My Dreams Had Come True. But the Panic Attacks Remained.

How I discovered God’s peace and found relief from debilitating anxiety.

Photography by JoMando Cruz for Christianity Today

Trying to get comfortable, I shifted my head on the hard table. “How is this volume?” asked a voice through my earbuds. I made a thumbs-up signal for the technician on the other side of the glass wall.

I exhaled and clutched the remote with the emergency exit button as the table retracted into the narrow MRI tube. I hoped that multiple doses of anxiety medicine would help me fight off a panic attack for the next half hour.

Seven years prior, in 2008, I had graduated from high school and left home for college. At the time, I considered myself a Christian. I was baptized at 14 and attended church on and off through high school, but my faith was nominal and insufficient to weather the storm I was about to create.

In college, I started living by an increasingly self-centered ethic. Whatever was going on—parties, classes, work—I wanted to do it best. I wanted to be the most successful, interesting, and important person in the world. The more self-oriented my life became, the more highly I thought of myself and the more I subscribed to intellectual arguments against the existence of God.

By my early 20s, I was a staunch atheist. I thought I knew God did not exist and thought I saw all the fallacies in Christianity. I ridiculed Christians outwardly on several occasions and inwardly on countless others.

As I pursued personal glorification, my health began to decline. I suffered my first panic attack at 19 years old. It was unlike anything I had ever endured. My heart raced, my face burned, my blood ran ice cold, and the inside of my body tried to rip through my skin.

It is difficult to describe how desperate, overwhelmed, and irrational I felt during panic attacks. I remember one that came inside a minivan breezing down the highway. In that moment, I thought I would have been safer throwing myself from the moving vehicle.

As my panic attacks became more frequent and less predictable, an ever-present anxiety took hold of my life, and my physical health deteriorated further. My throat felt swollen to the point where I worried about breathing. My hands, feet, and face alternated between tingling, burning, and going numb. Muscles began twitching involuntarily. My legs buzzed so badly when I was trying to sleep that I would walk on my apartment complex’s treadmill in the middle of the night. My testosterone plummeted, my lymph nodes swelled to alarming proportions, and I broke out in shingles.

By my final semester of law school in 2015, I was terrified, desperate for relief and answers, bouncing from doctor to doctor and self-medicating to make it through life. When I finally got my MRI, the imaging came back clean—yet another inconclusive test that left the doctors guessing.

That May, I graduated and began studying for the bar exam. I took the summer off from work and adopted a rigid schedule of studying, exercise, and sleep. The regimented lifestyle kept me preoccupied, and I found some relief—but only temporarily. During the three-month wait for my exam results, anxiety retook control.

I fixed my hope on two things: passing the bar exam and proposing to my girlfriend, Hannah. A few months later, within an eight-day stretch, both went as planned. I was thrilled but also deeply concerned. My anxiety had not improved, and a new fear crept in: The two dreams that dominated my life had come to fruition, and if those hadn’t brought peace, then what could? I began despairing that I was incapable of fulfillment.

Then something strange happened.

Before our wedding, Hannah and I lived downtown at the epicenter of urban revitalization in San Antonio. Countless times, as we browsed nearby restaurants, coffee shops, and a farmers’ market, we passed a small building labeled “Pearl Street Church.” Every Sunday, smiling people lined up outside, covering the sidewalk and spilling over the bike lanes into the street.

One day, I suggested to Hannah that we should attend the church. I had no intention of believing in anything. I anticipated emotion-evoking music and a social-club vibe. I also suspected Hannah wanted to attend church, and if I went with her, it would boost my respectability as a future husband.

We attended our first 6 p.m. service sometime in late 2015 or early 2016. When we entered the building, I steered us to the least crowded section in the back, but I could not hide. Numerous people came up and greeted us in the minutes before the service, and the lead pastor welcomed us with an enthusiastic smile. When he walked onstage to deliver the message, I was skeptical, guarded, and ready to shred him in my mind. But he shocked me.

His sermon explored Genesis 22, in which God told Abraham to sacrifice his only son. This was one of the Bible stories I would cite as an atheist to debunk the faith and ridicule Christians. “Why would a supposedly loving God demand that someone kill his child as part of a test?” I would ask.

But that evening, as the pastor spoke, my eyes were opened. God’s instruction to Abraham was not a pointless or sadistic test; it prophetically foreshadowed the work of Jesus. It was God’s way of showing the inestimably high price he would pay for our salvation. And in the end, God did not require Abraham to pay that price but chose instead to pay it himself.

Leaving the church that evening, I knew my intellectual arguments against God and the Bible were not as ironclad as I had imagined. I was still an atheist—or at least highly skeptical. But the gospel the pastor preached was not the straw-man religion I had grown accustomed to attacking. It was something else, something I did not understand, something that left an ineffable impression of truth upon me. I needed to learn more.

Over the next few months, I read through the New Testament and several apologetics books, and Hannah and I attended the same church service each Sunday. All the while, anxiety continued to plague me, and I felt myself approaching a breaking point.

It came in April 2016, about four months after we had started attending church. It was 2 a.m., and I was having another sleepless night. I got out of bed and spread my yoga mat on our living room floor. I tried to stretch the buzzing and twitching out of my legs, but there was no improvement. After several minutes, I gave up and fell face down on my mat.

I was physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted. I was tired of trying and failing to carry the overwhelming burden of my own expectations. I was tired of the parade of physical ailments and the cold flood of anxiety. I was tired of fear and, most of all, tired of being tired. In that moment, face down on my yoga mat in the middle of the night, I was prostrate in every sense of the word.

Then, for the first time in years, I prayed. I prayed the only words I could think of: “Thy will be done.” I prayed those words over and over until I found the energy to pray in more detail. I even prayed that if God willed for me to die, then his will be done.

Everything changed that night. Philippians 4:6–7, which I encountered months later, captures the shift:

Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. (NLT)

The peace of God changed my life. It gave me power over anxiety and fear, and my body began to heal as joy and hope replaced depression and despair. Three years later, my father was diagnosed with esophageal cancer at 55. Had this happened when I was an atheist, it would have destroyed me. But I was armored with God’s peace, and God provided the courage I needed to support my father and encourage him with the Good News.

Kyle Zunker is the author of Amazing Courage: Letters to My Father on Conquering Fear through Faith and a blog dedicated to helping people understand faith.

This article appeared in the July/August, 2024 issue of Christianity Today as "Testimony".

- More from Kyle Zunker

Books

Which Comes First: Good Citizens or Good Governments?

Bonnie Kristian

Two new books consider whether one depends on the other.

Illustration by Ben Hickey

Constitutional scholar C. L. Skach begins How to Be a Citizen: Learning to Be Civil Without the State with an engrossing account of her own foray into crafting the law of a land. The land in question was American-occupied Iraq, to which Skach traveled in 2008, full of enthusiasm and feeling she’d reached the peak of her profession. She recalls, “As one of my students at Oxford put it, ‘You are writing constitutions, Professor Skach; it doesn’t get any better than this.’”

Readers old enough to remember the many failures of the US government’s efforts to export democracy to the Middle East won’t be surprised to learn that her story soon takes a chaotic turn. With the work far from finished, Skach’s camp in Baghdad is hit by a rocket meant for the nearby US Embassy, and just hours later she’s riding a tank back to the airport, leaving Iraq with democracy stuck in customs.

“I realized that nothing or no one could help these people but themselves,” Skach writes. “No law, no rule” imposed by outsiders could force the culture into a shape foreign to its norms. So unsettling was the experience that, by its end, the professor of law had lost her “faith in formal rules—in the law” itself.

But the problem at the center of How to Be a Citizen is not simply a matter of law, and it has that in common with another recent book, American Covenant: How the Constitution Unified Our Nation—and Could Again, by political scientist Yuval Levin.

Both authors write in response to a diagnosis with which almost no observer of modern American politics could quibble: Things are not working as they should. We can’t seem to get along as a people, and this discord is not merely a normal cycle of history framed by our memory of midcentury consensus. Something is fundamentally broken at the institutional and cultural levels of our politics. The government and citizenry alike have gotten off-kilter—perhaps dangerously so. Something must be done.

Skach’s proposal for that something begins with the people, not the government. Having concluded that rule changes alone aren’t the answer—that you cannot have “a democracy without democrats”—she sketches a six-part solution for forming an engaged, empathetic, democratic citizenry that will no longer rely “on the law to do the work of living together.”

On the scale of chapter titles, there’s much wisdom here. “Hang out in a piazza, repeatedly,” she advises. “Grow your own tomatoes, and share them.” “Own your rights, but responsibly.”

But the details of Skach’s vision of “spontaneous, horizontal, non-hierarchical self-sufficiency” are rather less reassuring and often suffer from a lack of specificity around the role of the state. (This confusion shows itself in her subtitle, too, for we can certainly be civil without the state, but we can’t be citizens without it.)

Skach is careful to note that she’s not advocating violence or lawbreaking, or even for doing away with the legal order—at least not yet. She wants readers to take direct, usually local action, to self-organize, and to “begin building up the kind of inclusive self-care communities we want and need.” Usually this takes a progressive tone, but sometimes it swings libertarian, as when she argues that this will “leave less work for the elected leaders to do.”

At her best, Skach is calling for thick civil society, personal responsibility, voluntary charity, and good norms. Yet too often, she seems to imagine that a sprawling, diverse country can, with enough hard work and goodwill, function like a small village with no real crime and no deeply held religious or ethical differences, only “preferences” that may be set aside to help a friend.

And at her worst, Skach proposes outfitting our public spaces “with daily news reports for those who will not access them through cell phones.” These would broadcast on “environmentally discreet, solar-powered plasma screens displaying information from a variety of sources, with optional soundscapes for the visually impaired.”

Who decides what capital-T Truths the big TVs will scream at us? She doesn’t say. But the obvious candidate is the state, and it’s remarkable to see the technology of George Orwell’s 1984 reintroduced in a book about empowering the citizenry.

American Covenant takes a near-opposite tack. Though never neglectful of the importance of civil society, public virtue, and strong norms, Levin’s contention is that our Constitution

is not the problem we face. It is more like the solution. It was designed with an exceptionally sophisticated grasp of the nature of political division and diversity, and it aims to create—and not just to occupy—common ground in our society.

It does this because constitutional function extends beyond establishing the basic shape of our government to forming us as citizens, as “people well suited to living together.”

That formation doesn’t require ideological unity, Levin is careful to say. It has room for the deeply held differences Skach tries to brush away as petty self-interest. The Constitution “goes about creating common ground” by “compelling Americans with different views and priorities to deal with one another,” Levin writes. It forces us to negotiate, to compromise, to understand and accommodate as we wish to be understood and accommodated. It obliges us to “act together without thinking alike.”

Or at least it’s supposed to. But for a century we’ve been kicking against the constitutional goads, impatient with the very deliberation and domestic diplomacy the design is intended to produce. Core institutions are now bent grossly out of shape, and American politics are bent to match.

