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Empathy is usually regarded as a virtue, a key to human decency and kindness. And yet, with increasing momentum, voices on the Christian right are preaching that it has become a vice.

A federal judge temporarily halted a law requiring public schools to display a version of the Ten Commandments in every classroom, echoing faith leaders and others who argue the statute violates the First Amendment.

This issue of A Public Witness recommends two films and one miniseries exploring important issues of Christian Nationalism and religious abuse.

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Videos

Church

Richard Joyner has a new rejoinder to his congregants: 'God is not flooding the land. Our behavior is destroying the environment.'

Queen is the first SBC leader to be charged in an ongoing DOJ investigation into the nation's largest Protestant denomination.

At St. Paul's Episcopal Church, the Rev. Jean Beniste, a Haitian immigrant and Episcopal priest turned internet curses into blessings during an annual blessing of the animals, held in honor of St. Francis.

Nation

While reporters and peaceful protesters were accosted on Pentecost by militarized forces, tanks have been rolling into the nation’s capital so President Trump can enjoy a military parade on his birthday this Saturday.

This issue of A Public Witness takes a stroll through President Donald Trump’s proposed Medicaid cuts and the deadly theology preached by a Republican senator from Iowa.

The group Freedom From Religion condemned the ruling, saying that ‘treating religiously affiliated nonprofits the same as all other nonprofits is not a violation of the First Amendment.’

World

The pro-Kremlin Lukashenko last month signed into law a measure requiring all religious organizations in the country to reregister with authorities or face being outlawed if their loyalty to the state is in doubt.

This issue of A Public Witness explores the subversive power of public mourning — like what happened recently after the state murder of Russian political dissident Alexei Navalny — to better understand a Beatitude of Jesus.

Judges across Europe are having a tough time deciding whether asylum-seekers claiming religious persecution are ‘genuine’ Christians.

Editorials

We really are living in a more profane age. And it’s not just the four-letter words or the using of God’s name in vain. The Bible clearly teaches us that our words matter.

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.

Word&Way Voices

At the 2023 General Assembly of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Louisville, Kentucky, one of the smallest Mainline denominations met to discuss some of the church's biggest issues.

Contributing writer Rodney Kennedy argues that Southern Baptists are engaged in a long slow return to Rome in a couple of very particular ways: one pagan and one religious.

Theologian and anti-apartheid activist Allan Boesak reacts to the recent U.S. House of Representatives resolution expressing support for Israel.

E-Newsletter

This issue of A Public Witness hops on a cross-country bus to sightsee the pluralist resistance to Christian Nationalism — and picks up some religious hope for our divided country along the way.

This issue of A Public Witness journeys to the Big Apple to consider two coincidentally timed appeals: Rev. William Barber II at Riverside Church and the Trump campaign at Madison Square Garden.

This issue of A Public Witness listens in on the anti-Amendment 3 sermon effort across the Show-Me State.

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Recent Episodes

Books

Robert D. Cornwall reviews "Becoming Human: The Holy Spirit and the Rhetoric of Race" by Luke A. Powery. This book draws upon theology, especially the theology of the Holy Spirit, to provide a theological foundation for responding to the racialization

Robert D. Cornwall reviews "Better Religion: A Primer for Interreligious Peacebuilding" by John D. Barton. This book provides a set of tools that can help us move toward a greater understanding of one another without jettisoning the distinctiveness of our

Historian and former denominational executive Lee Spitzer spent years researching for his new book Sympathy, Solidarity, and Silence: Three European Baptist Responses to the Holocaust. The book tells inspiring and disappointing stories of how Baptists in England, France, and Germany

Robert D. Cornwall reviews "Father Abraham’s Many Children: The Bible in a World of Religious Difference" by Tyler D. Mayfield with a forward from Eboo Patel. This book invites us to read Genesis from the perspective of religious pluralism as