Home - Word&Way
logo
mobile-logo

Featured

In addition, ‘The Surprising Story of How Speaker Johnson Read a Fake Jefferson Prayer’ won the magazine feature category and Best in Class for Writing for Periodicals and our Unsettling Advent devotionals won the editorial series category and Best in Class for Specialized Writing.

Pete Hegseth, who likes to call himself ‘secretary of war,’ read a prayer during the latest government worship service that echoes a scene written by Quentin Tarantino calling for ‘great vengeance and furious anger.’

In significant sectors of American evangelical Christianity, Israel is a theological object beyond moral scrutiny. This is not political support for an ally. It is worship. And by Christianity’s own doctrinal standards, it is sin.

No posts were found.

Videos

Church

'We're going to sing and sing and try to touch the hearts of the ICE agents,' said the Rev. Jacqueline Lewis, senior pastor at Middle Church in New York.

The day of action, titled “Faithful Resistance,” was planned months ago, and organizers settled on their schedule before the date for this week’s State of the Union was announced.

It's at least the second lawsuit challenging the federal government's policy of barring faith leaders from accessing some Department of Homeland Security facilities.

Nation

Biblical stories like Jonah and the whale would be required reading for Texas public school students under proposals that are putting the state at the center of another contentious wrangling over the role of religion in classrooms.

‘For an administration that has been using religious language to justify the war, it’s remarkable that they have completely avoided engaging Christian moral theology on this point,’ said Robert P. Jones, a Christian Nationalism scholar.

This issue of A Public Witness considers how the military chaplain who authored a war prayer and the secretary of defense who appropriated it for himself performed violence against Scripture to justify violence against people.

World

This issue of A Public Witness highlights important voices of opposition to imperial plotting from a variety of religious groups, ranging from Lutherans to Baptists, Anglicans, Catholics, and others.

Historic Christian churches representing the predominantly Arab Christian community and mostly U.S. evangelicals who support Israel are at odds with each other.

The unusual statement marked the second time in recent months that members of the Catholic hierarchy have asserted their voice against a Trump administration many believe isn’t upholding the basic tenets of human dignity.

Editorials

Editor-in-Chief Brian Kaylor reflects on Speaker Mike Johnson working to cover up a House Ethics Committee report on former Rep. Matt Gaetz after President-elect Donald Trump nominated Gaetz to serve as U.S. attorney general.

While messengers to last week’s annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention debated how to treat churches with women in pastoral roles, Baptist Women in Ministry showed up to offer a counter witness.

The thinning of the UMC’s conservative ranks makes this week’s conference a perfect time to address the issue.

Word&Way Voices

As Christmas nears, may we continue to not run away from seeing the injustices in our communities. But hold that in tension with the joy that we should all be feeling as we anticipate Jesus’s birth.

To launch our week reflecting on Advent in a time of soldiers in the streets, Rev. Jorge Bautista writes about getting shot in the face with a pepper round by a U.S. immigration agent while at a peaceful prayer vigil in Oakland, California.

Despite the tough-on-crime adage that prisoners enjoy 'three hots and a cot' during their time behind bars, this paints far too rosy a picture of the meager portions of low-quality and ultra-processed foods available.

E-Newsletter

Check out the first episode of ‘A Trick of State,’ a special occasional series from Dangerous Dogma investigating underexplored issues at the intersection of church and state that expose the false promises of Christian Nationalism.

While figures like Franklin Graham and Pete Hegseth bet on a holy war where God is on their side, many Christian leaders in the U.S. and around the world were quick to condemn the so-called ‘Operation Epic Fury.’

This issue of A Public Witness explores the theology behind viewing the United States as a nation that God asks to perform miracles, as expressed in the State of the Union address on Tuesday.

Sign up to receive full essays in your inbox!

Recent Episodes

Books

Through honest storytelling, spiritual reflection, and practical wisdom gained from a pilgrimage journey, Andy and Kara Root offer parents and pastors a refreshing alternative to the exhausting cycle of trying to control outcomes.

Leading Qur'anic scholar Gabriel Said Reynolds presents a revisionary account of how Islam emerged in dialogue with Christian traditions, challenging the dominant narrative that it came out of a predominantly pagan context.

Scholar Matthew Boedy exposes a dangerous plan driven by prosperity preachers, extremist politicians, and right-wing power brokers to destroy democracy and turn America into a Christian Nationalist state.

Beth Felker Jones offers a theologically grounded reflection on the beauty and complexity of the Protestant tradition, inviting a deeper understanding of Protestantism and its place in the broader Christian community.