Supreme Court Sides With Christian Who Wont Make Gay Wedding Sites

Ruling: Colorado can’t “force all manner of artists, speechwriters, and others whose services involve speech to speak what they do not believe.”

The US Supreme Court delivered a First Amendment victory Friday to a Christian designer who objects to creating custom websites for same-sex weddings.

The high court ruled in a 6–3 opinion the state of Colorado would violate the free-speech rights of Lorie Smith by requiring her to design a website for a ceremony that conflicts with her conscience. The decision provided an important legal win for the rights of Christians and other faith adherents in a series of cases involving the intersection of religious freedom and same-sex marriage.

In the majority opinion, Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch said the state “seeks to force an individual to speak in ways that align with its views but defy her conscience about a matter of major significance.”

As the Supreme Court “has long held, the opportunity to think for ourselves and to express those thoughts freely is among our most cherished liberties and part of what keeps our Republic strong,” he wrote. “The First Amendment envisions the United States as a rich and complex place where all persons are free to think and speak as they wish, not as the government demands.”

The high court’s decision broke along ideological/political lines. Nominees by Republican presidents made up the majority, while justices nominated by Democrats were in dissent. Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett joined Gorsuch in the majority. Associate Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented.

The head of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) applauded the justices’ action.

“If the government can compel an individual ...

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Some Southern Baptist Women Worry About a Narrowing Complementarianism

Recent debates have left them discouraged and uncertain about what’s next for female leaders.

On the ten-hour drive home from the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) annual meeting in New Orleans, Leah Finn had questions.

Finn felt like she should know enough to understand the changes that 12,000 Southern Baptists approved at their gathering in mid-June. She had been following the proposals for months, she knew the rules of parliamentary procedure, and her husband, Nathan Finn, serves as a trustee on the SBC Executive Committee.

With the rejection of Saddleback Church’s appeal, it was clear the convention held a strong consensus against women as lead pastors and preaching pastors and would be willing to break fellowship over the issue. But what about women in other roles?

The SBC moved to change its foundational documents to reiterate its stance: amending its constitution to explicitly state that cooperating churches must restrict “any kind” of pastor to qualified men and rewording its faith statement to say that “pastors/overseers/elders” are male.

Many Southern Baptist leaders advocating for the new wording saw it as a way to clarify their shared complementarian convictions. But some women have quietly worried that the changes, and the surrounding debate, could call into question or further limit their place in the denomination.

Leah Finn thought of her friends who serve as ministers at SBC churches, teach at SBC seminaries, and pursue degrees at SBC schools and wondered how the decisions would affect them in the years ahead.

She and her husband ended up writing an op-ed for Baptist Press, the SBC’s official outlet, lamenting how the annual meeting left female leaders “uncertain about their future in Southern Baptist life.” Some wonder what moves could come next, and others ...

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Todays Arab Women Theologians Have Plenty of Past Exemplars

From desert mothers to modern scholars, the Middle East has long featured females leading from the margins—and sometimes near the center of patriarchal power.

The Middle East today is at a kairos moment in time. As women across the region fight for their rights and freedoms, the tectonic shift is felt also in Christian academia. What was once a trickle of female theologians has developed into a growing number of developing leaders, enabling and emboldening other women to rise in leadership.

While only Protestant churches have yet ordained female priests—in Lebanon, Syria, and the Palestinian territories—other similar bold figures are modeling an emerging path of spirituality within patriarchal Arab society.

But their own inspiration is found in the past.

As members of the first Christian communities, Eastern Christian women—deaconesses, historians, theologians, and martyrs—articulated their faith and theology centuries ago. However, their stories are not well known even in our region. But it is remarkable that two of the largest remaining Christian communities in the Arab world, Coptic and Maronite, have known historical female leadership. Within the rich and complex ecclesial context of the Middle East, their legacy continues to shape our theological thought as evangelical women today.

Desert mothers

Observing the full moon rise above today’s Egyptian desert in the land where Saint Anthony (A.D. 251–356) originally established monasticism as a lay movement, I am reminded how spirituality was crafted by asceticism. The desert fathers left a heritage of wisdom celebrated by many today who seek spiritual discipline.

But we often overlook the desert mothers.

These Ammas (from the original Syriac) were Christian ascetics who also inhabited the deserts of Egypt, Palestine, and Syria in the fourth and fifth centuries, whether in monastic communities or as ...

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Died: Reiji Oyama Bible Translator Who Repented for Japans Wartime Sins

The humble pastor made the Word easy to understand for modern Japanese and sought to heal the "bitter enmity" with Korea.

Reiji Oyama, the translator of the Modern Japanese Bible and one of the founders of the Japan Evangelical Association, died on May 16 at the age of 96 in Tokyo.

He started translating the Bible in 1960, beginning with the letter to Philemon and moving on to publishing the entire New Testament in Japanese in 1978. In Japanese, it was known as Gendaijin no Seisho or “Bible for Modern Man.” But Oyama preferred using this English title: “The Understandable Bible.”

He believed most people don’t read the Bible because they think it is too difficult. The difficulty is not the Bible itself, though, but how it has been translated, Oyama said. He argued that most Japanese versions of Scripture strove for faithfulness to the biblical text but, unfortunately, disregarded cultural differences.

Oyama believed that it was important that the meaning of the biblical text, as revealed to its original audience, should be equally clear in the Japanese language. As a result, his translations were often paraphrases rather than word-for-word translations.

“My father showed me the honest, humble faith of a child every day,” his daughter Megumi Okano said at his funeral. “I can see the faith of a humble little child who accepts what is taught by the Bible and believes that it is true.”

Reiji Oyama was born in Tokyo on January 15, 1927. His father, Tōji, was a manager at the Mitsukoshi department store and later opened a used bookstore, while his mother, Ikuko, was a housewife. When World War II began, Oyama became a high school cadet in the Japanese Imperial Army Accounting Academy, which trained elite officers in college-level courses, martial arts, and horsemanship.

After the war, Oyama entered Waseda ...

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The Word Made Fresh: Taglish Bible Translation Brings Streets of Manila into Church

After 16 years and plenty of controversy, the Philippine Bible Society completes its Pinoy Version.

When the Philippines Bible Society (PBS) first released the New Testament translated into Taglish—a mix of Tagalog and English used by urban dwellers in the Philippines—five years ago, Filipino Christians were in an uproar on social media. Many decried it as irreverent or blasphemous to translate the Word of God into a colloquial language more commonly seen on the Internet or heard at the supermarket.

So Anicia del Corro, a PBS translation consultant who spearheaded the project, started holding talks, giving interviews, and writing articles outlining how her team conducted research and painstakingly translated the New Testament from the original Greek. She stressed that the Bible’s target audience was Gen Z and milennials in Metro Manila, a region made up of 16 cities and 13 million people.

In contrast, when PBS launched the entire Bible translated into Taglish earlier this month called Ang Bible Pinoy Version, Del Corro felt relieved that the burden was no longer on her to do the explaining: At a launch party attended by nearly 500 people, pastors and leaders shared their personal experience using and preaching from the Pinoy Version. Jayson Genanda, pastor of Malaya House Church, said that when he leads a Bible study he makes sure to look at the Taglish translation to get the meaning of a passage.

“The users themselves are the ones promoting it,” Del Corro said. “They know people who can’t understand the Word in other translations can use Ang Bible Pinoy Version.” (Ang mean “the” in Tagalog and Pinoy is an informal term referring to the Philippines or Filipinos.)

Ang Bible Pinoy Version, which took 16 years to complete, is the first completed Bible translation in ...

