The Peace Church that Changed My Life

Anabaptism is 500 years old. Its distinctive witness—on Scripture, community, and more—is a treasure worth defending.

Wikimedia Commons / Edits by CT

I became an Anabaptist because of George W. Bush.

Well, not so much Bush personally—though the former president’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were the context in which I began to grapple with what Jesus said about enemies. But I mostly mean the embrace of Bush and his Republican Party by American evangelical culture in the early 2000s.

Those were God-and-country years, kind of like these. We didn’t hear about “Christian nationalism” back then (the preferred nomenclature was “theocracy” and its variations), and certainly the GOP platform was different than it is today on key points. Bush himself was, in retrospect, a much more conventional figure than the next Republican to hold his office.

But the sense that we evangelicals had an ally in Washington, that there was no real question whom a true Christian would support, that being a good Christian was very closely tied to being a good American, that it was perfectly appropriate to play videos in church services that explicitly likened the sacrifices of American soldiers to the salvific death of Christ—all that was as much in the air in 2004 as in 2024.

Anabaptism, which marks 500 years today, felt like a revelation.

I was first attracted by the tradition’s deep skepticism of politics and power and its simple, obedient reading of biblical commands to peace—a reading reinforced by the testimonies of the early Anabaptists, many of whom were martyred by fellow Christians for their faith. With time, I also came to love and admire Anabaptism’s distinctive prioritization of robust community life and high expectations for ordinary Christians’ knowledge of the Bible.

I spent about a year learning about Anabaptism before a move to a new city gave my husband and me the opportunity to join an Anabaptist church that would eventually become a congregation of Mennonite Church USA (MC USA). Our church had a handful of ethnic Mennonites, people whose families had been in the tradition for generations, in some cases with relatives in the Amish community. But most of the church consisted of people like me: refugees of Bush-era evangelicalism looking for a church that would ask more of us.

We wanted our lives to revolve around church. We wanted a community where living in walking distance of one another and getting together multiple times a week, both for church and just to hang out, would be normal and expected. In our church’s first phase, before I arrived, many members even lived in community houses, eating and gardening together and sharing their resources.

The houses broke up as people started getting married, from which you can infer—if you hadn’t already—that the congregation was overwhelmingly people in our mid-20s. I don’t say that dismissively; we were young but serious, and the influence of the Anabaptist tradition was an orienting force for our enthusiasm.

The first winter there, my husband and I joined both a small group and a sermon discussion group, which meant spending (because we did not have our own building and so worshiped on Sunday evenings) three nights of every week on church. We loved it.

It was sometime after our church had formalized its Anabaptism by joining MC USA that I began to realize we had a problem—and not just our congregation, so far as I could observe, but the larger body.

I’m not interested in besmirching a church that was deeply formative for me and where I still have many dear friends. So instead, I’ll simply say that I think we did an excellent job of fostering the Anabaptist distinctive of thick community life, but we didn’t do such a good job of maintaining our early congregational focus on theology and Scripture. We never stopped preaching the Word, but when a denominational discernment process about gay marriage exposed disagreement in our ranks, it became apparent that many of us had not absorbed the historic Anabaptist view of the Bible as an authoritative rule of Christian life.

This shift was also apparent when I attended a theology conference at the denomination’s flagship seminary with several women from my church. Many of the offerings at this event were baffling. Relatively little would have been recognizable to the founders of our tradition.

One session, burned into my brain, posited that Jesus was transgender. A friend attended to find out what the argument could possibly be; she said the speaker had said that because Jesus had no human father, he could only have an X chromosome, and because he presented as a man, he was therefore trans. As my friend gave this report, I thought I could faintly hear Menno Simons spinning in his grave.

It may come as no surprise that MC USA, though delayed by the pandemic, ultimately voted to change its theology on gay marriage to an affirming stance. More conservative churches have largely left the denomination, forming conferences of their own.

In some cases, the conservatives retain historic Anabaptist distinctives. But in others, they’re slipping away from the tradition’s defining stances on peace and politics, looking increasingly like any other evangelical church. The progressives, too, are dipping into politics, and both camps—as I wrote for The New York Times in 2022—are doing so without the grounding of a theological tradition concerned with how to do that well.

The result, as Anabaptist scholar John Roth wrote at Plough, is that their “political witness” often “basically aligns with the partisan divisions of the broader culture.”

Of course, it’s not as if the future of Anabaptism in the West depends on Americans swayed by the winds of politics and culture. Ultimately, it depends on God, and even humanly speaking, Old Order Mennonites, the Amish, the Bruderhof (the publishers of Plough), and similar traditions remain much as they have for decades or centuries.

But the kind of Anabaptism that was crucial to the growth of my faith as a young adult—distinctive and traditional but not insular or anachronistic—does seem to be in jeopardy here. Its withering would be a great loss.

Though a cross-country move has landed me in an Anglican church for a variety of reasons, I still consider myself an Anabaptist. I realize the forebears of the tradition might disagree, to which I can only say that I aspire to imitate them more than I do.

I hope the movement they started will be robust and vibrant another 500 years hence, if the Lord tarries. I hope it will be available to other Christians, especially young ones, who may be inspired by their model of radical commitment to Christ.

Bonnie Kristian is editorial director of ideas and books at Christianity Today.

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News

Canadian Government Considers Changing Churches’ Tax Status

Adam MacInnis in Nova Scotia

Proposal startles religious groups even in a month of major political upheaval.

An Anglican priest in Toronto prepares for a worship service.

Nick Lachance/Toronto Star via Getty Images

Canadian politics are rarely dramatic. But in the last month, the country has been in a turmoil as finance minister Chrystia Freeland quit hours before she was scheduled to deliver an economic update, amping up the infighting in Canada’s governing Liberal Party and pushing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to announce he will resign after a decade in power. The country is also roiling over the new American president’s proposed 25 percent tariff on Canadian goods and divided over how to respond to Donald Trump’s offhand suggestion that the United States should annex its northern neighbor.

Meanwhile, Canadian Christians were startled by another development: a formal recommendation that the governing party consider taking tax-exempt status away from churches.

The Standing Committee on Finance, which includes representatives from four of Canada’s parties, issued a report in December with 462 recommendations. Item 430 recommends Canada “amend the Income Tax Act to provide a definition of a charity which would remove the privileged status of ‘advancement of religion’ as a charitable purpose.”

In other words, churches should no longer be considered charities, and donations to churches should not be eligible for tax deductions.

“I was kind of surprised that the finance committee thought, Yeah, it’s a good idea. We should do that,” said Levi Minderhoud, policy analyst for the Association for Reformed Political Action Canada.

While Canada has seen a shift away from religious affiliation in recent years, 53 percent of people still identify as Christian, according to the last census. Canadian law is also rooted in British legal tradition, where churches have been classified as charitable organizations for hundreds of years. While tax-exempt status can be seen as a privilege given to Christians, it extends to other religious groups as well and is grounded in the recognition that the government’s authority is limited when it comes to spiritual things.

“The idea [is] that the state isn’t really in charge of the church, doesn’t tax the church in the same way that it gets to tax individual citizens,” Minderhoud said.

Some in the Liberal Party want that to change, though, and are apparently unconcerned with the long-established legal precedent.

Religious groups, including the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada (EFC) and the Canadian Centre for Christian Charities (CCCC), have written to the new finance minister, Dominic LeBlanc, to oppose the idea. LeBlanc, who replaced Freeland and has been seen as a possible replacement for Trudeau, declined to comment for this article.

The Conservative Party—looking ahead to the expected 2025 elections—is assuring religious groups that it will not take away their charitable status.

“The Conservative Party of Canada believes in the freedom of religion,” shadow finance minister Jasraj Singh Hallan told Christianity Today in an email. “We were the only party to oppose this measure. … So it becomes clear that we need an election to get a Common Sense Conservative government elected to protect religious freedom.”

The Conservative Party is currently leading in the polls by more than 20 points. Most observers think the Liberals will lose a no-confidence vote in Parliament in March and then the subsequent election. The proposal to change churches’ tax status isn’t likely to shift any votes in their direction—and they probably can’t move forward with the idea anyway.

“This is not a realistic political thing right now,” said Ray Pennings, executive vice president of Cardus, a nonpartisan Christian think tank based in Canada. “But it does speak to a cultural narrative that is being pushed by some in which the intrinsic value of religion is no longer understood as a public good.”

Some local governments have already made moves to tax churches. In 2018, Nova Scotia decided that parts of the property of about 20 churches across the province were not tax exempt because they provided childcare centers during the week. In 2022, Iqaluit, in the territory of Nunavut, decided nonprofits would no longer be exempt at all. The two churches in Iqaluit—one Catholic, one Anglican—were told they would need to pay the government $38,000 and $29,000 each year, respectively. Church leaders described that as a “crushing financial burden,” which would likely force them into delinquency.

If the churches are forced to close, that would have negative impacts on the community, according to Christians who live there.

“These churches are the forefront in helping the poor and the needy and those who are hurting,” Looee Arreak, an Inuit gospel singer, told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. “We see families that are in trauma, in shock, trying to fundraise for the funeral cost of a loved one that has [died by] suicide because of post traumatic stress disorder. If you’re going to tax the churches, at least put the [funeral] costs down.”

EFC public policy director Julia Beazley made a similar point in her letter to the finance minister.

Cardus has done a lot of research in recent years on the financial benefit, or “Halo Effect,” of churches and found that the average congregation’s positive socioeconomic impact in the community is more than ten times the value of tax exemptions and credits. Similar studies in the US have found that urban congregations contribute more than $1 million each to their local economies.