In a time as divided as ours, then, Levin argues that Americans must not lose faith in our Constitution but rather revive it:

Rather than throw out the system or deform it to better suit today’s grotesque civic vices, we should look to the logic of the Constitution for guidance toward constructive institutional reforms and healthier political habits.

My expectation, going into both books, was that I’d find Skach’s solutions humbler and thus more feasible. I can’t make Congress stop shirking responsibility, but I can plant a garden and share the tomatoes. If the Titanic really is sinking, perhaps arranging the deck chairs is truly all you can do (or even a service you should do).

But I finished American Covenant far more in Levin’s camp than Skach’s, persuaded that his approach is sounder on several counts, of which I’ll mention three.

The first is that Skach—an American living in the UK—writes about constitutions generally, but Levin is concerned with the Constitution. That is, his argument is specific to the American situation, to our culture and shared history. And that matters for precisely the reason Skach encountered in the Mideast: The Constitution is not an outside imposition in the US. It doesn’t resemble “human-to-human stem cell transplants”—which the body may treat as a threat with disastrous results—unlike the democracy she tried to help export to Iraq.

We have a lot of political dysfunction, but it is not the same kind of dysfunction Skach observed in Baghdad, and proffering our own Constitution as a remedy is not like flying in foreigners to build a new nation. Recent history in Iraq and beyond suggests Skach was right to lose faith in that kind of project. Happily, restoring the internal logic of our Constitution is not that kind of project.

Next is the question of how to address the erosion of the rule of law, a reality that both books have squarely in view. Skach dismisses “solutions [that] come out of the same toolbox we have drawn from for centuries,” like “more rules to fix our broken democracies.”

Instead of improving our laws, she says, we should be most concerned with improving our small communities, exercising “our own judgement and collective action” and showing that we do not need authority and top-down rules to behave ourselves and care for each other.

In one sense, of course, this is true: “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up,” Galatians 6:9 says. Yet rule of law is also a real good, a valuable inheritance not to be lightly cast aside as an outdated tool. And if something’s gone wrong with our rules, then surely—unless we really are on the Titanic—fixing those rules must be some part of our response?

Skach’s interest in individual action highlights a third point in Levin’s favor, which is his more accurate notion of human nature. American Covenant repeatedly draws on anthropology, sketching a picture of humans as creatures of virtue and vice, “each fallen and imperfect yet made in a divine image and possessed of equal dignity.”

The design of the Constitution, Levin writes, citing framers like James Madison, assumes both sides of humankind. This is why it imposes real constraints while insisting citizens can rise to a demand of “selflessness, accommodation, restraint, deliberation, and service.”

Skach’s story is simpler, and worse for it. She argues that it’s fallacious to believe “nature needs authority for good order to exist,” contending instead that people, like bubbles in beer foam, will “spontaneously” “find their way” into “harmonious equilibrium” if they are simply “left to their own devices.”

It is not clear, given this view of humanity, why we’d need the Orwell screens. Nor is it really clear how Skach envisions handling real and durable disagreement about important matters, let alone crime. She admits intra-citizen negotiations “will sometimes fail, because some individuals will refuse to give up what they consider their due share”—as if the only reason people ever reach an impasse is somebody being a bit selfish.

One of her most striking scenarios of good citizenship, shared once as hypothetical and again in relaying a real conversation, is that “gays can buy a cake for their wedding, even from a Christian baker, who is able to see the humanity of the couple in front of him rather than sexual preferences that conflict with his.” The idea that there might be something more substantive than “preferences” at play doesn’t seem to enter Skach’s mind.

That is not to say How to Be a Citizen has no worthwhile instruction for citizens. Skach’s promotion of charity and life in the piazza—a public, physical “space where we can go regularly, where we feel known and accepted”—is exactly right. The church can and should be at the forefront of building the kind of communal life she envisions. In many smaller communities, it may be the only institution left with any capacity to do so.

And Levin, for his part, is not wholly consistent on whether the work of repairing our political dysfunction begins with our institutions or our culture. Earlier in the book, he says to start with the culture: “Our institutions aren’t going to change before our expectations do, only after,” so “we, as citizens, must move first by coming to better understand our Constitution and to better live it out.”

But at the end, he says to start with the institutions, because they “are much more readily changeable” than culture, “and so it makes sense to begin to approach deep cultural problems by considering what institutional reforms might be of use and work from there.”

I suspect the second answer is the wiser one, though that’s not to say I think it’s likely to succeed. For all Levin’s realism, American Covenant often feels like a fantasy. Its presentation of how our constitutional system is supposed to work emphasizes how badly we’ve broken it and how huge an endeavor restoration would be.

Yet on one point Levin did tempt me to hope: “It is easy to wave away such talk in modern America and insist that we no longer think this way, but our political life suggests that we certainly do.” We claim the best constitutional principles for ourselves and accuse our opponents of ignoring or betraying them. Even our debates about the hypocrisy of the Constitution’s framers evince an ingrained loyalty to their ideals. Maybe we have not entirely forgotten how to be citizens in this particular republic.

Bonnie Kristian is CT’s editorial director of ideas and books.

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Ideas

The Counterintuitive Lesson of Caring for Yourself First

Steve Cuss

Jesus asked if we want to get well. But do we?

Illustration by Keith Negley

At 24, I was a recent Bible college graduate and married a whopping six days when I began my first ministry as a hospital chaplain. I had never seen a dead body before. I had no experience with grief. I was way out of my depth.

After I arrived, there was a brief meet and greet with the hospital staff, who handed me four beepers and began a tour of the facility. A few minutes later, one beeper flashed brightly and I soon found myself in a small room filled with unhinged, screaming people. They had just been told their mother died on the surgery table. I had no idea what to do. That is where I first met my anxiety.

The next several weeks were similar. There is nothing like sudden death, bone marrow tests, bald children, and emergency surgeries to generate anxiety. My surprise was how much it generated in me.

Chaplains walk into dozens of anxious rooms every day. We deeply connect to strangers in the worst and most intimate moments of their lives. We bear witness to the presence of Christ in the midst of it. How do we do it day after day without catching all the anxiety flying around? How do we not infect the room with our own? Those early weeks revealed so much unrest bubbling underneath my awareness. It infected my ability to be connected and present with God and people in their worst moments.

The year I served as a chaplain, I was introduced to systems theory, which specifically helps identify anxiety—first in ourselves and then in the people around us. I studied it further in graduate school and have been studying and teaching it ever since. I now travel the world and help leaders learn the tools to notice their own triggers, notice when they are reactive instead of connected, and notice the anxious patterns that develop in their teams.

I have come to see anxiety management as an essential path to being well. It is tricky work because most leaders are so focused on the mission at hand or on others that they struggle to locate the anxiety in themselves. They don’t naturally know when they are in its grip or when they are catching and spreading it.

After one particularly grueling shift during my chaplaincy days, the attending doctor came out of the patient’s room and said, “When someone’s heart stops beating, first take your own pulse.” You have probably heard a flight attendant say the same thing in a different way: “First put the oxygen mask on your own face before helping others.”

You cannot help another person when you are starving for oxygen in your own soul. You cannot be an effective servant for God when your own triggers and assumptions are speaking louder to you than the guidance of the Spirit.

Thus began the counterintuitive lesson of my life, a lesson I am still learning: First take my own pulse, put the oxygen mask on my own face, and connect to myself before I reach out to connect to others. It isn’t selfish; it is the fastest path to paying attention to what is really going on so I can give it to God and relax in his presence. Following this increases the chance that I will operate out of God’s steam and God’s prompting rather than my own untamed reactivity.

Well leaders know what is going on under the surface. They know how to focus on the dynamics between people as much as on the mission at hand. They can walk into rooms of high anxiety or high ambiguity and, rather than catch and spread the anxiety, relax into God’s presence. They can listen to learn rather than to defend or fix. They are clear on what is theirs to carry, what is others’ to carry, and what is God’s. (Most leaders overfunction. We carry more than God has asked us to carry.)

Well leaders know and manage their triggers before a meeting to increase their capacity to connect during the meeting. They allow themselves to be human sized instead of always trying to be superhuman. They do not need to prove themselves or appear impressive, and they manage the desire to exaggerate or showboat. They can have a difficult conversation with a critic without becoming defensive or aggressive.

When you notice you are not well, what do you do next? Many of us just press on, some right into burnout or failure. When a pastor or leader is not well and offers Jesus to someone, they can cause colossal damage in the name of Jesus.

Think of the Christian leaders in the past eight years who offered Jesus while they themselves were not well. The list is long and painful and has generated severe fallout. Do you have a personal experience with a local Christian leader who was not well while attempting to proclaim Christ? What would have been different if that leader had first taken their own pulse?

But enough about others. God invites us to take responsibility for ourselves.

I host a podcast for Christianity Today called Being Human. A feature of the podcast is when I ask each guest a series of questions called “The Gauntlet of Anxiety Questions.” As you can imagine, the title basically sells itself. One of the more popular questions on the gauntlet is “How do you know when you are not well?”

Here is another: “Who knows you are not well before you know?”

But the most provocative question about well-being isn’t on my gauntlet. It is a question Jesus asked: “Do you want to get well?”

This question has convicted me since I first read it in Scripture.

Jesus was in Jerusalem for a festival when he stopped by the famous Sheep Gate pool. The rumor was that if you could get into the pool when the water stirred, you would be healed. I’ll let John take it from here:

Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”

“Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead
of me.”

Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked. (John 5:3–9)

Notice that the man didn’t just reply, Yes, please. He bounced off Jesus’ question with a sort of excuse. I think about that a lot. Do you want to be well? Rather than saying, “Yes,” I am prone to say, “Let me explain my situation.”

It turns out my anxious leadership responses are often coping mechanisms I have used since I was a child. They have been an ever-present but insufficient help in times of trouble for decades. Even though they are unreliable, I keep leaning on them. Detangling what my anxiety calls me to do versus what God calls me to do is difficult, slow work. Though I teach people in this field full-time now, well-being is not my default experience. It takes intentionality, courage, and practice.

Do you want to be well? I hope so. We are starving for Christian leaders who take responsibility for their own well-being. Leadership is getting increasingly complex, and people are more reactive and cagier than ever, it seems. We need leaders who know how to connect deeply—to others, of course, but most importantly to God and to self.

I was surprised to learn that sometimes I had to connect to myself before connecting to God. By paying attention first to what was happening in me, I had more to bring to God, more to hand over, more to trust God with. It helped me relax into God’s presence.

Two superpowers in anxiety management are noticing and curiosity. If you can learn to notice anxiety—in you and coming at you from others—you are less likely to catch and spread it. If you can move into a posture of curiosity with yourself and others—even difficult people—you will increase your chances of being well. Here are a few questions to ask yourself:

How do I know when I am anxious?

Who knows before I know, and what are the signs?

What is mine to carry, what is theirs, what is God’s?

What do I think I need that I do not really need?

What practice that takes five minutes or less helps me relax into God’s presence?

When lately have I felt fully and completely loved?

