In Asian American Churches, Generational Differences Deter Young Leaders

Survey: Majority Asian churches are half as likely to have leaders under 30.

Illustration by Elizabeth Kaye / Source Images: Lightstock / Unsplash

One of the first spiritual formation books written for Asian American Christians, released by InterVarsity Press in 1998, is entitled Following Jesus Without Dishonoring Your Parents. Even in its title, the book acknowledges how Asian Americans’ faith and discipleship are inextricably intertwined with family and culture. Questions of calling, mission, church community, and spiritual practices are often seen through the cross-generational lens of family obligation and cultural heritage—resulting in complex perspectives on ministry and discipleship.

This layered lens on faith begins to shed light on a major finding in the recent National Survey of Asian American Congregational Leadership Practices by the Innovative Space for Asian American Christianity (ISAAC): Of the more than 200 Asian American (or majority Asian American) congregations surveyed, about 35 percent reported no leaders under the age of 30 on the ruling church board. This is more than double the number of non-Asian congregations in the survey who reported a lack of young leaders on their board.

The ISAAC survey finding also aligns with broader church studies that show how many congregations are aging and fewer young people are identifying as Christian. But, within the Asian American context, the lack of young leaders points to significant theological and cultural differences between the generations that affect communal identity, missional priorities, leadership diversity, and pastoral succession.

Steve Wong, who is the founding pastor of a small Asian American congregation in Silicon Valley, says that churches like his are often asking, “Who are we serving, actually?” It’s not a simple question when the term Asian American encompasses individuals from nearly 20 different ethnic groups, each with their own diverse cultures and life experiences.

In addition, first-generation immigrants may have different expectations and norms than second- or third-generation Asian Americans—making it harder for the younger generations to be in community with their elders.

Jason Ashimoto wasn’t yet 40 when he stepped into the senior pastor role at 400-person Evergreen Baptist Church in Southern California. He understood that his leadership was dependent on his ability to navigate these generational differences.

Having started as a young intern within the church, he knew the elders in the church would always see him as young—and he honors that perspective.

“I can’t be barking orders to them,” he told CT. “These are my elders. I always have to respect them.” Because he chose to see the older congregants like his own grandparents—caring for them, respecting them, and recognizing their authority—he was able to earn their trust over time.

But not all young Asian American leaders can so readily adapt. Steve Wong has found that Asian Americans who have spent time in white-majority congregations have trouble acclimating to Asian churches’ typically indirect styles of communication, which can include understating opinions, avoiding conflict, and talking around difficult topics.

“In a church that’s going to identify as Asian American, rhythms of communication are different,” he explained. “We may be singing the same notes, but the time signature is different.”

Mia Shin, who served as a lay leader in a Korean American church for about 20 years and is the lead pastor of a church plant in central California, thinks Gen Z Christians can be put off by the indirect communication and the avoidance of hot-button topics that are important to them.

“Transparency and authenticity are high on their priority list,” she told CT. “Asian American congregations and evangelical congregations, for the most part, don’t want to address hard topics from the pulpit.”

Longtime pastor Grace May, who has served in Chinese churches and African American churches in New England, agrees—and adds that it points to major theological differences between older and younger Asian Americans. “One of the priorities in a lot of young Asian American minds is the issue of justice. In theologically conservative churches, this is not discussed or it’s not a real concern.”

May believes that many Asian churches lack the language or training to discuss structural sin and systemic evil, instead focusing on personal salvation. This may explain why the ISAAC study found that significantly fewer Asian American congregations (34%) participated in the Stop AAPI Hate movement during the pandemic than their non-Asian counterparts (60%).

Another theological sticking point that may affect young adults’ involvement is women in leadership. Both Shin and May had limits placed on their roles when they served in Asian American churches, from being unable to preach to being prohibited from serving Communion. They often saw younger, less experienced men being given discipleship and leadership opportunities that were denied them.

The ISAAC study confirms their experience. Thirty-two percent of the Asian American congregations surveyed do not allow women to teach alone with adult men, nearly double the proportion of non-Asian congregations.

“We probably have many more women who are called to pastoral ministry,” said Grace May, “but if they don’t have it modeled and are taught a complementarian theology, and are excluded from any training, why would they consider seminary or the pastorate?”

There are other reasons young Asian Americans might not choose to go into church ministry. Each leader interviewed for this article had several ideas, including pressure from immigrant parents to be financially successful; more attractive missional opportunities in the for-profit or nonprofit sectors; and Gen Z’s valuing of work-life balance set against most Asian American churches’ continuing expectation of 24-7 dedication from their church leaders.

The challenge for Asian American congregations, then, is how to attract, retain, and ultimately raise up young Christians when such significant cultural and theological differences exist between older leadership and the up-and-coming generations. Those on the ground recognize the need, as well as the risk to the health of Asian American faith communities, and are pursuing a variety of different strategies.

Steve Wong is involved in the Evangelical Covenant Church’s efforts to disciple and train more young Asian American leaders. The denomination has put out a call for more Asian leaders within the Covenant and is convening a leadership conference for them in 2025.

Mia Shin, on the other hand, is taking a more grassroots approach through her young church, connecting with a nearby college campus as well as community arts groups that attract young adults.

“The church has to go to them where they’re at, care for them, and then lovingly bring them into the faith community when they’re ready,” she said. “We need to be adaptable by finding creative ways to connect with the younger generation in their existing circles of interest.”

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An Assassination Attempt in Brazil Brought Politics into Churches

Franco Iacomini

Presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro was stabbed a month before the 2018 election. Polarization and Christian nationalism has only grown since then.

Supporters of Jair Bolsonaro hold a prayer vigil in support of the candidate after he was stabbed.

Suamy Beydoun / AP Images

On September 6, 2018, the eve of Brazil’s Independence Day, a crowd of people was carrying Jair Bolsonaro through the streets of Juiz de Fora when a man approached and stabbed the then-presidential candidate in the abdomen.

Bolsonaro was rushed to the hospital; the knife had damaged his small intestine and a nearby vein, causing heavy internal bleeding. The injuries kept him in the hospital for more than three weeks during the heat of the presidential campaign.

“God acted and deflected the knife,” said Bolsonaro’s son Flávio within hours of the event.

Though Bolsonaro didn’t exit the attack on his life with a fist pump and look of defiance, his recovery from the assassination attempt nevertheless energized his base and grew his supporters, including among significant numbers of evangelical Christians, who would propel him to the presidency a couple months later.

Just weeks before the attack, polls showed 26 percent of Brazilian evangelicals, which includes both mainstream Protestants as well as neo-Pentecostals, backing Bolsonaro. After the stabbing, that number rose to 36 percent. By the first round of elections on October 7, 48 percent of evangelicals voted for Bolsonaro, a number that increased to 69 percent during his winning November run-off.

Prior to the incident, Bolsonaro had not been shy in his attempts to court the evangelical vote. Journalist Ricardo Alexandre notes in his book E a Verdade Vos Libertará: Reflexões Sobre Religião, Política e Bolsonarismo:

In August 2018, during an interview with GloboNews, the then-candidate declared, “I am a Christian,” and, suggesting the supernatural nature of his success, continued, “Look at the popular support I am having. Isn’t it unimaginable that this is happening? How did I achieve this? When I talk about ‘God’s mission’ I think about the following: What will my motto be? What will my flag be? So I went to John 8:32: ‘And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.’”

Up until the attack, evangelical support for the candidate had largely been expressed during campaign stops and rallies—that is, outside the church. The separation of church and state is enshrined in the Brazilian constitution, and all forms of political advertising are banned from any “place of common use,” which includes churches. A church’s formal support of a candidate could result in a fine for the candidate and the religious leader, or possibly force a candidate to resign from a race.

In the aftermath of the violence, however, Bolsonaro’s name began being invoked fearlessly from the front of the church.

“For the majority, the moment was about bringing a word of reconciliation between supporters of Bolsonaro and those who opposed him,” said sociologist Igor Sabino, a specialist in international relations, who remembered hearing pastors teach on Scriptures relating to support of governmental authorities, such as Romans 13, 1 Timothy 2, and the Psalm 72.

The General Convention of the Assemblies of God in Brazil (CGDAB), the largest Pentecostal church in the country, organized a prayer campaign shortly after the assassination attempt, asking God to “direct us to vote for men and women who are committed not only to the good and the future of the nation, but, above all, committed to God and his Word.”

At Igreja Batista Atitude, the Rio de Janeiro church attended by Bolsonaro’s wife, Michelle, leaders paused to pray for the candidate during a conference that was being held on the same day as the stabbing, while those in the sanctuary knelt.

