Oldest-Known Hymn Inspires New Worship Song

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

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

Courtesy of The First Hymn movie

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

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

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

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

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

Courtesy of The First Hymn movie

Chris Tomlin, Ben Fielding, and John Dickson

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Courtesy of The First Hymn movie

Oxyrhynchus excavation site in Egypt

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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News

Wire Story

How the Catholic Church Will Pick the Next Pope

Mathew Schmalz – The Conversation

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

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

Maurix / Getty

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

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

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

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

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

The conclave begins

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

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

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

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

The voting process

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Room of Tears

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

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

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

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

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

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

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History

Nailing Down the Truth of Christ’s Crucifixion

Daniel Silliman

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

iStock / Getty Images Plus

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

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

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

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

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Ideas

The Limits of Open Letters

Myles Werntz

Contributor

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Theology

The Raging Sea Is More Than a Symbol of Chaos

Elia Maggang

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

정규송 Nui Malama / Pexels

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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News

The Christian and Jewish Israelis Protecting West Bank Palestinians

Jill Nelson

As settler violence increases in the West Bank, a night-watch group guards Bedouin homes from intruders.

A home and farmland damaged by Israeli settlers who trespassed and vandalized property in the West Bank.

Marcus Yam / Contributor / Getty

Jonathan Pex is concerned about his Palestinian Bedouin neighbors in the West Bank’s South Hebron Hills.

They’re sheepherders who live in an expansive cave outfitted with solar electricity, ten minutes from Pex’s home. The region has seen an uptick in Israeli settler violence against Palestinians since the October 2023 Hamas attacks, and the Palestinian family is afraid they may be next on the settlers’ hit list, as they’ve had several disputes with their neighbors over grazing rights.

So Pex, a Jewish Israeli Christian, packed a small bag and drove from his home near the border of the West Bank to Abu Shchade’s property for an overnight stay in late March. Through a friend’s invitation, he had joined a local night-watch group made up of several dozen Israelis who are on call to help local Palestinians concerned about extremist settler violence.

After a simple dinner of rice with sheep’s milk, sliced tomatoes, and flatbread with olive oil, Pex set up the sleeping mat and blanket the Bedouin women provided and joined two other Israeli “night guards” in a strategic location outside the cave.

“I’m going to do whatever I can to support them,” Pex said. “Jesus would have really had a heart for these people.”

Pex said the attacks often happen at night. During past night watches at the homes of Bedouins, a seminomadic people originally from the Negev desert, he encountered some young men who had sneaked onto their property to cut water pipes and destroy solar panels. Settlers take in troubled youth and send them out to terrorize their Palestinian neighbors, Pex said.

Sometimes the attacks are far worse than property damage.

In late March, dozens of extremist settlers assaulted a group of Palestinians in the village of Jinba, also in the South Hebron Hills. Three of the victims needed medical care, including a 16-year-old Palestinian boy with a severe head injury. Local authorities arrested more than 20 Palestinians but no settlers in the wake of the attack. Pex noted that this was a common trend.

An attack last August involved more than 100 masked settlers who torched houses and cars in the northern West Bank city of Jit and killed a Palestinian man. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the attack but has done little to curb settler violence and stop the expansion of illegal settlements. Israeli human rights groups claim indictments against settlers are rare.

Close to half a million settlers—Israelis with an even split of ultra-Orthodox, secular, and religious nationalist beliefs—live among 3 million Palestinians in the West Bank. After Israel captured the West Bank from Jordan during the 1967 war, it began building Israeli communities among the Palestinian population, an endeavor that has accelerated over time.

The International Court of Justice considers all settlements in the West Bank illegal, but Israel claims its 141 government-sanctioned settlements are necessary for Israel’s national security and legal as they are built on “legitimately acquired land which did not belong to a previous lawful sovereign and which was designated as part of the Jewish State under the League of Nations Mandate,” according to Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Most Israelis who move to the settlements believe Israel has a historical or religious claim to the territory.

Photography by Jill Nelson

An outside view (top) and an inside view (bottom) of a Bedouin house in the South Hebron Hills.

More than 200 of the settler outposts are considered illegal, even under Israeli law. Some far-right settlers wear partial Israeli military uniforms, posing as ruling authorities and committing acts of violence.

