Exorcism Movies’ Terrifying Truth

Paul Marchbanks

These films are far from theological treatises. But at their best, they depict the reality of evil—and the power of Jesus’ name.

Illustration by Elizabeth Kaye / Source Images: Getty, Pexels

As an uprooted sixth grader in the early ’80s, I was willing to try anything to make new friends—including attending my first horror film. The low-budget B movie about a resurrected mummy who plagues college students now seems quite tame, but it scared me out of my seat (and into the theater lobby) twice. A few years later, the adaptation of Stephen King’s werewolf-filled Silver Bullet so unsettled me that for long afterward I had to gird my loins each time I ventured into our neighborhood’s shadowy woods.

Should I have averted my eyes altogether? Or did my terror—detached from an actual, immediate threat—prepare me for real-world trauma? Can believers who have received a spirit not of fear but of “power, love and self-discipline” (2 Tim. 1:7) possibly justify toying with trepidation, even in imaginary spaces?

The poet Samuel Coleridge threw down the gauntlet in the early 19th-century culture wars when he declared that reading about “giants and magicians and genii” as a child granted his mind “a love of the Great and the Whole.” C. S. Lewis echoed these sentiments a century later. He held that the fear engendered by certain types of adventure and fantasy fiction could ennoble readers of all ages, teaching us that “immemorial comforters and protectors, the radiant ones” exist to combat evil. Instead of tossing scary, supernatural stories into the bottomless pit, both writers contend that such tales prepare the mind to embrace deep truth.

Fictional threats—zombies, vampires, and hostile extraterrestrials—are one thing. Thrillers about real terrors—kidnappings, torture, serial killings—hit harder, having stolen their dramatic force from real-world crimes.

Tales dramatizing spiritual warfare, however, are another species entirely. For the believer, they can feel too scary—not equipping us to combat evil but overwhelming us with their power.

Exorcism movies are experiencing something of a renaissance. Several recent titles—The Pope’s Exorcist (2023), The Exorcist: Believer (2023), The Exorcism (2024), The Deliverance (2024)—coincide with the 50th anniversary of The Exorcist (1973), which splattered the silver screen with the foulest language and images imaginable. Such cinematic offerings seek not to subtly disrobe that dark expert at angelic disguise (2 Cor. 11:14) but to blazon the depredations of a leonine prowler seeking someone to devour (1 Pet. 5:8).

The boy who fled into the theater lobby now draws others toward films as a vocation. (I’m a literature and film professor.) And though I don’t teach classes that focus on horror, I do incorporate the occasional exorcism tale into my introductory film course. Features like Scott Derrickson’s The Exorcism of Emily Rose (a personal favorite) take our struggle with “this dark world” as seriously as the early Christians did (Eph. 6:12).

Revisiting such fare, particularly in late October, reminds us that the “spiritual forces of evil” identified by Paul should be treated more seriously than Halloween’s flippant displays of gore and ghoulishness would suggest.

Though far from theological treatises, each of these exorcism movies does pose questions about the nature of demonic possession—about good and evil, free will and fate. If submission to God ensures that Satan will flee when resisted (James 4:7) and believers can resist any temptation they face (1 Cor. 10:13), then do demons only gain entry when invited—like the vampires in old creature features? Once they acquire a foothold, does removal require outside intervention? What role does the host play in their own emancipation?

Hollywood would have us think the answers as numerous as the directors tackling the subject. The Pope’s Exorcist configures possession like a mousetrap that springs once a vulnerable, already-traumatized innocent enters its domain. Exorcist: Believer places a little blame on its possessed adolescents for attempting to contact a deceased parent with candle and pendulum in hand but similarly avoids censuring them for the havoc they wreak once possessed. Instead of beginning in medias res, with each possession already in motion, both stories spotlight their victims’ childlike before to throw their monstrous after into greater relief.

Scripture itself provides no single pathway into possession. Readers are left to imagine how the seven demons cast from Mary Magdalene (Luke 8:2) entered her in the first place and whether any particular sins committed by the superhumanly strong tomb-dweller in Gerasenes granted Legion entry into his mind (Mark 5:1–20).

There is, however, a clear escape from demonic influence, always involving either the person or name of Christ. Whether Jesus himself casts out the demon or his disciples do so in his name, the message is the same.

Fortunately, films involving exorcisms often not only acknowledge the reality of supernatural evil but also point to the one who is able to overcome it. The question is “Who can access his power?”

Rescue traditionally rides in on the cassock of a priest armed with Scripture, holy water, and an enviable supply of conviction. In the 1973 original, faith and experience fail to prevent Father Merrin’s untimely death; he only saves young Regan by committing suicide once he’s drawn the demon into himself. The Pope’s Exorcist grants Christ a bit more power, its priestly duo effectively wielding the Word of God (Eph. 6:17) after confessing to one another those sins Satan will otherwise use against them. Once again, a priest saves an innocent via demonic absorption—but this time his partner’s invocation of Jesus’ name prevents any fatalities.

The Exorcist: Believer kicks precedent to the curb. A swelling musical score marks Father Maddox’s dramatic entrance, feigning deliverance via priest. But his efforts are abruptly interrupted when his neck is telekinetically snapped. The script’s effort at inclusivity (with help from cowriter and CT podcast guest Scott Teems) demands that salvation arrive with the help of assorted neighbors, four ideologically contrary parents, a nurse, pastors from different traditions, and a motivational speaker who vaguely invokes “the name of all holy beings” and equates “faith in each other” with faith in God.

Lee Daniels’s The Deliverance shares standard features with its forebears, including a haunted house and a couple deaths to signal the demon’s power. But it takes a hard right toward the unexpected idea that a laywoman’s faith is enough to repel the Evil One. The pastor who attempts the “deliverance” of young Dre dismisses the need for a professional intercessor, proclaiming that one need only act with the authority of Christ to drive out a demon. When she fails in her own attempt, she explains with her dying breath that she faltered due to fear.

It is left to her listener, a single mother who has long spurned religion as a “fix” every bit as addictive as the alcohol she regularly imbibes, to prove the adage that “perfect love drives out fear” (1 John 4:18) and to drive the demons from her own children. Carrying the burdens of sexual assault, emotional abuse, divorce, and financial strain has long impaired Ebony Jackson’s ability to parent her three kids. Stressed, snappish, and regularly drunk, she reacts to her children’s plights with either aggression or slurred speech. She is the last hero one would expect in an exorcism movie.

Could she also be the perfect hero? When her possessed children’s inexplicable behavior drives her to her knees for the first time in her life, the prayer that follows is dragged from the depths of her soul, just as the tortured cry “Jesus” later bursts from a frame contorted by the demon’s onslaught.

And it is enough.

Scripture offers a number of direct alternatives to fear and its maverick cousin, anxiety, including confidence (Ps. 27:3), courage (Josh. 1:9), peace (John 14:27), and delight (Ps. 94:19). Fitted together, a beautiful tableau emerges of the equipped, stalwart Christian. The Christian’s virtues are akin to a stained-glass window, translating the blinding sunlight of the Spirit into colors we can bear.

But in every rose window, lines of lead help delineate the design. Contrasting darkness makes adjacent colors pop. In the same way, fantastic, disturbing dramatizations of sin and suffering accentuate the virtues extolled by Paul in Philippians 4:8. “Whatever is true” comes into greater relief when juxtaposed against the enticing deceit of the Adversary.

Victory doesn’t require a demonology expert or priest, holy water or magical incantations. At their best, exorcism movies remind us of the Spirit-filled power available to every believer. With Christ before us, we can ourselves become the “immemorial comforters and protectors.” There’s no need to hide in the lobby.

Paul Marchbanks is a professor of English at Cal Poly State University. His YouTube channel is “Digging in the Dirt.”

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Ideas

Digital Sloth in the Online Arena

Scott Gustafson

How our internet use is prone to the ancient vice of akrasia.

Illustration by Mallory Rentsch Tlapek / Source Images: WikiMedia Commons / Pexels

The Stoic philosopher Seneca once wrote of the gladiatorial games in Rome, “Unhappy that I am, how have I deserved that I must look on such a scene as this? Do not, my Lucilius, attend the games, I pray you. Either you will be corrupted by the multitude, or, if you show disgust, be hated by them. So stay away.”

Technology has afforded us many innovative tools in recent decades. But it has also created a new amphitheater that beckons us through culture wars, politics, and election cycles. This digital spectacle hosts all things immoral and illegal—radical groups, bots with immense power, outrage entrepreneurs, and a flood of misinformation. And we clamor for the show. Seneca’s “multitude” is an omnipresent legion, and its gate of entry is in our pockets.

The ancient vice akrasia is a lazy inclination toward base desires that we know are bad for the soul. Among other woes, Jesus blasted the pharisees for their akrasia and hypocrisy (Matt. 23:25). Akrasia is prominent today in the digital spaces: We know better than to scroll and click, to trust the algorithms, to believe everything.

But we are too lazy to turn off the flood of information. We love it too much. The online world with its cultural and political drama is the new amphitheater, and our akrasia is leading to consequences beyond entertainment.

One of these consequences is that our world is shifting toward extremes as politics, celebrities, and ideological groups—from Islamic jihadists to leftist anarchist movements to militaristic white nationalist groups—shape us online toward hostility and violence.

