Nominate a Book for the 2024 Christianity Today Book Awards

Instructions for publishers.

Pixabay / Pexels

Dear Publisher,

Each year, Christianity Today honors a set of outstanding books encompassing a variety of subjects and genres. The CT Book Awards will be announced in December at christianitytoday.com. They also will be featured prominently in the January/February 2024 issue of CT and promoted in several CT newsletters. (In addition, publishers will have the opportunity to participate in a marketing promotion organized by CT’s marketing team, complete with site banners and paid Facebook promotion.)

Here are this year’s awards categories:

1. Apologetics/Evangelism

2a. Biblical Studies

2b. Bible and Devotional

3a. Children

3b. Young Adults

4. Christian Living/Spiritual Formation

5. The Church/Pastoral Leadership

6. Culture and the Arts

7. Fiction

8. History/Biography

9. Marriage and Family

10. Missions/The Global Church

11. Politics and Public Life

12a. Theology (popular)

12b. Theology (academic)

Nominations:

To be eligible for nomination, a book must be published between November 1, 2022 and October 31, 2023. We are looking for scholarly and popular-level works, and everything in between. A diverse panel of scholars, pastors, and other informed readers will evaluate the books.

Publishers can nominate as many books as they wish, and each nominee can be submitted in multiple categories. There is a $40 entry fee for each title submitted in each category. To enter your nominations, please click on this link and follow the prompts. (Note: You will be directed to upload a PDF of each book you wish to nominate.)

Finalist Books:

If your book is chosen as one of the four finalists in any category, we will contact you and ask that you send a copy of the book directly to the four judges assigned to that category. We will provide mailing addresses for each judge.

Deadline:

The deadline for submitting nominations is Monday, July 31, 2023.

Any questions about any aspect of the process? Email us at bookawards@christianitytoday.com.

Thank you!

–Christianity Today editors

Theology

Welcome, Visitors! Here’s Our Church’s Take on Sex.

Peter Coelho

Hospitality demands that some things be clear from the start.

Illustration by Christianity Today / Source Images: Unsplash

As Canadians living in Austin, Texas, my wife and I have a sign on our front door that reads, “Please take off your shoes.” The Northern experience of slush, grit, and mud, as well as a few years spent living in Japan, made us committed to the goodness of shoeless indoor living. (Slippers and indoor shoes allowed.)

We hung the sign several years into our time in Austin. After more than a few awkward greetings—an effusive welcome coupled with quick instructions about our footwear convictions—we decided that clarity was a necessary part of hospitality.

This same connection between clarity and hospitality has come to inform our practice in church as well, especially on the topic of marriage and sexuality.

As part of the Anglican Church of North America (ACNA), our church’s position is clear: We hold that God’s desire for faithful conjugal sexuality happens in the context of a covenant marriage between one man and one woman. But as a particular church in Austin seeking to embody the welcome of God in Christ, conveying that message is more difficult. Our community draws people who are surprised and even pained by this counter-cultural teaching.

I’m not totally sure why our small church often attracts people with more left-of-center perspectives. Part of it relates to the area of the city we’re in, where a lot of young families and professionals come to live. Part of it is simply generational, as these millennial and Gen Z Christians grapple with the legacy of their particular traditions.

For some in our community, the church’s teachings on marriage impinge on the most intimate and personal areas of their life. What does it look like for their own sexuality to be conformed to the image of Christ? For others, these issues affect their posture toward family members, friends, neighbors, and colleagues.

As the rector of this congregation, I’ve had several challenging conversations related to marriage and sexuality. My own insufficiencies and knowledge gaps feel most acute in the area of pastoral care. How do I hold forth the grace and truth of Jesus? How do I hold forth the historic teachings of the church in a hospitable way?

While talking over several months with one gentleman in our church who identifies as queer, I realized that, even after extensive discussions, what I referred to as “the traditional perspective on marriage” had not landed with him as meaning “the marriage of male and female.” That moment of clarification was painful and disorienting for him. After a few more conversations, he left our church—a place where he’d been making friendships, forging connections, and feeling loved.

My pastoral engagement of that situation might draw criticism from readers. Some will see it as a failure inherent to the traditional position—the natural outcome of its exclusionary and discriminatory nature. As someone fully convinced of the traditional position, I don’t agree. Instead, I see my shortcoming as a failure of hospitality, and by that I mean, a failure to be clear.

In the same way that my wife and I decided to put a sign on our front door to avoid confusion, I’ve become convinced that clearly stating what our church teaches on marriage and sexuality is necessary in our context. Among those we welcome and minister to, that clarity is an act of care.

I don’t mean that sexuality is a regular topic of our preaching, or that it’s part of the “barking” posture Alan Jacobs has identified as “the sheepdog’s view.” But when the issue arises, as it did not too long ago in a sermon series on Romans, we address it head-on. We do the same when the text of Scripture speaks to racial justice, creation care, or care for the unborn.

In our efforts to be clear with people, we’ve also created a “white paper” of sorts—a summary of what the church teaches and why, with specific responses to common objections or points of confusion. The document also sketches out some of our pastoral approaches more generally.

Our hope is that the position paper, imperfect though it is, serves as an act of hospitality by providing openness about our views. We make the paper available to those in our community who inquire, and we also share it as part our membership process at the church.

We have a number of people in our church who question or even disagree with our teaching. But many of them have expressed appreciation for the forthright way we’ve talked about the issue, and they’ve found a place in our community nonetheless.

Recently, one parishioner who’s unconvinced by the historic position told me he appreciated our willingness to let the “weirdness of the Christian position” stand. With the beloved slogan “Keep Austin Weird” so pervasive in our city, maybe that comment shouldn’t be surprising!

I’m glad that he and others continue to stay in our community and give our views a hearing, even though their disagreement is significant and consequential. It’s better for them to know the vision and convictions that animate our pastoral care and teaching.

The same goes for those who identify as sexual minorities. Within the context of a newer church like ours, I struggle with the common temptation to so heavily emphasize “enfolding” people that I end up downplaying any uncomfortable, countercultural, or burdensome teaching.

The danger of a “bait and switch” is real. The better path, however, is to be clear in a spirit of humility and kindness.

The traditional view of marriage as a sacramental, creative, and covenanted union between male and female is God’s gift and was arguably abandoned by the church long before the question of same-sex marriage rose to the fore. This original vision is worth expressing, clearly and without apology. It’s beautiful and challenging for us all—a good the church can offer in a world of estrangement and disposable relationships. It invites us together to celebrate the gospel with our bodies. And it calls us not only to agree with God’s design but also to confess and proclaim it.

In the biography Augustine of Hippo, author Peter Brown describes how the intellectual climate of the bishop’s time required him to openly refute particular pagan beliefs. In Brown’s view, Augustine might have preferred to devote his energies and gifts to other ends. But the cultural pressure around Christians in Hippo “could not be ignored.”

At our church in Austin, I feel a similar imperative in the context of marriage and sexuality. As a pastor, I believe doctrines worth holding to are also worth talking about and declaring (with great care, of course). For most of our parishioners, the issue is paramount. It can’t be ignored without cost. And addressing it takes courage, humility, and discernment.

I know many other pastors are in the same boat. But how do we go about it, exactly? Here are a few things I’m learning about how to hospitably address sexual ethics:

First, make it personal.

“[Sexual minorities] are not a problem for experts and theologians to solve,” says Melinda Selmys in Sexual Authenticity. “They are, first and foremost, the face of Christ, marginalized, bullied, misunderstood, spit upon and rejected, and absolutely beloved of God.”

As you seek to articulate the historic vision of marriage and sexuality, keep in mind the particular members of your church who are most challenged and affected by this teaching. If you can’t think of any, then you might consider voices you can listen to from a distance.

As our church continues to grow in its ability to convey Scripture’s teachings on this issue, our ministry philosophy has been informed by writers from a wide variety of disciplines and perspectives.