Some extremist settlers want to prevent a future Palestinian state in the territory, so they turn to violence and threats to scare Palestinians away and take over their property. Since the war began, uniformed settlers have increasingly patrolled beyond their settlements and attacked Palestinians. The United Nations counted more than 1,800 settler attacks between October 2023 and the beginning of this year.

The Biden administration in February 2024 imposed sanctions on settlers accused of violence or the destruction of property. (The sanctions also applied to Palestinians who harm their neighbors.) The Trump administration scrapped the sanctions in January.

“[The extremist settlers] have done many bad things in the name of the army and with the equipment of the army,” said Noam Oren, a Jewish Israeli farmer who lives just outside the West Bank. He is also part of the night-watch group, and sometimes Palestinians also call him during the day with reports of trouble.

A year ago, a Bedouin Palestinian called him when settlers brought a herd of sheep to his property to eat from his barley pile, just 50 yards from his home. Oren said settlers also let their sheep drink from Bedouin rainwater tanks, and sometimes they spoil the water by adding oil.

Oren called the police and drove to his friend’s home to confront the settlers—a decision he now acknowledges may not have been wise. As Oren approached the men, he said one threw a rock at his face while another shot his gun in the air. Oren tackled the man who had hit him with a rock and held him down until the other man put his gun down.

When Oren released the settler, the settler began throwing rocks again while the other man made a phone call. Five minutes later, 20 more uniformed settlers came onto the property and tackled him. The police officer eventually arrived and interviewed all parties involved.

Photography by Jonathan Pex

A herd of sheep owned by the Abu Shchade family in the South Hebron Hills.

Oren showed the officer his injuries and video evidence from his phone that proved the settler had started the fight, but he learned weeks later that the officer still sided with the settlers in his report. “This is how it works,” Oren said.

Oren filed a separate report in the West Bank city of Hebron, and his case is still pending. The settler brought charges against Oren but eventually dropped them after Oren presented his evidence to regional authorities.

Pex said it’s common for settlers to provoke Palestinians, and as soon as a Palestinian loses patience and reacts, the settler calls that person a terrorist and files charges. “Usually it’s just a poor Palestinian herder,” he said. Many Palestinians have added security cameras to their properties so they have a chance at proving their innocence.

Pex is concerned that many of his Israeli friends, even those with left-leaning views, haven’t had compassion for Arabs since the Hamas attacks. But he believes the recent escalation in violence has raised awareness about the lack of justice in parts of the West Bank. He is considering hosting tours in the South Hebron Hills so Israelis who are afraid to visit these areas alone have an opportunity to meet the Bedouin population suffering from these attacks.

“It makes me sad that a lot of Christians support Israel at all costs,” Pex said. He pointed to Jesus’ words in the Beatitudes, “Blessed are the meek,” as instructive for Christian interactions with suffering populations.

Pex didn’t sleep much during his night watch at Abu Shchade’s property—the dogs, chickens, and sheep were noisy—but he’s glad he went. The settlers kept their distance, and he hopes the somewhat regular presence of his group will be a deterrent. In the morning, the family served him fresh eggs, cream cheese, and bread.

“It was really quite an experience,” Pex said. “They’re sweet, simple people who live with hardly any running water, and all of this really breaks my heart.”

- More from Jill Nelson

News

Died: Pope Francis, Friend to Evangelicals

Franco Iacomini

The Roman Catholic leader “built bridges on the foundation of relationships” with Protestant ministers in Argentina.

Edits by CT / Source Images: Vatican Pool, Getty

From his hospital bed in Rome, Pope Francis challenged Christians to “transform evil into goodness and build a fraternal world.” The pope, struggling with a lung infection, said, “Do not be afraid to take risks for love!”

One of the risks that the Argentine Jesuit born Jorge Mario Bergoglio was always willing to take was the risk of friendship with evangelicals.

“He was a person of relations,” Alejandro Rodríguez, president of Youth With A Mission (YWAM) Argentina, told Christianity Today. “He respected the institutions but built bridges on the foundation of relationships.”

Francis died on Monday at the age of 88 after 12 years as head of the Roman Catholic Church. He was at home, in the Saint Martha House, after spending five weeks in the Agostino Gemelli University Hospital in Rome.

Catholics around the world are mourning the loss. And in Argentina, Christian leaders who did not follow Francis and do not recognize papal authority are, nonetheless, mourning too.

