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By appealing to maternal concerns about what kids eat or learn and offering a sense of clarity, community, and stability, conservative influencers are creating an on-ramp for political engagement framed as part of a spiritual war.

Catholic, Orthodox, and most historic Protestant groups accept the Nicene Creed. Despite later schisms over doctrine and other factors, Nicaea remains a point of agreement — the most widely accepted creed in Christendom.

About 18 million Bibles have been sold this year, part of a five-year boom in Bible sales.

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Church

Numerous faith leaders across the U.S. say the immigration crackdown launched by President Donald Trump’s new administration has sown fear within their migrant-friendly congregations.

This issue of A Public Witness explores Bishop Mariann Budde’s viral call for Trump to show mercy, the attacks on her and the Episcopal Church that followed, and the Washington National Cathedral’s history of advancing Christian Nationalism.

'It really has to be an all-hands-on-deck community engagement to rebuild and restore and return,' said one Los Angeles pastor.

Nation

In life and in death, Charlie Kirk represented the worst of American politics. He stoked dangerous conspiracies, attempted to silence voices he disagreed with, and utilized violent rhetoric mixed with a godly veneer. Then, someone decided to respond with evil by picking up a gun to silence a life.

The Republican plan, urged on by Trump, would crack the city’s urban core into three districts — with all of them converging at Independence Boulevard Christian Church.

'Those verses were not about the United States military,' said Brian Kaylor, a Baptist minister and author. 'They weren't really even about any imperial military force, and quite the opposite.'

World

As the world’s eyes turn to France, host of the summer games in two months, their unique approach to the role of religious symbols in the public realm is getting more scrutiny.

Given recent claims about how the Bible should guide U.S. policy decisions when it comes to Israel, this issue of A Public Witness reads through Scripture to determine how political leaders should treat various nations.

Christian pastors and social media influencers have connected the concert's sexual content with unprecedented floods that have devastated cities in Rio Grande do Sul state and killed 116 people.

Editorials

We saw a prophetic example earlier this week at the United Nations. And like many of the Old Testament prophets, this modern one did not come from a prominent position of power. But God doesn’t usually speak through the powerful.

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

Word&Way Voices

Contributing writer Rodney Kennedy makes the case that the most color-shifting term in our political vocabulary is 'rights.'

Ryan Whitaker’s new film 'Surprised by Oxford,' based on Carolyn Weber’s memoir of the same name, explores what happens when our plans and expectations are thwarted by the vagaries of life.

Contributing writer Sarah Blackwell makes the case that children are walking around each day speaking the language of the world, so it is powerful when we can take those stories and translate them into our own religious language.

E-Newsletter

Katherine Stewart has created a collection of dispatches from the front lines of the current assault on American democracy.

This issue of A Public Witness looks at numerous sermons by Episcopal and other mainline preachers across the country as they reflected on Luke 4, Bishop Budde, and showing mercy.

Amid the vitriol against Episcopal Bishop Mariann Budde from Trump and other Republicans this week, a few proposals stick out since they attempt to empower the federal government to decide which religious beliefs should be allowed or not.

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Recent Episodes

Books

"Deliver Us: Salvation and the Liberating God of the Bible" by Walter Brueggemann is the first volume in a new series gathering the lesser-known works of one of the most influential figures in biblical studies and theology.

"Preaching and Praying as Though God Matters: In the Post-establishment Church" by Ronald P. Byars seeks to provide us with a word that ties preaching and worship together, with special attention given to the Lord's Table.

In "The Desert of Compassion: Devotions for the Lenten Journey" author Rachel M. Srubas draws on the images of the desert, which she knows so well as a pastor in southern Arizona, to provide the reader/spiritual seeker with a rich

Barbara Mahany's "The Book of Nature: The Astonishing Beauty of God’s First Sacred Text" serves to remind us that before there was scripture, there was nature. It was nature that spoke to humanity about the presence of God the creator.