Undragoning the Imagination

An excerpt from Discipling the Diseased Imagination: Spiritual Formation and the Healing of Our Hearts.

Illustration by Christianity Today / Source Images: Getty, Baker Academic

I have always loved stories about dragons. Much of my fascination owes to the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, whose legends of Middle-earth tell of dragons like Ancalagon the Black, Glaurung the Golden, and Smaug the Impenetrable. In the tradition of Norse mythology, Tolkien’s dragons are insidious and bewitching, cunning and cruel, living embodiments of the lust for domination and destruction.

We are drawn to stories of dragons because they tell us something true about the world. Indeed, dragons (or something like them) also appear throughout the Bible. They fall into the category of “chaos creatures” and may be found in the depths of the sea, in the wilderness, or in the heavenly places.

Although originally a part of God’s good creation (since nothing is evil in the beginning), these creatures come to represent evil’s rebellion against God as the story continues. It is not for nothing that the book of Revelation names the devil as the “great dragon” and the “ancient serpent” who “leads the whole world astray” (Rev. 12:9). Dragons remind us that we must reckon with evil.

We are also drawn to stories of dragons because they teach us that dragons can be defeated. In Tolkien’s stories, Smaug is killed by Bard’s arrow, Glaurung is slain by Túrin’s sword, and Ancalagon is cast from the sky by Eärendil. In Scripture, the enormous red dragon is identified primarily to assure us of his defeat (v. 2). We are promised that despite the power of evil, it is not strong enough to stop God’s work in the world (v. 8).

Although that is good news, we wonder what it means and what it will take to subdue the dragonish impulses we feel inside us. The way of the dragon is manifest whenever we see our neighbors as obstacles or objects, things to devour or possess. We feel it in our pride and wrath, in our deceit and despair. We find it in the craving for glittering things, the obsession with our own reflections, and the longing to sit atop the pile in the place of God. Who will rescue us from the dragons within?

Think of the incorrigible Eustace Scrubb in C. S. Lewis’s Narnia books. Eustace happens on a dead dragon’s horde and decides to keep it for himself. Falling asleep in the dragon’s cave thinking “greedy dragonish thoughts,” he wakes to realize that he has become a dragon.

The dragoning of Eustace offers a powerful image of the danger we are in. We too live in a world of dragons, and unless we are vigilant, we too may fall asleep in the dragon’s lair and be conformed to the “pattern of this world” (Rom. 12:2).

Can our dragon-sickness be healed? One remedy, Tolkien believed, is to read dragon stories that expose us to the truth. Similarly, Lewis tells us that Eustace might have known better than to fall asleep in a dragon’s cave if he had been raised to read “the right books.”

Both authors held that exercising the imagination with fairy tales might help readers recover their health, training their powers of discernment and cleansing their souls with mythic truth. When we fail to care for our imaginations, stronger medicine is required, an intervention like the undragoning of Eustace. But how do we undragon our imaginations?

Early in my academic journey I was encouraged by a mentor to find a foundational question to orient my vocation, and it didn’t take long for me to find it: What does it mean to disciple the imagination? I became convinced that the imagination is at the heart of discipleship: What we imagine must be transfigured and trained by the true and beautiful story found in Scripture. For the last decade I have been trying to understand how the imagination works and how theology can nurture the imagination for cultural discipleship.

I am still convinced of the value of my keystone question. But in recent years I have started to wonder whether my research question assumes too much. My working model of discipleship was a training regimen composed of gospel truth and spiritual exercise. This is a common thread in books on spiritual formation: We preach truths and prescribe practices in hopes that both will take root in our hearts.

And yet, many well-intended plans for spiritual growth devolve into information transfer and behavior modification. When they succeed, they reinforce our sense of mastery and control; when they fail, they produce frustration and shame. Something has gone wrong.

My new book, Discipling the Imagination, has been borne out of a deep sense of lament at my own failure to be formed, a failure shared by the church more broadly. Why does it seem like so many devout believers have been unable to escape the gravity of more powerful cultural, political, and economic currents? Why are we unable to imagine better futures for ourselves, for our neighbors, and for the places we live? Are our imaginations too diseased to be discipled?

I’m convinced that if the imagination is to be discipled, it must also be healed. Healing and training are not necessarily opposed. But much depends on whether we view discipleship from the perspective of an elite athlete training for a triathlon or an accident survivor relearning to walk. Both kinds of training require discipline and self-denial, but the second kind of training is truer to the overarching story of Scripture.

The imagination enables humans to live creatively in God’s created world. It is precisely because the world is full of possibility that we are always using our imaginations, filling in the gaps so that we can live more securely in the world. The imagination is active when we plan a vacation, rehearse a presentation, or hear a noise late at night. It’s engaged when we listen to a story, read a novel, or exercise empathy in relationships.

I grew up reading the King James Version of the Bible, and like anyone accustomed to its style, I knew that the translators consistently rendered the imagination with negative associations, consistently speaking of human imaginings as “evil” (Gen. 6:5), “wicked” (Prov. 6:18), and “vain” (Rom. 1:21). These passages highlight human creativity gone awry, the way it goes when we ponder the possibilities of life without God. Detached from its anchor in God, the gift of imagination becomes a curse. It misdirects human imagining toward idolatry and injustice.

The prophetic hope is not just for individual renewal but so that one day the nations will no longer walk “after the imagination of their evil heart” (Jer. 3:17, KJV).

We might say that these idolatries are dragonish enchantments, spells that enslave us to evil powers. This brings me to a key term that shifts us from a magical metaphor to a medical one: the diseased imagination. I learned this phrase from Willie Jennings, who invokes “diseased social imagination” when describing how Western Christians constructed the category of race and the institution of race-based slavery.

Racial hierarchy was an imaginative fabrication; it offered an expansive story to justify the colonization and enslavement of nonwhite people groups under the guise of improvement and evangelism. Jennings’s analysis is sobering, especially for someone writing a book about Christian imagination.

It is devastating to read his account of Christian societies imagining, producing, and justifying diabolical practices and institutions. It makes plain how our lust for power and control compels us to embrace the way of dragons, to accept the domination and destruction of others as ordinary, simply “the way things are.”

If slavery seems like a distant example to some readers, let me offer one closer to home. I am a mixed-race, Filipino American man with skin that darkens considerably in the summer months. I grew up in suburban Kansas City, and although I felt different from my peers, I rarely felt unwelcome. In college I became interested in dating a girl who happened to be white, and it was a painful awakening when I heard an argument for racial separation—my separation—on the basis of Scripture for the first time. God made the races, I was told; there must be a reason. So stay in your place.

I would later learn that these lines of interpretation were taken for granted by previous generations, leveraged mostly against Black Americans. I do not for a moment believe that I have borne anything like the burden carried by my Black brothers and sisters. I share my experience to give a personal edge to the diagnosis, to testify to the inability of Christians in the dominant culture to imagine joining their lives with cultures unlike their own.

I do not believe this imaginative failure is exclusive to Christians in general or white Christians in particular. Rather, it represents the enchantments of power and comfort and the way we resist anything that might disrupt our perch at the top of the pile. Dreaming like dragons, we have become unable to imagine anything significantly different from what we have already seen and known.

We must reckon with the severity of the diagnosis before we can be healed, and Jennings tells us the truth: Christians can suffer from a badly diseased imagination. When the light in us is darkness, how great indeed is the darkness (Matt. 6:23)!

But although the diagnosis is painful, it is also a gift for three reasons. First, if the imagination is diseased, then we know that something foreign has taken it captive. Perhaps what has been learned can be unlearned; what has been taken for granted can be called into question.

Second, the diagnosis may make us more hesitant to wallow in shame. This does not mean we have no reason to be ashamed; “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). There is evil we have done and good we have left undone. But tracing sin to a diseased imagination may lead to a more careful, compassionate, and comprehensive approach. Yes, we have sinned. But we have also spent our lives in toxic ecosystems, consuming poisonous food and drink.

Like Eustace, we have not been reading the right books. Enchanted by Mammon and other idols, we no longer see a true image of ourselves, our neighbors, or the places we live.

If the imagination is diseased, the humbling truth is that we cannot fix ourselves through sheer willpower. If sin is more like an addiction or an enchantment, if we are slowly turning into dragons, it will not be enough to say, “Stop it.” We must have help from outside ourselves.

Our great hope is that God is healing all creation.

I have started praying like this: “O God who heals my diseases, heal my diseased imagination.”

The wonderful news of the gospel is that while we are still stumbling in the dark, God comes and finds us. He knows the sickness of our hearts and what we are doing to ourselves. Though we are turning into dragons, God moves to rehumanize us after the pattern of Jesus, the true human.

