Praying in the Shadow of Gethsemane

What Jesus’ midnight prayer in the garden tells us about cosmic conflict in the supernatural realm.

Christ in the Gethsemane Garden by Arkhip Kuindzhi

Wikimedia Commons

“Father, if it is your will, please heal your servant; yet not our will, but yours be done.” As a child, I recall hearing this kind of prayer and feeling deeply puzzled. If it is your will? I thought. Why wouldn’t it be God’s will to heal his servant?

Such prayers are not theologically incorrect—they echo the words of Christ himself and, rightly understood, believers ought to pray likewise. But wrongly understood, such prayers can be deeply confusing and troubling.

Imagine a young girl hearing people pray those words for her mother suffering with terminal cancer. What is she to think? Why wouldn’t God want to heal mommy—does he want her to suffer and die? Doesn’t God love mommy and me?

Even the most spiritually mature adults can struggle with the purpose and effect of their prayers—particularly when God seems absent or silent in their hour of greatest need, despite how faithfully and fervently they pray. If God is perfectly good, all-powerful, and knows our needs before we ask (as Jesus himself taught in Matthew 6:8), how could our prayers make any difference in God’s action? Wouldn’t God already know, will, and do whatever is preferable regardless of whether or how we pray?

These are not easy questions to answer, and they bring up sticky theological quandaries, such as how God’s sovereignty and human free will could possibly coexist. On this issue, Christians land on various parts of a spectrum, seeing it as some form of divine determinism, an optimistic vision of human partnership with God, or something else. Some see prayer primarily as a personal devotional practice that does not influence divine action, while others assume that unanswered prayers reflect the lack of faith of those praying.

In cases such as these, it’s critical that we return to the biblical text. And specifically, we can learn much from the example of how Jesus himself prayed in the New Testament.

The gospel writers record the words of Jesus’ prayers on a limited number of occasions. Among these are the Lord’s Prayer, the High Priestly Prayer in John 17, and Christ’s prayers in the garden of Gethsemane shortly before his death, during which he was in so much anguish that he sweat blood. Though brief, Christ’s prayers in Gethsemane are especially profound and shed significant light on how to pray faithfully amid such questions.

It was the night before Jesus was to be crucified. In deep distress, he withdrew to pray, as he often did. Enveloped by profound darkness, “overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death” (Matt. 26:38), Jesus instructed his disciples to pray, moved a little way off, and “fell with his face to the ground,” praying, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will” (Matt. 26:39).

If it is possible? How could anything not be possible for God? Jesus also prayed, “Father! All things are possible for You” (Mark 14:36, NASB). Why, then, did he pray, “if it is possible”?

Taken together, these verses indicate that, in one sense, all things are possible for God—as all-powerful, God can do anything that does not involve a logical contradiction. But in another sense, some outcomes might not be possible for God —for example, those that require him to break his promises, behave contrary to his nature, or act against his overarching will.

Could Christ have avoided the cross? He certainly possessed the power to do so. Later, when Peter tried to save Jesus by cutting off the ear of one of those sent to arrest him, Jesus rebuked him and said, “Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels? But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way?” (Matt. 26:53–54).

The real question is, could Christ have avoided the cross and still saved sinners? To which the answer seems to be no. This passage shows us that it must not have been possible for Christ to fulfill his overarching mission—to save the world from sin and defeat suffering and death itself—without facing the cross.

“If it is possible” seems to indicate that some avenues are not available to God in keeping with his goals and commitments. God was committed to justifying sinners (while himself remaining perfectly just) and to demonstrating his love in such a way that darkness would be defeated for good (Rom. 3:25–26; 5:8; Rev. 21:4). Because of this, God could not bring about his greater desire of saving humans without the suffering of the cross. In the ultimate act of love and justice, Jesus willingly chose to lay down his life (John 1:17–18) and “for the joy set before him he endured the cross” (Heb. 12:2).

But Christ’s midnight prayer in the garden of Gethsemane didn’t end there. After praying, “if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me,” he added, “yet not as I will, but as you will” (Matt. 26:39). Later, Christ prayed twice more, “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done” (vv. 42, 44). Interestingly, this last phrase appears earlier in the Book of Matthew when Jesus teaches his followers how to pray in the Lord’s Prayer (Matt. 6:9–13). Understanding this context sheds even more light on Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane.

The Lord’s Prayer includes seven petitions, starting with “hallowed [or sanctified] be your name;” “your kingdom come;” and “your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (vv. 9–10). These first three petitions are closely related. Praying that God’s will be done on earth as in heaven suggests his will is not always done—at least not here and now. Likewise, praying for God’s kingdom to come indicates that it has not yet been fully realized in our midst.

Importantly, asking for God’s name to be hallowed (sanctified) points to a need for God’s name (reputation) to be vindicated. Yet God’s name cannot be vindicated in full unless and until evil is defeated and the enemy’s kingdom is uprooted. So, the first three petitions ultimately point to the last—“deliver us from the evil one” (v. 13)—because praying for God’s name to be hallowed is to pray for his kingdom to come and his will to be done. In David Crump’s words, “Just as praying for the kingdom to come is to ask for the sanctification of God’s name, so too is it asking for the Father’s ‘will to be done.’”

In these ways and others, the Lord’s Prayer points to an ongoing cosmic conflict between God’s kingdom of light and the devil’s temporary kingdom of darkness (Rev. 12:7–10).

Jesus himself repeatedly identifies the devil as the “ruler of this world” (John 12:31 NASB), indicating Satan possesses some genuine (though limited and temporary) rulership in this world, though his end is rapidly approaching (Rev. 12:12, Rom. 16:20). We know the devil deceives the whole world (Rev. 12:9), works against God’s will (Eph 6:11–12) and threatens God’s kingdom (Acts 26:18). Yet, at every turn, Christ counters and undoes the devil’s schemes.

As Brian Han Gregg notes, the “conflict between God and Satan is clearly a central feature of Jesus’ teaching and ministry.” Indeed, Christ “appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8, NASB) so that “by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil” (Heb. 2:14).

The cosmic conflict between God and Satan is not a conflict of power alone since no creature could engage in conflict with the all-powerful God at his level of sheer power. Instead, the Bible portrays it as a conflict over the devil’s slanderous allegations against God’s name (Job 1–2; Rev. 12:9–11). God could not refute such accusations by a show of power, but only by demonstrating his love and righteousness (Rom. 3:25-26; 5:8)—manifested supremely in Christ’s atoning work, and which ushered in his kingdom.

I say much more about how this cosmic conflict framework sheds light on petitionary prayer in my upcoming book, but here, it’s sufficient to say that prayer sometimes makes a difference relative to what avenues are “morally available” to God in keeping with his promises and commitments—including what I call the “rules of engagement” in the cosmic conflict (see, for instance, Jesus’ remarks in Mark 9:29).

How, then, should we pray this side of heaven, in which “the whole world lies in the power of the evil one” (1 John 5:19, NASB)? In short, we can pray like Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. Especially when we’re facing times of profound suffering and darkness in our lives, we can pray not only that God’s will be done but also, “if it is possible, may this cup be taken.”

It was not the Father’s desire or preference that Christ should suffer and die—as Scripture tells us, God takes no pleasure in anyone’s death (2 Pet. 3:9; Ezek. 18:32), let alone that of his beloved Son. Yet Isaiah says, “It was the Lord’s will to crush him” (53:10). In what sense? Strictly because this was God’s only route to redeem sinners and save the cosmos from darkness.

God’s will to remedy all that has gone wrong in our fallen world is what I call his remedial will. This is distinct from his ideal will—which Scripture makes clear was, from the beginning, that no sin, evil, or suffering would have occurred at all.

With this understanding, we can pray for deliverance from suffering and death with confidence that such prayer aligns with God’s ideal will. Yet we also recognize God’s remedial will might take another course due to countless other factors in the cosmic conflict, many of which we cannot see. As such, we should follow Christ in praying, “if it is possible”—given what is available and preferable, and given everything God knows about all factors involved, whether seen or unseen.

However we pray, this cosmic-conflict framework highlights that there are far more factors involved in regard to God’s action (and apparent inaction) than we can fathom. We may ask for reprieve from whatever trial we or a loved one might be facing, but while doing so, we should recognize that God takes into account many factors that are unseen from our perspective. As such, we may fervently pray for God’s intervention, perhaps sometimes even crying out to God that we feel forsaken by him (Matt. 27:46).

At the end of the day, we can know that God does not desire or take delight in our pain. Instead, he chooses to align himself with all human suffering in the person of Jesus Christ. Ultimately, we can place our trust in God’s unwavering goodness, justice, and love—which Christ made unmistakably clear in his death on the cross.

John C. Peckham is research professor of theology and Christian philosophy at Andrews University. His forthcoming book is Why We Pray: Understanding Prayer in the Context of Cosmic Conflict.