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Died: Reiji Oyama Bible Translator Who Repented for Japan's Wartime Sins

The humble pastor made the Word easy to understand for modern Japanese and sought to heal the "bitter enmity" with Korea.

Reiji Oyama, the translator of the Modern Japanese Bible and one of the founders of the Japan Evangelical Association, died on May 16 at the age of 96 in Tokyo.

He started translating the Bible in 1960, beginning with the letter to Philemon and moving on to publishing the entire New Testament in Japanese in 1978. In Japanese, it was known as Gendaijin no Seisho or “Bible for Modern Man.” But Oyama preferred using this English title: “The Understandable Bible.”

He believed most people don’t read the Bible because they think it is too difficult. The difficulty is not the Bible itself, though, but how it has been translated, Oyama said. He argued that most Japanese versions of Scripture strove for faithfulness to the biblical text but, unfortunately, disregarded cultural differences.

Oyama believed that it was important that the meaning of the biblical text, as revealed to its original audience, should be equally clear in the Japanese language. As a result, his translations were often paraphrases rather than word-for-word translations.

“My father showed me the honest, humble faith of a child every day,” his daughter Negumi Okano said at his funeral. “I can see the faith of a humble little child who accepts what is taught by the Bible and believes that it is true.”

Reiji Oyama was born in Tokyo on January 15, 1927. His father, Tōji, was a manager at the Mitzukoshi department store and later opened a used bookstore, while his mother, Ikuko, was a housewife. When World War II began, Oyama became a high school cadet in the Japanese Imperial Army Accounting Academy, which trained elite officers in college-level courses, martial arts, and horsemanship.

After the war, Oyama entered Waseda ...

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Colonialism Brought Evangelicalism to the Philippines. Churches Are Now Untangling the Two.

Five Filipino Christian leaders weigh in on the American church’s influence on worship, culture, and politics.

The Philippines boasts of being the only Christian nation in Asia. Filipino Catholics make up 80 percent of the population while evangelicals make up another 3 percent.

The country’s large Christian population today is the result of 300 years of Spanish rule, which brought Catholicism to the Philippine archipelago. Then the United States colonized the Philippines for about 50 years until 1946. During this time, Americans introduced a universal education system, the English language, and Protestantism.

As a result, American evangelicalism has an outsized influence on the Filipino church today. From churches’ adoption of English-language Bibles and Hillsong worship songs to the embrace of US-based Christian NGOs working in the country’s urban slums and rural areas, Filipino evangelicals often look to their American counterparts to understand their relation to God.

CT interviewed five Filipino Christian pastors and ministry leaders in the Philippines and the diaspora to examine how American evangelicalism has shaped their view of politics, liturgy, culture, and gender; and what living under the painful reality of their country’s colonial past is like as a Filipino believer. (Answers have been edited and shortened for clarity).

Obed Relliquette, lead pastor of Crusade Bible Church in Quezon City, Philippines

The brand of Christianity in the Philippines is American. It has a long, deep root in our country. This is why I almost cannot distinguish what is culturally and theologically American or Filipino.

I studied in the Febias College of Bible, which American G.I.s founded in the 1940s and led until the ’70s. The church I grew up in was influenced by Americans who were pragmatic and democratic. Our church ...

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My Church My Choice

How the modern concept of self-creation turns Christian community into personal identity.

The recent death of pastor-theologian Tim Keller sparked nostalgia for my young, restless days as part of the Young, Restless, and Reformed (YRR) movement he helped lead.

As someone raised in Christian fundamentalism, it offered me a kind of holy rebellion where free grace, contemporary music, and cultural engagement came packaged with God’s glory and power. But two decades on, I find myself less Young, Restless, and Reformed and more Old, Tired, and Reorienting.

I can’t help but wonder how I got from here to there. What path led me from the traditions of my childhood to and through other ones? How much of my spiritual path was chosen, and how much was given? Was my spiritual life “begotten or made”?

The idea that our faith journeys are larger than our choices challenges the very spirituality most of us take for granted. A committed personal relationship with God is a feature of most modern expressions of Christianity. My 17-year-old son, for example, finds it anathema that children could be baptized against their will. He’s not making a theological claim so much as an anthropological one, informed by a larger American culture that assumes self-creation through choice.

In fairness to him, the majority of low church traditions—including the one I was reared in—hold this same individualist assumption. Commitment to personal conversion and voluntary association may also explain why nondenominational churches now represent the largest segment of American Protestants.

These churches are deeply and inexhaustibly modern, not because of their sneakers and fog machines, but because they align with our contemporary understanding of choice. Without a denominational progenitor, they embody self-determination ...

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For Worship Bands Auto-Tune Covers a Multitude of Sins

In the livestreaming era, church sound booths are upping their game.

According to the Prophet Isaiah, grass withers, flowers fade, but God’s word endures.

In the age of social media, so do the mistakes of church musicians.

Play the wrong chord, forget the words to a song or sing an off note, and a worship leader or singer may find themselves featured in Facebook videos or Instagram accounts like “Worship Fails” for years.

As a result, said Marc Jolicoeur, worship and creative pastor at Moncton Wesleyan Church in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada, churches like his have paid more attention to how their music sounds online. That includes using Auto-Tune or other pitch-correcting software.

Widely used in the recording industry to smooth out the rough edges of vocalists, pitch correction has become fairly common in congregations.

The pitch correction process feeds the sounds sung into a microphone into a processor that aligns the singer’s pitches with pure versions of the note.

In worship contexts, pitch correction makes it easier for less talented or less rehearsed singers to still help lead congregational singing, said Jolicoeur. If they make small mistakes, they can be corrected easily.

Churches are also more aware of hitting the right notes because their services are going out on livestreams. People attending a service in person, said Jolicoeur, often have a better experience—the congregation’s singing resounds in the actual church building; those at home only hear what’s going into microphones and coming out of their computer speakers.

A 2023 study of online worship from Pew Research found that while remote worshippers rate online sermons and sermons they hear in person about the same, there’s a drop-off when it comes to music. Sixty-nine percent of those ...

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Biden Administration Drops HHS Transgender Mandate

Evangelicals in medicine won’t be subjected to the contested federal requirement that faced years of legal backlash.

The Biden administration will not appeal an Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals decision from December 2022 that blocked the so-called transgender mandate.

The mandate was an attempt by the Biden administration to define sex to include “gender identity” for the purposes of Health and Human Services (HHS) regulations. Critics say the rule would have required doctors, clinics, and hospitals to perform procedures to which they object and insurance companies to pay for such procedures.

The Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) president Brent Leatherwood welcomed the news.

“The Biden administration’s decision to back down from the transgender mandate marks a significant victory in safeguarding the rights of medical professionals to operate in a manner consistent with their deepest held beliefs,” Leatherwood said in written comments.

“This is an important development we should take note of because it not only represents a win for conscience rights but also furthers efforts to shield vulnerable individuals who should never become pawns in the sexual revolution.”

The rule was first introduced in 2016 during the Obama administration’s implementation of a portion of the Affordable Care Act.

According to the ERLC, the 2016 HHS rule required doctors to perform gender-transition procedures for any child referred by a mental health professional, even if the doctor believed the treatment or hormone therapy could harm the child.’

Becket, a religious liberty law group, has shepherded lawsuits filed by medical groups opposed to the rule, as those suits have made their way through the courts.

“After multiple defeats in court, ...

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No More Pentecost Monday? French-Speaking Evangelicals Debate Defense of Christian Holidays.

Proposal to secularize the civic calendar prompts controversy.