The online mob has the ability to sort us and shape us. Digital platforms profit from algorithms that serve up stimuli making us fearful or anxious. Screens warp our conception of reality: everything is performed, cropped, and filtered. Media outlets and political parties shape reality according to alluring but reductive dualisms, false gospels that proffer empty redemption.

A repeated liturgy molds us and curates our heart one email, post, or news headline at a time, and we can’t look away. We are growing cold toward other human beings and being pulled toward radicalization.

Even politicians now are using synthetic media and deepfake audio, images, and videos: all stunningly real compilations of things that never happened. Once primarily the purview of the porn industry, now some bad actors use artificial intelligence tools to target public opinion and elections and stir general chaos. Domestic disinformation accounts propagate an increasing amount of junk and conspiracies, deliberately flooding digital spaces with material designed to overwhelm and create confusion.

Lest we blame everything on bad actors, these systems work so effectively because of our psychology, vices, sociology, and desires. Technology serves us what we want. Human systems are extensions of our collective heart, which cannot be trusted and is inclined toward evil. Algorithms and their masters amplify the dissatisfaction and clamoring of our souls. Indulging, we ignore cognitive bias and the inherent dangers of a polluted space, letting the amphitheater shape us.

Seneca was not alone in avoiding the spectacle. In the early years of the church, Tertullian wrote from Carthage in AD 200 on the ethics of Christians attending the “games.” Tertullian’s treatise De Spectaculis (“On the Spectacles”) implores Christians not to attend because the spectacles were steeped in idolatry and elicited powerful “mass emotions” toward violence and bloodlust.

Tertullian dissuaded Christians because the games had an insidious, indoctrinating effect that would push them into the ways of Rome. After all, he implored, if something is not permissible to say or to do, why would we listen to or watch it? The coliseum was where demons lurked, Christians were executed (like Perpetua and Felicity in Carthage), and temptations were celebrated. There—under the guise of entertainment—power, might, and violence were elevated. The amphitheater was a place of anti-God worship.

Our amphitheater feeds and amplifies cultural lusts, hostility, and vice. It cultivates desires and directs worship. At the amphitheater in the ancient world, you might have seen friends or enjoyed play-acting, but you also might have witnessed Christians being torn apart by lions or the guileless run through by highly trained gladiators. The results are similar in our day; the colosseum has simply modernized into a heretical online mob with AI-enabled gladiators.

Ancient philosophers encouraged enkrateia, or self-discipline, to fight the vice of akrasia. Paul wrote of this same self-control as a fruit of the Spirit, a power to proactively curates desires and affections instead of passivity. Augustine implored us to turn our restless hearts toward the Creator. Tertullian encouraged Christians to think about the greater “spectacle” of the Second Coming, the New Jerusalem and the Last Judgement.

For Christians, who are called to emulate Christ’s virtues, to spend their mental energy on “whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy” and “think about such things” (Phil. 4:8), the old amphitheater and our current spectacle is not just counterproductive; it malforms.

The earliest Christians avoided the amphitheater. They abhorred violence, worship of the emperor, spurious mobs, and debauchery. Instead, they cultivated an alternative community that gently protested power politics and pagan Rome and patiently bore witness to the coming kingdom. Ancient philosophers, early theologians, and the witness of early Christians suggest we do the same.

Scott Gustafson is a researcher with the Extreme Beliefs group at Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam and the Ambassador Warren Clark Fellow at Churches for Middle East Peace.

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Theology

Biblical Beasts and Where to Find Them

Paulo Nogueira

What do scriptural accounts of monstrous beings like Leviathan and Behemoth tell us about our experience of the sacred?

Edits by CT / WikiMedia Commons

When I started reading the Bible as a teenager, I was shocked to read the Revelation of John for the first time. I had no idea that Scripture, a book that had an image of such a loving God—I had started with the Gospel of John—could have so many violent scenes and so many monstrous beings in its last book.

Then I discovered that the presence of monsters is not exclusive to the Apocalypse. The attentive reader of the Bible has already noticed the number of beings in the Old and New Testaments that do not correspond to the conventional forms of humans and animals that we find in the world on a daily basis.

The Bible makes references to sea monsters, such as Leviathan, or land monsters, such as Behemoth. The celestial world is also inhabited by unusual beings, such as the seraphim or the cherubim, not to mention the hybrid beings, the “living creatures,” which we find in the Book of Ezekiel.

However, it is in apocalyptic texts that these beings are most frequent and are the best known. This is the case with the Book of Daniel and the Revelation of John. The presence of these strange beings surprises us and makes us ask, Why are there so many beings in the Bible that do not have counterparts in the real world? What role could they have in Scripture?

The response to these questions holds significant value for readers of Scripture, as these monstrous beings potentially promote violent actions, some of which are in divine service. Because of their presence and powerful actions, monsters must be incorporated into a broader view of biblical interpretation.

Biblical interpretation in history has dealt with these strange beings in various ways. One way was to interpret them allegorically. Each part of them would correspond to a doctrinal or moral element. This was the preferred view of the ancient and medieval church.

Then, in modern research, it has become more common to understand these beings as metaphors for historical elements. In fact, the monsters of Jewish and Christian apocalyptic literature are ways of representing imperial powers, such as the Seleucid or Roman empires.

However, this approach solves the problem only superficially, the question remaining as to why these powers are described in such bizarre ways. Nor does the political interpretation of monsters explain all the monsters in the Apocalypse, much less the violence promoted by divine agents at the end of time.

More recently, some interpreters have begun to ask new questions about these strange beings. They have come to the conclusion that it is not enough to list monsters and acknowledge their presence; a proper approach is needed to understand them.

I argue that monsters are, fundamentally, cultural creations through which we express our tensions toward society and ourselves. They inhabit the mythology of peoples and the depths of our psyche, emerging within our dreams. Therefore, an experience of the sacred also passes through the articulation of monsters, both internal and cosmic. This perspective has a clear consequence in the interpretation of the Bible: As Scripture addresses the fundamental dramas of the human soul and of creation, it also manifests the actions of monsters in all their power and ambiguity.

The theory of monstrosity, as this approach has been conventionally called, seeks a complex understanding of culture by formulating the following proposition: It is possible to study a culture based on the monsters it creates. This perspective began to be considered in the 1990s in cultural studies, gaining applications in literary research as well. I will focus on three of its central ideas.

The first is that cultures often depict what they perceive as external to themselves as threatening, dangerous, destabilizing, animalistic—that is, as a monster. They do so not only through concepts but also and above all through hybrid and grotesque images.

The beings on the edges of the world—think of exotic peoples or imaginary beings from outside the known world—are the other, a threatening other.

None of this is new. After all, we know very well that human groups tend to define themselves with positive, “civilized” characteristics, attributing to people outside their group a character that is not only threatening but also destabilizing. We are aware of the devastating effects of this position in multicultural and multiethnic societies like ours.

The novelty of the theory of monstrosity is its second emphasis, inspired by psychoanalysis: The monsters we identify as external actually reflect internal ruptures and traumas. What I project onto the other as monstrous in some way refers to myself.

It is no wonder, theorists of the monstrous would say, that in 19th-century Victorian England, literature began creating monsters. Confident in science and progress and holding a key position among imperial powers, the British faced threats that emerged from within.

Think of Count Dracula, a vampire and undead from the East, who visits London in search of a woman who will free him from his solitude. Or the creature of Frankenstein, a monster in whom the most forbidden and fascinating fantasy of science is realized, creating life by usurping the divine place.

By creating monsters, people point to something threatening that is “out there” but also to a danger that is “here,” within themselves and their culture.

The third element of the theory of the monstrous guides us to pay attention to monsters’ forms: Monsters are frightening because they are aberrant images and as such must be seen and imagined not just as mere allegory. After all, these images provoke emotional reactions. Monsters are hybrid beings, malformed, gigantic, grotesque. This is society’s way of questioning the world and its categories, considered normative.

I return to my question, now focused on the biblical world: “Why are there so many monsters in the Bible?” This is a delicate issue that affects our beliefs and sensibilities. After all, we always think of the God of the Bible as a loving Father and the story told in the Bible as the story of salvation.

The fact that divine agents present themselves as monstrous and violent is the critical point of our reflection. I am of the opinion that this question, even if it does not receive quick and easy answers, should be on the agenda of a critical theological reflection.

After all, Christianity, a religion that should spread the message of God’s love for humanity, has also manifested itself as a religiosity of violence and hatred, promoting war, slavery, oppression, and death. Facing the monstrous aspects within our traditions and especially in the Bible is a way for us to vigilantly deal with this potential for destruction and violence that exists alongside love and solidarity.

The monsters in the Apocalypse of John offer insight to the master narrative of early Christianity about the future of the world governed from the divine throne. The book of Revelation is about the eruption of divine power over the cosmos, including society and the powers that govern it. In this sense, the Apocalypse offers a total narrative of a radical ecology. The plagues executed by the angels affect not only people but also the stars, the waters, the plants, and the empires of the earth.

In this vindication of the suffering of the righteous, all levels of the cosmos and all expectations of power are shaken. However, the execution of divine judgment and the establishment of the reign of God cannot take place in the outdated categories of the society that it is seeking to supplant. The “I am making everything new” (Rev. 21:5) also applies to the language and categories used to narrate this “end of times.” Therefore, nothing in the Apocalypse is narrated in everyday language; everything is presented for the first time in its depth, in an unveiling (apokalypsis) of reality.