Silas Malafaia, who leads the Pentecostal megachurch Assembly of God Vitória em Cristo, addressed the issue of elections during the evening service on September 6, citing Paul’s words in 1 Timothy 2:1–2 that “petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people—for kings and all those in authority.”

As Bolsonaro recuperated in the hospital and made public appearances in the days that followed, many Christians praying for the injured candidate became more vocal about their support for him.

“These weren’t just prayers for Bolsonaro’s health in a time of crisis—an obligation for every Christian,” said Paulo Won, pastor of Igreja Presbiteriana Metropolitana of Campinas. “They were prayers for his victory. From the Pentecostal spectrum to the more traditional churches, the leadership itself established a very clear direction in favor of his candidacy.”

Some of this manifested into action. Four days after the assassination attempt, a group of pastors that included Coalizão Pelo Evangelho (The Gospel Coalition’s Brazil branch) published an open letter that appeared to reference Bolsonaro’s campaign talking points.

One item, for example, asked God to “frustrate all attempts at fraud in the electoral system.” (At that time, only Bolsonaro’s campaign was making allegations of fraud in electronic voting machines.) The document also recommended “rejecting candidates with interventionist emphases in the family, educational, ecclesiastical, and artistic spheres,” reflecting the claims that Bolsonaro and his allies held against the opposing party, Partido dos Trabalhadores.

The letter was widely republished on Reformed social media, church websites, and church bulletins.

On the same day of the attack, Malafaia, who is known for his political prophecies, declared in a video posted on his YouTube channel that the assassination attempt was actually “a sign that Bolsonaro should be the next president of Brazil,” echoing the words of Bolsonaro’s supporters outside of the church.

Street vendors sold T-shirts with Bolsonaro’s face and the words He bled for you, recalled Sabino. Brazilians shared memes of Jesus walking alongside Bolsonaro in the hospital and standing beside the surgeons who operated on him.

“His survival brought elements of spiritual warfare to the campaign, as if there was evidence of a supernatural plan for him, that he would be God’s anointed one,” said Sabino.

For Bolsonaro’s evangelical supporters, this “plan” was God raising up someone to “save Brazil from the forces of a left-wing, atheistic government,” said Victor Fontana, pastor of Comunidade da Vila, a Reformed church in São Paulo.

Those looking for a messianic throughline latched onto anything that appeared to give greater meaning to the attack. “That was foolish,” said Fontana in retrospect. “[The attack] wasn’t a moral act. He didn’t choose to be stabbed.”

The weeks between the attacks and the election became a “union of Brazilian messianism with Christian nationalism,” according to journalist Alexandre. “Bolsonaro presented himself as someone that God sent, a carrier of truth and salvation to Brazil. And who will rise up against the Lord’s anointed? Voting against him, from this perspective, would have been the same as opposing God’s plans.”

This mentality kept many Brazilian Christians from critically examining Bolsonaro as a candidate, including reflecting on his seeming endorsements of the military dictatorship that ruled Brazil from 1964 to 1985 and statements that many found misogynistic and prejudiced.

Instead, after he won the presidency in that 2018 election, evangelicals rarely criticized him during his term. Many joined in storming the Congresso Nacional, the Supremo Tribunal Federal, and the presidential palace on January 8 2023, appealing to the army for a military coup after Bolsonaro lost the previous year election and accused it of being stolen. A number of protesters carried Bibles, praying before they entered Congress and singing hymns while being arrested by federal police. At least four pastors were among those detained.

“It seems that many evangelicals in Brazil do not fully understand how democracy works, with the natural alternation of power,” said Won. “It’s as if democracy doesn’t matter, and what counts is the permanence of God’s anointed one.”

Six years after the stabbing incident, some pastors are now questioning what happened. “We made the mistake of turning a blind eye to those who call themselves Christians but whose actions are far from Christ,” said Ziel Machado, a Methodist pastor and vice-rector of Servo de Cristo Seminary in São Paulo.

Brazilian evangelical leaders and churchgoers could have defended democratic ideals in 2018 and in the years that followed, says Daniel Guanaes, who pastors Igreja Presbiteriana do Recreio in Rio de Janeiro. He believes that incidents such as the stabbing of Bolsonaro and the recent shooting against former US president Donald Trump present an opportunity for the church to take a stand against political violence, emphasizing how such acts are antithetical to Christianity and democracy.

“Legally, they are crimes; theologically, they are sins,” he said. But this was not the route the Brazilian church took. “The stabbing became partisan. And we were wrong about it.”

The church of Jesus Christ should not be confused with the evangelical movement in Brazil (or in the United States or in any other country), nor with the social movement studied by political scientists, says Alexandre, and conflating the two will have significant negative repercussions for the growth of the church.

“This identification of the church with a political faction is the kiss of death for Brazilian evangelicalism,” he said. “This will become very clear in the religious affiliation statistics in the coming years.”

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What Wrestling Taught an Olympic Gold Medalist About God

Emily Belz

As he prepares for the Paris Olympics, wrestler Kyle Snyder talks about how faith helped him loosen up and love his teammates.

Kyle Snyder, left, wrestles at the US Olympic Wrestling Trials in April.

Tim Nwachukwu / Getty Images

Kyle Snyder, the youngest US wrestler to ever win Olympic gold in 2016, is competing in the Olympics again this year with Team USA, now as a more veteran member of the team.

He has many other accolades, including three NCAA championships, two world championships, and a silver medal in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The top wrestling competitors are the US, Russia, and Iran, which adds geopolitical zest to the bouts, Snyder noted.

Snyder and I met in Philadelphia—he lives and trains in State College, Pennsylvania—before he headed out to France. Olympic wrestling events begin August 5.

Your faith came about through wrestling, right?

I’ve always been addicted to sports. I wanted to be in the NFL. And then I stopped growing. So I thought, I guess I’ll try to be the best wrestler. I had a lot of success and I won, but I wasn’t wrestling to my potential because I was afraid of losing. I felt like if I lost, then I wouldn’t be as valuable a person, and I’d be embarrassed. I would get tight and not be able to compete even near to the way I could practice.

I moved to the Olympic training center my senior year of high school, and the coaches asked me to start coming to a Bible study with them. I said, “Yeah, I’ll go.” I would jump off a bridge if they told me to. I just wanted to win world and Olympic titles, and if they thought studying the Bible would help, then I’d do it. So I went to the Bible studies. Never read a Bible before. I used to think, How can anyone read it? It’s so big, and the words are so small. But I started enjoying the stories from the Bible. And then I moved to Ohio State and started going to Bible studies there.

But I wasn’t fully committed. I was still doing a lot of my own will, living how I wanted to. My goal was to be a four-time NCAA champion—that’s a big goal in wrestling. I made it to the finals my freshman year and I ended up getting pinned. That was heartbreaking for me. It was the first time I had ever been depressed. I’m a happy guy, but I was just broken and didn’t talk to anybody for a week, didn’t eat.

My strength coach called me and he was like, “All right, you know what you got to do now? You got to give your whole life to Jesus. You’ve got to be more committed to him than you are to wrestling.” I said , “I don’t even know how to do that, or what that even means .” I just prayed that night that God would help me be more committed to him than anything else in my life. And I started being more disciplined with studying the Word myself.

Then, seven months later, I became the youngest world champion in the history of USA Wrestling. I went from being the second best in college wrestling to the best in the world. I didn’t get any better at technique, and my shape didn’t get any better. But God, he freed me from my identity of being a wrestler and from my value coming from winning wrestling matches, to my identity being his child. And my purpose is to know him and trust in him and, Lord willing, to bring other people into faith. I was able to compete a lot harder.

Is that something you’ve seen happen with other wrestlers you know?

In 2016, there were seven guys at the Olympics—five of them were Christians who were really passionately following the Lord. You go to any wrestling camp, there’s Bible study almost every night with 40, 50 guys there.

The guy who was leading the study at the Olympic training center, his name is Gene Davis. And he’s worked for Athletes in Action for 65 years, and he’s still teaching. There’s so many people who have poured so much work into the sport, in regard to faith. You start to learn about God, and you’re like, Wow, I want to just follow him because I love him, and he loves me.

I saw there was a worship service at the Olympic trials.

The Olympic trials were on Saturday. And then on Sunday, we just had a Bible study, we were singing, and a couple people taught. About 230 people came.

It was a great way to end the weekend, because some people’s dreams got crushed. Only six people accomplished what they set out to do. It was a good way to get refocused on what’s most important.

What do you think is special about wrestling as a sport?

Wrestling forces you to look within so, so deeply. You’re going out there to fight somebody else. In the moments beforehand, you have a lot of questions that come into your head that you have to deal with. So that’s something people don’t see.

My friend who is a wrestling fan said one thing he likes about wrestling is that you have to get beat up a lot to be good—you have to lose a lot and learn from it.

