Many mainline Protestant churches still struggle to fill the pews, as evidenced by a multi-million dollar advertising campaign from the United Methodist Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

People drop away from church attendance. Young people are not interested.

So how can church improve? What can the church do for you? Or maybe it’s not the church’s problem.

Actually, it may be our own fault.

In the early days of the church, Christianity grew incredibly. The apostles purposefully traveled long distances to spread the good news, took the time to talk face to face with others, and spend time with new believers.

Thanks to the web and internet technology, we don’t need to budge to talk to someone on the other side of the world.

However, we don’t really talk to people anymore, either; we communicate by mediums such as cell phones, computers. In our love for technology and gadgets, we may have lost that human touch and sense of community.

Of course, we have to adapt to meet cultural needs, and technology has always been willing to lend a helping hand. In earlier days, when illiteracy was widespread, stained glass windows depicting Bible scenes helped people grasp the stories. Nowadays, the problem is that we get bored and distracted easily.

It is difficult to simply sit and listen, and it is common for a church to have a PowerPoint on a big screen marking the major points of a sermon.

But PowerPoints are staid compared to a new trend: Twittering in church

Some people are quick to embrace this form of communication, and want to use it in their own churches. Pastor John Voelz of Westwinds Community Church in Jackson, Mich. is accredited with this idea of using Twitter in church, and has others asking him, “Got any tips to persuade church leadership this is way cool?”

Early Christians didn’t have to worry about making the message look like the latest fad, or be apologetic about taking the time to converse with people. Sometimes, things are hard and boring! Even in the Garden of Gethsemane, the disciples succumbed to naps instead of praying. During Paul’s journeys, he talked so long that a poor guy fell asleep while propped up against the window, fell out of it, died and was raised back to life.

We minimally accommodate ourselves and expect the church to meet our needs, our expectations. Give us a reason to show up. Make it easy for us to pay attention.

When people cannot focus on an hour long sermon, it is time to take a step back and reexamine both our faith and culture.

Posted by Tim Morgan at May 29, 2009 11:30AM | Comments (11)

Veteran missiologist Ralph D. Winter passed away.last Wednesday, May 20. (Hat tips to @jhgrantjr and @edstetzer for alerting us via Twitter.)

According to the US Center for World Mission website, Winter died peacefully at home in Pasadena, California, "surrounded by three of his four daughters, his wife Barb, and a few friends."

Winter had been battling cancer and had been weakened by radiation treatments. He was 84.

In 2005, Winter was named by Time magazine as one of America's 25 most influential evangelicals. His speech at the 1974 Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization is credited with focusing evangelical mission activity on "unreached people groups."

Time commented:

Even at 80, Winter generates new strategies from his California-based Frontier Mission Fellowship.

Trained as a civil engineer, linguist, cultural anthropologist and Presbyterian minister, he describes himself as a "Christian social engineer." Working through the William Carey International University and the U.S. Center for World Mission, which he founded, he is producing a new generation of Christian message carriers, some native, ready to venture out to places with such ready-to-be-ministered flocks as Muslim converts to Christianity and African Christians with heretical beliefs. Says Winter: "It's this movement, not the formal Christian church, that's growing. That's our frontier."

An abundance of information is available at ralphwinter.org, including a timeline of "milestone events" and an extensive autobiographical account of his engagement with modern missions and missiology.

Also worth reading: Pastor John Piper's personal tribute to Winter. "His vision of the advance of the gospel was breathtaking," writes Piper, calling Winter's emphasis on unreached peoples "globally seismic in the transformation of missions."

Posted by David Neff at May 23, 2009 6:49AM | Comments (4)

Last Tuesday, the Sinhalese government of Sri Lanka announced the end of a 26-year struggle with the rebel group Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. The Tamil Tiger leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran, two of his key associates had been killed, and the formal conflict was now over.

Every war, however, has an aftermath. And in the case of Sri Lanka, that will involve the resettlement of some 280,000 refugees. According to a report in today’s New York Times, aid groups are encountering government resistance as they attempt to bring relief to the refugee camps.

What will be the challenge for Sri Lankan Christians? What special role can they play? At about 7 percent of the Sri Lankan population, Christians are a small minority compared to the majority Sinhalese Buddhists (about 70 percent of the population) and the high-profile Tamil Hindu minority (about 15 percent). The Protestant evangelical component is quite small, but dedicated to service.

We’ve received some initial comments through friends at John Stott Ministries, which sponsors graduate educations for promising majority world scholars. One of their alums, who wishes not to be identified for security reasons, writes that there are

many years of work … to be done to reconstruct and rehabilitate people involved in the conflict. Thousands of Tamil people have to be resettled in their homes who got caught in the conflict. Most of these … are peasant people. I am told many areas of the North have been landmined and all that … has to be cleared before civilians can move back in to their homes and farms.