The monsters are the agents of this narrative. The oppressive Roman Empire is revealed in all its demonic power in the monsters presented in chapter 13, whose strength comes from the red dragon with seven heads and ten horns—another monster, presented in chapter 12. This dragon, in turn, opposes the “woman clothed with the sun” (v. 1), causing chaos and trying to devour her son.

The Roman Empire, which conceived of itself as the guarantor of an era of peace (the Pax Romana), is presented in terms of cosmic, demonic chaos, destabilizing the world’s order and challenging God himself. Presenting the Roman Empire’s oppressive power in the form of a monster serves to reveal its true identity.

But the monster described as external also refers to the internal. God and the angels are also presented with violent and disruptive characteristics. In the first vision of Revelation, Jesus appears as the apocalyptic Son of Man—dazzling and exalted, holding stars in his right hand and carrying the key to Hades. A sword emerges from his mouth. This powerful figure of the cosmic Christ rules both the celestial and lower worlds.

But in chapter 5 at his enthronement, Jesus is presented as “the lion of the tribe of Judah” (v. 5) and then as a slain lamb. Here he passes from the image of one animal (victor) to another (victim), without any reference to his humanity.

These presentations of Christ, at the same time as a cosmic being and as a slain animal victim, so far removed from each other, connect him with the experience of humiliation and the hope of exaltation of his followers, the readers of the book. Christ’s followers experience the empire as demonic and themselves as vindicated victims, but neither of these views uses historically situated categories.

Only the monstrosity of external and internal images allows them to imagine this world of inversion of positions and of radical experience of the sacred. Without monsters, the language of the Apocalypse would have lost all its power. The suspension of common-sense categories allows for a full religious experience, even if it is often violent.

In a world of extreme violence and internal violence, the violence that is suffered and the violence that is imagined (or desired) must also be visited. The reader of the Apocalypse—and of the entire Bible—is invited to a radical experience of God, in which the reader’s and his ways of naming the world do not occupy the center.

This destabilizing experience, though shocking and uncomfortable, removes the reader from the role of a powerful interpreter. It challenges the idea of controlling or viewing the sacred as something entirely external and objective. The encounter with God is an experience that causes us fear—not a reverent and formal “fear” but an experience that theologian Rudolf Otto called a “tremendous and fascinating mystery.”

There are authors who insist that the origin of religion—and in Judaism and Christianity it would be no different—is in an experience of the sacred perceived as powerful, disruptive, and violent. In this sense, reading Scripture is not the reproduction of a position of power, equated with Western projects of civilizing culture.

The Bible, with its monstrous beings, leads us to an experience of radical otherness, which is reflected outside and inside us, inserting us into a radical ecology in which God manifests himself, destabilizing categories and creating new worlds that were previously unimaginable.

Monsters strip us bare, pushing us beyond the comfort of self-centered interpretation, allowing us a radical experience of God amid the drama of his creation.

Paulo Nogueira holds a PhD in theology, is a lay member of the Anglican Episcopal Church of Brazil, and is a professor of religious studies at the Pontifical Catholic University of Campinas in Brazil.

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Ideas

How Not to Vote for Barabbas

Domonic D. Purviance

A democratic process resulted in the greatest miscarriage of justice in human history.

Christine_Kohler / Getty / Edits by CT

In the heat of election season, I’m reminded of how politics in America has a way of dominating our culture like nothing else. Every election is declared the most consequential of our lifetimes. Every issue is described as existential in its stakes, and we are told that the entire future of our country—and the world—comes down to how we vote.

Part of why we get worked up about elections is what we believe about democracy. We believe voting is the primary way to solve critical issues of our day. Elections are where we fight for our beliefs, identify our tribes, advance our agendas. Democracy isn’t perfect, but there’s a reason so many countries have settled on it as their preferred form of government.

Yet when we look to Scripture, we find a cautionary tale about democracy that’s worth recalling each election season. Despite its strengths, democracy will always be limited by how the people’s hearts are aligned.

In Matthew 27:15–26, as well as parallel passages in the other three Gospels, we see the Savior, Jesus, shortly before his crucifixion. Just a few days earlier, he had entered Jerusalem triumphantly and was celebrated with cries of “Hosanna!” But now, though innocent of any crime, Jesus had been arrested and turned over to the Roman government. He was held on charges trumped up by the religious leaders in the city.

As was the custom during the time of the festival of Passover, the Roman governor of Palestine, Pilate, allowed the people to choose a prisoner to release. And this time, it came down to a vote. Pilate presented a choice between two candidates: “Jesus who is called the Messiah” and Barabbas, a known criminal and murderer who tried to save his people by overthrowing the Roman government in a rebellion.

Though Jesus had been beloved in Jerusalem less than a week before, the chief priests and the elders persuaded the people to vote to release Barabbas. And what was to be done with the innocent Jesus? “Crucify him!” they shouted.

This is primarily a story of Christ’s substitutional sacrifice for our sin. We see ourselves in Barabbas, the guilty one for whom Christ gives his life. We are just as unworthy as Barabbas, but God’s love is so gracious that he sent his Son to suffer the death we deserved.

But at another level, this is also a story of democracy—of how a democratic process resulted in the greatest miscarriage of justice in human history.

Pilate was responsible for administering justice, but he found it more politically expedient to let the crowd decide, to heed their vote and thus keep order and protect his own power. The chief priests and elders—the religious leaders who were supposed to guide the people in righteousness—instead convinced the people to vote for Barabbas. They envied Jesus and felt that he threatened their position of influence. And the people, though they knew Jesus was innocent, nevertheless voted for the criminal rather than their Messiah. A man who deserved punishment was set free, and the Savior of humanity was sentenced to death.

Barabbas is not the only figure here with whom we should identify: We have just as much in common with the crowd that voted to crucify Jesus. In the depravity of our sinful nature, we would never choose Christ if it were left up to us. By grace, we know that it is not we who choose Christ but Christ who chooses us. While in our hearts we cry “crucify him,” he still dies to save us.

Moreover, it’s important to note that it was not democracy that failed here. There’s no suggestion in any of the Gospels that Pilate fudged the results. If anything, he seems to have preferred to release Jesus, protesting his innocence: “What crime has he committed?” Though the answer was “none,” the crowd really did cry for Jesus to die.

Democracy is a comparatively good system, but it is merely a human system. It can only function justly to the degree that the people within it have aligned their hearts, motives, and interests with truth and righteousness. Otherwise, the depravity of human nature will bend even a perfectly functioning democracy toward injustice. Government “by the people” will always reflect the heart of the people in question. It was a government “by the people” that resulted in the crucifixion of “the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation” (Col. 1:15).

The value Americans tend to place on politics and the democratic process makes it difficult to remember this inherent limitation. But as Christians, we must.

Though we have the civic privilege and responsibility to vote, we cannot put all our hopes on this or any election. Politics is not the only—or even primary—way to solve critical issues of our day. Remember, early Christians changed the entire Greco-Roman world with no political power.

Like the crowd at Pilate’s palace, we can be seduced into misusing and misunderstanding our votes if our hearts are not fully turned toward God, if we do not trust him alone to heal this broken world. Barabbas tried to “help” God save his people by overthrowing Rome, even if that meant committing murder. To vote for Barabbas is to put faith in anything other than God, including an election, to bring about God’s purposes. But our faith must be in the true Savior, who gave his own life to save ours.

Politics has its place, yet our primary mandates as Christians are the Great Commission and the Great Commandment. And though we’re privileged to live in a functional democracy, that democracy will become dysfunctional and unjust if we put all our hopes in elections and not in Christ.

Domonic D. Purviance is a writer, men’s ministry leader, and finance and economics expert. He cofounded King Culture, a nonprofit organization that equips men to reflect the selfless leadership of Christ.

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News

Candidates Break Out Faith References ‘For Such a Time as This’

Harvest Prude in Pittsburgh

During their final push, Trump and Harris extend more explicit appeals to Christian voters.

Kamala Harris speaking at a church (left) and Donald Trump being prayed over at the National Faith Summit (right).

Edits by CT / Source Images: Getty / AP Images

In a deep red swath of Pennsylvania, houses, roadways, and businesses are bristling with campaign signs, most bearing the name of Donald Trump or his Make America Great Again slogan.

Brodie Whitley, a Presbyterian living in Grove City, plans to vote for Trump, but her favorite sign has another message: “Politics are temporary. Jesus is forever.”

“That’s the sign I want,” she said.

Overall, there’s been less focus on religious outreach by either campaign this election cycle, less talk of religion, and fewer faith events. Most Americans don’t see either candidate as particularly religious.

But in the final days of the campaign, both former president Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are doing more to evoke God in their messaging—and to appeal to Christian voters in battleground states like Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Michigan.

Trump and Harris have held events in Georgia churches in recent weeks. They each offered remarks to different crowds on how the country needs faith—with contrasting ideas of how to live that out in office.

The gathering was put on by the National Faith Advisory Board, made up of Trump’s former faith advisors and led by Pentecostal evangelist Paula White-Cain. The lineup listed several leaders who had been involved in Evangelicals for Trump events in previous campaigns: Franklin Graham, Eric Metaxas, Jack Graham, Greg Laurie, Samuel Rodriguez, and Jentezen Franklin.

