Haitians Are Ministering at the End of the World

Andy Olsen

As Haiti is uprooted by violence, church leaders treat gunshot wounds, give up homes for strangers, and rescue dignitaries.

A man identifies a body after an overnight shooting in the Port-au-Prince suburb of Pétion-Ville in March.

Odelyn Joseph / AP Images

Pastor Frederic Nozil has learned to keep his head down.

Last year, the year he turned 53, gangs attacked his neighborhood in Pétion-Ville, a suburb overlooking Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. They ransacked the house Nozil was renting and set it on fire. Nozil moved with his wife and two daughters to a safer community a couple of miles away.

Still, he took few chances. This year, he turned 54 at home, quietly. A handful of people from his church brought a cake. They stayed no more than an hour. “Parties attract attention,” Nozil said. “You can’t celebrate too much.”

He schedules church activities to wrap up before a mandatory curfew. He will cut a prayer service short if he has a bad feeling about a police vehicle he noticed on the street. Some of his congregation risk their lives crossing gang checkpoints on their way to the church, the Centre Chrétien International Maison d’Adoration, so he knows to expect a smaller turnout.

Ministry looks different, he figures, at the end of the world. “We are living in an eschatological time,” Nozil said.

That’s how it felt in the early hours of March 18. It was a Monday, and the bespectacled minister should have been recovering from the usual slate of Sunday demands. Instead, he shut himself in his home for two days straight as heavy gunfire echoed through the hills.

Gang members in balaclavas wound past Nozil’s neighborhood in cars and motorcycles, ascending the main road into the mountains. They shot automatic weapons and left at least a dozen pedestrians dead in their wake. They stopped in a wealthy enclave called Laboule and laid siege to its walled residences. In one home, security cameras recorded armed young men with backpacks as they forced their way into a paver-stone courtyard and peered into parked SUVs.

In a home nearby, a man escaped the assailants, and then—because anything can happen at the end of the world—he made a desperate phone call to a pastor 1,600 miles away.

Roselin “RoRo” Eustache was driving home from Walmart when Miradin Morlan’s name flashed on his phone. Eustache had been stuck in Houston for months, staying with family, unable to return to Haiti because gangs have closed the nation’s main international airport and blocked every route to his home and the mission he runs there.

When he saw the call from an old acquaintance—the former head of the Direction Générale des Impôts, Haiti’s equivalent of the IRS—he picked up to hear a panicked plea: Pastor, save my life!

Morlan explained he and his wife were fleeing Laboule on foot. Gangs had broken into their home, held him at gunpoint, tried to kidnap him, and stripped the rooms bare. They stole his cars. His private security guards ran for their lives.

As he put distance between himself and his attackers, Morlan remembered the hospital at Eustache’s mission, a place in Haiti’s south where he had once had knee surgery. The pastor had helped him before; would he do it again? Eustache arranged for a driver to meet them.

The couple took a hired motorcycle over a mountain pass and along a road that in spots is little more than a hiking trail. At one point, Morlan’s wife fell and broke her arm. After hours of travel, perhaps 20 miles, they met the driver in a town called Seguin, at the piney edge of one of Haiti’s few national parks.

“I am still in shock,” Morlan said, days later in a countryside hideout where he was struggling to find even toilet paper. “It’s really incomprehensible.”

Except, tragically, it is not.

Forced displacements are ubiquitous among the nearly 4 million people in and around Port-au-Prince. Gangs control more than 80 percent of the city, where roughly a third of Haitians live. The bandits, as many Haitians refer to them, have killed more than 1,500 people in the first three months of 2024 alone.

At least 362,500 Haitians have fled gang violence so far, according to the United Nations. Gunmen have driven residents from slums. From rural villages. From gated communities. From farms.

Mass displacement is reshaping everyday life far beyond the violence-racked capital. Gangs have outgunned the national police and pushed north, to Haiti’s quilted rice fields, and west, toward horizons outlined by plantains and sugarcane.

The ongoing violence compounds a hunger crisis that has left more than a million Haitians at risk of starvation. It is wiping out families’ savings and straining resources in already stretched communities.

Last month was the worst yet: More than 53,000 Haitians were forced from their homes. For pastors like Nozil and Eustache and Christian leaders across Haiti, displacement—really, the upending of their entire universe—has come to redefine ministry.

“This is my whole life,” Eustache told CT. Some staff at his mission, Haitian Christian Outreach, have been displaced as many as four times, migrating between schools and other public facilities that have morphed into shelters as gang boundaries shift.

Local police have turned to the mission, one staff member said. Some officers have not been paid for months, and they are struggling to find food and beds for those who were sleeping on the precinct floor. The mission had helped in the past, even loaning police Land Cruisers when their vehicles were broken down.

“I need to do something,” Eustache said. “Because whenever we need them, they’re there for us.”

Haitians often vent their dissatisfaction with politicians through a saying: rache manyok. Translated literally, it means “tear out the manioc.” It’s what a farmer does when he grabs the long stem of the plant also known as cassava and wrings it from the red dirt, tuber to leaf.

For decades, rache manyok has been shouted in street protests and deployed against elected leaders on social media. So has a punchier, related word: dechoukaj, or “uprooting.”

But Haiti has no elected leaders now; it has not held elections in eight years. In that enduring power vacuum, experts estimate that as many as 200 gangs arose.

In February, many of the gangs cemented an alliance that enabled them to vandalize government offices and break open the nation’s two largest prisons. They have threatened to complete their conquest by occupying the main airport and the National Palace, Haiti’s iconic seat of government.

This week, a new nine-member transitional governing council is beginning the task it has been handed by the United States and the 15-nation Caribbean Community: quell the violence and, by some miracle, prepare the country for elections again.

They inherit a nation being uprooted.

If you wanted to mark the destruction in Haiti with pins on a giant map, you would probably start in Port-au-Prince. You’d stick a dozen pins on the pharmacies that gangs burned near the General Hospital downtown and most of its medical facilities, which are largely inoperative.

Eventually you’d put a pin in the former campus of the Evangelical Theological Seminary of Port-au-Prince, a rare wooded oasis with a gleaming academic building that was finally rebuilt after the 2010 earthquake, only to be seized by gangs three years later in 2020.

You’d pin churches that have been burned or had windows smashed, and factories and car dealerships. You’d pin the vandalized National School of the Arts and the looted National Library, a repository of historical documents from the world’s first Black republic.

After you covered most of the capital in well over a thousand pins, you could pick almost any route out of the city and trace the decimation along the way. If you took Route Nationale 1 for a few miles, you would tag several looted compounds of American missions groups.

Near the town of Titanyen, you’d drop a pin on the campus of Christian Aid Ministries, where a group of kidnapped Anabaptist missionaries were tearfully reunited with loved ones after escaping in late 2021 and where, only months later, gangs took control of the property. Next door, at the compound of a Mississippi-based ministry, gangs punched a hole in the concrete perimeter wall, emptying shipping containers and peeling solar panels from rooftops.

All of that pinning, and you would fail to even scratch the surface. You would still be five miles from the town of Cabaret, where the police station, like many police stations before it, burned in early March.

Cabaret is a small regional hub, a town shaped like an amphitheater at a crook in the highway. What people remember is that on March 3, no one’s phones were working—fuel shortages and roadblocks often prevent cellular providers from powering their towers.

Around lunchtime, a father in the market heard someone yell, “The men are coming!” He rushed home, grabbing his four children and running. As they sprinted through gunfire, his seven-year-old son was shot in the leg.

Oltina, one of the few Cabaret residents CT interviewed for this story who was willing to give her name, had fled another town less than a month earlier. She was outside when the shooting erupted around her. Racing to find her kids, she tripped on a pot of beans cooking over a fire and burned her foot in the boiling water. For several hours she hid with her two children in a garden.

Another woman said she watched bandits kidnap her husband as she escaped with their two-month-old son.

Houses burned. Stores and market stalls—the fruit of years of labor—were abandoned. Life savings and passports and family photographs were lost as an entire community fled into the mountains.

With no phones and no way to coordinate, the displaced scattered from Cabaret, heading wherever instinct guided them or wherever they thought they might know someone.

In a village roughly eight miles away, a young mother opened her door to an older woman she had never seen before. The stranger had four children in tow, and her husband had been fatally shot in the stomach trying to defend their home in Cabaret. Their relatives in the village had no room for them.

“Pretend this is your house,” said the young mother, who asked that neither she nor her town be identified for fear that gangs would target her neighborhood.

In the same community, another woman, a twenty-something who works at the American-run ministry Real Hope for Haiti, arrived home to find more than a dozen people from Cabaret. A friend suggested they would be welcome at her place.

The ministry employee hosted 17 refugees in her two-bedroom home. She gave up her own bed. She sleeps elsewhere for now, swinging by each day to pack the clothes she needs in a plastic bag. In the evenings she prays with her houseguests; one of them, a young girl, has been suffering from panic attacks.

“Taking in strangers is hard,” the woman said. “But if God welcomes everyone, we can welcome a few people who are trying to escape from gangs.”

An official in her town estimated that several thousand people have been displaced to the village over the last year. Locals have grown accustomed, to the degree anyone really can, to outsiders roaming their streets, asking for food or a place to sleep.

At the ten churches around town, pastors say attendance is up. Some services are overflowing, with worshipers bringing their own chairs. Churches have tried to adopt displaced families to care for. People have cut bananas and breadfruit from their gardens and brought them to the sojourners. They have donated rugs and woven mats for sleeping.

Church leaders across the country report similar situations, especially in the south, where the UN says most displaced people have fled to this year.

But Lori Moise, who directs Real Hope for Haiti’s clinic, cautions that people should not get the impression that some spiritual awakening is underway, like she remembers happening after the 2010 earthquake.

