David Bentley Hart’s Brain-Breaking Argument for the Supremacy of the Mind

Nadya Williams

The theologian’s latest book, though rhetorically forbidding, yields brilliant insights on the relationship between material and spiritual things.

Illustration by Elizabeth Kaye / Source Images: Pexels / Wikimedia Commons

There is a beautiful garden in perfect bloom, existing somewhere outside of time and place. There, four pagan gods have gathered together for an intense, six-day Platonic symposium about the nature of the mind and the spiritual world (after which they will rest on the seventh day).

This in a nutshell is the setting and the organizational premise, old and new all at once, of David Bentley Hart’s new book, All Things Are Full of Gods: The Mysteries of Mind and Life. Hart, an Eastern Orthodox theologian, explores the philosophy and theology of the mind in a manner that delights, bewilders, confuses, and alarms—sometimes separately and sometimes all at once.

The Archaic Greek philosopher Thales once said, “All things are full of gods.” For Thales, this notion was perfectly compatible with his scientific inquiry into astronomy, mathematics, and more.

The nod to Thales in the book’s title is appropriate. As Hart notes in his introduction in a sentence whose intimidatingly elaborate erudition—and sheer length—captures the style of his prose throughout:

Before the advent and eventual triumph of the mechanical philosophy in early modernity, and then the gradual but more or less total triumph of a materialist metaphysics of nature (even among those who believe in a realm beyond the merely physical), most developed philosophies, East and West alike, presumed that mind or something mindlike, transcendent or immanent or both, was the more original truth of things, pervading, sustaining, and giving existence to all that is.

As Hart recognizes, embracing the supremacy of the mind in all its mysterious glory doesn’t necessarily entail any new theological or philosophical discoveries. Instead, it involves dusting off and recovering something very old—pre-Christian, even. The idea of miracles, the acceptance of supernatural realities, and the need for mediators between gods and normal humans have all been features of human life and belief for millennia.

The Realest Reality

Michael Horton’s new book, Shaman and Sage, which I coincidentally read right before picking up Hart’s volume, is a good companion piece here, as it confirms the longstanding human bend toward the spiritual (but not necessarily religious). Indeed, the extreme contemporary skeptics, so quick to dismiss the reality of anything intangible or invisible, belong squarely in the historical minority. For much of human existence, people were more Thales than Richard Dawkins—seeing no conflict between the world of science and the mysterious unseen all around.

The spiritual state, then, seems to occur more or less naturally. By the end of Hart’s book, nevertheless, I felt that I could best relate to Hephaestus, the pagan metalsmith god Hart casts as the supporter of the material world. Hephaestus’s main conversationalist is Psyche, the goddess of the soul—that is, indeed, what her name literally means. (Also present at Hart’s imagined dialogue but less outspoken are Eros, the god of love and Psyche’s husband, and Hermes, the messenger god.)

It is Psyche who drives Hart’s main argument throughout this volume—that the spiritual and invisible world is true, and it is much more real than the physical and tangible world so ardently championed by modern philosophies. The argument for the latter also usually goes hand in hand with the exclusion of the divine and supernatural. Accordingly, Psyche’s journey to prove the reality of the life of the mind is inextricably connected with her axiom that the divine is everywhere.

As Hart says,

a truly scrupulous phenomenology of mental agency discloses an absolute engagement of the mind in an infinite act of knowing that is nothing less than the source and end of all three of these realities [i.e., life, mind, and language], and indeed of all things; or, to say this more simply, all acts of the mind are participations in the mind of God.

But when I say that I could best relate to Hephaestus by the book’s end, I do not mean that I am wholly persuaded by his materialist stance—that has never fully appealed to me. Rather, I find that, like him, I am lost in all the arguments Psyche (or, rather, Hart) presents. To say that this book broke my brain would be an understatement.

In many ways, All Things Are Full of Gods—brain-breaking tendencies included—is classic Hart. Stunningly twisting Ciceronian sentences, of the sort I have quoted in this review, might span an entire paragraph, enticing the reader with the beauty of their phrasing. Still, it is a beauty that one cannot fully or easily comprehend, as I often realized upon reaching such a one’s end. I understand, I think, the overall premises and arguments of the book; I struggled, however, to understand many individual sentences in full. But then, as Hart notes, language too is a mystery.

The evolution of Hart’s thought and brilliance is on full display, nevertheless, as he continues his decades-long exploration of the divine across traditions, offering in All Things Are Full of Gods a recognizable sequel to such earlier books as Atheist Delusions, The Experience of God, and, to a lesser extent, That All Shall Be Saved.

Here, Hart’s meditation—for this book is more a meditation in dialogue form than any sort of traditional argument—centers around two essential premises that Psyche painstakingly tries to prove by drawing on examples from the past two and a half millennia of philosophy. First, that God and the divine or spiritual world are intensely, palpably real. Second (and most important), that the visible world is not all that there is—in fact, the things unseen are more real.

The mind is greater than the body. As Psyche puts it early in the dialogue, “Whatever the nature of matter may be, the primal reality of all things is mind.” But this idea, Hart is convinced, is not unique to any one tradition; rather, it is universal in premodernity. And so, Psyche concludes, “Ātman is Brahman—which I take to be the first, last, most fundamental, and most exalted truth of all real philosophy and religion alike.”

Such beautiful yet loaded statements are what have previously embroiled Hart in charges of heresy. For instance, he has been accused of universalism (the belief in universal salvation), a stance he seems to defend most vehemently in That All Shall Be Saved. And Hart’s new book contains more than a whiff of what one article criticized as Hart’s “Post-Christian Pantheism.”

Drawing Protestant conclusions

What do we make of it all—the dialogue of four pagan gods about the nature of the divine, about the thinking life, and about the nature of reality and the search for wonder in the modern world? This choice of conversationalists to present Hart’s argument is certainly thought-provoking. But perhaps we overthink this remarkable project and its intended meaning if we focus entirely on the premise of four pagan gods in conversation.

Ultimately, the theme that comes through is that of mystery—a transcendent sort of question without an exact answer. What is the meaning of life, of exploration, and even of our very existence? Psyche’s informed answers to question after question from Hephaestus are kaleidoscopic, expanding into seemingly infinite worlds swirling within, but mainly lead to this conclusion: There is no clear comprehensible answer. The thinking life is wonderfully rich—or at least it can be if we leave ourselves open to endless questions, as Hart encourages.

At the end, I was left with the Protestant Sunday school question: Where is Jesus in all this? In the words of hymnwriter Fanny Crosby, we can proclaim, “Take the world, but give me Jesus”—a statement that can read as a Protestant variation on Hart’s overall argument about spiritual reality surpassing the physical.

But Hart is not a Protestant. And perhaps that is what irks his critics most. For all his brilliance, we cannot fully know Hart’s mind, and so critics guess. I will refrain. But I do know that after reading this book, I can still readily draw Protestant conclusions about the transcendent beauty of the Creator God who has made all things. While I would not agree with Thales in a literal sense—that “all things are full of gods”—I can agree with the God of Genesis through Revelation, whose Word, in Isaiah 6:3, says that “the whole earth is full of his glory.”

Nadya Williams is the author of Cultural Christians in the Early Church and the forthcoming Mothers, Children, and the Body Politic: Ancient Christianity and the Recovery of Human Dignity.

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Culture

It Is Not Best for Man to Eat Alone

Anna Broadway

We’re all having meals by ourselves more often. But in the Christian life, food and community are inextricably intertwined.

Supper at Emmaus by Matthias Stom

WikiMedia Commons

When the waiter brought out my long-awaited high tea that day, I didn’t expect I’d still be grieving it decades later.

I was 21 and enjoying my first “real” spring break during a debt-building week away in London. After years of devouring chaste romances set in England, I’d learned that Harrods was the best place to experience the glories of scones, clotted cream, and tiny sandwiches, all served on tiers of gleaming china and, of course, washed down with hot tea. So on my inaugural trip across the sea, it seemed only right to indulge my credit card’s largesse on a high tea at Harrods. Alone.

As I looked around the room that day, I knew I’d made a grave mistake. Not even the tender scones and decadent clotted cream could balance the bitter taste of regret. They worsened it. With each new delight, I felt more keenly the lack of someone to share my enjoyment with.

When I was doing fieldwork for my book on singleness, someone told me it might be worse to eat alone than sleep alone. Eating alone is certainly a problem for people who live by themselves. But with 21st-century work schedules, sports practices, and other structural realities, even those with seemingly “built-in” meal companions in spouses or children or roommates often dine solo too. When we do share supper, allergies and dietary restrictions can create other divides. This shift has even changed apartment and home designs as dining rooms fall out of fashion.

Sometimes, the solitude of a meal alone feels welcome. Perhaps an introvert drained by a day of meetings wants nothing more than time alone to decompress. And for some harried parents, a quiet cup of coffee—a reward for getting up before the rest of the household—might feel like a rare and precious solace.

But for Christians, the question of how and with whom we eat involves more than our own preferences. What is God’s design for our meals?

Scripture includes a surprising number of stories featuring food. To prepare for liberation from slavery, God has the Israelites eat a special Passover meal of lamb, unleavened bread, and bitter herbs that observant Jews continue to recreate annually to this day. Jesus later reinterpreted this meal in the bread and wine of the Eucharist.

Jesus used food to make connections with outcasts and sinners. He made a meal to mend the rift caused by Peter’s betrayal, frying fish for breakfast on the beach. And it was only at the table that an Emmaus-bound duo finally recognized him.

Food also played a pivotal role in helping the early church grasp the extent of God’s vision for his people. As Willie James Jennings writes in his commentary on Acts, “to eat the animals that were associated with a people was to move into their space of living.”

This gives great significance to Peter’s thrice-repeated vision calling him to eat previously forbidden food. Jennings writes,

Peter is not being asked to possess as much as he is being asked to enter in, become through eating a part of something that he did not imagine himself a part of before the eating. This new eating grows out of another invitation to eat, one offered by his savior and friend: “This is my body, which is given for you.”

Not every church embodies a diversity that fully reflects the body of Christ. But to the extent we do, food provides one of the best ways to connect through our shared identity as God’s children. We all need the Eucharist’s embodied reminder of grace. Other shared meals, like post-service potlucks or coffee hours, point to both our equal dependence on God for life and the feast that awaits us in heaven.

And whether feeding the hungry and marginalized or organizing meals for the sick and weary, we acknowledge two truths: Our lives are interconnected, and what we do for the “least” in our midst touches Jesus himself. As the late Orthodox bishop David Mahaffey told me, “To me, God has given us food as a way of communion with him.”

What does all this mean for our many meals alone? Do they inherently fall short of God’s good design for sustenance?

