Pakistani Pastors Ambushed by Gunmen While Driving from Church

The leader of three Protestant parishes was killed in the incident, which one police official labeled a terrorist attack.

A Church of Pakistan lay pastor was gunned down and a priest wounded by unknown assailants as the leaders drove home from a worship service on Sunday in the northwestern Pakistan city of Peshawar, where Christians had suffered their deadliest attack in the country’s history nearly a decade earlier.

Church of Pakistan Bishop of Peshawar Humphrey Peters said that William Siraj, 75, was shot and died instantly in the ambush in the Gulbahar neighborhood, while Patrick Naeem, 55, sustained a bullet wound but was in stable condition. A third church leader in the car was unharmed, he said.

The Protestant church leaders were returning from All Saints Church parish when two gunmen riding a motorcycle intercepted their car and opened fire on them, Peters said.

“Siraj received one bullet in the forehead and one on the arm and died instantly, while Rev. Naeem received a bullet wound in the hand,” he said. “It’s a miracle that Rev. Naeem and another priest escaped the volley of bullets.”

The assailants fled the scene unchallenged, according to witnesses, Peters said.

Siraj was a senior lay leader and led worship at three different parishes while Naeem was the priest of the All Saints Church parish, Peters said.

“Siraj had lost his son-in-law in the gun-and-bomb attack on Peshawar’s All Saints Church in 2013, in which over 70 worshippers were killed and 100 others were wounded,” Peters said. “He is survived by his wife, a son, and a daughter. This is a very tragic loss for our church.”

The church leader said that security agencies had issued no terror alerts for the area since the Christmas season.

“The last time we were notified about a security threat was during Christmas ...

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French’s Two Words for ‘Hope’ Helped Me Endure the Pandemic

In the midst of uncertain times, here’s what I’m learning from "espoir" and "espérance."

During a recent exchange with a colleague I knew to be quite ambitious, a few of his words stuck with me: “I would rather live a difficult present with my resources than continue to save resources for an uncertain future. Who knows? The way things are going, the world may end tomorrow.”

The COVID-19 pandemic has led many to think that it is difficult or even impossible to continue to dream and believe in a better future.

Like my colleague, many around us have abandoned projects and are touched by various levels of depression that keep them from looking toward the future. Some have succumbed to suicide when they saw no other way or because they could not imagine living without their close family members who were tragically taken away by the virus. Many hopes have been dashed.

In my country of Benin, many businesses have been forced to cut back on work hours, which has resulted in staff layoffs. Some families have struggled to provide for their basic needs. Certain products that are now difficult to obtain.

And that is not all. The International Labor Organization announced last year that “global unemployment will reach 205 million people by 2022.” How can we not lose hope when faced with these challenges?

Two kinds of hope

Unlike English, which uses the word hope broadly, the French language uses two words that derive from the word espérer (to hope): espoir and espérance. Both can first refer to something hoped for. In this sense, the word espoir usually refers to an uncertain object; that is, someone who hopes for something in this way does not have the certainty that it will happen (“I hope the weather will be nice tomorrow”). On the other hand, espérance describes what, ...

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Announcing the Winners of Christianity Today’s First International Essay Contest

Wisdom, perspective, and theological understanding from Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Indonesian writers.

In 2021, we published more than 800 translations of Christianity Today articles into Spanish, Portuguese, French, Chinese (simplified and traditional), Indonesian, Korean, and Russian. We’re excited that so many of our essays and news stories have resonated with readers around the world. As we open 2022, we’re delighted to be sharing pieces originally written in Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Indonesian with our English readers.

Last year, we announced a contest for those who write in these languages and received more than 100 submissions. These essays were meticulously reviewed by our language editorial teams and then assessed anonymously by a team of judges. A big thank you to these judges for their time and thoughtfulness. And thank you to everyone who submitted an essay for deeply engaging your faith and the world.

We’re currently entering our third year of building out CT Global’s language ministries. If you’re interested in assisting us in growing this work, here’s where you can learn more about our translation and social media roles.

Any feedback you’d like to share with us, please send here. Thank you for reading!