One of the most beautiful passages in the Narnia stories is when Eustace recounts meeting the great lion Aslan and getting undragoned. Eustace tries to peel his scales off by himself, but no matter how hard he tries, he finds that he is still a dragon. And so he must lie still and submit himself to Aslan’s claws. The lion peels the dragon skin from Eustace, layer by layer, then throws him into the water, signifying a sort of baptismal rebirth. Eustace is undragoned as he embraces a pain that goes “right into his heart” that also ultimately heals it.

Although the healing process is painful—in the Narnia stories and in our world—the amazing thing is that the healer makes sure that the worst of it falls on himself. Despite our failure to see, hear, and feel, the Lion who is also the Lamb (Rev. 5:5–6) shows up all the same. His great act of grace is stronger than the power of dragons, and it is the heart of our hopes to be set free from the way of the dragon. For “by his wounds we are healed” (Isa. 53:5).

Justin Ariel Bailey is a professor of theology at Dordt University. He is the author of Interpreting Your World: Five Lenses for Engaging Theology and Culture and Discipling the Diseased Imagination. Content taken from Discipling the Diseased Imagination by Justin Ariel Bailey, ©2026. Used by permission of Baker Academic.

- More from Justin Ariel Bailey

Culture

We All Want to Be the Right Kind of Parents

Kelsey Kramer McGinnis

Correspondent

Parenting books—even Christian ones—capitalize on fear and longing, sometimes making promises that don’t hold true.

Vince Fleming / Unsplash / Edits by CT

Professor Harold Hill had to create a problem to sell a solution. The shifty protagonist of the musical comedy The Music Man knew this fabricated dilemma had to be a problem that the parents of River City, Iowa, would care about. They had to care enough not only to listen but also to invest their time and money in the absurd solution he was about to propose: a boy’s marching band.

“We got trouble, right here in River City!” he cried, pointing to the billiard parlor, where a newly installed pool table threatened to send young boys down the path of crude language, beer, and ragtime. Hill’s rousing appeal to unwitting customers was that the boys were at risk of becoming hooligans, and he had the perfect solution.

After he established the enemy (the new pool table) and the danger (hooliganism), he turned to the crowd of mothers and fathers and said earnestly, “Now I know all you folks are the right kind of parents …”

The right kind of parents. Almost every parent wants to be the right kind of parent. Not just a good parent, but the best parent they can be. And every parent can relate to the feeling of taking an infant home and, amid the joy of bringing a new life into the world, sensing a crushing weight of responsibility. This unrelenting pressure sends parents to books, podcasts, blogs, and influencers. To be sure, not every parenting expert is a crook or scam artist, but even the most well-meaning self-appointed writers, coaches, and teachers may sometimes exploit parental fears.

Many new parents worry trouble lurks everywhere, that every day with their baby is an opportunity either to get it right or to fail. As their kids grow, they feel constantly at risk of being too permissive, too authoritarian, too involved, or too hands-off. And many experts, both Christian and otherwise, convince readers that parents are tragically unprepared for what lies ahead.

The most powerful figures in the parenting-advice niche have long built their influence by addressing spiritual, social, even political concerns. They place the day-to-day, relational work of parenting in the context of a larger social project. Discipline, behavior, and even sleep training become proving grounds and indicators of whether one’s family is helping move society in the right direction or contributing to decline.

The stakes feel especially high for Christian parents. We may not be explicitly taught that children—their behavior, health, or salvation—directly reflect our own spiritual goodness, but some come to believe it. Fear and a fervent desire to be the right kind of parents can make people desperate for answers, promises, and a guarantee that their kids will be okay.

Fear and longing make it easy to sell things to parents, too. The runaway success of Baby Einstein is a perfect example. In five years, the company grew from an in-home video project to a multimillion-dollar business, selling to Disney for more than $25 million in 2002. The promise of Baby Einstein was right there in the name: Einstein, shorthand for genius. Even though it turned out there was no evidence that these products were actually better for babies’ brain development than other toys on the market, the promise alone was enough to get parents to buy, just in case there was any truth in those too-good-to-be-true claims.

When I was a new parent, I was particularly susceptible to the marketing of aesthetic baby accessories. Like many other millennial moms, I was drawn to muted color palettes, matte silicone teethers and food trays, creamy beige muslin and linen, and wooden toys. Instagram and its endless stream of targeted advertisements were really good at telling me what motherhood was supposed to feel like. These brands weren’t selling me products by highlighting practical needs. They were selling me a little piece of aspirational motherhood, a filtered image of what my home should look like.

Marketing to parents almost always includes these kinds of promises. Any list of best-selling parenting books reveals the top-of-mind parental concerns of the day: baby brain development, helping children become resilient, kids and diet culture, working during pregnancy, sleep difficulties, or dealing with screen time and mental health. Christian families add their children’s eternal salvation and spiritual health to the list. Many Christian parenting books heighten parental anxiety by suggesting that parents cannot trust their own instincts and need to carefully navigate an ocean of information to find the right formula for success.

In his 1948 bestseller, Baby and Child Care, Dr. Benjamin Spock wrote his now-famous admonition to anxious mothers: “Trust yourself, you know more than you think you do.” But Christian parenting content has often had the opposite message: Don’t trust yourself. That’s helpful for anyone trying to sell a parenting book, if not actually helpful for parents. Nor is it resonant with the full biblical witness, which teaches that we and our children are sinful and fallible—as many Christian parenting books emphasize—but also that God entrusts our children to our care with the clear expectation that we are capable, with his help, of raising them faithfully, patiently, and compassionately.

As a result, many Christian parents, especially evangelicals who faithfully read books like James Dobson’s Dare to Discipline or Tedd Tripp’s Shepherding a Child’s Heart, have come to believe they cannot trust their instincts.

Most parents will admit they often do need tips on how to get a toddler to stay in bed. They don’t necessarily even have an “instinct” when it comes to dealing with picky eating, so they go looking for help. But many Christian parenting experts go beyond offering suggestions. They claim to have the right answers, universally correct for every child in every circumstance. Dobson bolstered his work by assuring parents, “I’m drawing on somebody else’s ideas and that somebody doesn’t make mistakes.” Secular authors, however confident, can’t similarly claim divine providence for their sleep schedule and infant feeding tips.

Pick up any Christian parenting book, new or old, and you will likely find this verse from Proverbs somewhere inside: “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it” (22:6, KJV). Many parents in the thick of raising young children read this passage as a command. My job is to train up my child in a certain way, they think. Devout parents of older “prodigals” might see in this promise a sliver of hope that adult children who no longer espouse the Christian faith will someday return to the fold.

Christian parenting resources depend on promises made to parents: If you get it right now, then there will be desired results—if not immediately, then somewhere down the road.

As my coauthor and I interviewed sources for our book, The Myth of Good Christian Parenting, we were struck by how many parents regretted having put so much faith in parenting books. They trusted authors who claimed secular advice would lead them astray, and who argued that if they didn’t treat parental authority as the first principle of the home, their families would descend into chaos. We spoke to adults whose parents had delivered prolonged spankings to “break the will,” leaving bruises. Many felt deceived.

What does it mean to be the right kind of parent? The difficult but perhaps freeing answer is: No author can tell you. No author, however popular, knows you, your child, your family, or your community the way you do. Applying principles from Scripture to daily life raising children is a long, persistent practice, and there aren’t many hacks to make it easier. And despite what some books lead parents to believe, there is no correct application of biblical wisdom that will give them control over their children.

It’s instructive, perhaps, to look at some of the Christian parenting books that came before Dobson’s best-selling Dare to Discipline, which framed parental authority as a remedy for the social upheaval of the late 1960s. For example, Clyde Narramore, a Christian psychologist who founded the magazine and radio show Psychology for Living and helped establish the Rosemead School of Psychology, published Discipline in the Christian Home in 1961.

Compared with the best-selling Christian parenting books of the 1970s and ’80s, it’s rather boring. Narramore doesn’t connect discipline to social order or a moral panic. He qualifies his advice and recommends flexibility on the part of the parent. By the end, a reader might wonder: That’s it?

By the end of the 1960s, many parents were looking for more strident advice. They were alarmed by social and political upheaval, and the message of Dare to Discipline seemed to meet the moment, as did Larry Christenson’s best-selling The Christian Family (both were published in 1970).

In our current era, the success of Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation is further evidence that parents want to hear from people who address their worries and confirm that something is wrong. Parents are understandably concerned about the effects of ubiquitous screens and social media. Haidt’s message affirms that this is something to be worried about. That’s not to say that every author or influencer who positions themself this way is a grifter. Haidt and many others offer convincing evidence that our screen-dominated world is harming children. But the fact remains that fearful urgency sells.

It may seem ungenerous to compare parenting authors to The Music Man’s charlatan Harold Hill. But the parallel highlights how foolish it is to allow fear and urgency to dictate parenting decisions—and how someone eager for influence and profit can manufacture panic. It’s harder to generate enthusiasm for parenting advice like “Consider your child’s point of view” or “Hold firm boundaries, but be flexible when it seems reasonable.”