One of my favorite things about the Bible is how much of life it contains: all kinds of people, all kinds of situations.

In the Book of 1 Kings, God sends Elijah east to Cherith, a presumably remote place where he’s instructed to hide until further notice. The author gives few details about this season, apart from the miracle of sustenance God provides against a backdrop of growing famine. Ravens, better known for taking food, bear the prophet’s meals.

Perhaps because of the birds, I’d never thought about the meals themselves as lonely. Yet Elijah must have spent day after day eating without human company. (For that matter, Adam, too would have eaten “alone” until God created Eve.)

I want to be careful not to fill in details the biblical authors did not provide. But a few things strike me about these men’s solitary meals. First, they involve an implied fellowship with God. Meals aside, the little we know of Adam and Elijah’s solitary seasons suggests a strong rapport with the Lord. Surely that extended to their meals too. In fact, perhaps they didn’t really feel alone because of his presence.

Second, both received direct provision from God—water and the ravens’ food for Elijah, fruit for Adam. Under these circumstances, I would hope both men regularly offered thanks. How often and well do we do this? Scarfing down a piece of toast while we drive or eating leftovers on the couch, it’s all too easy to dive in with scarcely a word of acknowledgment.

Lastly, it strikes me that both men ate alone during seasons of preparation. As Priscilla Shirer draws out in her study of Elijah, God used the time at Cherith to prepare Elijah for unexpected communion at Zarephath and eventual confrontation with Ahab. Adam’s meals alone occurred during a time of learning about the work God had given him and slowly coming to realize his need for human companionship. In fact, they occurred before the Fall!

So maybe our meals alone can still honor God’s design. How? Maybe we slow down to notice the sights, sounds, scents, sensations, and tastes of eating. (This can also help with anxiety and stress.) Instead of distracting ourselves with YouTube or social media, we can acknowledge and welcome God’s presence with us. And we can give sincere thanks for those who made and delivered and planted and cultivated and harvested, as well as the One who provided the rain.

And also: We should try to eat with others as often as possible.

I write this as someone who now eats many meals alone, sitting at my gate-leg dining table in the chair that faces the window. Thanks to one book interview with a Norwegian man who sometimes paid bills while he ate—and hated this—I try hard to avoid doing work during dinner. On better nights, I eat while reading or listening to a book. On worse nights, I scroll on my phone.

Not long ago, I shared a late-night bite with a friend who’d come by to get something. We almost always eat something together during visits, often my latest homemade soup. A few bites into that night’s bowl, he asked, “How was your day?”

After years of living in community, I’m now several months into only the second place I’ve rented alone in some 20 years. At my friend’s simple question, my shoulders dropped and tension melted away. Suddenly I was back at the family dinner table of my junior high and high school years.

On weekdays, we rarely ate any other meal with my dad. So he used our dinners to help all six of us connect. One by one, he went around to each of us as we shared “high” and “low” points from our day. This was one of the most emotionally formative rituals of my upbringing. It had a structured cleanup ritual (a nightly chore rotation, carefully tracked on the calendar), and clear boundaries for limited dissent from the family rules (we each got one dish from Mom’s recipe rotation that we didn’t have to eat).

Through our Friday night dinners of homemade hamburgers and French fries, we learned to celebrate the ordinary. Sometimes, our parents even splurged on a two-liter bottle of pop, though I wouldn’t make the connection to work weeks or paychecks until I became an adult myself.

Hospitality sacralizes the everyday. While apps help some find restaurant meal partners, eating at home has an extra vulnerability that deepens connections and accommodates more varied budgets. I love that another friend who lives nearby has started texting me when he’s made too many potatoes or too much chili (often leading to an impromptu meal). Other friends know they might have to clear a dining table chair or that I might serve leftovers. After months of such visits, one married friend finally invited me over for lunch at her home—our first meal there in a yearslong friendship.

Sharing food can take vulnerability and flexibility. But once you get past the initial risk or discomfort, deeper connection usually follows, and loneliness recedes.

Last summer, I briefly lived with a couple who often didn’t connect until the end of their day. Before he left for his bartending job, the husband prepped dinner in the Instant Pot and left it for his wife to eat when she came home from her work as a hairdresser. One night, he made chili; another night, fish chowder. Even when he got home late, even if she’d already eaten what he’d prepared, they often debriefed their days over additional shared food or drink.

When I moved in with the couple, they were eager to embrace communal living, but doubtful we could eat together. I cooked very differently from them, and they both had several allergies. But they often loved how my cooking smelled, and so I made a list of their restrictions so I could accommodate them. As we all settled into living together, I tried to find recipes we could all eat, or made small tweaks that worked with their diet. We ate stuffed peppers with cabbage leaves; for his birthday, I made my family’s eggless applesauce cake with gluten-free flour. By the end of my four months there, they were trying to include me in their detailed weekly meal plans.

It took compromise, for all of us. But looking back, it seems like all the times we three felt most connected involved either food or the kitchen or both. Whether any of us acknowledge it or not, God’s plan for food seems to keep reasserting itself. Perhaps that’s why Jesus most often depicted heavenly life as a massive feast, a theme John later takes up with his allusions to the marriage supper of the Lamb.

Revelation ends with the promise of food restored, after all. In its final chapter, the tree of life, whose fruit caused God to banish humans from Eden, reappears (Gen. 3:22, Rev. 22:2). Only once God resumes sharing that food with humans does the Bible declare the curse no more, and God and humans so close that “they will see his face.”

Anna Broadway is the author of Solo Planet: How Singles Help the Church Recover Our Calling and Sexless in the City: A Memoir of Reluctant Chastity.

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Ideas

Kristyn Getty: Joni Eareckson Tada Got Me Singing

Kristyn Getty

As the famed disability advocate nears 50 years of ministry, a friend reflects on her legacy.

Joni Eareckson Tada

Illustration by Mallory Rentsch Tlapek / Source Images: Getty

It’s said you should never meet your heroes. But Joni Eareckson Tada is different.

I first heard Joni speak when I was 15 years old, sitting in the balcony level of the Waterfront Hall in Belfast. I had heard her story from my mom. I had watched the movie about her life. I knew that she had been in a wheelchair for decades as the result of a teenage diving accident. I had read about how she continued to follow Jesus, sharing the gospel and serving others. Now here she was, in my little home city. I was struck by how much joy she had in the Lord despite everything she faced every day. It was a special night.

I wouldn’t meet Joni for another decade, when we were introduced at a conference in Nashville. Right away, she set me at ease, expressing genuine interest in my work. As soon as she could, she gathered some people around and started to lead us in hymns. I’ve come to realize that this was a very “Joni thing” to do; I don’t remember a time with her since when she hasn’t got us singing. I left that night hoping very much that I’d get to know her more.

By that time, Joni was in her 50s. She had been in her wheelchair—and in constant pain—for more than three decades. Born in 1949 in Baltimore, the youngest of four girls, she was confident, outgoing, and sporty. But everything changed on that day in July 1967 when she dived into shallow water, hit her head on the bottom of the Chesapeake Bay, and was instantly paralyzed.

The two years that followed brought a degree of struggle that’s difficult to imagine. Joni was strapped to a hospital bed. She was often alone. She quickly became aware that there would be no recovery. In this dark night of the soul, she wrestled with her faith in a God who had allowed this to happen—and who was not answering her prayers for healing.

And, crucially, Joni read her Bible. She chose to trust the promise that “in all things God works for the good of those who love him” (Rom. 8:28)—the kind of verse that gets a nod on good days, is difficult to trust on harder days, and requires the Spirit’s supernatural work to believe on the darkest days.

Joni believed it. She still does. Her confidence propelled her out of the hospital and into a series of programs that have transformed hundreds of thousands of lives. Joni and Friends, established 45 years ago, includes a radio ministry that teaches the Bible and helps people understand what it’s like to live with a disability. The Wheels for the World initiative sends wheelchairs to parts of the world where they are scarce and expensive.

Many of us are familiar, at least in part, with these biographical details from Joni’s life. They are inspirational. But, of course, the people we admire from a distance can often seem very different, maybe even disappointing, up close—hence that “never meet your heroes” admonition. Joni doesn’t deserve that warning. After that conference, I did indeed get to know her more. And she remains one of the most genuine, faithful people I have ever spent time with.

One evening at Joni’s home in Pasadena, California, as we waited for our Chinese take-out to arrive, the doorbell rang. Everyone was hungry. Ken, Joni’s husband, answered the door. Instead of simply thanking the delivery man and taking the food, he started a conversation with him. He grabbed one of Joni’s books about Jesus, kept close to the door for this exact purpose, and gave it to him. As Ken closed the door, he said to me, “You have to take every opportunity you can to tell people about the Lord.”

That could be a motto for both Ken and Joni. Joni views her limited mobility, which could be seen as a barrier to living for Christ, as an opportunity. She has used her wheelchair to share Jesus with people who perhaps would listen to no one else.

When I started writing a book for young kids about Joni’s life and faith, I knew I had to include an anecdote from when our daughter, Eliza, was a little girl. It was another visit with the Tadas; Eliza, with that glorious guilelessness that children have, decided to ask Joni a very direct question. “Joni,” she said, “will you ever walk again?”

Joni smiled.

“Yes, I will,” she said. “When I go to heaven, Jesus will give me new legs.”

There are insights only the eyes of suffering can see. There are cuts so deep that only faith can mend them. There are true things that are best proven by a simple, steadfast trust in the Lord. And there is a confidence we all need that grows when we see the Lord’s bright promises piercing the darkness.

These are some of the otherworldly insights Joni Tada brings to all our lives. She would, of course, tell you, and anyone who will listen, that this is all the Lord’s grace. And it is! But it is beautiful to see that grace at work in and through Joni—that grace that is sufficient for and made perfect in weakness (2 Cor 12:9). Elisabeth Elliot, another woman who was no stranger to navigating difficult paths, once wrote, “The secret is Christ in me, not me in a different set of circumstances.” This is Joni’s open secret.

Joni Tada is living proof of the promise she believed in the hospital all those years ago: that the Lord truly does work for the good of those who love him, and really does conform his people into the image of his Son, even—perhaps especially—in suffering, when his plans are most opaque. She teaches us how good it is to pray, in the words of a hymn we sang together years ago:

Good Shepherd of my soul,
Come dwell within me;
Take all I am and mold
Your likeness in me.
Before the cross of Christ,
This is my sacrifice:
A life laid down and ready to follow.

Kristyn Getty is the founder, along with her husband, Keith, of Getty Music. She is an award-winning hymn writer, as well as the author of Sing! and a children’s biography, Joni Eareckson Tada: The Girl Who Learned to Follow God in a Wheelchair.

