Bold Prayers Made Amy Carmichael’s 55 Years in India Possible

Even by the standards of other missionaries, the Irish woman’s ministry to sexually exploited children was intrepid.

Kneeling bedside, three-year-old Amy Carmichael begged God to make her eyes blue. Sadly, for the toddler, the prayer didn’t spark a miracle.

But decades later as a grown woman, after she had left Ireland to make her home in the then-British occupied India, she remembered her prayer as a child. With her fair skin, she would never truly blend in with the locals. But her brown eyes matched those of the people she lived among—and that was one less distraction when trying to build relationships as a missionary.

Carmichael moved to India at the age of 27 and never left. Much of her ministry was marked by disrupting cultural norms on temple prostitution. Her prayer life, a constant of her ministry and well-documented in her books and personal writings, revealed her boldness, stubbornness, and grit in circumstances that deeply challenged her—characteristics she needed in her efforts to share the love of Christ with hundreds of women and children over her lifetime.

“Go ye”

The oldest of seven children, Amy Carmichael (1867–1951) was raised in a well-to-do Christian family in Millisle, Northern Ireland. She came to faith in Christ as a teenager while attending a Wesleyan Methodist boarding school in Yorkshire, England. But her time at school was cut short when she was forced to return home due to her family’s financial difficulties.

The family moved to Belfast for business, where her father died of pneumonia. Carmichael threw herself into serving others, beginning with her siblings—a pattern of self-sacrifice that would carry through to her dying day. Such hardships caused Carmichael to cling to the Word and cry out to God in prayer, not only for comfort but for practical help.

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There’s No One Equation for Educating Christian Kids

God will be faithful to our children, and we can trust him no matter where they go to school.

I never intended to homeschool our kids. When we started, it wasn’t for religious reasons. Well, maybe a little. In our rural district, my kindergartner had an hourlong bus ride to school, which meant she was gone from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m., five days a week. It was a good school, and she had a great teacher. But she was so tired when she got home that there was little room for the family discipleship I envisioned I would do.

We decided to try homeschooling—just her and just for a year. But as we prepped our second child for kindergarten, some red flags flew up around his health and learning needs, and we decided that it might be easier to homeschool both that school year. After that, the rhythm of homeschooling just fit with our family. My husband ’s job has seasons of intense hours as well as seasons of more time at home, and we were able to customize our family life around that fluctuation.

People often asked us if we would always homeschool. I’d say we were going “kid by kid, year by year.” Homeschooling felt like a big curve ball God threw our way. I didn’t dare presume I knew what God had for us next.

That’s not to say I came easily to a posture of trust and humility around schooling decisions. I went through my arrogant phase, my exasperated phase, and a phase where I hit my stride. But in education discussions with fellow parents and others in our community, I found that it was often Christians—sometimes even myself—who showed little grace, no matter which side they were defending. I was an arrogant public-school mom, turned an arrogant homeschool mom, turned a humbled let-the-Lord-lead mom. That final phase was hard won, and it’s one I hope to help other ...

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Interview: Artsakh Exodus: Armenians Mourn As 85,000 Flee Christian Homeland

Azerbaijani offensive shatters 33-year effort at nation-building, depopulating majority of enclave from fear of genocide. Despite depression, Bible Society leader says “God will not abandon us.”

Suddenly, 70 percent of people in Nagorno-Karabakh have fled.

Last week the unrecognized Armenian republic, called “Artsakh” by its 120,000 residents, suffered an invasion by Azerbaijan, recognized internationally as sovereign over the enclave nestled in the Caucasus Mountains.

At least 32 people were killed in the assault that violated a Russian-backed ceasefire, with at least 68 more killed six days later in a suspicious fuel depot explosion.

But more than the death count, fear of genocide is driving people to flee. Though the enclave is home to around 400 holy sites now at risk of erasure, one official stated that 99.9 percent of Artsakh’s Armenians will cross the border to Armenia, the world’s first Christian nation.

The same crossing was blocked by Azerbaijan since December 2022.

Near-starvation conditions ensued, with humanitarian aid allowed entry one day prior to the Azerbaijani offensive. The Artsakh government issued a decree to dissolve itself as of January 1, ceding control of a territory it declared independent after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Armenians controlled Nagorno-Karabakh since 1994, after a three-year war resulted in the death of 30,000 people, displacing an additional 100,000 in mutual exchange between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Peace talks faltered since then, as they continued to fail after 2020, when a 44-day war resulted in Azerbaijan reclaiming much of the enclave. A further 7,000 were killed before the Russian ceasefire.

Azerbaijan has promised that Armenians in the territory will be integrated as full citizens with equal rights, joining other non-Azeri ethnicities which comprise 8 percent of the population. In the Shiite-majority nation with a substantial Sunni minority, ...

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A Handful of Churches Split from the Christian and Missionary Alliance over Women in Ministry

New position on ordination and titles pushed some “beyond where their convictions would allow them to go.”

Eight congregations have broken away from the Christian and Missionary Alliance (CMA) over the denomination’s decision to ordain women and allow them to carry the title of “pastor.”

The change was approved by a majority of delegates at the Alliance’s general council in June, after several years of discussion. According to an internal study, it is supported by more than 60 percent of the denomination of about 414,000 people.

Women in the Alliance could previously be “consecrated” to ministry and serve as “Consecrated Women of God,” even preaching and teaching in Sunday services, at the discretion of local churches. The Alliance has a history of encouraging women to preach and sending them to plant churches while still placing restrictions on their “ecclesial authority.” The updated polity maintains this distinction and does not allow women to serve as elders or senior pastors in CMA churches. The consecration process will now result in ordination.

“We take a rather unique centrist position in our polity on this issue,” CMA vice president Terry Smith told CT. “For some, this stretched beyond where their convictions would allow them to go.”

The elders at Alliance Bible Fellowship in Boone, North Carolina, voted unanimously to separate in July.

“This decision was not easy. In fact, it grieves us,” senior pastor Scott Andrews said. “Our hearts are grieved to see the direction that we believe the CMA is taking that we just cannot follow.”

Andrews called the change “a significant step toward egalitarianism, which eliminates any gender distinction in the roles of men and women in the church.”

The church is one of the ...

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The Universe Is Not a Horror Show

We live in a world haunted by sin and suffering. But it’s also one that points us to a glory beyond imagining.

This piece was adapted from Russell Moore’s newsletter. Subscribe here.

I rarely frequent the app formerly known as Twitter for long enough to be angered by anything, but I was last week.

A friend of mine posted a prayer request for her son, hospitalized for schizophrenia, with which he’s been grappling a long time. Most of the responses were what one would expect—expressions of love and concern.

One, though, was from a Christian man telling my friend that she could solve this problem quite easily: by taking away “secular” TV and music and video games. That response would be repulsive enough, but then I went and looked at some of this person’s other posts.

One of them, from some time past, warned people about thinking about matters such as the Holocaust. He cited a famous Christian musician who went to Auschwitz and lost his faith in Christ. It’s better to think instead, this man recommended, about things that are lovely and pure.

Even Job’s friends had better counsel. Yes, many people have lost their faith—or never come to it—because they could not reconcile a good God with the atrocities and suffering they see in the world. Think of Dostoevsky’s chilling arguments from the mouth of Ivan Karamazov, for instance. The sort of willed ignorance to grave evil is hardly, though, a Christian response to such questions.

