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With Pentagon prayer services continuing into the Christmas season, this issue of A Public Witness peeks inside Pete Hegseth’s monthly effort to establish his brand of rightwing Christianity inside the government.

In 2025, the U.S.-led global fight against AIDS grew more complicated as the Trump administration dismantled most foreign aid and barred State Department employees from commemorating World AIDS Day.

As wannabe tyrants arise and the authoritarian logic of empire finds purchase among Christian Nationalists, sincere followers of Jesus should listen afresh to Mary this Christmastime.

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Church

The ministers, mostly from Grand Rapids, are no longer willing to abide the denomination’s increasingly rigid stance on sexuality.

‘We are actively exploring other venues where we can continue to share our witness of the birth of Jesus Christ in the excellence and prophetic tradition of the Black Church,’ said Alfred Street Baptist Church.

The proposed database has been derailed by denominational apathy, legal worries, and a desire to protect donations to the Southern Baptist Convention’s mission programs.

Nation

The superintendent of public instruction, who recently pledged to put a Turning Point USA chapter in every high school to honor Charlie Kirk, will now ‘destroy the teachers unions’ from the private sector.

Many Black pastors in the largest African American Christian denominations linked the veneration of Kirk — who used his platform to denigrate Black people, immigrants, women, Muslims, and LGBTQ+ people — to the history of weaponizing faith to justify colonialism, enslavement, and bigotry.

Before the memorial service started, two hours of songs from the biggest worship artists today served to frame everything that followed as part of a church service — sending the message that Kirk’s politics were from God.

World

During the annual gathering of the Baptist World Alliance, members of the body’s general council unanimously passed a resolution on religious nationalism that specifically denounced Christian Nationalism. Two other unanimous resolutions addressed issues of world hunger and the Israel-Gaza conflict.

Many who opposed Daniil, the new Patriarch of All Bulgaria, worry that his election represents a sharp turn away from the policies of his predecessor, Neophyte I, who is remembered as a unifier.

This comes nearly a year after one of the worst mob attacks on Christians in the country.

Editorials

Across the country, state lawmakers recently returned to their chambers to pass important matters like putting up little signs in schools to magically make our society better. We should post this phrase everywhere and watch the miraculous transformation!

At the Christmas Eve service I attended recently, the Christ candle in the Advent wreath wouldn’t light. The pastor tried and tried. Eventually, as giggles worked their way down the crowded pews, he said everyone should just pretend it was lit.

When my son was younger, he had a few verbal ticks where he would say one thing when he meant another. A common example of this verbal confusion pops up today as I frequently hear people say “political” when they really mean “partisan.”

Word&Way Voices

Despite the horrors of ancient and current tyrannies, genocidal regimes, profit-driven greed, religious charlatans, social bigots, and political hypocrites, the heart of Advent is that God will not give up on humanity and the world.

Rev. Lauren Bennett reflects on her experience with a state execution this year and how faith requires us to bring softness to hard places while opening ourselves to meet Jesus in unlikely faces.

Many things have changed since ‘Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her’ was written, but not who receives the harshest punishments: those with the least social power.

E-Newsletter

This issue of A Public Witness heads to the city that never sleeps to combat a zombie version of a famous biblical story.

‘We are actively exploring other venues where we can continue to share our witness of the birth of Jesus Christ in the excellence and prophetic tradition of the Black Church,’ said Alfred Street Baptist Church.

Sign up now to learn more about the separation of church and state, why it matters for protecting both democracy and our gospel witness, and how Christians can advocate for it.

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Recent Episodes

Books

Sociologist Wendy Cadge's "Spiritual Care: The Everyday Work of Chaplains" is an in-depth study that fills a gaping hole in understanding how religious care is provided within the United States.

Jonathan Root's Oral Roberts biography offers insights into a significant element in American Christianity as well as a cautionary tale about crass materialism.

In "Ancient Echoes: Refusing the Fear-Filled, Greed-Driven Toxicity of the Far Right," influential biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann speaks to ideologies and efforts that are rooted in appeals to fear of the other, the one who is different.

In "If God Still Breathes, Why Can't I?: Black Lives Matter and Biblical Authority," scholar Angela N. Parker compellingly makes the case that doctrines of biblical inerrancy and infallibility, which are prominent within evangelicalism and fundamentalism, serve as tools of