“There are many who wholeheartedly hold fast to God. Others have left the church because they don’t see him answering their prayers and the suffering is unrelenting,” said Moise, whose clinic has treated gunshot wounds in survivors from several communities in recent years.

“When the gang violence first started, people prayed more and spoke of God more. I see despair falling on most people now. One quality foreigners remark about the Haitian people is their resilience and hope. I sense both are waning.”

The number of internally displaced Haitians has grown, at least partially, because leaving the country has grown extremely difficult. The main international and domestic airport in Port-au-Prince has been closed since early March, after parked aircraft were struck with bullets. The neighboring Dominican Republic has shut its border to Haitian nationals.

But it is only a pause; the flight of Haitians abroad will resume as soon as airline ticket counters reopen.

Haitians who already fled to South and Central America are driving record asylum applications in Mexico. And in the United States, 168,000 Haitians have been granted temporary residency through a Biden administration humanitarian parole program that began last year. Among them are thousands of Haiti’s best and brightest.

Almost everyone has stories of those who have left: a church in the north where the whole elder board emigrated; a mission hospital in a central region now missing a third of its staff. Haitian Christian Outreach, Eustache’s ministry, has lost eight employees—including teachers and three doctors—to the program. Pastor Nozil’s entire music team is gone. Reginald Pyrhus, pastor of Église Baptist Bérée in Port-au-Prince, says that half of his middle-class congregation has left the country, many going to the United States.

And they are not the only brain drain underway. An entire generation of college-aged Haitians is currently not entering medical school or law school or other professional programs, or, at the least, have been forced to put studies on hold. Many of those who have completed coursework cannot sit for certification exams, because the exams are not being administered. So if and when medical facilities do reopen, there will be a severe shortage of talent waiting to pick up the mantle.

“This is a big problem,” Eustache said. “It’s going to take us time to find good doctors again.”

It will also be a while before missionaries and other aid workers return. Most pulled out of Haiti years ago, heeding escalating State Department warnings to US citizens. For the few hardy souls who stayed, the March airport closure was a breaking point. Missionaries told stories of evacuations at rural airstrips and helicopter rescues by a private group using the code words Operation: Rum Runner.

David Selvey, the American director of the Haitian American Friendship Foundation, a mission that operates in the country’s central plateau, got out with a group of missionaries who crossed a river into the Dominican Republic in dugout canoes. Someone put him in touch with a Dominican pastor who drove four hours across the country to collect them at the border.

“It’s just amazing to me how quickly God’s people will step up to help people in the family of God who are in trouble or have a problem,” Selvey told CT. “And you don’t have to know them.”

Don Allensworth would like to see a whole lot more people stepping up.

Allensworth is chief development officer of Mission of Hope, a ministry that long operated out of a compound in Titanyen, between Port-au-Prince and Cabaret. Nearby campuses were breached by gangs, so it relocated to Cap-Haïtien in the north.

The ministry’s partners across Haiti are texting reports almost daily. In Jérémie, a city in the southwest, people are waking up to find children and the elderly who died overnight from hunger.

“Haiti is facing the greatest humanitarian crisis in the history of its existence right now, and it is not okay for people to starve to death,” he said. “I don’t care if you’re a Christian or not. If you’re a human, it’s not okay for people to starve to death.”

Once one of Haiti’s largest facilitators of short-term mission groups, Mission of Hope now focuses much of its energy on food aid. With gangs blocking the country’s main seaport, the nonprofit has gone as far as approaching cruise lines to find new ways to ship in the hundreds of thousands of meals it distributes each month.

But Allensworth doesn’t want Mission of Hope to become known as a food agency. He wants the violence to stop and children to return full-time to school, and the organization’s Haitian staff to be able to work without fearing for their lives.

“The Haitian people just want an opportunity to live and make decisions about leading themselves,” he said. “They need to be free.”

To help Haiti’s police liberate the country from the armed groups holding it hostage, the United Nations has sanctioned the deployment of a multinational police force of as many as 2,500 officers. Roughly 1,000 would come from Kenya. Most Haitians support a limited intervention to help stabilize the country, and Haiti’s new transitional council faces strong international pressure to welcome the security mission.

But the operation has hit multiple delays; Kenya has said it will not send the force until partner countries, namely the United States, make good on their promises to underwrite it. Republicans in the US House and Senate have so far refused to approve the $40 million the State Department has pledged to help launch the Kenya-led mission.

“We need to figure out a way to get the dollars that have been allocated to Haiti, to get them there as quickly as we can,” Allensworth said. “Now is the time to write those letters” to senators and congressmen.

Eustache says he does not know how Haiti’s great uprooting will end, or when. He is homesick. He wishes he were back in his country, praying in person with Haitians who have nothing to eat, instead of being stranded in Texas trying to persuade Americans that they have too much to eat.

But the best plan he can formulate right now is to keep telling people how much it hurts to watch his world unravel.

When he speaks about it, he seems at times on the verge of tears. “We need to continue to do what we’ve been doing, making people aware of the situation,” Eustache said. “We cannot let our candle die on us.”

With reporting by Franco lacomini in Brazil and Espeson Toussaint in Haiti.

Andy Olsen is senior editor at CT.

- More from Andy Olsen

News

Forgotten War: Sudan’s Displaced Christians Brace for ‘World’s Worst’ Hunger Crisis

Jayson Casper

Interview with leader of new evangelical alliance describes his escape from Khartoum and the pressure to pick a side.

Refugees fleeing from civil war in Sudan arrive at a transit center in South Sudan.

Luis Tato / Contributor / Getty

Overlooked by crises in Gaza and Ukraine, Sudan has now endured one year of civil war. Nearly 16,000 people have been killed, with 8.2 million fleeing from their homes—including 4 million children. Both figures are global highs for internal displacement.

The United Nations stated that the “world’s worst hunger crisis” is looming, warning that one-third of Sudan’s 49 million people suffer acute food insecurity and 222,000 children could die of starvation within weeks. Yet an international emergency response plan, endorsed by UN agencies including the Cindy McCain-led World Food Program, is only six percent funded.

Sudanese Christians feel like “no one cares.”

Five years earlier, they had great hope. In 2019 a popular revolution overthrew longtime dictator Omar al-Bashir, wanted for war crimes against his people. The new civilian government repealed the law of apostasy, removed Islamist elements from the bureaucracy, and implemented other democratic reforms. But in 2021 the general of the army, in cooperation with the leader of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF)—a government-aligned paramilitary group accused of the atrocities in Darfur—deposed the prime minister.

Continuing negotiations with civilian leaders demanded a merger of the two armed forces, but neither general could agree on terms. And while it is not clear who fired the first shot, last year on April 15 the conflict exploded in the capital of Khartoum. Much of the North African nation is now a war zone.

Yet somehow, an evangelical alliance has formed and joined two regional bodies.

Rafat Samir, secretary general of the Sudan Evangelical Alliance, witnessed the outbreak of violence firsthand. Now resident in Egypt, he oversaw the dialogue between his own Evangelical Presbyterian synod and the Sudanese Church of Christ, shuttling between safe havens in his home country and in neighboring Ethiopia.

Earlier this month, these denominational partners, which Samir says represent at least 75 percent of Sudanese evangelicals, successively affiliated with the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) regional associations for both the Arab world and sub-Saharan Africa. Catholics, Anglicans, Coptic Orthodox, and various Protestant denominations account for about 4 percent of the population of Sudan, which ranks No. 8 on the Open Doors World Watch List of countries where it is hardest to be a Christian.

CT asked Samir about the impact of civil war on the church, why its WEA identity exists in two directions, and why his only remaining hope is in God:

Where were you on April 15 last year?

My home is in the Bahri neighborhood, where both the army and the RSF have bases, and antiaircraft guns were firing right outside my bedroom window, with bombing campaigns morning and night. Electricity and water services were cut. As it was Ramadan, one day I went out at sunset to find food, thinking there would be a lull in the fighting. A bullet missed me by mere centimeters.

I wanted to flee immediately, but my brother preferred to wait it out, as we have witnessed clashes before, and he anticipated it would end after a few days, as previously. Bodies lie dead in the streets, and we covered them with sand to suppress the smell. But after enduring these harsh conditions with his wife and two daughters for 15 days, he agreed to leave when a bomb hit his neighboring house.

How did you escape?

We searched three days just to find a vehicle to get us out of the city, and eventually had to pay $500 USD to travel only two kilometers (1.2 miles). We then negotiated getting a small bus with 40 other people to take us to the Egyptian border, but then the driver upped the price upon our arrival to $10,000 total. We had room only for our personal documents, leaving everything else behind.

But leaving Khartoum was entirely dependent on God’s timing.

The battle was still raging, with barrel bombs damaging the road out of town. An earlier bus was stopped by the RSF, who killed the people and stole their money. We heard that, at an army checkpoint, a later bus experienced the same thing. We were lucky—soldiers only searched our vehicles for weapons and simply wanted a bribe to let us move onward.

A friendly family in the city before Egypt gave us a place to sleep and running water. But the next day, the border was so crowded it took us three days to pass through. Some slept in the mosque, others under the scattered trees. When I finally made it to Aswan, an Egyptian friend met me and gave me a place in the German mission hospital guesthouse. He cried when he saw me.

I didn’t know why until I finally settled in and looked at myself in the mirror.

Where are others in your church?

We have over 100 members in our Bahri church. Those who took shelter there were beaten by the RSF when they attacked our building, and they had to flee. Many went to Egypt, others to Ethiopia, Chad, the Nuba Mountains region, or to South Sudan. But there, it is expensive, so several traveled onward to Uganda. A few stayed in Sudan, but renting in-country is also expensive—and for those with children there is no school.

