Give Me Yesus: Indonesia Replaces Arabic Name for Christ

Beginning next year, the largest Muslim country in the world will use the Bahasa name for Christian holidays.

The Indonesian government announced last month that it will stop using the Arabic term for Jesus Christ—Isa al Masih—when referring to Christian holidays and will instead use the Bahasa term Yesus Kristus beginning in 2024.

The change will alter the names of three national holidays: the Death of Isa al Masih (Good Friday), the Ascension of Isa al Masih, and the Birth of Isa al Masih (Christmas).

Many Christians are excited about the change as they have long used Yesus Kristus in their worship and everyday lives. They see the move as indicating that the Muslim-majority country is recognizing their terms and respecting Christians, who make up 10 percent of the population with 29 million believers.

Saiful Rahmat, deputy minister for religious affairs, noted that Indonesian Christians requested the name change.

“All of the Christians in Indonesia are supporting this [change] to show that our reference to Isa al Masih in the calendar year actually refers to Jesus Christ,” said Budi Santoso, director of Kartidaya (Wycliffe Indonesia). He and other Christian leaders noted the importance of the name change, as it would differentiate the Jesus Christians worship from the description of Isa in the Quran, where he is seen as merely a prophet.

Yet some believers fear the change could be the beginning of increased legislation over the terms Christians are allowed to use in Indonesia, leading to problems like Malaysia’s former ban preventing non-Muslims from referring to God as Allah (the ban was later struck down after a protracted legal battle).

They worry that if Indonesia goes on to ban the term Isa al Masih, this could hurt contextualized ministry to Muslims, as the connection between Isa in the Quran and ...

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1 in 3 Latino Protestants Report Interacting with the Dead

Catholicism, Protestantism, and indigenous culture shape the interpretation of these experiences and how people relate to those who have passed away.

When Octavio Esqueda was one, his little sister died.

Over the next nine years, his mother suffered five miscarriages. He remained an only child.

His parents had another daughter when he was nine, only for her to die several years later in a pool accident.

“My parents had extremely different experiences with both deaths,” said Esqueda, who grew up in Mexico and now lives in Southern California. “The first one brought a lot of despair to my parents.”

Between the deaths of their two daughters, Esqueda’s parents had left Catholicism and embraced evangelicalism.

“The second [death] was obviously hard, but the difference was they knew they had hope in the Resurrection and hope in Christ,” said Esqueda, a professor of Christian higher education at Talbot School of Theology.

“For people who don’t have hope in the Resurrection, or if you’re a Roman Catholic and there’s some uncertainty in the question of where your relatives are, you hope for the best but you don’t really know. These tendencies to find connections with dreams or other forms are very important for people to keep that relationship alive.”

Latin American and US Latino perspectives on death are diverse and have been shaped historically by indigenous and Roman Catholic teachings and theology, resulting in syncretistic holidays like Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) and Día de los Fieles Difuntos (All Souls’ Day).

With the more recent arrival of Protestantism in Latin America in the 1870s, and as many in the region immigrate to the US, many Latin American evangelicals have embraced perspectives on death that they consider to be more faithful to the Word of God while also trying ...

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Another Southern Baptist Betrayal

Revelations of a scandalous amicus brief raise the question: Who’s driving the SBC?

There’s a story my family has told since before I was born about my great-uncle Johnny. When his four daughters were teenagers, the family took a long trip in which they had to stop in a familiar town for dinner.

About 30 minutes out, Aunt Betty Jane and the girls started talking through the variety of eating options and, after 10–15 minutes of deliberation, they agreed upon the best restaurant. But when they arrived in town, Uncle Johnny, who hadn’t said a word, pulled into a different restaurant, got out of the car, and walked silently inside, leaving five dumbfounded women looking at each other and wondering what had just happened.

That story—at least, a sinister reading of it—came to mind as I tried to process last week’s revelation of an amicus brief filed in April by legal counsel for the Southern Baptist Convention, the SBC’s Executive Committee, Lifeway Christian Resources, and The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

The case is Samantha Killary’s lawsuit against the city government of Louisville, Kentucky, where law enforcement employees allegedly enabled her years-long sexual abuse by her father, also a police officer.

No SBC entity is named in the lawsuit. But because it is similar to other lawsuits being brought against the SBC and the Executive Committee in Kentucky, legal counsel apparently advised these entities to file the amicus brief, encouraging the state Supreme Court to exclude “non-offender third parties” from Kentucky’s recent change in the statute of limitations for abuse claims.

This may protect the SBC from legal liability, but it harms Killary and excuses the institution that hurt her. It is an enormous betrayal to abuse survivors ...

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Christians Give at Record Levels to Fund Israel Relief

The war has spurred millions in donations to ministries that provide everything from emergency supplies to security gear for future attacks.

When war broke out in Israel, organizations and ministries working in the country put crisis plans into action. They called up trained workers and volunteers, retrieved supplies from stocked warehouses, and drove bulletproof vehicles to deliver aid to victims and gear to first responders.

And they looked to Christians in the US and around the globe to help fund their efforts.

The International Christian Embassy Jerusalem (ICEJ) has received millions in donations since the war broke out, more than any other two-week period in its history.

Christians United for Israel (CUFI), which calls itself the largest pro-Israel organization in the US, sent $1 million to fund first responders within days of the October 7 barrage and continues to fundraise.

And The Joshua Fund, founded by Christian author Joel Rosenberg, has collected over $685,000 in donations. The organization is operating 21 aid distribution centers, delivering pallets of toilet paper, bottled water, and other supplies.

“We’ve had literally thousands of new donors, and giving to our Rapid Response Fund has never been greater,” said executive director Carl Moeller. “So many of our donors just want to know how to pray—and to let people over there know that believers in the US are praying and giving to meet their needs.”

Around half of US evangelicals consider support for Israel and the Jewish people to be an important priority in their charitable behavior. For years, giving to nonprofits that work in the Holy Land has been on the rise. Some rank among the biggest Christian charities in the US.

“We were able to mobilize immediately because of the partnerships we have,” said Yael Eckstein, president and CEO of the International Fellowship ...

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A Puritan’s Guide to Quieting Our ‘Inner Atheist’

Even the most spiritual people can struggle with doubts about God. But how do they overcome them?

I recently had a conversation with a college sophomore who’s been struggling with his faith. He is a Christian who wants to believe, he said, but there are many days when he wakes up doubting that there’s enough proof to justify belief in God’s existence.

I sympathized with the young man’s struggle because I’ve experienced it myself. Like me, he seems to be an intellectually-driven person who longs for logical reasons to believe—not inexplicit feelings or even experiential evidence.

So I asked him, “On days when you wake up feeling like an atheist, what particular doubts do you find most troubling?”

He said he was particularly bothered by the discrepancies in the gospel accounts of Jesus’ resurrection—they seemed too great to be harmonized or explained away. And if they could not be trusted, he thought, what reason did he have to believe in God at all?

I was taken aback by his answer because he seemed to have come to a much more extreme conclusion than his doubt warranted. Discrepancies in the gospel accounts are certainly troubling—but even if there were some conflicting accounts that could not be harmonized, would atheism be the only logical recourse?

