Southern Baptists Pledged to Launch an Online Database of Abusers. It’s Still Empty.

Lack of funding and liability concerns have stalled abuse reform efforts.

Jae C. Hong / AP

A volunteer Southern Baptist task force charged with implementing abuse reforms in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination will end its work next week without a single name published on a database of abusers.

The task force’s report marks the second time a proposed database for abusive pastors has been derailed by denominational apathy, legal worries, and a desire to protect donations to the Southern Baptist Convention’s mission programs.

Leaders of the SBC’s Abuse Reform Implementation Task Force (ARITF) say a lack of funding, concerns about insurance, and other unnamed difficulties hindered the group’s work.

“The process has been more difficult than we could have imagined,” the task force said in a report published Tuesday. “And in truth, we made less progress than we desired due to the myriad obstacles and challenges we encountered in the course of our work.”

To date, no names appear on the Ministry Check website designed to track abusive pastors, despite a mandate from Southern Baptists to create the database. The committee has also found no permanent home or funding for abuse reforms, meaning that two of the task force’s chief tasks remain unfinished.

Because of liability concerns about the database, the task force set up a separate nonprofit to oversee the Ministry Check website. That new nonprofit, known as the Abuse Response Committee (ARC), has been unable to publish any names because of objections raised by SBC leaders.

“At present, ARC has secured multiple affordable insurance bids and successfully completed the vetting and legal review of nearly 100 names for inclusion on Ministry Check at our own expense with additional names to be vetted pending the successful launch of the website,” the task force said in its report.

Josh Wester, the North Carolina pastor who chairs ARITF, said the Abuse Response Committee—whose leaders include four task force members—could independently publish names to Ministry Check in the future but wants to make a good-faith effort to address the Executive Committee’s concerns.

Task force leaders say they raised $75,000 outside of the SBC to vet the initial names of abusers. That list includes names of sexual offenders who were either convicted of abuse in a criminal court or who have had a civil judgment against them.

“To date, the SBC has contributed zero funding toward the vetting of names for Ministry Check,” according to a footnote in the task force report.

Earlier this year, the SBC’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission designated $250,000 toward abuse reform to be used by the ARITF. Wester hopes those funds will be made available to ARC for the Ministry Check site. The SBC’s two mission boards pledged nearly $4 million to assist churches in responding to abuse but have said none of that money can be given to ARC.

The lack of progress on reforms has abuse survivor and activist Christa Brown shaking her head.

“Why can’t a billion-dollar organization come up with the resources to do this?” asked Brown, who for years ran a list of convicted Baptist abusers at a website, StopBaptistPredators.org, which aggregated stories about cases of abuse.

Brown sees the lack of progress on reforms as part of a larger pattern in the SBC. While church messengers and volunteers like those on the ARITF want reform and work hard to address the issue of reforms, there’s no help from SBC leaders or institutions. Instead, she said, SBC leaders do just enough to make it look like they care, without any real progress.

“The institution does not care,” she said. “If it did care it would put money and resources behind this. And it did not do that. And it hasn’t for years.”

SBC leaders have long sought to shield the denomination and especially the hundreds of millions of dollars given to Southern Baptist mission boards and other entities from liability for sexual abuse. The 12.9 million-member denomination has no direct oversight of its churches or entities, which are governed by trustees, making it a billion-dollar institution that, for all intents and purposes, does not exist outside of a few days in June when the SBC annual meeting is in session.

As a result, abuse reform has been left in the hands of volunteers such as those on the task force, who lacked the authority or the resources to complete their task.

As part of its report, the ARITF recommends asking local church representatives, known as messengers, at the SBC annual meeting if they still support abuse reforms such as the Ministry Check database. The task force also recommends that the SBC Executive Committee be assigned the job of figuring out how to implement those reforms—and that messengers authorize funding to get the job done.

Church messengers will have a chance to vote on those recommendations during the SBC annual meeting, scheduled for June 11-12 in Indianapolis.

The task force’s report does include at least one success. During the annual meeting next week, messengers will receive copies of new training materials, known as “The Essentials,” designed to help them prevent and respond to abuse.

This is the second time in the past 16 years that attempts to create a database of abusive Southern Baptist pastors failed. In 2007, angered at news reports of abusive pastors in their midst and worried their leaders were doing nothing about it, Southern Baptists asked their leaders to look into creating a database of abusive pastors to make sure no abuser could strike twice.

A year later, during an annual meeting in Indianapolis, SBC leaders said no. Such a list was deemed “impossible.” Instead, while denouncing abuse and saying churches should not tolerate it, they said Baptists should rely on national sex offender registries.

Because there is no denominational list of abusive pastors, local church members have to fend for themselves when responding to abuse, said Dominique and Megan Benninger, former Southern Baptists who run Baptistaccountability.org, a website that links to news stories about Baptist abusers.

The couple started the website after the former pastor at their SBC church in Pennsylvania was ousted when the congregation learned of his prior sexual abuse conviction. Before long, he was preaching at another church.

“We were just, like, how does this happen?” Megan Benninger said.

When the couple posted on Facebook about their former pastor, leaders of their home church reprimanded them, telling them in an email that they should not have made their concerns public. Not long afterward, the couple decided to set up a website that would collect publicly available information about abusive pastors.

“Our goal is to share information so people can decide whether a church is safe or not,” said Dominique Benninger.

To set up their site, the Benningers modified an e-commerce website design so that instead of sharing information about products, it shares information about abusive pastors. The website became a database of third-party information, which is protected by the same federal laws that protect other interactive computer services, like Facebook.

The Benningers don’t do any investigations but instead aggregate publicly available information to make it easier for church members to find out about abusers. That kind of information is needed, they say, so church members can make informed decisions.

The Benningers have recently placed a hold on adding new names to their database while Megan Benninger is being treated for cancer. They wonder who will pick up the slack if the SBC’s proposed database fails. They also are skeptical about claims that having a database would undermine local church autonomy—which is a key SBC belief.

“You are just warning them that there’s a storm coming,” said Megan Benninger. “How is that interfering with anyone’s autonomy?”

Members of the abuse task force say the denomination has made progress on abuse reforms in recent years but more remains to be done.

“We believe the SBC is ready to see the work of abuse reform result in lasting change,” the task force said in its report. “With the task force’s work coming to an end, we believe our churches need help urgently.”

Brown, author of Baptistland, an account of the abuse she experienced growing up in a Baptist church and her years of activism for reform, is skeptical that any real change will happen. Instead of making promises and not keeping them, she said, SBC leaders should just admit abuse reform is not a priority.

“They might as well say, this is not worth a dime—and we are not going to do anything,” she said. “That would be kinder.”

- More from Bob Smietana - Religion News Service

Theology

What Silicon Valley’s New Ethical Thinking Gets Right—and Wrong

Maaike E. Harmsen

Effective altruism and longtermism are all the rage these days. How should Christians engage?

Illustration by Christianity Today / Source Images: Getty

Former cryptocurrency trade executive Ryan Salame was sentenced last week for federal financial crimes he committed while working for FTX. The company’s billionaire founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, was sentenced months ago for engaging in “one of the largest financial frauds in history.” This case is making headlines and sparking long-term conversations in the burgeoning field of tech ethics.

Bankman-Fried’s name and story are inextricably connected to the new ethical thinking of Silicon Valley, which is increasingly influenced by “longtermism”—the idea that positively influencing the future is the key moral priority of our time—and “effective altruism,” which dictates that if you want to do good, you should do it as effectively as possible.

The most prominent thought leader of these principles is William MacAskill (What We Owe the Future, 2022). MacAskill taught Bankman-Fried during his time at Oxford, advising him that his acquired talents would be most effectively maximized in business and philanthropy. And so, citing longtermism and effective altruism as reasons for founding FTX, Bankman-Fried’s company earned him trust and billions of dollars—some of which went to charitable causes while much eventually ended up in his own pocket.

Not only did Bankman-Fried’s focus on long-term moral goals eventually eclipse the ethics of his immediate personal actions, but it appears thought leaders like MacAskill reportedly ignored repeated warnings about Bankman-Fried. Why? As Charlotte Alter wrote for Time magazine, “For a group of philosophers who had spent their lives contemplating moral tradeoffs and weighing existential risks, the warnings about Bankman-Fried may have presented a choice between embracing a big donor with questionable ethics or foregoing millions of dollars they believed could boost their nascent movement to help save the future of humanity.”

It seems one of the weaknesses of this new ethical thinking is an age-old “ends justify the means” mentality. Having tunnel vision about future big-picture ethical goals can often lend itself to unethical methods in the short term. It’s for this and other reasons that some are sounding the alarm about this emerging approach to ethics—including intellectual historian Émile P. Torres, for whom effective altruism and longtermism are “toxic ideologies” with “worrying dystopian tendencies.” Perhaps, he proposes, “Silicon Valley’s favorite ideas for changing the world for the better actually threaten to make it much, much worse.”

Even still, effective altruism and longtermism groups are sprouting up in universities across the country and seem to especially resonate with young college students who are eager to champion charitable causes and make a difference in the world. As Benjamin Vincent observed in a previous piece for CT, the “apocalyptic hope” of metamodernism is quickly replacing the cynical stance of postmodernism as the new cultural mood of the next generation of youth.

