The Church’s Glory Is Between Three Birds

Columnist

The raven broods and the rooster struts, but the dove descends to show us a new world.

Illustration by Christianity Today / Source Images: Pexels

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

If you wanted to convey to someone in a single image the idea that the church is glorious, holy, and ultimately triumphant, how would you do it?

I suppose you might start with a marketing plan and choose, like any other institution, something to signify trust, strength, and power. Nations, corporations, and even middle school basketball teams adopt symbols such as bears or eagles or rising suns. What you probably wouldn’t choose, however, is the face of a turncoat sobbing with shame.

That’s why I was reluctant to say yes when a colleague pitched a representation of Peter hearing the rooster crow for Christianity Today’s March/April issue cover art. “That’s too negative,” I said. “We want the picture of a bride coming down out of heaven adorned for her husband (Rev. 21:2) or an army awesome with banners (Song 6:10).” Not a shame-faced man after his denial of the Son of God.

It wasn’t until I actually saw the artwork that I realized how wrong I was. Illustrator Aedan Peterson did not soften the agony of the jarringly beautiful scene. One can feel in the posture and visage of the fallen disciple what it would be like to live out Jesus’ words, “Truly, I tell you, this very night, before the rooster crows twice, you will deny me three times” (Mark 14:30). The art prompts the body to feel Peter’s involuntary loss of control at that moment: “And he broke down and wept” (v. 72).

What I missed at first is that this scene really isn’t about the pathos of Peter. It’s about what’s going on in the background behind him: a bird in flight, representative of a struggle that starts at the beginning of the biblical canon and continues all the way to the end.

One bird is never pictured with the scene of Peter’s denial but shows up elsewhere in Scripture: the raven. Ravens are sometimes depicted positively in the Bible, such as in carrying food to the starving prophet Elijah to sustain him in his desert escape from Ahab and Jezebel (1 Kings 17:4–6).

But there’s a reason Edgar Allan Poe chose a raven to deliver the ominous line “Nevermore” in his unnerving poem. In Scripture, ravens are pronounced unclean, and the people of Israel are forbidden to eat them (Deut. 14:14), because the birds are carrion eaters. To see a raven, as to see a vulture, is to see a sign of the presence of death.

After the Flood, the first bird that Noah sent out as an intelligence-gathering operation was a raven, which went, Genesis tells us, “to and fro until the waters were dried up from the earth” (8:7). The raven could survive capably in such a situation—with corpses everywhere on which to feed.

Peter did not see a literal raven in his moment by the fire, but he did see the omen of death. One of the indignities and horrors of crucifixion in the Roman world was that those left on the crosses would often be eaten by scavenging birds. In the arrest of Jesus, Peter could see such a future for himself.

Literary scholar Erich Auerbach once described this scene as revolutionary and unprecedented in the literature of the time: the depiction of the emotional anguish not of a hero or king or god but of a common fisherman. The Eastern Orthodox theologian David Bentley Hart wrote too that this scene must have “seemed to its first readers to be an aesthetic mistake; for Peter, as a rustic, could not possibly have been a worthy object of a well-bred man’s sympathy, nor could his grief possibly have possessed the sort of tragic dignity necessary to make it worthy of anyone’s notice.”

Peter’s anguish and hopelessness in the face of death—that of his rabbi and likely his own—is crucial to his story of denial, included in all four Gospels. After all, when told of Jesus’ impending crucifixion, Peter’s first response was to rattle his swords. “Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you,” Peter said (Matt. 16:22). Peter saw the defeat of the Messiah by Rome to be a hindrance to the plan of the dawning of the kingdom of God, on earth as it is in heaven.

But Jesus said that Peter’s bravado was actually the hindrance—that it was carnal, even satanic (v. 23). Jesus continued, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (vv. 24–25).

When Jesus is arrested, Peter’s first response is violence—to follow the way of the raven toward the death of his enemies, cutting off the ear of the servant of the high priest, earning once again a rebuke from Jesus: “Put your sword back into its place. For all who take the sword will perish by the sword” (26:52).

Crouched over the charcoal fire, Peter later tries to hide his Galilean background and his affiliation with the teacher out of a sense of self-protection. He doesn’t want to die. And that’s when he hears the call of another bird.

The crowing of the rooster is about more than just one man, even a man as significant as the apostle Peter, who was the first to confess Jesus as “the Christ, the Son of the living God” (16:16). Jesus gave him a name that meant “rock” to convey stability, fortitude, and dependability, saying, “Upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (v. 18).

With a name like that, we might wish to see a heroic, stalwart Peter as a model for us that we too can hold fast as the people of God. But if that’s what Jesus had shown us, we could not survive the shaking of the church. We would lose heart. We might even doubt that the church could withstand a time of secularization, dechurching, repetitive scandal, and scary global threats.

Where are the rock-like pillars of stability who can take us there? All we have are weak, fumbling Christians like us, who know how many times we have said to the outside world with our thoughts or actions or fear, with our lack of love or faith or hope, “I do not know the man” (26:74). We are not heroes, and we have none around us.

The cry of the rooster was one of the most familiar sounds in the life cycle of a first-century person, as common as the sound of an iPhone alarm is to us. It would probably have had the same effect then as it does now, causing the person hearing it to initially grumble.

We want to stay asleep, but the rooster’s cry is to wake us up. And part of what Peter had to hear is that he is not as strong as he thought he was. Neither are we. That’s why the sound of the rooster’s crowing—as painful as it is to hear—is actually grace.

The reason Peter wept when he heard that chicken’s call is that Jesus had told him ahead of time that this sound would coincide with Peter having denied him three times. If we get what’s really happening here, it can change everything.

If Jesus had simply nodded at all of Peter’s vows of commitment to the death, Peter would have had reason, after he had fallen into what he said he would never do, to despair. He would have thought that Jesus’ commitment to him was based on Peter’s own performance, on his own heroism. He would have believed that Jesus had simply thought him to be stronger or more faithful than he actually was.

But Jesus knew what would happen before the rooster crowed. And even knowing Peter’s fragility and flaw, Jesus said to him, in the same scene, “I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers” (Luke 22:32).

That’s, of course, exactly what Peter does. Jesus meets Peter after his resurrection—at the very same setting of a charcoal fire—not to rebuke him but to reaffirm his love.

The rooster is there, representing all the ways we fumble and fall and fail, but the rooster’s crow is not the final sound. If you look closer at the March/April cover, you will see another bird. On the pillar behind the scene is the shadow of a dove. The raven had followed Peter all his life—“Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat” (v. 31)—but so had the dove.

The dove, remember, was the second bird that Noah sent from the ark. The dove first brought back a branch—a sign of life on the other side—and then it didn’t return at all, having found a place to rest beyond the wreckage of judgment.

At Jesus’ baptism, which is his sign of solidarity with us sinners in the judgment we deserve, the Bible tells us that he saw “the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; and behold, a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased’” (Matt. 3:16–17).

That dove of the Spirit would descend once more after Jesus’ resurrection: on the disciples gathered in Jerusalem at Pentecost, giving birth to the church (Acts 2:1–21). The dove—like the one Noah once sent out from the ark—returns with signs of life, holding a branch from the Tree of Life in the new creation, beyond all we can see or imagine.

Crucially, this Spirit is not a reward for good behavior or heroic deeds. At Pentecost, it fell on a church filled not with geniuses and strategists but with fishermen and peasant women. And who was standing there announcing that a new day had dawned? Who was the first recorded to bear witness that day? Simon Peter, not one bit afraid to say the word Jesus over and over and over again (vv. 14–41).

That’s why we remain confident that the church we love will triumph. The raven broods and the rooster struts, but the dove descends.

The raven is an omen of the death and destruction around us. The rooster is an announcement of the dawn of another day, the day after we have failed yet again to live up to all our bluster.

The dove is less visible, less noticeable, except to the eyes of faith. But in its mouth, there’s a branch that shows there’s a new world on the other side of it all.

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

Church Life

Bring Back Screen-Free Sunday School

Kaz Hayashi

Digital Bible lessons can’t replace teachers passing on the faith.

Illustration by Elizabeth Kaye / Source Images: Getty, Pexels

My church’s children’s ministry was looking for volunteers one Sunday. “There are scripts and a video you can use, and all materials would be prepped for you,” the email said. “No prep needed.” The lesson plan I received for the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in Daniel 3 contained icebreaker questions, Bible passages, and a link to the video teaching. Even the words of a prayer were all written out, ready for me to recite verbatim.

But I decided to formulate my own plan. “Act like a monkey! Sing ‘Baby Shark’ like an opera singer!” I said to my group of fourth and fifth graders at the start of the lesson. Then I asked them, “Have you ever been asked or told to do something that goes against God’s rules?” I told them a story of when I was a child in my karate class in Japan and my teacher asked me to bow down to a shrine. “Even though I was scared to go against the teacher, because I believed in Jesus, I chose not to bow when everyone else in the class bowed their heads.” Upon hearing how my faith was challenged, the kids’ smiling faces expressed surprise and bewilderment.

After some children participated in a trust-fall exercise to experience what having faith in someone else was like, I shared how we should live out our beliefs courageously in obeying God. I then asked them questions like “Do you want to come and play at my house this Sunday instead of going to church?” and “Do you want to play this cool game where we are evil priests who worship other gods?”

Nothing I did was particularly novel or exciting. But the kids in my class were attentive and engaged—surprising my fellow Sunday school teachers, who observed how the children did not display the same level of interest when watching videos about the Bible.

I have taught and led children’s ministry in various American churches for years, and I am alarmed by the growing number of churches that depend on prerecorded videos for Sunday school lessons. This may be partly influenced by a shift toward virtual worship services—children’s ministry included—during the COVID-19 pandemic. Before 2020, almost half of Christian congregations offered online church services, but that figure jumped to three-quarters in 2023. Some megachurches have dedicated YouTube channels for kids’ content featuring animated Bible videos, amassing tens of thousands of views. One video portraying Jesus’ life story has more than 3 million views.