“I am not ecumenical; we Christians are not all part of the same group,” Rodríguez said. And yet, he noted, “When we were together, we were not the pope and the pastor. We were Jorge and Alejandro.”

The YWAM director first met Francis more than 20 years ago, when Francis was called Cardinal Bergoglio and served the church as the archbishop of Buenos Aires. At the time, Rodríguez was working with Centro Nacional de Oración (Center for National Prayer), located in front of the Casa Rosada, the presidential palace, in Buenos Aires.

The cardinal asked to meet for coffee, and Rodríguez used the opportunity to critique the Catholic church.

“You are always pointing out that the rulers are doing poorly,” he told Bergoglio. “But every leader in this country has always been educated and influenced by the Catholic church.”

Why did Bergoglio think that was?

Rodríguez went ahead and gave him his explanation: “The Catholic church has been the most corrupt institution in Latin American history.”

The cardinal’s answer surprised Rodríguez. Bergoglio said, “You’re right,” and then a few minutes later he asked the evangelical critic of the Catholic church to pray for him.

It was the beginning of a long friendship that continued even after Bergoglio went to Rome in 2013 and became Francis. In his 12 years as head of the Catholic church, he would never return to Argentina. The pontiff would call the YWAM director and ask for his advice on issues involving Latin America, or the war in Ukraine, or Protestants generally. Francis would also confide in him, Rodríguez said, and discuss his struggles dealing with the internal politics of the Vatican.

Francis seemed to enjoy his evangelical Argentinian friends. Marcelo Figueroa, a Presbyterian who headed Argentine Bible Society, told CT that occasionally the pope would ask him his views on something, but much of their relationship was more personal.

“We laughed a lot,” Figueroa said. “He is a good porteño”—a person from Buenos Aires.

The two men originally connected as cohosts, along with rabbi Abraham Skorka, of a weekly TV show called Biblia: Diálogo Vigente. It ran from 2010 to 2013, going off the air when Bergoglio was made pope. It was a professional relationship, but they became friends drinking coffee and chatting on public transportation. They stayed in touch, and in some ways the relationship even grew deeper.

In March 2015, Francis called Figueroa to wish him a happy birthday, and he asked him about his health. “I said, ‘Well, I’ll have a biopsy,’” Figueroa recalled, “‘but it will be no big deal.’”

He was wrong. He was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive type of skin cancer. Figueroa wrote to the pope to tell him and ask for prayer.

“He called me the moment he opened the letter,” Figueroa said. “He also called my wife when I was in surgery. One day he was leaving for an event on Holy Week and said, ‘I don’t want to leave without knowing how you are.’”

Figueroa recovered, to the surprise of his doctors, and Francis appointed him to be editor of the official Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, in Argentina. He is the first Protestant in that position.

It may have been Francis’ ecumenical theology that led him to these relationships. While he certainly embraced the traditional Catholic teaching that there is only one church—the catholic, or universal, church—he also looked at Christians who were not in communion at Rome and, in some mysterious way, saw God at work.

“The Holy Spirit creates diversity in the Church,” Francis said a 2014 speech. “But then, the same Holy Spirit creates unity, and this way the Church is one in diversity. And, to use a beautiful word of an Evangelist whom I love very much, a diversity reconciled by the Holy Spirit.”

Or perhaps, more simply, it was Francis’ humility that allowed him, as head of the Catholic church, to be such good friends with evangelicals who did not acknowledge his authority.

Humility was one of the hallmarks of his papacy. In his first public words after he became pope, Francis made a joke about how unlikely it was to have a pope from Argentina. “You know that the duty of the conclave was to give a bishop to Rome,” he said. “It seems that my brother cardinals went almost to the end of the world to get him.”

Then he asked people to pray for him. Usually, the pope is the one who prays for the crowd, not the one who requests the prayers of regular people. Vatican observers said the change was “unprecedented and shocking.”

Francis also just valued friendship. In his apostolic exhortation Christus Vivit, he argued that friendship is a gift from God and serves to sanctify us.

“Through our friends,” he wrote, “the Lord refines us and leads us to maturity.”

In another exhortation, Querida Amazonia (Beloved Amazon), he called on Catholics to be “open to the multiplicity of gifts that the Holy Spirit bestows on every one.”