Longtermism and effective altruism work well together, as they are both led by a pragmatic utilitarianism—in which ethical decisions are calculated based on providing future happiness for as many people as possible. For example, donating money to prevent epidemics makes a lot of sense since it has the potential to save a high number of human lives. Likewise, combating climate change and avoiding nuclear war are effective philanthropic outlets.

These principles are becoming increasingly popular in business and among tech industry leaders, including Elon Musk, who called MacAskill’s work “a close match” for his philosophy, which includes outspoken pronatalism. In 2021, Musk offered to sell at least $6 billion worth of Tesla stock if the United Nations’ World Food Programme (WFP) could give a detailed account of how that money would be spent on helping hungry people on the planet. But instead of providing specific data, WFP’s executive director Cindy McCain initially responded with a relational and ideological appeal.

It was like two ships sailing past each other in the night: Musk, an engineer, who wanted hard data to solve a tangible problem, and public officials who wanted to talk about the ideals and motivations behind the problem. As many people on X urged him to donate the $6 billion anyway, Musk did donate $5.7 billion of his Tesla shares to an unknown charity in the following weeks.

This new ethical thinking ultimately centers on the pursuit of happiness and well-being, which invokes a moral responsibility to actively engage in a collective struggle against environmental disasters, disease, poverty, war, and oppression. Given the comprehensive calculations needed for such large-scale humanitarian projects, it is not surprising that this approach seems to be most popular among those with a background in the hard sciences, including engineering, technology, and other fields that focus on efficiently utilizing time and money.

For Christians, there is much to applaud and to criticize. On the one hand, tech leaders are seeing future risks and are willing to employ their own resources to help mitigate them. On the other hand, their motivations and solutions are informed by a techno-optimism that often reduces the world’s problems to technical issues requiring technical solutions. In doing so, they end up neglecting the underlying causes behind some of these global concerns—which can’t be fixed by more money or better technology but only by a change of the human heart.

Take, for instance, Bill Gates’s recent book, How to Avoid a Climate Disaster (2021). This software engineer sees climate change as a physical problem and offers practical solutions to fix it: Let’s fund research and development for innovation on cleaner and more efficient technology, and let industry and markets work together with governments to implement this. He focuses on upscaling innovation early to ensure such technology will become economically viable.

But what he fails to mention are the many unseen and systemic drivers behind climate change, including unbridled consumerism in the West, the social trend of “keeping up with the Joneses,” the pension funds and investments in fossil industries aimed at keeping shareholders happy, and national governments that continue to subsidize fossil fuels to please their populations.

Or consider how tech leaders approach the possible threats that generative artificial intelligence (AI) poses to humanity. At The AI Summit London last year, tech leaders drafted an open letter asking to pause AI development due to its long-term risks. But what was never mentioned were the existing dangers of internet algorithms making us addicted to our screens and creating an anxious generation of youth. The future risk of AI was limited to its computational force, not its potential in the hands of social media giants eager to keep us hooked on their platforms.

Still, there are many elements for believers to admire in this way of thinking. Christian ethics also takes the well-being of others into account, sometimes even at the expense of our own happiness. And our worldview should also be future-focused: God himself promised the Israelites that their children and children’s children would be blessed by their obedience to his commands—or cursed by their acts of unrighteousness (Ex. 34:7).

These principles also correspond with the biblical idea that God calls us to be good stewards. When Jesus returns to renew creation, we will be judged according to our “works” (Rev. 20:12), including our treatment of people and the earth. In fact, this outlook is a helpful corrective to the tendency of some believers to focus on the urgent task of evangelism (the Great Commission) at the expense of God’s first command to humanity: that we “be fruitful and increase in number,” “fill the earth and subdue it,” and “work it and take care of it” (Gen. 1:28; 2:15).

Longtermism and effective altruism both bring up great questions for Christians to discuss and to seek scripturally sound answers, such as how our eschatological views impact the calculus of Christian ethics. On a practical level, these can also provide avenues for helpful dialogue with our fellow citizens about which policies best serve the well-being of humanity. In this way, effective altruists and longtermists can help Christians reflect on what we should stand for and what we are willing to do to better our world—both now and in the future.

We can also admire the lengths some go to in advancing this cause. MacAskill promotes giving away 10 percent of income to charitable causes, volunteering one’s services, and choosing jobs that will make a difference in the world. Likewise, Rutger Bregman finances a school for “moral ambition” to encourage young professionals to not simply choose a high paying job and give money to charity but to make a morally grounded difference in a role that best fits their talent.

But, as with anything, there can be a dark side to this ideology—especially when we trace it back to its source. Peter Singer, one of the most popular and influential ethicists of this century, was an early founder of effective altruism. He’s also an atheist who has made strange ethical arguments in the past, including placing animal rights on equal (or higher) footing as human rights. And although most wouldn’t subscribe to Singer’s more fringe beliefs, we must remember that the root of this new ethical thinking is grounded in a deeper philosophy of life—a largely secular worldview that lends itself well to a more sophisticated form of hedonism, where the ultimate purpose of human life is the pursuit of happiness.

Effective altruism, which seeks to focus all our resources on maximizing or optimizing our positive impact—on making as many people happy as possible in the far future—can also be at odds with the ministry principles of Jesus. According to this standard, leaving 99 people to save the 1 makes no sense. And neither does wasting expensive perfume at the feet of our Savior. Did the Samaritan pause to consider whether caring for his beat-up neighbor by the roadside was the most effective use of his time and money?

Christian philosophers have long criticized the tendency of post-industrial societies to perceive life’s problems, and their solutions, as merely technical. In The Technological Society (1964), Jacques Ellul warns that when we rely too heavily on technology’s capacity to fulfill humanity’s future happiness, “ideas and theories no longer dominate, but rather the power of production.”

That is not to say that productivity is unimportant. Christians can and should participate in the technical calculation of global problems and find effective, sustainable, long-term solutions. And we must also avoid over-spiritualizing by reducing everything to the spiritual dimension, where soul-saving becomes our only goal in this life. In short, whenever we reduce ethics to any one dimension—whether technical or spiritual—we can easily lose sight of all the others.

Dutch theologian Abraham Kuyper famously proclaimed, “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: ‘Mine!’” He taught that all life is under common grace, and that Christians should participate in every field of inquiry. This premise was furthered by his intellectual heir, Herman Dooyeweerd, who developed a holistically Christian view of life in service to our Creator—believing Christian scholars should boldly plant “the banner of Christ’s kingship” in every field of study.

Longtermism and effective altruism can be shared moral grounds for us to appeal to our fellow citizens to secure the future well-being of our children, the earth, and society. But an ethical system that is solely defined by this outlook can lack a more holistic vision of life. We must seek a well-rounded wisdom that extends beyond the merely logistical and technical aspects of complex problems, such as global hunger, and that weighs matters closer to the heart of such issues.

As believers, we are accountable for all our actions (2 Cor. 5:10) and we must not grow weary of doing good to all (Gal. 6:9–10). Still, as fallen humans in a fallen world, we possess a certain humility in what we believe we can achieve this side of heaven—along with an innate dependence on our Creator. For although we may fail in our efforts, we are upheld by the grace of God. It is for this reason that Christ’s yoke is easy, and his burden is light (Matt. 11:30).

Maaike E. Harmsen is a Reformed theologian, preacher, writer, and part-time city councilor in the Netherlands.

- More from Maaike E. Harmsen

Books

Nominate a Book for the Christianity Today Book Awards

CT Editors

Instructions for publishers.

Pixabay / Pexels

Dear publishers and authors,

Each year, Christianity Today honors a set of outstanding books encompassing a variety of subjects and genres. The CT Book Awards will be announced in December at christianitytoday.com. They also will be featured prominently in the January/February 2025 issue of CT and promoted in several CT newsletters. (In addition, publishers will have the opportunity to participate in a marketing promotion organized by CT’s marketing team, complete with site banners and paid Facebook promotion.)

Here are this year’s awards categories:

1. Apologetics/Evangelism

2a. Biblical Studies

2b. Bible and Devotional

3a. Children

3b. Young Adults

4. Christian Living/Spiritual Formation

5. The Church/Pastoral Leadership

6. Culture, Poetry, and the Arts

7. Fiction

8. History/Biography

9. Marriage, Family, and Singleness

10. Missions/The Global Church

11. Politics and Public Life

12a. Theology (popular)

12b. Theology (academic)

*In addition, CT will be naming a Book of the Year, chosen from the entire pool of nominees by a panel of CT editors.

Nominations:

To be eligible for nomination, a book must be published between November 1, 2023 and October 31, 2024. We are looking for scholarly and popular-level works, and everything in between. A diverse panel of scholars, pastors, and other informed readers will evaluate the books.

Authors and publishers can nominate as many books as they wish, and each nominee can be submitted in multiple categories. For larger publishers (those with 50 or more employees), there is a $40 entry fee for each nomination (defined as each title submitted in each category). For smaller publishers (those with fewer than 50 employees), the entry fee is $20 per nomination. And for self-published authors, the entry fee is $10 per nomination.

To enter your nominations, click here to access the submission form. Download the form, fill it out as instructed, and email a copy (along with PDF versions of each nominee) to bookawards@christianitytoday.com. (In the box marked “total submissions,” please indicate the number of nominated books and give an estimate of the resulting nomination fees, based on the payment scale mentioned above. We will verify these totals, and begin sending payment invoices in early July.)