While I am not suggesting a full-scale rejection of the use of screens or technology in church, relying solely on videos during Sunday school seems to convey a poor biblical understanding of the role, function, and process of teaching.

Teaching Scripture through short videos that do not invite social interaction or dialogic thinking shrinks the role of “teacher” into one who is primarily (or only) concerned with communicating Bible knowledge. But Scripture reminds us that being a Bible teacher to little ones is more than simply disseminating facts or truths about the Word. A teacher is to assume an integral role in passing on the faith, exemplifying spiritual maturity, and modeling discipleship to Jesus.

There is certainly a plethora of biblically sound media geared toward kids. Some children’s ministry curricula go through the Bible canonically from beginning to end; others are organized topically. Some, like the BibleProject, offer robust reflections on key portions of Scripture via slick graphics in less than 10 minutes, while others include games and prizes.

Some videos are produced in-house by denominations to ensure theological alignment and supplement Sunday school staff and volunteer efforts. This frees up time spent on lesson preparation and lowers the barrier of entry into children’s ministry. Other videos aim to increase the entertainment value for kids by incorporating corny jokes that supposedly prevent little ones from thinking church is boring.

But there are several glaring disadvantages to depending solely on video content. Kids can disengage cognitively and socially. It’s easy for them to zone out and become passive recipients of information when watching something onscreen since they do not need to actively engage with the content. A video does not invite children to read a passage, prompt follow-up questions, or challenge them to summarize what they’ve learned.

While we seldom see Jesus directly teaching children in the Gospels, they were certainly present during his sermons. In the feeding of the 5,000, the Bible explicitly states that those who ate the bread and fish included men, women, and children (Matt. 14:21). The feeding of the 4,000 similarly identifies children in the crowd (15:38).

In these scenes, Jesus’ role as a teacher is not the focal point of the story. Instead, both stories mention how Jesus saw the crowd and had compassion, which led him to feed the people—children included. However young they might be, the children in these biblical narratives learn about Jesus through their interactions with him. They experience him as giver and provider, one who meets physical needs like hunger with a practical, communal solution. These two narratives affirm that a teacher’s role is not merely about delivering knowledge but also about having tangible, real-life engagement with students.

Jesus is also not content with teaching children from a distance. In a story recorded in all the synoptic Gospels, people bring children and babies for Jesus to lay his hands on and pray over (Matt. 19:13; Mark 10:13; Luke 18:15). When the disciples rebuke the people and try to distance the children from Jesus, he calls the children to himself, lays his hands on them, and blesses them (Mark 10:16). Jesus also instructs his followers, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these” (Luke 18:16).

This story powerfully demonstrates the importance of how Jesus ministers to children with words and deeds. Children should not simply be a detached audience that listens to Jesus from a distance. Jesus desires to interact directly with them, sharing his love and compassion.

Scripture reveals that a teacher must follow God and exhibit Christ-like attributes to all around them. The apostle Paul critiques “teacher[s] of little children” who teach the law but do not embody what they profess (Rom. 2:17–24). Christian leaders are given leadership roles in the church not simply due to their mastery of knowledge but due to their godly character (1 Tim. 3:1-13).

When children’s ministries increasingly depend on digital content for worship, teaching, and prayer at church, we must ask whether we are helping children experience and follow Christ. While children’s ministry curricula with video content certainly offer convenience and ease, we should not overlook the significant shortcomings churches can experience when they completely depend on videos for Sunday school.

What is the most tangible way we can communicate and show Christ’s love to young hearts and minds in our pews? First John 3:18 says, “Let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.” We can be present with them, pray for them, and be living examples of the love of Christ.

This incarnational model of children’s ministry is challenging and requires a significant time investment. A Sunday school teacher should ideally begin by prayerfully and carefully studying and reflecting on the Scripture passage and what it communicates. Then the teacher can creatively think of ways to help children participate in the learning process.

Instead of using pre-scripted prayers, we can pray out of a genuine love and care for the children in the classroom. We can ask them about their lives and listen attentively to their stories. We can invite children to read Bible verses aloud from a regular Bible rather than a children’s Bible. We can challenge them to think about the “why” behind the stories they read in Scripture. We can cultivate space for them to wonder, imagine, and ask delightfully silly questions.

Some of the most important teachable moments I’ve experienced are unscripted and organic. During our Sunday school lesson on Daniel 3, I asked the children: “If I give you $100, would you say, ‘I hate God’?” One boy jokingly said yes. I paused and responded, “I’m sad to hear this, because we know that in the Bible one of Jesus’ closest followers, named Judas, did this exact thing in turning away from Jesus for money.” The boy looked surprised, probably because he was not expecting me to respond and because what I said made him realize the serious implications of his words.

I don’t know what long-term effect that response had on my Sunday school class, but in that moment, I did something a video-based lesson couldn’t: respond to a spontaneous comment and perhaps help the children see how similar we are to the figures we read about in Scripture.

Kaz Hayashi is associate professor of Old Testament and biblical and theological studies at Bethel University/Seminary and a fellow of Every Voice, an organization that cultivates diversity in Christian theological education.

- More from Kaz Hayashi

Books

Review

The Immigration Stories We Do Not See

Myles Werntz

A new book brings fresh focus on the reality and policy of migration in the Americas by sharing the testimonies of those searching for a new home.

Illustration by Mallory Rentsch Tlapek / Source Images: Getty / Unsplash

For many years, migration was both invisible to me and everywhere all at once. In retrospect, it seems impossible that I did not notice it in over a decade of living in Central Texas. But it was only on leaving Texas to teach in Florida that I realized how little I had seen.

In Florida, my students were from Venezuela and the Dominican Republic, and our next-door neighbors hailed from Lebanon, Senegal, and Haiti. We lived in Florida in 2015, when the world watched as thousands upon thousands fled conflicts in the Middle East. In this season, migration forever became part of my world.

Upon returning to Texas in 2016, I came to see that migration is among the most significant social questions for Christians. It brings into focus not only what it means to love our neighbors but also what it means to do justice to all our neighbors. It knits together history, philosophy, political science, and theology. It requires us to pull together insights from psychology, economics, business, and ethics. It tangles up our politics, faith, and culture and demands we give better answers than I, for one, am usually equipped to supply.

Migration scrambles our thinking because it scrambles all these categories. The challenge for Christians seeking to contend with it faithfully is to resist the urge to oversimplify, to imagine we can unscramble what we cannot.

Isaac Samuel Villegas’s Migrant God: A Christian Vision for Immigrant Justice enters this difficult conversation not as a policy proposal but as a testimony. I note this at the beginning because testimony is a theologically significant starting point. As Christians, so much of our faith is built around bearing witness to the testimony of others—of Jesus (John 5:36), his apostles (1 Cor. 1:6), and fellow Christians—and only then establishing how we will live. Faithful testimony invites us to encounter reality.

Villegas’s testimony begins with asking questions about death at the southern US border. Beginning in 1994, an approach called “Prevention Through Deterrence” was put in place, and it directed migrants from the South through a portion of the US-Mexico border with particularly dangerous terrain. This policy has resulted in hundreds of migrant deaths .

By redirecting migrants through more dangerous terrain, Villegas explains, the policy intended to deter migrants: The crossing is so difficult, especially in extreme weather, that perhaps they simply would not come. But they do still come, and some die on the way. Often, when the remains of migrants are discovered, their bodies are unrecognizable and unreturnable to their loved ones. And so, when a group gathered at the border wall in Arizona to hold a vigil in memory of those missing and presumed dead, Villegas gathered with them to bear witness to their names.

By beginning with this account of witnessing the deaths of migrants, Villegas sets the tone for the remainder of the book. We begin to understand migration by attending to those who migrate.

Each chapter in the book is grounded in this way, built less on abstract theory than on names and places. The effect is deeply humanizing, giving flesh to a frequently inhuman debate in which faceless migrants and unknown citizens living in the borderlands are sidelined in favor of convoluted policy debates and legal procedures.

But Migrant God is also grounded in Scripture, as Villegas recounts the stories of migrants as caught up in biblical stories. He describes meals of arroz y frijoles with the undocumented as mirrors of the Last Supper, and remembrances of loved ones lost in the borderlands echo Christian liturgies. Public laments for lost kinship with those on the other side of the border mirror the laments of the Psalms, and protests against divided families echo the prophets’ cries for God to act. Villegas frames words and deeds that might otherwise look like matters of politics alone as deeply theopolitical. He invites us to see God at work in the world.

At the heart of Villegas’s account is a call to recollect God’s care for and history among migrant people. It is this theme that enables Villegas to see the world of Scripture come alive in contemporary testimonies. As he writes in the conclusion,

We believe that our neighbors—regardless of citizenship status, residency documentation, or whether they live on this side or the other side of the border—are held in God’s care. The Bible reminds us that God has been known to join caravans in the wilderness. The Spirit of God dwells with people on the move. A migrant God for migrant life.

In addition to stories of migrant life in the United States, then, Villegas writes of the migrants of Scripture: Israel on a journey through the desert, the holy family fleeing from Herod. These familiar stories are used not as cudgels but as provocations, to invite the reader to connect them to present-day testimonies.

In this evocation of Scripture, this seeing of the present through the lens of the past, Villegas’s work becomes most potent. He reminds the reader that migration is not a new question, nor is migration necessarily a crisis. Through personal accounts, he reiterates that migrants are not irrational or erratic—that no one leaves a home country without a reason and that dwelling in a foreign land comes with great difficulty. Though we may miss it in “invasion” rhetoric, migration is always about humans leaving old homes and trying to make new ones.

