Marcos Witt Was Tired of the ‘Same Old Christmas Songs’

Latin America’s beloved worship musician wanted to apply Psalm 96:1 to a tradition-heavy genre.

Edits by Christianity Today / Source Images: Courtesy of Marcos Witt, Getty

For Marcos Witt, writing Christmas music is about more than capturing seasonal sentimentality or warm memories. It’s about creating original music that glorifies God, said the beloved Latin gospel musician and worship leader—even during the Christmas season, when familiar tunes play on repeat.

“It says in his Word, ‘Sing a new song to the Lord,’” Witt said, quoting Psalm 96:1 “It doesn’t go beyond that.”

Witt has produced some of the most popular contemporary Christmas songs in Latin America. His originals have become standards, incorporated into the collection of tried-and-true carols sung by many Christians in the region. Songs like “Es Navidad” and “Nada Especial” appeal to Spanish-speaking evangelicals looking for alternatives to traditional Catholic carols like “Mi Burrito Sabanero” or “Los Peces en el Río,” which emphasize saints and the Virgin Mary.

Audiences unfamiliar with Witt’s worship songs now recognize his holiday music. Christmas music is just one facet of Witt’s expansive discography, but it has provided opportunities for the former missionary kid to reach new listeners.

Witt released his first Christmas album, Es Navidad, in 1996. The title track has remained one of the most popular modern Christmas songs among Spanish-speaking audiences, establishing Witt as a musical icon with broad crossover appeal and a unique position in the Latin American music industry. In November of this year, he released “Nació La Luz,” an unexpected collaboration with prominent Mexican actress and singer Thalia.

Over the course of Witt’s 38-year career, he has sold over 27 million copies of his albums (he has released more than 40), earning six Latin Grammys and two Billboard Awards. Through CanZion, his record label, Witt has cultivated and launched the careers of Latin American artists such as Danilo Montero, Jaime Murrell, and Jesús Adrián Romero. Now based in the Houston area, he is one of the most influential evangelical leaders among Hispanics in the United States.

“To talk about Marcos Witt is to talk about someone who brought [Christian music] to the Hispanic mainstream,” said Pablo Aguirre, an Ecuadorian music producer and member of the Latin Recording Academy.

Es Navidad (It’s Christmas) transformed the way Latin American evangelical churches celebrate the season. Churches adapted songs from the album almost immediately, using them in church Christmas programs and performances. Before Witt released the album, evangelicals in the region relied on Catholic carols that, while familiar, had less and less resonance among young people (and association with a church tradition that many evangelicals wanted distance from).

“Almost three decades after its release, it is still relevant,” Luisa Calle, a journalist from Billboard, told CT.

Witt told CT that it was his producer, Juan Salinas, who first suggested that he make a Christmas album. He liked the idea but was determined not to release just another collection of holiday covers.

“I didn’t feel like making an album where we sat down and sang the same old Christmas songs,” Witt said.

Es Navidad contains some modern arrangements of traditional songs translated from English, such as “Silent Night” and “O Come, All Ye Faithful.” But it was two originals that established the album as a Christmas classic. The first song on the album is the title track, “Es Navidad,” a celebratory, faith-forward song with a festive tropical-inspired arrangement.

It’s Christmas! The Earth celebrates.
The rich and the poor will share
The happiness and joy that on that day
Christ Jesus came to give us.

—“Es Navidad” (Christianity Today’s translation)

“Es Navidad” is one of only a handful of his songs that have managed to cross over into the mainstream from the Christian niche and break what Witt calls “the barrier of the evangelical world.” Throughout the month of December, holiday shoppers hear the song over store loudspeakers throughout Latin America and on secular radio stations.

Another original on the album, “Nada Especial” (“Simple Man”), has remained popular with Spanish-speaking audiences. In the style of a bolero or love ballad (reminiscent of hits performed by singer Luis Miguel), the lyrics reflect on the humbling acknowledgement of having no gift worthy of the infant King:

I wish I’d been one of the wise men,
to bring you a gift that’s befitting a King,
I would have offered it humbly before your feet.

—“Nada Especial”

Following the success of Witt’s 2001 album Sana Nuestra Tierra (Heal Our Land), which earned his first Latin Grammy, he released another Christmas album, Tiempo de Navidad (Christmas Time). The ambitious project was recorded at Abbey Road studios (where the Beatles famously recorded their 11th studio album of the same name) in London, and it features lushly orchestrated Christmas standards performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Alongside covers of songs like “White Christmas” and “What Child is This?,” Witt released a new arrangement of “Nada Especial.”

Witt released the album jointly with Sony Music and his own record label, CanZion. The scale and production quality of the album were evidence of Witt’s growing popularity and broad appeal with Spanish-speaking audiences. Witt took advantage of the moment following his Grammy boost and started building inroads to the Anglo music market, releasing an English version of his new album, titled Christmas Time.

In 2020, Witt released the EP Navidad Es Jesús (Christmas Is Jesus), bringing in a multinational array of artists including Spanish singer Kike Pavón, the Mexican duo Majo y Dan, the Mexican band Rojo, and the Guatemalan singer and songwriter Lowsan Melgar. In 2022, Witt published an EP featuring his daughter Elena Witt-Guerra on two traditional hymns, “Silent Night” and “O Holy Night.”

Witt’s 2020 Christmas EP illustrates his unique position in the industry as both a performer and an influential collaborator. He is an artist with mass appeal and recognition, working with fellow musicians across genres and geographic boundaries, who also remains firmly rooted in the Christian industry. Witt said his success has also opened doors for him to become a pastoral figure in the industry beyond the Christian niche.

“Over the years, I have had the privilege of being able to pray with many [performers], supporting them in times of crisis, in times of pain,” Witt said.

Partnerships with mainstream artists have sometimes resulted in criticism, but Witt has continued to serve as a bridge to the Christian niche for musicians interested in making music that reflects their faith.

“By joining forces with figures from the secular world, Marcos not only achieves greater visibility for Christian music but also contributes to changing the perception that this type of music is limited to a closed circle,” Latin Grammy producer Pablo Aguirre told CT.

In October, Witt posted an interview with Mexican actress and singer Thalia, one of the best selling Latin pop artists of all time and a recognizable face among telenovela audiences. During the interview, Thalia spoke openly about her Christian faith, which she has been reluctant to do in the past. She talked about attending the Christian church that her sister leads, growing up in a religious family, and having a personal encounter with Jesus as a young adult.

“I knew that she was a follower of Jesus, but I also knew that she was a follower of Jesus secretly, and she kept it very quiet,” Witt said.

Thalia, who has never spoken publicly about her faith, messaged Witt on Instagram earlier this year about a possible collaboration, and he was eager to help her make her first Christian record.

Thalia’s foray into the Christian music sphere comes at a time when other long-standing, secular Latin American artists such as Daddy Yankee and Farruko are making their faith a more visible part of their personas. Christianity Today recently reported on a similar trend in Brazil, where pop stars such as Ana Castela or Wesley Safadão are courting Christian music audiences.

Witt said he considers it an honor to be asked to help an artist experiment with singing about their faith. He added that he doesn’t want to push anyone in that direction, but “when the opportunity arises, I respond—‘Here I am. Send me.’”

There has been no shortage of criticism about this collaboration. A few days after the song’s release, several YouTubers published videos criticizing Witt for recording the song with Thalía, who has expressed her support for the LGBTQ community on several occasions.

“Ah, well, I have been criticized in worse ways,” Witt said of the backlash. “I don’t have to be accountable to my followers on Instagram or TikTok. I’m going to have to give an account to the Lord.”

After 38 years in the music industry, Witt seems to be unconcerned about the appearance of being too familiar with its secular side. Producing Christmas music has provided organic opportunities for Witt to build his audience and his relationships with other artists across stylistic and market boundaries. The season immerses religious and nonreligious listeners in music that celebrates Christ’s birth, and for almost 30 years, Witt has been singing new songs, hoping to offer something more than just holiday entertainment.

Hernán Restrepo is a Colombian journalist who lives in Bogotá. He has managed the social media accounts of Christianity Today in Spanish since 2021.

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Ideas

The Orphan Care Movement Grows Up

Jedd Medefind

Two decades into the resurgence of Christian adoption advocacy, the movement bears both visible bruises and greater wisdom.

Illustration by Mallory Rentsch Tlapek / Source Images: Getty, WikiMedia Commons

Some 20 years back, a remarkable resurgence of care for orphans began. It united believers across the US and beyond who longed to renew the age-old Christian commitment to children on the margins, from international adoption to local foster care. The movement arose eager but green.

In May 2004, 29 leaders gathered in Little Rock, Arkansas. Some led venerable ministries, others startups. Some were pastors and business leaders. Many were also adoptive or foster parents. “There were all kinds of opinions in the room,” recalled Andy Lehman, then vice president of a new orphan-care nonprofit. “But we all loved Jesus and longed to see more Christians stepping up for orphans.”

Interest in orphans seemed to be sprouting in many corners of the church. Technology and travel were shrinking the world. The global AIDS crisis spotlighted the reality of orphaned children. Just a year before the Little Rock meeting, President George W. Bush had launched the largest health initiative by any nation in history, including a special focus on children orphaned by HIV. Countless private efforts also flowered, from massive organizations like World Vision to mom-and-pop nonprofits.