And yet that’s often how these kinds of doubts work. Whenever some premise upon which we’ve relied is cut out from under us, we begin to worry that we can’t depend on that foundation—which can ultimately lead us to the conclusion that there is no good reason to believe.

At first, we think we can combat our intellectual doubts by ignoring them (which rarely works) or by focusing intensely on the specific questions we think are at the root of our doubt. But when we ...

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International House of Prayer Founder Mike Bickle Accused of Sexual Abuse

Former IHOPKC leaders bring forward what they say are credible allegations from several women over decades of ministry.

Mike Bickle, the founder of the International House of Prayer of Kansas City (IHOPKC), is facing allegations of sexual and spiritual abuse spanning decades and involving multiple women.

Bickle, 68, has been accused of sexual misconduct “where the marriage covenant was not honored,” according to a statement released Saturday from a group of former IHOPKC leaders who investigated the claims.

They said, though they were initially shocked, they found the allegations credible based on the “collective and corroborating testimony” of “several victims.”

Bickle’s charismatic megachurch—which has offered round-the-clock prayer and worship since its founding in 1999—was informed of the allegations on Friday, according to The Kansas City Star, which obtained a recording of the announcement.

Stuart Greaves, executive director at IHOPKC, told staff that the leadership team is “taking the situation very seriously.”

The leaders who released the statement—former executive leadership team and board members Dwane Roberts and Brian Kim, along with former Forerunner Christian Fellowship pastor Wes Martin—said they first attempted to bring the allegations directly to Bickle, as the Bible instructs in Matthew 18. They said Bickle refused to meet with them and then tried to intimidate and discredit the victims.

The Kansas City Star reported that Bickle preached on false allegations last Sunday.

In the sermon, he discussed how, per Revelation 12:10, “Satan’s most effective weapon in the end times is accusation” and he turns “whispered innuendoes into hostile accusations that destroy lives and relationships,” according to sermon notes linked by The ...

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Palestinian Evangelicals Call Western Church to Repentance, Criticized in Return

Middle East Christians assert their rejection of violence as they relate frustration with lack of Western recognition of the reality of occupation and the collateral damage of bombing campaigns.

Since the outbreak of war after unprecedented terror attacks on Israel by Hamas, Middle Eastern churches, councils, and leaders have expressed their outrage over the killing of thousands of innocent civilians.

Many Arab Christian groups have issued public statements. Most emphasized the Christian call to be peacemakers. Several have been criticized for what some see as calls not specifically addressing the suffering of civilian Jews targeted for death by terrorists.

Originating from Palestine, Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon—with most prompted by the tragic bombing of the Anglican hospital in Gaza—the public statements range in focus and intensity. Some assert the international community overlooks the context of occupation by the Israeli state; others remind the global church of the continued Christian presence in the land.

CT studied texts from nine Arab and four Western organizations, most of evangelical conviction, and queried the perspective of an Israeli Messianic Jew and a Lebanese Armenian evangelical. The review found that few Middle Eastern statements have named Hamas as the perpetrator of terrorism, while many specifically criticize Israel itself.

One of the most recent statements is from Musalaha, which names both.

The Jerusalem-based reconciliation ministry works with Israelis and Palestinians from diverse religious backgrounds using biblical principles to engage the issues that divide them in pursuit of peace. After two weeks painfully watching the widespread carnage, its public statement centered on “lament” and called for a reconciling response.

“We lament people who, in the name of justice, have allowed rage to perpetuate the cycle of dehumanization and excuse bloodshed; as seen with Hamas’ ...

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Argentina Takes Next Step in Officially Honoring Evangelicals. They Want More.

Protestants are grateful for Reformation Day celebrations—and wonder if they'll ever get religious equality.

This Reformation Day, 18 of Argentina’s 24 provinces will celebrate evangelical and Protestant churches.

Evangelical leaders hope that someday soon, the whole country will join in.

Last month the federal government moved closer to nationally recognizing October 31 in honor of these communities when the Chamber of Deputies approved a bill that has since headed to the Senate.

“For many evangelicals, appearing on the country’s public legislative agenda is very important. It responds to an aspiration for visibility in the community,” said Viviana Barrón, rector of Baptist school Seminario Internacional Teológico Bautista. “Years ago, many said that our churches were practically invisible to governments. That has been changing and is received with joy by many.”

“In our country, evangelical Christians are second-class citizens,” said Joel Issachar Stefanini, president and founder of the Federación Iglesias Pentecostales Autónomas.

“We have been fighting for more than 40 years, since democracy arrived again in our country, to be recognized as a Christian church and to have equal rights.”

Many evangelical leaders have been frustrated as to what they interpret as a 150-year-long state snub toward their community.

According to CONICET, Argentina’s national scientific research council, the evangelical community grew from 9 percent to 15.3 percent of the population between 2008 and 2019. The same report put the Catholic community at 62.9 percent. (Argentina has 46 million people.)

Argentina’s Supreme Court has ruled that the country has no official or state religion. But although its constitution guarantees freedom of religion, it also states ...

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Meet the Christian Love Expert Giving Filipinos Hope About Dating

Pastor Ronald Molmisa set out to write “Lovestruck” for high school students with love woes. Now it’s a nine-book series and a parachurch ministry.

While ministering to high school students in Rizal province outside of Manila in 2005, Ronald Molmisa found himself in recurring conversations with students about love and dating. Some students were serial daters who dated girlfriend after girlfriend. Others struggled to deal with their heartache after a break-up.

With sex and dating being taboo topics in the majority Catholic country, young Filipinos often turn to the internet or Western media to learn about love rather than the church. So Molmisa sought Christian resources to help his students.

At the time, Christian books about love from the United States—like Joshua Harris’s I Kissed Dating Goodbye—were popular, but Molmisa wanted a book that could speak to the lived experiences of Filipino students. While some Filipino authors had penned books on dating and love, he found them outdated and written in English, which many in the younger generation struggled to read. In everyday life, teens spoke, texted, and read articles in Taglish, a combination of Tagalog and English.

So Molmisa decided to write a book on relationships that would be both Bible-based and relevant to young people in the Philippines. With a background in research, he began conducting surveys and interviews to map out trends among Filipino teens. In 2010, he published Lovestruck: Love Mo Siya, Sure Ka Ba? (Lovestruck: Are You Sure You Love Her?), which mixes comical anecdotes on love and relationships with biblical stories and pastoral wisdom.

The short 80-page book, which was written in Taglish, quickly became wildly popular among young people in the Philippines. Lovestruck went on to become a nine-book series, including titles like Lovestruck: Sexy Edition, on sexuality and pornography; ...

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Abuse Survivors ‘Disgusted’ by Southern Baptist Court Brief

Lawyers for multiple SBC entities argued against third-party liability under Kentucky’s new statute of limitations.

Abuse survivors, along with some members of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee and the SBC’s abuse reform task force, have denounced a Kentucky court filing by Southern Baptist entities aimed at limiting their liability for sexual abuse claims.

A brief filed earlier this year by lawyers for the Executive Committee, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and Lifeway, an SBC publisher, argues that a Kentucky law that changed the statute of limitations for making civil claims over abuse—and allowing survivors to sue third parties such as churches or police—should not be applied retroactively.

