Record-Setting Betting Weighs on College Athletes

Emily Belz

As players face new pressures from bettors upset with their performance, chaplains in the NCAA are trying to help students remember their imago Dei.

Iowa's Caitlin Clark dribbles in the women's college basketball championship against South Carolina. The game drew record-breaking bets.

Maddie Meyer/Getty Images

The odds are bringing little favor to college athletes, who are facing more pressure over their performance from bettors.

South Carolina’s defeat of Iowa for the women’s NCAA championship on Sunday drew record-breaking betting numbers. BetMGM announced that the game had drawn the most bets of any women’s sporting event ever.

Last year, bettors placed more than $15 billion in bets on the men’s college basketball tournament, according to the American Gaming Association. A major weight on players are prop bets, which are usually bets on details of an individual’s performance—like the number of rebounds from Iowa superstar Caitlin Clark.

The NCAA estimates that a third of student athletes have been harassed by bettors. It has raised alarms and now is examining how betting and social media more broadly affect student athletes’ wellbeing.

“Indirectly, I think players notice that. They may hear it from a fan walking off the court,” said Roger Lipe, who ministers to college coaches and players through Nations of Coaches and is chaplain for the Southern Illinois University men’s basketball team. Lipe was at the Final Four women’s games over the weekend and the concurrent coach’s conference in Cleveland, Ohio.

In his 30 years of ministry, a conversation on gambling was often a part of preseason meetings. Betting on sports has been happening for a long time, legal or not, Lipe pointed out.

But the legalization of mobile sports betting in states across the country means that it’s much easier for fans to bet, and less taboo. Chaplains have to adapt, Lipe said.

In his work, Lipe does book studies with coaching staff, goes to practices, and prays with anyone before or after a game. He notices that student athletes are feeling more like commodities, and said those in ministry can counter that feeling with trusting relationships.

“When I’m talking with players on the floor, I’m almost never talking with them about results,” Lipe said. “Performance, yep, that’s part of who you are. But you are more than that. What kind of friend are you? … What kind of pressure are you dealing with this week?”

March Madness drew some attention to the harassment that college athletes have experienced, especially in regard to prop bets. Purdue center Zach Edey told The Athletic that people asked him to send them money on Venmo for their lost bets on him.

In the midst of the tournament, the NCAA announced that it would be lobbying states across the country to ban prop bets “to protect student-athletes from harassment and … to protect the integrity of the game.” Louisiana state officials announced a ban on prop bets during the tournament.

“You want to say you’re mature enough and it doesn’t bother you,” Duke basketball player Ryan Young told The News & Observer in March. “But that stuff gets to you.”

Some athletes have been charged with betting on games themselves. But mental health experts told CT that only a small percentage of athletes have problems with gambling. The bigger issue is the psychological burden that betting adds to student athletes focused on their performance.

“It’s one of those invisible weights they carry … whether they’re actively thinking about it or not,” said Brian Smith, who works with the nationwide sports ministry Athletes in Action.

Timothy Fong, a psychiatrist and the codirector of the UCLA Gambling Studies Program, would like to see more chaplains and churches be involved in supporting athletes through these pressures. He also sees from his work that athletes are feeling more like “a stock, a commodity.”

Fong said athletes might be more willing to talk about their problems with a trusted spiritual leader than with a medical provider like him. For that reason, he urges chaplains to “educate themselves about the world of gambling, what impact it can have on [students’] bodies, brains, and minds.”

“When you start asking, then they start talking about it,” Fong said. “If you didn’t ask, they don’t bring it up. … They might not realize it’s leading to their depression, anxiety, and burnout.”

Fong has seen the vitriol toward athletes over lost bets in the chat section of one sports app he checks for scores, and he’s heard about it from student athletes who come to him for care.

“It sometimes gets pretty nasty,” said Fong. “The athletes I work with … they say, ‘It just sits inside me.’”

Smith from Athletes in Action wants sports ministry staff to focus on teaching students their value as image bearers of God—the opposite of a commodity. LSU star Angel Reese brought that to mind when she said about getting harassed online, “I’m still a human.” Smith suggests some kind of “made in the image of God” campaign.

He also said Christian athletes can look out for their teammates, who may be experiencing pressure over their performances and prop betting.

There’s “a biblical ethic to look out for people who are being treated poorly,” he said.

One issue with chaplains building deep relationships and trust with players is that there is more turnover on teams than there used to be. NCAA changes in the last few years mean athletes can now enter the “transfer portal” and change programs without the penalty of sitting out a season or more. That means top teams are made up of a lot of transfer students poached from lesser programs.

As a result of student athletes moving schools more often, chaplains may have less time with them. Linsey Smith, staff care director for Athletes in Action and a chaplain to a women’s pro volleyball team herself, thinks that college chaplains should learn more from pro sports chaplains who are always working with athletes who might leave at any moment.

“The time you get to develop an athlete, instill your team values in them, and shape the culture of your team is now so truncated,” she said. “If [athletes are] unsatisfied, they put themselves in the transfer portal and they’re gone,” which is tough if a coach is “trying to create a norm.”

Student athletes now also have the option of pulling in name, image, likeness money on their personal brand, a reason many transfer to bigger and better programs. But that often means having a big social media presence to build their brand, which exposes them to more harassment. Fong has seen some athletes opt out of social media altogether for their own sanity.

Lipe, the longtime chaplain to athletes and coaches, thinks harassment of students from gambling is just one of several challenges for college sports right now. He heard little from coaches at the Final Four about sports betting because they’ve accepted it as an element of the game they can’t control.

“It’s one thing for us in sports ministry to bark at it if we have a moral issue with gambling,” he said. “That’s the environment we’re given. So we have to serve well in light of that environment.”

- More from Emily Belz

News

After Taiwan’s Powerful Earthquake, Christian Aid Groups Work to Rebuild Lives

Angela Lu Fulton

On an island where Buddhist disaster relief is prominent, Christians work with churches to care for children and families.

A person walks past an area of a damaged building following an earthquake in Taiwan.

Annabelle Chih / Stringer / Getty / Edits by CT

When a 7.4 magnitude earthquake hit the east coast of Taiwan Wednesday morning, Carissa Wang, branding communication director of World Vision Taiwan, was on the Taipei subway on her way to work. She felt the carriage sway more than usual, and then it stopped at the next station as an announcement alerted passengers that service had ended due to an earthquake.

Wang and her World Vision colleagues immediately began putting disaster relief protocols into action, assembling their emergency team and reaching out to local government officials to coordinate relief at evacuation centers. World Vision social workers also began to contact the 3,000 sponsored children and their families in the epicenter of Hualien to make sure they were safe and find out if they needed help.

Wednesday’s quake was the worst to hit Taiwan in 25 years, damaging buildings and causing landslides. Images from Hualien, a city on the country’s east coast, showed a red brick building leaning at a 45-degree angle after its first floor collapsed. Large rocks tumbled down the side of mountains and blocked roads into the tourist destination of Taroko Gorge, trapping people at a hotel.

Yet Hualien sustained surprisingly little damage for an earthquake of such magnitude. As of Monday, 13 people had died, and only one of them was killed due to building damage. Most of the others were hit by falling rocks. Ten people are still missing and more than 1,000 were injured.

The low loss of life is attributed to Taiwan’s earthquake preparedness, as the government improved and reinforced building codes after a deadly earthquake in 1999 killed 2,400 people. Public education on earthquakes is widespread, and disaster relief groups are well-trained and respond quickly. Buddhist Tzu Chi Charity Foundation, one of the largest philanthropic organizations in Taiwan, said that within 30 minutes of the quake, it had set up a service center to pass out blankets and emergency financial aid.

Although Christians make up less than 5 percent of the population, Christian aid groups including World Vision Taiwan, Mustard Seed Mission, and 1919 Food Bank have an outsized influence on disaster relief. The groups each have their niche and are working side by side to care for the victims. Groups like Tzu Chi and Red Cross Taiwan specialize in rescue and immediate relief, while Christian groups are more focused on caring for children and families in the impacted area, dealing with the emotional trauma of the quake, and reaching indigenous villages where they have existing relationships.

Through this collaboration, “evacuees have a place to stay, and those of us from Christian groups can accompany them and pray,” said Jeffrey Lee, CEO of Mustard Seed Mission. “Our role in this earthquake aftermath is that we seek the emotional stability of the children and the elderly.”

Working together in the shelters

After the earthquake, staff at the Hualien branch of 1919 Food Bank, part of the Chinese Christian Relief Association, drove to the most impacted area and got in touch with their government contacts. They then helped set up evacuation centers at a school, a park, and a gymnasium.

The evacuation shelters demonstrated how the relief groups worked together. Tzu Chi, which is headquartered in Hualien, quickly brought in temporary beds and set up four-walled tents without a roof to provide privacy for the evacuees. The organization came up with the idea for these privacy barriers after a magnitude 6.2 earthquake hit Hualien in 2018, killing 17. The Red Cross provided tents, food, water, and other necessities.

Due to their experience running a food bank, 1919 was tasked with collecting and distributing donated food and water as well as bringing in their mobile kitchen to make food for victims and frontline workers. Samuel Chang, director of the 1919 Food Bank, said that staff filled in wherever needed: Some helped check people in or provided power banks for people needing to charge their cell phones, while others comforted and prayed for people who arrived frightened and distraught.