Villegas leaves some aspects of migration unexplored. God’s care for migrants is also concerned with finding them homes, with making it possible for the migration to end. Villegas does not make this connection, leaving unexamined what Scripture has to say about belonging, about building a home across borders, and about what role borders play in helping to establish our homes.

I raise the question of migration’s end not to challenge the testimonies Villegas offers but to suggest that there is another dimension to these stories: that God’s presence to migrants is ultimately for the end of their journeying.

Beginning with this end in mind helps us to see more clearly why death is such an affront and what migrants long for in their laments. But it also invites us to consider the testimony of migrants alongside another group of testimonies: the testimonies of those among whom migrants will dwell. Beginning with mercy is appropriate, but moving toward justice invites us to consider testimonies of people of good faith who may want to welcome migrants but have honest questions and honest concerns.

Villegas explicitly states that he is not trying to change anyone’s mind about immigration policy or the ethics of immigration. His aim is to give a human face to an issue often obscured by policy. At times, however, the book strays from this premise and stretches into analysis—theorizing about policing, the nature of borders, and the violence migrants suffer. This is, I think, inevitable: Beginning with testimony leads us to ask more questions about the dynamics underlying those stories. It is natural to turn to thinking about how we might remedy the suffering to which Villegas witnesses.

Yet whatever quibbles we might have over the place of testimony in deciding difficult political and moral questions, Villegas’s work stands out for never losing view of the migrants themselves. This is a habit to be widely imitated if we want more constructive debates about how to humanely and mercifully respond to immigration—if we want to do justice to those seeking a new life elsewhere and to those who are there already.

Migrants are witnesses to a life many of us do not know. That’s not to suggest that their testimonies shouldn’t be subject to scrutiny or that those testimonies generate unassailable policy conclusions. But it is to say migrants cannot be reduced to obstacles or objects of pity or fear. Migrant God offers readers clear eyes and scriptural vision about God’s care for migrants, putting before us the stories and faces too often lost in our debates, mistreated by our laws, and diminished in our politics.

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.

- More from Myles Werntz

News

Filipino Evangelicals Celebrate—and Protest—Duterte’s Arrest

Hannah Keziah Agustin

“I’ve seen many presidents in my lifetime, and even if my opinion is unpopular, I think he’s the best.”

Supporters of Rodrigo Duterte partake in a rally to stand in solidarity with the former President of the Philippines who was arrested for alleged crimes against humanity.

Anadolu / Getty

On Tuesday, March 11, Jack Alvarez attended mass at Ina ng Lupang Pangako Parish in Quezon City. The occasion: thanking God that the International Criminal Court (ICC) had arrested Rodrigo Duterte.

The former president’s war on drugs had claimed the lives of many of the attendees’ children and spouses, who brought photos of their loved ones and placed them on a table by the sanctuary. Locals attended the service—and so did those who had to travel more than an hour to get there.

The evening concluded with “Pananagutan,” or “Brother to Brother.” A tearful crowd sang in Tagalog, “We are all responsible for each other. We are all gathered by God to be with him.”

“Many were happy that they were finally getting justice,” said Alvarez, who pastors Komunidad kay Kristo sa Payatas (Community of Christ in Payatas), an independent evangelical church about a ten-minute walk away that serves the poor and densely populated barangay next to a former dumpsite.

During the Duterte administration, law enforcement shot dead between three and four Payatas residents a day, Alvarez said, recalling one day in 2016 when police shot five men in the heart after accusing them of being drug dealers and of fighting back against the police.

Outside of Ina ng Lupang Pangako Parish, Christians across the country are divided over the ICC’s arrest and charges, which accuse Duterte of killing thousands of people while serving as the head of the “Davao Death Squad” and later while overseeing the country’s law enforcement after he became president. Starting while he was mayor of Davao City, Duterte threatened drug dealers, saying not that he would bring them to justice but instead that he would kill them. Later, police and unidentified shooters executed these extrajudicial killings (EJK).

In Davao City and across Mindanao, the country’s second largest island, thousands of Duterte’s supporters took to the streets, lighting candles, raising placards with words like “We Stand with Duterte” and “We Love You, Tatay,” and praying for his freedom and safety.

“I’m almost 68. I’ve seen many presidents in my lifetime, and even if my opinion is unpopular, I think he’s the best,” said Maria Palacio, a pastor who serves at the prophetic ministry House of Unlimited Grace.

The longtime Mindanaoan has a picture she took with Duterte when she visited Davao—she had been waiting on the sidelines of the photo queue when he called her over—and gushed about how he was “down-to-earth and acted like a regular citizen.” Using his childhood nickname, many of his supporters called him Tatay Digong, or Father Digong, a gesture that came because residents “felt safe” when he was in power, Palacio said.

“People aren’t used to rulers with an iron fist,” she said. “But when he became mayor and president, he cleaned everything up, and drug addicts were scared.”

One of Palacio’s family members struggled with a drug addiction that often left him violent. She felt grateful for policies that she believed directly combatted a problem that had ruined her loved one’s life and hurt her family, and she said she would have voted for him again in the upcoming mayoral elections—Duterte announced he would seek another term last fall—had she still been based in Davao.

Whereas Catholics and mainline Protestants have been grateful for the ICC’s arrest, evangelical reactions have been largely determined by larger politics of the regions where they are from, said Aldrin Peñamora, director of the Philippine Council of Evangelical Churches’ Justice, Peace, and Reconciliation Commission.

On social media, some Duterte supporters have blamed current president Bongbong Marcos for Duterte’s arrest, Peñamora said. In 2022, Marcos won the presidency, and Duterte’s daughter Sara Duterte won the vice presidency. But the relationship disintegrated when Marcos began to distance himself from Duterte’s drug-war policies. Last year, Sara Duterte threatened to kill Marcos by assassination if she were murdered, and she was impeached by the House of Representatives last month.

Beyond the political drama, misinformation about the president’s whereabouts, images of Duterte prayer rallies created with generative artificial intelligence, a rumored arrest of First Lady Liza Marcos, fake quotes, and false accusations about the ICC have influenced many Filipinos, including Christians.

Duterte is fortunate to at least have gone through due process, unlike the 30,000 who were immediately killed during the drug war, said Gabby Go Balauag, a staff member at Hope of Glory Community Church in Marilao, Bulacan. Further, he wrote on Facebook, Christians’ support for the bloody drug war raises serious moral and theological concerns, among them one’s understanding of the sanctity of life, the emphasis of compassion over condemnation, and the importance of government accountability.

“I can’t align my faith with Duterte’s rhetoric of murder, violence, and abuse,” he said. “This isn’t God’s heart for governance and for disciplining our countrymen.”

His senior pastor, Jonel Milan, tries to keep his congregation informed about current events. Every day from 7:00 to 7:30 a.m., the church gathers to pray about different political issues facing the country. Among them are the West Philippine Sea dispute and the upcoming senatorial elections in May. Balauag said that the majority of congregants agree that the war on drugs was wrong and are praying that the ICC will uphold justice.

On March 14, Duterte appeared in court in The Hague, though his hearing will not start until September 23. Over the next six months, Peñamora hopes church leaders will be careful about not letting politics splinter their congregations. He prays regularly for Duterte’s salvation and spiritual well-being.

“Let’s not forget the thousands of victims and their families,” he said. “My prayer is for the church to have a moral vision to care for them.”

Back in Payatas, Alvarez volunteers with Bawat Isa Mahalaga (“everyone is important”), an evangelical ministry that encourages Filipino Christians to become more civically engaged. As part one of its initiatives, each week, he and his congregants join with Ina ng Lupang Pangako Parish members in giving packs of rice to those orphaned and widowed during the drug war.

“There is no part of creation that is not under the lordship of Christ, and this must reflect in how we help orphans and widows,” Alvarez said. “It isn’t too late for evangelicals to be vocal against EJKs.”

Correction: An earlier version of this article misstated the ministry that Alvarez volunteers with.

- More from Hannah Keziah

Theology

Baptism Is Not Optional

Brad East

Contributor

It’s our adoption into God’s family and the seal of our union with Christ. We don’t take it seriously enough.

Illustration by Abigail Erickson / Source images: Unsplash

What is baptism? Is it necessary? Does it do anything? Who can receive it, and when, and how?

These are just some of the questions my students carry into the classroom. I teach theology in Bible Belt, red-county West Texas. Most of my students would check “Christian” on a survey, and their brand is nondenominational: Low Church, Scripture alone, no liturgy or hierarchy, no creeds or rituals. To be a Christian, for them, means to believe in God, trust Jesus for salvation, and follow him as best one can. For the more committed among them, it entails habits of prayer, devotional reading, and Sunday morning worship.

Baptism has a marginal role in this picture. Yet baptism is central to the Christian life: commanded by Jesus, taught by the apostles, and honored, practiced, and contemplated from church fathers like Augustine of Hippo and Cyril of Jerusalem through Protestant reformers like Martin Luther and John Calvin. So why does baptism rank so low among these students’ spiritual concerns? I’ve noticed at least three background assumptions they tend to share.

First, my students see baptism as purely symbolic. It does not do anything. Nothing “happens.” In terms of God’s action or presence, it is no different from any other spiritual practice. At the same time, students idealize baptism as a subjective experience. Although God isn’t “literally” washing away their sins, they earnestly hope to feel something. Like weddings with vows written by the bride and groom, baptism is curated, personalized, and documented.

Second, baptism is fundamentally an individual act for my students (if they bother to be baptized at all). It is neither communal nor ecclesial. It is unlikely to be performed by a pastor, in a church, during worship. Above all, it is active, not passive; it is something one does, not something done to oneself. It is, in this sense, a “work.” The agent of baptism is the self; if God is an actor in the drama, his action happens earlier, offstage, likely in tandem with a classic sinner’s prayer.