In an era of endless influencer content, books, and op-eds, parents can choose to be more attentive to the particular needs and quirks of their families than to societal concerns voiced by talking heads often far removed from our communities.

We can look first to the example of Christ—how he responded to children and adults, patiently teaching the same lessons more than once. We can strive to be more like him each day. We can resist seeing our kids as pawns in a culture war or avatars of whatever transient public discourse about “the kids these days” happens to be unfolding at the moment. We can respond to the children who climb into bed with us in the morning, pray for wisdom, and trust that with God’s help we are capable of cultivating authentic, connected relationships

Kelsey Kramer McGinnis is the worship correspondent for Christianity Today. She is a coauthor of the book The Myth of Good Christian Parenting and writes broadly on Christian music and the intersection of American Christianity and popular culture. This essay is adapted from the first chapter of The Myth of Good Christian Parenting: How False Promises Betrayed a Generation of Evangelical Families.

- More from Kelsey Kramer McGinnis

News

What Can Pro-Lifers Do in Unchurched States?

Daniel K. Williams

Contributor

Pro-life political wins correlate with church attendance rates. So what do you do if most of your neighbors stay home on Sunday morning?

Illustration by Christianity Today / Source Images: Pexels

The best way to predict the success of pro-life political strategies in a particular state is to look at that state’s church attendance rate.

In 10 of the 11 states where 40 percent or more of the population goes to church at least once a month, abortion is almost entirely illegal. The lone exception is heavily Mormon Utah, where the state government has adopted an abortion ban, but the courts have blocked it.

On the other hand, in all but two of the 17 states with monthly church attendance rates below 30 percent, abortion is fully legal, with most of these states offering state Medicaid funding for the procedure.

This is true even in conservative states with low church attendance rates. Alaska, for instance, has voted Republican in every presidential election for the last 60 years, but as a state with a church attendance rate below 30 percent, its policies are strongly pro-choice. The state’s Medicaid program not only covers elective abortions but in some cases also reimburses recipients for travel to an abortion clinic.

But the largest contingent of states falls somewhere between these extremes. With church attendance rates above 30 percent but below 40 percent, the 22 states in this middle group generally lean pro-choice, with only a few exceptions. About two thirds of these states reliably vote Republican. But the vast majority also allow most or all abortions. Only a few ban abortion before 12 weeks, and most allow nearly unrestricted abortion during most or all of the first two trimesters of pregnancy.

What can pro-lifers do in these largely unchurched states where support for the Republican Party might be strong but few voters want to restrict abortion?

When pro-lifers have tried to ban abortion against the will of their state’s majority, they have failed. In Ohio, a Republican state where only 32 percent of the population attends church even once a month, citizens voted in 2023 by a margin of 57 to 43 percent to make abortion constitutionally protected up to the point of viability.

Pro-lifers in Ohio have now gone back to the drawing board and proposed modest restrictions on abortion that might win political support in the Republican-controlled legislature. One bill would require a 24-hour waiting period for abortion. Another would require abortion providers to give women a document outlining the risks of an abortion.

Yet to really bring down abortion rates in states like Ohio, pro-life advocates will need to cut off sources of state funding for abortion. Multiple studies have shown that mandatory waiting periods have little, if any, effect on abortion rates. At the same time, studies suggest that Medicaid funding for abortion substantially affects abortion rates.

In Illinois, a study found the introduction of state Medicaid coverage for abortion in 2018 increased the number of abortions in the state by 18 percent, which amounted to more than 6,000 per year. Conversely, when government funding for abortion is cut, abortion rates drop and Planned Parenthood clinics close. In 2025, three Planned Parenthood clinics in Ohio closed because of cuts in Medicaid funding.

What is happening in Ohio holds lessons for the nation, because when it comes to abortion, the national Republican Party now reflects sentiment in states with modest church attendance rates far more than in the highly churched states of the Bible Belt. President Donald Trump and Republican political leaders in Washington have shown scant interest in pushing for national restrictions on abortion. Instead, Trump even floated the idea in January of compromising on the Hyde Amendment, which restricts federal funding for abortions.

But Republicans in Washington listened to pro-lifers when they insisted that the Hyde Amendment was nonnegotiable. In doing so, pro-lifers probably saved unborn lives, because if the Hyde Amendment were removed, abortion rates would almost certainly increase.

In an ideal world, this type of lobbying would not be necessary because a national culture of church participation would result in a societal consensus in favor of protecting the unborn. Ultimately, if pro-life Christians can share the gospel and increase the number of churchgoers in their regions, they might be able to do more lasting good for the pro-life cause than any purely political strategy could accomplish.

But in the meantime, pro-life Christians who want to engage in political battles on this issue have to face the reality that church attendance rates in most states are low enough that even Republican politicians are afraid of abortion prohibitions. Yet in such a climate, pro-lifers can still win modest victories and save lives by focusing their efforts on the one area where they have a chance of success—restrictions in abortion funding. Cutting off state or federal Medicaid funds for abortion is not the same as protecting the unborn in public law, but it can still save some.

Daniel K. Williams is an associate professor of history at Ashland University and the author of Abortion and America’s Churches.

- More from Daniel K. Williams

Ideas

Trump’s Racist Post Deserves Outrage

Sho Baraka

CT Staff

Evangelicals who back the president should no longer contort themselves to support a morally bankrupt leader.

AFP / Pool / Getty

Late Thursday evening, President Donald Trump posted an egregiously racist video clip on social media that portrayed former president Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, as apes.

The AI-generated image of the Obamas as primates—a racist trope that has historically been used to dehumanize Black people and justify slavery—was shown at the end of a 62-second video that promoted conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election, which Trump lost and refuses to concede.

When asked about the video on Friday morning, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confidently defended the clip, calling complaints about it “fake rage” and saying it only depicted Democrats as “characters from The Lion King” (though there are no apes in the film).

After outcry from Democrats and Republicans, including close allies of the president, the clip disappeared from Trump’s Truth Social account. The White House blamed the post on an anonymous staffer who they say had access to Trump’s account. On Friday evening, Trump told reporters he watched the beginning of the video—and not the part that featured the Obamas—before passing it off to someone else to post. When asked if he condemned the racist imagery, Trump said he did. But he did not apologize. “I didn’t make a mistake,” he said.

If the president doesn’t hold anyone accountable for the video, or offer an apology, it’s safe to assume racism doesn’t bother him. Anyone who follows the news knows this isn’t the first racist thing Trump has posted, or said, since he came on the political scene. But it is important to remind ourselves that this type of behavior and carelessness is not acceptable.

In 2026, Americans shouldn’t get up on a Friday morning and see news reports of racist garbage coming from the highest office in the land. We shouldn’t see the country’s leader sharing a bigoted image of a top House Democrat wearing a sombrero, or hear him call Somalis “garbage.” And we certainly should not see a clip of the first Black president and first lady as apes.

According to news outlets, the clip Trump posted originated from a meme depicting several Democrats as animals who bow down to him. Reading these reports feels like living in a twisted version of George Orwell’s Animal Farm. Like the book’s top hog, Napoleon, Trump incessantly lies and pushes propaganda that reveals autocratic tendencies. The Christians close to him therefore would do him a big service if they let him know there is no eternal king except Jesus.

If evangelical supporters of Trump value the Bible more than their political allegiances, they should be outraged and repulsed, and publicly voice their disapproval over Trump’s behavior—including the lack of apology for the racist post. Those who refuse to do so would only be showing us their true colors as racist sympathizers who rather have proximity to power than uphold biblical principles.

Scripture tells us wise leaders promote virtue and integrity. They should “detest wrongdoing” and be “established through righteousness” (Prov. 16:12). But instead of being a prudent leader, our president often models the insecurities of Herod, who went after his perceived opponents by any means necessary. Trump has long seen the Obamas, particularly Barack, as his enemy. And because he hates his opponents, as he told us last year, dehumanizing them becomes easy.

For Black Americans, and many others, the clip evokes painful periods of America’s history and degrading words said by other presidents about racial minorities. I’m not interested in relitigating dead presidents. But I do want to highlight the moral bankruptcy of Christians who faithfully endorse the dishonorable actions of a leader who operates without any red lines.

The cautionary account of King Saul in 1 Samuel should have been a warning that what our leaders say and do impacts us deeply. Church leaders should imitate the prophet Samuel and shepherd us through moments of turbulence. But many have become partisan cheerleaders and look more like court jesters than prophets.

Evangelical leaders who refuse to criticize Trump should know that a king may give you what you want and also destroy the values you hoped, or claimed, he would uphold. It is never too late to repent from embracing this type of politics. But too often, many choose ethical amnesia or contort themselves to be close enough to the fire of white supremacy that they receive its warmth without being burnt. But the smoke is on their clothes, and we can smell it.