Finalist books:

If your book is chosen as one of the four finalists in any category, we will contact you and ask that you send a copy of the book directly to the judges assigned to that category. We will provide mailing addresses for each judge.

Deadline:

The deadline for submitting nominations is Friday, July 19, 2024.

Any questions about any aspect of the process? Email us at bookawards@christianitytoday.com.

Thank you!

—Christianity Today editors

- More from CT Editors

News

For Sale: Christian Ministry Headquarters

Daniel Silliman

Evangelical organizations including Wycliffe, CT, and Lifeway are giving up their buildings and developing new models for remote work.

Wycliffe Bible Translators headquarters in Orlando, Florida.

Wycliffe Bible Translators

Wycliffe Bible Translators’ building is 167,000 square feet of class-A office space, with windows looking out over palm trees, golf course grass, and a shimmering blue lake that appears to be a near-perfect circle. The headquarters is about 10 miles from the Orlando airport in the Lake Nona area, sitting on 272 lush acres that include wetlands filled with Florida wildlife, an RV park, an activity center, a welcome center, corporate-quality lodging, a clinic, and more land that could be developed in the future.

And all of this could be yours.

From John Wycliffe Boulevard to Great Commission Way, the global home base of the 82-year-old Bible translation organization is for sale. The property was listed in mid-February. Its real estate agents called it “an unrivaled opportunity for a full campus user looking for their own headquarters within the metro area.”

Selling all this is a matter of stewardship, according to John Chesnut, Wycliffe’s president and CEO. The ministry doesn’t need the space and wasn’t using it to full capacity.

Chesnut is a little concerned, though, that people will hear that and think Wycliffe is struggling financially or has fallen on hard times, when that isn’t actually the case.

“It’s the strongest we’ve ever been in our history,” he told CT. “It’s just been a huge season of blessing. We’re accelerating new translations, engaging or starting with new partners, faster than we ever have.”

In 2023, Wycliffe greenlit 523 new Bible translation projects, he added. The ministry, which has helped translate more than 700 languages since it was founded in 1942, currently has about 1,700 active projects.

According to Chesnut, the bulk of the proceeds from the sale of the property will go to fund more Bibles.

“How do we increase project funding in order to say yes to more and more projects around the world?” he said. “Focusing on vision and mission, we have to look at all things across our budget and how we work, and we had to look at this fixed asset.”

Wycliffe’s headquarters was designed for about 800 people. Wycliffe has about 3,000 staff globally, but only about 300 are in the Orlando area. And many of those workers don’t come into the office every day.

Remote work was common at Wycliffe even before the COVID-19 pandemic, when all nonessential activity in Florida was restricted for two and a half months. Since June 2020, however, more of the staff have found they prefer working from home, so the building has remained mostly empty.

“On a high day, we’re utilizing maybe 15 percent,” Chesnut told CT. “It’s just the new work rhythm.”

A lot of office workers are discovering that new rhythm. A recent study of commercial real estate found that nearly 20 percent of all office space in the United States was vacant at the end of 2023. Rates are even higher in the Midwest, with 22 percent vacant in Indianapolis, 23 percent in Chicago, and above 25 percent in Columbus and Cincinnati. The rate of new construction across the country is down more than half.

Some of this can be attributed to changes in employment rates. The total number of Americans with office jobs dropped last year from 36 million to 35.2 million. But by far the biggest change has been the increase of hybrid work and the growing acceptance of remote-first employment.

The shift is very visible at evangelical nonprofits. Christianity Today, for example, has increased its staff by more than 25 percent since 2021. Currently, however, less than half of its 86 employees live in Illinois, and only 22 live within easy driving distance of the ministry’s longtime headquarters in the western suburbs of Chicago.

“We discovered we were perfectly capable of thriving as a media ministry with a distributed team,” CT president and CEO Timothy Dalrymple said. “In fact, being distributed brought a lot of advantages. It expanded our relational networks and our engagement with different regions and cultures. We were no longer monolithically Midwestern. We could hire the best people we could find, regardless of location.”

CT sold its office in March. The 23,000-square-foot building, which has housed the magazine and other parts of the ministry since 1976—when CT relocated from Washington, DC—will become a veterinary hospital.

CT owned the building debt-free, so the sale was not motivated by financial concerns but cultural ones.

“Our old building served us well for decades, but it did not present an attractive work environment for today’s team,” Dalrymple said.

CT will rent a 5,000-square-foot space on Hale Street in downtown Wheaton, Illinois, starting September 1. The new space has an open office area, several meeting rooms, a small media studio, and a place to host some gatherings.

Dalrymple expects 20 to 25 people to work there day to day. But for the majority of the staff, the foreseeable future will be remote. CT employees will communicate over Zoom and Slack and other apps, gathering in person only a few times a year.

Cultivating ministry culture is perhaps the trickiest part of selling your headquarters and going remote, according to Ben Mandrell, CEO of Lifeway Christian Resources.

The Southern Baptist ministry sold its building in downtown Nashville in 2021. Now, it has a new building in the suburb of Brentwood, which doesn’t have traditional offices but is designed instead as a “teaming space,” where people who mostly work on their own can come together to collaborate, create, and plan.

Lifeway staff clearly prefer this approach to office space, according to Mandrell, but he personally struggled with the change.

“It was really hard for me,” he said. “I like to see people. I like to look in their eyes. I like walk-around management.”

Management styles have to change when people aren’t all in the same physical space, Mandrell has found. Supervisors have to learn that the time that someone is working matters a lot less than the output. They have to trust people to know the best way to get their work done.

Building trust and developing team culture has become the main focus of Lifeway’s twice-a-year team meetings. Initially, the leadership used the all-staff gatherings to convey information to employees—talking about new projects, new products, health benefits, and any changes to company policies. Now the in-person events are for celebration.

“We play a lot of silly games onstage and celebrate people,” Mandrell said. “We have this huge awards ceremony at the end where we give away $2,000 and time off to 20 people per year. They have to stand onstage while we read stuff about them that is very affirming, written by the people they work with. When we read their names, the whole place just erupts, and that’s become our kind of culture.”

It has taken a few years, however, for Lifeway to figure out this new approach to building camaraderie and community—and to figure out what it means to work together while apart.

It has taken a while too for supporters and donors to see that this change is not a sign of crisis. Some people’s first reaction when a ministry headquarters goes up for sale—in downtown Nashville, suburban Chicago, or the Lake Nona area of Orlando—is to assume a financial catastrophe is breaking into public view. But the leaders of these evangelical ministries say it’s just the way the world of work is changing. It’s an effort to be innovative and creative and to better fulfill their mission.

“People are always alarmist,” Mandrell said. “I had to tell a lot of people, ‘It’s not a fire sale.’ It looks like a fire sale on the outside. On the inside, it looks like mission focus.”

- More from Daniel Silliman

Church Life

Let the Anxious Children Sing to Me

Kelsey Kramer McGinnis

New worship music offers today’s young believers a wider range of emotions and greater spiritual depth.

Kairospanama / Pexels

Kids need more from worship music than dance motions, silly lyrics, and singsong melodies. Musicians like Keith and Kristyn Getty and Shane & Shane are building a body of songs with theological depth and musical simplicity to help disciple young believers.

“Jesus Calms the Storm (Hymn for Anxious Little Hearts),” a recent single released by the Gettys in collaboration with Sandra McCracken and Joni Eareckson Tada, sets clear, profound words for moments of worry or uncertainty:

When my heart is filled with fear
Like a stormy sky
Jesus says, “Be not afraid”
He is at my side

There’s a rock where I can go
Keeps me safe and this I know
Deep within my troubled soul
Jesus calms the storm

For Keith Getty, who produced the single, the psalms offer children something that nothing else can: both the affirmation they long for and hope for what lies beyond the present.

“We can say what we feel, what we know about God, and move through to where we can look beyond our circumstances,” Getty told CT. “Not to resolve it like a Disney happy ending or a bumper sticker slogan but toward something hopeful.”

Kids’ mental health is front and center these days, with best-selling books by Jonathan Haidt and Abigail Shrier exploring contributing factors to childhood anxiety and emotional struggles on the rise among young people. Concerning trends like increased suicides and high rates of loneliness have many researchers scrambling to gather data about what might be contributing to this intensifying public mental health crisis.

Christian counselor and author Sissy Goff has written several books on the subject; her most recent, The Worry-Free Parent, confronts parental anxiety and its potential effects on children.

Haidt and others have pointed out that participation in religious communities seems to correlate with positive mental health outcomes for children. And with substantial research that links community music-making—particularly choral singing—to mental and physical health improvements, the local church is positioned to serve as a uniquely powerful space for children to express joy, find belonging and peace, and seek communion with God.

Keith Getty points out that songs of the faith, especially those we use in corporate worship, have to give voice to a range of experiences. Worshipers expect and need that variety as adults, and the church should offer the same to kids.

Children’s musician Yancy Wideman Richmond, who performs as “Yancy,” agrees.

“Just like you wouldn’t feed anyone you love a diet of only cotton candy and sweet treats, you can’t only lead kids in ‘Father Abraham’ or ‘Church Clap’ and expect that it’s the substance they are going to need when the going gets tough,” she recently wrote in an article titled “Helping Kids Exchange Anxiety for a Garment of Praise.”

