A US Evangelical Considers Pope Francis

Columnist

The pope was tricky to categorize and at times theologically confusing. Yet I couldn’t help but admire him.

Illustration by Christianity Today / Source Images: Getty

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

With the death of Pope Francis this week, my thoughts went in many directions, but one of them was the memory of my humiliation at the front door of his house.

Invited by the pope to speak at the Vatican on an evangelical view of marriage and fidelity, I arrived in Rome jetlagged and exhausted, having just finished teaching at a Southern Baptist seminary on Martin Luther’s view of conscience.

Going through security at the Vatican, I handed the Swiss Guard what I thought was my passport, pulling it absentmindedly out of my pocket, from the same suit I had worn back home. After a moment or two of his puzzled expression, I realized that I had given him a pocket-sized copy of Luther’s 95 Theses.

An archbishop there with me said, “Just don’t nail it to the door and you should be fine.”

As I wrote shortly afterward for the National Review:

I wondered which of my grandparents would be more ashamed of me: my Roman Catholic grandmother, for my ushering the tumult of the 16th century right there to the pope’s door; my Baptist-preacher grandfather, for entering the Vatican at all; or all of my grandparents together—evangelicals and Catholics alike—for my violation of Southern manners.

The pope, of course, never knew about the awkwardness of my entrance—and my Catholic friends in line with me, far from offended, joked with me about it for years. But even if the pope had known about it, he probably would have waved it off. Martin Luther is not as dangerous as he used to be, and one might wonder whether that’s a good development or a bad one.

Perhaps one of the reasons for better relations between Catholics and evangelicals is that both have changed for the better.

Apart from the writings of “integralists,” mostly in ivory towers, the Catholic church has revised its previously authoritarian views of human rights, religious freedom, and the relationship between church and state, as well as its conclusions about the eternal destiny of “separated brethren.”

Evangelicals—for the most part—no longer think of the pope as the “antichrist” or of the Roman church as the “whore of Babylon” from the Book of Revelation.

But better relations might be a sign of something else—of the ways a secularized Western culture has affected all of us, to the degree that we no longer feel the existential weight of the arguments that once led to reformations and counter-reformations, inquisitions and uprisings.

Those are not minor matters, after all. The books of Romans and Galatians are all about what it means to say that God justifies the ungodly—what could be more important? And if the Roman church is right that Jesus’ promise to build the church “upon this rock” (Matt. 16:18) is about a Petrine office continuing from then until now, then what follower of Jesus could ignore that?

Probably some degree of both factors are at work. But probably, also, both Roman Catholics and evangelical Protestants have, over the centuries, learned to take their doctrines more seriously, not less.

A Roman Catholic who believes that the Eucharist is the real presence of Christ would find that beautiful enough to attest to itself—with no thought of torturing a detractor or withholding the Bible from the laity.

An evangelical Protestant might believe in justification by faith alone—in the right sense of “alone”—strongly enough to believe that one is justified by faith in Christ, not by one’s doctrinal formulation of justification by faith.

For Catholics, Pope Francis was (and is) a kind of Rorschach test of where one thought the church should go in this century after Vatican II, after the world-shaping influence of Pope John Paul II. Pope Francis was, after all, a polarizing figure precisely in the ways he didn’t polarize.

He wanted divorced and remarried Catholics to have access to the Eucharist. He supported gay civil unions and the baptism of transgender people. He expressed his hope that hell was empty. He actively opposed the Latin Mass movement and emphasized the long-standing Catholic social teaching on the treatment of migrants and refugees and on the protection of the environment.

But Francis was no “progressive” in the ways that word is typically defined. Even as he wanted to expand roles for women in the church, he opposed women’s ordination. Despite his “Who am I to judge?” rhetoric on sexuality, he believed and taught the historic Christian sexual ethic restricting sexual union to the married, and he defined marriage as the lifelong union of a man and a woman.

He was pro-life on abortion (as well as on the death penalty and euthanasia and surrogacy), speaking out about the evil of seeing human beings as “disposable.” He opposed what he called “gender ideology”—warning that “canceling” difference when it comes to the creation categories of male and female would ultimately mean canceling humanity.

It was hard, then, for the world or the church to fit Francis into an ideological niche of traditionalist versus progressive, much less into American red versus blue. In the end, that leaves any observer of Francis to make a choice—either to shoehorn him into one tribe or another, and thus to valorize or villainize him, or to see him not as a set of ideas but as a man.

And in that sense, who cannot admire the simplicity and humility of this man, especially at this moment?

The pope exasperated me theologically when he told a little boy that his atheist father would be in heaven because he had been a “good father.” But at the same time, I teared up with admiration to see him hug that little boy—grieving the loss of his dad and fearing what must seem like an eternal orphanhood.

I would differ from the pope on some of the ways he would talk about the implications of “accompaniment” (though as a Protestant, I would have to say, “Who am I to judge?”) and the boundaries of the Lord’s Table. But can we not all affirm that seeing the church as a field hospital is no doubt rooted in Jesus, who told us, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick” (Luke 5:31, ESV throughout)?

One can acknowledge that some of Pope Francis’ statements on matters of sexual morality could be confusing at times while still seeing that he recognized what far too many of us ignore—the double standard of people who call out sinners in the flesh while ignoring those with more “angelicity,” as he put it, who “dress themselves in another guise: pride, hatred, falsehood, fraud, abuse of power.”

The specific applications of his impulse need not be replicated by evangelicals or other Christians for us to see that the impulse itself—toward mercy and grace—is one we ignore at the peril of our own witness.

Pope Francis made mistakes. So did his namesake, Francis of Assisi, and so did the apostle Peter, whose legacy he sought to fill. So did every human being except one (and let’s not get into a debate about Mary right now). So will you, and so do I.

As we look back on the life Pope Francis, though, can we not hope that when we do err, by God’s grace, we might do so while aspiring to mercy rather than to vengeance?

Even those of us without a pope, even those of us with our pockets full of protestations, can agree to that.

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

Inkwell

The Good Life Cannot Be Optimized

Mark Casper

Secular monks on the precipice of burnout

Mount Desert Island, Maine by Jervis McEntee

YEARS AGO, I used to walk my old neighborhood in Charlotte, listening to podcasts as I paced beneath a towering canopy of willow oaks. At the time, one of my go-to’s was The Tim Ferriss Show, a popular podcast where host Tim Ferriss deconstructs world-class performers, extracting the tactics, tools, and routines normies like me can use. As I listened to episodes with titles like Tony Robbins on Morning Routines, Peak Performance, and Mastering Money or How to 10x Your Results, One Tiny Tweak at a Time, I hardly ever looked up to notice the trees.

Eventually, I did notice something rather odd in the show’s introduction. Over thunderous, electronic beats, I heard familiar clips from various films that together, embody the ethos of the show. “At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half a mile before my hands start shaking,” says Matt Damon as the trained assassin Jason Bourne, a nod to the show’s emphasis on peak physical performance. But the clip that stood out to me featured the voice of Arnold Schwarzenegger in the 1991 action classic Terminator 2: Judgment Day: “I’m a cybernetic organism. Living tissue over metal endoskeleton.”

In the film, the Terminator is a machine with human-like skin designed for one thing only: destroying its target. Undoubtedly, there is some tongue in cheek on Ferriss’s part to include a clip like this in his podcast introduction. But after listening to numerous episodes, I couldn’t help but get the sense that there was more truth in it than one would expect. A certain kind of ruthless efficiency—a “machine-like” approach to everything—seemed central to Ferriss’s vision of the Good Life.