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Theology

The Steep Price of Pilate’s Fame

Esau McCaulley

Billions know the Roman governor’s name. But he didn’t know the very son of God standing before him.

Behold the Man by Antonio Ciseri

Wikimedia Commons / Edits by CT

I am in the apparently small category of men unconcerned with the Roman Empire. I could probably describe key events in the reigns of three to five of its rulers, but not much more. And when it comes to recalling this kind of detail, I suspect I’m not alone. All but a handful of these ancient leaders have vanished from the public imagination. They struggled, fought, murdered, and schemed their way to supremacy only to be forgotten.

The same is true of American presidents, despite their greater proximity. I know the exceptionally good and bad, but others who held the highest office in the land do not register. Such are the vicissitudes of history. In our vanity, we humans want to etch our names in the record—only for the next generation to arrive well stocked with erasers.

But Pontius Pilate, the first-century governor of the Roman province of Judea, did succeed in being memorable. At Easter, unruly young boys will bound into churches decked in homemade Roman military garb playing the role of Pilate. He’s a central character in the dramatic reenactments of every Holy Week.

He is mentioned in the Nicene Creed, a central confession of our faith. The name Pontius Pilate has been recited countless times, Sunday after Sunday over the last millennia and half since that creed’s ratification, giving him one of the most recognizable names in the world. The creed refers to his role in the death of Jesus with characteristic brevity: “he was crucified under Pontius Pilate.” The words have been said by billions, but who was this provincial governor, and what does he have to teach us about the perils of significance?

Pilate was from the upper crust of Roman society. He’d been given governorship of Judea, an unstable region prone to uprising and rebellion. He likely saw his time there as a steppingstone to something grander, such as oversight of a more appealing part of the empire.

In this, Pilate was like many careerists who have been in one place on the way to somewhere else. Ambition is common to humanity. Many of us have a goal of building a résumé and finally getting to whatever position we believe is necessary to make a name for ourselves. We have an innate desire to do something special, to be memorable.

It is in this context that Pilate meets Jesus. In Matthew’s gospel, by the time Jesus arrives at Pilate’s step, he has already been arrested and questioned by the Sanhedrin (Matt. 26:57–68). It is Friday morning, and Pilate initially poses one direct question to Jesus: “Are you the king of the Jews?” (Matt. 27:11). For the Jewish people, this was a theological question related to the fulfillment of messianic prophecy and the hope of God’s rescue. For Pilate, it was none of those things. For Pilate, the issue was whether Jesus claimed a kingship that might threaten the Pax Romana.

Christians remember Jesus’ pending death at the hands of Pilate as part of the gospel story, but for Pilate, the question was largely political and personal: Would it be better for Pilate’s career aspirations in the empire if Jesus were to die? Despite his apparent realization that Jesus is innocent of the political charges against him (Luke 23:13–16), Pilate ultimately answers in the affirmative and sentences Jesus to death.

In this, Pilate represents all the moral compromises we make to achieve what society tells us we should desire. In the US, throughout our republic, there is widespread consensus that leaders in both major parties have so often made this kind of compromise that the only guiding principle in our politics is the acquisition of more power.

This suspicion has spread beyond government to include the media, banks, and even religious institutions—to the point that we may wonder whether it’s worth struggling against this pervasive corruption at all. The church itself is corrupt, we may think. Love doesn’t last. Our employers only want to take advantage of us. Politicians don’t have our interests in mind. Why not despair?

If so many of our leaders and institutions are out for themselves, why not create our own fiefdoms by any means necessary? We see it all around us: Our school board meetings, church gatherings, and interpersonal and online interactions can be just as toxic as our national discourse. Must we become cruel to survive these dark times we inhabit? Did Pilate get it right?

There’s a danger in thus adopting the moral posture of the empire to get ahead. It’s possible to arrive at the job of our dreams and regret the kind of person we became to get there. There is a reason Jesus asked what it profits a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul (Mark 8:36).

By the time he hands down the final sentence, the gospels don’t depict Pilate as having pangs of conscience over condemning Jesus to death. Perhaps such things had ceased to bother him, for the danger of moral compromise is that the more we do it, the easier it becomes.

Pilate is remembered as the paradigmatic example of moral compromise and its corruption of the human heart. It seems that when he came into the presence of someone truly good and beautiful—the very son of God—he failed to recognize it. He viewed Jesus as an obstacle to ambition to be overcome.

This is a warning to us all. When true goodness stands before us, even if it is beaten and bloody, can we still see it for what it is?

I worry that, as the church, we have ceased to see Jesus and his way as good news. I do not refer to wanting to receive the saving benefits of his death and resurrection, but whether his life and way of being still capture our imagination. Does Jesus’ call to care for the least of these (Matt. 25:40) and pursue personal holiness (Matt. 5–7) still have a hold on our hearts? Does the cross as power in weakness (1 Cor. 1:18) still inform how we engage the world? Or do we want power to bend the wills of men and women?

Pilate was wrong—he wanted the wrong things, and, if we are honest, so do we. The central question of human existence is not, How do I acquire significance so as to be remembered? The question is, Can I recognize and follow the Way of truth and goodness when I encounter it?

After Jesus was crucified, he rose again. This is the message of Easter. Pilate’s dismissal of beauty was overruled, his error becoming a footnote in redemptive history.

Nonetheless, the resurrection is about more than proving Pilate wrong. The resurrection confirms the things Jesus said about himself—that he is the Son of God. It vindicates and solidifies Jesus’ whole life as miracle and offers a different way of being human, a way not defined by the pursuit of power and significance at the expense of character.

Love for God and neighbor, concern for the oppressed, and sacrifice for others are not folly. Holiness is still right. Maybe this is why the creed has the audacity to say Pilate’s name: to remind us that there are more important things than being remembered for our power.

Esau McCaulley is an associate professor of New Testament at Wheaton College and the author of How Far to the Promised Land: One Black Family’s Story of Hope and Survival in the American South and the forthcoming children’s book Andy Johnson and the March for Justice. He is currently on sabbatical at Yarnton Manor and Wycliffe Hall in Oxford.

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News

After Terrorists Kill 130, Russian Evangelicals Resist Revenge

Jayson Casper

As Moscow and Kyiv trade insinuations over concert hall killing claimed by ISIS affiliate, Christian leaders focus on compassion and forgiveness instead of blame.

Flowers and toys left in memory of the victims lost in a terrorist attack on Crocus City Hall in Moscow.

Olga Maltseva / Getty

Russian evangelicals used Sunday sermons to condemn a terrorist attack that killed more than 130 people at a Moscow concert hall.

As Russia’s Baptist union prayed for “God’s mercy and protection,” its Pentecostal union conveyed its “bitterness and sorrow.” Vitaly Vlasenko, general secretary of the Russian Evangelical Alliance, called it a “painful shock” that could unleash “unbridled revenge” against terrorism.

But many in Russia are wondering: Who are the terrorists?

The attack on Friday that killed at least 137 people at the 6,200-seat Crocus City Hall was claimed by the ISIS affiliate in Afghanistan’s Khorasan Province (ISIS-K), which seeks an Islamic caliphate in Central Asia. Its statement emphasized it was targeting Christians and came in the “natural framework” of its war against the enemies of Islam.

Earlier this month, the US embassy in Moscow had issued a warning to avoid large gatherings. American officials stated they shared their intelligence with Russia. On March 7, Russia said it thwarted an attack on a synagogue, and a few days prior, security services killed six ISIS-K terrorists during a shootout in the nation’s Muslim Caucasus region.

The group was also linked to the 2017 St. Petersburg metro bombing that killed 15.

ISIS-K was formed by extremists seeking a more violent path than the Pakistani Taliban in 2015, the same year Russia formally intervened in Syria to support President Bashar al-Assad. A Sunni group, ISIS and its affiliates oppose Assad’s Alawite faith as heretical and considers Shiite Muslims as apostate.

In January, ISIS-K killed 95 Iranians in Kerman at a memorial service for Qasem Soleimani, leader of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps who was assassinated by the US in 2020. And as American forces withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021, an ISIS-K attack on the Kabul airport killed 13 US soldiers and 170 civilians.

Analysts stated, however, that ISIS-K was increasingly targeting Russia.

Russia has arrested 11 suspects, with four alleged gunmen from Tajikistan now on trial.

But President Vladimir Putin, reelected March 17 with 88 percent of a vote Western observers declared was neither free nor fair, did not mention Islamic terrorism when he declared a national day of mourning. Official statements of blame have been vague, while the deputy head of Russia’s security council openly speculated that if Ukraine was involved, its leaders “must be tracked down and killed without mercy.”

“Are you sure it’s ISIS?” asked Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson, suggesting the group was being used as a “bogeyman.” The Russian ambassador to the US denied receiving any advance information from the US. And a nationalist media outlet urged the Kremlin to give Ukrainians 48 hours to evacuate major cities.