Third and finally, my students assume baptism is about choice. As a “work” one performs before others, baptism is thus a public display of the decision one has made to be pro Christi. It is one’s undivided, unequivocal yes to the Lord. As a result, baptism is reserved for those able to make such a decision. This is why newborns cannot be baptized—though in recent years many of these congregations have been moving the age for baptism ever downward without explaining the change.

It’s not surprising, then, that among my students, both lack of baptism and “rebaptism” are quite common. The latter happens, for some, because they just didn’t “feel” it the first time—so maybe, they worry, it didn’t “take.” Others decide in their 20s that, a decade prior, they lacked the relevant maturity or knowledge to make a genuine choice for Christ.

For still others, baptism isn’t so much a spiritual wedding, to be performed a single time, as a vow-renewal ceremony, to be repeated as often as one desires. And both the students who are unbaptized and those who go back for repeats view baptism as surplus to requirements anyway—good to do, sure, but not much more than that. For them, even the first time was a vow renewal of sorts.

Talking about baptism

It breaks my heart when I hear these stories. To be sure, I know that Christians disagree about baptism. But surely even traditions with a “low” view of baptism—those that understand it as an ordinance rather than a sacrament—cannot be happy with this sorry state of affairs. Baptists did not get their name by taking baptism lightly.

For nearly the whole of church history, it has been a given for most Christian traditions that baptism is once for all, never to be repeated; that it is a holy mystery instituted by Christ and commanded for all; that in it and through it, the Spirit of God is at work; and that by it and through it, the grace of God is communicated and the gospel of Christ proclaimed.

A supermajority of Christians today still hold to this view, whether Lutheran or Orthodox, Anglican or Catholic, Methodist, Presbyterian, or Church of Christ. Even Anabaptists (literally “rebaptizers,” a label first applied by their opponents) saw themselves not as re-upping a previous baptism that just didn’t feel right but as performing the first valid baptism the person in question had received. And they took baptism so seriously they were willing to die for it.

We don’t, thank God, burn or drown fellow Christians over baptism anymore. In fact, talking about baptism today—about getting it right in doctrine and practice and hence about ways of getting it wrong—feels like breaking a ceasefire. Our present ecumenical peace is hard won and fragile. Why threaten to disturb it?

My answer is simple: The truth matters, baptism matters, and too many churches handle baptism in the lackadaisical, emotive, and diminishing way I see in my classroom. So, let’s actually talk about what baptism is, what it isn’t, and what Scripture and tradition teach about it.

Cards on the table: I hold a full-blown, whole-hog “high sacramental” view of baptism. It’s a visible word of the gospel; it’s a means of grace; it’s an effective sign. By the power of God’s Word and Spirit, baptism does what baptism says: It washes you clean. It gives you Christ; it gives you his Spirit; it gives you his saving grace. “Baptism,” as the apostle Peter succinctly puts it, “saves you” (1 Pet. 3:21, RSV throughout).

To anticipate the most common objection, no, God does not need water to save you or anyone else, including the thief on the cross (Luke 23:39–43). But that’s because God is God: He can save how, when, and where he pleases. This sovereign prerogative on God’s part is distinct from the ordinary means by which he wills to save us and that he himself instituted through Jesus and his apostles. For example, no doubt God could have saved Israel apart from the Red Sea. Yet that is just how he chose to save them—by dividing the waters and guiding them through on dry land.

As Moses once delivered God’s people from bondage to Pharaoh through the waters, so Jesus delivers us from slavery to sin through the same.

This is what makes baptism so special. It brings together everything significant in the gospel: Father, Son, and Spirit; grace, adoption, and forgiveness; life, death, and resurrection; union, marriage, and faith; Israel, church, and election. Baptism is like the center of the hourglass—all the good things God means to give us come through this one point, before expanding again into the fullness of our lives.

How is this possible? “With men it is impossible, but not with God; for all things are possible with God” (Mark 10:27). So with the miracle of grace in the mystery of baptism.

I want to unpack that mystery as best I can in this brief space. If you’re already with me, great. We can’t repeat these truths enough. If you’re skeptical of my view of baptism, I ask your patience and suspended judgment. Hear me out and see what you think by the end. What matters is the truth. At a minimum, I hope we can agree that my students deserve something better, richer, and fuller than what they’ve been offered up to now. When given the chance, here’s what I tell them.

Adoption by a heavenly Father

Let’s start with a popular adage: “Everyone is a child of God.” I’ve heard it on the lips of pastors and politicians in equal measure. Is it true?

No, it is not. Everyone is created by God and is his beloved creature. And we all, from conception to death, bear God’s image. This is true irrespective of whether one has ever heard the name of Jesus, and nothing can change it.

But we aren’t born children of God. Birth marks us as human, not divine. We have mothers and fathers and a Creator in heaven, but not (yet) a heavenly Father. This is why Scripture calls Jesus the “only” Son of God (John 1:14, 18; 3:16, 18; 1 John 4:9). His status is unique.

The gospel is the good news that you and I may become children of God. We may receive the gift of God as our Father. And this makes sense: How could it be good news—or even news at all—if God were already our Father?

The Gospel of John puts it this way: The eternal Word came into the world yet was not received for who he was (1:1–11). “But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God; who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (vv. 12–13). We are not born God’s children; rather, God became man to give us the power to become his children. This is the purpose and the effect of the Incarnation.

The idea of a transfer of parentage is not new to us. It’s called adoption, and for Paul, this one word sums up the work of Christ on our behalf (Rom. 8:15, 23; Gal. 4:5). Through Jesus, the eternal Son of God, anyone on earth may receive the grace of becoming his brothers and sisters and therefore sons and daughters of the Almighty.

But how? This is the question Nicodemus puts to Jesus (John 3:4). And Jesus gives a straight answer: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God” (v. 5). In short, spiritual rebirth comes through baptism.

In Jesus’s own baptism by John, we see water, Spirit, and sonship joined together. We ourselves are baptized not only in obedience to Jesus but also in imitation of him. Whereas baptism is the moment of our adoption by God, Jesus was already God’s Son. He submitted to baptism to sanctify for all time the waters that would impart his rank to others. Every subsequent baptism is thus a participation in his, a reenactment of the scene at the Jordan. God says anew, about us, what the crowds heard that day: “You are my beloved child; with you I am well pleased” (Luke 3:22, translation mine).

The many gifts of baptism

Adoption into God’s family is only one of baptism’s many gifts. Through this wonderful sacrament God bestows on us more gifts than I can name here, but I will mention six.

First, the gift of the Holy Spirit. When we are baptized, we join not only Jesus in the Jordan but also the 12 in the Upper Room (Acts 2:1–13). Every baptism is a personal Pentecost. As the Spirit descended on Jesus in the river and on his followers at the festival, so he descends on us.

Second, the gift of union with Christ. In baptism, what is his becomes ours; what was ours he takes into himself and there extinguishes (2 Cor. 8:9). What he is by nature we become by grace—not only children of God but also kings, priests, prophets, sages; holy, righteous, faithful, immortal; happy, blessed, spiritual, eternal. In a word, he gives us his own life, indestructible and inexhaustible because it is the life of God (Gal. 2:20; Col. 3:1–4; 1 John 5:11–12).

But not without, third, the gift of death, as Paul writes:

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. (Rom. 6:3–5)

Baptism drowns the old self, the flesh ensnared by sin and death. We rise from the waters reborn, freed from bondage to the old tyrants that enslaved us. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come” (2 Cor. 5:17).

Fourth, the gift of adoption. Am I repeating myself? No, I speak of another adoption: not by God but by Abraham. Baptism joins us to God’s chosen people. All the promises of God are “Yes” and “Amen” in Christ (2 Cor. 1:20) because he is the offspring of Abraham (Gal. 3:16). No one can have Abraham’s son (Matt. 1:1) without Abraham himself, or Abraham’s God without Abraham’s family. Outside this family, Gentiles are hopeless and godless (Eph. 2:12). Those of us who are Gentiles, then, receive a double adoption in baptism. As Paul writes,

In Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise. (Gal. 3:26–29)

Fifth, the gift of membership. Baptism is not only vertical; it is horizontal too. Baptism adds us to the church, which is Christ’s body: “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:12–13). Hence Paul lists “one baptism” alongside “one Lord” and “one faith” in his famous statement of Christian unity (Eph. 4:4–6).

Finally, the gift of marriage. The bond that baptism works in us is not only filial, between Father and children. It is nuptial, between husband and wife. Our public profession of faith is like the vows we make at the altar; accordingly, baptism is the consummation of the marriage. After all, an unconsummated marriage is invalid; in a manner of speaking, so is faith apart from baptism. Baptism is the perfection of faith because it seals the union of bride (the soul) and groom (Christ).

Lest this seem like stretching a metaphor, return to Paul: “Do you not know that he who joins himself to a [woman] becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, ‘The two shall become one flesh.’ But he who is united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him” (1 Cor. 6:16–17). Apparently the only intimacy comparable to the spiritual union between a believer and Christ is the bodily union of husband and wife—and the former transcends the latter by fulfilling it. As Paul writes elsewhere, “This mystery is a profound one, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church” (Eph. 5:32).

The gifts of the bridegroom range far beyond this meager list. Cyril of Jerusalem, for example, says that baptism will “give you amnesty for your past sins, plant you in the church, and enlist you in his army, putting upon you the armor of righteousness.” It is more than a spiritual bath, washing the soul clean. Types and figures of baptism fill the Old Testament: It is the primal waters of creation, tamed by the Creator (Gen. 1:1–2); it is the Red Sea, through which God’s people are delivered from bondage (Ex. 14:1–15:21); it is the Jordan, in which the Gentile Naaman is cleansed by the God of Israel (2 Kings 5:1–19).

Baptism does what nothing else can. As Martin Luther said, by baptism “we are made holy and are saved, which no other kind of life, no work upon earth, can attain.” All of God’s promises come together here, in the waters of grace.