WE ARE LIVING in the Age of the Machine, which Paul Kingsnorth defines as “the nexus of power, wealth, ideology, and technology” that has emerged to “replace nature with technology, and to rebuild the world in purely human shape, the better to fulfill the most ancient human dream: to become gods.”

We have not only embraced the way of the Machine, we have chosen to become machines ourselves. Consider how often we say we need to “recharge,” as if we were iPhones running low on battery. Or when we say we are “hardwired” for something. Our language is the canary in the coalmine: It seems we have concluded that to thrive in a Machine society, one must become a machine.

IN 2020, practical philosopher Andrew Taggert wrote an essay in First Things about the rise of what he called “secular monks.” According to Taggert, these educated, wealthy, urban men “embrace a secular ‘immanent frame,’ ascetic self-possession, and a stringent version of human agency.”

Above all, they commit to work—to working on themselves and on the world—as the key to salvation. Practitioners submit themselves to ever more rigorous, monitored forms of ascetic self-control: among them, cold showers, intermittent fasting, data-driven health optimization, and meditation boot camps.

Perhaps you have never gone full “monk mode,” eschewing hot showers for ice baths and grande lattes for shots of wheatgrass. (Lord knows I haven’t.) But it’s clear to me that their ethos has deeply embedded itself in our lives and cultural psyche. You do not have to be a young man plunging himself into a tub of ice daily to suffer from chronic self-improvement.

As Taggert outlines in his essay, the ideological river secular monks swim in is made up of several different streams: the pursuit of preparation (control), the pursuit of optionality (freedom), the pursuit of creativity (power), and above all, the pursuit of optimization (perfection). He summarizes their worldview:

“As human agents, we should divide our actions into means and ends, and if we’re good optimizers, we will discover and use the most effective means by which we can satisfy those ends. This defines human existence as [Tim] Ferriss sees it: an endless game of self-one-upsmanship.” While our methods may not be quite as extreme as these monks’ liturgies, I believe we have become just as obsessed with optimization.

Case in point: several years ago I started noticing an interesting trend. In conversation after conversation with friends and coworkers, I heard the same line: “I can’t remember the last time I read any fiction.”

This statement bewildered me to no end. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Eventually, it dawned on me: In a self-improvement culture, there is no room for art. There is only room for things which have an explicit, utilitarian purpose. Literature, art, poetry, films—these have no practical value in and of themselves. So why read a novel when you can learn ten principles from a self-help book?

IN THE INTRODUCTION to his book Culture Care: Reconnecting with Beauty for Our Common Life, artist Makoto Fujimura picks up on this very idea:

The assumption behind utilitarian pragmatism is that human endeavors are only deemed worthwhile if they are useful to the whole, whether that be a company, family or community. In such a world, those who are disabled, those who are oppressed, or those who are without voice are seen as ‘useless’ and disposable. We have a disposable culture that has made usefulness the sole measure of value. This metric declares that the arts are useless. No—the reverse is true. The arts are completely indispensable precisely because they are useless in the utilitarian sense.

When productivity becomes our highest ideal, we eliminate everything from our lives that isn’t deemed “useful” or “practical.” So we stop reading novels and poems (why bother?). Instead, we listen to nonfiction audiobooks (it’s more efficient that way) about “supercharging our productivity” while jogging, driving to work, or washing the dishes.

This never-ending project of self-optimization means we live on the precipice of burnout. We can’t even remember the last time we marveled at a sunset, stuck our nose in a flower, gazed in wonder at a painting, or laid our hands on the giant bole of a willow oak and lost ourselves in its sprawling canopy. We have not simply lost our humanity—we have opted to become mere “living tissue over metal endoskeleton.”

UNDERNEATH OUR CULTURE’S quasi-religious pursuit of optimization is the desire for perfection, which has its roots in a deep awareness of our brokenness. We are not the men and women we aspire to be. But the secular monk’s quest for perfection does not find Jesus of Nazareth nor his teaching of self-giving love for God and neighbor at its core. Nor do most of our efforts at personal growth. Unsurprisingly, self remains central to our project of self-improvement.

Like the secular monks, we desire to live without limits. To become impervious to decay, death, and the terrifying chaos of life. To “impact” the world through the indomitable force of our work. In short, we want to be superheroes. No wonder most tech innovations coming out of Silicon Valley market themselves as “superpowers.” It’s what we think we want most.

But there’s one small problem. “It’s increasingly clear,” writes Andy Crouch, “that superpowers come at a cost. Every exercise of superpowers involves a trade: You have to leave part of yourself behind.” In our relentless quest to optimize our lives and acquire as many “superpowers” as possible, we become less human. Less real.

IN ONE SENSE, a novel is indeed “useless.” There is no obvious practical value to it. The same is true for other art forms. You do not walk away from a Rembrandt painting, a Terrence Malick film, or a Mary Oliver poem with five practical action steps for how to get more done in less time.

Living in the Machine can sometimes feel small, tedious, and tawdry. Beauty cuts through our rationalistic, materialistic mindset and helps us reclaim the wonder we were made for. In his book An Experiment in Criticism, C.S. Lewis writes about the life-changing power of reading great fiction:

…the first reading of some literary work is often, to the literary, an experience so momentous that only experiences of love, religion, or bereavement can furnish a standard of comparison. Their whole consciousness is changed. They have become what they were not before.

Indeed, how can we be the same after sculling down the river with Ratty and Mole or trudging up Mt. Doom with Frodo and Sam? After scouring the seas with Captain Ahab or putting on a Christmas play with the March sisters? After wandering the Kentucky hillsides with Jayber Crow or burying our faces in Aslan’s mane alongside Lucy and Susan?

Great literature does something to us we can barely understand or even imagine. As Lewis says, it sparks an “enlargement of our being.” It opens up a landscape both within and without.

YOU WILL NOT FIND any of the works I just referenced in the self help section of a bookstore. And yet I consider them integral to the formation of my spiritual imagination. This is why art’s “uselessness” is the very thing that makes it indispensable: It teaches us how to be human again. Great stories remind us that we are more than just our outputs—grades, careers, successes, bank accounts, or possessions. They shake us awake from our rat-race way of living.

The Machine “wires” us to think and live in “-er” terms—i.e. better, faster, easier, more, etc. But the life we desire cannot be found by embracing the way of the Machine. We cannot “hack” our way to the Good Life nor optimize our way to flourishing. To the Machine, art simply “does not compute.” It doesn’t make logical sense. But great and “useless” art punches a hole in the industrial cage the Machine has built around our souls. And through this hole, the light of another world and way of being comes streaming in.

Mark Casper is a writer who has been published in Mockingbird and Short Fiction Break. He writes towards the life we long for through the lens of literature, poetry, art, film, and theology on his Substack, The Kingswood.

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News

Tunisia Church Tries to Hold Steady

Luke Waggoner

The spiritual descendants of Tertullian face pressure.

SOPA Images / Getty

Almost 15 years ago, Tunisian calls for democracy reverberated throughout the Middle East and North Africa, toppling dictators and empowering citizens with new liberties.

Last week, a Tunisian court sentenced to prison nearly 40 political, media, and business leaders perceived to be threats, some receiving sentences up to 66 years.

Still, on a typical Sunday at Église Réformée de Tunisie (ERT, Reformed Church of Tunisia), 120 or so congregants walkpast a block of French-colonial-style apartments, turninto a courtyard adorned with bougainvillea, and enterthe sanctuary.

