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Given the importance of promoting religious liberty and addressing religious bigotry, this issue of A Public Witness delves into the debates swirling around the White House’s “Religious Liberty Commission.”

Leon Benjamin, a charismatic preacher who frequently spoke at the ReAwaken America Tour, attended the ‘Stop the Steal’ rally on Jan. 6, 2021, and even walked with the crowd to the Capitol grounds.

Jennifer Houston McNeel explores the literary, historical, feminist, and theological significance of mothers and motherhood in the New Testament.

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Videos

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.

The church's pastor said selling the shirts with the logo is an effort to ‘turn evil to good.’

Faith groups have long received government grants to feed the hungry, respond to disasters, and assist those in need — but recent comments from Trump administration officials have cast such grants in a bad light.

Nation

Paul Ostapa, an HVAC technician, says he told his bosses the Bible will not let him work alone with women. When he refused to work alone with a female co-worker, he was fired. He’s suing in federal court for religious discrimination.

This issue of A Public Witness looks at the danger of religious attacks against politicians as MAGA comes after Republicans for non-Christian beliefs or for offering kind words to Americans celebrating a non-Christian religious holiday.

Latino Christian leaders meeting in Southern California discussed how best to pastor congregations newly traumatized by the Trump mass deportation policy.

World

The pontiff, who had part of one lung removed as a young man, has been battling respiratory problems all winter.

'Usually people are joyful today and kids are excited. But when you compare children here who have water and food and a family to what’s happening in Gaza, how can you be happy?' said Fayaz Dakkak, a Palestinian storeowner.

‘We repent of the ways we have not stood alongside our Palestinian siblings in faithful witness in the midst of their grief, agony, and sorrow,’ the leaders wrote.

Editorials

Brian KaylorIn the U.S. context, we often hear laments about the decline of Christianity, how younger generations are walking away from faith and about our culture’s increasing embrace of immorality. If we hear

Brian KaylorThe top religious advisor to President Donald Trump defended his policies on detaining immigrant children, claiming Jesus never broke the law. Rather than an aberration, Paula White, the Florida megachurch “prosperity gospel”

Brian KaylorIt seems that since people could write, we’ve had stories warning about powerful people using their power to abuse others and to gain or preserve their power, assets or lustful desires. Homer’s

Word&Way Voices

Rev. Joy Martinez-Marshall reflects on both the heartbreaks and triumphs she encountered on the winding road to finding a new denominational family.

Contributing writer Greg Mamula walks us through the recent denominational gathering of the most ethnically diverse and politically balanced denomination in the United States.

Contributing writer Rodney Kennedy argues that a recent tweet from Senator Josh Hawley describing Christianity and America as the saviors who destroyed slavery represents a false history.

E-Newsletter

This issue of A Public Witness seeks sanctuary to understand the history of how ICE interacts with houses of worship and the pushback against Trump’s changes from various Christian groups.

The first week of the new Trump administration was filled with attacks on the religious liberty rights of Episcopalians and Catholics. Over the weekend, another Christian group found itself in crosshairs: the ELCA.

Few people have thought as much about faith and politics as Danforth, who served as Missouri’s attorney general, special counsel for the DOJ, special envoy to Sudan, and ambassador to the UN for George W. Bush.

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Recent Episodes

Books

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

Robert D. Cornwall reviews "Unruly Saint: Dorothy Day's Radical Vision and its Challenge for Our Times" by D.L. Mayfield. This book recognizes a degree of saintliness about Day's life but fears she might get domesticated by a church that might

Robert D. Cornwall reviews "The Book of Revolutions: The Battles of Priests, Prophets, and Kings That Birthed the Torah" by Edward Feld. This book provides us with an intriguing picture of early Judaism by focusing not on historical narrative but