Two Cheers for the Wedding Industrial Complex

Brad East

For all their faults, our marriage rituals present family and promise-keeping as beautiful, desirable, and worth the effort.

Elisabeth Arnold / Unsplash / Edits by CT

It’s summer, and for a professor at a Christian college—an evangelical school in the South, no less—that means it’s wedding season. On my campus, jokes about “ring by spring” still abound.

Talk about a counterculture. Few things are less in tune with the zeitgeist. Americans are marrying and having children later than ever. And even in evangelical contexts, many young people’s parents, pastors, and professors are advising delayed marriage: Focus first on a degree, on establishing a career, on saving some money. Worry about a mate closer to 30 than to 20—and certainly don’t get pregnant! These things will take care of themselves.

This advice is well-intended, perhaps autobiographical. Many Christians in older generations remember and reject the old stigma of singleness into one’s 30s. They may have married young themselves, then come to regret it—or they may worry that young people, especially young women, will follow the script of early marriage and childbearing to their own regrets.

There’s also some real wisdom here: Don’t get married just because it seems like the next step on a checklist. Moreover, don’t make promises you can’t keep. Take marriage seriously, even if that means waiting for a few years.

The risk, though, is that a spouse may not be waiting for you. Marriage and children aren’t just arriving later; increasingly, they aren’t arriving at all. From my vantage point, the problem is not that too many of my students want to get married too young. It’s the opposite. They’ve gotten the memo from their families, churches, and secular culture alike. They know about the likelihood and pain of divorce. They know babies are demanding and expensive. They know pop culture rolls its eyes at lifelong monogamy. No one needs to remind them of these things.

But what a few of us might consider doing—I certainly do—is telling them how great marriage is. How wonderful children are. How beginning to forge a family in your 20s is a perfectly reasonable thing to do. How money is always a stressor; so why not share the load? How praying and stepping out in trust isn’t crazy, though it’s certainly risky.

As it happens, there is one part of the wider culture that doesn’t work at cross purposes with this message. And yet this phenomenon is also, in my experience, a whipping boy for Christian punditry and hand-wringing. I’m talking about the wedding industrial complex.

I doubt I need to enlighten you on this topic. The billions spent annually. The ballooning budgets. The influence of Pinterest and Instagram. The fairy-tale wedding that caps the romantic comedy plot line, from meet-cute to happily ever after.

There is much to criticize here, I don’t deny. Gone are the days of a simple ceremony with your congregation, with cake and punch and decorations arranged by the same church ladies who changed your diapers so many years ago. Now the expectation is that the ceremony be picturesque, professionally photographed and recorded—the party of the year. (Guests have expectations, you know.) Parents go into debt. An already stressful time collapses under its own weight. And the point of it all threatens to be forgotten: Namely, that two people are being joined in holy matrimony.

Yet even if we can’t give three cheers for the wedding industrial complex, I can still muster one or two. So far as I can tell, it’s one of the few remaining cultural institutions that exert any kind of positive pressure on young people to get married.

For all its faults, our ritual of elaborate weddings presents marriage, family, promises, and love itself as beautiful. Desirable, even. The industry provides permission to want to be married, and to kick it off in grand style.

The wedding industrial complex also holds a connection to faith that most of our public life has lost. Even nonreligious people want to be married by a minister; churches remain popular wedding venues; God often gets more than nominal mention; Scripture or Communion or both are features of the ceremony. Tradition reigns. Like funerals, weddings are one of very few remaining occasions to follow wise scripts written long before we were born. We find ourselves, sometimes to our surprise, disposed to follow where they lead.

One place they continue to lead is the making of promises. Three decades ago, the theologian Robert Jenson remarked that in an age when our culture has lost faith in promise-keeping, the church could be an outpost of promises made and kept. Jenson was onto something. Year after year, we lose reasons to trust publicly made promises, including marital ones.

Yet there also endures an ineradicable hunger both to witness them and to be bound by such pledges. I continue to marvel at the earnest stubbornness of supposedly secular wedding ceremonies, in which grooms and brides simply refuse to stop making vows to each other. They do it in front of people who won’t let them forget it, and they persist in invoking the name of the Lord.

I am not so foolish as to think this ceremonial persistence reflects abiding faith or that it mitigates the scandal of divorces, Christian and otherwise. But neither am I so cynical as to see in it nothing but empty formulas and rote traditions. And I think we should celebrate that, against all odds, people continue to see weddings as holy feasts worth the money, the time, and the headache.

This summer, I officiated my first wedding, and I have another one next month. My wife gave me a rule of thumb: If people I love or students I’ve taught honor me with the invitation, then I had better have a good reason to decline. She’s right. I want more weddings, not fewer. I’m the kook on campus telling these crazy kids to go for it, aren’t I?

If that means calling a truce with Brides magazine and The Knot and even Instagram, so be it. The world may mean it for ill, but God means it for good. Maybe “ring by spring” isn’t such a joke after all.

Brad East is an associate professor of theology at Abilene Christian University. He is the author of four books, including The Church: A Guide to the People of God and Letters to a Future Saint: Foundations of Faith for the Spiritually Hungry.

- More from Brad East

Church Life

When My Sermon Riled Our City

Keith Simon

Preaching on sex and gender led to local uproar and national headlines. Here are seven things I learned.

Illustration by Elizabeth Kaye / Source Images: Wikimedia Commons

October 13, 2019, seemed like every other Sunday. And it was—until it wasn’t.

My sermon that day on Genesis 1:27 unexpectedly made national headlines, changing my life, our church, and the relationship our church had built with our community.

Since then, I’ve reflected on what transpired and how the things that we learned might help other churches as they prepare to teach on sexuality and gender.

In the fall of 2019, we started a yearlong preaching series through Genesis. We take a team approach to preaching, so we discussed how we wanted to handle Genesis 1:26–28—an incredibly important passage with profound implications. Dave Cover, who cofounded The Crossing church with me, preached on the image of God, and the plan was that I would preach the next week on what it means that humans are created male and female.

Knowing the sensitivity of the topic, I asked Dave and other pastors to read the sermon ahead of time and give me feedback. The final version was a team effort to speak truth in love. And the truth is that Genesis clearly teaches that God created people male or female. What people often derisively call the “gender binary” isn’t rooted in the patriarchy or Victorian ethics. It’s rooted in God’s design. Sex and gender aren’t social constructs.

It’s also true that transgender people will always be welcome to attend The Crossing. In the sermon, I told parents that if your child comes to you and says they are trans, the right response is to hug your child, tell them you love them, and assure them you will work through it together. I said that if someone visited the church, I’d use the name they shared with me. I want to build a relationship with people, not win an argument.

Right before I went up to preach this sermon for the second of three services, I was told that a woman—who used to attend The Crossing but had since left not only our church but also orthodox Christianity—had posted on Facebook that she’d listened to the sermon and that I (and our church) was transphobic. She had a young child who was in the process of socially transitioning, so this was an especially personal issue for her.

That was only the beginning of the blowback. There were threats against our safety, so we heightened security at the church, and the police were more visible in my neighborhood. On Monday morning, some people’s coworkers confronted them asking how they could remain at The Crossing after such a hateful sermon (which many had only heard about secondhand).

We would go on dealing with the aftermath of that sermon for years to come. In the process, I learned seven lessons that may help other churches.

Sometimes teaching biblical truth is costly.

Perhaps the most painful consequence of the sermon was the rupture of our relationship with the True/False Film Festival. This local festival had developed a national reputation, attracting some of the world’s best documentary filmmakers, and The Crossing was a financial sponsor. We’d spent years building friendships with the festival’s founders, who were smart, talented, and very irreligious. Many people in the church volunteered during the festival and many more attended films.

What made the partnership unlikely is the same thing that made it special. Organizations with very different beliefs worked together for the common good. The New York Times and Christianity Today said it was the nation’s only partnership between a film festival and an evangelical church.

But after the sermon on Genesis 1, the festival’s leadership decided they couldn’t partner with us. While the church and the community eventually healed, the partnership never did. This pales in comparison to the prices other Christians have paid for being faithful to Jesus, but being misrepresented in online arguments or called names is never fun.

You can say everything “right” and still be offensive.

Could we have crafted a more truthful and loving sermon? Always. But was it a good-faith effort? Absolutely. My sermon wasn’t designed to stir up controversy but to teach and shepherd the congregation.

It helped me to remember that Jesus said all the right words at the right time with the right tone, and they crucified him. Sometimes Christian truth is offensive no matter how it’s said.

You can act in good faith and still make avoidable mistakes.

I made the mistake of not talking with any transgender people before preaching the sermon. I listened to podcast interviews that featured trans people and read plenty of books on the topic but didn’t have a personal conversation. Would that have changed anything in my sermon? I don’t know. Maybe not. But it would have been wise to listen to trans people in my community before talking about them.

The way you raise the subject matters.

When you preach through books of the Bible, you don’t get to avoid hard topics like sex and gender, but neither can you be accused of selecting texts to pick on one group of people. We addressed the topic because Genesis does, not because we wanted to jump into the middle of the culture war.

Prepare for tough questions in advance.

When the controversy began, it became obvious that we needed to give the church more instruction than could be included in one sermon. Within a few days, we’d emailed a short document responding to questions we’d been asked and false claims we’d heard in the community.

That email went out by the middle of the week, but those intervening days were rough for people in our church. We should have anticipated this need and posted the document online as soon as our services finished on Sunday.

Clear your schedule to meet with people.

The week following the sermon, I reached out to the people who were criticizing me and the church, including the woman whose Facebook post started it all. My wife and I met with her and her husband at a local coffee shop. Once we said hello and sat down, I opened my notebook and asked what they wished I’d known before I preached that sermon.

I asked the same question of every person who was willing to meet with me face to face: What do you wish I’d known? What do you wish I’d said differently? What do you think I need to learn? While I certainly didn’t agree with everything they said, I learned a lot and walked away with more compassion.

