Shiny Miserable Family: How Bill Gothard’s Ministry Missed the Sin Inside

The Duggar documentary shows how the fundamentalist movement got parenting and children wrong.

Bill Gothard and Jim Bob Duggar

Illustration by Christianity Today / Source Images: Unsplash

Families can be pernicious places for children.

Theologian Adrian Thatcher notes this in his book Theology and Families, which I read over a decade ago. Thatcher’s words were a steady refrain in my mind as I watched the new Amazon Prime docuseries Shiny Happy People.

American evangelicals have devoted an extraordinary amount of time, energy, and resources toward the goal of shoring up and strengthening the family. Yet such efforts have largely overlooked the painful truth that appears with chilling clarity in Shiny Happy People: that families can be pernicious places for children.

This claim might sound unnecessarily provocative. Isn’t the family God’s first created institution? Isn’t it the primary place God places children for their benefit? Isn’t it designed by God for the good of its members and broader society? Yes, yes, and yes. But there remains a distinction between “The Family” and “families.” Indeed, the gap between the family in theory and families in reality can be a yawning chasm—just ask the Duggar daughters.

In these and many other cases like it, abusers and their enablers are quick to see sin in young children and especially in the outside world, but not in themselves. It’s a malignant error.

One reason why families can be damaging places for children is because of their innate vulnerability. Due to their developmental immaturity and negligible socioeconomic power, kids are weak and wholly reliant on others to protect them and meet their needs.

Yet in my research on the lived theology of family in US evangelicalism, I found an alarming lack of awareness regarding childhood vulnerability. Among so-called quiverfull families, like those featured in Shiny Happy People, this lack is especially pronounced.

Foremost in the evangelical imagination is the notion that children are sinners. God says that children are blessings (Ps. 127:3–5), yes, but children are also sinners in need of restraint and correction. Hence, there is a plethora of evangelical how-to manuals on childhood discipline.

While there’s significant variety among such books, the most notorious is To Train Up a Child by Michael and Debi Pearl, which features in the docuseries. The Pearls’ manual endorses use of “the rod” to bring the child’s will into “complete subjection” from early on. Spanking begins with infants as young as six months old. (The Pearls’ teaching has been linked to multiple stories of children being abused to death, but the Pearls deny any responsibility for such cases.)

Children are born sinners because we all are (Rom. 3:23). We ought not romanticize children as blameless cherubs. Like all human beings, children are capable of selfishness and cruelty as well as selflessness and charity. It’s not either-or, but a mixture of both—like the rest of us.

At the same time, children are exceptionally vulnerable. By every possible metric, children are weaker, more helpless, and therefore more at risk for harm than adults. Growth and maturity changes that, but until they reach legal adulthood (and, for those with disabilities and other limitations, even beyond), children are quite literally at the mercy of their caregivers. The power parents have is enormous and the responsibility is weighty.

It comes as no surprise, then, that so many evangelical parents turned to Bill Gothard for help in the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s. In a time of massive social and cultural instability, such parents were overwhelmed by the enormity of the child-rearing task. In Gothard, they found a person with straightforward answers—which came, it seemed, directly from God. And that was the big selling point: certainty amid uncertainty; stability amid instability; assurance amid chaos.

The Institute for Basic Life Principles (IBLP), later followed by the Advanced Training Institute (ATI), offered a simple paradigm for the family with a guarantee: If you follow God’s family blueprint, as detailed by Gothard, then your children will grow up to be faithful Christians.

As Kate Shellnutt reported on Jinger Duggar Vuolo’s new book, it was the comfort and certainty offered by Gothard’s teachings that kept Vuolo loyal: “When you’re in that setting, you can just lean so heavily into it and be engrossed in it, ingrained in it, and think that’s what is best for everyone.”

The problem is that Gothard’s vision of family is not, in fact, God-ordained. Nor is it particularly good, at least not for women and children. As Scripture tells us, “No good tree bears bad fruit. … Each tree is recognized by its own fruit” (Luke 6:43–44).

Moreover, Gothard’s IBLP/ATI paradigm infused its followers with the erroneous assumption that the home is a kind of privileged, sinless space. As long as parents enforce the rules and children keep following those rules, then sin remains “out there” with the world’s disorder while “in here” we are safe.

Homeschooling blogger Amy Sloan decried this perspective in conversation with Shellnutt about Josh Duggar’s trial: The “popular, dangerous idea was widely accepted that homeschooling, following a certain set of rules/regulations, and withdrawing from the world would save and preserve our children and families. As homeschool hero after hero has fallen over the decades, as hidden evil after hidden evil has been brought to the light, that assumption has been proved false.”

The call, as they say, is coming from inside the house. Yes, children are sinners. But so are parents and caregivers. Sin is crouching at the door for all of us (Gen. 4:7). It lives in our bodies (Rom. 7:23). That is why the New Testament writers constantly exhort readers to put off the old self and put on the new (Eph. 4:22–24).

Parents have more life experience and wisdom that can help children as they mature. But those additional years of life also mean we have had far more opportunities to indulge in sinful desires and persist in harmful patterns. This should lead adult caregivers to approach the vulnerability and innocence of children with appropriate reverence and care.

Parents must always instruct and correct their children while seeing themselves as fellow sinners who are desperately in need of instruction and correction.

Family members regularly sin against each other. It’s the nature of family life. But when adults are thought to represent God and exercise unilateral authority and control, then what recourse do children have when they are sinned against repeatedly and grievously? And if their family is isolated from other neighbors and community institutions—if their home is imagined to be a sinless haven from a sinful world—then the domestic realm can become a dangerous place.

In recent decades, evangelicals have begun facing the truth of children’s vulnerability in our churches and tried to do something about it. Now it’s time to take similar action regarding the vulnerability of children in our own homes. Current and former homeschoolers have already begun such efforts, and they need additional support.

Shiny Happy People demonstrates the tragic reality that families can be pernicious places for children. Our preaching and teaching, organizing and advocacy, must name this truth and point God’s people toward faithful, Christ-honoring remedies.

Emily Hunter McGowin is associate professor of theology at Wheaton College. She is the author of Quivering Families, Christmas: The Season of Life and Light, and a forthcoming practical theology of families from InterVarsity Press.

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News

Wire Story

Southwestern Seminary Blames $140M Deficit on Overspending

Bob Smietana - Religion News Service

Over 20 years and two presidencies, the school went millions beyond its budget while enrollment continued to decline.

Southwestern Seminary

A new report from trustees at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, details two decades of fiscal mismanagement, including a $140 million operating deficit.

According to an overview of the seminary’s finances released Wednesday, Southwestern ran an average deficit of $6.67 million per year from 2002 to 2022. During that time, the number of full-time Southern Baptist students at the school dropped by two-thirds (67%) while expenses went up by a third (35%).

The decline of SBC students was significant—since the tuition for them is subsidized by the Southern Baptist Convention’s Cooperative Program, which helps fund the denomination’s six seminaries.

Overall, the school’s enrollment declined from the equivalent of 2,138 full-time students (including non-SBC students) in 2003 to 1,126 full-time in the fall of 2022, according to data from the Association of Theological Schools. (The ATC counts full-time equivalents using a different standard than Southern Baptist seminaries.)

As a result, the school also collected less tuition money from students.

To offset the deficit, the school spent from its reserves and took distributions from its endowment.

“The failure of SWBTS to navigate internal and external headwinds has resulted in a prolonged season of deficit spending that has depleted cash reserves,” according to the summary released by the trustees, who also released two decades of audits.

Much of the overspending occurred during the tenure of Paige Patterson, who was president of Southwestern from 2003 to 2018, when he was fired for allegedly mishandling sexual abuse.

The report, however, does not detail any of the spending patterns during Patterson’s tenure. Instead, the report included a few select details about former President Adam Greenway, who resigned in 2022, less than four years after taking office. Greenway cited enormous “reputational, legal, and financial” challenges the seminary was facing in his resignation letter but offered few details.

Wednesday’s report was a response to ongoing questions among trustees about Greenway’s tenure. Last fall the board of trustees appointed a task force to review spending by Greenway on personal expenses and on his seminary-owned home and office, after concerns were raised about spending during his tenure.

That led to a dispute among trustees that spilled into the Baptist media, with allegations of financial misconduct by current staff, causing the trustees to call a special meeting to address those allegations.

