I have had the rare opportunity in the past several weeks to have several conversations with different people about the concept of “witness” within the Christian context, none of which were initiated by me. In the Christian tradition we give witness to the reality of God’s revelation in Jesus Christ, though the language may differ among Christians in exactly how we do that. In legal terms a witness is someone who observes an event and is then called upon to give testimony about what they saw—which brings up another word with some baggage around it: ”testimony.”
In some traditionally liberal churches “giving witness” is not part of our regular vocabulary, and in fact the term can provoke an at least somewhat distressing response. Why is that? Are we not called to give witness, to share our experiences of the risen Christ? Are we not called upon to share with the world the gift of God’s grace revealed [...]