In the shelters, World Vision set up children’s care centers, where staff worked to calm and distract traumatized children through activities such as singing and drawing, Wang said. They also helped watch the kids as parents returned to pack up belongings from homes deemed unsafe to live in.

Members of Mustard Seed Mission, a Christian community development nonprofit, sought to help aid workers by providing massages. Lee noted that many of them are exhausted and themselves impacted by the earthquake but because of their job, they can’t show that they’re scared. The masseuses not only relieved their physical tensions but served as friendly listeners, providing counsel and comfort.

The nonprofit has a vocational training center in Hualien, which it opened up for the government to place evacuees who need special care—for instance, the elderly or families with young children—and for whom the center’s dormitory is more comfortable than a school auditorium. Every day, Mustard Seed houses and feeds about 60 people.

Learning from Buddhist counterparts

Chang of 1919 (which in Chinese is a homophone for “need help”) observed that there are things Christian groups can learn from Tzu Chi, a group rooted in humanistic Buddhism. Master Cheng Yen, a Buddhist nun in Taiwan, founded the organization in 1966 in response to the suffering of the impoverished community where she lived. Three Catholic nuns visited Cheng, and as they discussed their religions, they asked her why Buddhists weren’t setting up nursing homes, orphanages, and hospitals if their religion teaches love and compassion for all living beings. Convicted, she began collecting donations for the poor and needy.

Today, the international humanitarian group claims to have 10 million members active in 100 countries and territories around the world, engaging in medical aid, environmental protection, and disaster relief.

In Taiwan, Tzu Chi is the most prominent relief group and are experts at what they do, said Chang. Most impressive is their ability to mobilize their members to donate and volunteer when disasters occur. He’s found that, when working alongside Tzu Chi members at a disaster site, they are always willing to take the most thankless and menial jobs—like cleaning the bathroom—whereas sometimes Christians are less willing to do so.

Chang believes the different groups complement each other well. To accommodate their religious dietary restrictions, 1919 prepares vegetarian meals for the Buddhist Tzu Chi volunteers. Tzu Chi has also invited 1919 leaders to meet with their monks to coordinate disaster response among the indigenous groups, many of whom are Christians and have closer connections to Christians organizations.

Lee agrees: “Even though we come from different faiths, in this circumstance, it’s a great match as we care for these people.”

Encountering God in the disaster

Most of the Christian groups’ work occurs outside of the immediate rescue and relief efforts, among the children and families whom they typically serve. To do that well, they often partner with the local church, which can better gauge a community’s needs, said Chang. “The church is local, they know every family and they know every neighbor’s needs,” he said.

The organization works with about 1,500 churches in Taiwan (one-third of the total number nationwide), helping to set up food banks and afterschool centers and to provide financial assistance. After the earthquake, 1919 reached out to partner churches to find needs that they can assist with. For instance, they are working on a partnership with IKEA to provide furniture to some of the earthquake victims, as well as replacing televisions or water tanks to help families return to normalcy.

“We hope that through these social services, they can see the values of our faith and the comfort that our faith can bring in their trials,” Chang said. “We hope that through the gospel and caring for their welfare, they can encounter God even in the midst of this disaster.”

World Vision and Mustard Seed both arrange sponsorships for children in impoverished communities and work in community development. World Vision staff visited their sponsored children to check the structural integrity of their homes and to determine whether repairs are needed. They found that about 180 of their families in Hualien have been impacted by the earthquake, either because the family’s home is unsafe to live in or because the parents lost their jobs.

World Vision is also involved in rebuilding the children’s confidence and security, especially since the region experienced more than 400 aftershocks following the big quake. In communities where resources are already limited, getting people back to normal life is even more important to ensure that kids stay in school and income remains stable.

“In terms of water and food, there is enough as the people of Taiwan are full of love,” Wang said. “But what we need to work on is rebuilding the homes, dealing with the children’s trauma, and quickly returning them to their ordinary lives.”

Providing aid to indigenous groups

Another focus of Mustard Seed, founded by American missionary Lillian Dickson after World War II, is on Taiwan’s indigenous people, who often live in remote mountainous areas. About 70 percent of indigenous people in Taiwan are believers, as many were receptive to the gospel shared by foreign missionaries due to the ostracism they had suffered from the Japanese and ethnic Hans in the lowlands.

After the Hualien earthquake, landslides along curving mountain roads blocked access to some of these indigenous villages. Because Mustard Seed partners with these churches, they were able to quickly find out where the needs were. On Friday, Lee said that one village told them they were running low on food and clean water, so staff loaded up a truck with 70 food packs and about 850 water bottles to deliver to them. Suddenly it started to rain, causing concern about the road conditions.

So they switched gears and decided instead to bring the aid by train. They asked the railway authorities if they could pack the goods onto the train car, and the authorities agreed. About a dozen people hauled the food packs and water onto the train, and when they reached the station near the tribal village, strangers helped them move the goods off the train. Villagers met them at the station and brought the supplies the rest of the way.

“Because we have the same Christian faith, it’s very natural for us to trust each other during this rescue process,” he said.

Long-term, all the Christian groups intend to prioritize dealing with the emotional and mental health of those affected by the quake. Many of the families in Hualien had to repair their homes after the 2018 earthquake, only to have another large-scale earthquake hit six years later, said Chang. As many live in fear of the next earthquake, he believes the church can play a role in providing counseling to locals. He’s looking for Christian counselors to go to Hualien and provide these services through the church. Mustard Seed is seeing similar needs and also recruiting counseling students and teachers from Taiwan’s seminaries to help families in Hualien. “Even for nonbelievers, prayer and professional consultation can calm emotions after trauma,” Lee said. “We hope to provide for not only their physical needs but also for their psychological stability.”

- More from Angela Lu Fulton

Church Life

Would Jesus Overturn Your Board Table?

Stacy Kassulke

I served on the RZIM board. Christians in many leadership roles can learn from my failures.

Illustration by Jack Richardson

The room was hot, and I stared at the pristine white table in front of me, being careful not to lift my eyes, my muscles tense. To my left were members of the International Board of Directors of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM), seated at the table and joining on video. To my right were lawyers. One of them was preparing to read to us the 12-page report of a months-long investigation into sexual assault allegations regarding the ministry’s founder, Ravi Zacharias.

The tension was palpable. The boardroom seemed too dim, although that suited the mood; some of us weren’t ready for bright lights.

My experience as an RZIM board member would completely change the way I view ministry today. I believe many ministry boards are broken—or at least deeply unprepared for the challenges they may face—and my aim is to start a conversation on how that can be remedied.

When I speak of “boards,” I’m using the term broadly. You and people you know may not serve on the board of an internationally known nonprofit, like RZIM at its peak. But you may serve on your congregation’s elder board, as a deacon, or as a member of the vestry or the pastoral search committee. You may advise your children’s Christian school or informally help steer a local food bank or the Sunday School planning committee at church.

The hard lessons I learned will be applicable to almost any kind of group leadership arrangement, especially in ministry contexts but also more broadly. That said, specific needs and circumstances will vary, so I’m sharing my lessons as questions that Christians in board leadership should seriously ask themselves and their colleagues.

1. Should board members be required to engage in continuing education?

Not only was I ill-equipped to be a board member, I was unprepared for the onslaught of crises that would engulf the ministry throughout my short tenure. From what I observed, even the longtime board members were unprepared for what seemed like “unprecedented times”—the catch phrase during those years.

Looking back, one problem was that those were not, in fact, unprecedented times. Ministry leaders fail. Red flags aren’t noticed—or worse, they’re willfully ignored. Understanding theories of institutional betrayal and how abusers often confuse and verbally attack their victims while deflecting responsibility has been helpful in my quest to make sense of RZIM’s trajectory. But it would have been much more helpful to have known all of this before the crises occurred.

If you’re serving on a board, consider what knowledge gaps you may have that could limit your ability to serve well. What high-level questions keep coming up for you in meetings? What other perspectives might you need to understand? Are you not just willing but eager to learn and grow? How can you acquire the knowledge and skills you need for faithful service and push your colleagues to do the same?

2. Whom do you choose as board members?

The RZIM board was overwhelmingly comprised of Ravi Zacharias’s family and friends. They were all highly invested in the ministry and the man; they donated their time, their expertise, their money, and their contacts because of that personal relationship. From my outsider perspective, they all seemed to have very similar skill sets. Loyalty was highly prized.

I was an unexpected addition to this group and the first woman to ever sit on the governance committee. I had no relationship with Ravi, and I didn’t lead a successful company or have an impressive contact list. This put me at a tremendous disadvantage when voicing concerns. The skills that other board members saw as helpful when I was in agreement with them—my willingness to learn new things, my eagerness to listen, and my ability to be vocal about things I believed in—became liabilities when I disagreed.

On your board, how are members chosen? I don’t only mean the procedures, which are certainly important but are often established by by-laws or denominational rules outside your control. I also mean what qualities and skills are preferred at a cultural level. Do you take spiritual gifting and spiritual maturity into account? How do you round out the roster beyond the officer roles? Are you looking for unexpected people that may offer a unique perspective?