“There are no mincing of words here. No holding back. This is disgusting,” abuse survivors Megan Lively, Jules Woodson, and Tiffany Thigpen said in a statement released Wednesday.

A group of Southern Baptist leaders working on abuse reforms also criticized the brief, saying the filing was “a choice to stand against every survivor in Kentucky.”

“This brief, and the policy arguments made in it, were made without our knowledge and without our approval,” the statement read. “Moreover, they do not represent our values and positions.”

Members of the Executive Committee, including Oklahoma pastor Mike Keahbone, expressed dismay at the brief, saying he and other members of the committee were blindsided by it. Keahbone, a member of a task force implementing abuse reforms in the SBC, said the brief undermined survivors such as Thigpen, Woodson, and Lively, who have supported the reforms.

“We’ve had survivors that have been faithful to give us a chance,” he told Religion News Service in a phone interview. “And we hurt them badly.”

The ...

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Let’s Make Presidential Elections Civil Again

Christians can’t know what’s waiting for us next year. But we can know what kind of people we hope to be when we get there.

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

The other day I was talking to a pastor who sighed and asked, “Are we really going to do this again?” After all the tumult and division of churches and families from the last two presidential elections, it’s exhausting to think another one is coming.

He asked, “Can you give me advice on how to get my people through 2024?”

And I said, “No.”

I was, of course, partly joking. But not entirely. Here’s why.

Many people assume that the election year of 2024 will be a reboot of 2020, especially since it seems we will have the same two candidates running as last time. It may feel like these sitcom reboots of late—Saved by the Bell or Roseanne or, now, Frasier. A show comes back 20 years later with the same characters, except all aged up, trying to throw out classic catchphrases the nostalgic old audience wants while trying to introduce new characters in an attempt to gain some new people. It’s a reasonable assumption to think of the 2024 elections this way—but it’s wrong.

Imagine if you had asked me this time of year in 2019 how to get through the 2020 election. I would have had no way to help you. I wouldn’t have known that a microscopic virus would kill countless people and shut down the entire world. I wouldn’t have known that the murder of George Floyd would transform the conversations and debates about racial justice. The list could go on and on.

In fact, we would not have known just one month ago that the Middle East would be plunged into war. We would have known that our political system here in the United States is messed up, but we would not have known how prescient Andy ...

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Church of England Advances Plans to Bless but Not Affirm Same-Sex Couples

A report with proposals for new prayers and liturgy leave both sides disappointed.

Church of England clergy could soon be authorized to pray for God’s blessing over same-sex couples, though not quite affirming their unions as they would a marriage, according to a controversial paper set to be debated at an upcoming meeting of the church’s national assembly, General Synod. Services with liturgy to bless the couples wouldn’t take place until 2025.

In the 108-page document, bishops make the case for celebrating the “faithfulness, stability, fruitfulness, love, faith, grace” in same-sex relationships, with pastors “finding ways to help people move forward in holiness in a world that falls far short of ideals in every area, without giving up on the idea of the ideal altogether.”

They also speak of “acknowledging and celebrating what is good in same-sex relationships even if the Church is unable to commend every aspect of some relationships.”

Both conservatives and progressives have spoken out against the rationale for the proposals in the paper, calling it “bonkers theology” and “another fine mess.”

The report is the latest development in a lengthy and often painful process of discernment for the Church of England as it grapples with deep internal disagreement about same-sex relationships in what it describes as a “rapidly changing social context.”

In February, after eight hours of debate, the General Synod voted to welcome proposals by the church’s bishops to issue prayers to bless same-sex unions in church. This update, issued ahead of November’s gathering, sets out how difficult the bishops are finding it to bring the proposals to fruition.

The new paper explores how the prayers might be approved under canon law, ...

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Evangelical Mike Johnson ‘Raised Up’ as House Speaker

After weeks of jockeying in Congress, Republicans voted in the Bible-quoting Louisiana Southern Baptist.

After weeks of turmoil, House Republicans elected Rep. Mike Johnson on Wednesday as the new speaker of the House, an act the Louisiana congressman suggested was ordained by God.

“I believe that Scripture, the Bible, is very clear: that God is the one who raises up those in authority,” Johnson said in his first speech after being elected speaker in a 220–209 vote. “He raised up each of you. All of us.”

Johnson, an evangelical Christian, peppered his remarks with religious references. He recounted the history of how the motto “In God We Trust” was placed in the House chamber—a rebuke of communism, which many associated with atheism—and highlighted the Declaration of Independence’s use of “Creator.” He also noted the presence of Moses on the wall of the House chamber.

“Through adversity, it makes you stronger,” he said, referencing the three-week period in October that it took Republicans to elect a new speaker to replace the ousted Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

In a later speech on the Capitol steps, Johnson framed his leadership goals by citing Romans 5:3–4.

“I was reminded of the Scripture that says ‘Suffering produces perseverance, perseverance produces character, and character produces hope,’” he said. “What we need in this country is more hope.”

Johnson has been tied to multiple Baptist churches over the years and currently attends Cypress Baptist Church in Benton, Louisiana, according to the Louisiana Baptist Message. He is also a former lawyer and communications staffer with the Alliance Defense Fund, which later became known as Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian legal firm.

According to ...

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Religious Freedom Commission Laments Israel-Hamas War at Anniversary Gathering

As the International Religious Freedom Act turns 25, advocates look ahead to next steps.

Religious freedom advocates lamented the loss of civilian lives in the Israel-Hamas war, antisemitism, and Islamophobia on the 25th anniversary of the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA).

The bipartisan and multifaith US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), created by passage of the act in 1998, commemorated the 25th anniversary of IRFA at an October 23 event on Capitol Hill with an overview of USCIRF accomplishments, panel discussions, congressional remarks, and historical summaries of the act’s passage.

“As a clergy, as a man of faith, I am really disturbed by the loss of civilian life in Israel and Palestine,” said USCIRF commissioner Mohamed Magid, cofounder of the Multi-Faith Neighbors Network to build bridges between Muslim, evangelical, and Jewish communities.

“And also, I stand against antisemitism and Islamophobia in America, on campuses. Also the loss of many lives as we speak now, of civilians in Gaza, of children, and therefore we have to value all human life,” Magid said. “But I’m really standing with my brothers and sisters in Jewish community, and brothers and sisters in Muslim community.”

Commissioner Frederick A. Davie, USCIRF vice chair and senior strategic adviser to the president at Union Theological Seminary, reiterated USCIRF’s October 11 call for an international prayer service in response to the Israel-Hamas war. Death tolls vary, but thousands have been killed and injured. The US has confirmed the deaths of at least 33 Americans.

Davie offered USCIRF’s help in organizing and participating in such a prayer service that would acknowledge “the brutality and the horror and the depravity that is taking place in the ...

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When Media Becomes the ‘Prince of the Power of the Air’

Breaking free from disinformation and systemic oppression entails discipling a nation.

In the Philippines, my home country, fake news travels fast—not only through social media, but through word-of-mouth communication spread by “Marites,” a Tagalog word for a person who gossips.

