Sing Holy Forever … or Until TikTok Pulls the Audio

What Universal Music Group’s catalog removal means for our favorites from Hillsong, Kari Jobe, Chris Tomlin, and more.

Your favorite worship artist may be raising fewer hallelujahs on TikTok now that the world’s largest music company is pulling its entire catalog from the app due to a licensing dispute.

Last week, Universal Music Group (UMC) said it would “cease licensing content” to TikTok and began removing songs and recordings, including Christian worship hits released through Capitol Christian Music Group (CCMG).

The UMG-owned Christian record label has signed and acquired the catalogs of some of today’s most influential Christian musicians: Hillsong, Kari Jobe, Passion, Amy Grant, Anne Wilson, Brooke Ligertwood, Chris Tomlin, Crowder, Mac Powell, Tauren Wells, TobyMac, and We the Kingdom. As CT reported last year, CCMG has claimed to have a 60 percent market share of the top 10 worship songs used in churches.

So along with removing audio from Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour performances, most of Hillsong UNITED’s TikTok profile now has no audio. Several of Chris Tomlin’s videos were muted over the weekend. The removal process takes time and may affect new uploads more than existing video content. The story is still developing, so it remains to be seen how comprehensive UMG’s enforcement will be.

Because TikTok’s algorithm pushes videos with trending audio tracks, many of today’s artists want to see their music go viral on the app; it’s a major platform for exposure to a young, global audience. The move has brought uncertainty to Christian and mainstream musicians alike.

How will this change on TikTok affect the Christian music industry?

As Christian music becomes increasingly enmeshed with the mainstream music industry, artists in the niche will find that their songs, while created to serve the church, are also part of a massive collection of assets and bargaining chips that come into play during these corporate negotiations.

Music by artists signed to UMG labels and imprints will be removed from TikTok in the coming weeks unless the parties end up eventually reaching an agreement. This includes music by CCMG artists as well as other labels under its umbrella, including Motown Gospel, Re:Think, Sparrow Records, and Hillsong Music.

UMG-affiliated artists who are trying to market new music will have to put together a social strategy that doesn’t include TikTok. For artists with a substantial following on the platform—Hillsong Worship has over 440,000 followers, for example, and Kari Jobe, 161,400—that limitation will be frustrating, because their own label will prevent them from posting their music.

@hillsongunited
What’s one way He’s held you as you’ve stepped out in faith? 🌊 #UNITED #fyp #christiantiktok #worship #Oceans
♬ Oceans (Where Feet May Fail) – Hillsong UNITED & TAYA

Wait. Why would UMG want to limit an artist’s ability to promote their own music?

“UMG’s answer to artists is, We’re trying to get you paid more money,” said music marketer Drew Small, who has worked for Bethel, Tooth & Nail Records, and CCMG, and now runs an independent music marketing agency in Nashville.

In its statement on January 30, UMG expressed commitment to its artists and their work: “We will always fight for our artists and songwriters and stand up for the creative and commercial value of music.”

According to UMG, TikTok wants to get away with paying artists a fraction of the value of their work. TikTok’s response accused UMG of putting “their own greed above the interests of their artists and songwriters.” But in the near term, this move hurts artists who are trying to get their music out there and reach new fans.

How important is TikTok to CCM and contemporary worship artists?

In Small’s view, TikTok has not become a consistently powerful promotional tool for Christian artists.

“I don’t see a lot of Christian artists doing successful marketing on Tiktok,” said Small. “Part of the allure of Tiktok is to very affordably drive numbers, giving the perception of success. You can get a lot of traffic for very little money.”

But a strategy built on virality doesn’t work for many artists; it’s not always an effective way to find fans who want to listen to new music and support a musician’s career. Certain Christian artists like Maverick City Music, JWLKRS, Forrest Frank, Hulvey, and Elevation Worship have been able to create wide-reaching content on the platform, but those artists are notable exceptions.

While TikTok isn’t a key marketing tool for most Christian artists, UMG’s ability to remove their music from the platform can feel like a violation, even though the company has the legal right to do so. For artists with minimal administrative and distribution agreements with UMG and its subsidiaries, UMG has control over the use of their songs and recordings, even though the entity may have had almost no involvement in the artist’s career.

For some of these artists, the move feels unfair and extreme because it includes UMG’s entire publishing catalog—over 4 million songs. UMG isn’t just removing master recordings, it’s removing the songs themselves, the compositions. This means that any version of a song in UMG’s catalog, including live versions and covers, can be removed. That includes songs of which UMG controls only a small percentage of rights.

What if I/my church posted a cover of a worship song owned by UMG on TikTok?

It can be muted or removed.

“This is going to affect anyone doing a cover of a UMG-affiliated worship song,” said Small. “No one is getting sued over it, but a lot of people who are just posting for fun are going to see their videos muted or taken down.”

Even small accounts for personal use aren’t exempt, and content that might otherwise fly under the radar may be detected and removed.

Small said that UMG’s recognition software is impressive and will likely catch videos with UMG-owned songs. Even if a creator doesn’t mention the name of the song in the caption or post the lyrics, the automated program can still recognize the tune and structure.

In some cases, said Small, cover videos will simply be muted—the visual will remain posted with no audio. In others, accounts could get multiple “strikes” for content violation and eventually be flagged or suspended.

TikTok is one place where Christians can post their own covers of worship songs and watch videos posted by other amateurs and church musicians. It’s also a platform where worship leaders and industry professionals post ministry-related comedy, share tutorials, offer commentary, and even commiserate over the challenges of the role.

Several videos posted by the popular account “WorshipLeaderProbs” have had the sound removed. A meme with Steve Carell as Michael Scott dancing to a now-unknown Cody Carnes song doesn’t quite land. On Carnes’s TikTok page, the sound has been removed from several videos of the artist performing hit songs like “Firm Foundation” and “Bless God.”

@codycarnesofficial
When everything around me is shaken, I’ve never been more glad that I put my faith in Jesus 🙌🏼🙌🏼
♬ original sound – Cody Carnes

Are there any ways this dispute is uniquely relevant for Christian musicians?

Increased investment in Christian music from the mainstream industry has increased the profile of many Christian musicians globally. The removal of popular CCM and worship music from TikTok is an example of how the industry’s investment and involvement in the niche comes with certain conditions. And this is true for any musician who pursues a contract with a label group like UMG.

The relationship between ministry and business in the Christian music industry is complicated. Worship artists who create music intended to serve the church may suddenly find that their offerings are also being used as bargaining chips and investment opportunities. In some cases, these are artists who signed with small labels that were acquired by UMG long after they started writing music.

“CCMG is becoming a monopoly,” said Small. “Having them withdraw from TikTok is an advantage to every artist on any other label.”

Small is also hopeful that this episode might inspire artists to reconsider the value of creating music that is tailored to platforms like TikTok, which incentivizes artists to create music with short, attention-grabbing hooks and meme-able sound bites. “This is an incentive to create good content, good art, that doesn’t feel like an ad.”

Kelsey Kramer McGinnis is CT’s worship music correspondent. For more about Universal Music Group’s TikTok licensing move, check out reporting by

Vulture, Rolling Stone,

and

Music Business Worldwide

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Culture

Jesus Freaks in the Taylor Swift Era

Matthew Malec

Blessed are those who are weird for righteousness’ sake, not just dabbling in baseless conspiracy theories about a pop star and the NFL.

Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs celebrates with Taylor Swift after a victory against the Baltimore Ravens.

Patrick Smith / Staff / Getty

By now, everyone knows Taylor Swift is a government psyop,” wrote right-wing influencer Benny Johnson last week, summing up the buzzy new conspiracy theory that the pop star’s relationship with Kansas City Chiefs player Travis Kelce is a secret plot orchestrated by Democratic mega-donor George Soros to help President Joe Biden get re-elected.

The theory has been touted by figures including erstwhile presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and Fox News host Jesse Watters, and it has occasioned a rash of commentary exploring the increasing weirdness of the Right. American conservatism, in the words of New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, has a self-sabotaging “inability to just be normal.”

The emerging consensus, even among some conservatives like Douthat, is that the Right generally, and the Christian Right specifically, harbors a cultish band of losers and freaks. And a movement that looks at a happy, traditional romance and starts hyperventilating about psyops is not attractive. It pushes educated, high-status moderates with generally conservative dispositions into the arms of the Left.

There’s some truth here. In electoral terms, Republicans have indeed bled support among the educated and affluent, and the idolization of politicians like former president Donald Trump is both morally wrong and politically imprudent. The Right’s culture of victimhood and baseless conspiracy theorizing have gone way too far. This is undeniably destructive and requires serious self-examination and reform.

But for Christians, acknowledging that kind of weirdness shouldn’t keep us from seeing that graver problems in our culture tend to come from elsewhere. We can reject bad, stupid weirdness while being defiantly “weird” for righteousness’ sake.