They have a variety of backgrounds. One was an astrologer who read the Bible and had his whole cosmology turned upside down. He asked to be baptized and now leads the liturgy at ERT’s services. Another attendee learned about Christianity online, told his mother, and faced her disappointment. Several years later, she had a dream in which Jesus came to her and told her to read the Bible. She woke up, did, and professed faith in Christ. Another is a young Tunisian woman who rejected Islam and became a Communist but felt compelled to seek a better purpose. She was recently baptized.

But most of the worshipers at the 143-year-old church are from sub-Saharan Africa and came to Tunis for college, or they are passing through the capital on their way to Europe. Sunday services also include a handful of American and Canadian expats.

Some Tunisians view Christianity as a foreign force, counter to the Tunisian way of life. That’s ironic, because Christians lived in what is now Tunisia within decades after the first Easter, although the gospel’s exact journey has not been confirmed.

The early Christian apologist Tertullian, born in Carthage in 160, established core church doctrines that inspired the martyr Cyprian and later Augustine, a bishop in neighboring Hippo (modern-day Annaba, Algeria). A strong Christian presence continued until the Muslim conquest in North Africa in the seventh century reduced the Christian population to a small minority that persists today.

Tunisians then lived under numerous empires before the French took over in the late 19th century. After gaining independence in 1956, Tunisia was initially more tolerant toward religious minorities than many of its neighbors were, even protecting the freedom of religion in its constitution.

For the first decades of the post-independence period, a liberal expression of Islam coexisted with Christianity. But in 1987, Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali took power and sought to tightly control all minority movements that could threaten his power.

On December 17, 2010, a young, demoralized man staggered angrily into a local government office in central Tunisia. He doused himself in paint thinner and lit a match. Incensed by Ben Ali’s decades-long authoritarian rule, Mohamed Bouazizi chose this gruesome final act of protest out of desperation for a freedom he believed impossible to attain.

Yet his death sparked the Arab Spring protests that unseated Ben Ali and raged in various forms throughout the Middle East and North Africa for 15 years.

The movement ignited civil wars in Libya, Yemen, and Syria; spurred the removal of dictators in three of the North African countries; and launched an initially promising political transformation in Tunisia. In 2014, the country organized its first free and fair elections and had a Nobel Peace Prize–winning transition followed by subsequent peaceful transfers of power. Many believed Tunisia would go the same way.

A reworking of the constitution, though, centralized power in the executive. The president is both the head of public prosecution and the sole figure capable of dismissing any judge on relatively limitless grounds.

The constitution includes language directing the state to protect Islam and guarantee its preeminence. One constitutional expert concluded that the government “is founding a religious state.”

Anti-immigration sentiment in the country has further complicated the lives of many Tunisian Christians. About 16,500 black, sub-Saharan refugees and migrants have registered with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, though many have entered the North African nation without registering.

In 2023, authorities rounded up 1,200 black Africans, destroyed their property, and, allegedly, physically and sexually assaulted the migrants before expelling them at the Libyan border.

Anyone who speaks out against the government increasingly risks prosecution. Decree-Law 54 is ostensibly a cybercrime law prohibiting speech that spreads false information, but the definition of what that is remains vague and subjective. Several recently-sentenced political opponents were arrested under the law, now weaponized to stifle dissent, hamstring lawyers, and punish antigovernment comments by journalists and others.

ERT and other churches in Tunisia try to make sure that new converts don’t believe their faith will automatically make life easier. As Augustine, who spent much of his ministry in Carthage, once wrote, God’s grace is meant “to help good people, not to escape their sufferings, but to bear them with a stout heart, with a fortitude that finds its strength in faith.”

Luke Waggoner is an international political and governance consultant.

This article has been shortened at the urging of Tunisian Christians.

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Ideas

The Male Malaise

Domonic D. Purviance

Rapid economic and social shifts have undermined traditional ideas of manhood. At the Cross we find a better vision—and more.

Illustration by Elizabeth Kaye / Source Images: Pexels, Wikimedia Commons

Most cultures worldwide, anthropologist David Gilmore wrote in Manhood in the Making, have generally defined manhood around three capacities: the abilities to provide, protect, and procreate. For generations, the United States was no exception. Becoming a husband and father, along with serving as the primary breadwinner, has traditionally been the path prescribed to American men for achieving this sense of manhood.

However, economic and social shifts over the past 50 years have led many to question this traditional view, especially the capacity to provide. The transition to a high-skill, service-oriented economy requiring greater training and education has particularly disadvantaged men—especially those who, in another time, would’ve earned a living through manual labor. The proportion of men dropping out of the labor force continues to rise, and many of those with jobs suffer stagnant wages. Meanwhile, the education gap between the sexes has widened, with women now earning the majority of college degrees each year.

Sometimes when this issue is raised, there is an impulse to dismiss it: Why don’t men try harder? Or why don’t they simply get rid of their outdated view of manhood? That attitude is a mistake. The male instinct to provide is not just a social construct; it is fundamentally rooted in how males are wired.

As Brookings Institution scholar Richard Reeves argued in Of Boys and Men, the erosion of the provider role has profoundly impacted men’s perception of their value and place in society. Men who do not see themselves as providers, especially financially, are more likely to detach not only from the labor force but also from society as a whole. Why? Because men who feel they don’t measure up as financial providers often view themselves as inadequate or may be seen by others as societal liabilities.

Even men who do provide financially may still feel inadequate, though, if they are unprepared to meet new social expectations. Either way, too many men are left feeling worthless, aimless, disillusioned, and disenfranchised—an issue we cannot overlook.

The church can’t overhaul the whole economy or make it easier to measure up to the wider society’s expectations. But we can offer a vision of manhood sufficient for navigating the changes and complexities of our era. As Christians, we are blessed that God provides us with a clear vision of manhood, one that transcends different times and cultures and is far beyond anything we could invent to meet this moment.

This vision is not dependent on changing economic, social, or cultural realities. Nor is it solely linked to the roles of husband, father, and financial provider. Though these are all good things, as Tim Keller explains in his book Every Good Endeavor, they cannot be ultimate things. Our identity as men can’t be solely and ultimately anchored in our capacity to perform or achieve in these areas. That will lead to a fragile self-worth that falls apart when we encounter changes and challenges.

This vision is also not a call to deconstruct manhood altogether or a call for each man to invent his own definition. As Gilmore explains, manhood needs to be taught. Without guidance, men may feel lost or, worse, develop dysfunctional models of manhood that are harmful to society.

The central image of God’s vision of manhood is the Cross. At the Cross, Christ provides men with a clear, unambiguous, and enduring vision of being a man—one that remains relevant despite the societal changes around us. Paul makes this clear in Ephesians 5:25–33, where he discusses the relationship between husbands and wives, admonishing Christian men in Ephesus to love their wives the way “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” In other words, Paul suggests that if you want to know what a real man looks like, look to the Cross, where Christ laid down his life for humanity.

This is a challenging call to selflessness, to following Jesus by willingly laying down our lives for those we love. Here, Paul calls husbands to prioritize their wives’ interests above their own, and in Philippians 2:3–4, he broadens that to all relationships: “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.”

Selflessness does not equate to weakness or timidity. On the contrary, Ephesians 5 calls for men to demonstrate strength and leadership in their marriages. However, being the “head” in marriage (v. 23) is not just any kind of leadership. Instead, God’s vision of manhood emphasizes gaining influence through self-sacrifice and using our strength to care for those we love, just as we would care for ourselves.

