Home - Word&Way

Featured

A debate in the Oklahoma Senate yesterday over the use of corporal punishment against children with disabilities turned into a lesson about how not to read the Bible.

The study finds 62% of U.S. adults call themselves Christians. While a significant dip from 78% in 2007, Pew found the Christian share of the population has remained relatively stable since 2019.

A religious coalition won the first round of faith-based litigation against the Trump administration — but the scope of the preliminary injunction is limited.

No posts were found.

Videos

Church

Once relegated exclusively to gay bars and nightclubs, drag is increasingly in the open these days — at libraries, music festivals, and, yes, churches.

Two commissions overseeing research into the denomination's part in the assimilationist schools are asking Episcopal bishops to grant access to archives in their regions and to recruit research assistants of their own.

The announcement comes less than two weeks before the election of the denomination’s next leader.

Nation

The girl also wounded six others in Monday's shooting at Abundant Life Christian School.

School boards would be required to permit Christian groups and the Satanic Temple alike to provide off-campus instruction.

‘I have 30 kids in a Sunday school class — I don’t know who is documented and undocumented,’ said one Latino pastor.

World

‘We can be accidental accomplices in keeping people poor,’ TV travel host Rick Steves said he learned from Simon.

Leaders of Jordan’s Council of Churches issued a similar statement on Nov. 5, calling for the cancellation of Christmas celebrations in the kingdom.

Church leaders are conducting weekly workshops to train traditional and church leadership in how to promote peace in their communities.

Editorials

Last week, Alabama Republican Governor Kay Ivey apologized for performing in blackface 52 years ago while a college student at a BSU party, an incident she couldn't recall. If, like Ivey, we can’t remember what our Baptist churches and institutions did in the past, how can we really improve things

As Christians, we are to be people of the Truth. We are to people who speak truthfully, who bear truthful witness about neighbors. And part of that requires us to be willing to call a thing a thing, to call racism racism.

Around significant anniversaries, churches will often produce a write-up of their history. But what if we’ve left out some important details? Does your church need to reconsider the ugly parts of our history we may have left out?

Word&Way Voices

Contributing writer Sarah Blackwell makes the case that this MLK day, we should honor his great teacher Dr. Howard Thurman by walking in nature, sitting in reflective silence, looking at the ways creation works together, and then applying these lessons to our lives. We might even find ourselves talking to

Rev. Nathan Empsall of Faithful America reflects on why he sought to provide a Christian witness against the unholy and heretical political ideology of Christian Nationalism that helped inspire the deadly attack on the Capitol two years ago.

Contributing writer Rodney Kennedy argues that “gaslighting,” Merriam-Webster's 2022 word of the year, pertains to the way that some non-believers, particularly New Atheists, have gaslit our entire culture. But the god they created in order to insist that he doesn’t exist is a god he doesn't believe in either.

E-Newsletter

This issue of A Public Witness digs into recent data from Lifeway Research and the Land Center to see what we can actually learn about a significant evangelical denomination and why the framing of the report misses the mark.

This issue of A Public Witness takes you inside the Summit for Religious Freedom to hear about why church-state separation matters for democracy and the vitality of the Christian witness.

This issue of A Public Witness explores what Scott Coley’s forthcoming book “Ministers of Propaganda: Truth, Power, and the Ideology of the Religious Right” reveals about the antidote to Christo-authoritarianism.

Sign up to receive full essays in your inbox!

Recent Episodes

Books

Robert D. Cornwall reviews What Is My Calling?: A Biblical and Theological Exploration of Christian Identity by William W. Klein and Daniel J. Steiner. The book’s message can be helpful for those who are struggling to make sense of their

Robert D. Cornwall reviews A Curious Faith: The Questions God Asks, We Ask, and We Wish Someone Would Ask Us by Lore Ferguson Wilbert. The book is written from an evangelical perspective that is open to learning new things by

We review a book each month at A Public Witness and for this installment, Beau Underwood examines a memoir on family histories, racism, and what our society needs to do now. He highly recommends Lisa Sharon Harper.'s Fortune:

Robert D. Cornwall reviews Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible by Dietrich Bonhoeffer with a new introduction from Walter Brueggemann. While Bonhoeffer was thoroughly trained in the historical-critical method of biblical interpretation, in his book on the Psalms he