This weirdness discourse has largely glossed over a key point of context: Many on the secular Left believe absurdities and, far more than the Christian Right, will not hesitate to jam them down people’s throats. Most obvious right now is the claim that men can become women and vice versa, an idea that would have been heralded as farce for most of human history. But in the span of a decade, adherents of gender ideology have come to control many consequential, culture-shaping institutions and so can easily normalize what is not normal. In fact, they’re able to quickly cast any opposition as weirdness—or bigotry.

Issues like the reality of God-given sex have importance well beyond politics, of course, and other lies now widely accepted in our culture, like the morality of abortion, are more difficult to see through and more deeply engrained. It is vital for Christians to be strong and vigilant in resisting these lies—to be willing to be “weird” in defense of truth.

That will require listening to conscience, even when the world threatens to crush us, as it has done to many Christian pharmacists, bakers, and others. It also means we must not prioritize the approval of elites over our principles. Like Paul, we must seek the approval of God, not people (Gal. 1:10), for “no one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other” (Matt. 6:24).

Besides, elite approval is unlikely without complete capitulation—just ask actor Chris Pratt, who came under scrutiny for his church’s views on sexuality. Pratt is in the difficult position of being a Christian in Hollywood, and he is clearly struggling with how to stay in the good graces of both God and the Screen Actors Guild.

However, we must also avoid a mindset that has become too common in some Christian circles: the habit of assuming that every critique is unfair or even “proof” that we are effective champions of truth. Jesus said that the world would oppose us no matter what (John 15:18–25), but we should avoid making ourselves easy targets for allegations of hypocrisy, gullibility, or worse. We must remember that no politician can restore the world; only Christ’s return can do that (Rev. 21:5). And not all opposition is part of an elaborate conspiracy—in fact, though our situation may be worse than at other points in American history, compared to Christians in the Roman Empire or many parts of the world today, we remain free and blessed.

We should also be aware of how we are perceived by the world, not to conform to its lies but to better spread the truth. Taylor Swift is not our ally, but neither is she even close to the biggest problem in our culture, and attacking her is unlikely to yield good fruit.

We can be more creative in crafting narratives too. Instead of going after Swift, for example, point out the conservative values that people of all stripes may find inspiring in her relationship with Kelce and his family. Instead of making ourselves victims of an imagined conspiracy, point out that Swift appears happy in a traditional relationship with a successful, masculine man.

These strategies will only do so much, and many in the world will cast us as outsiders and freaks, whether we pull away like John the Baptist or engage like Jesus (Matt. 11:18–19). As Christians, we know that this is inevitable and that our ways must be different. We know that we will face scorn and mockery as we challenge dangerous lies with “credible” institutional backers. But we also know that we have the truth, and that the truth does not change, regardless of what is in style with our culture’s elite.

Matthew Malec is a research assistant at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

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Church Life

Can the Gospel Come in a Red Envelope?

Compiled by Sean Cheng

Chinese church leaders consider how to use the Lunar New Year tradition as an opportunity for evangelism.

Stringer / Getty / Edits by CT

Every winter as Lunar New Year (LNY) draws near, Andrea Lee assists her Southern Californian Chinese church, New Life Christian Center, in preparing red envelopes, a traditional Chinese way to give gifts during the holiday.

But these aren’t just any hong bao (红包, “red envelopes”). While they do contain crisp one-dollar bills, they also include bookmarks inscribed with Bible verses designed and printed by the church. Throughout the LNY season, members of the congregation pass these out to newcomers and those attending church-hosted celebrations, which often include a communal meal and a sermon from the pastor.

“This is a way of honoring the Chinese tradition, spreading the feeling of warmth and goodwill to diaspora Chinese,” said Lee, a content manager with ChinaSource. “The elderly in the church are particularly delighted, and the children love it too. The joyful faces of the old, middle aged, and young, all ages, coupled with the pastor’s gospel message and encouragement, fosters a sense of home and belonging.”

In Chinese culture, the color red signifies celebration, and red envelopes symbolize happiness and prosperity. Thus, during the Spring Festival, Chinese individuals often jokingly say to each other, “Gong xi fa cai, hong bao na lai” (恭喜发财，红包拿来), which means, “Congratulations on the good fortune, but give me the red packet first.” Today, a digital version of this playful practice has also moved to the realm of the Chinese social media app WeChat, where people can virtually “snatch” red envelopes.

Generally, red envelope gifting goes only in one direction: from elders to the (unmarried) younger generation, from adults to children, and from the employed to students. The actual sum placed in the red envelope varies. For those who are not particularly close, a nominal amount suffices as a token gesture. Only among relatives or at special occasions, such as company parties where bonuses might be paid to employees, is a substantial cash amount included.

Christians have increasingly appropriated hong bao for gospel ends. In Singapore, a Christian art gift company partnered with local churches to design a series of gospel red envelopes (called “ang paos” in Singapore) showcasing the 37 miracles performed by Jesus. Another business, The Commandment Co., employed “God’s creation” as the theme for their red envelope series, portraying God’s abundant blessings through colorful designs.

To learn more about how Chinese Christians on the mainland and among the diaspora use red envelopes for their ministries, CT spoke with seven pastors and church and ministry leaders across five cities.

Diaspora Chinese

All the leaders of overseas Chinese churches and organizations interviewed by CT affirmed that distributing gospel red envelopes during the Spring Festival is a common practice in their congregations and felt positively toward it.

Agnese Tan, editor-in-chief, Behold magazine, Los Angeles:

Red envelopes are a helpful tool for evangelism, creating a sense of welcome and goodwill. We like to include a 25-cent coin, a one-dollar bill, or a chocolate gold coin inside, which symbolizes blessing and conveys a sense of friendliness.

[As Christians], we know some will come to eat a meal and “take advantage of the church.” But we do this because we are genuinely happy to serve others voluntarily. We do so without expecting gratitude or anything in return and resist complaining that our guests are there just to eat.

James Hwang, former director of the Far East Broadcasting Company’s Chinese division, Los Angeles:

Although my church’s red envelope contains only the symbolic gesture of a dollar, the recipient is still pleased to receive it. Its presence allows the pastor to elaborate on the symbolism of the “renewal of all things” (Rev. 21:5), making a specific Chinese pun (in Chinese, 一元, “one dollar,” can mean “beginning of all things”). Coupled with the eight fu (“blessings”), that is, the Beatitudes, printed in Chinese on the red envelopes, in this context, it embodies the essence of a gospel tract.

Nan Qiu, editor of the Australian edition of The Herald Monthly in Brisbane, Australia:

As Christians, if we remain vigilant and not succumb to the love of money associated with the secular tradition of giving red envelopes, then the distribution of gospel red envelopes can serve as a way to join in the fun, making the Good News more down-to-earth. It’s a practice that can conform to traditional customs as well as serve the purpose of glorifying God and benefiting others.

Karen Wong, Christian writer, Hong Kong:

Note: In Hong Kong, the money contained within the red envelope is referred to as "lai see ” (利是).

At my church, we print lai see envelopes with Bible verses and place a small amount of money inside. Apart from the outer envelope, it is indistinguishable from the ordinary red envelopes distributed among friends and relatives.

I have also heard of non-believer friends who received red envelopes from churches, but when they saw Bible verses inside in addition to the money, they felt uncomfortable because they felt they were being proselytized.

Another disadvantage of the gospel lai see envelope is that recipients may not read the verses or Christian messages—most people discard the paper card or the envelope printed with such words quickly.

Chen Daode, Southern Baptist pastor, Los Angeles:

Red envelopes and the Spring Festival are cultural symbols of the Chinese. Christians express their love for their neighbors with specific items (such as red envelopes) at a specific time (during the Spring Festival), providing an opportunity to build relationships, just like sending out Christmas cards at Christmas.

We shouldn’t expect too much from the evangelistic efforts of the red envelope distribution process. The main purpose of distributing gospel red envelopes is to build relationships and convey goodwill. Therefore, we approach the results of distributing gospel red envelopes with realistic and relaxed expectations.

Mainland China

Pastors and church leaders of Chinese mainland house churches told CT that their churches did not distribute gospel red envelopes during the Spring Festival, and they had not heard of other Chinese house churches doing so. Some of them said they were “not opposed” to this practice, while others said they “would not support” it.

These pastors believe that the difference in attitude toward distributing gospel red envelopes between overseas Chinese Christians and mainland Chinese Christians in house churches is primarily due to cultural differences caused by different environments.

Note: CT interviewed a few pastors and leaders in China and two of them are quoted below.

Han Jianshe (pseudonym for security reasons), pastor of a house church, Shanghai:

Our ministries are the application of our theology in specific situations. I feel that overseas Chinese churches may be influenced by the gospel movement and attach more importance to evangelism. The culture of giving red envelopes can help achieve the goal of “information reaching” and of fulfilling “evangelism KPIs”—the rejection rate is very low, so I can see why this kind of ministry model would be adopted.

However, for domestic churches in China, the general culture of giving red envelopes has declined. In today’s urban culture, accepting red envelopes from strangers usually results in suspicion rather than [being perceived as] a friendly ice-breaker gesture.