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Culture

19 Christian Para Athletes to Root For at the Paris 2024 Paralympics

CT Editors

Meet Paralympians from around the world who are unashamed of the gospel.

Around 4,400 Para athletes will vie for victory in 22 sports at the summer Paralympics, which run from August 28 to September 8 in Paris.

The Paralympics use a system of classification to ensure that Para athletes competing in the same category have “similar functional abilities in terms of movement, coordination and balance.” Each class includes a letter representing the sport (like S for swimming) and a number (the lower the figure, the greater the impairment in most cases).

The Christian Para athletes featured below hail from nine countries and are competing in 12 sports, including Para cycling, Para swimming, shot put, and wheelchair rugby.

Below are their stories on how living with disability and excelling in their sport has given them opportunities to proclaim God’s name.

With reporting by Isabel Ong, Mariana Albuquerque, Morgan Lee, and Angela Lu Fulton.

Boccia

Andreza Vitória de Oliveira, Brazil

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A post shared by Andreza Vitória Oliveira (@andrezavitoriabc1)

Andreza Vitória de Oliveira was 14 when she started practicing boccia. Today, the 23-year-old is a world champion who won gold at the Parapan American Games last year.

This is Oliveira’s second Paralympic Games; she first competed at Tokyo in 2020. “I’m going to do everything that I can do with a lot of dedication so that, God willing, everything goes well and I come back with a Paralympic medal,” she said.

At age two, Oliveira was diagnosed with Leigh syndrome, a neurodegenerative condition that affects the central nervous system and makes walking difficult. Oliveira started using a wheelchair at 11, and her mother introduced her to the sport a few years later.

“When you find happiness in doing something you love, every moment becomes a blessing, and every effort turns into an inexhaustible source of fulfillment and gratitude,” she shared on Instagram in April.

Long jump

Trenten Merrill, USA

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A post shared by Trenten Merrill ™ – Paralympic Athlete (@tr3n10)

In 2023, Paralympian Trenten Merrill finished fourth in the long jump at the Paris World Championship, off the podium by merely a centimeter and just four centimeters away from a silver.

Reflecting on the outcome, he shared on Instagram Colossians 3:23: “Work wholeheartedly as if working for the Lord and not for man,” and Proverbs 3:5–6, “Trust in the Lord with all thy heart; and lean not unto thy own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths.”

Merrill, who lost his leg after a car hit him while riding a dirt bike, tried out multiple track and field events before settling on long jump. The 34-year-old has competed at both Rio and Tokyo and is currently the American record holder in long jump for his classification. His mantra, at least according to Instagram, is “Trust God, trust the process and kick back like a BigMac.”

William Stedman, New Zealand

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In May, 24-year-old William Stedman set a new world record of 53.36 seconds in the men’s 400-meter T36 final (for Para athletes with coordination impairments) at the World Para Athletics Championships.

At Tokyo 2020, he won silver in the men’s long jump T36 category and bronze in the men’s 400-meter T36 race. He will compete in the same categories at the Paris Games.

“Relying on God through the stresses and ups and downs of being a professional athlete has been so important to me,” he revealed in a July blog post. “The environment can be very achievement driven … [but] having my identity in Christ means that although I may not always perform, my value is secure in Him.”

Stedman, who has cerebral palsy, considers Philippians 4:6–7 his favorite Bible verse: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

Para Cycling

Jamie Whitmore-Meinz, USA

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A post shared by Jamie Whitmore-Meinz (@gutzytrigirl)

In 2008, Jamie Whitmore-Meinz discovered that she had spindle cell sarcoma, a condition that ultimately led doctors to amputate part of her left leg. Not long after, she learned that she was pregnant with twins.

“I’ve just always grown up knowing that strength comes from [God],” she said about this time in her life in a 2022 Sports Spectrum interview. “I’m going to fail and screw up, but I trust [God] to pull me out.”

Whitmore-Meinz, now 48, claimed gold at the 2016 Rio Games in the women’s road race C1-3 (a classification for Para athletes competing with prosthesis or limited movement). She has 12 world championships in total across her various disciplines and won the 2014 ESPY award for Best Female Athlete with a Disability.

“I’m so incredibly grateful God has led me on this path. … In 6 days I’ll officially be 16 years cancer free. I had no idea I would be heading to my third Paralympic Games way back then!” she wrote on Facebook in July. “God is good!”

Kadeena Cox, Great Britain

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Last year, four-time gold medalist Kadeena Cox lost function on the right side of her body for the second time in her life and could barely walk. The first time this happened was in 2014, when she had a stroke and was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

As the 33-year-old continues to recover, she’s headed to the Paralympics for the third time to defend her women’s C4 500-meter time trial title of 34.433 seconds.

Throughout the health setbacks she’s experienced, Cox has been vocal about how much she’s relied on God. “Coping with my eating disorder while trying to prepare for the Paralympics is rough. … I’m doing everything to try [to] be in the best place mentally and trusting God to help me through,” she shared on Instagram in June.

“I know the fact that I’m back doing my thing … could only be God’s strength in me,” she also wrote on Instagram.

Nicolas Pieter Du Preez, South Africa

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Nicolas Pieter Du Preez will be defending his title in hand cycling at the Paris Paralympics.

In 2003, Du Preez was hit by a car while cycling. He broke his neck and lost all function in his hands and fingers. Ten years later, he became the first person with tetraplegia (paralysis and loss of motor function from a spinal injury) to complete an Ironman triathlon.

He went on to win gold in the men’s time trial H1 race at the 2020 Tokyo Games despite sustaining a serious shoulder injury the year before. “So about a week after I broke my shoulder I told my wife that ‘this is probably God telling me that the gold medal in Tokyo is mine,’” he recounted.

Doing sports is how he spends time with the Lord. “I pretty much escape and connect with myself and God whenever I am out training, especially on the long easy training sessions,” he shared in a 2022 interview.

Para Swimming

Jessica Long, USA

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For years, Jessica Long, one of the world’s most decorated Paralympic swimmers, has wrestled with her anger at having been given up for adoption.

“I’ve always been proving myself, right? To prove that I wasn’t just a girl with no legs, that I was worth it, that I can find a way to forgive my birth mom and that truly was the best thing,” the 32-year-old shared recently on The Natalie Tysdal Podcast.

Long was born without her lower leg bones and spent the first months of her life in a Siberian orphanage, undergoing 25 surgeries after coming to the US. She won her first gold medal at age 12 in 2004 and is now a 13-time world-record holder.

As she heads to her sixth Paralympics, Long knows that “at the end of the day swimming is just something I love to do. It’s a talent that God gave me.”

Katarina Roxon, Canada

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At 15, Katarina Roxon was the youngest swimmer to represent Canada in the 2008 Beijing Paralympics. Eight years later, she scored gold at Rio in the 100-meter breaststroke and was part of the team that clinched the bronze in the 4×100 freestyle relay in Tokyo 2020.

While she thought of retiring in recent years, the upcoming Paris Paralympics marks the fifth time she is competing. “Going through many valleys this last quad has truly made me rely on God and his will for me, whatever it may be,” Roxon, 31, wrote on Instagram.

Roxon, whose left arm is missing below her elbow, firmly believes that being “different” is a superpower: “We are all in positions that can change the world! So use the abilities that God has blessed you with, to change someone’s world for the better!!”

Taylor Winnett, USA

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Twenty-four-year-old Taylor Winnett captured seven medals (three gold and four silver) at the 2023 Parapan American Games. When she celebrated these accomplishments on Instagram, she quoted 1 Timothy 4:8: “For while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.”

The Para athlete is debuting at the Paris Paralympics and will compete in four swim events, including the 100-meter butterfly and the 400-meter freestyle in the S10 classification (for Para athletes with physical impairment).

Winnett lives with Ehler-Danlos syndrome and postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome and has shared about her struggles with loving her body. “I remind myself that even though my body has been broken down and is not considered ‘perfect’ by society, it’s my home,” she wrote on Instagram this April. “I was made in the image of God.”

Para Judo

Priscilla Gagné, Canada

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Six weeks before the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games, judoka Priscilla Gagné fractured her elbow. But she went on to score the silver medal in the women’s 52-kilogram category against Germany.

“God gave me the grace to fight through it and still accomplish the mission, to come home with a medal,” she shared at a church in Tacoma, Washington in 2022.

Gagné, 38, was born with a genetic disorder, retinitis pigmentosa, and is partially blind. She started practicing judo in 2010, going on to medal at various world championships. “Judo has been something that God has used to enrich my life,” she said.

The Rhema Bible Training College graduate cites meditating on the Word and listening to an audio Bible as some of her favorite ways to spend time with God. “I’m a child of the Most High God. I do judo … but that’s not who I am.”

Para Powerlifting

Herbert Aceituno, El Salvador

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“What God did not give me in height, he gave me in strength,” Herbert Aceituno, 38, said in an interview in May. Aceituno was born with achondroplasia and hydrocephalus and took up powerlifting after a friend invited him to the gym.

In 2019, Aceituno broke the record in the men’s up-to-65 kilogram category when he lifted 182 kilograms. He broke another record at the 2023 Pan American Games by lifting a whopping 192 kilograms in the men’s up-to-59 kilogram category.

“This medal goes to God and in memory of my father who from heaven is proud of what is done in this beautiful sport,” he declared.

The Paris Games will be Aceituno’s third time competing. At Tokyo 2020, he scored bronze in the 59 kilogram weightlifting category and was the first Salvadoran to medal at the Paralympics. “Thank you God. Now the Paralympic dream begins again and, if God allows it, we will have fresh happiness for this country,” he wrote on Instagram.

Shooting Para sport

Alexandre Galgani, Brazil

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At the 2023 Parapan American Games, Alexandre Galgani, 41, took home a silver and a bronze medal and also secured a spot to compete in Paris.

When he was 18, Galgani hit his head while diving into a pool and experienced a spinal injury, losing mobility in most of his body. He competes in a category for rifle shooters who need support to shoot because they cannot use their arms to brace the weight of the weapon.

The Paralympian, who first represented Brazil at the 2020 Tokyo Games, shared an Instagram post in June reflecting on the power of second chances. “Then God said to me: ‘You will enjoy your life. You will learn to look to the future without feeling pain from the past. You will find a way to close wounds that once seemed eternal,’” he wrote.

“All honor to the one who strengthens me daily, God.”

Shot put

Funmi Oduwaiye, Great Britain

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Welsh Para athlete Funmi Oduwaiye, 20, will be making her debut in discus throwing and shot put at the Paris Games.

During a routine surgery to correct her knocked knees in 2019, the surgeon damaged an artery that delayed blood flow into her leg, according to a short documentary published in July. This led to 10 more surgeries over the next three years. Doctors said she would never walk again.