The good news of baptism

Perhaps I’ve sold you on the meaning, gifts, and even necessity of baptism but not yet on its inner logic—what makes it intrinsic to the good news rather than an additional box to check once God has done the real work, so to speak, off camera. Why, in other words, did Jesus command his apostles to make disciples from all nations not only by “teaching” but also by “baptizing” them (Matt. 28:19–20), or as later tradition would put it, through “word and sacrament” together?

Here’s one way to put it: The good news of baptism is its objective, factual character. This is why Luther exalted baptism. When tormented by the devil, Luther was unable to rely on his faith, because that was the very thing under assault—when you can’t be sure you believe, then belief is no consolation. But he could always point to his baptism as a matter of historical fact. It is said that he would reply to Satan: “Baptizatus sum” (I am baptized).

Luther’s example helps us see the depths of God’s mercy toward us. In baptism, God has provided us a tangible, historical moment to which we can point with every confidence, even in times of doubt and anxiety. Then and there, Christ himself met us in the waters.

That confidence is possible because baptism is not, like tithing, a human work we perform. It is a divine gift we receive. We are not the agents of baptism; God is. We don’t “do” baptism; baptism is done to us. Notice the phrasing: One is baptized. The grammatical passive is also theological. I can’t baptize myself; I need another to do it for me.

And like the death of Christ on the cross, baptism is once for all, not to be repeated. In this sense, “rebaptism” is an oxymoron because baptism—washing with water in the triune name of God—always “takes.” Every “redo” is just a bath. We are already maximally forgiven, maximally redeemed, once for all, forever.

This is the startling, wonderful, incredible good news of baptism. It’s why baptism embodies the gospel. Grace is scandalous. It gives us what we don’t deserve, what was never ours to expect. It pardons thieves, liars, adulterers, and murderers. It pardons me. It pardons you.

The living Christ imparts this pardon through baptism, because it bears his effective word and, with it, God’s power to save, his grace for sinners, and his will to forgive. As Cyril instructed catechumens preparing for baptism in the fourth century, “Stop paying attention to the lips of the one speaking, but to God who is working.”

Baptism is about what God has done, can do, and will do pro me (“for me”). It’s not about my yes to God, which may be weak or wavering and at any age is sure to lack maturity and knowledge alike. That’s why I’m being baptized in the first place—my lack, my need. Baptism, instead, is ultimately about God’s yes to me. It is about his inscrutable love for godless rebels made manifest through the humblest and most common of elements: water.

In the words of Paul (2 Cor. 9:15), “Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift!”

Brad East is an associate professor of theology at Abilene Christian University. He is the author of four books, including The Church: A Guide to the People of God and Letters to a Future Saint.

- More from Brad East

Testimony

I Went to Prison for Murder. God’s Word Brought Freedom.

Antoine Davis

After enduring brutality as a child and inflicting it as a gang member, I sought healing and wholeness at the cross.

Courtesy of Britteni Davis and Robert W Jensen / Edits by CT

My mother’s screams pierced my ears as I sat at the top of the stairs, holding my siblings for comfort.

My stepfather repeatedly slapped, slammed, and choked her until she was nearly unconscious. Between her cries and the shattering of broken picture frames, I struggled to keep my violently pounding heart from breaking through my eight-year-old rib cage.

Many of these fights resulted from my stepfather’s infidelity and blatant disrespect of my mother. Whenever she confronted him about coming home at three in the morning or sleeping with other women, he would respond with anger and aggression. On many occasions, she would apply makeup in the morning to cover the scratches and bruises on her face.

For years, my mother worked tirelessly at multiple jobs to provide for her family, giving everything she had to take care of her children. Unfortunately, she went months without knowing about the frequent beatings I was receiving in her absence.

Whenever she would leave for work, my stepfather would accuse my mother of sleeping with other men—an obvious projection of his own wrongdoing. Because I was a child from my mother’s previous relationship, he began accusing me of covering up her alleged affairs, despite the fact that I was too young to process the concept of adultery.

Ideally, home should have been a refuge from the harsh realities of life in the outside world. Instead, it became the source of my trauma. Beatings and brutal words were the norm. When my mother finally noticed the black-and-blue marks that decorated my body, she confronted my stepfather, only to be met with more of his brutish attacks, the consequence of his toxic masculinity.

Believing I had nowhere to turn, I suffered in silence, stuffing my hurts, pains, fears, and anxieties deep inside, trying to make sure my mother wouldn’t get punished for trying to protect me. I had no idea these traumatizing experiences would crack my internal mirror, distorting my view of reality and fueling a twisted sense of self.

Somewhere deep within me, I believed that God was real, but he didn’t seem relevant in my struggle to survive. I endured the feelings of emptiness alone, which set me searching for anything that would fill the hole in my heart.

Hanging with the ‘big boys’

The ceiling fan did nothing to clear the cigarette smoke that filled the air. Beer cans and alcohol bottles covered the countertops, and no one seemed concerned about the three-year-old toddler wandering in the living room. I had just sat down at the black wooden table in the kitchen after being invited to play dominoes with my older cousins and their friends. Most of them wore blue bandanas around their heads and necks, indicating their affiliation with the Crips, a neighborhood gang based in South Seattle.

While Dr. Dre’s “The Next Episode” blared over the sound system, a spark from a clear blue lighter illuminated the tip of a brown cigar filled with marijuana. My cousin took a pull, holding the smoke in before passing the blunt around the table. When it finally reached me, I leaned back, expecting to be excluded from their smoke session.

When my older cousin, whom we called E-Tray, noticed my hesitation, he began calling me “Lil’ Chow Chow,” a knockoff of the kid rapper Lil’ Bow Wow, and everyone at the table burst into laughter. “What, you can’t hang with the big boys?” he asked, adopting a high-pitched voice meant to sound unmasculine.

On the surface, it was fun and games, but he didn’t know about my unhealed wounds of rejection, the deeply rooted insecurities I had developed after years of being abused by my stepfather. Although my 13-year-old conscience told me not to give in, my hunger for acceptance won out.

I took the blunt and placed it to my lips. Within seconds, I began coughing uncontrollably, as if someone had vacuum-sealed the air from my lungs. Nothing was enjoyable about that experience. But the unpleasant feeling of getting high was overshadowed by the cheers, fist bumps, and pats on the back I received from those around the table. When they passed me the alcohol, I took that too.

Gradually, the intoxication settled in, not merely from the drugs, but from feeling validated. For that reason alone, I kept smoking, determined to show the fellas that I belonged. In retrospect, I realize the insight of Proverbs 27:7, “To the hungry even what is bitter tastes sweet.” I was starving for love and acceptance, and this bitter introduction to drugs, alcohol, and gang association appeared to provide both.

Weary and unfulfilled

It was a little after 2 a.m. when I made it back to my duplex. Opening the bedroom door, I found my two-year-old son and his mother sound asleep. Before getting undressed, I emptied my pockets, pulling out a gun, some drugs, and money I had collected from the women I prostituted. Together, the items gave a snapshot of my life as my 21st birthday approached.

Sitting on the edge of the bed—still high from the pills I took earlier—I contemplated the road I was traveling. A lot had transpired in the previous four years. I had been shot at, held at gunpoint, and assaulted multiple times and had lost close friends to senseless violence during my high-school years.

I had gone from smoking and drinking to womanizing, pulling off bank scams, dealing drugs, and popping ecstasy pills—all intended to numb the pain of the lingering void I felt inside. I had the money and street cred I longed for as a 13-year-old, but none of these things provided fulfillment.

Compelled by my weary soul, I slid from the edge of my bed and onto my knees. While resting my head in my hands, I began praying to a God I had never met, speaking with an unexplainable confidence that he could fill the emptiness within me. After praying, I wiped the tears from my eyes, returned to bed, and fell asleep. But less than three weeks later, I would be caught in a situation that would alter my life forever.

It began with a devastating phone call from my son’s mother, who delivered the news that my best friend had been shot multiple times at an auto parts store. I squeezed the phone in tears as she related the details, exclaiming, “He might not make it!” The shooter had fired on my friends and me numerous times before, leaving 25 empty shell casings at one of the crime scenes. Despite our attempts to defuse the ongoing tension, which sprang from a senseless argument, he was bent on establishing his street credibility, even at the cost of trying to murder someone I loved.

Hours later, my friends and I prepared to take our revenge. We climbed into our Ford Taurus, one of us armed with an assault rifle and the other two (including me) carrying handguns. As the car stopped at a red light, pulling close to our target, we jumped out. Filled with grief and anger, one of my friends approached the other vehicle, firing multiple rounds in its direction.

When I lifted my handgun to join in, I thought about how often this man we were attacking had threatened my life. I thought about the friend I loved lying in a hospital bed after this man had shot him seven times just hours before. My 21-year-old mind was consumed by fear, pain, sadness, anger, and frustration. Mindlessly, I chose to squeeze the trigger. By the grace of God, my gun jammed. I didn’t realize that on the other side of those tinted windows was a two-year-old child.

Healing behind bars

Within a few days, I found myself lying on a concrete floor of an overcrowded county jail cell, watching the headlines flash across the screen of an old television hanging from the ceiling. Above the “Breaking News” of my capture was a mug shot, showing an intoxicated 21-year-old whose fuzzy French braids and glossy eyes fit the media’s image of a criminal.

I closed my eyes in disbelief, wondering how my life had been reduced to the label of murderer. As I contemplated my reality, a waterfall of depression poured from my chest into the depths of my bowels, and I felt overwhelmed by fear as I envisioned life in prison.

Getting up from my cot, I asked the young man in the cell for the Bible that he had offered and I had rejected, just hours earlier. I had always believed in God, but I had never considered what he required of my life. I was too angry and bitter, never realizing that my pain had become my prison, first figuratively and then literally.