Second, be ready to grow.

Our white paper exists as a living document. That doesn’t mean the teaching of the church is up for grabs, nor does it mean that I foresee my own convictions ever changing. If that ever happened, I’d resign rather than seek to lead our church into a different set of beliefs. And yet, I have so much to learn when it comes to pastoral care and the concrete implications of Christian sexual ethics.

In our rapidly changing culture, these questions will only continue to grow. How does the church respond to the same-sex married couple with children who have encountered Jesus for the first time? How does the body of Christ care for those who’ve transitioned from one gender to another? What does participation in the local church look like for those who are unconvinced by the church’s historic teaching?

These are questions that continue to challenge me and the local body I serve. In my own learning process, I’ve sought to frame my preaching and teaching on this topic as an invitation to further conversation.

Finally, tell the truth.

Quoting actor James Cagney, the playwright David Mamet exhorts aspiring actors to “find your mark, look the other fellow in the eye, and tell the truth.” That’s good advice for the pastoral vocation as well. The historic teaching of the church on marriage is not likely to become more palatable in our culture, at least during my lifetime. It will likely continue to be “on the wrong side of history.” And it will likely only get harder to embody grace and truth on this topic.

Yet, as an expression of hospitality, pastors and churches must clearly and consistently articulate the church’s long-standing vision. Doing that requires reading and listening. It requires putting ideas to paper. And it requires humble courage—something I often feel lacking in.

Rather than “finding our mark,” as Mamet exhorts, we can rest in the knowledge that Christ has been revealed. He is our mark, and we can abide in his sovereignty and grace. In that place, the other imperatives still remain: Look other image bearers in the eye. And with the profound humility of Jesus, tell the truth.

Do it as an act of hospitality. Do it as an offering of God’s good gift.

Peter Coelho is the rector of Church of the Cross in Austin, Texas.

- More from Peter Coelho

News

Christian and Missionary Alliance Will Ordain Women

Daniel Silliman

Ministers may now use the title “pastor” regardless of gender.

Consecrated Christian worker Joy Cochran addresses the CMA annual conference during a debate about calling women pastors.

Christian and Missionary Alliance video screengrab

The Christian and Missionary Alliance (CMA) has decided to ordain women and allow them to carry the title of “pastor.” More than 60 percent of the denomination’s delegates approved the two changes at the Alliance’s general council in Spokane, Washington, last week, after four years of official discussion and debate.

John Stumbo, president of the Alliance, supported the changes but also urged the gathered delegates to respect different interpretations of the New Testament verses on church leadership.

“Do not think that just because someone disagrees with your biblical position that they don’t love the Word of God, honor the authority of the Word of God, and hold true to its core teachings,” he said. “Everyone I’ve spoken to across the country has come with a thoughtful position. … We have the right, privilege, and necessity of having a mutual respectability for each other.”

Stumbo said the Alliance, which includes about 2,000 churches in the United States, needs unity, but not uniformity. Churches that accept the ordaination of women and those that don’t can work together to proclaim the gospel.

“A deeper life and missions movement—that has always been the Alliance at its best, experiencing the fullness of Jesus within us, the heart change of Christ within us, that sends us on mission to the world,” he said.

The denomination has trained both men and women for that mission to the world, but the women were previously “consecrated,” not ordained, and were told they should not use the title of pastor. Some women testified during the biannual conference that calling themselves “Consecrated Woman of God” and using the acronym CWG creates unnecessary confusion.

“When I go to the hospital and I show my credentials, they look at me,” Leida Matias, a chaplain in Puerto Rico, told the gathered delegates. “They don’t have a clue what the letters mean. Then I have to say, ‘I am a pastor.’”

Explaining the distinctive Alliance terminology gets in the way of doing ministry, a number of CMA women said. Worse, it seems to diminish their calling.

“Being ordained would make my life a lot easier as a military chaplain, not having to make the big long explanation,” said US Air Force chaplain Krista Lain. “But it’s so much more than that. I am called to join God in raising up a vast army from dry bones by the breath of the Holy Spirit. … I know I have angel armies backing me up. But I wonder, do I have the Alliance family backing me up?”

Some CMA churches already use the title of pastor for women in ministry. They have pointed to ambiguity in the denomination’s governing documents and the longer history of women in ministry in the Alliance. Founder A. B. Simpson insisted that women be trained to preach when he started Nyack Bible College (now Alliance University), and one of the first students to win a preaching prize at the New York school was a woman. Simpson wrote that women are “under certain limitations” and so are “not called to exercise ecclesiastical authority,” but he also supported and encouraged women to become Bible teachers, evangelists, branch presidents, and executive board members.

Rob Bashioum, the lead pastor at Salem Alliance Church in Oregon, told the conference that his congregation was started by a woman 102 years ago. When she asked Simpson to send a pastor, he sent another woman to lead the fledgling church. Today the congregation has 25 people on staff with the title of pastor, and 14 of them are women.

“I believe this recommendation affirms the early practices of the Alliance and the intentions of our founder,” Bashioum said. “Our women are exceptional, and without them we would not see the kingdom advance like we have.”

The conference also heard from vocal opponents to the changes. Some expressed concern that the Alliance was turning its back on the wisdom of previous generations who didn’t think women should be called pastors.

“Is this saying that the men and the councils of previous generations were somehow less spiritual women haters and weren’t as godly?” asked Doug Birr, pastor of Campbellsport Alliance Church in Campbellsport, Wisconsin. “Now we’ve arrived at having people who are progressive and able to be spiritual?”

Others warned that ordaining women would inevitably lead to a liberal slide and, eventually, denominational decline. They pointed to the examples of mainline churches, such as the Episcopal Church, the Presbyterian Church (USA), and the United Methodist Church, which began to lose members after they ordained women.

“This motion serves to destroy the role of men in the body of Christ and the authority that God has given to the shepherds in the Word of God,” said Paul Taylor, pastor of Discovery Alliance Church in Missoula, Montana. “We must face the hand of God and removal of his blessing.”

One consecrated woman spoke against the changes. Sandy Rose, whose husband is pastor of Living Hope Alliance Church in Huron, South Dakota, said the “biblical pattern” is that “men carry a greater level of authority.” That didn’t mean consecrated women were inferior to ordained men, she said, just that they had a different role, just like Jesus has a different role in the Trinity than God the Father, and submits to the Father, but is still fully equal.

“I think that titling women as pastors is going to have a long-term negative effect on our denomination,” Rose said.

Several men went out of their way to say they respected the women in the Alliance and believed they really were called to ministry—they just shouldn’t be called pastors.

“I want to fully affirm the calling, the gifting, and the ministry of women in this room and throughout the Alliance,” said Don Wiggins, former North Central District superintendent. “I can make that distinction in my heart and I believe many of us in the room can do that as well.”

The council delegates voted 1,008–588 to ordain women. They voted 1,025–592 to allow churches to call ordained women pastors. The conference also voted to reaffirm the Alliance position that elders can only be men. The lead pastors of Alliance churches are required to be elders, so that role will also be reserved for men. The rule change only applies to Alliance churches and ministries in the United States, and churches will not be required to hire women if they don’t want to.

The denomination cannot be neatly categorized as either “complementarian” or “egalitarian,” Alliance vice president Terry Smith told CT. Rules about church leadership are considered a secondary issue.

“What really makes our heart pound fast is mobilizing more people to ministry,” he said. “That’s kind of the heart of who we are.”

After voting for the change on June 2, the Alliance delegates gathered in the evening to worship together. They started with a CMA song written the week before the COVID-19 pandemic hit the US in 2020.

“All of you for all the world / All we have no holding back,” the delegates sang, paraphrasing Simpson’s summation of the commitment of the Alliance. “All of you for all the world / All we have no holding back.”

- More from Daniel Silliman

Glenn and Annette Pearson Want Christianity Today to Outlive Them

“There’s a truthfulness and integrity—yet compassion—in what CT does for the global church.”