3. How do you think about giving?

For many nonprofits, it’s a given that most board members are chosen for their ability to donate and raise funds. After my time with RZIM, I see this as a dangerous pairing of power and money. Wealth should not be the measure of a leader’s commitment, faith, or contribution to an organization. This metric can encourage a sense of entitlement in board members and provide a false sense of security to the leadership team. When board seats are only filled with those who provide the ministry with monetary stability, there is a power imbalance in the structure that can and often does lead to unhealthy relationships.

Is your board overlooking potential members because of their inability to give significant monetary gifts? Have you unconsciously come to assume bigger always equals better? How can you make sure to remember the widow’s mite and that wisdom and wealth do not reliably coincide?

4. How does your board communicate?

Truth and transparency have always been important to me, but never more than they are post-RZIM.

The organization had an executive committee that met separately and privately, away from the full board. That committee made all the important decisions, and to my recollection, during my year of service, the full board never once received or reviewed their minutes. The committee would send recommendations to the rest of the board, and our votes were strongly encouraged to be unanimous. I observed—and was told—that abstention was better than a “no” vote. As the abuse crisis continued to unfold, this silo of secrecy within the board caused major problems, as did similar “normal” RZIM procedures.

Does your board have a similar secret oligarchy? Is secrecy the default or the exceptional measure at your organization? Is it necessary to invoke legal danger to force board members to do the right thing? Does fiscal protection of the institution always take precedence? Are board members adapting the world’s “spin” for ministry use? Are you willing to tell the full truth to yourselves and others, even if it’s potentially disruptive?

5. What does accountability look like?

Board members are supposed to provide institutional accountability for the ministries they govern. But who provides accountability for the board?

As the RZIM saga unfolded, we heard multiple calls for the board to resign from both donors and key individuals outside the inner circle. The board did not want to resign. I heard excuses such as, “We should be the ones to fix this” or, “If we resign, who would lead?” This board failed to take a sexual predator out of ministry but continued to reject calls for transparency, even demanding anonymity for themselves—refusing the barest accountability of being publicly named.

Before a crisis comes your way, it is vital to establish answers to the following questions: Is there a point at which a board has shown itself incapable of self-correction? What would need to occur to disqualify board members from serving? Does a grave public failure require public repentance? How will your board self-assess or subject itself to external assessment? Concretely, what does accountability look like for you?

6. Who do you think you are?

Being on the board of a global multimillion-dollar ministry is a status symbol. Once people found out I sat on the RZIM board, they were impressed, curious, and fascinated by the power they perceived me to hold.

Internally, the general ethos of the board was that Jesus needed us to do this work. Twitter banners proudly displayed photos of board members on RZIM stages or with celebrities connected to RZIM. There were Facebook posts about the great work the board was doing for the kingdom. We had special dinners, fancy hotels, beautiful facilities, and a general feeling of superiority. Social media was a way to brag about accomplishments until it became clear it could also be a conduit of demands for accountability.

Does your board comprehend the kind of servant leadership that must come with so much responsibility? How much of their identity do members find in their board role? How do we make sure power is always paired with responsibility, not only in our formal rules and procedures but in our hearts?

RZIM’s unofficial motto said no question was off limits. But as a board member, it became clear to me that this was not true. I encountered institutional failure firsthand. I failed—at first, to even believe the victims, and then, in my attempts to reform a broken system.

But failure doesn’t have to be defining; rather, it should be refining. For me, it has fueled a passion to help members of other boards forestall the kind of dysfunction and abuse we did not prevent at RZIM. Instead of hiding and deflecting responsibility, Christians in leadership roles must freely admit and correct institutional and personal failure alike. We should be the first to recognize that every one of our failures can be redeemed by a God who has offered us full and complete forgiveness.

The stakes are high, but ministry boards can and should be a place where the best examples of servant leadership are found. So ask yourself: Would Jesus overturn your board table?

Stacy Kassulke is passionate about encouraging individuals to use their unique giftings to make things right for the sake of Christ and his kingdom. She served on the board of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries from February 2020 to March 2021.

- More from Stacy Kassulke

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Died: Joseph Kayo, the Kenyan Leader Who Revolutionized Worship in East Africa

Moses Wasamu

His Pentecostalism put him at odds with many but the Deliverance Church founder stood firm in his convictions “to bring back the glory of God back to the Church in these last days.”

Illustration by Christianity Today / Source Images: Joe Kayo Ministries

Joe Kayo, known by many as the father of the Pentecostal-Charismatic movement in East Africa, died on November 2, 2023. He was 86.

Kayo founded churches in four countries: Deliverance Church Kenya, Deliverance Church Uganda, Juba Pentecostal Church in South Sudan, and Family of God Churches of Zimbabwe. At the time of his death, he was leading the Christian Family Church in Nairobi.

Kayo described his ministry as a place “where the power of God is seen working with tangible manifestations, to bring back the glory of God back to the Church in these last days.”

Kayo embraced his spiritual calling as African nations were gaining independence from their European colonizers. His vision of creating churches, led and financed by Africans, that contextualized the Christian faith within African culture caught fire throughout East Africa. It also was at odds with many of the churches that traced their roots back to Western missions and with which he tangled frequently over worship styles and the presence of the Holy Spirit.

“This is the man God used to break barriers and rocks that stood in front of the charismatic movement and Pentecostalism in East Africa,” said J. B. Masinde, a bishop at a Nairobi congregation Kayo had founded, in 2019. “He paid a price … this man carries scars that some of you will never understand in your life.”

The eldest of six children, Joseph Kayo Nyakango was born in Nyamira County, western Kenya on May 5, 1937. When he was 12, his mother died, and he dropped out of school prematurely due to lack of school fees. In despair, Kayo sank into drug abuse and petty crime. Later in life, he would narrate how he attempted to take his own life three times without success.

More hardships came with young adulthood. Around 1954, Kayo was imprisoned for eight months after he left his job at a sugar company to take a new one. (Because this punishment did not seemingly fit the offense, some have speculated that something else was amiss.) In 1957, while living in the coastal city of Mombasa, he fell seriously ill and was hospitalized. According to his ministry website, his nurses gave up on him, leaving him at a crusade organized by American televangelist T. L. Osborn. While there, Kayo committed his life to Jesus Christ and was miraculously healed.

Soon after that, Kayo experienced the Pentecostal baptism of the Holy Spirit and began testifying widely to God’s power. Formerly a night club musician who entertained with his guitar, Kayo now began using the instrument to lead worship at the very same clubs, at a time when mainstream churches still used organs.

“I love music and I began to play the guitar in Mombasa before I got born again. I said, if I can change this thing and play it for God’s kingdom, why not? … I found it was very effective,” he later said. “The guitar itself is not sinful. … It is just an instrument, just like the piano … and the songs I sing are totally scriptural.”

By 1960, Kayo had established congregations in the Kenyan coastal cities of Mombasa and Kilifi. From Mombasa, he moved back home to Nyamira, but his family members, who worshiped ancestral spirits, denounced his newfound faith and beliefs. The hostile environment prompted Kayo to relocate to Kisumu, a Kenyan city on the shores of Lake Victoria, where he lived with the American charismatic missionary Derek Prince.

In the late 1960s, Kayo moved to Kampala, Uganda, where he stayed for nearly a decade. Alongside several other Christian leaders, he pioneered the Pentecostal movement there, serving as an itinerant preacher, speaking at schools, colleges, and universities, and preaching on the streets.

As his meetings began to attract huge crowds, mainstream churches associated with Western denominations felt threatened. At the time, many of them had a formal, regimented style of worship, and speaking in tongues was a new phenomenon for them. Confronted by this new expression of Christianity, accompanied by reports of miracle healings and deliverance experiences, many accused Kayo of manipulating people and sheep stealing.

“Kayo, in his characteristic stubbornness and grit, was not moved by [these] allegations,” wrote wrote Damaris Seleina Parsitau in her thesis on the history of Deliverance Church in Kenya. “He believed that God had called him to bring back vitality into the Church of Jesus Christ, a Church which had become lukewarm, ineffective and irrelevant in the African context.”

Over time, Kayo, who spoke Ekigusi, Dho Luo, Swahili, and Luganda, received speaking invitations for rallies, conventions, and camps from the countries he had called home as well as Tanzania and Rwanda. His proficiency in English, honed by studying the language as a young person and practicing it with Westerners, made it possible for him not only to preach in English but to expand his ministry as far as Zambia.

As he fielded these speaking invitations and held open-air meetings, Kayo avoided organizing gatherings on Sunday mornings, so as not to compete directly with nearby congregations. But in 1970, after months of immensely popular Monday prayer meetings and Saturday revivals in Nairobi, he and fellow leaders decided to start a Sunday service. On November 22 of that year, 56 people attended the inaugural Sunday worship event.

Kayo led Deliverance Church until 1977, when he stepped down and moved to the United States amidst accusations of adultery and lack of financial accountability. In his absence, the church continued to expand and formalize its structures and hierarchy.

After spending time in the US, Kayo returned to Kenya and started Christian Family Fellowship Church. He wrote numerous books and became the publisher of Revival Digest, a magazine published through his own Joe Kayo Ministries. Beyond Africa, Kayo ministered in Canada, South Africa, England, Japan, and Hong Kong.