This Hispanic kid handed me the blue book, with a warped partial cover. Beneath the title, The Message, were broken handcuffs torn from a man’s wrists, symbolizing the freedom I desperately wanted. For the following week, I lay on the floor, reading the Bible for hours. Its truths cut me like a surgeon’s knife, removing the moral cancer that nearly consumed my heart through years of trauma.

I felt exposed before God’s Word. It penetrated through everything I had used to hide my childhood scars. I saw the truth of my brokenness, pointing me toward the cross where God promised wholeness through faith in Jesus.

The night before I was extradited back to Seattle, I sat up wrestling with a series of questions. How can God love a murderer? How can he accept this flawed and fragmented person I’ve become? Can I come before him utterly broken and empty-handed? My heart ached for mercy and grace. Before long, I had dropped my head in prayer:

God, if you’re real, I want this new life you’re offering through your Son. Please forgive me for the things I’ve done, and give me the heart to be the person you created me to be.

In that dark jail cell, I wept until my eyes were swollen. This time, a sense of peace flooded my heart like water bursting through a broken pipe. I knew I was accepted—not by the men whose affirmation I once sought but by the God who held my life in his hands. From that day forward, I studied the Word of God like my life depended on it, and through my relationship with Christ, the holes in my heart began to heal.

‘Walk with me, Son’

On September 24, 2011, I was found guilty of all charges and sentenced to 63 years in prison. Before I was transferred from King County Jail to Washington State Penitentiary, I poured myself out before God yet again, praying that he would give me the grace to endure what he had in store for me.

I’ll never forget the words the Lord placed on my heart in that jail cell: “Walk with me, Son, and I promise to work it out for your good.” I didn’t fully understand the details of that promise, but I clung to him without compromise.

It’s been 16 years, and my imprisonment hasn’t been easy. But God has been faithful. After receiving my Certificate in Christian Leadership from The Urban Ministry Institute, I became a licensed pastor, working under the leadership of my senior pastor, Zachary Bruce Sr. of Freedom Church of Seattle. I’ve been privileged to minister to countless folks who have been hurt, broken, and overwhelmed by their traumatizing experiences. And I’ve watched the gospel message radically change the lives of fellow prisoners who, like me, were dismissed as irredeemable.

As a child, I never imagined that God would use someone as broken and messed up as I was. But I have found that even in the messiest lives, God can produce a message—if only we have the audacity to trust him.

Antoine Davis is an incarcerated writer and journalist serving a 63-year sentence in Washington state. He is the author of Building Blocks: Curriculum for Creating Wholeness.

- More from Antoine Davis

Culture

‘Severance’ Makes a Case for Suffering

Morgan Lee

The hit Apple TV series shows the limits of escapism.

Britt Lower as Helly and Adam Scott as Mark in Severance, on Apple TV+.

Apple TV+

Mark Scout cannot bear the reality of his wife’s death.

When he’s alone with his thoughts, he ambles over to the fridge, cracks open a beer, and dozes off with the TV on. When he heads to the office, he sticks his phone in a locker, lets a security officer wave him down with a wand, and enters an elevator that activates a chip in his brain, cutting off his access to any memories outside his workplace’s basement.

This is the premise of Apple TV’s hit Severance, a mash-up of The Office and Lost, complete with a quirky cast, rich character development, and mysterious details that lend themselves to Reddit theories. (Warning: spoilers ahead.)

Few of us would trust a corporation to insert allegedly irremovable hardware into our skulls, bifurcating our beings into “innies” (work selves) and “outies” (life selves). But many of us have experienced heartbreak so profound it tempts us to drastic measures in pursuit of relief. “Do you ever think that maybe the best way to deal with a f—ed-up situation in your life isn’t to just shut your brain off half the time?” a minor character asks Mark in season 1. It takes most of the first season for him to really consider the question.

Mark’s reason for electing to undergo the severance procedure is sympathetic. But the show immediately disabuses its viewers of any naiveté; this technology isn’t just an innocuous reprieve for depression. Midway through season 1, we learn that severance has also been extended to those undergoing excruciating physical pain, like a woman who wants to avoid experiencing labor. In season 2, Lumon, the corporation behind the technology, is testing it as a means to avoid the uncomfortable (going to the dentist) and the inconvenient (writing thank-you cards). In a recent episode, we visit the hometown of the technology’s creator, a desolate village where Lumon once manufactured ether, the medical anesthetic and dissociative drug.

Severance fans have speculated for years about the nature of Lumon’s business. (Among the popular ideas: cloning and conscience transference.) But recent episodes suggest the corporation has a far more relatable objective: a distress-free world.

“We don’t want to experience anything unpleasant,” said Dichen Lachman, the actress who plays Mark’s late wife (and Lumon’s test subject) in a recent interview. “We kind of want to get on a prescription of not having to suffer.”

The Christian life both acknowledges the inevitability of suffering and offers consolation. “Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God,” says the Lord through the prophet Isaiah (Isa. 41:10). “I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” Of course, the presence of God does not mean a pain-free life—nor is pain always to be avoided. “We also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope,” writes Paul (Rom. 5:3–4).

Paul’s words emphasize just how long these excruciating seasons can endure. It’s no wonder that Christians too find escapist “fixes” appealing. I’m reminded of this quote from priest Henri Nouwen in his 1975 book Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life:

Our culture has become most sophisticated in the avoidance of pain, not only our physical pain but our emotional and mental pain as well. We not only bury our dead as if they were still alive, but we also bury our pains as if they were not really there. We have become so used to this state of anesthesia, that we panic when there is nothing or nobody left to distract us. When we have no project to finish, no friend to visit, no book to read, no television to watch or no record to play, and when we are left all alone by ourselves we are brought so close to the revelation of our basic human aloneness and are so afraid of experiencing an all-pervasive sense of loneliness that we will do anything to get busy again and continue the game which makes us believe that everything is fine after all.

Nouwen lists prosaic coping mechanisms like hanging out with friends and reading and watching TV. Some of us have also turned to sex, alcohol, or drugs. As Christians, we might be prone to judge each distraction on its own merits, labeling some healthy, like in-person connection, and others unhealthy, like sleeping around or smoking pot. But harmful escapism can happen anytime we pursue solutions to suffering beyond what Scripture preaches as the path to peace.

That journey always starts with drawing closer to God, as the psalmist reminds us: “Pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge” (Ps. 62:8). Over and over, Scripture insists we must turn to God when we are anxious, weary, and debilitated (Phil. 4:6–7; 1 Pet. 5:7; Matt. 11:28).

It’s this kind of dependence that allows us to see deeper aspects of God’s character, as Paul famously reminds us in 2 Corinthians 12:9: “But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’” For Christians, maturing in our faith and working through our pain often look like two sides of the same coin. “I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings,” writes Paul in Philippians 3:10.

When we escape sufferings instead of participating in them, we pursue a kind of false relief—relief that neither positively forms our character nor helps us work through our underlying needs.

As we wrap up Severance’s second season, it’s clear that whatever “solution” Lumon has created for outies isn’t a solution after all. Debates about the personhood of innies run through the show; though a combination of outie self-interest and corporate objectives brought them into the world, innies emerged with their own thoughts, feelings, and desires. At times, their lack of agency triggers despair and even spurs one innie to try to end her own life. In episode 9, one innie who had briefly met his outie’s child and spent several hours with his outie’s wife as a reward for his work spirals after she ends things with him, enraged to the point that he decides to quit his job.

If philosophers and theologians posit that the human experience demands suffering, Severance both underscores and inverts this truth: Suffering demands a human experience. At Lumon, every attempt to rid one’s life of pain merely begets another human whose existence will be defined by that pain.

It’s like the billions of pounds of plastic waste that we’ve created and thrown away, ending up “everywhere from the Mariana Trench to the top of Mount Everest and from human breast milk to human blood,” said archaeologist Sarah Newman in a discussion of her book about the history of waste.

“The biggest myth about trash is simply that we talk about throwing things ‘away,’” she explains. “There is not, nor has there ever been, an ‘away’ for things to go.”

We know this, and yet we continue to produce and consume plastic even as it poisons us and our world. We understand this about hardship and pain, and yet, overwhelmed or devastated, we distract ourselves—and many of us would get severed if we could.

Henri Nouwen offers a different vision, one that goes beyond commanding us to avoid escapism, buckle down, and heal ourselves.

“Nobody escapes being wounded. We all are wounded people, whether physically, emotionally, mentally, or spiritually,” he writes in a quote attributed to The Wounded Healer. “The main question is not ‘How can we hide our wounds?’ so we don’t have to be embarrassed, but ‘How can we put our woundedness in the service of others?’”

In the bleak world of Severance, this vulnerability remains elusive. In episode 8, Mark’s former boss and neighbor returns to her hometown and asks someone she used to know for a favor. In their first conversation in years, they hint at a traumatic relationship forged while working at Lumon as young children. But most of this reminiscence manifests as anger before the boss draws a line. “I’ll not be your punching dummy for your resentments,” she tells her old colleague.

He comes around to helping her out. But he doesn’t elaborate on the ways that the company has battered him emotionally. She doesn’t bare her soul about her grief over her mother’s death. Instead, he inhales ether. And then he hands it to her.

Morgan Lee is the global managing editor at Christianity Today.

- More from Morgan Lee

Theology

Get Behind Me, Self

Jen Wilkin

Columnist

Satan isn’t our only enemy.

Illustration by Elizabeth Kaye / Source Images: Getty

It was one of those days where I needed every minute to go as planned. So, of course, the dog escaped from the yard and went missing. Two frantic hours later, she was safely behind the fence. I, on the other hand, was nursing a wrenched shoulder and a broken phone screen from the fall I took while trying to track her down.

In my head, I replayed the kind words of a woman who had emailed me earlier that week: “How can I pray for you? I’m sure someone like you is a target of the Enemy on a regular basis.”

