Kristyn Getty: Joni Eareckson Tada Got Me Singing

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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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.

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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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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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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.”

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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.

Church Life

How to Love Your Local Public School

Courtney Vineyard

Even if you have kids in private education—or no kids at all—you can be the hands and feet of Christ on campus.

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

Recent years have seen a large shift away from public education in America. Beyond private school options, charter schools are popping up across the country, and homeschool curriculum options are expanding. As a public school teacher and a Christian, I’ve empathized with friends as they pray and toil over the weighty, complex question of how to educate their kids.

I believe we can honor God in any schooling choice. Are you loving Christ? Are you caring for your neighbor as yourself? Are you discipling your children? Parents living within these biblical guardrails have much freedom to discern God’s specific will for their circumstances, including where they send their kids to school.

But it’s important to realize that our individual choices have communal consequences. As enrollment drops across public school districts, what students remain, and what happens to their education? How does our absence affect the most vulnerable within the neighborhood? Christians can and should support public schools even if we have kids enrolled elsewhere—or no kids at all.

As Christians, we’re called to seek the welfare of our cities (Jer. 29:7), and partnering with a neighborhood public school is a uniquely effectual way to do this. Where do children in poverty congregate daily en masse? Where do orphans build healthy attachments? Where do homeless kids get clean clothes? Where do students with disabilities learn fundamental life skills? In much of America, the answer is: At your local public school, every Monday through Friday.

The variety and number of needs in a public school classroom can be overwhelming. It’s far too great a load for the shoulders of one teacher. If you know an educator, a great start would be to periodically ask, “Is there anything your students need this week?

I speak from personal experience. In fact, I sometimes wonder whether I’d still be in education without the consistent and abundant support of the local church. I’m certain my students and I wouldn’t be flourishing to the degree that we are.

Over the last seven years, singly and in official church programs, Christians have donated school supplies, snacks, uniforms, and meals for students of mine who don’t have enough to eat over the weekends. Christians have tutored, mentored, volunteered for career day, and decorated classrooms. They’ve read us books and thrown class parties and chaperoned field trips. They’ve provided us with dental hygiene kits, brought clothes when houses have burned down, donated stuffed animals to students facing homelessness, and delivered groceries when primary caregivers have been incarcerated. They’ve even brought their sometimes-tired teacher friend a coffee, a lunch, or some flowers.

This past May, when my fourth graders met their national academic growth goals, I asked them to type up suggestions for what they’d want for their hard-earned reward. Most students asked for something realistic: a pizza party, Takis, or fidget spinners. But one kid skipped the typing and immediately blurted, “An Xbox!”

I smirked at him from across the room and joked, “What do you think I am, made of money?”

“Hey, that’s an idiom!” He smiled. “But also, you could probably ask some of your friends. You know, put your money all together.”

The earnestness in his demeanor caught me by surprise. Of course, I couldn’t help but giggle at the audacity of a nine-year-old. But secretly, I wondered if this meant he’d noticed how his Christian teacher’s friends had spent that school year generously giving of their time and their money. Maybe, just maybe, this kid was starting to recognize that these people shared all things, and that among them there was no need (Acts 2:44–45).

My hope is that he’ll someday know our God because of our love (John 13:34–35). And I hope that other kids in other schools will make the same connection after experiencing the same generosity. Here are a few practical ways to support your neighborhood school:

If you have school-aged children who don’t go to public school, search online for a district school supply list for their grade level, go shopping with your kids, and drop the items off in the office of the closest public school. You might even leave your contact information with the guidance counselor and ask them to reach out as needs come up throughout the year.
If you work a 9–5, give one lunch break a week to being a mentor or reading buddy at the public school closest to your work. You can go to that school’s website and email the guidance counselor, and they can plug you in to help meet a student’s need on campus.
Seek to know the truth behind what’s happening within your local public schools, especially if they’ve become controversial in your circles. False rumors too easily circulate, and misinformation could damage imperfect but ultimately beneficial institutions serving the most vulnerable children in your area. Though there are undoubtedly exceptions to be found, it’s very likely that the good at your neighborhood school far outweighs the bad, so work to speak about it fairly and graciously.
Finally, if your family is debating a school choice, don’t prematurely rule out your neighborhood school. Ask to take a tour of the campus, meet with an administrator, and look up data online. Ask an educator friend to help you interpret the nuances behind the information you find. Pray throughout the process. It might just be that your child could thrive right down the block from you, and opting into public school could bless your community as well as your family.

