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The superintendent of public instruction, who recently pledged to put a Turning Point USA chapter in every high school to honor Charlie Kirk, will now ‘destroy the teachers unions’ from the private sector.

How do we make sense of our confusing political moment? Scripture is constantly warped to advance purely partisan agendas. The underlying goal is advancing power at seemingly any cost. Luckily, we have a new book that deciphers it all.

Before the memorial service started, two hours of songs from the biggest worship artists today served to frame everything that followed as part of a church service — sending the message that Kirk’s politics were from God.

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Church

This issue of A Public Witness tracks which denominations Lutheran congressional members are part of to consider what that reveals about Lutheran life and the broader Christian witness.

Among corporate America’s most persistent shareholder activists are 80 nuns in a monastery outside Kansas City. The Benedictine sisters of Mount St. Scholastica have taken on the likes of Google, Target, and Citigroup.

A dispute over weekend parking in bike lanes has left a group of inner-city congregations — four churches, a pair of synagogues and the Philadelphia Ethical Society — in Philadelphia dealing with a tricky urban dilemma.

Nation

While not definitive, the decision signals the justices’ inclination to see conservative religious parents succeed in their two-year legal challenge to the school policy that has dominated discussions at school boards and divided county residents.

The arrests sparked angst in the community and have concerned advocates of Iranian Christians who’ve fled persecution from the Islamic regime.

The Homeland Security Committee named the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Catholic Charities USA, and Lutheran and United Methodist ministries among those under scrutiny.

World

As the world-famous Paris landmark's reopening draws closer, people are beginning to picture their return to the place they call home and are impatient to breathe life back into its repaired stonework and vast spaces.

A tiny Christian minority sitting on one of the Holy Land's most valuable pieces of real estate has rebelled against a real-estate deal that would sacrifice nearly 25% of its land in Jerusalem.

The lush Cedars of God Forest, some 2000 meters (6,560 feet) above sea level near the northern town of Bcharre, is part of a landscape cherished by Christians.

Editorials

Brian KaylorThere is a scene in the biblical Christmas story that bugs me. I didn’t notice it for years. But one Christmas as I was preparing a couple of sermons, I was struggling

Brian KaylorLast month, news headlines called the shooting in Las Vegas the “deadliest mass shooting in US history.” That’s the fifth time in my life that such a tragedy claimed that title —

Brian KaylorI recently lost a tooth. And the tooth fairy didn’t even bother to give me a quarter — or whatever the going rate is these days.

Word&Way Voices

Rev. Darron LaMonte Edwards writes that he is feeling weary from the announcement that another unarmed Black man was killed. But as a Christian community, we cannot afford to get tired of speaking up for victims like Tyre Nichols. This problem has solutions.

Rev. Angela Denker reflects on the church life her kids don't get to live and how at times it feels like it would be easier to uncompromisingly champion a strong and central Church, one that can afford to take for granted its place at the center of American community and

Contributing writer Rodney Kennedy argues that the bully pulpit of yesteryear has effectively been replaced by bully politics — but we will never fully understand how this happened until we examine how cruelty is often disguised as a form of humor.

E-Newsletter

This issue of A Public Witness treks to Latin America to consider the dangers arising from the political co-opting of sacred texts.

The conventions are over and it’s a 10-week political sprint to election day — but many churches don’t know how to talk about political rancor. One constructive way to address this is to focus on Christian Nationalism.

This issue of A Public Witness explores the religious ethics behind the Golden Rule and why it matters when Vice Presidential nominee Tim Walz declares that it means “mind your own damn business.”

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Books

The Flag and the Cross: White Christian Nationalism and the Threat to American Democracy by sociologists Philip Gorski and Samuel Perry is so important that we’re not just highlighting it in this review, but we’re also giving away a copy autographed

Robert D. Cornwall reviews My Body Is Not a Prayer Request: Disability Justice in the Church by Amy Kenny. The book uses the author's own story to call on the church to rethink how it understands and relates to disabled

Robert D. Cornwall reviews Chasing after Wind: A Pastor's Life by Douglas J. Brouwer. This book serves as a post-retirement memoir from a longtime Presbyterian (PCUSA) pastor that contains insights for clergy and non-clergy alike.

Robert D. Cornwall reviews On the Spectrum: Autism, Faith, and the Gifts of Neurodiversity by Daniel Bowman, Jr. The book was recently chosen by the Academy of Parish Clergy as its 2022 Book of the Year.