International adoption was surging, too. Respected Christian leaders like Steven Curtis and Mary Beth Chapman, who welcomed a daughter from China in 2000, showed believers that adoption wasn’t just a last resort for parents who couldn’t conceive. It was also a beautiful way to provide a child with a family.

This energy appeared novel, but its roots ran deep. Christians have always paid special care to children the world discarded. Even as a persecuted minority in the Roman empire, the first believers earned a reputation for seeking out children left to die and welcoming them as sons and daughters.

Christians have been known for similar efforts ever since, from early saints like Afra of Augsburg to George Müller, Pandita Ramabai, and Charles Spurgeon. Their efforts varied from orphanages to adoption to aid for widows and more. But all acted with a strong sense that God cares deeply for orphans and calls his people to do the same.

The eclectic bunch in Little Rock wanted to reignite this ancient commitment. Dennis Rainey, founder of Family Life and an adoptive father, gave the group a charge that would define their work together. Rainey observed that despite their shared values, most organizations worked in isolation or even competition. He asked a bold question: “Can we leave our logos and egos at the door to accomplish far more together than any of us could alone?” The participants pledged to find out.

“Unity isn’t easy,” Rainey warned. “It doesn’t happen without serious effort.” He added another caution: “This call to care for orphans, adoption, foster care—that’s not easy either. It may be one of the hardest things a person can do.”

Looking back now, Rainey admitted that many of those present seriously underestimated the challenges ahead, himself included. “We didn’t know the half of it,” he said.

Today, many who began this journey are still at it but are markedly changed. Most bear invisible scars. Their early enthusiasm has been humbled, their idealism chastened. Yet many also evidence surprisingly buoyant hearts and spiritual depth. How did they get there? And what can fellow believers committed to justice and mercy learn from the passion, pain, and perseverance of this movement?

Courtesy of CAFO / Edits by CT

Dennis and Barbara Rainey (right)

Fresh enthusiasm and big dreams

When the group next gathered, enthusiasm ran high. A volunteer observed that participants “were making plans to change the world before they even got to the first meeting.”

On some issues, realism held sway. Participants agreed that bad actors in the field needed to be confronted. At the time, virtually anyone could raise money “for orphans” with zero accountability. One of the group’s first steps was to adopt shared standards for fiscal integrity and governance.

But other elements of their plans were thick with idealism, even naiveté. Phrases like end the orphan crisis and bringing hope to millions echoed in plenary talks and hallway conversations. Solutions now viewed as flawed—including large, impersonal orphanages—went largely unquestioned. Perhaps most of all, it was taken for granted that the right blend of faith and elbow grease could fix just about anything. Love would heal the hurts of any child, no matter how severe.

Like others in the room, Andy Lehman and his wife, Jill, not only desired to spur others to action. They wanted to answer God’s call personally, too, whatever that might mean.

Even as the organization Andy Lehman was helping build worked to support orphan care on a larger scale, the Lehmans began the process of adopting a boy from Korea. “We had two little ones already,” explains Jill. “But we knew so many kids out there were growing up without families.”

International adoption meant a long, costly, and uncertain journey. The Lehmans were not deterred. “We had plenty of questions,” Andy recalled. “But it also felt straightforward. As it says in Psalms, ‘God sets the lonely in families.’ That’s exactly what he did for us in Jesus, welcoming us into his family. If we could do that for a child, why wouldn’t we?”

The fruits of unity

In 2007, the growing community incorporated as the Christian Alliance for Orphans (CAFO). Their work together began to spill beyond annual summits, including stronger accountability standards and a joint advocacy campaign.

Organizations with media reach—including Focus on the Family, FamilyLife, and Shaohannah’s Hope (now Show Hope)—synchronized their messaging. Others pitched in. The group even sent a delegation to the White House, securing a PSA from First Lady Laura Bush.

The campaign was a smashing success, tabulating millions of media impressions. People who visited a redirecting website were guided to trustworthy organizations that matched their sense of calling, from foster care or adoption to ministries worldwide.

That’s when I first encountered CAFO. I served as a special assistant to President Bush, and the meeting request for a CAFO delegation was funneled to me. Eventually, I joined the organization full-time and have served as its president for 15 years.

In 2004, the same year as the first CAFO summit, a Colorado pastor named Robert Gelinas learned that 875 kids waited in the state’s foster system for adoptive families while more than 3,000 churches gathered weekly. Gelinas was confident that, working together, Christians could end the waiting.

Gelinas met with state officials, listening and forming friendships. He engaged fellow pastors, too. His message was simple: “The body of Christ needs to come together to make sure there are no children waiting for homes in Colorado.”

In time, Gelinas and his friends formed a nonprofit, Project 1.27, to spearhead the charge. Focus on the Family and other Colorado partners also threw in their weight. Pastors preached on God’s special love for orphans. Congregations launched foster care ministries.

Within five years, the number of children in Colorado waiting for adoption had been cut to fewer than 300. Sharen Ford, a senior state administrator at the time, said, “Project 1.27 and their partners turned things upside down. So many kids who’d have spent their whole childhood in the system were welcomed to loving homes. We estimated they saved the state at least $5 million.”

The CAFO Summit continued to grow, topping 1,000 attendees in 2010. Models like Project 1.27 spread quickly in a setting like that, along with contagious enthusiasm. The coordinated initiatives owned jointly by CAFO’s growing membership continued to expand.

Courtesy of CAFO / Edits by CT

People travel from all over the world to attend CAFO Summit.

Inspired by an Orphan Sunday service held by a small church in Zambia, CAFO created resources to help local churches all over the world do the same. By 2010, hundreds of churches were joining in. Diverse expressions ranged from Sunday sermons on God’s heart for orphans to evening concerts, from foster-family recruiting lunches to fundraisers for projects worldwide.

The July 2010 cover of Christianity Today captured the moment. “Adoption Is Everywhere,” the editor’s note declared, adding that nearly “every conference we’ve attended recently devoted attention to orphans … with calls to establish foster-care ministries [and] support adoptive families.” A subsequent edition described “the burgeoning orphan care movement.”

Christians were giving, too. The 2011 ECFA State of Giving Report found that donation growth in the field notably outpaced almost every other area. This category included orphan care (up 21%), adoption (up 15%), and child sponsorship (up 24%). To many, this offered further evidence of the power of Christian unity and coordination.

Adoptive families like the Chapmans and the Lehmans were no longer exceptions. A 2010 Wall Street Journal article described churches becoming filled with fostered and adopted children of differing backgrounds and races. Russell Moore’s 2009 book Adopted for Life freshly expressed the gospel foundations of adoption.

By 2014, Barna Research confirmed that practicing Christians were twice as likely to adopt as the general population, including in the adoption of children with special needs, sibling groups, and older children. Evangelicals were five times as likely to adopt.

“It was great to see so many believers adopting,” Jill Lehman said. After their own adoption of a boy from Korea, they had welcomed a daughter from Ethiopia as well. “We had often felt like outliers. Not anymore.”

Orphan fever

Progress like this doesn’t go unchallenged, however. For years, critics had complained of Christians’ engagement in the field. Some faulted believers for not doing enough. Others suggested the opposite—that Christian enthusiasm for orphan care was overkill. At best, they said, this newfound enthusiasm represented bumbling good intentions. More likely, it sprang from self-aggrandizing hubris, exacerbating the very problems it tried to solve.

Among the most potent of the critics was Kathryn Joyce, an advocate-journalist who’d written exposés on other Christian endeavors, from homeschooling to pro-life efforts. In 2013, after a number of hard-hitting magazine articles, Joyce released a magnum opus of critique, The Child Catchers.

The book offered a damning portrait. Page after page detailed the errors, excesses, and devious intentions of what Joyce described as orphan fever. No facet of the Christian movement was exempt. Readers encountered adoptive parents who treated their children “like slaves.” Nonprofit leaders appeared utterly inept in crosscultural interactions. Joyce argued that even “seemingly heroic” actions—like the adoption of children with special needs—were shot through with “commercialization” and “corruption.”

At times, Joyce seemed to struggle with the remarkably sacrificial choices she observed. Virtually all her subjects, whatever their faults, had upended their lives for the sake of children who bore no biological claim on them. This couldn’t be merely for love, she concluded. Darker motives ranged from “proselytizing” to “making their antiabortion activism seem more truly ‘pro-life.’”

For the people giving their lives to this calling, the ugly caricatures cut deep. What hurt most, though, was that many criticisms held partial truths. Orphan advocates did often use statistics sloppily. The movement had underestimated the complexity and hazards of the work. Christians had not always done enough to support birth mothers or to prevent kids from entering orphanages.

At the same time as critics were spotlighting the movement’s shortcomings, countries that had previously allowed large numbers of international adoptions were increasingly closing their doors. Some did so in response to actual or rumored improprieties, including Guatemala. Others, like Russia, used adoption as a diplomatic pawn.

Amid all this, the most aching realities never made the news. Families that had welcomed children from the most painful of places now shared in that pain, sometimes profoundly. Parents discovered that the effects of abuse and severe neglect ran deeper than they’d imagined. Those who ministered through adoption and foster care couldn’t retreat from a hard day. Home was ground zero.

Meanwhile, even as some US states expanded their faith-based partnerships to serve foster youth, others moved in the opposite direction. Illinois and Massachusetts ended work with Christian agencies that wouldn’t place children with unmarried or same-sex couples. New leadership in Colorado—where churches had made such dramatic progress—pulled back sharply from faith-based partners as well. The number of waiting children in the state began to tick steadily upward again.