That meeting led the board to issue a statement saying allegations of misconduct by current staff were unwarranted and promising to release selected details of Greenway’s spending and the school’s past audits. The seminary found no misconduct on Greenway’s part but alleges he made questionable spending decisions.

“The task force concluded that Adam Greenway engaged in a pattern of spending that the task force believes did not reflect proper stewardship of seminary resources,” according to Tuesday’s statement. “This pattern of spending occurred without deference to financial controls and seminary financial policies.”

The seminary did not release the entire task force report and has no plans to do so, according to board chair Danny Roberts.

According to the report, more than $1.5 million was spent on the on-campus presidential home, including renovations and furnishings. That included an espresso machine costing more than $11,000, about $60,000 for Christmas decorations and more than $25,000 for artwork.

“These expenditures were made at a time when the seminary was making significant budget cuts, including the reduction of faculty personnel and positions,” according to the report.

The report also found that Greenway spent nearly $10,000 on first-class tickets to fly him and his family to last year’s SBC annual meeting and spent $920 on a Florida Gator head decoration. (Greenway is a fan of the Gators football team.)

Roberts said no budget was approved by the board for spending on the president’s office and the house.

“Although there were conversations with a few board leaders recognizing the need for some work to be done on the President’s home, expenditures on the President’s home and office were made at the discretion of the President,” Roberts said in a statement.

The seminary’s bylaws give the president full authority over the school’s finances. While the board did approve an annual budget, not all of the school’s spending was included in that budget. That has changed, the board chair told Religion News Service.

“The annual budget approved by trustees in recent years has not included a budget for capital expenditures,” Roberts said. “Under the new administration, trustees are now presented a capital expenditure budget, in addition to the annual operating budget, for their review and approval.”

The board chair also now reviews the expense reports of the president and other leaders at the seminary. Other guardrails have now been put in place, according to the board.

The report released Wednesday does not discuss the trustees’ role in overseeing the school’s finances over the past two decades or why the long-term pattern of deficit spending was allowed.

“The compilation and overview demonstrate that the financial challenges at Southwestern are longstanding,” the trustees said in their report. “Unfortunately, the trustees’ hopes of correction in this financial trajectory in the 2019 election of Greenway were not realized.”

Greenway told Religion News Service he has no plans to comment on the report at this time.

Once one of the nation’s largest and most prominent seminaries, Southwestern has experienced a series of challenges since Patterson’s departure, including a court battle over a foundation meant to support the school. Former staffers and Patterson supporters attempted to wrest control over that foundation. That attempt failed after Southwestern and Baylor University, which was also supported by the foundation, sued.

Patterson was also accused in the official SBC annual report from Southwestern of taking seminary property, including artwork and a confidential donor list. He was also accused of trying to divert donations from the seminary to his own ministry.

Patterson has denied any wrongdoing.

David Dockery, a longtime leader in Christian higher education, was named the school’s new president in April. He had been acting as interim. Longtime Baptist pastor and leader O. S. Hawkins was named the school’s chancellor.

“Although we must be candid to note that significant financial challenges remain, the new administration has made difficult decisions to reduce spending, including in overall staffing of the institution, while prioritizing the educational mission of the seminary,” the trustees said in a statement.

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News

After Online Debates, Southern Baptists Get Down to Business

Kate Shellnutt

Top issues at the annual meeting in New Orleans include Saddleback, female pastors, abuse reform, and entity finances.

The SBC gathered in Anaheim, California, in 2022.

Camille Grochowski / Baptist Press

Long before the 10,000-plus messengers show up in a massive conference hall each June, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) has already begun debating the issues at stake at its annual meeting.

Southern Baptists have come to expect the online back-and-forth in the weeks leading up to the gathering, with pastors and leaders taking sides, strategizing, and detailing arguments around the issues before the convention.

This year, as the denomination readies to meet in New Orleans June 11–14, the biggest disagreements aren’t over what they believe but what the SBC should do to uphold those convictions across 47,000 autonomous churches.

“There are serious disagreements, and we’re dealing with some very sophisticated and complex things in many ways … but the heart is really right,” said Jed Coppenger, a Tennessee pastor and the cofounder of a group called Baptist 21, on a recent podcast. “We got Bible-believing complementarian people who are disagreeing about bylaws and stuff like that, so it’s a tension, but don’t let it turn you off. The mission’s too important.”

The SBC will vote on whether to overturn a decision to disfellowship Saddleback Church (and one other congregation) for involving women as pastors and, in turn, will consider proposals around specifying appointing female pastors as grounds for removal from the convention.

Messengers will hear updates on the ongoing response to a 2022 investigation into the SBC’s handling of abuse, including the upcoming launch of a website database of abusive pastors. They’ll consider the financial state of the denomination’s entities, such as the Executive Committee (which handles SBC business outside the meeting) and its seminaries.

The discussions ahead of time—playing out on Twitter threads, blog posts, podcasts, and interviews—can be helpful preparation for a two-day business meeting where questions and answers are constrained by Robert’s Rules of Order. But some are disappointed with how the rhetoric can turn harsh and heated online in a way it might not face-to-face.

“As we draw closer to the SBC Annual meeting, please pray for our time together. There are the typical lines being drawn, strategies tweaked, politicking meetings, and gossip bombs being dropped,” tweeted Mike Keahbone, an Oklahoma pastor and Executive Committee trustee. “However, the best of who we are as Baptists are our churches and our messengers. … Despite our bickering and power struggles, you have been the constant.”

A buzzword that comes up throughout these debates is cooperation. Southern Baptist leaders see much of the business before them as directly related to how the SBC functions and defines itself.

Their arguments often appeal to SBC principles of wanting to maintain biblical and gospel fidelity at the center but also preserve the autonomy of local churches.

Unlike other denominations, the SBC is not hierarchical and doesn’t hold authority over member churches and their pastors. Instead, Southern Baptist churches affiliate by giving to the Cooperative Program (which goes toward SBC entities) and having a faith and practice that “closely identifies” with its statement of faith, the Baptist Faith & Message.

The language of “closely identifies” is one of the discussion points over how to address churches that violate the SBC’s stated position against female pastors. This year marks the first time that churches were expelled for that reason; two of the five churches deemed “no longer in friendly cooperation” for their women pastors back in February are appealing this month.

“Southern Baptists have been having an intramural debate about how to ensure that our complementarian convictions remain a firm part of our cooperative effort together,” wrote Denny Burk, biblical studies professor at Southern Seminary’s Boyce College.

“Thankfully, there seems to be broad agreement with what the Baptist Faith & Message says. … Nevertheless, there is still some disagreement about other measures that we might take to make sure our complementarian commitments are clear.”

Some Southern Baptists, like leaders with Baptist 21, are calling for more clarity around what it means to “closely identify” and which beliefs and practices churches are expected to align with.

https://twitter.com/pastorclint/status/1667157655335456773

Others, like those affiliated with the Conservative Baptist Network, want to see a constitutional amendment explicitly stating that member churches do not “affirm, appoint, or employ a woman as a pastor of any kind.”

That amendment, proposed by Virginia pastor Mike Law at the annual meeting in 2022, was referred to the Executive Committee at the time. In New Orleans, the EC will follow up and possibly offer the matter to the messengers for a vote.

He frames the biblical criteria for the pastorate as a missional concern, saying, “Keeping our Convention’s unity on this issue, and thus our unity in the authority, clarity, and sufficiency of Scripture, cultivates a healthy soil in which our seminarians, church planters, and missionaries grow.”

Saddleback founder Rick Warren has launched an online campaign ahead of the annual meeting, posting an open letter and videos that do not argue the complementarian stance but make a case that it isn’t “Baptist” to enforce the faith statement on the issue. He will have three minutes to present at the meeting.

“From the start, our unity has always been based on a common mission, not a common confession,” Warren wrote. “This is a vote to affirm the God-given freedom of every Baptist to interpret Scripture AS A BAPTIST—by saying NO to those who deny that freedom.”

The debates around polity have also affected the SBC’s abuse response. Its Abuse Reform Implementation Task Force has struggled to push forward the measures approved by the convention last year. Southern Baptists want protect churches from abuse but disagree over how much the convention can direct what happens on the local level.