As a person of faith, your well-being is a gift you can give the people in your spheres. They will be grateful, and it will help them be well too. But more pointedly, you are worth the effort it takes to be well. Your well-being is important to God too. I hope you can pause and relax into his presence today.

Steve Cuss is the host of CT’s podcast also called Being Human.

This article appeared in the July/August, 2024 issue of Christianity Today as "First, Take Your Own Pulse".

- More from Steve Cuss

The Church Outside Serving the Church Inside

Ryan Schellenberg

Reading Philippians from Paul’s prison context should encourage the church to care better for the incarcerated.

Illustration by Brian Stauffer

To understand Paul’s letter to the Philippians, it helps to start in prison.

After all, that’s where Paul was when he wrote it. “In chains for Christ,” as he puts it, longing to be reunited with his faithful friends in Philippi (Phil. 1:8, 13). Reading Philippians as the letter of a prisoner puts flesh on Paul’s theology, a theology rooted in his rich experience of Christ amid degradation and suffering.

It also brings the story behind the letter to life—Paul’s story, yes, but also the story of the Philippian believers who showed up to support their incarcerated apostle. Today, the American church lives amid an epidemic of incarceration, and the story of Paul and the Philippians is an invitation to build relationships of solidarity across prison walls.

With his letter from prison, Paul stands at the beginning of a long line of famous incarcerated letter writers, from second-century Christian leader Ignatius to 20th-century prophet Martin Luther King Jr. But ordinary prisoners wrote letters too, in Paul’s world just as today, and some of these ancient prison letters still survive.

At first glance, they look a lot like the oldest surviving copies of Philippians—just scraps of papyrus, worn with age. But when we look more closely, they offer remarkable glimpses into the precarious circumstances from which prisoners like Paul wrote.

Take, for example, the short letter written by an otherwise forgotten man named Phaneisis. A migrant laborer in the bustling city of Alexandria, Egypt, Phaneisis had landed in serious trouble and been sent to prison by an important finance official. Whatever his offense, he found himself in jail, helpless and far from home. After three long days, he began to get desperate.

“Do not forget me, wasting away in prison.” The line runs through ancient prison letters like a desperate refrain. Prison is difficult to endure in any context. In the Greco-Roman world, it could be deadly. Ancient sources spoke of unbearable heat or bitter cold, darkness, filth, disease, and stench. And—above all—hunger.

For if the meals provided to incarcerated people today are seldom very appetizing or nutritious, ancient prisoners received the barest of rations—or no food at all. This left them utterly dependent on family and friends to provide for their needs while incarcerated.

Phaneisis had tried to get word to his family. But they lived way up the Nile. Who knew how long it would take them to send help? So he wrote a letter to his boss, somehow finding a messenger willing to carry it.

“Would you be so kind as to send someone to me,” he writes, “since I have no one in the city, and send me a cloak or some money—whatever you please—to get me through until one of my folks sails down?” (translation mine).

Money would buy food. But why a cloak? For many prisoners, a cloak served not only as clothing but as their only cover and comfort as they slept on the hard ground. Paul also requested a cloak while in prison, likely for the same reason (2 Tim. 4:13).

Paul, like Phaneisis, found himself dependent on others to meet his basic needs. He too had to wait on distant loved ones, never certain when or even if help would come (Phil. 4:10). A gift of food or money, an encouraging visit, a cloak to keep him warm—these could make the difference between life and death, hope and despair, giving up or getting by.

In Philippians, Paul has a name for the lifeline his fellow believers provide for him while in prison. He calls it their “partnership in the gospel” (1:5). The Greek term Paul uses here for partnership, koinonia, appears in various forms throughout his short letter. The word implies sharing, partnership, fellowship, and commitment.

More specifically, it names the Philippians’ Christ-shaped solidarity with him in the face of suffering and hardship. Bound in a relationship of mutual sharing and care, Paul and the Philippians offer each other emotional support, spiritual encouragement, and concrete, material aid.

This relationship of mutuality, this giving and receiving of gifts in the Lord—this, I believe, is God’s invitation for the church in our age. To accept it means to leave behind fear, hatred, and even pity and embrace those in prison as beloved siblings in Christ.

We can piece together the story from clues in Paul’s letter. When the Philippians had last seen Paul, he was headed west for Thessalonica, leaving behind in Philippi a newly founded group of believers (Phil. 4:15). He was also fleeing intense opposition. As he later reminded the believers in Thessalonica, he had arrived there still bruised from the violent mistreatment he had suffered in Philippi (1 Thess. 2:2).

The Philippians could easily have turned their backs on Paul, keeping their distance to avoid risking trouble themselves. Instead, they took an offering. They were not at all wealthy. In fact, they were struggling to get by themselves (2 Cor. 8:1–5). But from their scant resources, the Philippian church gathered what they could and sent a delegation to Thessalonica to help Paul establish himself in a new city.

A few months later, they did it again (Phil. 4:16). And then, when Paul moved on from Thessalonica to Corinth, they sent him help once more (2 Cor. 11:9).

“I thank my God every time I remember you,” Paul begins his letter, “constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you, because of your sharing [koinonia] in the gospel from the first day until now” (Phil. 1:3–5, NRSV throughout). With their acts of generous support, the Philippians became not only recipients of God’s good news but committed partners in it. Praying for them raised Paul’s spirits.

And then Paul landed in prison. We do not know what city he was in. Older Christian tradition places him in Rome. More recently, scholars have suggested a location closer to Philippi—Ephesus, perhaps, or Corinth. Either way, like Phaneisis, he found himself locked up and far from home, dependent upon the support of others for his survival.

The classroom where I learn the most these days is in the education wing of a state prison. Like a number of seminary professors across the country, I’ve been teaching a course in prison to a mixed group of students—some who get to go home after class and some who don’t. Our conversations together have me thinking in new ways about the Philippians’ partnership with Paul in the work of the gospel, their solidarity with him in the midst of injustice and hardship. They have me thinking again about what Paul meant by koinonia.

For many of my students, isolation from family and friends is one of the most painful things about being in prison. Families gather for the holidays, children have birthdays, nieces or nephews graduate from high school—and in prison, it’s just one more day of the same old routine. It’s not easy to feel connected. Like most American prisons, the one where I teach was built in a rural area. This makes it difficult for family members to visit, especially those dependent on public transit. Not all of their relationships survive.

Paul, too, found his isolation in prison painful. He was not entirely alone. Timothy was there, either locked up with him or, more likely, visiting him frequently (Phil. 1:1; 2:19–22). Other believers came by when they could (4:21–22).

Unlike modern prisons, Roman jails were built on a city’s main square, with walls that often featured small openings allowing visitors to communicate with those inside or pass food down into their underground cells.

So Paul was not completely isolated. Still, he missed his friends in Philippi. “For God is my witness, how I long for all of you,” he writes (Phil. 1:8). He was itching to hear fresh news from them (2:19). If he got out of prison, he wanted to go and visit them (1:26; 2:24).

Imagine the joy that swept over him when he looked up to see the familiar face of Epaphroditus, his dear friend from Philippi, whom the Philippians had sent to support him. And imagine Paul’s astonishment when, knowing how poor they were, he saw the gift Epaphroditus had brought (4:10, 15–18).

His faithful friends in Philippi had done it again! Using twice more a form of the term koinonia, Paul writes that they had become partners in his chains by sharing in his distress (1:7; 4:14).

“Remember those who are in prison,” urges the writer of Hebrews, “as though you were in prison with them” (13:3). With their acts of costly solidarity, Epaphroditus and the Philippians model how to fulfill this deeply challenging mandate. Sharing in Paul’s love and longing, his sorrow and his joy, they supplied comfort and companionship along with concrete material aid.

With nearly two million people now incarcerated in the United States—a warehousing of human bodies on unprecedented scale—the Philippians’ example has never been more relevant. What might it mean for the church outside prison walls to join in solidarity with those inside, partnering together in the work of a gospel that sets the captive free?

In the final weeks of our seminary course, students worked in groups to analyze an ancient text and present to the class what it revealed about justice then and now. One group chose to work on a speech by Libanius of Antioch, a renowned fourth-century teacher and intellectual.

Libanius had never been in prison. But he had witnessed a close friend’s imprisonment after falling out of favor with the Roman governor. The torture and degradation this friend endured seem to have made a lasting impression on Libanius. More than two decades later, he penned a blistering speech addressed to the Roman emperor Theodosius that described in vivid detail the cruelty and injustice suffered by those in Antioch’s prison.

Unlike Libanius’s friend, most of these prisoners were people of little worldly status. He writes:

This is the fate of the penniless at the hands of wealthy and how ordinary, blue-collar workers get treated by the political class. Would you like me to mention gang members too? Sure, there are some who are guilty. But then, everyone they’ve ever hung around with gets arrested too, even those who don’t know anything about the crime. While all these people live in chains, the powerful enjoy their lives and forget all about them. (translation mine)

It didn’t take my students long to begin making connections between the criminal justice system in Libanius’s world and the one in ours. As the incarcerated students could see just by looking around the prison, today, too, it is mostly the poor and the marginalized who end up in jail or prison—especially underresourced people of color. With the prevalence of cash bail, overworked public defenders, and coercive tactics that pressure defendants to accept plea deals, it often feels like the system is rigged.

The presentation these students offered was a remarkable collaboration—a hip-hop adaptation of an ancient Greek oration. Here were my students, Black and white, men and women, rhyming together on justice and equality while one of them laid down the beat. It was playful but also deadly serious—an expression of joyful creativity that was also an earnest, prophetic denunciation of a criminal justice system too often indifferent to the sacredness of human life.

Visiting those in prison is often depicted as a form of charity. But this was something richer. As I watched what these students had created, I was reminded again of the Philippians’ koinonia with Paul, their solidarity in his suffering and sharing in his joy.

By listening with care to the stories of their incarcerated classmates, my nonincarcerated students witnessed with fresh eyes the liberating message of the gospel. They had become, in a small but meaningful way, partners in their incarcerated classmates’ suffering, expressing together their grief and their pain. And yet the room burst with laughter and joy as they imagined a world where all God’s people are free.

Philippians is a letter about a generous and committed church that goes to great lengths to care for an imprisoned friend. It is also a letter about an imprisoned man who shares with the church outside what he is learning about the gospel while in chains.

In a passage that forms the theological crux of Paul’s letter, possibly an early Christian hymn that he adapted, Paul recounts Jesus’ incarnation, crucifixion, and then glorification by God (2:1–11).

Paul emphasizes that rather than guarding his divine nature, Jesus joined in solidarity with humans by sharing in our deepest, most painful vulnerability. He took on human form and “became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross.” Like Paul and countless others in our own prisons, Jesus suffered the degradation of violent, state-sanctioned punishment. He knows what it feels like.

Paul’s letter from prison is an invitation for the church today to cultivate relationships of risky solidarity that bridge those inside and outside prison. It invites believers on the outside to work together with God’s incarcerated children to dismantle the walls our fear has built, and to humbly receive their gifts of faith and insight. In doing so, we follow the example not only of Epaphroditus and the Philippians, but also of Jesus himself.