The government’s big task now is to create harmony and unity between the Sinhala and Tamil people. The war first started because the Tamil people felt discriminated against by successive Sinhala governments. This problem has gone on for the past 50 years. The Tamil, people especially in the north and east, must feel they are part of the nation. There are many thousands of Tamil-speaking people living among Sinhala people in the south. Many fled south due to the war. Thousands have also left the country.

The Christian church was the only place where Sinhala and Tamil people and in fact all ethnic groups, could safely gather each week. It was a place of unity, love, and understanding. The church could engage in rehab work in the post war period. I believe Hospital Christian Fellowship is already up in the North assessing how they could help.

How can we pray for Sri Lanka? Our John Stott Ministries correspondent suggests that we pray

1. for the ongoing rehab. efforts


2. for open doors to go and meet the civilian refugee population and counsel and care for them. They are presently housed in tents. Many families have lost their loved ones, parents are missing children and can’t find them among the many thousands of displaced people. Some 30 elderly people have died due to starvation it was reported.


3. for the many Christians among the civilian refugee population. Worship and prayer services could be held for them to comfort and encourage them in their predicament.

Posted by David Neff at May 22, 2009 12:13PM | Comments (4)

Yesterday Norwegian scientists unveiled a 47-million-year-old fossil they are touting as a crucial link in the "stem group" from which humans and other mammals came. Jorn Hurum, whose Oslo museum purchased "Ida" in 2007 from a private collector who unearthed it in 1983, has been quick to label the well-preserved, cat-like fossil the "missing link" between mammals and humans, calling it the "Holy Grail" and the "Lost Ark" of science. Following yesterday's media frenzy, a book on Darwinius masillae is releasing today, and a two-hour History Channel special is airing May 25.

What many media are ignoring, save the Associated Press, is that other paleontologists are skeptical of Ida's close link to humans. "We are not dealing with our grand- grand- grand- grandmother but perhaps our grand- grand- grand- aunt," German researcher Jens Franzen said yesterday.

"I actually don't think it's terribly close to the common ancestral line of monkeys, apes and people," said K. Christopher Beard of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. "I would say it's about as far away as you can get from that line and still be a primate. . . . I would say it's more like a third cousin twice removed."

The bloggers for Francis Collins's BioLogos Foundation, a theistic-evolution think tank, responded to the announcement this way: "[E]ven if it is only in a peripheral way, the new fossil offers a glimpse at our evolutionary ancestors. While it may not revolutionize our understanding of evolution, the fossil is just another piece of evidence showing that evolution has occurred . . .".

Young-earth creationist ministry Answers in Genesis, on the other hand, noted that the fossil bears no connection to apes or humans, and that neither fossils nor similarities between fossils can prove evolution. The article posits that Ida's remarkable preservation is characteristic of rapid burial caused by a catastrophic flood.

Meanwhile, Allahpundit at Hot Air posited that perhaps Richard Dawkins planted it.

What do you think of Auntie Ida? How should Bible-believing Christians respond to announcements from the scientific community such as these?

Posted by Katelyn Beaty at May 20, 2009 10:57AM | Comments (46)

Manoj Pradhan, in jail for leading riots against Christians last year in Orissa, seems to have won a seat in the state assembly in India's general elections.

But overall, India's Christians have reason to be happy with the election. Dara Singh, who was convicted of leading Graham Staines' murder, was not permitted to run.

More importantly, most of the election results showed a distaste for right-wing Hinduism and support of the non-religious Congress Party. The BJP, a Hindu nationalist party, was defeated quite solidly. The Washington Post reports that they are re-evaluating their support of candidates who support anti-Christian and anti-Muslim violence.

Manmohan Singh, the incumbent, is set for a second term as prime minister. The New York Times reports that India's stock market surged after the announcement the Congress party won 205 of 543 seats in Parliament. A near-majority means the party no longer has to "rely on India's Communist parties to stay in power." Those Communist parties won about 80 seats, and the BJP, 159.

Posted by Susan Wunderink at May 18, 2009 3:18PM | Comments (4)

Last week, evangelical creation care entered a new phase as key pastors, scientists, and thought leaders gathered near Atlanta for a "coming out party." That's what Jonathan Merritt called the gathering as he welcomed conferees to Flourish 09, hosted by Cross Pointe Church where Merritt serves on the staff with his father, senior pastor and former president of the Southern Baptist Convention James Merritt.

Like all debutantes, the leaders of Flourish were clearly self-conscious as they tried to forge a new identity in public for the first time. Flourish president and co-founder Rusty Pritchard was the first of many to declare, "I am not an environmentalist." For Pritchard, a natural resources economist who founded the environmental studies program at Emory University, that label is loaded with overtones of judgmentalism and apocalypticism. We don't need environmentalism for us to be perceived as judgmental, said Pritchard. If you want judgmentalism, "just come to my church."