If this posture were just the ramblings of some random person online, I wouldn’t have given it much thought. But the sentiment expressed on that account—albeit crudely and rudely expressed—is one that many people unwittingly take: If I just remain very still and don’t think about what’s lurking out there, it will go away.

A ...

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Conspiracist Thinking Is Cultural Marxism

Marx’s view of history powerfully shaped how we think about time and power, but it’s not the Bible’s view.

It’s been a heck of a month for conspiracy theories. My social media feeds have been inundated by warnings about impending COVID lockdowns and mandates, wild claims about 9/11, supposed revelations of alien corpses, and, after Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman (D) debuted a new mustache, a fresh round of speculation that he uses a body double to conceal ongoing health struggles.

Each outlandish story contributes to a broader ethos of conspiracism: a cynical and fearful mindset which frames everything around the assumption that the world is beset by a grand, secret evil and only a few know what’s “really” going on.

Neither conspiracist thinking nor belief in discrete conspiracy theories are anything new. But the social acceptability of such belief does seem to have grown in recent years. Some credit is due to the internet, of course, but I think there’s a much more fundamental source: human search for meaning within our place in history.

We’re living in a time when religion is in decline, social bonds are weakening, and the humanities are devalued. This leaves us with a dwindling canon of stories—shared histories, parables, myths, and folktales—that bind us together and inform a common moral vision. To cope, we’re retreating into ever-narrower interest groups, becoming more suspicious of one another, and searching for stories to make sense of evil, uncertainty, and suffering.

Conspiracism offers just such a story. Regardless of concrete evidence, conspiracy theories can cut through our sense of unease and ambiguity with a grandiose, black-and-white narrative. They flatter true believers that they’re in on a secret and can change the world.

In ...

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Shannon Harris Wasn’t Content with Being a Purity Culture Stagehand

Her new memoir brings her voice into the story of "I Kissed Dating Goodbye". It also brings in an entirely different gospel.

I read Boy Meets Girl decades ago as an adolescent alongside thousands of other church kids in America. It was the much-anticipated follow-up to Joshua Harris’s now-infamous book, I Kissed Dating Goodbye. As a very young adult, Harris had told us all how to date (or rather, how to court) in a pure way, so that we could all make it to our wedding night as virgins.

Boy Meets Girl was going to tell us how this had all worked out for Josh on a personal level. It also introduced us to Shannon, who I pictured as Josh’s leading lady. Turns out, however, she was more like his backstage help. As Shannon Harris makes clear in her recent book The Woman They Wanted: Shattering the Illusion of the Good Christian Wife, she longed to fulfill her dream of being a singer and actor, but was instead tasked with passing out cake to the cast.

I naively read Boy Meets Girl as a love story. I thought of Joshua and Shannon Harris as an example for all of us kids out there trying to date the “right” way. The book felt like a kind of promise that, if I followed the same rules, I, too, might find my future spouse and live happily ever after.

Decades later, holding Harris’s memoir , I can practically feel the weight of her untold stories in my hands. In it, she finally inserts her own voice into the narrative, giving us an entirely different perspective on the marriage, their ministry, and how being the pastor’s wife of a famous evangelical leader left her “starving” with “nothing left to give.”

Handling ‘heavy bricks’

What turned Harris from being a new, excited Christian into feeling like she had been handed “heavy bricks” by the local church? Those who knew Harris before ...

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German Homeschoolers Face Deportation After 15 Years in the US

The Christian family says their status has been revoked without warning.

A Christian family who fled Germany to be able to homeschool their seven children say they now face deportation, 15 years after arriving in the United States and fighting for asylum.

The Romeikes celebrated what their supporters called “an incredible victory that can only be credited to our Almighty God” in 2014, when they were allowed to stay in the US after years of court appeals. Their lawyer said the decision meant the family could “stay without worries in the future.”

Yet earlier this month, Tennessee residents Uwe and Hannelore Romeike said they learned their deferred action status had been revoked during a check-in with immigration officials. They said their family was directed to obtain German passports and to prepare to self-deport by October 11, with no prior warning or explanation for the change.

The Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), an evangelical group that backed the Romeikes when they came to the US, has launched a campaign asking the government to reinstate their deferred action status.

Their four oldest children are now adults, and two have married Americans. The Romeikes continue to homeschool their three youngest, including two daughters born in the US.

“Deportation to Germany will fracture these families, while exposing the Romeikes to renewed persecution in Germany, where homeschooling is still illegal in almost every case,” said HSLDA.

In Bissingen, located outside of Stuttgart, Germany, the Romeikes decided to educate their children at home because they opposed public school curricula (including “sex education, evolution, and fairy tales”) on religious grounds.

Homeschooling is not legal in the country, though enforcement on the ban can vary by ...

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AI Has No Place in the Pulpit

Technology can serve the church. But it can’t replace the good, frustrating, endless work of ministry.

What should ministers do about artificial intelligence? Over the last year or so, we’ve been inundated with breathless stories about ChatGPT and similar programs that eerily mimic, equal, or surpass the voice, language, and powers of the human mind.

Some of us have had fun with them (“Please write a Shakespearean sonnet in celebration of the San Antonio Spurs”); some of us are already seeing them used in the workplace. Those of us who teach young people have been scrambling to rewrite assignments, since AI is basically a perfect cheating machine.

But what about churches? And what about the church’s leaders?

Some have argued that AI is like other technology, a neutral tool that can be used for either good or ill. If the end served is the mission of Christ, then the means of AI is not only justified; it’s a no-brainer.

Moreover, though their footprint is expanding, well-funded, large-staffed megachurches aren’t representative of the average congregation, neither here in the States nor around the world. Most churches are small and under-resourced, their pastors exhausted and stretched thin. As Christian communities continue to crawl out from beneath COVID-19’s long shadow, surely relieving the pressure from ministers’ packed schedules and overflowing commitments is a worthy goal.

And if AI can do that, as a young Taiwanese pastor recently argued in an article reprinted at CT, then why say no to this time-saving, labor-saving technology? It’s not as though ministers forsake other digital tools. They have email and smartphones and Google Calendar. They don’t ride a horse and buggy to the office.

Above all, suppose AI could eliminate the bulk of a ...

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Shaken Yet Stirred: Turkish Christians Advise Moroccan Church on Earthquake Aid

From Istanbul to Marrakesh, disaster relief can help Muslim-background believers legitimize their faith. But first, say Turks, the church must be united.

Help for Morocco is coming from Turkey. While humble in scope, the biggest impact may be on the church.

First Hope Association (FHA), a Turkish Christian disaster relief agency that provided aid after the massive earthquake that struck southeast Turkey in February, was granted permission to assist in Morocco after its own devastating quake. A four-person team arrived in Marrakesh last week.

Consistent with its Turkish policy, FHA serves all victims without discrimination, in cooperation with the local church. Connecting with a house church network in southern Morocco, the Turkish believers have distributed $30,000 worth of clothes, blankets, and hygiene kits in four mountain villages not yet reached by other aid.

“Our country has gone through the same hardships and difficulties, so we came to help and support,” said Demokan Kileci, FHA board chairman. “This is an amazing opportunity for God’s church here to show his compassion and love.”

In many ways, the parallels are striking.

Morocco and Turkey are both Muslim-majority nations, and they both have small Protestant communities that largely emerged from an Islamic background. The churches in both nations suffered in their respective earthquakes but also rallied support to aid in overall relief. And while enduring varying degrees of ostracism, the believers’ solidarity with fellow citizens has begun to win each a slowly increasing level of social respect.