This is a compound word from mare, meaning “godmother” as well as clusters of friends in the neighborhood, and the English word latest. In effect, it means “Mare, what’s the latest?” So gossip goes around very fast, especially in densely populated, poor urban communities.

Technology has accelerated and expanded the spread of misinformation beyond what chatty friend networks ever could. It happens in the US and the West as a whole, as well as in countries where the government influences or restricts the media.

Analysts say that part of the reason Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and his allies have returned to power is the way they have been able to massively use social media to revise narratives of our experience of authoritarianism under his father’s rule.

Christians across the world have rightly lamented the spread of fake news in their communities, the prevalence of conspiracy theories, and the skepticism toward ever being able to know the truth. Those of us in the Majority World are also sensitive to another dimension of this phenomenon: We are more likely to see the spiritual reality behind it.

We sense how the demonic could lodge and entrench itself in media technologies—our contemporary version of what Paul calls the “prince of the power of the air” in Ephesians 2:2 (ESV).

Paul’s language of “thrones or dominions or principalities or powers” in Colossians 1:16 (NKJV) suggests that the demonic manifests itself not only in personalities, ...

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Chapter 6: Outside the Walls

Pandemic disruptions spurred many churches to minister outside the walls of the church.

The pandemic held up a mirror to the American church. Congregations that rarely stepped back to evaluate their endless calendars of events were forced to assess whether their ministry models reflected the mandates given by Christ and the example of the early church. For many congregations, what they saw in the mirror was not pretty.

One East Coast pastor gave a common assessment.

"We're not really as open and involved in the community as we could be, as we should be. I see nice little buildings. I see fancy decorations outside on the lawns, manicured perfectly, and the steeple is still bold and standing. I just think that as a household of God, there's so much more we could do."

For many, COVID-19 became a catalyst for change, an opportunity to recalibrate rhythms and fall in better alignment with the church we are called to be in Scripture.

Based on Chapter 6 of the report, in this episode host Aaron Hill (editor of ChurchSalary) sits down with two researchers from the Arbor Research Group, Ebonie Davis and Terry Linhart to talk about how the pandemic pushed some churches to venture outside the walls of their church building in new and exciting ways. Featuring an in-depth interview with Dan Nold, a lead pastor of a multisite church whose leveraged the pandemic to launch a monthly "Church Without Walls" Sunday, where instead of gathering for worship at church members venture out and minister to their neighbors.

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, ...

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Major City in Thailand Gets Its First Pregnancy Center

A year after the country expanded abortion to 20 weeks, missionary sees Christians “on the cusp of writing the pro-life narrative.”

Getting pregnant at 15 hadn’t been part of Anong’s plans. The young Thai teenager ran away from home to live with her boyfriend’s family, and though they helped a little, the young couple still felt at a loss about how to navigate their situation.

What hospital should she go to? How would she get insurance? How would she take care of a child? Questions like these piled up and threatened to overwhelm Anong.

Should she just abort? That would be easier, she confided in a friend.

Months before Anong’s dilemma, IMB missionary Beth Hipps began building a network of believers and healthcare professionals in Chiang Mai, Thailand, who desired to walk alongside those experiencing unexpected pregnancies.

One of those believers heard Anong’s story and called Hipps.

“Can you come help her?” Hipps remembers the phone. All she could think was that Anong was the same age as her own daughter.

That day, Hipps and a friend were able to take Anong to a clinic for an ultrasound. Over the next few weeks, they talked through her questions and problems and helped her see she wouldn’t be alone if she decided to give birth.

Four months later, Anong gave birth to a healthy baby girl. As she settled into motherhood, she continued to have support from Hipps and other believers. She heard the gospel and knew her family was prayed for.

This was a life-changing experience, not only for Anong and her family but also for Hipps. She’d been praying and hoping to establish Chiang Mai’s first crisis pregnancy center but had no idea how to start outside of building a network of connections.

Working with Anong clarified for Hipps that helping didn’t have to be complicated. More than anything, those in crisis ...

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You Can Only Break the News of War so Gently

The Israel-Hamas war is thousands of miles from my daughter—and on her phone. I can’t keep her from the world’s sorrows.

As we drive to school, the first streaks of pink and orange spill across the horizon. Cars change lanes beside me, and in this madly spinning world—everyone and everything moving—the expansive sky looks still. I turn the radio down and catch my 12-year-old daughter’s eyes in the rearview mirror.

We’re on the way to her middle school, and she’s sitting in the back seat, blissfully unaware of the fresh grief unfurling in the Holy Land on this October morning. It occurs to me that there are only a few letters separating ignorance from innocence. Wanting both to last a little longer, I let the space between my words stretch out. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

I am in a brutal bind. Tell her too little, and she’ll be caught off guard when—not if—she hears of the Israel-Hamas war from some source other than me. Tell her too much, and I needlessly rush her toward the end of childhood.

I fumble forward, words spilling out of my mouth despite my reticence. I tell her about the attacks in Israel this month and the rumors swirling as Israeli troops prepare their response. But I don’t tell her about the grandmother whose murder was livestreamed or that babies were reportedly burnt and beheaded. I don’t tell her that Hamas uses civilian Palestinians as human shields or that, because the Palestinian population skews young, hundreds of children have already died in Israel’s response, and that more will die even if Israel does its best to abide by the laws of war.

I’m telling her this news, I explain, because I want her to be careful—aware of what might be coming next when someone casually hands over their phone and says, Hey, look at this. ...

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Ukraine Passes Law to Ban Russia-Linked Orthodox Church

Threatened amid accusations of the UOC’s collaboration with an enemy state, implementation awaits more votes, presidential signature, and judicial review. Cleric calls it “a struggle against God.”

Ukraine’s parliament overwhelmingly passed a preliminary vote last Thursday for a bill that could ban the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which has close ties to the Russian Orthodox Church, from operating within Ukraine’s borders.

Law 8371 would give Ukrainian authorities power to examine the connection of religious groups in Ukraine to the Russian Federation and to ban those whose leadership is outside of Ukraine. The draft law, approved by a tally of 267–15, with two abstentions, still needs to undergo a second vote, where it may be amended. It would then move to President Volodymyr Zelensky for his approval before it becomes law.

Since the outbreak of full-scale war between Russia and Ukraine, Russian Orthodox priests in Ukraine and around the world have faced accusations of spying and otherwise working to advance Russia’s political interests. Moscow’s Patriarch Kirill, a close ally of the Putin regime, has provided religious justification for the conflict in sermons and public appearances.

“The Russian Orthodox Church’s connection to the Russian Special Services has a very long history,” Oleksandr Kyrylenko, a scholar of religion and Orthodox Christianity in Ukraine, told Religion News Service.

Last month, Bulgaria expelled three of the highest-ranking Russian Orthodox priests in the country. At the same time, the FBI warned Orthodox communities in the US that Russian intelligence services may be using their churches to recruit assets.

Since the 10th century, Russian and Ukrainian Orthodox Christians had been part of one church. The Moscow Patriarchate itself began as the Metropolis of Kiev and all Rus, the people who formed the first Russian nation.

The relationship between the ...

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American Evangelicals Divide over Ukraine

Republican candidates make competing arguments to potential voters.