Ryan Schellenberg is associate professor of New Testament at Methodist Theological School in Ohio and author of Abject Joy: Paul, Prison, and the Art of Making Do.

This article appeared in the July/August, 2024 issue of Christianity Today as "Don’t Forget Me in Prison".

- More from Ryan Schellenberg

What Incarcerated Ministry Leaders Want the Church to Know

Compiled by CT Editors

Four seminary students and graduates offer encouragement to the church.

Illustration by Brian Stauffer

In recent decades, seminaries have begun offering courses and degrees to incarcerated Christians, including hybrid classes where students on the “outside” can join classrooms on the “inside.” Many of these seminarians serve their fellow prisoners in formal or informal capacities following graduation. Christianity Today asked four men and women to address the American church or to talk to their peers from the perspective of Paul’s letter to the Philippians.

Wendy Denzler, master of arts in Christian ministry candidate at North Park Theological Seminary and works with incarcerated women at Logan Correctional Center

And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (Phil. 4:7)

Prison is chaotic. It’s a place full of damaged people thrown together for the purpose of rehabilitation so they can become functional members of society upon release. But there is little rehabilitation going on, and it’s very hard to become a functional member of society when you’ve never seen one except on TV. So what do incarcerated people do? How can we “do our time” and come out on the other end of this prison journey as better human beings? I have found the answer in just two words: peace and purpose.

There is no peace in prison. The best we can hope for is a good “bunkie” who will allow us peace in our own little area (mine consists of my bunk and about four square feet of floor space). Chaos reigns everywhere else. We never know when a fight will break out or who will be involved or who will end up as collateral damage. We learn to be battle-ready 24/7/365, just in case.

Since outer peace isn’t an option, I turn to God for inner peace. Embracing the peace that cannot be explained (Phil. 4:7) is how I successfully “do my time.” Even though my mind has to stay partially focused on my surroundings, my soul is at ease. I know God’s got this, no matter what.

It doesn’t matter how my day goes or what happens; it’s okay because I belong to Papa God (my name for him) and he’s already decided my fate. This place isn’t my end; it’s just the beginning of the next stage with God. Like Romans 8:28 says, God will use my time here to help his kingdom, and I’m part of that kingdom.

From that inner peace comes purpose: I want everyone around me to feel this peace and know God. He gives me peace in my soul to get through this life and, once this life ends, true life with him forever. I want to pay him back and make my Papa God proud of me. Yes, I know nothing I can ever do will be enough to pay for this gift, but I choose to do things that my Father would enjoy seeing me do. These are my offerings to him.

My purpose is to love the rest of these messed-up human beings as much as God loves my messed-up self. My purpose is to show every person I meet that there is a way to thrive in the mess humans have made of this world.

I offer a listening ear and an empathetic heart with a cup of instant jailhouse coffee. I make a meal out of commissary food to share with someone starved for attention. I buy a pack of T-shirts for an intake (someone new to prison) and offer words of welcome and acceptance without ulterior motives. I check on the OG (original gangsta) down the hallway who’s been incarcerated as long as I’ve been alive. I remember birthdays and celebrate holidays with those who have nobody on the outside.

Why? Because these people are my family. They’re God’s kids, just like me. These things are a better witness than any Bible verses I could sport. I do lead Bible studies and answer questions about God when asked, but the human interaction and genuine caring teach way more. I don’t preach to people about God’s kingdom; I show it to them.

Every single inmate I know has a horror story about Christians who come to the prison to evangelize by saying things like “You’re here because you’re bad!” “Repent or go to hell.” “Give up the things you’re doing because they’re against the will of God!”

What about love? That’s the purpose God’s given every one of us. Inmates should be hearing, “I love you!” “I know you’re a mess, but so am I. I love you regardless, and God does too!” “I love you where you are and how you are, and so does God!”

I don’t want to fix people. That’s my Papa God’s job. Maybe they don’t need fixing. Maybe me seeing that they’re broken is just a reflection of my own brokenness.

God gave me purpose when he told me to love my neighbors like I love myself (Matt. 22:39). My job is to love them and introduce them to my awesome Papa God who wants to adopt them into our family. My purpose is to smile and say, “Welcome! We’re a huge ‘kind of messed up but getting better all the time’ family. Relax and enjoy yourself with us. Come hang out and meet my Papa God. He’s pretty cool and really can’t wait to meet you!”

Michael Simmons, master of arts in Christian ministry and restorative arts recipient from North Park Theological Seminary, teaching fellow with Lewis University’s Prison Education Program, and cofounder of Parole Illinois

Being incarcerated for 22 years, I’ve often been entrusted to provide care for others who are similarly situated. These opportunities presented themselves early on during some of my most trying moments of faith. In those days, it took some time for me to refocus my eyes on Jesus and begin to understand the work that was being accomplished through me in such a dark season of my life.

About 17 years into my incarceration, I embarked on a journey toward earning a master of arts in Christian ministry. I went on to graduate with high honors and earn several certificates, including one for pastoral care ministry.

However, prior to any academic achievements, God was teaching me that the most powerful witness and spiritual encouragement I could offer came first by affirming the very humanity, dignity, and value of those with whom I came in contact. Such inalienable rights had become foreign to far too many of God’s children living behind 40-foot concrete walls and barbed wire fences.

I’d never expected to be a spiritual leader, although in many ways it was in my DNA. My mother is an ordained minister, as was my late grandmother. I’d always been a quiet, introverted person, yet I found early on in my imprisonment that I had a knack for attracting folks who wanted to share their hurt and pain with me.

Vulnerability is often seen as weakness in a carceral context where toxic masculinity is the dominant trait.

Often feeling awkward and unsure how to respond, I mentioned this to my mother during one of our early-morning Sunday visits, and she offered me a piece of advice that helped me feel useful in these moments of unburdening.

“Sometimes,” she said, “we don’t need to say anything. Just listen.” She went on to explain how life-giving—and even life-saving—it could be for people to find a safe place to share what’s on their hearts and minds. So I continued to listen, and as I learned more of others’ stories, I learned to listen less passively and with more empathy and compassion.

In his first letter to the church at Corinth, the apostle Paul likened a lack of compassion to simply making loud noises. Encouragement in and of itself is unlikely to produce growth, which is why I strive to follow the example of Christ—Immanuel—in a “with you” approach.

My aim, then, is to exhibit a healthy concern not only for a person’s spiritual state of being but also for their physical, mental, and emotional states as well. When people understand that God cares in such a holistic way, it builds trust and prepares hearts for the good news of Jesus Christ. Like the very Word of God, encouragement is not limited to that which is spoken, but it becomes flesh, dwells among the “least of these,” and provides opportunities to be made whole.

Karen M., master of arts candidate at North Park Theological Seminary and inside board member of Parole Illinois

Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you. (Phil. 4:9)

On my mirror I have a small saying: “Not all storms come to disrupt your life, some come to clear your path.” This saying helps remind me that there may be good that comes out of difficulties. One of the most meaningful texts that reminds me of this is Philippians 4:8–9.

In this passage, Paul is telling the church what to focus on in the midst of anxieties and adversity. As a woman who struggles with mental illness and has had years of therapy, I recognize that what Paul was illustrating for the Philippian church is what therapists call “reframing.”

How does one cope with a negative reality such as prison, poverty, or social injustice? Paul builds on what the Psalms teach—that even in the midst of awful situations, we still can think on things that are true, honorable, just, pure, pleasing, commendable, excellent, and worthy of praise (Phil. 4:8). This mental break from negative events in life allows us time to collect our thoughts, remind ourselves that we are children of God, and just breathe while thinking on a specific positive situation or person.

Jesus, of course, is the ultimate person to focus on, and he fits all of Paul’s descriptors. A short mental vacation helps our brain circuitry not get caught in an endless loop of despair. This moment to reframe also takes our focus off of self and negative emotions and places it on God and what God honors.

In some translations, the word dwell is used instead of think, and this implies deep thought, meditation, pondering. The passage comes at the end of a section in which Paul is addressing two women leaders within the church (Euodia and Syntyche) who are in conflict. Paul suggests that they resolve their disagreement by agreeing “in the Lord” or being “of the same mind in the Lord” (4:2), because it is the Lord’s interests and opinions that are ultimately important—not those of people in conflict.

Often when we are in conflict, our focus must be reframed on God. All Christians agree God is good, even when we don’t fully understand what God is doing within a certain situation. Once our focus is on God and what God values, the situation can often be resolved and often favorably for both parties.

Sometimes Christians must agree to disagree; yet both parties can still agree that God is good and Jesus is our Savior, preserving our unity in the faith. This also preserves our graciousness.

Last, Paul states that those in the church are to do—to act, model, and live out intentionally what they have been taught and what Paul has demonstrated to them. This doing follows reframing and implies that acts of graciousness, Christlike behavior, and hopefully reconciliation follow. Then the peace that only God can bring will come to the Christian and may even enter a difficult situation. In this way, Christian lives can be a blessing through the storms of life and possibly transform those storms into a path toward a better future for all.

RóDerick Zavala Sr., master of arts recipient in Christian ministry and restorative arts from North Park Theological Seminary, licensed peer educator, and teaching fellow with North Park University

I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death. (Phil. 3:10)

In Philippians 3, Paul turns from offering an affectionate letter of thanks to passionately sharing the true reason he has risked everything in the name of the gospel. Pointing to his own testimony, he condemns anyone who regards their worldly accomplishments or social status as something worthy of heavenly comparison. He denounces the haughty who associate worldly achievements with Christlike behavior.

The way Paul maintained his spiritual focus, even under the pressures of incarceration, proves that as Christians, we always have an obligation to represent the gospel. Christ has handpicked each one of us to display to the world God’s workmanship. Knowing this, the true believer realizes that the ultimate crowning reward will only come through imitating the love and humility of Jesus Christ.

As a contemporary church, we’ve lost our footing in terms of gospel fulfillment. We’ve allowed the trauma of our past experiences, the traditions of our cultural upbringing, and the training received from our social circles to divide us in our thinking and separate us in the ways we show our love. We’ve somehow convinced ourselves that personal effort and sticking to our own kind will one day lead us to know a complete Christian life in heaven.

The reality is, if we don’t begin to venture with our love beyond what we view as comfortable, then we’ll end up living a life of small progression toward Christ’s perfection. Our lack of fully imitating the love and humility of Christ will only leave us short of that heavenly goal. Even unto death, Jesus loved outside his designated cultural circle. He did so as an example of how we are to pour out our love to others.

As the church, we are to lead by example and influence the carnal world around us to operate in love and unity. Instead, we have adopted the faithless ways of nonbelievers. We perpetuate division and bias; we bicker over who is right and who should be seen as knowledgeable. Worst of all, we are causing irreparable emotional harm to our members as we continuously jockey to attain status positions that are of no significance in terms of heavenly citizenship.

Like Paul, I regard my past success as rubbish in order that I may someday gain Christ and be found in him (Phil. 3:8–9). Let the carnal world bicker themselves into destruction with their own belly as their god (v. 19). I choose to lean on my faith in Christ and trust that the path Jesus placed us on over two millennia ago is the Way to the kingdom of heaven.