What emerged from Pritchard's keynote talk was not a passion for the environment so much as a passion for people, their health and well-being, and particularly for social justice. If our abuse of the environment raises, for example, the rate of debilitating asthma attacks, then it is a compassion issue for the church.

It's not about recycling and reusing, said Pritchard, it's about clean water and clean air. It's about social justice.

What Pritchard was keen to avoid--what Flourish is keen to avoid--is polarizing environmental rhetoric, rhetoric borrowed on the Right from Sean Hannity and on the Left from Al Gore. "Our engaging with environmental issues doesn't need to start with politics," said Pritchard. "That is the thesis of this conference. We have to start somewhere other than climate politics. There is nothing more divisive."

And so the conference proceeded largely without a lot of attention to climate change politics and its attendant apocalypticism. The only exception was an illustrated lecture by National Wildlife Federation president Larry Schweiger, who let loose a fusillade of climate data, which likely overwhelmed rather than enlightened most in attendance.

* * *

Perhaps the biggest benefit of the conference was its line-up of pastors talking to pastors about how to promote environmental concern in their congregations without creating factions.

South Atlanta pastor Leroy Barber spoke of how his church worked to "green my 'hood." His parishioners live with all the unsightly and unsanitary things other Atlanta neighborhoods avoid: chemical plants, an auto impound lot from another municipality, a landfill, poor public transportation. He described his church's efforts to improve the lives of their neighbors through economic development, health and nutrition programs, and even pedestrian safety campaigns. "That's good news for the poor," he said.

Orlando pastor Joel Hunter talked about how he has worked to weave creation care into the general discipleship experience of those he ministers to. Hunter admonished those present to attach everything they do to Scripture, to present facts rather than clever opinions, and to tell stories of environmental action that illustrate and invite Christians to demonstrate neighbor love.

Boise, Idaho, Vineyard pastor Tri Robinson positioned himself as a regular guy: a rancher and a hunter and an evangelical pastor, he says. He doesn't wear Birkenstocks. If you're going to succeed in getting people like me to engage with creation care, said Robinson, you're going to have to do three things:

* show me it is biblical and right,
* show me why it is going to be good for my church,
* connect it to the kingdom of God (Isaiah 61 via Jesus' words in Luke 4:14ff).

Castle Rock, Colorado, pastor Rand Clark spoke about integrating creation care activities into church planting and evangelism.

Houston pastor Chris Seay promoted creation care as way to free ourselves from slavery to Mammon and materialism.

Host pastor James Merritt preached a model sermon setting forth the biblical case for creation care. It was Merritt's first sermon ever on the topic, and he was laying the foundation not only for the preaching of other pastors but his own teaching ministry as well.

* * *

Evangelicals have often criticized the environmental movement for worshiping the creation rather than the Creator. At Flourish 09, there was not the slightest hint of nature mysticism. The dominant spiritual message was the need for neighbor love and the social justice activity neighbor love entails.

A number of social justice ministries were represented at the conference. The most popular booth belonged to Land of a Thousand Hills Coffee, with its slogan--"Drink Coffee. Do Good."--and its endless urns of really good joe. The ministry helps Rwandan genocide survivors to form coffee-growing co-ops, then helps them speed their best beans to market where they command top prices. These co-op farmers typically increase their revenues by a factor of 4.5, exceeding the prices paid in fair-trade programs. Land of a Thousand Hills markets their product to and through churches.

Floresta told how its tree-planting efforts rehabilitate the soil and water sources that rural people need to live. (Watch for an upcoming Christianity Today article on Floresta's work on the Haiti-Dominican Republic border.)

Pastor Tri Robinson put it bluntly: "Not caring about the creation is killing people." The clear message of the conference: restoring creation restores life, restores people to health, and demonstrates Christian love.

* * *

Previously: "Can We Separate Creation Care from Political Action?"
Tomorrow: "The Creator, Not the Crisis: The Theology of Flourish"

Posted by David Neff at May 17, 2009 6:41PM | Comments (9)

Columnist Michael Gerson says our verbal nastiness is nothing to laugh at.

The first response to the performer on a public stage wishing the death of a stranger for political reasons was discomfort. Wanda Sykes had "crossed a line" at the White House Correspondents Dinner in accusing Rush Limbaugh of terrorism and treason, mocking his past drug addiction and wishing his kidneys would fail. But a counterreaction soon developed: Humor is often transgressive, and if you can't take it, don't dish it, and let's everyone lighten up a bit, and can't anyone take a joke anymore?

The initial reaction was more human.