The task force’s priority was to launch a website database of known abusers, so predatory pastors couldn’t sneak from church to church. It has spent the past year navigating the legal liabilities around hosting a list, especially one that extends beyond those who have confessed or been convicted, as well as addressing skepticism from some Southern Baptists.

A segment of SBC pastors objected to contracting with Guidepost Solutions to manage the site, since it is a secular company that supports LGBT rights, so the task force announced last month it had cut ties with them.

Though the idea of the site was approved at the last annual meeting, some remain concerned names of the wrongly accused could end up on it. The pace and scope of the project, which still relies on churches’ voluntary investigations and reporting, has fallen short of what survivors envisioned, said advocate Christa Brown, who characterized the response as “a proposal for ‘the bare minimum’ & then the doing of not even that.”

“It hasn’t been done before in a church setting, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing. But it has to be done right,” said Marshall Blalock, the chair of the task force and a pastor in South Carolina. “Am I disappointed in some of the time it’s taken? Yes. Am I discouraged? No. We are moving forward.”

The site will launch Tuesday with the names of abusers who have confessed, been convicted, or had a civil judgment (such as a lawsuit settlement) issued against them. The site will not yet list those uncovered through an independent investigation, as a legal team is continuing to decide how to vet those cases. The messengers will have a chance to vote that the task force’s work continue another year.

Leaders with the Conservative Baptist Network, many of whom say the abuse crisis in the SBC has been overblown, have raised concerns about the Executive Committee spending on last year’s Guidepost investigation, which auditors deemed “unsustainable” after a $6.7 million loss in net assets during the fiscal year.

Former Executive Committee chair and Conservative Baptist Network trustee Mike Stone bucked tradition to enter the race against the incumbent president Bart Barber after the Executive Committee meeting in February “showed me some deep concerns I have with some of the direction of our convention,” he told Baptist Press.

David Sons, chair of the Executive Committee, told CT that he sees the spending during the investigation year as an exception: “We’re beginning to see a steadying.”

Scott Colter, who belongs to the Conservative Baptist Network steering committee, named “widespread financial stewardship concerns currently facing SBC entities” as among the most significant pieces of business before the convention, along with the debates around the office of pastor and “preserving the sustainability of our cooperative mission efforts.”

“The SBC Annual Meeting is a meeting of tremendous consequence. The decisions that are made affect millions of dollars that Southern Baptists across the nation entrust to our entities, mission work across the country, and thousands of missionaries around the world,” said Colter, director of strategic initiatives at Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary and a former chief of staff at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Days before the annual meeting, trustees at Southwestern released reports of overspending dating back 20 years, running up a $140 million deficit.

The SBC will also consider several resolutions—statements to represent Baptist sentiments and positions on issues, rather than actions taken—which will be announced during the meeting itself. This year, the convention is also expected to vote on possibly moving up their release to allow more time to consider and discuss resolutions before the meeting. One possible resolution proposed opposes youth “gender transition” procedures.

On Monday, the EC meets for the first time since it voted down its former chair, Jared Wellman, as a presidential nominee. In New Orleans, EC trustees will regroup to start the search process over again and prepare for the business going before the messengers in the following days.

“The hopefulness that I have is everything feels very fraught leading up to it and then the messengers make the right decisions,” Sons said.

It’s that kind of attitude that makes cooperation among the country’s largest Protestant denomination seem doable despite the hangups. When they get together, Georgia pastor Brad Whitt predicted, “Those who swing at each other from their keyboards will smile, shake hands, and be way nicer to each other when they meet face-to-face in the hallways.”

- More from Kate Shellnutt

Theology

Finding Joy When the Fig Tree Does Not Bud

Tom Sugimura

The prophet Habakkuk counsels us to trust in God’s promises despite our circumstances.

Alexandre Chambon / Unsplash

President George Washington envisioned a nation in which every person would sit under his own vine and fig tree with no one to make them afraid (Mic. 4:4). He dreamed of a people blessed by safety, prosperity, peace, and virtue.

Yet all too often, we claim God’s gracious promises as rights instead of blessings. What happens when “the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines” (Hab. 3:17)? Can we still rejoice in the Lord and be joyful in God our Savior (v. 18)?

Even the church I’ve pastored for 12 years, a growing multiethnic congregation in Southern California, began with a death.

We were gifted a property and a handful of precious saints when another church in the Christian & Missionary Alliance denomination closed its doors. That church had boasted a rich heritage of discipleship and missions, but the fruit had fallen off their vine. Some of the congregants were angry to the point of fistfights. Others scribbled down pages of their complaints on a yellow legal pad. Many left and never returned.

They were mourning the loss of a church they had loved for decades and a future that no longer existed, even as we looked forward in anticipation to planting a new church. So during that season, I met with the remnant in their homes and listened to their stories.

We prayed and waited and grieved together beneath that barren fig tree. And by the time we replanted the church, they were some of our strongest supporters. They realized how the death of one church could lead to bountiful harvest in another (John 12:24).

The Book of Habakkuk speaks into our lives when we don’t feel God’s presence, when we don’t understand his ways, and when we don’t know if we can persevere. I’ve found it a helpful guide in counseling congregants through the most difficult seasons of their lives, times of hopelessness and fruitlessness.

In his wrestling with God, we observe the prophet Habakkuk turn from despair in Judah’s circumstances to joyful contentment. As he declared, “Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the field produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior” (Hab. 3:17–18).

‘How long, Lord, must I call for help?’

While preaching a sermon series on Habakkuk in 2012, I received a call from a young man in my congregation late one night. “Pastor, I’m thinking about suicide,” he whispered. So I urged him, “Let’s talk. What’s going on?”

He shared how his mother abandoned him and how he feared that God felt absent. I asked what he had been learning from Habakkuk, and we let the prophet, who lived in Judah 600 years before the time of Christ, speak into his situation more than 2,500 years later. We talked for hours into the night, then months into the future, bringing his sorrows to God’s timeless Word.

In Habakkuk’s day, God’s chosen people had become wicked and corrupt. The wealthy in Judah were oppressing the poor, and the rulers had led the people in idolatry. They had abandoned God, and it seemed like God had abandoned them.

So the prophet bellowed in his pain, “How long, Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, ‘Violence!’ but you do not save?” (1:2)

We too can feel such anguish as a loved one suffers from chronic illness, when a prodigal child leaves the faith, or the unpaid bills keep piling up. Amid life’s tumult, our lament feels unendurably long.

Beneath these unmet expectations, we can also blame the Lord for leaving us. The young man I counseled at times came to me angry about his circumstances, at times anxious about his future. Like the prophet, we don’t understand what God is doing or why he makes us suffer.

Trusting God when we don’t understand

In Habakkuk’s case, the Lord responded to his pleas by showing him what he had prepared, something “that you would not believe, even if you were told” (1:5). He was raising up the pagan nation of Babylon to punish the wicked in Judah by conquering God’s people.

When Habakkuk lamented a second time several verses later, he was more troubled by God’s actions than by his previous inaction. Instead of revival yesterday, God promised wrath tomorrow. Instead of salvation, God would send a slaughter. How could the sovereign God appear to lose control, the personal God seem so aloof, and the eternal God be as dead to his people?

These questions echoed in the mind of my young friend as well. He felt that the God revealed in Scripture seemed set against him. How could a good and loving God allow him to experience such pain? Why did it seem that his oppressors were the only ones who prospered?

Together, we watched Habakkuk wait atop those city walls for the Lord to calm his raging emotions (2:1–3). The prophet resolved to trust the Scriptures instead of circumstances and to let his questions lead him to the God who always answers. Even though he couldn’t comprehend God’s actions, he knew the God who acted. So, like a sentry, the prophet looked out beyond his watchtower—not for the approaching Babylonians, but for God’s fulfillment of his earlier promises: You are chosen. You are loved. You are set apart for redemption.

Every time my young friend came with questions, we dwelt not on his circumstances but on God’s unchanging attributes. Eternal. Personal. Faithful. Sovereign. Merciful. Holy. Transcendent. Trustworthy. We meditated one by one upon those truths until we had stored them in our hearts. Together, we sought to trust that God’s ways are higher than our ways and his thoughts higher than our thoughts (Isa. 55:8–9).

Sometimes, the Lord may curse our fig tree for purposes we do not know (Mark 11:12–25) or take away our shade to expose a sickly heart (Jonah 4). Once for all time, God even sent his Son to die upon a cross for sinners. That happened to the only one who was ever truly good, so that God’s Word would accomplish his sovereign purpose and bring forth the vine of which we are the branches (John 15).