For some, the struggles were difficult but bearable. For others, they were crushing. The stress test on marriages sent some couples to counseling and some to divorce. While church communities rallied around weary families in many cases, other congregations seemed fearful or oblivious. Parents often felt abandoned by the very communities that had cheered when they’d first brought children home.

Like many others, Andy and Jill Lehman’s adoption journey wove together seeming extremes. It included hard-earned growth and moments of pure joy. Andy’s work also provided vivid reminders of what their kids might have faced without adoption—heartbreaking realities of life in orphanages or on the streets.

But what had felt like manageable challenges in the early years grew larger, more complex and sharp-edged. Jill and Andy’s relationship persevered, but at times their home felt like a combat zone. Nothing seemed to help, even out-of-home care in a residential program.

Andy admitted his prayers were often tearful. “Those years held many of the hardest things we’ve ever faced,” he said. “As much as we’d thought we were prepared, we weren’t.”

I’ve heard similar words from countless others. Some carry the deepest pain imaginable. It’s a lament over a prodigal child, still profoundly loved despite countless hurts. It is also grief over a family portrait that appears irredeemably distorted. For some, it has all been too much. Little but disillusionment remains of the enthusiasm they once felt.

But a remarkable number of advocates are still at it. They bear scars, some deep. But there’s a light in their eyes and a weightiness to their words that wasn’t there before. They’ve walked through fires, and not all of them are yet on the far side. Still, they’ve persevered. They continue to take on new challenges, both in organizations where they serve and at home.

“Some of what we’ve faced are things you’d never choose,” Jill Lehman said. “It’s probably a good thing we didn’t know everything the future would hold. But we have zero regrets. There’s so much we would’ve missed out on if we’d taken a safer route.”

In many of these families, children who struggled deeply as teens have made positive turns as young adults. As one recent study confirmed, while adoptees are more likely to face certain challenges in childhood, they generally do quite well in the long run. Narratives that cast adoption or childhood trauma as destining a person to a miserable life are not only statistically inaccurate but also deeply unfair. David Brodzinsky and Jesús Palacios, two experts in adoption and child welfare, concluded, “Not pathologizing adopted people is as important as not minimizing their problems.”

“There were a lot of tears in our home in the years after I was adopted,” described a young man, Trent Taylor, who had experienced severe abuse before being adopted out of foster care at age 10. “But my parents were rock solid. They made it clear they’d never, ever give up on me. I’m so glad they didn’t.” Now in his early 20s, Taylor leads a ministry called Watch Me Rise to help current and former foster youth.

Wisdom for the future

There are no quick fixes to the deepest struggles. Veterans in the adoption and foster care field affirm that professional intervention for families can sometimes be a lifeline to stabilize chaotic situations. Yet healing requires more than medication or therapeutic visits alone. Parents and family life must play a central role.

True healing involves the whole person, including physical elements like sleep, diet, exercise, time outdoors, and boundaries for screen use. As many studies now affirm, age-old practices of the Christian life, like thanksgiving, forgiveness, prayer, serving others, and community, contribute powerfully to well-being. Amid the self-focus of therapeutic culture, habits like these lift our eyes toward God, his world, and the needs of others.

Courtesy of CAFO / Edits by CT

The CAFO Summit in 2024.

As Taylor put it, “There’s certainly a time for introspection and dealing with your past. But ultimately, a person will never truly flourish just by looking deeper at themself.”

The CAFO community continues to grow too. What started with 29 leaders now includes more than 290 member organizations and a global network of churches—still trying to leave “logos and egos” at the door. The most recent CAFO Summit conference, the 20th since that first gathering in Little Rock, drew over 2,400 people from more than 40 countries. Year-round, members work together in jointly owned initiatives, harnessing the strengths of the whole community. These span from US foster care to global best practices and research, church-based ministries to locally led networks in developing countries.

Meanwhile, even as international adoption remains limited, locally led expressions of the movement are expanding worldwide. Perhaps not coincidentally, many of the most vibrant national movements are growing in countries that saw the most international adoptions—from Romania to Ethiopia to the Philippines. Efforts rising from these countries—including World Without Orphans from Ukraine and Alianza Cristiana para los Huérfanos (ACH) in Guatemala—add tremendously to the global movement.

But no amount of visible growth, however impressive, is enough to keep a person from toppling when trials come. That kind of staying power comes only from a vibrant life rooted deep in Christ. The many who’ve persevered, including Andy and Jill Lehman, testify to that foundation.

Despite all they’ve faced, the Lehmans continue to pour into the movement both at work and at home. When I asked if they’d do it again, Andy didn’t hesitate. “No question,” he said. “Our family’s story is still being written, but we are so very thankful for it, for all of it. In the Christian life, the hardest things and the best things often come together.”

Jedd Medefind is president of CAFO.

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Culture

All My People Died at Christmas

J. L. Gerhardt

Amid the snowflakes and lights, I needed particular reminders of God’s presence.

Illustration by Mallory Rentsch Tlapek / Source Images: Unsplash, Pexels

When I was a child, my grandmother died three days before Christmas. We buried her on Christmas Eve. Years later, my little brother fell asleep at the wheel driving home from college to spend the holidays with family. He hit a tree and died instantly. And years after that, I miscarried my first baby in a taxicab passing the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree.

The irony of so many goodbyes at a season reserved for celebrating the most important arrival ever was entirely lost on me. Despite being a wholly devoted follower of Jesus, I had never once celebrated Christmas as the birth of Christ.

This is weird. I know it’s weird because I’ve since made friends with Baptists and Presbyterians and Anglicans, and when I explain my dearth of Christmas praxis, they all look at me like I’m insane. But if it wasn’t explicitly laid out as a command in the pages of the New Testament, my childhood church didn’t practice it. And as the apostle Paul does not appear to have celebrated Christmas, we were definitely not celebrating Christmas.

This meant that my preacher didn’t call out Jesus’ birth in sermons except as a caveat: “And as we all know, the Bible doesn’t mention when Jesus was born.” We did not sing Christmas songs in church. When “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” played on the radio, my brother and I changed the lyrics from “Remember Christ our Savior / Was born on Christmas Day” to “Remember Christ our Savior / Wasn’t born on Christmas day.” Every time we did it, we felt like Martin Luther nailing his 95 theses to the Castle Church door.

Sometimes my family would get Christmas cards from well-meaning friends, with nativity scenes or angels on their fronts. Holding a card like that was like holding a dirty magazine, like contraband snuck in from a fallen world. We prayed these card-senders would come to their senses.

So no Jesus at Christmas. But Santa, reindeer, cookies, and Christmas lights were fair game.

We didn’t think God was less “with us” at Christmas than at other times of the year—just not especially with you. God is equally with us every day. No need to privilege one over another.

When life was easy, this understanding of omnipresence made sense to me. But losing all my people at Christmas made me wonder. Some days, God felt distinctly less with me than on other days. And some days (maybe not the days I’d most expect) God felt especially present.

In her book Thermal Delight in Architecture, architect Lisa Heschong writes that “our nervous system is much more attuned to noticing change in the environment than to noticing steady states.” Humans derive greater pleasure from novelty. It’s why we love the first few days of a new season (snow!) and abhor the lingering last days of that very same season (more snow). It’s why we like to sit by a fire after a day skiing. It’s why we jump in cold water before the sauna. As Heschong explains, “the experience of each extreme is made more acute by contrast to the other.”

And yet, she notes, modern people have chosen a “steady state environment” as preferable for everyday life: We’ve collectively decided that “any degree of thermal stress is undesirable ” and expend significant effort and expense to eliminate it.

I grew up thinking of God’s presence like central heating, a steady state environment, no special days because every day is special. It turns out, the quickest way to forget that something is special is to make “special” ordinary and expected. As psychologist Richard Beck writes of reclaiming enchanted faith, “God is everywhere, but when He is everywhere, He tends to be nowhere.”

When my grandmother died, when my brother died, when I miscarried my baby, God’s presence didn’t feel much like easy oxygen (I could barely breathe) or reliable gravity (I felt like I was floating in space). It felt more like a friend walking through the door, turning on a lamp. It felt personal, particular, located, new.

Even children can tell you the details of the birth of Christ. Where was he born? In Bethlehem. Where did they lay him? In a manger. Who was there? His mother Mary. Joseph the carpenter. Shepherds came to see him. Magi from afar brought gifts.He was wrapped in swaddling clothes. The king, a particular historical king, Herod the Great (not Herod Antipas or Herod Agrippa) sought to kill him. The story is full of specifics. Why? Because it actually happened. And real things happen not in general but in particular.

Theologians call Jesus’ arrival in the form of a particular person, in a particular place, at a particular time, and among a particular culture “t he scandal of particularity.”

At Christmas, God is not everywhere equally at once, evenly distributed in a state of constant homeostasis. He’s “here”—a body in a woman’s arms, apparent in a way he wasn’t only moments before. The arrival of Christ marks a transition: Something was wrong and then was made right. Something was less and then more. En-wombed and then birthed.

This is the way God chooses to express His steady presence—hidden then revealed, shrouded then unveiled, silent then loud, faith then sight.

I was seven when my grandmother died. I still remember looking into the yawning mausoleum, watching the coffin be pushed into darkness, weighing the impossible possibility of resurrection. It was Christmas Eve.