Yeah, every wrestler experiences it. I’ve always been bigger for my age too. So I was wrestling kids a lot older than me. I was beat up a lot as a kid. I’ve also had this weird belief in my ability to win ever since I was a kid. I would get beat real bad by somebody. And I’d be like, Yeah, the next time, I’m going to beat them. And then they beat me again. … But that belief never wavered for some reason. I think God gave that mindset to me.

We talk about losing well as Christians, but what do you, as a Christian, see that’s good about being competitive and about winning?

In my career, I’ve traveled to places like Russia, Dagestan, Iran, Georgia, and Ukraine. A lot of the places I go, the majority of people are Muslim. But they’ll listen to what I have to say because I’ve won a lot. That gives me an opportunity to be able to tell them, “Well, this is what I believe, and this is what’s helped me in my career.” It’s just being genuine about the way God’s worked in my life. And they listen.

Did your faith change your mental approach to the sport in other ways?

One major change that took place early on in my faith was—it used to be, if I didn’t win, but my teammates won, that was a problem for me. I was jealous. I wasn’t happy for them.

I might externally say good job, but, internally, that was something I really struggled with. God helped me with that. I wanted to be happy for my friends and genuinely wanted them to do well. But I couldn’t do that before. God taught me how, and helped my heart, to just love other people more.

What do you think about the culture of kids sports now, where you have to start young, be committed 24/7, travel, and all that?

It’s definitely not what you have to do. I know stories of many different people that have made Olympic teams and started wrestling in high school. Kids should do things they enjoy, start slow, work on technique, and have fun. When they start to understand competition more, they can get into that.

The issue is, parents all believe their kids are going to go to the NFL or NBA. But it’s just not the truth. Only a couple of people get to do it. Kids can get better in a less intense, more fun environment. Parents need to chill out.

I do clinics; we have our own camp that we run each summer. I’ve been around a lot of kids and their parents. Some of the kids are crying out on the mat. They’re too young to even understand what’s going on. They’d be better just learning a couple moves, a technique, and then playing a game.

Twenty years ago, no Olympians had to deal with social media. You have more than 300,000 followers on Instagram. How do you balance promoting your personal brand and focusing on your sport?

Social media is pretty draining. I’m seeing pictures of my competition and seeing what people are saying. I don’t want to see comments about me and think about that. I don’t really get too involved with it.

Is there anything you’re looking forward to about this Olympics?

Doing the opening ceremonies and all that at the 2016 Olympics was really cool. But when I look back, my favorite part was the wrestling. I’m just looking forward to wrestling.

The last Olympics was during COVID-19. Everybody had to wear a mask, you had to get COVID tested every day, no family could come. I’m looking forward to it just being back to normal.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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Nigerian Church Watches, Prays as Ocean Rises

Ryan Truscott

Ayetoro was founded to be a city on a hill. Now it’s facing a watery apocalypse.

A Christian community in Nigeria is threatened by the impact of climate change on the Atlantic Ocean.

AP Photo/Dan Ikpoyi

Thompson Akingboye is old enough to remember a time when the ocean was not a threat to his home in the coastal town of Ayetoro in Nigeria’s southwestern Ondo State. That was back in 1997, when he was just nine years old.

But in the 2000s, the storm surges began, and then everything changed.

Homes, factories, schools, and maternity clinics built up over the town’s long history began to be slowly consumed by the water.

Ayetoro, meaning “happy city” in Yoruba, is home to more than 10,000 people. It is a theocratic Christian fishing community. Since it was founded in 1947, it has been run by the Ogeloyinbo, or traditional ruler, who is also the head of the town’s charismatic Holy Apostles Community Church.

Today, even that church, around which much of the town’s communal life revolves, has been impacted. It has had to be moved three times in recent years, and the waves are lapping ever closer to its present location.

“Our common prayer in the church is seeking God’s intervention to touch the heart of the government to answer our plight,” Akingboye, now 36 and the spokesman for the town’s youth congress, told CT.

That intervention would involve reclaiming the land that has already been lost to the sea and building up levees, dikes, and seawalls that can withstand the waves, experts say.

Ayetoro’s people are historically self-sufficient, but a project this big is beyond the abilities of even its most able artisans, Akingboye said. Appeals have been made at every level of government: local, regional, and state.

“No tangible respite has come,” he said. “The land continues to be eroded, houses continued to collapse into the sea, people continued to die.”

It appears to be a problem afflicting other communities along Nigeria’s 528-mile-long coastline.

Thousands of reclamation and shoreline protection projects have reportedly been awarded to contractors—but then abandoned. At least two projects meant to shore up Ayetoro’s own defenses have been in planning since 2004, yet nothing has materialized, locals say.

The consequences of inaction have been devastating. Video footage posted by Akingboye on Facebook last December shows waves breaking and swirling around large slabs of shattered concrete, while the skeletal frames of buildings protrude from the sea.

The youth leader estimates around 5,000 residents—nearly half the town’s population—have been displaced. Some have moved to stay with relatives in neighboring communities. Others have had to make do in Ayetoro. Rooms meant for three people now accommodate ten.

“People have become refugees in their own town,” he said.

Tragically, lives have also been lost. More than 30 residents have died in storm surges that hit the town in 2010, 2016, 2019, and then again, most recently, in April 2023.

The victims have been mostly children and the elderly, asleep when the storms struck at night. Some elderly residents have also died from the distress of losing property they don’t have the means to replace, Akingboye said.

More than half a century ago, things in Ayetoro looked very different.

Without any state support, the community established factories to produce bread, shoes, ice and textiles. It had a dockyard—the nation’s first—and there were workshops and sawmills, a technical college, as well as community-run supermarkets, laundry houses, and maternity centers.

Ayetoro was founded as a religious community, where everyone would belong to the same church, praying and celebrating Communion together, and those who violated a strict ethical code would be kicked out. Holy Apostles is part of the Aladura movement, which broke from Anglicanism in the 1920s over the power of prayer and possibility of divine healing today.

Ayetoro had utopian visions of becoming a Nigerian city on a hill. And for a while, it was. Visitors flocked in from Nigeria and abroad. Then the search for oil brought disaster.

“Ayetoro lived in peace and serenity until our oil attracted the government,” Akingboye said. “The land was distorted; the sea rose and began to intrude into the town.”

Oluwambe Ojagbohunmi, the traditional ruler of Ayetoro and the spiritual head of its church, shares this view.

“Apart from climate change, oil exploration is the major factor behind the ocean surge,” he said. “Our oil resource has gone to make others wealthy and build big cities in the state and federal capitals, while we that have the oil are left to be washed into the ocean.”

While marine geoscientists say offshore oil extraction can cause the land to sink, the crisis in Ayetoro is not unique. Much of West Africa’s coastline, a magnet for development and economic activity, is vulnerable to the “converging crises” of rising seas, fast-growing populations, land pressure, and a lack of low-cost housing.

“The increasing population of coastal communities is posing a threat to natural barriers and ecosystems, exposing them to storm surges and flooding,” one study says.

Taiwo Ogunwumi, a Nigerian flood risk consultant based in the Netherlands, says the root cause of the sea level rise affecting Ayetoro is triggered by processes happening far from its shores: melting ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica.

NASA, which monitors those ice sheets via its GRACE satellite missions, estimates that both are losing hundreds of billions of tons of ice per year. The meltwaters are responsible for a third of global sea-level rise since 1993, according to the American government agency.

Local oil extraction offshore of Ayetoro is, however, also aggravating the situation, notes Ogunwumi.

“The industrial activities of the oil-producing companies concentrated in Ayetoro contribute to the release of carbon dioxide emissions,” he told CT.

In addition to the “gray infrastructure” needed for frontline coastal defenses, Ogunwumi recommends nature-based solutions such as restoring wetlands, coral reefs, marshes, and mangroves that can help buffer against coastal flooding.

Amid this ecological crisis, Ayetoro’s pastors and leaders persist in preaching good news. As a watery apocalypse rises to consume their city, the faithful are urged to turn to the Lord.

“Most of our preaching now is to encourage the people that help will come one day,” Akingboye said. “There is nothing impossible for God to do.”

- More from Ryan Truscott

Theology

O Say Can You See God in These 5 National Anthems?

Caleb Maglaya Galaraga

At the Paris Olympics, songs from South Africa to Peru will call for divine protection and blessing.

Illustration by Elizabeth Kaye / Source Images: Getty / Unsplash

Often, the most moving moments of the Olympic Games are when athletes climb onto the podium to receive their gold medals as their country’s anthem plays. When Hidilyn Diaz won the women’s 55-kilogram class in weightlifting at the Tokyo Olympics in July 2021, it was the Philippines’ first-ever gold medal in any sport. Tears flowed down her cheeks as she heard her country’s national anthem, “Lupang Hinirang,” play for the first time at the Olympics.