Ministers detained by police. A secret service that searches sanctuaries, questions clergy with polygraphs, and puts church leaders under house arrest. A president who threatens to ban any religious organizations with ties to a neighboring country.

For American evangelicals concerned about international religious freedom, these reports would be enough to raise alarms about any country. But they’re even more alarming when they’re coming from a nation their government is backing in a war.

These were likely the kind of stories former Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson had in mind in July when he asked former vice president Mike Pence whether Christian voters could, in good conscience, continue to back US support for Ukraine and Volodymyr Zelensky in the war with Russia.

“The Zelensky government has raided convents, arrested priests—has effectively banned a Christian denomination,” Carlson claimed, referring to the Ukrainian branch of the Russian Orthodox Church.

The exchange, at a gathering of conservative Christians in Iowa, quickly got testy. And Carlson was roundly criticized by supporters of Ukraine. The Orthodox Public Affairs Committee, a US-based group, accused Carlson of spouting “Russian propaganda.”

But a growing number of American evangelical voters appear to be asking the same questions Carlson is asking. Many are expressing growing doubts about US support for the war.

American evangelicals backed Ukraine pretty vigorously at the outset. In fact, when Russia invaded Ukraine last February, they were more likely than other Americans to support Ukraine. According to an Economist/YouGov poll in March 2022, 77 percent of American evangelicals said they were sympathetic to Ukraine, ...

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Korean American Methodists Struggle to Split from UMC

Some conservative churches that vote to disaffiliate say the denomination has responded by forcing out their pastors and charging them millions to keep their property.

Majority-Korean churches looking for a way out of the United Methodist Church (UMC) fear they’re at risk of losing not only their land but also their leadership; a handful of Korean pastors say they were removed from their conservative congregations after the churches began the process to disaffiliate.

Of the 244 Korean-language UMC churches, more than 100 have begun the disaffiliation process, according to Keihwan Kevin Ryoo, former executive director of the Association of Korean Churches in the United Methodist Church.

That’s more than double the number of churches the denomination expected to leave. At a meeting of Korean American leaders earlier this month, Paul Chang, executive director of the Korean Ministry Plan, had said he expected 40 congregations and 60 pastors to leave. The departures would represent 15–17 percent of all Korean American UMC churches.

Already, 40 churches have successfully left the UMC and joined the new conservative offshoot, the Global Methodist Church (GMC). Ryoo said more are waiting for their annual conferences to approve their disaffiliation vote or are still moving through the process.

Others gave up when they realized their congregation could not afford to pay the property value requested by the annual conference as terms to leave. Multiple say they’ve had their pastors removed by annual conference leadership during the disaffiliation process.

In the Chicago area, pastor Hogun Kim and members of South Suburban Korean United Methodist Church (SSKUMC) were concerned that the leaders of their annual conference—the regional UMC body—had disregarded the denomination’s Book of Discipline by appointing gay clergy in the area.

Northern Illinois Annual Conference ...

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How True Crime Can Create a False Reality

Criminal dramas are becoming more popular today, but at what cost to a Christian’s conscience?

As a middle school girl, I enjoyed watching criminal dramas with my mom—especially Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. My father, however, believed such media ultimately created the kind of criminals they depicted. And while I didn’t become a criminal, I did grow up with a different sort of brokenness.

As a child, I had abnormal fears and paranoia about being kidnapped. I would lock the doors when my mother worked in the garden and check behind every door for kidnappers. Most of my childhood nightmares cycled through scenarios of rape, kidnapping, and murder. These images and scenes lodged themselves in my brain and replayed obsessively.

I didn’t consider this unusual until I found myself at 20 years old crying on the phone to my husband because a random car pulled into our driveway—and I assumed its occupants were about to break in, tie me up, and throw me in the trunk. In the following days, as I reckoned with reality, I felt ashamed for being so afraid of something I’d only ever seen on a TV screen.

Today, criminal dramas and true crime are becoming more popular than ever. A 2022 poll found that half of Americans enjoy consuming this kind of content—with one in three saying they consume it at least once a week—and 13 percent say it’s their favorite genre.

Of course, we’re not the first or only generation to be attracted to the macabre. People have killed for sport and glorified gore for millennia—from gladiator battles featured in the Roman Colosseum to public executions held in town centers that even children attended.

But treating evil as entertainment can impact an entire society, just as it takes a toll on individuals.

A reporter from ...

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Argentina Legalized Abortion in 2020. Will This Impact Evangelicals’ Presidential Vote?

Upstart candidate Javier Milei says he's pro-life. But for some Christians, his economic positions may be a bigger draw for than his moral ones.

SALTA, ARGENTINA—Clutching a yellow flag with a lion’s head, the logo of her favorite presidential candidate, Alicia Ramos rushed to catch a glimpse of the fiery figure she hopes will transform Argentina: Javier Milei, a wild-haired, self-styled libertarian who is currently the country’s presidential front-runner.

Ramos, 29, was one of the hundreds of young people attending a Milei rally in the northern city of Salta, and she remembers the moment she decided to back the unconventional candidate. It was “when he started to speak about dollarization and inflation and, above all, that the country is going to be a liberal country,” she said, referring to Milei’s pledge to replace the country’s currency with the US dollar and use Argentine parlance (liberal) for a more free-market economy.

Ramos, an evangelical, has found that Mileil also shares some of her moral values, mentioning her unhappiness with legislation on gender issues and abortion and the progressive politics of the current Peronist government of President Alberto Fernández and his vice president, former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. The National Congress decriminalized abortion in 2020 over strong opposition from evangelicals and Catholics in the pro-life movement; Milei has promised to make the abortion issue a referendum.

“Now is the time for change in the country,” she said. Milei’s publicly stated opposition to abortion, meanwhile, was pushing “many, many people '' in her church to vote for him, she added.

Despite the enthusiasm for Milei that Ramos has experienced at her church, no evangelical voters CT spoke with listed Milei’s perspective on abortion as the ...

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Pray for al-Ahli

A historian of Gaza’s only Christian hospital, where hundreds died in an explosion this week, shares the story of the longstanding refuge.

The Arabic word ahli can be translated into English in several ways: family, membership, and people. This family is not limited to nuclear membership. It’s capacious, expanding to include a wide range of people who belong together.

This word, ahli, has appeared in news headlines across the world this week, following the explosion that killed hundreds seeking refuge at al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City.

Narratives about who was to blame proliferated before the fires engulfing the hospital were even extinguished. Some held an Israeli air strike accountable. Others blamed a misfired rocket belonging to Palestine Islamic Jihad. Media discussions quickly extrapolated to geopolitical ramifications: Would the hospital strike bring about a ceasefire? Or would it be provocation for more death and destruction?

In this moment, Christians may feel increasingly entrenched on one side or the other, speculating, blaming, posting, and reacting to daily updates. As a historian who has published on al-Ahli Hospital, let me extend an invitation to pause. To think. To pray.

Praying about the destruction of this hospital in Gaza needs to start, first and foremost, with knowledge of the people who were affected. Who were the people at the hospital? Why did al-Ahli Arab Hospital experience this tragedy? And how can we turn to God when nothing makes sense?

To more fully comprehend who sought refuge within the hospital, we must start with its history.