‘I stand in awe of your deeds, Lord’

God responded to the waiting Habakkuk with a song of taunt for Judah’s enemies. Five times God sang judgment over Babylon with a startling “Woe!” (Hab. 2:6–20). Five times, he condemned their idolatry and promised destruction. God’s justice would prevail, even though Babylon seemed triumphant in the moment.

Thus, Habakkuk’s word to God becomes God’s Word for us: “Lord, I have heard of your fame; I stand in awe of your deeds, Lord. Repeat them in our day, in our time make them known; in wrath remember mercy” (3:2).

We too can remember God’s faithfulness as recorded in his Word: his mercy in judgment, his glory in victory, and his miraculous wonder-working power. God’s salvation throughout history guarantees his present help. The God who rescued Israel from Egyptian slavery by carving a path across the Red Sea can deliver us also from our dead ends.

As a pastor, I have wept with men and women whose spouses have left them and with friends who’ve been given just weeks to live. Yet even in those Red Sea moments, we trust our God to do the impossible. Sometimes the fig tree only blossoms in eternal glory, but at other times new life pokes out from once-dead branches in this life.

That young man who wanted to take his life now counsels other men through Scripture. Many of those once-broken marriages now exalt our Lord as Christ. For the very same God who came in power at the exodus would one day come “to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10).

The power of remembrance

Habakkuk concluded his lament with praise to God even though nothing about his circumstances had changed. His city would still be conquered by the Babylonians. The fig tree and vine remained barren. There would be no food or livestock as all of God’s curses for their disobedience overtook them (Deut. 28:15–68). Yet still, the prophet clung to the covenant blessings that would come if they obeyed the voice of the Lord their God. Even if Yahweh should unleash every curse at once, he still promised to stay faithful in the storm.

For “from the barren stump of Jesse, from his roots a Branch will bear fruit” (Isa. 11:1). The end was not the end, but rather the beginning. Many years after Judah’s exile to Babylon, a child would be born in Bethlehem. They would call him Jesus, for he would save his people from their sins. This Messiah, this Christ child, this Savior of the world would bear his Father’s wrath upon the cross. In mercy, God would place our sin on his beloved Son and place Christ’s righteousness on us (2 Cor. 5:21).

The what-ifs that pester our minds are the anthem of our anxiety, causing our fears to spiral in despair. Yet faith in God enables us to replace those thoughts with “even-thoughs.” For if God was faithful in past tragedies, then surely he will carry us today. Even though we do not get promoted—even though there’s still no ring upon our finger—even though we can’t bear children—even though the doctor said cancer—we can claim with the prophet Habakkuk, “Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior” (Hab. 3:18).

The last line of the book reveals that Habakkuk recorded this word from God for corporate worship. The faith-filled praise was not just spoken from the prophet’s lips, but from the entire congregation of God’s children throughout history.

It was also raised from the lips of those precious saints who laid their dying church to rest and continued with us as we replanted a new church. From day one, they rejoiced with us in worship, supported God’s work financially and in prayer, and taught the children of the young families God brought into our fellowship.

Together, we have supported or planted new churches every year of our existence as we celebrate the God who specializes in resurrection. Since then, many of those saints have also continued on to glory, where the fig tree never fails and where they will drink the fruit of the vine for all eternity (Matt. 26:29). Their song of praise in times of barrenness has produced a joyful harvest.

Tom Sugimura is a church planting mentor, counselor, and pastor of New Life Church in Woodland Hills, California. He is the author of Habakkuk: God’s Answers to Life’s Most Difficult Questions.

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Church Life

Pastors: Lead Not Your Church into Fear of AI

A. Trevor Sutton

We can use generative apps for ministry and make our congregations aware of its dangers.

Illustration by Mallory Rentsch / Source Images: Getty

As a pastor, most of my emails deal with the usual ministry matters: schedules for Bible study, comments about worship services, or misplaced Tupperware at a recent potluck. But lately, I’ve had several church leaders asking me questions about artificial intelligence (AI).

Some have requested resources on how to leverage its capabilities and avoid its dangers. Others have asked me for advice on how they can help their congregations avoid AI scams, like automated voice clones of their pastors calling to solicit money.

As an author of Redeeming Technology: A Christian Approach to Healthy Digital Habits, a PhD candidate in digital ecclesiology, and a pastor, I think often about emerging technologies and the church.

My Lutheran church tradition is not known for being particularly futuristic or technological—we once looked askance at lightning rods as an impediment to divine providence. But it’s not only Lutherans who are suddenly curious about AI. It seems like everyone is interested in AI today, including many who are worried about its dangers.

Geoffrey Hinton, known as the “godfather” of AI, recently quit his post at Google based on concerns about the lack of policy surrounding it. The Supreme Court recently weighed in on a case about internet regulations of computer algorithms. And hundreds of scientists, tech experts, and industry leaders recently posted a statement warning that AI poses a grave risk to humanity, comparable to pandemics and nuclear war.

Evangelical leaders have also produced statements, and AI experts have weighed in on how it may impact the future of theology and biblical interpretation. As pastors, we can help our congregations think through the potential impact of generative AI, for good and for evil.

For years, various forms of simple AI have been used in ministry: Church workers use it for voice dictation when composing sermons, Bible studies, or emails. Staff use it with remote check cashing for tithes and offerings. And pastors use it when utilizing search engines such as Google or Bing for doing sermon preparation or research.

Previous iterations of machine-learning AI applications could search and learn massive datasets. But behind many recent headlines is a relatively new form of technology known as generative AI, which uses the same mechanisms to create original content—including text, images, videos, or audio. Consumer apps such as ChatGPT, Dall-E, and Murf are all popular generative AI applications, in addition to Bard, Google’s new AI integration.

It is not difficult to imagine how pastors and church leaders can use these tools for the work of daily ministry.

Google products like Docs and Gmail can now assist users with a variety of basic writing tasks. For instance, church staff can type in a few prompts about an open staff position, and the generative AI will create a job description that is nearly ready to post. And since many churches cannot afford to pay for custom graphic design work, image creation applications like Dall-E can help create a logo or supporting images for a sermon series.

The same goes for video. While it once took weeks and a substantial budget to create video content, generative AI platforms like Synthesia enable churches to create this content quickly and with minimal cost. For instance, staff can easily produce high-quality small group Bible study videos with voice-over audio and customized graphics.

Most of these programs help facilitate the ministry of the local church. But others can be more problematic.

Church staff can use AI chatbots to generate content for email correspondence with visitors or congregational newsletters—like a welcome note after someone attends a service and provides an email address. On the other hand, some congregants might be offended if a church leader uses generative AI to create personal messages, particularly if the messages are about sensitive matters.

Pastors or staff members can use ChatGPT to create sermon illustrations or entire sermons based on Bible verses that emphasize specific themes. But doing so can raise questions about plagiarism, authenticity, the creative process of sermon development, and even the nature of preaching itself. As Russell Moore said, “A chatbot can research. A chatbot can write. Perhaps a chatbot can even orate. But a chatbot can’t preach.”

There are also several potential scams church leaders should be aware of and warn their congregations about.

For example, a scammer can access audio content from livestream worship services or sermons posted online and upload the sample audio into a generative AI application (such as Murf, Speechify, or Resemble AI), which learns the tone, cadence, and inflection of a pastor’s voice. This is known as voice cloning. The scammer can then create audio that sounds like the pastor or church leader asking for money and use it to make calls to unsuspecting parishioners.

Some deeper concerns about generative AI are that it will cause massive problems through “deepfakes” or fabricated images and videos of public figures. Scammers out to harm church leaders could make them appear to say or do morally compromising things. Or the opposite problem is also possible—church leaders could engage in morally compromising activities and claim that the evidence is a fabrication.

Fears about massive workforce shifts prompted by generative AI are also emerging. Generative AI poses an existential crisis for fields such as journalism, graphic design, and even law—since AI apps can easily compose legal briefs and judicial rulings. Such occupations, which were once impervious to technology, could someday be replaced by AI. This may prompt anxiety among your parishioners about the future of their careers.