Even a bottle of water costs up to $10.

Everyone is making as much money off this crisis as they can. So, basically, people went where they had family, could find work, or get a visa. But outside of Khartoum, most churches are still functioning. They are not at peace, but they have no possibility to leave. Evangelicals are not from the elite—most believers come from war zones in Sudan. Many don’t have travel documents, and while they can work and eat, they remain poor.

The Church of Christ members are nearly all from the Nuba Mountains, which was at war with the government. Presbyterians are majority Nuba also, with 20 percent originally from South Sudan and another 20 percent from the various tribes. I am of Egyptian descent—others are from Darfur or the Arab north.

How do you manage this diversity?

Identity is a big problem in Sudan. Our country is African, but we speak Arabic. This is why we joined both regional alliances. If you say “Arab” to someone from the Nuba Mountains or South Sudan, it means the people who killed their families, raped their daughters, and tried to Islamize them. But in the north of the country, the Arab is his friend, family, and who he wants to bring to Jesus.

When we started reaching out to Muslims, some from the south resisted, saying: We don’t want to see them in heaven, they don’t deserve salvation. I understand this sentiment. But some of our congregations operate out of their tribal identity and refuse to speak Arabic.

For a long time, many in our country wanted to call ourselves an Arab republic. We are part of the Arab League, but when we need African help, we start calling ourselves Africans. But in the end, we are Africans who speak Arabic, multiethnic in our tribal makeup.

Sudan is a crossover country—some have origins from Yemen and East Africa—and most of us are of mixed heritage. Only the Nuba Mountains and a few others are not. We were even a Christian country until the 14th century, and in the 19th century an eschatological Muslim movement killed many Christians and forced others to convert to Islam.

Presbyterian missionaries came in 1899 and started the first schools for girls, agriculture, and vocational training. The Church of Christ was established in 1920 and is the largest evangelical denomination today. But Sudan is neither a Muslim country nor a Christian country, and likewise, neither Arab nor African entirely.

We joined the Middle East and North Africa Evangelical Alliance because we speak Arabic and face similar issues with Islam and government discrimination. We joined the Association of Evangelicals in Africa because we face the same issues with ethnic identity. I checked with WEA regional leadership—it is not a problem to belong to two alliances.

How has the church been able to help?

The main thing we did was help people escape and find shelter.

Our schools in Wad Madani (100 miles southeast of Khartoum) received families and provided basic meals and trauma care. All the homes are full of those displaced from Khartoum, but then when the war reached this area, many were dislocated again eastward to other cities and Port Sudan. We also helped 15 Muslim-background believers escape abroad, as they would not have been welcomed in their original villages.

We didn’t get much help from outside; a lot is funded from our own resources. This is why we haven’t been able to do much relief work. We pray and try to give hope to the people. We urge them to remain as salt and light and to keep their children from the fighting. The easiest way to make money is to join the army or the RSF and join in the looting.

But it is clear: Now is not the time for logic or reason. Bullets are talking.

Do the churches have a political opinion about the war?

Only that we will never support war—we want peace.

Last week officials approached me to make a statement in favor of the war. I told them it is not about the army or the RSF; it is about human life. We cannot support killing and destruction.

So then they went to the same Christians they used against us during the era of Bashir, who belonged to his political party and usurped leadership in our church councils. They took nice pictures with the army general.

Did the RSF reach out to you also?

As evangelicals, both sides hate us. They burned our churches. We know how the RSF killed our people in the Nuba Mountains and Darfur, so even when they were part of the post-revolutionary government, we did not deal with them. I have met with army leaders in the past, and I met our civilian prime minister and his cabinet. But we do not engage the RSF.

We are clear that we stand for life.

Security bodies approached the Church of Christ also, which faces the same problems we do. Refusing them may put us in a difficult position later on. But we cannot lie, we cannot forget who we are in Christ.

What would you like to say to those outside Sudan?

There is suspicious silence coming from the international community. The Arab League is not helping—even in Egypt they ask us if we are still in a civil war. Our issues are not on CNN, and no one pays attention to news from Sudan.

It makes the church feel like no one cares.

No one is standing up to say: Stop the war. We don’t hear that people are praying for us. We don’t see statements from churches to represent us before their governments.

To the Sudanese abroad, I say: Settle down, it will take a while before you can return. They are not settled in their spirit, but I tell them to wait on God and avoid being negative about their nation. Eventually, many will come back and bring with them the fruit from life in other countries. Others will stay and can support from the diaspora.

But we are all aliens and strangers in this world, like Abraham, living in tents.

Do you maintain hope in God?

We never lose it—we know that God is good.

From Deuteronomy, we know he can change a curse into a blessing. From Isaiah, we know he can change mourning into laughter. And from Romans, we know he will make all things work together for good.

Like with Samson’s lion, he can turn a carcass into something sweet.

This is the only hope we have. We know the situation now is not the end. God is working, we are safe, and we manage to have enough to eat. This is all a blessing from him.

But we have nothing we can do, except wait for God to move.

- More from Jayson Casper

Books

Review

What We Can Offer If We Uncircle the Wagons

Carrie McKean

Contributor

Two new memoirs, Troubled and Between Two Trailers, make a powerful—if unintentional—case for the Christian ethos of family and community.

Keith Lance / Getty

Growing up, our car radio was always tuned to 90.7, American Family Radio. We lived about 15 minutes from the nearest town, so we spent a lot of time driving. If we were lucky, Mr. Whittaker’s warm, grandfatherly voice invited us to join him for Adventures in Odyssey. But more often, we’d listen to alarmed (and alarming) talks from Tim Wildmon, president of the American Family Association, or Focus on the Family’s James Dobson, each warning my parents of all the ways the world was coming for us.

Troubled: A Memoir of Foster Care, Family, and Social Class

Rob Henderson (Author)

Gallery Books

336 pages

Their message was convincing, and not only for my parents. I’d plug my ears when Ms. Barbie, my warm-hearted school bus driver who wore denim cutoffs and had brightly lacquered nails, sometimes tuned her portable radio to 96.9 KISS FM, “Amarillo’s #1 Hit Music Station,” and started singing along to secular music on the 45-minute ride to school. I felt palpable relief when I instead climbed aboard to the sound of Garth Brooks crooning about his friends in low places. After all, everyone in Texas knows God has a soft spot for country.

One of the strangest things about being raised in that embattled mindset was how my side seemed embarrassed of what we had to offer the wider world. We said we knew the truth about God and humanity, but I got the distinct impression that we were far from confident that the truth could hold its own out there.

My elders and the voices they heeded on the radio seemed to take a defensive posture, self-conscious about our intractable fuddy-duddy-ness and anxious that these commitments would cost us. It felt like they weren’t sure we could ever compete on a level field. We had God on our side, but they had MTV. Our only option was to circle the wagons and pray we could outlast the storm.

Seeing this attitude in the adults in my life wasn’t reassuring. Instead, it made me wonder: If we knew the truth, why were we so afraid? Now I see the youthful ignorance in that kind of binary question, but I earnestly wrestled with it in those days, and as I entered adulthood, I sought to become a Christian who didn’t meet the world with fear, defensiveness, and accusations.

Perhaps it’s this history that leaves me fascinated whenever I encounter people who aren’t Christians and yet independently arrive at truths Christians know—especially truths about how to order healthy, safe families for the flourishing and well-being of children. It helps me remember that even though Christians have at times advanced these principles poorly, sometimes doing more harm than good both inside and outside the church, the principles are true. We do have something to offer the world. And rather than circling up in fear or anger, we should make that offering in love, showing how a real and living God changes hearts, heals relationships, and restores lives.

I’ve most recently had such an encounter while reading Troubled: A Memoir of Foster Care, Family, and Social Class by Rob Henderson, released last month. Born to a drug-addicted mother and passed through ten different foster families before finally being adopted, Henderson chronicles a life of chaos. Reading about his movement from a childhood of upheaval to a distinguished military career, undergraduate education at Yale, and a PhD from Cambridge feels a bit like riding river rapids on a flimsy inner tube.

Rather than simply recounting his tragic and shocking experiences, though, Henderson moves from the particular to the universal with an expertise few memoirists have. With his own life as an example, he invites readers—especially those who dismiss traditional family systems as outdated, unnecessary, or worse—to turn a critical eye on their own assumptions. Upward mobility (along with trappings like elite education) shouldn’t be a goal in and of itself, he argues. But it may well be a byproduct of the pursuit of more important things: “family, stability, and emotional security for children.”

Though he’s not making this argument in the same way Dobson or former US vice president Dan Quayle did in the 1990s, Henderson arrives at a very similar conclusion: that a stable, nurturing, two-parent family confers considerable advantage to children. He also argues that the progressive elite’s public dismissal of traditional family values doesn’t reflect the reality of their personal lives, and he has the data to back it up. By 2005, Henderson writes, “85 percent of affluent families were still intact, but for working-class families the figure had plummeted to 30 percent.” Similarly, just 10 percent of students at Cornell University were raised by divorced parents, compared with a national divorce rate of 40 percent.

Henderson calls the claim that marriage doesn’t matter a “luxury belief,” a term he coined and defines in Troubled as “ideas and opinions that confer status on the upper class at little cost, while often inflicting costs on the lower classes.” If you’re like me, once Henderson helps you see one luxury belief, you start to see them everywhere: “Defund the police” is a slogan that might earn you some street cred as a student at an Ivy League protest, but it’s not a policy many residents of fragile communities want. Arguing that monogamy is passé might get you on the New York Times bestseller list, but it’s not how you get a table full of generations of family on Thanksgiving Day.