Regardless of the size of the congregation, pastors need to set aside time to get together with people who are confused, feel hurt, or just disagree with a controversial sermon. Meeting with people and answering their questions demonstrates humility and respect. If you sit down and engage in good faith, if you focus more on listening than lecturing, you’ll learn something and, in the process, may win people to the truth.

Respond to critics with grace.

What do you do when people say your sincerely held Christian beliefs cause “tremendous pain in our community”? How do you respond when you’re told that your church “discriminates or explicitly devalues LGBTQ+ citizens”?

One morning about a month after my sermon, my phone started blowing up with texts from friends telling me the local NBC affiliate had interviewed an independent bookstore owner who was sponsoring a lunch discussion highlighting books with transgender characters. The intention behind the event was clear when the owner ended the interview with an invitation: “Pastor Simon is welcome to attend.”

I could tell everyone was surprised when I walked into the bookstore. Heck, I was surprised I was there. But I knew that we couldn’t hide. If we disappeared, it would communicate that we were embarrassed or knew we were wrong, and neither was true. If we showed up, if we humbly engaged, it would be much harder to write us off as hateful bigots.

We asked our staff and congregation to use their social media platforms to express appreciation for the True/False Film Festival even after they ended our relationship. We encouraged people to continue to volunteer and attend.

A few weeks later, one of the festival’s cofounders told us that the church’s response was a master class in grace and asked why we did it. We couldn’t take credit. The truth is that we wanted to punch back. We’d even come up with snarky comebacks and ways to spin the story so that we were the good guys and they were the bad guys.

Instead, we told him that we decided we just couldn’t respond that way. We follow Jesus. He loved us when we were his enemies. If we offered a master class on grace, it’s only because our master first showed us grace.

The conversation around sexuality has changed since I preached that sermon back in 2019. I doubt the same sermon would draw as much attention or be as controversial today. But the need to preach on culturally sensitive topics with truth and love will never change.

Keith Simon is a pastor at The Crossing and coauthor with Patrick Miller of Truth Over Tribe: Pledging Allegiance to the Lamb, not the Donkey or the Elephant and the upcoming Joyful Outsiders: Six Ways to Engage a Disorienting Culture (Zondervan, 2025).

- More from Keith Simon

News

Wire Story

After Roe’s Reversal, Most Churches Still Aren’t Involved with a Local Pregnancy Center

Aaron Earls - Lifeway Research

Over two years of new state-level restrictions, younger Christians, Hispanics, and megachurch attendees are more likely to say their congregation supports their community’s alternative to abortion clinics.

Adene Sanchez / Getty Images

Two years ago, the Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade and the right to an abortion. In the aftermath, many churchgoers say they’ve seen their congregations involved in supporting local pregnancy resource centers.

On June 24, 2022, in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Supreme Court opened the door for states to pass laws restricting abortion. In the aftermath, local pregnancy centers have received increased attention. A Lifeway Research study finds 3 in 10 US Protestant churchgoers (31%) have seen at least one type of congregational connection with those local centers since the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

“In a survey of Americans conducted days before the Dobbs decision was leaked, almost two-thirds of Americans agreed churches and religious organizations have a responsibility to increase support for women who have unwanted pregnancies if their state restricts access to abortion,” said Scott McConnell, executive director of Lifeway Research.

“According to those who attend, the majority of Protestant churches in the US are not supporting a pregnancy resource center that exists either separately or as part of their church.”

More than 1 in 8 churchgoers say their church has supported a local pregnancy resource center financially (16%), encouraged those in the congregation to support a center financially (14%) or encouraged the congregation to refer those with unplanned pregnancies to the center (14%).

Another 11 percent say their church has encouraged the congregation to volunteer at a local pregnancy resource center, and 7 percent say the church has had a leader from the center speak at the church. Among those who say their congregation is involved with pregnancy resource centers in some way, the median number of activities churchgoers hear about is two.

https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/TJ7sg

Others aren’t aware of any connection between their congregation and a local pregnancy center. More than 2 in 5 churchgoers (44%) say they haven’t heard of their church being involved with any of these measures to support a local center. Less than 1 in 10 (8%) say there are no such pregnancy centers near their church. Around 1 in 7 (16%) say they aren’t sure how or if their church is involved.

“More than 4 in 10 pregnancies in the US are unintended according to the Centers for Disease Control,” said McConnell. “Changes to the legality of abortion do not change the reality that a large number of women and couples are not planning for the positive pregnancy tests they receive. They need compassion, care and tangible help but are often not open to turning directly to a church for help.”

Often, younger churchgoers and those who attend more frequently are among the most likely to say their church is working with local pregnancy centers. Those in Lutheran congregations and part of smaller churches are among the least likely.

Specifically, churchgoers under 50 (21%) are almost twice as likely as those 65 and older (11%) to say their church has financially supported a local pregnancy center. Restorationist Movement (22%), Baptist (19%), and non-denominational (16%) churchgoers are more likely than Lutherans (7%) to say this is the case at their church.

Additionally, those who attend four times a month or more (20%) are more likely than those who attend one to three times (11%) to have heard about their church giving financially to pregnancy centers. Churchgoers with evangelical beliefs (19%) are more likely than those without such beliefs (12%). And those at the largest churches, worship attendance of 500 or more, (23%) are among the most likely to say their church financially supports local pregnancy resource centers.

In terms of their churches asking them to financially give to such centers personally, adult churchgoers under 35 (23%) and those 35 to 49 (21%) are among the most likely to say their congregation has encouraged such support. Those at the smallest churches, less than 50 in worship attendance, (8%) are among the least likely.

Beyond financial support, churchgoers under 50 are also among the most likely to say their congregation has been encouraged to refer those with an unplanned pregnancy to those resource centers—27 percent of those 18 to 34 and 22 percent of those 35 to 49.

Hispanic Protestant churchgoers (24%) are twice as likely as white churchgoers (12%) to have heard this type of encouragement. Restorationist Movement (22%) and Baptist (16%) churchgoers are more likely than those at Lutheran (8%) or non-denominational (10%) churches to say their congregation has been encouraged in this way.

Those who attend less frequently, one to three times a month, (11%) and those attending the smallest churches, less than 50 in attendance, (10%) are among the least likely to have heard such encouragement in their congregations.

Younger churchgoers are again more likely to have heard calls to volunteer at local pregnancy resource centers. Those 18 to 34 (19%) and 35 to 49 (20%) are more likely than those 50 to 64 (8%) and 65 and over (5%).

Hispanic churchgoers (21%) are more than twice as likely as white (9%) churchgoers to say their church has encouraged them to volunteer. Baptists (13%) and non-denominational churchgoers (12%) are three times as likely as Lutherans (4%).

Again, the less frequent attenders (8%) and those at the smallest congregations (3%) are among the least likely to say they’ve been encouraged by their church to volunteer at local pregnancy resource centers.

Older churchgoers, those who attend less frequently, those at smaller churches and Lutherans are among the least likely to say their churches have had a leader from a pregnancy resource center speak at their church since Roe v. Wade was overturned. White churchgoers (5%) are also half as likely as Hispanic (11%) and African American (10%) churchgoers to say this has happened in their congregations.

For some, their congregations may not be serving with local pregnancy centers because they aren’t aware of any near their churches. Those in the Northeast (15%) are more likely than those in the South (7%) or West (7%) to say that is the case.

Lutheran (14%) and Baptist (10%) churchgoers are more likely than those in Presbyterian/Reformed congregations (2%) to say their church is not near any such centers. Those who attend less frequently (12%) and those attending smaller congregations, less than 50 (15%) and 50 to 99 (12%), are also among the most likely to not be aware of any pregnancy centers nearby.

Regardless of how close a pregnancy resource center may be, some churchgoers aren’t aware of their church having any involvement with pregnancy centers since Roe v. Wade was overturned. Older churchgoers, those 65 and older (56%) and 50 to 64 (49%), are more likely than those 35 to 49 (32%) and 18 to 34 (22%) to say they haven’t heard of any of the five types of involvement.

White churchgoers (47%) and those of other ethnicities (56%) are more likely than African Americans (33%) and Hispanics (32%) to say they’re unaware of their church being involved. Lutherans (53%) are more likely than Baptist (42%) and non-denominational (42%) churchgoers to say they haven’t heard of their congregation being involved with pregnancy resource centers in any of the five ways.

“There is equal opportunity for all churches to point those with unintended pregnancies to help if there is a Christian pregnancy resource center nearby,” said McConnell. “Yet few churches are doing so in a way their congregation notices.”

- More from Aaron Earls - Lifeway Research

Culture

You Can Love Rap, Jesus, and the Color Pink

Interview by Kelsey Kramer McGinnis

The first female artist on Lecrae’s label, Wande talks to CT about being a woman in Christian hip-hop and how the genre can be an entry point for learning gospel truths.

Wande

Courtesy of Proud Refuge

Five years ago, when Yewande Dees became the first female artist with Reach Records, it was a milestone for the Christian hip-hop label and for all of Christian hip-hop. The 28-year-old Nigerian-born rapper, who currently performs as Wande, is one of only a handful of women on the scene.

Wande began as a reporter covering Christian hip-hop online, then took a job in artist development for Reach, the independent label cofounded by Lecrae and Ben Washer.

In 2019, she signed a deal with the label, and since then, her lyricism, charisma, and energy have helped her carve a new path that she hopes other women will be able to follow. Reach recently signed writer and artist Jackie Hill Perry, in another move toward gender parity in a decidedly male-dominated segment of the music industry.

Now based in Atlanta, Wande is bringing her lyrical creativity and flow to collaborations with artists such as Maverick City Music (“Firm Foundation (He’s Gonna Make a Way)”), Lecrae (“Blessed Up”), and TobyMac (“Found”). She has built a loyal following online, connecting with fans through comical send-ups of biblical characters and “get ready with me” videos.