Richmond is the author of Sweet Sound: The Power of Discipling Kids in Worship. She believes it’s important to acknowledge that kids go through “real life battles,” be it illness, a car accident, or other family trauma. And the financial, relational, and physical struggles of adults profoundly affect the children in their lives.

“Are you giving them prayers to sing as they war in the spirit over their self-esteem, friendships and family?” she asks.

Music therapists point out that music has observable positive effects for babies, young children, and adolescents. It can calm infants and help children identify and reflect on complex emotions. Children who learn to play instruments or to compose music seem to benefit from having an area of life in which they can develop creative control and mental focus. Musical ensembles provide community for older children and teenagers.

The church remains one of the few places where people habitually gather to engage in communal music-making, and children benefit from the musical and spiritual formation that happens in that setting.

With the end of the school year and the season of vacation Bible school around the corner, it’s a good time for leaders to consider their approach to kids’ worship music.

The impulse to offer children a simple resolution to a Bible story or problem often shows up in Christian music for children. Repetitive mantras like “My God is so big, so strong and so mighty” are words we want our children to learn, but they are capable of doing more than singing spiritual positive affirmations, says Lindsey Goetz, a master’s student in educational ministries and the resource director at the Center for Faith and Children at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.

“Jesus is aware and present to children in a way that we can never be,” she said. “Children are capable of having real relationships and encounters with Jesus now.”

Goetz also warns against leaning too heavily on high-energy hype songs when looking for ways to welcome children into corporate worship. “Children can enjoy quiet. Children enjoy being taken seriously.”

The Gettys are in the process of compiling a hymnal in cooperation with Crossway (forthcoming in 2025); it will include a section of hymns written with children in mind.

Keith Getty says that the songs in the section are all intended to teach foundations of the faith, to be simple enough to sing at home, and to sound timeless enough to be usable and appealing in ten years.

“We want our kids to know great hymns that they can carry with them for their whole lives,” said Getty. “Singing is a wonderful opportunity to ground our joys, our memories, our faith.”

A father of four, Getty reflected on the special significance of the hymn “Be Thou My Vision” for his family and the script its verses provide for different phases of life—“be thou my wisdom,” “riches I heed not,” “High King of heaven.”

“To carry these words with you, what a gift,” said Getty.

Hymns and songs of praise can provide a vocabulary for kids in moments of crisis or struggle. Songs like Shane & Shane’s “Take Heart (John 16:33)” can teach kids to hold on to Scripture and the promises of God—“take heart … You have overcome the world”—when life feels overwhelming or scary.

By giving them music that takes their worries and hardships seriously, we point children toward a God who can handle their questions and doubts.

But taking a utilitarian view of the role of music for teaching and faith formation can also rob children of their spiritual autonomy, warns Goetz. “Are we looking for authentic engagement on the part of the child? Or are we looking for the child to produce something that makes us think we have accomplished what we set out to accomplish?”

When it comes to helping children who are struggling with anxiety, it may be that parents are projecting their own fears onto the music, books, and educational materials we offer rather than allowing young people to participate in music-making with curiosity and freedom.

“We don’t know what it’s like to grow up in a world where everyone has a cell phone in their hand all the time,” said Goetz, who sees that reality as a call to trust, not to seize more control of kids’ lives. And offering more agency and freedom in children’s participation in the life of the church is one significant way to lean into that trust.

“We need to get better at equipping parents. Not with more spiritual busywork, but with a peaceful assurance that Jesus is here, working now in us and in our children.”

Parents, perhaps even more than children, will benefit from the words of “Jesus Calms the Storm” as they work through their own fears about the world their children are facing as they grow. They can find comfort in knowing that they and their children look to the same source of peace in every storm.

- More from Kelsey Kramer McGinnis

News

Francis Collins’s New Project: Eliminate Hepatitis C

Emily Belz

The Christian doctor and researcher sees a “moral imperative” in destroying a curable fatal illness. Other countries are on track to erase it, but not the United States.

Dr. Francis Collins testifies in Congress.

Stefani Reynolds-Pool / Getty Images

Francis Collins, the former longtime head of the National Institutes of Health and founder of BioLogos, has seen deaths in his work as a physician and researcher. But some of those have been personal: He watched his brother-in-law die a slow and painful death from complications of hepatitis C, an often fatal disease that attacks the liver. Rick Boterf died two years before the cure for hepatitis C became available in 2014.

In the decade since the cure has become available, most Americans diagnosed with hepatitis C have not received the cure. Collins is now spearheading a push from the Biden administration to eliminate the disease by funding more treatment to populations that may not currently have any access. The measure is awaiting a budget score that will forecast its future in Congress.

“It’s difficult to appreciate how serious and dangerous this viral illness is, because most infected people will live without any symptoms for a decade or more,” Collins told CT. Those suffering from the disease tend to be drug users and those who are incarcerated. Infections have increased in the last decade with the explosion of the drug crisis.

“Reaching those with hepatitis C fits with our responsibility to help vulnerable and marginalized people that Jesus called ‘the least of these,’” Collins added. “Curing hepatitis C is almost a moral imperative—the opportunity in our hands to prevent 15,000 deaths every year.”

More than 2.4 million Americans have hepatitis C, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but there haven’t been the funds and systems to make the oral pill cure widely available. Only 34 percent of Americans diagnosed from 2013 to 2022 were cured.

Fifteen countries, including Egypt and Australia, are on track to eliminate hepatitis C by 2030 through screening and treatment programs. The United States is not one of those 15.

Collins, in his work as head of the Human Genome Project, was one of the scientists who discovered the gene for cystic fibrosis. That discovery led to a breakthrough treatment for a disease that was previously a death sentence. Now, the scientist and Christian wants to eliminate another deathly illness.

Hepatitis C infections spread through blood, usually by people injecting illicit drugs. As drug use has risen with the opioid crisis, so have infections. Roughly 70,000 Americans contract hepatitis C every year, especially in non-white communities. Scientists noted a surprising dip in infections in 2022, but that was among white Americans.

The disease can lead to cirrhosis as well as liver cancer and can require a liver transplant, which is expensive or impossible to obtain.

Louise R., whose last name is withheld to protect sensitive health information, was diagnosed while incarcerated in the 1990s. She said the war on drugs and the influx of women into incarceration had “consequences for Black and brown women especially.” She said she received poor medical treatment while incarcerated.

“I knew the seriousness of it, but I didn’t have a way out,” she said.

After her release, Louise was trying to hold down a job and raise young children.

“I wasn’t looking for anything to be in my way,” she said. “[For] women who have been incarcerated, that’s one of the things that hinders us from being fully in our lives when we come home—the challenges we have medically that were not addressed during our incarceration.”

When the hepatitis C cure finally became available, the drug was expensive, so she worried whether her insurance would cover it. But she received approval to do the treatment.

Without insurance or a trusted doctor who educated and advised her on the process, “I don’t know what I would have done,” she said. “I couldn’t believe it, when I was tested and didn’t have the disease anymore.”

Eliminating hepatitis C in the US heavily depends on treating those who are incarcerated. But studies have found that uneven health care in prisons, limited funding, and limited follow-up after prisoners’ release has made this a difficult goal to achieve.

Collins has some congressional Republicans and Democrats onboard with the elimination plan, but it’s still up in the air. The big question is how the Congressional Budget Office will score the cost of such a program. Collins says it can only save money on long-term health costs, since it prevents expenses like a liver transplant or hospital stays.

The White House budget requested $11 billion for the program over five years, a steep price tag. One study, supported in part by federal agencies, estimated that over the next ten years the initiative would save $18 billion in direct health care costs, with $13 billion of those savings accruing to the federal government.

The program would reduce the cost of the treatment drugs by paying drug companies a set amount like a subscription rather than per dose, a program that Louisiana piloted at the state level. That was a model that Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Republican and liver doctor, supported.

Right now, people who have support systems in place and jobs with health insurance tend to be the ones who can obtain treatment. But that’s not the story for many with the disease.

Jen S., whose last name is also withheld, found out she had hepatitis C in 2004. She was pregnant and in drug recovery at the time.

“It was a huge worry, having a small child and a blood-borne infection that you don’t know how to treat,” she said. “I didn’t have any counseling around it.”

Raising her son while she had the virus, she would be afraid of treating his wounds if he fell, on the chance that she might have a cut that would infect him. The virus is highly infectious with even invisible amounts of blood.

“That time with our children is really precious. I wish I had known more and been treated earlier,” she said.

Jen finally received the cure in 2019. Being cleared of the virus made her realize how much it was affecting her in ways she didn’t realize.

“I gained control of my health in other ways once I was treated,” she said. “A healthy choice makes it easier to make other healthy choices.”

But she noted that she had a lot of “assets” in her life to help support her on the treatment process: a job, a house, family, and a friend who did the treatment at the same time as her. Many who are in drug recovery don’t have that. “I’m really grateful I was able to get it,” she said.

Jen said that churches could help get more people into testing and treatment if they were already doing work in the community, like through mobile clinics or needle exchanges. Those kinds of outreaches would be key for populations with the virus that may not go to doctors regularly.

Reaching patients on the margins who have hepatitis C has been a problem with state-level programs. Some faith-based health ministries, like Los Angeles Christian Health Centers, advertise that they provide care for hepatitis C.

Collins also knows the project will be difficult.