One year later, on Christmas Eve, I stood in our driveway in St. Petersburg, Florida, watching snowflakes fall like stars from a generous sky. I opened my mouth wide to catch them on my tongue. Fat flakes melted on my eyelashes and cheeks. I’d never seen snow. I’d never see it in St. Petersburg again. It seemed like God had deliberately gone out of his way to prove what the angel said to Mary: “Nothing will be impossible with God” (Luke 1:37, ESV throughout).

When my brother Bobby died, I’d never felt so lonely. He’d been my best friend. Something like 500 people came to his funeral—several ex-girlfriends, a few of his bosses, his third-grade teacher, and the entire men’s basketball team from his college. We told stories. We laughed. We sang. It was beautiful. A beautiful funeral shouldn’t be possible. But here it was, because here God was: “Immanuel,” which means God with us (Matt. 1:23).

And then the baby. We told that story to our church one year at Christmas, about how we’d waited for seven years to have a baby and then we lost him and all seemed lost. But even so, God was close and kind. Telling that story brought God close again, this time for people in the room who’d never heard another person tell a story about miscarriage. Sharing it felt like unzipping the sky and testifying, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy” (Luke 2:10).

Christmas reminds us of the breaking-in nature of divinity, of the way God steps into particular moments, making himself known in new, personal, special ways—like arriving in the City of David during the time of Herod the Great to a virgin mother. Like St. Petersburg on Christmas Eve, love carried on snowflakes, or in New York City in a taxi cab, Christmas lights reflecting on the hood of the car, or at the Church of Christ on Park Boulevard, the grieving saints singing all together, “They sing in heav’n a new song…”

Yes, God is everywhere. He “fill[s] heaven and earth” (Jer. 23:24). But Christmas is teaching me that God also comes to specific people at specific times in specific ways, sometimes in increased materiality or intensity. I’m learning it’s okay for some days to feel more special than others, because some days are—not because God’s here on some days and absent on others, but because, for whatever reason, God has chosen certain moments to find us with announcement, revelation, or adventure. They may not be the days we expect him. They may be when we least expect him: at funerals, in a hospital bed, on the anniversary of a loss, or in a manger.

I didn’t grow up celebrating Christmas as the birth of Christ, but I do now. I celebrate with candles and Nativity scenes and carols and Advent prayers. And I celebrate by leaving the door open, expecting Immanuel’s particular arrival.

J. L. Gerhardt is a Storytelling Partner at Hazefire Studios, author of The Goodness, and creator of the audio memoir The Happiest Saddest People.

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News

Fadi Lost His Apartment. He Won’t Let the Same Happen to His Church.

Heather M. Surls

Gaza’s 700 remaining Christians face exorbitant prices, bombed apartments, and the loss of their community to violence and emigration.

Holy Family Catholic Church in Gaza City.

NurPhoto / Getty

Because of the complex sociopolitical realities present in wartime Gaza, Christianity Today is using protective pseudonyms for “Fadi” and other Gazans.

As Fadi heads to work, surveillance drones hover overhead. Their presence is continuous. Sometimes their monotonous thrumming—combined with the sound of explosions—keeps him and other Gazan Christians at Holy Family Catholic Church from sleeping.

Fadi, a shadow of stubble on his face, wears one of the two sets of clothes he brought out of his home before it was bombed. He walks more than 30 minutes one way because in Gaza City, gasoline costs more than $250 a gallon. The streets are dangerous, he said, with gangs occasionally stopping people to demand their phones and money. Early in the war, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) contacted residents if they were about to bomb an area, but now warnings are fewer. Fadi, who is unmarried, worries that a missile could fall at any time.

Israeli shelling flattened Fadi’s apartment, and its loss grieves him deeply. Since his late teens, he had worked to build a foundation for his future. When the war began, he felt as if 11 years of preparation had disappeared.

Before the war, when he was upset or angry, Fadi would buy himself a coffee, get in his car, and drive to sit by the Mediterranean Sea. Now, he said the beach is full of garbage and debris from destroyed buildings. “Our lives, for more than a year now, have been frustration after frustration. There’s no joy, really,” he said. “Nothing good has happened from the first day of the war until today.”

In early October, the IDF faced a regrouping Hamas and began a new ground operation in Gaza’s northernmost governorate. On November 26, the IDF bombed a school that sheltered displaced Palestinians. Though reports do not mention the presence of Hamas in this particular school, their fighters often embed themselves among displaced citizens in similar locations. Fadi saw donkey-drawn carts and three-wheeled rickshaws, plus ambulances with seven or eight people packed inside each one, carrying the wounded to Al-Ahli Arab Hospital, which sits in the same region as Holy Family and currently sees around 700 outpatients per day.

In the last two months, shelling has forced more than 130,000 Palestinians from the northern towns of Beit Lahiya, Beit Hanoun, and Jabalia south to Gaza City, where, according to a recent report, about 375,000 now reside. Among these are Fadi and hundreds of other Christians sheltering at Holy Family and the Greek Orthodox Church of St. Porphyrius.

“We won’t leave the church,” Fadi said, “not because it’s giving us food and protection, but the opposite: We are the ones protecting the church.” Without their presence, the church could suffer break-ins and bombs. Though international law considers targeting of religious sites a war crime, this rule becomes void if a site is used for military purposes. The IDF has damaged hundreds of Gazan mosques this year, claiming them as terrorist hideouts, and twice Israeli missiles or shrapnel damaged Holy Family’s buildings.

The believers who remain in Gaza number little more than 700. In an interview released on October 8, Gabriel Romanelli, an Argentinian priest serving at Holy Family, said 1,071 Christians—Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant—were in Gaza at the beginning of the war. He said 30 percent of the Christian community has been lost, with 43 dead and 300 leaving Gaza by way of Egypt. Escape through the border crossing—for a hefty fee of $5,000 per person—was possible until May, when the IDF captured the Philadelphi Corridor.

Nearly all of those remaining now live in one of the two churches in Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighborhood. Fadi himself entered Holy Family five days after Hamas’s murderous invasion of Israel on October 7, 2023. After 14 months, life for the Christians has taken on a spartan sense of routine. The displaced sleep in the buildings of the Latin Patriarchate school, with two or three families occupying each classroom. Wooden shelters constructed in the compound’s open yards serve as school classrooms for the children. In addition to Sunday mass, morning prayers and evening mass take place in the church sanctuary each weekday. At these times, the steady clanging of church bells pours over the neighborhood’s rubble.

Fadi said the church provides a hot meal to residents twice a week. The rest of the time, people rely on their own resources—canned goods like tuna, peas, beans, and chickpeas. Some staples like milk, bread, meat, and coffee are on store shelves, but few can afford them. Meat costs around $50 a pound and coffee close to $25 for a half pound.

For months, the displaced Christians did not eat fruit or vegetables—until one day when a delivery of produce arrived, oranges included. As crates were unloaded, Fadi watched in disbelief, filled with a sense of euphoria, as if the war had ended.

“At the same moment I was very upset,” he said, “because the simplest thing—vegetables and fruit—we were so happy just to see them.”

To accommodate laundry needs, the church purchased ten washing machines with financial support from outside Gaza and created a sign-up schedule. It recently installed solar panels that provide several hours of electricity to each classroom—just enough for lighting each room and charging devices. Four hundred people share the church complex’s restrooms, but to bathe, they must heat water in pots over wood fires. Although diabetes, blood-pressure, and thyroid medications are extremely scarce at best, Fadi acknowledged that most of Gaza’s 1.9 million displaced face worse circumstances: “We have it much better than others.”

Some of the “others” live in Jabalia, a city in northern Gaza. One Jabalia resident, Ayman, said he risks death whenever he leaves his home and family. Tomorrow, Christianity Today will tell his story and another’s.

Read Christianity Today’s Wednesday piece on a Gaza Christian:

- More from Heather M. Surls

Marvin Olasky Joins Christianity Today as Executive Editor of News and Global

World-renowned journalist to come out of retirement for “one last rodeo.”

Courtesy of Marvin Olasky

Christianity Today welcomes celebrated veteran journalist Marvin Olasky as executive editor of news and global, where he will lead the domestic and global reporting teams as he develops and executes a more robust vision of storytelling consistent with the mission of the ministry. He will also employ cultural, theological, and journalistic expertise that takes the initiative to inform the evangelical conversation on the issues and trends facing the world and the church. Olasky, who served as editor and editor in chief of World magazine from 1992 to 2021, joined Christianity Today on December 2.

“Marvin Olasky is one of the most respected journalists in the world,” said Christianity Today editor in chief Russell Moore. “I value his wisdom, experience, insight, and expertise. But even more than all those things, I value his Christian character and integrity. I am honored to have him here at Christianity Today.”

Olasky’s accomplishments include training the next generation of journalists as professor of journalism at the University of Texas at Austin (1983 to 2007), provost at The King’s College in New York City (2007 to 2011), and distinguished chair in journalism and public policy at Patrick Henry College (2011 to 2019). Olasky has authored 30 books, including The Tragedy of American Compassion, Abortion Rites, Fighting for Liberty and Virtue, Reforming Journalism, Lament for a Father, and Pivot Points.

“In a marketplace saturated with misinformation and disinformation, it’s as important as ever to have excellent, trustworthy reporting from a Christian perspective,” said Tim Dalrymple, president and CEO of Christianity Today. “Marvin is a legend in the industry, and we’re honored he’s joining the team. As Christianity Today expands its journalistic coverage of the global church, and the diverse North American church, Marvin will help us deliver first-rate reporting across the board.”