It’s time for conservative Christians to not only call Trump’s actions racist but divest from him completely. Without that, the empty display of faith we see will continue to be a parasite that drains life out of the church. Evangelicals should not aim to be a city on a hill sponsored by an immoral empire. After all, those who cozy up to wickedness will only live off the ill-gotten gains of wicked actors.

How should the church then respond to all of this?

First, the Bible is clear the church is the manifold wisdom of God (Eph. 3:10). It’s difficult to feel that truth when many Christians zealously support a man who often dabbles in pure racism. Ethnic hatred, fear, and discrimination are evils that have been taught to many people, and we must be diligent to purge it from our communities. God calls on us to address these issues head on (Acts 6; Gal. 2:11) and practice radical solidarity.

Second, Christian leaders, artists and anyone indwelled by the Spirit of God can be a prophetic voice when God’s people are being manipulated toward political idolatry. Let us have the courage of Jeremiah, who was called to “go down to the house of the king” and speak words of power so our leaders will “do justice and righteousness.” (Jer. 22:1, 3, ESV).

Let us implore leaders to “do no wrong or violence to the resident alien, the fatherless, and the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place.” Let us call our leaders to repentance. Let us also trust the Lord, knowing that regardless of what happens in America, his kingdom will endure.

Sho Baraka is editorial director of the Big Tent Initiative at CT.

Culture

I Have Chronic Pain. I Still Love the Olympics.

Aberdeen Livingstone

After a life-changing injury, I can’t compete like I used to. Watching the Olympics—the newest games starting tonight—brings me joy.

Illustration by Elizabeth Kaye / Source Images: WikiMedia Commons, Unsplash

I am 9 years old, and I have just quit ballet classes because it’s become painfully apparent that I don’t have the basic sense of rhythm the other girls do. But it’s also the 2008 Olympics, and Shawn Johnson is flipping her 4-foot-11-inch self over the balance beam. I roll up a blanket into a makeshift beam on my bedroom floor and practice spinning on it.

Then I am 13 years old, and Gabby Douglas is vaulting to victory, solidifying Team USA’s gymnastics dominance on the world stage. My friend and I practice cartwheels and roundoffs in our backyards for hours and even sign up for a tumbling course, where girls half our age put us to shame. But we don’t care.

Later, I am 17, and Simone Biles is about to shock the world at her first Olympics. I don’t know it yet, but in just a few short weeks, everything in my own life is going to change.

Everything, that is, except for my love of the Olympics.

In my senior year of high school, a tendon strain from the year before came back to haunt me. Only this time, it wasn’t a discrete line tethered to my left elbow but a radiating pain that hopped around from joint to joint like a grasshopper from some biblical plague. Suddenly it was both elbows and both wrists and both shoulders and my neck and my upper back. In a few weeks, pain became my first thought and my final word, my midnight companion and my invisible midday shadow.

Thus began years of going to doctors from every specialty under the sun to try to make sense of how a 17-year-old girl found her life upended by what began as a weightlifting injury. I deferred a college acceptance and then disenrolled completely. I gauged how bad a day was going to be by how much it hurt to lift my toothbrush after breakfast.

I have never been coordinated, and after my failed stint with ballet, I never participated in any organized sports. But I discovered CrossFit in high school and fell in love with the variety of the workouts that can be adapted to most bodies. For the first time in my life, I felt strong. For the first time in my life, I consciously liked having a body.

And then, somehow, the gift of that experience collapsed in on itself and became my greatest curse, and it felt like my body had betrayed me. Or maybe I had inadvertently betrayed my body, done some harm to it that I hadn’t intended, and now it was going to hate me forever.

We have journeyed, my body and I. Now, 10 years later, I have been mercifully brought to a plateau of more manageable levels of pain. The possibility of backsliding, returning to a life where I cannot function, still exists, looming like a sheer cliff a hair’s breadth away. But I am learning to get up each morning in hope anyway. I am learning to see my body as a companion and less as a combatant.

I have fought for years to find beauty in my physical limitations. I have come to love stillness, silence, and hiddenness in a way I never would have without this pain. Pain has made me more attuned to my body, which on my better days I am able to recognize as a great gift. Without it, I would steamroll over this hunk of flesh without thinking twice. I would notice less pain, yes, but also less pleasure. Now I am acutely aware of the grace of warm water sliding over my skin, the release of a tight muscle, the endorphin rush of a hug. So much of who I am—so many of my favorite things about myself—have been shaped by embracing this new normal of disability.

Every couple of years, though—and today, again, with the opening ceremony of the winter Olympics—I wonder: Am I abandoning all that progress when I turn on the Olympics? Is watching these athletes is a guilty pleasure? Am I speaking out of both sides of my mouth to celebrate limitations while also praising the people whose bodies take them beyond the breaking point, who shatter limits?

How can the spectacle of everything I can’t do be such a source of joy and even comfort?

In the harrowing one-man play Sea Wall (performed here by Andrew Scott), a religious skeptic claims that science has found not one hint of God, for all its incredible discoveries. His believing father-in-law contends otherwise. Our protagonist demands: “Where is God then? Is he at the farthest reaches of our universe?”

His father-in-law responds:

He’s in the feeling of water. Sometimes there’s the shape of the roll of the land. He’s in the way some people move. He’s in the light falling over a city at the start of an evening. He’s in the space between two numbers.

He’s in the way some people move.

I love the Olympics because in the way these athletes move, I get to see a glimpse of God—the God who designed tendons and ligaments, fast-twitch muscles and red blood cells. The God who crafted some bodies to seem untethered from gravity, free from friction and strain. And this Godward gaze, directed toward the maker of these athletes and not the athletes themselves, lifts me out of myself and into his work in the world.

It is what Tim Keller calls, inspired by the writings of the apostle Paul, the freedom of self-forgetfulness. This is not a forgetfulness of being embodied; it’s a forgetfulness of the false narrative that I and my experience are the sum total of reality or the primary lens through which I should see life.

“The world is charged with the grandeur of God,” poet Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote. I can choose to celebrate this or to twist my attention in on myself until my disappointment is the only reality I see. The movement of great athletes is a kinetic psalm of praise, and to my great relief, it can’t be silenced by my pain.

In 2022, I held my breath as American figure skater Nathan Chen started his free skate, the second of two skating competitions that combine to give figure skaters their final score. It’s seemingly impossible, what skaters attempt to do, notching one thin blade into ice for less than a second and, from that briefest moment of contact, generating enough power to soar through the air for yards while also spinning like a top—and then landing precisely on one foot. But Chen did that incredible feat over and over again. By the end of the program, in a sport where winning often depends on fractions of a point, he’d taken the lead by over 22 full points, shattering the world record.

I watched Chen move with that bewitching combination of power, speed, and grace, alchemizing ice and metal into art, harmonizing his whole body into a visual song. Four years earlier, he had fallen catastrophically several times and missed the podium. This time, he knew he had won 30 seconds before the program was over. Even now, as I rewatch that skate, I feel not a single shred of bitterness that I can’t do something like that.

It is enough that someone can do it, that someone’s dream came true. That someone’s body didn’t break—even if it’s not mine.

As I watch people perform the seemingly impossible, for a moment it doesn’t matter that I—or the vast majority of those watching—will never be able to shoot a bullseye or run 26.2 miles in under two and a half hours. Because the greatness we witness is for all of us to enjoy and be inspired by.

Obviously, the opposite can happen. Jealousy and vainglory can corrode our souls, whether as competitors or devoted fans. And ecstasy about humanity and its excellence, turned into an idol, can delude us into forgetting about our Maker.

But all the same, I have experienced moments of joy at the mere fact that some people’s bodies move in marvelous ways, moments that have lifted me outside of my own circumstances and reminded me that I, simply due to my existence as a human being, am part of something glorious, a people made in God’s image.

David Foster Wallace once wrote in a brilliant article about the tennis master Roger Federer that “great athletes seem to catalyze our awareness of how glorious it is to touch and perceive, move through space, interact with matter.”

I love the Olympics because I often feel my body is a prison, a foe, a letdown; I resent being bound by matter; I am suspicious of touch because it is more often associated with pain than with pleasure. But when I watch people who are so completely at home in, at one with, their bodies, I remember that being embodied is a gift too. I share in the dignity and gift of being an embodied human, even though the details of my experience are different from an Olympian’s. I get a taste of experiencing the Edenic truth that my body is good.

I will not pretend I do not dream of the day, either somehow here on this Earth or in the new creation, when I am turning cartwheel after cartwheel again, swimming upstream, and perfecting my pull-ups. I and other people with disabilities sometimes aren’t sure that healing is even an accurate or helpful term to describe what will happen to some conditions we have. Will we retain some or all of these traits in the new heavens and the new earth? Are people “disabled” or “differently abled”? There are certainly differences between conditions we are born with and conditions we acquire, but even then, as I have found for myself, there are aspects of my acquired, unasked-for condition that I have come to count as precious and essential to me.