Paul Rowe, professor of political and international studies at Trinity Western University, a Christian university in British Columbia, said these churches are also filling needs that would otherwise fall on the government. In Vancouver near where he lives, for example, First United Church – Vancouver Downtown Eastside does a lot of work ministering to people who are homeless or struggling with addiction.

“You take away their charitable status, and they’re going to be completely dependent on some kind of government handouts,” he said.

Rowe said the proposal is unlikely to move forward, given the precarious position of the Liberals. But he doesn’t think the idea is going away.

He said taxing churches might cause a backlash on a national level now, but that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be palatable in some regions. Quebec, for example, has more negative views toward religion than other parts of Canada.

And perhaps the proposal from the finance committee is a sign the idea is growing more popular. A poll in 2022 found that 37 percent of Canadians thought churches should keep their tax-exempt status, while 35 percent would approve of it being taken away. The rest had no opinion.

So even though the proposal doesn’t seem like it’s going to go anywhere, in the midst of the general political turmoil, religious groups say they are still alarmed.

“The Recommendations politicize charitable status … and set a dangerous and destabilizing precedent for the charitable sector,” Deina Warren, CCCC’s director of legal affairs, wrote to the finance minister. “The contributions and positive impacts of religion ought to be affirmed and fostered in a diverse, multicultural, multi-religious society such as Canada. This proposal does the exact opposite.”

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News

Trump Opens Second Term with Bold Promises

Harvest Prude

With nods to his widening base and prayers from Christian leaders, the president acts fast on campaign priorities like immigration.

President Donald Trump speaks at inauguration

Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images / Bloomberg via Getty Images

In the Capitol Rotunda surrounded by politicians, a lineup of tech CEOs, and select faith leaders, President Donald Trump began his second term in office with bold promises for America’s coming “Golden Age.”

The president claimed not just a national mandate but also a divine mandate, repeating that he had been saved from last year’s assassination attempt so that he could “make America great again” and pledging that his administration “will not forget our God,” as he rattled off plans to swiftly act on immigration, energy and climate policy, and trade.

“I return to the presidency confident and optimistic that we are at the start of a thrilling new era of national success,” Trump said during his inaugural address in a ceremony moved inside because of harsh winter weather in Washington and broadcast to supporters watching in DC’s Capital One Arena.

“But first, we must be honest about the challenges we face. While they are plentiful, they will be annihilated by this great momentum that the world is now witnessing in the United States of America.”

Incoming presidents often strike a balance between cordiality to the outgoing administration, calls for the country to unify as a whole, and clarity around their own new direction, but “that’s not Trump’s style, and never has been,” according to Amy Black, professor of political science at Wheaton College.

In his speech, the incoming president painted an unsparingly dark picture of the nation under President Joe Biden and attacked the current state of politics as radical, corrupt, and vicious.

“My recent election is a mandate,” Trump declared, “to completely and totally reverse a horrible betrayal, and all of these many betrayals that have taken place, and to give the people back their faith, their wealth, their democracy, and indeed their freedom.”

With a bigger base of supporters—Christian activists with pro-life posters stood alongside social media influencers and trade workers in line for his inauguration-weekend rally—Trump’s return to Washington comes in contrast to eight years ago.

Instead of Trump facing skepticism from his own party or members of his own administration, Republicans for the most part have embraced his “Make America Great Again” direction, and he has nominated loyalists to his cabinet spots.

“I would say that people are less afraid now to be openly supportive of Trump,” said Vanessa Valentino, a Catholic whose family traveled from Chicago to Washington to celebrate Trump’s second term. “People are a lot more comfortable now to wear a Trump hat.”

During the four years since 2020, Trump and his allies have had time to think and plan for a return. “There is a specificity to some of the promises that I do think shows the difference between a first and second term,” Black said.

What inauguration ceremonies fail to capture is that bold visions can get caught in the slower cogs of America’s political processes, from the courts to Congress.

“Some of these things he will have the power to do singularly as the chief executive. But some of what he’s promising isn’t possible with just the president alone,” Black said.

Certain announcements on Monday were policy reruns: Trump promised to declare a national emergency over the southern border and reinstate his COVID-19–era “Remain in Mexico” for asylum seekers. Others were new: Trump pledged to have an American flag planted on Mars, rename the Gulf of Mexico, and end requirements for auto makers to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

The administration is preparing to scale up deportations of undocumented immigrants and freeze refugee resettlement.

“As Christians who believe that God established the family at the beginning of creation, we cannot sit silently as policies are proposed that would entail family separation on a horrifying scale,” World Relief president and CEO Myal Greene said in a statement. “We urge the administration to prioritize deportation of those with violent criminal convictions and to find more humane alternatives, such as working with Congress … for longstanding members of our churches and communities.”

After Trump once again won the white evangelical vote while making significant gains among Hispanic Christians, Christian supporters celebrated the president’s inaugural pledges, with some conservatives noting his statements that there are only two genders and that he would dismantle diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in the government.

“Such a strong inaugural address by [Donald Trump]!” Clint Pressley, president of the Southern Baptist Convention, posted.

The indoor ceremony began late, and the schedule was adjusted for Trump to be sworn in immediately after Vice President JD Vance, with Trump apparently forgetting, perhaps in the rush, to place his hand on the Bibles being held by First Lady Melania Trump—the same two from the 2016 inauguration—as he took his oath of office.

The inauguration included prayers from two Protestant pastors, two Catholics, and a rabbi—each calling for prayer and asking God to help Trump and the country in the four years ahead. Another scheduled prayer, from Imam Husham Al-Husainy, was cancelled.

“Give our leader wisdom, for he is your servant, aware of his own weakness and brevity of life,” said Cardinal Timothy Dolan, echoing King Solomon. “Send wisdom from heaven that she may be with him.”

Monday’s ceremony was Franklin Graham’s third time praying at an inauguration, following four inaugural prayers by his father, evangelist Billy Graham. Graham’s prayer provoked applause from Republicans in the audience at points: “We come to say thank you, O Lord,” he prayed. “Father, when Donald Trump’s enemies thought he was down and out, you and you alone saved his life and raised him up with strength and power by your mighty hand.”

In an energetic benediction, Lorenzo Sewell, pastor of 180 Church in Detroit, quoted the entire closing of the “I Have a Dream” speech to recognize Martin Luther King Jr. Day. He concluded, “Go forth now with these words of President Trump’s emblazoned on our hearts. As long as we have pride in our beliefs, courage in our convictions, and faith in our God, then we will not fail.”

Sewell is newer to the circle of religious clergy associated with Trump. He spoke at the 2024 Republican National Convention and has hosted Trump at his church.

Mika Edmondson, pastor of New City Fellowship in Grand Rapids, Michigan, said on social media that praying for one’s leaders could also mean “praying that the Lord will restrain them from their own worst impulses.”

Some familiar faces were relegated to the background. Paula White, who led Trump’s faith outreach during his last time in office and prayed at the previous inauguration, sat in the audience this time. During the campaign, Trump told her the next faith office would be directly involved in the Oval Office, but he has not made official announcements or appointments.

Greg Laurie, who belonged to the team of spiritual advisers during Trump’s first administration, asked for prayer for the president on social media and said he was grateful that “many committed Christians have been put in positions of influence around the president.”

With the ceremony moved inside, ticket holders instead queued up, some overnight in the freezing cold, to secure their place in Capitol One Arena, where Trump also held a rally Sunday night.

Others abandoned their bags at the security checkpoint outside the arena when they realized they had to choose between keeping their possessions or securing their seat inside.

Owen Strachan, the director of the Dobson Culture Center, shared a prayer for Trump that came with a caution: “Pray for your current leader, but put your hope and trust in Christ and Christ alone.”

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Inkwell

The Age of Fluidity

Griffin Gooch

Elastic language for yesterday, today, and tomorrow

Painting by John Martin

EACH PLATITUDE rolling off my pastor’s tongue sounded like metal scraping against the side of a cheese grater. I’m either nine or eleven or thirteen and already an atheist. Even though it must have been around 2010, the early-to-mid ’90s wave of agnostic grunge filled my eardrums and swayed me toward ecclesial skepticism. In hindsight, the anti-religious-institution arguments I absorbed through pop culture weren’t very logical or compelling. But the clothes and personas seemed way cooler than any I’d ever seen at my church, and that itself was logical and compelling enough for my unformed frontal lobe to toss out religion altogether.

The part that got to me wasn’t so much the community or the moral ideas or the character of Jesus, but the language. It was the apathetic yet stylized drawl—overly rehearsed and spliced together like a knockoff MasterClass outline of how an emotional speech should go: when to get loud, when to whisper, where to drop thesis and insert joke. To this day, every time I hear the words grace, faith, or the Word of God says, I still hear my pastor’s voice reverberating through them. The breathy hushed exposition and superficiality—I wanted to get as far away from church as possible. And so I did. I basically committed to the least Christian lifestyle I could dream up, which is still a pretty surefire way to end up in jail. Which I did.

ON THE SUNDAY of the final day of my sentence, the inmates were given a choice to either go to church or stay in our cell. A surprising number chose to remain in their cells, the one they had spent the other 24 hours per day in—an impulse I couldn’t personally relate to. Alongside a small group of others, I sat through the prison missionaries’ hodgepodge of Christian language via acoustic songs and unplugged sermons. A showcase of all the words I’d grown to hate so much. But this time around, I was physiologically shaken, my cynicism totally eradicated. I immediately and uncontrollably burst into tears. The words sounded different, new, the opposite of artificial—real and true and raw. And for the first time, the gospel was real and true and raw.

After the ministry team shared, I said a prayer with them, letting all the language my old pastor drilled into my mind fall out of my own mouth. They finally weren’t platitudes—they were desperate, shaky, and powerful.