She sees her job as a calling and her music as an opportunity to lead people to worship. Tracks like “Found” showcase her ability to shift between melodic lines and rapped lyrics. Her latest single, “Send That,” featuring Lecrae, is an anthemic declaration of confidence in prayer and the power of the Holy Spirit. It’s unapologetically victorious. “If God is for me, who can come against me? / Send them prayers up and watch him move,” she raps, leading into the first chorus.

Wande spoke with CT about her childhood as the youngest kid in a multifaith immigrant family, her call to pursue a career in the music industry, and the state of the Christian hip-hop scene.

You just released a new single featuring Lecrae, and you’re getting ready to drop a new album this summer. Does life feel busy?

Yes, and I also have a life update! I’m changing my name.

That’s a big change. What made you decide to do it?

I was born in Nigeria, and most of my family is either Muslim or in another faith. My name aligns with the Muslim faith and with reincarnation, and I love Jesus! I never really thought about my name in that way when I was younger, but God brought it to my mind earlier this year and put it on my heart, like, “Hey, I want you to change that up.”

So I’m releasing a new single next month called “Pray for Me,” and that will be under my new name, Anike. It means “someone you cherish and don’t take for granted.” It’s also the title of my new album coming out later this summer. Probably early August.

It seems like the multifaith story of your family has deeply shaped your music and identity. What was it like growing up in a household with both Islam and Christianity?

My family emigrated to Texas when I was a baby. I had the immigrant life at home, and then in that school I had a totally American experience. And that’s all I knew. I knew that at home I eat different food and then at school this other food. Or at home they speak Yoruba to me, which is a Nigerian language, and at school we speak English.

I grew up with that duality, and I see it as a blessing because I feel like it opened my eyes to other cultures and gave me a heart to see beauty in those things.

My mom became a Christian as a young adult. Growing up, I thought it was normal to just choose whatever faith you want. I encountered Jesus for myself when I was in middle school. I was actually allowed to go to church because my dad wanted to be a good person. He didn’t want me to “get saved,” but he thought it was good for me to go for the moral stuff. But I noticed the other kids always got to go to summer camp. I was never allowed to do that, because it was seen as too much beyond Sunday.

I ended up going to a camp in Columbus, Texas, and doing an internship program there, and I encountered Jesus. And that just radically changed my life. After that, all I wanted to do was tell people about Jesus.

Was there any opposition to your conversion from your family?

I came home from camp super excited, like, “Dad, didn’t you hear about Jesus?” and then he’s like, “No, this is too much.” So he decided, “I can solve this, you just won’t go to church anymore.”

There was about maybe a year of severe restriction where I couldn’t go to church, but it was also really cool because my mom became my advocate during that time. She was on her own personal journey as a wife and mother and figuring out, “How do I advocate for my children and for myself?” And eventually she was able to stand up for herself and for me as well.

It was a journey, but God’s been faithful.

So you experienced this powerful conversion in middle school. When did you start to see music as part of your identity?

I honestly never anticipated being a rapper at all. I started playing music because our school had extracurricular activities. It started with middle school band, where it’s just, “pick an instrument,” and I chose the flute. I enjoyed it, and I was good at it.

I started rapping in high school, but ironically it was for a ninth grade biology project. My teacher was like, “Hey, you can either do a PowerPoint presentation or you can do a rap,” and I was like, “Why would you not choose the rap option?”

My life kind of changed after that. I would do these freestyle circles at lunch, and I was trying to tell people about Jesus in 30 seconds of rapping. Then I learned how to record on YouTube and started making videos. It was all very small-scale. But things just evolved from there. I did some talent shows and a church convention in Dallas, and I started to sense God telling me he wanted me to do this as a career.

It was terrifying and totally out of my comfort zone. My whole life to that point, I was on track to become a doctor.

Were you plugged into the Christian hip-hop scene at that point?

Yeah, I listened to Lecrae and Trip Lee, which is crazy because we work together now. I remember getting on YouTube and looking for, like, Christian remixes to Young Money or Lil Wayne, and I actually found some. Then I started finding real Christian rappers like Lecrae, and I ended up seeing him perform at a summer camp.

My freshman year in college, I became a reporter for Rapzilla. I was really aware of the Christian hip-hop landscape, and I was passionate about sharing it with other people.

I wanted to find people who maybe were like, “I love God, but I just don’t have music that matches my vibes.” So I could say, “Here’s some Christian rap, there you go!”

Then, my junior year of college, I got an internship at Reach Records and they offered me a job in A&R [artists and repertoire] after my senior year. After working there for six months, I got an artist contract.

It seems like you were open to working in the industry even if it didn’t mean having a career as a performer. Did you think it was too far-fetched to expect to make it as a rapper?

At the time, I was thinking, “God, I thought you told me to become a rapper, why am I just working for rappers?” But now, I can see God was trying to help me. He introduced me to all the different people I was going to work with in the future. I got to see the back end of contracts and stuff like that, which was helpful when I was trying to negotiate my contract. And he was developing humility in me.

I think God needed to refine certain things in me, like, “Hey, even if you’re not a rapper, are you still content with the life I give you?” So I actually had to come to terms with that. What if my job was only to influence one person to get saved through rapping at a talent show? Would I be content if that’s how God wanted to use me?

But you ended up becoming the first female artist signed to Reach Records. What has it been like to be the first, and to try to help make it easier for other women in the future?

I feel like the oldest sibling. That’s how I describe it right now. It feels like a lot of trial and error. I have to go to the Lord and make sure I never grow bitter. I want to make sure I’m staying joyful. A big thing for me is holding people accountable but also giving grace.

I’ve had to go through a personal journey as well regarding my femininity. This world is so male dominated. I went through a phase where I thought I had to be hard or gangsta. But I think I’ve become more comfortable in just saying that I like feminine things, I like pink. It doesn’t make me a weaker person. It’s just who God created me to be, and I’m leaning into that.

There have been some hard moments, though. There was one producer who made a record with me, then took all my beats and wouldn’t give them back when it was time to finalize and turn it in. So I had to start all over. No one at Reach had ever had that happen before. They don’t usually try guys like that.

And there are other little things, like hair and makeup. Our team has had to learn that I need time to do all that. On tour, they’re like, “Wake up! Brush teeth, Bible study onstage!” And I’m like, “Yeah, I love Jesus, bro, but I need a certain amount of time! I don’t want to look crazy.”

But honestly, I think we’re in a pretty good spot. We’re seeing more features on tracks, and women are getting signed. Now we need people to support women by coming out to shows and supporting women doing their own tours. To get to the next level, we need people coming out to shows and supporting these women so they can sustain a career.

You’ve collaborated and performed with Maverick City Music on songs like “Firm Foundation.” How do you think about the relationship between your performance and worship?

I think a lot of artists actually have a heart for worship. I like having songs that reflect up and aren’t just giving glory to me. But it’s in the planning stages, you have to think about your choruses, what you can do to lead people into worship. That’s been something I’ve been really intentional about in my upcoming album.

And I think this has to come in the early stages of writing and creating. Sometimes when I write, I’m thinking about my life and something I’m feeling or going through, but then when I get to a show, I realize, “Man, I really wish I could have led people into worship right then.” Then you go back to the studio and you think about what you need to say to help lead people into worship or create a certain atmosphere.

Reach Records is 20 years old this year. The Christian hip-hop industry is growing. What makes you hopeful when you look at the scene and think about its future?

I think what makes me the most hopeful is that the artists really love Jesus.

You have artists who are going to influence people for Christ, but on top of that, you’re gonna get quality music. They’re pushing the quality forward while being adamant about being outspoken about their faith.

This music has been a great entry point for people who are open to exploring God but don’t feel “holy” enough to go looking for Christian music. In a way, the music is discipling people by giving them a soundscape that they enjoy, that sounds like what they would normally listen to, but the words speak about Jesus.

People can listen to this music and not know they’re listening to a Christian song. And I think it’s so cool, because this music can live in multiple spaces without feeling intrusive, but at the same time, truth is being spoken.

https://open.spotify.com/embed/playlist/2PwzDOEy9KDUyzOvkt9Y99?si=3c1e807f9cfb4251

- More from Interview by Kelsey Kramer McGinnis

Books

Review

Three Evangelical ‘Founding Fathers’ and Their Complicated Relationships to Slavery

Robert W. Caldwell III

A new book steers between full condemnation and “men of their time” dodges.

Illustration by Mallory Rentsch Tlapek / Source Images: WikiMedia Commons

How should white evangelicals think about slavery and past evangelical heroes who affirmed its practice? A new book by historian Sean McGever, Ownership: The Evangelical Legacy of Slavery in Edwards, Wesley, and Whitefield, helps us process these matters with historical accuracy and Christlike humility.

Ownership: The Evangelical Legacy of Slavery in Edwards, Wesley, and Whitefield

Sean McGever (Author), Vincent E. Bacote (Foreword)

240 pages

$17.29

For many white American evangelicals, the issue of slavery is not much of an “issue” at all. After all, we live in a day where every country in the world outlaws the practice (at least on paper). We are rightly repulsed by practices reminiscent of slave ownership, like human trafficking and sweat shops. And we celebrate past evangelical leaders, like William Wilberforce, who tirelessly campaigned against the institution. Our denominations no longer split over slave ownership as they did prior to the American Civil War. Slavery, we thankfully conclude, lies in the rearview mirror of history.

Without denying the truth in these claims, there are two problems with this assessment. First, slavery, broadly construed, is still a live issue for a significant number of Americans, many of whom are believers in Christ. Just like Jews and Muslims carry with them a historical sense—a “communal memory,” if you will—of atrocities done to their ancestors by Christians (like pogroms and the Crusades), many Black Americans carry a remembrance of their ancestors’ subjection to slavery, segregation, and other forms of injustice. Consequently, they experience slavery and its aftereffects as painfully present realities.

Second, many of our white evangelical heroes have a complex relationship with slavery, a fact that can complicate our contemporary witness. What are white evangelicals saying when we honor such historical figures as towering exemplars of Christlikeness while treating their slave ownership (if we mention it at all!) as a minor character blemish, something “everybody was doing” at the time?