“Their expression of love was immediate, without any thought of self,” said Tim Ligon, pastor of Marrakesh International Protestant Church, of the local believers he has partnered with in relief. “They counted no cost but responded with everything they had.”

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Refugee Resettlement Begins to Rebound After Historic Lows

Still, fewer persecuted Christians have been able to flee to the US.

Fewer Christians fleeing persecution in their native countries have found a safe harbor in the United States in the past half decade, according to a new report from a pair of Christian nonprofits, which cites the effects of the pandemic and the dismantling of US refugee resettlement programs during the Trump administration.

The report, titled “Closed Doors,” found the number of Christians coming to the US from countries named on a prominent persecution watchlist dropped from 32,248 in 2016 to 9,528 in 2022—a decline of 70 percent.

The number of Christian refugees from Myanmar dropped from 7,634 in 2016 to 587 in 2022, while the number of Christian refugees from Iran dropped from 2,086 in 2016 to 112 in 2022. Christian refugees from Eritrea dropped from 1,639 in 2016 to 252 in 2022, while refugees from Iraq dropped from 1,524 to 93 during the same timeframe.

All four countries are among the 50 nations on the annual World Watch List published by Open Doors, an international Christian charity that tracks persecution. The new report was written by Open Doors and World Relief, an evangelical charity that resettles refugees.

“The tragic reality is that many areas of the world simply aren’t safe for Christians, and Christians fleeing persecution need a safe haven in the United States,” according to the report.

The decline in Christian refugees comes at a time when the persecution against Christians is on the rise, said Ryan Brown, CEO of Open Doors.

According to the Watch List released earlier this year, some 360 million Christians face what Open Doors calls “high levels of discrimination and persecution.” That’s up from 260 million reported in a 2020 edition of the “Closed ...

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Fly Me to the Moon: Praying for Peace this Mid-Autumn Festival

A former NASA R&D director contemplates how faith in God has shaped lunar explorations.

Before my retirement in 2021, I traveled regularly to speak at Christian conferences in America and East Asia. These preaching engagements often occurred during the Mid-Autumn Festival, which is a popular time for Chinese churches—whether in the US or in Taiwan, Hong Kong, China, and the Philippines—to hold special events. While I deeply enjoyed fellowshipping with these brothers and sisters in Christ, a part of me missed my family, especially when I found myself gazing at the beautiful full moon in the sky.

My fascination with the moon began in my youth. As a 14-year-old in Taiwan, I watched footage of Neil Armstrong stepping onto the moon on a neighbor’s black-and-white TV. In that awe-inspiring moment, a secret dream to work at NASA was birthed within me, even though it seemed impossible at the time.

In 1987, God fulfilled my dream of working at NASA, where I eventually became a research and development (R&D) lab director. I’ve long regarded humanity’s explorations of the moon not only as a scientific endeavor, but also as an exercise in trusting God, who has a remarkable way of weaving together our dreams and his plans for us into a tapestry more beautiful than we could ever imagine.

Over the moon

During the Mid-Autumn Festival, or Moon Festival, as it is known in the West, the moon is at its roundest and brightest, the autumn air is cool and dry, and Chinese families enjoy a time of reunion. The event, which falls on September 29 this year, occurs on the 15th day of the eighth month of the lunar calendar.

Many Chinese Christians observe the festival as a cultural celebration, resonating with its themes of familial bonding and gratitude. This emphasis is reminiscent of US and Canadian Thanksgiving ...

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Chapter 1: Pain and Loss (of Presence)

Pandemic challenges and battles, especially the loss of presence, inflicted deep and lasting wounds on pastoral leaders.

Shepherding a congregation is intensely intimate work. Pandemic restrictions didn’t merely prevent pastors from seeing people face-to-face; in many cases they disrupted both ministry and ministers. In particular, the rush to stream worship services online revealed that many congregants associate church with preaching rather than pastoring.

This shook the gospel calling of many pastors and eventually left not just ministers but also members wrestling with an empty feeling, a gnawing pain, after the live feed ended. Jesus speaks of the sheep knowing his voice and of knowing the sheep, a process that takes time and presence. That intensely intimate work happens in many ways: hugs and handshakes, Communion and counseling.

In reflecting on the vulnerable, sometimes passionate, stories of pain, three themes emerged: (1) personal pain, (2) pain specifically caused by others in the church (what one person called “friendly fire”) and (3) the pain of the loss of presence.

Based on Chapter 1 of the report, in this episode host Aaron Hill (Editor of ChurchSalary) sits down with two researchers from the Arbor Research Group, Jon Swanson and Hope Zeller, to talk about the common experience of pain and loss suffered by pastors during the COVID-19 pandemic. Featuring an in-depth interview with Brian Spahr, former pastor and hospital chaplain, about his experience during the pandemic.

Hosted by Aaron Hill, Editor of ChurchSalary

"COVID and the Church" is produced in conjunction with the Arbor Research Group and funded by the Lilly Endowment, Inc., through a grant from the Economic Challenges Facing Pastoral Leaders (ECFPL) initiative.

Executive produced by Aaron Hill, Terry Linhart, and Matt Stevens

Director for CT Media ...

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Why and What? Introduction

Many of our assumptions about the pandemic’s impact on American churches are incorrect or incomplete. What actually happened? And why talk about this now?

The COVID-19 pandemic officially ended on May 11th, 2023. While it lasted only three years, the pandemic impacted almost every institution in America. Research studies have examined the impact of COVID-19 on economics, housing, and secular employment.

But how did COVID-19 impact the American church?

To answer this question, Church Salary (a ministry of Christianity Today) partnered with the Arbor Research Group (with the help of a generous grant from the Lilly Endowment) to conduct a year-long study of over a thousand pastors and church leaders from across the country. During the course of our research in 2022, we encountered thousands of hurting and wounded pastors and lay leaders who desperately needed to share their distinct stories—some tinged with hope, some filled with heartbreak and pain.

This podcast, COVID and the Church, will explore the results of this landmark study published online in a 111-page report. Read the full report, for free, by visiting churchsalary.com/covidstudy.

In this first episode, host Aaron Hill (editor of ChurchSalary) sits down with two of the key architects of this study from the Arbor Research Group, Terry Linhart and Jon Swanson, to unpack what actually happened to the church during the COVID-19 pandemic. Why talk about this now? And what nine themes or common experiences did every single pastor and congregation in the US navigate during the pandemic?

Hosted by Aaron Hill, editor of ChurchSalary

"COVID and the Church" is produced in conjunction with the Arbor Research Group and funded by the Lilly Endowment, Inc., through a grant from the Economic Challenges Facing Pastoral Leaders (ECFPL) initiative.

Executive produced by Aaron Hill, Terry Linhart, and Matt Stevens

Director for ...

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Trailer: COVID and the Church

How did COVID-19 impact the American church?

What caused some churches to thrive, while others struggled? Why did some pastors quit or resign, when so many stayed? What can we learn from pandemic that will prepare us for the uncertain future? We all have assumptions and ideas about what happened. But are they correct? What really happened and why?

To answer these questions, ChurchSalary, a ministry of Christianity Today, partnered with the Arbor Research Group to conduct a year-long study of over a 1,000 pastors and church leaders from across the country. This podcast, COVID and the Church, will explore the results of this landmark study published in a 111-page report.

Explore the 9 common experiences that every pastor and congregation in America navigated during the pandemic—from pain and loss, to fluctuations in giving and attendance, to political polarization, leadership crises, the relentless pressure to rapidly adapt simply in order to survive.