Thus, pastors and church leaders should avoid extremes when engaging with their communities on this topic. Publicly eschewing all forms of AI in the church is problematic, especially since many could already be using some form of this technology unwittingly.

Conversely, church leaders should avoid furtive uses of AI: If you’re unwilling to tell your church that something was composed using ChatGPT, then don’t use it. The best course of action is to foster a proactive and transparent conversation within your congregation about the ethical usage of generative AI.

Pastors can also offer their parishioners some historical context to address some of the contemporary concerns about this emerging technology.

New technology has always been a source of fear, and sometimes more so by Christians. In the 15th and 16th centuries, for example, the printing press was a culturally disruptive technology that many within the church initially feared and rejected—and yet it had an incredible impact on global Christianity. Some argue that Bible software apps of the digital age have had a similar influence on the way we read Scripture today.

I’m of the mind that the short-term panic surrounding generative AI (although not all AI) is overblown. But there will be many ethical implications to address in the long term.

According to media theorist Marshall McLuhan’s four laws of media, a balanced approach to any new technological medium involves considering four key questions: What human function will be enhanced by this technology? What could be made obsolete? What may be retrieved from the past? And if pushed to its limits, how might this new technology reverse previous progress? These four lenses can be helpful when thinking through the potential impact of generative AI as it relates to the church.

On the positive side, content creation done in service of the gospel—which Christians have been doing for generations—might be broadly enhanced by generative AI. Similarly, the church has a long history of relying on subject-matter experts and polymaths. And in some sense, AI retrieves this historical pattern by functioning as a savant in service to the church.

But composition and design work—something churches have also been doing for millennia—could be made obsolete by this new technology. And some fear that if pushed to its limits, AI has the potential to do all our thinking for us and thus reverse the progress of human knowledge, ultimately making the world and the church less human.

Either way, it won’t be long before generative AI technology is woven into the background of our church lives—which is why it’s important to learn how to engage with it wisely rather than try to avoid it altogether.

A. Trevor Sutton is a Lutheran pastor in Lansing, Michigan. His most recent books include Redeeming Technology: A Christian Approach to Healthy Digital Habits (coauthored with Dr. Brian Smith, MD, Concordia Publishing House, 2021).

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News

PCA’s 50th Anniversary Comes During a Season of Grief

Megan Fowler

Presbyterians expect less fight and more fatigue as they gather following the Covenant shooting and the deaths of Harry Reeder and Tim Keller.

2022 PCA General Assembly

Photo by Allison Shirreffs / Courtesy of PCA

In his first sermon since the death of his daughter and five others at The Covenant School in Nashville, Chad Scruggs, senior pastor of Covenant Presbyterian Church, referenced Isaiah 40 to describe how his family is coping: “We aren’t yet soaring on wings like eagles. We aren’t yet running without being weary. We’re simply trying to walk without fainting.”

His denomination, the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), is also grieving. The PCA planned its upcoming general assembly (GA) as a celebration of its 50th anniversary, but leading up to the event, the country’s largest evangelical Presbyterian body has suffered a string of losses, including the Nashville shooting and the deaths of two prominent pastors.

At the end of March, the Covenant attack shook the denomination—no other US Christian school had ever been targeted in such a deadly crime. “In the wake of the horrid loss experienced by our friends at the Covenant School, it is right and good and even Christ-like for disorientation and grief to feel stronger and more formidable than feelings of hope,” wrote PCA pastor and author Scott Sauls in the hours after the shooting.

Six weeks later, Sauls was placed on indefinite leave from his position as pastor of Christ Presbyterian Church in Nashville after the Nashville Presbytery received complaints that Sauls had created an unhealthy work environment. Sauls admitted to the allegations and is undergoing a restoration process set out by the presbytery.

Last month, Presbyterians were shocked to lose two nationally known pastors in a span of 24 hours. On May 18, Harry Reeder, senior pastor of Briarwood Presbyterian Church in Birmingham, was killed in a car accident. The following day, Tim Keller, of Redeemer Church in Manhattan, passed away after a three-year battle with pancreatic cancer.

Reeder and Keller were two of the most influential pastors in the denomination, having joined the PCA at its inception in 1973 and going on to lead two of its largest churches.

“The loss of two pastoral giants, fathers in our denomination, who disagreed on a lot but charitably so, should be a wake-up call to walk into [the general assembly] with the gravity it deserves,” said Brad Edwards, pastor of The Table Church in Lafayette, Colorado.

Though Keller and Reeder shared many theological convictions, they represented different camps within their denomination.

Reeder was a leader in the Gospel Reformation Network (GRN), a group of church leaders within the PCA concerned about theological drift for the denomination away from biblical faithfulness. The GRN questioned involvement in the Revoice conference on sexuality and engagement with critical race theory.

Keller tended to put cultural controversies in perspective by reminding everyone how conservative the PCA’s distinctives are.

“The thought of recent contentiousness continuing unabated feels vain and superfluous in light of what is arguably the end of an era for the PCA,” Edwards said. “I pray we don't squander the opportunity to appreciate their decades of denominational leadership, nor take the very real vacuum of their absence for granted.”

Bryan Chapell, the stated clerk of the PCA, has also called for a spirit of unity in the wake of the recent losses.

“The events of this spring should help us place our differences in proper perspective and proportion so that the priorities of the gospel temper our rhetoric, unite our church, and ignite our witness,” he said.

Like many denominational gatherings, the PCA general assembly is a mix of denominational business, seminars, and worship. The denomination’s seminaries and ministries hold luncheons, pastors network and connect with friends, and everyone dons their exhibit hall swag. Chapell will address the PCA’s grief in his report to the assembly, and the GRN luncheon is expected include a time to mourn Reeder’s passing, as he planned to attend prior to his sudden death.

In recent years the assembly has spent hours debating the denomination’s approach to pastors who are gay and celibate and whether to leave the National Association of Evangelicals. This year’s assembly will again debate overtures about what terms a pastor can use in describing same-sex attraction without disqualifying himself from ministry. The gathering will also consider clarifying its position on critical race theory and the roles of women in corporate worship.

Some pastors have expressed feeling “overture fatigue,” a weariness of endless legislation to amend the PCA’s Book of Church Order.

“The Nashville shooting is really the first event in recent months … that sets the tone for the atmosphere of GA this year,” said Jason Cornwell, a PCA pastor planting North Augusta Fellowship in South Carolina. “Couple this with the fact that I think we're dealing with some overture fatigue, and this likely won’t be as heated of an assembly as recent ones.”

A hymn sing planned as part of the 50th anniversary celebration will take on a more somber dimension given the tragedies of the spring. The event features alumni from Reformed University Fellowship, the PCA’s college ministry, whose chapter at Belmont University in the early 2000s led to the formation of Indelible Grace and helped launch the careers of songwriters like Sandra McCracken.

“It is sobering to have experienced the shooting, the deaths of Tim and Harry,” said Kevin Twit, RUF campus minister at Belmont, who is coordinating the hymn sing. “But actually the goal of Indelible Grace has always been to help us sing songs that are more honest about struggle and more explicit about the gospel.”

He told CT he has always chosen hymns that allow Christians to bring their full range of emotions before God. After a spring of sorrow, that might be what the denomination needs, leaders say—an opportunity to remember God’s faithfulness and look to the hope of the gospel to heal broken hearts and revive spirits for the next 50 years of ministry.

“Just as local congregations express their griefs and pain in worship, I envision the larger church doing the same,” said Robert Browning, chairman of the general assembly host committee in Memphis. “As Christians cry out to God in their prayers of lament and petition, we too will have similar times to express the same.”

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News

Died: Pat Robertson, Broadcast Pioneer Who Brought Christian TV to the Mainstream

Kate Shellnutt

With CBN, “The 700 Club,” Regent, the Christian Coalition, and a run for president, he changed evangelicals’ place in public life.

Pat Robertson / edits by Rick Szuecs

Across six decades in front of the camera, Pat Robertson brought his Pentecostal sensibilities and conservative politics into millions of living rooms as the pioneer of Christian television and the leader of the Christian Coalition.

The outspoken broadcaster died Thursday at age 93 in Virginia Beach, Virginia, home to his Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) and Regent University. Robertson signed off as host of CBN’s flagship program The 700 Club in 2021 at age 91, though he continued to appear on monthly Q&A segments.