“Once in a generation, we get a chance to eliminate a disease,” Collins said. “That time is now, but we’re not making it happen.”

- More from Emily Belz

News

India’s Christians Brace for 2024 Election Results

Surinder Kaur

Church leaders mobilized prayer for parliament and state elections, knowing the question wasn’t whether Hindu nationalists would win but the size of their mandate.

A woman registers to cast her vote for the 2024 election in India.

Elke Scholiers / Stringer / Getty / Edits by CT

As India’s monumental elections finally come to an end this week, all eyes are on the extent of the mandate that will be handed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist party. Especially among the subcontinent’s estimated 28 million Christians, for whom the result will test whether religious freedom and secularism will be preserved in the world’s largest democracy.

Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been in power since 2014. During this time, monitoring groups have documented an alarming increase in incidents of violence, discrimination, and harassment targeting religious minorities–especially Christians and Muslims. Hindu extremist groups, emboldened by the BJP’s ideology of Hindu supremacy or “Hindutva,” have systematically perpetrated abuses ranging from physical assaults to false accusations of forced religious conversions, used as a pretext for persecution.

A massive survey by the Pew Research Center reported that in 2019, about 49 percent of Hindu voters in India backed the BJP, which secured the party a majority in the Lok Sabha, the lower house of India’s parliament, and granted Modi a second term as head of state.

Not who wins, but by how much

The 2024 Indian general election, which started collecting votes on April 19, will conclude on June 1 after being conducted in seven staggered phases. The prolonged election process has drawn criticism from opposition parties alleging it favored the BJP’s “money power.” Meanwhile the Election Commission of India has come under criticism for “failing” its constitutional duty and is seen by many observers as compromised.

At stake is the composition of the 543-seat Lok Sabha, which will determine whether Modi is handed a clear mandate for a third consecutive term. While most polls have indicated a BJP victory is likely, the extent of its mandate will be crucial to the concerns of religious minorities.

An outright majority in parliament, particularly the three-quarters majority that Modi has stated he is aiming for, could embolden the BJP to pursue sweeping changes, including a nationwide anti-conversion law, a nationwide Uniform Civil Code (UCC), and—as the opposition alleges—changing and de-secularizing India’s constitution.

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a paramilitary organization which is the ideological parent of the BJP, had made clear its displeasure with the current constitution, ratified in 1949. Some analysts believe the RSS has always wanted to change it to Manusmriti, an ancient Hindu text containing laws that champion caste and gender discrimination.

“The BJP will implement M. S. Golwalkar’s statement in spirit and word,” said A. C. Michael, a former member of the Delhi state minority commission, quoting the former RSS leader’s statement:

“The foreign races in Hindus than must either adopt the Hindu culture and language, must learn to respect and hold in reverence Hindu religion, must entertain no idea but those of the glorification of the Hindu race and culture, i.e., of the Hindu nation and must lose their separate existence to merge in the Hindu race, or may stay in the country, wholly subordinated to the Hindu Nation, claiming nothing, deserving no privileges, far less any preferential treatment—not even citizen’s rights.” [Derived from We, or Our Nationhood Defined (Bharat Publications, Nagpur, 1939)]

BJP representatives, such as Anantkumar Hegde from Karnataka state, have previously stated that the party needs to secure 400 seats in the Lok Sabha in order to enable the “rewriting” of the constitution.

Conversely, a relatively poor showing could force a course correction by the BJP toward more inclusive policies, mindful of the potential backlash if it continues down the path of disenfranchising the nation’s more than 200 million Muslims, Christians, and other religious minorities.

“Personally, I do not think that the BJP will win,” C. B. Samuel, a prominent Bible teacher, told CT. “But if it does, the same scenario will largely continue regarding the persecution of Christians in the states where it is going on now.”

Invisible Christian voters, concrete concerns

Consequently, many Indian Christians remain deeply apprehensive about the BJP’s agenda, citing the escalating marginalization of their community in recent years under the party’s rule.

“Despite numbering over 22 million, the Christian community in India remains largely invisible and underrepresented in the nation’s political sphere, with their concerns and demands going unaddressed due to a lack of strong parliamentary voice,” John Dayal, a senior Christian political analyst, told CT. “The ongoing 2024 general elections are poised to once again render their presence inconsequential.”

Samuel disagrees. “We may not matter [as a national voting bloc], but we are not invisible. It all depends on the region and the state that you are taking into consideration,” he said. “In the North East and Kerala, Christians do matter. So the BJP plays it per their convenience so that they can take advantage of the situation.”

A key concern among Christians is the potential for a Modi-led BJP government to pursue policies detrimental to their rights and standing, including implementing nationwide a version of the anti-conversion laws currently active in 12 of India’s 28 states. But Christian leaders have also expressed concerns about the steady erosion of constitutional values and India’s secular ethos during Modi’s premiership.

While the BJP has historically provided minimal representation to religious minorities such as Christians and Muslims, those communities now fear that a decisive BJP victory could embolden the party to establish Hindu supremacy at the cost of secular democracy and minority rights.

Thus, sources told CT that Indian Christians have organized prayer for the 2024 elections like never before.

“The Christian community is fervently praying these days,” said Michael. “There is an urgent desire for this government to be ousted. Christians are gripped with fear that if this government stays in power, attacks on their community will escalate—leading to even more severe threats to their safety and religious freedom.”

Samuel, a leader in several prayer movements, agrees that Indian Christians are praying but is cautious in assessing why they are doing so. He said it depends on their level of education on the issues.

“It is true that Christians are quite concerned,” he said, citing the frequent news of persecution of fellow believers, including violence in the state of Manipur where many churches were burned. “It is largely because of these issues that people have committed to pray.”

He also believes that access to information plays a key role. “Most of their information comes from mainstream media, which does not give much information except to toe the government line. The other source of information is their own experience,” said Samuel. “So they may have limited understanding of other crucial national issues impacting democracy, minority rights, and marginalized groups beyond their own communities.”

“What encourages me is that these prayer movements and mobilizations are church-based,” he said, “and many churches throughout the nation have made it a significant part of their Sunday worship services.”

Christian outreach, by Hindu nationalists

Aware of the significance of the state-level Christian vote bank in places such as Kerala, where Christians comprise almost 20 percent of the population, the BJP mounted an extensive outreach effort ahead of the elections. Modi himself made concerted efforts to appeal to the southern state’s Christian community.

The prime minister visited Kerala five times this year, while the BJP held outreach initiatives such as the “Sneha Yatra” (Love Journey) aimed at connecting with and appealing directly to Christian leaders and congregations throughout the state.

However, the BJP’s overtures have been met with a divided response from church hierarchies. While some Christian leaders have engaged with the ruling party, giving the BJP clear support, many have remained firmly opposed, citing concerns over the party’s anti-minority rhetoric and policies that could undermine the secular ideals upon which India was founded.

“The BJP has still not realized that they cannot impact the Christian community in Kerala,” Jacob Ninan, a local evangelical Christian leader, told CT. “Earlier attempts where some Christian leaders, including Catholic bishops, made some statements that were construed to be favoring the BJP backfired miserably, primarily because of happenings in Manipur and the persecution of Christians in the rest of India.”

“Some church leaders are ‘gravitating’ towards the BJP due to their ‘vested interests,’” George Gonsalves, a political analyst based in Kerala, told The Tablet. Such interests are believed to include seeking government patronage or resolving longstanding legal disputes involving issues such as misappropriation of property or clergy misconduct cases.

“In Kerala the BJP will not be successful,” said Ninan. “A majority of Christians here have an understanding of what they stand for. They are not going to vote for the BJP but will vote instead for a party which upholds constitutional values.”

“I spoke to the Kerala Christians I know, especially after some Christian leaders gave statements favoring the BJP,” said Samuel. “They say that it does not matter what the leader says because we do not vote on the basis of religion.”

Critical battleground states

For India’s Christians, who officially make up 2.3 percent of the population of 1.4 billion, certain state elections coinciding with the general elections have become crucial battlegrounds that will influence their future rights and status in the nation. These elections, which select representatives for state legislatures, are currently taking place in Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, West Bengal, and Sikkim.

Odisha, in eastern India, remains haunted by the horrific anti-Christian violence in 2008 that claimed over 100 lives and destroyed thousands of homes and churches. The BJP has fielded Sukanta Panigrahi, a veteran member of the RSS, as its candidate in the state’s crucial Kandhamal district, which was the epicenter of the pogrom. His candidacy has raised fears of further marginalization for the local Christian population, who have already faced escalating violence and persecution in recent years.

“Panigrahi is a hardcore RSS pracharak, or evangelist. He was fielded as the BJP candidate during the last general elections as well, but he did not win,” Ajay Singh, a national award-winning Catholic priest and human rights activist, told CT.

“The BJP is trying very hard to defeat the Biju Janata Dal, which has been in power in the state for the longest time, and there is a 50–50 chance on many seats. It would be a tough fight and the general perception is that this could be anybody’s game,” he said.

When questioned as to what a probable win by the BJP would mean for local Christians, he did not mince his words. “It would be trouble for Christians and other religious minorities if the BJP wins Odisha state elections,” he said. “Definitely Odisha would be further polarized on religious lines. They are fully capable of creating another Kandhamal.”