Oduwaiye defied expectations and fought through the pain and paralysis of her right leg below the knee. In 2022, she decided to try Para athletics and discovered she was a natural at throwing events. At the Welsh Athletics Championship, she threw 11.03 meters in F64 shot put, just four centimeters off the world record. (This classification is for Para athletes with lower limb impairment.)

Oduwaiye has leaned on her faith during the last couple of years: “I can name a number of people that have helped me along the way, but I feel like it was God moving through them,” she said. “I give all the glory to him for me standing here today.”

Poleth Isamar Mendes Sanchez, Ecuador

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At Tokyo 2020, Poleth Isamar Mendes Sanchez, 28, won the country’s first-ever Paralympic gold medal in the F20 women’s shot put (a class for Para athletes with intellectual impairment). At the Paris Games, she’s aiming to do the same.

Mendes was born with an intellectual disability and struggles with memory issues. In May, she celebrated making the podium at the Para Athletics World Championships by proclaiming: “God lives in me! Another victory, I can only be grateful.”

Mendes’s gratitude to God isn’t just limited to her sports achievements. “I know I have a lucky life and I appreciate every single thing I have. … Thank You My God,” she shared on her birthday several years ago.

Selina Sanday Seau, Fiji

Pacific WAVE Sports Consultancy / Facebook

Selina Sanday Seau

At a low point in her life, Selina Sanday Seau felt “she was not worth being part of anything.” The 45-year-old has a hearing impairment, a prosthetic leg, and a shortened hand on one arm. But God helped her to “realize her potential,” she said in an interview last year.

The versatile Para athlete has represented her country in badminton, discus, and javelin. She will compete at the Paris Games for the first time in the women’s Shot Put Ambulatory Para category after scoring bronze at the Oceania Athletics Championship.

Earlier this year, Seau enrolled in a sports science diploma program, and she hopes to encourage other people with disabilities to pursue their dreams. “Whether it is sports or studies,” she said, “if you have the determination and the passion, nothing is impossible.”

Sprint

Alan Fonteles Cardoso Oliveira, Brazil

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At the 2012 London Games, Alan Fonteles Cardoso Oliveira beat his competitors, including South African favorite Oscar Pistorius, in the men’s 200-meter T44 final to win gold with a time of 21.45 seconds. (The T44 category is for Para athletes whose movement in a lower leg is affected at a low or moderate degree.)

The sprinter’s sudden fame overwhelmed the Paralympian, leading him to take a sabbatical away from the tracks. He returned to the sport in 2015 and competed in Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020.

Fonteles’s legs were amputated when he was less than a month old after he caught an intestinal infection that developed into sepsis. He began running with prosthetic legs made of wood and would bleed during practice.

For the Paris Games, the believer is competing in the T44 200-meter race and quoted Bible verses like Psalm 37:5–27—”Commit, trust, and wait”—on his Instagram account. “God has been incredible and I know there is still much more to come,” he wrote on Instagram last year.

Wheelchair Marathon

Daniel Romanchuk, USA

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At just 26, Daniel Romanchuk is already headed to his third Paralympics and is eager to return to the podium after medaling twice at the Tokyo Games.

In 2021, Romanchuk took home the gold in a thrilling 400-meter T54 race that saw him edge out Thai competitor Athiwat Paeng-nuea by 0.01 seconds. (The T54 category is for Para athletes who are functional from the waist up.) Several days later, he won a bronze medal in the marathon.

Coming into this year’s Games, Romanchuk has earned a second-place finish (with a personal best time of 1:20:37) at the Boston Marathon, and another second-place finish at the London Marathon.

“It’s a huge honor to be able to go to the Games and to represent the US on a world stage,” he said of competing in the upcoming Paris Paralympics. “Really thankful to God for the opportunities that I’ve had.”

Wheelchair Racing

Karé Adenegan, Great Britain

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Karé Adenegan of Coventry, England, was born prematurely with cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair. At 11, she watched British Paralympian Hannah Cockroft win gold medals in the 2012 London Paralympic Games and realized that she too could compete at an elite level in sports.

Four years later, she went up against Cockroft in the 2016 Rio Paralympic Games, winning a silver and two bronze medals. In Tokyo, she took home two more silvers. In Paris, she will be facing off against Cockroft again in the 100-meter and 800-meter races.

While her disability caused her to question God, Adenegan, 23, began to see that wheelchair racing has been “a door to a platform to develop myself and share my faith,” she told Premier Christianity in July.

On her Instagram account and in interviews, she’s boldly pointed others to the source of her success. After the Tokyo Games, she wrote in an Instagram caption that, although she was living out her dream, “only Jesus satisfies. The greatest achievement of this year has been falling in love with Jesus again.”

Wheelchair Rugby

Zion Redington, USA

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At the age of two, Zion Redington was adopted by Heather Redington-Whitlock, an American passionate about serving children with medical challenges. Redington was born in China with ectrodactyly, a condition that gave him one finger on each hand and one toe on each foot.

After doctors decided to amputate his feet to improve his mobility, his mother threw him into various sports. The best fit, though, was the Cumberland Crushers, a rec wheelchair rugby team in Nashville, which helped set Redington on a pathway to qualifying for this year’s Paralympic Games.

Despite his passion and talent for the sport, Redington acknowledged that he has struggled with stress and burnout. The 18-year-old recently described his faith as a “resting place” and “a place of comfort,” where he knows that God is with him and is supporting him.

- More from CT Editors

News

As Nicaragua Cancels Hundreds of Churches, Pastors and Advocates Debate Impact

Franco Iacomini

Hundreds of evangelical ministries lose legal status as Ortega regime confiscates assets and imposes up to 30 percent fee on offerings.

Supporters of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega and Vice President Rosario Murillo hold their pictures during a march.

Oswaldo Rivas / Getty

Key Updates

September 6, 2024

As Nicaragua Cancels Hundreds of Churches, Pastors and Advocates Debate Impact
August 23, 2024

Nicaragua Taxes Tithes After Closing 1,500 Churches and Nonprofits

September 6, 2024

Just weeks after shutting down 1,500 organizations and churches, the Nicaragua government has suspended the legal status of an additional 169, including 86 Christian entities. Among those affected were the Nicaraguan Evangelical Alliance, denominations such as the Episcopal Church and the Moravian Church, and local congregations including the First Baptist Church of Managua.

In its August 29 announcement, the government called the suspensions necessary due to missing financial statements and the organizations’ failures to report information about their leadership. The government also says the measures are an effort to fight money laundering by nonprofit organizations.

The suspension of legal status will not result immediately in the closure of churches. In a statement issued on August 31, two days after the suspensions, the Moravian Church provincial board admitted failures in their financial documentation, blaming a 2019 change in the church’s internal regulations. However, the board assured congregants that religious activities “will be maintained as normal, without any restrictions from anybody.” The denomination also said its leaders met with regional authorities on August 31 to discuss the issue. “They told us that there was no intention to suspend the activities of the congregations, nor were the church’s assets touched,” it stated.

Most of the affected organizations are small and lack formal support from professional accountants, said a Nicaraguan pastor who asked to remain anonymous.

Some Christians continue to support the government’s position. Sergio Tinoco, president of the Nicaraguan Federation of Evangelical Churches, which claims to represent over 10,000 congregations in the country, said that “the claim that churches are being shut down is a lie.”

He believes the government is only implementing “a change in the legal framework to better assist the churches.” In his view, the government is canceling these registrations because the affected churches will no longer register with the Ministry of the Interior.

Instead, said Tinoco, the government wants churches operating schools to work with the Ministry of Education, those operating a denominational hospital to register with the Ministry of Health, and those running orphanages to register with the Ministry of Family.

“There will be no closures. [The purpose] is to get new registrations in order to work under a new model,” he stated.

However, the decree evoked concerned reactions from organizations that promote religious freedom. UK-based CSW condemned the cancellation of the nonprofits’ legal status and called on the international community to do the same.

“The arbitrary cancellation of historic and diverse religious associations is, in many cases, leaving their members with nowhere to gather for religious purposes,” said CSW’s Anna Lee Stangl in a statement. CSW is also “highly concerned” about the effect the closures will have on the schools and hospitals run by these organizations.

Elsewhere, a deal brokered between the US and Nicaraguan governments led to the release of 135 political prisoners, including 11 pastors with the Texas-based ministry Mountain Gateway, who were incarcerated last December under allegations of money laundering. In March, the government sentenced them to 12 to 15 years of prison and fined them $80 million each.

As one condition of their release, the government sent the freed prisoners to Guatemala. “The United States and our humanitarian partners will temporarily provide the individuals with food, lodging, and medical assistance, including psychological support, to help them recover and begin the difficult work of rebuilding their lives,” the governments of the United States and Guatemala said in a joint statement.

August 23, 2024

A series of policies recently enacted by the Nicaraguan government will significantly impact the activities of churches and ministries operating in the country.

Viewed by religious freedom specialists as an effort to increase the state’s control over religious institutions, the measures impose taxes on tithes and offerings while mandating that organizations create formal partnerships with the Nicaraguan government to carry out in-country projects. Local newspaper La Prensa estimates that taxes on tithes may reach 30 percent.

President Daniel Ortega introduced the bill that was unanimously approved on August 20 by the Asamblea Nacional. Ortega’s party, the Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional, which started in the 1970s as a guerrilla group, controls the legislature.

The changes in the law will favor “the development of projects of interest to families and communities within a framework of solidarity and adherence to national laws,” said Vice President Rosario Murillo, who is married to Ortega.

The scope of the new regulations has been vague. Both Murillo and an Asamblea Nacional statement on the bill described the laws as “strengthening transparency, legal security, respect, and harmony.” One likely consequence is that churches receiving foreign money—including funding from their own denominations—will be forced to enter into an alianza de asociación (“partnership alliance”) to access their funds.

The same day the legislation passed, the government canceled the legal status of 1,500 organizations, citing their failure to submit proper financial statements. For the first time since the Ortega administration began cracking down on nonprofits, nearly half of those affected include those with evangelical connections.

That includes a large number of Pentecostal ministries and churches, as well as those run by Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans, and Presbyterians. While a few of the institutions that were affected worked nationally, many were neighborhood churches of less than 100 congregants.

The majority of the other groups affected were connected to the Catholic church. (The rest focused on sports or culture.) As part of the government’s decree, these organizations’ assets will be transferred to the Nicaraguan government.

“Churches, especially the smaller ones, are places where the sense of community and participation is very strong,” said a spokesperson for the Netherland-based Observatory of Religious Freedom in Latin America (OLIRE), who asked to remain anonymous for security reasons. “The government wants to diminish the importance of this contribution so that only the state stands out.”