In the words of Paul at the end of his epistle, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.”

This article appeared in the July/August, 2024 issue of Christianity Today as "Boldness Behind Bars".

- More from Compiled by CT Editors

Books

Review

Live Like a Christian, Even if You’re Not Sure What You Believe

Aaron Damiani

Elizabeth Oldfield’s invitation to seekers who long to transform themselves and their world.

Illustration by Zofia Dzierżawska

Elizabeth Oldfield is a failed atheist.

She originally lost her faith while working as a religion writer for the BBC. Yet she found herself dissatisfied with the bleakness of modern, irreligious life. She craved the communal meaning and moral vision of Christianity, despite her intellectual doubts.

Eventually, Oldfield accepted the welcome of intelligent, kind-hearted Christians who were unafraid of her questions. They showed her a way of life and a quality of love that drew her back into the Christian faith through practices and postures that helped her become more human. In her book Fully Alive: Tending to the Soul in Turbulent Times, Oldfield extends the same welcome to her readers, especially those who are allergic to religious dogma but are nevertheless hungry for meaning and luminosity, longing to be “free, resilient, joyful, brave.”

Fully Alive: Tending to the Soul in Turbulent Times

Elizabeth Oldfield (Author)

272 pages

$19.18

Oldfield, now host of The Sacred podcast and a member of an intentional Christian community outside London, offers a vision of human flourishing through a surprising paradigm: the seven deadly sins. She makes a fresh, literate case that the stubborn old vices of wrath, sloth, avarice, lust, pride, envy, and gluttony are still with us. In the words of her first chapter title, language borrowed from the Christian author Francis Spufford, we still have a “human propensity to f— things up.”

And yet, each of these sins offers an opportunity to embrace a more connected human life of peacemaking, community, belovedness, and even ecstasy. Oldfield keeps the book lively with hilarious, self-deprecating confessionals, humbly admitting her own struggle to leave self-sabotage behind and become “the kind of person that is needed at the end of the world.”

As a friend to many non-failed atheists, Oldfield is careful to stay in conversation with people of little to no Christian faith. Her approach is gentle, calibrated to avoid putting out a smoldering wick or breaking a bruised reed of spiritual curiosity.

Her invitation is this: If you yearn to become a more loving and generous person, to mend our world with justice and healing, try the Christian path. It’s useful, even if you aren’t sure about some (or even all) of its truth claims. Lay down the burden of knowing exactly what you believe and take up some life-giving behaviors instead. And if God surprises you with love, then let it be.

For instance, in one chapter (“Wrath: from Polarization to Peacemaking”), Oldfield recounts a miserable experience she had speaking to a leftist political gathering where she had been asked to represent the religious perspective. Reacting to rude and dismissive treatment, she found herself reaching for categories coined by author Jon Yates, writing off people who are “Not Like Me,” or NLM for short, in contrast to “People [who are] Like Me,” or PLM. She illustrates how prevalent this dynamic is within human relationships, no matter which issue, cause, or belief is in play.

By giving in to base us-and-them instincts, we form tribes and reduce people to less-than-human objects of contempt. Yet when Oldfield tried practicing the teachings of Jesus from the Sermon on the Mount, she found a way to return to the conversation and bless those who cursed her.

As she observes, “these people who looked like the enemy, who perhaps saw me as an enemy, turned out to be walking worlds of meaning, bruised and beautiful and as endlessly fascinating as humans always are.” Oldfield then commends peacemaking practices that Christians, Buddhists, atheists, and others have found helpful, such as loving your enemies, standing your ground, and interrupting cycles of retribution with a simple question: “Can we start again?”

Throughout the book, Oldfield shows herself to be a generous social weaver. She treats the Christian tradition less as a homeland to protect than a well-worn hearth of hospitality, where neighbors of all stripes can sit around the table and yearn for the same transformation of soul and society.

Fully Alive is a lively conversation with poets, social scientists, cultural critics, philosophers, and psychologists, with Oldfield at the head of the table, making sure everyone has a chance to contribute before she elevates it with her eloquent prose. In an age of ideological echo chambers, we can all take cues from this work of bridge-building.

There was, however, one subject that Oldfield didn’t mention often enough: the Cross. In a book about sin and its cure, especially written from a Christian perspective, this was a missed opportunity. Near the end of the book, Oldfield explains her reticence:

You may have noticed I haven’t talked a lot about the crucifixion in this book. … I don’t think I can make it “useful.” This is a book designed for those in search of spiritual core strength and curious about what the practices, postures and principles of Christianity might have to teach them. It’s not primarily for those actively seeking faith. … The crucifixion, for me, is Holy Ground, a place to approach only if you fall into the latter category.

How “useful” is the cross of Christ in addressing our deepest human ills and making us fully alive in turbulent times? We could do worse than pose this question to members of the global, suffering church, including the Anglican Dalits of India, the evangelicals imprisoned in China, the Coptic Christians of Egypt, and the Catholics in Myanmar. They might explain how the Cross offers a model of reconciliation amid conflict, an icon of Christ’s generosity in response to treachery, and a crown of humility before the preening pride of this age.

Yet those voices, with their examples of moral beauty from the margins, were missing from the book’s table conversation. To her credit, Oldfield, in her chapter on envy, devotes a paragraph to the significance of Christ’s bodily suffering for Black theologians. And she shows us what repentance and lament look like in response to the climate crisis. I only wish there had been more examples like this.

I agree with Oldfield that the Crucifixion is holy ground. Yet from the beginning, it was equally a public scandal, open for all to see, not just because it was God’s greatest gift but also because it put the human condition on perfect display. Scoundrels and soldiers, including at least one centurion, all watched the debacle up close. They were up to their ears in deadly sins, yet there they stood on holy ground, spitting distance from the Son of God. Some of them believed, despite themselves.

Believe it or not, this kind of thing still happens. Oldfield, using her considerable gifts of communication, could have brought her readers there without insulting their intelligence or violating their well-earned trust.

Toward the end of each chapter, Oldfield offers readers a practice or two that will help curb darker impulses and ground them in virtue. She downplays theological distinctives in favor of an ecumenical approach, identifying some resonance with other faith traditions and, notably, the world of psychedelics. By inviting us into practices like gratitude, charitable giving, “begin again” conversations, and technology sabbaths, Oldfield is betting that they might open minds, souls, and communities to God’s love.

Spiritual practices are good as far as they go. Yet readers willing to face their darkness as honestly as Oldfield has faced hers will need the stronger medicine she’s keeping in her cabinet. Sin, after all, is deadly. It draws real blood and destroys real lives. And no amount of gentle adjustments will ultimately curb its power.

I’m reminded of a critical moment in the life of Dorothy Day, the journalist turned founder of the Catholic Worker Movement. After the birth of her daughter Tamar, she wished to leave behind her bohemian, hedonistic life for the Christian faith of her childhood. But the love of her life, Forster, forbade it:

It got to the point where it was the simple question of whether I chose God or man. I chose God and I lost Forster. I was baptized on the Feast of The Holy Innocents, December 28, 1927. It was something I had to do. I was tired of following the devices and desires of my own heart, of doing what I wanted to do, what my desires told me to do, which always seemed to lead me astray. The cost was the loss of the man I loved.

This pivotal act of self-denial and obedience led to many smaller ones in an imperfect yet luminous life of love and mercy. Like Day, we must in the end take up our cross in daily defiance of the world, the flesh, and the Devil. Strangely, the way of death becomes for us the very path of life.

Oldfield is correct that the Cross is not a math equation to solve. Yes and amen. The Cross is a mystery to live, by grace, as we cast away the works of darkness and put on the armor of light, from one degree of glory to the next.

Aaron Damiani is pastor of Immanuel Anglican Church in Chicago and author of Earth Filled with Heaven: Finding Life in Liturgy, Sacraments, and other Ancient Practices of the Church.

This article appeared in the July/August, 2024 issue of Christianity Today as "‘Useful’ Spiritual Practices".

- More from Aaron Damiani

News

CT Design, Redesign, and Re-redesign, from 1956 to Today

Daniel Silliman

How the look and feel of the magazine have changed with the times.

Illustration by Christianity Today

Christianity Today has changed a bit since the first issue was published in October 1956. The look is different. The feel is different. We’ve chosen a different font.

One of the first editors of Christianity Today noted (with a hint of despair) that no one cares about fonts. He wasn’t wrong. Design elements—the font, or the width of the margin, the quality of the printer’s ink, and a million other near-invisible things—are meant not to be noticed directly but to give the magazine a “feel.”

If you do notice, and dig in to the history of Christianity Today’s design, one constant becomes clear: The magazine has been carefully updated, adjusted, and redesigned, time and again, to fulfill the promise of Today. CT strives to speak to this present moment, and that means sometimes changing how things look. It means, sometimes, caring more than normal about fonts.

1956 – Editor Carl F. H. Henry, planning the first issue of Christianity Today, complains that people think fonts are boring. The first issue uses Deepdene and Fairfield, which Henry considers modern typefaces.

1963 – CT’s first redesign is done by ad man Harvey Gabor, who will go on to direct the iconic commercial “I’d like to buy the world a Coke.” Gabor says CT requires something “intangible” and “a style and momentum all its own.”

1966 – CT prints its first image on the cover—a globe surrounded by flames, all in grayscale. Inside, the only editorial image is a cartoon. Later the same year, the magazine experiments with covers in color.

1976 – Color photos begin to appear semiregularly on CT covers. The 20th anniversary issue features Billy Graham in a yellow polo shirt. Inside, an editor examines the way evangelicals are “seizing the public imagination” in the “Year of the Evangelical.”

1978 – CT combines summer issues for economic reasons. Instead of four issues in July and August, there are now two. Circulation director Keith Stonehocker is credited with “maximizing growth while minimizing waste and inefficiencies.”

1983 – The nameplate—reading “Christianity Today” on the cover—is tweaked without any note in the magazine. Also, the periodical, which previously was published “fortnightly,” is now mailed out “semimonthly.”

1994 – CT’s layout and design are done on a desktop computer for the first time. Print articles are uploaded to the internet, making CT one of the first religious publications online.

2000 – The magazine is redesigned to improve the “flow” of content. The news section is moved to the beginning, and columnists Philip Yancey and Charles Colson are placed at the end. “I hope you recognized this magazine,” writes managing editor Michael G. Maudlin. “The changes are a little startling, I admit.”

2009 – Graphics are introduced to Christianity Today, and the sections are color-coded. An editor’s note from David Neff explains the concept: “Find that color—red, green, or yellow—running across the top of any page, and you’ll know what kind of material you’re about to read.”

2013 – CT starts printing “CT” on the cover. “We’ve started calling ourselves what everyone already calls us,” executive editor Andy Crouch says. He too tries to convince people that fonts are interesting: “We’ve adopted the glorious typefaces Periódico and Calibre.”

2024 – The issue you’re looking at now has a whole new look. Much of its inspiration was drawn from our 1960s era, particularly in the design of our new logo.