In Ownership, McGever helps readers confront these issues by examining the ministries of Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758), John Wesley (1703–1791), and George Whitefield (1714–1770), three 18th-century figures who are arguably the founding fathers of modern evangelicalism. Each affirmed the institution of slavery at some point in their lives, yet only one (Wesley) came to change his mind on the subject.

Working within the system

Ownership is divided into four sections. The first takes up the influences, regarding slavery and its place in the world, that Edwards, Wesley, and Whitefield inherited. The second examines how each was involved with the institution. The third considers how Wesley came to oppose slavery and his actions against it. And the fourth reckons with the legacies of each leader in light of their relationships to slavery.

The book gives introductory biographies of each man before launching into two informative chapters that provide historical context: one on the history of slavery, and one surveying English and Puritan views on the subject. Here, McGever describes the attitude that prevailed in much of Christianity until the 1700s. As he puts it, “Slavery existed in the world as a result of sin and evil, and … the best course of action was to work within that system.”

Edwards, Wesley, and Whitefield naturally adopted this outlook. In their ministerial training, as they studied the consensus found in English and Puritan writers on slavery, they likely absorbed the following lessons: White Christians must avoid the improper acquisition of slaves (“man-stealing” is forbidden, but enslaving prisoners of war or the offspring of slaves is allowable); the slave relationship must be guided by Christian virtue (slaves are to be obedient, masters temperate); and slaves should be evangelized, but conversion does not imply emancipation.

This framework had centuries of the Western Christian tradition preceding it. It was thus quite natural, as each man engaged the surrounding socioeconomic world, for them to participate in slavery to varying degrees.

Edwards ministered in colonial Massachusetts and is known as America’s foremost evangelical theologian. Several of his disciples (including one of his sons, Jonathan Jr.) were known for their strong stances against slavery, which they derived from Edwards’s ethical writings. Yet Edwards himself failed to fully appreciate the antislavery implications nascent in his own works.

Consider that he and his wife, Sarah, enslaved numerous Black Africans, including Venus, a 14-year-old girl they purchased in 1731, and Titus, a 3-year-old boy purchased in 1756. While manumission was an option for handling one’s estate in those days—Sarah’s mother, for instance, arranged to free her slaves upon her death in 1740—the Edwardses did not choose this for young Titus, who was passed on to their eldest son Timothy after their deaths in 1758.

In essence, then, Edwards’s relationship with slavery followed the cultural norms of the day. While his writings led many to oppose slavery in the decades after his death, his example did not live up to his ideals.

Whitefield’s example is even more unsettling. Early in his North American ministry, the famous evangelist stopped short of fully supporting legalized slavery in Georgia, where it had been outlawed since the colony’s founding in 1733.

Whitefield oversaw an orphanage in Savannah named Bethesda (“house of mercy”). Bethesda was one of the central ministries of his life, but the harsh economic realities of sustaining it led him to reconsider slavery, viewing it as an option for addressing financial woes at the orphanage. In time, he came to believe that Black slaves were better suited to work amid hot Georgia summers than white indentured servants, who were far more expensive to employ.

Following a kind of anti-Wilberforce trajectory, Whitefield soon became a prominent proslavery lobbyist both in Georgia and England, campaigning for a decade until the colony legalized slavery in 1751. By his death in 1770, he owned 49 slaves, all associated with his orphanage. Though Whitefield was an outstanding evangelist, McGever reveals that he was a short-sighted businessman whose mishandling compelled him to rely upon slave labor so that his “beloved Bethesda” could survive.

Of the three men, John Wesley’s relationship to slavery was the most distinct, and McGever devotes significant attention to his long and slow awakening. Wesley had no exposure to slavery until he visited the Southern colonies in the mid-1730s. There, he and his brother Charles learned of the harsh brutalities committed by some slave owners.

Wesley’s response, however, was not to call for social change but to double down on commitments to evangelize enslaved people. For almost 40 years, as he led the Methodist movement back in England, he wrote nothing on the subject. As McGever suggests, this silence reveals a major blind spot in his social conscience.

Yet Wesley had a gift that neither Edwards nor Whitefield enjoyed: long life. (The latter pair both died in their mid-50s.) When Wesley was almost 70, he began seriously reading antislavery works, and over the next two decades his views changed. He first opposed all forms of slave acquisition and called for slave traders to immediately quit their jobs. In his mid-80s, he came to champion full emancipation.

Though we should be grateful that one of our evangelical founding fathers made the journey to antislavery views, it is stunning to note that it took him 50 years to complete the process, a testimony to the fact that sinful cultural norms are extremely difficult to eradicate from society.

Their blind spots, and ours

McGever excels at narrating the history of Edwards, Whitefield, and Wesley with an irenic tone. While he is clear that their proslavery actions are contemptable, he issues no fiery condemnations. Instead, we come to the humble realization that they were deeply flawed Christians like the rest of us. They may have ascended to the heights of theological acuity, sanctified holiness, and evangelical proclamation, but they did so as individuals who also participated in a system fraught with moral conundrums and evil. They are, in a sense, failed heroes, and we should acknowledge this complexity while telling their stories.

Ultimately, Ownership gives readers a profound historical sense, a recognition that, even among the best of us, social and cultural conventions shape believers in ways that future generations might find troubling. When history is written this way, we naturally ask ourselves, “What are my ethical blind spots, and those of my church and tribe?”

In the last chapter, McGever leads readers in an exercise of self-reflection patterned after the book’s fourfold framework: Have we inherited cultural influences that are biblically and ethically problematic? How are we letting these influences shape our thoughts and behaviors? What actions can we take to love others in more Christlike ways? What kind of legacy do we seek to leave for posterity?

While applying history in this manner is not without its pitfalls, McGever recognizes that humble self-examination, inspired by failed heroes, is a beneficial exercise for individual Christians and for the church at large. Sinful hearts are infinitely resourceful, and sinful patterns are remarkably resistant to change. The lessons of McGever’s book should aid the church as it pursues the Reformation emphasis of semper reformanda, “always reforming” according to the Word of God.

Robert W. Caldwell III is professor of church history at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is the author of Theologies of the American Revivalists: From Whitefield to Finney.

- More from John Wesley

Theology

‘Going for the Jugular’ Does Not Wash Away Sin

Russell Moore

Why the life and death of disgraced culture warrior Paul Pressler should serve as a warning to all of us.

The Fall of the Rebel Angels by Luca Giordano.

Wikimedia Commons / Edits by CT

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

A man named Paul Pressler warned us that a wrong view of authority would lead to debauchery and downgrade. He was right. What he didn’t tell us was that his vision for American Christianity would be one of the ways we would get there.

News did not break about the death of the retired Houston judge, the co-architect of the “Baptist Reformation” that we called “the conservative resurgence,” until days after his demise, probably due to the fact that he died in disgrace.

My colleague Daniel Silliman explains excellently the paradox of Pressler’s public and private life. According to multiple serious and credible allegations by named people, with corroboration from multiple others and over a very long period of time, Pressler was a sexual molester of young men and boys. As reporter Rob Downen of The Texas Tribune summarizes in his thread, the nature of the corroborating evidence against the late judge is the size of a mountain.

It’s fair to say that most people—certainly most people in Southern Baptist pews—did not know about these reports of such a villainous nature for a long time. But it is also fair to say that almost everyone, at least those even minimally close up, could see other aspects—a cruelty, a viciousness, a vindictiveness—that displayed the means of Machiavelli, not the ways of the Messiah. His defining virtue—for all of us who retold the “Won Cause” mythology of the reformers who “saved the convention from liberalism”—was not Christlikeness but the fact that he was willing to fight.

And fight he did. At a meeting of pastors, he famously used the metaphor that conservatives would have to “go for the jugular” in defeating the moderate Baptist leaders of the time. Commentator Bill Moyers and I would have sharply divergent views on almost every major theological issue, but he accurately described Pressler, in the 1980s, as one who “rules the Southern Baptist Convention like a swaggering Caesar, breaking good men when it pleases him.” Good men, and women, indeed were broken—and some are breaking still.

I write this as a biblical inerrantist—more convinced than ever that the Bible is the verbally inspired Word of God and that it contains, as an oft-repeated line of our confession of faith puts it, “truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter.” There were genuine issues of what any honest observer would call theological liberalism in some places, especially in some sectors of the Southern Baptist academy. But, as I came to realize much later than I should have, some of those deemed to be “liberals” were not so at all. Riffing on a misattributed quote from Andy Warhol, I’d realize that among Baptists, everyone gets a turn at being called a liberal for at least 15 minutes.

And many others, I’ve come to see, liberalized precisely because they saw the mafia-like tactics of those such as Pressler and concluded that, since this “conservatism” was so obviously not of the spirit of Christ, whatever was its mirror image must be right. I don’t agree, as a Christian, that this is the correct response—but, as a human being, I can understand it.

Sometimes, when teaching theology at a Southern Baptist seminary, I would quote Pressler warning about what he called the “Dalmatian theory of inspiration.”

“Once you say that the Bible could contain error, you make yourself the judge of what portions of the Bible are true and which portions are error,” Pressler said in an interview at the height of the Southern Baptist controversy over biblical inerrancy. “It is a presumptuous thing for an individual to edit God. Somebody has called it the spot theory of inspiration. The Bible was inspired in spots, and we are inspired to spot the spots.”

Even before the court actions and subsequent revelations, though, those of us in the conservative wing of Baptist life should have recognized the low view of biblical authority even in the actions Pressler did in full public view. Instead, we were told, and believed, that the stakes were too high—the orthodoxy of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination—to worry that the warlords leading the charge were not like Jesus. Many of us learned to tolerate the idea that one can do evil that good may result—a contradiction of the inerrant Word of God (Rom. 3:8).