From my personal pastoral perspective, we have so many ways to preach the gospel to people, whether from the Sunday pulpit or through daily conversations, charity and mercy ministries, or workplace testimony.

Therefore, carrying out gospel outreach by means of a declining cultural phenomenon is not a good practice. Moreover, the custom of giving red envelopes has a folk religious background, so we are more cautious with this practice (Chinese Christians with a fundamentalist tendency usually oppose “lucky money” because the idea originated from bribing ghosts and gods).

Sean Long, pastor of an urban house church in China currently studying for a doctorate in theology in the United States:

We must be mindful in our approach to the relationship between the gospel, faith, and culture, rather than merely amalgamating them all together.

One potential pitfall of disseminating gospel red envelopes is the risk of materializing the blessings God bestows upon people. Even from the standpoint of Chinese culture, the true beauty of the Lunar New Year celebration lies primarily in the reunion of family and the expression of affection, not in winning money from mahjong or receiving red envelopes. Moreover, from the perspective of Christian faith values, material blessings do not equate to the blessings of the gospel. The greatest blessing God provides us is found in Jesus Christ.

In light of these potential drawbacks of churches distributing red envelopes, I would like to suggest a constructive and innovative idea for utilizing red envelopes in care ministry.

When the church disseminates gospel red envelopes to more effectively embody the gospel spirit of “it is more blessed to give than to receive,” we could use actual money-filled red packets to support and assist those in need, such as refugees and the impoverished and vulnerable.

However, the church would not directly insert money into the red envelopes. Instead, the church would provide the outer casing and include a gospel leaflet or blessing card with Scriptures inside and then distribute these money-less red envelopes to brothers and sisters, who, if moved by the Holy Spirit, would contribute a certain amount of money, and then distribute it to those in need, expressing Christian love.

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Inkwell

I am not their wildest dreams

Kathryn H. Ross

Photography by Alexandra Leru

I don’t think my ancestors dreamt
of sleeping in ‘til noon on a Monday
or of student debt and credit cards,
of a working car and just enough
cash to fill the tank. I don’t think
they dreamt of a small apartment in
the city with monstera on the windowsill,
of cats sleeping lazily in dappled sunspots
sprinkled across hardwood floors.

How could they when they were dreaming of
nights of sleep without waking, of safety and
simple things like peace and goodness and
tomorrow?

How could they when they were dreaming of
rest and kind words, of soft hands, of cruelty
withering like chaff in the wind?

How could they when they were dreaming of
Jesus leaning down and parting the rows of
cotton like a million frothing seas,
of being led to freedom, even freedom
through a wasteland?

How could they when they were dreaming of
holding their children and their mothers and
their fathers and their siblings and
their friends and their lovers and never
being forced to let go?

How could they when they were dreaming of
the man on the cross stretched wide, bloody
and beaten and broken because he looked
just like them?

I think their wild dreams were of sitting
beneath the trees; of cool water on hot days,
of shade from the sun, of leaving Pharoah’s
land, of going home, born across the waters
and the sky cradled in God’s palms.

I am not a wild dream;
I am Paul’s words
in that letter:

Exceedingly abundantly
above; more and mercifully
mundane.

I am everything they
couldn’t think of, everything
they never knew to want.
I am wrought from
weary prayers answered
in my living, so simple and
so small.

Kathryn K. Ross is a SoCal-based writer. She is the author of Black Was Not A Label (PRONTO, 2019; Red Hen Press 2022), a collection of essays and poetry, and Count It All Loss (GoldScriptCo, 2021), a poetry chapbook. Learn more about her and read her other works at speakthewritelanguage.com.

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News

The Fight for International Religious Freedom Goes Mainstream

Harvest Prude

Annual IRF gathering puts the spotlight on worsening persecution of people of faith around the world.

IRF Summit in Washington, DC

Matt Ryb / IRF Summit

The message that international religious freedom advocates have been sharing all along—that prioritizing religious freedom is crucial for human flourishing and national stability—is increasingly catching on, with this year’s International Religious Freedom (IRF) Summit reflecting the growth of their global, interfaith movement over the past five years.

The summit, held this week in Washington, DC, has been a key part of mounting momentum around bringing more attention to religious persecution around the world, with sessions this year addressing crises from Nigeria to Nicaragua.

“In so many of the global crises around the world, there’s a religious freedom dimension,” said Jeremy Barker, director of the Middle East Action Team for the Religious Freedom Institute, who has seen greater recognition for the IRF cause over the past five years. “It’s not marginal but mainstream.”

Last year marked the 25th anniversary of the International Religious Freedom Act, which required the US State Department to make religious freedom an essential aspect of its foreign policy focus, and the United States has continued to see public victories for the cause. Former president Donald Trump nominated an IRF ambassador within six months, something his predecessors took many more months to do, and elevated the position of the IRF office within the State Department.

The Trump administration also put on the initial two IRF summits as government-hosted ministerials, followed by other nations including Poland, the United Kingdom, and Czechia. (The ongoing US summit is now organized by civil society.) Former IRF ambassador Sam Brownback also oversaw the launch of the International Religious Freedom or Belief Alliance, a global focus group which now includes 37 member nations.

At this year’s summit, the current US IRF ambassador, Rashad Hussain, said he makes sure IRF officials are represented in State Department foreign policy meetings to highlight how religious freedom is an imperative for national security.

“Countries and societies that protect their religious freedom are more likely to be safe and prosperous, and countries that do not protect religious freedom are less likely to be stable,” Hussain said. “It is an essential part of our foreign policy, and we see evidence for that all around the world.”

The movement has also made strides on the global stage, with leaders in other nations stepping up to host religious freedom roundtables modeled after the longrunning US model, with support from the recently created IRF Secretariat.

“The issues are beginning to be recognized as a bit more mainstream,” Barker said. “Certainly from the administration side—senior people from the State Department, from USAID—are looking at democracy promotion, countering violent extremism … and see religious freedom as having something to say in those spaces.”

Meanwhile, deteriorating religious freedom conditions can be observed around the world.

In its 2024 World Watch List, Open Doors reported that over 365 million Christians live in countries experiencing high levels of persecution or discrimination. The organization found that all 50 nations scored high enough to register “very high” persecution levels, according to Open Doors’ metrics—only the fourth time that has happened since 1993, the first year of the report.

There are sobering examples of the persecution of religious minorities worldwide. Religiously motivated genocides have been recognized by the United States in China against Uyghur Muslims and in Burma against Rohingya Muslims.

The 2023 annual report from the US Commission on International Religious Freedom highlighted dismal conditions for religious minorities in many countries, including the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan and Hindu nationalism’s rise in India leading to discriminatory laws, mob and vigilante violence, and destruction of mosques and churches.

At the summit, Brownback said religious freedom is essential to the flourishing of human rights: “And boy, do we need some flourishing. The great global human rights project has suffered decline in the last 20 years at the hand of expanding authoritarian regimes and sophisticated technology.”

The summit kicked off with an “advocacy day” Monday where attendees from various faiths flocked to Capitol Hill for meetings with lawmakers.

Over Tuesday and Wednesday, more than 70 speakers discussed worsening situations of religious freedom in Nigeria, India, Ukraine, the Middle East, Latin America, and elsewhere. They also discussed how military conflicts have exacerbated religious repression, from Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

Breakout sessions looked at religious minorities in the Middle East, the use of technology by repressive regimes, and the Israel-Hamas war, with one private session showing raw footage from the October 7 terrorist attack.

The annual event strives to be bipartisan, featuring politicians from both sides of the aisle who called on the United States to do more to flex its powers to pressure bad actors.

“This should not be a partisan issue,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, said of China’s brutalization of Uyghur Muslims, who have suffered torture, re-education, forced labor, and imprisonment in internment camps. He also decried reports of organ harvesting of Tibetan Buddhists and Falun Gong practitioners.

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a former Democratic National Committee chair and member of the Appropriations Committee in the House, said that she’s made an effort to prioritize robust funding for US-led and international efforts to promote religious freedom for all, including those who don’t practice any faith.

“In my time in Congress, I’ve seen immense progress in our government’s efforts to hold repressive regimes accountable and provide justice for the downtrodden,” she said.

Former vice president Mike Pence argued that the United States should pressure oppressive regimes through existing trade agreements, at one point singling out Nicaragua.

“The time has come for the United States to make it clear to Nicaragua that we will not tolerate action against, suppression of, church leaders and religious leaders in Nicaragua without consequence,” he said at the summit. Since 2004, Nicaragua has had a free trade agreement with the United States.

The Nicaraguan government has cracked down on Catholics and evangelicals since 2018, closing ministries, imprisoning church leaders, and deporting Catholic clergy. A priest who had been imprisoned under Daniel Ortega’s regime spoke from behind a screen about the persecution.

“We are the most powerful economy on earth,” Pence said. “And we ought to make it clear to Nicaragua that you will begin to respect the religious liberty of people of every faith or our relationship will change.”