—Morgan Lee
Global media manager

Indonesian

Editorial director: Maria Fennita, Indonesia

Judges:

• Casthelia Kartika: president of Sekolah Tinggi Teologi Amanat Agung (Great Commission Theological Seminary), Jakarta
• Jimmy Setiawan: founder of WOW (Wonders Of Worship) Ministry, Jakarta
• Wahyu Pramudya: lead pastor of Gereja Kristen Indonesia Ngagel (Indonesian Christian Church Ngagel), Surabaya, and founder of ributrukun.net

French

Editorial director: Léo Lehmann, Belgium

Judges:

• Maxime Pierre-Pierre, Haiti: pastor, teacher, Séminaire de Théologie Évangélique de Port-au-Prince (Evangelical Theological Seminary of Port-au Prince)

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An Indonesian Family Drama Helped Me See God’s Sovereignty in the Pandemic

Watching characters struggle amid tragedy has given me clarity about Christ’s character during life’s painful moments.

The feature film Nanti Kita Cerita tentang Hari Ini (One Day We’ll Talk About Today) is one of a number of quality Indonesian films that have recently caught my attention. (Caution: spoilers ahead.) The film tells a simple yet touching story of a family: a father, mother, and their three children, Angkasa, Aurora, and Awan. The father is overprotective of Awan, the youngest child in the family. He demands that Angkasa, the eldest, take care of her and put aside his own interests. At the same time, Aurora, the middle child, sometimes feels neglected and ignored by her father.

The plot reaches its climax when it is revealed that Awan had a twin who passed away. It becomes apparent that this is why the father has been so overprotective. Having just learned about this, Angkasa explodes at his father. This family, which had seemed so harmonious, splits up. The mother, who has stayed largely in the background, begins to speak up in an effort to reunite the family. The father then works to make peace with himself and his family, learning how he might divide his attention equally among his three children. The film ends with everyone coming together.

I saw this film two months before the first cases of COVID-19 were detected in Indonesia and kept returning to it after we entered lockdown. Each character’s individual response to tragedy helped me empathize with the variety of ways I saw people coping with the pandemic around the world. Further, the film helped me realize that these reactions could become a story to tell in the future, whether as silly distractions for our grandchildren or cautionary tales for our community.

The Bible is filled with stories of people experiencing God in their lives in both good and bad ways. ...

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Brian Houston Steps Aside as Hillsong Global Senior Pastor

Founder takes leave of absence for 2022 in order to prepare for trial on charges that he concealed alleged child abuse by his father.

Brian Houston, cofounder of the Hillsong megachurch and media empire, announced he is stepping aside as global senior pastor, telling worshipers via a prerecorded video played during the Sunday morning service at Hillsong’s Sydney, Australia, headquarters that he would be taking a leave of absence from the church until the end of this year.

Citing a decision by the Hillsong board and external legal counsel, Houston, standing with his wife and cofounder, Bobbie, said “best practice” dictates that he absent himself completely from church leadership as he faces trial for allegedly failing to report sexual abuse. The court proceedings, he said, are “likely to be drawn out and take up most of 2022.”

“It’s been an unexpected season, and we are thankful for you all and for the community we share,” Houston said on the video streamed toward the end of the service. “I never get tired of the praise reports and miracles, especially those committing to Jesus.”

Houston’s leave of absence comes after more than a year of scandals that rocked the church both in Australia and abroad and amid Houston’s own legal troubles at home. Houston stepped down from the board of Hillsong in September.

“The result is that the Hillsong Global Board feel it is in my and the church’s best interest for this to happen, so I have agreed to step aside from all ministry responsibilities until the end of the year,” Houston said in the January 30 video announcement.

Houston, 67, was charged in August with concealing a serious indictable offense of another person. Police say his late father, Frank Houston, also a preacher, indecently assaulted a young male in 1970. Court documents ...

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Religious Conversion Is Incredibly Personal. But It Also Invites Public Scrutiny.

As a new history of high-profile converts illustrates, those who find (or change) faith can’t opt out of being seen.

When I was a child, our church had a children’s choir for a special event one year. I don’t like being up front and having everyone look at me, so I got permission to sit it out, even though all my siblings were participating.