Whether married or not, men are made for selfless leadership. It gives meaning and purpose to our masculinity. Instead of reducing manhood to economic utility and financial provision, selfless leadership calls us to provide our whole selves—mind, soul, and body—for those we love, just as Christ did. I believe this call has the power, with God’s help, to awaken the hearts of disillusioned men by giving them a motivation and purpose worth living and dying for: the welfare of those entrusted to their care.

Of course, no man can fully live up to the vision of selfless leadership exemplified in Christ at the Cross. This is true no matter how hard we try. Furthermore, simply understanding this biblical vision of manhood is not enough to address our culture’s male malaise. As the church, we must go a step further.

The Cross is not just where we find God’s vision for manhood. It is also where God shapes us into the men we are called to be. At the Cross, we confront the sobering duality of our humanity. On the one hand, we are confronted with a clear view of our depravity, weakness, and inadequacy as men. We are so flawed that we cannot save ourselves. We cannot provide for our own souls, let alone those of others. We are completely dependent on God to send his Son to accomplish what we cannot.

On the other hand, the Cross reveals how unconditionally loved and valuable we are to God. Our weakness does not diminish his love. Despite our inadequacy, we are so valuable to him that Jesus willingly suffered the consequences we deserved, allowing us to gain the hope of “being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:18).

The Cross is the only place where a man can be inadequate and valuable at the same time. Only here can he encounter the power of God’s redeeming grace, a power that enables him to see his true worth and identity and transforms him into the man God calls him to be.

In that sense, the ultimate solution to the male malaise is the same as it has always been: We must preach the gospel to our men. The gospel must be more than a message we recite; it must be where we anchor our very identity and value as men. The Bible must be more than a book we read to find a moral code; it must be where we go to encounter God’s grace until it transforms us into selfless leaders. And most importantly, Christ must not merely be our example in manhood. He must be our Savior.

Domonic D. Purviance is a writer, men’s ministry leader, and finance and economics expert. He cofounded King Culture, a nonprofit organization that equips men to reflect the selfless leadership of Christ.

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News

A Christian Medical School Opens for the First Time in 40 Years

Emily Belz in Nashville

The Nashville program joins a growing movement to teach future doctors a “whole person” model of health care.

The first medical students at Belmont University's Frist College of Medicine participate in a pediatric clinic.

Matt Willoughby / Courtesy of Belmont University

For the first time in more than 40 years, a new Christian medical school granting MD degrees has opened its doors in the US.

A class of 50 students is finishing its inaugural school year now at Belmont University’s Thomas F. Frist, Jr. College of Medicine. That’s 50 future doctors who could be reinforcements for a workforce facing severe shortages.

“I call them the fabulous 50,” said Tanu Rana, a microbiologist and immunologist on the new faculty. “I love them dearly, and I’ve really enjoyed every second with them.”

It’s a diverse 50: The first class includes veterans, farm kids, and speakers of 24 different languages.

A new medical school in general is rare, let alone a Christian school. Belmont’s is the first MD-granting school of any kind to open in Tennessee in 50 years.

“It’s been extremely hard,” said Anderson Spickard, the school’s dean and a veteran internal medicine doctor. He came to the startup school from Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, where he was a faculty member for 27 years. “There’s tension at every turn.”

Oral Roberts University, which opened a medical school in 1981, appears to be the most recent Christian MD-granting institution to open. It closed in 1990 under millions in debt.

Belmont’s medical school has a clinical and advisory partnership with HCA Healthcare, a mammoth health system based in Nashville and founded by members of the Frist family. The school’s new facility, abutting the Belmont campus, is a $180 million columned edifice with labs, cozy study rooms, and a mock hospital ward for simulations.

Peter Huwe, who was teaching at Mercer University School of Medicine before joining the Belmont medical school faculty, said he had dreamed of being able to teach medicine from a Christian standpoint.

When he started looking into teaching at the Belmont medical school, “I could look around and see, ‘Oh yeah, this is going to work. They’ve got the pieces in place,’” he said. He is now a biochemistry professor at the school.

The school emphasizes servant leadership in doctors, a phrase faculty used several times in interviews, and whole person care.

Whole person care is a compassionate health care model for doctors to build relationships with patients and take social, spiritual, emotional, and behavioral factors into account in treatment. In education focused on whole person care, doctors learn to listen to patients and have empathetic conversations on difficult subjects—like terminal diagnoses.

Loma Linda University School of Medicine, a Christian medical school outside of Los Angeles, has for more than a century taught the “whole person care” model that Belmont is now undertaking.

More national medical organizations are recommending that US physicians, especially in primary care, shift toward that whole-person model. Another new, nonreligious medical school opening later this year will be focused on whole-person care.

Students entering medical school now are also more attuned to the whole-person approach, said Huwe, with their sensitivity to mental health and a person’s community context.

“It’s not as big of a leap for this cohort of students,” he said.

The cadaver lab at the school is unique in that it has an anteroom where students pause for 15 minutes of prayer and reflection before going in. “Fearfully and wonderfully made,” from Psalm 139:14, is printed on the wall outside.

While the school is open to anyone no matter their faith, the school’s leadership emphasizes that the school is rooted in Christ and his example. Faculty pray and have devotions together. They want to train doctors “having that humility to recognize that we’re broken,” said Huwe.

In the lobby of the main new building adjoining Belmont’s campus in Nashville hangs a seal for the new school. At its center is the Rod of Asclepius, a staff with a snake from Greek mythology that is associated with medicine. Spickard said that also references John 3:14, where Jesus says, “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up.” The verse refers to his death on the cross, which in turn references the story in Numbers 21:4–9 where sick Israelites who looked on a snake would live.

“The snakes remind us that we’re facing evil here—the machinery, if nothing else, of what’s making that patient sick,” said Spickard. “But if we look at the snake without the cross, we get overwhelmed to face evil on our own.”

On the seal, the staff is planted in water, referencing Psalm 1 (“like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season”). And leaves and fruit grow around the staff, representing Revelation 22, the tree of life with fruit for the “healing of the nations.”

“Christ said that he took evil down with him and buried evil once and for all,” said Spickard. It reminds him as a doctor that he’s not the hero bringing lifesaving care to everyone. “We’re planted in that stream of water.”

Until becoming a dean and hanging up his stethoscope, Spickard was one of the few modern-day doctors still doing house calls. That allowed him to do whole person care; he was often tending a patient in a bedroom, washing his hands in a family bathroom, sometimes walking into a house that the family hadn’t had time to clean.

He wants students to understand that house-call feeling: that entering patients’ lives is high stakes and vulnerable.

Spickard’s agreement to join the new school came at a time of personal vulnerability. He had just learned his son was dying of cancer; he was a dad in the ICU (intensive care unit) watching doctors he had trained over 27 years at Vanderbilt care for his son. It was a raw time to be contemplating a new medical school formed around whole person care and the example of Christ.

Shortly after his son’s death, his own dad died. Initially a faculty member, he was asked by the school’s board at that time to become the dean. He said yes but told them, “You have a wounded dean.”

“The chair of the board said, ‘That’s the best kind,’” said Spickard.

Then he stepped into all the challenges of a new medical school. A big hurdle is winning accreditation, which the Frist school did in 2023 from the Liaison Committee on Medical Education, the body that oversees all MD programs in the US.

Another challenge is that a standalone startup like the Frist school must find partner institutions for clinical rotations since Belmont does not have its own teaching hospital. Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, for example, has Vanderbilt University Medical Center, where students rotate.

But the school’s partnership with HCA Healthcare means that students will do rotations at HCA-affiliated facilities in Nashville.

Already, the first-year students have also done rotations at Siloam Health, a longtime Christian nonprofit health clinic in Nashville that serves refugees, immigrants, and other low-income residents who are uninsured. The clinic has been doing whole person care for more than 30 years, and Vanderbilt medical students rotate there as well.