In Andhra Pradesh, the BJP has accused the present government of “minority appeasement” for financially supporting Christian pilgrimages—a move that has drawn backlash from hardline Hindu groups aligned with the party’s ideological base. The present leader of the state is a Christian and is seeking re-election, but has been targeted by the BJP and opposition parties for allegedly encouraging Christian conversions and not paying enough attention to the issues of the local Hindu community.

The Andhra Pradesh Council of Churches has allegedly urged Christian support for the incumbent chief ministerial candidate, calling him a “devout Christian”—a move that could prove crucial in a closely contested election. The RSS’s Organizer magazine reported on and criticized the same.

Other states such as West Bengal, Arunachal Pradesh, and Sikkim are also having their state elections, and in West Bengal the BJP hopes to give a tough fight to the incumbent state leader, Mamata Banerji, who is seen as a defender of constitutional values and secularism.

The Arunachal Pradesh state elections have become a battleground after the Arunachal Christian Forum’s endorsement of candidates from the opposition Congress party drew accusations of religious manipulation from BJP leaders. This has brought to the fore broader apprehensions within the Christian community regarding the ruling party’s stance on their rights and religious freedoms.

Key issues for Christians in Arunachal Pradesh include the abolishment of the state’s current anti-conversion law, demands for recognition and support for Christian institutions, and calls for exemption from proposed national policies such as the Uniform Civil Code.

“The present chief minister made a statement about repealing the anti-conversion law in Arunachal, but some local groups opposed this and so the proposal did not go ahead,” said Tagang Gelo, general secretary of the Nyishi Baptist Church Council, the largest Christian body in Arunachal Pradesh. “We have given a note to the government for repealing the law as well as opposing any possible implementation of the UCC.”

Gelo told CT that it looks likely that the BJP will form the state government in Arunachal again. But he cautioned that any changes in the federal government would have a major effect on the survival of the state government, as Arunachal is largely dependent on Delhi.

Although Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state and a stronghold for the BJP, is not holding state elections at present, it sends the highest number of representatives to the Lok Sabha. How its residents vote in the general election is likely to influence its upcoming state election in 2027 and shape the state’s politics overall.

Pew’s research indicates that among Hindu voters, the BJP received its highest vote shares in the North (68%) and Central (65%) regions of India, which include the capital, Delhi, and Uttar Pradesh. In contrast, 46 percent of Hindu voters in India’s East and only 19 percent in its South reported voting for the BJP.

The Christian minority in Uttar Pradesh has witnessed widespread repression under the state’s stringent anti-conversion laws. These laws have been routinely weaponized by Hindu nationalist groups to disrupt prayer gatherings and level false charges of forced conversions against innocent congregants.

The modus operandi involves Hindu vigilante groups disrupting Christian prayer gatherings and services, colluding with compliant police forces to arrest worshipers on trumped-up charges of attempting to forcibly convert individuals to Christianity.

For now, the Indian Christian community continues to pray and trust God for the peace and prosperity of their nation. But mobilizing prayer was not easy, says Samuel.

“One of the challenges that we faced in mobilizing people to pray for these elections was overcoming the theological notion that God’s will would prevail regardless of our prayers,” he told CT. “Many were taught in churches that whether we prayed or not, God would establish the leadership he desired. This teaching made it difficult to convince people of the importance of praying fervently for righteous governance.”

“We had to emphasize that while God indeed places leaders in authority, he also calls us to pray for those in power and does not necessarily approve of every individual holding office,” said Samuel. “The position itself may be sanctioned, but God can and does speak against those who abuse their authority or act wickedly. Overcoming this theological hurdle was crucial in rallying people to pray purposefully for elections that would yield godly leaders.”

- More from Surinder Kaur

The Moral Confusion Around Trump’s Felony Conviction

Bonnie Kristian

Among the former president’s antagonists and admirers alike, there is a great deal of calling evil good and good evil.

Supporters and opponents of former US president Donald Trump outside the Manhattan Criminal Court.

Timothy A. Clary / Getty

The homepage of The New York Times announced the conviction of Donald Trump on 34 felony charges Thursday afternoon in the kind of large-scale, black letter headline we typically associate with yellowed century-old newspapers declaring war has come. “TRUMP GUILTY ON ALL COUNTS,” it blared above a photo of the former president looking weary in some crowded public space.

Scrolling down the page a little, you’d have found a link to one story noting the historicity of this moment and a link to another story detailing each of the 34 charges. Together on the homepage, the headline of the first paired with a bulleted summary of the second made for a strange juxtaposition: “Donald Trump has become America’s first felon president,” it said, and below that, a bulleted list: “11 counts related to invoices, 12 counts related to ledger entries, 11 counts related to checks.” Wait, invoices? This isn’t exactly the crime of the century.

And that highlights the core problem with the most common responses to this verdict in our political discourse: Among Trump’s antagonists and admirers alike, there is a great deal of calling evil good and good evil (Isa. 5:20).

I doubt this is deliberate dissembling. The most animated reactions I’ve observed have not been calculated—quite the opposite, in fact. Outside the chattering class especially, those responses have looked like organic outbursts of elation and schadenfreude, or else indignation and resentment. On both sides, I believe that most people sincerely see their reactions as stands for justice. But even with innocent motivation, this is a kind of moral confusion.

Let’s start with Trump’s opponents, among whom there was great rejoicing when the verdict dropped. But what, exactly, is the nature of the crime? Unlike Trump’s Georgia indictment, which I find morally and legally compelling, the crimes of which Trump has been found guilty in New York are arcane and ethically unintuitive.

This case has been widely summarized as concerning payments Trump and associates made to conceal his affairs with two porn stars. That’s part of it, but that’s not the crime, because it is not illegal to have affairs with porn stars or to pay to keep adulterous liaisons secret.

What Trump has actually been convicted of, in brief, is violating a New York State law against falsifying business records to conceal his willful violation of federal campaign finance law (as well as some other laws) that would have required him to disclose the multi-step payment process to hide the stories of the affairs so that his 2016 presidential campaign would not be harmed by public knowledge of his infidelity.

The charges are felonies instead of misdemeanors, as records falsification charges normally would be, because the falsification is supposed to have covered up another crime—a crime for which Trump was never charged, let alone convicted.

If that strikes you as at once tortured and surprisingly mundane, you are not alone in that instinct. When Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg first released the charges last year, they were met with almost universally raised eyebrows among the mainstream and even left-leaning legal commentariat.

Politico, hardly a pro-Trump rag, dubbed the whole thing a head-scratcher. CNN commentator Fareed Zakaria called it “a case of trying the right man for the wrong crime.” Vox’s Andrew Prokop made a detailed case that, though Trump is no “sterling adherent to the rule of law” (true), this is a politicized prosecution: a fishing expedition focused “on an obscure or technical matter” using a novel legal theory and spearheaded by an elected political opponent of the defendant.

I rehearse all that to say: This verdict does not deserve to be called “good.” Maybe it’s technically legally correct—I don’t have the legal expertise to say. But even if that’s true, this conviction looks to be the result of a case motivated far more by political rivalry than a real interest in justice and the rule of law.

We don’t know yet what Trump’s punishment will be (sentencing is scheduled for July 11), but in the unlikely event that he is actually imprisoned for this nonviolent crime, a response of elation would be not just unseemly but unjust (Prov. 24:17, 1 Cor. 13:6).

Now let’s turn to Trump’s supporters. The former president has denied the allegations of adultery and concealment of that evil. But he previously admitted to at least one of the payments on multiple occasions, and Rudy Giuliani also publicly discussed it when he was Trump’s lawyer. And given Trump’s very public history of commentary (and photoshoots) making his sexual proclivities known, his denials are questionable, to say the least.

Trump has spent decades both naturally attracting and deliberately crafting a reputation as an “immoral, impure or greedy person” known for his lechery, “obscenity, foolish talk,” and “coarse joking”—all things, it should go without saying, that “are improper for God’s holy people” (Eph. 5:3–5). Does anyone believe his denials of the porn star affairs?

Frankly, I doubt even his most enthusiastic voters buy it. He is transparently not a man of good character. He is not the kind of man about whom these allegations seem implausible. I am fortunate enough to know many such men, as I expect you are. If the same allegation were made against them, my response would be complete incredulity. I’d laugh. But Trump? His words say no, but his entire public character says yes. The whole thing is tawdry and shameful, and associating with it is liable to corrupt our character too (1 Cor. 15:33–34).

In short, it may well be fair to say Trump is a victim of a certain injustice here, as many on the right have charged. Looking at the legal questions, I’m inclined to agree. But that does not make him an embattled hero worth following and defending. Examining Trump through a moral lens, it should be vanishingly easy to say his life does not deserve to be called “good.”

As Christians, of course, we confess that “there is no one who does good, not even one,” that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus” (Rom. 3:12, 23–24).

Looking at Trump’s travails—some undue but many wrought by his own hand—that confession should move us not so much to elation or indignation, schadenfreude or resentment. It should move us to humility, to recognize that we are no less in need of redemption. What good is it for someone to gain a major court victory or even the presidency, yet forfeit their soul?

Bonnie Kristian is the editorial director of ideas and books at Christianity Today.

Correction: An earlier version of this story was incomplete in explaining who made the hush money payments.

- More from Bonnie Kristian

Ideas

Pakistan’s Christians Fear Forced Marriages. Punjab Court Ruling Brings New Hope

Compiled by CT Editors

Church leaders and human rights experts weigh in on whether raising the legal age is sufficient in shielding minors.