The idea of establishing a Christian hospital in Gaza began in 1878, when the British Church Missionary Society (CMS) commissioned Alexander Schapira to relocate his family to Gaza City and determine the feasibility of a medical mission there. Schapira was the ideal choice for the CMS. He was raised ...

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Let the Children Play: Their Lives Depend on It

How the next generation's mental health crisis might recall the timeless values of wandering and wayfinding.

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

Most people know that something is going badly awry with the next generation.

We know this not because older people are, as always, complaining about how the morals and manners of kids these days are so much worse than they used to be. We know it instead because the young people themselves are telling us so. In almost every category of mental health disorder—anxiety, depression, and so on—we see spikes that are unprecedented. The question is why, and why now?

It’s not often that an executive summary from TheJournal of Pediatrics ricochets around the internet. But this week we saw just that with the findings of a study from three researchers entitled “Decline in Independent Activity as a Cause of Decline in Children’s Mental Well-Being: Summary of the Evidence.”

The broad thesis is that, while many factors have led to the national emergency we are seeing with adolescent mental health, there is one major factor that is insufficiently recognized: the decline in unstructured, unmanaged, and unsupervised play.

The study shows, for instance, how rates of children playing outside has plummeted. This is not because of the “laziness” of video-gaming kids but because of parents’ fears of crime or traffic or, I would add, of not being seen as good parents.

This research is supported by social psychologist Jonathan Haidt’s upcoming book The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness, which releases in March 2024. After reading the manuscript, I believe this will be a decade-shaping book—Haidt’s arguments are compelling and reshaped my thinking. ...

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‘Can You Find the Wolves in this Picture?’

Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon” probes the unacknowledged darkness in every human heart.

Lament is at the heart of Killers of the Flower Moon, the latest film from director Martin Scorsese, which premieres on Apple TV+ and in theaters on Friday, October 20. The subject may seem well-worn—a true-life story of a murder spree—but Scorsese elevates it into a meditation on love, guilt, and what it means to be righteous.

Based on a journalistic history with the same title, Flower Moon’s story opens in Oklahoma just after the end of the First World War, when Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio) drifts into town following lackluster army service. His uncle, William King Hale (Robert De Niro), offers Ernest a home and work at his cattle ranch in Osage territory.

There, Ernest meets Mollie (Lily Gladstone), a member of the Osage people, in a context that may be unfamiliar to viewers acquainted with other stories of Native Americans. In Osage country, the tables are turned. The tribe’s land has oil—and lots of it. The Osages drive fancy cars, wear fur coats, and drip with jewels. They live in luxurious houses where they employ poor white people, like Ernest, as chauffeurs, cleaners, nannies, and cooks.

All that money—and the young women who inherit it—creates high temptation for ne’er-do-well men looking for a fast path to riches. If those riches come through love, so be it. If not, murder is an option too.

In other hands, this premise would produce a predictable story, a cautionary tale of white people’s injustice to Native Americans. That element is certainly there, but Scorsese has more to say, too, dwelling on all humans’ capacity to ignore the darkness in our own hearts.

The villains of the story are convinced of their own righteousness. They have no interest in ...

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As Asian American Christians Decline, Most ‘Nones’ Still Feel Close to Religion

New Pew survey of 7,000 adults explores the beliefs and practices of Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, and Muslims and their affinity to Confucianism and Daoism.

Christians comprise the largest faith group (34%) among Asian Americans.

But since 2012, Christianity has declined by 8 percentage points. Meanwhile, the share of religiously unaffiliated people has increased from 26 to 32 percent over the same period.

This is according to a new Pew Research Center survey of religion among Asian American adults who self-identified as Asian, either alone or in combination with other races or ethnicities.

Pew conducted surveys between July 5, 2022, and January 27 this year and also held focus groups and one-on-one interviews with over 100 Asian Americans to uncover what religion means to them. Besides surveying Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, and Hindu Asian Americans, the research center also explored peoples’ affinity with Confucianism and Daoism.

Pew released its previous report on the state of Asian American religion in 2012. At the time, researchers found that Asian American evangelical Protestants, who surpassed white evangelicals in terms of weekly church attendance (76% versus 64%), were one of the most religious groups in the United States.

The latest Pew data is representative of ethnic Chinese, Filipino, Indian, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese views on religion. People who were solely of Middle Eastern (e.g., Lebanese or Saudi) or Central Asian (e.g., Afghan or Uzbek) descent were excluded.

In many of these origin groups, well under half say that Christianity is their religion.

“At the pastoral level, these statistics match the countless stories of our immigrant churches struggling to remain healthy or viable. Though we don’t know what the figures will say ten years from now, this data should make pastors, parents, and leaders pause (and pray),” ...

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Hundreds Killed in Blast at Gaza’s Only Christian Hospital

The fatal explosion hit a well-known facility run by Anglicans—and formerly Southern Baptists—“in the middle of one of the world’s most troubled places.”

Hundreds of Palestinians were killed Tuesday in an explosion in the courtyard of Gaza’s only Christian hospital.

The Hamas-run Palestinian Health Ministry, which estimated a death toll of over 500, blamed the attack at al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City on Israel. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the blast was a failed rocket launch from Islamic Jihad, a Hamas-aligned militant group. United States president Joe Biden, visiting Israel on Wednesday, referenced data from the Department of Defense backing Israel’s account.

Al-Ahli was founded by Anglican missionaries and has existed in the region since 1882. For decades in the mid-20th century, it was operated by Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) missions. It currently sits under the Anglican Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem.

Known colloquially as Al-Ma’amadani (or “the Baptist” in Arabic), it is one of 22 hospitals in northern Gaza. After Israel’s evacuation orders in the area, hundreds of Palestinians had taken refuge there, with families in the courtyard where the explosion took place, according to news reports.

“We are here as an instrument in the hands of God to show the love of Jesus Christ for all people. We are proud that in all conflicts, this hospital was there to eliminate the suffering of the injured, the poor, and to help those in need of a compassionate heart,” said al-Ahli hospital director Suhaila Tarazi, in an earlier appeal to Christian supporters.

“This hospital will continue to be a place of reconciliation, of love. The history of this hospital tells the story that we are all children of one God, whether we are Christian, Muslim or Jew.”

Tarazi, an Arab Christian from South Carolina, has navigated ...

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Antisemitic Violence and Its Shameful Defense

Christians must care for both Israeli and Palestinian victims of war—and that means actively rejecting hatred of the Jewish people.

One day after Hamas’s Simchat Torah massacres in Israel, crowds gathered at a rally in Times Square promoted by the Democratic Socialists of America. “Our resistance stormed illegal settlements,” shouted one speaker, “and paraglided across colonial borders.” The crowd responded with rousing cheers.

It was an unapologetic celebration of the terrorists’ multi-front assault on Israeli cities, kibbutzim (progressive, communitarian farming villages), and an outdoor music festival. Hamas members have murdered more than 1,400 Israelis, raped, tortured, and injured thousands, and kidnapped around 200 more. Most of the victims were civilians, and many were children, the elderly, or infants. The vast majority were Jews.