Posted by Stan Guthrie at May 15, 2009 2:57PM | Comments (9)

Apple rejected an iPhone application that would allow people to put their own image on Jesus' face. The Me So Holy app would enable someone to take a mug shot and crop it to replace Jesus' face. Apple said no to the app, saying it "contains objectionable material," according to Wired.

"Applications must not contain any obscene, pornographic, offensive or defamatory content or materials of any kind (text, graphics, images, photographs, etc.), or other content or materials that in Apple's reasonable judgement may be found objectionable by iPhone or iPod touch users," the iPhone SDK agreement states.

Apple may be tightening its restrictions on its iPhone App Store after it approved an iPhone app called Baby Shaker, a game whose objective was to shake a baby to death. Amid parental outrage, Apple subsequently removed the app, saying its approval was a mistake.

Me So Holy iPhone App from Benjamin Margolis on Vimeo.

Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at May 12, 2009 9:53AM | Comments (3)

Francis Schaeffer influenced (to some degree) almost every future evangelical pastor and institutional leader of my generation. (What generation? you ask. Well, I squeezed the adventures of both high school and college into the '60s, paralleling the Beatles' journey from their early Hamburg recording of "My Bonnie" to their late psychedelic movie "Yellow Submarine.")

Schaeffer was a man of contradictions, but his passion for pursuing truth--and pushing others to do the same--was unflinchingly unambiguous and brought many young adults in an experiential generation back to reason.

Christian social critic Os Guinness was one of those so influenced. To mark the 25th anniversary of Schaeffer's death (coming up next week on May 15), Justin Taylor interviewed Os for his "Between Two Worlds" blog.

Some highlights:

[A] friend took me to hear a strange little man in Swiss knickers, with a high-pitched voice, terms all of his own such as ‘the line of despair,’ and appalling mispronunciations and occasional malapropisms. But I was intrigued and then hooked. Schaeffer was the first Christian I met who was ... capable of connecting the dots and making sense of the extraordinary times that puzzled and dismayed most people. Two years later, I went to the Swiss l’Abri ... [T]he summer of 1967 became the most revolutionary period in my entire life. I have never been the same since.

I have never met anyone with such a passion for God, combined with a passion for people, combined with a passion for truth. That is an extremely rare combination, and Schaeffer embodied it. It is also why so many of his scholarly critics completely miss the heart of who he was, and why his son’s recent portrayal of his father is such a travesty and an outrage.

[H]e had a massive impact on the lives of individuals, including me, but his wider significance was as ... a door opener. When almost no Evangelicals were thinking about culture and connecting unconnected dots, Schaeffer not only did it himself but blazed a trail for countless others to follow. Many who trumpet their disagreements with him today owe their very capacity to disagree to his influence a generation ago. A little man in stature, he was a giant in influence ...

Read the full interview here.

Posted by David Neff at May 8, 2009 3:43PM | Comments (9)

Dawn Herzog Jewell, an evangelical author/friend of mine on Facebook, called my attention to a new White Castle commercial for its new pulled pork sandwich. (See above, PG-13) In the first place, the White Castle marketing department is not too swift in launching an effort like this during the global swine flu 'panic-epidemic.'

But using imagery from a strip club and an exotic dancer-pig crosses the border for me into visual exploitation of women. Exotic dancers are at extremely high risk of drug abuse and prostitution, and a very high percentage of them were abused as children. My friend emails:

If I didn't know that between 65 to 90 percent of women working in strip clubs were sexually abused, the ad might be funnier. It pokes fun at men viewing women as pieces of meat, but I'm afraid it validates more than condones the exploitation of women's bodies. The sexualization of cultures takes place ad by ad, song by song. It will continue if we remain silent.

What a great idea, White Castle, to associate your food products with this social sickness. This past week, New York Times columnist Nick Kristof, a person of much integrity in the mainstream media, wrote about exploitation of woman and prostitution in the United States.

In his May 7 column, 'Girls on Our Streets,' he writes:

I've often reported on sex trafficking in other countries, and that has made me curious about the situation here in the United States. Prostitution in America isn't as brutal as it is in, say, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Cambodia and Malaysia (where young girls are routinely kidnapped, imprisoned and tortured by brothel owners, occasionally even killed). But the scene on American streets is still appalling

- and it continues largely because neither the authorities nor society as a whole show much interest in 14-year-old girls pimped on the streets.

At least White Castle has a comment feature on it's webpage.

Perhaps you will want to let White Castle know what you think about their 'Flashdancing' pig.

For the record, an addendum: Of course, the normal consumption of pork could not cause swine flu.

Posted by Tim Morgan at May 8, 2009 9:53AM | Comments (10)

Grove City College has placed a student on a one-year suspension for appearing in gay porn after an e-mail with images of him spread across campus.

