Florida Man Kicks God Out of the Ten Commandments
This issue of A Public Witness heads to Florida with the zeal of Moses descending from the mountain to scrutinize the Christian Nationalist attempt to desacralize the Decalogue.
The Surprising Story of How Speaker Johnson Read a Fake Jefferson Prayer
Like a decades-long game of telephone, the tale takes many twists — with appearances by George Washington, an Episcopal convention in Missouri, a promoter of Christian Nationalism at a group now trying to debunk the claim, a Catholic newspaper in New York, a library heist,
Johnson Wins Speakership, Reads Fake Prayer From Thomas Jefferson
Mike Johnson previously claimed the founders intended the U.S. to have a Christian government using spurious quotes from President John Quincy Adams and Alexis de Tocqueville.
Speaker Johnson Doesn’t Know How Walls Work
This issue of A Public Witness looks back at Thomas Jefferson’s letter to Baptists penned 202 years ago this week and explores why prominent figures deliberately misrepresent the metaphorical “wall of separation” between church and state.
Thomas Jefferson Tried to ‘Fix’ the Bible. He Only Succeeded in Making It Sad.
The third president’s attempts to revise Scripture offer a warning about our own tendency to “edit” the truth. Read full piece
Reading Thomas Jefferson’s Bible
The president preferred Jesus’s teachings to his supernatural acts — and edited his copy of the New Testament accordingly. Read full piece
New Memorial to U-Va.’s Enslaved Workers Reclaims Lost Lives & Forgotten Narratives
University of Virginia unveiled a Memorial to Enslaved Laborers this month. The memorial acknowledges the estimated 4,000 enslaved people who lived and worked at the university from 1817 to 1865. Read full piece
Trump’s 2020 Religious Attack on Biden Harks Back to 1800
Last week President Donald Trump attacked his presumptive Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, on religious grounds. It’s been 220 years since the religion card was played so bigly in an American presidential campaign. The precedent is more apt than you might think.