Joy Allmond, executive director of resources and editorial chief of staff, added, “To call Marvin a colleague and to partner with him in serving the church is an incredible honor. I’m thrilled for how much I—along with the teams we both lead—will benefit from his hard-fought journalistic and spiritual wisdom.”

Olasky lives in Austin, Texas, and has been steeped in community, church, and family— chairing the boards of the Austin Crisis Pregnancy Center, City School, and Zenger House and continuing to serve as a ruling elder in the Presbyterian Church in America. He and his wife, Susan, have been married for 48 years and have four children and seven grandchildren.

A 1971 graduate of Yale University, Olasky earned a PhD in American Culture from the University of Michigan in 1976. He was a Boston Globe correspondent and Austin American-Statesman columnist and is a Discovery Institute senior fellow and an Acton Institute affiliate scholar.

“I’ve pursued my calling in Christian journalism for nearly half a century, so when CT invited me to do calf roping in one last rodeo, I happily agreed,” Olasky said of his decision to come out of retirement to assume this post. “I like the people and look forward to the challenge.”

For media inquiries pertaining to this story, please contact media@christianitytoday.com.Christianity Today was founded by Billy Graham in 1956. In the nearly 70 years since that time, it has served as a flagship publication for the American evangelical movement, serving the church with news, commentary, and resources. An acclaimed and award-winning media ministry, CT elevates the storytellers and sages of the global church. Each month, across a variety of digital and print media, the ministry carries the most important stories and ideas of the kingdom of God to over 4.5 million people all around the planet.

- More from Marvin Olasky

Ideas

Guilt and Sorrow and Obedience and Love

Kate Lucky

Staff Editor

My Christmastime charity is small, insufficient, and muddled in motive. It is also what I can and must do.

Illustration by Elizabeth Kaye / Source Images: Getty

Last week, I took my toddler with me to buy some presents for a church toy drive. I thought we’d have fun picking gifts for kids in need.

Instead, seeing him in the cart made me sad. I thought of everything he had at home, his boxes of blocks and books and racing cars, the sand pail and shovel I’d just ordered him for the holiday. I started to pull more from the shelves: a basketball, a wooden puzzle, bath toys. We had to do penance for all that we had. Literally, I considered, this was the least we could do, a few presents tossed into the box by the altar. It struck me that this was such an insignificant and ultimately ineffective solution to the injustice that gives my child so much and other children so little.

Christmas has always made me feel this way—a little shaky, a little sad, exposed to the world’s cruelties and bewildered by them. I don’t think I’m alone in that. This time of year, neediness imposes itself via giving trees and canned food collections and end-of-year mailers. “The Christmas Shoes” and “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” play on the radio. We hear of the dying mother, the soldiers at war. Tiny Tim isn’t just a poor child; he’s a poor child on crutches. Jesus isn’t just born as a baby, utterly helpless—he’s born in the cold, in the dirty straw. It’s all too much.

And so, like many Christians, I practice charity in December, moved to action (or, at least, purchases) out of some inevitable combination of guilt and sorrow and obedience and love. There’s always someone who has more; there’s always someone who has less. Thus, the toy drive. The quarters in the Salvation Army kettle. The year-end donations. We send up a few prayers for the troops and for the grieving. Scrooge brings over a big turkey.

Then the month is over and the new year, with its resolute demands, is upon us. What did any of it matter, this flurry of generosity? Anything less than Jesus’ radical call—Sell what you have, give to the poor, and follow me (Matt. 19:21)—feels like too little. What good is a basketball in a world like this?

Recently I went to see Small Things Like These, the new film adaption of an acclaimed novel by Claire Keegan. The movie presents a few tortured days in the life of Irishman Bill Furlong (Cillian Murphy), a quiet father who makes his living as a coal merchant in the 1980s. In a coat with worn leather shoulders, he shovels and scrapes; at night, he scrubs soot from his hands and eats his hot plate of dinner and pours over homework with his five daughters. In the living room, a Christmas tree glows.

But suddenly, Bill’s good, solid life is shaken by tragedies. There’s a child, collecting sticks by the side of the road. There’s another child, drinking rainwater from a dish. There’s a girl, in the neighboring Catholic home for unwed mothers, with a desperate look on her face.

Bill is moved. Bill is disturbed. And nobody can quite understand why. His wife wants him to save his coins for his own family. The nuns pour hot tea and encourage him to forget. All around swirls the festive atmosphere of Christmas—decorated store windows, snow, a choir, cake soaked with alcohol. Enjoy, it all insists; leave the trouble alone.

But Bill cannot. A combination of personal trauma and plain benevolence compel him to action: Coins are given anyway, nuns defied. He weeps in the night. “Do you ever get worried?” he asks his wife. In church, he chews on the words of the liturgy: “The Lord is compassion and love.”

Small Things Like These is about speaking up in the face of injustice, being the conscience that draws attention to corruption—in this case, the abuses of the Magdalene Laundries.

But it’s also about profligate generosity, irrationality, even irresponsibility. We don’t get to see what happens when Bill does what he does (which, you’ll see if you watch, is far from the least he could do). Even so, he helps only a few people. He does not—cannot, does not try to—dismantle the whole unjust system. He’s not even thought through all the consequences of his actions. The boy to whom he gives the coins, his wife warns, has a father who’s a drunk. Bill doesn’t have a plan, exactly.

That doesn’t matter. Bill acts; Bill answers. Bill does something small, and that something small gives him the courage to do something larger. God will handle the rest.

Familiar details, carols, and legends around the Nativity story emphasize this giving out of nothing, these extra gestures in service of the Lord. The little drummer boy strikes his instrument. The lowly donkey carries a pregnant Mary, the young, unwed mother who says yes to the child in her womb. The shepherds follow the star and just … show up.

Later, the wise men display their gifts. Why would the baby Jesus need gold and frankincense and myrrh? The God who made everything is offered a few jars of perfume and precious metal. It’s absurd. “What can I give him, poor as I am?” asks one of my most beloved songs. “If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb; / If I were a wise man, I would do my part; / Yet what I can I give him: give my heart.”

In a new essay published in print this month, the Catholic philosopher Byung-Chul Han meditates on the future-oriented nature of hope. “Hope looks ahead and anticipates,” he writes. “It affords us a power to act and perceive of which neither reason nor understanding are capable.”

Hope doesn’t need a justification. Hope also doesn’t need a sure outcome. “The substance of hope,” writes Han,” is a deep conviction that something is meaningful, independent of any concern for whatever actual results are achieved.” The toys and the coins may not constitute a measurable, quantifiable remedy. But they still mean something.

Perhaps my Christmas feelings amount to sentimentality. (Listen to the saccharine “Christmas Shoes” again and you’ll know what I mean.) Perhaps they are motivated by shame. Our family still has so far to go in feeding the hungry and clothing the naked, in combating the persistence of our greed.

But who cares how the feelings have come up? This tenderness—it’s right. It’s truer than reason. It’s the correct response to the wound at the center of the world, a response that is no less real for its seasonal wavering. I press my finger on the sore spot, press and press, in a meager way doing as Bill did, as the wise men did, overwhelmed by compassion and awe at the Christ child, throwing their paltry riches at the Savior’s feet, trying to remedy the shock of his birth in the straw.

We press where it’s tender, and when we think we can’t bear it, there comes hope. Hope, writes Han, that only ever emerges from despair: “It confronts the world in its full negativity and files its objections.” Files its objections. One basketball. One puzzle. And then: Lord, let us give one more, give beyond the sensible, even and especially our hearts.

Kate Lucky is the senior editor of culture and engagement at Christianity Today.

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News

What Verses Anxious Bible Readers Turned to in 2024

Rachel Pfeiffer

Bible platforms see Philippians and the Psalms rise in popularity as stressed-out readers look for comfort.

Priscilla Du Preez / Unsplash

In a year marked by economic stress and election anxiety, many turned to the Bible for comfort—particularly to the Pauline Epistles and the Psalms.

Philippians 4:6 was the most shared, bookmarked, and highlighted passage on the YouVersion Bible app and was named its 2024 verse of the year: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”

Philippians 4 was also the most read New Testament chapter on BibleGateway.com. Overall, the site’s annual rankings skew toward the Psalms, which represent nearly all of the top 25 verses. BibleGateway’s most read verse was Psalm 23:4: “Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”

Anxiety was a major theme for 2024. The American Psychological Association’s Stress in America 2024 poll found that the country’s stress levels were slightly higher than in previous election years, with strong majorities naming the economy and the future of the country as their top sources of concern.

The Wall Street Journal reported this month that publishers and book stores experienced a boom in Bible sales, attributed in part to this rising sense of anxiety.

“They’re looking for hope with the world the way it is, and the Bible is what they’re reaching for,” Bethany Martin, manager of a Christian bookstore outside Wichita, Kansas, told the paper.

Two of the most searched terms in the Bible app were prayer and peace. And beyond “Do not be anxious,” other top verses on YouVersion directed readers to “not fear, for I am with you” (Isa. 41:10) and reminded them how “when anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought me joy” (Ps. 94:19).

Peace was also a popular Bible search term last year on Logos, a Bible study platform designed for pastors, scholars, and theologians. The software has over a million monthly users and launched a subscription model this fall.