Francis’ friendly interactions with evangelicals occasionally caused some consternation among his fellow Catholics. In 2014, for example, just a year after his consecration, Francis said he wanted to go to Chiesa Evangelica Della Riconciliazione (Evangelical Church of the Reconciliation), in Caserta, Italy. He knew the pastor, Giovanni Traettino, from a religious dialogue a dozen years before in Argentina. They were friends—and besides, it would be the first time a pope had ever visited a Pentecostal church.

The local bishop objected. The day of the planned visit, he noted, was the feast day of Caserta’s patron saints, Joachim and Anne. It would cause a scandal if the pope visited on the special day only to go see the Protestants.

Francis conceded the point, visiting the Catholics in Caserta and going to see the Pentecostals a few days later. When he met with Traettino and 350 evangelicals, though, he also asked for their forgiveness for the Catholics who had condemned them over the years.

His humility won the praise of international evangelist Luis Palau, who called him a friend and “a very Jesus Christ-centered man.”

Since the pope’s passing, millions around the world have echoed that sentiment, remembering Francis as a model Christian and a shepherd to his flock. It reminded Rodríguez, the YWAM director, of a conversation they had years ago. He told the future pope that real shepherds live with their sheep and that they’re around them so much they have the same smell as their flock.

“A pastor,” Rodríguez remembers saying, “must have the odor of the sheep.”

Francis was so touched by the metaphor that he would repeat it years later in a homily in his first Chrism Mass.

“This tells a lot about his humility,” Rodríguez said.

Francis thought of himself as a shepherd with his sheep, not set above them. And he believed in taking risks to reach people—even evangelicals.

- More from Franco Iacomini

Inkwell Gatherings Provide A Much-Needed Space for Christian Creatives

“I saw firsthand the value of gathering Christ-centered artists and dreamers.”

Morgan Lee

Meegan Dobson

One Friday night last May, Grace Pike was finalizing the details for a Christianity Today Inkwell event that would shortly bring over 200 people to a space in downtown Colorado Springs. While she prepped, one of the evening’s guest artists, writer and photographer Lancia E. Smith, approached her, and the two connected in person for the first time.

They marveled at Inkwell and its unique ability to bring together Christian writers, artists, and creatives. Smith enthusiastically took Pike’s hands and shared her belief that the impact of Inkwell would extend far beyond that night.

“She expressed a strong sense that the Lord was doing something in the art community of Colorado Springs,” Pike recalled.

Inkwell is part of Christianity Today’s Next Gen Initiative, which aims to advance a captivating vision of following Jesus for the next generation. Inkwell has several offerings in addition to Inkwell Evenings—Inkwell Online (formerly Ekstasis); Inkwell Annual, a print edition; and Inkwell Local, a network of ongoing local gatherings. For Christians like Grace, Inkwell has been an invaluable community.

“It was a joy to come alongside my community in cultivating a space where Christians could celebrate the beauty, truth, and goodness reflected in the arts—all with the aim of glorifying the Lord,” she said.

Nearly a year after the event, which also featured musician Joel Ansett; photographers Venson Chapman, Meegan Dobson, and Maddy Montoya; and writers Amy Baik Lee, Soren Johnson, Alyssa Shikles, and Nicole Hunka, Pike remembers the audience lingering afterward, energized by the discovery of fellow Christians committed to their crafts. Many approached her, offering their email addresses or business cards, eager to know when the next Inkwell gathering would be and how they could stay connected beyond the event.

“Some artists in that room have since displayed their work around the city, thanks to the connections they made,” she said. “Others have been inspired to create art drawn from the experience.”

A native of Alabama, Pike hadn’t lived in Colorado Springs for long when she offered to host Inkwell. She had previously volunteered with Ekstasis, which was founded by Conor Sweetman and later acquired by Christianity Today. Inkwell first appeared on Pike’s radar after a seminary friend mentioned making a submission.

Pike later published her own poetry and soon became an Inkwell ambassador. In November 2023, she attended the Renaissance Conference in London alongside Sweetman and other volunteers.

“I saw firsthand the value of gathering Christ-centered artists and dreamers,” she wrote on LinkedIn later. “I didn’t know how or when, but I knew I wanted to work towards creating that opportunity for my community in Colorado.”