John Gechter, a senior majoring in molecular biology, earned as much as $11,000 per weekend to film more than a dozen videos in Chicago, Miami, and Los Angeles, according to Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Anya Sostek reports that Gechter was charged with sexual misconduct, participation in the public display of pornography and engaging in "conduct that is contrary to the mission and values of Grove City College and likely to bring dishonor to the College."

Grove City released a statement to the Post-Gazette yesterday about Gechter, who says he is bisexual.

"The student's suspension resulted from his involvement in the adult pornography industry. The student acknowledged that he was employed in the adult entertainment industry and that he knew that violated the student code of conduct. Throughout this process, his sexual orientation was not a factor in the decision."

Someone found Gechter's images on the Internet and forwarded them to students at Grove City. Gechter estimated that the e-mail had reached two-thirds of the student population by the next day, according to Sostek.

Though Mr. Gechter said that his porn career opened doors for him in terms of modeling and possibly acting, he now wishes that he hadn't done it, given the academic consequences and the pain that it has caused his religious family.

When he broke the news, his mother started "praying and fasting." His father was upset, but he said they still love him.

He has retained a lawyer and is contemplating a lawsuit against Grove City. Though he admits that some of his rule violations were fairly clear, he doesn't feel like the school is demonstrating Christian values of love and forgiveness. The whole experience, he said, has caused him to re-examine his Christian beliefs.

Gechter told The Herald that he started appearing in gay porn after he was referred to the industry through a modeling agency during his sophomore year.

Grove City spokeswoman Amy Clingensmith said the college's main concern was for Gechter.

"Clearly something happened since he's been here for four years that led him down this unfortunate path," she told The Herald. "We want to get him out of that type of life."

A similar incident occured at another Christian college in the fall of 2007. A senior at Wheaton College was placed on disciplinary probation after he appeared in a video advertisement for Abercrombie & Fitch. The video portrays the student with his shirt off in several scenes, lying in a bed and in a car with a young woman.

Update: The Post-Tribune reported that a fellow student sent initial e-mails with evidence of Gechter's work. "The administration did not receive any images via email or any other source of him from any student," the college told CT.

Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at May 7, 2009 11:41PM | Comments (8)

CT's May cover story discusses how the routine monthly giving of millions of evangelicals is keeping ministries afloat during the so-called "Great Recession." The story confirms the magazine's December cover story on why automatic and routine giving is most faithful. (Though it presents the opposite conclusion on the story of American Christian giving.)

But the big givers are still giving during this recession too. The National Christian Foundation announced today that it just passed out its 2 billionth dollar. The organization is a non-profit that provides "donor advised funds" that collect the donations of wealthy individuals to be dispersed at a later date. It has been around since 1982, and the NCF gave out its 1 billionth dollar just three years ago. Since 2006, it's given out another billion.

The $1.5 million gift that put NCF over the top was from "The Green Fund to Reach the Children," a donor-advised fund of Hobby Lobby and its CEO David Green.

Posted by Rob Moll at May 6, 2009 9:30PM | Comments (1)

Yesterday, Collin Hansen profiled Tullian Tchividjian, the 36-year-old Florida pastor whose church recently merged with Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church (formerly led by D. James Kennedy).

We weren't the only ones talking about Tchividjian yesterday. Popular Reformed blogger Tim Challies reviewed Tchividjian's new book, Unfashionable: Making a Difference in the World by Being Different, and found himself surprisingly in disagreement with large sections of it.

While Challies liked a lot of the book, he thinks Tchividjian has a "theology of God's kingdom that I just was not able reconcile with Scripture ?. He writes about transformationalism, the view that God seeks to redeem and renew not just people but nations and cultures. My concern is that such theology emphasizes the continuity between the world today and the world after the consummation of history and does so at the expense of the kind of radical discontinuity Scripture teaches."

Challies is quick to explain that he believes in a real resurrection of the earth and of bodies "that somehow, are still our bodies." He writes, "I know that when history is consummated in Christ, we will not go to some kind of ethereal cloud-land heaven. ?. [T]here will be some genuine continuity between life now and life hereafter. As we read Scripture we wrestle with reconciling both continuity and discontinuity."

But Challies doesn't think that Scripture emphasizes, as Tchividjian says, that "Churches are designed by God to be instruments of renewal in the world, renewing not only individual lives but also cultural forms and structures, helping to make straight all that is crooked in our world."

"I do not see Paul's concern with culture except as a means to reach souls," Challies writes.

Our mission involves both evangelism and cultural renewal, Tchividjian says in his book. "This is true because God exercises his domination both through saving grace (the means by which he converts people, raising them from spiritual death to spiritual life in Christ) and common grace (the goodness he shows to all people, Christians and non-Christians)."