All of the top 25 most-clicked verses in Logos search results came from the New Testament, with Philippians 4:6 (“Do not be anxious”) and Matthew 11:28 (“Come to me, all you who are weary”) landing in the top 10. Logos only had two verses from Psalms in its top 100, Psalm 46:10 (“Be still, and know that I am God”) and Psalm 119:105 (“Your word is a lamp for my feet, and a light on my path”).

On BibleGateway, the top psalms were Psalm 23 (“The Lord is my shepherd”), with 6 verses in the top 10, and Psalm 91 (“whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High”), with 16 verses in the top 25.

Psalm 121 (“I lift up my eyes to the mountains”) and Psalm 1 (“Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked”) were also popular.

“Christian use of the Psalms was much more robust a few generations ago,” said Carmen Joy Imes, associate professor of Old Testament at Biola University. “As Protestant churches moved away from liturgy, our familiarity with the Psalms decreased. Now, Christians tend to gravitate towards a handful of inspirational or comforting verses without realizing the wide spectrum of spiritual riches available to us in the Psalms.”

Bible Gateway said that “the ascendancy of the Psalms” was a surprise in its findings, which span billions of online searches. The Psalms are always popular, but John 3:16 or Jeremiah 29:11 usually top the list.

The Psalms had 39 verses in the top 100 this year, 6 more than last year. “With Psalms and Paul each claiming around one-third of the top 100, that leaves only 30 verses from the entire rest of the Bible combined,” the report said.

Tish Harrison Warren wrote back in 2020, “In an age in which we often run to distraction, numbing both pain and joy with endless hot takes, retweets, and busyness, the Psalms call us out to the depths—the depths of the human person, the depths of pain and joy, and the depths of knowing God.”

Beyond the US, Philippians 5 was YouVersion’s top verse across 17 other countries: United Kingdom, Spain, South Africa, Philippines, Nigeria, Netherlands, Mexico, Kenya, Indonesia, India, Guatemala, Dominican Republic, Columbia, Canada, Brazil, Australia, and Argentina.

With record downloads and 14 million daily users, the app saw global readership continue to grow. The largest increases came from countries that experienced particular hardship in 2024.

Engagement tripled (up 209%) in Burundi amid a human rights crisis. Use of the Bible app doubled in Haiti as gang violence escalated and left more people displaced. And Venezuela saw a 74 percent increase in daily users on the app during a chaotic election year, economic recession, and period of political oppression.

Americans wondering how to pay the bills and Haitians searching for safety and stability face vastly different circumstances. However, as YouVersion CEO Bobby Gruenewald noted, “These Bible engagement trends highlight the commonalities that can be found throughout the global Church.”

Christians everywhere contend with worry—and recognize the exhortation to prayerfully hand anxieties to God, trusting that he will care for them.

- More from Rachel Pfeiffer

Church Life

When Boko Haram Survivors Regret Returning to Their Christian Communities

Godwin Adeboye

Kidnapping victims need the church’s care. They often receive its judgment.

Illustration by Elizabeth Kaye / Source Images: Getty, Pexels

Ten years ago, the world was horrified when the radical Islamic group Boko Haram kidnapped 276 young girls from a school in Chibok, a town in northern Nigeria. Though many eventually returned home, about 80 haven’t been seen since.

That horrifying story has a shocking sequel: Some of the Chibok girls who escaped or were released have found their lives as bad or worse than when they were in captivity. “I do regret coming back,” one of them, who gave birth to two children while held hostage in a Nigerian forest, said earlier this year.

Hindered by limited resources and an underdeveloped theology of trauma and abuse, the Nigerian church has failed to address the needs of actual and potential victims and to provide protection, justice, trauma care, and healing. Because much of this work requires strategic leadership training and empowerment, we Nigerian Christians covet the partnership of Christians outside Nigeria, who, like the whole world, were once captivated by this mass kidnapping but now rarely remember us.

The appalling consequences of interreligious conflict in the region are not new. In 1797, Muslim extremists abducted Neali, a 13-year-old girl. Taken along the infamous Hayan Yaki, the “war road” where Fulani jihadists terrorized non-Muslim villages, Neali faced a brutal, foodless, and waterless trek. “Her captors beat her severely when she became frail from exhaustion. Eventually, she was abandoned in the wilderness, where wild animals devoured her. Missionary explorer Karl Kumm, who documented the story, wrote, “Both slaves and animals are hunted in Africa.” One of the most vulnerable groups that often suffer from human hunting is the female children, like Neali.

Illustration by Elizabeth Kaye / Source Images: Getty, Wikimedia Commons, Internet Archive

A drawing meant to depict Neali’s tragic death.

More than two centuries later, modern-day survivors reflect on new chapters of excruciating trauma. Earlier this year, Hauwa Ishaya, a Chibok abduction survivor, shared, “If I remember my sisters that are still there [in captivity], I am not happy sometimes. Sometimes I am crying because they are still there. I am not hearing anything about them again. People are not talking about them again. I feel bad.”

Amina Ali, who was forced into marriage and impregnated by a Boko Haram soldier, lamented, “There was a time [my daughter] came from school, crying, and she asked me that, ‘Mommy, is it true that I’m a child of Boko Haram?’”

Ishaya and Ali’s words reveal deep, persisting emotional scars that government educational aid and secular counselling alone cannot heal. One would expect the church to assist in the holistic reintegration of these girls, addressing both their emotional wounds and the cultural shame they face as survivors of sexual violence. Instead, the church adds to the problem in two main ways: by forgetting the victims and, sometimes, incredibly, by blaming them.

When a kidnapping occurs, Nigerian churches respond with fervent prayer and fundraise for the bereaved—for about three weeks. Then they move on.

I saw this pattern when one of the students I taught at the Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA) Theological Seminary Igbaja, Kuyet Shammah, was killed by terrorists four years ago. At first, people organized protests and mourned publicly. But Nigerians generally do not hold annual memorial events to remember the victims of tragedies as many other cultures do. As a result, the suffering of family members and other survivors is not sensitively honored.

Forgetting is bad, but blaming is even worse. Similar to Jesus’ disciples in John 9:1–2, many Nigerians, especially those in Pentecostal traditions, attribute misfortune to personal sin. They think that the victims of social ills such as abduction must have sinned to bring these misfortunes upon themselves and that the only proper response is prayer and repentance. On many occasions, the only thing many church leaders have been willing to do when Christian families are terrorized is to pray. No sustained, meaningful action follows.

Not all kidnappings in northern Nigeria are related to Islamic extremism. As John Joseph Hayab, a Christian leader in the city of Kaduna, has pointed out, multiple interconnected factors drive the kidnapping crisis.

“We must differentiate those with a religious agenda from those simply looking for food,” he explained. Some attacks are “mainly to convert people,” but others are just “for money.” When the perpetrators want money, they can kidnap Christians or Muslims, collect the money, and go. As for killing, Hayab said, they restrict that to Christians.

Boko Haram makes no effort to conceal its sinister motivations, using extremist ideology to justify its mission to spread an ultraconservative interpretation of Islam, including firm rejection of female education. Boko Haram leader Shekau infamously declared that he would “marry out a female at 12,” referring to the Chibok girls kidnapped in 2014, and justified his actions by citing Muhammad’s marriage to Aisha. (Although there are different views on the issue, some believe that Muhammad married Aisha when she was only six and use this example to justify marrying underage females.)

The perpetrators are indoctrinated into an absolutist worldview that sees violating innocent girls’ dignity as a weapon of warfare. Muhammad Alli, a former Boko Haram fighter involved in girls’ kidnapping, confessed, “At the time I married them, I did not feel any guilt. … But when I decided to surrender, I realized how awful they must have felt being forced to do these things.”

Kashim Shettima, former governor of Borno state, observed, “The sect leaders made a conscious effort to impregnate the women.” He added that some “even pray before mating, offering supplications for God to make the products of what they are doing become children that will inherit their ideology.”

Overcoming this level of cruelty requires a strategic and systemic approach. West African missionary history provides a powerful example of a positive response to the scourge of female child abduction. During the colonial era, children rescued from slavery and trafficking faced minimal rehabilitation opportunities, with many dying or becoming blind. Some were forced into marriage or prostitution because they lacked any means of survival and could not find or recognize their families, having been abducted at such a young age. In response, the Sudan United Mission (SUM) and the organization then called Sudan Interior Mission (now SIM) partnered with British administrators to provide care and establish freed-slave homes and boarding schools.

By 1925, SUM’s home had rehabilitated 5,000 children. Their strategy combined spiritual, psychological, and medical dimensions of care and meeting basic needs for food, clothing, and training. Many of the young children rehabilitated by SUM and SIM became part of the community’s first generation of educated and respected elites. These mission agencies started from a stance of unconditional acceptance, treating the freed girls as important to the future of Nigeria despite their unfortunate experiences.

How can similarly effective ministry occur through the Nigerian church today? The first step is to stop stigmatizing women who were forced to have nonconsensual extramarital sex, that is, sexual assault. John Campbell, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, has noted, “There is law, and then there is social custom, and social custom is much stronger than law in many parts of Nigeria.” In some of Africa’s conservative denominations, social custom makes any woman who has had a pregnancy out of wedlock permanently ineligible for a church wedding—even if a Boko Haram rapist forcefully impregnated the woman.

After their release or escape from captivity, these women are still being perceived as unclean rather than finding comfort and healing in their community. Moreover, many Nigerians continue to discourage female education and promote early arranged marriages for Nigerian girls, thereby facilitating gender injustice and patterns of domestic violence.