Debates about the place of Christianity in public life regularly resurface in Europe. Recently, after the Pentecost Monday holiday, the mayor of Grenoble, France, sparked controversy when he argued French society has evolved beyond religious days off. Pointing to the large number of secular people who don’t follow the church calendar and Muslims who celebrate different religious days, Éric Piolle proposed removing Christian holidays from the civic calendar.

The French currently celebrate Easter Monday, Ascension Day, Pentecost Monday, the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, All Saint’s Day, and Christmas. Those days off could be replaced, Piolle said, by days to commemorate key moments in French history.

We asked five evangelical leaders from French-speaking Europe: Should Christians embrace proposals to replace public religious holidays with secular ones?

Pierre-Sovann Chauny, systematic theology professor at the Faculté Jean Calvin, Aix-en-Provence:

No. Removing Christian religious feasts from the civil calendar should be rejected. We need to maintain an awareness of what French history owes to Christianity and should continue to emphasize the public character of the spiritual life of Christians. These holidays also provide Christians with opportunities to bear witness throughout the year to the life, death, resurrection, and reign of Christ. Finally, the existence of these holidays consolidates our religious freedom. Their removal could, on the contrary, be a step toward persecution.

Fabien Fourcasse, pastor of the Evangelical Baptist Church of Amiens:

I'd say no. It’s our tradition. Besides that, the presence of religious holidays on the calendar expresses something of God's plan for society. ...

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How We Stay in Church Matters as Much as Why

Spiritual abuse survivors who join a new congregation still need to heal from their hurt.

People are leaving the church today for numerous reasons—from spiritual or sexual abuse by leaders, church division, legalism, or hyper-politicization. A recent Barna survey found that two of the top sources of doubt for most believers are negative past experiences with a religious institution and the hypocrisy of religious people.

But not all who’ve had a bad experience with a faith community choose to leave church or Christianity altogether. Some remain in the congregation that wounded them, often held there by treasured relationships or a sense of loyalty to the institution. Others attempt to hit the reset button by starting afresh in a new church, denomination, or tradition.

In any case, those past wounds don’t disappear. In fact, new church experiences layered on top of old may exacerbate the pain for some of those who stay. Today’s pews are full of people who bear scars—or still-oozing wounds—from church hurt. We often talk about why people should stay in church, but sometimes that’s the wrong question. Instead, I think we need to talk more about how we stay in church.

I’ve had to answer this question for myself as a survivor of church hurt. I’m now attending a different congregation, but the journey to stay connected to the local church in the wake of the abuse hasn’t been easy.

I’m also learning from how others have navigated their relationship with the local church after being wounded by their brothers and sisters in Christ. And what I’ve found is that those who choose to stay connected to a local faith community despite their trauma have wise insights about trust, forgiveness, and discernment—which are valuable not just for those who’ve ...

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Blind Band Revives Traditional Worship in Lebanons Churches

Group seeks to open the eyes of Arab hearts through Oriental quarter-note melodies.

The captivating music emanates from a humble room in a quiet suburb of Beirut. Music made uniquely “oriental” by its use of quarter notes, the sounds created by the musicians practicing inside are different from ones a Western ear would be used to.

Well suited to stringed instruments such as the oud and violin, the melody is surprising to hear emanate from an organ and piano. With the mere roll of a dial, modern electronics can recreate the notes—but not without the skill testifying to the musicians’ talent.

The quality draws in neighbors occasionally peering through the door.

Boutros Wehbe, a warm, cheerful man in his 50s, is one of the founders of I Can See, a music group set up two years ago with the aim of preserving the traditional forms and styles of Lebanese music.

“It was a dream for me,” he said, “to find musicians like these guys to play oriental music within the churches.”

“These guys” are not only professionally trained—they are also legally blind.

Wehbe, however, is fully sighted but a self-confessed untrained singer. Despite being the composer of two evangelical worship CDs, he is unable to read music. The words and notes he weaves together are all created in his head. But this only amplifies the professionalism and expertise of the others, displayed in their ability to quickly pick up on his ideas and make his creations a reality.

Each musician comes from a background of music training mostly within the context of Lebanon’s schools for the blind.

The group includes Milios Awad (“The Maestro” on piano), Ziad Pawli (double organ), Fadi Homsy (drums), Mohamad Rammal (darbuka), and Gabi Khalil (violin). Among them are many years of musical ...

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Let There Be Lite: Offline Bible App Launches in Africa Asia

Millions have downloaded YouVersion’s new “lite” app, designed for mobile users without access to broadband internet.

Bible apps have brought a trove of resources to anyone with a smartphone—and an internet connection.

But after hearing feedback from Christians in places where people can’t access or afford high-speed broadband, the team behind YouVersion’s Bible app recently launched an app that doesn’t need a connection.

Designed for users in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, the Bible App Lite is a space-saving app that, once downloaded, can be used entirely offline. It still includes YouVersion’s key features: the Bible reader, audio Bibles, verses of the day, and prayers.

So far, more than four million people have downloaded the lite version of the app, and it has reached the top 10 in the Google Play store in 17 African countries and the No. 1 spot in Kenya, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, according to YouVersion.

Globally, more than a billion people don’t have access to affordable broadband internet, according to a 2020 report published by the Alliance for Affordable Internet. Though mobile broadband prices are dropping, Africa remains the region with the least access, the report found.

While most towns have internet connectivity, many of Africa’s rural areas still struggle with it, said Kevin Muriithi Ndereba, a lecturer at St Paul’s University and a pastor in Kenya.

He told CT that sermons, Bible plans, and Bible commentaries can be difficult to retrieve online. He listens to Bible podcasts only to have them cut off midway through his drives.

Muriithi Ndereba has encouraged “offline pastors” to remember their pastoral care does not depend on whether their phone has a strong internet connection. “Do not be anxious about your lack of technological tools,” ...

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Hundreds of Nigerian Christians Killed in Recent Attacks

Officials blame fighters targeting “ethnoreligious minorities as well as houses of worship and religious ceremonies.”

At least 450 Christians have died in a series of attacks on Christian villages in three northcentral Nigerian states since May, according to reports from governmental and nongovernmental religious freedom advocates.

Christian death tolls include at least 300 in several attacks in Plateau state spanning May 15–17, according to reports from Morning Star News and Christian Solidarity Worldwide; more than 100 in attacks spanning May and June in Benue state, Morning Star News and the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) reported; and 43 in Nasarawa state in mid-May, Morning Star News reported.

Tens of thousands were displaced, according to Morning Star News and Christian Solidarity Worldwide. Whole villages, dozens of church buildings and thousands of homes reportedly were destroyed. Grain was looted.

Morning Star News quoted Christian leaders in blaming the attacks on militant Fulani herdsmen.

“As our people are fleeing, herders are occupying these areas and grazing freely on our farms,” Morning Star News quoted a press statement signed by Samuel Door and Ephraim Zuai of the Shitile Development Association in Benue. “Though due to the fear of general insecurity it is difficult to move from village to village to gather exact statistics, hordes of lives have been horrendously eliminated in several villages across the land, such that the whole land is thrown into wailing and mourning.”

USCIRF referenced many of the attacks as ethnonationalist in a report it released June 9.

“Nigeria is home to a plethora of armed actors committing violence with dire implications for religious freedom. In several regions of the country assailants have targeted ethnoreligious minorities ...

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Train Up a Child: Ukraines Christian Schools Model Wartime Education

Evangelical-led movement offers family atmosphere and biblical values increasingly attractive to the beleaguered nation.

As air raid sirens blared down the hallways, Tetiana Garkun hurried her middle school students outside the My Horizons Christian School campus into the designated bomb shelter.