On the wall in the lobby at Siloam is printed the story of Jesus healing a blind man in John 9, where he tells the man to wash in the pool of Siloam and the man regains his sight. Back in the offices where doctors see patients are hanging quilted flags from all the patients’ countries, like Cameroon and the Dominican Republic.

The clinic’s leadership wants to show the students “we can do excellent, charitable whole person care. It does exist,” said Katie Richards, Siloam’s CEO.

The Frist school encourages students to work in rural health and global health and has a scholarship for those who intend to be rural physicians. Rana, the microbiologist, leads a global health elective at the school, through which students will visit Korea and India.

Some of the members of the first class are already planning to work in rural communities.

The medical school also has an unusual department: health systems science, which teaches students how to interact with systems of medicine so they can help patients figure out paying for care and navigating options—an essential skill if doctors want to help patients as whole people.

Whole person care teaches doctors to be good listeners of their patients, Spickard said, but doctors should also be “listeners” of the health care system.

“We don’t want you to think of the health care system as something you need to be vaccinated against, to go out and tolerate,” said Spickard about his students. “But be agents of hope within it.”

This article has been updated to clarify that the medical school’s partnership with HCA Healthcare is not financial.

- More from Emily Belz

News

Oldest-Known Hymn Inspires New Worship Song

Kelsey Kramer McGinnis

Historian teams up with Chris Tomlin and Hillsong’s Ben Fielding to adapt rare music dating back to the third century.

The Oxyrhynchus papyri, dating to the end of the 3rd century, contains a Christian worship hymn including both lyrics and musical notion.

Courtesy of The First Hymn movie

Historian John Dickson knows that “early” Christian music usually refers to sacred chants from the ninth or tenth century. So when he noticed a reference to an ancient hymn from hundreds of years before that—way back in the third century—he was immediately curious.

The words and musical notations to this obscure sacred song, penned in Greek on a tattered papyrus fragment uncovered over a century ago, named the “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” and responded to pagan beliefs.

“The Christians who produced this were trying to create music that was understandable for their surrounding culture,” Dickson told CT. “It’s simultaneously worship and public Christianity.”

The ancient Greek hymn is by far the oldest surviving piece of Christian music—it predates the next notated work by six centuries. Inspired by the ancient fragment, Dickson reached out to Ben Fielding, a fellow Aussie and a songwriter for Hillsong, to turn it into a singable work for today’s church.

Early conversations between Dickson and Fielding eventually led to a collaboration with Grammy-winning worship artist Chris Tomlin, culminating in the production of a new worship song, “The First Hymn,” and a documentary about the discovery and study of the papyrus fragment containing the hymn.

Courtesy of The First Hymn movie

Chris Tomlin, Ben Fielding, and John Dickson

Through the Psalms and other biblical texts, Christians have had access to words that might have been sung by ancient worshipers. But this early hymn is the first example of Christian music with both text and musical notation preserved—offering rare hints about how the music of early Christian gatherings might have sounded.

“The First Hymn” pulls from the Trinitarian themes and reverence for creation in the ancient song, showcasing Tomlin’s knack for writing simple, syllabic melodies that hold up with minimal accompaniment or full band. It feels thoroughly contemporary even though the text and melody are based on a piece of music likely sung by third-century Christians.

Christians across denominations have been captivated by the idea of singing songs with deep roots in the historic church. Over the past two decades, some evangelicals in the US have migrated to Orthodox or Anglican churches in search of historically rooted faith practices. The Catholic church is experiencing a resurgence of enthusiasm for tradition. Interest in hymns and hymnals is on the rise in a variety of church settings.

“The First Hymn,” like the preceding “ancient-future” worship trend of the 2000s, offers connection to early believers by adapting or reviving an artifact of the faith for modern Christians.

“I’m skeptical of fads, including the fad of ‘going back,’” said Dickson. “I don’t think of this as ‘going back.’ It’s giving something back to the church.”

Now a faculty member at Wheaton College, Dickson has been a lecturer in Hebrew, biblical studies, and classics at institutions in Australia, the UK, and the US. But in the ’90s, he was a singer-songwriter in a rock band. He’s long had an interest in putting ancient words to music, and the text of what scholars call “the Oxyrhynchus hymn” (or P.Oxy. XV 1786) presented the opportunity to join in what Dickson sees as a work of public theology by early Christians.

The Oxyrhynchus hymn was found in a massive collection of papyri uncovered in Egypt. The Oxyrhynchus Papyri contain an estimated half-million fragments, mostly records and correspondence.

The fragment on which the hymn was written preserves 35 words and the accompanying melody and rhythm in ancient Greek musical notation. It is believed to be the conclusion of a longer song.

Let all be silent:
The shining stars not sound forth,
All rushing rivers stilled,
As we sing our hymn
To the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
As all Powers cry out in answer,
“Amen, amen.”
Might, praise, and glory forever to our God.
The only giver of all good gifts.
Amen. Amen.

“‘Giver of good gifts’ was one of Zeus’s epithets,” said Dickson. “But the writer says ‘only giver of all good gifts.’ This may be a nod to Zeus.”

Dickson suggested that the writer of the hymn may have been directly answering or conversing with the competing religious beliefs of the time, something Paul modeled in his letters.

“The phrase ‘in him we live and move and have our being’ comes from a hymn to Zeus,” Dickson observed. “Paul can quote it [in Acts 17:28] and say that this finds its fulfillment in the one true God.”

The theme of cosmic silence (“Let all be silent”) would have resonated with non-Christians in ancient Greece and Egypt, said Dickson.

Musica mundana—the music of the spheres—was a philosophical concept articulated by ancient Greeks to describe the harmony and balance of the heavenly bodies, governed by mathematical relationships. The call to silence of the heavenly bodies was something the Greeks would recognize as a command that only a powerful god could give.

“The thematic setting of silence is pagan,” said Dickson, noting that biblical texts like Psalm 148 most often call the natural world to join in a chorus of praise. “Asking all creation to be silent instead of joining in praise is weird from a biblical point of view.”

Courtesy of The First Hymn movie

Oxyrhynchus excavation site in Egypt

While “The First Hymn” is the first effort to introduce the ancient song to a general audience, musicologists and historians have been studying it since 1922. Charles Cosgrove’s 2011 book, An Ancient Christian Hymn with Musical Notation: Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 1789: Text and Commentary, provides extensive analysis and history of the fragment.

Cosgrove observed that the hymn is a challenge for researchers because it isn’t of central importance for scholars of ancient Greek music and because historians of Christian liturgy generally lack the specialized knowledge necessary to fully grasp and analyze the Greek musical notation.

In academia, the hymn has remained in no man’s land. Its relative isolation and obscurity has to do with the fact that there are so few contemporaneous artifacts to compare it to.

“One hopes that in further discoveries … another such hymn will come to light,” wrote Cosgrove. “But for now, P.Oxy. 1786 is our only example of pre-Gregorian Christian music. For that reason alone it deserves a comprehensive treatment.”

The adaptation of P.Oxy. 1786 by Dickson, Fielding, and Tomlin is perhaps their version of a comprehensive treatment: an accessible song and a documentary about its history for those hungry for a connection to the historic church.

The documentary premiered at Biola University on April 14, followed by a live premiere of the song at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, DC, on April 15.

Resources for churches interested in using the song for congregational worship are already available on platforms like MultiTracks, where worship leaders can download charts and a collection of performance tracks—including all six electric guitar parts and a background choir.

