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This isn’t the first time Graham has been invited to speak at the Pentagon. Two previous occasions — one of which was canceled — each sparked controversy because of his comments about Islam.

As Christmas approaches and the world gazes once again toward Bethlehem, a fundamental choice emerges: Will Christians justify oppression and exclusion, or will they stand with the local Christian community?

The season of Advent urges us to slow down; to dwell in the fullness of God’s good news. God offers us life-affirming joy even as calamity follows crisis like an ever-unspooling tragedy.

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Videos

Church

In the mid-1970s, a group of high schoolers and their former youth pastor started a church in a movie theater and named it Willow Creek. American religion hasn’t been the same since. The church celebrates its 50th anniversary Oct. 11-12.

Graham said the standards mandating a leader care plan ‘puts ECFA into the role of trying to be the moral police of the evangelical world.’

Curry succeeds the Rev. Elizabeth Eaton, who served the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America for 12 years and was the first woman to lead the mainline Protestant denomination.

Nation

With Pentagon prayer services continuing into the Christmas season, this issue of A Public Witness peeks inside Pete Hegseth’s monthly effort to establish his brand of rightwing Christianity inside the government.

The third installment of the ‘Knives Out’ series examines the spiritual warfare within American Christianity and looks at writer-director Rian Johnson’s struggle with the essence of faith.

A year after the election, a new Pew Research Center report reveals that a majority of Latino Catholics and Protestants have negative views on Trump’s job so far as president as they witness the impacts of ICE raids in their neighborhoods.

World

Composed of original pipes from the 11th century, the instrument emitted a full, hearty sound as musician David Catalunya played a liturgical chant.

The audience marked the first by history’s first American pope with the Israeli head of state. Leo spoke by telephone with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in July after an Israeli shell slammed into the only Catholic church in Gaza.

The Lutheran church, called Kiruna Kyrka in Swedish, moved 3.1 miles east on Tuesday and Wednesday as part of Kiruna's relocation because the world’s largest underground iron-ore mine is threatening to swallow the town.

Editorials

Brian Kaylor reflects on state executions during Christmastime and the modern parallels with a biblical character we often leave out of our nativity sets and pageants.

Lawmakers are arguing that if the federal government can restrict structures in the Rio Grande, then they could use the same Act everywhere because of Noah’s flood. Putting aside the legal silliness of the appeal to Genesis, this issue of A Public Witness joins the 22 Republican representatives in their

Focusing almost entirely on the SBC not only minimizes the theological (and political and racial) diversity of Baptists, but it also privileges a patriarchal body over others.

Word&Way Voices

The first candle we light during Advent symbolizes hope: the hope of Christ’s coming, the hope of light always shining for the oppressed and the marginalized.

In 2025, the U.S.-led global fight against AIDS grew more complicated as the Trump administration dismantled most foreign aid and barred State Department employees from commemorating World AIDS Day.

As wannabe tyrants arise and the authoritarian logic of empire finds purchase among Christian Nationalists, sincere followers of Jesus should listen afresh to Mary this Christmastime.

E-Newsletter

Beau Underwood reviews The Seven Mountains Mandate: Exposing the Dangerous Plan to Christianize America and Destroy Democracy, which Matthew Boedy wrote to alert those who were ignorant or complacent about what was going on and what was at stake.

This issue of A Public Witness hits the streets to consider what some recent creative protests can teach us about how to prophetically resist authoritarianism.

While some scholars argue over which theological positions to include in a definition of “evangelical,” religious studies professor William Stell finds such “belief-based models” too vague and problematic.

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Recent Episodes

Books

Longtime pastor Austin Carty makes the case that the power of a sermon is found not in novelty, but in the mandate it gives preachers to collect their thoughts every week and put them down in a succinct, coherent fashion.

In her new book, ‘Spellbound,’ the historian of religion traces the mysterious force that is charisma from the Puritans to Donald Trump.

Malcolm Foley makes a bold argument about the ways our historical sins continue to reverberate into the present and how the Church is compelled to respond.

Claire Hoffman chronicles the dramatic rise, mysterious disappearance, and near-fall of Aimee Semple McPherson, America’s most famous woman evangelist.