During his TV career, the one-time Republican presidential candidate hopeful interviewed five US presidents and dozens of global leaders; prayed for millions of viewers; offered political predictions; and stirred controversy with his off-the-cuff commentary characterizing disasters like hurricanes, earthquakes, and the 9/11 attacks as God’s judgment.

Although his controversial remarks garnered a lot of attention in his later years, Robertson was also among the most influential evangelicals of the 20th century, with an entrepreneurial spirit and a willingness to do whatever he sensed was God’s will.

“Robertson has shaped three major religious developments: the charismatic renewal, Christian TV, and evangelical politics,” CT wrote in a 1996 profile of Robertson. “Together, these developments helped transform evangelicalism from a small, defended backwater to the leading force in American Christianity.”

Before CBN became the broadcasting powerhouse it is today—with a $300 million annual budget and a reach across 174 countries—it was a defunct Virginia television station and a call from God.

There was no successful model for Christian TV when Robertson bought a run-down facility in Portsmouth, Virginia, and launched WYAH-TV (named for Yahweh) in 1961. It aired three hours of programming each night from a single black-and-white camera. Those early years were exhausting, dizzying, and haphazard, but to the Pentecostal businessman, the station felt like a miracle.

CBN’s first telethon launched the “700 Club” in 1963, recruiting 700 viewers to pledge $10 a month to cover the station’s expenses; the show that took its name came three years later.

Robertson kept the station growing with more fundraising, more talent—evangelists Jim and Tammy Bakker joined in ‘65—and new technology. The Praise the Lord (PTL) Network and Trinity Broadcasting Network followed.

Robertson became among the first TV executives to invest in satellite, allowing CBN to broadcast its annual telethon across 18 cities and launch a 24-hour cable network by 1977. Within a decade, CBN was in 9 million homes.

As CT reported in 1982, “CBN began replacing pulpits and King James English with Johnny Carson-style sofas and soap-opera vernacular. Its anchor show, The 700 Club, assumed an upbeat, magazine format, complete with news spots from Washington, D.C. Other programs resemble familiar TV Guide lineups, with a top-quality soap opera, early morning news and chatter, a miniseries on pornography, Wall Street analyses, and entertainment for children.”

While Robertson comfortably made his home on the CBN set, talking prayer and politics with charismatic flair, he had become a different sort of person than he was growing up a Southern Baptist in Lexington, Virginia, restless and largely uninterested in evangelistic faith.

Robertson was born Marion Gordon Robertson in 1930 and was nicknamed “Pat” for how his brother would pat his chubby cheeks. His father, A. Willis Robertson, was a US senator, and Pat Robertson enjoyed an elite education at Washington and Lee University and Yale Law School. He served two years in the Korean War.

After failing the bar exam and quitting a business job in New York, he set out to become a minister, a decision that confused his devout mother back home in Virginia. She connected him with a Dutch missionary named Cornelius Vanderbreggen. Robertson went to dinner with Vanderbreggen in Philadelphia and cringed when he shared a gospel tract with their waiter and read the Bible at the table.

But secretly, Robertson had been studying Scripture and began to sense God speaking to him through it. He made a confession of faith to Vanderbreggen that he later saw as his own conversion “from swinger to saint.” In that moment, he said, he transitioned from religious assent to the existence of God to a saving relationship with his heavenly Father.

He surprised his wife, Dede, with his convert’s zeal—he poured their expensive scotch down the drain; left her pregnant with their second child while he attended a month-long InterVarsity conference; and eventually sold their furniture and moved their family of five into one and a half rooms in a shared apartment in Brooklyn, inspired by Luke 12:33’s command to “sell your possessions and give to the poor.” His first job in ministry was at Bayside Community Church on Long Island.

In his late 20s, Robertson attended Biblical Seminary in Manhattan, joining a group of devoted believers who prayed, fasted, and dedicated themselves to seeking God while ministering among the poor. He went on prayer retreats with classmates who included Eugene Peterson. Robertson and the “Christian Soldiers” preached on street corners when Billy Graham came to the city in 1957. They met with Guideposts editor Ruth Stafford Peale and prayed in tongues for revival, inspiring two seminal books from the charismatic renewal, They Speak with Other Tongues and The Cross and the Switchblade.

“I had now walked into the Book of Acts and was no longer a spectator but an active participant in the works of a miracle-making God,” Robertson said.

Robertson left New York for his Virginia hometown after graduating in 1959. In Lexington, he had the opportunity to preach 15-minute radio segments and learned of a TV station for sale five hours away in Portsmouth. When his family moved down, he didn’t even have a TV set, “just $70 and a vision of establishing the first Christian television network in the United States,” his biography reads. He preached at local churches to get by before the network got running; some would give him a $5 honorarium, and one paid him in a 70-pound bag of soybeans.

Many of Robertson’s ventures follow this pattern of him hearing a call from God and launching a project in response.

“I wanted to be part of God’s plan, and his plan is for world evangelization and to bring millions to the kingdom, and he’s let me be part of it,” Robertson said.

He said God spoke to him over lunch (half a cantaloupe and cottage cheese) to build a school for his glory, and in 1977 he bought 70 acres in Virginia Beach for CBN University, later Regent. Seventy-seven students enrolled in its first year.

The next year at Christmas, he said God spoke to him to “proclaim a simple message of salvation” as he would send his Spirit all over the world and millions would respond. He launched what would become CBN International. Today, 90 percent of the network’s viewers come from outside of the US.

Reading the promise of blessing in Isaiah 58 led him to found the humanitarian charity Operation Blessing in 1978; the ministry has gone on to aid people in 90 countries and territories.

And it was also with God’s call in mind that Robertson entered the political arena. He returned to the Bedford-Stuyvesant brownstone where he had once lived in New York to declare his presidential candidacy in 1987.

Even before his run, Christian viewers recognized Robertson’s interest in politics, some with excitement and some with caution. He’d joked that the Senate, where his father served decades as a conservative southern Democrat, would be a demotion, but the presidency would be a “lateral move” from his post at CBN.

Christianity Today wrote about the early buzz around Robertson’s presidential ambitions in ‘85:

He is intensely interested in educating Christians about public affairs and stirring their enthusiasm for political involvement. He believes America faces a crossroads where family values and faith in God could lose out to statism and hedonism. Running for President will not guarantee Robertson a term in the White House, but it will almost certainly mean that the presidential candidates in 1988 will not be able to dismiss moral issues that matter to Christians.

In the early ’80s, Robertson began dedicating the first half hour of The 700 Club to public affairs, having become increasingly concerned about secularism and threats to religious freedom, like restrictions on prayer in schools. He saw the show’s content shift as a response to government overreach. “It isn’t that we’re getting into politics,” he said. “They’re getting into religion.”

Robertson said he viewed the presidency as a way to continue his calling to serve. Despite a second-place finish in the early Iowa caucuses, he lost on Super Tuesday and dropped out, endorsing George H. W. Bush. After the race, he wrote in The Plan that he saw a deeper purpose in his failed White House run.

Could it be that the reason for my candidacy has been fulfilled in the activation of tens of thousands of evangelical Christians into government? For the first time in recent history, patriotic, pro-family Christians learned the simple techniques of effective party-organizing and successful campaigning. Their presence as an active force in American politics may result ultimately in at least one of America’s major political parties taking on a profoundly Christian outlook in its platforms and party structure.

He built on that momentum by launching the Christian Coalition, which rallied evangelical voters and distributed voting guides to churches starting in 1989. The following year, he also founded a “pro-family, pro-liberty, and pro-life” law firm, the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ).

Part of a larger Religious Right movement, the coalition saw that some conservative evangelicals agreed with its conservative positions but remained reticent to declare a Christian stance on issues that didn’t have a clear biblical mandate. It also fought for a decade with the federal government over its nonpartisan guides and eventually lost its tax-exempt status.

Robertson saw himself as an evangelical with a charismatic gift and ecumenical outlook, once saying, “As far as the majesty of worship, I’m an Episcopalian; as far as a belief in the sovereignty of God, I’m Presbyterian; in terms of holiness, I’m a Methodist … in terms of the priesthood of believers and baptism, I’m a Baptist; in terms of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, I’m a Pentecostal, so I’m a little bit of all of them.”