The pageantry around today’s Olympic award ceremonies are a 20th-century invention. The Olympic podium debuted at the Lake Placid Olympic Winter Games in 1932, and the tradition of raising the flags as the champion’s national anthem plays began at the Summer Olympic Games later that year in Los Angeles.

As the Paris Olympics progresses and national anthems sound in living rooms around the world, CT has put together short explainers of five anthems full of Christian references and themes. While the most well-known Christian anthem in the world—and the oldest—is the UK’s “God Save the King,” little is known about its origins, so we instead featured anthems from New Zealand, Suriname, Peru, St. Kitts and Nevis, and South Africa.

“God Defend New Zealand”

God of Nations at Thy feet, In the bonds of love we meet, Hear our voices, we entreat, God defend our free land. Guard Pacific's triple star From the shafts of strife and war, Make her praises heard afar, God defend New Zealand.

The New Zealand Saturday Advertiser published Irish journalist Thomas Bracken’s five-stanza poem “God Defend New Zealand” in 1876. Declaring it a new national hymn, the newspaper asked readers to send in music to accompany the poem for a prize, and Catholic teacher John Joseph Woods submitted the winning score. Two years later, it was translated into the indigenous language of Māori and titled “Aotearoa,” which is Māori for “New Zealand.”

At the time, the then-British colony’s anthem was “God Save the King,” and it wasn’t until 1940 that the government purchased the rights to Bracken’s lyrics and Woods’s music. After a petition calling for it to become a national anthem garnered over 7,000 signatures in 1976, “God Defend New Zealand” was finally given equal footing with the royal anthem in 1977, making it one of New Zealand’s two national anthems.

Today, about nearly half of New Zealanders claim no religion, and while some have criticized the anthem for its religious focus, no concerted effort has been made to change it. Geoff Macpherson, principal of Grace Theological College in Auckland, believes this is because New Zealanders are reserved in their patriotism.

Meanwhile, among Christians, “most feel proud and happy that our anthem is so blatantly Christian,” Macpherson said. Will Warden, pastor of Tawa Baptist Church in Wellington, describes the anthem’s first verse as “an acknowledgment of God’s sovereignty. God isn’t just God of Israel or New Zealand, he is the God of all nations and cultures.”

Today, the anthem is usually sung first in Māori, then in English. Macpherson believes the Māori translation has endeared the anthem to Kiwis: “Anything in the indigenous language of a people brings it closer to their hearts.”

“God Be with Our Suriname”

God be with our Suriname May He elevate our lovely land How we came here together We are dedicated to its soil Working we keep in mind Justice and truth will set free All that is good to devote oneself to Will give value to our land

(Translated from Dutch)

A former Dutch colony, Suriname is the smallest country in South America and mostly covered by rainforests. Pastor Cornelis Atses Hoekstra initially penned “God Be with Our Suriname” in Dutch for his Sunday school class in 1893. Later, the poet Henri Frans de Ziel translated the lyrics into Suriname’s native language of Sranan Tongo. The government officially adopted it as the national anthem in December 1959.

Similar to the experience of its neighbors—French Guiana to the east, and Guyana to the west—Suriname first heard the gospel through their Dutch colonizers. Today, about half of the country’s population identifies as Christian.

Yet the Dutch also brought enslaved Africans to the country. Some Surinamese take issue with the Christian themes of the anthem because of these historic ties to colonialism and slavery. Gerno Odang, a speaker and visual artist who promotes Afro-Surinamese culture, noted that, while he respects other religions, “Christianity was used as a tool to enslave people before and during the slave trade and even afterward,” pointing to the experience of the Maroons, descendants of Africans in the Americas who fled plantation slavery.

Rebrouf Sanvisi, worship leader at Christ Embassy Suriname church in the capital of Paramaribo, said that whenever Christians like him sing the anthem, it gives them a “sense of hope, trust, and confidence, knowing that the highest power in the universe is standing with us.”

“And if he is with us, who or what can be against us?” he adds, referring to Romans 8:31.

“O Land of Beauty!” (Saint Kitts and Nevis)

O Land of Beauty! Our country where peace abounds, Thy children stand free On the strength of will and love. With God in all our struggles, Saint Kitts and Nevis be, A nation bound together, With a common destiny.

In early 1983, the Federation of St. Kitts and Nevis, an island nation in the eastern Caribbean, held a competition to select a national anthem months before it attained full independence from the UK.

Artist and musician Kenrick Georges decided to write and compose an entry at 2 a.m. on the day of the deadline—March 31—and completed it at 6 a.m., according to local media. An hour later, he asked a piano teacher to play it for him, and he submitted a recording of the song on a cassette tape later that day.

The subcommittee for the competition chose his song, noting that it would “stand the test of time,” and in September, it became the national anthem. In a tribute to Georges, who died in 2019, former prime minister Timothy Harrison called the song a “deeply moving and magnificent ode to the country’s beauty and tranquility.”

About 75 percent of the country’s small population of around 50,000 identify as Christian, as the British brought the gospel with them as they settled in the country in 1624. The St. Kitts Evangelical Association is a founding member of the Evangelical Association of the Caribbean, which represents five million evangelicals in the region.

“Himno Nacional del Perú”

We are free! May we always be so, may we always be so! And may the Sun renounce its light, its light, its light, Before we break the solemn vow that the Fatherland lifted up to the Eternal, Before we break the solemn vow that the Fatherland lifted up to the Eternal. (Translated from Spanish)

In August 1821, following Peru’s declaration of independence from Spain, the country’s Argentinian liberator José de San Martin invited the general public to send in submissions for Peru’s national anthem. As the new government was bankrupt at the time, it could only offer the country’s gratitude as a prize.

A young Dominican friar, José Bernardo Alcedo, who had written hymns for Mass, submitted two compositions, with the lyrics written by his lawyer friend José de la Torre Ugarte. Alcedo was amongst the finalists, and he presented both compositions to San Martin. After hearing the melody of the second song, San Martin said, “Without a doubt, this is the national anthem.”

The explicit mention of God in the lyrics can be found in its final stanza. The English translation of its last line reads, “Let’s renew the great oath that we rendered to the God of Jacob.” While there have been many attempts to change the wording of the original anthem, the issue has been the song’s emphasis on the Peruvian struggle for freedom, rather than its mention of God, as about 76 percent of Peru’s population is Catholic.

National Anthem of South Africa (South Africa)

Lord bless Africa May her glory be lifted high Hear our petitions Lord bless us, your children

(Translated from Xhoso and Zulu)

One of only three anthems in the world that start in one key and end in another, the South African national anthem fuses together two songs: the Xhosa hymn “Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika” (God Bless Africa) and the Afrikaans song “Die Stem van Suid-Afrika” (The Call of South Africa). The anthem, which also incorporates five South African languages, signifies a call to unity after the end of apartheid.

Enoch Mankayi Sontonga, a Xhosa teacher and choirmater at a Methodist mission school, composed “Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika” in 1897 as a school anthem. The song, which reflects both Methodist hymnody and African praise singing, was first performed publicly in 1899 at the ordination of John Hlengani Mboweni, the first Tsonga Methodist pastor.

The song gained popularity as it was sung to close the 1912 meeting of the South African Native National Congress (now the African National Congress), the liberation movement seeking to advance the rights of black South Africans. The congress adopted the song as its official anthem in 1925, causing it to be banned during apartheid.

Meanwhile, poet C. J. Langenhoven wrote “Die Stem van Suid-Afrika” in 1918, and three years later, Dutch Reformed pastor Marthinus Lourens de Villiers composed its melody. It became the national anthem in 1938, alongside “God Save the King.”

In 1994, before Nelson Mandela’s inauguration as president, State President F. W. de Klerk declared that both songs would be the country’s national anthems. Three years into his administration, Mandela declared a new official national anthem that combined shortened versions of both songs.

“The declaration of trust [in God] is the first and most important component of the South African National Anthem,” wrote Morakeng E. K. Lebaka, an African musical arts researcher at the University of South Africa. “The second element … is the invitation to trust and to unite, addressed to the community (South Africans).”

Four other African countries have historically adopted Sontonga’s “Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika” as their national anthem: Zambia, Tanzania, Namibia, and Zimbabwe. Zambia and Tanzania still use the melody for their anthems.

- More from Caleb Maglaya Galaraga

News

New Alliance Aims to Unite Chinese Churches Divided by Geopolitics

interview by Angela Lu Fulton

Leader explains why members of the World Evangelical Alliance visited leaders of China’s government-sanctioned Three-Self churches.

Christians attending church in China.