Henderson doesn’t root his arguments in a religious framework, but it’s easy to see the connection to a Christian ethos. While making a secular case for the importance of healthy families, his story and research also illustrate another value that finds ample expression in our faith: the transformative and redemptive power of community.

For Henderson, much of that community came outside the context of family, although not through a church. And though he doesn’t follow that trail far, it seems obvious that our culture needs these other sources for social stability and support. This is where the local church can shine—if we choose to open our circle of wagons.

Churches can be a profound force for good in families both in ministry and in mission. While there are obviously broken families both within and outside the church, research shows regular churchgoers “marry more and divorce less” than their peers, and an “active faith appears to be connected in some way with more stable marriages.” And local churches are well positioned to care for kids living in the rubble of broken families and the fallout of others’ destructive choices. God still places the lonely in families (Ps. 68:6), after all, and sometimes that looks like showing up for Grandparents’ Day or the father-daughter dance for a child who sits in the pew in front of you.

Another new memoir, Between Two Trailers, by J. Dana Trent, gestures at that latter sense. Trent tells stories from a childhood with drug-dealing, mentally ill parents. The book reads like a fever dream—fantastical and outlandish, yet heartbreakingly vivid and real. Between Two Trailers never makes clear how Trent came out on the other side, but little moments of grounding offer at least some of the answer: summers with her paternal grandparents and extended family, and Wednesday night dinners and youth group at a church that became Trent’s safe haven. The church was, she reflects, “an environment where people were required by sacred law to be nice to me.”

My childhood was marked by chaos and instability too. But unlike the memoirists’ families, my parents remained consistently plugged into churches, and when I reflect on those years, I think of all the people in those faithful Christian communities who looked past the drama and difficulties that came with my family and welcomed us.

Pastor Mike, Ms. Katy, Rex, the Longs, the Browns—not to mention myriad aunts, uncles, grandparents, and teachers. The list of names, too long for me to complete, points to the grace of God who always kept my head above turbulent waters. His people—some of the very same people who were worried about all the ways the world was coming for us children—were my life raft.

These days, my own children have a decidedly more mundane life. There’s not a lot of drama or chaos, other than when I try to get them out of bed and into a pew on a sleepy Sunday morning. But when we get to church, I know they are seen and known and loved. They are enveloped in a community of caring, safe adults who fill in the gaps left by the inevitable fallibility and shortcomings my husband and I have as parents. Even in the absence of capital-T traumas, as researchers at Harvard have found, grounding our children in a faith community offers a “protective factor for a range of health and well-being outcomes in early adulthood.”

I believe it—and the rest of a growing body of independent evidence that faith and the shape of life it demands is tangibly good for children. And why wouldn’t it be if we’re following our creator? Why would we be surprised to find an indelible connection between God and the good life?

Henderson’s book, while at times troubling, offered me an unexpected gift. Reading it helped me look at my messy, confusing, evangelical childhood a bit more charitably. I had long ago rejected the shrill and scolding voices of conservative evangelicals shrieking about the decline of family values as unhelpful and obnoxious. As it turns out, they got a lot right, even if I still think their delivery got a lot wrong (and even contributed to the coarsening and hardening of our culture).

Stories like Henderson’s and Trent’s—and even my own—also remind me of how badly the world needs a healthy church. Amid all the talk of deconstruction and dechurching, abuse of authority and political polarization, these stories refocus my gaze from the church in the abstract to the church where I take my children every week. They remind me of ordinary, imperfect congregations of kindhearted Sunday school teachers and long-suffering children’s choir directors and patient youth volunteers.

When I pay attention to what’s right in front of me, I see the way so many of my brothers and sisters in Christ steadily pull the awkward, the outcast, the uncomfortable, the uncertain, and the troubled into the fold.

For all the church’s flawed messengers, the message is still there. It is still true. Despite all the fear and outrage, the local church is still offering ordinary faithfulness to salve the wounds of a troubled world. We still have good news to tell.

Carrie McKean is a West Texas–based writer whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, and Texas Monthly magazine. Find her at carriemckean.com.

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News

Died: Beverly LaHaye, Pastor’s Wife Who Led Religious Right

Daniel Silliman

The founder of Concerned Women for America was credited by President Ronald Reagan with “changing the face of American politics.”

Concerned Women for America / edits by Rick Szeucs

Beverly LaHaye, a timid pastor’s wife who became a fierce champion for conservative Christian politics and a force mobilizing hundreds of thousands of religious women, died on Sunday in a retirement home in El Cajon, California. She was 94.

President Ronald Reagan once praised LaHaye as “one of the powerhouses” of the conservative movement and said she was “changing the face of American politics.”

Paul Weyrich, the conservative activist who helped start The Heritage Foundation and coined the term moral majority, called the group LaHaye founded in 1979, the Concerned Women for America (CWA), the most effective organization on the Religious Right. He told CT in 1987 that the CWA had “the best follow-through” of any political group he’d ever worked with.

At the height of LaHaye’s power, she could get the women she called “my ladies” to send more than 1,000 postcards to a US senator who had slighted her in a public hearing; 2,000 to support a Republican administration official who had been caught selling weapons illegally to Iran; 64,000 to support a controversial conservative candidate for the US Supreme Court; and 778,000 to protest a TV station that ran an advertisement for condoms during prime time.

LaHaye “gave a lot of women a language for understanding women’s conservative activism as absolutely necessary,” historian Emily Suzanne Johnson told The Washington Post. “Women have been the driving force of this movement in a lot of ways, particularly at the grass-roots level. I’m not sure that happens without Beverly LaHaye.”

Her success earned her the ire of those on the left, especially people concerned about LGBTQ rights. In 1993, the spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign called her “a professional hatemonger.”

LaHaye also became a subject of fascination for mainstream media.

According to the Chicago Tribune, LaHaye had “a spun-sugar exterior” but directed her organization “with the fervor of a general.” The Washington Post reported she “combined combative rhetoric with a cheery public image, handing out pink business cards and decorating her organization’s Washington headquarters with pink chairs and pink curtains.” And the Philadelphia Inquirer wondered how she could call herself a traditionalist while running a national organization with a $6 million budget, waging high-profile political battles, and drawing crowds that dwarfed those of her husband, the prominent evangelical minister Tim LaHaye.

LaHaye’s answer was that her husband, who would go on to co-author of the popular apocalyptic Left Behind novels, supported and encouraged her political activism. And she was just trying to answer God’s calling on her life.

“I think God just pushed me up out of my chair and said, ‘Beverly, go for it.’ Anything I’ve done is not my natural way, but God has put it in my heart to do it,” she once said. “You know, when you say, ‘Whatever Lord, wherever you send me, whatever you want me to say, whatever you want me to do, here I am,’ you better hang on. You better hang on tight.”

LaHaye was born in Detroit on April 30, 1929, the second daughter of Lowell and Nellie Davenport. Her father died when she was 2, and her mother was forced to move in with a neighbor and work for the phone company until she got remarried to a tool-and-die maker who worked at Ford.

Watching her mother, LaHaye later said she learned that “women can be very powerful, in quiet ways.” LaHaye had to summon that strength during difficult times in her childhood. Her mother got sick with a heart condition, and LaHaye took time off school to care for her and take over her domestic responsibilities while still a teenager.

At 17, LaHaye left home to study at Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina. There she met her husband Tim, then a 21-year-old veteran who had been an Air Force gunner in World War II and aspired to become a pastor. They got married a year later.

LaHaye left school to support her husband in ministry. In the early days, he made so little money serving Baptist congregations in Pumpkintown, South Carolina, and Minnetonka, Minnesota, that she had to work outside the home to financially sustain the family. Things changed in 1956, when Tim was called to a 300-member church in San Diego. Under his leadership, Scott Memorial Baptist grew into a megachurch.

In Southern California, the 27-year-old pastor’s wife threw herself into any work that needed to be done. When the position of church secretary was vacant, LaHaye filled in. When the church needed someone to direct junior Sunday school, she volunteered.

But LaHaye shrank from the spotlight when she was asked to lead Bible studies and speak to women’s groups. She was so shy that Tim called her a turtle.

“I had an inferiority complex,” LaHaye later said. “I didn’t really think I had much to offer the world.”

At the same time, she struggled with a “smoldering resentment” at the drudgery of household chores and the many menial tasks assigned to her as a wife and mother.

“Day after day I would perform the same routine procedures: picking up dirty socks, hanging up wet towels, closing closet doors, turning off lights that had been left on, creating a path through the clutter of toys,” she wrote.

While similar experiences pushed many women toward feminism, LaHaye came to think this wasn’t an issue of inequality and the unfairness of social expectations put on women. It was a spiritual issue. She believed she needed to learn submission, because “submission is God’s design for women,” and that would transform her experience of the daily tasks of a wife and mother.

“I wasn’t just picking up dirty socks for my husband,” she wrote in The Spirit-Controlled Woman. “I was serving the Lord Jesus.”

In the 1970s, LaHaybe began to overcome her timidity and start teaching others what she had learned. She and Tim started Family Life Seminars, offering eight lectures on the biblical principles they said that God gave to “guarantee the happiness and fulfillment He intended for the Christian home.” LaHaye spoke on overcoming anxiety, discipling children, “Spirit-controlled” family living, and sex.

When the youngest of LaHaye’s four children turned 18, LaHaye started publishing books. The Act of Marriage, which she coauthored with her husband in 1976, became a bestseller.

A “deliberately frank book,” The Act of Marriage told readers that “God never intended any Christian couple to spend a lifetime in the sexual wilderness of orgasmic malfunction.” In fact, “Spirit-controlled Christians” following biblical principles would “enjoy the beauty of sexual lovemaking more than anyone else.” It was commonly used in evangelical marriage counseling and premarital counseling, and the book sold more than 1 million copies a year for 20 years.