“The First Hymn” is a stirring anthem in the recognizable style of today’s popular worship music, featuring layers of synth textures and a clear verse-chorus structure that builds in intensity from a relatively sparse first verse.

Other than the title, there’s nothing in the text or production that hints at the song’s ancient origin, as the modern setting avoids the potentially gimmicky inclusion of tropes to signal the old or exotic (such as the use of harmonic minor scales or the sound of a zither). Tomlin and Fielding have reworked the lyrics so they fit neatly over a singable melody.

Tomlin calls the song “a sacred gift passed down from the early Church,” connecting its story to the lives of martyrs and persecuted Christians throughout history. “Now, 1,800 years later, we stand in a long line of brave and bold believers, singing alongside them.”

Dickson said that today’s church can learn from the openness of early Christians and their ability to “use pagan motifs to convey Christian doctrine,” even complicated doctrines like that of the Trinity.

“The cool thing is, there’s nothing new here,” Dickson said. “The Trinity is the center; it’s the nature of God in three persons. And here’s the oldest hymn we have, reminding us of that.”

- More from Kelsey Kramer McGinnis

News

Wire Story

How the Catholic Church Will Pick the Next Pope

Mathew Schmalz – The Conversation

A Catholic scholar explains every step of the conclave process that will determine the successor to the late Pope Francis.

Cardinals in the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican for a conclave.

Maurix / Getty

With the death of Pope Francis, attention now turns to the selection of his successor. The next pope will be chosen in what is called a conclave, a Latin word meaning “a room that can be locked up” or, more simply, “a closed room.”

Members of the College of Cardinals will cast their votes behind the closed and locked doors of the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel, famous for its ceiling frescoes painted by Michelangelo. Distinguished by their scarlet robes, cardinals are chosen by each pope to elect future popes. A cardinal must be under the age of 80 to be eligible to vote in the conclave. Of the 252 members of the College of Cardinals, 135 are currently eligible to elect the new pope.

As a scholar of global Catholicism, I am especially interested in how this will be the most diverse conclave in the history of the Catholic church.

For many centuries, the College of Cardinals was dominated by Europeans—Italians, in particular. In fact, the first time a non-European cardinal actually cast a ballot in a conclave was only in the 20th century, when Baltimore’s archbishop, James Gibbons, voted in the 1903 papal election. Now, the College of Cardinals has members from over 90 countries, with Francis having appointed nearly 80 percent of them.

Holding a conclave to elect a pope is a tradition that goes back centuries. The practice was established in 1274 under Pope Gregory X in reaction to the chaos surrounding his own election, which lasted nearly three years. The tradition is old, but the results can be surprising, as when Francis himself was elected in 2013 as the first non-European pope in almost 1,300 years and the first Jesuit pope ever.

The conclave begins

Before the conclave, the College of Cardinals will meet in what are called “general congregations” to discuss issues facing the church. These general congregations will also be an opportunity for new cardinals and those from distant geographical locations to get to know their fellow cardinals.

This can be a time for politicking. In times past, the politicking was rumored to include bribes for votes, as was alleged in the election of Alexander VI, a Borgia pope, in 1492. Nowadays, it is considered to be bad form—and bad luck—for a cardinal to lobby for himself as a candidate. Buying votes by giving money or favors to cardinals is called “simony” and is against church law.

Two to three weeks after the papal funeral, the conclave will begin. The cardinals will first make a procession to the Sistine Chapel, where electronic jamming devices will have been set up to prevent eavesdropping and Wi-Fi and cellphone use. As they file into the chapel, the cardinals will sing, in Latin, the hymn “Come Holy Spirit.” They will then vow on a book of the Gospels to keep the conclave proceedings secret.

After these rituals, the master of papal liturgical celebrations will say out loud, in Latin, “extra omnes,” which means “everyone out.” The doors of the Sistine Chapter will then be locked, and the conclave will begin.

The voting process

The cardinals electing the pope will be seated in order of rank.

Usually, the dean of the College of Cardinals is seated in the first position. But the current dean—Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re—is over the eligible voting age and will not participate in the conclave. Instead, this papal election will be led by the Vatican’s secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin.

When the cardinals have assembled, nine will be chosen at random to run the election, with three of them being “scrutinizers” who will examine the ballots and read them aloud.

After writing down the names of their chosen candidates, the cardinals will bring their ballots to the front of the chapel and place them on a plate that is set on top of an urn in front of the scrutinizers. Using the plate to drop their ballot into the urn, they will say, “I call as my witness Christ the Lord who will be my judge, that my vote is given to the one who before God I think should be elected.”

A new pope is elected by a two-thirds majority. If this majority is not reached during the first ballot, the ballots will be burned in a stove. Black smoke rising through the Sistine Chapel’s chimney will signal to the outside world that the election is still ongoing, a tradition that began with the election of Benedict XV in 1914. Chemical additives are used to make sure the smoke is black because during the election of John Paul II, there was confusion over the smoke’s color.

Following the first day—and on the days thereafter—there will be up to four ballots a day if a two-thirds majority is not reached. Both Benedict XVI and Francis were elected after relatively few ballots: four in the case of Benedict; five with Francis. According to rules set by Benedict, if a new pope is not chosen after 13 days, there will be a day of prayer and reflection. Then the election will be between the top two candidates, one of whom must receive a two-thirds majority.

This new rule, some commentators have suggested, could lead to a longer or even deadlocked conclave because a compromise candidate is less likely to emerge.

The Room of Tears

Conclaves are usually short, such as the three-ballot election that chose Pope Pius XII in 1939. On a few occasions, deliberations have been quite long—the longest being the 1740 papal conclave, which elected Benedict XIV and lasted 181 days.

But regardless of the time frame, a new pope will be chosen. Once a candidate receives enough votes, he is asked, “Do you accept your canonical election as supreme pontiff?” By saying, “Accepto,” or “I accept,” he becomes the new leader of the Catholic church. This time, the ballots will be burned to create white smoke that will tell the world that the conclave has ended and that a new pope has been chosen.

Immediately after being elected, the new pope decides on his name, as Jorge Mario Bergoglio did when he was the first pope to choose the name Francis. The choice of a name—especially one of an immediate predecessor—often indicates the direction of the new pope’s pontificate. In Francis’ case, his name honored Francis of Assisi, a 13th-century mystic known for his simplicity and love for nature.

The new pope is then led to the “Room of Tears.” In this chamber, off the Sistine Chapel, he will have moments to reflect on the burdens of his position, which have often brought new popes to tears. He will put on a white cassock and other signs of his office. His election will be announced from the balcony of Saint Peter’s Basilica.

From the balcony, the new pope will greet the crowd below and deliver his first blessing to the world. A new pontificate will have begun.

Mathew Schmalz is a professor of religious studies at College of the Holy Cross. This article originally appeared on The Conversation.

- More from Mathew Schmalz – The Conversation

History

Nailing Down the Truth of Christ’s Crucifixion

Daniel Silliman

Apologizing for what I got wrong reporting on an idiosyncratic view on how Jesus died.

iStock / Getty Images Plus

Like so many Christians, I spent a lot of time before Easter thinking about the Crucifixion: how it must have felt for Jesus to die that way, how God chose this particular device of Roman terror to accomplish our salvation, and how it worked practically to kill someone on a cross.

An article in Biblical Archaeology Review piqued my reporting curiosity. A Bible professor suggested it was possible that crucifixions at the time of Christ’s death used ropes rather than nails. That’s obviously an idiosyncratic view—and almost certainly wrong, it seemed to me. But I thought it was interesting.