Ng Han Guan / AP Images

Anyone wanting to bring together the more than 100 million Chinese-speaking Christians around the world must deal with the thorny issue of the church in China. There, Christians are split between unregistered house churches and the government-sanctioned Three-Self church. Additionally, heated differences in political views make it difficult for the global Chinese-speaking church to unify.

Nevertheless, global evangelical leaders want to bring this community together. Last week, a delegation from the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) traveled to China to meet with the leaders of the Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM) and the China Christian Council (CCC)—which are both overseen by the Chinese Communist Party—and offered them an invitation to collaborate.

The WEA launched the World Chinese Christianity Alliance (WCA) a year ago to serve the Chinese-speaking church with a think tank, publishing house, and media center, along with academic exchanges, resource sharing, and trainings.

Ezekiel Tan, general secretary of both the WCA and the Evangelical Alliance of Singapore, spoke with CT about the WCA’s aims, its current progress, and the unique challenges it faces as it brings together ethnic Chinese from around the world. (In the article, the term Chinese refers to all ethnic Han people regardless of where they reside.)

The WCA is the WEA’s first language-based network, instead of its typical location-based network. Why was Mandarin Chinese chosen to pioneer this?

Mandarin Chinese is our first endeavor because Chinese speakers are unique: They are overwhelmingly ethnically Han Chinese and share the same ancestry from China. Other international language groups, such as Arabic and Spanish, include people from different ethnicities.

Because Chinese people are so spread out, by reaching the Chinese, you reach all corners of the world. The only difference is that some read simplified Chinese while others read traditional Chinese. When you produce something in Chinese, there are economies of scale. The elephant in the room is the geopolitical tensions around China. Oftentimes, there are mutual suspicions between China and its trade partners. We don’t want other groups to misrepresent the Christian community and how we perceive our relationship with China.

Chinese people also have a lot of financial resources. In many Asian countries, they are the minority, but they manage a disproportionate percentage of the wealth and resources. Reaching out to them helps us not only improve resource sharing among the community but also promotes greater philanthropy and charitable giving within the global movement.

What are the WCA’s aims?

We want to create a global platform that is not plucked from thin air but built on existing global networks, like Haggai International, which trains Christian leaders in 189 nations, or national Bible societies.

The WCA is a global platform for Chinese ministries and outreach. It will bring all Chinese Christians together to share Chinese-language resources—such as Sunday school materials, Chinese worship songs, and academic papers on subjects relevant to the global Chinese church—and improve efficacy in their respective work. At the end of the day, it will help us fulfill the Great Commission.

What is it not aiming to do?

Following the key ethos of the WEA, the WCA is not political, and we will not be taking sides. We want to be a neutral platform that provides a safe space for people to come together. We will abstain from anything political.

Also, we do not aim to be a global governing body of all Chinese ministries. It is a platform for existing groups and organizations to interact with one another. We are not here to compete with any existing network. Instead, we hope to play a complementary role.

Therefore, we invite any group that is already doing some aspect of Chinese ministry to get involved. The WCA is not geographically centric. While we are reaching out to ethnic Chinese, it doesn’t mean that Asia is the key base. We seek to be global-centric rather than regional-centric.

The WCA officially launched last July. What stage is it at right now?

Currently, we are focused on building infrastructure for the WCA, which we expect will take another year. The media center is still getting started and we have been communicating about it with various parties. Some work has been done with resource sharing and we have published a few books.

Right now, the training center is the most developed. We started holding trainings before the program was launched, and we have had 20,000–30,000 people from 20 countries joining our training annually. We go to different countries and locate a well-known Chinese speaker on a topic that we think is helpful, like parenting, communication, or Bible exposition. We publicize the training through our networks and invite people to join.

The second aspect is reaching out to the global Chinese Christians, including church leaders in Africa, Europe, North America, and the Asia Pacific. There have been many discussions and visits, although our budget constrains us.

The third aspect is the question of how we engage China. It’s too obvious to say that the majority of Chinese people are in China. Before this recent trip, we had taken several visits to different stakeholders, including the authorities. However, in China, we need to do things formally, so last week, an official delegation of representatives of the WEA’s international council and its regional leadership visited China to reestablish a relationship with the leaders of the Three-Self church.

The last visit that the WEA made to China was many years ago. After that visit, there hadn’t been any follow-up to engage in a more intentional working relationship. This time was groundbreaking because it marked the beginning of a long-term relationship.

We hope to contribute to building up goodwill among all groups. Christianity is a movement of peace, so we hope the meeting provides greater understanding between the registered church and the larger global church.

What are some of the sensitivities that the WCA has to take into consideration when working in a place like China?

Many people in China have misconceptions and misunderstandings about the external world, especially the West, and the rest of the world has a lot of misconceptions and misunderstandings about what is happening in China.

Many Chinese think that all Christians are like American evangelicals—who are seen as very anti-China—or believe that we might have subversive intentions to destabilize China. But I tell them, The great majority of the people just want to love you, as we do.

If you approach China’s registered church with misconceptions, you will go in there too guarded and can make a sensitive situation even worse. Also, China has its own rules and regulations, so we seek to approach the government-run church within a legal framework. When we visited China this time, we went to learn more about them, about what can be done and what can’t be done. We learned to navigate the relationship with humility like some of the earliest missionaries to China, Hudson Taylor and Robert Morrison. They went to China, appreciated the culture, and worked with the Chinese people.

What did you learn during this recent fact-finding trip to China?

The WEA’s International Council received a very warm welcome in China. We met with the top leadership in China’s State Administration for Religious Affairs, the national TSPM and CCC, Nanjing Union Seminary, the Amity Foundation (a Christian charity in China), and Amity Printing, one of the world’s largest Bible producers. It was a chance for the international council to see China’s Three-Self church for themselves and ask questions.

Besides building friendships, we were also able to have authentic and robust conversations, raise issues, and invite partnership. For instance, two of the concerns we discussed were about the Sinicization of Christianity as well as China’s attempt to create a new version of the Bible. We were able to ask the different leaders we met about this and hear their perspectives.

In the first instance, they clarified that they were exploring what it means for someone in China, in a socialist country, to practice their faith. They are not addressing the core doctrines like the Incarnation or the deity of Jesus, but other aspects like how they worship or relate to Chinese society. We invited them to do this together with the rest of the global evangelical family.

In the second instance, they noted that they were not coming out with a new translation of the Bible but revising the popular Chinese Union Version, which was first translated in 1919. They said they wanted to make as few changes as possible, with the goal of helping young people and non-Christians better understand the Bible. Again, we told them that we were interested in engaging with them in the revision in order to help defuse tensions and clarify miscommunications. Then they could produce a translation that those outside of China could use as well.

At the end of the day, the international council members were very grateful to hear from the TSPM and CCC leaders and encouraged by this positive beginning of this new relationship.

You mentioned earlier some misconceptions that the West has of China and vice versa, but what about the misconceptions within the Chinese-speaking community, such as between house churches and Three-Self churches? How do you plan to bring them together?

When people ask me this, I always point to the United Nations as an example. The world’s enemies gather there because they trust in the UN’s neutrality. Even today, some groups are trying to kill each other, but they go to the UN for dialogue. They work on joint projects like the World Health Organization or UNICEF.

The WEA is not about individual preferences or inclinations but the global evangelical family. Our track record speaks for itself—we work with the whole spectrum of evangelicalism. We want to include everyone and provide resources for everyone.

How have diaspora Chinese groups responded to the idea of the WCA?

There are some concerns, but I was pleasantly surprised to receive overwhelmingly positive responses. They said they had been looking for something like this for a long time.

We were not prepared to see such an overwhelming response, which means we now have to work very hard with limited resources to get started. Many groups have asked, “What can you give me now? What can you help me with?” We are thankful but playing a bit of catch-up.

Of course, there have been some collaborations between Chinese Christian groups in the past, but they have never been so global. This is especially true as many overseas ministries are keen to visit or do ministry in China but do not have the avenue to do so. Also, ethnic Chinese Christians want to do missions, but because they only speak Chinese, they are limited in where they can go. With the WCA, they can partner with churches in Africa and use Mandarin to relate to their fellow Chinese who live there. They are looking forward to greater opportunities and possibilities.

Also, some pastors have good materials, but they don’t know how to reach the world, they only use it in their congregation or their church. With this platform, their material can now go global.

How would this alliance differ from the existing network of the Chinese Coordination Center of World Evangelization (CCCOWE)?

The difference is that CCCOWE was built from the ground up, while the WCA is part of a global family. Diaspora Chinese Christian leaders inspired by the first Lausanne Congress started CCCOWE to connect the global Chinese church. The WCA, on the other hand, is an offshoot of the WEA, which represents 600 million Christians and represents all denominations and groups.