Just a few hours prior to the concert hall massacre, in a wide barrage against Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure, Russia had targeted its largest hydroelectric dam, leaving more than one million people without electricity.

Ukraine has denied any involvement in the terrorist attack.

Its military intelligence spokesperson, however, suggested instead that it was a “deliberate act of provocation” by Putin, while President Volodymyr Zelensky stated it was typical of such “thugs” to divert blame. He also alluded to unproven accusations that terrorist attacks in 1999 were a false flag operation, and that Putin considered his own citizens to be “expendables.”

The US stated that ISIS-K alone carried out the attack, with Ukraine uninvolved.

Russian evangelical sources did not comment on the mutual accusations. They emphasized the outpouring of prayer, sympathy for victims, and the need to trust God and resist any urge for revenge.

“Evil is spreading across the earth,” said Alexey Markevich, vice rector for academic affairs for Moscow Theological Seminary, who has criticized the war in Ukraine. “Lord, give us peace, and prevent any of us from being consumed by evil.”

Christians4Peace, an anonymous Russian antiwar group, condemned the near-simultaneous terrorist atrocity and the attack on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure.

“Teach us to love our enemies,” the group posted on its Telegram account. “Show us what we can still do, because we sometimes feel that nothing can be done.”

And a Russian Orthodox leader serving with the Faith2Share network of evangelical agencies, who asked that his full name not be used for security reasons, said the attack was still “too raw” to offer many thoughts. But as he spoke of a sense of “hopelessness,” he also recalled memories of terrorism from the early 2000s. He feared the ISIS links might further harm attitudes toward the Central Asian migrant community from which the alleged attackers hail.

Up to 1.5 million Tajiks have worked in Russia, many with Russian citizenship.

Other Muslim extremists have troubled Russia before. In 2002, ethnic Chechen militants from Russia’s Caucasus region took hostages in a Moscow theater. The security operation to free them resulted in the deaths of 41 terrorists and an additional 129 civilians. In 2004, a siege by Chechen militants at a Russian school in Beslan ended with 330 dead, half of which were students.

But following Friday’s attack, one evangelical leader did not fear escalation.

“We have wise and cautious leadership in Moscow,” said Sergey Holzwert, bishop of the Lutheran church in European Russia. “The government will not be rash and make certain the facts before saying anything official.”

Pavel Kolesnikov, general secretary of the Commonwealth of Evangelical Christians and the Lausanne Movement’s regional director for Eurasia, said the attack was further proof of a broken world. But he discouraged speculation about the culprits.

“It is not our responsibility to assess blame,” he said, citing Proverbs 25:2 and implying that this task belongs to the king. “Evil can come from any place and anyone, and those who want to interpret everything are simply feeding their pride.”

As pastor of Moscow’s Zelenograd Baptist Church, Kolesnikov tackled terrorism in his Sunday sermon.

Sin has reigned since Adam, he said. Too many people idealize the future of the world, thinking they can change it. But though God is on the throne, Jesus commanded Peter to put away his sword. The Sermon on the Mount, he added, sets the Christian focus on a mercy that results in active compassion and forgiveness.

And he noted that David’s prayer was for God to come to his aid.

“If you are in fear, if you demand justice, or if you cannot forgive, come to Jesus,” Kolesnikov preached. “He will give you all you need.”

William Yoder, a retired church journalist and joint US-Russian citizen who has covered the region since 1978, said that Russian evangelicals tend to be more passive than their American counterparts. Living in Russia and Belarus since 2001, he said that none are demanding retribution; instead, terrorism is often seen in the category of natural disasters.

“It is worthy of condemnation,” Yoder said, “but the local attitude is that God must protect us.”

His prayer is that the response will be measured, but he fears escalation. Semi-persuaded that ISIS-K is not to blame, Yoder said most evangelicals would harbor similar doubts, like most Russian citizens. But it would be better if the jihadist group was guilty, lest the enmity with Ukrainians be even further enflamed.

Whoever is behind the attack, he prays that God will speak to their hearts.

Russia claimed that the suspected Tajik militants fled toward Ukraine, where they awaited reception. Russian opposition media outlet Meduza geolocated the arrest to the Bryansk region, 210 miles southwest of Moscow and 90 miles from the Ukrainian border. Pro-Kremlin media broadcast a detained militant’s confession that he was paid by an “Islamic preacher” to carry out the attack.

Analysts have expressed doubt that anyone could infiltrate through the highly militararized border. But two terrorists have pled guilty, though footage also shows them badly bruised.

“There is no religious motivation for this attack,” said Roman Lunkin, head of the Center for Religious Studies at the Russian Academy of Science, conveying the widespread doubt about ISIS-K. “On the contrary, the response has united all religious believers.”

Alongside Christians, Russia’s Muslim, Jewish, and Buddhist organizations have all expressed their condolences to the victims. And as Easter approaches in the West (the Russian Orthodox celebrate on May 5), Kolesnikov reminded believers that Jesus’ blood is our ultimate hope.

Over 5,000 Russians have donated their own to help the wounded, he said, standing in line for nine hours.

“Our job is to be in the community, teaching goodness,” said Kolesnikov. “Christ defeated evil, but though it continues to manifest itself in unexpected ways through individuals, we will not attribute it to any nationality.”

- More from Jayson Casper

News

Anti-Christian Attacks Surge as Hindu Nationalism Grows

Surinder Kaur

Battling accusations of forced conversions, the church faces escalating threats, false arrests, and assaults on their institutions, reports the Evangelical Fellowship of India.

Photos courtesy EFI / Edits by CT

The number of violent anti-Christian incidents in India jumped to 601 in 2023 compared to 413 the previous year, according to a new report from the Evangelical Fellowship of India’s Religious Liberty Commission (EFI-RLC).

“Despite constitutional protections and India’s long-standing tradition of religious diversity, the rise of divisive rhetoric and inflammatory language, often condoned or inadequately addressed by official channels, has emboldened sections of society to perpetrate acts of violence and discrimination against religious minorities, particularly Christians and Muslims,” said Vijayesh Lal, general secretary of EFI.

India is home to about 28 million Christians, or about two percent of the country’s population of 1.4 billion. The majority of attacks on Christians were categorized as threats and harassment (201) followed by 146 instances of false accusations and subsequent arrests.

EFI-RLC’s report highlights several troubling trends, including regional hotspots, primarily concentrated in the northern part of the culture, where violence against Christians is particularly severe. Uttar Pradesh, India’s largest state and a significant political battleground, recorded the highest number of incidents at 275. The state also leads in arrests of pastors and believers, often on allegations of forced conversions, despite lacking substantial evidence.

Chhattisgarh, a state in central India, is another hotbed of targeted violence against tribal Christians. It witnessed 132 incidents of coordinated attacks in addition to several Ghar Wapsi (“returning home” programs of reconversion to Hinduism or ancestral faith) and ostracism incidents that are not recorded.

Haryana, a landlocked state in northern India where Christians make up .02 percent of the population of 25 million, had 44 cases, indicating a widespread pattern of targeted violence against the Christian community across various regions of India.

The report follows and reinforces the narrative of the 2024 World Watch List released earlier this year by Christian persecution watchdog Open Doors, which ranks India at number 11, noting the sustained rise of Hindu nationalism:

Any Christian who does convert from Hinduism is most likely to come under intense pressure or even violence. They can face constant pressure to renounce their new faith, face job loss/discrimination, endure physical assaults, and even be murdered. Church leaders are also in danger in many parts of India: extremists target them (along with their families) to create fear and chaos in the Christian community.

The list also notes that compared to the 2023 report, attacks on Christian homes doubled to 180, Christian fatalities increased ninefold to 160, and attacks on churches and Christian schools rose from 67 to 2,228. Many of these increases were due to last May’s deadly attacks in Manipur.

These reports come weeks after the United Christian Forum (UCF) announced that it had documented 161 incidents of violence against Christians between January 1 to March 15 of this year. UCF states that the data was collected by its toll-free helpline and, as per information available, 161 Christians, including 122 pastors, have been arrested on allegations of forced religious conversions despite lack of evidence.

False Accusations and Contentious Conversions

Hindu nationalists have frequently and falsely accused Christians of forced conversion under duress and have used these claims as a pretext for violence. Though activists have debunked this as an unfounded claim, these charges continue to fuel violence and discrimination against Christians, particularly against those of vulnerable groups like Dalits, Adivasis, and women.

“The bogey of conversion is a very convenient one and is largely misused to target the Christian community in states where these laws are in operation, and in states where these laws do not exist, they are deemed to be in operation, causing the same harassment,” said Lal.