The seven years that followed were an intensive training camp of relearning the Christian vocabulary, taking the words wrung of meaning and drenched with cynicism and restoring them to life. Sometimes, I drift back into skepticism, and other times, I jump so far to the other end of the spectrum that it turns into naive optimism.

Yet regardless of which direction the pendulum swings, I’ve come to a conviction: Words come to life when they’re most needed.

C. S. LEWIS NOTES, “As everyone knows, words constantly take on new meanings.” I’m fascinated by how words carry power and even more fascinated by how words that have power one day might lose it the next; why phrases that ignite one generation to faithfully follow Jesus turn into a dead orthodoxy that their kids roll their eyes at.

Over time, words lose buoyancy. Say a word 50 times fast, and after 49 times, it’ll sound like gibberish. Language is always evolving—it’s stretchy and subject to trends. Take a Google Ngram Viewer tour through Christian history and you’ll see how our phrases rise and fall in popularity. Nowadays, many “Christians” are dropping that moniker altogether because of its association with nominative evangelicalism and subbing in “follower of Jesus.” The words born again and believer blew up in the ’70s and ’80s, peaking in 2010, and have been declining each year since. Jesus freak was originally a pejorative that littered Elton John songs, until bands like DC Talk co-opted it—only for it to descend back into obscurity a few decades later.

Gen Z doesn’t “go to church,” they “attend gatherings.” During sermons, they don’t say “amen” and “hallelujah,” they say “wow” and “yup.” They cringe every time someone throws a definite article in front of “Holy Spirit.”

OUR WORDS SHIFT when we need to express something our current vocabulary can’t. Wineskins get old, and so do we. New language is fresh, but as it ages, it loses its edge, and, in the worst case, enters the realm of cliché. This is one potential hazard for Christian terms, what the writer Jonathan Merritt calls “fossilization.” It’s a side effect of a hyper-transient culture: The words aren’t forgotten but overused, until we become so cynical toward them that we refuse to let them have any power.

Language gets fossilized when it’s loaded with too much history. But another problem arises when there’s not enough history. Lots of vocabulary that was meaningful even two generations ago are eclipsed by “cultural amnesia”—the tendency to remove the past, along with its traditions, taboos, mores, and norms, from our daily consciousness. It’s basically the state of being ahistorical: forgetting what lies behind (literally) and straining toward anything novel that lies ahead.

But, as historians Will and Ariel Durant note, language is one of the few “connective tissues of human history.” If our language has no historicity, it gets driven and tossed by the cultural seas of the present moment—a reality hauntingly demonstrated by lexicographer Peter Sokolowski’s confession that those in his profession now pay attention to TikTok trends to modify their definitions.

FOR THE MODERN Christian who has a vested interest in staying in touch with the ancient, this fluidity threatens the power of our words.

Theologian Marcus Borg pointed out that spiritual vocabulary loses both its meaning and power due to “spiritual illiteracy.” People no longer hear these terms as if they’re resounding out of their ancient origins. Rather, they only hear their contemporary distortions. Henri Nouwen commented on this struggle:

When we wonder why the language of traditional Christianity has lost its liberating power for those who live in the modern age, we have to realize that most Christian preaching is still based on the presupposition that we see ourselves as meaningfully integrated with a history in which God came to us in the past, is living under us in the present, and will come to liberate us in the future.

For many, this just isn’t the case anymore. A few years back, Merritt partnered with the Barna Group to take the pulse on religious vocabulary. They found that only 13 percent of self-identifying Christians were having spiritual conversations once or more per week. When pressed about why they don’t have more religious conversations,

Some admitted they felt confused about what spiritual words actually mean. In many cases, the confusion doesn’t necessarily result from lack of knowledge or experience. Sometimes, it’s the opposite. People in insular religious communities might have used some words so often they don’t know what they mean anymore. The words have become shopworn.

ALL THIS BEGS the question: Is there any use in trying to renew old terms? Or should we just let them die and dream up new ones? Do we spend an hour each Sunday drilling in church history and etymology, or do we just flow with the zeitgeist?

If we’re a product of our time and place, which everyone of course is, we’ll naturally adopt new terminology in order to communicate with our context. So, I don’t think there’s any real need to intentionally pursue trendy, relevant terminology—chances are, this will just happen by virtue of being a human in the third millennium.

But in a hypermodern age like ours, there’s still merit in renovating older phrases that connect us to something historical, even when they sound tacky. Not in a nostalgic sense, as if trying to recreate the past, but in a transformative sense, paving the way for the needs of our milieu.

Because of fossilization, it took a jail cell to wake me up to the authenticity of the Christian language. For some of my friends, the pull toward ahistoricity is why they left the faith. Both ends of the spectrum harm, which is why I think a third way, a way of renovating terms according to our present needs, might be the water needed for parched lips.

WHILE I HAVE the utmost respect for language scholars, the process of pruning terminology most often correlates to the needs of God’s people rather than academic movements. When language renovation is left up to small bands of elites, it gets obscured for everyone else.

This is the driving tension that the characters in R. F. Kuang’s novel Babel wrestle with. The speculative novel follows a group of intercultural Oxford students studying in the prestigious university’s language department, housed in a literal tower called “Babel.” During their studies, they come to find that Babel is more than a linguistics undergrad program—it’s the British Empire’s tool for centralizing authority, using language to make a more powerful Britain rather than to create a better world.

The students grapple with the question, “Can we live with the consequences of making language a privilege of the elite, or do we fight to give language back to the people?” They ultimately choose the latter, toppling the tower that dominated communication and decentralizing language for the masses.

It’s fiction, but this story constantly repeats itself in real life. For one, Babel’s arc played out in the mid-20th century via a philosophical movement called post-structuralism.

BASICALLY, GUYS LIKE Jacques Derrida wanted to deconstruct interpretive structure. Things themselves—a dog, a novel, a gesture—couldn’t have meaning, because whatever meaning was imposed on them would be steeped in the interpreter’s worldview.

Post-structuralists deconstruct because they think power dynamics clandestinely lie behind everything: Books shouldn’t be enjoyed because they’re just a tool to keep you distracted. Family is just a construct to keep you too busy to fight corruption. But, in earnest, it’s just fake activism, muddying up terminology for the sake of displaying enlightenment.

In The Best Minds, writer Jonathan Rosen details his own coming of age during the height of post-structuralism’s popularity. Although Rosen was captivated with the movement at first, he began noticing that their lingual gymnastics often minimized the concepts they deconstructed. Derrida or Foucault invoked examples of mental illness to describe how authoritarian powers—the state, the government, the spectacle of society— dominate the masses. True madness was created by the corrupt powers of society, they said; to be deranged was to lack the willpower to resist their control.

Rosen especially struggled to swallow their lectures after visiting his lifelong friend Michael Laudor in a mental ward. Growing up together, Rosen had had a front-row seat to Michael’s brilliance and sociability, as well as to his slow decline into hospitalization for his paranoid schizophrenia. This promising Yale student now stumbled while stringing sentences together, thought he was constantly under surveillance, and could barely read the pages of the books he’d read voraciously his whole life. According to post-structuralists, Michael’s suffering was brought on by a “social construct” that arose from “disciplinary discourse.” Was Michael’s issue simply his own lack of willpower?

Of course not. No amount of post-structuralist prose was going to dismantle his schizophrenia. This was a real neurological disorder, not an academic exercise, and it was chewing up his best friend’s personality.

LIKE THE TRENDINESS of words, post-structuralism came and went. The grand total of their efforts amounted to a feverish paranoia toward authority, a feeling that still haunts the world today. It minimized peoples’ sufferings, taking terminology away from those most in need of it. As Francis Schaffer commented on post-structuralism, “In it, language leads to neither values nor facts, but only to language.”

If they proved anything, it’s that language in the wrong hands, be it a cranky professor or a selfish pastor or a corporate demagogue, can be stripped of its potential to unify. And so, like Kuang’s Babel and Genesis 11’s Babel, the post-structuralist’s tower toppled.

Language doesn’t exist in some esoteric third space, like a Cartesian museum display. Language needs community, needs to pass through lips, needs to be tasted as it moves beyond our vocal cords and enters the throes of daily life—person to person, soul to soul. It’s the connective tissue of the masses, not an academic privilege.

Despite how often Scripture’s been abused by those with power, it is and always will be a rhetoric of revolution for those without any. For a native Greek linguist, the Bible is not very complex. It’s written in laymen’s vocabulary—the kind of casual language you’d use while making a shopping list with family. After reading through the New Testament for the first time, Augustine admitted feeling disappointed. Augustine was the equivalent of an elite Ivy Leaguer, on par with the philosophical heavyweights of his day. But the Bible was written for poor agrarian farmers in an epoch where the literacy rate was only around 10 percent.

Accessible language was a necessity. If the Bible had been written at the caliber of, say, Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason—arguably one of the most dense and difficult volumes ever written—then the Bible wouldn’t have been for everyone; it would’ve only been for the Kants and Foucaults and Derridas. As Mark Strauss writes,

There is nothing archaic, solemn or mystical about the kind of language used by the inspired authors of the New Testament. It is the Greek of the street. . . . Just as God took on the form of common humanity when he revealed himself as the living Word, so his written Word was revealed in language that the person on the street could understand.

By using the language of the lowest common denominator, the Christian vocabulary enveloped the entirety of the population, making itself available to all.

Babel and the post-structuralist mindset remind us that language is for the people and serves a purpose. This means that language will always keep evolving and changing because the needs of the people will always be evolving and changing. We’ll always need new ways to communicate our longings, our losses, our jumbles of emotion. To centralize language, like how the Catholic church centralized doctrine before the Reformation, is simpler and more efficient—but only for the arbiters making the calls.

For everyone else, it limits expression. This is why Martin Luther’s efforts to decentralize the Bible, putting Scripture into the hands of the people, was in its own way a toppling of Babel. It took the language of the Christian movement and restored it to its original purpose: a rhetoric of transformation for the lowly, meek, and mourning.

