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For years, Rev. Shannon Fleck has been challenging Christian Nationalists in Oklahoma. Now, she’s ready to mobilize on the national level.

This issue of A Public Witness looks at what we know so far about the targeting of international college students for deportation and what it could mean for Christian schools.

In “Becoming the Pastor’s Wife: How Marriage Replaced Ordination as a Woman’s Path to Ministry,” Beth Allison Barr traces the history of the role, showing how it both helped and hurt women in conservative Protestant traditions.

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Videos

Church

A fire all but destroyed the historic church sanctuary at First Baptist Dallas, sending smoke billowing over the city but causing no deaths or injuries, Dallas firefighters said.

Kristin Stoneking will replace Bishop Karen Oliveto, the denomination’s first openly gay married bishop, who, at age 66, is retiring.

The same factors that have caused a crisis in the homeowner's insurance market are also affecting churches, who have to choose between paying for insurance or running programs.

Nation

The evangelical college posted, then deleted, a message celebrating Vought’s confirmation as director of the White House Office of Management and Budget.

President Donald Trump announced Thursday that he was forming a task force led by Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate the “targeting” of Christians as his administration continues to clash with major Christian groups.

The speech came as the Trump administration, just 2 weeks old, is already facing lawsuits arguing that it violated the religious freedom of Christians in the U.S.

World

This issue of A Public Witness offers a crash course lesson from one of the preeminent experts on Ukrainian religious freedom to consider what’s happening in the besieged nation and how religious freedom rights are undermined by Russia.

‘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.

Editorials

As often occurs when preachers give their pulpits over to a politician, they point to a Bible passage that does not actually justify their decision: 1 Timothy 2:1-2. But the passage does not actually say what proponents claim.

During the state legislative session in Missouri that ended in May, I found myself at the Capitol more than usual -- and I’ve learned a couple things about the impact of a Baptist minister showing up to speak out for those of minority faiths or no faith at all.

On Mar. 13, more than 16 years in Missouri Baptist litigation came to an end. But if we rejoice in our “victories,” we miss the point that we all lost as we hurt the cause of Christ.

Word&Way Voices

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.

“It was a personally moving experience,” said Amy Brown after visiting the house where her great uncle spent 36 years as a general surgeon in Jordan. Amy, married to the secretary general of Baptist World Alliance Elijah Brown, visited just one month after the passing of the elder Lovegren, who

E-Newsletter

This Saturday marks four years since the photo op where Trump awkwardly held a Bible outside a church after police teargassed BLM protesters. Despite all the attention to evangelicals, if you look at the photos all you will see is the influence of mainline Protestantism.

This edition of A Public Witness looks at how denying the problem of Christian Nationalism or putting the blame on the shoulders of others avoids the discomfort of identifying our own complicity and having to alter our practices.

This issue of A Public Witness explores what it was like to edit the forthcoming book “Baptizing America: How Mainline Protestants Helped Build Christian Nationalism” from the perspective of a lifelong mainliner.

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Recent Episodes

Books

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

Robert D. Cornwall reviews Words of Love: A Healing Journey with the Ten Commandments by Eugenia Anne Gamble. This book reflects on the Commandments in a manner that is both deeply spiritual and personal and we see aspects that people