Kayo did not hesitate to criticize prosperity preachers. The FAQ page of his website includes a statement that “If the preacher teaches that God cannot bless you unless you give them money, it is false.” To an inquirer who wondered why he did not encourage people to invest in local pastors’ ministries, Kayo responded, “If that offended your pastors, then I have no apologies to make, money is not the gospel.”

In 2004, Kayo reconciled with the leadership of Deliverance Church. Following his death, the General Overseer of the Deliverance Churches in Kenya, Bishop Mark Kariuki, conducted his memorial service.

Kayo leaves behind a widow, Rose; three sons, Junior, James and John; and several grandchildren.

- More from Moses Wasamu

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Vietnam’s New Religious Decree Further Burdens Local Churches

Caleb Maglaya Galaraga

Pastors and religious liberty advocates worry the government’s effort to manage religion will bring tighter control.

Woman praying during a church service in Vietnam.

Godong / Getty

Operating a church in Vietnam just became even more difficult thanks to new government regulations that went into effect over the weekend. Under Decree 95, the government will now require religious groups to submit financial records and allow local government officials to suspend religious activities for unspecified “serious violations.”

Nguyen Ti Dinh of Vietnam’s religious affairs committee said the guidelines will improve how the government manages religion by implementing uniform measures for the 2018 Law on Belief and Religion, which requires religious groups to register with the government. Observers believe the decree is Vietnam’s attempt to demonstrate to the international community that it is trying to increase religious liberty and to get off the US State Department’s Special Watch List for countries engaged in religious freedom violations.

Yet religious liberty advocates and local church leaders believe the new rules will do the opposite. Instead of making it easier to register churches, the government is requiring more oversight and control. If the Vietnamese government is trying to show the international community that it is serious about religious freedom, noted Hien Vu, Vietnam program manager of the Institute for Global Engagement (IGE), it needs to explain how the new policy would achieve that.

“With this decree, it’s like Vietnam shot themselves in the foot,” Vu said.

The Southeast Asian country, where Christians make up 8 percent of the population, is ranked No. 35 in the Open Doors’ list of most difficult countries to be a Christian. While Christians can worship freely in bigger cities, believers among ethnic minority groups and in rural areas still face social exclusion, discrimination, and attacks. Religious groups involved in human rights advocacy have also been harassed.

Yet due to work by IGE and other international groups, in the past few decades government officials have become more open to listening to Christians and making space for Christianity in the country.

Decree 95 came as a surprise to religious liberty advocates and local church leaders when the government first made it public in December. It expands on a previous decree (Decree 162) by including measures that allow the government to shut down religious groups and adding requirements for receiving and reporting donations, including from foreign sources, according to Morning Star News.

In 2022, a draft dubbed the “punishment decree” (due to its focus on punishments for infraction of the religious law) drew harsh criticisms from religious leaders and even some government officials. That decree was eventually tabled. But with Decree 95, the government skipped the step of soliciting public opinion and put the new decree into effect three months after announcing it.

To Vu, the most concerning aspect of the new decree is how it expands the government’s financial oversight of churches. An article of the decree reads, “Within 20 days, religious organizations and religious affiliates that receive financial aid are responsible for sending reports on the results of the use of grants to the competent state agency.”

“The government wants to really know where, how, what—everything about receiving financial support,” Vu said. “The government also needs to know how you spend it.”

While ostensibly the reasoning is to increase financial transparency, realistically, the rules are nearly impossible for many of Vietnam’s Protestant churches to follow, as house churches are often not registered with the government. The government’s own stringent rules (including that a church must exist for five years before applying) make it difficult to register. Some house churches are denied while others have waited years for recognition without any progress. Other house churches choose not to register due to the regulatory burdens.

In total, Vietnam has 11 legally registered evangelical denominations, according to Morning Star News.

Without legal status, the groups can’t open bank accounts and all their transactions are done in cash. Unlike in the West where tithes and other donations are tax-deductible, such frameworks and practices are nonexistent in Vietnam, and even large donors do not ask for receipts.

A pastor of a registered church in Ho Chi Minh City, who asked not to be named for security reasons, said that while he is familiar with the country’s religion law, the latest guideline on church finances adds confusion as to what the government now requires from them. Churches in his denomination, especially those in rural areas, often rely on foreign funding to construct or expand church buildings, and none of the pastors know how Decree 95 would impact this.

“We need the government to respect the church,” he said. “Something like Decree 95, something like that should not apply to the church. When we apply to have a church in Vietnam, we’re under very strong control from the government [already].”

The pastor believes the government doesn’t need to meddle with the church’s finances, adding that if the government continues to tighten its control on churches, “the future is not good.”

A third of the decree’s 98-page document focuses on suspending religious activities for serious violations of the rules. Actions such as “infringing on the morality of our indigenous culture” and “using religion for personal aggrandizement” are forbidden. Vu noted that such vague language allows authorities to stop any group they view as a threat to the government’s one-party rule.

Religious groups have 24 months to rectify their behavior or face permanent dissolution. The decree also empowers more government officials in the communist bureaucracy—all the way down to the commune level or the smallest unit of local governance—to suspend religious activities and organizations.

How the new rules will play out in reality remains to be seen. One Vietnamese leader of a nondenominational ministry told Morning Star News that like previous legislation, “in Vietnam everything is open, everything is negotiable.” Despite what is written on paper, previous regulations have not been strictly enforced, and Christians with close relationships with government officials can continue worshiping in peace.

Vu said that even with the new decree in effect, pastors and church leaders in Vietnam remain steadfast and resilient.

“They are used to these restrictions,” Vu said. She described their attitude as “We’ll deal with it when it comes, but we’ll do whatever God calls us to do.”

- More from Caleb Maglaya Galaraga

Culture

Andrew Peterson: ‘No Teachable Moments’

Interview by J. D. Peabody

The writer of the best-selling children’s book series The Wingfeather Saga hopes season 2 of the television adaptation “will be taken as a story first.”

Season Two of The Wingfeather Saga

Courtesy of Angel Studios

Can a fantasy epic introduce the gospel to kids? That’s the hope behind The Wingfeather Saga, the children’s book series turned television show that’s just premiered its second season. (Episode 1 is available for viewing starting today, April 5, on www.angel.com; the remaining six episodes will be released weekly this spring.) The series tells the story of the three Igiby siblings—Janner, “Tink,” and Leeli—who live with their mother and grandfather in a world called Aerwiar. When the children learn that their family is at the center of a great mystery, their lives change forever.

Wingfeather came from the mind of award-winning author and musician Andrew Peterson. He recently spoke with J. D. Peabody, author of the children’s fantasy series The Inkwell Chronicles, about art, storytelling, and “making known the deeds of the Lord.” Their conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

What can Wingfeather fans expect in season 2?

There’s a lot of world-building that took place in season 1. With season 2, you’re off to the races. It comes out of the gate fast!

That said, season 2 is also the first time that the kids in the story are separated from their parents. It’s where character development begins—they’re having to solve problems on their own.

We’re not making a cartoon; we’re trying to tell an epic story and using animation to do it. Hopefully the result is something that feels like a real world. The stakes are high, though. The problems that this family faces are earthy, gritty, and painful.

Part of the reason we chose the art style that we did [known as “paint motion,” which blends traditional 2D animation with CGI characters] is that we didn’t want the show to feel disconnected from reality. Even though Wingfeather is set in a fantasy world, we wanted the characters to be people you’re getting to know and care about deeply. Even when they’re encountering things that are not of this world, they’re encountering them the way people in our world would.

Your aim has been to create something with appeal for all ages. What are some themes parents can watch for to discuss with their kids?

One theme that emerges in season 2 is around names, identity, and calling. For example, one of the main characters is called Tink—but his real name is Kalmar. His understanding of who he wants to be is at odds with who he is called to be. When I was writing the Wingfeather books more than 15 years ago, that’s one of the things God was teaching me—this idea that who he says I am is more foundational than who I think I am.

It’s important to me that this story operates as a story and not as a Sunday school lesson. Again and again in my notes for the writers on the show, I’ve written in all caps, “NO TEACHABLE MOMENTS.” At the dinner table afterward, you can find out what it has stirred up inside kids’ hearts and minds, what it is that they are learning.

I’m a pastor’s kid and my antenna is always up. Any time I sense that there’s a moral lesson as the agenda, it kind of pours water on the story for me.

My hope for The Wingfeather Saga is that it will be taken as a story first and will do this mysterious work that God has given stories to do in our hearts. It’s first and foremost an adventure with characters that kids can really identify with; we get to sit back and watch what the Holy Spirit does with it.

What kind of work do you imagine the Holy Spirit doing with it?

I grew up in the church, but I was a nominal Christian who didn’t really know Jesus or have a grasp of the gospel. I just didn’t get it. The year after I graduated from high school, I heard a song by Rich Mullins called “If I Stand.” Somehow it cut through all the other music I was listening to. It got my attention and helped me understand who Jesus really was. Back then, when I said, Yes, Jesus, I will follow you, my request to him was that I would someday be able to write music that would create that kind of moment for someone else.

I really believe in the arts. Poetry, storytelling, and music can sometimes be a portal. On the other side of that portal is the person of Jesus waiting to be discovered. One of my wildest hopes is that this show will be one of the bread crumbs on the way to someone discovering Jesus. Just a month ago or so, I received an email from a mom who said her son understood sin and salvation through the story of Kalmar Wingfeather [who runs from his true identity, losing his way before being restored]. When I read that email, I just started crying because it was an answer to that prayer.