LaHaye became a political activist in 1978. As she frequently recounted over the years, she and her husband were watching the feminist Betty Friedan being interviewed on television, and she grew frustrated that Friedan acted like she represented all women. She didn’t speak for LaHaye. She didn’t speak for all the “average, normal, and traditional women” who were committed to their families, their churches, and the traditional values sustaining America, LaHaye said.

LaHaye decided to organize a coffee klatch for local women opposed to feminism and the Equal Rights Amendment, and in the process she founded Concerned Women for America.

“I was just kind of swept along,” she explained later. “The hall owners said, ‘What’s the name of the organization?’ When I said, ‘We’re just a group of ladies in the community,’ the reply was, ‘We only rent to organizations.’ … Then I said, ‘Oh, Concerned Women for America.’ I laughed when I said it—I never meant it to be serious.”

More than 1,000 people showed up at the coffee and the CWA was soon organizing chapters across the country.

“Churchwomen all over America were hungry for someone to sort out the things that would affect families and the religious values systems they had,” LaHaye said. “From there, it took off like a prairie fire.”

In the early days, the CWA rallied opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment, which would have added a prohibition to discrimination on the basis of sex to the US Constitution. The CWA, along with other conservative activists such as Phyllis Schlafly, helped the amendment from being ratified by the required 35 states.

Under LaHaye’s leadership, the group also engaged with a wide array of other political issues. The CWA put a major emphasis on opposition to abortion and mobilized women to call for prayer in schools, abstinence-only education, and parents’ rights to exempt their children from curriculum they found offensive. The organization also advocated for more military spending and raised concern about the growing Communist influence in Latin America.

The CWA opposed legal protections for the civil rights of LGBTQ people and supported laws that would prohibit them from having contact with children. LaHaye argued that homosexuality was unnatural and that gay people recruited converts through sexual abuse.

“I’m not saying they all are,” she told the Chicago Tribune, “but the movement itself is aggressively trying to go after boys.”

By the mid-1980s, the CWA boasted 500,000 dues-paying members and nearly 2,000 prayer/action groups around the country.

“When they hear about issues, women are not content to sit back and say, ‘Well, somebody’s got to do something.’ They say, ‘What can we do?’” LaHaye told CT. “We try to give them not just prayer requests, but action ideas, too. There is action at all levels, whether a woman sits at home and writes a letter, or has time to go to the nation’s capital.”

LaHaye moved to the capital herself to be “closer to the center of the action,” as she explained to the Arizona Republic in 1985. She oversaw a staff of more than 25 people, including lawyers and professional lobbyists, who pushed conservative priorities in the Reagan White House and both houses of Congress.

On some occasions, LaHaye took center stage in the national political discourse. In 1987, for example, she testified on behalf of Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork, who faced fierce opposition from liberals. She defended him at a hearing broadcast on live television and answered aggressive and tricky questions from Democratic Party leaders, including Joe Biden, then the senator from Delaware.

“Beverly would not hesitate to accept the opportunity to be the voice of Christian women,” according to a family-authorized obituary. “She always conducted herself with grace and dignity and spoke truth with strength and clarity.”

LaHaye served as president of the CWA until 2006. She retired from its board in 2020.

“Her life is a testament to the impact one woman with a vision and mission can have on the course of history,” said Penny Nance, the current president of the CWA.

LaHaye’s husband died in 2016 after 69 years of marriage. Her son Lee died the following year. LaHaye is survived by her children Linda, Larry, and Lori, as well as 9 grandchildren and 20 great-grandchildren.

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News

More Pastors Are Leaving Ministry Over Church Conflict

David Roach

But experts say it can offer opportunities for leaders and congregations to grow.

Illustration by Mallory Rentsch Tlapek / Source Images: Unsplash

Conflict had become the norm at Trinity Church in Redlands, California.

The lead pastor left in 2022 amid a wave of disgruntled attendees. Following his departure, some church members remained upset at the congregation’s elders. In all, there had been at least a dozen situations that came up over a 14-year period.

When Doug Baker arrived as interim pastor, he knew the conflict had to be addressed. Trinity called in Peacemaker Ministries, a group that mediates conflicts from a biblical perspective. Over a weekend in March 2023, Peacemaker held 15 meetings with people embroiled in the church conflict, put together a plan, and peace began to emerge.

Healing started. Many conflicts were resolved. Some people forgave. Some left the church. Trinity, which now averages 500 attendees in Sunday worship, began to change.

The conflict resolution process revealed that the congregation didn’t feel as if the elders valued their opinions. The elders began to listen humbly, and they have kept listening. Two elders stand at the welcome booth each Sunday to hear people’s opinions about church matters. According to Baker, “conversations have opened back up.”

The situation at Trinity has “been better—much, much better,” he said. “There is a peace. There is a graciousness, a unity, a love for each other and for the lost. People are reengaging with ministry. We are seeing specific ministries thriving a whole lot better because people are not worried about the struggle. They are more concerned about the kingdom.”

According to church conflict researchers, Trinity illustrates some broader trends. Conflict often provokes pastors to leave their churches or at least consider leaving, researchers at the Hartford Institute for Religion Research found. Yet, conflict experts also say, that doesn’t have to be the result of conflict. Rather than provoking departures, conflict should be viewed as an opportunity for personal and congregational growth.

“All conflict produces friction, and friction will always produce heat,” said Tony Rose, a longtime Southern Baptist pastor who holds a master’s degree in conflict management and now consults with churches in conflict. “But the one who manages conflict properly turns that friction into traction, not heat.”

Church conflict is on the rise, according to a Hartford report released earlier this year titled “‘I’m Exhausted All the Time’: Exploring the Factors Contributing to Growing Clergy Discontentment.” The research was based on a survey of about 1,700 religious leaders in the fall of 2023. At that time, nearly three-quarters (72%) of US churches reported some kind of disagreement or conflict. That’s up from 61 percent in early 2023 and 64 percent in 2020, according to previous reports.

That conflict impacts pastors. More conflict in a church increases the pastor’s likelihood of leaving. Nearly 40 percent of pastors who have never considered leaving their present congregation reported no conflict in their churches. Yet only 5 percent of pastors who “fairly often” or “often” consider leaving say their churches are conflict-free.

Conflict in the church is not the only reason pastors reported thoughts of departure. Congregational unwillingness to meet new challenges, diminished congregational vitality, and attendance of 50 people or less also correlated with increased thoughts of leaving the congregation.

“However, these dynamics were less influential on thoughts of leaving one’s current congregation than the presence of conflict and poor congregational relationship quality,” the report stated.

Church conflict also increases a pastor’s chances of leaving ministry altogether. Ninety-one percent of pastors who think about leaving pastoral ministry “fairly often” or “very often” serve in churches reporting conflict. And 77 percent of pastors who have considered leaving pastoral ministry “once,” “twice,” or “a few times” report conflict in their churches. Of those who never consider leaving pastoral ministry, 63 percent serve in churches with conflict.

“What is positively associated with fewer thoughts of leaving,” the report concluded, is “being in a church with a bright outlook for the future, one that has less conflict, is more open to change and adaptation, and cultivates good, healthy relationships between the members and pastor.”

Peacemaker Ministries CEO Laurie Stewart said the research coincides with her experience in churches. “It does seem like church conflict has been increasing over the past few years,” she said.

Yet with proper strategy for managing conflict, Stewart said, it can be harnessed for good.

“Conflict is an opportunity for us to share the gospel,” she said. “The gospel isn’t just a one-time event where you pray a prayer and now you’re secured in heaven. It’s more than that. It’s meant to transform our lives while we are still on this side of eternity. One of the ways God gets our attention to help us realize our need for transformation by the Holy Spirit is through conflict.”

Careful listening is one of the most important strategies for managing conflict, Stewart said. So is avoiding the urges to divide, blame, and run away. Rather, tension should drive Christians to take responsibility for hurt they have caused and seek forgiveness. It’s not a quick process.

“Even in those situations where I think I did everything right, if I have caused other people harm or hurt their feelings, I’m still responsible for the harm I have caused,” she said. Even if believers have not sinned, they should learn to say, “I’m really sorry I hurt you. I care about you. What can we do? Would you please forgive me?”

Peacemaker Ministries applied these principles in one situation where two pastors clashed within a congregation. The church was convinced one of the pastors had to go. But after a mediation process, they reconciled.

“Jesus says, ‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God’ [Matt. 5:9]. So if we are already adopted into the kingdom,” Stewart said, “we are peacemakers. We just don’t know how to do it, so we really need to learn how to do peacemaking.”

Rose added some practical pointers for navigating church conflict:

Remember that church conflict is normal. Even Paul and Barnabas had trouble getting along when they clashed over whether to give John Mark a second chance as their missionary traveling companion (Acts 15:36–41).
Don’t try to win a conflict. Instead, seek a win-win solution for all parties involved and adopt a sympathetic perspective.
Never address topics of tension in an email or text. Make a phone call at the very least. Talk in person whenever possible.
During conflicts, focus more on being a godly person than on obtaining a specific outcome.
Realize it’s not always wrong for a pastor to depart a church amid conflict. “If you change churches simply because of problems, all you’re going to do is exchange sets of problems,” Rose said. Yet, “there are instances when it’s time to go. There’s no guilt in that. You just have to weigh it out.”

While not all conflicts have happy endings, some do. The likelihood for happy endings increases when all parties remember that Jesus has called them to be peacemakers. Baker and Trinity Church learned that firsthand. Baker’s message for other churches and pastors in conflict is simple: There’s hope.