This article appeared in the July/August, 2024 issue of Christianity Today as "New CT, Who Dis?".

- More from Daniel Silliman

Theology

An Alternative to the Bonhoeffer Option

Jared Stacy

Christians today can learn from WWII-era theologian K.H. Miskotte about resisting without resorting to political violence.

Illustration by Lisk Feng

Editor’s note: This article appeared in print before the assassination attempt against former president Donald Trump. We’re publishing it online ahead of schedule given its relevance to the present moment.

The US is in another presidential election that, in many ways, triggers a déjà vu of 2020—a high-water mark for political and social unrest many might wish to forget. And while we may not be living in entirely unprecedented times (as a brief review of the not-too-distant 1960s serves to remind us), our country is experiencing a rise in politically motivated violence.

A 2023 study from the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics found that 40 percent of both Biden and Trump supporters “at least somewhat believed the other side had become so extreme that it is acceptable to use violence to prevent them from achieving their goals.” In response to similar findings by the Public Religion Research Institute, the National Association of Evangelicals released a statement by evangelical leaders condemning violence as a justifiable political tool.

Responses like these are welcome and helpful. It’s crucial for evangelical leaders and clergy who minister at the level of everyday life to speak and act against this alarming trend and the desperation that justifies it.

Yet I believe the Spirit of Jesus has given the church more to face our present moment. Political violence isn’t just a sociopolitical problem to be denounced—it demands a fresh vision of discipleship cultivated and encouraged from the pulpit.

As French theologian Jacques Ellul wrote, “the role of the Christian in society” is to “shatter fatalities and necessities” associated with violence. Such a broad task requires a more robust vision of pastoral theology, one that rejects passivity to imagine a faithful Christian presence in a hostile sociopolitical climate.

One possible source for this renewed vision is the historic witness of Kornelis Heiko Miskotte—a Dutch Reformed pastor theologian who spent the war in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam. Miskotte defied Adolf Hitler’s political regime and risked his life to shelter Jews in his home. But he also participated in a uniquely theological form of resistance through his writings, including a widely distributed biblical tract its editors say served as a kind of “anti-Nazi catechism.”

Miskotte was a contemporary of the German pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, as well as a fellow admirer of Karl Barth. Yet his name has been relatively forgotten in history, in part because his works were not translated into English until recently. But there may be another reason for Miskotte’s obscurity compared to Bonhoeffer: He did not die for his cause.

When it comes to defying Christian passivity, Christians often call on the wisdom of Bonhoeffer, who was a leading voice in the Confessing Church—a clergy movement that resisted the Nazification of Germany’s Protestant churches. Rather than flee to America, Bonhoeffer returned to Germany before the war. He was barred from lecturing and preaching and eventually joined a conspiracy to assassinate Hitler—which led to his imprisonment and ultimate execution.

Yet many today have fractured and co-opted Bonhoeffer’s legacy by lifting his biography from his theology. This distortion creates a “Bonhoeffer option”—which amounts to tacit permission to entertain political violence as a viable solution. In a recent article defending evangelical support for Trump, professor Mark DeVine does just that, writing, “Bonhoeffer saw civilization itself in the crosshairs of evil. So do Trumpers.”

Yet German theologian Hans Ulrich, who studied under some of Bonhoeffer’s contemporaries after the war, writes differently than DeVine: “Bonhoeffer’s witness is not his death but his desire to fulfill the will of God.”

In the aftermath of the failed assassination attempt, Bonhoeffer freely welcomed God’s judgment, writing,

If one has completely renounced making something of oneself—whether it be a saint or a converted sinner or a church leader … then one throws oneself completely into the arms of God.

Bonhoeffer’s decision placed him beyond the limits of ethical systems, frustrating those who would use him as moral justification for political violence. Instead, we must attend to the theology that fueled Bonhoeffer’s faith, which was born from years of wrestling with God’s will against the backdrop of everyday life—and in helping his church do likewise. Only a robust pastoral theology rooted in everyday fidelity can imagine a faithful theological resistance to evil.

Biblical pastoral theology should give clergy resources to help their church members answer vital questions like “Whom do we trust?” and “In what do we hope?”—which have a profound impact as much on our everyday lives as in the most extreme moments. And as Eugene Peterson would say, a pastor’s primary job is not galvanizing congregants for a partisan cause but rather, in the words of his biographer, “teaching people to pray and teaching them to die a good death.”

One way pastoral theology makes this possible is by reminding people of the power of God’s Word—which brings us back to Miskotte. When his fellow Dutch citizens were faced with the costly choice of pious inaction or violent reaction, Miskotte invited them to a theologically sustained yet politically active form of resistance. This, he believed, began with the simple yet radical act of listening:

Many cry out for action. But could it be, that the primordial action is hearing—the hearing that arose in former times as resistance against the worldly powers, giving rise to martyrdom and a new song; a new diaconate, a new confession, and suffering and action arose.

Miskotte saw that the Nazi occupation in Amsterdam yielded a surprising, fresh hunger for the Scriptures—including an outbreak of Bible study groups across occupied cities in the winter of 1940. Miskotte personally facilitated some of these underground meetings and, with his theological training, published and distributed a study guide to meet the desperate need for biblical resources.

His pamphlet, titled Biblical ABCs, took aim at the religious roots of Nazism. The primer began with the importance of God’s name, which Miskotte saw as the “cornerstone” of all “resistance” to authoritarianism and truth decay. “The more firmly we believe in the Name,” Miskotte writes, “the more unbelieving we become toward the primordial powers of life.”

Miskotte hoped that by reencountering this living God and reimagining what it means to be biblical, Dutch Christians might cultivate a “better resistance” to the Nazi occupation.

In this way, Miskotte saw Christian sanctification as a form of sabotage. The God of Israel revealed in the Bible and in Jesus Christ, Miskotte said, “is from the outset Saboteur.” Not only does Jesus destroy our manmade ideas about God and religion, but sanctification initiates us into God’s ongoing holy sabotage of our lives and the sociopolitical worlds that define them. Biblical holiness, Miskotte argued, is not just moral virtue but sanctified sabotage.

In his essay on Miskotte’s work, theologian Philip G. Ziegler says a key to “the sanctification of the Name is active disbelief and disobedience vis-à-vis the chthonic and religious powers driving natural life.”

Yet even this form of nonviolent theological resistance is often regarded as literal subversion by the political establishment—especially people whose visions of peace, justice, and greatness conflict with those of the kingdom of God.

For instance, when one of Miskotte’s fellow Dutch pastors, Jan Koopmans, published a similar pamphlet confessing, “We are Christians first, Dutch second,” the Dutch SS flagged Koopmans’s file and labeled him as a dangerous “saboteur.” Miskotte seized on that accusation and appropriated it subversively for the Dutch church.

Faithful discipleship has always posed a risk to the political establishment—beginning in the first-century Roman world. To proclaim “Jesus is Lord” then was to question Caesar’s claim of total authority, and thus this confession was seen as an indirect sabotage and subversion of the Roman order and the violence that built it.

Kornelis Heiko Miskotte

Even the word Christian first emerged as a way for Roman authorities to code early believers as dangerous political agitators and enemies of the Pax Romana, or “Roman peace”—and only later did believers appropriate the term for themselves.

Just as the earliest Christians’ devotion to the Jewish Messiah subverted Caesar’s sovereignty, “saboteurs” like Miskotte and the Confessing Church threatened Hitler’s supremacy in Europe. And while this makes it sound as if the Christian heritage is associated with overt political posturing and rebellion, God’s form of sabotage is ultimately not of this world—even as it remains for this world.

Holy sabotage is brought about not by the power to crucify but by the power of one who was crucified. This translates into a political presence that, according to Stanley Hauerwas, exists “so that the world may know there is an alternative to the violence that characterizes the relations between peoples and nations.”

To be Christian is to confess that Jesus alone is Lord—a God who will have no rivals, no counter-creeds, and no rogue words against the Word. This divine Saboteur does not leave us with our rage, nations, causes, or principles—all elements that prime us toward violence. Instead, he sets us apart for himself.

More than that, God sets us apart together. Whenever and wherever we gather, we become an insurgent church—a people and place where the stories and slogans of our social and political world are emptied of their power and crucified on the cross. The common life of the church is, in its very nature, a public witness to the world—an invitation to relinquish our natural, often violent methods of empire building to embrace the supernatural provision of Jesus Christ.

Yet the communal mission of the church is often extinguished by times of relative peace and piety. Miskotte noticed that the Nazi occupation in Amsterdam exposed the long-standing rot of insular Dutch churches and their infighting factions. “We have the church, and we have individual believers,” he said, “but we don’t have communities.”

Amid the horrors of World War II, Miskotte proclaimed that “the pious world of so-called church life must come to an end”—and in its ruins, a new church was being birthed. In his review of Biblical ABCs, Koopmans spoke of the national church’s breakdown and the revival of study groups gathering in homes, saying, “Through this War, God teaches us to ask for the Bible. … we almost don’t have a Church anymore, apart from the form in which it can be found in the Bible.”

As Miskotte wrote, “The mystery of the church is, that something happens there.” That “something” flows from a renewed hunger for the Word of God.

In the same way, resisting political violence in our day requires the church to renew its identity as the community of God’s Word. The American church today is divided by allegiances to various partisan causes—leading to what feels like the collapse of our common life as Christians. We have neglected Paul’s instruction to “make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace” (Eph. 4:3). And if pastoral theology is to unite the church and revive its public ministry, it must encourage congregants to be devoted to the Spirit of Jesus, not the spirit of the party.

To resist political violence is not to be rebranded by another cause but to be renewed together as the body of Christ. This is our primary theological resistance against all worldly powers that would seek to divide us, claim our loyalty, or call us to arms. As Miskotte reminds us, “the church is the church by faith in becoming the church, again and again.”

Instead of the Bonhoeffer option and its anomalous permission for violence, American Christians can rediscover the wisdom of pastoral theology in Miskotte and—closer to home—similar witnesses like Martin Luther King Jr., who during the Montgomery bus boycott instructed participants to

pray for guidance and commit yourself to complete non-violence in word and action as you enter the bus. … If cursed, do not curse back. If pushed, do not push back. If struck, do not strike back, but evidence love and goodwill at all times.

As Miskotte reminds us, Christian sanctification involves partnering in God’s holy sabotage of our world and its mechanisms of violence. The church’s prophetic task is witnessing to the peace of Christ, which reconciles and sustains the world. A restored humanity is possible only at the Cross, not by the sword. And as dissident disciples, we smuggle this subversive message as witnesses in, to, and for a hostile world that is being reconciled to God but has yet to recognize it.

As sanctified saboteurs baptized into God’s life, we say boldly, “We are Christians before we are Americans,” in accordance with our primal confession that Jesus is Lord.

Jared Stacy is a theologian and Christian ethicist who served for nearly a decade as a pastor to evangelical congregations in New Orleans, Los Angeles, and the Washington, DC, area.

This article appeared in the July/August, 2024 issue of Christianity Today as "Sabotaging Political Violence".