If we can stir some longing in people, some unrest that leads them to find their own place in the story God is telling, that would be amazing.

Your creativity has taken many forms over the years—songwriting, sketching, painting, writing, etc. What has it been like trying your hand at filmmaking?

Filmmaking is much, much more difficult than any of these other endeavors. I’m so thankful that I get to be in the room, but I’m also thankful that the rest of the team has so much experience. The story has moved out from me into this objective space with all these other artists.

I started in music and I’m used to the collaborative process as a songwriter. I’m pretty well versed in not being precious about something that I’ve made; I’ve learned to care more about the thing itself than my own feelings.

In a previous interview with CT, you mentioned that you want to tell truth as beautifully as you can. Are there any new truths you’re learning in this season as you wrap up your annual Resurrection Letters tour?

There are times when I feel very tired and harried. I’m trying to find a balance between real Sabbath rest, stillness, and leading a quiet life, and at the same time being out on the road, on tour, proclaiming this incredible story.

To me, the tension is always in trying to understand if I’m supposed to pray for rest or vigor. I don’t know if I understand the answer to that question just yet. But on a day like today, I am thankful to have breath in my lungs and to be in this beautiful, broken world with this news.

The psalmists say so much about making known the deeds of the Lord; I think my wife and I both feel a calling and a passion for that. We’re trying to figure out how to trust God for the vigor to do that work while at the same time being courageous enough to sit still and say no to things—to realize that the kingdom is also showing up in the garden in our front yard or around the dinner table. Making known the deeds of the Lord also applies to being with our children and our granddaughter.

I don’t have as much shame and fear anymore. We have so much evidence at this point in our lives that God is not going to forsake us. It gives me a little more courage to move forward with a sense of obliviousness and joy.

J. D. Peabody is the pastor of New Day Church in Federal Way, Washington. He is the author of Perfectly Suited: The Armor of God for the Anxious Mind as well as the children’s fantasy series The Inkwell Chronicles.

- More from Interview by J. D. Peabody

Domestic Violence Is Rampant in Brazil. How Should Pastors Respond?

Compiled by Mariana Albuquerque

Statistics reveal that three out of ten women in the country have experienced abuse at some point in their lives. Theologians and leaders weigh on how to turn churches into safe places for them.

A demonstration in Brazil against sexual abuse of women in front of photos showing the victims of abuse.

NurPhoto / Getty / Edits by CT

For too many Brazilian women abused by their spouses, the answer church leaders have given to their suffering is Ephesians 5:22: “Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands.”

“It’s the cruelest phrase in the Bible,” one woman told journalist Marília de Camargo César, as she records in O Grito de Eva (Eve’s Cry). “[Church leaders] teach it in a twisted way, without taking into account the historical context, traditions, culture,” she explains, identified in the book only as Professor Regina.

Three out of ten Brazilian women suffer domestic violence at some point in their lives. The country has high rates of violence against women, ranking fifth in the world. Last year, a national hotline received calls from an average of 245 women each day reporting some kind of violence. All this in a nation where women comprise m ore than half (58%) of evangelicals.

Recent allegations of abuse in North American churches have generated discussion in the Brazilian church around the issue, but churches and denominations have standard procedures or adopted best practices for addressing domestic violence. Yet in an environment where many survivors don’t report violence because of shame and fear of retaliation, evangelical churches have the opportunity to be places of shelter and guidance for hurting women.

Given these realities, CT invited six evangelical leaders who are experts on the subject to answer the following question: “What should church leaders do when a female congregant says she has been a victim of abuse or violence?”

Answers have been edited for clarity and style.

Marília César, journalist and author of the book O Grito de Eva, São Paulo

Church leadership should encourage the person to report it and, if possible, accompany them to the police station to file a report.

Church leaders should then arrange for people, preferably women in the church with experience in this kind of violence, to walk alongside the victim, giving her emotional support and, if necessary, refer her to the appropriate health or mental health professionals.

The perpetrator, if he is a member of the church community, should be called to account. There are churches with therapeutic work that bring men together for a kind of group therapy to deal with abusive behavior and toxic relationships, but unfortunately, these initiatives are still not very common.

Churches need to address this issue more openly and more often until it becomes unacceptable for pastors and members to have to live with situations of sexual abuse in their congregations.

Alex Stahlhoefer, doctor of theology and professor at the Lutheran College of Theology, São Bento do Sul

The first response must always be to welcome the woman suffering. Jesus instructs us to weep with those who weep and to be consolers and comforters. We shouldn’t start by asking them about the details of the violence but should first offer emotional support so that they can express their pain, distress, and fears.

After that, it’s important to deal with the support network. Who will offer her shelter and safety? Can she return home? Who will accompany the victim to the police station to press charges? Care must be taken with the confidentiality of the information, as the victim is already fragile, and we can spare her from the unnecessary judgments of people who don’t need to know what happened.

If the abuser is a member of the congregation or a leader, the church must also take care that they do not use a position of leadership to coerce people to testify on their behalf or spread rumors about the victim’s image in order to diminish their responsibility.

A serious church should have a written statement, approved by the leadership and disseminated to all members, on how the church proceeds in cases of abuse and violence. Creating a culture where violence is not tolerated and where reports are taken seriously helps to create a healthy and safe environment for women.

Jennifer Carvalho, coordinator of the Imago Dei Mission and of the Cosmovision and Sexuality Study Group, Natal

First, church leaders need to be careful not to re-victimize the victim by asking inappropriate questions, asking too many details, or suggesting that they contributed to the abuse. It’s also important to identify whether the abuser is someone close to the victim, to keep her safe from him—if possible, the woman should be taken in by someone she trusts. In the event of rape, within 72 hours after the crime, the victim should be referred to a hospital for medical assessment. By law, victims under the age of 18 must be taken to the hospital.

After that, victims should be advised about the need to report the case to the police station and also be offered psychological and pastoral counseling.

If the abuser is part of the congregation, church leaders should start the disciplinary and removal process and direct him to hand himself in to the police and to start psychological treatment. Only after a few years, with psychological support and trained leadership, can it be assessed whether there has been genuine repentance. His reintroduction to the church, however, will probably not be possible, and the leadership will need, with discernment and study, to create another alternative.

If the person who committed the abuse is a church leader, the previous guideline applies concurrently with a realignment of the church regarding what happened. In addition, there needs to be extensive training about the abuse and its consequences, the publication of a sincere apology, the care of the victim, and an investigation to find out if there have been other cases—so that other possible victims can be cared for.

People will be encouraged to report if the church is welcoming and aware that abuse exists and if this sin is combated from the pulpit to the office.

Yago Martins, pastor of Maanaim Baptist Church, author, and YouTuber, Fortaleza

Unfortunately, many fellow pastors believe that they can only take action after investigating the story very thoroughly, interviewing the husband, and checking all the accounts for any contradictions, to find out whether the woman’s complaint is true or not. In this process it is also important to report the matter to the civil authorities, deposing leaders (if the abuser is someone in this position), [enacting] ecclesiastical discipline, and caring for the victim.

Even if the wife’s testimony alone doesn’t prove that the abuse really happened, the mere testimony should be enough for church leaders to protect the wife from her husband. Protection first, investigation later. I have personally dealt with false reports of abuse in my pastoral ministry, but I don’t regret for a minute having welcomed and protected someone who brought a report that in time turned out to be false. It’s better to offer protection that later turns out to be unnecessary than to run the risk of dismissing such a serious complaint and leaving someone at the mercy of an aggressor.

Douglas Baptista, pastor of the Assemblies of God and president of the Education and Culture Council of the General Convention of the Assemblies of God in Brazil (CGADB)

In the creation act, the divine image is distributed without distinction between men and women (Gen. 1:27). The Bible teaches the equal importance of both (1 Cor. 11:11–12). The Christian marriage model requires the husband to lead his home in the same way that Christ leads the church—that is, with a vital interest in his wife’s well-being (Eph. 5:28–29). The husband must love his wife as Christ loves the church. This implies practicing some kind of sacrifice (Eph. 5:25). The wife must be treated with love and not with violence, threats, or authoritarianism. The husband must care for his wife in the same way that he cares for himself (Eph. 5:28). This means protecting his wife and providing her with a dignified life. This care is not limited to material provisions but includes affection, consideration, and honor, among others. These actions must be sincere and permanent, both in public and in private (Col. 3:19).

According to the biblical model, no woman should be subjected to a toxic relationship. This type of abuse happens in different ways: verbally, physically, emotionally. For this reason, a wife should be aware of her husband’s aggressiveness and whether he becomes more aggressive when he is contradicted. When this happens, the first step is to immediately seek help and report any signs of violence to your leaders and the civil authorities.

If the abuser is a member or leader of the church, the case must be dealt with firmly to stop the abusive behavior. It should also be noted that sometimes women deny or do not see the situation of abuse, or try to justify the violent actions of their husbands. Therefore, it is essential to offer a support system, making women comfortable to approach and receive help.

Norma Braga, theologian and image consultant, São Paulo

Christians must realize that abusers are masters of the art of deception and abusers can be husbands, fathers, pastors, or youth leaders. Healthy leaders will act as protectors of women and children, who are usually the most likely to be victims.