“There is always hope if we will be the people that we need to be,” Baker said. “You can’t control your reputation, but you can control your character. You have to ask yourself: What kind of person do I want to be in this moment? Then act that way and leave the rest up to God.”

David Roach is a freelance reporter for CT and pastor of Shiloh Baptist Church in Saraland, Alabama.

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Church Life

Sports Can Be a Touchdown for Faith. Beware of Encroachment.

Justin Giboney

Contributor

As a lifelong athlete and coach, I know sports build character. But I worry about the idolatrous, selfish culture of American athletics.

Illustration by Mallory Rentsch Tlapek / Source Images: Getty

When my wife told me that my son received an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty at his football game, I was enraged. He’d aggressively thrown the ball back to the official he believed had missed a call. I flew into a lecture about leadership, respect for authority, and composure. I even called friends and family to register my disbelief and embarrassment.

But before I got too self-righteous, my parents—always eager to come to their grandchildren’s rescue—reminded me of the times I was far from a model of sportsmanship. I’ve had my fair share of penalties and made hotheaded remarks. I’ve come a long way, but I still haven’t fully mastered the art of balancing passion and prudence in the arena.

Accordingly, I beg your charity as I explain (and preach to myself) why I believe sports can be a helpful servant for Christians—and an awful master. We can value the virtues that sports teach and be encouraged when players like Justin Fields and Paige Bueckers boldly proclaim their faith while being wary of the culture of idolatry, pride, disrespect, and selfishness that crops up in every level of American sports, from peewee soccer to the NFL.

As a former college football player and a current Little League coach, I’m convinced sports are a great way to build character in children and teach the value of leadership and institutions. Youth sports provide social proof that diligence and teamwork are essential aspects of improvement. Children learn real-world lessons by overcoming the mental and physical obstacles sports present. Truths that are difficult to communicate in theory suddenly make sense on the field.

Sports are particularly valuable in a culture where children are being stunted and harmed by coddling. They can help us cultivate courage and mettle. Today, many seem to think that all toughness is toxic and that avoiding risk is the primary objective in childrearing. Some of us have deluded ourselves into believing society has evolved to the point that our children will never have to invoke a primitive grit or fulfill the role of brave protectors and watchmen (Deut. 31:6; Ezek. 33).

We live in relative peace and prosperity, yes. But we should avoid raising cowards just as intently as we avoid raising predators (Rev. 21:8). We can value our emotions without forgetting that fortitude is still a virtue (Prov. 31:17; 1 Tim. 6:11; 2 Tim. 2:3; 1 Pet. 1:5–6). A tackle won’t be the biggest hit our children take in life. We’ll need to train them to be tough as well as compassionate, and that involves risk. The controlled risks of sports afford us the opportunity to exercise love and discipline and to test our children’s resolve (Prov. 13:24).

Yet my lifelong love for sports has also shown me how sports can become idolatrous and appeal to our worst instincts. Since the ancient Olympics, sports have been connected to idols, and we continue that idolatrous tradition if we make more of sports than we ought, like Israel in Isaiah 44. Sports can be profitable as tools but are disastrous as gods.

Concretely, this means we shouldn’t encourage young people to center their lives around sports. An idol can never love you back (Isa. 44:18), and, like Gomer, sports are a promiscuous partner (Hos. 1). At some point, they will abandon (or betray) you. Whether through injury, team politics, roster cuts, or some other misfortune, everyone’s days on the field will end. The band stops playing for you; your jersey bears the name of another; and fans quickly move on. The transition from exceptional athlete to common person is disheartening and painful. It’s not so dissimilar to the experience of a forgotten Hollywood child star.

Too many athletes find themselves unprepared for this harsh reality, and some never recover. After sports, many spend their days haunted by a mixture of shame, regret, and bitterness about what could have been. How I wish they knew there’s always purpose and a future for those who know Christ Jesus (Jer. 29:11–14). But I understand how they become deluded. Without a redeemed perspective, the applause, recognition, and rivalry can be intoxicating. In the worst cases, sports can displace our devotion to God, ruin parent-child relationships, and make us selfish, prideful monsters. Jock mentalities void of discretion and humility don’t serve athletes well in the real world, and the formative aspects of youth sports can instill vices just as well as virtues.

Over the past few months, we’ve seen in pro and college sports numerous examples of the kind of inexcusable behavior I have in mind. During the Super Bowl, Chiefs star Travis Kelce pushed and screamed at coach Andy Reid. Players cursed at coaches and brawled during March Madness. After former NFL MVP Cam Newton was jumped at a 7-on-7 tournament he was hosting, sports analysts lamented the disrespect endemic in sports culture.

And the problem isn’t confined to the pros. Our youth sports culture is completely out of control. Not only does it monopolize family time and eat into church schedules, but it can disfigure whole families’ relationships to authority and institutions.

Far from being a friendly neighborhood game, modern Little League is the transfer portal on steroids. Kids jump from team to team to team to win championships or play a different position. I’ve seen children quit two or three teams in a single season because their parents’ expectations or demands weren’t met. Just like those who “church hop,” we’ve become consumers of institutions, and we don’t contribute or serve in turn.

As Yuval Levin explains in A Time to Build, we’ve lost our appreciation for institution building, because every establishment is now viewed as a platform for our personal ascendance. Like free riders, we use institutions without ever taking ownership, sacrificing anything for the greater good, or letting the institution shape us. We leave institutional maintenance to someone else, selecting what suits us best, just like an Amazon purchase, then throwing it away when we’re done. This teaches children nothing about overcoming adversity or sticking with their communities despite their imperfections and brokenness.

Sports can bring the worst out in players, parents, coaches, and fans. It can reflect the most negative aspects in our culture and cause disordered priorities. But that doesn’t have to be the case. Christians can make sure sports are serving us rather than us serving sports.

Let’s reclaim our Sunday mornings for God and reassert the limits of this tool of character building. Let’s keep our public witness at front of mind and ensure even our trash talk is without contempt or vulgarity. Let’s teach youth how to win with grace and lose with honor. Let’s use sports to grow more like Christ instead of making him compete for our affection.

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

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Barry Rowan Knows the ‘Church Has to Be Reimagined for Every Generation’

How the Colorado businessman wants to help CT spark the next generation’s passion for mission and Christian leadership.

Morgan Lee

InterVarsity

When Barry Rowan was five years old, he wanted to become a priest.

“They were the people I knew who spoke to God and about God,” he said. “I had this deep, deep yearning for God—but this desire lived under a fragile treaty with my steely, strong will.”

Born in Idaho to two veterinarians, with a father from New York City and a mother raised in South America, Barry describes himself as a terrible two-year-old and a divided five-year-old.

“During those years my parents would look at each other and say, ‘We love him because he’s ours,’” Barry said.

It would take several more decades for the depth of the interior divide to be revealed and reconciled. At 28, Barry attended a Young Life camp, where he realized in a flood of tears that he was “sick and tired of living a divided life.” Eight months and sixteen books later, and after writing a treatise to himself he called “My Confusion over Christianity,” he finally said to Jesus, “I give up,” on a run around the lake by his house.

“My will had to be submitted to the will of God,” he said. “Surrender is the gateway to transformation because it gives God permission to do his work in us. He’s so gracious. He will never impose himself on us. But we need to invite him in to allow him to do that work.”

For Barry, who spent an executive career building and turning around companies in the technology and communications space, this act of surrender put his life on a trajectory that would ultimately lead him to partnering with Christianity Today.

“I believe CT can be a voice that raises up the work of God in the world and shows lives of meaning, contribution, and caring in tangible ways that matter,” Barry said.

To that end, Barry is passionate about how CT is reaching the next generation. Just as his own faith came as a young adult as he wrestled with Christianity, Barry is excited about the ways CT envisions coming alongside the next generation of believers to meet their needs and equip them as leaders.

“We know that the church is the one institution that will last for eternity because it was established by Christ. But the church has to be reimagined for every generation,” he said. “[CT’s next generation emphasis] is a really important initiative, because if we’re not raising up the next generation the church will wither.”

One of his passions is investing in “the next generation of Christ-following leaders who are called to live fully for God in the world.”

“How do we live for God in the harshness of this world–not withdraw from the world but engage the world?” asks Barry, who recently authored The Spiritual Art of Business: Connecting the Daily with the Divine.

In his personal life, part of answering these questions has involved his family’s relationship with the people of Latin America. When Barry turned 50, he took a “purposeful pause,” having worked “flat out for 25 years.”

“We felt we needed a rest like a rest in music,” he said. “For accomplished musicians, the rest is what gives richness to the music. Our goal was to not slur the rest, to allow time for the rest to add to the richness of our lives.”

His family, including their two sons who were in high school and college at the time, decided during this pause that they wanted to walk more intentionally with the poor. After developing four criteria and interviewing several organizations breaking the poverty cycle through sustainable programs, they began working with an organization that helps people in poverty become landowners.

Barry watched the relationships with the locals change his sons’ lives: His older son studied abroad in Costa Rica to learn Spanish, volunteered with Habitat for Humanity in El Salvador, and then worked with foster kids after graduating from law school. His younger son helped a boys’ home in Honduras develop a strategic plan. As he saw the power of business thinking contribute to real-world problems, he decided to go to business school and his compassion has continued to deepen since then.

“Walking with the poor as friends and recognizing we share a common humanity has been a beautiful gift to our family,” Barry said.

He’s seen the transformation in his kids as they have been empowered to lead and invest in others—something he hopes CT’s focus on the next generation will also accomplish.

Alongside Linda, his wife of forty-two years, the Rowans have continued to act thoughtfully about where they invest their family’s time and resources.