- More from Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Cover Story

He Told Richard Nixon to Confess

Daniel Silliman

Most ministers were silent about Watergate. Why was one evangelical pastor different?

Getty / Keystone

Only one minister spoke up.

There were many clergy in and out of the White House in those years, as Richard Nixon scrambled to cover up the fact that his men had broken into the Democratic Party headquarters and bugged the Watergate office phones to try to give him an unfair advantage in the 1972 presidential election. Various ministers preached to Nixon as the conspiracy unraveled and everything he had done—the casual criminality, disregard for morality, dirt, skullduggery, expletives, compounding lies, secret tapes, and obstruction of justice—came into the light.

But they didn’t address it. They didn’t follow the path of the Old Testament prophet Nathan, who went to King David after David tried to cover up his sin. Nathan spoke in a way that convicted the king—“You are the man!”—and gave him a chance to repent (2 Sam. 12:7).

Nixon also met privately with clergy from a whole array of evangelical churches, plus mainline Protestants, Catholics, and Jews. Some were famous. Leaders with authority and prestige, comfortable in the halls of power. Almost to a man, they said nothing.

Except John Huffman.

The evangelical Presbyterian pastor spoke simply and directly about the moral dimensions of the Watergate scandal and spoke with a clarity that Richard Nixon could hear.

Huffman was not well known and still isn’t. Even in the apparently endless writing about evangelicals and politics and all the debates about the proper way to engage in the public square, his name is essentially forgotten.

But I had to know: Why him?

It’s not obvious that Huffman should have had some special dispensation of moral courage. He was the young pastor of a seemingly average church. What gave him the power to resist the flattery and the promise of access that seduced so many?

So I found his phone number. He is still alive and an active church member in California. I called him. Huffman, now 83, was surprised at the questions. He promised to try to answer, but it has been a half century and people don’t ask much about Nixon anymore.

“Now, what is this story that you’re working on?” he said.

For the past several years, I’ve been writing a religious biography of Richard Nixon. He was a Quaker, as many people know, but he wasn’t very devout. He wasn’t pious. In fact, he was amoral, driven by ambition and resentment, his actions moderated only by his shame.

That didn’t serve him well. He ended his presidency in disgrace. To date, Nixon is the only US president forced to resign—making him an odd choice for a religious biography.

But his story is a religious story. Religion was at the root of who Nixon was, the struggle beneath all his successes and failures. Like Jacob in the Bible, Nixon wrestled with God. But he couldn’t accept God’s blessing, wouldn’t accept that the Creator of the universe loved him and he didn’t have to earn that love.

I read a lot about Nixon, writing my book. And a lot by him. I went to the former president’s archives in Yorba Linda, California, and read his memos, notes, and speeches. I looked through his extensive correspondence and read the letters he exchanged with ministers when he was a congressman, senator, vice president, and president.

Nixon’s life and career were actually influenced a lot by ministers. That hasn’t been noted much by previous biographers, who have been more interested—for obvious reasons—in Nixon’s political trajectory than his spiritual journey.

But a Catholic priest named John Cronin, for example, convinced a fresh-faced Congressman Nixon that Communism was the most important issue of the day. Nixon remade himself into a cold warrior and rose to national prominence as a Communist fighter under the guidance of that priest.

When he was vice president, Nixon became friends with evangelist (and CT founder) Billy Graham. Graham helped Nixon shape his public profile. He introduced Nixon to influential religious leaders and coached him on how to talk about his faith while campaigning. At one point, Graham even drafted a political speech that Nixon could give. I found it in the archives.

Nixon’s political career cratered in the 1960s after he lost his first presidential campaign and then, embarrassingly, a race for governor of California. It was another minister who inspired him to pick himself up and run for president again: Norman Vincent Peale, who was famous for his book The Power of Positive Thinking.

President Richard Nixon with Billy Graham (left) and choir director Allen W. Flock (right) at a church service in the White House.

When the controversy over the cover-up of the Watergate break-in started to consume Nixon’s presidency, though, none of these men were there to counsel him to do the right thing.

Cronin, the Catholic priest, had fallen out of the habit of corresponding with Nixon after Nixon’s election in 1968. There’s no evidence he tried to write Nixon about Watergate.

Peale, who had been Nixon’s pastor, didn’t say anything either. The popular preacher was, in truth, a timid and anxious man. His letters to Nixon show a tendency toward wheedling. He wanted Nixon to like him so much that he would never challenge him.

If any minister were going to say something to Nixon, it probably should have been Graham, the “pastor to presidents.” He told Nixon to go to church, read his Bible, and trust Jesus. He spoke clearly and forcefully about the importance of public morality and moral leaders, and he praised Nixon, specifically, for setting a good example for the nation.

But Graham also had a tendency to get distracted by politics. He might call to tell the president he was praying for him and end up talking about the issue of the day or campaign strategy. Graham’s biographer, historian Grant Wacker, told me that the evangelist had an addiction to politics. Graham knew it could obsess him and pull him away from his calling. He would resist for a while but then fall off the wagon.

Graham also could convince himself that partisan victories were critical to the work of telling the world about Jesus. Once in 1971, on a yacht ride up the Potomac with Nixon, Graham said there “wouldn’t be any hope” for evangelism or evangelicalism unless Nixon won reelection. An electoral victory was “absolutely imperative,” he said, implying that he meant not only for the country but also the kingdom of God.

Graham didn’t know it, but he was using the same we-have-to-win logic that would justify the break-in and bugging of the Watergate a year later.

President elect Nixon and his family with Norman Vincent Peale (right) at Peale’s church in New York.

He didn’t speak clearly about the morality of Watergate before it happened—or about the cover-up after. Of course, we can’t know for sure the details of every conversation Graham had with Nixon, but we do have Graham’s diary, recordings of their phone conversations, and notes from people who were in the room (and on the boat) when they talked.

And there’s no evidence that the pastor to presidents ever talked about Watergate in the way Nathan talked to David, no evidence he ever said something like “You are the man.”

Almost no one did.

Nixon organized worship services in the White House instead of going to a church in the nation’s capital like his predecessors. The ministers who came and preached had the opportunity to say something convicting, to speak up. Instead, again and again, they hesitated.

They would show deference, speak in abstractions, and often indulge in a bit of flattery—after all, they felt flattered themselves to be invited to preach in the White House. They would sometimes draft sermons with tough language but then tone it down.

“How do you talk in a prophetic way,” one Episcopal minister said, “without making it look as if you’re taking advantage of the president in his own home?”

I asked John Huffman that question.

The retired pastor, who stepped down as senior minister of St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Newport Beach, California, in 2009 and from CT’s board of directors in 2015, said misusing the pulpit is a real concern. When you’re preaching to people with power and influence, there is a temptation there that a minister needs to guard against.

“It can be a very selfish act to attack a politician,” Huffman told me. “It can be totally self-aggrandizing. You can’t do that.”

But it can also be tempting, Huffman said, to forget your responsibility and calling: “It’s easy to nod along and not really know what you’re nodding at, except that you’re in the halls of power.”

Huffman said he may have resisted when others didn’t because of his father, John Huffman Sr. The elder Huffman was a minister who became president of Winona Lake School of Theology (now Grace Theological Seminary) in Indiana.

He brought the younger Huffman along as a teenager as he raised funds for the school. Huffman remembers that his father showed no fear as he solicited donations from wealthy industrialists, oilmen, and movie industry moguls. His father was respectful but didn’t bow and scrape.

“My dad said everyone puts their pants on one leg at a time,” Huffman said. “That sounds stupid, but it’s really profound. Every human being is a human being. Every human being is fearful—fearful of being discovered as less than they want to come across.”

Huffman didn’t intend to follow his father into ministry at first. He was interested in politics. He wanted to be like his hero—Richard Nixon.

As a student at Wheaton College, Huffman was president of the Young Republicans, and one of his big accomplishments was bringing Nixon to campus to speak during the 1960 campaign. Huffman remembers thinking he was like Nixon. He had the same instincts, the same work ethic, religious childhood, and hungry ambition.

As he got older, though, Huffman began to worry about the moral hazards of politics. There are so many temptations to compromise. Sam Shoemaker—one of the great preachers of the era—told young Huffman he might do something significant in public service, but he might not. Why gamble? Especially when you knew the eternal value of a life in ministry.

So Huffman chose to become a pastor. He went to Princeton Theological Seminary and got a job assisting Norman Vincent Peale at Marble Collegiate Church in New York City. One of his responsibilities was working the church’s “side door” on Sundays.

“The side door was where the privileged people came in,” Huffman said. “I got to know some celebrity types that way. Peale had a whole retinue of very high-profile businesspeople.”

One of the privileged people that came through that door in the mid-1960s was Nixon, then in his “wilderness years” before running for president a second time. Huffman welcomed him and his family and got to know them, Sunday after Sunday.

Huffman, again, learned the importance of seeing influential people as people, just like everyone else. They had mundane spiritual needs, even if they came through a special entrance.

President Nixon and his family with John Huffman (right) on Easter Sunday at Key Biscayne Presbyterian Church.

That was a lesson he took with him to his first full-time ministry role at Key Biscayne Presbyterian Church on an island off the coast of Miami. Despite the exotic location, the church was not Huffman’s first choice. His first, second, and third applications for ministry jobs got rejected, though, and the church in Florida wanted him.

He didn’t tell them he couldn’t find Key Biscayne on a map. He accepted the call and moved down to the resort town in 1968.

That summer, Huffman went for a run with his dog Kelly and happened to meet Nixon on the beach. The presidential candidate—in swim trunks, with a towel around his neck—was relaxing with his close friend, a banker named Bebe Rebozo, who lived in Key Biscayne and happened to attend Huffman’s church.

That Sunday, Nixon attended too. It became a regular thing, a few times a year, for Nixon to escape the White House, visit Rebozo, and go to church.

“It was scary and exciting,” Huffman recalled. “I thought I was heading into oblivion. Then the president, my hero from when I was a kid, is in my pew.”

Huffman, at the time, was just 28. He decided not to preach to Nixon specifically. He wouldn’t bring the controversies about the Vietnam War, student protests, or the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency into his sermons. He trusted the president needed to hear the same Good News as the rest of his congregation.

Then Watergate happened.

Nixon tried to hide it—blaming it on underlings, protesting he knew nothing about it—but the cover-up started to unravel. Huffman told Rebozo he was worried about Nixon. He said Nixon wasn’t handling things in a biblical way. He should be honest and confess.

The next time Nixon traveled to Key Biscayne, the banker grabbed Huffman and told him not to say the word Watergate in his sermon. Forbade him from mentioning it.

Huffman didn’t. But he did speak to Nixon privately. “You need to confess,” he told Nixon. “You need to be honest with the American people.”

And Huffman preached that Sunday on Acts 26:26: “The king is familiar with these things, and I can speak freely to him. I am convinced that none of this has escaped his notice, because it was not done in a corner.”

The message was clear. The cover-up was immoral. Huffman didn’t add the words of Nathan, but he might as well have said to the president, “You are the man!”