Located in Khmelnytsky, 200 miles southwest of Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, the school’s children moved in orderly fashion—a sign of how accustomed they’ve become to Russian missiles targeting military installations in nearby Lviv.

They prayed, waited for the all-clear signal, and returned to their Bible class.

Garkun’s own children, daughters aged 16 and 17, were similarly composed. Confident high schoolers who only a few years earlier were sharing their faith in Ukraine’s secular education system, they follow after their great-grandfather, a Pentecostal pastor sentenced to death by magistrates in the Soviet Union.

Times have changed, as have education authorities.

“The government encourages us to teach our students how to be Christians and live godly lives,” said Garkun. “They see that we are needed in these horrible days.”

She had earlier led the students in a discussion prompted by the official state health education curriculum: What helps us live a long life?

Model answers included a good diet, avoiding smoking, and participation in sports. But amid war, these answers no longer apply, she said, and even her prepared integration of Christian material hardly satisfied her own soul. In years past, she recited Ecclesiastes 7:17: “Do not be overwicked, and do not be a fool—why die before your time?”

However, she pondered, what about when the righteous are killed by Russian evil?

“When we follow God’s rules and truth, we lead happier and healthier lives,” Garkun said. ...

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There Is an I in Testify

Self-centered testimonies have been abused. But not sharing our story can be equally selfish.

I miss the word I.

Some have sworn off saying “I” because we’ve abused it. Instead of listening, we’ve spoken for others as if our personal experience is universal. The word I can be shamed and scrutinized: Who are you to center yourself? and What makes your personal anecdotes relevant or reliable? In other circles, Christians overreacted to the extreme of a hyper-individualistic faith by leaning toward a hyper-collectivized vision of religious belief.

Yet the reality is that healthy faith communities are made up of a diverse array of individuals who each have unique, distinct, and personal experiences of God. And perhaps what people crave most today is the language we often keep to ourselves—our stories of direct encounter with God.

Eugene Peterson says that the “language of personal intimacy and relationship” is “our primary language,” which we “use to express and develop our human condition.” Thus “we must become proficient” in “the speech of love and response and intimacy.”

While the language of information and motivation “are no less important in the life of faith,” he says, they become “thin and gaunt” if not embedded in personal language. Informative talk can be “reduced to list making,” while motivational talk can be “reduced to crass manipulations”—both of which keep us from actual shared life with God and one another.

While it might seem selfless to avoid using I, there’s a surprising kind of ego in never sharing our own experience. To withhold our own stories is to withhold intimacy and opportunities for deeper interpersonal connection. In fact, sharing our individual ...

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Can Christians Do Yoga? Indian Believers Weigh In

Examining the spectrum of Christian views on the traditionally Hindu practice, from physical wellness to spiritual caution.

Today’s observance of the International Day of Yoga, proclaimed by the United Nations since 2015 and led by Indian prime minister Narendra Modi during his visit this week to New York, underscores the global popularity of the ancient eastern practice.

Although not a religion, it is mentioned in the sacred scriptures of Hinduism such as the Bhagavad Gita. A Sanskrit word meaning “union” or “yoke,” yoga aims to unite the body, mind, soul, and universal consciousness, allowing its practitioners to experience freedom, peace, and self-realization.

The practice of yoga involves various physical, mental, and spiritual techniques, including breathing exercises, postures, relaxation, chanting, and meditation. Different styles of yoga exist, each with its own focus and approach to achieving a “unitive state.”

The roots of yoga can be traced back to the Rigveda and the Upanishads. One of the most well-known texts on yoga are the Yoga Sutras, written by Patanjali around 200 B.C. In this foundational text, the ancient scholar describes yoga as the cessation of the fluctuations of the mind.

Yoga holds spiritual significance, aiming to control the mind, attain a detached witness consciousness, and liberate oneself from the cycle of birth and death, as stated on a yoga website.

It is important to note that the term yoga itself signifies a connection with the divine. This implies that any genuine approach to yoga should incorporate a spiritual pursuit, which can vary among individuals.

Since assuming office in 2014, Modi’s government has actively promoted yoga as both a cultural and spiritual practice, emphasizing that its benefits are not limited only to health but also can help “deal with ...

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Can Christians Do Yoga? Indian Believers Weigh In

Examining the spectrum of Christian views on the traditionally Hindu practice, from physical wellness to spiritual caution.

Today’s observance of the International Day of Yoga, proclaimed by the United Nations since 2015 and led by Indian prime minister Narendra Modi during his visit this week to New York, underscores the global popularity of the ancient eastern practice.

Although not a religion, it is mentioned in the sacred scriptures of Hinduism such as the Bhagavad Gita. A Sanskrit word meaning “union” or “yoke,” yoga aims to unite the body, mind, soul, and universal consciousness, allowing its practitioners to experience freedom, peace, and self-realization.

The practice of yoga involves various physical, mental, and spiritual techniques, including breathing exercises, postures, relaxation, chanting, and meditation. Different styles of yoga exist, each with its own focus and approach to achieving a “unitive state.”

The roots of yoga can be traced back to the Rigveda and the Upanishads. One of the most well-known texts on yoga are the Yoga Sutras, written by Patanjali around 200 B.C. In this foundational text, the ancient scholar describes yoga as the cessation of the fluctuations of the mind.

Yoga holds spiritual significance, aiming to control the mind, attain a detached witness consciousness, and liberate oneself from the cycle of birth and death, as stated on a yoga website.

It is important to note that the term yoga itself signifies a connection with the divine. This implies that any genuine approach to yoga should incorporate a spiritual pursuit, which can vary among individuals.

Since assuming office in 2014, Modi’s government has actively promoted yoga as both a cultural and spiritual practice, emphasizing that its benefits are not limited only to health but also can help “deal with ...

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Et Tu Ahithophel? The Cautionary Tale of King Davids Adviser

When trusted counselors go bad, our churches pay a heavy price.

Evangelical churches do not have an official or formally recognized pope. But there are individuals in churches whose counsel is received as if it is from God himself, even if they do not hold top leadership positions.

In King David’s life, this influential individual was Ahithophel, his trusted counselor. When David’s son, Absalom, planned a treacherous rebellion against his father, Ahithophel entered the picture as a minor character with a major role in 2 Samuel 15:12.

Most of us would expect Ahithophel to offer morally righteous guidance to the royal family. Instead, he told Absalom to sleep with his father’s concubines and even volunteers to embark on a covert mission to murder David.

As a pastor in the Philippines, I have encountered several modern-day Ahithophels in ministry. On the one hand, they may offer biblical, ethical advice that helps the church to grow spiritually. On the other hand, they may pursue hidden agendas and perpetuate disorder and dysfunction within a congregation. These damaging effects to the church are exacerbated when people constantly defer to their wishes and desires. Consequently, pastors and church leaders may make decisions not because they are the best course of action to undertake but because they are what a particular person of influence wants.

Some of the Ahithophels in our churches today may be influential because they are major donors. Others may have such a likable and charismatic personality that everyone is drawn to listen to their counsel, even if they may not have the wisest opinion or an accurate diagnosis of the problem.

Through Ahithophel’s life story in Scripture, we get a glimpse of what happens when we place too much trust in ...

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Ukrainian Refugees Find Christian Welcome—in Russia

Offering food and shelter, Russian evangelicals are caring for the Donbas’s displaced. But in the face of Ukrainian frustration, dare they offer pastors for its empty pulpits?