Morgan Lee

Photo courtesy of Glenn and Annette Pearson

Glenn Pearson taught himself to play accordion when he was six. “I don’t admit this to many people. Advertising yourself as an accordion player doesn’t exactly generate a lot of party invitations,” he jokes.

Soon after, he also picked up cello and clarinet. In college, he learned guitar. About a month before he became a Christian, he tried harmonica, an instrument that he saw as supporting the “guy walking alone in the woods” image he aspired to. Then he met Jesus.

“God seemed to have those two things—my faith and my harmonica chops—grow in tandem,” he said.

Later in his 20s, Glenn served with Cru as director of Santa Fe, an internationally traveling band of nine musicians, where he specialized in blues and bluegrass harmonica. He couldn’t help but notice the violinist who was assigned to manage the band. Her name was Annette, and within a year they married.

There was something in the air, Glenn jokes, as six of the team members became engaged to each other within two weeks.

While Glenn hailed from Syracuse University, Annette came from Wheaton College, where she was inspired to join Cru to use her teaching degree overseas. That dream morphed into joining the campus ministry’s music ministry as a violinist before her group was disbanded and she moved to her role with Santa Fe.

Annette had grown up on a Bible college campus in New Jersey before her family moved to Michigan.

“At the age of five, I distinctly remember knowing that I didn’t have Jesus in my heart and needed to invite him in,” she said.

Most of Glenn’s childhood on Long Island was spent navigating an emotionally abusive household—an account he shared in CT’s April 2023 issue. What little he learned about religion—not God—came from his family’s involvement with a Unitarian fellowship group.

“There was no appreciation for Jesus as anything other than a wonderful man and an unfortunate teacher who died,” he said.

Even after Glenn and Annette left Cru, Glenn’s music stayed an important part of his life. While the family lived in Georgia, he frequently played in church events, did some recording projects, and joined a bluegrass band that traveled to Moscow on a missions trip. Their first concert was at the Moscow Conservatory of Music. They assumed that their audience would be too “highbrow” to appreciate their genre.

“But they loved us. We had classically trained music students following us all around the city,” he said.

The mentorship component of Cru has stayed present in Glenn’s life. In recent years, he’s mentored dozens of younger men, something he calls a key part of his legacy.

“Mentoring these young men takes what God has taught me and helps them to see that whatever they’re experiencing is an understandable feeling,” he said. “I want them to know that I’m on their side—and so is God. I want to hear what they have to say, but if one of them needs to rethink something, I’m not afraid to help them adjust that thinking in light of scriptural principles. But this is only after I’ve earned that right.”

Annette taught middle-school science for 19 years, where she tried to bring her faith, as appropriate, into the classroom.

“Since I retired, through my ministry of hospitality, the Lord has brought several women across my path who were at difficult crossroads. I’ve had the privilege of walking with these women and helping them hear God’s voice,” she said.

Glenn and Annette have been CT subscribers for decades. Glenn says, “It takes me way too long to get through an issue and I still have a hard time not reading every article because they’re all so great.”

They always look forward to each issue. Annette particularly enjoyed the December 2022 Bono cover story.

“Bono’s experience was so different from mine. From my earliest days, at every turn I was surrounded by missionaries, Bible professors, and Christian instruction,” said Annette. “Bono’s experience was much more organic, and he found his faith in the context of his mother’s death and political chaos. What a man of God he is as he brings his faith into his music and his activism.”

Glenn gushed about January/February 2023 book awards issue.

“There are 15 categories of books there, and I’ve been introduced to so many really good books that relate to something either I’m learning myself or wanting to communicate to other people. CT’s Book Awards are a tremendous resource to learn about the best of new Christian material.”

Annette and Glenn have been CT Sustaining Partners for a few years now, but they recently decided to include CT in their will through The 1956 Society. Part of that decision came from the courage and integrity they see from CT and its leadership.

“Especially recently, I have seen CT willing to be bold, take a stand, and even call out the errors of its own history,” Glenn said. “That speaks volumes of the credibility and the integrity that flows through the whole ministry. We’ve appreciated this over the years, and we wanted to do our little part to support CT’s future.”

This current state of the church is something that Annette sees as troubling.

“When you look at the generation that follows our generation, we’ve lost so many of them. It’s because we haven’t been honest, we haven’t faced the truth, we haven’t given them the tools to think critically and biblically about the issues that are impacting the church and our ability to reach the world.”

The answer begins with character, Annette says, something that she has consistently admired about CT.

“I keep going back to integrity and compassion. I believe a courageously honest voice within evangelicalism can speak to this generation, and I believe that CT is that voice now and can be long into the future,” she said. “Glenn and I want to support CT through our will, because we think it is one of the most important bastions of biblical truths and perspectives for the church around the world. CT breaks through the all the various subcultures, and through CT we want to leave a lasting impact.”

In the moments when the American church feels especially discouraging, “we need to be able to rejoice with the way God is working around the world,” she said.

“There’s a truthfulness and integrity—yet compassion—in how CT elevates and reports on the global church. If there’s some way we can help that happen in the generations to come, we would be proud,” Annette said. “Through all of CT’s resources, they are equipping global leaders and pointing them to God. And I can’t think of anything more important than that.”

Hearing these stories and ideas of Christians around the world offer the fuel for something Glenn finds all too rare these days: optimism.

“Years ago, I read the quote, ‘The church was God’s idea,’” said Glenn. “Basically, you can look around at the doom and gloom, the sin and destruction, and all the negative trends, but God’s not going to let the church die. He created the church. He loves the church. Yes, we need to address our problems, but we also know God is still—and will always be—in control.

“That is the perspective that I’m reminded of when I read CT.”

Morgan Lee is global media manager at Christianity Today.

Church Life

Miracles, Self-Reliance, False Teaching: COVID-19’s Impact on Cambodian Churches

Compiled by Erin Foley

Cut off from the world, Cambodian churches emerged with new opportunities and challenges.

Church service in Cambodia

Courtesy of Pastor Phearum Eam / Edits by Christianity Today

When the world locked down in early 2020, orders to Cambodia’s thriving garment factories dropped, shutting down factories and leaving more than 50,000 people jobless. The Cambodian government’s quick action kept COVID-19 at bay that year, yet the economic impact was devastating for many.

A COVID-19 outbreak in February 2021 led to several months-long lockdowns, where freedom of movement was limited in the worst-hit areas. Only authorized personnel could pass the police barricades that blocked off each zone. Much of life in the Southeast Asian country from education to job security was deeply affected.

Cambodian Protestants, which make up 1 to 2 percent of the population in the predominantly Buddhist country, have also seen their lives turned upside down since the pandemic. Churches that relied on foreign missionaries and funding were suddenly cut off. With churches closed, believers turned to online resources only to be led astray by false teaching. They struggled with isolation and addictions while stuck in their homes.

Yet the pandemic also opened up new opportunities: Churches learned to be more self-reliant, stepping up to provide food for impoverished neighbors, teach them about hygiene, and tell them about the hope they have in Jesus. They also learned to use the internet to record and share sermons—something foreign in a country that only started having reliable internet in the past decade—to reach more people.

CT spoke with five Christians in Cambodia—from a lay pastor in the factory district of the capital of Phnom Penh to a pastor of a small house church situated near the border of Thailand—about how the pandemic impacted their church and changed their ministry:

Timothy Aehk, lay pastor and prayer leader at New Hope Phnom Penh:

Our church is in Stueng Mean Chey (a poor, densely populated neighborhood where factory workers lived). There was a lot of need there. The pastors spent a lot time during the pandemic visiting church members. We were already outward-focused and involved in outreach, so we continued caring for the community and neighbors by meeting physical needs.

The emphasis on being a light for Christ became stronger during COVID-19. People around us were dying, and several members became very ill. Death became more of a reality. We realized we do not know when we will die or how much time we have left, so we need to use it for the gospel. We are not promised tomorrow.