Fellow Christians frequently challenged (or rolled their eyes at) some of the declarations Robertson made on air over the years, as he commented on current events and answered viewers’ questions. He called for the US to assassinate Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. He defended divorcing a wife with Alzheimer’s. He predicted Donald Trump’s victory and didn’t accept Trump’s 2020 defeat until a week after Joe Biden was declared the winner.

“Pat Robertson was part of a tradition of Christian evangelicals who had a shrewd sense of media as a tool for reaching audiences,” said Michael Longinow, professor of digital journalism and media at Biola University. “His tendency to bring off-the-cuff statements that were incendiary also follows a tradition—albeit tragic—of Christian evangelicals who mingled the gospel with political perspective.”

Love or hate Robertson, his reach is hard to ignore. The 700 Club airs in 97 percent of TV markets in the US and is among the longest-running shows in history.

On his website, Robertson listed “starting companies/financial transactions” as one of his hobbies, and his success in that arena goes beyond CBN. He founded International Family Entertainment Inc., the parent company of the Family Channel, which was sold in 1997 for $1.9 billion. Balancing his financial success and call, Robertson said, “I realized God did not want me to be a billionaire investor. He wanted me as a humble servant who depended on Him and wanted to walk in His ways.”

Robertson’s wife of 67 years, Dede, died in 2022. He is survived by two sons, two daughters, 14 grandchildren, and 23 great-grandchildren. His son Gordon Robertson is CEO of CBN and the host and executive producer of The 700 Club.

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Theology

We Believe in the Power of the Gospel, Not the Gospel of Power

Russell Moore

The Duggar documentary reminds Christians that we are the generation not of Joshua but of Jesus.

The Duggar Family participates in a musical performance at the Values Voter Summit on September 17, 2010.

Brendan Hoffman / Stringer / Getty

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

The Amazon Prime docuseries Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets explores the reality-television homeschooling family and the system that shaped them—Bill Gothard’s Institute in Basic Life Principles—along with the fundamentalist mindset behind it.

Much of what it discusses felt nauseatingly familiar given all that we’ve seen in the last several years. One phrase, however, particularly struck me: the Joshua Generation.

Such was the language used by some sectors of the homeschooling and other movements to indicate the “long game” of training up those who could restore national greatness and steer the country back to a “Christian America.” And as Alex Harris, who was interviewed in the series, points out, some aspects of this idea became a reality.

There’s nothing wrong with preparing students for places of influence in politics (or medicine or business), but the Christian nationalism mixed up in much of the Joshua Generation rhetoric betrays a bigger question: the nature of real power. It seems the Joshua Generation came from a generation that did not know Joshua.

The language in the Book of Joshua alludes to the transition from Moses to his successor. Moses led the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt—and could see the Promised Land from a distance but didn’t enter it. On the other hand, Joshua led the people across the Jordan to defeat the Canaanites and take over the territory God had given them. The modern implications are clear: One generation of American Christians offers up a vision of a Christian America, and the next makes it happen.

Note that in this analogy, the Promised Land is the United States of America and Joshua is the present generation. It’s no coincidence that the “Christian” rally days prior to the January 6 attack on the United States were called the “Jericho March”—echoing the account in the Book of Joshua in which the walls of Jericho city collapsed when the Israelites shouted and blew their trumpets (Josh. 6). God said to Joshua, “See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands, along with its king and its fighting men” (v. 2).

In the Joshua Generation metaphor and other rhetorical tropes like it, the United States is overtaken by the enemies of God—enemies that must be routed to fulfill God’s promise.

In his introduction to the Trinity Forum booklet reprinting Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Who Stands Fast?, historian Charles Marsh notes that “American Christian institutions have spent vast resources seeking to raise up and nurture an army of elites to engage the culture wars.” And yet, Marsh contends, there is far more actual power—leading to an actual change of minds and conditions—to be found in the examples of wartime theologian Bonhoeffer (who was executed by the Nazis) and in civil rights figure Fannie Lou Hamer (a poor sharecropper in the Jim Crow–era Mississippi Delta).

Bonhoeffer was no withdrawing pietist. After all, his life’s mission culminated in opposing an authoritarian and murderous regime—and confronting the church that collaborated with it and granted it theological legitimacy. But he also was not the kind of “realist” who saw the possibility of a split between private virtue and public leadership, between the inner person and the outward fruits.

“We have been silent witnesses of evil deeds; we have been drenched by many storms; we have learnt the arts of equivocation and pretense; experience has made us suspicious of others and kept us from being truthful and open; intolerable conflicts have worn us down and even made us cynical,” Bonhoeffer wrote.

“Are we still of any use? What we shall need is not geniuses, or cynics, or misanthropes, or clever tacticians, but plain, honest, and straightforward men,” he continued. “Will our inward power of resistance be strong enough, and our honesty with ourselves remorseless enough, for us to find our way back to simplicity and straightforwardness?”

The series Shiny Happy People leaves us with yet one more example of how religion can be used for sexual predation on vulnerable people. The allegations there, some of which have been proven in court, are enraging and gut-wrenching. These cases demonstrate how power, which was said to be all about serving Jesus, was instead wielded for sadism. We are left wondering how people can rail against a decadent culture while using the words of Jesus to destroy lives—in actions so decadent even the secular culture would recoil.

A key subject of the series is Joshua Duggar, who was convicted of possessing child sex abuse materials—the descriptions of which were so awful I had to turn off the television to recover. This same man was once a spokesperson for a family values advocacy organization.

Suppose the Joshua Generation had worked out as planned and all our national institutions of power had Christians at the helm. Would that have effectively turned the culture around—now that we’ve seen some of these very leaders abuse power in Jesus’ name and commit the very same sins they denounce, and sometimes even worse? In some sectors of evangelical America, it seems the only disqualifying character flaw is the failure to hate the right people with the right amount of anger.

What is “power” of any kind if it comes with a loss of moral witness? Nothing.

In this era, Jesus calls his followers not to defeat enemies of flesh and blood but to fight “the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Eph. 6:12). And how do we do that? With the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony.

Gospel witness, which is a call to peace with God, and moral witness, which is a demonstration of a regenerated life and a faithful church, are where the greatest power lies.

The Land of Promise is not the United States of America but the “rest” that comes through Jesus (Heb. 4), whose name can be translated as “Joshua” in English. And just as Joshua spied out the Promised Land ahead of time, we’ve heard from a Pioneer behind the veil of eternity (Heb. 6:19–20)—the One who once was dead and is now alive.

True power is not placing interns on Capitol Hill or filling clerkships at the Supreme Court—especially not if what’s behind these efforts is a dead “Christianity” that trades the power of the gospel for the gospel of power.

A Jesus Generation—one that not only uses his name but also lives out his nature—is where the real power lies.

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

This article has been changed to remove an inaccurate detail about Bonhoeffer’s execution.

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Oklahoma Approves First Church-Run Charter School in US

Charles J. Russo - The Conversation

Supporters see it as win for religious freedom and school choice, while opponents are gearing up to challenge its constitutionality.

Jonathan Kirn / Getty Images

US courts have long wrestled with the extent to which government funding can be used at private religious schools. And on June 5, 2023, Oklahoma’s five-person Statewide Virtual Charter School Board pushed this much-debated question into new territory by approving plans for a religious charter school—the first in the nation.

Under the proposed charter, St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School plans to open in the fall of 2024 with up to 500 K-12 students from across the state. The school would be run by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa, but, like all charter schools, would be paid for with taxpayer dollars.

School choice advocates have won key cases at the Supreme Court in recent years, opening up more ways for public dollars to support faith-based education. A charter school—privately operated, but publicly funded—would be the most dramatic of these challenges to how the separation of church and state applies to education.

“The approval of any publicly funded religious school is contrary to Oklahoma law and not in the best interest of taxpayers,” Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond said in a statement after the Monday vote, warning that the board and state will likely face legal challenges.

The key question is not whether a charter would help or harm local education, but whether explicitly religious instruction at charter schools is constitutional, given the First Amendment’s protections against government establishment of religion. Moreover, Oklahoma law requires charter schools to be nonsectarian.

Recent trend

Advocates of expanding public funding to faith-based schools have been encouraged by three recent Supreme Court cases that upheld greater aid to their students.

All three of these cases relied on a legal idea I have written about called the “child benefit test.” Essentially, according to this concept, it is constitutional under some circumstances to provide public funds to students who attend faith-based private schools or their parents—but not directly to the schools, as would happen with Oklahoma’s charter school.