The conversion of people belonging to lower castes, including Dalits, away from Hinduism—a traditionally non-proselytizing religion—to proselytizing religions, especially Christianity, has been a contentious political issue in India. About half of Indians support legal bans on religious conversions, according to a 2021 Pew Research Center report.

As of today, 10 of India’s 28 states have anticonversion laws in place: Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Karnataka, and Haryana. All of these are Hindu-majority states, and 6 out of the 10 are governed by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The state of Arunachal Pradesh drafted but never enacted such a law, while Rajasthan’s attempts in 2006 and 2008 did not get final approval. Tamil Nadu passed an anticonversion law in 2002, but it was revoked after protests.

Even when states lack anticonversion laws, there are brutal consequences for those alleged to have proselytized Hindus, tribals, or those of any other faith. EFI-RLC noted a story of one pastor and others who were brutally attacked during a 2023 prayer gathering in the state of Maharashtra after extremists accused them of religious conversion activities. Similar incidents have been reported from other parts of the country, where Christian institutions and individuals have faced violent assaults and harassment.

The report highlights an incident that took place in Jodhpur, Rajasthan, in March 2023, when a group of Hindu extremists barged into a church during a service, locking 250 Christians inside. They then interrogated them about conversions, tearing up Bibles and assaulting 10 people.

‘The Potential to Incite’

Beyond direct violence, the report highlights broader structural changes that threaten the rights and well-being of religious minorities, including the presence of Hindutva ideology in public education. EFI-RLC fears “infiltration and manipulation by extreme right-wing political entities aligned with the current regime’s preferences.”

EFI-RLC also noted that BJP legislators have begun to make good on a long-standing campaign promise to introduce a Uniform Civil Code (UCC), which seeks to have one law determine matters like marriage, divorce, inheritance, and adoption in the state, instead of different laws for different religious communities.

Though the constitution states that the government should work toward implementing a UCC across the country, “Such a code could potentially undermine the legal protections and affirmative action measures provided to these minorities under the Indian constitution,” according to the report. (This change was recently introduced in the state of Uttarakhand.)

The report also notes the intentions of other states like Uttar Pradesh, Assam, and Chhattisgarh to enact similar laws in 2024. Though it acknowledges that the details of these laws remain unclear, such legislation, it claims, could impede the rights of Christians to freely profess, practice, and propagate their faith, which are guaranteed by the constitution.

“These laws and statements have the potential to incite non-state actors and vigilante groups to intimidate and assault religious minorities, worsening tensions and threatening social harmony,” the report elaborates.

Upcoming Elections

India’s seven-phase national elections will kick off on April 19 and conclude on June 4. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BJP party won the previous two elections in 2014 and 2019. They are hoping to win a third consecutive election and current polls suggest they are on track to win nearly 70 percent of the seats in the Lok Sabha, India’s lower parliamentary chamber.

Earlier this month, the leader of INDIA (the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance), a coalition of 26 parties challenging the BJP, was jailed. Rahul Gandhi, a member of parliament for the Indian National Congress, the largest opposition party, and the grandson of India’s third prime minister Indra Gandhi, was sentenced to two years in jail in a defamation case related to remarks he made about people with the last name Modi.

Concerned over the policies and actions of the BJP’s national leadership, EFI has appealed to the Indian government and state administrations to protect religious minorities and uphold the rule of law, especially in states like Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Karnataka, and Madhya Pradesh.

“As Christians, we pray for our nation, our leaders, and fellow citizens. No one should be targeted or persecuted because of their faith. Normalization of hatred will only take us backward and, in the end, harm everybody,” said Lal. “Our constitutional values are beautiful and worth pursuing, and we pray that these values of justice, equality, liberty, and fraternity will be true in the life of every Indian. Only then can we be a united and resilient nation.”

- More from Surinder Kaur

Books

Review

The Myth Behind the Meaning of Paul’s Words on Women and Childbearing

Madison N. Pierce

Sandra Glahn studies the record of an Ephesian goddess to aid our reading of a challenging passage.

The Artemis of Ephesus

WikiMedia Commons / Edits by CT

As a female New Testament scholar, I simply do not have the luxury of avoiding 1 Timothy 2:11–15, where Paul, after stating that women should “learn in quietness and full submission,” claims they “will be saved through childbearing.” The “saved through childbearing” verse has been quoted to me by more strangers and (possibly) well-meaning acquaintances than any other, but one particular time stands out.

Nobody's Mother: Artemis of the Ephesians in Antiquity and the New Testament

Sandra L. Glahn (Author)

200 pages

$16.99

I don’t remember what context could have possibly made his statement appropriate, but one day about ten years ago, a young man said in a conversation about my teaching, “Well, you are saved through childbearing.” In this instance, I was in a position of authority over him, and I could tell that his “joke” sought to return me to my rightful place.

“Then I guess I am not saved,” I quipped back, knowing that his interpretation of this verse depended on my literal procreation. I also knew, unlike him, that my body was giving many signs that I might never bear a child. (As a side note, by God’s grace, I eventually did become somebody’s mother.)

My story provides a minute glimpse into the horrendous ways that women have been hurt by the misuse of 1 Timothy 2:11–15, and in the introduction to her recent book Nobody’s Mother: Artemis of the Ephesians in Antiquity and the New Testament, Sandra L. Glahn gives a heartbreaking picture of her experiences with infant loss as well as encounters with this text in cultures where it stands supreme in determining how women might participate in the church. She, like I, internalized messages about womanhood and how the worth of women is measured. There must be many arrows in our quivers, they say, and our ministries are in our homes.

Glahn, a professor at Dallas Theological Seminary, sets up her book as one that will deconstruct these views carefully by attending to the historical context of 1 Timothy. By thoroughly examining early evidence about Ephesus and the goddess Artemis of the Ephesians, which involves some exciting myth busting, Glahn provides a better understanding of a terribly complicated passage. Her primary method throughout the book is to illustrate claims through the presentation of historical data, which later she analyzes in relationship with the biblical text.

An accurate picture of Artemis

Glahn’s first chapter addresses an important question that may well have crossed your mind: Do we really need another book on this passage? And why now? Glahn’s resounding yes comes from several directions. We need a “fresh look,” she says, for these reasons:

For most of church history, women were considered inferior to men by nature.
Evidence suggests that (despite the point above) women were active in the church throughout that time.
We have access to more information now through databases, inscriptions, and other archaeological evidence.
We can better evaluate information due to advances in the studies of inscriptions, ancient writing materials and practices, signs and symbols, and literary analysis.

The second chapter focuses on the city of Ephesus, Timothy’s likely location when he receives correspondence from Paul. Glahn begins with a survey of places where Ephesus appears in Scripture. Among the more prominent mentions comes in Acts 19, where Paul’s ministry led to the burning of magical books and an uprising. During the uprising, a cry rings out from the crowds, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” (vv. 28, 34). Paul’s message about Christ threatened their devotion to the goddess—and the production of goods that accompanied their worship.

This summary of Glahn’s observations so far aligns with standard accounts, but where it diverges is in her characterization of the goddess. According to many, Artemis is a goddess of fertility and in some instances prostitution. In physical representations, her torso or chest is covered with what looks like eggs, and many think those eggs are her many breasts. As Glahn notes, some have also emphasized a connection between Artemis and the Amazons of Greek mythology. But what do ancient texts say about Artemis?

Something quite different.

Artemis, who is most often referred to as “Artemis of the Ephesians,” is “nobody’s mother.” She values virginity and at times fights to preserve her own chastity. Even so, Artemis—who watched her mother suffer through the traumatic birth of her brother Apollo—was understood to be a midwife. Women would pray that she either deliver them safely through the experience of childbirth or mercifully release them from its pain and suffering through the swift delivery of one of her arrows.

In these accounts, she is never associated with prostitution. As Glahn notes, prostitution was banned in Ephesus at this time. Each of these characterizations of Artemis from the literary sources is also corroborated by evidence from ancient epigraphs that Glahn presents in the next chapter. There she looks at various references to Artemis on buildings and monuments, among other things, and they present a similar picture of the goddess.

Though Glahn notes a relatively consistent portrait of Artemis in the literary sources and available epigraphs, the representations of Artemis in architecture and art are more varied. At times, she looks like an Amazon, a traditional beauty—adorned in jewels with braided hair. At other times, frankly, she looks strange, covered in ovoid shapes interpreted as breasts. But these images are not representative of different goddesses or divergent traditions. As Glahn notes, coins from that time period have one image of Artemis on the front and the other on the back. But the beautiful virgin hunter is certainly nobody’s mother, so what are we to make of those strange egg-like shapes?

Glahn lists a wild range of explanations, including bull testicles and deer canines, but lands on the idea that these shapes are a type of bead used in magical jewelry connected with the powers of Artemis of the Ephesians. With these many jewels she is depicted as both resplendent and powerful—an apt portrait of Artemis, as we have seen.