Our church shrank because many members are factory workers. They lost their jobs during the pandemic and returned to the province where there were fewer restrictions. They had to find work with extended family on their farms. Several have not returned because they have not recovered from the economic implications of COVID-19.

We used social media to livestream worship and sermons. However, most people liked the social aspect of a corporate gathering and have returned once we could meet in person. Caring for communities during the pandemic and our livestream brought more people to our church and allowed us to create more small groups that gather in new parts of town.

Tep Ro, designer at ACTION Cambodia and member of Fruits of Christ Church in Kandal Province in southeast Cambodia:

My church was founded by Korean missionaries who left at the beginning of the pandemic. They had made members dependent by giving them food and paying for things like school fees. So some people attended because they were incentivized by money rather than to be a part of the body of Christ and learn about God. When they left, so did some church members.

Without the missionaries, our Cambodian pastor no longer received a salary, but he continued to serve the community with his finances. He gave out laundry detergent and hand sanitizer. And when the lockdowns made it so we could not gather, he visited members regularly.

However, the most negative impact on our church was that false teaching slipped into the church due to social media. Some pastors claimed divinity, some taught syncretism, others made end-times predictions. It caused a divide in my family. They scattered to different churches once restrictions were lifted. I addressed the problem with the head pastor, but he remained focused on maintaining unity, which came at the cost of the truth. Members left anyway.

At ACTION Cambodia, my coworkers and I worked to battle the false teaching. J. D. Crowley, a missionary in Cambodia, wrote a book in Khmer and English called True Religion & Counterfeit Religion. It was published to help protect the local church. We put out resources and videos for people to understand how to filter biblical truth.

Phearum Eam, pastor of New Life in Christ Church in Banteay Meanchey Province in northwest Cambodia:

Here in the rural area, there was little COVID-19. However, finances shifted as people lost their jobs. We are on the border of Thailand, where most people work. They could not go back across the border once the pandemic hit.

Everyone continued to regularly attend church, except for two Sundays when a few community members got COVID-19 and the village chiefs asked us not to meet those weeks. I shared sermons online for those weeks, but not everyone could join since many church members do not own phones or know how to use technology. If they had a phone, they shared it with three to four others to listen together.

The church also took up offerings for the people most in need. The poor farmers and migrant workers were in so much debt and unable to pay back loans. As I taught about loving our neighbors, our members stepped up to help others. Some members bought rice to share.

We witnessed miracles too. None of the followers of Christ caught COVID-19. They would go to the markets and get food to share with others, yet they never got sick.

I regularly reminded the church that God cares for us and longs for a personal relationship. When the pandemic came, people realized God wanted to know them as individuals, not only in groups. (Due to lower literacy rates in rural Cambodia, Christians rely on weekly gatherings that include testimonies, teaching, and corporate prayer to inform their understanding of God.)

It was the most positive shift I saw during this time. While some people were busy and worked on Sundays, most learned to make time daily to meet with God.

David Manfred, country director of Christian & Missionary Alliance (C&MA) Cambodia in Phnom Penh:

C&MA works closely with the Khmer Evangelical Church (KEC), which includes about 220 churches consisting of house churches, as well as more traditional churches. In the early days of the pandemic, the KEC saw one of the most fruitful times in our history as we started 21 new church groups. The first year of COVID-19 was a time of openness to the gospel. Fear and uncertainty gripped Cambodians, and they began to notice dynamic church leaders passionate about loving the people in their communities.

A miraculous healing in Anlong Veng, near the border of Thailand, resulted in 11 new church plants. Kong, a man known for his violent temper, was badly injured when the wall of a charcoal oven collapsed on him. After several clinics were unable to help, he asked his wife to take him to her church. The local pastor prayed for him and he was healed. Immediately, Kong went from village to village sharing his testimony and calling others to follow Christ. Not only did people witness his physical healing, but they saw the change in his character. (Kong later died in a car accident in 2022.)

Another miracle was that of the 50 C&MA missionaries in Cambodia, none left due to the pandemic. Due to the placement of the churches throughout the country, we were uniquely positioned to help the communities around us. Partnering with the Christian NGO World Relief, the KEC leaders went to thousands of homes to train them on basic hygiene. Their presence and knowledge alleviated many fears.

Since the pandemic ended, the love of the church leaders for their communities in a time of need drew many new people to the church and led to more than 20 new church plants. The verse that resonated throughout this time was Ephesians 3:20–21: “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever!”

Bora Chheang, translator at ACTION Cambodia and member of Redemption in Christ Church in Phnom Penh:

COVID-19 did not change much of our church’s focus because missionaries had planted our church to stand independently. Because the zone where our church is located allowed more freedom of movement, we were able to take supplies and food into areas that our sister churches could not access. We assisted our fellow Christians who could not leave their homes.

We already ran outreaches, classes, and kids’ clubs in several communities. The pandemic opened the door for more activities in areas we had not been able to reach. The same programs remained in place but could only meet with 10 people or fewer to abide by the local restrictions and rules.

We focused on using resources to help neighbors and surrounding communities. The pandemic gave us an open door to people who were previously more hostile or ambivalent to the gospel.

One significant change was that COVID-19 helped the Khmer church learn to use social media and technology. Before, we relied on outside sources, including teaching and writing by foreigners, but during the pandemic, the local church started recording teaching and preaching, which they could share and use in the future. Before the pandemic, ACTION Cambodia had started to take local pastors’ sermon notes and turned them into articles. The pandemic restrictions made them speed up the process so local believers could access more materials.

Yet not all of COVID-19’s impact on the church was positive. Being at home all day with unlimited access to phones and technology and very little outside influence created problems: People were more easily indoctrinated by false doctrine. Pornography addiction increased, especially among the youth.

Since the pandemic began, my view of the church did not change. The church is still about the body of Christ. Zoom is not the church; it cannot replace gathering. Having technology available was better than nothing, but to be a true church, it needs to be in person. As it says in Hebrews 10:24–25 (ESV), “Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.”

Nothing goes to waste in God’s economy. God is and was still at work, despite COVID-19. He uses all of it for his glory.

- More from Erin Foley

News

What Happens When Christians and Muslims Translate Scripture Side by Side

Rachel Pfeiffer

Evangelicals in Chad are celebrating unexpected partnerships—and new converts—from recent projects in minority languages.

Marco Di Lauro / Getty Images

The Bible translation ministry unfoldingWord has engaged churches across countries and cultures, but a recent project in Chad brought a new dynamic to their work: The majority of the translators were Muslim.

“We can’t take credit for having thought this up or made this strategy,” said Eric Steggerda, field operations manager for unfoldingWord, which partnered in the Central African nation with the Church Growth Project of Chad (Projet Croissance des Eglises au Tchad), or PCET.

“God brought this together in a way that created an open door that neither one of us really expected would be as effective as it was,” Steggerda said. “What we learned was that this is actually a very effective way to bridge a gap with Muslims. Bible stories are understandable.”

Muslims make up a little over half the population in Chad, and Arabic and French are the two official languages, though most people speak a variant called Chadian Arabic.

PCET identified 10 minority languages they wanted to translate and held informational workshops to recruit participants for the translation projects.

A Chadian evangelical involved with PCET—who asked that his name be withheld due to fear of violence in response to the work in Muslim communities—told CT that many initially attended the translation workshop because they were interested in the pay.

But Christians noticed that Muslims quickly latched on to the projects for reasons beyond the financial incentive. PCET and unfoldingWord were clear that the materials for translation would be Christian, but Muslim participants saw some of the stories, such as those about Abraham, as part of their religion, too.

The Chadian communities that lack Christian materials in minority languages are unlikely to have the Qur’an in their local language either, according to Steggerda.

When working with language groups with few believers or new believers, unfoldingWord recommends starting with a set of about 50 stories that take translators through the Bible to build a solid understanding of God’s Word before translating Scripture passages themselves.