Disoriented and disheveled, the elderly Ukrainian woman stayed put in her seat. After several hours in a Temporary Accommodation Center (TAC) in Taganrog, Russia, 70 miles east of her month-long basement shelter in Mariupol, Ukraine, officials encouraged her to get on the bus—to somewhere else.

Earlier that day, she had been discovered by Russian soldiers and ushered through a humanitarian corridor to the first processing location east of Mariupol. From there she was dispatched to one of 800 such sites established throughout Russia, which are located anywhere from nearby Rostov to Moscow to Vladivostok on the Pacific coast.

Official papers registered her for temporary residency in Russia and access to its medical system. She was given a warm meal, new clothes, $142 in rubles, and a SIM card—though not a mobile phone. She could apply for citizenship if she desired.

All she wanted was to die.

Grandma, where are you going? Is someone coming to meet you?

No one is coming. Nobody wants me.

You have to go to a shelter. You can’t stay here.

I don’t want to live any longer. I wish I had died in the shelling.

Where are your children, or grandchildren?

I don’t know. They left. I can’t find them.

Government employees had done their duty. But after this exchange, a Russian evangelical volunteer sprang into action. After a few phone calls, she placed the woman with a local church family. The next day, she located the granddaughter.

“When we are genuinely involved in their lives, they see the love of Christ,” said Tanya Ivanenko. “They hug us, kiss us, and remember our names. Against the backdrop of war, we give them a little hope.”

Ivanenko did not provide the care, but she shared the grandmother’s ...

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Imagine Dragons More Biblically

The Chinese boat festival reminds us that Revelation’s serpent transcends Western and Eastern cultural concepts, say Asian biblical scholars.

Most times, you hear the dragon boats before you see them.

Jumanji-style drum beats fill the air, pounding out a steady rhythm as a 20-strong crew paddles in sync on long, sleek boats in a bid to outrace one another. But the intensity of these competitions aren’t the only eye-catching feature during the Dragon Boat Festival, which takes place on the fifth day of the fifth month in the lunar calendar and falls on June 22 this year.

The boats’ visually arresting designs also play a part in enticing crowds of curious onlookers. Every boat bears a fierce-looking dragon head on its bow, with two horns, piercing eyes, and a wide-open mouth filled with sharp teeth.

Most Chinese Christians do not see any issue with observing or participating in the Dragon Boat Festival, whether through the boat races or in eating savory, sticky rice dumplings known as zongzi (粽子). However, they may regard dragons negatively because of how these fabled creatures are depicted in Scripture.

It’s important to dispel misconceptions about these mythical beings in Chinese culture and develop a fuller understanding of what dragons in the Bible refer to, the biblical scholars CT interviewed say.

Chinese people often have furniture or jewelry bearing images of dragons, as they symbolize prosperity, luck, blessing, and wisdom in Chinese culture. The fantastical beasts are also emblems of imperial power: Chinese emperors were described as “the dragon” and often wore a robe emblazoned with a dragon to represent their “divine and omnipotent rule.”

But some pastors in Malaysia and Hong Kong, as well as at Chinese churches in the US, tell believers to destroy these items because they are evil, says K. K. Yeo, a New Testament ...

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C.S. Lewis Warned Us About Close Encounters of the Evangelical Kind

If UFOs are real, exercise some humility before sharing the gospel.

A Las Vegas family called 911 in April to report a disturbance in their backyard. The city has its share of crime so that couldn’t have surprised the emergency dispatcher too much, but then the man on the phone said, “They’re not human.”

The beings, he said, were 8 feet or maybe 9 or 10 feet tall, with big, shiny eyes.

“They look like aliens to us. Big eyes. They have big eyes. Like, I can’t explain it, and big mouth,” he said. “They’re 100 percent not human.”

Police responded but they didn’t find aliens or spaceship—just one freaked-out family. Leaving the house, one of the officers said, “If those 9-foot beings come back, don’t call us alright?”

Stories of close encounters have been lent some credence in recent days by official reports that the Pentagon and NASA are both studying “unidentified anomalous phenomena,” the fancy alternative title for undefined flying objects. Recently a whistleblower came out with claims the US government has secretly recovered and hidden “craft of unknown origin.”

If there are aliens in our collective backyard, I want to know: Where are they from? How did they get here? Are they friendly?

And as a Christian, I have another question: Should I share the gospel with them?

That may seem like a question only a theologian from the future could address, but C. S. Lewis was wrestling with the idea decades before the United States and the Soviet Union began to compete to send people into space.

Lewis’s investigation of the theological questions that would be raised by an alien encounter began when he was a child. He was captivated by H. G. Wells and science fiction space adventures.

“The ...

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On a Wing and a Prayer: Mike Pence Hitches Presidential Hopes on Fellow Evangelicals

However, convincing faithful voters to choose him over Trump or DeSantis will not be easy.

Around Mike Pence’s 40th birthday, his wife Karen booked a trip to a ranch near the Roosevelt National Forest in Colorado. Pence was mulling over a second run for Congress after a failed bid years earlier. As the Pences sat atop a bluff in the park, they noticed two red-tailed hawks riding a hot-air current, rising higher and higher.

“We should step off this cliff and make ourselves available to God,” Karen Pence remembers telling her husband. “And this time instead of ambition driving us, we should allow God to lift us up to wherever he wants to use us, with no flapping.”

Last Wednesday, on his 64th birthday, Pence stepped off that metaphorical cliff once again when he announced his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination. In a speech peppered with biblical references at the Future Farmers of America Enrichment Center in Ankeny, Iowa, he vowed to fight “the radical Left,” defend the Constitution, and oppose abortion, among a laundry list of other conservative promises.

Iowa’s caucus is seen as a bellwether for the GOP’s primary race. It is also a litmus test for a candidate’s popularity with evangelical Christians: Nearly two-thirds of caucus participants in 2016 were evangelicals, according to an entrance poll.

Pence, who will appear at the Family Leadership Summit, a gathering of conservative Christians in Des Moines next month, is hoping his evangelical credentials will garner the support of his fellow believers in the state. And if he wins the caucus, he could find himself at the top of a crowded field of Republican hopefuls led by former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

On paper Pence would seem like the ideal choice for evangelical ...

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Supreme Court Upholds Law on Native Adoptions

Native American Christians, involved in both their tribes and in child placement situations, know the complexity of these cases better than most.

Native American tribes will retain priority for placement in the adoption of Native American children after a US Supreme Court ruling on Thursday.

The high court rejected all challenges to the federal Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) in a 7–2 ruling by Justice Amy Coney Barrett. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented.

An evangelical couple, along with two other adoptive couples, had challenged the law on multiple grounds, one being that it hinders non-Native families from fostering and adopting Native American children.

The court rejected every argument and defended the fundamental constitutional principles behind ICWA.

“This case is about children who are among the most vulnerable: those in the child welfare system,” wrote Barrett in the decision. She shared a comment from a Choctaw chief who testified in Congress in 1978, when ICWA became a federal law: “Culturally, the chances of Indian survival are significantly reduced if our children, the only real means for the transmission of the tribal heritage, are to be raised in non-Indian homes and denied exposure to the ways of their people.”

Justice Neil Gorsuch, who handled many cases involving Native American affairs out West before coming to the high court, wrote a concurring opinion that detailed the history of the federal government forcing child removal from Native American families through boarding school initiatives, including through some missionary-run schools. He noted that surveys showed “approximately 25–35 percent of all Indian children [were] separated from their families” by 1974.

The court avoided the thorniest issue in its ruling: whether ICWA’s rules for child placement were unconstitutionally race-based. ...

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Court Hears Closing Arguments in Brian Houston Case

Was the Hillsong founder covering up sexual abuse or trying to care for a survivor?