Every episode we will discuss and apply the findings from this study with the help of a team of experts from the Arbor Research Group. And we’ll take a moment to listen to actual stories of how COVID impacted pastors and churches from across the country.

Full series launches on September 25th. Download a free copy of the full report today at churchsalary.com/covidstudy.

Hosted by Aaron Hill, Editor of ChurchSalary

COVID and the Church is produced in conjunction with the Arbor Research Group and funded by the Lilly Endowment, Inc., through a grant from the Economic Challenges Facing Pastoral Leaders (or ECFPL) initiative.

Executive produced by Aaron Hill, Terry Linhart, and Matt Stevens

Director for CT Media is Matt Stevens

Audio Engineering, Editor, and Composer is Tyler Bradford Wright

Artwork by Ryan Johnson

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Pastors Wonder About Church Members Who Never Came Back Post-Pandemic

New research shows disagreement over COVID-19 policies drove changes in attendance, but “a lot of it is a mystery.”

After a few hard pandemic years, Paul Seay is happy to see more people coming to the two Methodist churches he pastors in Abingdon, Virginia.

Still, he can’t help but wonder, What happened to the people who never returned?

“Some had been very involved—and they’re just gone,” said Seay, who leads Charles Wesley United Methodist Church, a historically Black congregation, and Abingdon United Methodist Church, a large red brick church down the road.

At a low point, Charles Wesley had about six people in attendance. Things didn’t get quite that dire at Abingdon UMC, which had about 180 before the pandemic. But it also really struggled with the impact of COVID-19.

They weren’t alone. According to a new study on the impact of COVID-19 on the American church from ChurchSalary, a sister publication of Christianity Today, more than one in three churches saw attendance decline between 2020 and 2022. And while many, like Seay’s congregations, have seen growth since the darkest days, they still seem to be missing people.

“It was not uncommon in discussions with pastors,” the researchers found, “to hear stories of ‘a third’ or ‘half’ or ‘20%’ of a congregation not coming back once the doors reopened.”

Charles Wesley now has about 20 people on a good Sunday, and Abingdon UMC has grown to around 200. But Seay still notices the people who aren’t in the pews anymore.

“The pandemic,” he told CT, “really zapped the congregation.”

There doesn’t seem to be a single clear explanation for this. The survey of 1,164 Protestant pastors, followed by 17 focus groups and nine in-person case studies, found varied and ...

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COVID-19 Hit Black Churches Harder, but They Weathered It Better

New research shows how Black churches suffered during the pandemic. But these congregations also found unity where others were torn apart.

Pastor Lorenzo Neal had the first panic attack of his life on a hot summer night during the pandemic. He imagined it was what a heart attack would feel like. His neighbors called 911.

As the pastor of New Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Jackson, Mississippi, he was carrying a lot of burdens through the pandemic.

He has pastored New Bethel for 14 years, and said his 130-member church lost several key members to the virus, including a mother and son who died within two weeks of each other. Neal himself contracted the virus early on and was sick for more than a month. On top of that, he was initially shouldering the entirety of virtual worship himself.

“I was doing too much,” he said. “I was already seeing a therapist for some other things, but once that came to light, we were able to explore some areas that needed to be addressed.” He asked his congregation for prayer without specifying what he was experiencing in his own mental health, which he said is common in Black faith communities. His anxiety has since calmed.

COVID-19 hit Black congregations harder physically and brought a heavier mental health burden to Black or African American pastors, according to a new study on the impact of COVID-19 on the American church from ChurchSalary, a sister publication of Christianity Today. But the survey showed Black churches also had more unity about pandemic health measures and lower closure rates.

In interviews with CT, a number of Black pastors affirmed the study’s findings. The pastors dealt with a disproportionate amount of sickness and death while carrying the additional burden of ministering in their communities after the murder of George Floyd. Other ministry demands ...

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100,000 Reuses for the Church to Find

With a record number of congregations predicted to close their doors by 2025, multiuse developments may be the future for shrinking congregations and empty buildings.

The future looked bleak for St. Peter’s United Church of Christ (UCC) in Louisville, Kentucky. The congregation had dwindled to a dozen elderly German Americans in a poor, predominantly Black neighborhood. Their building was falling apart.

Despite its façade of stained glass and majestic steeples, all the building systems were failing, including plumbing, electrical, and heating. Plaster was falling off the walls and ceiling. The city eventually closed the building due to its dangerous lead paint.

But thanks to the vision of pastor Jamesetta Ferguson and a partnership with the UCC’s Church Building and Loan Fund, the church’s property now houses a thriving multiuse development known as The Village at West Jefferson. It has injected life into the local economy—and the formerly dying church.

With funding from multiple mainline denominations, private investors, the city of Louisville, and the federal government, St. Peter’s erected a complex that includes a coffee shop, a credit union, a daycare center, health care services, and more. Hundreds use it weekly. Plus, the congregation is up to 160, with a “multi-cultural, multi-generation” membership.

“The community has really been renewed in many ways,” said Patrick Duggan, executive director of the Church Building and Loan Fund. St. Peter’s “is doing the work of serving the poor. In the meantime, it has created about 100 jobs. This is not just talking the talk. It’s actually walking the walk.”

Similar multiuse developments are popping up across North America on the properties of formerly dying churches—most of them in mainline Protestant denominations.

A Montreal Anglican church shares space ...

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India By Any Other Name? Christians Braced for ‘Bharat’ or Not

Believers weigh what the latest postcolonial name change discussion would mean for religious freedom and pluralism in the Hindu-majority nation.

This month’s G20 summit in New Delhi gave rise to a controversy about a possible name change for the host nation, after the Indian government denoted the country as “Bharat” instead of the usual “India” on official guest invitations.

This was a clear departure from political convention, and the ensuing debate focused on the need for a name change as well as the possible cost. The constitution of India, meanwhile, contains both names and uses them interchangeably.

While the opposition criticized the administration of prime minister Narendra Modi, leaders of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) welcomed the presumptive move, with some declaring the name change as necessary to “come out of the colonial mindset,” saying that those opposing it “are free to leave the country.”

The possible adoption of the term Bharat over India closely aligns with the inclinations of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the mother organization of Modi’s BJP. Founders of both the RSS and BJP advocated for a stringent, Hindu-centric vision of India (which they called “Hindusthan,” land of Hindus), wherein religious minority groups, particularly Muslims and Christians, must live “wholly subordinated to the Hindu Nation, claiming nothing, deserving no privileges, far less any preferential treatment—not even citizen’s rights.”

“Our country is Bharat, and we will have to stop using the word India and start using Bharat in all practical fields—only then will change happen,” stated RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat on September 1.

Christianity Today spoke to Indian Christian leaders on the likelihood of the name change and their reactions. While some ...

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Rosaria Butterfield Issues Five Battle Cries for the Church Militant

There is much to admire in her views on church and community, but also much to find troubling in her new polemic.

If Rosaria Butterfield’s courage “waned and waxed” in writing Five Lies of Our Anti-Christian Age, as she reports in her acknowledgements section, you wouldn’t know it from the text. Her tone is urgent and earnest, and she conceives of her work as a charge by a “church militant” against a powerful enemy who is sure to lose the war, but is now winning many battles.

Butterfield’s aim, as her title indicates, is to identify five norms that are both false and ascendant in contemporary American culture. Her positions will come as no surprise to anyone familiar with her personal history, as detailed in her previous books about her conversion and Christian hospitality.