The first of these decisions, 2017’s Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia v. Comer, dealt with a private Christian preschool that was denied public grants to update its playground. School administrators sued, arguing that denying generally available funding constituted religious discrimination in violation of the First Amendment’s protections for freedom of religion. The high court agreed.

Three years later, Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue further opened up government aid to private religious school pupils, relying on Trinity Lutheran. A 5-4 court ruled that Montana’s tax credit program for parents sending their children to independent schools must apply even if those schools are faith-based.

In 2022, the court extended this perspective in a case from Maine, Carson v. Makin. Maine, with its low population density, pays parents in areas lacking their own public schools to either transport their children to nearby public schools or a secular private school. The Supreme Court found that this program should apply to parents without a local public school who wish to send their child to a religious school as well.

Rethinking church and state?

By expanding the boundaries of permissible aid, these three cases have boosted proponents’ hopes for even greater public funding for faith-based schools.

Yet, it is important to keep in mind what likely prompted these changes in the first place: new faces on the Supreme Court. A majority of today’s justices tend to favor an “accommodationists” interpretation of the First Amendment, meaning they largely reject the idea that it demands a “wall of separation” between church and state, so long as the government is not privileging one faith over another.

Nevertheless, the parameters of the “child benefit test” often used to justify greater public funding has been evolving for years. The concept—one that legal scholars use to describe the Supreme Court’s arguments, not a term the court has used itself—first emerged in a 1947 dispute from New Jersey, Everson v. Board of Education. In Everson, the court upheld a state statute that allowed local school boards to transport students to faith-based schools—mostly Roman Catholic ones—reasoning that the students, not the schools themselves, were the primary beneficiaries of state aid.

In another illustrative case, 2002’s Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, the Supreme Court allowed parents whose children attended Cleveland’s public school system, which was then failing state standards, to use public vouchers to attend faith-based schools instead. A majority of justices upheld the program’s constitutionality because, again, students were the primary beneficiaries, not the religious schools themselves.

Eyes on Oklahoma

Today, in what may be the largest expansion of the child benefit test, legislators in various states are considering laws to expand how parents can participate in public education fund programs even if their children attend private religious schools, such as by broadening voucher or tax-credit programs. However, the Oklahoma proposal was the first to consider establishing a charter school with religious instruction and standards.

Charters, which trace their origins to Minnesota in 1991, are publicly funded and part of local school districts, yet free from many regulations, such as standards about curricular content and teacher qualifications. The idea of faith-based charters has attracted proponents for more than 20 years, but they have had little success until Oklahoma’s—which may never materialize, given the potential legal challenges. Americans United for Separation of Church and State has already announced it will “take all possible legal action to fight this decision and defend the separation of church and state that’s promised in both the Oklahoma and US constitutions.”

Even the board that eventually approved St. Isidore, which is responsible for approving the state’s charter schools, was initially skeptical. On April 11, 2023, members unanimously voted to reject the original proposal. However, the board gave organizers 30 days to revise the proposal and try again. The second attempt in June succeeded in a 3-2 vote.

If other states authorize faith-based charters, the new schools will likely be a boon to their religious organizers by facilitating students’ ability to attend. Proponents of charters, whether traditional or faith-based, support them as part of the larger school choice movement that seeks to give parents in failing districts opportunities to move their children into better schools without paying private school tuition.

Faith-based charters are likely to raise headaches for their supporters, too. Because charters must still comply with some state standards, faith-based charters could be subject to greater government oversight about issues such as policies on LGBTQ+ students and staff—a longtime sticking point—or accepting students with disabilities. And it remains to be seen whether proponents of a Catholic charter school would be as supportive if a minority faith group proposed one.

While this legal battle is just heating up, I believe it has the potential to reshape public education as we have known it.

This article originally appeared on The Conversation.

- More from Charles J. Russo - The Conversation

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Wire Story

Most US Pastors Use Armed Congregants as Church Security

Aaron Earls - Lifeway Research

With shootings on the rise, more churches are dropping no-firearms policies and turning to gun-carriers in their flock, survey finds.

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Most churches have some type of security measures in place during worship services. Pastors point to intentional plans and armed church members more than other measures, but compared to three years ago, fewer say they have plans and more say they have gun-carrying congregants.

Numerous fatal shootings have occurred at churches in recent years. In March, an armed assailant killed six people at The Covenant School, a Christian school in Nashville, Tenn. Shootings have also occurred at other places of worship like Jewish synagogues and Sikh temples.

When asked about their protocols when they gather for worship, around 4 in 5 US Protestant pastors (81%) say their church has some type of security measure in place, according to a study from Lifeway Research. Still, more than 1 in 6 (17%) say they don’t use any of the seven potential measures included in the study, and 2 percent aren’t sure.

“Churches are not immune to violence, disputes, domestic disagreements, vandalism and burglary,” said Scott McConnell, executive director of Lifeway Research. “While loving one another is a core Christian teaching, churchgoers still sin, and non-churchgoers are invited and welcomed. So real security risks exist whether a congregation wants to acknowledge them or not.”

Security measures

In terms of security specifics, pastors are most likely to say their congregation has an intentional plan for an active shooter situation (57%). Additionally, most (54%) also say armed church members are part of the measures they have in place.

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Around a quarter (26%) use radio communication among security personnel, while 1 in 5 say they have a no firearms policy in the building where they meet (21%) or armed private security personnel on site (20%). Fewer have uniformed police officers on church grounds (5%) or metal detectors at entrances to screen for weapons (1%).

“Most churches are small, so security plans often don’t need to be elaborate or expensive,” McConnell said.

Around half of the fatal shootings in churches since 1999 have occurred in the South. Pastors in that region are the least likely to say they don’t use any of the security measures at their churches (12%).

Conversely, they are among the most likely to report their congregation has an intentional plan for an active shooter situation (64%), radio communication among security personnel (34%) and armed private security on site (26%). Additionally, Southern pastors are the most likely to say they have armed church members (65%) and uniformed police officers on site (9%).

More worshipers in attendance often leads to increased security measures. The larger the church, the more likely it is to have armed private security personnel on site and radio communication among security personnel.

Churches with 250 or more in attendance are the most likely to have armed church members (74%) and uniformed police officers on site (27%). Those large congregations are also among the most likely to have an intentional plan for an active shooter situation (74%).

Pastors at churches with worship attendance of fewer than 50 people (29%) are the most likely to say they aren’t using any of the methods of preparation considered in this study.

Mainline pastors (22%) are more likely than evangelical pastors (14%) not to use any of the seven potential ways of security preparation at their churches.

Denominationally, Lutheran (34%) and Presbyterian/Reformed pastors (30%) are at least twice as likely as pastors at non-denominational (14%), Restorationist movement (13%), Pentecostal (12%) or Baptist (8%) churches to say they don’t use any of the security measures.

African American pastors are three times more likely than white pastors to say they have uniformed police officers on site (12 percent v. 4%).

African American pastors are also more likely than white pastors to say part of their security measures includes radio communication among security personnel (37 percent v. 25%) and a no firearms policy in the building where they meet (34 percent v. 21%). Meanwhile, white pastors are more likely than African American pastors to say they have armed church members (56 percent v. 33%).

More guns, less planning

Compared to three years ago, pastors say they’re more likely to be relying on armed churchgoers and less likely to have a no firearms policy for their building. Fewer also say they have an intentional plan for an active shooter, compared to a 2019 Lifeway Research study.

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Previously, 45 percent of US Protestant pastors said armed church members were part of their congregation’s security measures. Now, more than half (54%) include that in their attempts to keep churchgoers safe. In 2019, 27 percent said they enforced a no firearms policy at their building. That has dropped to 21 percent now.

Churches are also less likely to rely on intentional planning to address potential security threats. In 2019, 62 percent said they had such a plan in place for an active shooting situation. Since then, the percentage of pastors who say that is the case at their church has fallen to 57 percent.

“While churches may have different convictions on how to maintain security, it is surprising that fewer churches have an intentional plan for an active shooter than did in 2019,” McConnell said. “As churches cut back on activities during COVID, this may have been one of the initiatives that did not resume for some churches.”

- More from Aaron Earls - Lifeway Research

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Recent trend

Rethinking church and state?

Eyes on Oklahoma

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Security measures

More guns, less planning

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