Pence also called for the United States to impose economic pressure on China due to the ongoing US-recognized genocide of Uyghur Muslims in the country’s Xinjiang region.

Another panel spotlighted the “double persecution” women face: Lou Ann Sabatier, a veteran communications consultant and cofounder of the Freedom of Religion or Belief (FoRB) Women’s Alliance, noted that persecution comes not only from government or non-state actors but also from communities and families, making the oppression unseen.

Women in minority religions experience persecution from their network of close relationships in the domestic sphere, panelists noted: They’re forced into marriages, physically abused to force conversions, subjected to sexual violence and rape, and cut off from family support if they seek to convert.

Open Doors’ 2023 report on gender noted that sexual abuse “may be the most common way to persecute Christian women and girls” around the world.

Every attendee or speaker Christianity Today interviewed mentioned the deteriorating conditions in Nigeria, where 50,000 Christians have died over the last 14 years due to the rise of Boko Haram, the Islamic State West Africa Province, and Fulani extremists, according to a Nigerian civil rights group, the International Society for Civil Liberties and the Rule of Law.

Open Doors also agreed that the deadliest country for Christians over the last year was Nigeria. Over 4,100 Christians were killed in the West African nation last year, representing over 80 percent of Christians killed globally. Open Doors’ report is considered to lean on the conservative side in its estimates of the number of Christians killed for their faith.

“No one knows the real number, but it’s really high and it’s higher than the official numbers,” Jeff King, president of International Christian Concern, told CT. “You know, people go in after these attacks, and they’ll find people for days in the bushes. Either they run out from their homes or run out in the night or are shot and slashed. So the count is higher. … It’s a slow-moving genocide.”

King has advocated for Christian victims of persecution since 2003. His upcoming book, The Whisper, is a devotional focused on what persecuted Christians and martyrs can teach the church.

“We tend to think of [the persecuted] as our very poor cousins. But that’s not it at all,” said King. “They’re family. But they are our very wealthy relations, and they’re way ahead of us.”

King said the testimonies of persecuted Christians have taught him “what it means to be a Christian.”

“Our brothers and sisters in the persecuted church, they have their doctorates in suffering,” he said. “They went to seminaries called torture, imprisonment, endurance. These are the most effective seminaries in the world to make you go deep with God.”

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Theology

Alistair Begg Meets the Politically Correct

Russell Moore

How to love our LGBTQ family members is a difficult issue. But mob mentality is always a betrayal of Christ.

Illustration by Christianity Today / Source Images: Screenshot from Youtube

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

Sometimes we just have to come right out and say it: It’s a shame to see evangelical Christians sell out biblical convictions, caving to sexual immorality and to an anti-Christian worldview, all to keep in step with the demands of a secularized, politically correct elite.

But we’ll talk about the silence around the Paul Pressler case later. First, let’s shift topics and consider the controversy around Alistair Begg.

Alistair Begg is a very conservative Calvinistic pastor with a national audience, one of the most gifted preachers in America, modeling how to go verse-by-verse, book-by-book through the Bible. He’s committed to the inerrancy of Scripture and to a confessional orthodoxy.

And, as you might expect, he holds strongly to the historic Christian sexual ethic, which defines sexual relations as permissible only within the covenant of marriage, the one-flesh union of a man and a woman. If Alistair Begg were to give a lecture on any number of college campuses, he would be shouted down as a “right-wing bigot.” Really, he’s a time-displaced Puritan with a sense of humor and a pretty good golf game.

You would never know all this, though, from the controversy that’s hit Begg from his fellow evangelical Christians this week. He’s being called a sell-out to the spirit of the age. His long-running radio show was canceled from American Family Radio. Folks are asking, “What happened to Alistair Begg?”

At issue is a couple of minutes of advice Begg gave on a podcast to an evangelical Christian grandmother. The woman was grappling with whether she would be sinning to attend the wedding of her non-Christian grandchild, who was marrying outside the bounds of what both the grandmother and Begg would agree is the biblically moral paradigm.

The grandmother and her grandchild were both clear on where the other stood, but the grandmother wondered if attending the wedding would necessarily be an endorsement of the marriage itself. Begg replied that, under those circumstances, he didn’t think it would.

I would—and have—given different counsel. It’s not because Begg and I disagree one bit on what marriage should be. We disagree somewhat on what a wedding is, meaning the ceremony itself. That is no criticism of Begg, since I hold stricter views than probably 90 percent of my fellow evangelical Christians on that point.

I hold to an old-school, almost sacramental, Book of Common Prayer understanding of a wedding, in which the guests are not onlookers but officiants. They are witnesses to the union, in that they are making vows too: to hold the couple accountable to the vows they make to God and to one another. We see echoes of that original understanding in words that sometimes linger, such as these: “If any of you can show just cause why [this couple] may not lawfully be married, speak now; or else forever hold your peace.”

I recognize that my views on weddings aren’t shared in an individualistic 21st-century culture, even by the overwhelming majority of my fellow conservative Christians. It’s why I don’t officiate at lots of weddings—even for couples I love and for whom I am rooting. I won’t marry unbelievers to each other, even though I think that marriage is a creation ordinance, because I don’t think the church has the authority to hold them accountable to their vows. I won’t marry a believer to an unbeliever because I think the New Testament forbids it. And I won’t marry divorced and remarrying couples unless I am convinced that the divorce was under biblical grounds.

Maybe most controversially, I won’t officiate at a wedding where the couple write their own vows—for the same reason I wouldn’t swear someone in with their own oath if I were an officer of a court. It’s not “your” wedding, in my view; it’s ours, that of the church connecting generations across time and space.

That’s not about judging who’s in sin or not in sin. At least in the case of those outside the church, I am explicitly forbidden to do that (1 Cor. 5:9–13). I don’t give much of a thought to what other people do in these cases. I am just trying my best to be faithful to what I think Jesus expects of me, knowing I may well be wrong.

I also realize that my conscience here might be what the Bible would call the “weaker” one (Rom. 14). I just know that, weak or not, I can’t violate it. I can understand why people would disagree with me, and I can see the biblically reasonable case they could make—which is why I don’t expect other people’s consciences to be bound by my scruples on a matter that’s an inference from Scripture rather than a direct and clear command.

For me, this isn’t about refusing to be around people who are “sinning” or who aren’t similarly minded. I would be a part of almost any other gathering with people who disagree with me on every element of morality—housewarming parties, Thanksgiving dinners, birthdays, anniversaries, funerals, all of it. With a wedding, however, the distinction I make personally is similar to the one I make about those of different religions altogether.

My conscience is completely unhindered to tell my Muslim friends “Happy Ramadan” or my Hindu friends “Happy Diwali.” In those cases, what I am wishing is that they enjoy their time with their families and that they feel rested from their time of celebration. I don’t think there’s anyone in my friend group who infers from that, “Wait. Is he trading in his New Testament for a Quran?” or, “Hold on. Is Ned Flanders over there cool with Krishna now?” The story would be different, however, if I were asked to light the candles at a Druid nature dance.

This tension is present in the New Testament itself. The apostle Paul tells one group of people to eat whatever is in front of them without interrogating whether the meat has been sacrificed. His reasoning is that there’s no such reality as the gods being worshipped; it’s just food (1 Cor. 10:23–33). For other people, though, his command is not to eat meat offered to idols because to do so would be to participate in communion with unclean spirits (1 Cor. 10:19–22). What is the difference?

It’s this: To violate conscience—to intend to do something one knows to be wrong—is a sin. To lead others to do the same—to do what they know to be wrong—is also. The food is all the same. What matters is the message one is intending to communicate to oneself, to one’s struggling brothers and sisters, and to the watching world.

So back to Begg. Sometimes I see in certain people, whose views I don’t hold, reasoning that is more Christlike and more commendable than my own, even when I’m not persuaded they are right.

Begg was not trying to compromise or to condemn. He was trying to hold in tension two very biblical truths; he was trying to avoid conforming to the pattern of this world when it comes to obeying God. And he was trying to avoid being the kind of person who says that it’s beneath one’s purity to “eat with tax collectors and sinners” (Mark 2:16), the very charge that the very religious made of the Lord Jesus himself.

Might Begg be drawing the line in the wrong place—too much in the direction of showing grace? Sure. Might I be drawing it in the wrong place—too much in the direction of maintaining truth? Again, yes. He risks confusing people. I risk hurting people. That’s why I think we both attempt to sort these out with fear and trembling and a willingness to be corrected.

I am often haunted by a conversation I had years ago, in the foyer of an Oklahoma church, with the born-again Christian parents of a lesbian daughter who recently had invited them to her wedding.

The mother went to the wedding and was now tortured by a conviction that she had sold out Jesus. The father didn’t go and was tortured by a conviction that he had sold out his daughter—that he had rejected the role of the merciful father in Jesus’ parable for that of the judgmental elder brother (Luke 15:11–32). Both were sobbing, and both feared what would be said to them at the judgment seat.