At the same time, we want to reach the tens of millions of Christians in China who attend registered churches. As noted by our recent trip, the WEA is willing to go to the Chinese government and work with all parties, including the registered churches. This is what distinguishes us and demonstrates that we are complementing what CCCOWE is doing by reaching places that it can’t. Currently, we are already collaborating with CCCOWE on several projects.

What are your hopes for the future of WEA’s partnership with China?

We want to continue dialoguing with the TSPM and CCC and explore ways these groups can partner with the WEA and regional evangelical alliances, as well as working together on the WCA.

If the WEA could be at the forefront of building goodwill and collaboration with the registered church, I think this would be really beautiful. I pray that there will be more ground-up collaborations with the registered church and with other groups that may be concerned, suspicious, or fearful of establishing relationships with them. We hope to be a bridge anchored by our faith in the region and beyond.

- More from interview by Angela Lu Fulton

‘The Most Important Election of Our Lifetime’

Kaitlyn Schiess

Extreme political rhetoric stokes fear and encourages apathy. Christians can offer a productive counterpart.

Illustration by Christianity Today / Source Images: Getty

This is the most important election of our lifetime.” I’ve heard this said every presidential election in my lifetime, but, this time, the stakes are being raised even higher. The 2024 election is not just the most important—the consequences of it are existential.

At a fundraiser in February, President Joe Biden called Donald Trump the “one existential threat,” and he has also written on X to constituents: “In this election, your freedom, your democracy, and America itself is at stake.” Vice President Harris said at an event this month, “This is the one. The most existential, consequential, and important election of our lifetime.”

Former president Trump has used this line of argument as well: At the Faith and Freedom Coalition last month, he said that “this will be the most important election in the history of our country” and “our one chance to save America.” Back in March, he responded to the claim that he was a “threat to democracy” with, “I’m not a threat. I’m the one that’s ending the threat to democracy.”

These talking points might be effective campaigning, but they make for a toxic political culture.

In college, I competed in policy debate tournaments—a form of debate that focuses more on detailed (and fast-paced) presentation of evidence than rhetoric or performance. We created elaborate argumentative chains, showing how one policy change (subsidies for offshore wind turbines or the legalization of online gambling) could cause a cascading chain of events that nearly always ended in global nuclear war. It was a way of beating the other team: Sure, your proposal might lower inflation or decrease violent crime, but that’s nothing compared to global nuclear war.

Often, we spent more time debating which global extinction scenario was immediately catastrophic than we did debating the merits of the various policies that were supposed to be the topic of the debates. It sounds silly, but, this year, the same thing seems to be happening in our national politics.

We raised the stakes so high that we often sidestep substantive conversations about policy in favor of weighing apocalyptic scenarios. These existential narratives are often more about scaring people into turning out to the polls than they are about fostering dialogue about important issues.

This is where Christian theology offers a gift to our politics: an end to existential threats.

For Christians, nothing is truly a threat to our survival or existence. We are a people who believe Jesus Christ when he promised to return to his fallen creation, to wipe every tear from every eye and to make all things new. We believe that this story we are living does not end in violence, chaos, and strife—it ends with perfect righteousness, justice, and peace.

The promise of Christ’s return does not demand quietism or political escapism; rather, it should prompt faithful political work that can resist the impulse toward violence and injustice. If Christ is returning to make everything new, prejudiced or brutal political options become less rational, less necessary. If this election poses an existential threat, then we can more easily justify doing anything—including harming our neighbors, lying, stealing, or cheating—to avoid it. But if ultimate justice is promised by God, we have the freedom to seek provisional justice here on earth as faithfully as we can, without fearing that if we fail all is lost.

This is the theology that motivated some of the greatest movements for justice in our country’s history. The abolitionist Maria W. Stewart was able to hold together a fierce condemnation of slavery with a deep commitment to nonviolence because the end of the story was assured: “Stand still, and know that the Lord he is God. Vengeance is his, and he will repay.”

Martin Luther King Jr., perhaps this country’s most famous advocate of nonviolent resistance, was clear that this approach was not merely pragmatic but theological: “The movement [of nonviolence] was based on hope … even though the arc of the moral universe is long, it bends toward justice.”

There has been a lot of talk lately about lowering the heat of our political rhetoric, a recognition that when the issues seem so paramount, we risk reacting with violence. But this wise counsel needs a stronger theological backing.

The threats, after all, are not imagined or entirely exaggerated. The consequences of this election will be serious, and likely in ways we do not yet know. Lowering the stakes in the face of these threats might diminish the real significance of elections: They shape people’s lives, especially the most vulnerable. It risks communicating to people that politics doesn’t really matter that much, that the human lives that will be affected by the outcome are not worthy of our attention.

But lowering the stakes because we believe that the end of the Christian story is true is another thing altogether. Lowering the stakes because ultimate justice is not at risk in this election opens up greater opportunities for meaningful change here and now.

To many in our nation, it feels like the options are between living in a constant state of existential threat and checking out of politics entirely. I’ve heard many bemoan on social media, “Can’t we just live in precedented times?” or “How many historical events do I have to live through?” We constantly hear that the fate of our country is at stake in this election, but raising the stakes hasn’t seemed to inspire more political involvement.

The comment I hear most frequently from people in churches and schools across the country is that the fear and anger have exhausted them, tempting them toward total political apathy. We are bombarded with information about the great injustices and evils in the world, alarmed by the conditions of our own political culture, and we feel helpless to do anything about it.

Either we constantly scroll social media for updates on the latest sign of impending political doom, sign up for every political group in town, and take every opportunity to convince our friends and family members about these existential threats—or we throw up our hands, declare the whole political system unfixable, and live in blissful ignorance of the folks who will be more directly affected by the policies we can’t be bothered to research. However, there is an alternative to these options.

All of these claims—of existential threat, of “living in historic times,” of democracy teetering on the edge of disaster—are claims about where we sit in history, and what agency that position allows us. If this is the defining moment of history, we should act differently than we would under normal conditions. If democracy is on the ballot, nothing else really matters. If this candidate or party will end our very existence, political options to persuade or negotiate are off the table. All that’s left is to destroy or be destroyed.

But the Christian story says that we are not awaiting the impending turning point of history from goodness to chaos. The Christian story says that the defining point of history has already happened: the resurrection of Jesus Christ. In light of that victory over the powers and principalities, and in hopeful anticipation of his return to bring that victory to consummation, we have opportunities to effect change in our fallen world. The resurrection of Christ is the horizon of our agency, the event that defines the possibilities for creative and faithful work.

One of the most frequent biblical themes is that it is not the powerful and important whose actions most matter but the lowly, forgotten, and small. In a political culture that feels hopeless, in a system we feel powerless to change, Scripture offers us stories of surprising agency: of three men who survive a fire when they stand down an idolatrous king, of midwives who save the lives of infants, of a man on a cross who dies a gruesome death but then rises from the grave.

In the face of an onslaught of existential threats, Christians can proclaim to the world that our options are not between apathy or political violence (Rom. 12:18–20).

Freed from the constraints of existential politics and motivated for change, new possibilities appear. We can fight for justice, advocate for the oppressed, and seek flourishing in our own neighborhoods without worrying that if our candidate loses or our advocacy fails it means that our very existence is threatened. And we might just discover that politics has all kinds of places for fruitful work that we previously ignored in our rush to stave off the biggest existential threat.

Christian political action can be bringing a casserole to a neighbor, showing up to a city council meeting, setting up an apartment for a refugee family, writing a letter to an elected official. Within the frame of God’s redemptive story, these small acts of justice and peace take on greater significance than the desperate attempts to bring peace to earth at any cost.

Kaitlyn Schiess is the author of The Ballot and the Bible: How Scripture Has Been Used and Abused in American Politics and Where We Go from Here.

- More from Kaitlyn Schiess

Culture

Penalty or No, Athletes Talk Faith

Brad East

Contributor

The public square is increasingly hostile to religion. But don’t be surprised when Olympic athletes overflow with thanks to God.

Bongarts / Staff / Getty / Edits by CT

The opening ceremonies of the Olympics are extravagant celebrations of national glories and global unity. But if you watch past this week’s opener to the Games themselves, you’ll notice an unusual pattern: Athletes are always talking about God.

If you caught last month’s Olympic trials, you’ll have noticed the same thing. Athletes of every kind continuously gave God the credit, often in explicitly Christian terms. It was almost like a competition within the competition to see who could outdo the others in redirecting praise heavenward.

For my money, US track star Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone won. After breaking the world record (again) for women’s 400-meter hurdles, she answered a reporter’s question this way: “Honestly—praise God. I was not expecting that, but he can do anything. Anything is possible in Christ. I’m just amazed, baffled, and in shock.” The reporter laughed nervously and moved on to the next qualifier.