WikiMedia Commons / Edits by CT

The Artemis of Ephesus

Slogan and response

The final chapter, “Saved Through Childbearing,” explores how a more accurate picture of Artemis aids our interpretation of 1 Timothy as a whole—but especially 1 Timothy 2, where misconceptions of Artemis have influenced Christian understandings about how women participate in the church. Glahn understands 1 Timothy to be a (relatively subtle) polemic against Artemis. She demonstrates how language applied to Artemis appears more often and in different ways in Paul’s letters to Timothy and Titus, and she connects various themes in those letters with evidence already noted throughout the book.

But she also makes arguments that go well beyond this relationship. She demonstrates why interpreters should consider 1 Timothy 2:11–15 as instructions to wives, not all women. As she argues, the prohibition on women “teach[ing] or assum[ing] authority over a man” means only that a woman should not “teach with a view to domineering a husband.” Though this is where Glahn’s arguments converge with typical discussions of the passage, her presentation of the issues is clear and connects with the broader thesis.

Among the more interesting proposals in this chapter is the idea that “A woman is saved through childbearing” was a saying or slogan among the Ephesians. If so, then Paul is repeating their assertion and then responding to it when he says, if “they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control” (1 Tim. 2:15, NRSVUE). Interpreters generally puzzle over the shift from the singular to the plural (i.e., “a woman is saved” if “they continue”), but as Glahn notes, positing a shift from slogan to response could address this issue.

Overall, this book is a remarkable resource for those who want to learn more about Artemis of the Ephesians in particular. It provides a thorough survey of ancient literature and some useful analysis. In this way, one of the book’s great strengths could also be seen as one of its primary weaknesses: At first, it seems intended for an informed lay audience, yet dozens of pages contain extended quotations from primary sources. At times, the discussions are also quite technical. It could be the case that I’ve misjudged the intended audience(s), but the distance in style and pitch between Glahn’s autobiographical introduction and her analysis of epigraphic evidence is significant.

It is also the case that some may be disappointed that the interpretation of 1 Timothy does not play a more sustained role in the book. However, to Glahn’s credit, the chapter that does consider the passage is quite long, comprising about one-fourth of the book. Even so, the analysis is primarily, though by no means exclusively, informed by Glahn’s assumption that Paul has Artemis of the Ephesians in mind throughout his composition, and this may not be so.

Madison N. Pierce is associate professor of New Testament at Western Theological Seminary. She is the author of Divine Discourse in the Epistle to the Hebrews.

- More from Madison N. Pierce

Church Life

How One Indonesian Church Is Fighting Food Insecurity

Philip Situmorang in Gunungkidul Regency, Indonesia

In the village of Kemadang, long dry spells threatened local farmers’ livelihoods until a church-led granary brought hope.

Agung Parameswara / Getty / Edits by CT

Standing in her rice field in the rural village of Kemadang along the southern coast of Java, 53-year-old Marni Mariani pointed to the dry soil at her feet. “This is the land that we will harvest in three weeks,” she said. Yet due to the lack of rain this season, two of her four rice fields have already failed.

She noted that she doesn’t sell the rice harvest from her plot, which measures 32 by 49 feet, but rather that the food is for her family to eat. “But sometimes if there is a famine and the harvest is small, we are forced to buy [rice] from outsiders,” she said. “That’s what burdens us here.”

Yet since 2020, Marni hasn’t needed to worry about buying rice at a high price. Her 70-year-old neighbor, Mbah Gepeng Harjo, also no longer struggles to buy the expensive seeds and fertilizer he needs to cultivate the rice fields that he tends to. (Mbah means “old man.”)

That’s because of an innovative church-run granary program created by local pastor Kristiono Riyadi of Kemadang Javanese Christian Church that seeks to maintain community food reserves, especially during times of drought. It provides a grain savings and loan program and a produce buyback program. It also sells seeds at an affordable price.

The granaries are a local solution to tackling food insecurity in Indonesia, a widespread problem facing nearly 1 out of every 10 Indonesians and that is only increasing as the climate becomes more unpredictable. The poverty rate in the regency of Gunungkidul, where Kemadeng is located, is about 16 percent, with about 6,000 families living in extreme poverty.

The church also sees their work as an outreach to share the love of God to the community by helping with some of their most basic needs.

“From the testimonies of members of the food granary who are of other faiths, they feel that the church provides care for all, not only thinking about themselves but also about others,” Kristiono said.

A source of relief for a dry land

Gunungkidul Regency has a tropical climate, with a topography dominated by karst hills, an area of irregularly eroded limestone with natural caves and underground rivers. The rainy season is short, lasting only during November. The residents grow mainly rice, corn, and beans.

Difficulties related to crop failures, limited water sources, and a long dry season caused by climate change have often left farmers in the area in need of outside assistance.

As the situation became direr in Kemadeng and other villages in Gunungkidul’s Yogyakarta Province, Kristiono held an agriculture workshop in early 2020 to help his congregants, most of whom are farmers. One of their top concerns was finding inexpensive and high-quality rice seeds.

“I suggested the idea to help the villagers by establishing this food granary,” Kristiono said. “The farmers want their rice harvest to be stored, and they want to easily get seeds at affordable prices. This granary not only fulfills their food needs throughout the year but also helps them during the long dry season.”

Kristiono explained that members of the program are required to store at least 10 kilograms (22 lbs.) of unhulled rice in the granary each year and can store up to 40 kilograms (88 lbs.). They can then borrow rice from the granary for daily consumption, special celebrations, or emergency situations. If they borrow the rice for celebrations, they need to pay it back with interest.

Beyond providing storage, the program has also become a way to economically support the farming community. During harvest season, the price of grain is low, but the price rises during off seasons, usually from July to October. So the church has decided to buy the farmers’ harvests, including rice, beans, and soybeans, at an above-market price. The grains are stored and then available on loan to members or for purchase for the community during the dry season. Members can buy it at a discounted price.

“Unduh-unduh, or harvest day, is held as an expression of gratitude to God for the harvest every year,” he said. The granary program “is economic development not only for the congregation but also for the surrounding community.”

A community-led program

Today there are three granaries, with two in the nearby villages of Planjan and Banjarejo, and together they serve 90 farmers, including some who are not Christians. On a February morning, two farmers stopped by the warehouse to buy rice seeds, while others came with rice to store.

The initial capital for the food granary came from the Presbyterian synod of which Kemadang Javanese Christian Church is a member. The goal was to provide food security for the community, not just the congregation.

The synod’s general secretary, Anugerah Kristian, said the synod gave 30 million Indonesian rupiah (about $2,000 USD) to underwrite the food granary in Kemadang as an economic stimulus. “We are providing the capital only as an incentive” to initiate the project, Anugerah stated. “The granary must involve its citizens or members.”

The granaries are financially viable, although the profits are very small, Kristiono said. Because the farmers return the crops to the warehouse, sometimes at an interest, Kristiono can sell the extra grain and use the small profit to buy other crops. The challenge, however, is if the harvest fails and farmers ask for an extension on the deadlines to repay the granary.

Anugerah emphasized that community participation is what makes the granaries a success. “Members of the congregation, community, and village government thought about their condition and the difficulties they experienced,” he noted. “The idea for the granary emerged locally and was carried out according to their situation, with the synod’s support.”

Marni, who has been a granary member since it opened and is also a member of Kemadang Church, said it has provided crucial economic assistance. “Water is difficult to obtain here, and sometimes the harvest is small, so we have to be economical in using the harvested rice,” she said. “If we lack seeds, then we have to buy from middlemen at a fairly high price. This is quite burdensome. But since the rice granary was established, we have been greatly helped.”

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the local government bought rice from the granary to distribute to the community.

Waldiyanto Harjo, a village official, expressed appreciation for the granary. “When this activity was launched, many villagers attended the event because the village head and other officials came,” he said. “It continues to function even though the village has not provided additional capital.”

Kristiono sees the granary as a way for the church to live out the gospel. “For me, this is a form of church care, as God’s Word says in Mark 12:31 to ‘love your neighbor as yourself,’” he said. “This is the real form of love. We are here realizing that with these granaries.”

- More from Philip Situmorang in Gunungkidul Regency, Indonesia

Culture

From Passion to the Pews, Major Conferences Inspire Local Worship

Kelsey Kramer McGinnis

Arena events serve as the proving grounds for new music.

Andrew Arrol / Unsplash

The 2024 Passion conference opened with a countdown video. The crowd of 55,000 students packed into Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta cheered with anticipation. What would the first song be? Who would lead it?

What was the Holy Spirit about to do?

Flashing lights and a drum track led into the opening of Elevation Worship’s “Praise,” with the chant, “Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.” Worship artist Brandon Lake and a team of singers emerged on the stage.

After days of music and teaching, during the final session of the conference, attendees and leaders were surprised by a spontaneously extended worship session.