Jesus’ healing of physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual sorrows was a hallmark of his now-and-not-yet kingdom throughout his ministry. As Paul writes in Romans 8:23–4, “We groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body. For we were saved in this hope.”

We were saved in the hope of redeemed bodies, which implies some kind of positive change from their current state.

Even so—Jesus is also scarred. I do not think those scars cause him pain (Rev. 21:4), but they exist. They are, in some way, “imperfections.” If the new heaven and the new earth were a promise of photoshopped, ultra-fit bodies fit for magazine covers or big screens, Jesus’ resurrected body would not fit that picture.

My current theory is this: In the new heaven and the new earth, the gifts of our disabilities or different abilities will be preserved, while the sorrows of them will melt away. Jesus ate. He could be touched. He had scars. He could also appear and disappear in different places, no longer bound by time and space in the ways we are. Old and new. A return and an inauguration. A homecoming and a breaking of new ground.

This is where I must quibble with Foster Wallace. Right after his quote about great athletes catalyzing our awareness of the glories of touch and matter, he adds, “Granted, what great athletes can do with their bodies are things that the rest of us can only dream of. But these dreams are important—they make up for a lot.”

Dreams may well make up for a lot, but I disagree that dreams are all we have, or even that they make up for a lot. I’m not content with dreams. I want more. Through Christ, we are promised not ephemeral fantasies of physical ability but instead confidence that one day our real, flesh-and-blood bodies in this real, earth-and-sky world will carry ease, strength, and freedom that we cannot imagine.

So I hold the gifts of my disability and how it has shaped me close to myself, trusting that those gifts will be preserved when I rise again, like scars that no longer hurt. And this week, I’ll watch the Olympics in hope—hope for healing in God’s presence. I watch the Olympics to rejoice in the embodiment that I share with these athletes, going beyond my own experience. And I watch these games in awestruck wonder at our God, who does all things well.

Aberdeen Livingstone lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, where she is pursuing a master’s of theology at Regent College. Her poetry and essays have been published in Plough, Ekstasis, and Fare Forward, among others. She published her debut poetry collection, Velocity: Zero last year. She writes regularly for her Substack at Awaken Oh Sleeper.

- More from Aberdeen Livingstone

History

Looking Past Bell Bottoms, Beads, Coffeehouses, and Communes

Daniel Silliman

In 1971, CT said the Jesus People were not just another baby boomer fad.

A Jesus People convert returns to shore on the Toronto Islands after being baptized in September, 1971.

Illustration by Christianity Today / Source Images: Getty, CT Archives

CT kicked off 1971 with a startling report from Washington State:

Thousands of young people in the Pacific Northwest are forsaking pot to follow Christ. Spokane, Washington, is the latest big city to feel the impact of the movement, which is largely outside the churches. …

Scores of young Bible-toting hip and straight types … take to the streets daily to share their faith. Often they kneel on sidewalks to pray with peers who want to receive Jesus. They show up in strength at community dances and other events to talk about him, stage “Jesus marches” and outdoor rallies, and hold forth in Bible study and outspoken witness sessions in the area’s twelve public high schools. …

The Jesus People opened the “I Am” coffeehouse and two communal “houses”: the House of Abraham and the House of Sarah. … Nearly 300 miles away in Seattle, revival fires have burned brightly in the underground for two years. Numerous communes and coffeehouses have sprung up there and spawned ministries elsewhere in the Northwest and British Columbia. The largest coffeehouse is “The Catacombs,” across the street from the Space Needle. … It attracts up to 400 on weekend nights for gospel rock, Jesus “rapping,” and friendship. A heavy program of Bible studies and training classes is offered the rest of the week.

CT decoded some of the new converts’ lingo and told readers to look past the “freaked out” style and not get distracted by all the “bell bottoms, beads … coffeehouses and communes.”

The Jesus movement must be given more than a cheap sociological and psychological explanation.

Where did it all begin? Out of the ashes of Haight-Ashbury? As an aftermath to the Sunset Strip riots? Among the disillusioned of the drug culture? Yes, and much more. The movement began spontaneously over a wide front. In the last three years, the West Coast, the supposed center of sensual pleasure, has ironically reached a flash point of despair over this world and spiritual longing for another. …

The same hip teen-ager who last year turned his friends on to drugs may now be turning them on to Jesus. In an era when students have led the protest against war and racism, we should not be surprised that they have taken the Gospel of Christ and moved it into their world. Tens of thousands evangelize today rather than just a few paid professionals. …

The Gospel of the incarnation is being acted out again in the youth culture, as the Word becomes flesh in these particular lives and their particular style. … Whether the churches can embrace these authentic Christians in their own culture is an open question, and with the answer rests much of the future.

CT also reported on “Jesus rock,” Jesus People music festivals, and evangelical in 1971. While many commentators said the whole thing seemed like another Baby Boomer fad, the magazine argued there was more to it.

With so many thousands of young people involved, and given the reality of group-identity pressures, it can reasonably be assumed that cases of band-wagon Christianity do exist. Faddism is furthered by commercial exploitation—for example, a “Jesus People’s wrist-watch” marketed by a church for $14.95. But it can also be the product of church neglect or inability to follow through with new converts.

On a wide front, however, the movement defies description as a fad. Many of the counter-culture converts—the “street Christians”—of the years 1967–70 are still hanging in there, spiritually stronger than ever.

CT kept readers apprised of other religious developments as well, including a major debate between two Catholic theologians in Germany.

The debate between Hans Küng and Karl Rahner is surely one of the most remarkable events within today’s remarkable period of Roman Catholic history. … Küng has insisted that Catholics should openly admit that profound changes have taken place in the understanding of church dogma. He wants Catholics to stop insisting that the church has always and really taught one and the same truth. But Rahner has chosen not to accept Küng’s way. He opts for the other solution: there has been no change; there has only been interpretation.

Theologian Reinhold Niebuhr died in 1971, prompting a reflection on his legacy. He wasn’t an evangelical, but an Asbury Theological Seminary professor argued evangelicals nonetheless owed him a debt of gratitude.

We are indebted to Niebuhr … for his realistic view of human reason. It was his contention that reason is as largely affected by sin as are the appetites. Seeing the fearsome contrast between the “moral” individual and the “immoral society” of men in collective life, he affirmed strict limitations upon the ability of reason to curb the power of egoism. …

His genius … lay in his ability to see the complexity of the factors in human behavior, and the demonic possibilities built into the structures of society, notably those of political and economic power. Certainly our century will not outlive the necessity for hearing his verdict upon the prevalence of pride as an ingredient in modern civilization. … Niebuhr thus saw that the corrupting effects of human pride ruled out any and all mundane utopias.

CT marked another significant passing when oil industry magnate J. Howard Pew died at 89. Pew was a major financial donor and almost single-handedly underwrote the launch of CT.

Mr. Pew was a big man physically as well as spiritually, with a rugged constitution, a deep voice, and a keen sense of humor. He played excellent golf and until a year ago was still able to break ninety. He had a fondness for cigars and a thorough antipathy to alcohol. He was a man of strong convictions and great integrity; his word was his bond. His mind was keen, and his interests ranged wide. …

It is fair to say that, humanly speaking, the magazine would never have survived or even have gotten off the ground without his generous support and enthusiastic backing.

Founding editor L. Nelson Bell mourned the growing acceptance of abortion in America.

That we have embarked on this new approach to the termination of pregnancies bodes ill for America as well as for those churches that have become active in this. It evidences a callous disregard for the realities of the unwarranted termination of life, which sears the souls of all concerned. …

The Christian minister increasingly finds himself called upon for counsel by pregnant unmarried girls. It is a responsibility he cannot shirk. But it is disturbing to see that many ministers are meeting this situation by referring the girls to the various abortion services now available through church agencies.

As a physician and a Christian, one who can well understand the emotional agonies involved for parents and daughters, I urge all concerned not to accept what seems to be the easy way out but to face up to the fact that a human life is involved—a life that cannot defend itself and is in no way responsible for its plight.

Editors noted a Supreme Court ruling on vulgarity and freedom of speech, speculating it might be positive for evangelism:

The court reversed the conviction of Paul R. Cohen, who had been charged after he appeared in a Los Angeles courthouse corridor wearing a jacket that bore an obscene remark denouncing the draft. …

Much as Christians may loathe the growing respectability of four-letter words once considered immoral, they should now find ways of capitalizing on this legal precedent. A court that has upheld scurrilous discourse in public places will have to allow the communication of the Christian Gospel, for example, in similar situations.

CT invited a debate about the merits of megachurches in 1971—before they were called “megachurches.” The vice president of Lynchburg Baptist College argued the affirmative, while a Christian and Missionary Alliance pastor made the case that mid-sized churches are better.