I’M STILL A recovering cynic. Sometimes, I go weeks where every noun in the Christian vocabulary feels dry. But then, a need comes. A desire that can’t be quenched. A loss I can’t ignore. And like a faucet slowly turning, words like trust, contentment, gratitude, and hope start dripping afresh, like sunlight crackling through the spaces in a floorboard. It’s a process, but I’m slowly learning to stand more in line with the psalmist who wrote, “How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth” (Ps. 119:103).

Language is always pointing to something beyond itself. God’s name isn’t actually “God,” but what philosophers call a signifier. It’s the thing that points to the signified—which in God’s case is the Divine Creator, Father of Jesus.

By one scholar’s count, God is given 967 different signifiers throughout the Bible. He’s infinite, self-subsistent. Attaching one finite name from a finite language just doesn’t do the trick. Different signifiers help emphasize different parts of his being (Father, Son, Spirit), angles of personality (wonderful counselor, wise king), and patterns of behavior (advocate, comforter). But none of them would be sufficient on their own.

Their multiplicity is necessary. Sometimes, we just need to express something that nothing in our current vocabulary can. And so we perpetually search beyond our present borders to praise the God without any.

But I don’t ever want to neglect the arsenal of classical Christian terms. It’s like drawing water from a deep well: locating the originality in old words and making adjustments when dry words need animation, always on the hunt for new ways to say old things rather than new concepts to reshape old ideas. To borrow biblical language, we are always putting old words in new wineskins—remembering that the beauty of treasures in old chests is evergreen and not simply nostalgic.

THIS IS WHY I like picturing Christian vocabulary as elastic, rather than static or plastic. Static means no change; plastic means total change. But if something’s elastic, it can bend to accommodate new functions while also snapping back into place.

For me, this is a perpetual project. Every once in a while, I need to redefine or shelve a phrase with too much baggage. Other times, I need to challenge the popular understandings of words like grace. But I remind myself that for every half-hearted, inauthentic, or dead pronunciation of faith, there are millions of Christ followers around the globe clinging to the word faith as if it’s the only thing keeping them moving.

This is why even the most fossilized words can be brought back to life, why post-structuralism’s attempts to control language can’t help but fail, why earnest attempts to worship always supersede academic exercises. The Christian vocabulary rushes alongside the downtrodden, the promising student who lost it all because of schizophrenia, the 18-year-old kid hitting his lowest points in a jail cell.

Babel, post-structuralism, fossilization, and ahistoricity all reveal one central truth: Despite our best efforts to manipulate language—subbing in trendy terms, sticking to old fossils, or trying to control them altogether—words will always be empowered by those who realize their utter and absolute dependence on God.

Everything else is just semantics.

Griffin Gooch is a writer & speaker with a Master’s in Theological Studies from Fuller Theological Seminary.

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News

As Powers Shift in DC, Christians Take the Long View

Harvest Prude

Believers working in Washington rely on faith and church community when political transitions put their work in flux.

Kayla Bartkowski / Getty Images

Around Washington, DC, you can see signs of the upcoming presidential transition. Security fencing went up around the Capitol building for the inauguration ceremony. Road closures rimmed the National Mall. The local airports saw constant traffic as people came to pick up their inauguration tickets.

While the city prepares for this week’s activities welcoming President Donald Trump back to the White House, churches in and around DC pray for what changes lie ahead—policies that affect the country overall along with the work and livelihoods of those in their pews.

The lawmakers, Hill staffers, and political appointees working in the District “don’t just win or lose an election; they win or lose jobs,” said Mark Batterson, pastor of National Community Church, a multisite congregation in DC.

The city is buzzing with anticipation and transition. People are waiting to hear back about jobs with the incoming administration. They are packing up their offices on the Hill, leaving think-tank positions to take jobs with lawmakers’ offices, and vice versa.

Federal workers are wondering about new policies that may impact how much flexibility they have, and contractors wonder if they will continue to have work once their contract expires. A new government-efficiency commission under Trump has pledged “mass reductions” in agencies and staffing, leaving many on edge.

Pastors in DC are used to the pressures and prayer requests that come with government transitions every two or four years. Batterson at NCC has led his flock through eight presidential inaugurations, offering spiritual counsel through the transitions, cuts, and political spats that accompany each new administration.

In a congregation where worship gatherings and small groups intentionally span political parties, Batterson prays for the “Esthers and Nehemiahs, Daniel and Deborahs, who feel called to public service,” a reference to biblical figures who served in or close to the halls of power. He likened the role of the church to “Aaron and Hur, who held up the arms of Moses; we want to do the same for political leaders.”

Katelyn Walls Shelton knows firsthand the tension that comes with watching election returns come in and knowing the results would determine whether she’d have a job. Though the older leaders of political offices and think tanks are typically the ones in the spotlight, legions of 20- and 30-somethings like Shelton are directly affected by who leads Congress and the White House.

Shelton worked in the House for a short stint, and her husband, John, worked in the House and Senate, where shifts in congressional majorities affected staffing levels, even if the members they worked for kept their seats.

She first came to DC on a field trip with other wide-eyed eighth graders from Tennessee, and the allure of politics led her to settle in the area in 2018. She’s since worked on Capitol Hill, for the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) and under the Health and Human Services Department—first in the faith department then on issues affecting women’s health care.

“It really does feel like your life. Your day to day depends on who the next president is going to be or who is in power, who has the majority in the House or the Senate,” she said.

The DC churn can also spur a sense of discouragement from those in the political minority or those working in a divided government.

“There was a lot of talk among our friends like, ‘Hey, if President Trump loses this election, we’re going to go home. Like, we’ll be in our 30s before we have a Republican trifecta. What’s the point of ten years being around here and never working in the trifecta?’” said Jonah Wendt, a former staffer for Texas GOP representative Chip Roy and a current policy advisor for former vice president Mike Pence.

Now, he finds the mood in Republican circles to be much more jubilant. He and his wife welcomed a baby daughter in October. When November’s election returns came in, one of his friends told him, “That’s so great—she shows up right before we enter America’s golden age.”

Wendt takes a more pragmatic outlook. He anticipates that after a flurry of executive orders, a couple big messaging bills, and one big reconciliation bill, it’ll be back to a “slow slog” for legislation under the thin majority in the House.

Wendt has found himself staying grounded with the help of his Lutheran church community, where leaders pray for both Democratic and Republican leaders by name.

When Michael Sobolik came to DC a decade ago, he realized it was much harder to win policy victories. He was frustrated by the ignorance, self-interest, and roadblocks that got in the way and found himself searching the Scriptures to see what God had to say about governance.

“In DC, where the whole city revolves around power and influence and access in one way or another, I have found over time, I’ve been so amazed at how explicitly the Bible speaks to people who are ministering in those spaces,” said Sobolik, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.

The stories about Esther and Daniel took on new meaning. “You’re dealing with elite politics; you’re dealing more broadly with God’s plan of redemption for all of humanity and his people.”

Brent Leatherwood, president of the ERLC, has also been in prayer for the outgoing and incoming administrations, including through his church’s 40 days of prayer for America’s leaders.

Leatherwood, who lives in Tennessee and spends plenty of time in DC seeking to advance the policy priorities of Southern Baptists, described himself as “bullish” about making progress during the next four years.

“The reality is we are called to pray for those in authority, regardless of what party,” he said. “I think that’s been a consistent part of my life, particularly just in this role, because these are men and women that I interact with.”

In early conversations with Trump’s transition team, he’s been urging the administration to focus on filling faith offices across the federal government. The ERLC also just finalized its 2025 policy priorities, which they are going to take to every member of Congress as well as administration officials.

“We’re trying to view the priorities of the administration and see, Are there places where we can be a helpful voice? Are there places where we need to call attention to some things? Are there places where we’re going to have to be a voice that fully articulates what Scripture tells us and what our convention prioritizes?”

He added, “That’s the same posture that we took four years ago with the incoming Biden administration, and four years before that with the first Trump administration.”

Heather Rice-Minus knows well the necessity of working tirelessly for her particular cause, regardless of who occupies the White House.

Rice-Minus grew up just outside the city in Northern Virginia and has lived in DC proper for a decade with her husband and children. She is president of Prison Fellowship, a Christian nonprofit that advocates for prisoners, their families, and justice reform. Her family lives in Congress Heights, less than a ten-minute drive from the Capitol.

“The Lord has brought incredible opportunity to Prison Fellowship to work with each administration that has come,” she said. Amid increasing polarization, she said she’s grateful criminal justice has still been able to garner bipartisan support.

“We’ve been able to find common ground on justice and in many cases, you know, make some pretty significant reforms that I’m very proud of.”

The last time Donald Trump was in office, he signed the First Step Act into law in 2018. But what would eventually become the First Step Act had been in the making for years prior and went through several different iterations before it was passed.

She remembers one conversation with her sister where she told her it often takes years for legislation to pass. Her sister responded, “Wow, that’s so depressing.”

Rice-Minus doesn’t see those intervening years as a waste. “That is where you forge friendships. That is where you come up with creative ideas of, ‘How do we get people to care about this?’ That’s where you learn what the windows of opportunity are to push something through.”

That interim is also when Rice-Minus spends a lot of time in prayer.

Prison Fellowship has teams of Christians, often volunteers, who pray together. These volunteers and Prison Fellowship staff also meet with lawmakers to talk about their cause. Those groups include formerly incarcerated individuals as well.

“I can’t even tell you how meaningful it was for them,” Rice-Minus said, “for them to walk and sit down at someone’s Senate table and share their story and share about why they care about the oversight and dignity of people behind bars.”