At an event outside Atlanta on Monday, Trump promised Christians they’d have the opportunity to influence a second Trump administration.

Trump told White-Cain that he’d reinstall a faith office to hear out evangelicals in the White House. (While president, Trump had scrapped the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, which had been resurrected under Biden.)

Trump also talked about religion being under threat in the US.

“We’re going through a lot of problems in our country … and it’s less based on religion than it was 25 years ago and 50 years ago,” he said. “We were a really, people would say a Christian, and really religious, even other faiths country, and that seems to be heading in the wrong direction.”

Trump has repeated a similar message of faith under fire at other events, including at a “Believers for Trump” event earlier this month in Michigan, an initiative launched this summer to drive turnout among churchgoers in battleground states. Individuals can sign up to be a “Church Captain” to encourage their churches to vote.

The former president told the crowd in Georgia that Christians aren’t doing enough when it comes to this election: “I shouldn’t scold anyone, but Christians aren’t known for being very solid voters.”

Ben Carson, the Seventh-day Adventist doctor and 2016 presidential hopeful, leads Trump’s faith outreach. He told CT in a statement that the campaign will continue to remind voters that Trump “did more for the faith community than any president in history.”

Carson listed religious freedom, women’s sports, and abortion as key issues for faith voters. Though Trump has called himself “the most pro-life president” for appointing the justices who helped overturn Roe v. Wade, some evangelicals have been disappointed in the GOP’s shifting platform on the issue.

At a “Believers and Ballots” town hall at Christ Chapel in Zebulon, Georgia, Trump called religion “the glue that holds it all together” and repeated his concerns of how Christians are facing “persecution.”

“When you have faith, when you believe in God, it’s a big advantage over people who don’t have that,” he said.

A new survey by the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) and the Brookings Institution has found that Christian support for the candidates splits on racial lines.

Among weekly churchgoers, three-quarters of white Christians (76%) support Trump and 21 percent support Harris, while 13 percent of Black Christians support Trump and 85 percent support Harris.

Churchgoing Latinos are more evenly divided. Just over half side with Trump (55%) compared to 41 percent with Harris.

The Democratic candidate has also sought to appeal to people of faith, stopping by churches on Sundays as part of the “souls to the polls” drive to increase voter turnout among Black Christians. At each visit, Harris has reminded believers of the importance of taking time to vote.

At New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Stonecrest, Georgia, she told congregants that “our country is at a crossroads, and where we go from here is up to us as Americans and as people of faith.”

“We face this question: What kind of country do we want to live in?” Harris said. “A country of chaos, fear and hate, or a country of freedom, compassion and justice?”

At other events, the vice president has spoken about growing up singing in the choir and going to Sunday school at a Black Baptist church she attended with her neighbor.

Harris grew up with a Hindu mother and a Baptist father and identifies as Baptist. She described her faith as being driven by a belief in a “loving God who asks us to speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, and to defend the rights of the poor and the needy.”

Last week, Harris told CNN’s Anderson Cooper that she prays “every day, sometimes twice a day.” After President Joe Biden withdrew from the race, she called her longtime pastor, Amos Brown of Third Baptist Church of San Francisco, to ask for prayer. “I needed that advice. I needed a prayer,” she said.

On Sunday at a majority Black church in Philadelphia, Harris said she drew inspiration from Paul. “In hard times when we may grow weary in doing good, we must remember the power that works within us, the divine power that transformed Paul’s life, guided him through shipwreck and sustained him through trials.”

She encouraged congregants to vote and said she was confident in the outcome: “When I think about the days ahead and the God we serve, yeah, I am confident that his power will work through us. Because, church, I know we were born for a time such as this.”

Some Christian voters would find analogies of trials and shipwrecks to be apt descriptors of this election year.

Back in 2016, Benjamin Carlucci, who lives in a Pittsburgh suburb, used to listen to both Ben Shapiro and NPR to follow the campaigns.

Now he’s changed his approach: “I pay attention but in less of a ‘I’m an active and informed voter’ and more of a ‘I can’t look away from a car crash,’” said Carlucci, an Anglican who works as a creative director for a nonprofit.

“I have this constant conflict in me where I want to completely disengage and just step away from it, but that also feels irresponsible, so I don’t. There’s just no way to be happy and engaging in the current political climate.”

While usually the economy would be Carlucci’s top issue, this year it’s Trump’s “refusal to honor the transition of power, things like that that I feel are fundamentally un-American.” He plans to vote for Harris.

Despite the occasional references to faith by the candidates, many Christians in Pennsylvania are turned off by the negativity, with tens of millions of dollars worth of advertising poured into their state.

“I’ll say this—speaking for the whole entire state of Pennsylvania—we don’t really want it to come down to Pennsylvania,” said Don Opitz, an ordained Presbyterian minister and chaplain at Grove City College.

While he doesn’t want partisanship in churches, he wishes more faith leaders would talk about how to apply “biblical wisdom, theological perspective, to the issues of the day.”

Too often, he sees political engagement driven by more negative impulses. “We let our politics get away with being a politics of accusation and projection. That’s the dark stain on all of us,” Opitz said. “It’s something that is genuinely sub-Christian that is happening.”

Whitley, who is supporting Trump in this election, has been going through the Book of Judges in a church group, which she has found an odd comfort.

The descriptions of leaders, “all these wicked, wicked people,” reminds her that whether her candidate wins or not, God is in control.

“Something that I rest very confidently on, and I know this will sound like a Bible answer, it’s not the person or the party that we have to put our faith or our trust in whatsoever. … Whatever candidate is put into that position for the next four years, eight years, whatever that looks like, God has the bigger picture.”

- More from Harvest Prude

Books

The Christians Living Under Buddhist Nationalism

Interview by Angela Lu Fulton

Yale scholar David Moe explores the faith and identity of ethnic minorities in his home country of Myanmar.

Children and their parents praying in a temporary church at a camp for internally displaced people in Myanmar.

The rural Chin village in the mountains of Myanmar where scholar David Moe was born in 1983 no longer exists. This village of 70 Christian families has moved twice, higher and higher into the mountains.

Moe’s desire to become a pastor led him to pursue higher education outside of Myanmar, and today he is a postdoctoral associate and lecturer in Southeast Asian studies at Yale University.

Yet he hasn’t forgotten the community that raised him. His new book, Beyond the Academy: Lived Asian Public Theology of Religions, argues that highly educated theologians should dialogue with those outside the ivory tower and engage the perspectives of grassroots Christians—those without theological training. For the book, Moe interviewed 15 grassroots Christian leaders in Myanmar who hail from the Chin, Kachin, and Karen communities.

These Christian ethnic minorities live in a unique context: In Myanmar, Buddhism is the state religion, and Buddhists make up 90 percent of the population. Most of the country’s elite, including the ruling military junta, are from the Buddhist Bamar ethnic group.

After Myanmar gained independence from the British in 1948, the new Buddhist nationalist leaders argued that those who weren’t Buddhist or Bamar were not true Burmese, leading to decades of discrimination and oppression of ethnic minorities. The 2021 military coup ramped up fighting between armed ethnic groups and the military junta yet also rearranged loyalties as interracial and multiethnic groups banded together to resist the coup.

Christianity Today asked Moe about the gaps between academic public theology and the faith of Myanmar villagers, the role Buddhist nationalism plays in Myanmar, and the intertwining of religion and identity that has led to a rise in Christian nationalism among Chin refugees in the US. The responses have been edited for clarity and length.

Can you tell me about your journey from a small village in Chin State to the Ivy League?

I was born and grew up in a village called Khin Phong. I went to school there and served as a Sunday school teacher at the village church.

I am the first graduate from our village school to get a PhD. The school was established in 1946, two years before Myanmar gained independence from the British. My late mother never went to school, but she was a very faithful follower of Jesus Christ. She always encouraged me to be faithful to Christ and serve God. I see my mother as a role model for my Christian faith.

I started my theological journey at a seminary in Myanmar because I wanted to be a pastor. Then I had a chance to go to Malaysia for my MDiv. In Malaysia, I had a chance to come to the US for further graduate studies. When I finished my PhD in theological studies, I didn’t immediately find a job. The military coup happened in 2021, so I couldn’t go back to Myanmar.

I applied to be the pastor at two very small Burmese churches in the US, but I was rejected. Then I had an opportunity to teach at Yale, focusing on Southeast Asian studies, religion, politics, and ethnic identity.

My scholarship engages four different communities: the academic community, the Burmese Christian community, the public society, and the political state. I feel that I’m in the right place.

In seminary, you began reading Asian liberation theologians like Taiwan’s Shoki Coe and India’s M. M. Thomas. How did their ideas differ from the kind of grassroots faith that you saw in your church growing up?

I love academic work; that’s why I’m in academia. But particularly when it comes to the discipline of public theology, academics are only engaging with other academics. That is not quite relevant for real life. If we are concerned about public life, we need scholars to engage with grassroots people.

Of course, we are not endorsing everything grassroots Christians do. They also have limitations, but if we want to understand public life—the common good in society—we need to engage with grassroots Christian churches that are witnessing about Jesus Christ without knowing any theology. They are just living their lives.

Because of my background, I see myself as a theologian who bridges the academy and the grassroots church.

What are some of the gaps that you found between academics and grassroots Christians?