My curiosity took me to the descriptions of Christ’s death and the details in those accounts. I didn’t think about John 20:25 and the implication of the idea that Thomas was mistaken to think the resurrected Jesus would have nail marks in his hands. Thomas clearly would not have said that if the Romans at that time used ropes.

My article implicitly called into question the inerrancy of Scripture. In my eagerness to explore the historical context of Christ’s death, I missed that, and I’m sorry.

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Ideas

The Limits of Open Letters

Myles Werntz

Contributor

American evangelicals love big statements—but we must first do the slow work of institution building and local discipleship.

Sometimes in church history, we find lightning in a bottle, moments so powerful that we wonder whether they could be the norm rather than the exception. The Barmen Declaration is one of those moments. Authored by an ecumenical group of Lutheran, Reformed, and United Church theologians and pastors, this 1934 document offered a clarion call from the Confessing Church. When much of the church capitulated to Adolf Hitler, Barmen warned of the dangers he posed to the church and the world. The declaration glows in historical remembrance, and rightly so.

Do we need another such declaration now? I see the question asked more and more in the American church in recent years, particularly among educated evangelicals. Church attendance has declined, church scandals have proliferated, and in many Christian circles worry is running high around the new Trump administration and its handling of immigration, religious advocacy, rule of law, and humanitarian programs and policies.

So is it time for evangelicals to write a new statement of principles? I welcome the instinct to try to stand for truth—yet would offer a word of caution.

We should start by asking what the original Barmen Declaration meant in its time and what something similar might mean today. As an appeal to Protestant congregations across Germany, the document emphasized the threat of “alien principles” being forced on the German church by the Nazi government. It named numerous threats, some of which would be just as familiar to Christians today (like nationalism and government promises of safety), but others of which are less germane to an American context (like government interference in church confessions).

Chief among those threats was the way in which the government was exercising dominion over the church’s ability to be the church. During the first year of the Nazi regime, a new movement formed of “German Christians,” represented by a national bishop and organized significantly around loyalty to Hitler. The Barmen Declaration responded to that movement, but the document also contradicted those who wished to carve a “third way,” affirming both Jesus Christ and fidelity to the government.

There were many challenges yet to come for German Christians that were not fully in view in 1934. Repudiation of the extermination of God’s covenant people, the Jews, is notably absent from the document. But it does respond to pressing concerns, including Hitler’s claim to determine how churches should proclaim the gospel, the assumption that one can read God’s will in a cultural trend like National Socialism, and the notion that the church should be subject to the state.

The declaration was the fork from which ran two Protestant trajectories in Germany: the German Evangelical Church, which acquiesced to Hitler’s party, and the Confessing Church, which did not. After the document’s release, the Confessing Church began to organize, establishing a new seminary and new parishes with ministers willing to say no to Hitler.

Authored by some of the leading figures within European Christianity, Barmen remains a shining light in Christian history and our collective imagination. Yet its reach was objectively limited.

Intended not as a confession of faith but as a declaration, the document could never do the work of ordinary church formation, nor was it intended to fill that role. Its framers hoped to rouse a slumbering church to see impending danger, but their statement never had the authority of local church discipline.

The declaration also suffered from the swift institutional decline of the Confessing Church. By 1937, internal divisions had caused the Evangelical Lutheran Church to break away from the movement. By 1940, many Confessing Church leaders had been arrested. By 1949, it had disbanded entirely. Along the way—as we read in the letters of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and others—issues of finances, church support, and legal restrictions by the Nazi government hastened the Confessing Church’s demise. (If you cannot drown a movement’s passion, smothering it with paperwork may do just as well.)

So how would a comparable declaration fare today? American Christians have a long history of authoring statements in times of emergency, sometimes with explicit allusion to Barmen as a model.

Consider the Christians Against Christian Nationalism statement, aimed at raising awareness of efforts to “merge Christian and American identities,” or the recent statement by the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission on supporting Israel. Authored in response to particular political events, these documents seek to bring awareness to specific problems by way of theological categories.

The most recent major statement came in 2024. Written “in this moment of social conflict and political division,” it traces mostly uncontroversial theological truths (allegiance to Jesus Christ, the truth of the Scriptures, the image of God) and outlines how Christians should live amid division (refrain from fear, value each life, judge leaders by their character). This statement and others like it largely follow Barmen. But Barmen and these more recent confessions diverge in three important ways.

First, Barmen focuses primarily on clarifying theological principles. Across its elements, it articulates one theological point: Jesus Christ is Lord, and the state is not. It offers no practical guidance on what to do next and so, though occasioned by Nazi overreach, can be applicable for Christians in many different contexts.

Contemporary statements, by contrast, tend to dwell on practical recommendations that tie them to a particular time, place, and political context. In the 2024 statement, for example, “this moment of political division” determines what confessions are included. Practical recommendations like “We will lead with love not fear” exist alongside theological affirmations of Scripture’s authority, the imago Dei, and the need for godly character in leaders.

Second, the Barmen Declaration was designed to work through institutions committed to its theological vision. It was in synods, church councils, committee meetings, and classrooms that the Confessing Church teased out the practical implications of Barmen. Modern evangelical statements typically do not likewise rely on thick institutions to shape, sustain, and flesh out their truths.

The 2024 statement, authored primarily by university officials, is signed by a variety of people but is without a readily available context for implementing these ideas. The signers rely instead on goodwill, individual liberty, publicity, and free association—all good but ultimately flimsier things. It’s notable that all who signed did so “in their personal capacity,” as the 2024 statement announces, making it an affirmation of goodwill, but not one with institutional backing.

Third, the Barmen Declaration had a smaller and better-defined audience. It was written, pre-internet, by and for church leaders. It was read and had influence in institutional settings.

Today, open letters and signed declarations proliferate online. They are signed by people with a more limited scope of authority and less (or sometimes no) institutional accountability. They are public and compete for attention in the rapid stream of public discourse—“now … this,” as Neil Postman called it. Accordingly, modern statements—even if written in the tongues of angels—stand little chance of gaining traction. Their medium works against their message.

These differences reveal the very limited utility of yet another statement. They show the difference between what the Barmen Declaration meant in its era and what a new declaration would mean today.

That’s not to say the church doesn’t face great challenges in our moment. And there are many government policies—including, recently, challenges to churches’ tax-exempt status , religious education requirements as defined by government officials, the closure of pathways of refugee resettlement, and overreach into the lives of churches by the executive branch—that are worth our opposition.

But we should be realistic about what we can accomplish with a post on the internet in 2025. In the American evangelical context, another online declaration is dead on arrival.

Making something like Barmen stick requires more than good writing and impressive signatories. It requires a laser-like focus on the theological convictions at stake and an interconnected institutional and ecclesial life capable of enforcing those convictions in budgets, in curricular decisions, and in pastoral training programs.

American evangelicalism in 2025 is equipped to write and theologize, to reason about the contradictions between the life of the world and the life of God’s kingdom. But our institutions, ecclesial authority, and networks are everywhere fragile, if not in decline.

What is left for us is not despair but retrieval. We must begin with commitment to rebuild institutions from the local church upward. Rightly remembering Barmen helps us see that its theological vision—while clear and provocative—was paired with a sober recognition that change does not come by declaration alone. Without an entire network of institutional support and dedicated local discipleship, Barmen would have been nothing but a clanging cymbal.