Sydney court magistrate Gareth Christofi has been presented with of two very different portraits of Hillsong megachurch founder Brian Houston.

According to the Crown prosecutor, making his final argument in court on Thursday, Houston is a liar. He did everything he could to conceal his father’s sexual abuse and protect his own reputation and power.

The defense, on the other hand, depicts Houston as imperfect human doing his best in a difficult situation. Among other things, he sincerely believed that the survivor of his father’s abuse, by then a grown man, did not want him to go to police.

The survivor, Brett Sengstock, was present in the tiny courtroom in Downing Centre Courthouse in downtown Sydney for the closing arguments in Brian Houston’s trial. He sat just a few meters from Houston as two attorneys debated what the megachurch pastor should have done in 1999 when Sengstock told him what Frank Houston did to him when he was a boy in the 1970s.

Crown prosecutor Gareth Harrison said Brian Houston had “no reasonable excuse” for not reporting his father to the police.

“The Crown submits that the reason was that the accused was trying to protect the reputation of the church and his father,” Harrison said.

Harrison argued there was a culture of cover-up in Hillsong. The church insisted on dealing with everything in-house—including scandals. Houston was so confident in this protective culture, the prosecution argued, he told several people at his two churches explicit details about what his father did to a 7-year-old boy, knowing they wouldn’t report it to the police either.

At the same time, the prosecutor argued, Houston worked hard to control information about his father’s ...

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As Methodist Exits Hit 5500 Some Churches Find Paths Blocked

The costs and complications of UMC disaffiliation are leaving many congregations stuck.

Editor’s note: This story was updated with the new information about disaffiliations on June 14.

Carolyn Moore assumed that her Evans, Georgia, church would be one of the congregations disaffiliating from the United Methodist Church (UMC). Across the country, as of June 14, more than 5,500 churches have separated along the lines of the deep fissures in the denomination: LGBT acceptance and Methodist authority structures.

But for a long time, Mosaic UMC looked like it was going to get stuck in the UMC.

Moore, Mosaic’s lead pastor, waited for directions on the process from the North Georgia Annual Conference, the regional UMC body, which had told churches they could send notice of their intent to disaffiliate starting on January 1, 2023. But the conference paused the disaffiliation process before it began.

North Georgia leaders sent an email to pastors in December 2022 saying they had concerns that local churches had relied on “misleading, defamatory, and false statements and materials” to make their decision to leave and join a new Methodist denomination, the Global Methodist Church, calling the discourse “antithetical to the concept of a gracious exit.”

Moore said she made “a hundred phone calls in the weeks after that email, hoping for some conversation partner who might help us make a way through,” but nobody in conference leadership would step up.

To date, between 10–20 percent of the approximately 30,000 Methodist congregations in the US have disaffiliated. But there are hundreds more, like Mosaic, whose members want to leave but can’t.

The decision to pause the process for churches in the North Georgia Annual Conference didn’t just delay ...

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Southern Baptists Committed to Abuse Reform. What Happened?

With the female pastor debate getting the most attention, the slow work to address abuse plods on.

The issue that once dominated Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) annual meetings—sexual abuse in churches—almost receded into the background at this year’s gathering, which was overrun by debates around women serving as pastors.

Only a year after they voted to move forward with initial steps to address abuse in the wake of a major investigation, the SBC’s reforms have been slow, complicated, and controversial.

A task force overseeing its abuse response, including a new website to track known abusers, asked for more time to complete their task, and the convention approved the extension. They’re still waiting for permanent funding and permanent staffing to oversee the process. Ahead of the meeting, some Southern Baptists spoke up with critiques over cost and legal ramifications.

“They’ve acknowledged it and kind of want to move on,” said Jules Woodson, who came forward with her story of abuse by her youth pastor in 2019. “I want them to know I’m still fighting … I’m not walking away.”

Sexual abuse survivors including Woodson had rallied around the annual meetings, holding posters and press conferences in 2019, wearing T-shirts in 2021, passing out teal sexual-abuse-survivor ribbons in 2022. Last year, the topic of abuse came up in prayers, sermons, and resolutions, with leaders going as far as thanking survivors by name and applauding them from the stage.

In New Orleans this week, Woodson and a few other SBC abuse survivors met in a room in the convention center set aside for them to decompress. They quietly celebrated the progress the denomination had made, shedding tears together as the shell of the Ministry Check website went live on Tuesday afternoon ...

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Conscious Uncoupling from Church Is the New Temptation

Dones and “umms” are leaving the sanctuary or loitering outside the door. But when have they actually left?

I have a friend who faded away from church during his undergraduate years. First, his church involvement became sporadic. Then he stopped attending events that featured worship or fostered Christian community. For a while, he continued to claim he was a Christian. A year later, he dropped the label.

Some may think he’s still a Christian because he once “got saved” and was baptized. He doesn’t. I don’t either. Regardless of one’s theory of salvation, it’s clear that, although God hasn’t given up on him, he has quit church.

My friend is not alone. He’s among the many convinced there may be something to this whole Jesus business but who’ve disconnected from Christian community.

“People who say they don’t have a religious identity—though many still embrace some Christian beliefs and engage in various spiritual practices—are projected to rise from about 30 percent today to as much as 52 percent in 50 years,” writes CT reporter Daniel Silliman in response to recent Pew Research Center data.

The pandemic is also part of the faith picture in America. In “Rise of the Umms,” CT writer Mike Moore suggests that, just as COVID-19 exposed weaknesses in our systems and relationships, “this same accelerated unveiling has descended on the church, revealing a major decline in congregational involvement.”

“Recent data shows a majority of churches are below their pre-pandemic attendance,” he writes. “A study released early this year reveals that church attendance is down by 6 percent, from 34 percent in 2019 to 28 percent in 2021.”

For whatever reason—busyness, laziness, fatigue, ...

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Southern Baptists Reject Rick Warrens Saddleback Appeal

The move to disfellowship churches with female pastors in top positions has spurred a larger debate.

Nobody expected Rick Warren’s appeal to be successful—not even Rick Warren. But he still stood up in front of 13,000 Southern Baptists gathered in New Orleans to make his case.

“No one is asking any Southern Baptist to change their theology! I’m not asking you to agree with my church,” he insisted, reading from a printout at a microphone on the floor of the convention hall during a three-minute speech. “I am asking you to act like a Southern Baptist, who have historically agreed to disagree on dozens of doctrines, in order to act on a common mission.”

For messengers at the SBC annual meeting, employing women pastors was not an agree-to-disagree issue. A vast majority—88 percent—voted to uphold the decision made back in February to disfellowship Saddleback.

The vote concludes two years of scrutiny and criticism toward the California megachurch for ordaining female pastors from its stage, welcoming a female teaching pastor to preach on Sundays, and naming a female campus pastor. This was the only chance to appeal.

After the vote, he said he wasn’t counting the appeal to succeed. Instead, “I wanted to push the conversation that’s been stagnant for years.”

Warren, who founded Saddleback and led the church for 43 years until his retirement last year, did not leave quietly. In the weeks before the meeting, the fourth-generation pastor launched a campaign in his church’s defense, with dozens of tweets, a website, three videos, an open letter, and a four-page messenger’s guide arguing that removing Saddleback violates the fellowship’s belief in church autonomy.

“I wanted to speak up for millions of Southern Baptist women … I ...

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The Presbyterian Church in America Has an Abuse Crisis Too

Women thought the PCA, with its robust system of governance, might provide some accountability. They found that was not the case.