Theologians in the academy talk a bit too much about politics and political power while sometimes forgetting about spiritual power. This gap is especially noticeable in Africa and Asia, where people are mostly thinking about spiritual power in their daily life.

When it comes to salvation, some academics focus too much on physical liberation. But these grassroots Christians talk a lot about life after death, about spiritual salvation.

Another gap: Academic theologians focus too much on the prophetic role of Jesus Christ without sufficiently addressing his priestly life and its implication for pastoral work. Myanmar ethnic minorities relate Jesus Christ’s sacrifice on the cross to their pre-Christian cultural practice of ritual sacrifice, which is similar to what the Israelites practiced in the Book of Leviticus.

I asked one of the grassroots church elders I interviewed what his favorite book of the Bible was, and he said Hebrews because “it focuses on the sacrificial role of Jesus Christ as the priest.”

Could you explain a bit more about the religious makeup of Myanmar? Why is it that most of the ethnic majority, Bamar, is Buddhist, while most ethnic minorities are Christian?

There are two main factors. First, as I just mentioned, the pre-Christian cultural practice of rites among ethnic minorities paved the way for the gospel. The second is that ethnic minorities practiced spirit worship based on oral tradition; they didn’t have any written documents. When the Western missionaries came, they helped develop literature in the region, translated the Bible, created a Burmese-English dictionary, and started schools and medical clinics. This is how ethnic minorities came to love Christian missionaries. On the other hand, Bamar Buddhists already had literature because Buddhism is a systemic religion. They had a systematic way of thinking, so Western missionaries did not convince them to become Christian.

For us Chin people, we lived high up in the mountains northwest of India, so not many Bamar Buddhist missionaries reached us. However, in the lower regions, where Bamar and Karen minorities lived together in the same cities, some might have been evangelized.

How did Buddhism become intertwined with Bamar identity, leading to Buddhist nationalism?

That began in the colonial period under the British (1824–1948) when Buddhist nationalism first emerged as the anti-colonial movement. During that time, Western missionaries also came to Myanmar, so for the Buddhist nationalists, Western missionaries and the British colonizers didn’t seem that different.

After we gained independence from the British in 1948, Buddhist nationalism turned into an anti-ethnic minority movement. Many Buddhist nationalists believed that ethnic minorities easily embraced Western Christianity. That’s why they faced discrimination in the Buddhist-majority country.

Growing up in the village, did you ever hear of the term Buddhist nationalism?

I did not. I only heard about this term after I entered the academic community. However, I did experience it. We understood Buddhist nationalism as lumyo-gyi wada, which means the “domination of the majority race.” The leaders promoted Burmese as the national language at the expense of ethnic minority languages, nationalized Buddhism as the state religion, and privileged the Bamar majority Buddhists.

When I was in the village, we felt it was natural that the majority had control over the minority. I knew that ethnic minorities faced discrimination based on their identity. The idea was that to be Bamar is to be Buddhist, and to be Chin is to be Christian. Even if ethnic minorities changed their religion to Buddhism, they couldn’t change their ethnicity, so they would still face discrimination.

When you asked grassroots Christians about their thoughts on Buddhist nationalism, some said they thought it was a myth, as they had only had positive experiences with Buddhists, while others said it was reality. Were you surprised by the answers?

I was a little surprised, but I understand their response is based on the people they encounter. It’s fair, because when we say “Buddhist nationalism,” we are not saying that all Buddhists in Myanmar are bad. I approach Buddhism paradoxically: There is the moral rule of Buddhism and the amoral rule of Buddhism.

In the West, the common perception of Buddhism is the Dalai Lama version of Buddhism, which is filled with peace and compassion. But they have not look at the ugly side of Buddhism, where Buddhism is misused as a political tool for violence, identity-based discrimination, and nationalism. This is more apparent in places like Myanmar and Sri Lanka. We need to look at both the beautiful and the ugly sides of Buddhism so we can fairly engage with moral Buddhists who also hate Buddhist nationalism.

Due to ongoing fighting between the military and armed ethnic-minority groups, 70,000 Chin refugees now live in the US. How have they brought over this idea of blending religion and nationalism?

Many Chin refugees hate Buddhist nationalism back home in Myanmar, but when they come to the US, they really love Christian nationalism. Some display flags in their churches and homes. I ask them, “You say Buddhist nationalism is a problem in Myanmar, but how come you don’t think Christian nationalism is a problem?”

I think they justify this by arguing that Christianity is above all other religions. They also say that the US is built on Christian principles. They think Democratic presidents are anti-Christian.

Do many support Donald Trump for president?

Absolutely. They really love him because they believe he can make America’s economy great again and that he will protect Christian identity. They also view Trump as powerful and think that he has accomplished what he promised to do.

In your book, you note that Kachin Christians often justify their fight against the Bamar military by pointing to the Bible. Could you explain more about that?

After the coup, I interviewed a couple of Christian activists who say they love the Old Testament because it is explicit about evil and how God’s chosen people fought against their enemies. Because they believe the coup is evil, they like passages in Psalms—for instance, Psalm 1:1–2—that call God’s people to fight and resist evil. Moses is their role model.

Your book also includes a quote from some Kachin Christian who said they “would not go to heaven if there are Bamar there.”

Even before the coup, Kachin Christians faced a lot of discrimination. For them, being Bamar, being Buddhist, and being part of the army are inseparable. They don’t like Bamar people. It’s as if the anti–Buddhist nationalists have become the anti-Bamar people.

This is a radical view that shows how much Kachin people hate Bamar Buddhist nationalism. That’s why they say if there are Bamar in heaven, they would choose another place because they would not want to live together with them in the future. Of course, this is not the correct view for Christians, as we have to love Bamar even if we hate some policies or Buddhist nationalism.

You did a round of interviews before the 2021 coup began, then another round almost a year after the coup. Did you find that your interviewees’ answers had changed in that time?

The leaders I talked to still saw the military junta as the same—evil.

However, the way some Christian minorities saw Buddhists became more positive after the coup because there was an opportunity for interreligious resistance to the coup.

As I said earlier, Buddhist nationalism first emerged as an anti-colonial movement, then as an anti–ethnic minority group movement. But after this coup, Buddhist nationalism turned into an anti-democracy movement, which opened up the opportunity for some ethnic minorities and Bamar people to work together as they resisted the coup.

Are you seeing more people from grassroots backgrounds going into the academy and helping bridge academia with what is happening on the ground?

I think it’s growing in that direction, especially in my community. There is a paradigm shift among the younger generation. But we need to push the boundary of contextual theology and engage with the grassroots people. Engaging grassroots Christians and including them in academic writing is very difficult. It’s easier to engage with another academic book than with the people. I think many people know it’s needed, but I think many people are lazy.

Many scholars of world Christianity celebrate how Christianity moved its center from the West to the Global South. I don’t think they pay enough attention to how Christianity is flourishing particularly among the ethnic minorities and poor people living in the Global South. It’s not just a demographic move but a socioeconomic move toward the poor, the marginalized—people who are similar to Jesus’ disciples in the first century.

- More from Angela Lu Fulton

Ideas

Christ and a Coin-Toss Race

Russell Moore

Editor in Chief

As Election Day approaches, American Christians must remember to render “to God the things that are God’s.”

Illustration by Elizabeth Kaye / Source Images: Wikimedia Commons

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

“Here we are, right at the end, and the election is a coin toss.” A friend said that to me just a few minutes ago, referring to the razor-thin polling margins between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. A few thousand votes one way or the other in as few as three swing states could produce radically different alternatives for the future of the country.

I wonder, though, whether as American Christians we ought to think of Election Day as a coin toss in a different way as well. Even in a more secularized society, the words “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Mark 12:17, ESV throughout) are still recognizable to most people. The account—from the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke—recounts Jesus’ response to the question of whether to pay taxes to the Roman emperor’s regime.

Like many other Scriptures, those words have been grossly misused. They’re quoted to justify churches engaging directly in political activism (often paired with a misreading of Abraham Kuyper’s famous declaration that there is not one square inch of the universe that Jesus does not claim as “Mine”). They are also quoted to make the case for a separation of Christian conscience from public justice (often with a similarly downgraded version of Martin Luther’s idea of two kingdoms).

Jesus’ words here actually speak sharply to what it means to be his follower in a time of pronounced divisions and high stakes. But to hear them rightly, we must pay attention to how Jesus discerned what was real and what was false. In many ways, his political situation—though radically different, set in an ancient empire rather than a modern democracy—was similar to the one facing us right now.

First, Jesus upended an artificial controversy to provoke a genuine crisis in his hearers. The question about taxes was posed by two very disparate groups—the Pharisees and the Herodians—but neither side was truly grappling with a theological dilemma. They were executing a strategy. They were humiliated by Jesus’ parables against them and so plotted “to trap him in his talk” (v. 13). This was a proxy war.

Jesus saw through the artificial controversy and the manipulative flattery with which it was framed: “Teacher, we know that you are true and do not care about anyone’s opinion. For you are not swayed by appearances, but truly teach the way of God” (v. 14). It was not out of naive ignorance but “knowing their hypocrisy” (v. 15) that Jesus answered.

What Jesus recognized here was what journalist Amanda Ripley calls “conflict entrepreneurs,” those who have an interest in creating havoc and division for its own sake. If we are to seek “the mind of Christ” (1 Cor. 2:15–16), we should likewise be able to recognize that often what really matters is not what’s debated most fiercely around us. Such controversies may light up the limbic system, but often they distract us from what really matters, to the detriment of our neighbors and ourselves.

