Reconciling God & Disasters

When faith is at the center of a person’s life, it can provide a strong anchor in even the roughest storms. 

When disaster strikes, research shows that many people turn to religion to make meaning and cope in the aftermath. But significant traumatic events like disasters can challenge peoples’ previously held beliefs and experiences, including their idea of God.

This can threaten to turn their worldviews upside down. They may wonder how God allowed this tragedy to happen, or how to reconcile their idea of a “good” God with the reality of pain and suffering they see.

Within the psychology of religion/spirituality literature, this is often referred to as a “head-heart discrepancy.” This may lead to what is known as religious cognitive dissonance. The Encyclopedia of Religion and Society explains the phenomenon as follows:

People prefer a situation in which their cognitions are consistent with each other and their cognitions are consistent with their behaviors. If there are inconsistencies among a person's cognitions, or between cognitions and behaviors, these will cause disquiet in the person, leading him or her to seek some resolution of the discomfort.

Simply put, the bigger the discrepancy, the more likely people will feel stressed as they try to reconcile their disaster experience with their established religious beliefs and experiences.

To better understand why some people might experience greater religious cognitive dissonance than others in the aftermath of a disaster, our team at the Humanitarian Disaster Institute recently conducted a laboratory study led by Dr. Daryl Van Tongeren (Hope College) and published our findings in the American Psychological Association journal Psychology of Religion and Spirituality.

Particularly, we wanted to better understand what role the centrality of one’s ...

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Christianity Today’s Top News Headlines of 2019

World Vision flips the script on child sponsorship, James MacDonald fired from Harvest Bible Chapel, and comedian John Crist cancels tour over sexual harassment allegations.

Grace glimmered through the darkness of 2019’s news headlines. Christianity Today’s most-read news pieces last year included high-profile tragedies and harrassment allegations, but also reporting on a theologian’s changed stance on divorce and a new model of child sponsorship. Here are CT’s top news headlines of 2019, listed from least to most popular.

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Outspoken Chinese Pastor Wang Yi Sentenced to 9 Years in Prison

The Early Rain leader decried the evil of the Communist regime and was arrested with dozens of fellow Christians last December.

China on Monday sentenced a prominent pastor who operated outside the Communist Party-recognized Protestant organization to nine years in prison.

The People’s Intermediate Court in the southwestern city of Chengdu said pastor Wang Yi was also convicted of illegal business operations, fined, and had his personal assets seized.

Wang had led the Early Rain Covenant Church and was arrested a year ago along with dozens of church leaders as part of an ongoing crackdown on all unauthorized religious groups in the country. The government requires that Protestants worship only in churches recognized and regulated by the party-led Three-Self Patriotic Movement.

Wang’s congregation, one of the most prominent unregistered churches in the country, was shut down during a series of government raids on church gatherings in December 2019. The church released a prepared statement from its pastor after his arrest.

“I firmly believe that Christ has called me to carry out this faithful disobedience through a life of service, under this regime that opposes the gospel and persecutes the church,” he wrote in a widely shared Declaration of Faithful Disobedience. “This is the means by which I preach the gospel, and it is the mystery of the gospel which I preach.”

Wang stated that he denies whatever charges the government has against him, but will serve his time. The 9-year-sentence for “inciting to subvert state power” and “illegal business operations” is the longest prison term issued against a house a church pastor in a decade, according to World magazine’s China reporter, June Cheng.

Si Weijiang, a lawyer hired by Wang’s mother, said the charge of illegal business operations stemmed ...

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A Scrappy Network of Christians Welcomes Congolese Asylum Seekers

While Congolese asylum-seekers make a desperate journey north, a scrappy network of Christians answers the call to help.

Temperatures in the Chihuahuan Desert lowlands were steadily hitting triple digits in the last days of June as a small group of Congolese men, women, and children waded into the Rio Grande in the Mexican city of Ciudad Acuña. Midway across a weary, 31-year-old man named Gauthier looked up toward the riverbank on the other side, in Del Rio, Texas. Several US Customs and Border Patrol were waiting.

Waiting, he hoped, to guide him and his fellow travelers toward asylum in the United States.

The Congolese raised their hands in surrender and were loaded into vans that would take them, ever so briefly, into the custody of the US government. After two days—a mere formality of registering their presence in the US—the hungry and exhausted travelers would undergo what they prayed was the final leg of their escape from war and violence.

They had varying destinations in mind. But most of them were bound for Portland, Maine, where they knew they would find a critical mass of French-speaking Africans.

What they didn’t know exactly was how they would get there from Texas. Or that lining the routes was an invisible network of ministries, anonymous hands waiting to deliver them food, showers, and travel assistance. Or that in one of the least-churched cities in America, a small but scrappy community of both white and Central African believers was already waiting for them.