Someone like me. I admit that as I lay on the sidewalk, clutching my smashed phone and staring up at the tree branches, the phrase “not today, Satan” had drifted through my mind. Was this an attack of the Enemy?

In recent years, I’ve noticed more Christians bringing up the work of the Enemy in conversation. Usually, it goes something like this:

The Enemy wants to keep you from doing the will of God.

The Enemy doesn’t want you to walk in abundance.

The Enemy wants to take you down. Stand firm!

When we instinctually evoke the Enemy, we convey that each moment and momentary struggle falls within a great cosmic battle against an unseen adversary in the spiritual realm.

Such battles sound stirring and epic. They sound far more exciting than the daily slog to subdue my need for approval or deny my own evil desires. Because of this, we may be too eager to attribute to Satan what might be more accurately attributable to our sinful nature or our broken world.

To be sure, the Bible tells us that the spiritual realm is real and that our adversary the Devil prowls around seeking someone to devour (1 Pet. 5:8). But Scripture doesn’t name just one enemy but three: the Devil, the world, and the flesh (1 John 2:15–16, Eph. 2:1–3).

In the battle for holiness, all three members of this unholy trinity deserve our attention. If we devote our focus to only one, we will almost certainly unwittingly succumb to the others.

And emphasis matters. Christians always want to read and apply Scripture preserving the emphases it establishes. Which of these three combatants does the Bible mention most often?

The New Testament Epistles mention attacks of “Satan,” “the devil,” “the evil one,” and “the enemy” several times, but worldliness, fleshly desires, and sins of the flesh show up everywhere—expounded in lists, contrasted to godliness, warned against constantly.

Scripture positions the world as our enemy when we desire to make this world our home—when we long to store up treasures here, indulge in pleasure here, seek human approval here—instead of embracing the delayed gratification of a heavenly reward. It is the temptation to blend in or to shine gloriously here on earth.

The idea of the flesh as our enemy includes any desire to simply indulge what feels good to us, with no reference to how that indulgence might impact our neighbors or subvert our worship of God. Some of its most common expressions in the Bible are sexual immorality, greed, envy, jealousy, gluttony, malice, gossip, and slander.

In one sense, these three enemies are interrelated. All temptation finds its origin story in the first lie of the Serpent in the Garden. The Bible does say that Satan can tempt us to sin and persecute the church. Yet prayer requests around being “under attack” often involve normal frustrations, rather than temptations or true persecution like the kind depicted in Acts or Revelation.

Nearly any inconvenient circumstance—a flat tire, canceled flight, strained muscle, fraud alert from the bank—can send us into speculation that Satan himself is trying to derail our day. Insofar as these occurrences can tempt us to sin, perhaps he is.

Interestingly, when life moves smoothly without disruption, we do not perceive ourselves to be under attack. We tend to think (despite Scripture clearly indicating otherwise) that a life without frustration indicates being in God’s will. But perhaps nothing poses a greater temptation to self-reliance and self-righteousness than a life free of challenge and filled with markers of success. Such a life is its own potent form of seduction.

There is a saying: “Never attribute to malice what can be attributed to incompetence.” It means that we have a tendency to assume far more organization underlies any given threat or danger than is actually the case.

Given the New Testament’s relative emphasis on fleshly and worldly sources of temptation rather than supernatural ones, we might do well to embrace the wisdom of never attributing to Satan what can be attributed to our own fears, sins of omission, or just normal symptoms of life in a broken world.

Is Satan keeping me from getting my work done, or is it my lack of self-control? Is Satan sabotaging my marriage, or is it my selfishness? Is Satan stirring dissent in my church, or is Larry just kind of a jerk in member meetings? Am I under spiritual attack, or is this just the normal frustrations of life pressing on my own sinful tendencies?

It’s possible that a demonic presence is following me around, tempting me to worldliness or fleshly indulgence, or it may simply be, as James notes, that I am “dragged away by [my] own evil desire and enticed” (1:14).

Be careful not to bear false witness against the Devil. Because he would love that. He loves misattribution. He would love to hear us remember to pray against his schemes and forget to renounce worldliness or confess our sins. He would love to hear us pray a formula to bind the Enemy in Jesus’ name and dismiss the matter at hand with no thought for pursuing personal holiness.

Be careful to remember that the Devil is only one of three enemies to keep in view and that he’s not even close to being the headliner in the New Testament. Based on the relatively small emphasis he receives, it seems fair to conclude that the cross of Christ has, in fact, delivered on its promise to neutralize much of the spiritual threat he poses to the believer in everyday life.

For centuries, Christians recognized the power of the Cross and the impotence of Satan in their catechesis. In its very first question, the Heidelberg Catechism of 1563 taught the Christian to recite, “He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood, and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil. He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven; in fact, all things must work together for my salvation.”

Do I believe today, as my spiritual forebears did, that I have been set free from the tyranny of the Devil? Because if I do, I will pull myself up off the pavement, dust the shards of glass off my phone screen, confess that bad word I said, acknowledge that I could have managed my schedule less tightly, and ask for patience to move through the rest of my day. I will take responsibility for my own role in a day gone sideways.

The daily slog toward holiness may not be as cinematic as an epic spiritual battle, but it is undeniably effective at its slow, transforming work.

I responded to that woman’s kind email with all the honesty I could muster: My enemy is me right now. And yes, I would covet your prayers. Next week, my enemy may be worldly approval or even spiritual attack. But more often than not, it’s just me getting in my own way, needing afresh the daily bread of God’s grace.

The world is our enemy because it offers us a false promise of the good life. The flesh is our enemy because we still succumb to its sinful habits, even as we are growing in our sanctification. The Devil is our enemy because the lie of self-rule is still as appealing as it was in the Garden. But we are those who have received Good News.

The Good News is that this world is passing away and Christ has overcome it. The good news is that our sinful desires can be put to death daily by the power of the Spirit (Col. 3:5). And the good news is that the Devil, already defeated at the Cross, flees when we simply resist. No epic battle required. Never underestimate daily faithfulness in small things.

Culture

Anchor Hymns Makes Old Things New

Interview by Kelsey Kramer McGinnis

Drawing on centuries of hymnody, the songwriting collective asks the question “What else could we be singing about?”

Photography by Olivia Buchanan

On a January morning in 2022, the basement of Church of the Redeemer, an Anglican church in a quiet Nashville neighborhood, smelled like food for the first time in months. Someone was preparing a meal in the kitchen. The church had been virtually empty since a funeral for the church’s pastor, who passed away in a car accident in August 2021. In-person services hadn’t resumed yet; everyone was tiring of virtual gatherings.

But now, songwriters were assembling in the basement, greeting friends they hadn’t seen much since before the 2020 pandemic. This intimate gathering was the first writing meetup of Anchor Hymns, a collective formed by singer-songwriter and producer Andrew Osenga, formerly of the Christian band Caedmon’s Call.

Anchor Hymns brought together a community of musicians that was still reeling from the isolation and uncertainty of the pandemic. Some were mourning the deaths of friends and loved ones. Others were coming to terms with lost friendships.

“We started talking about how a lot of our contemporary worship songs feel like pop songs, and you don’t sing pop songs at a funeral,” Osenga said. “So our prompt that afternoon was to write songs that could be sung at funerals.”

It sounds like a bleak beginning for a creative endeavor. But the tension of hope in the midst of pain has been a source of inspiration for Anchor Hymns. The group’s newest album, The Garden (Live) (releasing March 28), was recorded live at the Covenant School in Nashville at one of the first events at the school since the mass shooting that took place there in March 2023.

The group’s tagline, “songs that will outlast us,” nods to its mission to offer the church newly composed songs and newly arranged hymns that feel both historically rooted and forward-looking. Over the past three years, Anchor Hymns has released music featuring artists such as Sandra McCracken, Sarah Kroger, Paul Baloche, Melanie Penn, Mitch Wong, Citizens, Dee Wilson, Matt Maher, and Leslie Jordan.

CT spoke with Andrew Osenga, Sandra McCracken, and Sarah Kroger about what it looks like to write music for disorienting times and how hymns can help the family of God bear one another’s burdens. This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

Andrew, you led the formation of Anchor Hymns in 2022. What was the animating idea behind the project?

Osenga: When I look at older hymns, I see a wide variety of songs on different subjects and in a lot of different musical styles. When I think about a lot of the songs that we sing today, I think we tend to sing about three or four subjects. We have a very narrow vocabulary in the church.

We’ve been able to look at what churches have been singing for centuries and ask, “What else could we be singing about?” What about songs about grief or different kinds of joy? Songs about sacrificial love, loving your enemy, death, giving, or missions?

McCracken: Early on, in a meeting before we even had a name for the project, we talked about how a lot of people we knew were leaving the church. We were drawn to the idea of having songs that would not just outlast us but that would reach out and welcome people who may not want to be there now but might find themselves wanting to be there again. That was the hope.

This group of musicians is pretty ecumenical. We come from different backgrounds, and we’re not all going to vote the same way or agree on one set of theological statements, but there are things we can sing together, and we’re trying to find those.

Kroger: As one of the few Catholics in the group, I felt connected to this idea of new hymns because Catholics have a rich history of hymns in our own church. There are a lot of hymns that are specifically Catholic and others that fall into the Protestant category, and there’s not a lot of cross-pollinating. There are a few hymns that have crossed the barrier— “Be Thou My Vision,” “Come Thou Fount”—but I didn’t know “Great Is Thy Faithfulness” until I was an adult. And that is sad to me because it’s such a stunning song.

So for me, this project was an opportunity to cross-pollinate a little bit, to use these beautiful texts as inspiration and make something new that includes all of our voices and perspectives.

Sarah, what do you think the Catholic tradition of hymnody and liturgy offers that could enrich some of the worship practices of American evangelical or nondenominational churches?