Seeing real-life impacts also keeps her going. Since then, Rice-Minus has met individuals who have come home from prison and been restored to their families and communities as a result of that legislation. Her church, NCC, has sponsored children of incarcerated parents through Prison Fellowship’s Angel Tree program, and she was able to deliver Christmas presents to families in Ward Eight last year.

Many Christians working in DC say the partnership, guidance, and counsel from their church communities makes it possible for them to endure the stresses that come with their jobs.

Sobolik appreciated the robust theology of work—that “all work is part of redemption”—that gets taught at his Anglican parish in Capitol Hill, Church of the Resurrection.

Among his circle of family and friends, the upcoming inauguration has brought a spectrum of reactions to the surface: “Some are really happy. Some of their careers have really changed for the better. And then we have other close friends who are anxious, uncertain about what’s going to come, and their careers are suffering,” he said.

Sobolik seeks to temper both his hopes and fears during elections. He looks for areas of overlap where he can cooperate with those in power. And he tries to get people together to find common ground.

His work focuses on US-China relations and national security, so while the Biden administration was in power, he planned dinners focused on China policy with both Democratic and Republican attendees. They were off-the-record gatherings. “It wasn’t about shouting anyone down or saying, ‘I’m right; you’re wrong.’ It was talking through problems and trying to find solutions.”

“With the incoming administration, there’s a lot I’m probably going to agree with them on China. There’s a few things I’m probably going to disagree with them on as well. It requires a lot of prudence.”

Shelton also said Christians in DC get used to taking the long view as they prioritize their vocations. “A lot of Christians are involved in politics because they have a particular cause in mind,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean the work for your particular cause stops if your party is not in power.”

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Ideas

The Unrecognized Great Awakening

Jonathan Tremaine “JT” Thomas

Americans talk about Civil Rights as a political movement. But as MLK well knew, it was more than that. It was a revival.

Protesters Kneeling Before City Hall on April 6, 1963 in Birmingham, Alabama.

Universal History Archive / Contributor / Getty / Edits by CT

Prophet or activist? Pastor or social reformer? In the six decades since his death, the testimony and legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. has been so extensively documented and analyzed that it seems almost asinine to imagine posing a new question about his life and work or the Civil Rights era more broadly.

But I want to propose that King has been mislabeled—or, more precisely, that even many of his admirers have missed a title he deserves: revivalist.

It’s well recognized, of course, that the Civil Rights Movement under King’s leadership pulsed with the gospel of the kingdom. But what I’m saying is not merely that King and many lesser-known activists were Christians whose efforts were motivated by their faith in Jesus. Rather, I want to suggest that this was not merely a political movement that used biblically inspired strategies like nonviolent demonstration. It was a spiritual movement of great awakening, even a widely unrecognized Great Awakening in the grand tradition of grassroots American revivals.

What does true awakening look like? Biblical and historical records can help us discern how God awakens nations to the love of the Father in the way of Jesus.

Christ’s own ministry should be our first example. Amid social upheaval and political violence, Jesus begins teaching in the synagogues of Galilee. He declares that the Spirit of the Lord has anointed him to “proclaim good news to the poor,” “freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:16–21). Then he hits the streets, preaching repentance because “the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt. 4:17, ESV).

This is not a just a good sermon topic. It’s a blaring announcement of the arrival of a new age. And Jesus does not just speak his Good News. He makes a public demonstration of its reality, confronting the injustice of illness and death itself, releasing the health care plan of a heavenly administration.

With the touch of a hand, he heals the sick, raises the dead, and embraces the outcast. These are acts of love and peace but also destruction of the order and norms of a sinful and sorrowful world. We don’t call the earthly ministry of Jesus an awakening, but it is the awakening that would spark all others. In the backwaters of Galilee, often on the margins of society, Jesus inaugurates the greatest liberation movement in human history, introducing the higher standard to which all will ultimately be held.

In the first days of the church, we see a time of awakening, too, marked by a growth of practical human wisdom and the visible working of the Holy Spirit. God in Christ destroyed “the dividing wall of hostility” between Jew and Gentile in the early church, creating one new humanity, “members of [God’s] household” from every tribe and tongue (Eph. 2:11–22).

Acts 2 records a profound moment for this unity: God’s reversal of the division of the Tower of Babel. It is only by the power of the Holy Spirit that people from all over the known world—“Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs” (vv. 9–11)—could all understand the disciples’ proclamation of the gospel at once.

“Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans?” the crowd wonders. “Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language?” (v. 7–8). The answer is that this was an awakening, only possible with the supernatural grace of the Spirit.

The distinct eras of divine activity in American history that we call awakenings are similarly marked by exposure of depravity and pursuit of social righteousness—by repentance and public revival. As Christian History explained in 1989,

It is of major importance to remember that awakenings are not simply times of enhanced personal religious experience. Awakenings have social impact. In the wake of spiritual awakenings comes social restoration. Corrupt, immoral, unjust, and ungodly people and societies can return to honesty, purity, justice, and holiness. Culture can be transformed; but first must come transformed people.

The awakenings were not masterfully designed through central planning from the corridors of ecclesial power. They relied on organic, individual responses of obedience after definitive encounters with the Lord.

The best known of these movements, the Second Great Awakening (c. 1795–1835), produced moral-reform movements around public education, social services, women’s suffrage, and the establishment of abolitionist societies in the United States and the United Kingdom. From William Wilberforce and the Clapham Sect to Harriet Beecher Stowe and the New England Congregationalists, supernatural encounters with the awakening glory of God led to new pursuit of justice and public demonstration of God’s love.

This outpouring of measurable institutional reforms in addition to mass salvation should not surprise us. As Wilberforce observed, it is “the glory of Christianity, to extinguish the malignant passions; to curb the violence, to controul the appetites, and to smooth the asperities of man; to make us compassionate and kind, and forgiving one to another; to make us good husbands, good fathers, good friends, and to render us active and useful in the discharge of the relative, social, and civil duties.”

The Third Great Awakening ran through the 1930s, and I am not the first to suggest that we should recognize a Fourth Great Awakening beginning in the mid-19th century. But the awakening I see is not the rise of the Religious Right, as has been proposed elsewhere. It is the Civil Rights Movement, which exhibited that same pattern of calls for repentance and revival followed by tangible social impact.

Perhaps those—Christian or not—who aren’t active participants in the Black worship tradition have undervalued or overlooked the hand of God in instigating and sustaining this movement and its transformation of American society. Granted, a significant portion of African American spirituality and theological interpretation has been archived in songs and stories preserved through oral tradition instead of publication.

But whatever the reason, historians and theologians alike have failed to acknowledge or embrace this awakening led by the Black church (or, indeed, to embrace the Black church itself). The unholy segregation between predominantly Black Protestant traditions and predominantly white evangelical traditions has extended to how we perceive the movement of the Spirit in our own recent history.

The Civil Rights Movement under the leadership of Martin Luther King Jr. was not a revival in the sense of a mass public proclamation of the gospel of salvation. But from my vantage within America’s freedom experiment, its defining characteristic was mass demonstration of the fruits of salvation (Matt. 7:15–20).

And that public demonstration was only part of the work. A significant and necessary part of this awakening happened in hidden prayer meetings, in countless hours spent on the floor, crying out to God for help. The Holy Spirit came upon those who waited in this undignified travail, releasing specific strategies for confronting the dark powers of oppression within society.

Like the early church disciples and the abolitionists of the Second and Third Great Awakening, men and women of all ages became possessed with unshakeable hope in Christ after receiving visions, dreams, and divinely inspired ideas through prayer. Those deep movements of the Spirit may not have been visible in the newspapers, but much of the Civil Rights activism the papers did document poured from this well.

“We experienced something extraordinary in the freedom movement, something that hinted at a tremendous potential for love and community and transformation that exists here in this scarred, spectacular country,” said Civil Rights activist Rosemarie Freeney Harding, who worked with King and served in the Mennonite tradition for many years. “For a lot of people in the Movement, our participation gave us a craving for spiritual depth.”

In this Fourth Great Awakening, millions surrendered to tenets of the lordship of Jesus. Embracing the Beatitudes, they responded to government-sanctioned persecution with the fruits of the Spirit. They embodied the spiritual longing of a generation and made prayer a form of nonviolent direct action. The soundtrack of the movement was songs of intercession and eternal hope in the promises of God, and the spiritual transformation undergirding this pursuit of social righteousness was no less robust simply because the change didn’t occur at a public altar call.

On May 17, 1957, 25,000 Negro Americans arrived at the Lincoln Memorial for a three-hour prayer vigil called the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom. The purpose was to commemorate the anniversary of the landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education, to demonstrate support for new Civil Rights legislation, and to arouse the conscience of the nation to continued pursuit of freedom and equality.

In his first major outing as the newly elected president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a young Martin Luther King Jr. spoke to the crowd. He delivered a brilliant prophetic rebuke to Washington, charging leaders in both major parties with a “dearth of positive leadership,” betrayal of “the cause of justice,” and “a high blood pressure of words and an anemia of deeds.”

“We come humbly to say to the men in the forefront of our government that the civil rights issue is not an ephemeral, evanescent domestic issue that can be kicked about by reactionary guardians of the status quo,” King said. “It is rather an eternal moral issue.”

But later, King would conclude his speech by making an explicitly revivalist appeal—an appeal that was met with the enthusiastic affirmation of the crowd, whose responses are here in parentheticals:

Let us not despair. Let us realize that as we struggle for justice and freedom, we have cosmic companionship. This is the long faith of the Hebraic-Christian tradition: that God is not some Aristotelian “unmoved mover” who merely contemplates upon himself. He is not merely a self-knowing God, but an other-loving God (Yeah) forever working through history for the establishment of his kingdom.