A couple of months later, she met with eight other creatives, many representing different churches, to pray about organizing an Inkwell event in Colorado Springs. The group continued to regularly meet to pray, plan, and worship leading up to the event. After setting the date, Sweetman realized it would overlap with the C. S. Lewis Writer’s Conference, a gathering for people who would also enjoy Inkwell, and invited its keynote speakers to participate.

“An in-person gathering like Inkwell offers a rare and sacred opportunity,” she said. “It brings together creativity, collaboration, and a shared focus on what is true and lasting. In that space, something happens—an environment is formed where people can come, partake, and delight together. It heals. It gives hope.”

That evening, the essay and poetry readings echoed with a quiet strength, many reflecting on God’s power to mend and renew, to bring flourishing out of suffering.

“Suffering wears on the soul,” Pike reflected. “It can feel like we forget to lift our eyes. There’s so much brokenness, so much that is not as it should be. And yet, when we come alongside one another and say, ‘There are still stories that are good and true—stories that reflect the great Story, the gospel,’ something shifts. Hope finds a foothold. And that’s the kind of good Christianity Today is nurturing here.”

Much of the art showcased at Inkwell captured Colorado’s natural beauty. Inspired by a photographer’s capture of evergreens, one attendee has since crafted a series of textile works proclaiming God’s glory through general revelation. Another attendee is currently working on a video project addressing mental health in the Church.

Pike is passionate about in-person connections rooted in community and is eager to see these sparks of inspiration grow into something sustainable in the coming year, such as monthly Inkwell Community gatherings. Though the past year has been full, including planning and celebrating her wedding, she has stayed in touch with many of her co-organizers, and they hope to launch something formally this summer or fall.

“While preparing for Inkwell and in the days since,” she said, “I’ve reflected on one of my favorite quotes from Conor: ‘As humans, God has embedded a hunger for beauty in our spirit, and we will satisfy it one way or another. As God’s people, we should prepare and host the feast.’”

Ideas

The Silicon Calf

A.G. Elrod

The rush toward artificial general intelligence reveals our age-old impulse to create tangible “gods” with power over uncertainty.

Illustration by Chris Gash

Deliverance from evil is not deliverance from uncertainty. Even in times of peace and plenty and even with the assurance of God’s providence and love, we feel the weight of the unknown every day and often struggle under its burden. On our best days, faith and hope carry us. In our darker moments, they fail us—or we fail them—and we find ourselves flailing in the winds of change.

The human struggle with uncertainty is a very old story that’s been told and retold for many years and in many ways. It is integral to the biblical account of the Exodus: The Israelites were enslaved by the Egyptians, and God appointed Moses to deliver them. They left Egypt behind, crossed the miraculously parted Red Sea, and entered the desert, journeying under God’s guidance.

But at Sinai, when Moses went up the mountain to hear from God, his prolonged absence created uncertainty. The people grew impatient. They decided that an intangible God—one they could not see or control—was not as desirable as a tangible, reliable idol made with their own hands. “Come, make us a god who will go before us,” they said to Moses’ brother, Aaron (Ex. 32:1, NASB). With his help, they fashioned a golden calf and begin to worship it, choosing a shiny certainty over the God who had led them out of Egypt.

Those of us who have served as pastors or led Bible studies know the questions this story commonly invites: How could they reject God after he delivered them from slavery? How could they forget the miracles they’d just seen?

The unfortunate answer is that they were like us—we are like them. This longing for certainty is part of the human condition. And the experience of uncertainty, which is a constant in a fallen world even for those who follow God, demands a measure of faith. If we’re honest with ourselves, we know that sometimes our faith wanes.

We may truly believe that “what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal,” but it can still be difficult to “fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen” (2 Cor. 4:18). In moments of uncertainty, we too turn to gods our senses can grasp. We have our own golden calves.

Last December, OpenAI (the company behind ChatGPT) announced its newest frontier model, o3, to a flurry of reviews that ranged from optimistic awe to foreboding unease. The release amplified debate around the idea of artificial general intelligence (AGI)—a debate that has further accelerated in the months since, fueled by additional announcements from OpenAI competitors like the Chinese company DeepSeek, which in January released its R1 reasoning model.

At present, AGI is only the hypothetical idea of a powerful form of artificial intelligence capable of understanding, learning, and performing any intellectual task a human can. But for companies including OpenAI, AGI is a very real goal. Indeed, OpenAI’s stated mission is “to ensure that artificial general intelligence—AI systems that are generally smarter than humans—benefits all of humanity.”