It’s not news that athletes thank the Lord for their success. But watching these public displays of piety made me wonder: Why is this still normal? The Oscars couldn’t be mistaken for church. Neither could large gatherings of writers, journalists, musicians, venture capitalists, or politicians. Sporting events appear to be the last refuge of “acceptable” public faith in our secular culture.

After all, almost no one slams McLaughlin-Levrone and other publicly Christian athletes for their praise. It’s allowed. Reporters may find it quirky or even bizarre, but athletes generally aren’t punished for religiosity. And even if they were, it’s clear they wouldn’t care. In a time when belief is belittled, ignored, or relegated to one’s private life, athletes are unapologetically faithful in public. But why?

The place to start, I think, is the nature of sports itself. Athletic discipline is rigorously controlled because, when the whistle blows, nothing is under control. It’s chaos, contingency, and chance all the way down. The skies fill with rain clouds; the court is slick with sweat; the track is spongy; your opponents are strategically unpredictable.

The most important variable is the body. Top athletes treat their bodies almost like a separate entity—caring for it, treating it, feeding it, resting it, trusting it, blaming it. An athlete who trips and stumbles or suffers an injury says, My body failed me. We know what that means. Who can predict, with absolute certainty, when a ligament will snap or a muscle cramp?

In Game 1 of the 2014 NBA Finals, LeBron James—at the time the best basketball player on the planet—had to leave prematurely due to cramps. Why? The stadium was slightly warmer than usual. He’d been known to request ice-cold air conditioning wherever he played, so much so that fans speculated that the opposing team, my beloved San Antonio Spurs, kept things warm for a competitive advantage. True or not, the Spurs won the game and the series both, all because the league’s MVP couldn’t keep his muscles from spasming.

With good reason, therefore, do athletes turn to God. None but God is sovereign. I can’t control the weather, but he can. I can’t stop my body from failing, but he can. Even the wind and the waves obey him (Matt. 8:27). Shouldn’t footballs and softballs obey him too?

This is why athletes, as much as fans, can be so superstitious. They may or may not believe in God, but they wear the same socks for every game, rub the same statue for good luck, eat the same meal at the same time of day: It’s sports magic. The “sports gods” are quite particular, and they can be propitiated through complex rituals or angered by the slightest transgression. “Karma” gets called in for apostates, traitors, and cheats. Even a skeptic like Michael Jordan, peeking at teammates, will bow for Zen meditation so long as coach Phil Jackson promises it’ll help them win.

For athletes, God isn’t just in charge of the moment. He’s the governor of history. This is true for all of us, at all times, but elite athletes are viscerally reminded of it with a frequency few of us experience.

It should come as no surprise, then, that a victorious athlete will speak of more than God answering a prayer. He’ll tell the world a story—a saga divinely directed by the heavenly Playwright. He’ll say: I was born for this; I was meant to do it; this outcome was ordained from the start. Sure, he may be caught up in the moment. Deep down, though, he’s expressing faith in divine providence. It’s one more way to be clear about control. None of us has it, because only God does, and the sooner one recognizes that, the sooner peace is possible when losing and real joy available when winning.

Finally, athletic contests are about nothing less than glory. Homer said as much almost 3,000 years ago: “What greater glory attends a man, while he’s alive, / than what he wins with his racing feet and striving hands?” Glory shines on the last man standing, the first woman to cross the finish line, the team with the winning score when time runs out. The victors are showered with status, fame, money, and applause. Yet what do the victors themselves seem to feel? A few of them strut and jaw, but many will drop to their knees and weep like children. Ask them their emotion and they’ll tell you: gratitude.

From a secular perspective, it makes no sense: Are you grateful to yourself? You’re the one who just did this!

But what athletes intuit is that, somehow, this accomplishment is well and truly theirs and a gift. So they thank their teammates, families, and parents—especially mom—but more than any worldly giver, they thank “the Father of lights,” since they know that “every good endowment and every perfect gift is from above” (James 1:17, RSV). Athletes push themselves beyond the limits of their capability, and in the ecstasy of triumph, they cannot help but declare the truth: I am not my own, but belong—body and soul, in life and in death—to my faithful Creator, the sovereign Lord.

Sports, like other art forms, are potential channels of transcendence. It’s why we watch and admire athletes. It’s why athletes sometimes can’t tell you why they made some choice on the field or what they were thinking in the moment. They were so in the flow, so self-forgetful, so present to teammate and circumstance that they lost themselves. The beauty that results, for them and for us, is marvelous. Our breath catches in our throat. David Foster Wallace called watching Roger Federer “a religious experience.” In a sense, he wasn’t wrong.

This should help to explain the sometime acquiescence of otherwise secular fans and journalists to athletes’ relentless religious enthusiasm. For many, following sports is as close as they get to liturgy. Observance—already a religious word—is a kind of bearing witness, and the experience is far from passive: Fans participate vicariously through their cheers, boos, clapping, stomping, and chanting. Athletes in turn draw energy, strength, and encouragement from this unique relationship.

Having said that, there are other, less savory reasons athletes’ faith is tolerated among the press and irreligious public. A more cynical take is that many journalists see it as the price they pay to cover sports. They must feign listening to the devout drone on about Jesus before asking, for the umpteenth time, “So, what was going through your head when you hit that shot?”

That’s not the most damning interpretation, however.

At times, if you look closely, you’ll see what looks like an ugly dynamic at work. In many popular American sports, an increasingly privileged, irreligious, and still mostly white media writes about a mostly religious, mostly non-white league in which relatively few come from privilege. The upshot is a chasm between journalists and athletes—whether marked by class, education, race, or all of the above. In this respect, liberals are right and conservatives are wrong: You can’t take politics out of sports. Ironically, this is never more evident than when God enters the conversation.

To take a memorable example, a few years back, sportswriter Dave Zirin dinged quarterback Russell Wilson for attributing a win to God, charging that “football players speak about God as if He … is the Big Coach in the Sky, scripting outcomes like Vince McMahon with a baggy sweatshirt and a headset.” If there even is a God, Zirin added, “this all-powerful force doesn’t care a great deal about football.” One wonders how he knows.

Coverage was similarly dismissive when Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis was inducted to the Hall of Fame. Deadspin was baffled by his conviction that God spoke to and cared for him amid tragedy, and SB Nation headlined a section about his paraphrase of Isaiah 54:17 (“No weapon formed against me shall prosper”) with “Weapons, God, you know, that kind of stuff.”

Criticism is fair game, and journalists shouldn’t withhold substantive disagreement just to be polite. The optics of these encounters aren’t great, though, and responding to athletes’ piety with derision or mock forbearance is neither respect nor tolerance. It’s barely masked contempt—and a revelation of the yawning gap between how our secularized culture thinks about religion and how faithful athletes see themselves in a God-enchanted world.

The lovely fact is that the athletes in question seem to care not one whit, which is quite freeing for those of us who both cheer them on and share their faith. They’re a model for all believers of what it looks like to be cheerfully, unabashedly Christian in public.

Like many in sports media, I used to be guilty of rolling my eyes at such displays of piety. It seemed gauche, unnecessary, maybe even a grift. And perhaps sometimes it is. But I had to admit that I’d be inclined to keep my mouth shut on the victors’ podium—I’d be too embarrassed to be so bold about my faith. Yet these sisters and brothers are downright unafraid. I, for one, have something to learn from their example.

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

- More from Brad East

News

Wire Story

Americans Are Still Inviting People to Church

Aaron Earls - Lifeway Research

Young, evangelical, and African American churchgoers ask the most.

Erika Giraud / Unsplash

When churchgoers show up to their church’s worship service, they’re often hoping to have a guest with them.

A Lifeway Research study of US Protestant churchgoers finds 3 in 5 (60%) say they have extended at least one invitation in the past six months for someone to attend their church, including 19 percent who have made one invitation, 21 percent with two invitations and 20 percent with three or more invitations.

A third of churchgoers say they haven’t invited anyone to a worship service at their church in the past six months, while 7 percent say they aren’t sure how many invitations they’ve made.

“Churchgoers were not asked the typical net promoter score question of whether they recommend their church. They were asked if they’ve actually invited someone in the last six months,” said Scott McConnell, executive director of Lifeway Research. “For most churchgoers, invitations are not just an aspiration but a current practice.”

Extending invites

Compared to a similar Lifeway Research study six years ago, a similar percentage of churchgoers say they haven’t invited anyone recently—33 percent now versus 29 percent in 2017. Fewer churchgoers, however, are making three or more invitations. In 2017, 1 in 4 said they’d extended at least three invitations for someone to visit their church in the previous six months. Currently, 20 percent say the same.