The implicit idea is that, if the stakes are high enough, the usual norms of Christian morality—on truth-telling and kindness, gentleness, love, joy, self-control, etc.—can be ignored, at least long enough to fix the problem and return to normal.

This is not an unusual temptation: Let’s violate human rights in order to save human rights. Let’s terminate the Constitution to save the Constitution. Let’s elect sexual abusers to protect the family. Let’s disobey the Bible to save the Bible. Pressler warned (about other people in other situations) that what is tolerated is ultimately celebrated. That’s not always true, of course, but it certainly was in the case of conviction defined as quarrelsomeness.

Before one knows it, one ends up with a partisan definition of truth, all the more ironic for defenders of biblical inerrancy and—with a situational definition of ethics—for warriors against moral relativism. When this happens, the criterion by which the confession of faith is interpreted is through whatever controversy enlivens the crowd. Biblical passages that seem to be violated by one’s “enemies” are then emphasized, while those applying to one’s own “side” are minimized. To do this well, one needs some authoritative, if not authoritarian, leaders to spot the spots that are to be underlined and to skip over those to be ignored.

What difference does it make if one’s liberalism is characterized by ignoring Paul but quoting the Sermon on the Mount, or by ignoring the Sermon on the Mount but quoting Paul? How is one a liberal who explains away the Exodus but takes literally the Prophets, while that’s not true for the one who explains away the Prophets but takes literally the Exodus?

If the Bible is breathed out by God, then all of it is “profitable for teaching, for reproof, for training in righteousness” (2 Tim. 3:16, ESV throughout). A high view of biblical authority does not, by itself, guarantee orthodoxy.

As one of my (very conservative) professors in seminary once told me, “Biblical inerrancy, by itself, is just an agreed-upon table of contents.” The work of interpretation must be done, and that requires the hard work of determining what matters are of “first importance” (1 Cor. 15:3) and what matters can be debated without ending cooperation. True enough.

But one can’t even debate those issues of interpretation in good faith if all sides are operating with their own secret canons-within-the-canon, determined by what to affirm or deny in order to stay in the tribe. That’s what the Bible calls being “tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine” (Eph. 4:14). Whether those winds blow to the left or to the right or to the center, they leave us adrift.

Paul Pressler said he believed in biblical authority. He said that it mattered. It did, and it does. But the last 40 years should teach us that inerrancy is not enough. It does not matter how loudly one sings the words, “the Bible tells me so,” if one’s life and character contradict the words, “Jesus loves me, this I know.” Conviction without character destroys lives, and, in the long-term, reveals itself to have been something other than conviction all along. Sometimes, a battle for the Bible reveals itself to be a battle against the Bible.

It’s easy to see this in the tragedy of one man’s life, one denomination’s history. But the truth is that every one of us are vulnerable to the search for someone to spot the spots we are free to disobey. That’s a hill on which to die. It’s not the same thing, you know: going for the jugular and being washed in the blood.

Russell Moore is the editor in chief at Christianity Today and leads its Public Theology Project.

‘First of Its Kind’: A Jesus Film for the Deaf Community

Interview by Peter Chattaway

A new movie from Deaf Missions tells the gospel story in American Sign Language.

Jesus, played by Gideon Firl, signs forgive to his disciples in Jesus: A Deaf Missions Film.

Courtesy of Deaf Missions

Bible translation is as old as the church—older, even, when you take the Septuagint into account. From Jamaican Patois to Filipino Taglish and New Zealander Māori, translators today are still seeking to faithfully render Scripture for particular communities and cultures.

Subtitling is a kind of translation too. There are whole ministries devoted to dubbing and creating captions for Bible movies and TV shows, including The Jesus Film and The Chosen.

But what if you’re trying to reach people who communicate primarily not through spoken words, but with their hands and facial expressions? How can that act of translation bring new aspects of Scripture to life?

These are the questions behind Deaf Missions, a 50-year-old organization that began its ministry by making VHS tapes of American Sign Language (ASL) New Testament translations and distributing them in the mail. In 2020, Deaf Missions finished the first-ever complete translation of the Bible into ASL. In 2018, they put out a dramatic film, The Book of Job, now available for free on the Deaf Missions app.

Now, Deaf Missions has released Jesus: A Deaf Missions Film. The movie premiered at the Deaf Missions Conference in Texas last April and will be playing in theaters across the US on June 20.

Jesus was produced by a Deaf cast and crew for a primarily Deaf audience. That’s evident in ways aside from the use of ASL. Peter sees rather than hears the rooster crow. There’s a tight close-up on the ear cut off of the high priest’s servant.

Some of the film’s scenes put a uniquely Deaf spin on the biblical story. Jesus gives Simon the fisherman a “name sign” meaning Peter. When Jesus is crucified, the loss of his hands effectively means the loss of his voice—resulting in a bleaker Crucifixion sequence than similar films have portrayed.

Film critic Peter Chattaway spoke with Joseph D. Josselyn, who directed Jesus after serving as a producer on The Book of Job. He spoke over Zoom with two interpreters—one who translated his verbal speech into signs, another who translated Josselyn’s signs into verbal speech. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Why make a film in ASL? What does a film made in ASL give an audience that subtitles or captions don’t offer?

That is a wonderful question to start with. As a Deaf person, my language—our language—is sign language, and sign language includes facial expressions and body movement. I can understand English—I can read captions—but those are separate from what’s happening on screen. They’re disconnected. I have to look to see the action and then look down to see the subtitles.

For a Deaf person, when we see something in sign language, it’s all there; there’s no barrier. I can connect with that actor or that signer immediately. Right now, this whole conversation is a bit cumbersome because we’ve got an interpreter and there’s this lag—whereas if it’s Deaf-to-Deaf, that core connection is uninhibited.

In developing the Jesus film, what kind of decisions did you face? How did they affect the way stories were told?

To cite one example, all four Gospels talk about Jesus saying things on the cross. But when you speak in sign language and your hands have nails through them, you’re not able to speak. I thought what your film did with the Crucifixion was really interesting.

As we were developing the script, we operated with two key principles. First, we knew we didn’t want to do a direct word-for-word translation of what’s in the Bible, so to speak. We wanted to look through Scripture as a whole and really say, “Okay, what was the message of Jesus? How did Jesus show his love?”

And then the second thing that we thought about as we were developing the script was making sure that we’re true to Deaf culture by looking at the story of Jesus through the lens of a Deaf person. All the actors—all of the people involved—are signers.

Regarding the Crucifixion: We wrestled with that scene. We thought, Well, do we stick an interpreter there to sign what would be said? Or depend only on the captions? If a Deaf person has their hands down, how would they express something? You saw what we did. We wanted to be as natural as possible in that moment.

I was also intrigued by some of the narrative choices you made. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen the entire story of Jesus told in a flashback from the day of Pentecost, when people come to see the disciples speaking in tongues—and that was interesting too, the fact that the film begins with sign languages in tongues.

We wrestled with the opening and closing. We didn’t necessarily want to start with the birth of Jesus and then move chronologically. And we were thinking about diversity as well. So, Peter standing there talking about Jesus—we thought, Okay, wait a minute. What if we start with that and then go back and walk through the timeline and then wrap up with that scene, too? And everybody was in agreement that that was the best way to do it.

So in the Pentecost scene, were the disciples speaking in other sign languages?

Yes, yes, they were. I asked the 12 actors to do research on some different sign languages. There was some African sign language happening there, a couple different countries in Asia that use different sign languages. I asked them to sign some of the same phrases but in different sign languages—“God is good,” “God saves.”

This film is graphic at times. There’s the woman with the issue of blood (Matt. 9:20–22; Mark 5:25–34; Luke 8:43–48) and also the scourging of Jesus.

Regarding the bleeding woman, we really wanted to portray her suffering. Being a Deaf audience we’re very, very visual—very dependent on that. When we did our first edit, it was a lot less graphic and actually kind of hard to see unless you knew what was happening.

Same thing with the scourging. We wanted to somehow show Jesus’ suffering for us; our team had a lot of conversation about it. Of course, we’re all familiar with the Mel Gibson movie, and we didn’t want to copy that per se, but we didn’t want to minimize Christ’s suffering either.

It seems like there’s been an increased focus on Deaf actors in films and shows like A Quiet Place, CODA, Only Murders in the Building, Echo, and Hawkeye. The Chosen has leaned into its portrayal of characters who have disabilities: Little James has a limp, Matthew is autistic. How do you see your film as part of that increasing representation of people with disabilities?

I am so grateful that more and more Deaf actors have access to Hollywood; that’s exciting.

In this particular case, one of the things that we felt that was most unique is that we’re the only full sign language production led by a Deaf production staff. There were no language barriers because we could all sign. To the cameraperson, I said, “Hey, move that down”—they understood it right away. Or I’d say to an actor, “Hey, give me a little more expression”—I didn’t have to wait on an interpreter to do that. Our cast was completely Deaf.

I’m hopeful that we’ll see more and more Deaf cinema coming out. The mainstream approach of Deaf people involved in hearing projects is great, but this was the first of its kind and we’re very excited about it.

- More from Interview by Peter Chattaway

Church Life

Pakistani Christian Praised for Documenting Blasphemy Victims. Most Are Muslims.

Jayson Casper

Catholic advocate awarded by US State Department explains why Christians are disproportionately targeted while the Islamic majority predominantly accuses its own.

A father prays at the grave of his slain son who was murdered in an attack on an Ahmaddi mosque in Pakistan.

Daniel Berehulak / Staff / Getty

Last month, mob violence took the life of Lazar Masih of Pakistan. Hundreds of Muslims responded with brutality to accusations that the 74-year-old Christian had desecrated a Quran—even before he could be tried under the nation’s blasphemy law.

A year earlier, in a similar blasphemy accusation, thousands of rioters burned hundreds of 400 homes and 26 churches, sending Christian villagers fleeing for safety. The US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has consistently condemned this hostile climate as unjust, including in a special update issued last December.