The debate may be an early signal of a coming backlash against the eschatology that has become very common and much promoted in evangelical circles over the last decade or so, in part (though far from exclusively) led by theologian N.T. Wright's work on the meaning of the Resurrection.

In a recent interview with theologian Ben Witherington, Wright addressed what he sees as a common misconception about his views on the continuity between Christians' work in this world and the coming Kingdom of God:

We are not building the kingdom by our own efforts, no. The Kingdom remains God's gift, new creation, sheer grace. But, as part of that grace already poured out in Jesus Christ and by the Spirit, we are building for the kingdom. I use the image of the eleventh-century stonemason, probably illiterate, working away on one or two blocks of stone according to the orders given to him. He isn't building the Cathedral; he is building for the Cathedral. When the master mason/architect gathers up all the small pieces of stone at which people have been working away, he will put them into the great edifice which he's had in mind all along and which he alone can build - but for which we can and must build in the present time. Note 1 Corinthians 3, the Temple-building picture, and the way it relates directly to 1 Cor 15.58: what you do in the Lord is not in vain, because of the resurrection.

I have absolutely no idea how it might be that a great symphony or painting, or the small act of love and gentleness shown to an elderly patient dying in hospital, or Wilberforce campaigning to end the slave trade, or the sudden generosity which makes a street beggar happy all day - how any or all of those find a place in God's eventual kingdom. He's the architect, not me. He has given us instructions on the little bits of stone we are meant to be carving. How he puts them together is his business.

A question for Christian leaders (whether in the church or elsewhere): have you found the recent Christian emphasis on "building for the kingdom" and cultural renewal to detract from evangelism? Or is it actually helping to "reach souls"? Do you resonate more with Challies's view of Scripture or with Tchividjian's?

Posted by Ted Olsen at May 6, 2009 1:39PM | Comments (37)

Christianity Today seeks to revitalize the church by helping Christian leaders understand and assess the people, events, and ideas that are shaping evangelicalism's life, theology, and mission. We examine both the culture of the church and the culture in which the church swims.

We are a magazine of both formation and information, and in both functions we believe in the ability of our readers to think for themselves. We don't muddy the waters simply for the sake of doing so, but we don't believe truth and complexity are opposites, either. As a magazine of reform, we believe many beliefs need to be challenged - but always in service of the biblical truths on which we stand.

To help our readers better understand the world and the church, we use all kinds of journalism. Sometimes people get confused about "what we're trying to say." Occasionally we find ourselves having to explain how different kinds of articles work.

News article
CT thinks: Here's what happened, with particular attention to its importance to the church.
CT agrees with: The journalist's effort to report as accurately as possible.

Interview
CT thinks: The person is interesting or has influence in a cultural sphere and should be asked about the ways in which their faith informs their views and actions.
CT agrees with: The questions (often, but not always).

Column: An opinion piece written by one of our regular columnists.
CT thinks: The person has influence somewhere, is an orthodox Christian, and is worth listening to.
CT agrees with: Various things the person has written over the years. But the specifics of each column are the columnist's opinions alone, not those of the magazine.

Review: An opinion about a book, film, album, or other cultural artifact.
CT thinks: This cultural artifact is or should be influential.
CT agrees with: The choice to review the cultural artifact and the ability of the reviewer to review it for our readership. Various editors and other CT reviewers often disagree with aspects of the review.

Editorial: An unsigned opinion piece reflecting the views of the magazine.
CT thinks: Here is our view on an important issue of our day.
CT agrees with: The whole editorial.

Our "Joe the Plumber" interview has provoked a lot of comments and questions about why we would interview such a person who is not known as an evangelical leader, and why we did not explicitly state our beliefs about homosexuality, those who struggle with same-sex attraction, and emerging Christian leadership.

The fact is that our views on such matters are quite plainly available for anyone to read. The point of an interview with "Joe the Plumber" was to query someone who has become a household name, who is influential as a speaker and author, and who identifies as an evangelical Christian. Do we agree with everything he said? We believe that you can read what we've written on the subject and come to your own conclusions on that point.

Posted by Ted Olsen at May 5, 2009 4:57PM | Comments (34)

For about the past two years, I have had this hunch that sooner or later the US Supreme Court would be presented with a church-property dispute that would sharply question the role of the judiciary in settling disputes between a Protestant denomination and a local parish or congregation.

It looks like 'sooner' has arrived now.

About noon today (May 5), while Anglicans worldwide are watching events in Jamaica, where top leaders are debating the proposed Anglican Covenant, St. James Anglican, Newport Beach, California, released an press statement saying they would be appealing the decision of the California Supreme Court to the US Supreme Court.