Illustration by Abigail Erickson / Source Images: Getty

Nearly one in five (18.3%) Pakistani girls are married before age 18, according to data from 2017 to 2018, with over half becoming pregnant as children. Many of these girls are of Christian or Hindu faiths that collectively make up 3.5 percent of the population, which is majority Muslim.

While the government has officially banned child marriage, discriminatory laws and lack of enforcement have allowed the practice to persist. Most child marriages are arranged by families, but an estimated 1,000 girls are abducted, converted to Islam, and then forcibly married to their abductors each year. These child brides face heightened risks of pregnancy-related health complications and maternal mortality.

A recent ruling by the Lahore High Court could provide another tool for advocates and church leaders trying to protect Pakistani girls. In April, it struck down a provision of the 1929 Child Marriage Restraint Act that set the minimum marriage age at 16 for girls but 18 for boys. Deeming this definition of a child as “discriminatory and unconstitutional,” the court directed the province of Punjab to revise the law with a uniform minimum age of 18 for both genders.

The judgment cited Pakistan’s constitutional guarantees of gender equality and protection of women and children’s rights and presented data showing how adolescent pregnancy is one of the leading causes of death for 15- to 19-year-old girls.

“We, as a nation, woefully lag behind in all major indicators, and half of our population cannot be lost to childbearing at an early age while its potential remains untapped,” wrote Justice Shahid Karim. “Equal opportunities for females mean equal restraint on marriage as the males.”

As Punjab becomes the second Pakistani province (out of four) to adopt 18 as the minimum marriage age for both genders, advocates have faced challenges trying to toughen and enforce penalties on those who violate existing laws.

Shortly after last month’s ruling, the Provincial Assembly of the Punjab introduced a bill that would result in severe penalties for adults engaging in child marriages as well as for those facilitating such unions, including parents or guardians. Offenders could face imprisonment of up to two years and/or a substantial fine of up to 2 million Pakistani rupees (about $7,200 USD).

While many Christian and other religious minority groups support such legislation and are thankful for the court’s ruling, not everyone agrees on its efficacy. CT asked four leaders on whether the legal system is effective in curtailing forced marriages and conversions. Their responses are arranged from “no” to “maybe” to “yes.”

Asher Sarfraz, chief executive, Christians’ True Spirit, a ministry for children in poverty, Lahore

The Lahore High Court’s decision, as triumphant as it may sound, is insufficient without a societal shift. Passing an order at the judiciary level will not bring any change, because the order has to be implemented by law enforcement agencies. If these agencies are not willing to carry the change and to allow victims’ families to feel secure in bringing their grievances to them, and to assure that unbiased procedures would be followed to bring justice, then no amount of judgments will lead to a change.

Child marriage is strongly knitted into the culture of Pakistan, and breaking the age-old chain requires a total shift not only in the mindset of people but also on the various levels of law enforcement authorities, who have to help uphold the law and carry out unbiased actions. Therefore, I believe there will be no impact on cases of forced conversion and forced marriages.

In 2014, the Pakistani supreme court mandated the government to organize a federal task force to promote religious tolerance and to set up a council to monitor the rights and safeguards provided to minorities under the constitution. But even after ten years, it has not been fully implemented.

Making child marriage unacceptable in Pakistan relies on educating the public, training judges and officials, and challenging the religious beliefs that justify child marriage. Ending this pernicious practice will require a multipronged effort uniting government, civil society, and communities nationwide.

Ruby Naeem John, codirector, Bethel Evangelistic Organization, Islamabad

I am not sure whether the changes to the Child Marriage Restraint Act will prevent forced marriages, because I believe that by only changing the law, change will not happen. The mentality of people also must be changed.

In general, the church in Pakistan needs to strengthen and disciple families through family ministry, and churches must do a better job educating Christian families about the consequences of marrying off their minor daughters or letting their sons marry minor girls.

Unfortunately, in the last few decades, Christian boys haven’t prioritized education and thus end up economically weak. At times, Christian minor girls are inclined to marry Muslim men because they see their financial future secure with them. We need to help economically empower our Christian boys. Christians must learn to take responsibility for their actions and not blame everything on forced conversions.

I do agree that there are genuine cases of abduction and forced conversion of minor girls, and that strict implementation of the law in the future may curtail this crime.

Peter Jacob, executive director, Centre for Social Justice, a research and advocacy organization

We welcome this new decision from court that comes nearly 100 years after the 1929 Child Marriage Restraint Act was enacted, a progressive and historic decision that sought to protect the rights of women and, especially those who are minority.

More than 70 percent of girls who are abducted or who willingly flee with Muslim men, and then are converted and married, are underage. If this law is implemented in letter and spirit, it will help prevent forced conversions.

The advantage of having the law is that at least people can have recourse to law and justice. That said, laws do not become operative by themselves—they only serve as a deterrence. The judges know it, the lawyers know it, and that awareness contributes to implementation of the law indirectly. Nevertheless, in case of a violation, the matter has to be brought to the court in the process of law.

This bill, at least, is a step in the right direction, even though no one can use it to challenge any marriage right now, until all legal formalities are complete and it becomes a law. But the mere presence of such a bill will at least have persuasive value.

According to UNICEF, 18.9 million girls in Pakistan are married before they attain the age of 18 and 4.6 million before they turn 16. Anybody contracting marriage with a girl under 16 is already against the law. Those violations are already happening and can be stopped by exercising the existing law.

Azhar Mushtaq, general secretary, Pakistan Bible Society, Lahore

The proposed legislation, once implemented, will fundamentally counter the reprehensible practice of forced marriages involving minors, particularly girls as young as 12 or 14 years old. At such an impressionable age, these children can easily be subjugated through threats and coercion into marriages. The law recognizes that an 18-year-old is more developmentally equipped to evaluate such a monumental decision.

However, the harsh reality is that even adults can fall victim to being deceived, compelled, or abducted into marital arrangements. So, while the legislation cannot eradicate all instances, its core purpose is to erect legal safeguards to protect society’s most vulnerable—innocent children—from being exploited and robbed of their formative years.

Despite present judicial measures and oversight, bad actors can still exert insidious influence to intimidate and pressure a minor girl into falsely professing a consent she doesn’t actually possess in her heart and mind. This law endeavors to be a safeguard defending these vulnerable young lives from such repugnant coercion.

Undeniably, there are certain areas in Pakistan where the implementation of this law may prove challenging. These areas are dominated by influential individuals, and law enforcement agencies are powerless against them. The masses in these regions operate according to their own whims, disregarding the law.

But this legislation represents vital progress in recognizing and combating what is inexcusable, and one hopes that this will become a shield for those that are most susceptible to exploitation through such antiquated and abhorrent marital practices.

- More from Compiled by CT Editors

Theology

Kwame Bediako Still Defines the Debate on African Culture and Christianity

Compiled by Bruce Barron

Seven leaders weigh in on the late Ghanaian scholar’s provocative legacy 20 years after his best-known book.

Kwame Bediako

Illustration by Christianity Today / Source Images: Courtesy of Gillian M. Bediako

Jesus and the Gospel in Africa: History and Experience (Theology in Africa)

Kwame Bediako (Author), Hans Visser (Introduction), Gillian M Bediako (Introduction)

Orbis Books

124 pages

$21.94

What Luther and Calvin are for evangelical Christians globally, Kwame Bediako is for many African evangelicals. From his dramatic conversion in 1970 to his death in 2008, Bediako was the primary architect of and inspiration for theological work that grappled with the realities of African culture.

On this 20th anniversary of the publication (by Orbis Books) of some of Bediako’s most influential essays in Jesus and the Gospel in Africa: History and Experience, his memory still reverberates across the continent, as indicated by the seven reflections collected below on his ongoing influence.

Born and raised in Ghana, Bediako was a professing atheist studying existentialist literature as a doctoral student in Bordeaux, France, when an awareness of Christ as the truth powerfully overwhelmed him while he was showering. He finished his degree in French literature but turned his powerful mind to the Bible and theology, later completing a second doctorate in Aberdeen, Scotland, under missiologist Andrew Walls, who called Bediako “the outstanding African theologian of his generation.”

Bediako attended the First International Congress on World Evangelization in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1974, meeting other prominent Majority World evangelicals including René Padilla, Samuel Escobar, and Vinay Samuel. At that time, he conceived the idea of a research center on the relation between the gospel and African culture. With support from his denomination, the Presbyterian Church of Ghana, that vision was realized as the Akrofi-Christaller Institute of Theology, Mission and Culture (ACI) in 1987.

While self-consciously evangelical, Bediako sought connections between the gospel and African traditional religion. He argued that the gospel’s success in Africa “shows clearly that the form of religion once held to be farthest removed from the Christian faith [i.e., African animism] had a closer relationship with it than any other.”

Bediako contended that Jesus Christ speaks to us in terms of our “human heritage.” In one of his essays, he argued eloquently from the New Testament, especially the Book of Hebrews, that Christ was our “elder brother” fulfilling the mediatorial function that African traditional religion ascribed to ancestors.

While rejecting claims of radical continuity between African religion and Christianity, Bediako also differed from the emphasis on radical discontinuity associated with Nigerian Byang Kato, first general secretary of the Association of Evangelicals in Africa. That tension between Bediako’s and Kato’s views on the interaction between the Christian faith and African culture persists today and appears in two of the reflections presented below.

