials
A Sign of the Times for White Evangelicals
Editor Brian Kaylor reflects on how many White evangelicals moved in less than five years from condemning Donald Trump as a dangerous man to backing Trump’s assault on American democracy.
The Road Between Marshall & Lafayette
Editor Brian Kaylor reflects on Jesus’s parable in Luke 10 about being a good neighbor after learning of the death of a man in the roadway on Christmas Eve just blocks from his church.
Oh, To Be the Magi
Editor Brian Kaylor reflects on the Magi in the biblical story and how they inspired his imagination as a child and still today. They’re mysterious, magical, powerful, wise
Word&Way Voices
Unsettling Advent 2024, Day 16
Exploring Advent in a time of violence in Lebanon, Lina Sawan Raad reflects on rulers with hearts blinded by the love of power.
Unsettling Advent 2024, Day 15
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.
Unsettling Advent 2024, Day 14
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.
E-Newsletter
Reading the Bible in Ways That Challenge White Supremacy and Patriarchy
Some Christians today argue that empathy is wrong, even calling it a sin and unbiblical. For Angela Parker, associate professor of New Testament and Greek at the McAfee School of Theology at Mercer University, this idea is absurd.
Out in the World
With the weaponization of Scripture regularly making headline news, “The Bible According to Christian Nationalists” officially releases today to point to better ways of reading and applying sacred texts.
The Danger of Doing Theology by Cartography
This issue of A Public Witness flips to the maps section of the Bible to see who should really control the ‘biblical heartland.’
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The State of the Senate, from SC to ME to TX to KS
This episode of Dangerous Dogma features a conversation between Word&Way Editor Brian Kaylor, Lutheran minister and journalist Angela Denker, and Disciples pastor and author Beau Underwood. The conversation includes discussion about the death of Sen. Lindsey Graham as well as issues of faith and morality in Senate races in Maine, Texas, and Kansas. You can… -
Southern Baptists, the Pentagon, & UFC
This episode of Dangerous Dogma features a conversation between Word&Way Editor Brian Kaylor, Lutheran minister and journalist Angela Denker, and Disciples pastor and author Beau Underwood. The conversation includes discussion about the Southern Baptist Convention's push against women in ministry, the Pentagon changing how it codes the faith of military members, and the latest in… -
Southern Baptists, Women in Ministry, & a Billboard
In this episode, Word&Way President Brian Kaylor talks with Meredith Stone, executive director of Baptist Women in Ministry. The conversation includes discussion of efforts in the Southern Baptist Convention to further target women serving in churches and how BWIM is advocating for women (including with a billboard to greet SBC messengers next week in Orlando,… -
Divergent Visions for Rededicating the Nation
This episode of Dangerous Dogma features a conversation between Word&Way Editor Brian Kaylor, Lutheran minister and journalist Angela Denker, and Disciples pastor and author Beau Underwood. The conversation includes discussion about Rededicate 250, gerrymandering, Adam Hamilton's Senate campaign in Kansas, and the MAHA movement. You can watch a video version of the conversation here. Here are a few pieces… -
The Christian Past That Wasn't
In this episode, Word&Way President Brian Kaylor talks with Warren Throckmorton, a retired professor who has spent years debunking false claims by Christian Nationalist pseudo-historian David Barton. Throckmorton is the author of the new book, The Christian Past that Wasn't: Debunking the Christian Nationalist Myths that Hijack History. You can watch a video version of… -
Trump vs. Leo
This episode of Dangerous Dogma features a conversation between Word&Way Editor Brian Kaylor, Lutheran minister and journalist Angela Denker, and Disciples pastor and author Beau Underwood. The conversation includes discussion about President Donald Trump's attacks on Pope Leo XIV, Leo's witness against the Iran war, Trump's AI image of himself as Jesus, and the electoral… -
Fight Like Jesus with Jason Porterfield (Reissue)
In this episode, Word&Way President Brian Kaylor talks with Jason Porterfield about his book Fight Like Jesus: How Jesus Waged Peace. This episode originally aired in 2023, except for a new introduction noting a violent prayer by Pete Hegseth during a recent Pentagon worship service and Palm Sunday comments by Pope Leo XIV. Note: Don't forget… -
Pete Hegseth's Crusader Bible (A Trick of State)
In this episode, Word&Way President Brian Kaylor considers Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth's use of the English Standard Version of the Bible, patriarchy in the faith communities Hegseth has been a part of, and his Christian Nationalism. It also reveals that Hegseth's ESV Bible includes two Crusader symbols stamped onto the cover (and that match… -
An Unholy War
This episode of Dangerous Dogma features a conversation between Word&Way Editor Brian Kaylor, Lutheran minister and journalist Angela Denker, and Disciples pastor and author Beau Underwood. The conversation includes discussion about the Iran war, Christian opposition to the war, and viral claims of military leaders claiming this will bring "Armageddon." It also includes consideration of… -
Rewriting the Ten Commandments (A Trick of State)
In this episode, Word&Way President Brian Kaylor looks at legislation across the country that purports to want the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms. But the version mandated by lawmakers cannot be found in any Bible. Kaylor unpacks where the edited language came from, why such legislation is an attack on religious liberty, and the…
Books
Review & Giveaway: American Heretics
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.
Review: The Violent Take It by Force
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.
Review: The Moral Teachings of Jesus
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.
Review: Another Gospel
In “Another Gospel: Christian Nationalism and the Crisis of Evangelical Identity,” Joel Looper communicates an insider’s perspective on how a false gospel has colonized American evangelicalism.