“The brutal killing of Lazar Masih is an alarming reminder of the dangers of merely being suspected or accused of blasphemy in Pakistan,” stated USCIRF chair Stephen Schneck. “The country’s draconian blasphemy law signals to society that alleged blasphemers deserve severe punishment, which emboldens private individuals and groups to take matters into their own hands. Pakistani authorities must hold those responsible for his death accountable.”

Accountability is rare.

In 2011, Pakistan executed the assassin of Salman Taseer, a former governor outspoken in his criticism of such laws. But from 1994 to 2023, 95 individuals were killed in blasphemy-related extrajudicial attacks, according to data compiled by the Lahore-based Centre for Social Justice (CSJ). Stretching back to 1987, at least 2,449 people have faced legal accusations.

USCIRF has recommended Pakistan be classified as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) since 2002 for its violations of religious freedom. Created by the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA), the independent bipartisan watchdog lobbies US policy to press reform on egregious offenders.

In January, Rashad Hussein, the US ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom, commemorated the 25th anniversary of IRFA by honoring CSJ executive director Peter Jacob as one of nine award recipients for his dedication to the cause.

In particular, he praised CSJ for compiling Pakistan’s only comprehensive database of blasphemy-related arrests, prosecutions, and killings. Last year, 329 suffered under the law, and 7 people were killed before ever reaching the court.

But of the accused, only 11 were Christians. High-profile cases such as Masih’s tend to reach Western and persecution-monitoring media, overlooking the 247 Muslims who were overwhelmingly targeted in a nation that is 97 percent Muslim.

Christians still suffer disproportionately, but Jacob works in defense of all. Since CSJ has started tracking data, 52 percent of accusations have been lodged against Muslims, 32 percent against Ahmadis (a heterodox Islamic offshoot founded by a messiah-like figure), 12 percent against Christians, 2 percent against Hindus, and 2 percent are of unconfirmed identity. Nearly 600 people are currently detained in prison.

With such data, Jacob lobbies the government. In advance of last February’s elections, he won concrete pledges to address minority rights issues in the platforms of three major political parties, who went on to win over half of Pakistan’s legislative seats.

Obtaining reform is more difficult.

Last year, parliament voted to increase the punishment for blasphemy offenses from three to ten years’ imprisonment. It also added language to forbid insults against the companions of Muhammad, which can implicitly target minority Shiites.

The US State Department has adopted USCIRF’s CPC recommendation since 2018. Open Doors ranks Pakistan No. 7 on its World Watch List of countries where it is hardest to be a Christian.

Jacob founded CSJ in 2014 and has spent 35 years in human rights work. He obtained a master of laws degree from Notre Dame University and served 18 years as executive director of the National Commission for Peace and Justice, established by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference on Pakistan.

CT asked Jacob about hate speech protections for Christians, why Muslims accuse each other of blasphemy, and how faith sustains him in an uphill battle:

Why are Christians disproportionally accused of blasphemy?

Christians take pride in the fact that their leadership supported the creation of Pakistan, and remain politically and socially active in the country while contributing to its welfare and defense.

But this sentiment is in a direct clash with the monolithic view of Pakistan championed by sectarian parties and extremist groups. Persecuting minorities became politically advantageous in the pursuit of religious nationalism, and as Christians resisted the human rights violations against them, their victimization only increased in scope.

Today, it is the Shiite Muslim sect that is predominantly persecuted. But as blasphemy laws were introduced by the military government in the early 1980s, and especially since 1992 when they were fully activated, Christians have been among the foremost victims.

Are the accusations based on fact?

Given the harsh punishments in the law and an environment of hostile social behavior, it is safe to say that blasphemy, in the real sense, is almost nonexistent. The entire range of cases is either totally or partially fabricated.

Experts widely believe that the civil law prohibitions of disrespect to the Quran and insult against the Prophet Muhammad are massively misused. Even so, the laws are discriminatory, religion-specific, and lack the safeguards built into criminal justice systems throughout the world. As the law fails to take into consideration the element of intent, it tends to punish the accused on mere suspicion.

How do Muslim-world blasphemy laws differ from legitimate hate speech protections?

In many Muslim majority nations like Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, blasphemy is not treated as a major offense. But Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, and Iran assign severe punishments up to the death penalty, established through religious decrees. Pakistan’s blasphemy laws came through an illegitimate military dictatorship, and then was later approved by parliament—which was assumed as popular approval—and subsequent political manipulation turned them into a social movement.

Nevertheless, the United Nations has urged all states to repeal blasphemy laws as inconsistent with human rights. Hate speech can cause human suffering. Given that defamation of religion is determined by perception, it is impossible to measure damage to a nonliving concept.

Incitement to violence should be the true area of concern.

Are Pakistani Christians in need of hate speech protections?

The law already has provisions to deal with hate crimes and provocation to animosity. The amendments to create blasphemy laws were therefore unnecessary and have created more tension and sparked more conflict than anything it has resolved.

Religious minorities have become vulnerable regarding their physical safety. In fact, after the 2013 suicide bombing at a church in Peshawar, the supreme court issued orders to ensure the protection of places of worship, secure minority participation in public policy, and promote their economic well-being.

Unfortunately, implementation is still pending.

I do not imagine there are any quick fixes. But building a counternarrative of inclusion can begin by undoing faulty provisions in existing blasphemy laws to add workable safeguards. This would include defining the offense of an insult, exempting unintended actions or speech, and delineating the scope of nonbelievers to speak about another religion.

Why do Muslims accuse each other of blasphemy?

Sectarian differences have rattled society.

Religious intolerance was first directed at the Ahmadi school of thought, a 19th-century offshoot of Islam that developed in India, as its founder claimed to be a prophet. As Muhammad is considered to be the final prophet, the law has barred Ahmadis from calling themselves “Muslims” since 1974, and a decade later prevented them from using Islamic symbols. Deeming their beliefs and practices as heretical, many organizations nurtured hostility toward them even to the point of human rights violations, criminal violence, and outright persecution.

This exclusion and intolerance then became part of Pakistan’s overall social climate. Christians became the next victims, and later Shiites and other minorities have also been on the receiving end.

The state became hostage to an ill-conceived law and unscrupulous implementation, aggravating otherwise ordinary individual community conflicts. Differences in interpretation among Muslim sects caused further tension, as extremists labeled other sects as apostates and blasphemers.

By virtue of their weaker status, minority groups suffer the most.

Does the blasphemy law impede the church and its witness?

There is abundant evidence that these laws have violated the freedom of religion, opinion, and expression of even the most legitimate religious leaders. But furthermore, they have created a generation of disenchanted youth who have turned away from those who use these laws to further their own vested interests.

It is difficult for the new generation to find a genuine discourse on religion.

If Pakistan adopted the American respect for religious freedom, ensuring the noninterference of the state in personal affairs of faith, this would not only be a way forward for the church but result in a transformation of the entire social order.

How does CSJ contribute to this goal?

Although those who joined hands to create Pakistan had varied objectives, there is ample evidence the state was to be a democracy based on the principles of equality and equity. What we see now related to freedom of religion is an aberration and contradiction to this original objective, so we dedicate our efforts to defining an alternative view of Pakistan.

And therefore, as an independent and multifaith human rights organization, we advocate for alternative public policies. We do this primarily by collecting data on the abuse of blasphemy laws, sharing our findings, and proposing remedies for relief.

We argue that the government should set up a commission of inquiry to investigate the scale and magnitude of this abuse and empower it to act on its findings. We seek allies to join in this demand and improve upon our recommendations.

Unfortunately, the authorities have not followed through.

Does personal faith sustain your advocacy?

I was raised Catholic within the ecumenical Christianity of Pakistan, and my worldview was informed primarily by Catholic social teachings. In my youth, I was particularly impressed by liberation theology and its concept of active nonviolence. As such, I have chosen to work for much of my life—but not exclusively—with Catholic organizations.

Jesus was accused of blasphemy—evidence of how a collective entity can level such atrocious charges for their personal gain. His parable of the Good Samaritan teaches us to reach out to all people in their distress, regardless of their identity. The Christian tradition contributed strongly to the development of human rights, as a neutral ground for all human beings.

I believe this is the best outcome of religious and educational experience.

At CSJ, we are strong believers in human goodwill. Our movement has endured difficult times through a deep faith that the people of Pakistan will change the course of our national history. This hope, along with our marginal successes, encourages us to continue the struggle.

Please keep us in your prayers.

- More from Jayson Casper

Theology

I’m Trading My Career for Motherhood. Neither Will Fulfill Me.

Sophia Lee

This isn’t a female problem, but a human one.

Illustration by Mallory Rentsch Tlapek / Source Images: Getty

The sight of an airplane soaring above me used to make my eyes sting with longing. At that time, I was a college dropout, a 52-pound brittle skeleton, years of anorexia having gnawed me down to little more than organs and skin.

Whenever I heard the planes, I would look up at the sky and imagine the people up there, busy living life, probably flying to important business meetings and conferences in Hong Kong or Los Angeles, or whatever important things people who aren’t dying of an eating disorder do. And I would stop to clutch at the visceral ache in my chest, remembering the days when I dreamed of becoming a journalist who traveled the world.

Twenty years later, I am doing exactly that. I write long-form stories from around the world. I am now that busy person on the plane, flying to meetings and conferences. I’ve ridden on horseback in the jungles of Burma to report on an unconventional humanitarian aid organization; flown a two-passenger airplane over the ice kingdoms of remote Alaska to report on Alaska Natives; driven past giraffes and gazelles grazing in open fields while reporting on missions to Chinese migrants in Kenya.

I am finally living the dream that seemed like a fantasy 20 years ago, when I had lost all purpose and meaning in life. But now, pregnant with my second child, I’m giving it up to be a stay-at-home mother, for who knows how long—and I am not okay.

I know how incredibly privileged I am to have the option not to work. I also know it’s a blessing to have children when so many women struggle with infertility and miscarriage. So it’s with some shame that I confess: I’m terrified of the upcoming transition from working mother to stay-at-home mother.