With a robust governing structure and a 400-page Book of Church Order (BCO) that requires strict standards for those in church leadership, the Presbyterian Church in America should be a denomination that’s good at handling abuse.

“I told friends I picked the PCA because I know I have somewhere to go if something goes wrong,” Kristen Hann, a former director of women’s ministry at Surfside Presbyterian Church in South Carolina, told CT.

She and other women in the denomination have found that was not the case.

The denomination meets for its annual general assembly this week and is marking its 50th anniversary. Over those decades, it has not experienced the reckoning with abuse that has occurred in the Southern Baptist Convention or the Catholic Church.

But survivors within the PCA say the denomination’s problems with abuse are just unaddressed. The denomination has not commissioned an investigative report like the SBC on its response to abuse cases.

At its denominational meeting in Memphis this week, PCA elders will consider a significant number of overtures (church legislation) related to abuse. Among them are two different proposals allowing anyone to be a witness in church courts for abuse cases—currently only professing Christians are allowed to be witnesses. Another overture would require criminal background checks for new ministers and ministers transferring presbyteries or denominations.

Ordained male elders vote at the PCA meeting, while SBC messengers can be men and women.

The PCA, with its ostensible system of leadership accountability, may demonstrate how every denomination needs to have a reckoning with abuse from the outside. The denomination has the structure for abuse accountability ...

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Baptism by Flood: Kherson Christians Persevere After Ukraine Dam’s Destruction

Occupied, liberated, and now underwater, Kherson remains on the frontline of fighting—and faith. A local seminary president explains how recent baptisms reveal deepening faith.

For eight months, the Ukrainian city of Kherson endured Russian occupation.

Now—along with at least seven churches—it is underwater.

Experts estimate that the collapse of the Nova Kakhovka dam, 44 miles upstream, released an amount of water equal to the Great Salt Lake. A new wave of evacuations is underway in southern Ukraine, with 25,000 people in Russian-controlled areas and 17,000 in Ukrainian-held territory advised to leave.

An estimated 2,000 houses have been flooded, with 16,000 people made homeless. A lack of drinking water, electricity shortages, and floating land mines have contributed to the humanitarian and ecological disaster.

The dam’s reservoir contributed 2,600 tons of fish to the local economy. Wheat prices have spiked, as 94 percent of Kherson’s irrigation system has lost its supply. And 150 tons of machine oil have been carried toward the Black Sea.

But that is just the physical damage.

Tavriski Christian Institute (TCI) in Kherson is a spiritual casualty. Liberated from Russian occupation last November, the seminary’s riverside properties suffered a new blow with the deluge. Early in the war, TCI president Valentin Siniy evacuated west with his wife, two children, and much of the student body. Today he continues education from Ivano-Frankivsk as he oversees relief efforts over 500 miles away.

CT spoke with Siniy about the state of the seminary campus, the emotional impact of the flood, and the rising challenges to faith that have led to newfound spiritual insights:

What is the situation with your seminary?

When the Russian military descended upon our cherished seminary, it was an emblem of knowledge and spiritual growth. They stripped it of its essence. Equipment from our printing ...

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Baptism by Flood: Kherson Christians Persevere Amid Ukraine’s Latest Tragedy

Occupied, liberated, and now underwater, Kherson remains on the frontline of fighting—and faith. A local seminary president explains how the latest baptisms reveal deepening faith.

For eight months, the Ukrainian city of Kherson endured Russian occupation.

Now—along with at least seven churches—it is underwater.

Experts estimate that the collapse of the Nova Kakhovka dam, 44 miles upstream, released an amount of water equal to the Great Salt Lake. A new wave of evacuations is underway in southern Ukraine, with 25,000 people in Russian-controlled areas and 17,000 in Ukrainian-held territory advised to leave.

An estimated 2,000 houses have been flooded, with 16,000 people made homeless. A lack of drinking water, electricity shortages, and floating land mines have contributed to the humanitarian and ecological disaster.

The dam’s reservoir contributed 2,600 tons of fish to the local economy. Wheat prices have spiked, as 94 percent of Kherson’s irrigation system has lost its supply. And 150 tons of machine oil have been carried toward the Black Sea.

But that is just the physical damage.

Tavriski Christian Institute (TCI) in Kherson is a spiritual casualty. Liberated from Russian occupation last November, the seminary’s riverside properties suffered a new blow with the deluge. Early in the war, its president, Valentin Siniy, evacuated west with his wife and two children to Ivano-Frankivsk, where TCI continues in-person education for relocating staff and students.

And from over 500 miles away, he oversees seminary-based relief efforts.

CT spoke with Siniy about the state of the Kherson campus, the emotional impact of the flood, and challenges to faith that have led to newfound spiritual insights.

What is the situation with your seminary?

When the Russian military descended upon our cherished seminary, it was an emblem of knowledge and spiritual growth. They stripped it of its essence. ...

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Liberty Whistleblower Continues to Defend Fraud Claims

A former dean alleges over $1 million in staff kickbacks and payouts as his case against the university goes to court.

Four months after Liberty University filed a motion to dismiss a whistleblower’s lawsuit, the former dean suing the school amended his complaint with more detail about the alleged fraud he reported to authorities. He alleges that the school offered payouts to third parties and concealed the use of university funding for business expenses.

According to the suit, John Markley made “repeated good faith reports of disturbing violations” of state and federal law at Liberty, only to be terminated from his role as administrative dean for academic operations in June 2022.

“Dr. Markley’s position provided an eye-opening perspective on the inner workings of a multi-billion-dollar enterprise that operated to maximize profits without ethics and at the expense of truth and those willing to fight for it, and to the detriment of the students, and professors,” the lawsuit says.

The university maintains that Markley was let go as part of a reorganization and that his allegations are without merit.

Markley’s original suit lists 15 “improper activities” he said he raised concerns about, including potentially fraudulent management of Liberty charitable organizations and corporate subsidies, the intentional misrepresentation of acceptance rates and enrollment numbers for financial gain, and a compensation scheme for LU business executives.

In a public statement obtained by CT, Strelka Employment Law—which represents Markley—said Liberty filed a demurrer to dismiss the case, arguing that Markley’s allegations “were not sufficiently specific.” The Lynchburg Circuit Court filed an order for Markley to amend his complaint.

The update, filed last Thursday, includes specific ...

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Ghana’s Christians Divided Over Proposed Monument to National Unity

Economic woes halt progress on President Nana Akufo-Addo’s planned cathedral as criticism turns increasingly religious.

The national cathedral was supposed to unite Ghana. Instead, the unfinished project and its ballooning costs have divided the country and become, for some, a symbol of failed policies and presidential vanity.

President Nana Akufo-Addo pledged to build the cathedral before he became president in 2016. He proposed a structure designed by a world-renowned architect, with a 5,000-seat auditorium, a Bible museum, and a garden filled with plants mentioned in Scripture. It would be a place for worship and national ceremonies: inaugurating the president, holding state funerals, and conducting national thanksgiving services.

Now Akufo-Addo is half way through his second four-year term, and construction is still ongoing. Costs have risen from an initial budget of about $100 million to four times that amount, and the country is struggling with an economic crisis with 50 percent inflation. Allegations of misappropriation of funds have only deepened public skepticism.

But Akufo-Addo is not turning back.

“The National Cathedral will be a unifying monument around which to elevate shared conversations on faith and on national transformation,” he said, according to the cathedral’s website. “It will also serve as a rallying platform to promote deep national conversations on how, collectively, we can build the progressive and prosperous Ghana we desire.”

In recent days, however, some of the public criticism has taken on a decidedly religious hue. One outspoken member of parliament opposed to the project, Sam George, cited the New Testament during debate over additional government “seed money” earlier this year.

“Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate ...

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The Christian Life Is Wishful Thinking

What we want for ourselves becomes what we offer to others.

It was a typical Friday night at the Wilkin house. A spontaneous dinner had collected a growing number of neighbors and friends. As the kitchen swelled with people and chatter, I leaned over to each of my kids and whispered the code they were probably expecting: “FHB.”

Family hold back. Maybe you know this strategy, too. Surveying the food relative to the guests, it became apparent that we needed a nonmiraculous solution for our five loaves and two fishes. My husband prayed over the meal and then, quietly, the Wilkins slipped to the back of the line, serving themselves minimal portions to stretch the food. They knew they wouldn’t go without; it was not a matter of if they would eat but when. Worst case, we’d order a pizza once the guests had gone home.

Nobody wants to be at the end of the line. Given the choice, we want to go first, to get the full portion, to sit in the most comfortable chair. But Christ-followers understand that life is about more than doing what we want. It’s about doing what we wish.

Let me explain.

We can all imagine times when we wanted to be treated better, when we longed for more care, recognition, and grace than we received from others. We may look back and think, I wish my failures would be treated with gentleness. I wish I had received support during a hard season. I wish I had received love instead of rejection. I wish that anniversary had been remembered or that milestone had been acknowledged. I wish I would be made to feel needed, included, significant, treasured.

We are not wrong to hold these wishes. They illustrate the basic human need to be known, loved, and accepted. And what we do with how we feel about our wishes, met and unmet, will shape the course of our ...

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After Online Debates, Southern Baptists Get Down to Business

Top issues at the annual meeting in New Orleans include Saddleback, female pastors, abuse reform, and entity finances.

Long before the 10,000-plus messengers show up in a massive conference hall each June, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) has already begun debating the issues at stake at its annual meeting.

Southern Baptists have come to expect the online back-and-forth in the weeks leading up to the gathering, with pastors and leaders taking sides, strategizing, and detailing arguments around the issues before the convention.

This year, as the denomination readies to meet in New Orleans June 11–14, the biggest disagreements aren’t over what they believe but what the SBC should do to uphold those convictions across 47,000 autonomous churches.

“There are serious disagreements, and we’re dealing with some very sophisticated and complex things in many ways … but the heart is really right,” said Jed Coppenger, a Tennessee pastor and the cofounder of a group called Baptist 21, on a recent podcast. “We got Bible-believing complementarian people who are disagreeing about bylaws and stuff like that, so it’s a tension, but don’t let it turn you off. The mission’s too important.”

The SBC will vote on whether to overturn a decision to disfellowship Saddleback Church (and one other congregation) for involving women as pastors and, in turn, will consider proposals around specifying appointing female pastors as grounds for removal from the convention.

Messengers will hear updates on the ongoing response to a 2022 investigation into the SBC’s handling of abuse, including the upcoming launch of a website database of abusive pastors. They’ll consider the financial state of the denomination’s entities, such as the Executive Committee (which handles SBC business outside the ...

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Southwestern Seminary Blames $140M Deficit on Overspending

Over 20 years and two presidencies, the school went millions beyond its budget while enrollment continued to decline.

A new report from trustees at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, details two decades of fiscal mismanagement, including a $140 million operating deficit.

According to an overview of the seminary’s finances released Wednesday, Southwestern ran an average deficit of $6.67 million per year from 2002 to 2022. During that time, the number of full-time Southern Baptist students at the school dropped by two-thirds (67%) while expenses went up by a third (35%).

The decline of SBC students was significant—since the tuition for them is subsidized by the Southern Baptist Convention’s Cooperative Program, which helps fund the denomination’s six seminaries.

Overall, the school’s enrollment declined from the equivalent of 2,138 full-time students (including non-SBC students) in 2003 to 1,126 full-time in the fall of 2022, according to data from the Association of Theological Schools. (The ATC counts full-time equivalents using a different standard than Southern Baptist seminaries.)

As a result, the school also collected less tuition money from students.

To offset the deficit, the school spent from its reserves and took distributions from its endowment.

“The failure of SWBTS to navigate internal and external headwinds has resulted in a prolonged season of deficit spending that has depleted cash reserves,” according to the summary released by the trustees, who also released two decades of audits.

Much of the overspending occurred during the tenure of Paige Patterson, who was president of Southwestern from 2003 to 2018, when he was fired for allegedly mishandling sexual abuse.

The report, however, does not detail any of the spending patterns during Patterson’s tenure. Instead, ...

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Finding Joy When the Fig Tree Does Not Bud

The prophet Habakkuk counsels us to trust in God’s promises despite our circumstances.

President George Washington envisioned a nation in which every person would sit under his own vine and fig tree with no one to make them afraid (Mic. 4:4). He dreamed of a people blessed by safety, prosperity, peace, and virtue.

Yet all too often, we claim God’s gracious promises as rights instead of blessings. What happens when “the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines” (Hab. 3:17)? Can we still rejoice in the Lord and be joyful in God our Savior (v. 18)?

Even the church I’ve pastored for 12 years, a growing multiethnic congregation in Southern California, began with a death.

We were gifted a property and a handful of precious saints when another church in the Christian & Missionary Alliance denomination closed its doors. That church had boasted a rich heritage of discipleship and missions, but the fruit had fallen off their vine. Some of the congregants were angry to the point of fistfights. Others scribbled down pages of their complaints on a yellow legal pad. Many left and never returned.

They were mourning the loss of a church they had loved for decades and a future that no longer existed, even as we looked forward in anticipation to planting a new church. So during that season, I met with the remnant in their homes and listened to their stories.

We prayed and waited and grieved together beneath that barren fig tree. And by the time we replanted the church, they were some of our strongest supporters. They realized how the death of one church could lead to bountiful harvest in another (John 12:24).

The Book of Habakkuk speaks into our lives when we don’t feel God’s presence, when we don’t understand his ways, and when we don’t know if we can persevere. ...

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PCA’s 50th Anniversary Comes During a Season of Grief

Presbyterians expect less fight and more fatigue as they gather following the Covenant shooting and the deaths of Harry Reeder and Tim Keller.

In his first sermon since the death of his daughter and five others at The Covenant School in Nashville, Chad Scruggs, senior pastor of Covenant Presbyterian Church, referenced Isaiah 40 to describe how his family is coping: “We aren’t yet soaring on wings like eagles. We aren’t yet running without being weary. We’re simply trying to walk without fainting.”

His denomination, the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), is also grieving. The PCA planned its upcoming general assembly (GA) as a celebration of its 50th anniversary, but leading up to the event, the country’s largest evangelical Presbyterian body has suffered a string of losses, including the Nashville shooting and the deaths of two prominent pastors.

At the end of March, the Covenant attack shook the denomination—no other US Christian school had ever been targeted in such a deadly crime. “In the wake of the horrid loss experienced by our friends at the Covenant School, it is right and good and even Christ-like for disorientation and grief to feel stronger and more formidable than feelings of hope,” wrote PCA pastor and author Scott Sauls in the hours after the shooting.

Six weeks later, Sauls was placed on indefinite leave from his position as pastor of Christ Presbyterian Church in Nashville after the Nashville Presbytery received complaints that Sauls had created an unhealthy work environment. Sauls admitted to the allegations and is undergoing a restoration process set out by the presbytery.

Last month, Presbyterians were shocked to lose two nationally known pastors in a span of 24 hours. On May 18, Harry Reeder, senior pastor of Briarwood Presbyterian Church in Birmingham, was killed in a car accident. The following ...

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