Most people don’t get to worship with a crowd of 55,000 on a regular basis. That immersive experience is one reason thousands of Christians travel to events like Passion, Worship Together, and Sing! each year.

These conferences also serve as settings where worshipers encounter and fall in love with new music. Though the stage production and arena energy isn’t replicable in their local contexts, the songs themselves are: Recent research found that worship leaders are more likely to use a new song if they encounter it at a live event.

These events are the latest iteration of practices that have a long history in the church: pilgrimage and temporarily gathered corporate worship. Christians in Europe during the Middle Ages walked miles from shrine to shrine to venerate saintly relics and temporarily adopt the monastic practice of living a life set apart for devotion and worship.

Before stadium sets and big screens with lyrics, 19th-century tent revivals attracted participants with passionate preaching and spirited music, which often fused new refrains set to folk tunes with hymns and traditional sacred songs to cultivate a more rapturous, affectively heightened atmosphere.

Ethnomusicologist Monique Ingalls refers to modern conference congregations as “pilgrim gatherings” and “eschatological communities” in her book Singing the Congregation: How Contemporary Worship Music Forms Evangelical Community.

“Evangelical participants step outside the purview of regular religious authority and are invited to try out new kinds of religious identities forged in the crucible of intense spiritual experiences,” Ingalls writes.

Kristian Stanfill, worship pastor at Passion City Church, sees the massive temporary congregation at the annual Passion conference as a way of creating an “eschatological community,” a shadow of what believers will experience in eternity.

“We prayed for the reality of heaven to be a reality on earth,” Stanfill told CT.

Stanfill says that the planning team for this year’s Passion conference, held in January, felt an unusual sense of urgency and that leaders and participants showed up ready for revival.

“We sensed a different weight around this year,” said Stanfill. “Looking at the times we’re living in, we are seeing the enemy deceiving a new generation, convincing them to live for less. But their eyes are being opened to see that only Jesus offers abundant life. That’s why they fill up Mercedes-Benz Stadium to worship and seek God. They want something real, something that lasts.”

Halfway through the worship set on the final morning of the conference, Stanfill sensed a prompting to slow down and wait to move on from their new song, “Cry Out.”

“I don’t know why I started singing ‘Agnus Dei,’ it wasn’t a song we had in our pocket, but the students just took over,” said Stanfill. The crowd and the leaders on stage sang “Agnus Dei” for 20 minutes.

“We all just lost track of time. We all got lost in Jesus for those 20 minutes.”

The potential for spontaneous experiences is part of what makes conferences like Passion special. It’s also what drew pilgrims to the Asbury revival in 2023. These events can serve as spaces to experience the “one-heartedness” that has historically accompanied revivals, and the music used in these settings becomes linked to the intense communal experience of the event itself.

Passion is largely attended by high school and college students from across the United States. Other conferences like Worship Together and Sing! aim to reach worship leaders and church musicians. Recent research suggests that while streaming has changed the way worship leaders find new music, live events like conferences remain influential.

“I prefer to experience the song before I use it,” wrote one respondent to the 2022 Worship Leader Research survey, reflecting on why live events are so effective as spaces to experience and evaluate new music.

The survey found that 71 percent of respondents were likely to consider using a new song after encountering it at a gathering in-person.

“Live events help me see how a song is executed and how it’s used and people respond to it,” wrote another respondent.

Marc Jolicoeur, one of the members of the research team and an affiliate professor of worship arts at Kingswood University, observed that some worship leaders see conferences, concerts, and other in-person experiences as field tests for new songs.

“Leaders will say things like, ‘I want my congregation to experience what I’ve experienced,” Jolicoeur said.

Passion’s new album Call on Heaven includes live recordings of many of the songs used at the 2024 conference, including the 20-minute spontaneous “Agnus Dei.”

For those who were in the stadium during that morning session, the recording provides a way to relive the seemingly endless outpouring of song, complete with the shouts, cheers, and murmurs from the crowd. A video of that session spread on social media and attracted hundreds of thousands of viewers on YouTube, who left comments about their in-person and online experiences of being inspired by the event.

“This moment changed me. I’ve always been a worshiper and have enjoyed rewatching this clip many times over the past 6 weeks,” wrote one commenter on YouTube.

Call on Heaven preserves some of the aural sensations of what it was like to be in the room filled with thousands of worshipers singing “Holy, holy are you Lord God Almighty.” But as most conference-goers know, the emotional high of these live events isn’t sustainable. So what does it look like to take the music associated with these events back to the local church?

“The reality is, most services are not an emotional high, and that’s not a deficiency,” said Hilary Ritchie, who serves as minister for worship and the arts at Hope Church, a Presbyterian (ECO) church in Richfield, Minnesota.

Ritchie’s church utilizes music by Passion, Elevation, and other popular artists, but she tries to look to her congregation and musicians rather than the live versions recorded at conferences when adapting the songs for her context.

“Some of these things aren’t transferable to a gathering of 175 people,” said Ritchie. “It’s so important to have a pastoral sense of your congregation’s worship voice. What does your congregation need?”

Ritchie pointed out that while there are some potential problems with looking to conferences as models for local churches, these gatherings are often the only opportunities church leaders have to participate in congregational worship as true participants, not saddled with the burden of management or leadership. And while she likes to look to other similar churches to see what their smaller teams might do with a popular song, visiting another church on a Sunday morning isn’t usually possible.

“We’re always working on Sunday mornings,” she said. “Sometimes a conference is the most expedient way to get you and your team to a place where they can worship together outside of the weekly service they lead.”

But large conferences aren’t just worship events, they’re also promotional vehicles for popular worship artists and brands.

Worship Together is owned by Capitol CMG (a subsidiary of Universal Music Group), and Passion is signed to Capitol CMG as well. Sing! features new music from the Gettys and affiliated artists. These conferences promote the music and artists they platform by showing their effectiveness in an arena of worshipers.

Church musicians have been adapting music from professional recordings for their churches for decades, so the challenge of tempering expectations about what a song can “do” in a setting far removed from an arena is not new. But when congregants return from a conference inspired, energized, and full of suggestions, leaders often end up fielding unrealistic requests.

“I do think everyone understands that I’m not a jukebox,” said Ritchie. “And when someone approaches me with an idea that won’t work for us, I try to pastorally ask about their experience. They feel like God was doing something as they experienced that song.”

Spiritual encounters at conferences and revivals can be catalysts for real transformation and renewal that benefits the local church. Singing with a congregation of thousands feels, for some, like the closest they will get to experiencing God’s throne room on this side of eternity.

“The singing church is a powerful thing,” said Stanfill, reflecting on his 19 years leading worship at the Passion conferences. “When we join and sing our faith together, it encourages the whole room. It reminds us that we are part of the kingdom, and part of a movement of God that is bigger than ourselves.”

- More from Kelsey Kramer McGinnis

Theology

Why Character Doesn’t Matter Anymore

Russell Moore

The “cheerful prudery” of Ned Flanders has given way to vulgarity, misogyny, and partisanship. What does this mean for our witness?

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

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

I guess Ned Flanders goes to strip clubs now.

Until this week, I hadn’t thought about the caricatured born-again Christian neighbor on the animated series The Simpsons in a long time. New York Times religion reporter Ruth Graham mentioned him and his “cheerful prudery” as examples—along with Billy Graham and George W. Bush—of what were once the best-known evangelical Christian figures in the country. Indeed, a 2001 Christianity Today cover story dubbed the character “Saint Flanders.” Evangelical Christians knew that Ned’s “gosh darn it” moral demeanor was meant to lampoon us, and that his “traditional family values” were out of step with an American culture this side of the sexual revolution.

But Ned was no Elmer Gantry. He actually aspired to the sort of personal devotion to prayer, Bible reading, moral chastity, and neighbor-love evangelicals were supposed to want, even if he did so in a treacly, ultra-suburban, middle-class North American way. As Graham points out, were he to emerge today, Flanders would face withering mockery for his moral scruples—but more likely by his white evangelical co-religionists than by his beer-swilling secular cartoon neighbors.

As Graham says, a raunchy “boobs-and-booze ethos has elbowed its way into the conservative power class, accelerated by the rise of Donald J. Trump, the declining influence of traditional religious institutions and a shifting media landscape increasingly dominated by the looser standards of online culture.” (This article you are reading right now represents something of this shift, as I spent upward of 15 minutes pondering how to quote Graham’s article without using the word boobs.)

Graham’s analysis is important for American Christians precisely because the shift she describes is not something “out there” in the culture but is instead driven specifically by the very same white evangelical subculture that once insisted that personal character—virtue, to use a now distant-sounding word the American founders knew well—matters.