Many of those stories the Qur’an narrates differently, such as the creation account, or doesn’t include at all, such as the parable of the Good Samaritan. As the Muslim translators worked through the New Testament parable, Steggerda noticed that they were particularly eager to discuss the questions that went along with it.

Another reason Muslims were interested in translating Christian material was how the project affirmed the significance of their languages.

“Many of these languages are struggling for importance in the world, as it were. There’s not much that’s actually in their mother tongue, so they rejoice when they find things that are, because it really speaks to them of the importance of their language,” Steggerda said. “Of course, anything in the mother tongue resonates in the heart better than other languages, so they’re very receptive to the idea of the Bible stories, for example, translated into their mother tongue.”

A full Bible translation for Chadian Arabic, the language spoken by the majority in the country, was completed in 2019, with copies delivered to three locations in Chad by Mission Aviation Fellowship in 2021. There are more than 100 local dialects and languages, and in rural areas, people are less likely to speak or read in French, one of the official languages.

The question that arises from involving non-Christians in translation projects, especially those who don’t have degrees or expertise in translation work, is whether the translations will be linguistically and theologically sound.

UnfoldingWord focuses on church-based translation and believes non-Christians can help develop quality translations—while also learning about Scripture themselves. The training process has translators start with easier Bible stories to learn the basics and then move on to key passages before working on entire books of the Bible, with additional training and direction along the way.

Translations are done in teams, so each individual’s translation is checked by another group member and then by the group as a whole. Even with these processes in place, the trainers noticed that translators sometimes struggled with stories that clearly contradict Islamic doctrine. In Chad, PCET brought in pastors to check each group’s translations to guard against theological errors.

The translations are also shared in each community to glean feedback in specific contexts and as a way to proclaim the gospel.

The translation project in Chad started in 2018 but was slowed amid recent civil unrest, including the assassination of the Chadian president in 2021. As PCET continues to translate and share the new materials, leaders say they have seen God reach people through the project. Two of the Muslim translators have converted to Christianity through the translation process. People in unreached communities have turned to Christ as well, including some Muslim leaders.

In one area, the local team met with several fundamentalist imams who were skeptical about the project at first. After seeing the stories in their language, the imams let the team present them to the community at large. They urged the team to come back and continue presenting whatever translated materials they could.

In another village, Steggerda recounted, the chief was very sick when the team visited. They prayed for him to recover in the name of Jesus, and he was miraculously healed. The man committed his life to Christ and urged his entire village to be receptive to the translated materials and consider what the team had to say.

PCET supports the converts in these villages after the translation projects are complete.

“There’s a 50-person missionary network now established through this organization [PCET] that’s spread out and was assigned to these different language groups,” Steggerda said. “When a convert is made in one of these villages through the translation testing process, they are turned over to the associated missionary and sponsoring church for discipleship.”

In one Muslim community, where previous missionary efforts had failed, PCET leaders wanted to try again with the new materials translated into their local language, the Chadian leader told CT.

“We just followed the voice of the Holy Spirit and went to the community, with the elders and the leaders. We projected the videos and audio [of the translations], and the result we obtained there was very great,” he said. “Immediately after we left, the missionary that was posted there planted churches, and he baptized over 10 people in December.”

“People are getting enthusiastic about hearing the gospel of Christ for the first time in their own language.”

One reason these translation projects have been such effective evangelistic tools is that they let the unreached see that the gospel isn’t just for those in the West.

“People have a lot of assumptions toward Christianity. To them, Christianity is a Western product,” the Chadian leader explained. “When they can listen to Word of God in their own language, that changes the narrative.”

In Chad, the next phase of translation features sets of Scripture passages that help build theological knowledge. Though the makeup of the translation teams is ultimately left to local partners, unfoldingWord recommends using believers from the second phase onward.

UnfoldingWord’s approach contrasts with the established model of Bible translation, where highly educated translators are deployed to learn a language and then create a new translation. The organization’s president, David Reeves, said both approaches are needed to continue to reach all peoples of the earth.

“God has blessed and needs to continue to bless [the established model], because we can’t finish this without them finishing what they started,” Reeves said. “What the emerging model is doing is going into places that are some of the hardest left on the planet and mobilizing a much bigger workforce to be able to accomplish this [translation work].”

The PCET leader and his team know the truth of this firsthand, as they witness more unreached people hearing the gospel in their language for the first time.

“The Great Commission is the business of the Lord Jesus in partnership with the Holy Spirit. We sow the seed, and the Holy Spirit waters the seed,” he said. “We are praying we’ll see the first fruits of our labor.”

- More from Rachel Pfeiffer

Ideas

The Spiritual Battle of Teen Screen Time

Bonnie Kristian

Staff Editor

Kids’ addictions to their phones isn’t a legislative issue. It’s a discipleship one.

Illustration by Abigail Erickson / Source Images: Getty

As summer fast approaches, likely so will increased screen time as school lets out. But new data and a bipartisan consensus that phones are bad for kids may give parents pause.

A growing body of research, though certainly not indisputable, has pointed out that smartphones with unfettered access to the internet and social media have serious negative effects for younger users, particularly teenage girls. At the end of May, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued a formal warning and report about the effects of social media on child and teen mental health.

Since 2012, as smartphones were integrated into every part of our lives—and as that integration became an ever-earlier childhood milestone—youth mental health has plummeted. Teen anxiety, depression, and even suicidal ideation have all tracked eerily well with this technological shift.

As a society, we plopped Pandora’s box into the hands of 15-year-olds. Good luck, kiddos! Go wild. Instead, they became distraught, disconsolate, and utterly unwilling to give up their phones.

Two primary “solutions” to this problem have emerged: parental responsibility or government regulation. Both have obvious appeal. But both will likely ultimately prove inadequate—if not counterproductive—to the task at hand. No one family can entirely fix the kids and phones problem, but neither can Congress. In each case, the scale of the solution is wrong. And the place we have the best chance of getting the scale right is the local church.

The case for parental responsibility is simple and compelling. A responsible parent, knowing about the consequences of tobacco use, wouldn’t supply her child with cigarettes. A Christian parent, aware of spiritual formation, habits, and sin, wouldn’t buy his kid a membership to a pornography site. Likewise, knowing what we increasingly know about smartphones and social media, advocates of this solution say, “Maybe don’t let your kid have an iPhone?”

In one sense, they’re not wrong. Most underage children don’t need a smartphone, certainly not before the later teenage years, when driving and jobs and college begin. Simpler devices offer workarounds for the safety features many parents want, like location tracking and basic calling or texting, and a laptop is better for any academic or professional use.

But refusing to give your teenager a smartphone—let alone taking one away after you’ve given it—is nowhere near simple. It’s what social scientists call a collective action problem, as social psychologist Jonathan Haidt has explained. If you could ban every teenager from smartphones and social media, they’d all be better off. But if you can ban only your kid, she’ll almost certainly fare worse than before, because what you’ve effectively done is grounded her from half or more of her social life.

Technically, it’s not a punishment, but it will still feel like one. She’ll miss all the inside jokes and spontaneous hangouts and the constant, casual hum of the group chat. The inevitable charge that you’re “being mean” and “ruining my life” and “exasperating me” (Ephesians 6:4 was a go-to verse in my teenage years) will actually be pretty fair. That’s a lot to miss.

But what about a national regulation?

“Lawmakers can enact transformative change almost overnight—if they have the will to act,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), a prominent advocate of this approach, argued in The Washington Post in February. “And I can think of at least one nonpartisan issue that deserves this kind of urgency: protecting children online. We should start by establishing an age requirement of 16 for social media.”

What Hawley’s article neglected to mention, though, is that most social media sites—and certainly all the big ones, including TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, and Twitter—already have a minimum user age. It’s 13, and it’s set by an extant federal law that has been on the books for more than two decades.