And those of us who call the name of Jesus Christ find something of an event in our Christian faith that tells us this. There is something in our faith that says to us, “Never despair; never give up; never feel that the cause of righteousness and justice is doomed.” There is something in our Christian faith, at the center of it, which says to us that Good Friday may occupy the throne for a day, but ultimately it must give way to the triumphant beat of the drums of Easter. (That’s right)

King’s fervent engagement with Scripture, appeals to fellow Christians to imitate Christ’s love, and declarations of the victory of God over evil amount to half the speech.

In King’s leadership and the work of thousands of faithful activists, the Civil Rights Movement was a radical force of societal transformation that unashamedly marched under the banner of the lordship of Jesus. It awakened the conscience of the nation and continues to captivate hearts and inspire hope for the oppressed. It should be recognized alongside earlier awakenings for its reshaping of US public life and the American church.

As we simultaneously commemorate King’s life and welcome a new presidential administration into power, leading up to Black History Month, may we be provoked by King’s timeless words—and hear them not only as an activist’s speech but also as a revivalist’s sermon. It is time for the whole body of Christ to step out of suspicion and into love, to recover our shared inheritance from this unrecognized awakening.

Rev. Jonathan Tremaine “JT” Thomas (@jontremaine) is a missionary; the president/CEO of Civil Righteousness, which is a movement of holy activism; and the senior advisor of justice and reconciliation to New Room for Seedbed.

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Ideas

It’s Time for a New Era of Christian Civility

Alexandra Hudson‌

Healing political division requires we revive the lost virtue of civility, grounded in universal human dignity.

Illustration by Elizabeth Kaye / Source Images: Pexels

Over the past few years, our society has continued its trend toward increased political polarization, as the share of people swinging to the far left and right increases. In fact, a recent poll shows that nearly half of US voters believe those in the opposing political party are “downright evil.”

As a result, the public square can be a volatile and even violent place to engage. This is something I experienced firsthand while working in the federal government from 2017 to 2018. In Washington, I observed two equally dehumanizing extremes: explicit hostility and deceptive politeness.

The politicians who most often make the news are those who are overtly aggressive and willing to trample anyone in their path to gain power. Others appear polished, poised, and polite—but their behavior masks ulterior motives. For example, one of my supervisors used our shared Christian faith to disarm and manipulate me. She would smile and invite me to pray with her at lunch, only for me to later discover she had been undermining me to our superiors.

My experience was so dispiriting that I fled politics and Washington altogether to write a book aimed at helping myself and others think more clearly about our deeply divided era and the ways we each might be part of resolving our crisis of polarization and dehumanization.

Turning to Scripture and great thinkers of the past to help me process what I had endured, I reflected on timeless questions: What does it mean to be human? What respect do we owe each other by virtue of our shared humanity, beyond our differences and disagreements?

The Bible reminds us that humanity is a conundrum defined by both nobility and wretchedness: We were made for community with God and others, but we are also selfish and fallen. We thrive in cooperation but are always threatened by our inclination to put ourselves above others.

As philosopher Blaise Pascal noted, “The more enlightened we are the more greatness and vileness we discover in man.” We are the pinnacle of God’s creation, uniquely bearing the divine image, yet also capable of base and ignoble conduct. Likewise, Augustine’s concept of humanity’s “lust to dominate” explains that both overt hostility and false politeness arise from the self-love of our sinful nature rather than a love that sees and respects others as fellow persons created in God’s image.

I came to realize that our present division requires far more than mere courtesy or politeness. We need to usher in a new era of civility—a virtue that has been all but lost in our country. And for Christians, civility is rooted in the imago Dei—the inherent dignity we all possess as beings created in God’s image. This foundation is crucial for flourishing across our differences today.

What changes must we make as a society, and especially as a church, to usher our nation into a new era of civility, founded on the Christian principle of universal human dignity? There are at least five.

First, we must stop confusing civility with politeness.

As I’ve already alluded to, there is an essential and often-overlooked difference between civility and politeness, and confusing the two has lost us the ability to speak the truth in love to each other.

Politeness is manners, etiquette, and technique—it’s a type of behavior—whereas civility is a virtue far deeper and richer than mere conduct. Instead of focusing on the form of conduct, civility gets to the motivation of any given action.

Civility is a disposition that recognizes and respects the common humanity, the fundamental personhood, and the inherent dignity of other human beings. In doing so, civility sometimes requires that we act in ways that appear deeply impolite, such as conveying difficult truths or engaging in robust debate—facing meaningful differences and important issues head-on.

As I’ve written for CT before, Jesus himself was not always polite, but he was continually civil.

Civility both requires certain actions and restricts other actions. It requires that we stand up for ourselves and be willing to speak hard truths in love, but it never lets our disagreements devolve into dehumanization or violence that violates another person’s imago Dei.

Today, some Christians seek to overcorrect for what they think of as a culture of suffocating politeness by supporting leaders and pundits who exhibit a brash delight in delivering hard truths and puncturing hypocrisy. Yet this approach often ends up fostering hostility and aggression and falls prey to the same dehumanizing attempt to control others that is evident with patronizing politeness.

In other words, politeness lies in superficial conduct, while true civility requires us to speak truth in love while recognizing and respecting the fundamental dignity of those we disagree with.

Second, we must stop making an apocalyptic religion out of politics.

The “religionization” of politics has led many believers to elevate political stances to the level of doctrinal orthodoxy—such that they become litmus tests for Christian identity. This, in turn, has led to us publicly question the faith of those who have differing views from us and to reduce complex individuals to political caricatures.

Increasingly, evangelical Christians on both sides of the aisle have become emboldened to say that anyone who disagrees with them on certain hot-button issues is not a true Christian at all. We often judge a person’s faith on whether they think the “right” way or support the “right” person.

But politics has not just become a religion—it’s become an apocalyptic religion. Some evangelical Christians have come to justify any behavior necessary to “win” a political battle or election, including dehumanizing political opponents and even fellow believers.

This political approach is often informed by a certain theology. In 2022, Pew Research found that over 60 percent of evangelical Protestant Christians said they believe “we are living in the end times.” While this is not an unbiblical belief in itself, it can be dangerous when paired with a dominionist mentality.

Such apocalyptic thinking is nothing new in Christianity. It’s important for us to be students of history, as a close study of the past can temper the false notion that ours is the worst or most perilous era for Christians. For example, Martin Luther thought he was living in the end times and, during the Protestant Reformation, falsely accused the pope of being the biblical Antichrist figure—a line of reasoning that provided ideological ammunition for violence toward Catholics.

Claiming we are on the brink of civilizational and cosmic collapse is useful for fundraising and winning elections. It raises the stakes of policy debates and election results and scares people into donating and turning out to cast their ballots. But this high-stakes mentality can be deadly, as it clouds our ability to see the image of God in those we perceive as political enemies.

Third, we should start viewing people holistically instead of reductively.

We often reduce people to their worst moments or views in isolation of their humanity. This can happen in one of two ways: One, we fixate on something they said or did of which they are probably not proud but which, thanks to technology and social media, has been immortalized and widely circulated. Or two, we boil them down to the views they hold (or the politicians or pundits they support), instead of seeing them in the full context of who they are as human beings.

Though we are all fallen and fallible, we’ve come to view the world through a cheapened simplicity: black and white, right and wrong, good and evil. We’ve adopted a strange perfectionism, where we expect those around us to make no errors in judgment, past or present—while forgetting that every one of us is defined by both greatness and wretchedness, as Pascal wrote.

It is time we start “unbundling” people—seeing vices in light of virtues and recognizing the complexity of human beliefs. Unbundling is a mental framework we can use to help us see the parts in light of the whole, mistakes in light of victories, and any views we deem as wrong or misguided in light of nuanced reasoning and motivations.

In essence, we must perceive each other’s irreducible worth as persons created in God’s image, a value which transcends all our differences. As human beings, we are each an amalgamation of contradictory impulses and desires. We are each imperfect in our knowledge and our conduct.

Unbundling means we resist the tempting impulse to see people or politicians as merely Republicans or Democrats. It means we recognize our mistakes or disagreements while being mindful of the basic respect we owe each other as fellow human beings with inherent dignity.

Fourth, we should only draw lines in the sand where they really matter.

We can remember adiaphora, which essentially means “indifferent” in Greek. This idea was popularized during the Protestant Reformation and the subsequent decades of religious wars. In an era where Christians were killing one another over numerous secondary theological differences, this word helped believers keep in mind the essentials of their faith.

Adiaphora distinguishes core Christian tenets, like Christ’s divinity and resurrection, from nonessentials, like views on infant baptism and transubstantiation.

The fact that Christ was God incarnate—who lived, died, and rose again on the third day—is nonnegotiable for the Christian faith. But reasonable minds can and have disagreed on many other theological, doctrinal issues or aspects of faith and practice, such whether the Bible should inform us on public policy regarding fossil fuels or tax reform or education.

As Augustine once wrote, “Love, and do what thou wilt.” In any given situation, determine how the love of God and the love of others might apply, and then act—in that order. We must approach disagreements on public policy or lesser issues with grace, recognizing room for differing interpretations, even within the household of faith.

Fifth, we must revive curiosity, instead of judgment, as our first instinct.

Humility leads us to another vital ingredient of Christian civility: curiosity. Today, political disagreements often become moral indictments. In our conversations with people we disagree with, we subconsciously think, Because you support this presidential candidate or hold this view on this issue, I know everything about you.

By contrast, curiosity is based in the recognition that every one of us is infinitely complex and comes to our views about the world for many different reasons. It acknowledges that people approach and answer life’s foundational questions differently and can come to different conclusions about how our faith and Scripture should inform public life today.

