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Dissenting former evangelical Christian women are forging a path different from those who have left the church in the decades-long decline in institutional faith.

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.

In this book, Baptist theologian Myles Werntz explores the landscape of twentieth-century ecclesiology and shows how the four marks of the church were remade, contested, and reaffirmed in surprising ways.

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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

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which King co-founded, also opposed the release since the FBI illegally surveilled civil rights figures in the hopes of discrediting them and their movement.

This issue of A Public Witness opens up the Epstein case to explore the dangers of phony, conspiratorial self-righteousness and how it captured so many conservative Christian figures.

Known for his expository preaching and his penchant for controversy, MacArthur was one of evangelicalism’s most influential pastors for decades.

World

Draft law 8371, which requires another vote before moving to the president’s desk, would give Ukrainian authorities power to examine the connection of religious groups in Ukraine to the Russian Federation and to ban those whose leadership is outside of Ukraine.

As the Israel-Hamas war continues, multiple Christian church buildings and facilities have been damaged. Rev. Hanna Massad shared an update about the war’s impact on the small Christian community on the day after the “devastating explosion” at the only Christian hospital in the besieged territory.

Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby spoke as news emerged of a deadly rocket attack on al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza, run by the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem.

Editorials

webbforwebWith this column I am formally announcing my retirement later this year as Word & Way editor after more than 20 years of service.

Bill WebbGiven the circumstances of the time, the Missouri Plan was considered revolutionary. Leaders hoped it could become a model for Baptists in other states. Many hoped that one result of the plan

Bill WebbWord & Way trustees and staff took note of my 20th anniversary as editor with a drop-by reception at First Baptist Church in Jefferson City, Mo., March 19.

Word&Way Voices

Angela Parker from Mercer University’s McAfee School of Theology writes about the time that a complementarian invited her to lunch. Thinking through the genealogy in Matthew’s Gospel and Ware’s re-imagination makes her ask how certain segments of Christianity still stifle women’s ministry.

John Sianghio writes that we find hope in strange and unexpected places. There is something about sports, something about the stories of players like Hakimi and his mother, that captures the hearts and minds of the world and pierces our souls with its poignancy.

Adriene Thorne of Riverside Church writes that God’s people can choose to care for one another with lavish love and justice. That is the better world we dare to anticipate during Advent.

E-Newsletter

Sociologist Jason Shelton’s new book explains what has happened — and is happening — in ways that call for revising how we perceive the Black Church as an institution and social force.

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.

Some public figures also regularly tweet a random Bible verse on Sundays. And sometimes that creates an incongruity with the news. So this issue of A Public Witness gets biblical online to look inside this practice of tweeting the Bible.

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Recent Episodes

Books

In God Spare the Girls, Abigail and Caroline are the daughters of celebrity evangelical pastor Luke Nolan. While they aren’t always able to abide by scripture exactly, Abigail and Caroline more or less believe in their religion and their father

Beau Underwood reviews Bruce Reyes-Chow’s new book, ‘In Defense of Kindness: Why it Matters, How it Changes our Lives, and How it Can Save the World,’ praising how Reyes-Chow pushes back against superficial understandings of “kindness.”

Senior Editor Beau Underwood reviews the new book 'Praying with Our Feet: Pursuing Justice and Healing on the Streets' by Lindsay Krinks, a street chaplain and social justice activist in Nashville, Tennessee.

Frederick Christian Bauerschmidt talks with Word&Way about his book 'The Love that is God.' He discusses his reasons for writing, the book’s main message, and why “love” is not a sentimental idea but central to what Christians believe about God.