It doesn’t really work. The minimum is toothless, as anyone familiar with the social media habits of the 12-and-under set knows. On the internet, nobody knows you’re a kid. Yet raising the minimum age and giving it a real bite would come with problems of its own. Hawley’s suggestion is to “require real age verification processes” enforced by occasional federal audits. Per legislation he’s introduced, that would mean giving social media sites your legal name, date of birth, and, crucially, “a scan, image, or upload of government-issued identification.”

The privacy risks are glaring—imagine the boon this would be for mass surveillance by Washington and unsavory foreign governments alike, to say nothing of hackers, identity thieves, and other criminals. Then there’s the danger to free speech. ID verification would end online anonymity for those who lack the tech-savvy to venture into darker corners of the web.

In fact, the constitutional concerns are serious enough that this idea might well be killed in court. “Mandating age verification means that every user will be forced to hand over identifying information before accessing lawful content, or speaking, on social media—a chilling proposition that courts will strike down as easily as they have in the past,” Ari Cohn, a First Amendment lawyer, told Reason (where I am a contributor).

Maybe other regulatory proposals will emerge with fewer legal and practical downsides, but I’m not optimistic. That’s partly because of the sorry array of ideas currently on offer. It’s also partly because state prohibition of highly desirable products is often unsuccessful if not downright catastrophic, because mental agreement that phones are bad for kids frequently fails to translate to any real behavioral change, and because teenagers are great at getting around unwanted limits.

That brings us to the church. Unlike the federal government, a local congregation is small enough that a no-smartphones-for-kids agreement can be realistically implemented and enforced, and of course there are no constitutional constraints on this kind of voluntary, communal rule of life. And unlike a single family, a local congregation is big enough that parents wouldn’t be left to tackle this problem alone and teenagers wouldn’t be isolated from a social center all their friends enjoy.

Of course, this kind of congregational pact wouldn’t be a panacea. Most of us have friends and family outside our local church, which means many parents would still have to contend with competing norms among school friends, cousins, neighbors, and so on.

It would also require a seriousness about committing to a church-wide standard of behavior that many congregations simply do not have. Legalist, fundamentalist, Luddite—you’d hear it all, because this is a legitimately difficult proposal in our culture.

That difficulty is exactly why it’s worth considering. A congregational smartphone policy is a very 21st-century way to carry each other’s burdens and “do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers” (Gal. 6:2, 10). But the novelty of the burden makes it no less heavy. These little ones need help to bear it (Luke 17:1–2). Like many spiritual disciplines, the local church could be uniquely positioned to offer that help.

The Lesser Kingdom: A prophetic, eclectic, and humble take on current issues, public policy, and political events with thoughts on faithful engagement.

- More from Bonnie Kristian

Theology

Theological Education Can’t Catch Up to Global Church Growth

Michael Ortiz

Unless seminaries leave the ivory tower for local leaders in the public square. Like these ones have.

A Bible is raised during a worship service in Africa.

Rob Birkbeck / Lightstock

I recently received a handwritten letter from a pastor in India.

His name is Roy, but I didn’t know this gentleman, and we had never corresponded. Somehow he contacted me and told me about the two congregations he leads in Andhra Pradesh and of his great desire to study the Bible.

His ending struck me: “I have no money.”

Roy is not alone. Countless pastoral leaders worldwide are eager to faithfully lead their churches, but they lack access to training. This is especially the case in majority world contexts in Latin America, Africa, and Asia where the gospel continues to rapidly grow—with hundreds of new congregations birthed daily.

Founded in 1846, the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) now represents churches in over 130 countries and estimates there are 50,000 new baptized believers each day. These believers need pastoral leaders who are trained to effectively lead their congregations.

The challenge is highlighted when we draw a contrast with the United States, where there is one trained pastor for every 230 people. By comparison, majority world churches have one trained pastor for every 450,000 people.

This colossal leadership imbalance will only expand as the majority world church continues to surge and spread. Already, theological education is struggling to keep up, and unless something changes, the gap will only increase in the future.

If we are to meet the training needs of thousands of pastors like Roy, the worldwide trajectory must be reset. Theological education, no matter the form, has a long history of being fragmented, with most programs operating in silos, lacking a sense of collegiality. Regrettably, this inward posture makes training even less accessible to local ministries, weakening the collective capacity to prepare leaders for the Lord’s church.

A new theological education posture is needed.

Last November in Izmir, Turkey, it was evident. The 18th consultation of the International Council for Evangelical Theological Education (ICETE), first launched by the WEA in 1980, gathered roughly 500 leaders from 80 countries—representing over 290 worldwide training ministries—to envision an integrated global approach for the leadership demands of the church today and in the years to come.

Uniting a network of nearly 1,000 seminaries from every region of the world, ICETE has historically been viewed as a service umbrella for the formal sectors of theological education. American examples include Lancaster Bible College, Wesley Biblical Seminary, and Moody Bible Institute, alongside international counterparts such as the Ethiopian Graduate School of Theology, Asian Theological Seminary, and Bethlehem Bible College.

But over the past three years, our constituency base has expanded significantly to include nonformal and less-structured theological education. In fact, at that time we had none of these institutions.

Recently welcoming training ministries such as the Cru-based International Leadership Consortium, Trainers of Pastors International Coalition (TOPIC), and Increase Association’s network of training programs for church leaders throughout Asia, ICETE honors their desire to benefit from our global interconnectedness. This includes creating relationships with the traditional seminaries to share with nonformal students the tools and short courses often associated with higher education—such as Bible commentaries, simplified theology, and innovative homiletics.

Additionally, many of these programs want to ensure quality control, validated under the guidance of academic leaders. By elevating their credibility, nonformal programs offer pathways toward not only better ministry effectiveness but also more rigorous education.

Today, nearly half of our associate members are nonformal institutions.

The formal side of theological education has also welcomed greater interaction. Seminaries worldwide have struggled to operate at full strength, especially since COVID-19, and have gradually diminished in their capability to understand and meet contextual church leadership needs.

Through dialogue with nonformal leaders who are usually more closely connected to church life, seminaries become better aware of pew-level realities and can adjust their programs to produce more field-ready graduates. Inspired by the ICETE conference, Shalom Bible Seminary in India has already collaborated with parachurch organizations to create a new course for next-generation church leadership.

Around the globe, leaders from every region and from all types of ministries are growing in their conviction that whatever the task before them, it is too large for any one of them alone. The theme in Izmir was “Formal and Nonformal Theological Education: Beyond Dialogue,” and we already see hints of practical renewal taking place.

Standards to measure effective spiritual formation training are being developed in Nigeria and India. Oral pastoral leadership programs have started in South Sudan, Uganda, and Ethiopia—and will soon in Tanzania and Senegal. And regional collaboration hubs are being established in South America and Africa, to link partners in similar local contexts.

ICETE has also been asked to gather key leaders to discuss quality assurance through micro-credentials and competency-based theological education. As these innovative approaches are further refined, they will open new opportunities to certify a wider number of programs, strengthening collaboration across the sectors of theological education.

In every region ICETE represents, we hear reports on how our conference stimulated serious reflection that has already set our agenda for the next global consultation in March 2025: How can the whole of theological education come together to equip the next generation?

Though we know the Lord Jesus will ultimately build his church, during our present era we must do all we can to come alongside this effort, that it may be strengthened to stay on mission until Christ’s return. We cannot continue with disconnected, fragmented theological education and expect to meet the needs of church leaders like Roy in India and countless others like him. Renewal has begun, and ICETE will serve to cultivate it.

On the opening night of our week in Izmir, I led the gathering to recite with me the following plea: “Lord, may our consultation not be measured by our numbers, but by our mutuality in one common aim—to strengthen Christ’s church.”

May this be our ongoing prayer.

Michael Ortiz is the ICETE international director.