Del Rio, Texas

The Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) sector in Del Rio is one of the agency’s sleepier offices on the Southwest border, in part because the city of Del Rio and its Mexican counterpart, Ciudad Acuña, are surrounded by hundreds of miles of desert. But by June it was already doubling and tripling its usual monthly apprehensions. ...

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In the Bus Station, You Fed Me

While Congolese asylum-seekers make a desperate journey north, a scrappy network of Christians answers the call to help.

Temperatures in the Chihuahuan Desert lowlands were steadily hitting triple digits in the last days of June as a small group of Congolese men, women, and children waded into the Rio Grande in the Mexican city of Ciudad Acuña. Midway across a weary, 31-year-old man named Gauthier looked up toward the riverbank on the other side, in Del Rio, Texas. Several US Customs and Border Patrol were waiting.

Waiting, he hoped, to guide him and his fellow travelers toward asylum in the United States.

The Congolese raised their hands in surrender and were loaded into vans that would take them, ever so briefly, into the custody of the US government. After two days—a mere formality of registering their presence in the US—the hungry and exhausted travelers would undergo what they prayed was the final leg of their escape from war and violence.

They had varying destinations in mind. But most of them were bound for Portland, Maine, where they knew they would find a critical mass of French-speaking Africans.

What they didn’t know exactly was how they would get there from Texas. Or that lining the routes was an invisible network of ministries, anonymous hands waiting to deliver them food, showers, and travel assistance. Or that in one of the least-churched cities in America, a small but scrappy community of both white and Central African believers was already waiting for them.

Del Rio, Texas

The Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) sector in Del Rio is one of the agency’s sleepier offices on the Southwest border, in part because the city of Del Rio and its Mexican counterpart, Ciudad Acuña, are surrounded by hundreds of miles of desert. But by June it was already doubling and tripling its usual monthly apprehensions. ...

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Texas Churchgoers Shot Down Gunman Who Opened Fire During Communion

Police commend “heroic parishioners” who halted an attack that left at least two dead at a Church of Christ congregation outside Fort Worth.

WHITE SETTLEMENT, Texas (AP) — Congregants shot and killed a man who opened fire in a church near Fort Worth, Texas, on Sunday, killing the attacker, police said.

A person shot by the suspect also died and a second parishioner has life-threatening injuries following the attack at the West Freeway Church of Christ, White Settlement Police Department Chief J. P. Bevering said during a news conference Sunday afternoon.

The assailant fired once before the “heroic actions” of the congregants cut his assault short, Bevering said.

“Unfortunately, this country has seen so many of these that we’ve actually gotten used to it at this point. And it’s tragic and it’s a terrible situation, especially during the holiday season,” Jeoff Williams, a regional director with the Texas Department of Public Safety, said at the news conference.

“I would like to point out that we have a couple of heroic parishioners who stopped short of just anything that you can even imagine, saved countless lives, and our hearts are going out to them and their families as well.”

Authorities have released scant details about the victims, the shooter, and what led to the attack.

An elder at the church told the New York Times that one of those killed was a security guard who responded to the shooter, calling him a dear friend.

“He was trying to do what he needed to do to protect the rest of us,” said the elder, Mike Tinius.

“It’s extremely upsetting to see anyone committing violence,” he said.

Tinius said he didn’t know the gunman and that the shooting appeared to be random.

A woman who answered the phone at the West Freeway Church of Christ told the AP she could not answer any ...

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Sudan Lets Christians March for Jesus Again

Resumption of Christmas tradition comes as US State Department downgrades African nation on religious freedom blacklist.

KHARTOUM, Sudan (AP) - The Sudanese Christian marchers weaved through bustling markets and traffic-clogged streets wearing “I Love Jesus” T-shirts or colorful traditional robes known as thobes.

“Glory to God in the highest. And on Earth, peace, goodwill toward men,” a speaker said. Hymns blared and chants of hallelujah intermingled with loud, emotion-filled cries of celebration. Passersby and merchants snapped photos or flashed victory signs.

The marching group from the Bahri Evangelical Church was small, but the symbolism of the moment loomed much larger. The March for Jesus holiday tradition had been suspended in recent years under authoritarian President Omar al-Bashir, whose government was accused of harassing and marginalizing Christians and other religious minorities.

This holiday season, a year after the eruption of the uprising against al-Bashir, Sudan is transitioning away from his three-decade repressive rule. The military overthrew him in April after months of pro-democracy protests. A transitional military-civilian administration now rules the country.

Though some caution against being overly optimistic about expanded religious freedom, Monday’s march was one small sign of new openings.

“Hallelujah! Today, we are happy that the Sudanese government has opened up the streets for us so we can express our faith,” said Izdhar Ibrahim, one of the marchers. Some Christians had been frightened before “because we used to encounter difficulties.”

The changes started in 2011, after South Sudan gained independence from Sudan following a long war and a referendum. South Sudan is mostly Christian and animist, a belief that all objects have a spirit. Al-Bashir’s government ...

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