But though Five Lies covers some of the same territory, it is less memoir and more direct assault. In her tour of the front lines of the culture war, Butterfield makes a compelling case for a high view of biblical and ecclesial authority, and she not only commends but models repentance. Alongside these and other merits, however, Five Lies offers some questionable views on the Bible’s connection to Jesus, the faith of Christians who depart from Butterfield’s conclusions, and the extent to which major institutions are committed to undermining Christian values.

The five lies

“God’s will,” according to a remark Butterfield cites from John Calvin, “is that Christ’s kingdom should be encompassed with many enemies, his design being to keep us in a state of constant warfare.” Her primary audience is Christian women, and she wants them to join her fight.

Thus, contra the advice of fellow Christians like Rod Dreher in The Benedict Option, it isn’t “sufficient to leave well enough ...

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Eating Bitterness: My Culture Helps Me Persevere. The Bible Helps Me Hope.

Both talk about endurance in suffering, but only Scripture encourages me to boast in my weakness.

I was a bridesmaid at a friend’s wedding this summer. The night before the big day, I ransacked my kitchen to concoct a welcome drink for the groom and his groomsmen. As I stirred oyster sauce, vinegar, ketchup, lemon juice, honey, ginger, matcha powder, and Sichuan pepper together in a big bowl, I forced myself to taste the unpleasant-looking mixture and realized that one flavor was lacking: bitterness.

This welcome drink was part of a Chinese wedding custom we call “door games” or “gatecrashing,” where bridesmaids give the groom and his groomsmen a series of challenges before the groom can meet his beloved face to face. The tradition arises from the belief that the bride is a precious daughter whose family will not let her be taken easily. (To be clear, this custom is performed with good-humored intent.)

In the game suan tian ku la (酸 甜 苦 辣), the bridesmaids serve the groom and groomsmen food or drinks in four specific flavors—sour, sweet, bitter, spicy—to signify the various difficulties and challenges that the new couple will face in the future. (Typically, these flavors are consumed separately rather than mixed together, but we were short on time.) If the groom and groomsmen are able to imbibe everything, no matter how horrid-tasting, it’s a sign that the new couple will be able to stomach anything that comes their way.

But bitterness isn’t just one component in a Chinese wedding tradition. It’s a flavor that’s permeated our cultural consciousness and way of life through the words chi ku (吃苦), which translates to “eat bitterness.” This term has a deeper symbolic meaning than consuming bitter gourd or herbs like mugwort, though; it primarily refers ...

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Mitt Romney Chose Truth Over Tribe. We Should Too.

Character and competency matter all the time, whether that’s in public office or the church.

This piece was adapted from Russell Moore’s newsletter. Subscribe here.

This week, all of Washington is abuzz about journalist McKay Coppins’s profile in The Atlantic of US Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), which revealed Romney’s forthcoming retirement from the world’s most important deliberative body.

The piece, excerpted from Coppins’s forthcoming book, Romney: A Reckoning, is striking because in it, the senator does not retreat into euphemisms or PR-speak in disclosing what he believes to be the problems in the country and in his own party. Instead, he lets his “yes” be “yes” and his “no” be “no,” no matter what people might think of that.

Setting aside for a moment whether one agrees or disagrees with Romney’s viewpoints, now might be the time for us to reevaluate what we once knew about the importance of character—not just in public office, but also in the church.

As I read the profile, many thoughts came to mind, but one memory kept flashing to the forefront. Several years ago, I was interviewed on a media format I rarely engage—a drive-time radio comedy/news/sports/politics show. One of the hosts challenged me on my saying that a lack of character makes someone unfit for office. He said he had found evidence that I once thought the exact opposite.

Now, there are lots of things that I have said in my life where I now think the exact opposite (I’ve discussed some of them here), but I was hard-pressed to think how this was one of them. The radio host pointed to a panel I had done back in 2012, when the controversy in the evangelical world was over whether Christians could vote for Mitt Romney, then the Republican nominee for president, ...

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Unable to Find Ultimate Truth in Zen Buddhism, I Turned to Jesus

I thought I needed to try harder at meditation. What I really needed was the Holy Spirit to enlighten me.

I’ve always wanted to be spiritual, but I have trouble believing things,” I said, smiling nervously at the robe-clad Zen Buddhism teacher. We were sitting together in a small room for a one-on-one conversation about my Zen meditation practice.

He chuckled. “So, I guess Zen is perfect for you.”

The year was 2011, and I was 36 years old. I had been practicing Zen Buddhism for three years and had traveled to Kentucky to attend my first meditation retreat, a weekend event held at a Zen center near Lexington. The retreat schedule was tough. We sat in meditation from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m., broken up by short periods of walking meditation, meals, and chores. Everything was to be done in silence.

Zen was the latest chapter in my lifelong spiritual quest. That quest had begun during my teenage years, when I realized that my Hindu ancestry—passed down by Indian immigrant parents—need not dictate my own faith. As I became aware of alternative belief systems, I realized that I was an agnostic: I honestly didn’t know what to believe. So I dropped the Hindu label and committed to discovering for myself the ultimate truth.

Growing up in Houston, I learned the basics of Christianity through friends and neighbors. I also spent part of my childhood in the United Kingdom, where Christian prayer, hymns, and sermons were part of regular school activities. My Hindu parents always spoke respectfully about Christian beliefs. They would go (and encourage me to go) to church with friends when invited.

But it wasn’t until I got to college that I came to know Jesus through my evangelical Christian friends. I observed how their faith gave them peace and strength during difficult times. And every time I heard about ...

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Do Artsakh’s Armenians Need More or Less ‘Christian’ Advocacy?

As humanitarian aid—and Azerbaijan’s attacks—return to the Caucasus enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, religious freedom advocates debate the merits of emphasizing religion.

It was almost a good news story.

After nine months of blockade, humanitarian aid finally reached the Armenian Christians of Nagorno-Karabakh on Monday. But almost immediately, ending three years of tense ceasefire after the 2020 war, Azerbaijan renewed on Tuesday its military assault on the mountainous Caucasus enclave.

And following today’s surrender and promised disarmament of local separatist forces, the region will almost certainly revert to the sovereignty of a neighboring nation that Armenians fear—and a former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court warns—is preparing a genocide.

Thousands massed at the airport in the capital of Stepanakert, preparing to leave.

Advocates for Armenia are at a loss. But of the three aforementioned adjectives—humanitarian, Armenian, or Christian—which ones were most effective in pressing for humanitarian aid? And now in a new phase of the conflict, which will be the most crucial in mobilizing further support?

CT spoke with six religious freedom experts about best practices in Christian advocacy.

What compelled this week’s minor breakthrough?

One week before the initial agreement, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called Aliyev to express “concern over the deteriorating humanitarian situation.” According to the official State Department readout, however, neither the word Christian nor Armenian was spoken by the senior diplomat. Religion and ethnicity were completely ignored.

But one CT source stated that Blinken’s outreach to Azerbaijan “ticked up” following the June visit to Armenia by Sam Brownback, former US ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom. And at a congressional human rights hearing on ...

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Senator Demands to Know if World Vision Is Funding Terrorism

Christian aid organization says it is not and defends former director sentenced to prison in Israel.

Senator Chuck Grassley is concerned that World Vision International may have funded terrorism with US taxpayers’ money.

The long-serving legislator from Iowa sent the Christian humanitarian aid organization a letter last month asking for answers to a number of questions about funding, current programs, and accountability. World Vision received $491 million from US Agency for International Development (USAID) in 2022.