As Jesus upended the artificial controversy, he also upended the tribalism that undergirded it. The conversation about Caesar’s coin, after all, was not really about tax policy. The Pharisees knew that the throne of the kingdom of Israel belonged by covenant to David’s heir (2 Sam. 7:1–17), not to a puppet of some Gentile occupying force. So if Jesus told his hearers to pay taxes to Caesar, he’d be understood as negating that covenant promise. But if Jesus had answered that people should withhold the tax, this would be heard as Jesus urging insurrection against Rome.

Those who were “just asking questions” knew that they could use the question—particularly for those who cared about God’s covenant—to draw tribal boundaries. For the whole crowd, they could make taxes into a “You’re not one of us” question of identity. They chose this strategy of riling political passions because they “feared the people” (Mark 12:12). To deny the possibility that Jesus was, in fact, “the stone that the builders rejected” (v. 10), now made the cornerstone of a new creation, they sought to push him into existing divisions.

The trap aside, those divisions were real and serious. So too are the divisions in American life—and the consequences of this election are of crucial importance. But one of the reasons the country is exhausted is that so much of our political debate is not about politics at all. It’s about whether one is really part of the tribe—whatever tribe that is. To be excluded feels like a threat to our very existence.

Yet Jesus refused to join a tribe and instead asked for a coin. In this, he reordered the priorities of the entire conversation. “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” he asked (v. 16). Caesar, of course, had honored his own image, depicting himself as the son of the gods.

Jesus’ response made all that self-magnified glory look pitiful and small. He tossed the coin back to his interrogators and got to the question behind the question. Mark ends the story by recording that “they marveled at him” (v. 17).

As the American experiment continues to be tested in the years to come, those who love our country best will be those who are not Americans first. The sense of politics as ultimate leads us to do unspeakably awful things, harming our own country, because “desperate times call for desperate measures.” But Christians who are secure in our first priority—to seek the kingdom of God and to be citizens of that realm—can love our country well. We can render unto Caesar without veering into idolatrous worship of party, politicians, or democracy itself.

The New Testament honors the legitimacy of government—even really, really flawed governments like Rome. But that honor never includes making politics or government a source of identity or meaning in life.

We often can tell where our priorities are by what drives us to despair or to anger. I voted in this election, and if it goes a different way than I want, I’ll be worried and upset. But if I find myself in a frenzy or hopeless, I ought to rethink what it means to follow one who was tranquil before the government with the power to crucify him (John 18:33–36) while his disciples were fleeing, but then sweat drops of blood in prayer in the garden while those same disciples were asleep (Mark 14:37).

“Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” Other passages teach us about the separation of church and state, but that’s not what this text addresses. Other passages teach about the duty to pay taxes; that’s not the reason we have this one. This is about something we all should remember as we make our way to Election Day: that we are first and foremost Christians. That we belong to God.

We owe it to the legacy of George Washington and James Madison and Harriet Tubman and all the Americans who came before us to guard the institutions and freedom they handed on to us. We owe the same to the generations to come. Politics matter. But when politics start to define us, to control our sense of who we are, to keep us in a state of artificial exultation or artificial doom, we should recognize what’s happening.

Someone is handing us a coin. We should toss it back.

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

Learn more about Evangelicals in a Diverse Democracy.

News

Satellite Imagery Documents Erasure of Armenian Christian Heritage

Jayson Casper

As archaeologists discover new ruins revealing the ancient origins of the church, new technologies reveal the extent of its destruction in neighboring Azerbaijan.

Aftermath of the Azerbaijan Shelling in 2020 Over The Shushi Cathedral In Nagorno Karabakh.

NurPhoto / Getty / Edits by CT

Discovered ruins of a fourth-century church in Armenia are “sensational evidence” of the nation’s early Christian history, stated Achim Lichtenberger, the lead German archaeologist of a binational excavation effort with the local National Academy of Sciences. Carbon dating of wooden platforms may establish an octagonal structure as the oldest documented church in Armenia.

Tradition indicates that Armenia became the world’s first Christian nation in AD 301. The church design reflects features resembling similar building styles in ancient eastern Mediterranean civilizations, previously unknown in the Caucasus region. The ruins were found in Artaxata, once the capital of the Kingdom of Armenia, which means “the joy of truth” in the original Indo-Iranian language.

But Christina Maranci, an Armenian professor of art and architecture at Harvard University, said the joy of these discoveries is outweighed by alarm at the destruction of Armenian heritage sites in the neighboring country of Azerbaijan. The Muslim-majority nation initiated fighting that displaced its Armenian residents from a disputed region and is now accused of systematically removing the remaining evidence of their ethnic historical presence.

“This is their long-term plan,” she said. “The intent is to erase evidence of our existence, which they do not admit anyway.”

In a 44-day war with Armenia in 2020, Muslim-majority Azerbaijan reclaimed most of its internationally recognized territory in Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous enclave then populated by ethnic Armenians who had proclaimed themselves a breakaway republic they called Artsakh.

And last month marked the one-year anniversary of a lightning Azerbaijani offensive to capture the remaining pockets of land, which resulted in their near depopulation as 100,000 refugees fled to Armenia. Furthermore, beyond the geopolitical dispute and humanitarian crisis, critics see new evidence that Azerbaijan continues to demolish signs of the region’s historical Armenian presence.

Maranci is one of several academics employing scientific and technological advances to demonstrate claims of antiquity. Her expertise includes the study of spolia, remnants of ancient structures repurposed in modern construction.

As an example, Manci cited two monasteries from the 14th and 15th century that were destroyed—twice. In the 1950s, Soviet authorities leveled the structures and haphazardly incorporated the medieval stones into the building materials for two public schools. Children could daydream, Maranci said, while looking at randomly placed images of crosses, saints, and angels.

Until Azerbaijan bulldozed the schools to make way for new roads.

Though the spolia in the schools were clearly visible, Azerbaijani officials may have not bothered to notice them, as they removed outdated structures in favor of modern housing developments. Intentional or not, Maranci said the disregard for Armenia’s religious heritage fits into a wider pattern of cultural erasure.

Satellite Imagery Documents Erasure of Armenian Christian Heritage

A satellite photo of Chirag/Chragh School before and after destruction

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©️CHW 2024. Used by permission.

A satellite photo of Zar/Tsar School before and after destruction

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Her work is referenced by Caucasus Heritage Watch (CHW), a Cornell and Purdue University initiative founded in 2020 that documents both Armenian and Azerbaijani historical sites. After the fall of the Soviet Union, a six-year war between the two nations resulted in Armenian control of Nagorno-Karabakh and its surrounding territory. Many Azerbaijani villages were looted and leveled.

Out of 63 mosques, CHW found that Armenians had destroyed 8 and inflicted major damage on another 31.

The accusation of Azerbaijani erasure, however, has not been limited to Nagorno-Karabakh. In a report released earlier this month, CHW used satellite imagery to confirm the destruction of 108 monasteries, churches, and cemeteries—98 percent of the sites the organization had located—in the noncontiguous Azerbaijani territory of Nakhchivan, which borders Turkey and Armenia.

CHW increased its geolocation of cultural heritage during Azerbaijan’s 2023 blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh, and then again following the Armenian exodus. With over 2,000 sites in its database, 436 are actively monitored at the time of writing.

In its first post-displacement report, CHW noted the destruction of the 19th-century St. John the Baptist Church, known locally as “Kanach Zham,” and an 18th-century cemetery. Four other sites were destroyed, with an additional nine newly threatened. This group includes two 13th-century churches, the only historic structures left standing in a village that was leveled to prepare for a new housing development.

“Azerbaijan knows it is being monitored,” Maranci said. “I don’t know what games are being played, but they are destroying centuries of history, faith, and identity. I wish it would stop.”

In 2021, the International Court of Justice warned Azerbaijan not to allow the destruction of cultural heritage. But three months later, the minister of culture announced a plan to remove Armenian inscriptions from churches, labeling them “forgery.” Azerbaijan follows an internationally discredited theory that claims most of these structures belonged originally to an ancient Christian people called Caucasian Albanians.

Satellite Imagery Documents Erasure of Armenian Christian Heritage

A satellite map of St. Astvatsatsin Monestary of Tsghna before and after its destruction

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A satellite photo of St. Hovhannes Church before and after descruction

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A satellite photo of Surb Sargis Church and Surb Grigor Church before and after destruction

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The evangelical minority in Azerbaijan pays little attention to the claims and counterclaims regarding Armenian heritage sites.

“The issue of cultural heritage is not something we think about,” said one church leader, granted anonymity to speak freely on a sensitive topic. “But the government’s development of this area is legitimate.”

Azerbaijan is rated “not free” in Freedom House’s annual survey of political rights. And for the first time, the US State Department included Azerbaijan in its most recent designation of violators of religious freedom.

The church leader stated that most Azerbaijani evangelicals come from a Muslim background and are not actively persecuted by the state. But their churches tend to be far from Nagorno-Karabakh and prioritize local witness and social acceptance.

This leader said his own church has already engaged in evangelism among the few Azerbaijanis within the reclaimed lands. He found the development work taking place impressive and professional, acknowledging that progress thus far is only a small part of what is planned. Left fallow for decades, the regions bordering Nagorno-Karabakh acted as a buffer zone and were treated by Armenians as a negotiating pawn while they sought local self-rule.