Perhaps the greatest advantage of the mid-size church is its ability to provide diverse expression without losing personal contacts. In such a congregation, the pastor can know everyone by name. More important, he can know something about each person, visit in his home, share his joys and sorrows. This kind of contact still has value, not only for the pastor, who must preach to real people, but also for the layman, who learns that Sunday’s preacher is more than a good actor, that he, too, is flesh and blood. …

Too many Christians seem to crave great preaching and great music and are willing to pay any price except personal involvement to get it. They take up their weekly watch on the end of a pew, contribute to the offering, rejoice in the sermon, shake hands with a greeter (whose name they probably do not know), and are gone for another week. Such Christians will always be with us, perhaps, but we ought not to structure our church strategy to make it easy to be an invisible member of the Body of Christ.

The magazine also attempted to intervene in the ongoing debate about speaking in tongues, publishing “A Truce Proposal for the Tongues Controversy.”

An acrimonious debate about the legitimacy of tongues in the Christian life divides our ranks and saps our energies. This article is an attempt to clear the air and raise the level of rhetoric on both sides. If the evangelical community followed the guidelines proposed, greater harmony would descend and the mission of the Church would advance. …

Speaking practically, of course, there are distinctives that make difficult a united worship of Pentecostals and non-Pentecostals. Differing styles of church meeting have developed along denominational lines, just as have differences over the sacraments. However, this need have no bearing on interdenominational fellowship and cooperation; there is a very real basis for unity in all major issues. Moreover, churches need not split when tongues breaks out within them. Paul left room within the worship service for such manifestations (1 Cor. 14:26, 39), so long as certain guidelines were followed—edification (14:5, 26), interpretation (14:5, 13, 28), self-control (14:27), order (14:40), and the absence of proselytizing (12:18–31).

This last is the foundation stone of combined worship and continued unity. Anyone who insists on propagating his distinctive practice—be it tongues, a certain mode of baptism, or foot-washing—removes himself from those who do not practice such. The proper view of glossolalia will recognize it as an individual gift depending on the sovereign choice of the Spirit, not a corporate experience every Christian must undergo.

An Australian Bible scholar noted that in the early 1970s, evangelicals were increasingly being called conservative evangelicals. He argued the modifier was not entirely right.

There have always been evangelicals who have been daring innovators and who have refused to walk meekly in the old paths. … Wherever I look I seem to see evangelicals taking an initiative. While holding firmly to the basic evangelical position, many are refusing to be bound by the old evangelical shibboleths and are advocating radically new ideas and practices. …

It seems idle to speak of evangelicals these days as conservative. There is conservatism enough, it is true. But an eager search for new ideas and new methods characterizes evangelicalism as it starts the seventies. If this creative, innovative attitude can be maintained, the consequences are incalculable.

Some readers, of course, got mad at things they read in CT. That happens every year. In 1971, editors took the time to respond to one unhappy subscriber with a note about recycling:

A disappointed reader of Christianity Today clipped and returned a paragraph that offended him and canceled his subscription. “Your magazine isn’t even worth recycling,” he charged.

The truth is that content notwithstanding we are worth recycling, especially in view of dwindling forest reserves. … Conservation of God-given natural resources becomes an ever more critical Christian responsibility.

- More from Daniel Silliman

Books

Review

Reckoning with Race, Immigration, and Power

Harvest Prude

Three books to read this month on politics and public life.

Illustration by Christianity Today

This piece was adapted from CT’s books newsletter. Subscribe here.

Christine Jeske, Racial Justice for the Long Haul: How White Christian Advocates Persevere (and Why) (IVP Academic 2026)

Racial Justice for the Long Haul has a very specific audience in mind, one that is likely a minority among Christians, as the author herself seems to acknowledge. “By becoming Christians who cared about racial justice, they became their own kind of numerical minority among the wider body of White Christians,” writes Christine Jeske, associate professor of anthropology at Wheaton College.

But Jeske offers those who do find their way to her work a unique anthropological approach to studying repair across racial divides in a faith context. She bypasses easy platitudes and feel-good sentiments to drill down practicalities: what has sustained over 70 individuals who bring their Christian faith and a proven history of work in this thorny area.

Along the way, Jeske explores how race interacts with key theological concepts, including suffering, hope, and grace. Many of the stories she shares are unsparing reminders of how messy relationships can be between Christians of color and their white counterparts. But it’s precisely that discomfort into which Jeske invites readers to lean. Her hope shines through—far from Pollyannaish—that her book will be a resource for those desiring to forge stronger, more redemptive relationships across racial barriers. But as she suggests, it might land only with readers already committed to her framework for race relations.

Michael Luo, Strangers in the Land: Exclusion, Belonging, and the Epic Story of the Chinese in America (Doubleday 2025)

In the 19th century, tens of thousands of Chinese laborers hoping to better their lives traveled to Gum Shan, or the American West’s “Gold Mountain.” An initial welcome swiftly soured, and these new immigrants faced entrenched prejudice, white mob violence, and exclusionary federal laws.

Michael Luo’s debut book is a delight to read, characterized by precision, authority, and a knack for landing on fascinating characters even as he pulls no punches in detailing the numerous tragedies that color this history. The New Yorker writer’s painstaking eye for detail illuminates every page.

Along the way, Luo relates horrifying incidents of racial terror, from efforts to expel Chinese laborers from nearly 200 Western communities to graphic details about the 1871 Los Angeles massacre.

A Christian himself, Luo has an eye for the role faith played in this complicated history. Some clergy sought to aid their new neighbors, acting as intermediaries, championing their education, or defending them in the public square. Others, suspicious of the “heathens,” inflicted persecution and preached exclusion.

“Perhaps the biggest obstacle of all to the spread of the gospel among the Chinese … was the abuses they experienced,” Luo wrote as he told the story of Huie Kin, a Chinese American Presbyterian minister.

Strangers in the Land ably depicts how America’s struggle over “the Chinese question,” which often failed to live up to democracy’s stated ideals and promises, nevertheless proved the grit and determination of those under scrutiny.

Edmund Morris, Theodore Rex (Random House, 2002)

“It is a horrible thing,” wrote one former White House aide, “to realize that we have a bully in the White House.”

That is just one of the many strong reactions provoked by Theodore Roosevelt, the “accidental president” whose two terms in office left an indelible mark on his country and the world order.

The late biographer Edmund Morris won a Pulitzer Prize for the first installment of a tripartite series on America’s 26th president. His second book, Theodore Rex, focuses on Roosevelt’s time in office. This most “extraordinary President … more powerful than a king” is portrayed vividly, whether skinny-dipping in Rock Creek Park; stirring scandal by dining with a Black man—abolitionist Frederick Douglass—at the White House; or using his bully pulpit to bend a recalcitrant Congress to his bidding.

Deeply researched, the biography follows Roosevelt’s rapid consolidation of power as he expanded the Monroe Doctrine, interfered in Latin America, reckoned with racial strife, secured an end to the Russo-Japanese War, and scrapped with big monopolistic interests.

But Morris is equally interested in exploring Roosevelt’s personality and the way he alternatively bulldozed, persuaded, and alienated other powerful figures in his day—from his diplomatic adventures with career politicians to his clashes with businessmen like J. P. Morgan. Along the way, Morris weaves in colorful anecdotes, such as the story of a Mississippi hunting trip that led to small stuffed bears everywhere being christened “Teddy Bears.”

The overall disposition of the book is quite favorable toward Roosevelt, but it does relate moments of poorer judgment, most notably a circumvention of justice to Black service members in the 1906 Brownsville incident. Morris is rather too prone to quote contemporary extracts at length. Some of the language he uses to refer to racial minorities and some violent passages (such as the mob burning of a Black man) make the book best suited for mature audiences. Overall, it is a worthwhile read.

Harvest Prude is national political correspondent at Christianity Today.

- More from Harvest Prude

Where The Church Gathers, Listens, and Grows Together

How The Big Tent Initiative is fostering unity in the Church.

The Church finds itself in a defining moment. Cultural pressure, political division, and long-standing denominational differences have too often pulled believers apart, obscuring the unity Christ calls us to embody. Yet across the Church, many are yearning for something better—a community shaped by conviction and compassion, where differences are engaged with honesty and love rather than fear.

The Big Tent Initiative was created in response to this moment. At its heart, the “Big Tent” is a shared space where Christians from diverse backgrounds gather around core biblical beliefs while remaining open to meaningful dialogue. Through compelling storytelling, thoughtful conversations, and innovative theological resources, the initiative brings together leaders, artists, and thinkers to demonstrate a more faithful way forward—one rooted in humility, grace, and mutual respect.

By elevating voices that are often overlooked and fostering conversations that are both courageous and hopeful, The Big Tent Initiative is helping the Church remember what truly binds us together in Christ.

Support for the One Kingdom Campaign makes this work possible. Your generosity helps expand these conversations, deepen understanding, and strengthen the Church’s witness. Learn more about The Big Tent Initiative and how you can be part of this movement.