I have nursed this dream to do what I do today for so long, and worked so hard to get here, that giving it up now feels like time has abruptly stopped while I’m mid-somersault in a gymnastics routine, frozen in action, a body stuck in a stiff coil in the air, always falling, never landing.

When I shared this struggle with my discipleship group, our leader—a woman with three grown-up children, who gave up a potential nursing career to be a full-time mother—clicked her tongue. “I know what’s the problem,” she said. “You’re the typical modern woman.”

She’s right. I am indeed a stereotypical modern woman who bristles at stereotypical gender roles. I profess to support women striving for their dreams, whether engineering, piloting, or homemaking—but truth be told, until recently, I could not understand women who chose motherhood as their vocation.

Becoming a mother was never part of my dream. I didn’t buy the dominant message that women can do it all. The math didn’t make sense: You can’t give 100 percent to your career and another 100 percent to motherhood. I chose career, obviously; I didn’t think I had an ounce of maternal instinct. Even the chubbiest, rosiest baby did not make me want to coo. Why would I want to take one home with me?

The conversation about womanhood and motherhood often seems to fall into tiring cultural wars over tropes, not real women: One side declares a woman free to do whatever she wants, to follow her own heart (even as we know our hearts are as volatile, unpredictable, and inconsistent as my toddler).

The other side says women like me have swallowed “diabolical lies” about womanhood. They say a woman’s highest or greatest calling is to be a wife and mother. They say the feminist movement has deceived women into believing that a career can fulfill us and that housewifery is bland and suffocating.

True, society does not celebrate homemakers enough, which can make women who choose to stay at home feel dismissed and small. It explains the rise of “trad wives,” a social media phenomenon in which women refuse to apologize for their aprons and instead proudly reclaim the “traditional” values of womanhood, which they interpret as staying home to cook, clean, and care for their family, often through aesthetically pleasing vintage filters.

Neither side speaks to me. And these aren’t the kind of conversations I have with other women who struggle to feel fulfilled in motherhood or career.

Yes, I suppose I am that “typical modern woman.” But there’s something more. Those delicious hours I spent as a child filling notebooks with ideas and stories were not feminist roars but an innate expression of a creative God, who blessed both men and women to create and cultivate. I didn’t go to work excited about toppling patriarchy or earning wealth or social status. I worked because I loved it.

But then that changed. Our son, growing in my womb for months before I finally noticed him, started kicking. And before I ever felt ready to be a mother, two years ago, he was born with an indignant cry.

Thanks to California’s paid family leave benefits, I was able to take four months of maternity leave. The 122 days of taking care of my son full-time blurred into one fuzzy, sleep-deprived daze soaked in the cloying scents of sweet breast milk and milky belches. I couldn’t tell when the sun rose and when it set.

But I also never knew such tenderness. The love that bloomed inside me was no honeymoon rose, fresh and perky one season, droopy and faded the next. It just kept growing, an enchanted ivy that danced evergreen and lush. I observed this budding love with awe and journalistic curiosity: Did my body really create this magical creature? How can something so scrunchy and wrinkly look so sweet and delightful in my eyes?

I couldn’t imagine life without our son, couldn’t imagine how I could have ever desired a life without him. And yet—I was also bored out of my mind. I could not wait to return to work. My first day back from maternity leave, I dusted my desk and sat down with a steaming—not lukewarm—cup of coffee, and felt like I had been gifted a vacation. I felt, in so many ways, liberated. My intellect, stiff from neglect, could now explore things beyond tummy times and wake windows.

But I also came back a different person. I felt older, crankier, slower. My creativity was stuffy and sniffly like a persistent cold. My focus was off, all my senses overstimulated by a child greedy for food, touch, attention—everything and more than I had to give.

Traveling for a reporting trip became a logistic scramble of pumping and labeling a freezer’s worth of breastmilk, prepping two weeks of healthy meals, paying the nanny for extra hours, and sometimes flying grandparents cross-country to help out.

Figuring out a way to keep my milk supply was stressful. Once, I was stuck in the backseat between two grown men in a bulletproof truck for a 10-hour drive across the fields of war-torn Ukraine. We stopped for a quick lunch, and I raced to the restroom, frantically trying to manually pump a full load into the bathroom sink.

It affected my marriage. Seeing my husband’s exhausted, haggard face during our video calls when I was overseas made me feel both guilty and irritated. When I returned home, travel-weary, my husband greeted me with the relief of a drowning man spotting a raft and then paddled madly away, leaving me in the waters to make up for my parenting slack.

I love our son fiercely, deeply. But I don’t find motherhood fulfilling; and yet work doesn’t feel fulfilling either. Perhaps it never was, because even before I became a mother, I remember spending each birthday feeling anxious as another year passed, my 20s receding into my late 30s, feeling as hungry as I had been back with anorexia, with the hollow dissatisfaction that I was not as accomplished or as influential as I wanted to be.

Fulfillment is such a first-world, 21st-century problem to worry about, something we hear often: Is my marriage fulfilling? Is my career fulfilling? Is my friendship fulfilling? When I had nothing but bones, what I do now felt like the stars, the galaxy, the universe.

Now I have the stars and galaxy—plus the unexpected, unasked-for gift of motherhood—and it still doesn’t feel like enough.

If the answer to this is that I’m brainwashed by modern feminism and that I just need to recover the “real” meaning of womanhood, then that’s just piling shame upon shame, misleading me from one false illusion to another. I’ve seen many stay-at-home mothers compare their children and parenting to that of others, and then sink into an identity crisis when the kids are not all right or when they leave for college.

This is not a female problem. It’s a human problem.

Most men seem to get both worlds—fatherhood and a career. Nobody criticizes them for pursuing their ambitions, and everybody praises them for taking the kids to the park. We also don’t hear as many men talk about sacrificing career for family, and that’s a shame. I know an acquaintance who was too busy building his company to settle down, and now, almost in his 50s, wealthy and successful, he’s dating women in their 20s because he dearly wants children. It might have benefited him to think about the sacrifices of pursuing his ambitions sooner.

A lot of what I desire is good. I was made in the image of a Creator. I was made to create, which includes children, but not just children; and work and motherhood were never meant to fulfill me. Before humans ever began procreating or cultivating, God was already delighted in them and called them “very good,” simply for being. He created humankind already fulfilled in him. Fruitfulness and dominion is a blessing, an added bonus.

That’s how the Bible begins, with Genesis 1 and 2. The problem is that I’m trapped repeating the story of Genesis 3 over and over.

I was feeling insecure, exhausted, and dissatisfied when I recently reread Genesis 3. God opened my eyes, and I saw myself. I saw the Serpent distort God’s Word, twist God’s character, and implant doubt and temptation in my mind: Is God really good? Am I really content? I saw myself standing in the midst of all the fruits I could eat in the garden, yet fixating on the one fruit God prohibited. The garden, with all its overflowing, self-replenishing abundance, was not enough. God was not enough. I wanted that fruit.

It’s the sin of pride. It’s pride that sets these ever-climbing expectations for myself, pride that measures my value by what I produce. But I’ll never be satisfied, because I know too well how far I fall short, how many people are better than me, and then I feel the shame and fear of being exposed. I might not be starving myself to death anymore, but the same toxic mixture of pride and shame that developed into an eating disorder still courses through my veins.

Genesis 3 isn’t a story from long ago. It’s current reality. It is the engine through which this world operates, the way I operate.

When my second child is born, I will focus on motherhood for an indefinite season, because this is the season in which God has called me to be faithful. I will repeat the cycles of breastfeeding, rocking, and burping, and it’ll feel dull and monotonous.

I will try to be faithful, but I will likely feel resentful. My back will ache and my brain will creak. I will fight every urge not to get impatient with my toddler and husband, and sometimes lose. I will get bored. I will not feel enough, and I’ll want to seek fulfillment in something—until I remind myself of the garden, and that Genesis 3 is not the end of the story.

There’s fresh grace in this upcoming season. Maybe I shouldn’t think it unfair that women tend to struggle more with the sacrifices of career and motherhood. Maybe it’s a blessing, because this transition from working mother to stay-at-home mother will poke and stretch me in places tender and sore, jolting me from operating out of my usual system, to reflect on and reform old patterns of thoughts into new ones.

There’s nothing dull or monotonous about that.

Sophia Lee is global staff writer at Christianity Today.

- More from Sophia Lee

Corruption Is a Discipleship Problem

Robert Osburn

Six ways Christians often make the problem worse and five steps toward a solution.

Illustration by Elizabeth Kaye / Source Images: Getty / Unsplash

Led by Malawi’s chief law enforcement officer, 19 armed agents surrounded Martha Chizuma’s home in the capital city of Lilongwe at 4 a.m. on December 6, 2022. Whisked away in her pajamas in the early morning darkness, Chizuma, the director general of Malawi’s Anti-Corruption Bureau, was forced to kneel on the floor for questioning at a police station before being released. Her arrest was retribution for her efforts to expose high-level corruption in the government.

A London-trained lawyer and formerly Malawi’s government ombudsman, Chizuma was the first Malawian anti-corruption leader chosen through a purely merit-based process. “People fought against my appointment, and now they wanted to undermine me ,” she explained, especially because she was leading a grand corruption probe that was “a test case of the government’s commitment to integrity.”

Those who engineered her arrest presumably hoped to silence a godly public official determined to “spit fire at corrupt politicians,” as the Nyasa Times reported several days later. They have not succeeded.

The fight against corruption takes courage like Martha’s, in part because corruption offers massive rewards. Its global financial toll is notoriously difficult to estimate, but the total may exceed $1 trillion annually. Every year, 25 percent of the world’s adults pay at least one bribe. The demand for bribes from public officials causes many Christian-majority nations to have unfavorable rankings on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index.

