We Can’t Turn a Blind Eye to Harmful Ideologies

It’s critical that we understand how we got here.

Michael Winters

I’m probably going to head to Israel next week.”

When my friend and colleague Mike Cosper said this to me barely a month after Hamas terrorists attacked Israeli civilians, I feared for his life. I prayed every day for his protection. But I’m glad he made the trip.

Cosper’s journey resulted in our cover story. He paints a vivid picture of the aftermath in the war-torn kibbutz of Kfar Aza. He goes beyond the physical evidence of destruction and addresses the question many of us might be asking: How did we even get here?

“Ideology is a story that offers a key to history,” he writes. “It frames a present crisis such that it points to an inevitable future. It also creates the overwhelming sense that the future is certain, and that its followers are agents of the progress of history. That sense of inevitability has a powerful—and terrible—effect on its subjects; they become capable of immeasurable cruelty.”

Cosper’s fervor for understanding and communicating truths about ideologies took root two decades ago during his academic work in social and political philosophy. A deep dive into the history of Nazi rule steeped in antisemitism captured his imagination and catalyzed his sense of alarm at how ideologies can affect interpersonal connections. He has traveled to Israel multiple times and has linked arms with Jewish-Christian relation groups.

He went on to write a book on Esther—one of the Bible’s most direct depictions of ideology and antisemitism—and produce CT’s podcast The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill, which asks questions about Christian witness in the face of suffering and marginalized image bearers. This March cover story, along with Michael Winters’s photo essay, accompanies Cosper’s limited podcast series on The Bulletin, “Promised Land,” largely recorded in Israel and Gaza weeks after the breakout of the war. There, Cosper captured conversations about the conditions of Kfar Aza, the darkness of violence, a search for moral clarity, and a quest for signs of redemption and hope.

We are, after all, in the Easter season—when we remember the ultimate act of violence on the cross but rejoice that all will be made well through the Resurrection and that the ultimate agent of moral clarity sits at the right hand of God. My hope is that fellow image bearers of the Most High will catch a glimpse of his compassion for those who suffer and will be reminded that even though there is deep darkness, the light shines in that darkness and the darkness will not overcome it.

Joy Allmond is executive editor at Christianity Today.

Also in this issue

In the face of the horrific war begun by the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israelis, we ask: Why? For this issue, Mike Cosper, director of CT Media, traveled to war-torn places in Israel to learn about the harmful ideology that led to the violence against innocents. You’ll also read Southeast Asia editor Angela Fulton's exploration of controversies around “street language” Bibles and translated “bad words” in Scripture. News writer Emily Belz spent time in East Palestine, Ohio, after a catastrophe crippled the small town and tells how the church is doing crisis response. And don’t miss reflections on a year after the Asbury University revival from the school’s president and news editor Daniel Silliman’s weird Easter Bunny history.

Cover Story

The Evil Ideas Behind October 7

Seeing Stars, Not Light Pollution

Is the Pope Catholic? Then These Christians Say Don’t Pray with Him.

Testimony

I Hated ‘Church People.’ But I Knew I Needed Them.

The Old Testament Foretells the Crucifixion. What about the Resurrection?

The Holy Sound Stuck Inside Your Head

Should the Bible Sound Like the Language in the Streets?

Political Homelessness Is a Good Start

Faithfulness Requires Risk

The Weird True History of the Easter Bunny

Five Books to Encourage Single Parents

Hackers Try to Take AI to Church

Medical Cost Sharing Ministry Stole Millions

An Orphan Took Over an Orphanage. Its Mission Changed.

Empty Streets to the Empty Grave

Can Christian Colleges Make the Grade?

Review

The Bible Was Written to Be Heard and Spoken to Be Read

Review

The Surprising Practicality of Christian Philosophy

New & Noteworthy Fiction

What the Asbury Revival Taught Me About Gen Z

How Doubt Derailed a Train Town

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