“Congress and the American people deserve transparency with respect to the steps World Vision has taken to ensure taxpayer money is used as intended and not for illegal activity,” Grassley wrote. “Please provide answers.”

The humanitarian organization told CT that it sent a reply to Grassley on September 9. On the larger point, the group is unequivocal: “World Vision does not support any form of terrorism.”

The senator’s inquiry comes a year after a World Vision employee was sentenced to 12 years in prison in Israel. According to prosecutors, the former director of aid to Gaza diverted $50 million meant for hungry children and farmers to Hamas, which the US State Department has designated a terrorist organization. Little of the evidence used to convict Mohammed el-Halabi was made available to the public, beyond a confession that Halabi’s lawyers say was coerced. Four United Nations experts raised concerns about what they called “egregious” violations of Halabi’s right to a fair trial.

World Vision continues to defend the former Gaza aid director. The organization says his conviction was unjust and the Israeli court’s ruling is “in sharp contrast to the evidence and facts of the case.”

In 2016, the humanitarian aid organization ...

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DeSantis Partners with Pastors in Attempt to Gain on Trump

Even with his new faith coalition and bolder pro-life convictions, few evangelicals are stepping away from the former president and GOP frontrunner.

Ron DeSantis is putting his Christian convictions forward as he tries to gain ground with evangelical voters, who continue to favor former president Donald Trump.

“I don’t know how you could be a leader without having faith in God,” the Florida governor told hundreds gathered for the Family Research Council’s Pray Vote Stand Summit on Friday in Washington, DC, repeating one of his favorite Bible lines about putting on “the full armor of God.”

“When you stand up for what’s right in this day and age, that is not going to be cost-free. … And it’s the faith in God that gives you the strength to stand firm against the lies, against the deceit, against the opposition. It gives you the foundation to know that all the insults, all the nonsense they throw at you, ultimately doesn’t matter because you are aiming higher.”

The summit came one day after DeSantis, who is Catholic, launched his Faith and Family Coalition. The group features endorsements from 70 pastors in the early primary states of Iowa, South Carolina, and New Hampshire. The coalition invites supporters to back DeSantis through “faith and prayer.”

Trump still leads the GOP race by a wide margin—a straw poll of over 500 in attendance at the DC summit had the former president over DeSantis, 64 percent to 27 percent—but a slice of evangelical voters are being swayed by what they see as stronger character and tougher stances on pro-life issues from other candidates.

“Former president Trump, despite all the merits and many good things he did, is relatively weak in comparison to other candidates, and especially governor DeSantis, on these issues, which are core issues for social ...

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Jesus Paid It All. There’s Still So Much We Owe.

Why the call to good works goes hand in hand with the free gift of grace.

I recently had a gospel conversation with an agnostic woman who is seriously considering the claims of Christ. On a purely intellectual level, she finds the Christian worldview compelling. She admits that Christian theism offers a better rational explanation of the natural world and a better grounding for moral virtue than the more rigid brand of atheism she formerly espoused.

But a deeper, more existential issue bothers her still. Some years ago, when she went through a very public personal crisis, none of the people in her life who professed to be Christians said or did anything to minister to her.

“I was very clearly crying out for help,” she said, “but none of the Christians I know offered to lift a finger—or even an encouraging word—to help me in my time of need.”

Like many others in our secular age, this young woman grew disenchanted with a version of the Christian faith that is often talked about, but rarely lived out in practice. Like the apostle James, she could ask, “What good is it … if someone claims to have faith but does not have works?” (James 2:14, CSB).

Unfortunately, many within American evangelicalism practice what Dietrich Bonhoeffer called “cheap grace.” Since Christ has “paid it all,” they act as if nothing is owed: no repentance, obedience, or service to neighbor. The authors of The Doctrine of Good Works: Recovering a Neglected Protestant Teaching seek to expose the flawed theological assumptions behind this type of negligent Christian witness. “Good works,” the authors insist, “are actually integral to the Good News.”

Jointly written by a renowned systematic theologian (Thomas McCall), a New Testament ...

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Single Christian Women Are Much More Than Their Wombs

The early church elevated females for their faith witness, not their fertility. We should do the same today.

Single women are having a rough go of it lately. Their growing numbers are blamed for the rise of “woke” politics, millennial selfishness, and even incel culture. In some Christian circles, single women are reminded (in case they forgot) to marry and have children, even with a gender imbalance among unmarried Christians, and even though they’re discouraged from dating outside the faith.

It’s a numerical bind causing anxiety all around.

Meanwhile, the single Christian women I know are trying to make the best of a complex reality. They seek to serve God with their daily work, invest in friendships and the church, and pursue creative and educational opportunities as they arise. Many of them also try to meet Christian men, dabble with dating apps, and pray.

Their lives are both rich and imperfect. They experience cycles of hope and frustration. For most singles I know, their status is not for lack of trying, or for lack of honoring marriage as such. As sociologist Lyman Stone notes in a recent CT piece, when you ask unmarried Christians today, most of them say they want to get hitched. Even shakshuka girl said as much.

You don’t have to be a Calvinist to affirm that God is present to every person wrestling with unmet desires and quiet griefs, and that God is working out his plans in times of social stability as well as upheaval, decline, and unprecedented change. Far more, people worried about the future of Christendom—or perhaps Western civilization and its declining birth rates—are called to remember the primary way the church will be preserved through the centuries.

In sum: It’s baptism, not just babies. After all, Jesus taught it’s not enough to be ...

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Myanmar’s Christians: As Our Churches Burn and People Flee, We Need the US’s Help

The Biden administration and the global church can do more to help the Chin people in Myanmar.

On Monday, we will hold a congressional briefing at the Senate offices about the worsening situation facing Christians in Myanmar, particularly the Chin people. We hope that the US government will determine the attacks on Christians in Myanmar as war crimes and crimes against humanity, and that American Christians will speak out for their brothers and sisters in the country.

Christian ethnic minorities in Myanmar (also known as Burma) have long faced religious persecution and ethnic discrimination due to Buddhist nationalism in the country. This has only worsened after the military overthrew Myanmar’s democratically elected government on February 1, 2021. Since then, the military, known as the Tatmadaw, has steadily ramped up violence against its own citizens, firing on unarmed protesters in the streets of Yangon. By the end of 2021, it was waging an all-out war against civilians in the countryside.

Historically, Myanmar’s ethnic and religious minorities have been the targets of the most horrific military atrocities. In 2017 and 2018, the Tatmadaw committed a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya people that killed thousands and forced 700,000 to flee to Bangladesh. The Biden administration rightly labeled the Tatmadaw’s actions as genocide and crimes against humanity.

Today, the Tatmadaw specifically targets Christians from ethnic minorities such as the Chin, Kachin, Karen, and Karenni. The Baptist World Alliance, World Council of Churches, Open Doors, and other Christian leaders have called for action on the military junta’s persecution of Christians. It is past time for the Biden administration to ensure accountability, protect Myanmar’s persecuted Christians, and provide support ...

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Morocco Earthquake Moves Marginalized Churches to Christian Charity

Their faith unrecognized by the government, local believers serve displaced neighbors seeking shelter and the will of God.

Local and foreign Christians have joined in relief efforts following last week’s massive earthquake in Morocco.

Nearly 3,000 people have died, with more than 5,000 injured. Registering 6.8 on the Richter scale, it is the North African nation’s most powerful quake since 1969 and its deadliest since 1960.