Churches that do want to welcome survivors can make trauma counseling a priority. Few Nigerians have access to counseling other than on marital issues, and most African seminaries do not train pastors in trauma-counseling skills. For cultural reasons, many Africans do not consider counseling a significant career and instead take an uninformed, essentially trial-and-error approach to assisting people in emotional need. Christians outside Africa could assist by offering high-quality training opportunities to empower African church leaders in this area.

The Nigerian church could also improve its partnership efforts with government. With foreign donor support, the national government agreed to pay the American University of Nigeria (founded by a former vice president of the country) $350,000 a year to educate former Boko Haram abductees. But only three girls have earned degrees in ten years, and many of them have said the initiative failed in its education and professional aspirations because it failed to consider their background. Amina Ali, one of the girls confessed: “we didn’t choose AUN because we know the school standards are difficult for us, we girls come from poor backgrounds. The former minister forced us to come to this school.” Church leaders often have a more solidly grounded grassroots perspective. They could become partners in making the education of the released girls more effective and fostering emotional and spiritual healing.

Another key weakness in the church’s response is its inability to build strategic alliances with moderate Muslims who oppose Islamic extremism, largely because the church’s stereotyping of Muslims has hindered its ability to collaborate with them. When Nigerian Christians speak out of emotion and anger about Muslims, they add to the problem. The Nigerian church needs to develop a more accurate understanding of its Muslim neighbors, many of whom want to end the violence and reject Islamic terrorism as much as the church does. If we as church members join hands with moderate Muslims in public advocacy, we can achieve much more than if we treat them as if they were all terrorists.

The global church can best help Nigeria and other countries where Christians are threatened by shifting its support emphasis from providing handouts to building grassroots capacity, including training and empowering indigenous Christian activists who can advocate effectively with the government and engage relevant stakeholders. An indigenized advocacy program is more sustainable than foreign cash. At this point, few, if any, Christians in Nigeria are adequately equipped to gather details on incidents of hostility and to use the information to advocate for change.

The church should be a safe place where kidnapped girls and other victims can make sense of their experiences. In the past, Nigerian churches have welcomed and listened sensitively to the testimonies of some repentant witches. We should certainly do the same for former Boko Haram girls who cry every time they think of their friends who are still in custody. We can listen to and document their stories, honor their suffering, and show that the faithfulness of those who refused to renounce their faith in Christ is not in vain.

The world today knows Nigeria as one of the most dangerous countries to be a Christian. With focused attention and global support, Nigeria could become known as a place where the church is a transformational source of healing.

Godwin Adeboye (Ph.D.) is a pastor and theologian with Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA), a Nigerian denomination.

- More from Godwin Adeboye

News

Victims Identified in Abundant Life Shooting

Emily Belz

The medical examiner named the deceased as a 14-year-old freshman and a 42-year-old substitute teacher.

People leave messages on crosses during a vigil on the grounds of the state Capital building to mourn the victims of the shooting at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wisconsin.

Scott Olson / Getty Images

Key Updates

December 19, 2024

Victims Identified in Abundant Life Shooting
December 17, 2024

Abundant Life Teachers Pray: ‘Our Hearts Are Confused’
December 16, 2024

Shooting at Christian School in Madison Leaves Three Dead, Multiple Injured

December 19, 2024

The two victims killed in the Abundant Life Christian School shooting were a 14-year-old who loved singing and playing keyboard in her family’s worship band and a 42-year-old teacher who colleagues said taught “with the love of Jesus.”

The Dane County Medical Examiner publicly identified the victims as Rubi P. Vergara, a freshman, and Erin M. West, the substitute coordinator for the school. Six others were injured in the shooting, and two remain hospitalized.

Police said earlier that the suspected shooter, 15-year-old Natalie “Samantha” Rupnow, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound on the way to the hospital.

“Rubi will be deeply missed” by her parents, brother, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends, according to an obituary from a local funeral home. She was an avid reader, loved art, and shared a “special bond” with her cat and dog.

She attended Abundant Life starting in kindergarten, according to a statement from the school.

“Her gentle, loving, and kind heart was reflected in her smile,” the school stated. “Rubi was a blessing to her class and our school. She was not only a good friend, but a great big sister. Often seen with a book in hand, she had a gift for art and music. Yet, it was Rubi’s love for Jesus that shined brightest and she shared his love with others by volunteering faithfully. She will be missed deeply by her teachers and fellow students.”

Vergara’s funeral will be held Saturday at City Church, a nondenominational church that shares a campus with Abundant Life (ALCS). The service will be livestreamed. City Church announced that in light of the shooting, the church was canceling all other events except Sunday church services and its Christmas Eve service.

West served as a substitute teacher at the school for three years before joining the staff as substitute coordinator and an in-house substitute teacher.

“ALCS is a better school for the work of Erin West,” the school stated. “She served our teachers and students with grace, humor, wisdom, and—most importantly—with the love of Jesus. Her loss is a painful and deep one and she will be greatly missed not just among our staff, but our entire ALCS family.”

December 17, 2024

The dark longing of Advent hung over the sanctuary at City Church in Madison, Wisconsin, Tuesday night.

Standing before a silhouette of the Nativity, teachers from Abundant Life Christian School cried as they prayed through grief and pain from a mass shooting on their campus the day before.

They recalled publicly how Emmanuel, “God with us,” came to Earth even when everything felt dark.

Police say a 15-year-old student shot eight people in a study hall, killing a teacher and a student. Two other students remain in critical condition. Police have not yet identified the victims.

“Jesus, that was scary,” Barbara Johnson, a middle school teacher, began her prayer.

Students, pastors, and other members of the community gathered at City Church, a nondenominational church that shares some staff and a campus with the school.

Katie Gruchow, who teaches art at Abundant Life, said in the aftermath of the shooting she kept thinking of the song “In Christ Alone,” which they sang together at the church.

One teacher read Isaiah 40, a popular Christmas passage that begins, “Comfort, comfort my people.” Another talked about looking forward to lighting the last Advent candle this coming Sunday, which symbolizes love.

They prayed for healing for those in critical condition and for their students’ minds to heal from things they saw.

“In the depths of our spirits we know you are good, but our hearts are so confused,” prayed Lisa Haynie, a middle school teacher, her voice shaky. “Our hearts waffle between being angry and afraid and being filled with memories and trauma. God, we don’t know how to manage all of that. We’re just coming to you and saying we need you.”

“I don’t know how to still and quiet my soul,” Haynie concluded.

Another teacher is also one of the pastors at City Church, Sarah Karlen.

“Despite our pain and our grief … we know you are not gone. You are standing here with scarred hands and feet and saying, ‘I am with you,’” she prayed.

City Church lead pastor Tom Flaherty commended the local police for how they made kids feel safe in bringing them out of the school after the shooting, showing them “kindness and steadiness.” Flaherty said the church had had offers of help from all over. Teachers shared that they felt a supernatural calm in front of their classes during the lockdown.

Gruchow said a student emailed her after the shooting to let her know she was okay. The student sent her a quote from The Lord of the Rings movies, where the main character Frodo says, “I wish none of this had happened.” And Gandalf replies, “So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”

Other local pastors came and prayed for the school too. Flaherty read from Psalms 34, 62, and 69, all psalms of lament.

“A third of the psalms are about the human situation in a world of grief, confusion, and loss,” he told the gathering. He talked about Job, and Job’s friends offering lengthy explanations for Job’s suffering.

“Everything they thought was happening was not happening,” he said. “At the end of it all, neither Job nor the friends get an explanation from God about what exactly happened.”

He said the shooting was “from hell” and was allowed to happen “for reasons that are unknown to us.”

“I am urging every student and every faculty member to get out of the, What if I had just done this? What if I had just done that?” he said. “God has more resources than you. He has a million ways he could have stopped yesterday. And he allowed it to happen. So I am begging you, stop blaming yourself. Stop assigning blame. What happens when you get into that vicious cycle of blame—you’re not going to receive the comfort that God wants you to have.”

The gathering concluded with the song “Raise a Hallelujah,” singing, “Up from the ashes, hope will arise / Death is defeated, the King is alive.”

National Christian organizations have offered their comfort and support as well in the day since the shooting. The Association of Christian Schools International, Abundant Life’s accreditor, stated its staff were praying for the injured and the school community, thanking law enforcement, and emphasizing the importance of school safety.

The National Association of Evangelicals also offered a statement.

“We join with so many others in grieving with the Abundant Life Christian School community in Wisconsin,” the organization wrote. “In this season in which we remember how light broke into our darkness, we pray that God’s presence would be close to those impacted by the shooting.”

December 16, 2024

Amid announcements about lunch menus, fundraisers, and Christmas concerts, Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wisconsin, posted, “Prayers Requested!” It was the scenario so many teachers and parents fear: a shooter on campus.

By mid-morning on Monday, just days before Christmas vacation, two people had been killed, at least six injured, and the suspect found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to police. Police later identified the shooter as a 15-year-old female student at the school, Natalie Rupnow, who went by Samantha.

A teacher and a teenage student were killed, police later updated. Two of the injured were in critical condition, they said. Four of the injured have non-life-threatening injuries.

The shooting took place in a study hall of children from different grades, police said in an evening briefing.

“I’m feeling a little dismayed now, so close to Christmas,” said Madison police chief Shon Barnes. “Every child, every person in that building, is a victim and will be a victim forever. These types of trauma don’t just go away.”