Yes, part of the vulgarization of the Right is due to the Barstool Sports / Joe Rogan secularization of the base, in which Kid Rock is an avatar more than Lee Greenwood or Michael W. Smith. But much more alarmingly, the coarsening and character-debasing is happening among politicized professing Christians. The member of Congress joking at a prayer breakfast about turning her fiancé down for sex to get there was there to talk about her faith and the importance of religious faith and values for America. The member of Congress telling a reporter to “f— off” is a self-described “Christian nationalist.” We’ve seen “Let’s Go Brandon”—a euphemism for a profanity that once would have resulted in church discipline—chanted in churches.

Pastor and aspiring theocrat Douglas Wilson publicly used a slur against women that not only will I not repeat here but that almost no secular media outlet would quote—and that’s without even referencing Wilson’s creepily coarse novel about a sex robot.

Wilson, of course, cultivates a cartoonishly “Aren’t we naughty?” vibe not representative of most evangelical Christians. But the problem is the way many other Christians respond: “Well, I wouldn’t say things the way he says them, but …” In the same way, they characterize as just “mean tweets” Donald Trump attacking those claiming to be sexually assaulted by him for their looks or war heroes for being captured or disabled people for their disabilities or valorizing those who attack police officers and ransack the Capitol as “hostages.”

What’s worse is that evangelical Christians—including some I listened to pontificate endlessly about Bill Clinton’s sexual immorality (pontifications with which I agreed then and agree now)—ridicule as pearl-clutching moralists those who refuse to do exactly what they condemned Clinton’s defenders for doing, namely, weighting policy agreement over personal character.

In the midst of the late-1990s Clinton scandal, a group of scholars issued a “Declaration Concerning Religion, Ethics, and the Crisis in the Clinton Presidency,” which stated:

We are aware that certain moral qualities are central to the survival of our political system, among which are truthfulness, integrity, respect for the law, respect for the dignity of others, adherence to the constitutional process, and a willingness to avoid the abuse of power. We reject the premise that violations of these ethical standards should be excused so long as a leader remains loyal to a particular political agenda and the nation is blessed by a strong economy.

Those words seem far more distant than a Tocqueville quote now.

Our situation today would be understandable in a world in which words that come out of a person don’t represent what’s present in the heart, or in a world in which external conduct can be severed from internal character. The problem is that such an imagined world is one in which there is no Word of God. Jesus, after all, taught us the exact opposite, explicitly and repeatedly (Matt. 15:10–20; Luke 6:43–45).

Ironically, some of the very people who advance the myth of a “Christian America,” in which the American founders are retrofitted as conservative evangelicals, now embrace a view that both the orthodox Christians and the deist Unitarians of the founding era would, in full agreement, denounce. From The Federalist Papers to the debates around the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, virtually every Founding Father—even with all their differences on the specifics of federalism—would argue that constitutional procedures and policies alone were not enough to conserve a republic: Moral norms and expectations of some level of personal character were necessary.

Do these norms keep people of bad character from ascending to high office? Not at all. Hypocrites and demagogues have always been with us. What every generation of Americans have recognized until now, though, is that there is a marked difference between some leaders not living up to the character expected of them and leaders operating in a space where there aren’t expectations of personal character. You might hire an accountant to do your taxes, only later to find that he’s a tax fraud and an embezzler. That’s quite different from hiring an open fraud because you’ve concluded that only chumps obey the tax laws.

That’s because no leader of any community, association, or nation is an abstract collection of policies. We select leaders to make decisions about matters that haven’t happened yet, or that might not even be contemplated. A dentist who screams profanities at opponents and promises a practice built around “revenge and retribution” and the tearing down of all the norms of modern dentistry is not someone you should trust with a drill in your mouth. How much more so when it comes to entrusting a person with nuclear codes.

Moreover, what conservatives in general, and Christians in particular, once knew is that what is normalized in a culture becomes an expected part of that culture. Defending a president using his power to have sex with his intern by saying, “Everybody lies about sex” isn’t just a political argument; it changes the way people think about what, in the fullness of time, they should expect for themselves. This is what Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously called “defining deviancy down.”

Louisianans defending their support for a Nazi propagandist and former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan because he’s allegedly “pro-life” is not just a “lesser of two evils” political transaction. The words pro-life Nazi—like the words pro-life sexual abuser—change the meaning of pro-life in the minds of an entire generation.

No matter what short-term policy outcomes you then “win,” you’ve ended up with a situation in which some people believe authoritarianism and sexual assault can be offset by the right “policy platform,” while others believe that opposing abuse of power or sexual anarchy must necessitate being opposed to “pro-life.” Either way you look at that, you lose.

What happens long-term with your policies in a post-character culture is important. What happens to your country is even more important. But consider also what happens to you. “If individuals live only seventy years, then a state, or a nation, or a civilization, which may last for a thousand years, is more important than an individual,” C. S. Lewis wrote. “But if Christianity is true, then the individual is not only more important but incomparably more important, for he is everlasting and the life of a state or a civilization, compared with his, is only a moment.”

The Bible not only warns us about what character degradation—from immorality to boastfulness to heartlessness and ruthlessness—can do to the souls of those practicing such things, but also about the ruinous effect on those who “approve of those who practice them” (Rom. 1:32).

Ned Flanders is not, and never was, the Christian ideal. Personal piety and upstanding morality are not enough. But we should ask the question—if The Simpsons were written today and wished to make fun of evangelical Christians, would the caricature be someone inordinately devoted to his family, to prayer, to churchgoing, to kindness to his neighbors, to the awkward purity of his speech? Or would Ned Flanders be a screaming partisan, a violent insurrectionist, a woman-ogling misogynist, or an abusive pervert?

Would that change be because the secular world has grown more hostile to Christians? Perhaps. Or would it be because, when the secular world looks at the public face of Christianity, they wouldn’t dream to think now of Ned Flanders but only of one more leering face at the strip club?

If we are hated for attempted Christlikeness, let’s count it all joy. But if we are hated for our cruelty, our sexual hypocrisy, our quarrelsomeness, our hatefulness, and our vulgarity, then maybe we should ask what happened to our witness.

Character matters. It is not the only thing that matters. But without character, nothing matters.

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

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Wire Story

Southern Baptists Finally Name New Executive Committee President

Bob Smietana - Religion News Service

Seminary head Jeff Iorg steps in after multiple resignations, failed searches, and back-to-back interim leaders.

Jeff Iorg, Executive Committee president-elect

Adam Covington / Baptist Press

After more than two years of uncertainty and at times, chaos, the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee has a new president.

At a special meeting in Dallas, members of the committee—which oversees the work of the 13 million-member denomination in between its annual meetings—unanimously elected Jeff Iorg as its new president and CEO. The meeting was held in executive session, and Iorg’s election was announced in the early afternoon on Thursday.

Iorg, longtime president of Gateway Seminary, a Southern Baptist school in Ontario, California, is well respected in Southern Baptist circles for his steady and low-key approach to leadership. In a press conference following his election, Iorg said he would focus on earning trust in his new role.

“Organizational trust is earned by two things: sacrificial service and demonstrated competence,” said Iorg, 65, who will begin his new role in May, after Gateway’s school year ends. “You don’t gain trust by asking people to trust you. You gain trust by doing the right thing, serving sacrificially and demonstrating competence. And people trust organizations that do that.”

Iorg is the Executive Committee’s first permanent leader since 2021 and its third since 2018. His predecessor, Ronnie Floyd, resigned in October 2021 after a two-year tenure overshadowed by the SBC’s sexual abuse crisis. Floyd’s predecessor, Frank Page, resigned in 2018 for misconduct.

Finding a new leader for the committee was an arduous process.

Committee members had hoped to approve a different candidate—Georgia Baptist leader Thomas Hammond—in February, but Hammond withdrew at the last moment. In May of 2023, the committee voted down Texas pastor Jared Wellman, a former Executive Committee trustee, as a candidate for the top job. Some trustees had been concerned that Wellman had served as chair of the Executive Committee and was on the search committee before becoming a candidate.

Willie McLaurin, an interim leader for the committee, had been considered for the permanent job but resigned last fall after the search committee discovered he had falsified his resume, claiming degrees he did not earn.

Jonathan Howe, who has served as interim Executive Committee leader, will remain in that role until May, when Iorg begins serving as president.

Louisiana pastor Philip Robertson, who chairs the Executive Committee, called the search process “a long journey” when Iorg was announced as a candidate. Iorg’s election, he said, marked a “new day” for the committee.

“The way Southern Baptists have united around this nomination is something we haven’t seen in a long time,” he told Baptist Press, an official SBC publication. “I am extremely grateful to God for that.”

Iorg’s colleagues have applauded his move to the Executive Committee.

“He is exactly what we need as president of the Executive Committee at this historic moment,” Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, told Baptist Press in February.