Curiosity also requires the humility and modesty to realize that none of us will ever have all the answers, at least this side of heaven. We must accept our natural limits as finite human beings who only “know in part” (1 Cor. 13:12)—otherwise, we essentially place ourselves on par with God, which was the original sin of humanity.

Instead of assuming we know all about someone based on their political stance, we should ask them more questions and listen patiently for their answers—without planning our next response. And the next time we’re debating someone with a different view, instead of presuming they are wrong and we have perfect knowledge on the subject, we should say, “Tell me more!”

In many cases, we may find that we are all more alike than we think. And in others, as we hear from another person’s perspective, we may learn new insights we’d never thought of before.

Regardless, we must cultivate a humble curiosity about people and the experiences that led them to their views of the world. Honoring people’s stories and respecting their perspectives are foundational to the task of reviving civility in our divided world.

Lastly, the apostle Paul lays out a wise and helpful biblical blueprint for Christian civility in Romans 14, offering us valuable insights on how to welcome differing views among believers without judgment.

As Julien C. H. Smith previously wrote for CT, this passage outlines Paul’s prescription for a polarized church in Rome, where Jews and Gentiles were divided and “the truth of the gospel was being challenged by a myriad of small grievances that threatened to turn neighbors into enemies.”

As paraphrased by The Message, Paul begins the chapter by saying, “Welcome with open arms fellow believers who don’t see things the way you do. And don’t jump all over them every time they do or say something you don’t agree with—even when it seems that they are strong on opinions but weak in the faith department. Remember, they have their own history to deal with. Treat them gently” (Rom. 14:1).

The apostle explains that we need to accept that Christians will think differently on many issues rather than try to convert everyone to our ways of thinking. He cautions against harsh criticism over dietary choices and holy days, instead emphasizing mutual respect and unity—advising that “each person is free to follow the convictions of conscience” (v. 5, MSG).

In summary, he urges believers to “make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification” and not let arguments over secondary matters such as these “destroy the work of God” among them (vv. 19–20).

These are words of wisdom for our moment, vital for ushering in a new era for Christian civility. Our sovereign God can handle our disagreements, along with the workings of elections and the cosmos, without our help or interference.

Embracing these principles can help heal fractured communities and repair the tattered social fabric in both Christian and secular circles. Let us navigate these divided times with grace, respect, and a renewed commitment to seeing the imago Dei in everyone around us.

Alexandra Hudson is the author of The Soul of Civility: Timeless Principles to Heal Society and Ourselves.

- More from Alexandra Hudson‌

Ideas

Racial Unity Is Out of Style

Justin Giboney

Contributor

Christians’ race debate is increasingly a battle between those blind to the sin of racism and those convinced racism and sexism are the only sins.

Illustration by Christianity Today / Source Images: WikiMedia Commons

Cultural sentiments can change in unexpected ways. People are complicated, and the direction of our discourse is often unpredictable. After losing the presidential election, Democratic Party leaders are learning—or should be learning—this the hard way. It turns out demographics aren’t destiny after all.

Some have called this change in the spirit of the day a “vibe shift.” But whatever we call it, for better or worse, it’s clear that many in our society began to feel differently over the last four or eight years about what’s valuable and prudent. In the flash of an eye, old terms, narratives, and frameworks lost their power.

With that context, it’s time to consider how race relations in the American church have actually worsened over the past half decade or so. The sentiment seems to have shifted in such a significant way that the once-popular racial-reconciliation project is now passé in many spaces. Even the term racial reconciliation feels corny and cringeworthy to some. But the problem is much bigger than semantics: I see the church’s racial and partisan divide growing at a moment when society most needs an example of a Christian ethic that destroys racial barriers and the dividing walls of partisan hostility (Eph. 2:14).

So why does it seem that the American church’s racial-unity experiment is no longer fashionable? Why do many of us no longer want to be unified?

Intrachurch race relations have been far from perfect. Yet events like MLK50 in 2018 offered hope that we could head in the right direction by bringing together diverse leaders with credibility in their respective communities. Seven years later, after right-wing backlash and much of the melanin leaving these organizations and denominations, assembling a similar group of leaders might prove more difficult.

More broadly, many of the Christian influencers who were on the cutting edge of the national racial-restoration effort appear to have given up and resolved to focus on their own church communities instead. I sympathize with that response because many of those who stuck their necks out to profess historical, biblical truth about race and pursue racial unity were professionally and reputationally punished. They were kicked out of churches and ministry jobs and had their careers sabotaged. I applaud those who stood up for themselves.

Therein lies one of the primary reasons I believe Christian race relations have soured: a bitter reprisal from some on the church’s far right. Those who had an aversion to even talking about racial justice lashed out, engaging in fearmongering rather than debate and scaring people away from even the most constructive conversations about race. They seized on the excesses of progressivism to discredit racial-restoration efforts altogether.

By design, their heavy-handed approach squeezed all the compassion out of their tribe. To even mourn for George Floyd or Breonna Taylor, in their telling, was to be brainwashed by wokeness. And this wasn’t just wild talk on the internet. It shaped major Christian institutions and sent race relations backward in the church.

A second factor aggravating all this was the reaction from some on the far left. The response to bad behavior can also be bad, which is why Frederick Douglass publicly disagreed with and separated himself from some abolitionists. Though they agreed on the wickedness of slavery, Douglass knew methods still mattered. That was not bothsidesism. It was an honest, impartial, and comprehensive critique from someone who wanted justice and order, not merely any win for his side.

Plenty of racial-justice efforts have been sincere and constructive, but inside and outside the church, the cause has also been misused as a vehicle to launder other progressive issues, like undermining the nuclear family. A lucrative industry emerged with no intention to actually solve the problem.

Regrettably, instead of confidently responding on our own terms as justice-conscious Christians, too many of us simply mimicked popular secular thinkers. Christian racial-justice efforts became a knockoff or repackaging of projects with no foundation in our faith. We religiously regurgitated their language without sufficient critique, even self-righteously berating fellow Christians who hadn’t memorized the vocabulary.

Like the Christian nationalists we were opposing, we dabbled in the dark arts of identity idolatry, casting aspersions against entire groups of people while demanding all grace for our own in rituals of self-justification and self-exaltation. Most regrettably, we lost sight of the importance of holiness, following secular activists into positions that undermined the authority of Scripture and sanctity of life.

The race debate in much of the church increasingly became a battle between those who were blind to the sin of racism and those who believed racism and sexism were the only sins.

Where do we go from here? Our resentments do not glorify a Savior who congregated with and died for tax collectors, zealots, prostitutes, and thieves. Remember, Christian unity is a command, not an option (1 Cor. 1:10).

We can throw up our hands and maintain our contempt for one another—but it will come at a cost. Every time we give a lesson or sermon on the Christian love ethic, we’ll do so with a measure of hypocrisy. Every time we tell our children about the necessity of grace and mercy, the stench of insincerity will betray us. Every time we pray, “Thy Kingdom come,” we’ll do so under the shadow of false pretense.

Without deeds of reconciliation to match these words of love, grace, and unity, the wider society will continue to question if we really believe what we say. Our divisions rob the church of credibility.

This is why we can’t give up on racial reconciliation in the church. We must have the moral imagination and determination to find a greater unity, working with and learning from nonbelievers without being indoctrinated by them.

Even when that work seems impossible, I take inspiration from elders like Barbara Williams-Skinner, Jo Anne Lyon, pastor Bob Roberts, and John Jenkins. If they’re still committed to pursuing racial unity after decades of disappointments, so am I. We’ll need new approaches and possibly new language, but the endgame must remain redemption, never retribution.

Not everyone is ready to move forward constructively, but we need a remnant—a coalition of the faithful who are willing to overcome past slights to pick up the cross. Those who are willing to lower themselves to help up their neighbors. Whether in style or out, self-sacrificial pursuit of racial unity is a Christian responsibility. It’s a kingdom prerequisite.

We can either follow the vibe or follow the Spirit.

Justin Giboney is an ordained minister, an attorney, and the president of the AND Campaign, a Christian civic organization. He’s the coauthor of Compassion (&) Conviction: The AND Campaign’s Guide to Faithful Civic Engagement.

- More from Justin Giboney

News

Assessing the Israel-Hamas Peace Deal: Amid Tragedy, Cautious Optimism

Jill Nelson

Dozens of hostages are slated for release, but at what cost?

Protesters gathered at dozens of locations across Israel calling to end the war in Gaza for a hostage deal.

SOPA Images / Getty

After 15 months of war and failed negotiations, Israel and Hamas agreed Wednesday to pause fighting and to begin exchanging hostages imprisoned in Gaza for Palestinians in Israeli jails.

The deal brings hope for Palestinians facing food shortages and widespread death and destruction, but its terms are controversial for an Israeli public traumatized by the October 7, 2023, terrorist attack—and wary of security concessions. Israel’s cabinet still has to give the deal its blessing.

Phase one involves a six-week ceasefire and the exchange of 33 men, women, and children (or for those who perished, their bodies) for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. Similar past exchanges freed hardened militants who turned around and committed acts of violence against Israelis.

For instance, in 2011, Hamas exchanged one kidnapped Israeli soldier for 1,000 Palestinian prisoners. One of those prisoners was Yahya Sinwar, the now-dead Hamas leader who engineered the October 7 cross-border attacks that left 1,200 dead and 250 people taken hostage.

“The basic principle is you don’t negotiate with terrorists who say, ‘We’re going to kill you anyways, and that’s the reason for our existence,’” said Israel Pochtar, an Israeli pastor at Congregation Beit Hallel, a church he founded 17 years ago in the city of Ashdod, 23 miles north of Gaza.

Dozens of members from his church left Ashdod to serve in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) after October 7, even as the church grieved the loss of the youth leader’s son, a 20-year-old who had grown up in the church and was serving on the front lines when Hamas attacked. Congregation Beit Hallel currently has 30 men, some in leadership positions, serving in the reserves.

