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The first moment of the Quentin Tarantino film highlighted by the vice president during a recent interview occurs just seconds after the Samuel L. Jackson monologue used by Pete Hegseth as a prayer during a worship service at the Pentagon in April.

For this issue of A Public Witness, we virtually trek deep in the heart of Texas to see how “God and country” too often looks more like country as god at Prestonwood Baptist Church.

The Israel-U.S.-Iran conflict has seen an appeal to scripture from many of the involved leaders. But the moment God is invoked as argument rather than moral motivation, the willingness to be wrong is surrendered.

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Videos

Church

‘I’m seeing almost a revival of Christianity through what’s happening at Broadview in Chicago,’ said Rev. David Black, a Presbyterian Church (USA) minister.

The announcement came after former Racial Reparations Task Force members expressed doubts over the diocese’s commitment to deliver on its 2021 promise and uncertainty about its ability to secure funding.

Leaders of the American Baptist Home Mission Societies issued a statement Tuesday (Nov. 18) offering support for clergy who have been arrested while protesting ICE, including an American Baptist pastor in the Chicago area.

Nation

Notably absent from the lineup are representatives from other non-Christian faiths, such as Islam or Indigenous spiritual traditions, or leaders from mainline Christian or historically Black denominations.

The ruling sets up a potential clash at the U.S. Supreme Court over the issue in the future. Arkansas and Louisiana have passed similar laws, which have also been challenged in courts.

‘If they wanted this to be a unifying American project, there would have been a whole lot more attention to getting political diversity and ideological diversity,’ added Brian Kaylor of Word&Way.

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.

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.

Editorials

In the life of various biblical tyrants, a moment emerges when they realize their grip on power is slipping away but they still struggle to hold on anyway. But with their antics, such rulers merely amplify their own humiliation.

Editor Brian Kaylor reflects on Samson, Wile E. Coyote, Al Mohler, John Piper, and Donald Trump. Will we stand for character, or give away our ethics for our political bedfellows?

Editor Brian Kaylor reflects on Christmas (yes, he thinks it is too early to celebrate) and the news that our country can’t find the parents of 545 children that our government separated from their parents at the border.

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

We’re excited to announce this year’s themes for our award-winning Unsettling Advent series, which begins in one month: Advent in a time of religious nationalism, starvation, and soldiers in the streets.

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.

On Saturday (Oct. 18), millions of people attended “No Kings” rallies at about 2,600 locations across the country. Here are the remarks by Brian Kaylor at No Kings rally on the steps of the Missouri Capitol in Jefferson City.

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Recent Episodes

Books

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.

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.