For some, the prospect of AGI portends doom on an existential scale, conjuring fears of scenarios like those depicted in The Terminator or 2001: A Space Odyssey, where AI surpasses and subjugates humanity. But others, like futurist Ray Kurzweil in his 2024 book The Singularity Is Nearer, welcome AGI with religious optimism and fervor, envisioning a utopian future where AGI eradicates disease, ends poverty, and merges with humans, endowing us with superhuman abilities to solve currently unsolvable challenges, mortality included.

In that optimistic vision, AGI would make us like gods. But both extremes have an almost-theological texture—a sort of 21st-century eschatology—each grounded in its own form of faith.

I suspect this is telling of something deeper than our culture’s penchant for end-times thinking. It cuts to the heart of our thoughts about and desires concerning God (or gods “who will go before us”). It is a reiteration of the ethos that necessitated the first commandment, “You shall have no other gods before me” (Ex. 20:3). It reflects our drive to find (or seize or make) meaning, power, and control in a world that seems more unpredictable every day.

Just as the children of Israel were too impatient to wait for a God beyond their control, so are we still striving to create a tangible god through whom we can deliver ourselves from uncertainty. The hope of AGI is a modern golden calf, crafted to guide us through increasingly complex societal, scientific, and existential challenges.

If that seems like hyperbole, listen to AGI enthusiasts’ own words. Last November, Masayoshi Son (CEO, SoftBank) said, “Artificial super intelligence will evolve into Super Wisdom and contribute to the happiness of all humanity.”

In October of 2024, Demis Hassabis (CEO, Google DeepMind) predicted that AGI will emerge within ten years and, among other fantastical things, will “cure all diseases.” In January, he upgraded this projection to five years.

Also in January, Sam Altman (CEO, OpenAI) spoke of his company’s contribution to “the glorious future.”

In February, immediately following the AI Action Summit in Paris, Dario Amodei (CEO of the AI company Anthropic) portended that by “2026 or 2027,” we will likely have AI systems comparable to a “country of geniuses in a datacenter.”

And if there was any doubt about the religious overtones of this discussion, French president Emmanuel Macron invoked the rebuilding of the Notre-Dame cathedral as a symbol for an initiative to construct the sort of data centers that would be required for the housing of AGI.

For all the technological trappings, these expectations—hopes—for AGI are anything but objective scientific inquiry. These comments read to me as the makings of a new religion from an ancient impulse: a silicon calf, a god with power over uncertainty, and a god humans can control.

Recognizing this movement for what it is will be necessary to put AGI in its proper place. This technology may well benefit humanity in incredible ways. Rejecting this religious embrace of it need not result in all-out rejection of real benefits. If AGI contributed to a treatment to eliminate cancer, I would not reject that treatment because of its source.

But that kind of wonder is not the only way a paradigmatic disruptive technology like this may be used, and Christians are uniquely positioned to draw attention to the more complicated and, yes, uncertain reality here. We are well equipped to speak to the need for faith in the changeless God who is “the same yesterday and today and forever” (Heb. 13:8). We are positioned to offer the only true solution to life’s uncertainty.

Just as the Israelites had to learn that no golden calf could replace the presence of God, so must we recognize that even the most advanced AI systems cannot grant us the certainty we crave. Our identity, hope, and future belong ultimately and only to Christ. Rightly engaging with technology—avoiding the open idolatry of some AGI boosters today—requires us to honor the God who liberates us from bondage to every idol, ancient or modern, and invites us into a Canaan of genuine freedom and flourishing.

A. G. Elrod is a lecturer of English and AI ethics at the HZ University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands. He is also a PhD researcher at Vrije University Amsterdam, exploring the biases of generative AI models and implications of their use for society, culture, and faith.

- More from A.G. Elrod

Church Life

China Closed Christian Bookstores. Digital Publishing Grew in the Vacuum.

Eva Chou

As Christian books struggle to get published, ministries offer free e-books to equip the church.

Note: All the names of Chinese Christians have been changed in this article as sources risk imprisonment and fines for their involvement in this work.

Over the Chinese New Year holiday, David Fang, a Beijing house church pastor, organized an online book club. For 23 days, the 20 members of the club gathered on a video call where Fang would read one chapter of the Chinese translation of Dane Ortlund’s Gentle and Lowly before leading a discussion on the reading.