Pochtar can see Gaza from his 30th-floor apartment, an unnerving proximity for him in light of another requirement attached to the deal: Israeli troops will withdraw to a buffer zone less than a mile wide along Gaza’s eastern border. Though he and others are glad dozens of hostages are scheduled for release, they ask, At what cost?

IDF troops spent the past 15 months in Gaza clearing Hamas strongholds—many stationed under hospitals and mosques and throughout hundreds of miles of tunnels—and establishing security corridors to prevent weapons smuggling. Some analysts believe an Israeli troop withdrawal will be a green light for the remaining Hamas fighters to regroup and rearm.

Still, Pochtar empathized with the families of the hostages: “As a father of three, if my children were kidnapped in Gaza, I would just want my kids home.”

The initial phase of hostage releases will take place over several weeks and includes female soldiers, children, and civilians who are more than 50 years old. Two of the three American hostages may be part of the initial exchange.

A November 2023 ceasefire deal freed more than 100 hostages from captivity in Gaza. Israeli officials say there are 98 hostages, including four taken prior to October 2023, though analysts suspect one-third are dead.

Also part of the arrangement between Hamas and Israel: Gazans return to what homes they may still have, and the flow of aid increases. The tragedy for families in Gaza has been immense; according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, more than 46,000 Palestinians have died since October 2023. (That estimate does not distinguish between civilians and Hamas combatants.)

The ceasefire is scheduled to begin on Sunday. If it holds, another round of talks addressing Gaza’s “day after” plan for governance will begin 16 days later. Negotiators from Qatar, Egypt, and the United States, including Trump’s Middle East envoy and members of the Biden administration, helped broker the agreement.

Both sides could face significant roadblocks in phase two. Israel wants assurances that Hamas will be eliminated as a political option and crippled as a terrorist enterprise. Hamas wants a pathway to survival.

One little-reported outcome: Pochtar knows Hamas members who have come to faith in Christ. He is praying for gospel intervention in the weeks ahead: “Anyone who comes to Jesus gains the power to forgive and the desire to bring the gospel to your enemies.”

Israel hasn’t officially approved the deal and has accused Hamas of backpedaling on some aspects of the agreement. But the delay could also be related to “coalition politics” among Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, stated The Times of Israel. According to reports from Israel on Thursday evening, a small security cabinet will vote on the cease-fire on Friday, followed by a full cabinet vote on Saturday.

Since the ceasefire announcement, Israeli airstrikes have killed 83 people, including 23 children and 27 women, a spokesperson for Gaza’s civil defense said Thursday. The IDF told CNN they “conducted strikes on approximately 50 terror targets across the Gaza Strip.”

This is a developing story.

- More from Jill Nelson

Culture

When Insurance Denies Your Child’s Treatment

Wendy Kiyomi

I’ve been angry. I’ve been frantic. This time, I’m watching for the Lord.

Illustration by Elizabeth Kaye / Source Images: Getty, New York Public Library, Wikimedia Commons

Eight days before Christmas, our health insurance told us they would deny our son’s critical mental health treatment, effective mid-January, on our wedding anniversary.

Merry Christmas!

I use the word critical to describe the treatment our son needed because, while it is not exactly a matter of life and death, it is important, expensive, and rare. His condition has improved significantly because of it, and we’d been feeling more hopeful about his health than we had in years.

“Hello, I hope you are doing well,” the email read. “Our utilization management team has determined that the treatment needs for your child are not meeting medical necessity. If you disagree with this decision, you have the option to appeal. Additionally, the provider can request a peer-to-peer review with our medical director.”

You can bet that we disagreed with this decision. But we didn’t immediately register its ramifications. We had other important things going on—working, caring for the rest of our children, putting food on the table, attending to Advent.

When your children have experienced an early childhood full of adversity, like ours have, the effects are long-lived and pervasive. You make hundreds of visits to pediatricians, specialists, psychiatrists, psychologists, therapists, pharmacies, group classes, workshops, conferences, educators, school districts, social workers, hospitals, and consultants. Each visit has its own set of phone calls, emails, privacy agreements, referrals, releases of information, billing, pre-authorizations, insurance estimates, health portal logins … You get the idea.

This administrative burden on people who are already sick results in new harms. A Wall Street Journal writer compellingly described how chronic aggravations of this kind can contribute to a kind of madness.

None of this justifies violent retaliation, like the recent murder of a health care CEO. I do not condone personal revenge or killing. I do understand the deep, painful frustrations that cause many to view the alleged murderer as a kind of Robin Hood of healthcare. The denial of an important medical claim, especially for a child, almost always causes a certain amount of freaking out.

This is an upheaval with major consequences. Most obviously, of course, the child doesn’t receive crucial care. Less obviously, you suffer a blow to your idea of being able to fulfill a parent’s basic job: to protect and provide. You find yourself in a hellish place where you are utterly responsible and ultimately powerless.

These losses often play out in a way that resembles the initial stages of grief: existential denial (“They can’t do that”) and anger (“How dare they”). It is tempting to spend a lot of time and energy in these states after hearing about what insurance won’t cover. The adrenaline can help propel you through the effort needed to fight for your child’s safety.

But not this time. This time I experienced a kind of withering. It was not my first rodeo. I knew by now that the company very well could and most probably would deny the treatment. I also wasn’t angry, exactly. I was fallen myself—so it made sense to me that “the insurance people,” in their fallen way, produce a fallen system that produces harms for vulnerable children.

Plus, it was the Christmas season, and we didn’t have a tree yet. We were hosting dinner with family in a few days. Our oven had conked out. This time, I had no fuel to flare my indignation.

Even so, my spirit was beguiled by a different response: frenetic effort. We will fight this. We will beat them at their own game. We will crush them with a preponderance of evidence. Open season on determinations of medical necessity!

Effort is seductive—so many avenues of action look promising. You can make urgent calls to the insurance case manager. You can send them emails. You can call customer service. You can ask to speak to their supervisor. You can draft an appeal. You can append supporting documentation. You can “document, document, document.” You can call all the providers within a hundred-mile radius for alternatives. You can recruit experts to corroborate medical need. You can find out whether the insurance uses the InterQual or the Calocus-Casii criteria to determine medical necessity. You can call your state’s insurance ombudsman. You can call the state commissioner on insurance. You can call your elected representatives. You can scroll through CoverMyMentalHealth.org. You can retain a lawyer. You can mount a GoFundMe for out-of-pocket medical expenses in case you need to cover the tens of thousands of dollars that the treatment costs (sometimes private pay is an option; sometimes it is not).

I did some of these things, but I confess that I did not do them all. It’s not actually that easy to carry out such a campaign or retain a lawyer in the final weeks of the calendar year. There just aren’t that many business days at December’s end; everyone is on holiday and sending you automatically to voicemail.

I did not know whether I was called to drop everything to contest this decision in the last week before Christmas. In church, we had just lit the fourth candle of the Advent wreath, representing peace. “We celebrate the announcement of the coming of the Prince of Peace,” the worship leader had said, soothingly, “and the greatness of God’s love revealed through the Christ child.”

Perhaps I was affected subconsciously by all this peace talk. But I found I just couldn’t keep feuding, not in the midst of the holiday, even if I deeply disagreed with our insurance’s decision. I didn’t know whether that was foolhardiness or faith. Maybe it was both.

Instead, two images kept coming to mind. One was of the prophet Elijah coming to the end of his rope, running away, and collapsing in the wilderness, only to be fed fresh baked bread and cool water by a ministering angel (1 Kings 19). And the second image was of the weaned child of Psalm 131:2, not concerned with matters too great or wonderful but calmed, quieted, and content with its mother.

I don’t want to hyperspiritualize our situation or paint ourselves as the prophets of old in a deadly fight with the Jezebel of health insurance. Yet I did feel keenly that the journey had been too much and that there was just not much we could do about any of it.

I also suspected that the allure of frenetic effort was more about distracting myself from the more grievous reality—that God could bring healing to this child if he wanted to, instantly and involving no insurance at all. Is the Lord’s arm too short? What does the appeal process look like for years of unanswered prayers?

I remembered King Jehoshaphat’s prayer in another situation of bewilderment and powerlessness. “Our God, will you not judge them?” he prayed. “For we have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you” (2 Chron. 20:12).

He and his people stood before the Lord. Then they heard, “You will not have to fight this battle. Take up your positions; stand firm and see the deliverance the Lord will give you, Judah and Jerusalem” (v. 17).

Maybe I am not withering at all. Maybe I am taking up my position and standing firm, watching.

Maybe this watching is shaped by the example of Mary, whose faithfulness to the purposes of God meant watching her beloved son suffer and die, with no life-saving intervention possible from her effort or anyone else’s. Within this tangle of hopelessness, the hope was present, invisibly at first. But for those watching, God would give eyes to see something completely new.

The Lord has not yet brought our children healing, at least not in a way that I can clearly see. And he may not. That is a matter too wonderful for me—and I merely a child. I wish I knew how to write an appeal to end all appeals and to smite the insurance executives with a peer-to-peer review the likes of which they have never seen. But I don’t know how to do that either.

Now that Christmas has passed, my meager efforts will have to suffice. I will write the appeal I know how to write—this is the position I have to take up, the only way I know how to stand firm and watch for the deliverance the Lord will give. We’ll see how it goes.

Wendy Kiyomi is an adoptive parent, scientist, and writer in Tacoma, Washington, whose work on faith, adoption, and friendship has also appeared in Plough Quarterly, Image, Mockingbird, and The Englewood Review of Books. She is a 2023 winner of the Zenger Prize.

- More from Wendy Kiyomi

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