But far from the epicenter near the historic city of Marrakesh, gathered believers all had the same question.

“No one ever asks of disasters, ‘Why did it happen to them?’” said Youssef Ahmed, a senior member of Tangier Northern Church, 350 miles away. “But when it hits you, everyone wants to know God’s will.”

The house church service went much longer than usual.

Although Morocco only recognizes Islam and Judaism as domestic faiths, local believers generally say the government permits them to worship quietly in their homes—under a protective but thorough surveillance. Alcohol and pork, forbidden by sharia, are also freely available in the country. About 15 percent of citizens declare themselves nonreligious, while only 25 percent express trust in clerical leadership.

“We are not restricted in Morocco,” said Ahmed. “Just don’t be a nuisance.”

The latest US State Department report on Morocco indicates that, while “undermining the Islamic religion” is punishable with up to five years in prison, there are no known cases of Christians running afoul of the law.

But that Sunday, the former Muslims had other concerns on their mind.

“Why did it happen? We cannot know. Was it because of sin? We cannot know. Was it a test, like with Job? We cannot know,” said Ahmed, who led the lengthy discussion. “All we know is that God allowed ...

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Wheaton College Releases Report on Its History of Racism

Task force and trustees call for community repentance, starting with a change to the name of the library.

Wheaton College embraced racist attitudes that “created an inhospitable and sometimes hostile campus environment for persons of color,” according to a 121-page review of the school’s history released by trustees today.

Though the flagship evangelical institution was founded by abolitionists, over the next century and a half it turned away from concerns about racial equality. Even when the school’s leadership knew what was right, they frequently lacked the courage to “take a more vocal role in opposing widespread forms of racism and white supremacy,” the report says, and too often “chose to stay silent, equivocate, or do nothing” about racial injustice.

“We cannot be healed and cannot be reconciled unless and until we repent,” the task force concluded at the end of an 18-month study. “These sins constituted a failure of Christian love; denied the dignity of people made in the image of God; created deep and painful barriers between Christian brothers and sisters; tarnished our witness to the gospel; and prevented us from displaying more fully the beautiful diversity of God’s kingdom.”

President Philip Ryken told CT he believes the report is important and he’s glad the college will be making it publicly available.

“The record of the people of God, in so many ways, is a record of their failures as well as their successes,” he said. “I think we can be more effective in living for Jesus Christ today if we’re aware of the challenges that our brothers and sisters have faced in the past and how they have responded to the challenges and opportunities of their day.”

The historical review was conducted by a 15-member task force ...

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More Than Manipur: Tribal Christians Divided by Borders Yet United in Faith

The Kuki share ancestry with the Chin in Myanmar and the Mizo in India’s Mizoram, all of whom have a history of Christianity and turmoil.

The ongoing attacks against the minority Kuki tribe by violent mobs in the northeastern Indian state of Manipur has brought attention to this mostly Christian people group. Since May, more than 180 people have been killed, hundreds of churches have been destroyed, and thousands have been displaced as the Hindu-majority Meitei people, who live in the lowlands, violently retaliated against the Kuki’s peaceful protests over efforts to give Meitei access to the hill land where they live.

The Kuki people in Manipur share ancestry with the Chin in Myanmar (also known as Burma) and the Mizo in India’s Mizoram state, southwest of Manipur. Due to their encounters with missionaries, nearly all Mizo and Kuki identify as Christians, along with 90 percent of Chin people.

In this Q&A explainer, we will explore the roots of the Chin-Kuki-Mizo people, the ongoing persecution and conflicts these groups face, how they encountered Christianity, and the ways Christianity has changed their society.

How are the Kuki, Chin, and Mizo people related?

They shared the same ancestors, practiced the same religion, and inhabited a swath of hill country in the borderland of modern-day India and Myanmar. In the 1890s, the British divided the land into Chin State in Burma, Mizoram and Manipur states in India, and the Chittagong Hill Tracts in Bangladesh.

Chin-Kuki-Mizo are a Mongol people, and today they speak related but distinct Tibeto-Burman languages. More than one million Chin live in Myanmar, one million Mizo live in Mizoram, half a million Kuki live in Manipur, and tens of thousands of Kuki live in Bangladesh. In addition, due to the ongoing fighting between the Myanmar army and the Chin people, hundreds of thousands of Chin have fled ...

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Amazing Grace, How Sweet the Meow

I used to hate cats. Now my pet is a daily reminder of God’s generosity to me.

I’ve hated cats all my life. Well, maybe not all my life. My mom has a picture of me, maybe six years old, playing with kittens in my grandpa’s barn, and I remember begging to take that little furball home. But my mom hated cats, and I soon did too.

My husband’s family had a cat, and when we were dating, I shuddered whenever I visited. The creature was unbearably forward and gross. I was convinced the cat tried to kill me one night by sitting on my head while I slept, even though my husband insists she was just being cozy.

My thinking on felines held firm for about two decades. Our sweet dogs were all the pets I ever wanted, while cats, by contrast, were disgusting to me. They walked on tables with their little cat feet. They seemed mysterious and inscrutable.

I rolled all cats together with the evil Snowbell from E. B. White’s Stuart Little: “malevolent, self-absorbed, negative, obstinate, witty, bellicose, evil, loathsome, loquacious, testy, ingenious, narcissistic, kooky, eccentric, relentless, boorish, emotional, loud-mouthed and loco.”

Then our youngest child went full-court press for a pet cat. He sang their praises. Knowing my fears, he researched a cat species bred for their friendliness to both dogs and humans and then found a local veterinarian breeder who raises the things in her home.

His campaign came at an opportune time for him. We were post-COVID, post-lots-of-losses. His older siblings were moving into realms that aren’t yet for him, and I felt like he needed something. Maybe at that moment, I would have given him almost anything. So for the love of my son, I swallowed my apprehension, and we called the breeder and reserved a fluff-some kitten. ...

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Majority of French Christians Believe the Church Should Fight Climate Change

In a new study from A Rocha France, an overwhelming number of Protestant and Catholic respondents say “caring for the earth is caring for your neighbor.”

Most French Christians—92% of Catholics and 87% of Protestants—think the environment and climate change should be more present in the life of their local parish or church community. Half of them—52% of Catholics and 58% of Protestants—believe the church should speak out on environmental issues and climate change.

That’s according to a new survey from the Institut Français de L’Opinion Publique (French Institute of Public Opinion or IFOP), the nonprofit Parlons Climat (Let’s Talk Climate), and the Christian environmental organization A Rocha France, which revealed for the first time how French believers view the current climate crisis.

The survey explored the relationship between religious practice and ecological attitudes among the French population, offering insight into personal environmental commitment, the expected role of the church, and the connection between the intensity of religious practice and the willingness to take environmental action.

While the study does not fully represent French Christian attitudes toward environmental concerns, it sheds light into how Catholics and Protestants view climate change and the church’s role in this issue, researchers said.

The results suggest that the French Protestant community is growing more and more concerned about climate change, with 80 percent of Protestant respondents agreeing that we need to “radically change our lifestyles now to combat environmental degradation and climate change.”

However, practicing Christians were divided on the role of the church in the face of climate crisis, with 42 percent of both Catholic and Protestant respondents agreeing that it would be a good idea to invite “associations ...

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New Yorkers Watch as Their Only Evangelical Colleges Close

The abrupt departure of Alliance University and The King’s College leaves a hole in an influential city.