The Times Square gathering was not an isolated case of pro-Hamas activism. Pro-Hamas demonstrations were held by the Chicago chapter of Black Lives Matter and Students for Justice in Palestine at California State University in Long Beach and the University of Louisville, each of which included images of paragliders in their promotional materials—a reference not to the Palestinian cause generally but to this specific Hamas attack on thousands of Israeli innocents.

The parent organization for those campus groups called the initial Hamas assault “a historic win for Palestinian resistance,” encouraging its members not merely to rally but to consider “armed confrontation with the oppressors.”

This war is still in its early days. It may be difficult to parse truth from lies and understand exactly why this kind of activism—which is misleadingly portrayed by its supporters as defense of the oppressed—is wrong. But we’ll have a clearer moral vision ...

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‘A Blueprint for Discipleship in an Urban Context’ with Dhati Lewis

Making disciples in our own neighborhoods.

From the very beginning, Dhati Lewis had a plan. He was going to be in the NFL, and that was it. Yet, when he was so close to achieving it, God gave him a different dream. Instead, he suddenly found his calling into ministry, one that inspired his mission of being God’s hands and feet in urban contexts, starting with his own neighborhood.

Guest Bio:

Dr. Dhati Lewis serves as the Vision and Multiplication Pastor of Blueprint Church as well as the founder and president of MyBLVD, an organization focused on helping disciples thrive where they live, work, and worship. Dhati is passionate about bringing contextualized resources to disciple-makers through coaching, consulting, cohort training, and church planting. He is married to his best friend, Angie, and they live in Atlanta, Georgia, with their children and church family. He is the author of Among Wolves: Disciple-Making in the City and Advocates: The Narrow Path to Racial Reconciliation.

Notes & Quotes:

• “I was going to these studies and I started hearing words like evangelism and discipleship. I was like, ‘Man, I knew my friends, they loved the Lord, but they ain’t talking about this.’ You see, Christianity to them was don’t go to the club, don’t drink, don’t have sex outside of marriage, don’t join a fraternity or sorority, don’t, don’t, don’t. . . . I was just like, ‘God, I'm real clear on what not to do. I just don’t know what you’re calling me to do.’ ”
• “It was like either I was around people who got my context but didn’t have that same commitment to theology and mission, or I was around people who got my mission in theology, but they didn’t get my context.”

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Christians Have a Duty to Hate the Evil of Hamas

The example of Jesus, the teachings of the just war tradition, and Hamas’s own words make this clear.

By now you will have heard of slaughtered Israeli babies, seen the graphic video of a kidnapped Jewish teenager being pulled by her hair with what appears to be blood between her legs, read of the 85-year-old grandmother taken to the Gaza strip without her medicines to die alone and in great pain.

By now you will know that Hamas terrorists have shot children, raped women, snatched infants from their families. By now you may have heard the account of one survivor of the massacre at the music festival: “The guy who was with me didn’t stop crying and begging for his life. … And then he didn’t scream anymore. They murdered him in front of my eyes.”

At this writing, Hamas has killed more than 1,400 Israelis, injured 3,000, and is holding around 200 hostage. This attack has been called Israel’s 9/11. It could equally be called its Dunkirk, the beginning of a war for survival whose outcome is uncertain.

For Christians watching these horrors from afar, it is imperative to condemn the evil perpetrated by Hamas—and to recognize that it must be resisted.

This should go without saying, but some American Christians refuse to denounce Hamas for its barbaric atrocities. A statement from the Episcopal Church in the United States, for example, mentions “a time of violence” but fails to say that Hamas was its instigator, suggests that “occupation” is the underlying cause, and charges that Israel’s response is “disproportionate.” The United Methodist Church similarly refers merely to an “escalation of violence” and urges “both sides not to resort to further violence.”

No further violence? Would we say the same if ...

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Chapter 5: A Tectonic Shift in Technology

The pandemic greatly accelerated the adoption of and reliance on technology among churches.

The expansion of technology during the COVID-19 pandemic drastically shifted the landscape of church ministry. Though some changes were temporary, many will remain.

As one of the Arbor researchers put it, “The toothpaste can’t be put back in the tube.”

Our research indicates that more than two-thirds of respondents (67.5%) believe their church was reshaped due to its embrace of technology during the pandemic. Older churches and older participants were even more likely to see their congregation reshaped. Given these results, we believe the recent shift in technology has changed more than just a few activities, it changed the structure or landscape of ministry practice itself.

Based on Chapter 5 of the report, in this episode host Aaron Hill (editor of ChurchSalary) sits down with two researchers from the Arbor Research Group, Tyler Greenway and Terry Linhart to talk about the impact of COVID-19 lockdowns on technology in American churches. Featuring an in-depth interview with David Lee, a lead pastor whose church pivoted and found new ways to connect digitally and in-person with their congregation of commuters during the pandemic lockdowns.

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 is Matt Stevens

Audio Engineering, Editor, and Composer is Tyler Bradford Wright

Artwork by Ryan Johnson

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This Is the Violent World in Which Christ Commands Peace

The horror of terrorism reminds us anew of how impossible it feels to love our enemies.

Violence, we are told, followed so closely the origin of human evil as to be almost indistinguishable. For soon after Adam’s sin, violence appears—first in the skin taken from animals (Gen. 3:21), then in the murder of a brother (4:8), and finally over the whole of the earth (6:11). Violence follows humanity through the Flood and into the world beyond it, taking root in generational fights of the tribes of Isaac versus Ishmael and Jacob versus Esau. Nations that bear so much in common, divided by that very common history: This is the story of Scripture and of our own world.

It is into this violent world, not some easier one, that Christ gave his disciples the instruction to turn the other cheek, to pray for their persecutors, and to give to those that ask without expecting things to be returned (Matt. 5:38–48). These teachings have been contentious wisdom ever since, especially when we are confronted with horrors like the terrorist attacks by Hamas in Israel this month. Following Jesus here feels so impossible. Who could live that way in a world like this?

But that is what Jesus commanded, and it is this violent world for which he died and in which he was resurrected. It is into this violent world that the Holy Spirit was sent, and fruits of that Spirit are peace, humility, gentleness, and goodness (Gal. 5:22–23). Perhaps we think such gifts and teachings are unfit for a violent world, but Jesus thought otherwise.

Perhaps such an approach to great violence—to turn the other cheek and to seek the good of one’s enemy—seems nonsensical. And indeed, many in church history rendered exactly that verdict on Christian pacifism.

Perhaps, as one objection goes, these ...

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Armenia Struggles to Aid 100,000 Artsakh Refugees After War

Evangelical, Orthodox, and secular aid workers care for traumatized Nagorno-Karabakh kin they say were ethnically cleansed from their homeland. Azerbaijani Christians reply.

Karolin is one of 30,000 Armenian children without a home—again.

Fleeing the mountainous enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh in the face of Azerbaijan’s assault last month, the 12-year-old girl had an unexpected encounter. After crossing the Lachin corridor westward to Goris in Armenia proper, she found her beloved social worker waiting.

Arpe Asaturyan, founder of Frontline Therapists (FLT), was astounded as well. Amid the 100,000 refugees from what Armenians call their homeland of Artsakh, she had found the very same child displaced three years earlier. A special bond formed with then-9-year-old Karolin, who had gripped her tightly before returning home.