Here's some of what the press statement said:

St. James Anglican Church, at the centerpiece of a nationally publicized church property dispute with the Episcopal Church, announced today that it will file a petition for writ of certiorari with the United States Supreme Court to resolve an important issue of religious freedom: Does the United States Constitution, which both prohibits the establishment of religion and protects the free exercise of religion, allow certain religious denominations to disregard the normal rules of property ownership that apply to everyone else?

I would have to agree the US Supreme Court should address this area. In recent years, the high court has not done as good a job as it might have on mapping the boundaries between church and state.

The issue here from my point of view is state and judicial intervention into the inner workings of voluntary religious organizations (denominations); and, based on the California Supreme Court ruling recently, the court's inappropriate preference for the religious institution versus the individual congregation.

Let's face it. For the vast number of American Protestant congregations, the relationship today with their denomination is mostly a one-way street. Send money to the HQ and get very little in return.

The leaders at St. James Anglican said in their statement:

Under longstanding law, no one can unilaterally impose a trust over someone else's property without their permission.

Yet, in the St. James case before the California Supreme Court, named Episcopal Church Cases, the Court created a special perquisite for certain churches claiming to be "hierarchical," with a "superior religious body," which may allow them to unilaterally appropriate for themselves property purchased and maintained by spiritually affiliated but separately incorporated local churches. St. James will argue before the U.S. Supreme Court that this preferential treatment for certain kinds of religion violates the U.S. Constitution.

You can find the full statement here.

If you worship in a church that is part of a Protestant denomination, what do you get for that in return?

Is the relationship "until death do you part"?

Or, does your denomination allow individual congregations to dis-affiliate?

Post your comments below.

(Photo credit: St. James Newport Beach, interior.)

Posted by Tim Morgan at May 5, 2009 1:59PM | Comments (11)

White supremacists, Islamic clerics, a controversial Kansas pastor and a U.S. talk show host are on a list of 22 people banned from Britain for "stirring up hatred," the British government said Tuesday.

Posted by Stan Guthrie at May 5, 2009 10:13AM | Comments (1)

The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) released its lists of countries that egregiously violate religious freedom and those that it's keeping an eye on. The situation in these countries is not just bad; it must show "intent and a pattern of recurrent affirmative acts of abuse on the part of the government."

The annual report, released today, is put together by a bi-partisan group who send their recommendations to the State Department. Theoretically, this could lead to sanctions if the State Department declares them Countries of Particular Concern (CPCs). However, Condoleeza Rice signed off on the official list of CPC's in January - two years late.

USCIRF named 13 countries this year. Since 2008's list, they have added Nigeria (slightly surprising) and Iraq:

? Burma is on the list primarily for its crackdown on monks, although the government also persecutes ethnic Christians and Muslims. "In addition, a new law passed in early 2009 essentially bans independent religious activity in house churches."
? In the Democratic People?s Republic of Korea (North Korea), the National Security Agency runs all legal houses of worship. "Anyone discovered engaging in clandestine religious practice faces official discrimination, arrest imprisonment, and possibly execution."
? Eritrea's religious prisoners often die of "ill treatment, denial of medical care, or torture." Their ban on public religious activity extends to social gatherings in private homes.
? In Iran, "official rhetoric and government policy resulted in a deterioration in conditions for nearly all non-Shi?a religious groups, most notably for Baha?is, as well as Sufi Muslims, Evangelical Christians, and members of the Jewish community."
? Iraqi religious minorities, particularly Christian groups, are subject to targeted violence and other campaigns to get them to move away.
? Nigeria made the list for the communal religious violence that made the news in late 2008 - and the lack of an effective response from the government.
? Pakistan, like Nigeria, tolerates religious violence. It also has anti-blasphemy laws with harsh punishments.
? People?s Republic of China has shown some deterioration in an already bad situation. USCIRF draws attention to their persecution of Uighur Muslims and Tibetan Buddhists.
? Saudi Arabia has made some limited reforms, but it continues to be intolerant of all but a narrow form of Islam, and to promote extremism.
? The Islamist government of Sudan supports attacks on its own people, especially the Christians and animists in the country's south.
? Turkmenistan, two years after the death of their dictator, Turkmenbashi, hasn't seen enough reforms to get off the CPC list. Churches are raided, and students are forced to have an education based on Turkmenbashi's spirituality book/autobiography, Ruhnama.
? Uzbekistan's government tries to maintain tight control over religious activity. Most of the victims are Muslims it claims are extremists. Several thousand Muslims are in custody without fair trials in sight.
? USCIRF says that while Vietnam made some improvements in response to being designated a CPC, Protestants and some others haven't been given adequate freedoms.

Currently, eight of those countries (all but Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, and Vietnam) are on the State Department's list of CPCs.

While Christians are persecuted in nearly all these countries (none is majority-Christian, although Nigeria is close), many of them are Muslim countries that persecute Muslims of minority sects.