The best prevention against abuse is to foster a Christ-centered culture in the church. It’s not enough for our theology to be accurate. In many cases of sexual abuse, even child abuse, the perpetrator is not reported to the police because “brother doesn’t go to court against brother”—but this argument is a distortion of the Word. In the event of a crime, the church needs to step back so that the state can deal with the case; it’s the state’s sphere, not the church’s.

Abuse among us Christians is even worse, as it is usually justified with odious readings from the Bible, which leaves deep scars on the soul. We need to go back to our origins, to the truly humble leadership of the Lord Jesus, who didn’t use the sheep for his own gain but sacrificed himself for them.

- More from Compiled by Mariana Albuquerque

Theology

New Atheism Finally Learns How to Destroy Christianity

Russell Moore

Richard Dawkins’s cultural “Christianity” could hollow out our faith far more efficiently than straightforward attacks.

Illustration by Christianity Today / Source Images: Unsplash

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

One of the most notorious atheists has had a “come to Jesus” moment. He’s also figured out, at long last, a way to undermine the Christian religion he loathes. And, unlike his previous efforts, this one could actually work.

Richard Dawkins, the author of The God Delusion, was among the most recognized proponents of New Atheism, a movement to reject the existence of God that had its golden era 15 or 20 years ago. Indeed, he was one of the movement’s “four horsemen,” along with Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and Daniel Dennett.

What was “new” about all of this was hardly the arguments, which were usually warmed-over Bertrand Russell. It was the fighting mood of it all. Audiences could feel a vicarious sense of “aren’t we naughty?” counterculturalism when they heard Hitchens ridiculing not just televangelists or abusive priests but Mother Teresa as a fraud. This theatricality eventually wore thin, until even fellow atheists seemed embarrassed by it.

But now Dawkins emerges again, this time in a viral video arguing for Christianity … kind of. He notes the plummeting of church attendance and Christian identification in his country, the United Kingdom, and says that, on one level, he’s glad to see it. Yet on the other hand, Dawkins continues, he’s “slightly horrified” to see the promotion of Ramadan in the UK. After all, he’s a Christian in a Christian country.

Lest anyone be confused, Dawkins made clear that he’s a “cultural Christian, … not a believer.” He loves the hymns and the Christmas carols and the cathedrals—everything about Christianity except, well, the Christ. “I like to live in a culturally Christian country,” Dawkins said, “although I do not believe a single word of the Christian faith.”

In this case, cultural Christian has a distinct meaning for Dawkins, which amounts to “not Muslim.” It’s a way of defining who we and they are based on national customs, not on any concern for who (or if) God is.

I immediately thought of a segment from the television series Ramy, in which the lead character, played by Ramy Youssef, talks with a Jewish businessman about similarities between the American Jewish and American Muslim experiences. One of the major similarities, the Ramy character says, is “Christmaslessness.”

I can’t think of a single one of my Jewish or Muslim friends and acquaintances who would define being a Jew or a Muslim that way (nor, I’m sure, would Youssef say that’s all of it). But I suspect there are some people for whom that feeling is a primary piece of their identity in America, for whom the issue isn’t whether God was really there at Sinai or at Mecca but rather who is part of us and who is them. The sort of “Christianity” Dawkins proposes just replaces “Christmaslessness” with “Christmasfulness,” “Easterfulness,” or, most accurately, “Ramadanlessness.”

Fifteen or so years ago, some Christian friends of mine were terrified of New Atheism. They took the “four horsemen” language as a signal of some sort of catastrophe of which these atheists were the vanguard. The project didn’t work, though. Yes, certain parts of the Western world have continued to secularize, but of all the reasons for a loss of faith, the arguments of The God Delusion probably aren’t one of them.

If I were a Screwtape, a literal devil’s advocate, advising atheists on how best to actually destroy the church, Dawkins’ kind of explicitly disenchanted cultural Christianity is not what I would propose. Overt atheism won’t work, at least at first. People are drawn to belong, and they are drawn to worship. I would, however, propose the basic impulse of what Dawkins said, though tied to rhetoric that still sounds religious. Attacking Christianity rarely works; co-opting it often does.

The urge to make religion the way to prove one’s cultural identity against “outsiders” will always find an eager audience. For those who worship their flesh—defined in terms of race, region, class, political identity, whatever—having a mascot they can call “God” will always be useful. The projection of all that they love about their own people, nation, and selves onto an unquestionable and unquestioning mascot can build cohesion. They might even call that mascot “Jesus.”

This kind of “Christianity” hollows out the Christian religion far more efficiently than straightforward attempts to convince people that God is a delusion. It defeats Christianity by replacing the living God with a God who is, in fact, a delusion.

It works to suppress the conscience that, in the deepest night, says, The God you are worshiping is a projection of your group; the group you are worshiping is a projection of yourself. It does away with a Christian faith that calls not for external conformity but for a new birth, a renewing of the mind, a union with the living Christ. Then it inhabits the husk of that religion, paganizing it until one can toss away the shell.

That final change doesn’t take long. And these blood-and-soil religions are never content to valorize their own blood and their own soil. They eventually move on to shedding other people’s blood, stealing other people’s soil.

The problem with Dawkins’s “cultural Christianity,” then, is not that he says it out loud; it’s that many people hold the same view and won’t say it … yet. Christianity is not about national anthems and village chapels and candlelight carol sings. It’s certainly not about using the levers of culture or the state to coerce other people to pretend that they are Christians when they are not.

If the gospel isn’t real, the gospel doesn’t work. Genuine paganism will win out over pretend Christianity every time.

The apostle Paul warned that in the last days false teachers would use whatever people lust for—pleasure, power, belonging, self—to introduce a kind of religion “having a form of godliness but denying its power” (2 Tim. 3:5). The devil is smart enough to use hollow, cultural Christianity to make us atheists in the long run, to realize that the best way to take down a cross is to replace it with a culture, a crown, or a cathedral—or a Christmas tree.

But remember: Jesus is alive and aware, and he’s a horseman too.

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

Theology

It’s the End of the World (But Not as We Know It)

Andrea L. Robinson

The total eclipse is the latest of many apocalyptic expectations corrupting our view of Revelation.

Illustration by Christianity Today / Source Images: WikiMedia Commons / Unsplash

Next week’s solar eclipse has stoked the flames of end-time speculations, once again whipping doomsday theorists into a frenzy.

As the April 8 event will take place primarily over North America, some in the US are anticipating a great Day of Judgment complete with terrorist attacks, biological warfare, and nuclear meltdowns. According to alt-right conspiracy theorists, including some fringe evangelical leaders, this war will usher in a new world order in which Christ will return and America (alongside Israel) will rule the nations.

This isn’t the first time apocalyptic predictions were based on impending eclipses—the same thing happened in 2017. But end-of-world interest seems to have increased over the last few years, as things like the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and the Israel-Hamas conflict have meant nearly every region of the globe has faced some sort of calamity. These and other recent tribulations have led many believers to conclude that the end is near. In fact, a Pew Research Center study found in 2022 that over 60 percent of evangelical Christians in the US believe we are living in the end times.

But while some passages in the Bible do link astronomical phenomena with “the end” (Matt. 24:29; Joel 2:31), doomsday prophets fail to explain why their biblical, global, and cosmic calculus often revolves around America. They further neglect the fact that an eclipse happens somewhere on Earth approximately every 18 months—and that these solar events have been associated with imminent doom for thousands of years without consequence.

And yet, based on the book of Revelation, end-time conspiracists are correct in one aspect of their eschatology: We are living in the end times. But not, perhaps, in the way they might think.

Empowering every generation to see signs of “the end” is precisely the brilliance of the last book in the Bible, which contains the most direct and sustained teaching on the end times in Scripture. John, our apocalyptic author, has masterfully woven together a series of symbolic visions that readers of any time can understand in their own context. Above all, Revelation vividly communicates the gospel message and how Jesus expects us to respond in the here and now—which is why it is just as crucial to our faith as the Gospels.

John teaches that the end is near—so near that it’s already here. Christ’s death and resurrection has inaugurated the last days (1 John 2:18; Heb. 1:2; Rev. 1:1–3), and only the Father knows when Jesus will return (Mark 13:32–33)—which means we don’t have to “decode” Revelation or pinpoint apocalyptic events. Yet this is precisely what many of its interpreters have tried to do.

One of the most popular Christian interpretations of the end times is Left Behind—a series franchise portraying the believers’ Rapture and the subsequent labyrinth of events. Although few are still talking about the books, and it’s been a decade since the last movie came out (which was criticized by CT’s own review and follow-up), the series has “left behind” an evangelical legacy of misinterpreting the Book of Revelation and its apocalyptic vision.

The first Left Behind novel was published a scant few weeks after I became a Christian in 1995, and at first, I consumed the literature with almost as much reverence as Scripture itself. But as I kept reading the series, my interest waned. It seemed to offer little substantive guidance for my burgeoning faith. So I concluded that the Book of Revelation, upon which the books are loosely based, must have little to offer as well. After all, if I was going to be raptured before all the frightening events of the Great Tribulation, why should I care about John’s apocalyptic vision?

But now, nearly 30 years later, I’m a Bible scholar who specializes in the study of Revelation, and I continually implore people to not misuse the book as fodder for such end-times predictions.