News

The Jewish Archaeologist Who Inspired a Generation of American Christians

Gordon Govier

Pastors, students, and researchers have Gabriel Barkay to thank for insights into biblical history.

Dr. Gabriel Barkay showing a restored floor tile in east Jerusalem on September 6, 2016.

Menahem Kahana / Staff / Getty / Edits by CT

In biblical archaeology, there are the Dead Sea Scrolls of Qumran, and then there are the silver scrolls of Ketef Hinnom. The former are quite important; they include biblical texts over 2,000 years old. The latter are also important, containing the earliest biblical text archaeologists have ever discovered.

The two silver amulet scrolls date to 600 BC and are inscribed with the priestly blessing of Numbers 6:24–26. They were discovered in a Jerusalem excavation in 1979 by Israeli archaeologist Gabriel Barkay, who passed away January 11, 2026. He was 81.

Barkay’s career was typical of an Israeli archaeologist in many ways, with him excavating at a series of important sites. But his influence on American archaeologists and Bible scholars, particularly evangelicals, was greater than that of any other Israeli archaeologist.

One of the volunteers who worked with Barkay at the Ketef Hinnom excavation where he discovered the scrolls was 15-year-old John Monson. His father (Jim Monson) and Barkay both taught classes at what was then The American Institute of Holy Land Studies, now known as Jerusalem University College (JUC).

“Gabi was like an uncle to me,” Monson told CT. “We contributed garden tools from our house for that excavation.”

After growing up in Jerusalem steeped in archaeology, Monson went to Wheaton College then Harvard University, where he graduated in 1999 with a PhD that covered the Hebrew Bible, biblical archaeology, and ancient Near Eastern studies. He is now a professor of Old Testament and semitic languages at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.

“Gabi Barkay was not only a genius but a person who had depth like few others in both biblical studies and archaeology,” Monson said. “He had a profound impact by his accessibility and by the depth of his expertise.”

American seminaries and Christian colleges have been sending their students to JUC since its founding in 1957. Barkay was hired as a lecturer around 1970 and taught a semester-long class on the history of Jerusalem. His daylong field trips into the nooks and crannies of the historic city, which could last from 7 a.m. to dark, were legendary.

Monson said Barkay frequently praised the American evangelical students he taught because they came hungry to learn and knew their Bibles. And in Barkay they found not just a Jewish archaeologist but a man with a passion for God’s Word.

“He was not a narrow literalist,” Monson said, “but he was one who saw the Bible aligning with its context powerfully. And because of his immersion in Scripture and archaeology, he would talk about God as the Almighty.”

Barkay exuded a love for Scripture, in contrast to many archaeologists who do excellent work but are interested in the Bible mainly where it intersects with their excavations. They are wary of connecting the two spheres too strongly.

“Even many evangelicals are scared to go down the path of owning the alignment of Scripture and archaeology,” Monson said.

Barkay’s legacy shows itself among thousands of former students who are now in the pulpit on Sunday mornings or in front of their own classrooms, sharing their knowledge with new generations.

“I will always remember his enthusiasm,” said Jonathan Greer, who teaches anthropology at Grand Valley State University and helps direct the ongoing excavations at Tel Dan in northern Israel. He studied at JUC for a semester.

Chris McKinny teaches archaeology at Lipscomb University. He called Barkay a throwback to an earlier generation of archaeologists who could lecture for hours without notes or a break. “I think one of the keys to his effectiveness was his focus on Jerusalem,” McKinny said. “This 4,000-year-old city uniquely forces one to interact with every aspect of the archaeology and history of the Holy Land.”

“Walking around Jerusalem with Barkay, reading biblical texts, and seeing archaeology was a true gift to me as a young scholar,” said Bobby Duke, chief curatorial officer at the Museum of the Bible. He has an MA in Hebrew Bible from JUC.

One of Duke’s younger colleagues at the Museum of the Bible, exhibits coordinator Kellie Mitchell, studied at JUC with a degree in anthropology but was uncertain about her career options. “One lecture from Dr. Barkay and his legacy, as well as some other archaeology heroes, really impacted my goals, and now I work with biblical artifacts and exhibits every day.”

In the early ’90s, Todd Bolen was thankful to be one of the few students with a laptop, upon which he typed furiously as he took classes from Barkay. “He was one of the most influential teachers of my life,” Bolen recalled. “He didn’t just demand that I know it all; he made me want to know it all. His legacy is the way he mastered his subject and presented it so clearly.” Bolen is professor of biblical studies at The Master’s University and created Bibleplaces.com with the photos he took while studying and working in Israel.

Gabriel Breslauer (Barkay) was born in Budapest, Hungary, on June 20, 1944, three months after the Nazis occupied the city. Monson said he was whisked out of the Budapest ghetto as a baby, along with the Torah scroll of his family synagogue. The family immigrated to Israel in 1950.

His interest in archaeology started early; he joined the Israel Exploration Society at age 10. While working on many excavations in Israel, he studied archaeology as an undergrad with Yigael Yadin, Benjamin Mazar, and other top archaeologists at Hebrew University, then completed his PhD in archaeology at Tel Aviv University in 1985.

In 1996, Barkay was awarded the Jerusalem Prize for his work. But one of his most important and challenging jobs was still ahead.

In 2000, one of the students he had taught at Bar Ilan University after joining the school in 1997 came to his door carrying a bag of pottery collected from a trash dump. Nine thousand tons of dirt—400 truckloads—had been scraped out of a remodeling project on the Temple Mount by Muslim authorities and unceremoniously hauled to the Jerusalem dump or scattered along the Kidron Valley.

Archaeology removed from its context is typically seen as of little value. Although the project was controversial and raised the ire of many, no one paid attention to the dirt. Studying the pottery, Barkay realized the pieces represented all the biblical periods of Israel’s history, as well as the Christian Byzantine period and the Arabic and Crusader periods.

Barkay and his student, Zachi Dvira, applied for a permit to excavate the dirt. The request was denied, but people circulated a petition and printed it on the front page of several newspapers. Academic leaders, artists, military leaders, 80 Knesset members, and former Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kollek all signed it.

After more refusals, authorities finally granted the excavation license. The Temple Mount Sifting Project (TMSP) began in 2004 and continues to this day in an outpost near The Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s campus on Mount Scopus.

In several interviews over the years, Barkay pointed out to me that Jerusalem is one of the most excavated places on earth. “No other city has so many stories to tell,” he said. Yet the most important archaeological site in Israel, “perhaps in the world,” he said, has never been excavated and perhaps never will be—except for that illicit 1999 dirt removal.

“In this curse, there is a blessing,” he said. “It’s the only way to find out about the history of the Temple Mount archaeologically.”

As with typical excavations in Israel, TMSP volunteers do most of the work. Tour groups, school classes, civic groups, soldiers, and other individuals by the hundreds of thousands have dumped half buckets of wet dirt onto a screen in a waist-high frame and hosed the dirt until all that was left were coins (over 7,000 so far), stones, pottery shards, mosaic tesserae, bone fragments, arrowheads, and a stunning variety of other historical refuse.

Barkay innovated this wet sifting process to ensure not even the smallest item would escape notice. Other Israeli archaeologists, such as the late Eilat Mazar and Ronny Reich, also saw the effectiveness and efficiency of wet sifting and sent material from their Jerusalem digs to TMSP. Without that additional step, finds such as bullae (seal impressions) naming biblical personalities like King Hezekiah, the prophet Isaiah, and the prophet Jeremiah’s oppressors Gedaliah and Jehukal (Jer. 38:1) might never have been found.

Archaeologist Scott Stripling worked two seasons as a supervisor with TMSP. He was amazed at Barkay’s encyclopedic knowledge and impressed with the scrutiny wet sifting yielded. Years later, when he became the director of the Associates for Biblical Research excavation at Tel Shiloh, he included wet sifting as part of the daily regimen and advocated that other digs do the same.

In 2020, TMSP sponsored an online seminar on the archaeology of Jerusalem’s Temple Mount. Barkay related the history of the project and the significance of some of its finds. The fact that there’s no dearth of material from the Byzantine period, when the Temple Mount was thought to have been barren, between the destruction of the Second Temple and the construction of the Dome of the Rock, convinced him it had to have been occupied in some way.

“Most of what has been discovered is not sensational, but it has a cumulative value,” Barkay once told me. It’s new information about the Temple Mount. During the 2020 conference, he acknowledged it would have been better if the material they were sifting and studying had been carefully excavated rather than pulled out of a trash heap.

“It has lost 90 percent of its scientific value,” he said. “But we have 10 percent left. That’s much more than zero percent.”

If you go to the TMSP website, you can find the numbers for tons of dirt sifted so far (4,742 out of 5,210 at last check), people participating in the sifting (more than 260,000), and artifacts waiting to be published in archaeological reports (more than 635,000). Once all the evidence has been accumulated and published, a fuller picture of the history of the Temple Mount can be told.