Last year, these financial reporting requirements led to the closure of ten churches belonging to a Texas-based ministry, Mountain Gateway, and the arrest of 11 of its pastors operating in Nicaragua. Weeks earlier, the group had led a two-day evangelistic and relief event that brought together more than 300,000 people.

However, several laws passed in recent years have created complex financial reporting standards for nongovernmental organizations, resulting in compliance difficulties, according to The New York Times. Even the Catholic church has struggled.

Since 2018, the government has closed 3,390 organizations (10% of them foreign) for “money laundering,” according to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. In 2022, the government shut down 20 evangelical churches on similar grounds.

CT reached out to representatives of various Christian organizations in Nicaragua, including some of those whose status had been canceled. Nearly all declined to comment. One source described the situation as “very sensitive.”

“We can even go to prison or lose our citizenship for critical comments,” the person said.

Last year, the Nicaraguan government banned processions and outdoor worship services, citing security concerns after the 2018 protests that resulted in riots and arrests. The government also prohibited the display of symbols such as crosses or the Star of David in front of private homes.

Evangelicals comprise nearly 40 percent of Nicaragua’s 7 million people, making it the third-most evangelical country in Latin America. Many have no issue with Ortega’s actions.

“This is not exactly persecution,” said Ismael Jara, who pastors Iglesia Bautista Sendero de Luz in Ciudad Sandino. “We aren’t banned from going out into the streets and doing evangelism. … Only mass gatherings are not allowed due to the [political instability that followed the 2018 protests].”

Jara explained that stricter rules for events outside of churches will force congregations to be more organized when planning events. He also suggested that the loss of organization registrations might even be a positive for some churches, pushing them to become more financially transparent to meet the government’s reporting demands.

Additionally, Jara believes it will be healthy for believers to maintain a greater distance from politics. “We have to learn to be neutral and respect the authorities,” he said.

In April, after a group of experts presented a report on religious rights violations at the United Nations, six evangelical organizations—including three church associations, two denominational groups, and a theological studies center—published open letters affirming the existence of freedom of worship in the country. Bishop Aldolfo Sequeira, president at Centro Intereclesial de Estudios Teológicos y Sociales, signed one of the letters, declaring that the government “is respectful of the freedom of worship and expressions of faith of the Christian people, allowing each person to practice the religion of their choice throughout the country.”

Around the same time, the Baptist Convention of Nicaragua published a statement of support for Ortega and Murillo, who have “always supported our evangelistic work and have favored all our activities.”

But those outside the country are less convinced.

Because these shutdowns are “backed by a legislative framework,” the government’s threat to religious freedom is “more evident and more scandalous” than the 1980s crackdown on religious groups by the Sandinistas, or members of Ortega’s political party, the OLIRE spokesperson said.

By revoking registrations and confiscating the assets of religious organizations, the government is forcing these ministries to align themselves with larger groups that are willing to submit to the conditions imposed by the government, explained the representative, who asked to remain anonymous for security reasons. Without a legal registry, they can’t buy land or build a church.

Additionally, the government imposes its goals and policies on Christian organizations in an attempt to “eliminate any presence of institutions that do not share the same political orientation,” according to OLIRE.

In its justification of the legislation passed on Monday, Ortega argued that activities of nongovernmental organizations have resulted in “a discretionary use of [programs and projects] that is not linked to the national plans, strategies, and policies promoted by our good government in the fight against poverty and the security of our population.”

In June, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) published a report highlighting “severely deteriorating religious freedom conditions in Nicaragua.” “President Daniel Ortega and Vice President Rosario Murillo are using laws on cybercrimes, financial crimes, legal registration for not-for-profit organizations, and sovereignty and self-determination to persecute religious communities and advocates of religious freedom,” it stated.

USCIRF recommended that the US designate Nicaragua as a country of particular concern “for engaging in systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom” and suggested imposing sanctions on Nicaraguan government agencies and officials.

Up until now, the primary source of tension between the Sandinistas and the religious sector has been with the Catholic church. In February of last year, the bishop of Matagalpa, Rolando Álvarez, was arrested on charges of conspiracy and had his Nicaraguan citizenship revoked due to sermons deemed anti-government.

Álvarez was detained until January this year when the government exiled him to the Vatican. Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s attempt to negotiate his release led to cooler relations between Brazil and Nicaragua, culminating in both countries expelling the other’s ambassador earlier this month.

In August 2023, a Nicaraguan court ordered the closure and confiscation of the assets of Universidad Centroamericana, a higher education institution in Managua run by Jesuits, at the government’s request. Authorities accused the university of harboring criminal activities during the 2018 protests. The action sparked protests within the academic community and at the Vatican.

- More from Franco Iacomini

News

South Africa’s Brain Drain Takes Wealthy Tithers from Churches

Ray Mwareya in Pretoria, South Africa

An exodus of educated and generous families has pinched ministry budgets—and threatened the lavish lifestyles of mega-rich pastors.

Pixel Catchers / Getty Images

In the last two decades, over 400,000 South Africans have left their country to set up a new life abroad in the US, Europe, Canada, Australia, and the United Arab Emirates. They are mostly highly educated and highly skilled young families looking to escape crime and economic decay at home.

This exodus has prompted authorities to warn that South Africa’s tax base is at risk, with over 6,000 affluent earners emigrating yearly.

“I must be honest, it’s giving me sleepless nights,” said Landon Dube, a pastor for Tabernacle of Grace, a Pentecostal denomination in the middle-class suburb of Midrand, near Johannesburg.

Church leaders are worried about what the departures mean for their churches if they continue to lose families they rely on for tithes and financial support.

It’s an interesting dynamic: Some pastors may be legitimately worried about the future of their church and its ability to serve the community at a time of financial turmoil. But South Africa is also a place where fraudulent ministers and self-proclaimed prophets prey on desperate believers, so Christians may hear some leaders’ concerns about the departures as coming from selfish motivations and a desire to keep up extravagant lifestyles.

The majority Christian country has only become more religious in the past few years; while colonial denominations are shrinking, newer Pentecostal and African-initiated churches are growing. But financially, South Africa is in turmoil.

With rolling blackouts, high crime rates, and stark inequality, its economy is growing at a dire 1 percent per year against the ideal 7 percent threshold needed to put a dent in youth joblessness (now up to 59.7% for workers under 25), according to Steven Koch, the head of economics at the University of Pretoria.

The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs says 247,300 people of South African descent now live in the UK.

“Dozens are young Christians with young families. They have left behind South Africa and their churches,” said Dali Mapaile, 47, a dentist and Baptist church adherent who moved his family to London.

“I can’t sit around and see my children grow with zero prospects for a meaningful job in South Africa,” he said. “I love the country but I have had enough.”

The departure of families like Mapaile’s has impacted the churches that relied on their tithes and financial pledges to fill their coffers.

Shami Gcana leads a major Pentecostal prophetic ministry affiliated with the Enlightened Christian Gathering. He sees all Christians as the same before God but recognizes the disproportionate impact some have on the local church.

“We must be truthful, the upper class—lawyers, accountants, small business owners, pharmacists, doctors—these are the worshipers able to pay big monies that anchor the ministry’s successes,” Gcana said.

Enlightened Christian Gathering has been embroiled in controversy in South Africa, with its leader, Shepherd Bushiri, implicated in tax evasion and money laundering.

Last year, 20 of Gcana’s high net-worth congregation members left with their young families and relocated to Dubai, Netherlands, and Australia. His church meets in City Bowl, one of the affluent suburbs of Cape Town, and its monthly tithe pledges used to come in around 150,000 South African rand ($8,200 USD) a month. They have fallen to $5,200, he says.

“One particular worshiper, who was my deacon, took his young kids and wife to Australia. He was a senior bank executive—used to give my church lavish loans for just 1 percent interest rate for us to buy building materials,” said Gcana. “It’s all dried up. I feel his absence in a big way.”

Emigration of highly paid, generous Christians is also troubling Paseka Motsoeneng, known as Prophet Mboro, a televangelist who is head of the Incredible Happenings Foundation church.Along with Bushiri, Prophet Mboro’s church is criticized in South Africa for aggressively collecting money from congregants and doing little to establish sound theology, and Mboro was recently arrested on kidnapping charges in an incident involving his grandchildren.

Mboro had voiced worries about “church drain,” saying that if crime and economic decay are not addressed, South Africa will be left with financially poor worshipers. Last year alone, 33 of his highest-earning congregants moved away.

Mboro says his main concern is that their high tithes and financial pledges enabled the church to extend charity and food to poorer worshipers. If the rich leave for the US or Canada, the poor who are left behind will live in more poverty and hardship, he says.

In some communities, the situation is severe enough that some South African church leaders are following members of their flock abroad too, says Delight Pinto. An accountant and pastor from South Africa, Pinto has relocated to the UK, where her former congregants had been clamoring for her to join them.

“I was faced with a stark choice: remain in South Africa and see my standard of life as a pastor and professional deteriorate, or follow my congregants to London, minister to them as a pastor, and work as an accountant on weekdays,” she said.

Fifty members of her former congregation in South Africa now live across Greater London, she says. She has found a job as an auditor for a global shipping company, and she hopes to return to her role as a part-time pastor in 2025.

Pinto says she feels sorry for pastors back in South Africa, because congregants who have emigrated will likely stop sending tithes home; the cost-of-living crisis is sweeping the US and Europe, and most Christians who arrive in London, Atlanta, or Frankfurt won’t be able to stretch budgets to keep giving to their church. She also sees Christians switching churches when moving abroad or leaving the faith altogether.

Ed Bonolo, a retired reverend with the United Baptist Church in Johannesburg, says he has no pity for church leaders who have come to view members of their congregation as cash cows to fund their own lives rather than as souls to be nurtured.

The pastorship has become a big-money profession in South Africa, spurring an industry of fake theology degrees, a spate of financial misconduct, and a surge of fake miracles. In evangelical and Pentecostal circles, certain pastors and self-proclaimed prophets are in a scramble for high-worth worshipers who can donate cars, cover lavish rent costs, and pay for vacations.

“Money-hungry clerics have brought the church into sharp disrepute,” Bonolo said. “Perhaps the emigration of affluent worshipers should make all pastors and prophets slow down on material ambitions.”

- More from Ray Mwareya

Church Life

God Calls Me to Give. But to Everyone?

Anthony Sytsma

A missionary’s framework for generosity.

Illustration by Mallory Rentsch Tlapek / Source Images: Getty

A few years ago, a widow approached a church in Uganda to ask for help. After discussing her situation, the church council recommended they give her food. The pastor, however, encouraged the leaders to first find out about her family situation.

After speaking with her relatives, the council discovered that her children were well off, but refused to take care of the widow because of a family argument. So the pastor organized a reconciliation meeting. The children forgave their mother and decided to take care of her again.