The most common way God’s people have distorted John’s Apocalypse is by correlating its visions with real-world events, and so misconstruing its primary message. In every period of history, God’s people have identified signs of “the end” and the nefarious forces that would bring it about. In fact, the end of the world has been variously calculated as the years A.D. 275, 365, 400, 500, 999, 1000, 1666, 1843, 1914, 1994, and 2000, just to name a few.

The problem is, there are real-world implications for these apocalyptic forecasts—especially when they are more informed by a political stance than by a responsible study of the Scriptures.

During the Crusades in the Middle Ages (A.D. 1095–1291), Western Europeans hoped retaking the Holy Land would usher in the return of Christ—and multitudes of Muslim and Jewish people were slaughtered in the process. A couple hundred years later, Protestant Reformers maligned the papacy of the Catholic church as the Antichrist. Soon after, American colonists sought to establish a “New World,” which was closely identified with the New Jerusalem of Revelation 21. Thus, England was seen as the “Beast,” and the British Stamp Act became his mark.

In the 1980s, apocalyptic thinking vilified Russia as an “evil empire,” who, along with China, was identified as Gog and Magog (Rev. 20:8)—vicious enemies who will come against God’s people (and/or Jerusalem) before (or after) the Millennium. Today Iran and Palestine are two more contenders for the Gog and Magog title. At the same time, some among the Russian Orthodox faith believe that America leads the forces of the Antichrist.

My point is that if you are reading the Book of Revelation looking for specific details—a date for the world’s end, the name of an antichrist, or nations to label as enemies of God—you’ll find them. There have always been, and there will always be, forces that oppose God and his people.

But it’s important for us to understand the underlying eschatology behind narratives like the Left Behind series, since it lingers on in the evangelical consciousness and colors the lens through which many still read and interpret the Book of Revelation. One key facet of this worldview is dispensational premillennialism, which holds that true believers will be raptured—or supernaturally transported—to heaven, prior to seven years of intense geological, social, and political upheaval during which the Antichrist will rise and the Jerusalem temple will be rebuilt.

This period, “the tribulation,” will conclude with a great final battle, Armageddon, after which Christ will return and reign on earth with his saints for a thousand years. And although we don’t have space to unpack all the problems with this interpretation, it should be noted that the major tenet of this teaching, the Millennium, is only mentioned in one highly disputed passage of Scripture (Rev. 20:1–7). But exegetical issues aside, what are the potential dangers of this thinking in practice as we daily seek to live out the gospel?

First, if we take this mindset to its logical extent, we run the risk of ignoring our most sacred calling: loving all our neighbors. Viewing other people or groups as the divinely foretold enemies of God absolves us from attempting to reach them with the gospel message. In other words, if the Bible predicts that a person or a group of people are going to be defeated by Christ and burn in the lake of fire (Rev. 20:11–15), who are we to say otherwise?

Instead, Revelation teaches us that our cruciform witness bears fruit and serves as the vehicle by which those who reject God repent and give him glory (Rev. 11:13; 21:24). When we live out the gospel in a broken world, we embody a better way of life—the truth that God is liberating his entire creation from the forces of sin and death.

Second, if we expect to be raptured prior to trials and tribulations, we won’t be prepared when they smack us in the face. A major facet of Revelation’s teaching is that disasters are going to occur time and again. In every age, God’s people will face geological, political, social, and personal calamities. But if we assume Christ will exempt us from such affliction, our faith can wither when we encounter it. Instead, John seeks to fortify our faith as he exhorts us to persevere through trials. We aren’t called to escape the world, but to bear witness to Christ in it.

Third, closely associated with “Left Behind” thought is the belief that the national/political entity of Israel enjoys a status that trumps that of other peoples and nations—in part because of the association of Zionism with American exceptionalism throughout modern history.

But the overwhelming teaching of the New Testament, including Revelation, indicates that all the peoples of the earth are equally treasured by God. The Father desires every people groupto experience his love and grace through Christ (Acts 10:34–35; 2 Pet. 3:9). Biblically and theologically speaking, no national entity, including America and Israel, receives special favor in the eyes of God. And to say otherwise can greatly hinder the spread of the gospel in the world.

With the increasing polarization of the United States and with traditional Judeo-Christian values often being denounced as white nationalism, it is vital for us to affirm that the teachings of Scripture, the salvation of God and his promises are equally available to all peoples. Such a principle is not arbitrarily imposed upon Scripture but arises directly from sound exegesis.

If the point of Revelation isn’t to give us a map of end-time events, what is it for and why do we need it? The purpose of Revelation is to motivate believers through a message of hope. Jesus has already defeated evil! We aren’t waiting on the Rapture, the Antichrist, or Armageddon. We are waiting for Jesus. Out of his love and grace, God may tarry—but when Jesus finally returns, he will come triumphantly to judge evil as well as reclaim and renew God’s creation.

In the meantime, believers continue to “war” on his behalf—not against flesh and blood but against the unseen powers of this world (Eph. 6:12). And our victory is achieved paradoxically through suffering and self-sacrifice. Just as Christ accomplished the redemption of the world through his sacrificial death, so also Christ’s followers are called to become instruments of restoration through our own cruciform obedience and perseverance.

The means of victory in the Apocalypse is both counterintuitive and countercultural. The idea of a future Rapture, in which believers escape tribulation by being supernaturally transported to heaven, completely misses the point of the book. Even worse, expecting Christ to return at the end of time to defeat his enemies through earthly warfare is to make the same mistake as the first-century Jewish people who expected their Messiah to overthrow Rome.

To place our hope in a Messiah who wins through superior power and military might is to agree with the ideology of this world rather than that of the slain-yet-standing Lamb. The Messiah we follow is the one who conquered by means of a humiliating, painful, and public death.

All this rich teaching is lost when we see Revelation as a series of events to decode. Reading the book through any other lens than its own severely impedes our ability to embrace its missional and spiritual significance. So how do we avoid this pitfall and appropriate the message of Revelation in a way that edifies our faith, transforms our theology, and benefits God’s creation?

First, we must study Scripture contextually. If we read Revelation in the context of the Gospels (and the rest of the NT), the image of a militant messiah who returns to slaughter his foes is nonsensical. We must also take the book’s genre into account. Revelation is apocalyptic literature, which contains symbolic communication, allowing us to see reality from a different perspective. An apocalypse doesn’t tell us about the end of the world but does something far more important: it reveals the true nature of the world.

In fact, the English word apocalypse stems from the Greek word apocalypsis, which means “a revelation,” not “the end of the world,” as it has come to mean in vernacular English (which, of course, is why the name of John’s book was translated as “Revelation”). And if that weren’t enough to convince us, John himself tells us that his visions are symbolic (1:1), a nuance that is often obscured in English translations. (The Holman Christian Standard Bible comes closest to the precise meaning with the translation that God “signified” the message to John, with a footnote that he “made it known through symbols.”)

Second, seeing reality from God’s perspective should galvanize our mission to the world. John’s message of victorious perseverance in the face of hostility was initially intended to reorient the identity and purpose of early Christians under the dominion of Rome—exhorting them to overcome the pressure to compromise with a pagan society. In much the same way, we should be motivated to embody the truth of the gospel in a world that rejects Christ and his kingdom.

John teaches that God opposes evil and fights on behalf of justice, and that he will one day decisively defeat all forces of darkness in the earthly and spiritual realms. But for now, God chooses to work primarily through the church and his saints. So, we should publicly fight for truth, goodness, and righteousness and oppose all falsehood, injustice, and evil on behalf of every people group. And we must resist the temptation to align ourselves with ideologies that are socially popular or politically expedient, even if we end up facing persecution for our refusal to join the bandwagon—knowing we’ll be ready for every trial.

Lastly, solar eclipse or not, we are called to live every day as if it is our last. And whether Jesus returns in a day, a month, or a thousand years, we are called to publicly speak and sacrificially embody the truth of the gospel. We can’t know the day or hour, but Scripture says Jesus’ return draws closer with every passing day (Matt. 25:13; 1 Pet. 4:7). Such a biblical truth should realign all our activities, goals, plans, and relationships this side of eternity.

We are living in the end times. So what are we going to do about it?

Andrea L. Robinson is a professor at Huntsville Bible College, an interdenominational speaker, and the author of numerous publications on Revelation, eschatology, and ecotheology.

- More from Andrea L. Robinson

Books

Review

The Bible’s Development Is a Messy Story, but It Can Bolster Our Faith

John D. Meade

If anything, the historical details are even messier than Susan Lim’s new account allows.

Illustration by Christianity Today / Source Images: WikiMedia Commons / Getty

What does history have to do with faith? Everything. As Paul attests in 1 Corinthians 15, Christ died. He was buried. He was raised on the third day. And then “he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve,” and then “to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time (vv. 5–6). Because Jesus’ work for his people unfolded on earth for everyone to see, the apostles proclaimed historical events.

Light of the Word: How Knowing the History of the Bible Illuminates Our Faith

Susan C. Lim (Author)

240 pages

$16.99

What, then, does faith have to do with history? Again, everything. The events proclaimed include the Messiah’s death and resurrection, and faith grasps Jesus’ and the apostles’ interpretation of these events, for Christ died for our sins (1 Cor. 15:3) and was raised for our justification (Rom. 4:25). Christians have long embraced the maxim of “faith seeking understanding,” which entails reasoning and asking questions about the content of our faith, as Augustine explains in his Confessions—but always against a backdrop of ultimate confidence in God and the truths of Scripture.