“It’s not surprising the proportion of churchgoers extending invites is not growing, since the proactive nature of inviting people to church is counter-cultural,” said McConnell. “People in America are not being more relational, but an invitation to church is an invitation to join you in activities you enjoy, a message that brings you hope, and relationships with you and others.”

Some churchgoers are more likely to invite guests than others. Unsurprisingly, those who attend more often are more likely to extend invitations. Churchgoers who attend four times a month or more (27%) are more likely than those who attend less often (11%) to say they’ve made three or more invitations in the past six months.

Those under 50 are more likely to extend invitations than older congregants. Almost a third of those 50 to 64 years old (32%) and nearly half of churchgoers 65 and older (46%) say they have not invited anyone in the past six months. Those 35 to 49 (29%) are most likely to have offered at least three invitations recently.

African American churchgoers are among the most likely to say they’ve extended either two church invitations (28%) or three or more (25%). White churchgoers (36%) are more likely than African Americans (26%) and Hispanics (18%) to say they did not invite anyone in the past six months.

Baptists (27%) and those attending Restorationist Movement churches (21%) are more likely than those at Presbyterian/Reformed congregations (9%) to say they’ve invited at least three individuals or families. Lutherans (52%) are among the most likely to say they haven’t invited anyone.

Churchgoers with evangelical beliefs, which include believing it is very important to encourage non-Christians to trust Jesus Christ as their Savior, are more likely than non-evangelicals to invite others to church. Almost a quarter of evangelicals by belief (24%) say they’ve extended three or more invitations, compared to 15 percent of those without such beliefs.

Invitation limitations

When asked why they don’t bring guests more often, churchgoers point to several reasons. Around a quarter say they don’t know anyone to invite (27%) or those they invite refuse their invitations (26%).

Another 13 percent say they’re just not comfortable asking people to church, while 7 percent say they don’t think it’s up to them to bring people to church. Few (4%) say they’re too busy serving on Sunday morning.

Additionally, 19 percent say they don’t know why they don’t bring guests to church more often, and 5 percent say it’s another unspecified reason.

“It can be easy for churchgoers to have their own relationship needs met at church and not know anyone else to invite,” said McConnell. “It takes intentionality to be meeting new people in your community to have opportunities to invite them.”

Compared to 2017, churchgoers today are more likely to say they don’t know anyone to invite (27 percent v. 17%) and those they invited said no (26 percent v. 20%). Current churchgoers are less likely than those in 2017 to say they aren’t sure of the reason they don’t bring guests more often (19% v. 31%) or to point to another unnamed reason (5% v. 15%).

Those who attend most often say the reason they don’t have guests with them more frequently is because their invitations are refused. Those who attend a worship service four times a month or more (31%) are more likely than those who attend one to three times (19%) to say a rejected invitation is the primary reason.

Baptists (33%), as well as those at non-denominational (27%) and Restorationist Movement (24%) churches are more likely than Lutherans (12%) and Presbyterian/Reformed (11%) to say the primary reason they don’t bring guests with them to worship services more often is because the potential guests refuse their invitations.

Methodists (28%), Lutherans (24%) and those at Restorationist Movement churches (19%) are more likely than Baptists (9%) to say they aren’t bringing guests with them because they aren’t comfortable asking people to church. Additionally, Methodists (23%) are among the most likely to say they don’t think it’s up to them to bring people to church.

- More from Aaron Earls - Lifeway Research

Ideas

Kamala Harris Against History

Bonnie Kristian

The candidate’s “unburdened by what has been” and “coconut tree” lines push her party toward a troubling partisan divide over the past itself.

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris

Chris duMond / Stringer / Getty

President Joe Biden is out of the 2024 race, and Vice President Kamala Harris is angling to lead her party’s ticket. In the surge of interest in her revised candidacy this past week, online attention has focused on two of her turns of phrase. One is a line Harris has apparently been repeating for many years, returning to it so often that a four-minute clip of her saying it dozens of times is trending on social media.

That line—a call to envision and work toward “what can be, unburdened by what has been”—has been widely placed in tension with the other phrase in which Harris, quoting her mother, scoffs at those who “think [they] just fell out of a coconut tree.” No, she says, “You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you.”

Such a tension would be interesting—if it existed. It’d suggest a thoughtful balancing of progressive and conservative impulses, of aspiration for benevolent advancement and respect for wise tradition, of acknowledgment of the real ills of history alongside a quest for the careful preservation of its goods.

Unfortunately, this supposed tension is not evidenced. The contradiction is not within the vice president’s thinking but across the partisan divide, as Harris looks likely to lead Democrats toward a simplistic condemnation of bygone times while the GOP just as simplistically embraces a nostalgia so rosy it is sometimes false.

Listen to the coconut comment in context, as the line itself suggests we should, and you’ll find Harris isn’t speaking about respect for prior generations or retrieval of the virtues of the past. She’s accounting for the evils and woes of history so as to better progress toward equity in the future. Some young people are disadvantaged by lingering effects of the bad old days, Harris explains, which means that to help them, state programs may also have to help their families and communities overcome their pasts.

That’s probably correct at the level of practical guidance for members of the federal working group to whom Harris was speaking. But at a deeper level, it evinces the same negative attitude toward history and tradition that the “unburdened” quote so efficiently communicates. There is no thoughtful tension. There’s only a revolt against the trappings of the past.

That posture would mark a significant difference between Harris and her predecessor—for Biden’s age, long tenure in Washington, and predilection for reminiscing about his late father and son all incline him to a mixed view of history. Many of Biden’s policies are progressive, but his attitude toward the past is neither uniformly critical nor nostalgic.

(At the height of 2020’s iconoclastic fervor, for example, he distinguished “between monuments to Confederate leaders and statues of slave-owning former presidents such as Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, saying the former belong in museums while the latter should be protected.”)

More important than her difference from a retiring Biden, though, is the contrast between Harris as a probable new leader of the Democratic Party and her rivals across the aisle.

Always in recent decades the party more inclined to look longingly at the past, the Republican Party of our moment is all-in on nostalgia: for the first Trump administration, for the Reagan years, for official prayer in public schools, for one-income households and company pensions, for traditional gender roles and a robust drug war and a time when “woke” was not in our lexicon. For the 1950s or the 1890s or the 1770s or whenever it was, exactly, that America was pure, powerful, and great. Make America Great Again is the slogan, after all.

As constitutional scholar Yuval Levin observed in National Review earlier this year, nostalgia politics used to be bipartisan. Go back 10 or 15 years and you can find baby boomer Democrats reminiscing about middle-class mid-century Middle America just as fluently as their Republican counterparts.

“I grew up in an America that invested in its kids and built a strong middle class; that allowed millions of children to rise from poverty and establish secure lives,” Levin quotes Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren telling her party’s convention as recently as 2012.

That kind of rhetoric has been in decline for three presidential election cycles—on the left, that is. And if Harris clinches the Democratic nomination, we may expect her to move her party further on to “what can be,” “unburdened” by the regressive “context of all in which you live” and the oppression of “what came before you.”

Nostalgia politics have not comparably declined on the right, nor does that seem likely so long as the GOP is helmed by former president Donald Trump and his literal or political heirs. And this strikes me as a serious problem.

The problem is not that some of us would be generally pro-history and others pro-future. It's not that some of us would tend toward tradition and others toward progress. It's that some of us would have such revulsion for the present and others such revulsion for the past, and that polarization would push us to see this split as a matter of partisan loyalty and animosity—that history would be reduced to burden or meme.

The tension (wrongly) perceived in those two lines from Harris is good. It is a tension that should make sense to Christians, we who affirm the goodness of creation and new creation, who understand humanity is both fallen and retentive of God’s image, who pass on the faith of our forebears while living with the consequences of their sins (Deut. 6:5–9; 5:9–10).

We worship a God who does not erase history nor spare us its pains, some of them self-inflicted (Ps. 7:14–16)—but who does promise to redeem that suffering (Rom. 8:18–21), to bring justice and forgiveness (Ezek. 18), and to rescue us from sin, evil, and death itself (Heb. 2:14–15).

For us, to fall entirely on one side of a simplistic pro-history or anti-history split is not just divisive politicking. It’s bad anthropology and soteriology, evincing a naive and shallow understanding of how God made humans, how we spurned him, and how he is working in history to save us. It leaves us unburdened, yes: unburdened by reality.

Bonnie Kristian is the editorial director of ideas and books at Christianity Today.

- More from Bonnie Kristian

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“God Defend New Zealand”

“God Be with Our Suriname”

“O Land of Beauty!” (Saint Kitts and Nevis)

National Anthem of South Africa (South Africa)

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Extending invites

Invitation limitations

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