- More from Michael Ortiz

News

Died: Paul Eshleman, Who Brought ‘Jesus’ Film to the Ends of the Earth

Daniel Silliman

The Campus Crusade evangelism strategist wanted everyone in the world to hear the good news that God loved them.

Paul Eshleman / edits by Rick Szuecs

Paul Eshleman, an evangelism strategist who organized one of the largest outreach efforts of the 20th century so that everyone in the world could hear at least once that God loved them, died on May 24 at age 80.

Eshleman was the director of the Jesus Film Project, producing the 1979 feature for Campus Crusade for Christ (now Cru) in partnership with Warner Bros. and overseeing its translation into more than 2,000 languages. Eshleman arranged for the film to be shown across the world, from places in rural Asia and Africa where people had never seen electric lights before, to national television broadcasts in places like Peru, Cyprus, and Lebanon. According to Cru, nearly 500 million people have indicated they made a decision to accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior after seeing the film.

“I’m driven every day to say, ‘Who hasn’t had a chance to hear yet, and how can I make that possible?’” Eshleman once explained. “We are strategists for Christ, thinking of new ways to reach people with the message of life.”

Saddleback Church founder Rick Warren called Eshleman a “dear friend” and praised him for his “global impact.” Evangelist Franklin Graham said, “God used his life greatly.”

According to Steve Sellers, current Cru president, “Paul was a champion for the cause of Christ and challenged the Church to consider innovative ways to evangelize.”

Eshleman was born October 23, 1942, the eldest son of Viola and Ira Eshleman. His father was an evangelical minister who moved the family from Michigan to Florida in 1950 to launch a Christian resort. He purchased 30 acres of a closed army base in Boca Raton for $50,000, starting a church and a vacation community that the evangelist Billy Graham dubbed “Bibletown.”

Eshleman committed his life to Christ as a boy, but growing up, he was less interested in ministry than business. He decided he wanted to become the head of an oil company or perhaps an auto manufacturer.

Eshleman went to Michigan State University, where he studied business administration, marketing, and finance. He joined a Campus Crusade fellowship group but wasn’t particularly serious about his faith. He later said he only really kept going so he could tell his mom he was part of a Christian group but not have to go to church on Sunday mornings.

Things changed when a girl he had dated told him he was just “fooling around with God” and it was time to get serious or break it off. Eshleman just got mad and told her about all the time he’d spent in church growing up, but later that night he couldn’t stop thinking about what she said. He started to worry that God was hardening his heart, like he had hardened Pharaoh’s in Exodus 7–11.

“I couldn’t sleep,” Eshleman said. “I got by my bed, and I said, ‘Lord, here’s my life.’”

The next morning he called a Campus Crusade leader: “I’m on your side now. What do you want me to do?”

Eshleman was taught how to share the gospel through the four spiritual laws and sent to talk to students in the fraternities. The second one he spoke to committed his life to Christ, and Eshleman was convinced this was more important work than running a large company.

He joined Campus Crusade in 1966 and went to the University of Wisconsin–Madison. The school was roiled by student antiwar protests targeting Dow Chemical Company, which made the flammable gel the US military was using in the jungles of Vietnam. In 1967, the campus became the scene of what some historians say is the first university protest in the country to turn violent. Eshleman found this was “a wonderful environment for doing ministry,” he said. In one year, he organized 72 evangelistic meetings in dorms, fraternities, and sororities across campus.

“In the middle of all that chaos,” he said, “we had people continually coming to Christ.”

A few years later he was tapped to organize a mass youth event that Billy Graham told reporters was going to be the Christian answer to Woodstock. It would be a great Jesus rally, a “spiritual explosion,” or “Explo,” in Dallas in 1972.

The event had been dreamed up by Campus Crusade founder Bill Bright. He said he had a vision: There would be masses of young people and music, and they could train 100,000 college students to evangelize their peers. Bright’s top staff, however, didn’t like the idea and deftly ducked the assignment, according to historian John G. Turner, who wrote a history of the founding of Cru.

“It was an old trick,” one staffer said. “He’d have a vision and then we’d have to put arms and legs to it.”

Eshleman was offered the job. Naïve and passionate, he jumped at the opportunity. He was given a generous budget but little staff support. He managed, nevertheless, to pull it off. He booked Johnny Cash, Andraé Crouch, and newer “Jesus freak” acts like Larry Norman and the Armageddon Experience. He secured the use of the Cotton Bowl for four nights, reserved hotel rooms in 65 locations across Dallas-Fort Worth, and even arranged for three hours of music and preaching to be broadcast on television nationwide.

The event attracted only 30,000 college students, but Eshleman opened it up to high schoolers and managed to recruit another 35,000, for a total of 75,000 young people who, between the musical performances, learned how to share their faith. Another 10,000 came as guests, and Explo ’72 was deemed a success.

The Jesus film started, similarly, as a Bill Bright vision that would be difficult if not impossible to pull off. The idea got financial underwriting, however, from oil tycoon Nelson Bunker Hunt and drew the interest of John Heyman, a Jewish film producer in Great Britain who wanted to produce something related to the Bible. The project got a green light, and though Eshleman had never worked in film before, he was given the job of fixer, gofer, and all around problem solver.

The film, which hews closely to the text of the Gospel of Luke, was released in 1980 and shown in about 300 theaters. Critics didn’t think it ranked with William Wyler’s Ben-Hur or Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments, but church groups and Christian schools liked it, and it wasn’t a financial disaster for Warner Bros.

Then the film was turned over to Eshleman for broader and more creative, innovative distribution. He worked with Campus Crusade staff to translate the film into 21 languages in 18 months and connect with missionary groups around the world to show it in places where people had never seen the life of Jesus on the silver screen—or any movies at all.

For about $25,000, Eshleman could dub the film into another language, produce a new print, ship the film and projection equipment to a mission field—navigating customs and censorship authorities in the process—and set up a showing for as many people as could gather in a field. Ten of the first showings were in India. People walked more than three miles to see the film.

By 1985, Eshleman’s team had translated the film into 100 different languages. They planned to produce the film in every language with more than 100,000 speakers. They simplified and sped up the dubbing process with new technology and soon shipped Jesus everywhere from Estonia to Ecuador.

Everywhere, the film seemed to have a powerful effect.

“When soldiers whip Jesus, you could hear grown adults crying,” said Brian Helstrom, a Church of the Nazarene evangelist who showed the film in Africa. “'You could see them physically jump back at the sight of the serpent tempting Jesus.”

Eshleman, who oversaw a team of 300 people, occasionally got to attend a screening of the film. The experience, he said, was unforgettable.

“You … sit on a log out under the stars,” he recalled, “and watch people who have never seen a film before—their first time seeing an electric light—and the person of Jesus comes on the motion picture screen. You see their eyes light up.”

A cynical film executive once joked to Eshleman that if he showed Dirty Harry instead of Jesus to people with no exposure to 20th-century technology, they’d fall down and worship Clint Eastwood’s vigilante cop as the Son of God. But Eshleman rejected the idea that the power of the Jesus film was its medium and not its message. A Maasai warrior in Kenya might enjoy Dirty Harry, Eshleman said, but to understand that God loved him and had a wonderful plan for his life, he had to see the Word made flesh made celluloid.

By the year 2000, Eshleman’s team had translated Jesus into 600 languages and could turn out a new translation in nine days. The Guinness Book of World Records recognized Jesus as the most-translated film of all time.

At the same time, Eshleman had started to track all the people groups that didn’t have any Christian workers to help with translations. The number varied, depending on how one counted groups, but he figured that hundreds of millions of people had never been engaged with a gospel message.

At a nine-day gathering of 10,000 evangelists in Amsterdam, Eshleman and several others organized a strategy session to coordinate efforts to reach these “untargeted” people. Out of that session came Finishing the Task, a network of Christian organizations committed to completing the Great Commission, reaching every nation. The goal, Eshleman said, was to make sure everyone in the world had the chance, at least once, to hear that Jesus loves them.