Don’t you love New York in the fall?” says Joe Fox in the classic romantic movie You’ve Got Mail. “It makes me want to buy school supplies.”

But students seeking a New York City fall at an evangelical college are now out of luck. There are no more schools affiliated with the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities (CCCU) operating in the city after the closure of Alliance University (formerly Nyack College) and The King’s College.

The King’s board says the school is not officially closing, but it is not offering classes and has laid off its faculty after losing its accreditation. King’s accreditor, Middle States Commission on Higher Education, considers King’s closed because it has ceased education operations, even if it remains an organization legally. Both schools had deep financial problems and struggled for years to find a way to keep running. They join at least 18 evangelical colleges and universities that have closed since the start of COVID-19.

In the wake of the bad news, many graduates have been trying to imagine how their lives would have been different without their urban alma maters. Most King’s students came from outside the city, but many of them stayed there and built lives. They served in local churches, started careers, and had children. They ended up all over the city, living out their faith and putting their education to work.

Caleb Trouwborst, who graduated from King’s in 2017, is a music curator and DJ in the city. Megan Ristine Bellingham, in the same class, works at a hedge fund. Celina Durgin, a 2015 graduate, is a researcher at the Columbia Center for Clinical Medical Ethics. Alli O’Donnell, a singer and songwriter, said ...

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Russian Evangelicals React to Moscow’s Most Wanted Baptist

Former head of Baptist Union flees abroad after becoming the first Protestant charged for opposing the war in Ukraine. His level of support back home is mixed.

Yuri Sipko is the first to fall.

The 71-year-old former president of the Russian Union of Evangelical Christians-Baptists has been one of the few Russian religious leaders to publicly denounce the war in Ukraine. Although secular activists and a few Orthodox priests have been imprisoned for similar opposition, until last month no evangelicals had been targeted.

But on August 8, authorities filed charges against Sipko for publicly disseminating “knowingly false information” against the Russian military. They raided his home and temporarily detained his son. One week later, he was placed on the wanted list.

Tipped off by independent legal monitors, he fled the country on August 5.

“The sun is shining, and I have been provided for,” Sipko told CT in an interview from his refuge in Germany. “Praise the Lord there have been no problems, and policemen are far away from me.”

Waxing poetic, he hoped that the aspiration of Aleksandr Pushkin, the 19th-century Russian bard, might one day be fulfilled:

The heavy-hanging chains will fall,
The walls will crumble at a word;
And Freedom greet you in the light,
And brothers give you back the sword.

Sipko attributes his courage to God. His anti-war activism is inspired by Matthew 10:28, which says to not fear those who can only kill the body. As both a minister of the Word and a citizen of Russia, he feels it was his duty to reveal criminality.

But having long anticipated his arrest, he insists he is not guilty.

“This is a lawless law imposed by a lawless regime, against lawful people,” said Sipko. “The crime is the destruction of Ukraine. Silence, also, is a crime.”

With these words, he impugns nearly all of his evangelical colleagues. ...

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How to Talk to a Christian-Curious Agnostic

A new breed of secular seeker is replacing the New Atheists. But how can we reach them?

The cultural ground is shifting when it comes to religion, atheism, and Christianity in the West. Three recent stories in my social media feed are a reminder how quickly it's happening.

Richard Dawkins, the world-famous atheist, has been doubling down on his criticism of the transgender movement and progressive ideologies in general. The popular podcast host Joe Rogan, whose show receives over 190 million downloads per month, featured intelligent design expert Stephen Meyer, who advocates for a creator God behind the universe and critiques evolution by natural selection.

And for the first time, less than half of people in the UK identify as Christian. The most recent UK census, taken every ten years, saw those who tick the ‘Christian’ box drop to 46%, with those identifying as ‘no religion’ rising to 37% of the population. This decline is mirrored in the United States, where almost half of millennials and Gen Z now identify as “nones” (religiously unaffiliated).

But few of those who tick the “none” box identify as materialist atheists of the Richard Dawkins variety. In fact, nones are more likely to describe themselves as agnostics who are “spiritual but not religious.” Many of them still pray occasionally, engage in New Age practices, or even dabble in the occult.

That is, modern people aren’t necessarily less religious; they are just religious about different things. When people reject institutional faith, their “God-shaped holes” will be filled by something else.

As some of the most dogmatic atheist leaders today take up the culture war as their new sacred cause, they are also demonstrating a growing interest in hearing from views outside the ...

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AI Will Shape Your Soul

But how is up to us.

It’s summer in Silicon Valley, and I’m out for a jog in my neighborhood. It’s the most beautiful time of year: blossoming orange trees, beds thick with poppies, palm-sized roses in fuchsia and lemon. There’s a trickle of water in the creek, temperatures are cooler than previous summers, and we’re optimistic about this year’s fire season.

When I’m nearly home, I come across an SUV with whirring sensors affixed to its top and sides, trying to turn left at an intersection, through the crosswalk I’m meant to use. It’s a self-driving vehicle, collecting data about its surroundings to refine its artificial intelligence. In San Francisco, fleets of vehicles are already driving around on their own. Here, in Palo Alto, I usually see them on test drives, with human operators prepared to intervene if something goes wrong. Sure enough, a young man sits in the car.

I pause at the corner, high-stepping in place. Go on, I wave. I’m not taking chances that this car, however smart, knows the nuances of pedestrian right of way. The car lurches forward, then stops midway. Lurches forward again, stops again.

The human “driver” seems nervous. Will the vehicle sense my presence if I dart into the road, or will it decide to plow ahead? Will it be too cautious, refusing to execute the turn at all? Will the hapless human have to intervene? Finally, the car painstakingly inches through the intersection and continues on its way. I continue on mine. Across the street, two women in visors stop to inquire, “Was there someone in that car?”

“Yes,” I say, “but he looked scared.” The women laugh. We all understand. The tech is cool, but we don’t ...

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Do Christians Belong in Southeast Asia? Pew Polled Buddhists and Muslims

New religion survey of 13,000 adults across six nations examines conversion, karma, and compatibility with national identity.

Among its neighbors, Singapore is a spiritual anomaly. Surrounded by deeply religious countries with overwhelming Muslim or Buddhist majorities, the island city-state is by some measures the world’s most religiously diverse society, with no faith composing a majority.

Today, 2 out of 3 Singaporeans don’t see religion as very important. Yet it has the region’s highest rate of conversions—including into Christianity—according to a special Pew Research Center study on religion in South and Southeast Asia released today.

Singapore’s lack of a single dominant religion coincides with more “religious switching,” Pew’s terminology for adults converting to a different religion from the one they were raised in. The percentage of Singaporeans who say they are Buddhists or followers of Chinese traditional religions has dropped, while those claiming to be Christians or religiously unaffiliated have risen.

By contrast, in the five neighboring nations included in the study—Malaysia, Indonesia, Cambodia, Thailand, and Sri Lanka—nearly all adults surveyed said they continue to identify with the religion in which they were raised. And large majorities consider religion very important in their lives.

For Pew’s latest international report, “Buddhism, Islam, and Religious Pluralism in South and Southeast Asia,” researchers surveyed more than 13,000 adults from June to September 2022. The six countries Pew selected are representative of religion in the region: Three are majority Buddhist (Cambodia, Sri Lanka, and Thailand); two are majority Muslim (Malaysia and Indonesia); and one is religiously diverse (Singapore).

(Researchers explained that though Sri Lanka is typically ...

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