“We’ve developed a deep respect for Tim and a real affinity for both Tim and Joyce,” he said, referring to CT’s president Timothy Dalrymple, and his wife. “Tim is a very thoughtful, capable leader. He is bringing a clear and compelling vision to CT.”

Noting his more than 40 years of business experience across eight companies, Barry said he has observed that “effective leadership usually starts with a well-honed intuition and a clear vision that builds over time.”

“To me, one of the hallmarks of effective leadership is its cumulative impact,” he said. “Good leadership builds on a solid foundation and early successes and then goes from strength to strength.

“Tim’s vision, and that of the organization, builds on the historical strengths of CT in ways that can also dynamically adapt to a rapidly unfolding future.”

Theology

Your Neighbors (Probably) Don’t Hate You

Russell Moore

They might not even know you’re there. When paranoia eclipses our witness, here’s what to remember.

Illustration by Christianity Today / Source Images: Getty

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

Some colleagues and I happened to be meeting in New England this week, so we drove a little bit north to a small village in Vermont called St. Johnsbury, right in the line of the totality of the solar eclipse.

Even before the sky darkened, I was mesmerized by the people gathering in the town square, each with a sense of anticipation and excitement over the shared experience. We ended up standing on the front lawn of someone’s house, eating sandwiches while we waited for the sun to hide. The homeowners sat on their stoop and were not only unperturbed by our camping out on their property but seemingly enjoying the chance to welcome people to their place.

Several articles this week noted how the eclipse seemed to have the effect of bringing out kindness and connection, almost the way a natural disaster would, except in collective wonder instead of in common suffering or fear. Not only that, some studies are showing that this sort of neighborliness and openness is far more common than we think, eclipsed behind the maelstrom of division we see on social media and on cable news.

Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen describe our sense that the country is hopelessly and irreparably divided as “America’s reality distortion machine.” Most people aren’t fringe-right Christian nationalists or fringe-left campus activists. Those fringes, though, are amplified not only by the nature of our media but also by the incentives of politicians to cater to the extremes.

A couple weeks ago on my podcast, I asked social psychologist Jonathan Haidt some of the questions I’d received from listeners since the last time we’d talked, one of the primary ones being a question from school administrators about the use of smartphones in their classrooms.

The problem, several of these administrators said to me, is not that they receive pushback from the kids when they suggest banning phones during class hours but instead that they receive opposition from the parents. Haidt, though, pointed to research showing that, in most cases, upward of 80 percent of parents are fully supportive of schools carrying out such measures.

The key, he said, is that no one ever hears from the parents who are supportive. The schools get calls and emails and visits from the outraged parents afraid of their child being unable to be in touch with them at a half-second’s notice.

Haidt’s observation rings true to me. Very few people think to contact their child’s principal to say they’re happy with the way the school is being run. Very few people email their pastor to say that the church is benefiting them spiritually.

Part of that is for the same reason that news services don’t run stories about all the houses that don’t burn down or about all the bank CEOs who don’t embezzle money or all the evangelists who don’t have affairs. We tend to take such things for granted, and when something is going really well, we assume that it’s obvious and doesn’t even need to be said.

I caught myself realizing this tendency in myself a few weeks ago when I was saying to a group of people in another state how awed and grateful I am for my church, for the Christlike vibe there, for how I’ve never heard anyone say a critical word of any kind about the pastor, for the way my own sons respect and love their youth pastor. It struck me that while I often say these things about our church, I rarely say these things to the leaders at our church. I tend to unconsciously assume that everyone just knows how good the congregation and its leadership are.

In any environment, from a school to a church to a neighborhood to a country, the normies tend to go on with their lives, without saying much. When angry fringes emerge—on a campus or within a ministry or in a political party—normal people often assume that if we just get really still and try to keep the Eye of Sauron off of us, then the rage will magically settle down on its own.

The fringes know this. They know that the rest of us will start getting exasperated with the school board member, the chairman of deacons, or the tenants’ association president for the very fact that they draw fire from the fringes. Why are they so controversial all the time? the normies sometimes conclude and start to draw back. What we don’t realize is that this sort of mentality is exactly what extreme fringes count on in order to wreak havoc.

Every time another study comes out about how we actually are not as polarized as we seem, I worry that people will conclude that this means that polarization isn’t real . When the people who prize kindness and civility and decency and norms go quiet, though, the fringes become less fringy. People start to imitate what they see as “normal,” and if what they’ve seen as normal is crazy, the crazy soon becomes normal.

For Christians, this has implications for our witness. For an entire generation or more, we’ve taught church members and the next generations how to contend with a culture that’s hostile to them. Sometimes this is done in a good and biblical way, rightly emphasizing that following Christ is costly and that we should be prepared to be rejected, just as he was.

The problem is, without the balance of the Bible’s simultaneous emphasis on common grace, we end up not with countercultural Christians but with paranoid ones.

If you expect your neighbors to hate you, you will almost inevitably, preeminently armor up in a protective crouch. Imagine if someone sets you up on a blind date with the words This person might be the love of your life—or they might be an armed stalker who will chase you to the edge of the grave. That would change the conversation.

The end result is that, frequently, Christians in secular spaces have a lack of confidence, with a kind of inferiority complex about the gospel they carry. Yes, the gospel is countercultural, a two-edged sword, a scandal to the world, a contradiction to the status quo. But the gospel is also genuinely good news—speaking to the primal hopes and fears embedded in human psyches.

Often, the neighbors we assume hate us aren’t thinking of us at all—they don’t even know we are there. If those who really believe that their neighbors might well be their future brothers and sisters in Christ—that the gospel really can renew any heart, reconcile any person—are in a defensive crouch, then the only Christians their neighbors will see are angry people who would, like Jonah, be furious to see their enemies seek grace.

In reality, many unbelievers—especially some who are in the most disenchanted, nonreligious spaces—are curious about what motivates religious people. Some of them are more than curious. They are trying to imagine what it would be like to be the kind of person who seeks a God who might love them, to have an atonement that frees them from guilt and shame.

Sometimes those curious people seem the most eager to argue against Christianity. The closer they come to asking What if it’s true? the more vigorously they try to argue themselves away from that brink.

When we expect automatically that our neighbors loathe us, we tend to see every potential conversation about spiritual matters to be a competition of irrefutable arguments. We try to find the series of pithy zingers that would show that unbelief is irrational. Sometimes encounters over spiritual things are arguments like that, but they are rarely one-time confrontations that someone wins by audience vote like a college debate.

And the idea that such conversations must be like that can cause us to go silent until we feel that we are adequately prepared to answer any potential question about philosophy or archaeology or ancient Near Eastern history. No one ever feels adequate to demolish every potential argument, to answer any conceivable question. Such a mentality silences the kind of people who, in the Gospels, have the sort of witness that’s the most powerful—the kind that says, Come and see.

The country is kinder than what we see in our politics and our media. The reality is distorted, to be sure. But the more we normalize that polarization, the more real it becomes.

The more we automatically assume our neighbors hate us, the more we will start to preemptively hate our neighbors. Jesus told us that it’s insane to light a lamp and then hide it under a bowl (Matt. 5:15). In many cases in this crazed, angry time, that light can be eclipsed by something else. But an eclipse that goes on too long is indistinguishable from night, and a night that goes on too long is almost indistinguishable from death.

Your neighbor might hate you—but probably not.

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

News

Chuck Swindoll Retires from Texas Megachurch

Kate Shellnutt

At 89 years old, the Stonebriar Community Church founder says he still believes “one never retires from the work of God’s kingdom.”

Chuck Swindoll and Jonathan Murphy

Stonebriar Community Church video announcement / Screengrab

Key Updates

September 24, 2024

Swindoll Retires from Preaching
April 12, 2024

Chuck Swindoll Steps Down as Senior Pastor

September 24, 2024

Weeks away from turning 90, Chuck Swindoll has preached his final sermon at Stonebriar Community Church. Swindoll announced Sunday that “the time has come” for him to retire from the church he led as senior pastor for 26 years.

The founding pastor of the Frisco, Texas, congregation had transitioned from day-to-day leadership of the church back in May but continued to preach on Sundays. Jonathan Murphy, a preacher and seminary professor from Northern Ireland, succeeded Swindoll as senior pastor.

Swindoll says he and his wife will continue to worship at Stonebriar, and he plans to continue to serve through his radio ministry Insight for Living.

“I’ve always believed that age is merely a number; what truly matters is our commitment to fulfilling the divine purpose laid out before us,” he said in a statement to Stonebriar. “I want to embrace every day, every challenge, and every opportunity to impact lives, because one never retires from the work of God’s kingdom.”

April 12, 2024

Chuck Swindoll has said that pastors “should never retire,” and the 89-year-old won’t be stepping away from the pulpit even as his church welcomes his successor.

Stonebriar Community Church in Frisco, Texas, announced this week that Swindoll will transition to founding pastor, continuing to preach on Sundays, as Jonathan Murphy becomes its senior pastor on May 1.

“This is a very unique way of expanding, of ‘moving into another chapter,’ as we often call it here,” said Swindoll in a video clip alongside Murphy, a Belfast-born preacher who currently serves as chair of pastoral ministries at Dallas Theological Seminary.

With over 60 years in ministry, Swindoll is the oldest megachurch pastor in the country and one of the most influential. He has been vocal about his plans to remain active in ministry until his death.

“One of my great goals in life is to live long enough to where I am in the pulpit, preaching my heart out, and I die on the spot, my chin hits the pulpit—boom!—and I’m down and out,” he said at age 75. “What a way to die.”

In his new role, Swindoll remains Stonebriar’s regular preacher, while Murphy leads day-to-day ministries and fills in to preach when needed, according to the church’s announcement.