Susan C. Lim models these habits in her book Light of the World: How Knowing the History of the Bible Illuminates Our Faith. Lim, a Biola University history professor, tells the story of how Scripture came to be, detailing all the twists and turns, all the complex debates and deliberations, that resulted in a settled tradition of which books constitute God’s Holy Word. This story, as she demonstrates, is far from neat and tidy—but understood rightly, can strengthen our trust in both the Bible and God’s sovereign guidance over human affairs. Lim wants her readers to join her in the spirit and faith of the Virgin Mary, asking, “How can this be?” (Luke 1:34, NRSV).

Lim’s book is no mere history of the Bible. Weaving her Christian testimony into chapters on the Bible’s history, her candor is refreshing, even as she shares past doubts and questions leading up to her “second confession” that all the Bible is God’s Word. Not every book recounting the Bible’s history contains a chapter on miracles or even takes up matters of interpretation, archaeological evidence, or the historical reliability of the biblical accounts themselves.

Lim rolls up her sleeves and delves into how the Protestant Bible came to have its 66 books (39 in the Old Testament and 27 in the New Testament). Convinced that knowledge of the Bible’s history can breathe life into our faith, she gives readers the facts, even as she admits that those facts do require interpretation. Lim knows the subject can be contentious, for the evidence sometimes leads down murky paths that don’t always go where we think they should. Many readers will resonate with Lim’s intention and design in this book. I certainly do.

The Old Testament and the Hebrew canon

In this same spirit, then, I want to encourage readers in their study of the history of the Bible as I engage Lim’s book on that subject. In my judgment, the book contains several inaccuracies or outdated theories. A few brief examples will suffice before addressing more significant matters.

Consider, for instance, Lim’s claim that Jerome, the early church priest who translated the Bible into Latin, “perhaps proposed” Ezra as the author of the Pentateuch, or the first five books of the Old Testament. But Jerome, in his treatise Against Jovinianus, comes closer to affirming Moses as the author; in another work, The Perpetual Virginity of Blessed Mary, he merely leaves open the possibility that Ezra restored the Pentateuch rather than writing it. A little later, Lim erroneously claims that the Gospel of Thomas circulated in two versions rather than listing two different literary works (the other is entitled the Infancy Gospel of Thomas).

As an account of the Protestant Bible, Lim narrates the relationship between the Hebrew and Protestant canons. Jews and Protestants have the same contents in what they respectively call the Hebrew Bible and the Old Testament, even though each group numbers, orders, and categorizes the books differently. Regarding whether the Tanakh (an acronym for the three parts of the Hebrew canon) was the Bible that Jesus read, Lim cautiously proposes that it “was considered a tradition by Jesus’ time” and that “we don’t know the definitive answer to this question.” Elsewhere, however, Lim concludes more confidently that the Tanakh “served as the foundation for Jesus’ ministry and the birth of Christianity.”

But the fact is that when Protestants began to list the books of the Old Testament, they did not refer to the Tanakh anywhere. For example, Martin Luther’s Bible (1534) lists the Old Testament contents according to the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible but preserves an order of History, Poetry, and Prophecy. This structure can be traced to early Christians like Gregory of Nazianzus, who lists 22 books, according to the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet, and divides them into three parts: 12 historical books (like Joshua), 5 poetic books (like Proverbs), and 5 prophetic books (like Isaiah).

The Tanakh, for Lim, aids interpretation of individual books like Esther, since its three-part categorization of Law, Prophets, and Writings provides clues to how early readers interpreted individual books, and her observations on Esther in this regard are noteworthy. Still, she could have guided her readers to other ancient Hebrew canon structures and categories (still visible in most English Bibles today) that could illuminate how early readers interpreted books in light of their placement next to other books.

As readers wade into Light of the World, they will encounter terms and categories that early Christians developed to describe their religious literature. These include homologoumena, or “books unquestionably included in the canon”; antilegomena, referring to books “initially classified as canonical but later disputed”; and pseudepigrapha, books that are “religious in nature but outside the canon.” And a fourth category, the Old Testament Apocrypha, denotes “books added to the Greek Septuagint but never included in the Hebrew Old Testament.”

Researchers now refer to a great number of books (like 1 Enoch) a pseudepigrapha, even though early Christians did not use the term often (Cyril of Jerusalem mentioned “falsely titled” gospels like Thomas) and would have labeled these books as apocryphal or “hidden books.” In the heat of polemic, Jerome once referred to Tobit, Judith, Ecclesiasticus (also known as Ben Sira or Sirach), Wisdom of Solomon, and 1 and 2 Maccabees as “apocrypha.” But elsewhere he recommends these books as edifying reading, albeit not for the sake of confirming church doctrines.

Jerome thus joins other early Christians like Athanasius in describing a middle category of religious literature: neither canonical nor apocryphal, but useful and beneficial. Lim does not mention this middle category, and it leads to a problem as she reconstructs the church fathers’ understanding of how the Bible came to be. Many early Christians may have had a high view of these middle-tier books but would not have described them as canonical, disputed, or apocryphal.

The problem comes to a head in Lim’s discussion of the Septuagint (a Greek book collection notoriously difficult to define) and the Apocrypha. Lim holds that some Jewish scribes were responsible for adding books to the Septuagint that later became known as the Apocrypha. Later, Lim claims “the Apocrypha was appended to the Septuagint, which came to be known as the ‘Alexandrian List.’” This list was compiled in Alexandria, Egypt, even though the Jews never accepted the Apocrypha as canonical. The confusion set in, writes Lim, when some church fathers “misunderstood the Hebrew tradition and regarded some Apocryphal books as canonical.”

The history is messier. There is no evidence that Alexandrian Jews drafted a canon list or that they possessed a different canon than other Jews. This theory has been largely abandoned since the 1960s. Moreover, contrary to what Protestants might expect, many early Christians described the church’s Old Testament canon as agreeing with the Hebrew canon. Slightly later, Christians like Augustine developed a rival tradition based on the idea that the biblical canon encompasses books that the churches read and accepted.

In short, the Protestant Old Testament would come to reflect an early Christian view that limited the Old Testament to the Hebrew canon, while the Roman Catholic Old Testament would reflect another early Christian canon articulated by Augustine and the Synods of Hippo and Carthage. Lim is wrong, then, to state that the 16th-century Council of Trent, the main driver of the Catholic “Counter-Reformation,” was the first to reckon the Apocrypha as canonical. Trent was only the first council to pronounce “anathema” on those who refused to accept its canon.

The fourth century and before

In later sections of the book, Lim navigates similar challenges to the formation of the New Testament canon. Here, we’re introduced to heresies like Gnosticism and Marcionism, along with other early Christian literary works like the Shepherd of Hermas and the Didache. Again, the history behind the formation of the New Testament is messy, but when we grasp it rightly, as Lim contends, we see that God’s sovereignty was never thwarted. Furthermore, Lim believes Christians should take comfort in the fact that the New Testament canon came together in the fourth century and not earlier, since the church fathers were working diligently to distinguish canonical books from other books.

Lim interprets the Roman emperor Constantine’s conversion to Christianity in the fourth century as “pivotal” to the establishment of the church and the confirmation of the New Testament canon. Rightly, she avoids crediting the Council of Nicaea (A.D. 325) with creating the canon, but her emphasis on the council’s debates over orthodoxy and heresy does leave open the question of how those debates related to the New Testament’s formation.

For Lim, the end of the fourth century—the era of the Synods of Hippo (A.D. 393) and Carthage (A.D. 397)—brought about the great achievement of officially recognizing the New Testament canon. And no doubt the fourth century brought clarity to some books like 2 John, 3 John, and 2 Peter, which were not clearly recognized before then.

But Lim’s emphasis on the fourth-century culmination might cause readers to skip over important earlier developments in canon history, like the assembling of the fourfold gospel or the Pauline letters. Around A.D. 250, Origen of Alexandria had already listed the 27 books of the New Testament canon. Thus, the core of the New Testament was already established by the fourth century. Though some point to Athanasius’s 39th festal letter (A.D. 367) as authoritatively defining the New Testament canon, it was only a point of development in this process—not its final resolution.

History is messy because it involves people and materials, and the evidence we possess does not allow us to answer all our questions. But for Lim, the Bible’s history should not occasion despair or the deconstructing of one’s faith. Rather than weakening faith, knowledge of the Bible’s history serves to buttress and strengthen it—and, dare I say, even excite and inspire it. “Faith seeking understanding” commits one to trust God’s good providence even as one’s understanding increases through questioning and interpreting the evidence.

I hope readers of Lim’s book join her in the ever-deepening joy of discovering more of the Bible’s history and how it illuminates the Christian faith. If readers walk away even remotely more confident in the Bible’s trustworthiness and authenticity, and further encouraged on their own faith journeys, then Lim should count her mission successful.

John D. Meade is professor of Old Testament and director of the Text & Canon Institute at Phoenix Seminary. He is coauthor of Scribes & Scripture: The Amazing Story of How We Got the Bible (Crossway).

- More from John D. Meade

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The Old Testament and the Hebrew canon

The fourth century and before

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