If the church had rushed in to help without considering her family’s responsibility, the widow may have kept coming back to the church for ongoing support, and the family may never have been at peace.

As a missionary in Uganda, stories like this have deeply influenced my approach to helping those in need around me. I often struggle with these questions: “With requests for money coming every day, who should I give money to? When is it okay to say no?”

One obvious guiding priority is to give financially where there is the most need. To this, we all agree. But our world is increasingly interconnected. I can simply click a button to give financially to help people almost anywhere. If the only guiding principle is the need, I would get stuck in the paralysis of indecision.

But Scripture takes me beyond simply looking at the greatest needs to also seeing that God has given me greater responsibilities to help certain people. I propose looking at financial giving through a concept I call “circles of priority.” That is, when it comes to financial generosity, I should prioritize the people and communities closest to me.

I believe the New Testament reveals that my first concern should be to take care of my family or those I am relationally close to. As Paul writes in 1 Timothy 5:8, “Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.”

Graph by Christianity Today

Circles of Priority

Next, in Galatians 6:10, I learn that I am also to prioritize those who I am spiritually close to. Here, Paul writes, “Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers,” affirming that, while I need to love all people, I have a special responsibility to help my brothers and sisters in Christ.

Finally, consider the parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:25–37. In this passage, three individuals see a man beaten up on the side of the road. The surprise is that the priest and the Levite do not stop to help, but the Samaritan does. Loving my neighbor does not mean loving only those people who are like me. The Samaritan is doing exactly what all people should do, helping the person he sees physically suffering right in front of him. Thus, there is also a priority of caring for people I am geographically proximate to, people I meet in my day-to-day life.

All Christians around the world should prioritize helping those relationally, spiritually, or geographically close to them, in addition to the clear priority of helping those with the greatest needs.

We have less responsibility the farther out the circles go. But as we have time and resources, we can, and indeed must, try to help people on the outer circles as well. For example, in the New Testament, Paul urges the churches to voluntarily raise money for the needy Christians far away in Jerusalem (1 Cor. 16:1-4).

The circles of priority have guided me to prioritize helping our friends, neighbors, and our local church while still occasionally helping people with dire needs far away from Uganda through giving to international organizations. This strategy has relieved me of a great burden. I am not tormented by guilt over the other 47 million Ugandans I am not helping. I am not God. I do not have unlimited resources or time. Rather, I can help with joy and generosity, knowing that God uses each one of us in small ways to together make a big impact.

For instance, when a person I have never met calls and says, “Pastor, please, I need you to pay for my children’s school fees,” I usually say no, because of my limitations. Per the circles of priority principles, I want to prioritize giving in the context of close relationship, which allows me to understand the person’s real needs and so I can walk with them over a long period of time, giving periodically and encouraging them as they make changes. This doesn’t stop me from giving money to organizations working with the poor, because many organizations also prioritize long-term relationships.

The circles also guide church ministry. Take the example of Covenant Reformed Church in Soroti, Uganda. This church receives about $3 a week in offerings and about $1 a week for their charity basket, which they use to help materially poor people in their church or people with disabilities. This church shouldn’t feel guilty that they are not helping orphans in other countries. God is using them to care for the people close to them.

A wealthy American church can probably help people in their own church while also financially supporting organizations who help the poor overseas. At the same time, this principle can also correct a church that has become focused only on giving to people in other countries while largely ignoring materially poor people who live in the same city or people struggling in their own congregation.

Following the circles does not take away all hard decision-making. Sometimes I will need to refrain from addressing lesser needs in my own family or community in order to help people far away in life-and-death situations. It takes wisdom to discern when a great need trumps relational, spiritual, or geographical proximity.

In following the circles of priority, care should be taken not to abuse them. It is easy for affluent Christians to justify to ourselves that we are doing enough because we are focusing on caring for the needs of our inner circles—our families, our local church, and our community. But remember, Jesus said in Luke 12:48, “From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded.” For those of us from exorbitantly rich nations, we are more than able to give generously to help those in extreme poverty around the world while also taking care of people in our inner circles.

It’s also possible for affluent Christians to abuse the circles by controlling who is allowed to be in our inner circles. For instance, we can move to upscale neighborhoods where we won’t end up bumping into materially poor neighbors or take driving routes to work that will bypass where people are begging. We can choose to attend a local church that is full of materially rich Christians who make us feel comfortable in our wealth. Many of us wealthier Christians should consider how we can bring materially poor people into our closer circles, or how we can more intentionally choose which community we will live in and which church we will belong to.

The circles of priority not only guide us in discerning who to help but how. I should offer assistance in a way that will not destroy the responsibility, stewardship, or generosity of others. I should step in and offer help when the person in need is not able to be helped adequately by his or her closest circles. This is what the Ugandan pastor did in finding out first if the widow’s family was willing to care for her.

In a similar way, this principle also applies to the ministries of churches and organizations as they strive to alleviate poverty. They must consider the circles of the individual or community they want to help.

In Eastern Uganda, people from the Karamoja region used to violently raid and steal cattle from the Iteso tribe. Thankfully, peace was finally achieved after many years of government and church initiatives. Soon after, there was a famine in Karamoja. Some of the Iteso churches worked together to bring a truckload of food to Karamoja to show their forgiveness and love.

However, when they arrived, they were shocked to discover that the United States had already sent many tons of relief food. The local Ugandan church’s efforts became redundant and unnecessary, leaving these Christians incredibly disheartened.

While the Americans may have genuinely intended to help, they did not consider what the people closest to the area might have been able to do first. They unintentionally stole the blessing of giving from the Ugandan church and undermined this opportunity for furthering reconciliation between the two tribes.

Organizations should be careful to allow the circles that are closest to the individual or community that needs help to be the first ones to help. Most of the time, the people closest to the situation are the ones who know the most about which interventions will be appropriate. But an additional benefit of promoting the responsibility of a person’s closer circles is the improved capacity and stewardship of institutions in these circles—families, churches, schools, local organizations, and government structures. This will produce long-lasting impact in a community.

In my observation as a missionary working in Africa, ignoring this principle is one of the most common mistakes that churches and international organizations make. The result is dependency.

For example, consider how some organizations may rush to create an orphanage in a community without first considering whether or not the orphans’ relatives may be able to adopt the children and care for them with additional financial support. Or consider child sponsorship programs in which children have their school fees completely covered, in addition to receiving gifts like clothing or toothpaste. The result is that it is not uncommon in Uganda to hear parents come to an organization sponsoring their child and say, “Your child is sick, you need to treat your child.”

Instead, help should be given in a way that will enrich the parents’ responsibility of sending their own children to school. It would be better to help the parents improve their jobs and income earnings so that they can pay the fees themselves—or to first find out what little the parents are able to pay, in what way their local churches are also willing to help, and then to supplement their efforts. If this process results in the organization giving less money to each family, then they can use the extra funds to support an even greater number of families in even more communities. It’s not about giving or helping less. It’s about practicing wisdom in our generosity.

Before helping an individual or community, always begin by listening. What is the local government doing to respond to the need? Are other churches looking to offer help to the same people? Build upon the efforts of local institutions by partnering with them, rather than replacing them in their God-given roles. There is joy and blessing in giving; we should not keep all the blessing to ourselves!

To close, reflect on this story out of Niger. In 2010, nearly half of the population of the West African country struggled with food insecurity. An international Christian organization donated grain and worked with a local Christian group to sell that grain to people in need in several communities at a discounted price.

In the past, the international organization had provided grain to individuals with disabilities or chronic illnesses. But this time, the international staff challenged the local group to consider raising funds locally from their own churches to purchase the grain that would then be distributed freely.

At first, the group members were skeptical, not imagining that there was anything the poor churches could do on their own to help others. But the churches gave generously and were able to purchase grain for 98 people who had the most need in those communities. In the end, the local group thanked the organization for encouraging their churches to participate in the giving.

“It was such a privilege to help, to know that we weren’t just distributing somebody else’s gift but it was from our own pockets and from our own hearts,” said one community member. “Everyone in the village knew that it came from us.”

Anthony Sytsma works for Resonate Global Mission in Uganda, where he mentors and teaches pastors and facilitates Helping Without Hurting in Africa.

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Culture

‘Nightmares and Daydreams’ Fuses Jakarta’s Social Ills With the Supernatural

N. Gray Sutanto

The Indonesian series by Joko Anwar reveals the horror of a spirit-filled world without a savior.

Faradina Mufti as Rara in the episode “Old House” from the Netflix series “Nightmares and Daydreams.”

Indonesia is an enchanted culture full of folklore involving ghosts, demons, and djinns (shape-shifting spirits from Arabian and Muslim mythology).

These stories usually involve a moral of some kind: Do not leave a house unattended, for this invites the dwelling of demons. Always respect the elderly, lest they return to haunt you. Settle squabbles within your family, or their spirit will fail to transition to the afterlife due to unresolved conflicts on earth. Always come home before nightfall, because sunset signals the thinning of the barrier between the spiritual and the physical realms.

It is no wonder that on any given week, horror movies dominate the Indonesian box office. A powerhouse of the genre, director Joko Anwar (The Forbidden Door, Satan’s Slaves, and Impetigore) recently gave the rest of the world another taste of elevated Indonesian horror with Netflix’s Nightmares and Daydreams.

The seven-episode series offers an authentic look at how stories of the supernatural are woven into Indonesian culture and function as acute social commentary. Western audiences might be tempted to interpret Nightmares and Daydreams in a demythologized fashion—as if the supernatural elements of the series merely serve to draw audiences to consider the perennial social problems that plague Indonesia, or more specifically, Jakarta. Yet the supernatural and social issues actually coalesce in a way that echoes reality.

In particular, Nightmares and Daydreams reminds us of a pre-Christian culture, in which desperate characters turn not to God or the church for understanding or deliverance but resort to the occult or supernatural for relief, with devastating consequences.

A running theme of the series—in which each episode is its own short story in a loosely connected universe—is that desperate situations lead to desperate decisions. These decisions could be a moral compromise to cut corners, which leads the supernatural to punish the character, or an invocation of the supernatural in hope for deliverance.

For instance, “Old House” depicts a taxi driver named Panji with a dilemma: Should he continue to care for his cognitively declining mother or send her to a retirement home with a price tag that seems too good to be true? It’s a question heavy on the minds of many in Indonesia, as the country lacks a stable social security plan for pensions or affordable retirement homes. Aging parents expect to be taken care of by their adult children.