The truth is, what the father was trying to do (not going against his conscience; not letting natural affections trump gospel fidelity) is a good and Christian thing. What the mother was trying to do (to love her daughter, even in disagreement; to not expect external conformity from her daughter in the place of knowing Jesus himself) is also good and Christian. The man’s love for his daughter was clear in that moment. The woman’s commitment to Christ was too.

Both were un-Christlike in only one area: They were both unduly harsh and judgmental—not on their daughter but on themselves. Do I really think that Jesus will condemn either of them who were trying their best to do what would please him, even if one or both of them got it wrong? No.

But not long after that conversation with those Oklahoma parents, I found myself accused of “compromise” on these matters. I said that parents shouldn’t shun their gay or lesbian kids. They shouldn’t kick them out of the house or exile them from their family or treat them differently than they would a son who’s been having sex with his girlfriend or a daughter who’s become an agnostic.

Love your children, I said. Let your relationship with them be determined by what Jesus would have you do, not by whether the Christians around you will judge you. Be the loving, prodigally merciful father in Jesus’ parable, not the resentful older brother.

One of the first people to attack me for this as going “soft” on “the gay agenda that’s destroying our nation” was a leader in the mythology of my family of churches, one of two who “rescued” our denomination from “liberals,” who stood up for the inerrancy of Scripture and biblical values.

This was not the first or the last time I would be lambasted by him. I said the Confederate flag should come down; he literally screamed at me from the floor of our denominational meeting. I said that if the allegations about politician Roy Moore (no relation; seriously, no relation) were accurate—that he had sexually pursued underage girls—then he should be disqualified from any office of public trust. Pressler then organized people to let me know that I should apologize to the other Moore, even as some of his supporters were defending these creepy alleged actions as analogous to Joseph’s union with Mary.

I never apologized. And I ended up in two eight-hour or so “heresy trials” over my “compromise” on “biblical sexual morality.”

Pressler is back in the news again, of course, having recently settled a civil case in which he is accused of raping or sexually abusing multiple men and boys. The documents in the case are nauseating, both in terms of the horror of the allegations and of all the ways that Pressler’s people purportedly made it possible for him to use his position for such damnable actions. And the whole time such things had allegedly been happening, he had been a warrior for biblical sexuality, boldly taking on “liberals” like me.

The last joke I ever heard him tell, in some forum or other, was about why Episcopalians could never win at chess. “They can’t tell the difference between a bishop and a queen,” he said.

Oh.

Reported documents show that one of the main entities I had to sit in “trial” for due to my “liberalism” was informed by its own lawyers, when they were named a party in the Pressler case, that the evidence was so overwhelming that they could argue the case only on statute of limitations grounds.

Meanwhile, some of these same people said that those of us suggesting we had a crisis of church sexual abuse were making it up—that we were “liberals” not responsible enough to “protect the base.” And sexual abuse survivors were treated even worse. Even now, that entity has filed an amicus brief in yet another case with a different alleged sexual predator, this time opposing lengthening of statute of limitations for those attacked by rapists and abusers in churches.

With alleged child molesters and rapists, we were to show “forgiveness” and to speak very cryptically. We were supposed to be “soft,” to “compromise.” Where we were supposed to be loud and condemnatory was not with those using the name of Jesus to rape and to abuse but with anguished parents who wanted to love Jesus and their gay or lesbian kids at the same time. That this didn’t—and doesn’t—make sense to me is evidence, I suppose, of all of my compromised liberalism.

Some people who are upset about Alistair Begg’s advice are upset in good faith. They believe that there are consequences to this kind of counsel, which could erode faithful Christian witness. Fair enough.

For others, though, the issue isn’t what the Bible teaches or doesn’t teach. The issue is instead about what really matters to them: politics and cultural outrage. For some, that’s the actual religion.

That’s why some of the same people seeking to “cancel” Alistair Begg are also seeking to “cancel” evangelical Christians who believe the jury when they find a certain person is liable for raping a woman in a department store (along with giving testimony reaffirming that it’s true, “unfortunately or fortunately,” that stars have been allowed to sexually assault women). Many of those who throw stones at Begg are the very same people who spent a lifetime promoting people like Paul Pressler and who stay strangely silent about how repeated reports suggest him to be a monster.

Jesus pointed out that John the Baptist came teetotaling and fasting and people said he was demon-possessed, while Jesus himself came feasting and drinking and they said he was a glutton, a drunkard, and “soft” on tax collectors and sinners (Matt. 11:16–19). The heresy hunters, Jesus said, expected people to dance when they played a happy tune and to cry when they played a sad one. Jesus, though, wasn’t listening to that kind of music.

I wouldn’t attend a wedding outside my beliefs of what marriage is meant to be, but let’s be clear about what we’re dealing with here.

A parent might choose to attend a wedding because they love their child, with whom they disagree. At the same time, the “good Christians” condemning them might remain silent about actual rape, using the name of Jesus to find victims, because those who are silent so love their political tribe. I might disagree with both, but, given the choice, I would hope I would choose the former every time.

To shape one’s moral views by a mob—whether the mob of an ambient culture or the mob of an outraged subculture—is always a betrayal of Christ. Sometimes we compromise the truth of Christ by the way we stand boldly for morality only after we’ve checked whether the immoral is one of “us” or one of “them.”

That seems like cultural compromise to me. You might even call it keeping up with the politically correct. Just don’t call it Christian.

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

News

Federal Convictions of Pro-Lifers Blocking Clinics Are Rising

Emily Belz

Six more protestors received guilty verdicts this week and face more than 10 years in prison. Prosecutors are using a charge that has prompted a new legal debate.

Pro-life protestors gather outside a Planned Parenthood clinic in Missouri in 2019.

Michael B. Thomas / Getty Images

Update (May 17, 2024): Eight pro-life protestors were sentenced this week in connection to a blockade of a Washington, DC, abortion clinic. Lauren Handy, the leader of the operation, received a nearly five-year sentence (57 months), the longest of the sentences.

Jonathan Darnel, who remained outside the clinic livestreaming the blockade, received a nearly three-year sentence (34 months). The others in the case received roughly two-year sentences, and one, Jay Smith, the only one who had pleaded guilty, received a 10-month sentence. They have been incarcerated since their convictions last year.

After sentencing, all of the defendants except Smith immediately appealed their convictions to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. Sentencing for six protestors in Tennessee convicted of similar charges, including the civil rights violation that is resulting in longer sentences for these protestors, is set for July 2.

————

A growing number of federal prosecutions and convictions of pro-life activists is prompting a new legal debate that their attorneys hope will go to the Supreme Court. This week, six pro-life activists were convicted of federal crimes in Nashville for demonstrating outside a clinic in early 2021.

In the wake of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Justice Department increased prosecution of pro-life protestors outside of abortion clinics. Those cases included both peaceful protestors and those who were obstructing clinic entrances, which is a violation of the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act.

More than a dozen protestors have now been convicted of federal crimes in the last year, and face sentences of more than 10 years. Eight more face trial in Michigan in April. Those criminal prosecutions were rare before 2021, with one or two cases annually for the past decade.

The six activists convicted in Tennessee this week argued they demonstrated peacefully, saying they were singing hymns and praying in a medical pavilion hallway outside the clinic. A police officer testified at the trial that the protestors were peaceful, according to The Tennessean, but they refused to leave. They were convicted of “obstructing access to reproductive health services.”

Some activists’ stated goals are to physically block women from having abortions by obstructing entrances, while others hope that their peaceful presence outside a clinic would convince those seeking abortions to make a different choice.

The FACE Act doesn’t clearly distinguish between types of activism outside clinics: It covers those who attempt to injure, intimidate, or interfere with anyone at a place “providing reproductive health services.”

The protestors face longer prison sentences than in the past because prosecutors have added a civil rights conspiracy charge to the most recent batch of cases, which carries a maximum 10-year sentence.

“This ‘conspiracy to violate civil rights’ [charge]—it’s a new strategy the DOJ is using,” Calvin Zastrow, one of the pro-life protestors in Tennessee who is a Christian, told CT shortly after his conviction this week. He faces an 11-year sentence, but unlike defendants in other FACE cases, he and others in his case were not immediately taken into custody.

Zastrow has participated in many demonstrations at clinics over the years and said charges were usually “just trespassing or disturbing the peace or disorderly conduct.” He argues that abortion is the violent act: “We are the peacemakers.”

Former federal prosecutor Ed Mechmann, in a blog post on the pro-life protestors’ convictions, described the civil rights conspiracy charge as a “prosecutor’s best friend” because it allows prosecutors to charge a wide range of people—even those who may not have participated—with conspiracy.

“This creates a huge disadvantage for minimal participants,” he said. “You may have thought that you were agreeing to something peaceful, but you’re still legally responsible if one of your cohorts committed an act of violence.”

In August and September 2023, eight protestors were convicted of civil rights conspiracy and FACE violations for an incident at a DC abortion clinic in 2020. Some members of the group forcefully entered the clinic and blockaded it, and prosecutors said the forceful entry caused a nurse to stumble back and sprain her ankle. Their sentencing is in May, and they have been incarcerated since their convictions.