Located within internationally recognized Azerbaijani territory, the Armenian enclave suffered a bloody 44-day war in 2020. Over 6,000 soldiers died before a Russian-backed ceasefire left local Armenian authorities in control of only a portion of formerly held Artsakh land.

Karolin and her family went back anyway, vowing to continue their multigenerational presence. But after suffering malnutrition during an Azerbaijani-imposed nine-month blockade, they trudged three days in the slow-moving convoy of cars and buses across Lachin—the only road connecting the enclave with Armenia.

Over the week-and-a-half exodus, Artsakh residents crossed at a rate of 15,000 per day.

But the bittersweet reunion with Karolin is far from the worst of Asaturyan’s ordeal. Suffering in the chaos of relocation and the fog of war, several mothers told their children they would find their daddy in Armenia.

As counselor, Asaturyan was asked to tell them that their fathers had died.

“It is heartbreaking, and you know this will be the worst day of the rest of their lives,” Asaturyan ...

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Wither the Poisonous Plant of Hamas

A Palestinian Christian’s view of this week’s tragedy in Israel—and how to address the roots of the problem.

This article is published pseudonymously for the author’s safety.

Israel has suffered a 9/11-scale attack by the Islamic Resistance Movement, commonly known as Hamas, which has devastated Jews and Palestinians alike. No words can describe the sadness and horror. But we must not allow this terrible event to cloud our vision or to push us into vengeance against civilians.

To even ask if I, a Palestinian Christian and Israeli citizen, condemn this violence is insulting. Of course I condemn it, and I also want to share with fellow Christians my view of how we can cut terrorism off at the root—thinking not only of the immediate military response by Israel but also of longer-term questions about justice, security, and God-given dignity for Israelis and Palestinians alike.

This month’s brutal attack against Israeli civilians came 16 years to the day after a Palestinian Bible Society worker in Gaza named Rami Ayyad was kidnapped and murdered because Islamist radicals believed he was doing missionary work. Despite public demands that Hamas leadership in Gaza find the criminals, no one was held accountable for his death.

Rami’s murder remains officially unsolved to this day, and some Palestinian Christians moved out of Gaza as a result of that violence. It appears that the abduction and killing were done by a radical faction, and Hamas’s leaders were not willing to confront them or hold them responsible.

A decade and a half later, we find ourselves in another cycle of violence—a fiercer and more complicated one this time. The Hamas onslaught is atrocity on an unprecedented scale, and Israel’s response must account for around 150 Israeli hostages in Gaza and a second war front in the north of Israel, ...

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The Obscenity of War in This Present Evil Age

‘The last enemy to be destroyed is death,’ and that enemy is insurgent in the Israel-Hamas war.

Less than a week into the Israel-Hamas war, the casualty count is already in the thousands. Around 1,300 people have been killed by Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel as of this writing, with another 1,300 killed by retaliatory Israeli strikes in Gaza and more than 9,000 wounded.

It is difficult to fathom that many bodies. It is even more difficult to fathom that at least some of them were children.

The most shocking report is an allegation that Hamas beheaded babies and toddlers, a claim that was walked back by the Israeli military and the White House, then seemingly confirmed by The Jerusalem Post. We can hope this story turns out to be false. But it may be true, which is terrible to contemplate, let alone to endure it.

In either case, there are many evils in this war that are not coming untrue. Our world since the Fall has always been infected with sin, death, and devilry. Sometimes we can forget or ignore this sickness and suffering, especially we fortunate few in the safe and wealthy West. But that ignorance is not possible for many of us right now. This war has brought our sickness back to the surface, opening anew a putrescent wound we cannot heal.

In 1755, the Spanish city of Lisbon suffered an earthquake so devastating that it cast doubt on God’s very goodness. Wars like this one give a similar shock. The disputed story of beheadings flew fast around the globe because it is uniquely unintelligible: Who could behead a baby? How bent would a soul have to be to do violence to an infant, a toddler—a babbling little being who should know only care and comfort, not war and death? My youngest is five months old. It is obscene that those babies are not as safe as she.

But then I remember Psalm 137, perhaps the darkest ...

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Should Christians Share a Conference Stage with Theological Opponents?

Jackie Hill Perry, Sean McDowell, and others explain why they appear alongside speakers with different stances and when they’d refuse to join a lineup.

These days, Christian speakers have to carefully consider not just what they say—but those they say it alongside.

From packed-stadium conferences and denominational events to church retreats and ministry webinars, evangelical audiences pay attention to the names and faces getting platformed. These lineups can serve as organizational endorsements and offer followers an introduction to new voices worth paying attention to.

But today’s evangelicals are also sensitive to theological shifts among the leaders they follow. If they notice a popular speaker appearing alongside someone with a notably different stance—on same-sex marriage, women in ministry, spiritual gifts, prosperity gospel, salvation, sacraments, Scripture—is it a sign of softening views or compromising convictions?

These questions can get adjudicated online, as when Francis Chan defended sharing a stage with Benny Hinn because, he said, “it seems more effective to speak where there is less Bible teaching” than at an event where all the others agree with him.

Bible teacher Jackie Hill Perry didn’t realize how big a deal it would be for evangelical followers when she appeared with charismatic leaders, including from Bethel, at an event in 2019. Thinking back on the criticism, she emphasizes how the message communicates more about where a person stands than the fellow speakers do.

“You will see some people that become less honest, less bold, less biblical, less courageous, less plain when they go into particular spaces. You see that they’re actually coddling the environment instead of confronting the environment. I do think that’s a concern that we should have,” she told CT.

“I think we have to ask ...

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‘No One Will Save You’ Has Evangelical Aliens

The new sci-fi horror flick by former missionary kid Brian Duffield has an unusual spiritual spin.

In his piece for CT, Aaron Earls explores what C. S. Lewis thought about evangelizing aliens—provided we discover they do indeed exist. But what if aliens came to proselytize us?

Directed by Brian Duffield and now streaming on Hulu, No One Will Save You is a mostly silent sci-fi horror film featuring only a single discernible line of dialogue. The film has already earned high praise from the likes of Stephen King and other horror genre heavyweights.

In it, a young woman named Brynn (played by Kaitlyn Dever) must fight off an alien invasion in her small town, from which she’s been ostracized for reasons we don’t find out until later. The movie’s extraterrestrials are archetypal “grey man” aliens, hauntingly recognizable to many a sci-fi fan.

But Duffield and his team wanted the alien takeover to be marked with spiritual overtones. “Having these religious aspects felt like a way to differentiate the aliens from other pop culture,” Duffield told Christianity Today. “I wanted there to be an aspect to them where you couldn’t debate [the aliens] because they had this faith that told them what to do.”

I was tipped off about some of these religious nuances early on by a thread on Twitter/X from director Guillermo del Toro. Known for horror films himself (such as Pan’s Labyrinth), del Toro praised No One Will Save You and said it embodies an “essential principle in Catholic dogma” where “grace and salvation emerge from pain and suffering.”

While that may not be quite what Duffield had in mind when crafting his film, he admits it’s “exciting that it could be read through a Catholic lens,” and that the film’s undeniable ...

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