“We have the founding pastor being able to continue to preach as long as the Lord would have, and I can have a season as a senior pastor taking responsibility for the staff and caring for them and the ministry direction of the church at large,” said Murphy, who has been a guest preacher at Stonebriar and serves on the board for Swindoll’s long-running radio ministry Insight for Living.

The two have been preparing for the transition for several years, with Swindoll befriending and mentoring Murphy. The church’s elder board began considering him as a senior pastor candidate in 2022 and decided last month to bring him into the new role.

Swindoll will remain an elder, and Murphy will also join the elder board. “At the appropriate time in the future,” the church said, Murphy will also become the church’s primary preacher.

Megachurch researcher Warren Bird and William Vanderbloemen, the authors of Next: Pastoral Succession That Works, have written that an “intentional overlap plan” seems to be the strongest model for transition.

“Today, many long-term pastors experience a period of overlap with their successor as a way to help both the congregation and themselves adjust to the transition. It also allows a safety net if the transition hit unexpected challenges,” Bird, the senior vice president of research at the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability, told CT. “A ‘known’ leader is often the successor, in this case someone who’s been a guest preacher from a nearby seminary much esteemed by the congregation.”

According to Bird, preaching is often the last duty for an aging pastor to relinquish.

He said that Swindoll’s setup at Stonebriar is similar to other long-serving megachurch pastors in their 80s, such as at First Baptist Atlanta, where Anthony George was announced at Charles Stanley’s successor years before Stanley stepped down at age 87. (Stanley also said he didn’t “believe in retirement” and continued his work at In Touch Ministries.)

The need for pastors to make plans for their successors has only grown more urgent in the US as clergy age; 1 in 4 senior pastors plan to retire by 2030.

Last year, Swindoll suffered a fall, experienced low blood pressure, and underwent an angiogram. He was away from the pulpit in January while recovering from an aortic valve procedure. He turns 90 this fall.

While president of Dallas Theological Seminary (DTS), Swindoll helped found Stonebriar Community Church in 1998. A Texas native, Swindoll had graduated from DTS and began his pastoral career in the Lone Star State in the 1960s.

Stonebriar drew in 1,500 weekly attendees within its first six months; CT dubbed it an “instant megachurch.” At its 25th anniversary in 2023, the nondenominational evangelical church outside Dallas reported 3,700 members, 300,000 square feet of building space, and an annual budget of $17 million.

Swindoll is known for his preaching. He has twice appeared on Baylor University’s rankings of most effective preachers, and a 2010 Lifeway Research survey of Protestant preachers found he was the country’s most influential preacher not named Billy Graham.

Murphy commended Swindoll and his congregation for their love for the word. “We talk about expository preaching, but I love that they’re expository listeners,” he said. “They come ready to hear from God, not to be entertained.”

Despite Swindoll’s remarks that pastors shouldn’t retire, he has also said, “There’s nothing wrong with retirement as long as you don’t stop living for God. You never retire from the Great Commission.”

- More from Kate Shellnutt

Culture

In ‘Civil War,’ What You See Is What You Try to Forget

Zachary Lee

The new dystopian thriller reminds viewers it’s not just what we witness that matters, but how.

Cailee Spaeny (center) as Jessie in Civil War.

Murray Close / Courtesy of A24

There’s nothing more frightening than the sound of a camera shutter in the new film Civil War.

Distributed by A24, the production company behind releases like Everything Everywhere All at Once and Past Lives, the movie depicts the remnants of a United States government battling the Western Forces, an alliance between Texas and California. If you’re looking for reasons—Why these factions? Why now?—you won’t find any answers. The film is frustratingly opaque on logistics, though we’re able to hypothesize based on a few offhand comments. (The unnamed president, played by Nick Offerman, is entering his third term and isn’t gun-shy about using air strikes against American citizens.) Even so, a California that cooperates with Texas seems far-fetched.

For writer/director Alex Garland, our incredulity is the point. “I find it interesting that people would say, ‘These two states could never be together under any circumstances.’ Under any circumstances? Any? Are you sure?” he told The Atlantic. By asking us to accept his premise, Garland forces viewers to consider the ideological divisions we take for granted. Turns out, the why doesn’t matter all that much. Dystopia, no matter how it comes about, is still dystopia.

What is clear, though, is that the war provides an opportunity for journalists, capitalized on by photojournalist Lee (Kirsten Dunst), her Reuters colleague Joel (Wagner Moura), and her mentor, New York Times reporter Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson). Their coverage of atrocities shapes our experience of this imagined future. Many of those chilling camera shutter sounds come from Lee, as she documents truly terrible scenes of domestic conflict with ruthless efficiency and pristine technique. It’s jarring to see pictures of military soldiers being executed or a civilian being set on fire with perfect ISO and aperture.

Ever in pursuit of a scoop, the three decide to embark on a road trip from New York to DC, where Lee hopes to photograph the president and Joel hopes to interview him. “We get there before anyone else does,” Lee says. Joel agrees: “Interviewing him is the only story left.” At the last minute, they’re joined by Jessie (Cailee Spaeny), a young photojournalist who idolizes Lee. Together they embark on a tour of the crumbling nation.

With every click, the photographers get more disconnected from the war they’re documenting. Cinematographer Rob Hardy and editor Jake Roberts use recurring shots of each photo’s aftermath to terrifying effect. When the camera falls from Lee’s or Jessie’s face, it’s like a mask coming off.

Whether she’s captured a candid of an abandoned mall or a soldier who’s bled out, Lee’s dispassionate poise is chilling. She’s seen one too many atrocities, and whether for self-preservation or by overexposure, she’s desensitized to the horrors around her.

Young Jessie, however, is different. Whenever she’s done taking a photo, at least at first, audiences see the toll the work takes on her. It’s a tragedy when her empathy gives way to detachment. Each time her camera clicks, her face is less frightened, more stoic.

Civil War is an ode to the harrowing work of war journalists. But the film also pushes back against the notion that the highest virtue a journalist can cultivate is the ability to remain unfazed. While objectivity is imperative, it should be no badge of honor when we’re able to cover the worst of the world and not be moved.

In one painful sequence, after the crew witnesses a wanton act of violence, Lee tells a visibly shaken Jessie, “We record so other people ask.” Lee’s investment in a story ends after the click; she leaves it up to her audience to explore bigger questions about pain and purpose. “You want to be a journalist? That’s the job,” she scolds. One can’t deny the journalists’ commitment to capturing the truth of what they see. But it’s nonetheless disturbing when they do so without emotion.

The psalms of David take the opposite approach to the one modeled in Civil War—all lament, rejoicing, and rage as they interpret the world around them.

In David in Distress: His Portrait Through the Historical Psalms, scholar Vivian L. Johnson identifies certain songs that directly correlate with what’s covered in texts like 1 and 2 Samuel. One of these is Psalm 51, written in the aftermath of David’s rape of Bethsheba and his murder of her husband, Uriah, as recorded in 2 Samuel 11.

Whereas the history in Samuel provides the objective account of what’s happened, the psalm offers an opportunity to flesh out David’s inner, emotional experience. As Johnson writes, “Seldom do the Samuel narratives reveal the private contemplation of David or report his gestures of contrition; in fact, the books of Samuel in general show little reservation in their disclosure of his most egregious deeds.” Psalm 51, she argues, where David details his remorse more fully than in 2 Samuel’s one-line confession “I have sinned against the Lord,” “provid[es] for the reader an elaborate and pious version of what David may have said subsequent to recognizing the gravity of his actions when he murdered the husband of his mistress.”

The role of the psalmist is different from the role of the journalist. But what we see in Civil War reminds us, as does Scripture, of how vulnerable we can be in the face of the world’s hardships. For every record of an atrocity is a journalist who wrestles with bearing witness.

Take, for instance, a Rolling Stone gallery of images from photojournalists in Gaza. The photos are difficult to sift through and only more poignant now that the death toll there has exceeded 33,000 people. The presentation of these photos isn’t careless or salacious; instead, each is accompanied by a contextualizing caption. Photojournalist Ahmed Zakot describes Gaza on October 9, 2023: “I took this picture from the 19th floor of a skyscraper in Gaza. In my 25-year career as a photographer, I never felt such fear and distress. I felt that I was filming a cinematic movie scene, I had to remind myself that it is all too real.”

I can be like Lee. When I see archival photos from history or even images of today’s faraway atrocities, I’m moved to protect myself by keeping it all at arm’s length. It’s no wonder—in our online, overexposed world, ghastly images and testimonies are just a timeline refresh away.

But while dissociation might be understandable, it’s not desirable. That’s true not only of pain but also of joy. There’s Job’s address to God: anger fully expressed rather than circumstances merely accepted. But there’s also the first chapter of Luke, which makes room for Mary’s song.

Whereas other gospels are quick to narrate the events of Jesus’ birth, Luke pauses for a look at Mary’s heart. Her spirit “rejoices in God my Savior”; she can trust in the promises foretold by the angel Gabriel since God has shown his faithfulness “just as he promised our ancestors.” Even as it records the facts, Scripture makes room for lament, celebration, and praise, not stoicism.

Civil War offers a similar reminder. It’s not just what we witness that matters but how. Even as we remind ourselves that “it is all too real,” we remember a loving God who’s present in that reality. May we care for our souls as we look closely at suffering. May we also allow our hearts to break.

Zachary Lee serves as the Managing Editor at The Center for Public Justice. He writes about media, faith, technology, and the environment.

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Key Updates

September 24, 2024

April 12, 2024

September 24, 2024

April 12, 2024

In ‘Civil War,’ What You See Is What You Try to Forget

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