The Azerbaijani government designated the region as a “green energy zone,” and is now facilitating the voluntary return of citizens displaced 30 years ago. Critics have stated the construction contracts are awarded to figures with close ties to the president’s family.

Yet despite his positive assessment of state land development, the evangelical leader said that the destruction of area churches is likely even greater than what groups like CHW are documenting. He said the church buildings should be given instead to “living churches” like his own so that spiritual life can continue therein.

Unless Azerbaijan concludes a peace treaty that would facilitate the return of Armenian refugees, he said. Then these churches, including the downtown cathedral in the capital city of Baku, could be restored to the historic Armenian Orthodox church.

Peace negotiations have been an on-again, off-again process. In hopes of improving the prospects for peace, last December Armenia dropped its bid to host this year’s COP29 global environmental summit and backed Azerbaijan’s successful candidacy, thereby securing the release of 30 prisoners of war. (COP29 will take place in Baku on November 11–22.) In July, Azerbaijan stated that 90 percent of a proposed peace treaty text had been agreed upon. And in August, it dropped its demand for a land corridor through Armenia to connect Nakhchivan with the main part of the country.

Azerbaijan is insisting that Armenia adopt constitutional language forswearing any claim on Nagorno-Karabakh—a domestically polarizing issue. But while Armenia expressed hope that a peace treaty could be finalized before the start of COP29, Azerbaijan countered that the current Armenian proposal was “unrealistic.”

Aren Deyirmenjian, Armenia representative for the evangelical Armenian Missionary Association of America, said he believes his government has made it clear that Armenia has no claim on Artsakh. It has offered paths toward peace, which Azerbaijan has rejected. He wonders what more they can want.

But he acknowledged the source of their popular anti-Armenian sentiment.

“I have heard terrible stories about Armenians doing very similar things to what Azerbaijan is doing now,” said Deyirmenjian. “Somehow, that makes you understand why there is so much hatred in the Azeris’ hearts.”

However difficult, apologizing is the Armenian “biblical duty,” he said. It should then be reciprocated, which may seem highly unlikely. Yet if Armenia is indeed the world’s first Christian nation, its actions must be different from those of the Azerbaijani enemy. Apologies would demonstrate the humility, he said, that is essential for eventual reconciliation.

Until then, evangelical hearts are pained by the cultural destruction.

“There is clear intent to erase our heritage,” Deyirmenjian said. “While the world is busy, Azerbaijan wants to get rid of all evidence that Armenians are native to these lands.”

- More from Jayson Casper

News

The Copyright Controversy Behind a Viral Gospel Hit

Akosua Frempong

A producer claims a Ghanaian praise group stole his lyrics, raising questions about credit and ownership in Christian music.

Team Eternity Ghana

Illustration by Christianity Today / Source Images: Unsplash / Facebook

Earlier this year, a gospel group from Ghana sparked a popular dance challenge.

In May, Team Eternity Ghana released “Defe Defe,” which climbed the charts in Africa and claimed the top spot on Ghana’s Apple Music Top 100 list a week after it dropped. Soon afterward, Britain’s Got Talent’s Afronitaaa started the dance challenge that went viral. Within three months of its release, the original live performance of “Defe Defe” racked up 4.4 million views on YouTube.

But in the wake of the song’s enthusiastic reception, Team Eternity Ghana has found itself tangled in a copyright dispute with Ghanaian producer Kwame Mickey, who said they unlawfully used original lyrics from a song he produced (also called “Defe Defe”) 20 years ago.

Like any growing genre, Christian music’s increasing global popularity has placed a higher value on hits—and raised the stakes of proper attribution and credit. But in a Christian context, conflicts over credit and compensation can be especially fraught. The appearance of greed or opportunism can threaten a Christian artist’s reputation, but failure to claim credit threatens their livelihood—especially for independent musicians and producers or those working in smaller and developing industries like Ghana’s.

“Many dismiss the importance of legal considerations with statements like ‘Since it’s a God thing, it’s free and for everyone,’” said Eugene Zuta, a Ghanaian songwriter and worship leader. “As a result, copyright issues are often disregarded, and regulations are violated. Some of my songs have been used by others, who make light of their infringement with lame excuses.”

In public comments and interviews, Mickey claimed that Team Eternity Ghana used words original to the chorus of his version of “Defe Defe.” Both choruses include the common Ghanaian expression defe defe as a refrain to convey the same basic message: Without God’s help, they would have been defeated by their enemies (defe defe roughly translates to “defeated”).

Team Eternity Ghana’s “Defe Defe” is an upbeat contemporary gospel anthem featuring segments of rap and improvisational solo vocals. The lyrics blend English and Twi, the language spoken by the Akan people, the largest ethnic group in Ghana. The first verse begins in English—“Father, the universe you made”—and switches to Twi at the beginning of the second stanza—“Bɔhyɛ na Wohyɛɛ no aba mu o” (“The promise you made has come to pass”).

Mickey’s “Defe Defe” employs a more traditional Ghanaian folk-influenced sound and electronic drumbeats. Musically, Mickey’s song has little in common with Team Eternity Ghana’s “Defe Defe,” aside from the use of an identical phrase.

In June, Mickey accused the group of song theft, prompting the Ghana Copyright Office to weigh in on the dispute. James Owusu-Ansah, a researcher for the office urged the parties to settle out of court, saying that a proceeding would be “time consuming, tiresome and expensive.”

Meanwhile, on social media, Team Eternity Ghana fans accused Mickey of making a money grab. Mickey publicly denied any interest in a payout, saying in an interview that he already receives substantial income from other sources.

By July, the parties had reached a settlement, with Mickey telling the press that he received both an apology and a financial sum. The producer also said that he granted Team Eternity Ghana rights to use the phrase derived from his existing song.

The music industry in Ghana is far less litigious than in the US, where lawsuits over lyrics, grooves, and sampling are commonplace.

“The importance of preserving intellectual property in our part of the world is still not very popular; most people tend to overlook it. Intellectual property is still a new concept to most people, and they do not see [music] as property worth protecting,” said Ghanaian attorney Adwoa Paintsil.

She also pointed out that Ghanaian artists try to quietly settle disputes.

“There is a tendency to settle matters quickly and out of court,” Paintsil told CT. “Thankfully, a few people have taken the bold step by instituting actions to preserve their intellectual property.”

Paintsil pointed to a recent example of a case in which a Ghanaian music producer sued the Confederation of African Football for copyright infringement and was awarded $250,000 by the court. Paintsil said that cases like this may help raise awareness in the industry about what it means to fairly and ethically use someone’s musical output and show artists that they have recourse when another creator or entity uses their intellectual property without permission.

For some, the case of “Defe Defe” is less about intellectual property and more about who gets to lay claim to religious phrases, texts, or themes.

“It is a known fact that almost every gospel song takes its inspiration from Christian beliefs and practices,” said Paintsil. “Religious sentiments, dogma, practices cannot be copyrighted.”

In Paintsil’s view, to claim the rights to the phrase defe defe would be to claim ownership over a common Akan expression.

“Establishing originality of the word defe would have been a herculean task for the producer, as it is a vernacular word,” Paintsil added. “It is not a special phrase invented by Kwame Mickey. And the song does not use a unique interpretation of the phrase other than what is commonly known within the Akan community. The use of defe on its own would fail to meet the test of originality.”

Nonetheless, Team Eternity Ghana’s payment of a settlement suggests that, at the very least, the artists involved wanted to avoid a prolonged public conflict. Paintsil also said that a settlement suggests Team Eternity did not challenge the authorship of the producer.

The worship megahit “Way Maker,” written and originally recorded by Nigerian artist Sinach, is also currently the center of a conflict between the recording artist and a producer. Recently, the original studio recordings of “Way Maker” have been removed from platforms like Facebook and YouTube in the midst of a dispute with producer Michael Anthony Oluwole.

In 2023, Oluwole spoke publicly about his claim that Sinach had failed to give him a production credit for the song, which would have generated royalty payouts.

“It is what it is. People tell you this is for God and we’re doing it for God,” said Oluwole. “They understand what royalty is, they know how to sign for royalties. … They signed it as though they produced it. And that’s how it’s been done in the gospel space in Nigeria.”

Oluwole said he repeatedly and personally reached out to Sinach to resolve the oversight with no success. In August 2024, fans noticed that the original studio recording of “Way Maker” had been removed on various online platforms. Currently, the recording is still absent from Sinach’s YouTube channel. Neither Sinach nor Oluwole have spoken openly about details of the ongoing dispute.

As the viral success of songs like “Way Maker” and “Defe Defe” suggests, the global Christian music industry is unpredictable, and social media can drive a song’s popularity without traditional gatekeepers. In an environment where one surprise viral hit can generate life-changing income and launch a career, producers, songwriters, and artists will need to securely credit their musical contributions and proactively protect their intellectual property.

“People think we had a release strategy, promotion budget, and stuff like that, but guess what? It wasn’t like that,” Joseph Gordon, one of the singers in Team Eternity Ghana, said in an interview. “We count it all to the grace of God.”

- More from Akosua Frempong

Ideas

The Scandal of the Evangelical Heart

Alexander Sosler

The love of many Christians has grown cold. How can we reorder our desires and affections?