Kroger: As I’ve become friends and collaborators with people in Protestant spaces, it’s been awesome to have conversations about what unites us. I also recognize that Catholics have valuable traditions. For example, every Catholic church has a crucifix. Christ’s death is right in front of you. We have whole seasons centered on death. Right now, we’re in Lent, where we’re reminded that “you are ashes and to ashes you shall return.” We’re not afraid of thinking about suffering.

There’s also a rich history and tradition of silence in Catholicism. We’re not afraid of silence in our liturgies either. Which is not to say that all Protestants are—but I do think in the American church there’s a lot of filling every moment with something.

The past few years have brought what appears to be a surge in interest in hymns and hymnals. It seems there is a cycle in American evangelical culture of periodic returns to hymnody or more historically rooted worship practices. Why do you think hymnody—new or old—might be capturing the interest of some American Christians right now?

Kroger: I think the reason why I have been drawn to hymns more recently is because they connect me to this rich history of believers. I think about all the people who have sung these songs for centuries, some melodies literally since the beginning of the church.

To think about all of the people who have had joyful moments with these songs, wrestled with faith through these songs, and lifted these songs up in their own journeys—it is grounding and edifying for me to recognize that I’m a part of something bigger. And to add my voice to that history is really special.

McCracken: I think the disorientation of our time causes us to reach for things that are either nostalgic or connected to the past. And I think people want the sung theology of hymns; they are like sung gospel.

Hymns have a way of bringing us back to truth beyond just our own emotions. I think hymns do that more than some of the contemporary worship music that is more singularly emotive. Hymns tend to tell a wider story as you move through different verses that each have their own inflection.

Osenga: I don’t mean this in a cynical way, but I think that in a world where so many things feel like products, where we get our new songs from the radio or from a marketing email, there’s something about a song that we know existed before a marketing machine or a record company. There’s an inherent trust. We trust its motive in a different way.

I also think there’s a way that God speaks through melody and memory together, even beyond a lyric. These melodies have been passed down through generations. My grandfather had a very different theology than I do, but we believed in the same Jesus and are loved by the same Jesus. And I have these memories of him singing. There’s power in that.

The new Anchor Hymns album, The Garden (Live), was recorded at the Covenant School, where a shooting took place the year before. How did that impact the recording and the content of the album?

Osenga: Sandra’s husband was working at the school at the time and was hosting a conference for worship leaders, pastors, and theologians. We were invited to participate and [we] asked if we could record. The conference wasn’t a Covenant event, but we were trying to be really conscientious and bring songs about God’s hope and faithfulness. You couldn’t shake the fact that we were in the space where it happened.

McCracken: Everyone was certainly still reeling from the event. On the recording, you’ll hear “Great Is Thy Faithfulness,” and we had planned to sing it but didn’t have time to rehearse. Now when I hear that recording, I can hear strength, and I can hear God’s faithfulness in a moment in a room with bullet holes in the glass that a lot of people didn’t want to talk about and maybe still don’t want to talk about. And that’s okay.

What does it mean to sing in these holy, sacred moments when there is disorientation? When I hear that recording, I can hear all these layers, the way the voices are reverberating in that room with that community. It’s a confession, and a communal one. I’m so grateful for it.

Kroger: Thinking about that moment, singing “Great Is Thy Faithfulness” in that beautiful church, and about what everyone was carrying, I remember that there are times when I’m participating in the hymn, physically singing it. And then there are times when the weight of what I’m carrying is just too much and I need other people to sing it for me. That’s what hymns offer us: this experience of community. Sometimes you’re participating, and sometimes you’re being carried. That’s the beauty of hymns.

Osenga: I think everyone has their own idea of what a hymn is. For most laypeople, a hymn is an old-fashioned church song, and their idea of a hymn is different from the next person’s idea of a hymn because their “old-fashioned church” is different from the next person’s.

So I think some of what we really mean when we talk about singing hymns is standing together and hearing each other sing about God. It’s not like being at a concert; it’s hearing from our neighbors. It’s hearing from my dad, and my kid, and my third-grade teacher over there, and my neighbor, and the guy I don’t like, and the person I don’t know.

Sometimes they need to hear me, and sometimes I need to hear them. Sometimes I’m fully believing it, and sometimes I’m coming in asking them, “Please help me believe it.” Sometimes as I hear my friends sing it, I realize I needed to know that they believe it, because that helps me know that I believe it.

That’s what we’re talking about: carrying each other. It’s not necessarily even that we’re wanting an old-fashioned song. I think it’s that we’re wanting the experience of just being together and hearing one another, walking side by side. In our culture, there’s so much noise. We don’t hear each other anymore.

- More from Kelsey Kramer McGinnis

Church Life

Can an E-Book App Address a Theological Resources Gap?

Christina Stanton

Churches, ministries, seminaries, and universities around the world struggle to access Christian material. BiblioTech wants to help.

Since Amazon released the Kindle e-reader in 2007, e-books have surged in popularity. But the features that make the technology convenient also hinder its appeal.

Much of the world still has slow or spotty internet service, like the rural Philippines, where American missionary and avid reader Nikki DeMarco Esquivel lives and runs her nonprofit, Mercy House. There, an e-book typically takes more than five hours to download, if it doesn’t fail altogether.

Logistical challenges are also common in Africa, said Philip Hunt, president of Central Africa Baptist University in Zambia. While urban areas may have internet access, many people lack smartphones to connect to it. With more than 60 percent of Zambians making less than $2.15 a day, buying iPads or dedicated e-readers is both difficult and costly. Additionally, many Zambians don’t have bank accounts, making e-payments impossible.

South African pastor Samuel Ndima recalled his seminary days when popular library books were often unavailable, forcing up to six students to share a single book for assignments. He noted that a new, high-quality laptop from brands like Dell or HP can cost around 8,000 rand (roughly $440 USD)—nearly twice the average monthly income in his community, where few can afford broadband internet.

E-books could alleviate these situations, including Ndima’s current need for Bible study material for small groups at his Baptist church in the Western Cape.

Scholar Leaders, an organization that invests in theological leaders across the globe, works to overcome the obstacles that hinder widespread e-book access, especially to Christian publications.

Last year, the ministry launched BiblioTech, an initiative it hopes will allow more Majority World Christians to access publications and journals that would otherwise be too costly or hard to access. The partnership with US Christian publishers such as Baker, Eerdmans, Langham, Fortress, Crossway, WJK, Regnum, and InterVarsity gives seminaries in poorer countries access to commentaries and pastoral training resources via a mobile app.

As it embarked on the project, Scholar Leaders first had to address publishers’ concerns over digital piracy. This often occurs when readers legally buy e-books but then pass them along to others for free. Many of the protections that publishers try to install, such as digital rights management (DRM) software, can be overridden or removed within minutes with instructions that can easily be found online.

“The ease of digital file sharing in Eastern Europe, combined with less established intellectual property norms, leads to widespread unauthorized distribution,” said Polish publisher Aleksander Saško Nezamutdinov. “When one customer shares an e-book, we permanently lose multiple potential sales.”

Alfonso Triviño, CEO of Spain’s largest Protestant publishing house, said he has been dismayed to find full PDF versions of books from Christian publishers circulated widely on digital apps and even loaded into the portals of some churches.

BiblioTech uses advanced encryption technology in its DRM software to curb piracy. That level of protection has increased publishers’ confidence in BiblioTech, said Scott Watson, director of acquisitions at Scholar Leaders’ Theological Book Network.

Programmers also had to create a “lite” tool that would work on lower-end devices in places without reliable internet connections. BiblioTech has an app for Android phones and tablets and Windows and Mac computers. Its iPhone app is still in development.

“If it were easy, someone would have done it already,” said Watson.

BiblioTech incorporates machine translation on the platform for Spanish and Portuguese readers and is working on integrating French. Other languages, including Arabic, Hindi, Chinese, Russian, German, and Korean, may be added in the future. To build out these language features, Watson said, designers had to incorporate “user-friendly machine translation into the app” while protecting the translated literature from becoming fodder for large language models, a type of artificial intelligence, which would violate the authors’ intellectual property rights.

Using machine translation—rather than professional human translation—required the BiblioTech team to weigh its commitment to literary excellence in relation to the needs of the Majority World church. Professional human translation provides advantages, especially in the nuanced and specialized contexts of theological literature. But because of the high cost of professional human translation and the need to apply those high costs across each work that is being translated, machine translation will still have a tremendous impact with regard to accessibility for BiblioTech’s partners.

Despite the hurdles, Watson has been encouraged by the positive reactions from publishers and partners in software development.

“It’s obvious that all these friends really do share a fundamental missional commitment: They want to get good Christian literature into the hands of under-resourced pastors worldwide,” he said. “I feel like we’re all in this together … which is how kingdom work should be.”

BiblioTech is being tested with Scholar Leaders’ partner schools in Sri Lanka, Guatemala, Philippines, Lebanon, Nigeria, Palestine, Ethiopia, Ivory Coast, Ukraine, India, Egypt, and Brazil and will be available to additional schools later this year.

The program’s success with supplying e-books to theological education centers gives Esquivel much hope. A large part of her nonprofit focuses on education and illiteracy. She believes that accessing these materials would help students break out of generational poverty—and also encourage her team.

“[My] staff would learn to better understand God’s Word,” she said, “and live it out more effectively in our roles as ministry leaders.”

- More from Christina Stanton

Give Today

Share

recommended

related

Share

Related

Share

Share

Related

Share

related

related

Share

Related

Share

Share

Related

Share

related

related

Talking about baptism

related

related

Adoption by a heavenly Father

related

The many gifts of baptism

related

related

The good news of baptism

Share

Related

Share

Hanging with the ‘big boys’

Weary and unfulfilled

Healing behind bars

‘Walk with me, Son’

Share

Related

Share

Share

Related

Share

Share

Related

Share

Share

Related

Share

Share

Related