American evangelicals need that same solid foundation of institutions and discipleship. Declarations can meaningfully speak truth to power only if they come from a community that does more than speak—a community that faithfully prays and doggedly works for the world the declaration demands. Now is the time for rebuilding churches capable of welcoming strangers, feeding the hungry, and proclaiming the gospel. But the way there is slow, and there are no shortcuts, no matter how clarion the call to arms.

Myles Werntz is author of From Isolation to Community: A Renewed Vision for Christian Life Together. He writes at Taking Off and Landing and teaches at Abilene Christian University.

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Theology

The Raging Sea Is More Than a Symbol of Chaos

Elia Maggang

The Bible’s favorite metaphor to remind you that you’re not in control.

정규송 Nui Malama / Pexels

I grew up along the coast of Kupang, Indonesia, and spent most of my free time by the sea. Besides swimming and fishing, I loved playing soccer on the beach, which was only possible at low tide. My friends and I would often jokingly ask the sea to dry up earlier or come back later so we could have more time to play. Obviously, the sea ignored our requests. But these experiences showed me that the sea was unpredictable and fearsome.

Biblical depictions of the sea evoke a similar interpretation. The Psalms describe the foamy waters (46:3), roaring waves (65:7), and surging sea (89:9) as difficult situations that urgently need God’s intervention. The runaway prophet Jonah gets thrown off a boat to calm the raging sea (Jonah 1:15). The Gospels see Jesus rescuing his disciples from a terrible storm (Mark 4:35–41).

Many tend to read Bible passages like these and interpret the sea negatively, as dangerous and threatening. Such perceptions of the sea in Scripture are influenced by ancient Near Eastern myths that regard the sea as a symbol of chaos and destruction, Old Testament scholar Kenneth W. Lovett writes.

In the ancient Mesopotamian poem The Epic of Gilgamesh, the sea functions as an enemy. One of the poem’s inscriptions describes a flood as “an army in battle.” Tiamat, a character in the Babylonian creation myth Enuma Elish, personifies the primordial sea and symbolizes monstrous chaos, Lovett argues.

How the Bible describes the sea may also contribute to negative interpretations of it. God often uses the sea as a “tool of judgment against sin,” Lovett says, and Satan and other evil beasts emerge from the waters in Daniel’s vision.

But what Lovett and other theologians miss is that many of these negative interpretations of the sea in Scripture emerge from humanity’s inability to control and master it. A wider, fuller interpretation of the sea gives us a picture of God’s uncontrollability: the power, majesty, and holiness that define his character.

A biblical narrative of the sea that is solely negative is an anthropocentric perspective, where we interpret the world according to human values and experiences. In reading the sea only as chaotic and destructive, we inevitably practice what I call blue anthropocentrism, a reflection of humanity’s delusional dominion over the sea.

As finite human beings, however, we cannot control the waters—how currents ebb and flow, how marine creatures feed on all that grows within the sea, and how it responds to other natural phenomena like earthquakes and volcanoes.

Yet we mistakenly believe that the sea is an object to serve our interests. We view the sea as a site that overflows with economic profit, a means of fulfilling our greed. We think the sea is a vehicle for conquest, as the Roman Empire and European colonizers did.

Through Scripture, God unveils our selfish, self-aggrandizing impulse to rule over the sea and everything in it.

While questioning Job, God mentions a mythical sea creature, the Leviathan. “Can you pull in Leviathan with a fishhook or tie down its tongue with a rope?” God asks Job (41:1). The Leviathan symbolizes absolute resistance to human arrogance, power, and greed, especially in efforts to domesticate and commodify nature, theologian Catherine Keller writes in an essay in the book Christianity and Ecology. “Any hope of subduing [the Leviathan] is false; the mere sight of it is overpowering,” God declares (v. 9).

God’s interrogation of Job and the rhetorical discourse on the Leviathan reveals humanity’s vulnerability: We are creatures with limitations, alongside the rest of creation.

Our finitude is not something to regret or lament. Nor is it a fact to deny. Instead, we ought to be grateful, for the human limitations that the Leviathan reveals invite us to recognize and accept our creatureliness. The Leviathan dismantles a view of the sea that privileges humanity as the center of its existence. We are hardly mightier than the Leviathan, after all.

Another instance where Scripture reminds us of our frailties is in one of Jesus’ interactions with his disciples. As they sail across the Sea of Galilee, a “furious squall” (Mark 4:37) breaks out, and powerful waves crash over the boat and nearly swamp it. All this time, Jesus is asleep. When his frightened followers ask him why he does not care if they drown, Jesus asks them, “Why are you so afraid?” (v. 40).

Jesus is not trying to shame the disciples for feeling afraid of the sea. He knows full well that they are unable to control what the sea does. Rather, his question reflects his divinity, presenting him as the only one who can calm the waters. Jesus’ question already presumes his power over all creation, including something as unruly as the sea.

The disciples’ inability to quell the roaring waves surrounding them is hardly a failure or inadequacy. Instead, Jesus calls them to accept their human limitations and to place their trust in him and his will.

The disciples also look upon Jesus’ act of calming the sea and marvel: “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!” (v. 41). Scripture invites us to see how the sea’s frothy, unpredictable nature testifies to a God who is likewise untamable and uncontrollable, a God who is far more holy and powerful than our finite minds can ever fully understand. As Psalm 77:19 puts it, “Your path led through the sea, your way through the mighty waters, though your footprints were not seen.”

The sea is sacramental because the sea speaks of a God who is beyond our control and prediction, Anglican priest Edmund Newell argues. “The sea’s varying moods resonate with our experiences of peace and turmoil, joy and sorrow, life and death,” Newell writes in his book The Sacramental Sea. “Eternal, unfathomable, elusive, powerful, mysterious, apparently infinite, life-giving, yet fearful: in its very essence the sea speaks of God.”

The sea is a site of danger and fear but also of wonder and awe. Both qualities can exist simultaneously, and both testify to our infinitely powerful and majestic God. The sea is not an enemy to defeat but a significant part of God’s creation that reveals more about who God is.

With this renewed interpretation of the raging sea in Scripture, we learn how to treat the sea in our world with respect and reverence, knowing that it provides us with glimpses of a God who is uncontainable, irreducible, and incomprehensible.

We also learn that adopting blue anthropocentrism is costly. This view preserves our perception of the sea—in Scripture and life—as chaotic and destructive. It places human interests above the natural character of the waters that God has made. It refuses to let the sea exist according to God’s order and empowerment of it.

If blue anthropocentrism persists, it will shape how we relate to the seas around us. We may keep employing science and technology to dominate the sea and reduce it to a mere object of commodification. We may overlook the ecological crisis at sea: destructive fishing practices, widespread coral bleaching “primarily driven by carbon emissions,” and increased plastic pollution in the ocean, all of which endanger life on the Blue Planet.

Every time we breathe, we are connected to and dependent on the sea, as most of the oxygen on this planet comes from phytoplankton and sea creatures, oceanographer Sylvia Earle asserts. God created and put humanity in an interconnected and interdependent community.

Rather than trying to dominate and master the sea or regard it simply as chaotic and destructive, we can consider the raging sea as a reflection of God’s magnificent and boundless nature. When we look upon powerful, white-capped waves crashing onto shore, go on bumpy boat rides across lakes, or head out to fish, we encounter and experience God’s immeasurable greatness.

To borrow from C. S. Lewis, the raging sea testifies that God is not safe, but he is good.

Elia Maggang is a vicar at the Protestant Evangelical Church in Timor, Indonesia (GMIT) and teaches theology of the sea and ecotheology at the Artha Wacana Christian University in Kupang, Indonesia. He holds a PhD from the University of Manchester, UK.

- More from Elia Maggang

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