Illustration by Elizabeth Kaye / Source Images: Getty, Pexels

Thirty years ago this month, Christian historian Mark Noll wrote an instant classic that launched an infamous accusation against the evangelical movement at the time: “The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is not much of an evangelical mind.”

Noll was addressing the growing lack of depth in modern Protestant Christianity—spawned by the problem of an anti-intellectual, overly emotive, and pragmatic wave that led Christians to stick with what works and what feels good. His book quickly became a clarion call for evangelicals to prioritize investing in the mind in high culture, scholarship, and academia.

This thesis was also formative for me as a young person. Growing up, the shallowness of contemporary Christianity concerned me. In a church context that seemed to function on good feelings and the right vibes, I welcomed a renewed emphasis on thoughtfulness and theological depth. In fact, part of the reason I pursued higher degrees was this very longing for a more substantial faith.

To borrow a term from Andy Crouch, the past evangelical emphasis on intellect was a fine “gesture”—and by gesture, I mean an occasional response or action. The initial gesture says that the problem is intellectual, and we need more scholarship, good thinking, and deeper theology to change people’s minds. We’ve grown shallow and need to grow deep.

But this gesture can also turn into a posture of defense that is mobilized by rightness versus wrongness. This, in turn, can lead to a penchant for crushing our ideological opponents with winning arguments. In short, it can produce a prideful Christianity that knows it’s right.

Politically, this looks like redness or blueness defining our orthodoxy. Theologically, being Arminian or Calvinist becomes a badge of inclusion or exclusion. Gone is any spirit of mystery or corresponding human charity. God is on our side because our tribe knows what’s right.

Maybe the greatest scandal of the evangelical mind was assuming that the mind is or was our deepest scandal. I would argue that the bigger scandal, especially today, is not an inadequate mind but a disordered heart.

In other words, it’s not that we don’t know enough but that we love the wrong things—or perhaps we love the right things in the wrong ways. Our affections, in short, have gone awry. We desire power, so we fight and jockey for position. We want to be right, so we view others as opponents to be conquered. We fear the world, so we sequester into silos. Like a Grinch-sized heart, two sizes two small, the evangelical heart has grown cold and loveless.

Michael Luo picks up Noll’s argument in The New Yorker. In his suggested solution for erring evangelical minds is a vital recovery of worshiping God. If I could change his language slightly, I may phrase the solution as a vital recovery of love.

As Augustine once wrote that whoever “thinks that he understands the Holy Scriptures” in such a way that “does not tend to build up this twofold love of God and our neighbour” doesn’t understand the Scriptures at all.

As Christians, love is the Great Commandment of our lives—but this doesn’t amount to social niceties or sentimentality. It means that we are meant to become people of character and depth committed to the good of our neighbors. It means our hearts become shaped into a posture of love for God and people.

In this suggestion, I do not want to say less than Noll. I’m not against reason, but I am for wholeness. The focus on love is not a reduction from Noll but an expansion. In this diagnosis, our intellect is equally implicated, but the scandal lies far deeper—as does the solution.

And what, indeed, is the solution?

I believe such a reordering of love requires we reimagine our modes of spiritual formation and education in a way that takes affection seriously. Our methods for discipleship must cultivate in us a deeper sense of belonging, train us in tangible habits and practices that shape our seeing and being, and help us develop a richer aesthetic framework.

First, in our modern quest for meaning, we’ve lost sight of the fact that our ultimate purpose is found in belonging. If you prioritize your independence, you’ll always feel adrift and alone. But if you belong somewhere, your meaning and purpose will follow. Belonging cultivates affection, and affection is particular—because you can’t love people in the abstract.

Over time, my individual life matters less as I find myself caught up with life in my community. Even if or when my job lacks fulfillment, my communal life upholds me. What I do becomes less important than who I am doing it with and who I am doing it for.

The agrarian writer Wendell Berry distinguishes between “boomers” (an attitude, not the generation) and “stickers.” Boomers are motivated by greed. They exploit and think momentarily, looking around and always wanting more. Stickers are motivated by affection. They seek to repair and think long-term; they embrace their own lives and want no others.

Our modern world encourages us to always run toward something else or buy something new. It’s no wonder our faith has grown loveless when we are always on the go and always on the move. And if we are going to resist this impulse, we ought to forsake the race for bigger and better and settle into our given lives. Wherever we end up and whatever church we attend, God is ready to meet us in and through the people he has placed around us. More than that, we must think long-term—what will be good for my great-grandkids rather than what serves me now.

Staying in place seems boring, dull, mundane. I hear the refrain from my college students often: “I want to travel!” Yet this desire for newness, novelty, difference, may be a source of our ills. Eugene Peterson characterizes the modern age as having a tourist mentality. It’s easy to sell and package the gospel with this mindset: Come hear this new person; travel to this cool retreat; this novel thing will make you happy. You don’t want to miss it!

But the Christian life, Peterson argues, is more like the slow, plodding way of the pilgrim, who takes one step after another. We are moving, but our movement primarily takes the form of seeking and drawing nearer to a Person we know. And all along the way, God wants to meet us in the slow, mundane, boring parts of life—in the form of our habits and rituals.

As James K. A. Smith has argued, we can’t merely think our way to God. Humans are desiring creatures, not just brains-on-a-stick. Jesus’ first words recorded in the Gospel of John are “What do you want?” (1:38), not “What do you know?” or “What do you believe?” Desires play a central role in our inward lives, and our desires are shaped through practice. In other words, our practices shape our pursuit, and our habits shape our affections.

If that’s true, Christian formation must consider how our habits order and disorder us—how we shape our aspirational desires rather than cater to our basest desires. We need an embodied faith that practices its way toward loving what we ought to love. Growth requires the pain of challenge, and challenge means changing the way we live.

There are no quick fixes for any sickness of the human soul. Without a steady, habitual, slow formation over time, we’ll be tossed to and fro by the winds and waves of new doctrine or life circumstances (Eph. 4:14). We’ll always stay tourists and never complete our pilgrimage.

The other weakness of a purely modern and rationalistic way of looking at the world is that it creates a Christianity that can be explained—robbing it of its supernatural awe and wonder. Jesus becomes a concept to grasp and defend, not a person to love and share. We could be believing and saying true things with good motivations, but our imagination is fundamentally diseased.

I love the way the novelist Flannery O’Connor describes the connection between our beliefs and our vision. What she argues for the fiction writer is also true of us: “Your beliefs will be the light by which you see, but they will not be what you see and they will not be a substitute for seeing.”

In other words, our beliefs dictate how we see, but they are not what we look at. She goes on to say that belief or faith is something which “can’t be learned only in the head; it has to be learned in the habits. It has to become a way that you habitually look at things.”

Formation is a way of seeing before it is a way of knowing—and our vision is ultimately shaped through our habits. But the shift from relying on our intellect to engaging our heart requires a renewed imagination.

“Imagination entails much more than our individual fancies and visions, and its hold on us reaches far beyond the limits of our own minds,” Karen Swallow Prior explains. “The imagination shapes us and our world more than any other human power or ability. Communities, societies, movements, and, yes, religions are formed and fueled by the power of the imagination.”

Our imagination colors the way we see the world around us and affects how we view the neighbors and strangers Jesus has called us to love with empathy and compassion. But more than that, it impacts the eyes of our faith—without which it is impossible to please God (Heb. 11:6).

“This is characteristic of imagination: To see what is unseen,” Walter Cabal writes in Ekstasis. As such, he goes on to suggest, “The healthy imagination has equal—or dare I say—more potential for bringing life into the world than facts.”

One vital way we can train our imagination is through the arts—an aesthetic orientation opens our inward contemplation to the “moreness” of life and its meaning.

The arts help us pay attention in particular ways. Attention, as Simone Weil reminds us, is another term for prayer. The psalmist proclaims, “One thing I ask from the Lord … that I may … gaze on the beauty of the Lord” (Ps. 27:4). Beauty compels us to the Beautiful One—and it invites us to become what we behold.

Through the arts, we can reimagine the world through God’s eyes—which, despite its darkness and suffering, is a place exploding with his abundant beauty, creativity, meaning, and grace.

It’s not that there wasn’t or isn’t a problem with the way we think but that the scandal of our mind was too small a thing to aim at. It’s not merely that we haven’t thought deeply or been intellectually formed—though that’s true enough. The problem is that our formation has been fragmented and cheapened.

Our evangelical hearts need healing. When we are whole, we will be healthy, and when we are healthy, we can love rightly. Christianity is about living into human wholeness—not being reduced to certain aspects but living into the fullness of humanity. Christianity offers not just another belief system but an alternative way to live and love—which is tied to place and community, habitual and slow, with an eye toward the beauty of God.

Not only do we have the mind of Christ but he also dwells in our heart through faith, rooting and grounding us in his love (Eph. 3:17). Let us pray, then, for the power to comprehend this love which “surpasses knowledge” (v. 19)—one that overflows our lives and pours itself into the world around us.

Alex Sosler is an Associate Professor of Bible and Ministry at Montreat College and an Assisting Priest at Redeemer Anglican Church in Asheville. He is the author of A Short Guide to Spiritual Formation and Learning to Love, as well as co-author of The Artistic Vision and editor of Theology and the Avett Brothers.

- More from Alexander Sosler

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