One woman in her 50s who joined the club said she had been feeling burnt out from serving at church, as conflicts had arisen between her and other church members. She had begun to withdraw from her ministry commitments.

Yet as she read the book, she said, her heart softened. Jesus understands sinners because his heart is merciful and gentle, Ortlund wrote. Believers are called to imitate him. Convicted, she called members of her church and sought reconciliation.

“Seeing the heart of Jesus for the sinner and the needy, I was deeply touched by the love of Jesus Christ,” she said. “The bitterness was dissolved, and my heart became gentle and lowly.”

The Chinese translation of Gentle and Lowly used by the book club has not been published in China and can’t be found in any physical bookstores. Instead, the Christian organization Living Stone offered the e-book as a free download, and from there, it was widely shared among the Chinese Christian community. (CT changed the name of Living Stone to protect it from being shut down by the government.)

Under China’s increasingly strict book-publishing system, fewer and fewer Christian books—translated or not—pass censors and obtain the government-issued ISBNs (International Standard Book Numbers) required for books to be sold in the country. To combat the lack of high-quality Christian literature, groups like Living Stone now produce e-books as PDF, EPUB, and MOBI files and disseminate them online.

Although online Christian publishers risk getting shut down and struggle to make a profit, they believe these books are vital in growing China’s churches, so they plan to continue adapting as policies change.

“The external environment may force us to change our format, but it will not diminish people’s spiritual needs,” said a former bookseller at Baojiayin, China’s biggest online Christian book retailer. “Instead, it will ignite an even greater need for the gospel.”

It wasn’t always the case that Christian books were hard to find in China. In the early 2000s, Chinese Christian publishing houses experienced a brief period of growth when Christian bookstores had brick-and-mortar establishments that legally published translated books by authors like Rick Warren, John Stott, and John Piper. Between 2012 and 2013, more than 300 Christian bookstores existed in China, according to the former Baojiayin employee.

Yet beginning in 2013, the government began to crack down on the industry, shuttering bookstores, sealing warehouses, and suspending online bookstores. In one prominent case, a court in Zhejiang sentenced Chen Yu, the owner of Xiaomai (“Wheat”) Bookstore, to seven years in prison in 2020 and fined him more than $27,000 Authorities destroyed nearly 13,000 of his books.

Today, only ten Christian booksellers are left, a majority of them publishing Reformed authors. Last year, the most established Christian publisher managed to publish only four printed books. The authors who made the cut: Tim Keller, James K. A. Smith, David Naugle, and the first-century Jewish historian Josephus.

Only state-owned publishers can apply for ISBNs, so private publishing companies must collaborate with them. Since Chinese president Xi Jinping came into power in 2013, the government began enforcing a law cracking down on the distribution of books that contradict the Chinese Communist Party.

Christian publishers only pitch books they think can be approved by the censors at their state-owned publishing partners. Many of those are rejected during the content review. Books that make it through the process and get published still aren’t safe: Authorities can ban them from being sold or destroy them for unexplained reasons.

Since 2018, the government has significantly reduced the number of ISBNs it gives out, a change that came after the Central Propaganda Department began overseeing the country’s publishing industry. This reduction increased competition among manuscripts, so books that are not profitable or cover sensitive topics—such as religious books—rarely get published.

Even the government-run State Administration for Religious Affairs and the China Christian Council, the only legally recognized Bible publishers in China, have recently stopped selling Bibles online. A search for “Bible” on major online bookstores like Dangdang, Taobao, JD, and Weidian led to zero matches.

Yet Living Stone is still equipping believers with resources. In the past decade, it has translated and created digital copies of more than 100 theological books, including works by D. A. Carson, Sinclair Ferguson, and Jen Wilkin. Currently, it offers 75 free e-books, 20 printed books, and 27 audiobooks, with permission from the original publishers.

Most of the books on its website focus on practical topics such as pastoral work, discipleship, parenting, and spiritual formation. Many house churches share these e-books with church members or use them in book studies for their leaders or congregations.

For instance, the pastor of a Reformed house church in Shanghai said he gives away one or two copies of Mark Dever’s What Is a Healthy Church? and Thabiti M. Anyabwile’s What Is a Healthy Church Member? to his church members every Sunday. He sees the books, which he prints out himself, as supplemental to his church’s current adult Sunday school series on ecclesiology, or the theology of the church.