It is not unusual in Jakarta for three or four generations to live together in one home or in the same neighborhood. The cultural assumption is that when children are married, they are not sent off to form a nuclear family of their own but are rather enlarging the existing families. There is less emphasis on the notion of boundaries between married and unmarried adult children: All remain under the authority of the most elderly family member, and everyone has obligations to take care of the elderly.

So when a sense of desperation drives Panji to move his mother to the retirement home, it’s not a surprise that he faces punishment for neglecting his traditional role and caving in to his sense of despair. The retirement home turns out to be run by a monstrous cult that seeks to exploit them.

Many episodes center around characters living in dire poverty. In “The Orphan,” a grieving couple sets their hopes on a magical orphan boy, rumored to have the ability to bring about great wealth to those who take care of him and death to those who abuse him. “Encounter” focuses on a fisherman named Wahyu (Indonesian for “revelation”) and a village facing eviction. After Wahyu snaps a photograph of an angel, villagers hope to avoid forceful expulsion by leveraging the rare item. Both episodes highlight the gross inequality between Jakarta’s powerful rich and oppressed poor and the ways that the poor are vulnerable to further exploitation.

In “Poems and Pains,” Rania, an author who is struggling to move beyond her successful novel on abuse, is herself supernaturally in contact with a woman facing severe domestic abuse. The episode reminds audiences that abusers in Indonesia rarely face consequences due to the lack of legal pathways available for victims, and yet Indonesians are enthralled by such scandals as a form of entertainment.

Other episodes tackle the important role fathers play, exploring what happens when a father is absent as well as how a father’s choices can impact his family. “Hypnotized,” for instance, sees a desperate father resort to theft by hypnosis (an increasingly common phenomenon in Indonesia) to provide for his family, only to find that his family has followed in his footsteps, with tragic results. The responsibilities one has toward the family looms large in the conscience of this show.

The spirit-filled world of Nightmares and Daydreams reminds Christians of the unique hope we have in Christ amid broken systems and desperate situations, and of the redemptive influence of the Christian faith within the context of the ancient world.

Like Indonesian culture, the Greco-Roman world in which the early Christians lived was polytheistic—full of magical rites, pilgrimages, and idols. Christians were viewed as disrupters of religion because they rejected those practices and believed Jesus Christ was the climactic revelation of the one Creator God. He had addressed our ultimate problem of sin and defeated the powers, putting them to shame on the cross. Christianity was thus a demystifying, anti-superstitious religion.

Instead of seeing a myriad of spirits and powers behind each event or location, the Triune God is now seen as the agent of providence, who works through secondary causes, and cannot be manipulated by human decisions.

Instead of invoking the aid of the gods or spirits for one’s own ends, Jesus calls his disciples to emulate the God who did not count divinity a thing to be exploited but who humbled himself, taking the form of a servant (Phil. 2:6–7). He calls us to participate in the divine work of caring for “the least of these” (Matt. 25:40), considering the poor and marginalized blessed (Matt. 5:3–11), and taking care of the widow, the orphans, and those who cannot care for themselves (James 1:27). The church, therefore, should be an agent of mercy in times of great desperation.

The horror genre is a reminder that we are not in control, that we are vulnerable, and that we live in the “present evil age” (Gal. 1:4). Asian horror, in particular, often reveals a spiritual porousness that resists the secularization of the modern West, and Nightmares and Daydreams is no exception. It reminds us that the world is not yet fully leavened by the anti-superstitious influences of the Christian faith and that the church should be a salve, so that those in desperate situations need not turn to the demonic to find relief.

The show also displays in acute ways how Indonesian culture—which prioritizes family, traditional gender roles, and openness to the spiritual—continues to be plagued by sinful and broken conditions. Such cultures need the biblical witness just as much as secular contexts that prioritize autonomy, careerism, and resistance to any notion of enchantment.

Like many anthologies, the entries in Nightmares and Daydreams vary in quality. “Poems and Pains,” “The Old House,” and “P.O. Box” (which was directed by Anwar himself), stand out as the best. The acting can occasionally be overly theatrical or stilted, the special effects limited and at times sketchy, and the exposition too obvious. Some of the episodes could be trimmed into 30-minute vignettes instead of hour-long dramas (especially “Encounter” and “Hypnotized”). It’s also not for everyone, as the series contains disturbing themes involving violence, monsters, spirits, cults, and abuse.

Yet, for Christians, it reminds us that the cure for social ills is not to move from secularism to spiritualism, from autonomy to family values, from liberalism to conservatism (or vice versa). Instead, it’s to become more captivated by the unique hope we have in Christ, who calls us to be agents of mercy and reconciliation to a world that desperately needs it.

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Theology

It’s a Theological World After All

Joshua R. Farris

We need trained theologians to help us think through ideological and ethical questions in light of God’s Word and world.

Illustration by Elizabeth Kaye / Source Images: Pexels / Unsplash / Wikimedia Commons

It’s no secret that theological education is in a state of crisis today. In recent years, faculty layoffs and the downsizing of evangelical seminaries and Christian colleges in the make it hard to overstate the grimness of the prognosis.

Yet as a theologian myself, I find this troubling trend to be a symptom of a larger problem: There’s a growing sense, at least in some circles, that academic theology—along with its students and scholars—is practically irrelevant. While biblical illiteracy and anti-intellectualism are impacting the local church at every level, recent personal interactions have led me to wonder if some pastors take the formal study of theology all that seriously anymore.

One pastor I spoke with voiced a not-too-uncommon sentiment when he downplayed theology as impractical and out of touch with his congregation’s needs. “I don’t read much academic theology anymore,” he confessed, “as it comes out in my preaching in a way that fails to connect with the laity.” This sentiment has been echoed by other pastor friends of mine at various times, with one pastor’s wife suggesting such scholarly pursuits might benefit from a more “accessible” approach.

Such comments reveal a skepticism of rigorous theological inquiry in certain circles that is often paired with a preference for more easily digestible forms of spiritual discourse, untethered from academic institutions. It’s hard to compete with the volume—in both senses—of the spiritual sound bites by Christian celebrities and megachurch preachers churned out to broad audiences. And while some of this public theology at the popular level is good, much of it lacks the depth and nuance that results from careful theological study.

In short, academic theology is not a waste, nor is it obsolete or irrelevant. As one of my mentors, Stephen Priest, says, “Philosophical questions demand theological answers. And everyone ponders philosophical questions.” Yet I propose we take this claim a step further: Questions in every field of human inquiry demand theological answers—and such answers require careful intellectual study. Not only is theology the most relevant of all disciplines, but it may also be the most meaningful. As R. C. Sproul once said:

Everything we learn—economics, philosophy, biology, mathematics—must be understood in light of the overarching reality of the character of God. That is why, in the Middle Ages, theology was called “the queen of the sciences” and philosophy “her handmaiden.” Today the queen has been deposed from her throne and, in many cases, driven into exile.

A negative or even ambivalent posture toward theology fails to realize the valuable contributions of its scholars and ultimately cultivates superficiality within the church and ignorance in our broader culture. But if theology is to play the same vital role it once did—both in the pulpit and the public square—we must first identify what factors led to its decline, and then how we must respond.

In 2020, Wesleyan theologian Roger E. Olson posed a stark question: “Does theology even matter anymore?” It seems this had been a point of discussion with his friend, the late Baptist theologian Stanley J. Grenz, who coauthored Who Needs Theology? An Invitation to the Study of God (1996).

Toward the end of his life, in the early 2000s, Grenz had privately shared his concern that Christianity was entering a “post-theological phase”—a new era that would see the “end of theology” altogether. In many ways, these concerns echoed the warning that Mark A. Noll issued in his famous work, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, published only a few years before.

Though Olson protested the prognosis at the time, he has since come to agree, based on anecdotal observations from his “forty years of experience as a theologian.” Olson recounts situations when he discussed theological topics, which he felt were rich in cultural relevance, only for them to be dismissed as mere “academic” exercises, what he notes is often a codeword for “irrelevant.”

Beyond obvious problems with today’s “American folk religion”—the democratization of a populist Christianity—Olson offers several reasons for why theology has lost its influence in our nation. First, he notes a growing perception that theologians only care to speak to each other, rather than to a broader audience, and that they no longer seek a unified voice. And if theologians can’t seem to agree on much, how can people trust that what any one of them has to say is true?

Olson also points to shifts in academic theology in the ’60s, when religious studies departments succumbed to the perception that no one knows or can say anything about God. Theologians moved from discussing God to discussing discussions about God, leading to a lack of consensus among theologians and an uncertainty about the role and relevance of theology in society. As one Time article put it, theology turned from “reflection on God—the proper object of theology —to the human religious consciousness.” Or as Sproul stated, “We have replaced theology with religion.”

Amid these shifts, the authority of theology as a discipline waned in the eyes of the public. For instance, Olson observes, ever since its famous “God Is Dead” issue ran in 1966, no theologian has graced the covers of Time magazine—as the likes of Karl Barth, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Paul Tillich (among others) had once done. This leads Olson to wonder whether the watching world concluded that since theologians declared God dead, theology itself must have also died.

At the same time, legal precedents further contributed to this perception. In a 1975 CT article, “Is Theology Dying?” evangelical legal scholar John Warwick Montgomery explained that the rise of independent theological seminaries was partially the result of the Supreme Court’s 1963 Abington School District v. Schempp decision to restrict the study of religion in secular educational institutions to literary and historical analysis—effectively distancing theology from mainstream intellectual discourse. (Contrast this with the European context, where Wolfhart Pannenberg successfully championed academic theology as a science suitable to be housed in secular universities, for which we have no parallel in our US context.)

Montgomery’s comments on the perception of theology in the US deserve repeating: “Theology today is superficial and faddish,” he wrote. “The important question is why, and the answer lies much deeper than the separation of theology from religion or the theological seminary from the university.” Indeed, “the central source of the problem,” he says, “is that theology is no longer sure of its data”: Scriptural study had been deconstructed to the point where the Bible no longer held enough authority to ground theology.

Taken together, the assertions of Olson and Montgomery offer two vital points for us to consider. To revive the study of theology, we must reclaim both its subject and its source.

First, the primary subject matter of theology is God. British theologian John Webster said, “The ontological principle of theology is God himself—not some proposed entity but the Lord who out of the unfathomable plenitude of his triune being lovingly extends towards creatures in Word and Spirit.” He also called for a revival of theology as it had been done in the past, where “God is not summoned into the presence of reason; reason is summoned before the presence of God.”

As C. S. Lewis once famously stated, “I believe in Christianity just as I believe the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.” If all of life, including all educational disciplines, can only properly and fully be seen in light of God’s truth, then theology (especially as an academic, rigorous, and careful discipline) is pertinent to all aspects of life. In other words, if God exists and has created the universe, then theology matters universally.