Unlike other Southern Baptist seminary leaders, such as Mohler, Iorg has operated largely out of the limelight during his 20 years at Gateway Seminary.“Jeff has managed to do a great job at Gateway Seminary while simultaneously avoiding the internecine fighting of the SBC,” said Ed Stetzer, dean of the Talbot School of Theology at Biola University and a former Southern Baptist leader. “That probably makes him one of the few candidates who can unite all sides in 2024.”

Gateway has experienced slow but steady growth under his leadership. When he was named president of the seminary in 2004, the school had 696 total students and the equivalent of 403 full-time students, according to data from the Association of Theological Schools. In the fall of 2023, the most recent semester for which data is available, the school had 1,499 total students—the equivalent of 783 full-time enrollees.

Hearing the initial remarks of the new president-elect of the @SBCExecComm @Jeff_Iorg #sbc

A unanimous selection. pic.twitter.com/wemiRpRCXS
— Adam Wyatt. – right back where I started 3 yrs ago (@pastor_adam) March 21, 2024

Iorg also oversaw a move from San Francisco, where the school had been known as Golden Gate Seminary, to Ontario, California, in 2016. According to Baptist Press, Iorg had asked the school’s trustees to begin searching for his successor as president last fall.

The newly elected president said he planned to fly to Nashville on Thursday to begin searching for a place to live. He also said he and his wife plan to buy a home in Portland, Oregon, where his wife’s parents live, and that he would likely spend much of his time as Executive Committee president on the road rather than in an office.

In his new role, Iorg will lead a committee facing fiscal and legal challenges. In recent years, the committee’s legal costs have skyrocketed in response to the denomination’s abuse crisis. At their last meeting, the Executive Committee approved a budget that included drawing on more reserves to make up a deficit.

The committee will also play a role in deciding the fate of a series of abuse reforms approved by local church representatives at the denomination’s annual meeting. Currently, there is no longterm plan to fund those reforms, which have stalled.

Giving to the SBC’s Cooperative Program, which funds international and national ministries, is down, and trust in the denomination’s leadership has been frayed in recent years.

Iorg said that as a seminary president, he has long benefited from the Cooperative Program and plans to enthusiastically promote it.

A former pastor and state convention leader, Iorg is the author of eight books and holds degrees from Hardin-Simmons University, Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He and his wife, Ann, have three children and five grandchildren.

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Must Social Service Providers Nix Their Faith to Receive Federal Funds?

Carl H. Esbeck

Rather than follow the equal protections secured in Supreme Court decisions, the Biden administration opted for a complicated and soul-killing alternative.

Joel Muniz / Unsplash

Nine federal departments have issued new regulations governing social service grants for a range of programs including drug rehabilitation; assisting penitentiary inmates reentering their communities; sheltering the homeless; aiding needy families with dependent children; settling refugees; and providing overseas lifesaving aid in response to natural disasters, war, famine, and public health crises.

The regulations take effect on April 4, 2024, governing tens of billions of dollars in taxpayer funds. And they represent a threat to the many Christian ministries that have long provided these social services with the help of federal grants while maintaining their religious identity and mission.

Rather than follow the rule of equal treatment secured in recent Supreme Court decisions, the Biden administration opted for outdated and unwieldy alternatives that will entangle the government in the work of religious nonprofits offering social services.

Since the 1996 welfare reform enacted in the Clinton administration, faith-based organizations have been invited to compete on an equal basis for social service grants under the “Charitable Choice” act sponsored by former senator John Ashcroft.

At the time, it seemed foolish for federal grants to exclude community-serving organizations that were already embedded in depressed neighborhoods via churches and storefront outlets, and whose mercy workers were known to the poor and trusted by those they were serving. These ministries of hope had a holistic approach that proved especially effective for addressing certain afflictions.

Early in 2001, then-president George W. Bush created the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives to nurture the idea. The hope was that the office would expand on the number of social service programs that required all grant applicants to be treated the same, emphasizing in particular that there be no penalties on account of an applicant’s religious character.

The criteria for applicants was no longer Who are you? but rather, Can you do the job? And that job was the effective delivery of the program’s services. Whatever else that might be communicated of a spiritual nature was not only not the concern of the government but was something with which officials were not to become entangled.

The Obama administration continued the initiative largely unchanged, albeit under the altered moniker of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. This was a rare instance of bipartisanship, and President Barack Obama had to withstand some heat from his party’s progressive left.

Over the last 20 years, there have been major rulings by the US Supreme Court reforming the law of church-state relations and making it easier to direct government aid to the best-performing charities, without penalty for being religious. So long as the purpose of the aid was—from the government’s point of view—secular, such as education, health care, or social services, then the government was to steer its money to the most capable applicants.

For example, the high court has long said that a state may choose to fund only its K–12 public schools, but if a state wants to also help private schools, it must treat religious and secular private schools equally. Under the First Amendment, evenhanded aid to K–12 religious schools is not only permitted by the establishment clause, but to discriminate against such schools is now prohibited by the free exercise clause (“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”).

Whether one deems this development good or bad, there is no denying that there has been a sea change in the inclusion of religious K–12 schools in government largess. This has spawned a school-choice surge in about half the states.

Those same First Amendment principles apply to social services. What became known as the faith-based “equal-treatment regulations” during the Bush administration were to be kept in line with developments at the Supreme Court.

These equal-treatment regulations now span nine federal departments, with big-money programs at the likes of the US Departments of Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, and Justice, as well as the US Agency for International Development.

Given the current trajectory of the high court permitting government to pursue school choice, any needed updating by the Biden administration of the equal-treatment regulations should have been straightforward. The simple path was for social service providers, secular and religious, to compete equally for grant funding. The government’s interest begins and ends with the effective delivery of the designated aid to the program beneficiaries, be it drug rehabilitation, housing, job retraining, or reducing domestic violence.

The regulations just released by the Biden administration, however, are not only not simple but soul-killing to faith-based social service providers.

First, the regulations distinguish between whether the aid is delivered directly to the provider or delivered indirectly by way of a voucher given to the beneficiary to be passed on to the provider. In actuality, the distinction makes no difference; the result is the same for purposes of the First Amendment.

It once made a difference because the Supreme Court, starting in the early 1980s, interpreted the establishment clause to allow indirect aid to religious schools. It was expedient for the court to entertain the fiction that when a voucher or other form of indirect aid first went to parents—who selected the school for their child—the aid was from the parent, not the state. But all concerned knew this was really government aid to private schools, including religious schools. That’s why the public-school lobby fought vouchers. In any event, today’s court has moved beyond this fiction, and so must the equal-treatment regulations.

Second, the Biden regulations require that any faith-based provider be monitored to ensure that none of the funding is used for “explicitly religious purposes.” This too is an artifact of the court’s cases from 25 years ago but is superseded by today’s free-exercise clause principle that faith-based providers be treated the same as secular providers. The specified monitoring of religious providers will entangle church and government in ways inimical to our heritage, which rightly separates the two.

More fundamentally, the rule prohibiting aid for explicitly religious purposes is asking the wrong question. The proper inquiry is whether the provider, secular or religious, is doing the job of effectively delivering the program’s services. If the answer is in the affirmative, the government has received full value for its funding and its interest comes to an end. As noted above, the free exercise clause no longer allows discriminatory treatment of religious providers.

Third, if a grantee is faith-based, then the Biden regulations provide that a beneficiary may raise a religious objection to any part of the social service program and demand an adjustment.

Consider the impossibility of operating a religious K–12 school that must allow each of its students to pick and choose from its educational program, where students can opt out from any part of the curriculum that they find religiously objectionable. In parallel fashion, under the Biden rules, a faith-based drug rehabilitation center must admit a beneficiary to its program—which integrates faith with the whole of life—and then adjust its program depending on the religious ideocracies of the beneficiary. A provider can’t do that efficiently, especially when what makes the program successful is each beneficiary’s full participation in an integrated program, including its spiritual aspects.

What the regulations ought to provide is a way for beneficiaries who have a religious objection to be sent to a different program. In the rare instance where there are no non-religiously objectionable programs for a beneficiary, then the establishment clause requires the government to provide an equivalent service. The establishment clause places the duty on the government because the First Amendment runs against the government, not the faith-based provider.

The Trump administration could have been helpful here but failed. A White House Faith-Based Office sets a vision for the initiative and provides focus for the vast and unwieldy executive branch. Trump set up a White House partnership advisor, not an office; did not fill that position until two years into his administration; and then placed that person in the Office of Public Liaison, the unit that coordinates with supportive coalitions and mobilizes voter support. In other words, Trump politicized the initiative.

From that low point, one would think just about anything the Biden administration did would have been an improvement. Yet Biden stumbled over even that low hurdle.

Carl H. Esbeck is the R.B. Price Professor of Law Emeritus at the University of Missouri. When John Ashcroft was attorney general in the Bush administration, Professor Esbeck headed the task force to implement the faith-based initiative at the US Department of Justice.

- More from Carl H. Esbeck