One of the eight convicted in DC, Jonathan Darnel, faces the same maximum sentence of 11 years, though he remained outside the clinic and livestreamed the incident.

“FACE was designed to break up pro-life civil disobedience,” said Darnel in a text message with CT soon before his incarceration. “And it succeeded in doing that.”

In June 2023, a Franciscan friar was sentenced to six months in prison for obstructing the entrance to an abortion clinic. Though he has protested at clinics in the past, this was his first FACE conviction.

Pro-life attorneys have criticized the Department of Justice for one-sided prosecution of FACE, when pregnancy centers in 24 states have been vandalized or set on fire. Perhaps in response, in 2023 the DOJ filed FACE Act and civil rights charges against four individuals in Florida for a 2022 attack on a pregnancy center.

Those pro-choice defendants, like the pro-life protestors, face more than 10 years in prison because of the civil rights conspiracy charges. The jury trial for that case is currently slated for March.

Attorneys for the pro-life defendants plan to appeal to higher federal courts but must do so after sentencing. They want to challenge the use of the civil rights conspiracy charge as well as the validity of FACE prosecutions post-Dobbs. National pro-life groups are watching these cases too, though clinic blockades are not a strategy they engage in.

“We will watch this through the appeals court and possibly to the Supreme Court,” Steven Aden, chief legal officer and general counsel at Americans United for Life, told CT. “Our legal team is considering filing a brief on their behalf.”

Aden thinks that federal courts might not have jurisdiction to enforce FACE after Dobbs.

“Federal criminal law constitutionally only exists to enforce federal interests,” he said. “Consequently, every federal prosecution has to have a federal hook—a constitutional right that’s been violated, such as the right to vote, or the violation of a federal statute. You have neither here. You have no federal constitutional right to abortion after Dobbs, and there is no federal statute that grants a woman a right to abortion.”

Mechmann, the former prosecutor, argued that for the convicted DC protestors’ case, at least, abortion is legal by statute in DC, a federal district.

“Access to a clinic is also guaranteed under federal law. So anyone who blockades an abortion clinic denies a person of a right ‘secured … by … the laws of the United States,’” he wrote. “The Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs, which held that there is no right to abortion in the US Constitution, is entirely beside the point.”

In the DC protestors’ case, Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly issued a 10-page opinion that addressed the inclusion of the civil rights conspiracy charge, saying it protected federal rights established by the FACE Act. She said Dobbs did not have any impact on the case.

One protestor who pleaded guilty to participating in the DC clinic blockade was sentenced to 10 months in prison. Mechmann estimates that those without previous convictions will get sentences of less than a year to potentially two years. But many participating in these blockades have a previous record for these types of actions. The protestors believe it is nonviolent direct action akin to the civil rights movement.

These groups call these tactics “rescues,” which originated with Operation Rescue’s sit-ins at abortion clinics in the 1980s. Operation Rescue participants had to pledge nonviolence, but more extreme pro-life activists’ violence toward abortion providers, including the killing of an abortion provider in 1993, led to the passage of the FACE Act the following year.

“You can only hold a gun or a cross, and we’ve chosen to take up a cross,” an Operation Rescue staffer, Rev. Jim Pinto, said in 1993, condemning the violence against abortion providers.

Clinic blockades declined after passage of the FACE Act, and local buffer zone laws also prevent activists from congregating near clinic entrances. Most pro-life activists outside clinics now focus on praying instead of blocking women from entering, but the number of activists at abortion clinics has been growing during the last few years.

One currently in detention for the DC incident is Joan Bell, 74, who has been arrested at clinics many times over the years and is considered one of the originators of this type of “rescue” activism. Her son, Emiliano Bell, attended the federal trial of the Tennessee protestors this week.

“Even though she was in jail more than 200 times in her lifetime, I was a child and it didn’t really hit me,” he said. “This last conviction—when I heard she might get 10 to 11 [years]—it was really hard.”

- More from Emily Belz

News

Report: Myanmar’s Military Is Destroying Churches in Chin State

Sophia Sinclair

Local Christians and rights groups believe the targeting is deliberate in the Buddhist-majority country.

Damage to the interior of Khuafo Baptist Church from a claimed airstrike.

Courtesy of Verification by Myanmar Witness

Last August, a Myanmar Air Force fighter jet dropped two bombs on the village of Ramthlo in Myanmar’s Chin State. One bomb hit the spacious Ramthlo Baptist Church, blowing a gaping hole through its roof and covering the wooden pews with dust and debris. The other bomb damaged nearby houses, injuring seven people.

The bombings were originally reported by Khit Thit Media, one of the few independent news outlets in the country, and the nonprofit Myanmar Witness recently verified the attack using geolocation and digital data collection. The investigation confirmed claims that churches in Myanmar’s majority-Christian Chin State have faced extensive damage amid the current civil war.

This January, Myanmar Witness (a project of the UK-based Centre for Information Resilience) published a report analyzing 10 claims of physical damage to Chin churches between March and August 2023, most of which involved airstrikes. All of the incidents occurred in areas under martial law.

The Myanmar military has destroyed at least 107 religious buildings, including 67 churches, in Chin State since the military coup began nearly three years ago, according to the Chin Human Rights Organization. Elsewhere in the country, the destruction of houses of worship, including Buddhist temples and churches, is also growing. In mid-January, junta soldiers burned down a 129-year-old Catholic church in Sagaing Region.

While the Myanmar Witness report did not comment on whether the military is deliberately targeting churches, Chin Christians and rights activists believe it is. They claim the government sees churches as a symbol of Christian identity, a sanctuary for the resistance, and a haven for the displaced.

“The military pilots feel so free to attack churches … because we have practiced a religion different from theirs,” said a Chin Christian scholar who asked not to be named due to security concerns. “There is a long history of religious persecution against us.”

Ethnic minorities in Myanmar, including the Chin, have long fought with the military junta, desiring increased autonomy for their communities. At the same time, Buddhist nationalism is deeply ingrained in the country; former Burmese prime minister U Nu famously touted the idea that “to be a Burmese is to be a Buddhist” in 1961.

This ideology resulted in the ethnic cleansing of the Muslim Rohingya people, killing thousands and forcing 700,000 to flee to Bangladesh. Buddhists make up 88 percent of the population, while 6 percent of Myanmar is Christian and 4 percent is Muslim.

Although Myanmar started to open up and become increasingly democratic in 2010, in 2021, the military overthrew the elected government, setting off an ongoing war that pitted the well-funded Myanmar military against the People’s Defense Force (civilian militias) and ethnic armed groups. Yet since late October, the tide seems to be turning as three ethnic armed groups have started to gain control of towns in the country’s north, west, and southeast, stretching the military’s capacity.

The Myanmar Witness report conducted five in-depth case studies (four Baptist and one Presbyterian church) to assess damage to churches in Chin State. Some of the cases included claims of multiple churches in the same town being bombed by airstrikes, damaging windows, roofs, and sanctuaries. Others included claims that government troops ransacked and looted churches following the air attacks.

It concluded that the attacks in all five case studies could be verified, indicating a wider impact on the cultural and religious landscape of Chin State. “The examples analyzed in this report reflect the degradation of Myanmar’s built environment, including sites with special protections under international law during armed conflict,” the report read.

The group also analyzed data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, which collects information on violent conflicts around the world, and found 28 reports of damage to churches in Chin State between 2021 and 2023.

It also found that while in 2021–2022 churches were reportedly mostly damaged by arson and artillery attacks, in 2023, airstrikes were allegedly involved in most of the cases: “The Myanmar Air Force (MAF) maintains overwhelming air superiority across Myanmar, supporting the claim that the Myanmar military is responsible for the alleged airstrikes.”

“Airstrikes were pretty rare in Burma until about 2012, and they were mostly focused on the Kachin [ethnic group] … but then after the coup they have gone everywhere in Burma,” said Dave Eubank, director of the Christian humanitarian service movement Free Burma Rangers.

Eubank, who has worked extensively in the largely Christian state of Karenni, noted that their churches have also been targeted. “Just about every church I’ve seen in Karenni State has been either destroyed, burned, or hit by small arms, fire, airstrikes, and mortars,” he said. “Over 100 churches up here [have] been destroyed since the coup, it’s systematic destruction.”

He noted that before the coup, attacks on churches were “episodic” and depended on the military commander. Now, the churches are “deliberately attacked, bombed, and destroyed.”

Another factor as to why the military targets churches is that houses of worship are seen as providing shelter or assistance to resistance groups, Salai Mang Hre Lian of the Chin Human Rights Organization told the Associated Press.

“[The attacks] send a powerful signal to all civilians that even in places protected by international humanitarian laws, if they support non-junta groups, they will be targets,” he said.

David Moe, a lecturer of Southeast Asian studies at Yale University, said the fighting in Chin State is so intense because after the coup, the Chin were one of the first groups to resist the junta.