Ebenezer Yaw Blasu, research fellow, Akrofi-Christaller Institute, Akropong, Ghana

I first met Kwame Bediako in 1988, when I was a Presbyterian student pastor. He was busy sorting books in what is now ACI’s Zimmerman Library. In our brief conversation, he exhorted me to ensure “Africanness” in my ministry. I listened, but without enthusiasm. At the time, my main theological inspirations were Karl Barth and John Macquarrie, who did not say anything about indigeneity in doing theology.

In 1990, I was invited to speak at an evangelistic outreach in Ottawa, Canada, on the role of Christianity in transforming indigenous cultures. Suddenly, Bediako’s earlier exhortation resonated in my mind. As if by divine intervention, I ran into him in Accra on my way to the airport. He excitedly handed me a new book he had published, Jesus in African Culture: A Ghanaian Perspective. Reading this book while in flight highly informed my message and contributed significantly to its success. For the first time, I spoke as an African evangelist outside Africa, to the glory of God.

Bediako believed that the theological education curriculum in Africa should equip Christian leaders for their task by connecting them with the redeeming, transforming activity of the living God in the African setting. If Africa is now a heartland of Christian faith, he insisted at a 1996 workshop, then “a positive affirmation of African Christianity, and not merely an African reaction against the West,” should be the driving force in curriculum development.

Kwame’s work has liberated my mind by establishing the undeniable truth that Christianity is not a “Western religion,” nor are Westerners the final arbiters of Christian theology and faith. Genuine theology needs contextual inputs, including those from indigenous or grassroots experiences. Hence, African Christianity needs to and can produce African theologies that contribute to the theological thinking of world Christianity.

Seblewengel Daniel, director, East African Sending Office, SIM, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Kwame Bediako was my PhD supervisor. His lectures were both intellectually stimulating and spiritually nourishing. He was equally committed to the deep rootedness of the Christian faith in the Scriptures and its authentic indigenous expression.

Bediako strongly advocated for a continuous engagement between gospel and culture. He asserted that people should engage their pre-Christian heritage with confidence in the power of the Spirit to guide and illuminate them. Conversion, he said, is not abandoning one’s heritage altogether and taking on a foreign identity but turning to Christ with the totality of one’s being. The divine encounter, therefore, will enable one to be an authentic African Christian.

Kwame was a charismatic preacher and teacher. The depth of his knowledge about and commitment to the church in Africa was beyond description.

Professor Bediako was very warm toward his students and had a delightful sense of humor. He took great interest in our lives and the lives of our family members. He made time to visit students in their homes, and he and his wife, Mary, invited us to their home for meals.

I value his unwavering dedication to empowering female theologians. He intentionally pursued affirmative action in his institute by appointing women to higher leadership positions.

Aiah Foday-Khabenje, former general secretary, Association of Evangelicals in Africa; country director, Children of the Nations, Freetown, Sierra Leone

Kwame Bediako’s groundbreaking work Theology and Identity framed theology in terms of self-identity as a foundation and hermeneutical tool for theological reflection. Jesus and the Gospel in Africa is a collection of articles on how Christ could be the answer to the questions Africans ask about issues relevant to their context, in contrast to the questions raised by missionary Christianity from the West. It demonstrates how God can speak to Africans in African idioms and through hearing in African mother tongues what God has done.

Bediako’s theological beliefs were inspired by his personal experience and how some church fathers practiced their faith in the context of the Greco-Roman culture. Bediako believed that it was possible for people to connect with Christ through their cultural beliefs, without the gospel having to reach Africa through Western missionaries.

One might assume that Bediako’s quest was simply about putting an African face on theology, providing Christian truth with contextually sensitive illustrations and applications. However, these aspirations for African theology were more complex and diverse than contextualization. They also involved an attempt to identify a correlation between Christianity and African culture, or between African traditional religions and the Christian worldview. This aspect of his project has raised doubts about the orthodoxy of his approach.

Diane Stinton, associate professor of world Christianity, Regent College, Vancouver, Canada

Under Bediako’s supervision of my PhD studies on contemporary African Christologies, I came to appreciate his enduring contributions to theological scholarship. He highlighted Africa’s role in Christian history, recovered the importance of primal religions to the flourishing of African Christianity, insisted on an integral identity for African Christian believers, integrated African Christianity into mainstream studies of Christian history and theology, and emphasized vernacular and informal expressions of theology.

After completing my PhD, I helped to launch a master’s degree program in African Christianity at Daystar University in Nairobi, inspired by its equivalent at ACI and graced by Bediako’s inaugural lecture in 2006.

A central conviction within Bediako’s scholarship and ministry was the tremendous significance of mother-tongue Scriptures in Africa. Against the denigration of African languages, cultures, and religions by many Western interpreters, Bediako followed his mentor Andrew Walls in seeing African Christianity as a living demonstration that the gospel is “infinitely translatable.”

Bediako exemplified what Kenneth Cragg called “integrity of conversion.” He exhibited an all-encompassing faith that gathers up “the broken fragments of our history”—a phrase from a Kenyan Anglican Communion prayer that he loved to quote—and places them before Jesus to be redeemed.

Kayle Pelletier, lecturer, South African Theological Seminary, Sandton, South Africa

As a seminary student sensing God’s call to theological education in Africa, I took a course on African traditional religion (ATR). There, I encountered Kwame Bediako for the first time. In the early 2000s, Bediako was one of the few African theologians whose work was readily accessible.

Now, after 20 years of doing theological education in Zimbabwe and South Africa, I find myself returning to Bediako to better understand why Africa remains such a syncretistic religious environment even though Christianity has been on the continent for more than a century.

Responding to derogatory Western estimations of ATR, Bediako rightly placed value on the primal religious conditions that enabled the gospel’s acceptance in Africa. Bediako sought to define an authentic African Christian identity through the African people’s pre-Christian religious experiences and beliefs. However, connecting similar, continuous elements of pre-Christian beliefs with Christian beliefs has only exchanged Western philosophical and cultural influence on Christianity for African influence, contributing to a syncretistic, tradition-accommodating gospel. Scripture, through which we must interpret any pre-religious culture imbued with general revelation, transforms belief and practice into its biblical image, creating an authentic Christian identity for all.

Nathan Chiroma, principal, Africa College of Theology, Kigali, Rwanda

As a young African theologian (originally from Nigeria), I attended two of Kwame Bediako’s seminars in Ghana. He encouraged me, as a young African theologian, to cultivate in-depth theological contemplation ingrained in my African background. Through his works and life, he gave me the confidence and inventiveness with which to approach theology.

One of Bediako’s significant contributions to African theology was the concept that African Christians can practice genuine Christianity within their own cultural expressions, dispelling the myth that Christianity is solely a Western or white man’s religion. He provided me with a model for doing theology in a way that is true to the gospel and the African context, challenged me to traverse the intricacies of religion and culture from a biblical perspective, and prompted me to reassess my preconceptions about African Christianity that had been taught from a Western perspective.

Bediako profoundly influenced many African theological institutions, originally established by foreign missionaries, that taught Western concepts out of step with our African context. His writings have been instrumental in transforming schools to better align with our local perspectives. In addition to redefining the bounds of African Christianity, his dedication to contextual theology has promoted a more inclusive and representative theological debate.

Casely Essamuah, secretary, Global Christian Forum, and Ghanaian native

Before his conversion, Kwame Bediako was an atheist who had arrived at his conclusions intellectually and with such conviction that he couldn’t keep them to himself. After his conversion, he believed that an intellectual life without reference to the living God and the living Christ was futile.

Bediako pursued scholarship in a community that had prayer and worship at its center. He saw scholarship as an opportunity for service and enlarged vision, not merely to please the academy but to equip local church leaders—hence, his insistence that ACI should be located in Akropong, the heart of Presbyterianism in Ghana, and not Accra, the political and educational capital of Ghana. Furthermore, the institute also requires that all master’s and doctoral theses must have abstracts in local languages. It is no wonder that the center he initiated continues to thrive and flourish in his absence.

- More from Compiled by Bruce Barron

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Not who wins, but by how much

Invisible Christian voters, concrete concerns

Christian outreach, by Hindu nationalists

Critical battleground states

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Asher Sarfraz, chief executive, Christians’ True Spirit, a ministry for children in poverty, Lahore

Ruby Naeem John, codirector, Bethel Evangelistic Organization, Islamabad

Peter Jacob, executive director, Centre for Social Justice, a research and advocacy organization

Azhar Mushtaq, general secretary, Pakistan Bible Society, Lahore

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Ebenezer Yaw Blasu, research fellow, Akrofi-Christaller Institute, Akropong, Ghana

Seblewengel Daniel, director, East African Sending Office, SIM, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Aiah Foday-Khabenje, former general secretary, Association of Evangelicals in Africa; country director, Children of the Nations, Freetown, Sierra Leone

Diane Stinton, associate professor of world Christianity, Regent College, Vancouver, Canada

Kayle Pelletier, lecturer, South African Theological Seminary, Sandton, South Africa

Nathan Chiroma, principal, Africa College of Theology, Kigali, Rwanda

Casely Essamuah, secretary, Global Christian Forum, and Ghanaian native

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