As I write in my book, that sermon hit Nixon. It sent him into retreat. In that isolation, ultimately, his presidency ended.

To me, Huffman’s choice to speak up seems to be a moment of moral courage. It’s a moment when an evangelical—instead of chasing flattery, instead of getting drunk on proximity to power or caught up in partisanship—spoke the truth with clarity.

Huffman recalls it differently. All these years later, he remembers how he felt about Nixon and how he saw in himself the same weaknesses as Nixon, the same susceptibility to sin. He remembers he said the thing he would have wanted someone to say to him as a faithful friend.

“I really loved the man,” Huffman told me.

It makes me think of all the other ministers who didn’t challenge Nixon when they knew he was like a lost sheep, gone astray. I think of all the other powerful leaders caught up in scandal, from King David to Bill Clinton to Donald Trump, and the ministers around them hoping to catch a little reflection off the light of their celebrity.

What made Huffman different? I think it was love.

Daniel Silliman is CT’s news editor. His book One Lost Soul: Richard Nixon’s Search for Salvation will be released on August 8, on the 50th anniversary of Nixon’s resignation.

This article appeared in the July/August, 2024 issue of Christianity Today as "For the Love of Nixon".

- More from Daniel Silliman

Theology

Eric Liddell’s Legacy Still Tracks, 100 Years Later

Paul Emory Putz

With his refusal to race on Sunday, the Scottish sprinter showcased a bigger story about Christians in sports.

Illustration by Nate Sweitzer

Eric Liddell took his starting spot in the finals for the 400 meters. More than 6,000 paying spectators filled the stadium on that warm Friday night in Paris, a century ago, when the starting pistol fired and the Scottish runner took off from the outside lane.

And 47.6 seconds later, Liddell had set a new world record, leaving his competitors in awe and his fans grasping to make sense of what they had just witnessed.

Liddell’s sprint at the 1924 Paris Olympics is a canon event in the history of Christian athletes, and not just because of what happened on the track. Liddell entered the 400-meter race only after learning that the heats for his best Olympic event, the 100 meters, would fall on a Sunday. He withdrew from that event, holding fast to his Christian convictions about observing the Sabbath.

Sports matter to us in large part because of the cultural narratives that give them significance. It’s not just that athletes run, jump, reach, and throw with remarkable skill. It’s that those bodily movements are fashioned and framed into broader webs of meaning that help us make sense of the world around us—both what is and what ought to be.

Liddell’s performance in 1924 lingers because it was caught up in cultural narratives about what it means to be a Christian athlete and, by extension, what it means to be a Christian in a changing world.

His story inspired the 1982 Oscar-winning movie Chariots of Fire, which brought his accomplishments back into the spotlight and led to numerous inspirational biographies focused on his Christian legacy.

And as the Olympics return to Paris this summer, Liddell’s name is part of the centennial commemorations. Ministries in Scotland and France are putting on events. The stadium where he raced has been renovated for use in the 2024 games and displays a plaque in his honor. His story still has something to teach us, whether we’re Christian athletes or watching from the stands.

The son of missionaries, Liddell was born in China but spent most of his childhood at a boarding school in London. He was shaped by a broad British evangelicalism, developing habits of prayer, Bible reading, and other practices of the faith. He also had a knack for sports, both rugby and track. Speed was his primary weapon. Standing just 5 feet 9 inches and weighing 155 pounds, his slim frame disguised his strength.

Although he had an unorthodox running style—one competitor said, “He runs almost leaning back, and his chin is almost pointing to heaven”—it did not stop him from emerging as one of Great Britain’s best sprinters. By 1921, as a first-year college student, he was recognized as a potential Olympic contender in the 100 meters.

Although he was a Christian and an athlete, he preferred not to emphasize these combined identities in a public way. He went quietly about his life: studying for school, participating in church, and playing sports.

Things changed in April 1923 when 21-year-old Liddell received a knock on his door from D. P. Thomson, an enterprising young evangelist. Thomson asked Liddell if he would speak at an upcoming event for the Glasgow Students Evangelical Union.

Thomson had toiled for months trying to draw men to his evangelistic events, with little success. As sports writer Duncan Hamilton documented, Thomson reasoned that getting a rugby standout like Liddell might attract the men. So he made the ask.

Eric Liddell’s Olympics portrait, July 1924.

Later in life, Liddell described the moment he said yes to Thomson’s invitation as the “bravest thing” he had ever done. He was not a dynamic speaker. He did not feel qualified. Stepping out in faith called something out of him. It made him feel as if he had a part to play in God’s story, a responsibility to represent his faith in public life. “Since then the consciousness of being an active member of the Kingdom of Heaven has been very real,” he wrote.

The decision carried with it potential dangers too—particularly, Liddell himself would recognize, the danger of “bringing a man up to a level above the strength of his character.” Success in sports did not necessarily mean that an athlete had a mature faith worthy of emulation. Yet sharing his faith brought greater meaning and significance to Liddell’s athletic efforts, helping him integrate his identities as a Christian and an athlete.

Liddell’s decision to speak up in April 1923 set the stage for his decision later that year to step down from Olympic consideration in the 100 meters. He communicated his intentions privately and behind the scenes, with no public fanfare. It became newsworthy, as Hamilton recounts in his biography of Liddell, only when the press became aware and began sharing their opinions.

Some admired his convictions, while others saw him as disloyal and unpatriotic. Many could not comprehend his inflexible stand. It was just one Sunday, and at a time when Sabbath practices in the English-speaking world were rapidly changing. Besides, the event itself would not happen until the afternoon, giving Liddell plenty of time to attend church services in the morning. Why give up a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to bring honor to himself and his country?

Liddell recognized that the world was changing. But the Sabbath, as he understood and practiced it, was to be a full day of worship and rest. It was, for him, a matter of personal integrity and Christian obedience.

And he was not alone in his convictions. In the United States into the 1960s, many evangelicals continued to see full Sabbath observance as a central part of Christian witness. To compete on Sunday was a sign that one might not be a Christian at all—an indicator, one evangelical leader suggested, “that we are either ‘dead in trespasses and sins’ or sadly backslidden and desperately in need of revival.”

Throughout the public debate about his decision, Liddell did not raise complaints about discrimination and oppression. He did not blast the Olympic committee for their refusal to accommodate Sabbath-keeping Christians. He did not take aim at fellow Christian athletes for their willingness to compromise and compete on Sunday. He simply made his decision and accepted the consequences: Gold in the 100 meters was not an option.

If this were the end of the story, Liddell’s example would be an inspiring model of faithfulness—and also a forgotten footnote in history. There is no Chariots of Fire without his triumph in the 400 meters.

Few expected him to have a chance in the significantly longer race. Still, he did not arrive in Paris unprepared. He had a supportive trainer who was willing to adapt, working with Liddell for several months to build him up for both of his Olympic events (Liddell also won bronze in the 200 meters).

He also inadvertently had the science of running on his side. As John W. Keddie, another Liddell biographer, has explained, many then believed that the 400 meters required runners to pace themselves for the final stretch. Liddell took a different approach. Instead of holding back for the end, Keddie said, Liddell used his speed to push the boundaries of what was possible, turning the race into a start-to-finish sprint.

Liddell later described his approach as “running the first 200 meters as hard as I could, and then, with God’s help, running the second 200 meters even harder.” Horatio Fitch, the runner who came in second, saw things in a similar light. “I couldn’t believe a man could set such a pace and finish,” he said.

Beyond the tactics Liddell deployed was a trait that truly great athletes possess: He delivered his best performance when it mattered the most. Running free, without fear of failure, he rose to the occasion in a remarkable way, surprising fans, observers, and fellow competitors. “After Liddell’s race everything else is trivial,” marveled one journalist.

News of Liddell’s achievement quickly spread back home through the press and the radio. He arrived in Scotland as a conquering hero; those who had criticized his Sabbath convictions now praised him for his principled stand.

Biographer Russell W. Ramsey described how he spent the next year traveling with Thomson throughout Great Britain on an evangelistic campaign, preaching a simple and direct message. “In Jesus Christ you will find a leader worthy of all your devotion and mine,” he told the crowds.

Then, in 1925, he departed for China, spending the rest of his life in missionary service before dying in 1945 of a brain tumor at age 43.

In the decades after Liddell’s death, Thomson published books about his protégé and friend, ensuring Liddell’s story remained in circulation among British evangelicals. Track and field enthusiasts in Scotland continued to recount his 1924 triumph as a source of national pride, with faith a key part of his identity. Conservative Christians in the United States spoke of Liddell too, as an example of an athlete who maintained his Christian witness while pursuing athletic excellence.

These groups kept the flame burning until 1981, when Chariots of Fire came out, bringing Liddell’s fame to greater heights—and turning him into an icon for a new generation of Christian athletes navigating their place in the modern world of sports.

Of course, some of the tensions Liddell grappled with in 1924 have grown more challenging in our own day—and new ones have been added. The issue of Sunday sports, on which Liddell took his principled stand, seems like a relic of a bygone era. The question these days is not whether elite Christian athletes should play sports on a select few Sundays; it’s whether ordinary Christian families should skip church multiple weekends of the year so their children can chase travel-team glory.

Eric Liddell is paraded around the University of Edinburgh after his Olympics victory.

In this environment, Liddell’s story is not always a direct analog to current situations. It can also leave us with more questions than answers: Is the tendency to turn to celebrity athletes as leading voices for the Christian faith healthy for the church? How successful was Liddell’s witness, really, if his stand for the Sabbath seemed to have no effect on long-term trends? Does Liddell’s example suggest that faith in Christ can enhance one’s athletic performance and lead to success in life? If so, how do we make sense of Liddell’s death at such a young age?

The beauty of Liddell’s remarkable Olympic performance is not that it answers those questions in a precise way. Instead, it reaches us at the level of imagination, inviting us to delight in the possibility of surprise and to consider what is within reach if we prepare ourselves well for the opportunities that come our way.

It gives us Liddell as both the martyr willing to sacrifice athletic glory for his convictions and the winner showing that Christian faith is compatible with athletic success. It presents us with Liddell as the evangelist using sports as a tool for a greater purpose and as the joyful athlete engaging in sports simply for the love of it—and because through it he felt God’s presence.

As we watch the Olympics this year, those multiple meanings—and new ones besides—will be on display as Christian athletes from all over the world take their shot in Paris. Some will know of the famous Scottish runner, and some will not.

But to the extent that they consciously and intentionally strive after Jesus in the midst of their sports—to the extent that they seek to find the meaning of their experience bound up within the bigger story of God’s work in the world—they’ll be following in Liddell’s footsteps.

And maybe they’ll run a race or make a throw or respond to failure in a way that evokes surprise and wonder—and a way that takes its place in a broader narrative about being a faithful Christian in a 21st-century world.

Paul Emory Putz is director of the Faith & Sports Institute at Baylor University’s Truett Seminary.

This article appeared in the July/August, 2024 issue of Christianity Today as "The Sprinter Who Held Fast".

- More from Paul Emory Putz

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