Too often, evangelicals are part of the corruption problem, which takes many forms: bribery, fraud, nepotism, human trafficking, sex-for-grades schemes, money laundering, ghost teachers in schools, and more. An African trained at a US evangelical seminary, after exchanging US dollars for local currency, shocked me when she said, “I only do business with Muslim money-traders. I would never trust a Christian!”

“The Church needs to clear its Augean stable,” said former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo in 2017, comparing Nigerian churches to the manure-filled stables of a Greek myth. “They not only celebrate but venerate those whose sources of wealth are questionable. They accept gifts … from just anybody without asking questions. This gives the impression that anything is acceptable in the house of God.”

Why are Christians so insensitive to, and often even participants in, blatant corruption? There are at least six reasons.

First, some in the church are unwilling to hold Christian workers accountable. Others live in willful ignorance, as if it is not possible for fellow believers to be corrupt; thus, we fail to address warning signs or to undertake proper investigations.

Second, in some cases, a shift from traditional folk religion to Christian affiliation can actually exacerbate corruption. A recent unpublished report, based on interviews with 48 Christian leaders in Africa, explained that many followers of African traditional religion do not dare to lie because they believe their ancestors are watching from beyond the grave and could deliver certain, swift punishment. In contrast, some respondents said, African Christians seem more willing to lie—even when swearing on the Bible—because they think the Christian God is merciful and delays judgment.

Third, if pastors “preach anti-corruption, they will lose members who give large offerings,” says Orinya Agbaji Orinya of the Palace of Priests Assembly, a church in Abuja, Nigeria. In many cases, Orinya says, Protestant churches’ dependence on offerings pushes them to avoid offending corrupt but generous donors.

Fourth, pastors or Christian workers in many countries feel an expectation to benefit their families and ethnic communities, a phenomenon that journalist Michela Wrong calls “it’s our turn to eat.” Also known as demand sharing, this pattern creates intense pressures on leaders to raid organization finances for the benefit of friends and relatives.

A fifth reason Christians are AWOL in the fight against corruption, says Munkhjargal Tuvshin, pastor of Truth Community Church in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, is their dualistic mindset. “Most Christians,” Tuvshin states, “would say that corruption is a world matter, not a church matter. That dualistic mindset takes us away from standing with the truth.”

Orinya, who is developing a major anti-corruption campaign among Nigeria’s Pentecostals, proposes one more driver of corruption among Christians: the prosperity gospel. According to Orinya, the heretical movement’s message that “if you are poor, you must not be a child of God” sometimes motivates listeners to steal, believing that even ill-gotten gain is a divine blessing.

How can Christians make a substantial difference in bridling cultures of corruption around the world?

The first step is to disciple people to prioritize daily acts of integrity in the face of cultural norms that favor dishonesty. Citing Ephesians 4:25 (“Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbor, for we are all members of one body”), pastor Taba Ebenezar in Bamenda, Cameroon, urges his congregation and community members to “make every day an integrity day.”

Well-trained disciples know that God is not a transactional spirit who pours out favors on those who pay the requisite bribe, whether to a shaman or a prosperity preacher. Ebenezar, whose nation ranks 140th of 180 nations on the Corruption Perceptions Index, says, “We cannot talk only about salvation when the country is going backward.”

Second, churches must become model societies. Secular leaders will be more able to envision corruption-free nations when churches exemplify a corruption-free life. Too many churches and mission organizations disguise unethical behavior through flawed management practices such as the use of nondisclosure agreements, thereby undermining the message of hope and honesty that the church should be living out.

Global Trust Partners (GTP), a worldwide spinoff of the US Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability, is seeking to reshape the behavior of churches and Christian organizations through peer accountability groups that promote fiscal and ethical integrity along with generosity. As GTP’s CFO, Matthew Gadsden from Australia, commented, “Once transparency in governance comes in, then people can give with confidence that the gift is used for the purposes for which it is intended.”

Church leaders often fail to realize how much secular groups like Transparency International need them. Roberto Laver, a former World Bank lawyer who works on corruption issues in Latin America, says that secular groups “have all the tools on social accountability” but lack the social networks and universal ethic that the church offers.

Laver draws an interesting contrast between Catholics and evangelicals in Latin America, stating that the “Roman Catholic Church will speak out on every issue, including corruption … but their verbiage makes little difference [personally]. As for evangelicals, individually they are more honest, but they are more silent publicly.” Laver asks, “If the church is not exhibiting more public honesty, what hope is there in the gospel?”

The third part of the strategy concerns education on aspects of the Christian worldview that discourage involvement in corruption: God’s sovereignty, his ethical expectations for believers, and the transformative potential of faith in Christ. Pastor Ebenezar in Cameroon has an open invitation from public school authorities to teach integrity to children, a key to breaking the corruption culture. Ebenezar’s visible public advocacy campaign includes a weekly radio program, pro-integrity caps and shirts, and integrity awards at halftime during youth soccer games.

As British anti-corruption expert Martin Allaby says, “There is no substitute for deep cultural change.” Whether through films or music, in churches, schools, or homes, and whether with adults or children, teaching a Christian worldview provides a rational basis for efforts to restrain corruption.

In Jinja, Uganda, along with the usual radio fare, station director Anyole Innocent champions a Christian view of integrity on Busoga One, which has 1 million listeners daily. Creative efforts like Innocent’s and similar initiatives on social media are persuasive ways to reinforce a Christian worldview and mobilize believers to oppose corruption.

A Christian worldview also acknowledges the messiness of situations in which temptations to corruption are deeply intertwined with poverty. Public officials seeking bribes may themselves be the victims of corrupt senior officials who withhold their salaries—or their salaries alone may be insufficient to feed their families. God may call us to share gifts with impoverished families—especially those within the church—so that they do not feel driven to consider seeking bribes. Interestingly, whereas the Bible frequently condemns receiving bribes, it nowhere condemns the giving of bribes. But those who feel compelled to offer one should consider to what extent, in their own situation, doing so perpetuates an evil system.

A fourth key strategy, highlighted by University of Virginia sociologist James Davison Hunter, is the development of networks of high-performing leaders who can work together across sectors of society. William Wilberforce’s Clapham community of the late 18th and early 19th centuries brought together bankers, parliamentarians, authors, activists, pastors, writers, and educators in determined efforts that, with support from the Wesleyan revival, profoundly changed formerly corrupt England for the better. High-performing networks can coordinate overall anti-corruption planning while also linking what happens in churches to national conversations and reform efforts.

Pathways for Integrity Network, which has recently launched in Uganda, shows the potential to become a high-performing anti-corruption network. Innocent, the radio station head, commented, “Looking ahead, we envision a network where organizations rely on us to train their employees, where job creators and seekers trust our recommendations, and where Western investors seek our assistance in Ugandan projects, including governmental initiatives, as reputable.”

The Faith and Public Integrity Network, cofounded by Allaby and Laver, brings together academics and Christian leaders for shared efforts. Some evangelicals, such as Martha Chizuma in Malawi, participate in high-performing networks, such as the Chandler Sessions, that are not specifically Christian.

The fifth part of the strategy involves a virtuous, sacrificial spokesperson as the face of the movement, much as Martin Luther King Jr. legitimized the US civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s. Activists need a cheerleader to bring their voices together for change. Ebenezar is one such voice in Cameroon, declaring ambitiously, “If we pastors engage with this issue, it will restore and liberate our nation!”

Perhaps we need a 21st-century James Yen to lead the fight against global corruption. Yen was a celebrated Christian agrarian reformer during China’s titanic struggle between the Nationalists (China’s ruling government from 1912 until 1949) and Communists. Both Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-shek recruited him for their respective governments; he declined both offers.

One day, after these polite but earnest refusals, a leading government official in a passing limousine watched Yen fall from his bicycle as he crossed trolley tracks. The next day, a new automobile mysteriously appeared where Yen was staying. He quietly mothballed the car in a friend’s garage, choosing embarrassment and muddy pants over betraying his Christian integrity by accepting gifts from a corrupt government.

Not all Christians should decline service in corrupt governments. But virtuous, sacrificial leaders like Yen can powerfully spotlight and expose corruption. When the “fruitless deeds of darkness” (Eph. 5:11) are exposed, they wither under the bright light of truth.

In Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras, the Association for a More Just Society (ASJ) has focused relentlessly on corruption in public schools, achieving enormous dividends for the country’s 2 million school-age children. ASJ’s efforts reduced the percentage of ghost teachers (who don’t show up for class but continue to receive paychecks) from 26 percent to 1 percent in two years.

When schools reopened after a 28-month closure due to COVID-19, ASJ again mobilized its 20,000 volunteers to monitor schools and spot instances of ghost teaching. Thanks to the volunteers, says ASJ cofounder Kurt Ver Beek, Honduran students received their scheduled 200 days of education in the 2023–2024 school year. ASJ has persisted in spite of occasional harassment by some government officials.

In Malawi, Martha Chizuma is persisting too, with encouragement from some friends. Three days after her unexpected pre-dawn arrest, she was waiting for her driver when she saw ten very poor women approaching. “They hugged me, crying, because they knew what had happened to me,” Chizuma recalled. “One of them said, ‘I was so worried when they arrested you because we knew you were the only one fighting for us!’”

Although Malawi has an evangelical president, Lazarus Chakwera, the deeply rooted corruption plaguing the country has not yet been eliminated. In May, when corruption charges against a leading public official were suddenly dropped, the disappointment reminded Chizuma that hers is often a lonely path. We need more evangelicals like those ten women who encouraged Chizuma to continue in her difficult but crucial undertaking.

Robert Osburn is a senior fellow with Wilberforce International Institute and is author of Taming the Beast: Can We Bridle the Culture of Corruption?

- More from Robert Osburn

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Sometimes teaching biblical truth is costly.

You can say everything “right” and still be offensive.

You can act in good faith and still make avoidable mistakes.

The way you raise the subject matters.

Prepare for tough questions in advance.

Clear your schedule to meet with people.

Respond to critics with grace.

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Working within the system

Their blind spots, and ours

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