However you choose to support public schools, I implore you to do so. May we not mollify our consciences by pretending our personal decisions have no wider effects. May we refuse the path of apathy toward the flourishing of our neighborhoods. May we know these are little children whom Jesus deeply loves, and as we work to share his love with them, may they come to know him too.

Courtney Vineyard is a teacher and neighbor in Fort Worth.

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Wire Story

Nearly Half of the World’s Migrants Are Christian

Chloë-Arizona Fodor - Religion News Service

With few nones entering the US, religious immigrants are stalling secularization.

The world’s 280 million immigrants have greater shares of Christians, Muslims, and Jews than the general population, according to a new Pew Research Center study released Monday.

“You see migrants coming to places like the US, Canada, different places through Western Europe, and being more religious—and sometimes more Christian in particular—than the native-born people in those countries,” said Stephanie Kramer, the study’s lead researcher.

While Christians make up about 30 percent of the world’s population, the world’s migrants are 47 percent Christian, according to the latest data collected in 2020.

The study found that Muslims make up 29 percent of the migrant population but 25 percent of the world’s population.

Jews, only 0.2 percent of the world’s population but 1 percent of migrants, are by far the most likely religious group to have migrated, with 20 percent of Jews worldwide living outside their country of birth compared to just 6 percent of Christians and 4 percent of Muslims.

Four percent of migrants are Buddhist, matching the general population, and 5 percent are Hindu, compared to 15 percent of the world population.

Over the past 30 years, migration has outpaced global population growth by 83 percent, according to Pew.

Though people immigrate for many reasons, including economic opportunity, to reunite with family, and to flee violence or persecution, religion and migration are often closely connected, the report finds. US migrants are much more likely to have a religious identity than the American-born population in general.

The influx of religious migrants can have a significant impact on the religious composition of their destination countries. In the case of the US, “immigrants are kind of putting the brakes on secularization,” Kramer said.

While about 30 percent of individuals in the US overall identify as atheist, agnostic, or religiously unaffiliated, only 10 percent of migrants to the US identify with those categories.

Pew studied data from 270 censuses and surveys, estimating the religious composition of migrants from 95,696 combinations of 232 origin and destination countries and territories.

Their analysis focused on the “stock,” the total number of people residing as international migrants, rather than “flows,” numbers measured over a specific time. This methodology allowed them to study all adults and children who live outside their countries of birth, regardless of when they immigrated.

“We’re not only interested in the religious composition of people who arrived in a destination country in the last year or in the last five years,” explained Kramer. According to the report, measuring the total “stock” of migrants reflects slower changes, “patterns that have accumulated over time.”

The study found that migrants frequently move to countries where their religious identity is already represented and prevalent. For example, Israel is the top destination for Jews, with 51 percent of Jewish migrants (1.5 million) residing there, while Saudi Arabia is the top destination for Muslims, with 13 percent (10.8 million) residing in the area.

Christians and religiously unaffiliated migrants share the US, Germany, and Russia as their top three destinations.

The majority of the world’s Christian migrants originate from Mexico and settle in the US, Pew found. They are typically looking for jobs, improved safety, or to reunite with family members. Meanwhile, 10 percent of the world’s Muslim migrants (8.1 million) were born in Syria, fleeing regional conflict after a war broke out in 2011.

The report attributes high rates of Jewish migration partly to Israel’s Law of Return, which grants Jews the right to receive automatic citizenship and make aliyah, a move to Israel.