Second, the source of theology’s data is none other than the Bible, which God ordained for his self-revelation. Webster urged for a return to “theological theology” by engaging with classic Christian texts and grounding claims with sound biblical exegesis. “Scripture is the place to which theology is directed to find its subject matter and the norm by which its representations are evaluated,” he said. And as Montgomery warned, “Either Scripture speaks univocally of God, or the death of theology is a dead certainty.”

Reclaiming these two elements—the subject and the source of theology—must remain top of mind if we are to see theology restored to the place it has historically held in our world. And, thankfully, I believe the winds might finally be shifting in this direction, as theologians today are bringing the truth of God to bear on contemporary concerns and using that lens to engage with many fields.

There have been recent developments in analytic theology and science-engaged theology, for example, which have received wide attention and spurred on a host of publications, conferences, events, and productive discussions. These expanding fields shore up the “scientific” nature of theology—both its language and conceptual content—so that it is better equipped to engage in dialogue with other academic disciplines. This movement, arguably, allows theology to shed light in sociological and scientific fields, providing confirmation on some issues or clarification on others.

One specific area in evangelical theology’s resourcing is on the doctrine of creation. Consider the Creation Project at the Carl F. H. Henry Center and the numerous volumes published in recent years demonstrating how the creation doctrine matters to all areas of scientific concern. Issues like the age of the earth, Adam and Eve, and evolution are still live discussions among theologians for good reason. In the words of theologian John Polkinghorne, “Science cannot tell theology how to construct a doctrine of creation, but you can’t construct a doctrine of creation without taking account of the age of the universe and the evolutionary character of cosmic history.”

Speaking of cosmology—the study of the universe and our place in it—some theologians are making a modern comeback for Christian intelligent design in their defense of theism. This sheds light on adjacent fields at the intersection of science and religion, like biology, physics, chemistry, creation care, and consciousness studies. Some theologians even have something to say about potential extraterrestrial life and its implications for the existence of God and theology at large.

There has also been a revival of theological exploration on the afterlife—a topic that many people, religious or otherwise, often wonder about—as evidenced by a slew of recently released books on heaven, hell, and the intermediate state. Christian theologians are showing they have something vital to say on near-death experiences, and they are also deepening our understanding of neglected doctrines like deification, transfiguration, as well as Christ’s resurrection and ascension.

Another area of revitalized investment is the doctrine of humanity and how it overlaps with almost every contemporary concern. As a previous piece for CT explains, “Evangelical theologians are taking topics that ‘we tend to think of as being more sociological’ … and showing they are, in fact, ‘deeply theological.’” Notable recent works bear out the importance of anthropology for other disciplines from theological and Christological perspectives.

For instance, advances in science, medicine, and technology have sparked a renewed interest in fields like psychology, disability, dementia, neuroscience, and the life ethics of reproductive and palliative health care. Likewise, the advent of artificial intelligence and transhumanism, or “techno-humanism”—which prioritizes technologically advanced human organisms over “mere” humanity—have prompted age-old inquiries into what defines human nature and what separates our consciousness from other creatures or technological entities.

“The more a society becomes technological,” said theologian Gabriel Vahanian, “the more it worries about spiritual questions.”

Such developments pose significant opportunities for theologians to assert an authoritative voice on today’s pressing existential and ethical questions—in everything from politics to public health. And thankfully, we are seeing signs that theological scholarship is indeed descending the ivory tower of academia to engage in vital discussions that impact every facet of our contemporary life.

Theology’s transcendence as an informing discipline for all others is what will continue to draw the minds and hearts of the young—as it once drew mine. Growing up, I longed to understand the mystery of the gospel and the richness of God’s creation, knowing that to truly understand the world, one must approach it in light of its creator and redeemer. As the psalmist states in Psalm 19, “The heavens declare the glory of God,” and Paul tells us that God’s attributes and his character are revealed in his creation (Rom. 1:20). All of creation is constantly pointing back to its creator.

As I studied in college and seminary, I realized theology is not merely a rich methodological approach to questions of vital importance; it is also a culture unto itself and, ultimately, a spiritually formative practice that can bring Christian community into godly maturity. Theology is the gradual process of allowing the word of Christ to dwell in us richly (Col. 3:16).

Because God has spoken and continues to speak, theology not only still matters—it is necessary. Without God’s voice, our understanding of the world is limited. While some secularists may suggest that the natural sciences can give us all that we need, they can never give us a coherent perspective on the world and our place in it, let alone tell us what is important and meaningful.

Today, we have good reason to be hopeful that theology may someday reclaim its rightful place as queen of the disciplines and be restored in its vital role of maintaining the health of our local churches. Theology, when done right, should propel the global church into cultivating a deeper community of faith, along with a public face that calls the world to a higher, better life.

Every time we engage in the work of theology, we echo the words of Francis Schaeffer, who proclaimed just six years after Time announced God’s death, “God is there and he is not silent.”

Joshua R. Farris is in the research faculty at Ruhr Universität Bochum in Germany and is the founder of Soul Science Ministries and Spiritually Driven Leadership. His most recent books are The Creation of Self, The Banquet of Souls: A Mirror to the Universe, and Humanizing AI Business.

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Theology

How a TikTok Trad Wife Decodes Our Cultural Moment

Russell Moore

A viral video reminds us that God works through disciples, not edgelords.

Illustration by Elizabeth Kaye / Source Images: Getty / Pexels

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

Sometimes, a viral video can explain a cultural moment better than a stack of sociology journals. This is one of those times. Standup comedian Josh Johnson expertly explained the ironies of the recent double-cancellation of a racist-talking TikTok “trad wife.” His larger point is one we need to hear right now.

Johnson explained in his set the background of all of this: the growing trend of women who bill themselves as “traditional wives,” instructing other women through cooking and other sorts of videos on how to be “better” at being women. One of these content creators enraged the internet with a use of the most notorious racial slur while seasoning some chicken. The comedian was intrigued not by that controversy but by what happened next.

The trad wife, he said, doubled down on the racist talk and, after being fired from her job, started dropping the slur repeatedly in her videos. She tried to affiliate herself with other alt-right white nationalist “influencers.” It did not go as she planned.

“She just doesn’t quite have the juice,” Johnson said. “Like, when you’re watching her, she’s saying bad things, and they’re annoying, but I’m not angry—she just doesn’t have the oomph to get me there.”

She kept using more and more slurs, Johnson recounted, more and more frantically, in the hopes of getting an audience with neo-Nazis and other bigots, “just trying to prove how terrible she is.”

“The neo-Nazis start rejecting her as a psyop,” Johnson said, “because they feel what I feel. They see the video and they’re like, ‘Um, you don’t mean it, though.’” That’s when the turn comes. The neo-Nazis, Johnson explained, start finding and posting things the woman had tweeted years ago, calling out racism.

“So now she’s getting canceled by the neo-Nazis for old not-racist tweets,” Johnson said. “Then she’s over here fighting for her life, trying, like, N-word, F-word, everything, just throwing it all out there, trying to see what sticks,” but all that just makes the white nationalists angrier.

“She doesn’t have enough of the real. You can tell she’s not really racist. … You can just tell she doesn’t have the fire in her,” Johnson said, so much so that her awkward, frantic attempts to fit in were actually making racist people uncomfortable.

“That’s not how you do it,” Johnson said. “If you really want to be somebody as a racist, if you really want to make waves as a bigot, you start out slow, you start with a bunch of slow and steady dog whistles over decades.”

Johnson’s routine makes the audience laugh, of course, because he recognizes the pathetic nature of the ironies of it all—the career woman who makes videos pretending to be a trad wife, the climber who tries to be a star by pretending to be a bigot. We cringe when we think, Who would want to find a community with white supremacist online bigots, anyway? And we cringe again when we realize that, despite all that self-degradation, it doesn’t even work.

What Johnson is really lampooning here is not this one ephemeral situation in an online controversy, soon forgotten. Nor is he making the case that this would-be “influencer” is somehow less racist than the others because she’s trying to use racism for self-advancement rather than expressing an internally felt ideology. Is a bigot who would feign bigotry for Machiavellian self-advancement less morally compromised than the one whose bigotry comes from reading Mein Kampf?

Instead, Johnson is pointing out something about fallen human nature that’s especially on display right now in our time. The craving for significance—proven in the approval of other human beings—is so strong that some people will pretend to be even more depraved than they actually feel in order to appeal to people for whom the depravity is the price of belonging.

We see this all over the place in the political arena, as people morph themselves into sounding like demagogues of the left or the right, people who don’t really mean it, and who end up losing not only their integrity and their own self-respect but—ultimately—even the respect of those to whom they seek to pander.

And we see it in the church by those who seek not to learn how to teach the Bible, counsel the hurting, or evangelize the lost, but to be significant by how shockingly viral they can be in hating the people other people want them to hate. This is often, in our day, called the aspiration to be an “edgelord,” a person who aims to be known for saying shockingly nihilistic or taboo things to gain an audience. Sometimes, this is because someone they respect is egging them on, someone who will discard them the minute they are no longer useful.

Usually, with most people, this temptation is not so extreme; but it is, as Scripture says, “common to man” (1 Cor. 10:13, ESV throughout). Human beings fear being put “out of the synagogue”—however they define that gathering of people whose approval they want. And this is rooted, the Bible tells us, in a pull to love “the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God” (John 12:43).

We typically think that this temptation is for glory from people in general, or from “the culture” in general (whatever that is). In reality, it’s usually much more specific.

People want to fit into not a culture but a subculture—a group of people who will absorb them and protect them from feeling alone and insignificant and alone. When those people demand they prove their worth with edginess or craziness or bigotry—well, that’s just as alluring as the demand of those who demand brilliance or wealth or success or sexiness or urbanity or anything else.

One gets free of this, as with every other temptation, by recognizing it for what it is—a pitiful pull to Esau’s pottage (Heb. 12:16–17)—and by replacing the fake glory with what’s real: the glory of Christ. This glory brings us into community by first reducing us down to one (Matt. 18:12) and grants us significance by first having us sacrifice every claim to it (Phil. 2:5–9).

Within the church, in this age as in virtually every other, most people seek to build up the church in the ways of Christ by quietly learning to exercise their spiritual gifts. Right now, some young person called to ministry is in an empty room practicing a sermon or seeking counsel from an older sage on how to study the Bible. Some young person called to counsel those who are hurting is learning how to “read” people and what to do in certain crisis situations. Someone is memorizing where he should stand at an usher station, how loudly she should project her voice in the Scripture reading. To some, that seems boring and a waste of time.

And yet, God works—invisibly, slowly, effectually—through fidelity and not through vitality, by disciples and not by edgelords. Anything else—no matter how it seems to “work” in the moment—is, in the long run, so sad it’s not even funny.

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

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