Church buildings have become a target because they “symbolize Christian identity,” which bristles against Buddhist nationalism, said Moe, who grew up in Chin State. Also, “the church has become a place to house refugees or internally displaced people,” Moe said. “The military is trying to stop people [from] joining the resistance and is trying to cause them to fear ordinary church people.” He said the military fears refugees would be more open to Christianity, which they consider to be Western.

Chin Christians are now among the millions displaced by the war, said the Chin scholar. Many live in camps on the border of Chin State as well as in Mizoram in northeast India.

“The military can destroy the church as the building, but the military cannot destroy the body of Christ,” Moe said. “Christians gather together at private houses like the early church did—quietly trying their best to worship. They might use Zoom or gather in the jungle.”

Eubank sees a similar story playing out in Karenni State. While the deliberate targeting of churches aims to deter people from participating in the resistance by causing fear, chaos, and confusion, there is hope and life among the persecuted and displaced believers.

“Christians don’t give up,” Eubank said. “We just had a church service [in a Karenni refugee camp] yesterday. … The first thing they do is build a church, which is also the school during the week, and they’re praying all the time. There’s going to be a wedding today among our team leaders here in a displaced community. They don’t give up praising Jesus.”

- More from Sophia Sinclair

Culture

‘The Chosen’ Sets Its Face Toward Jerusalem

Peter T. Chattaway in Los Angeles

Season 4 of the popular Jesus show, now in theaters, takes a turn for the serious. CT reports from its premiere and press junket in LA.

Jesus, played by Jonathan Roumie, and the disciples in The Chosen season 4.

Courtesy of The Chosen

There’s a moment in season 4 of The Chosen—coming to a theater near you on Thursday, February 1—in which Jesus (Jonathan Roumie) steps outside for a moment. Some of the disciples are bickering over some trivial matter or other, and Jesus finds himself alone with Little James (Jordan Walker Ross) and Thaddaeus (Giavani Cairo), the first two men who followed him.

By this point in the story, Jesus has been dealing with all sorts of issues. He has received some very bad news about his cousin John the Baptizer (David Amito); his disciples are competing for status within his movement; the movement itself has attracted thousands of followers, critics, and onlookers thanks to the sermons and miracles that Jesus has performed; and now, his opponents are turning into outright enemies as verbal arguments start shifting into physical violence.

In the midst of all that, Jesus quietly sits down with James and Thaddaeus and asks if they can remember what it used to be like when it was just the three of them, hanging out together. “Do you ever miss those days?” he asks.

It’s hard not to see an element of autobiography from series creator Dallas Jenkins and his collaborators. Like the nascent Christianity it depicts, The Chosen has grown by leaps and bounds since the first four episodes were released online just in time for Easter 2019.

The first big leap came in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the producers made the series available for free. It was supposed to be a temporary measure to help people get through lockdowns and self-isolation, but the showrunners found that the “pay it forward” donations from the show’s fans surged so quickly they could keep the show free indefinitely. (It is now funded through charitable donations made to the Come and See Foundation.)

After finishing the second season in 2021, the producers began experimenting with theatrical releases, starting with a Christmas special that year and continuing with the season 3 premiere in 2022 and the season 3 finale in February 2023. Altogether, including another Christmas special that came out this past December, The Chosen’s theatrical releases have grossed about $38 million so far. Some episodes have done better in North America than would-be blockbusters and Oscar contenders that came out at the same time.

Along the way, the show became a big hit on Netflix, Amazon Prime, The CW Network, and other platforms that licensed it, and the show’s lead actors lent their stardom—niche though it may be—to faith-based hits like Jesus Revolution and The Shift.

Season 4 will be the show’s boldest experiment yet. Every episode will premiere in theaters: the first three on February 1, three more on February 15, and the last two on February 29. (The first installment will run for about 3 hours and 20 minutes—longer than Oppenheimer, but shorter than Killers of the Flower Moon.) It’s the first time an entire season of a television show has ever debuted on the big screen.

But along with that success and support from the show’s fans, The Chosen has had growing pains too. Some plot twists, like Mary Magdalene (Elizabeth Tabish) suffering a relapse of sorts in season 2, have been controversial. A “reverse psychology” ad campaign—in which billboards depicting Jesus and the disciples were “vandalized”—backfired. And every trailer and behind-the-scenes video has been scrutinized for questionable elements, from an LGBTQ pride flag used on-set by one of the camera operators to the theology behind some extrabiblical lines of dialogue.

So as The Chosen’s Jesus and others look back and marvel at how big and unwieldy their movement has become since its humble beginnings, it’s tempting to think that the filmmakers are writing some of their own experiences into the show.

But Jenkins, who has talked in the past about the real-life influences on his show, says any similarities on this front are purely unintentional. Speaking to Christianity Today on the eve of the show’s “teal carpet” premiere in Los Angeles, he says the story is shaping the Chosen phenomenon and its stewards more than they are shaping it.

“I think it’s less us imbuing some of that into the show, and it’s more the show imbuing some of that into us,” he told CT. “I think we actually end up trying to live out some of the lessons we learn from the show as we tell the story. My wife always says, ‘We’re not free from the lessons of each season,’ and so I do think that what’s happening in the season is impacting us.”

“There could be some subconscious stuff coming in,” he added, “but we’re not intentionally going, ‘Ooh, as Jesus’ ministry exploded; the show’s growing as well; so let’s talk about it in that way.’ I think it’s kind of come via happenstance.”

Noah James, who plays the disciple Andrew, seemed more open to the idea that art might be reflecting life in this case. “We really had no idea where this show was headed,” he told CT. “We hoped, but even in our wildest imagination, we did not think that we would be here, speaking to you today, about releasing season 4 in theatres. That was not even on the radar.”

“And I think similarly, in the show, we as the disciples are doing the best we can to, you know, keep the roof on the house. We don’t know how it all is going, but it gets very, very scary, especially in this season, because as the movement becomes bigger, it attracts attention—sometimes perhaps unwanted attention—and you see the disciples struggle to deal with it.”

Season 4 marks a significant turning point for the series. Jenkins has said for a while that the show will run for seven seasons, so season 4 is the middle point, the part where all the emotional highs of the previous seasons—the feeding of the 5,000 and the walking on water—give way to a growing sense that things could go very badly for Jesus and his followers.

With that darker, more ominous turn in the story, the show takes a deeper dive into the emotions of its characters—emotions that resonate all the more because viewers have now spent almost five years getting to know these people. And one of the most deeply affected characters, of course, is Jesus himself.

One of The Chosen’s most daring choices is how it has leaned into Jesus’ humanity, inventing page after page of dialogue for him that has no clear source in the Gospels, while also affirming his divinity.

On the one hand, the Jesus of this series has casually talked about how the creation of the world is “a favorite memory” of his. But the show also treats him as a regular person with an ordinary interior life. He gets quite vulnerable at times and occasionally feels the need to process what he’s going through.

One episode in this season begins with Jesus waking from a dream, and for a moment, it’s like we’ve been given a glimpse inside his mind. At another point, while contemplating the suffering that is to come, Jesus leans on someone for emotional support—and the person he turns to is not whom you might expect. And when The Chosen gets to Lazarus’s tomb and the famously short verse that says Jesus wept (John 11:35), the Jesus of this series doesn’t just shed a dignified tear or two. He falls to his knees and practically sobs.

Jenkins admitted he’s getting into “dangerous waters” by putting the audience “inside Jesus’ head,” “because how can you ever fully do that?”

But he insisted it’s all part of a healthy exploration of what it meant for the divine to become human, and for the Creator to become Immanuel, “God with us” (Matt. 1:23). “It’s not God above us while he was here,” said Jenkins. “He was with us. He dwelt among us. He danced with his friends at weddings, and he had dreams, no doubt, and he got sad. We see him sad in Scripture, and so I think it’s interesting to explore why.”

Roumie—who first played Jesus in short films made by Jenkins before they worked together on The Chosen—told CT it’s important to show Jesus experiencing all of these things because it is the full humanity of Jesus that connects us to him and allows us to relate to him and his ability to empathize (Heb. 4:14–16).

“He knows exactly what it’s like to be human, because he was fully human,” Roumie said. “So he would go through all the things that humans go through: dreams, laughter, crying, and feeling pain, frustration, anger—righteous anger, in his case, obviously—but, you know, frustration with people not taking him at his word and believing him and hearing him. He must have dreamt. He must have done all those things that we do.”

There’s a long-standing debate on how much Jesus knew about the future during his time on earth, and that question takes on new urgency in The Chosen as certain plot twists put new strains on the relationships within the Jesus movement. Does the Jesus of this series know that those twists are coming?

“There’s going to be a lot of questions about that,” admitted Jenkins, who added that he and Roumie have tended to “mix and match” when deciding how often God the Father “granted Jesus knowledge of certain things.”

“In fact,” Jenkins told CT, referencing Matthew 24:36, “Jesus said, There are some things the Father knows that I don’t know. So we’re comfortable in that tension.”