“They have waited long enough,” Eshleman said. “It is time for us to finish.”

Eshleman became the director, and by 2017, he said Finishing the Task had mobilized missionaries to 2,000 new people groups and planted 101,000 churches. Reaching every nation on earth looked like a real possibility.

“If I could choose any time in which to be alive,” Eshleman said, “this would be the time.”

Paul is predeceased by his wife Kathy. He is survived by his second wife, Rena, and two adult children, Jennifer and Jonathan.

- More from Daniel Silliman

News

Manipur Christians: ‘The Violence Has Shattered Us’

Surinder Kaur

Many from India’s tribal Kuki community have fled their homes. Amid ongoing violence, returning isn’t an option.

Evening worship at the Delhi Relief facility.

Photo by Surinder Kaur

Lun Tombing was hiding in the bushes with her husband and three- and six-year-old daughters several weeks ago when they saw a mob burn down their home, car, and church.

Tombing and her family had heard reports of mob violence in and around Imphal, the capital city of Manipur, the eastern Indian state where they live, and fled to their church. More than 50 Christians hid in the building, even as a Hindu mob vandalized its outside. When the attackers briefly drove away, the Christians made a run for it.

“With every burning of a vehicle, the mob would clap their hands and shout victory-shouts, as we witnessed all this while trembling behind the bushes constantly afraid of being discovered,” Tombing said.

The group stayed outside for nearly 12 hours, only narrowly avoiding a direct confrontation with the rioters. Despite her mother’s order to maintain absolute silence, Tombing’s eldest daughter repeatedly asked why the mob was destroying their neighborhood.

When the military finally arrived half a day later, they sent the survivors to a local refugee camp. Several days later, the traumatized family, along with hundreds of other Manipur Christians, arrived at the nation’s capital with little more than medicine for the children and some extra clothes.

Since sheltering with a relative in Delhi, both of Tombing’s daughters have struggled to sleep deeply and disruptions as minor as a TV channel changing have startled them awake.

“Even after we reached Delhi, whenever my daughters heard a bang or a sudden noise, they would start to scream, ‘Mummy, they are coming,’” Tombing said.

Between May 3 and May 5, mob violence claimed 75 lives and displaced 35,000 people, according to Manipur’s government. But L. Kamzamang, a Kuki pastor who ministers to northeastern Indian Christians in Delhi, believes that 65,000 people have fled—some internally and others across the border to Myanmar, which borders Manipur—and that more than 100 have been killed.

“There are no fixed numbers,” said Lhingkhonei Kipgen, who fled with her husband and two young daughters and is sheltering in an Evangelical Fellowship of India (EFI) relief camp in Delhi. “There are corpses still lying here and there, some that were burned along with their vehicles and are not even identifiable.”

Children sit and listen to worship at the Delhi Relief facility.

The surge in violence came as tensions between Manipur’s Kuki tribe and the Meitei, the state’s largest minority group, began to climb in earnest in April after the state’s high court greenlit the Meiteis’ request for Scheduled Tribe status. The designation gives communities special constitutionally backed protections including reserved seats in the parliament and state legislatures, affirmative action in education and employment, and property protections.

In fear that this recognition would cost them their own affirmative benefits, the Kuki, the majority of whom are Christians, opposed the proposed change. When they organized local protests on May 3, the violence broke out in several locations.

“[The Meiteis’] main aim was to rid the hills from Kuki presence, and they have been successful at it,” said Thangkholal Haokip, a Manipur social worker who is now living at the refugee camp. “They have instilled fear, uncertainty, and we are now homeless.”

A divided Manipur

While the Kuki protest became the mob’s catalyst for its recent rampage, territorial disputes, competition over resources, deep-seated historical grievances, and religious tensions have kept the tribal community and the Meitei at odds with each other for years.

“India’s northeastern region boasts of a rich tapestry of ethnic groups. But some of these communities have clashed over matters such as land, resources, and political power,” said Vijayesh Lal, EFI’s general secretary. “This is perhaps the first time that the religious angle has been seen in the ongoing violence in Manipur.”

Within Manipur, nearly equal numbers of residents (41% each) practice Hinduism and Christianity. But while the Hindus are largely Meitei, the Kuki and other tribals make up the majority of the Christians.

In recent years, tensions over land have been exacerbated by the political influence of the Hindu nationalist organizations Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which have sought to promote their ideology in northeast India and have used the Meitei community to advance their political agenda in the state, Christian leaders from Manipur say.

The conflict is “two sides of the same coin—religious motivation on one side and political motivation on the other, both intersecting at this point [where it has resulted in large scale violence],” Kamzamang said.

To him and other Kuki leaders, the Hindu Meitei mobs’ religious motivation became evident when their violence also included burning down Meitei churches and attacking Meitei Christians.

Walter Fernandez, who leads the North Eastern Social Research Centre in neighboring state of Assam, believes that the attacks were preplanned.

“The conflict [about land and tribal status] has been there for many years,” Fernandez said. “There was a major blockade in 2010, then major conflict in 2015, again in 2018. For the first time, religious places have been attacked, and this time it is systematic by organized paid gangs who were carrying lists of religious places.”

The point of no return

The majority of those fleeing Manipur have sought refuge in the neighboring state of Mizoram. Only a handful have made the 1,500-mile trip to Delhi. Currently about 70 of the displaced are staying in EFI’s relief center, a group that includes breastfeeding babies, their parents, college students, and the elderly.

Few say they see a future for themselves in Manipur.

Paojamang Haokip was two months away from graduating with an engineering degree.

“The violence has shattered us. We find ourselves somewhere unknown. … We don’t know where we can head to,” he said. “The situation is far from getting normalized. We will not go back.”

Back in Manipur, tensions have not dissipated and violent incidents have continued, even in the lead-up to a visit this week from India’s home minister, Amit Shah.

Last week, the army used tear gas on a mob after it set multiple abandoned homes on fire in a Kuki neighborhood in the capital city of Imphal. The government responded to the incident by instituting a curfew and suspending internet service in the area.

But the latest violence also included Kukis, who were furious at their situation and have taken matters into their own hands.

A mother holding her child at the evening of worship at the Delhi Relief facility.

In the first 24 hours after violence broke out in Churachandpur, Kuki village volunteers did not retaliate, reported The Wire. Later, however, when they saw that the police force was not responding to the fires and physical violence, and they took up arms, inflicting causalities on the mobs and the police.

Starting on May 24, in less than a week, three different mobs, including one of mostly women, attacked the homes and, in some cases, possessions, of three BJP ministers based in Manipur.

In the 24 hours leading up to the Shah’s arrival on Tuesday, the Indian army came under heavy fire from armed groups, an attack that killed 10 people.

Following his visit, Shah tweeted that peace and prosperity of Manipur is the government’s “top priority” and that he had instructed the Indian army and the central government and state’s police to “strictly deal with any activities disturbing the peace.”

During his visit, the Times of India reported that the army had killed 33 “militants” and arrested 25 others. A state government statement from last week also claimed it had killed at least 40 people whom government officials have referred to as “terrorists.”

However, a Kuki spokesperson refuted this language.

“It’s confusing what the [the government official] means when he says ‘40 terrorists.’ The people killed were all village guard volunteers who were armed with licensed guns. There are no militants here,” he said.

As the number of causalities continues to rise, Fernandez places the death toll around 150. Meanwhile, the weekend’s violence displaced close to 2,500 people, with some victims alleging that security forces themselves had attacked them.

Given the situation, few of those who have fled feel confident returning.

“We have no security or even the assurance of it that we would not be targeted again. We cannot live our lives in fear every single day,” said one Manipuri father who asked not to be identified for security reasons. “Even if the Manipur government assures us at a later stage of things getting normalized, the government agencies will still stay mute spectators if we are attacked again. We are on our own.”

- More from Surinder Kaur

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A divided Manipur

The point of no return

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