USCIRF's watch list - a sort of runner's up of offending countries - shows evidence of degenerating rights in NATO nation Turkey and Russia. The commission removed Bangladesh and added Laos, Somalia, Tajikistan, and Venezuela since last year.
? Afghanistan
? Belarus
? Cuba
? Egypt
? Indonesia
? Laos
? Russia
? Somalia
? Tajikistan
? Turkey
? Venezuela

The 274-page report also criticizes the implementation of the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, addresses "efforts of some member states at the United Nations to limit free speech and freedom of religion by banning the so-called ?defamation of religions," and comments on the U.S. system of dealing with asylum seekers.

Thomas Farr spoke with CT recently about why America's international religious freedom policy needs reform.

Posted by Susan Wunderink at May 1, 2009 12:41PM | Comments (4)

News reports, such as this one from CNN and this one from US News, highlighted yesterday the attitudes of white evangelicals on the issue of torture. According to a survey conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, 18 percent of white evangelicals said use of torture against suspected terrorists can often be justified and 44 percent said it can sometimes be justified. That adds up to 62 percent. Compare that solid majority to the often/sometimes number for white non-Hispanic Catholics (51 percent, a bare majority) and white mainline Protestants (46 percent). Because of problems with the sample size, the Pew study was unable to peg a percentage for other groups, such as African-American Protestants or Hispanic Catholics.

One more factor to consider: attendance at religious services. Fifty-four percent of those who attend religious services at least weekly say torture against suspected terrorists can be often/sometimes justified compared to 51 percent of those who attend monthly or a few times a year and 42 percent of those who attend seldom or never.

The immediate impression is that religion - especially religion characterized by active commitment - makes people bloodthirsty. Or something like that.

What can we say about this picture?

First, the survey is probably accurate. Other studies have shown similar results. For example, a 2008 poll conducted for Faith in Public Life showed that 58 percent of white southern evangelicals thought torture of suspected terrorists could be justified often or sometimes. Thirty-eight percent said it was never or rarely justified.

But how you ask the question can make a big difference. That 2008 survey also asked respondents a "Golden Rule" version of the question. Should the U.S. government use methods against our enemies that we would not want used on American soldiers? The proportion of southern white evangelicals who said torture was never or rarely justified rose from 38 percent to 52 percent. Ask Christians to think in such Golden Rule terms, and they do change.

Second, there is (as there always is) a gap between leadership beliefs and grassroots attitudes. If there weren't a gap, leaders wouldn't be leading anyone anywhere. Pew did not survey evangelical leaders, but we do have an indication of their attitudes. In March 2007, the National Association of Evangelicals Board of Directors affirmed the Evangelical Declaration Against Torture with little hesitation or dissent (see this New York Times article by Peter Steinfels). That large group represents a wide variety of denominations and parachurch ministries. There were, of course, evangelical critics, but they tended to ignore the substance of the argument and to tar it by calling its drafters "pseudo-pacifist academics and antiwar activists" and attributing motives ("a barely disguised crusade against the U.S. war against terror"). The key leaders of most evangelical denominations and parachurch organizations have gone on the record against the use of torture.

The fact that thinking about the Golden Rule changes evangelical attitudes on torture suggests that further engagement with careful Christian thinking on the topic can have an even greater effect. Please study the 2007 declaration and read the 2006 Christianity Today cover story "Five Reasons Torture Is Always Wrong."

As more and more details have emerged about U.S. government use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" (which our own government has called "torture" at other times), the debate has been shaped by the questions, "Does it work?" and "Did it work?" In my opinion, the picture emerging from the evidence suggests that not enough attention was paid to what we did know about effective interrogation before we rushed into the use of torture (or "enhanced interrogation techniques").

But the question "Does it work?" presupposes a utilitarian ethic. Utilitarian ethics tends to weigh the magnitude of a potential good against its costs (the greatest good for the greatest number). But evangelicals have been eager to reject utilitarian ethics when addressing other issues - embryonic stem-cell research and population-control programs, for example. Even if embryonic stem-cell research turned out to be the best way to cure Parkinson's disease, most evangelicals would oppose it, just as we would oppose abortion even if it were shown to reduce, say, food insecurity. By the same token, even if torture produced reliable information about terrorist activity, we should reject it. We are people of principle. Our principles were historically at the root of human rights action and the development of the Red Cross and the Geneva Conventions, and any number of other moral crusades that put principle above utilitarianism. Our principles should now motivate us to lead the world in rejecting torture of any human being, for any reason.

* * *

Image credit: Falun Gong Practitioner Gao Rongrong after torture by Chinese police. Via Wikimedia Commons.

Posted by David Neff at May 1, 2009 9:55AM | Comments (28)