Still, as serious as the story turns this season, there’s also a lot of joy to be had—at times, you can feel the fun the actors are having. Nowhere is this more evident, perhaps, than in a scene where some of the disciples play actors themselves, putting on a skit for the other disciples that re-enacts the events celebrated every year at Hanukkah.

Jenkins said the levity in scenes like this, which might not seem central to the show’s purpose, help lay the groundwork for the show’s more serious parts.

“We love to show these personal moments, these human moments, these fun moments, that in many ways are the calm before the storm,” he explained. “And we feel like when you know Jesus more—and you know these people more, and you spend time with them even in their fun moments that have little to do with their ministry—then when they do experience the big things, it makes it that much more impactful.”

So, what comes next?

Three more seasons, for starters. The Gospels don’t say exactly how long the earthly ministry of Jesus lasted, but it’s traditionally thought to have been about three years, and The Chosen has already been airing two years more than that. “We’re racing against time to make sure our actors don’t look like they’ve aged a decade!” joked producer Chris Juen.

Jenkins has floated the possibility of making a theatrical movie during one of The Chosen’s future seasons instead of simply repackaging existing episodes for the big screen. And both Jenkins and The Chosen’s president of production, Mark Sourian, have talked about telling more stories set in “the Chosen universe.”

For now, those are just ideas, and it’s too early to say where any of them might lead. But the series’ open future is itself reminiscent of another scene in season 4, in which Little James ponders all that has happened.

“None of us could have dreamed where all this was headed,” he says to Mary Magdalene.

“We still can’t,” she replies.

Peter T. Chattaway is a film critic with a special interest in Bible movies. He lives with his family in Abbotsford, BC, Canada.

- More from Peter T. Chattaway in Los Angeles

Church Life

God Called Him to Preach with a Broken Heart

David Roach

Preaching legend and longtime professor Robert Smith Jr. is retiring after years of scholarship, accolades, and personal loss.

Robert Smith Jr.

Courtesy of Beeson Divinity School

A student at Beeson Divinity School once came to preaching professor Robert Smith Jr. in tears. The young man’s fiancée had returned the ring to him and called off their engagement. Smith cried with him. Then he made the student preach his scheduled sermon that day in class.

“I told him ministry is like that,” Smith said. “You can’t cancel a sermon” and say, “I won’t preach today because my heart is broken.”

It’s a lesson Smith has learned well through his own tragedies. He has performed the funerals of one wife and two sons, yet he keeps preaching.

Over his decades in ministry, the 74-year-old has trained classroom after classroom of aspiring pastors to proclaim the Word and earned acclaim for his powerful example. He preaches in the traditional African American exhortation style with a rich array of theological and cultural references sprinkled in. His sermons always center on a biblical text.

Beeson’s founding dean Timothy George said Smith “once wanted to become a professional baseball player, and he preaches like a great shortstop: agile, athletic … musical, and strategic, poetry in motion.” He recalled seeing him “stride an entire pulpit in an exuberant pulpit moment.”

Smith serves as the Beeson’s Charles T. Carter Baptist Chair of Divinity, and the school named its preaching institute for him.

He has spoken at 135 colleges, universities, and seminaries worldwide along with churches from a slew of major US denominations. His book Doctrine That Dances was named the 2009 Preaching Book of the Year by CT’s Preaching Today. Smith received a living legend award in 2017 from the E. K. Bailey Expository Preaching Conference, a prestigious honor among African American pastors.

Dean Douglas A. Sweeney called him “one of the most influential preachers and teachers of preaching in the world,” yet he’s also known for investing in students so much that “hundreds around the world count him as a spiritual father.”

Upon his retirement the end of this semester, Smith will launch a new chapter in his ministry journey. Yet he will remain a popular preacher characterized by joy and shaped by tragedy.

From Cincinnati to Louisville

Four decades ago, it seemed unlikely Smith would become a preaching legend. He was pastor of New Mission Baptist Church in Cincinnati, the father of three young boys, headed back to school for his bachelor’s degree at Cincinnati Bible College.

Smith was one of the college’s only African Americans, and the registrar once suggested he should “go to one of your own schools.” But he persevered.

Then the bottom fell out in early 1984. His wife, Gayle, who had lupus, caught a cold she couldn’t shake. Eventually, she went to the University of Cincinnati Hospital, where a doctor said she would be fine. Smith left the hospital on a Sunday morning to preach before returning with some clothes for Gayle to wear home.

That afternoon her hospital room was empty. A nurse said Gayle had been taken to ICU with seizures. A week later she died. Smith preached her funeral from Ezekiel 24, where the prophet’s wife died and God told him to continue preaching.

Courtesy of Beeson Divinity School

The big question was “Can you go on and preach the message that God has given you even though your heart is broken?” Smith said.

He could.

Smith graduated from college two months later, continued pastoring in Cincinnati, and earned a master of divinity degree four years later from Southern Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. Amid his educational journey, he married his second wife, Wanda, who remains by his side 38 years later.

In 1993, he earned a PhD in homiletics from Southern and immediately was given a position as associate professor of preaching by the administration of Albert Mohler, then in the controversial first year of a presidency focused on turning the seminary back to its conservative roots.

For a year and a half, Smith was a full-time pastor and a full-time professor, driving the 254-mile round trip from Cincinnati to Louisville hundreds of times. “I know the road from Cincinnati, Ohio, to Louisville,” he said. “I can drive it with my eyes closed.”

In 1997, Smith ended his 20-year pastorate at New Mission Baptist, feeling released to leave once the congregation’s mortgage was paid off. Now focused fully on teaching, he began to pile up awards, honors, and speaking engagements. He led Southern’s preaching department, wrote curriculum for African American doctor of ministry students, and was on track to receive tenure.

Smith even planned to be buried at Louisville’s Cave Hill Cemetery, where Southern Seminary legends James P. Boyce, John Broadus, and A. T. Robertson have their graves (along with the graves of KFC founder Colonel Harland Sanders and boxing legend Muhammad Ali).

‘My students became my parishioners’

But God wouldn’t let Smith coast through the rest of his academic career. In 1997, he received a call from Beeson, the divinity school of Samford University in Birmingham. Established in 1988, Beeson was less than a decade old, and its success was not assured. When Wanda advised him to give Beeson a résumé in case God was up to something, he replied, “I don’t want God to be up to anything.”

Nonetheless, Smith said, he was. Smith accepted the call and has been teaching there 27 years—commuting between Birmingham and Cincinnati the whole time. Smith’s chief legacy at Beeson has been caring for students. He meets individually with each of his students each semester. Often he marries them. Sometimes he buries them.

“I asked the Lord to let me pastor again,” he said. But “the Lord said no,” and “my students became my parishioners.”

Beeson’s interdenominational atmosphere fits well with Smith’s theological affinities. The school’s professors and students are Baptist, Methodist, Anglican, and Presbyterian, along with a sprinkling of other denominations. Smith says he won’t compromise on doctrinal essentials, but he is at home in various theological camps.

He has friends with different views of female pastors, baptism, church polity, and social ministry.

“People hold things that are different from me that are nonessential, and it’s okay,” Smith said. “I baptize people through the mode of immersion. Presbyterians don’t. We’re not going to split, in terms of fellowship, over that. It’s not essential. Whether you baptize in the Pacific Ocean or pour some water over their head,” in “all things there must be charity.”

Uncharted waters

Tragedy continued to follow Smith through his journey at Beeson. His son Tony was murdered in 2010 during a failed robbery at the restaurant where he worked. Tony’s death helped inspire Smith’s 2014 book The Oasis of God: From Mourning to Morning, Biblical Insights from Psalms 42 and 43. Last year, his son Bobby succumbed to cancer after a 15-year battle. Smith preached both funerals.

George said Smith’s preaching has been shaped by tragedy.

“Robert has lived in the depths,” George said, “and he preaches out of the depths.”

Enduring tragedy isn’t a badge of personal honor, according to Smith. He sees it as a badge of honor for Christ alone.

“It wasn’t a matter of trying to be heroic and trying to show people how strong I was,” he said. “I wasn’t strong, and they knew that. But they got a chance to see God demonstrate his power through a weak vessel.”

Smith’s spiritual endurance through tragedy is due, at least in part, to what George calls his “inscripturated soul.” Smith is known to quote lengthy Bible passages from memory during sermons. Long car rides together have given George a front-row seat to Smith’s knowledge of the Bible.

“Sometimes we will be traveling along in the car, and he will just start singing Scripture,” George said. “While we travel maybe 40–50 miles, he will just be singing Scripture over and over again. I think it’s in the deepest level of his soul.”

At Beeson, Smith brings a fishbowl to preaching class, filled with papers listing challenging Bible passages. Students each draw a passage, then preach on the text they draw.

In retirement, Smith plans to do something similar: accept whatever new challenges he draws and keep preaching the Bible.

“I am sailing uncharted waters,” he said. “It’s really exciting to see what God is doing. I’m more excited and more passionate than I have ever been before in ministry.”

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

- More from David Roach

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From Cincinnati to Louisville

‘My students became my parishioners’

Uncharted waters

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