This would be the most casualties in a shooting at a Christian school since the 2023 shooting at The Covenant School in Nashville, where six were killed, including three 9-year-olds. That shooting prompted private Christian schools to consider tighter security measures.

Barbara Wiers, the elementary and school relations director at Abundant Life, detailed the school’s security measures at an evening press conference alongside police. The school had done school safety training through the US Department of Justice as well as through the Madison Police Department, receiving grants “to harden our school, if you can use that language,” said Wiers. Students and staff trained in lockdown and evacuation drills.

Abundant Life did not have metal detectors, but the school doors remained locked after the school day started, and the school had security cameras in the building. Staff did visual scans of students arriving in the morning to check for anything unusual.

Wiers herself was teaching during the shooting and said that students heard a voice on the intercom say, “Lockdown, lockdown,” and then they realized the shooting was real and not a drill.

“The students handled themselves magnificently,” she said, and they did what they had trained to do. “They were clearly scared.”

At the reunification site later, Wiers spoke to parents.

“Whether their child was affected by this or not, they were affected by it, because what affects one part of the body affects all, as we know the Bible says,” she said. “We have a very strong faith in our community that in spite of tragedy, God is working, and we believe God is good in everything, and that he turns beauty from ashes.”

Madison police did not share details on the victims, saying they needed to notify relatives. Barnes said they do not have information on a motive for the shooter.

“My heart is heavy for my community,” Barnes said. “We have practiced, unfortunately, and practiced and practiced, and that’s why we’re able to reunify students with their parents within hours of a school shooting.” Barnes commended the officers who “selflessly ran into a building not knowing what they would encounter.”

The school wrote on Facebook, “Today, we had an active shooter incident at ALCS. We are in the midst of following up. We will share information as we are able. Please pray for our Challenger Family.”

The pre-K–12 school shares its a 28-acre campus with City Church, a nondenominational church that the school describes as a parent ministry, as well as Campus for Kids, another City Church ministry that provides preschool and afterschool care. City Church is affiliated with the Fellowship of Christian Assemblies, a network of autonomous churches with roots in Scandinavian Pentecostalism.

Abundant Life started in 1978 with a vision of “providing academic excellence in a Christ-centered environment,” according to the school website. “We are committed to developing the whole person: intellectually, spiritually, socially, and physically,” wrote principal Doug Butler on the school website.

“It’s a well respected Christian school in the community,” said Tom Lin, the CEO of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, which is based in Madison. Several InterVarsity staff members send their children to the school, he added, and they were thankfully all safe.

The school has an enrollment of 420 students, is accredited through the Association of Christian Schools International, and belongs to a Christian school network in Wisconsin called Impact Christian Schools. Another Christian school affiliated with Abundant Life through the Impact network, Ozaukee Christian School, held a prayer time for Abundant Life on Monday.

“That could be us,” Kris Austin, the head of school at Ozaukee Christian School told TMJ4. “No matter what happens in the next week or months, God is there for them, and we will be there too.”

Abundant Life had a Christmas concert last week, where children sang, “Glory be to you alone.” The students were supposed to have an Ugly Christmas Sweater Day this Friday.

City Church canceled all campus events for Monday evening, citing the incident, and said it would have a prayer meeting in response to the shooting on Tuesday.

Local churches called on congregants to pray for Abundant Life. New Life Church ELCA in Madison posted a prayer of lament for the school.

“God, giver of life, you intend for humans to live together in peace,” the church wrote. “Enfold in your loving embrace all who mourn.”

“We are praying for the kids, educators, and entire Abundant Life school community as we await more information and are grateful for the first responders who are working quickly to respond,” said Wisconsin governor Tony Evers, posting on X.

Madison mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway shared her condolences with “the whole Abundant Life community.”

“Our focus now is on supporting them and supporting the victims and their families,” Rhodes-Conway said. “We will continue to do that in the coming days and weeks.”

This is the second shooting at a Christian school this month. A gunman shot and wounded two kindergartners at a Seventh-day Adventist school in rural California on December 5, and then killed himself. The boys, 5 and 6 years old, were in critical condition but are recovering.

With reporting by Kate Shellnutt.

This is a breaking news story and will be updated.

- More from Emily Belz

Theology

Christmas Was Always God’s Plan

Philip Yancey

Columnist; Contributor

Jesus didn’t just come to earth to save us from our sins, but to invite humanity to participate in the divine life.

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

More than two centuries before the Reformation, a theological debate broke out pitting the premier theologian Thomas Aquinas against an upstart Scottish Franciscan priest, John Duns Scotus. The heart of the debate circled around the question “Would the event we celebrate at Christmas have occurred if humanity had not disobeyed God?”

Like most theologians, Aquinas viewed the Incarnation as God’s remedy for a fallen planet, a rescue plan that God first prophesied in Genesis 3. Aquinas pointed to Scripture passages that highlight the Cross as God’s redemptive response to a broken relationship with humanity.

Duns Scotus, nicknamed “the Scotsman,” saw much more at stake. To him, the Word becoming flesh, as described in the prologue to John’s gospel, must surely represent the Creator’s primary design—God’s original goal—and not a plan B. Duns Scotus cited passages from Ephesians and Colossians on the cosmic Christ in whom all things have their origin, hold together, and move toward consummation.

The evangelical tradition often emphasizes the atonement and Christ living in us. We urge children to “accept Jesus into your heart,” an image that can be both comforting and confusing. More pietistic strains speak of “the exchanged life” in which Christ lives in the believer. Yet far more often—164 times in Paul’s letters, according to one author—the New Testament speaks of us being “in Christ.” At a time when theories of the atonement seem mystifying to moderns, we could learn from the Christ-centered view of Creation once expounded by a Scottish theologian from the high Middle Ages.

Did Jesus only come to earth as an accommodation to human failure? Was the Incarnation a humiliation God had to endure, or was it the center point for all creation? Duns Scotus and his school suggested the Incarnation was God’s underlying motive for Creation, not merely a correction to it. God spun off this vast and beautiful universe for the singular purpose of sharing the divine life and love with humanity, intending all along for us to participate in eternal fellowship with him.

Ultimately, the church fathers decided that both approaches had biblical support and could be accepted as orthodox. And although most Western theologians followed Aquinas, prominent Catholics like Karl Rahner have since taken a closer look at Duns Scotus.

Imagine a time before the creation of matter. What did God have in mind with our planet, one of trillions in the universe? One answer to that question is Jesus: that he came to show us earthlings what God is like and what we should be like. The history recorded in the Old Testament serves as a prelude for God’s supreme act of incarnation. And as the Gospels’ genealogies stress, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, David, and others provided Jesus a family and a culture into which he would be born.

When Mary gave birth to Jesus in Bethlehem, she participated in an act of divine creation that continues to this day. Paul’s recurrent phrase “in Christ” hints at a reality made vivid in his metaphor of the church as the body of Christ, which extends the Incarnation through time. And when Jesus ascended, he turned over this grand mission to his followers.

Hang on—am I suggesting that the miracle of Christmas is somehow replicated and carried out in the lives of those who identify as Jesus’ followers? Some immediate objections arise, such as how fallen human beings such as ourselves could possibly be entrusted with this divine mission.

In the words of Eugene Peterson: “Friends, we are immersed in great and marvelous realities. Creation! Salvation! Resurrection! But when we come up dripping out of the waters of baptism and look around, we observe to our surprise that the community of the baptized is made up of people just like us: unfinished, immature, neurotic, stumbling, singing out of tune much of the time, forgetful, and boorish. Is it credible that God would put all these matters of eternal significance into the hands of such as we?”

In a sermon to his theology students at Oxford, Austin Farrer articulated this question in a different way: “What are we to do about the yawning gulf which opens between this Christhood of ours and our actual performance … between what Christ has made us and what we make of ourselves?”

His answer is simple: We do the very thing Jesus’ disciples did. On the first day of the week, we gather to “reassemble the whole body of Christ here, not a member lacking, when the sun has risen; and have the resurrection over again.” We remind ourselves, to borrow Paul’s words, that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, that we are dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus, that if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come (Rom. 8:1, 6:11, 2 Cor. 5:17)!

In short, we confront the stunning truth that God gazes at us through the redemptive lens of the Son who became incarnate and dwelt among us.

Then, assured of that new identity, we go forth to revitalize God’s world. Duns Scotus called his approach the doctrine of the Absolute Primacy of Christ in the universe. Those who root their identity in Christ have a holy mission to advance his kingdom. Christians minister to the poor and suffering not out of humanistic motives but because the least of these also express the image of God. We insist on justice because God insists on it throughout Scripture.

And we honor nature because it is God’s work of art and the backdrop for Christ’s incarnation. As Simone Weil put it, “The beauty of the world is Christ’s tender smile for us coming through matter.”

Some time ago, I had a conversation with Makoto Fujimura, an esteemed artist who founded the International Arts Movement to encourage Christian artists to look to their own faith for inspiration. “So many contemporary artists turn to other religions, like Buddhism,” he said to me. “I remind them that God is about Creation from the Book of Genesis to the Book of Revelation, in which God promises to make all things new.”

Among Jesus’ final words in Revelation are these: “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End” (22:13). In this light, Christmas represents God’s masterpiece, the as-yet-unfinished act of cosmic restoration.

Philip Yancey is the author of many books including, most recently, the memoir Where the Light Fell.

- More from Philip Yancey

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