When the special day came, every child in the church got up and went to the stage. They all turned around. And looked straight at me. I was the only one not in the choir, and I might as well have had a spotlight on my face.

I kept thinking about that memory as I read Rebecca L. Davis’s fascinating new book, Public Confessions: The Religious Conversions That Changed American Politics. She tells the stories of people finding faith, changing faith, and going through the incredibly personal process of experiencing something transcendent and declaring themselves different.

Again and again, the converted Americans in her narrative discover what I discovered the day of the children’s choir: You can’t opt out of being seen. Even personal decisions are, in part, public. This is especially true when the individual act goes against the public—in the opposite direction from the crowd.

Limits to reinvention

Davis shows that during the Cold War, a number of notable conversions provoked fierce, even frenzied public controversy. In the process, she writes, “claims of religious authenticity” moved “to the center of American political debates.” When minor and major celebrities, including writers, entertainers, athletes, and politicians, went through religious transformations, “their stories played upon the stage of public imagination,” raising questions “of whether and how different kinds of faith variously anchored or undermined American freedoms.” ...

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Ukrainian Baptist Leader: Russian Invasion Could Send the Church Underground

Christians prepare to open their homes and houses of worship if believers have to flee the eastern border.

Baptists in Western Ukraine have made plans to shelter fellow believers in the case of a Russian invasion at Ukraine’s eastern border, a Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary graduate who now leads a Baptist seminary in Ukraine told Baptist Press.

“If Russia will invade, they will invade in eastern part and northern part, and a little bit of south,” said Yarsolav “Slavik” Pyzh, president of Ukrainian Baptist Theological Seminary (UBTS) in Lviv who holds a doctorate from Southwestern.

“Churches already agreed,” Pyzh said. “Those that are on the western part of Ukraine … told our brothers and sisters in other parts of Ukraine [that] if something happens we will open our homes and our churches to you.”

Russia persecutes Christians through restrictions such as the 2016 Yarovaya Law criminalizing evangelism outside church walls. Russia considers any church beyond the government-influenced Russian Orthodox Church to be sectarian or a cult.

Pyzh believes Russian victory in Ukraine would more than likely lead to Ukraine being split into two countries, with western Ukraine remaining independent. Baptist churches that would fall to Russian rule as a consequence would likely transition to spread the gospel underground, Pyzh said, rather than abandon the faith.

“The church will go underground,” he said. “You have to understand that historically we had that experience before under the Soviet Union. So the church did not forget what does it mean to be persecuted, and I think that we will rearrange, reorganize, and still do what we always do, still preach the gospel.”

About 400 of the 1,300 students enrolled in UBTS are from eastern Ukraine, Pyzh said. UBTS ...

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Gov. DeSantis, Let My Ministry Serve Migrant Kids

In preventing care for unaccompanied minors, Florida's governor is interfering with US law and religious freedoms.

In December, Florida governor Ron DeSantis issued an “emergency rule” blocking the issuance and renewal of state licenses for organizations that serve unaccompanied migrant children, including many faith-based organizations.

Recently, Floridian evangelical pastors joined other religious leaders and laypeople in urging the governor to reconsider this decision, which both puts vulnerable children at risk and impinges on the religious liberty of Floridians.

Governor DeSantis’s stated rationale for the order is focused on preventing the resettlement of “illegal aliens” to the state, but the reality is that the unaccompanied migrant children at the center of this debate are being treated precisely how US law requires.

The William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act is a law that President Bush signed after significant advocacy from evangelical leaders in 2008.

It states that when the Border Patrol identifies a child from a noncontiguous country seeking protection at the US-Mexico border without a parent or legal guardian, the patrol is to transfer the child to the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to ensure the child is kept safe.

From there, HHS works with a network of childcare providers—which are required to be licensed by the state to ensure they meet appropriate standards. These providers care for the kids until a sponsor is identified, which is usually the child’s mother or father who already lives in the US, or another relative.

The child is eventually required to report to an immigration court to determine whether he or she lawfully qualifies to stay in the US.

Christians may agree or disagree with whether this is the best process for responding ...

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