“Chinese house churches are very weak in ecclesiology and even overlook this important doctrine,” Chen said. “This series of books has solid theology and is easy to understand, making them very suitable for congregations without formal theological training.”

Most Christian publishers focus on translating foreign books, as house church pastors and theologians in China often don’t see publishing as a viable option—they fear persecution for penning books, don’t have time to devote to it, or feel like the “younger brother” in global Christianity and question whether they have much to contribute, said Hannah Nation, cofounder of the Center for House Church Theology. Those who do write book-length treatments often unofficially share their work online.

Living Stone’s director, Lawrence Lau, never expected to get into Christian publishing. In 2007, Lau returned to China from studying abroad, hoping to become an e-commerce entrepreneur. Yet through Christian friends and sermons, he felt God reminding him to “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness” (Matt. 6:33, ESV) instead of following his own professional dreams. He remembers finally acquiescing and telling God, “I am willing to obey whatever you want me to do.”

Living Stone started as a traditional Christian publishing company before going completely online in 2020. Today, Living Stone’s e-books, which do not have Chinese ISBN numbers, are mostly offered for free or low prices to make them accessible to the church. To pay translators and staff, publishers sell online courses on how to be faithful stewards or on marriage and raise support from churches.

E-books more easily skirt Chinese censors than physical copies do and are easier to disseminate. The format is also gaining popularity in China as more and more people read on e-readers, phones, and tablets. A 2023 National Reading Report found that the average Chinese adult reads three to four e-books per year, with 10 percent reading ten or more e-books annually.

Living Stone isn’t the only Christian organization turning to digital products. WeDevote Book, one of the largest Chinese Christian e-book platforms based outside China, has more than 2,000 titles available. Domestic Christian publishing organizations have also released many e-books over the years, covering topics and genres such as exegesis, marriage, devotionals, and biographies. Some of these books were previously available in print but were banned, later returning in e-book format.

Living Stone also offers audiobooks, book studies, podcasts, and articles. In the past few years, its website has received visitors from 100 countries. Lau said it is reaching the Chinese diaspora who need Chinese-language Christian books.

“Although our publishing environment is difficult, I feel the needs of a broader audience,” Lau said. “When I communicate with overseas brothers and sisters, I find that they have abundant English book resources … while the supply of Chinese Christian book resources is far less rich than that in mainland China.”

A translator for Living Stone noted that, growing up in a rural house church, he often heard Christians ask, “If you can’t understand the Bible, why read other books?”

However, he had questions about the faith that he couldn’t find answers to by reading the Bible. For instance, through reading R. C. Sproul’s The Holiness of God, he understood for the first time that he could not win God’s favor through good deeds or draw near to God’s holiness apart from Christ.

He said many of his questions have been answered during the translation process, and his understanding of Christ continues to deepen.

Over the past two years, he has translated 11 theological works for Living Stone and frequently shares book recommendations with his Christian friends. “Every time I receive a new book to translate, I feel particularly happy,” he said. “Not only can I support my family through this, but I can also learn theological knowledge.”

After the translation team finishes their manuscripts, Living Stone must send the work to overseas e-book platforms because it cannot obtain publication permits in China. China’s Great Firewall blocks most of these platforms, making it difficult for domestic users to access them.

Living Stone has built its own website platform to give Chinese users access without a VPN (virtual private network) to bypass the government’s restrictions, yet at any moment censors could shut them down. Some users have reported network issues while trying to download or purchase books, and others have experienced issues with making payments.

Organizations like Living Stone also face a shortage of translators and editors who have knowledge of literature, history, and philosophy—and also a solid theological foundation. The translator who has been in the industry for a decade still feels his translation skills fall short of Living Stone’s standards. He spends his free time taking courses to fill the gaps in his theological knowledge.

Today, Lau noted, urban house churches are in great need of pastoral resources, as the COVID-19 pandemic caused churches to break up into smaller groups and meet in homes. This has resulted in a lack of leaders.

“Books can play the role of teachers and advisers,” Lau said. “Even by reading a book together, churches can achieve unity on certain issues. It is regrettable and frustrating that we cannot legally publish in the country, but if we wait for printed books to be published, we might miss the needs of this period.”

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