As of 2020, about 1.5 million Jews born outside of Israel now live within the country’s borders. Jewish migrants to Israel often come from former Soviet republics, such as Ukraine (170,000) and Russia (150,000). The United States has the second highest population of Jewish migrants (400,000), with a quarter moving from Israel.

Across the board, however, Kramer said that immigration levels across religious groups have remained fairly stable over time. Despite consistent numbers, she advocated for doing this study because of the popularity of a 2012 Pew report, Faith on the Move. The two studies used different methodologies, and Kramer described Faith on the Move as a “snapshot” of religion and immigration in 2010.

“A lot of people have asked for an update to it, and we get a lot of questions related to religion and migration,” she said. Despite demand for the data, “Faith on the Move was really the last report we put out that focused on this.”

Many of the findings in the new report are similar to the 2012 study, and Kramer found the results relatively unsurprising.

“Even in that older data, you can see that religious minorities were so much more likely to leave their country of origin and migrate to a country where their religious identity was more prevalent,” she said.

- More from Chloë-Arizona Fodor

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In Our Anger Era: Too Many Americans Stay Enraged Rather than Seeking Help

Emily Belz

Christian counselors wish more people would acknowledge their rage in a boiling cultural moment.

Protestors from different parties clash outside the Republican National Convention in July.

Jim Vondruska / Getty Images

More Americans than ever are seeking help for mental health issues like depression and anxiety. But they seem to be avoiding help for another emotion, even though it comes up across life stages and can be destructive: anger.

Current events have fanned the flame of wrath even more. Like many Americans, Nycole DeLaVara has seen angry conversations about the news invade her church life—especially over politics, race, and gender.

But in her work as a biblical counselor in Southern California, DeLaVara says that anger often remains unaddressed and unresolved.

“I kind of wish people were coming and saying, ‘I am having a hard time processing what I’m seeing,’” said DeLaVara. “That would be a humble way of approaching things. I find people don’t know what they’re feeling.”

CT spoke with Christian counselors across the country who agreed. Not enough people, they say, have been able to recognize the uncertainty they’re feeling as anger, and they may be missing out on the guidance that could help them during a heated and divisive climate.

“The Facebook warrior usually doesn’t come into counseling and say, ‘I really struggled to manage my dialogue on Facebook,’” said Brad Hambrick, who oversees the counseling ministries at Summit Church, in North Carolina, which has 14 campuses and about 13,000 in attendance.

The flood of information people experience now—being able at every moment to know anything frustrating going on in the entire world—contributes to a “background sense of irritation,” said Hambrick, which “contributes to impulse control being harder these days.”

Last year, the Los Angeles Police Department recorded the most road rage incidents in seven years, and nationally, the number of road rage shootings has risen 400 percent over the last decade.

Service sector workers have endured more enraged vitriol from customers since the pandemic. Flight attendants have noticed an increase in outbursts on airplanes. Anger appears to be sitting right under the surface of life in the United States.

But what’s going on beneath the outbursts?

Anger is a “smoke detector—what is it telling me?” said DeLaVara. Anger in personal relationships is often someone not knowing how to communicate the feelings they are having, she said, feelings like fear, uncertainty, a sense of injustice, or not being understood or respected.

Christian counselor Anna Mondal in San Diego compares good and bad anger to how a child responds after being hit by another kid.

“It’s okay for a kid to be angry, but it’s not okay for them to harm another child in their anger,” Mondal said. “It’s okay to feel it, but how they express it matters. … That is such an important thing to know how to do: feel the anger but not express it destructively.”

Braden Benson, a Christian counselor at The Owen Center in Auburn, Alabama, said the assassination attempt on former president Donald Trump stirred people’s anger. For people who watch Trump every day, it was as if a friend had been shot. With current events, a lot of anger that comes out is from people having “parasocial” relationships with politicians and online figures, he said.

“I think the deeper you go into the parasocial world, the more likely it is that you’re opening yourself up to that anger, that sense of vulnerability,” he said. “Because this thing, this person, this podcast, this TV show, whatever this character that you have seen as your friend, is now getting attacked.”