Barkay’s earlier discovery of the silver amulet scrolls also has more to tell scholars, Monson said: “It’s one of the great finds of biblical archaeology, but its impact has yet to be digested fully in biblical studies.”

The fact that these amulets containing Scripture from Numbers and Deuteronomy were worn around necks in the days of Jeremiah shows how popular the texts were at that time. And they presumably had a long life before that. They are further evidence against the documentary hypothesis, or the JEDP theory, that was popular among critical Bible scholars for much of the 20th century and that suggested Scripture was written and compiled late in biblical history.

“Gabi, without intending to be so, represents a kind of an anchor to the reality of the Bible and the biblical world—and indirectly to the veracity of Scripture,” Monson said, adding that we still need Barkay’s voice to guide pastors who don’t know the Bible and Christian communities that fall prey to theological and philosophical whims.

- More from Gordon Govier

Theology

We Are Not Workhorses

Xiaoli Yang

In a culture that champions power, Proverbs 21:31 reframes what strength and victory look like for Chinese Christians.

Illustration by Christianity Today / Source Images: Unsplash

I moved to Australia from China three decades ago. One reason I felt drawn to live in the country was seeing wild horses running freely on vast, dusty plains. Their carefree spirits charmed me to move away from the concrete jungle I grew up in.

Today, my experiences with feeding and riding brown-haired colts along the beach have become a treasured part of sabbath rest for me in the busyness of life and ministry.

Scripture often portrays the horse as a symbol of military power, royal authority, and fearlessness in battle. The NIV translation, for instance, mentions the animal 176 times.

In the Old Testament, we encounter the mighty Egyptian horses and riders that God hurled into the sea in Exodus 15 and the 12,000 horses (or charioteers) that King Solomon possessed as a sign of his riches in 1 Kings 10. In the Wisdom Literature, God interrogates Job about the source of a horse’s strength and fearlessness, vividly describing its leaps, snorts, and fierce charges towards the enemy (39:19–25).

In the prophetic books, visions of horses as agents of divine action and triumph recur, like the four spirits of heaven appearing in the form of red, black, white, and dappled horses in the Book of Zechariah (1:8; 6:1–8). And in the Book of Revelation, the image of Christ and the heavenly armies riding white horses showcases the pinnacle of God’s authority (19:14).

Yet for all its positive depictions of horses, the Bible exhorts us not to trust in the strength of a steed but rather to trust in God’s might and sovereignty, as Proverbs 21:31 declares, “The horse is made ready for the day of battle, but victory rests with the Lord.”

This verse offers a rich perspective on what victorious living ought to look like for Chinese Christians who celebrate the Year of the Horse this Lunar New Year. Scripture exhorts us not to define victory as attaining personal or political success but to regard it as Christ does: a giving up and surrendering to God’s plan and purposes.

Like Scripture, Chinese culture holds the horse in high regard. The Chinese zodiac says that people born this particular year are hardworking, active, and energetic and are supposedly best suited to be architects or entrepreneurs.

Popular Chinese idioms use the horse (ma) to signify vigor and vitality at an individual and communal level. One idiom, ma dao cheng gong, describes achieving success through persistent effort and confidence in one’s abilities—much like a horse triumphantly galloping toward the finish line in a race. Another idiom, long ma jing shen, articulates how a person or community is filled with a vigorous and courageous spirit.

Decorative depictions of the horse are also a mainstay in many Chinese homes and offices. Statues of the fierce, sleek beast are often displayed facing doors or windows to attract positive qi (energy) as a means of boosting wealth and fortune, according to feng shui (Chinese geomancy).

These modern-day perceptions of horses in Chinese culture arise from the ways that political and national strength have been defined in Chinese civilization across the centuries.

Ancient Chinese people regarded horses as a key resource for transportation, productivity, and warfare. The Terracotta Army, which was created in the late third century BC to protect the first emperor of China, Qinshi Huang, in the afterlife, comprises life-sized sculptures of soldiers, horses, and chariots. The golden age of the Tang Dynasty (AD 618–917) was also famous for producing decorative glazed horses in sancai (three-color style) to extol the nation’s prowess over others.

China may not rely on the horse anymore, but it still seeks to exert its power through transport and industry. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a massive worldwide project implemented by the Chinese government in 2013 that is also known as the New Silk Road, aims to connect China with Eurasian countries via roads, railways, ports, and maritime routes.

Chinese Christians have expressed enthusiasm about BRI, noting that it may offer opportunities for believers to live and work among communities with limited access to the gospel. However, this view underestimates the pitfalls in sharing the gospel cross-culturally, particularly when intermingled with economic and political power.

Such evangelism and outreach may well make the same mistakes that colonial-era missions have made in history. This form of missions risks imposing a culturally and socially bound gospel without an attentiveness toward, and empowerment of, local believers.

Proverbs 21:30 reminds us that “there is no wisdom, no insight, no plan that can succeed against the Lord.” Victory—or how to carry out missions effectively as Chinese Christians in this case—is found in the knowledge that it is the Holy Spirit, not political, economic, or social influence, that causes fruit to flourish on hard ground and causes the gospel to spread.

Within the Chinese church, our understanding of what being “horse-like” is can also backfire. Just as a horse’s value lies almost entirely in what it can carry and how far it can go, Chinese Christians may unconsciously operate with a similar framework in how they relate to God and ministry.

Here, a person’s commitment to ministry is often measured by his or her level of perseverance, endurance, and ability to bear hardship (or “eat bitterness”). In such environments, victory tends to be defined by refusing to rest until every task or commitment is completed. Consequently, people experience exhaustion and burnout, especially in paternalistic church structures where it may be hard to disregard an elder or pastor’s authority as a church member.

But Proverbs 21:31 subverts this cultural inclination to rely on our own “horsepower” (human effort) as a symbol of strength and victory. While discipline and obedience are valuable, the verse resists the illusion that our individual abilities are what help us secure success.

The danger lies not in the hard work we do in building up the kingdom of God, but in allowing this work to become ultimate. Work without reliance and rest quietly shifts faith from God to human capability.

This proverb shapes a posture of humble readiness within us. God’s people are to serve him faithfully while surrendering outcomes they cannot control to him. Fruitfulness is not guaranteed by strategy or strength but is received as a gift. We are not to treat people as “workhorses” but walk alongside them at the pace and revelation of God’s love.

The truth that “victory rests with the Lord” in Proverbs 21:31 frees us to act wisely without anxiety or coercion. We are called to work diligently and prepare fully for “the day of battle”—fighting against dark spiritual forces threatening Christian faith and unity—and recognize God’s presence and provision all the way.

Still, victory is not merely winning wars, whether physical or spiritual; rather, it is placing our full trust in the Lord who alone gives life, joy, and peace.

One of the clearest illustrations of what strength and victory ought to look like for Chinese believers comes from Jesus entering Jerusalem on a humble donkey, rather than a fearsome horse (Matt. 21:5).

Here, the reign of God is established not by force, conquest, or relentless forward momentum, but through self-giving love expressed in compassion, peace, and justice. Jesus’ authority, in stark contrast to worldly powers, is expressed in meekness, an unassuming persistence that accomplishes God’s purposes over time.

The counter-cultural image of Jesus riding a donkey in this Bible passage also speaks of an intentional lowliness, a downward mobility that Christ invites us to imitate. What would it look like for Chinese believers to become a lowly “donkey” ridden by the Lord? Can we become “the foolish things of the world” God chose to shame the wise (1 Cor. 1:27)?

The horse remains a powerful symbol of courage and might in Scripture. These are virtues the church should not abandon. But the gospel reframes how we ought to understand depictions of the horse in Chinese culture.

Chinese Christians are not to function merely as war horses driven toward success. In all we do for God, we are to be shaped by love, bounded by humility, and sustained by rest.

Like the prophet Jeremiah, who committed his life wholeheartedly in response to God’s call to “run with the horses,” as Eugene Peterson puts it (Jer. 12:5), we can pursue life with purpose and excellence, resting in the confidence that God already holds the ultimate victory over sin and evil through Jesus Christ.

Xiaoli Yang is an Australian Chinese theologian, spiritual director, and poet. Her recent publications include Chinese Christian Witness: Identity, Creativity, Transmission and Poetics.

- More from Xiaoli Yang

Share

Share

Related

Share

Share

Related

Share

related

related

Share

Related

Share

related

related

Share

Related

Share

Share

Share

Share

Related

Share

Christine Jeske, Racial Justice for the Long Haul: How White Christian Advocates Persevere (and Why) (IVP Academic 2026)

Michael Luo, Strangers in the Land: Exclusion, Belonging, and the Epic Story of the Chinese in America (Doubleday 2025)

Edmund Morris, Theodore Rex (Random House, 2002)

Share

Related

Share

Share

Related

Share

related

related

Share

Related