Anger at social media or a news article might require some deep breaths or a long run, Mondal said.

“Western culture emphasizes thinking and logic and intellectualism—like, Let me think about my right response,” said Mondal. “Often, we can’t. We have to wait for our body to calm down.”

But she added that with longer-standing issues that cause anger, a deep breath probably won’t do much.

People seeing seismic change around them will still feel a certain level of threat and sense of vulnerability. They don’t recognize what’s happening in the world, and they don’t know what’s coming next.

“You either respond to the vulnerability as God, which means you’re in charge, you have to fix it, you have to cope, you have to control it,” said Benson. “Or you respond to the vulnerability with God—understand that you can’t fix it.”

When Christians find themselves overwhelmed by the world, they have to work to recognize what they can and can’t influence, counselors said. Christians can use their anger to take action without letting their anger become hurtful to others.

“The tendency is when we see people overreacting, we try to balance it out, almost by an encouragement to underreact,” said Hambrick at Summit.

Churches could be addressing problems with anger and related issues through peer support groups—something Summit has. Like 12-step recovery groups, these groups are lay-led and can naturally fit in the ecosystem of a church, Hambrick said.

“It’s one of the greatest untapped modes or ways of creating change,” he said. “It’s just humble honesty … with people you respect.”

Others who have worked through anger found circles of others outside their family who were willing to hear their anger very helpful.

Mondal, a counselor, experienced trauma-induced anger 15 years ago after sexual assault when she was teaching overseas.

“I had no tools for how to express the anger that I felt at being dropped, left alone, not being taken care of,” she said.

She had to learn first that she was angry—beneath the shame she felt initially—then learn how to express that anger to others and to God. Once she was able to express it in a constructive way, she said she could feel joy more deeply.

A support group for deep anger is typically a small circle of people, she said, and usually not those the person is closest to.

“It’s a different kind of people who come out of the woodwork, who are not afraid of that [pain],” she said.

Support groups have been helpful for people struggling with more everyday forms of anger too.

Tim Schultz, a lobbyist in Washington, DC, felt comfortable confessing his struggles with anger toward his family to a small prayer group at his church.

“People would not see me as an angry person,” he said. But a few years into his marriage, after having children, he was having angry outbursts at home. “I was both aghast and ashamed of that.”

He had been in a men’s prayer group at his church for over a decade, and first shared his problem with them.

“If you’re known by people outside your immediate family, you don’t have any problem confessing stuff like this that might feel really shameful,” he said. “Shame is paralyzing. It makes you not want people to know this about you.”

He talked to his pastor, read books from Christian psychologists, and went to therapy.

“The biggest technique was to find a vocabulary for each stage of anger and verbalize it,” he said. If he asks his kids to go to bed three times and they don’t, telling them he feels disrespected lets some air out of the balloon. People “hold level 4 anger in, and then they get to 7 and blow up. You weren’t honest with yourself and the people around you.”

He thinks part of the reason people around him in DC are struggling with unhealthy anger is that they are overscheduled. When they have no time to pause and be aware of what emotions are happening, anger has more opportunity to boil over, he said.

Schultz and his family have a big Christmas party every year with about 100 people. Every year, he shares something short about how Christmas and the gospel connects to the cultural moment.

Last year, he told the gathering: “Look around you, look online, people behaving badly on flights—there is so much anger in our world. … We need a certain dose of anger, otherwise it will be runaway injustice. But oftentimes, anger is destroying people.”

He talked about God seeing the things we are angry about, and how God is also angry about injustice and death. He also said God didn’t pour “brimstone” on the world in response, but instead came in a manger.

Once he started talking about his efforts to address his anger, other men started asking for the number of the counseling service he went to. He’s now referred at least seven of them to counseling for anger.

“God is taking something bad and using it for his kingdom,” he said. “If I can be open about my struggles in this area, others can get help too.”

- More from Emily Belz

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