Christian Colleges Shouldn’t Operate Like Businesses

Doing so might help them survive an era of school closures, but at what cost to the mission they profess?

Illustration by Elizabeth Kaye / Source Images: Getty

Much media attention on higher education focuses on elite institutions, especially the topics of who gets admitted and what opinions students and faculty hold. Elite institutions shape the popular image of a college campus. They also hold disproportionately high endowments (just over 10 percent of America’s colleges and universities have 75 percent of the endowment assets).

But students are far likelier to attend schools outside that 10 percent, which rely on funding from tuition payments rather than ample endowments. These tuition-driven schools are struggling to survive, and institutions of Christian higher education almost always rely on tuition funds.

In Capitalizing on College: How Higher Education Went from Mission Driven to Margin Obsessed, Joshua Travis Brown explores the challenges and choices facing tuition-driven universities, through case studies of eight religious institutions. Brown, an education professor at Johns Hopkins University, chose religious institutions because they represent “the largest group of schools among the tuition-driven institutions,” they often serve underserved populations, and they “possess tenets about money that should seemingly offer leaders motivation to push back on extreme market practices that might undermine their educational mission.”

In sum, these schools are more likely than most to possess an animating mission that puts service above profit. At the same time, however, they are more likely than most to face financial pressure from the current higher-education marketplace.

Capitalizing on College analyzes the economic forces at play and various institutional reactions. Brown highlights decreased financial support for universities from the state, the allocation of government funding per student, and the ways that individual students, rather than communities, increasingly bear the costs of higher education. These changes coincide with a decline in the population of traditional college-aged students. There also happens to be a lot of animosity toward higher education right now.

Schools without large endowments find themselves pressed to increase enrollment, almost at any cost. As one administrator told Brown, “We have to grow, or we’re going to die.” This is the situation facing small Christian colleges across the country.

All eight universities featured in Capitalizing on College have responded to financial challenges with a coherent strategy. Each of these schools “rejected the status quo,” writes Brown, and turned to entrepreneurialism to “pursue nontraditional student enrollment growth.” To understand the various approaches, Brown spent two years conducting 150 interviews, visiting campuses, and doing archival research.

The eight institutions, which he refers to with pseudonyms, granted him extensive access, including confidential interviews with presidents, provosts, and faculty; information about recruiting and admissions; and campus tours. This book offers a strong balance of statistical and broader insights, and it benefits from the inside perspectives shared in interviews.

Capitalizing on College identifies four attempted strategies for surviving collegiate market competition. Some schools chose the “traditional” strategy, emulating the best practices of elite universities, with the goal of raising a university’s profile and increasing its endowment with philanthropy. Others adopted the “pioneer” strategy, showing a willingness to challenge tradition and pursue nontraditional students through multiple campuses. Colleges opting for the “network” strategy attempted many things at once, including new locations, programs, and methods of course delivery, all while emphasizing “the relentless addition” of online and other nontraditional students.

In Brown’s account, the traditional, pioneer, and network strategies all achieved some success. Ultimately, however, they failed to save schools from their financial woes or establish stronger endowments. Each strategy posed challenges to the universities’ missions and values. In the case of the network strategy, modified organizational structures also became a challenge.

In the end, only a fourth option—the “accelerated” strategy—proved successful in dramatically and consistently increasing enrollment and the endowment. Just one of the schools featured in Brown’s case studies pursued this strategy, which involved a rapid ramp-up in online education. In this case, revenue from online students became the school’s dominant funding source, with their ranks eventually outnumbering the residential students ten to one.

Yet the improved financial outlook came with considerable costs. The drastic shift toward online education compelled the university to operate more like a business than an educational institution driven by a distinct mission. The school even outsourced the design of its programs and courses. In some ways, then, the accelerated strategy represents survival, in other ways the opposite.

One problem facing all tuition-driven schools is the price of the traditional college experience. The physical architecture and in-person classes, the support staff, and the country club–style amenities are expensive. So is the technology a university requires. Schools have found that financial support may come from increasing tuition, admitting more students who will pay full tuition, seeking philanthropic gifts, and instituting online programs that cost less to run, among other avenues of revenue generation.

Such survival strategies might preserve the traditional college experience, at least temporarily. But they threaten a school’s mission. To keep traditional buildings, schools ultimately become nontraditional and operate like for-profit entities. They diversify their products. They hire companies to increase enrollment. They take on loans and issue bonds. The end result can be buildings funded by online students who will never use them, underqualified students saddled with debt, questionable admissions tactics, overworked faculty, weakened relationships with students, and university traditions swept away.

Brown shows, too, that when schools operate like for-profit organizations, they tend to compromise core aspects of their respective missions. For example, the universities that pursued greater prestige downplayed their commitments to serving the disadvantaged and meeting needs in their communities.

Growth itself was destabilizing in many schools. Admitting too many students puts a strain on faculty, staff, and facilities, making it difficult to deliver on promises of small class sizes and personal care. The imperative of constant expansion can devolve into a Sisyphean quest for mere survival. Outsourcing course and curriculum design and de-emphasizing professors can weaken the distinctiveness of Christian higher education.

In each university Brown studied, faculty and administrators experienced burnout and struggled to find purpose in their work. The employee testimonies in his book are often very moving in documenting the effects of institutional drift.

Without asking them explicitly, Capitalizing on College raises several questions: What, ultimately, is Christian higher education about? Do Christian colleges need to function differently from other colleges, financially and otherwise? Can a truly Christian education focus on professional training or outsourced curricula that do little to cultivate a Christian worldview? Like it or not, struggling schools are answering these questions in real time whenever they opt to cut humanities programs, rely on generic online courses, or resort to questionable enrollment tactics.

Does it have to be this way? In Capitalizing on College, as in so many other accounts of the current crisis in higher education, Brown emphasizes the role of neoliberalism—a term that functions, in academic circles, as a rough stand-in for market capitalism. The argument is not entirely unconvincing, but to reach and convince a broader audience, Brown could do more to define neoliberalism.

Capitalizing on College could also do more to reinforce the distinctions between neoliberalism and other challenges to higher education, including demographic uncertainty and administrative bloat. Although Brown addresses these topics, he could have explored them further. For example, administrative bloat often receives blame for the rising costs of college. Does that charge hold up, or is it more like blaming millennials for splurging on avocado toast (a real expense) rather than saving for a down payment (which might be out of reach for other reasons)? What about the on-campus amenities? Perhaps a pared-down university could be more sustainable.

Whether or not neoliberalism is chiefly to blame, the crisis facing tuition-driven institutions should matter to American Christians. Many people bemoan the drift of elite schools away from their religious roots, but these same people often make little effort to support schools that remain committed to religious distinctives. Bystanders seem to think that schools fail because they fall away from Christian commitments, but evidence suggests that the dangers confronting most tuition-driven schools are economic, not ideological.

The current economic climate threatens the entire ecosystem of Christian higher education. Left solely to market forces, more schools will close—and those that survive will likely drift from their missions in meaningful ways. The shakeup is already here. Will American Christians consciously and conscientiously help influence the outcome?

Prestigious secular institutions routinely receive very large financial gifts, which allow them to maintain endowments, offer reduced tuition, and produce the scholarship that defines academic fields. Those concerned about a Christian presence in those fields could consider funding scholars at Christian institutions, freeing them to produce serious scholarship rather than presiding over a half-dozen online courses. If you worry about the outsize influence of the Ivy League, think about supporting schools outside its orbit. Capitalizing on College does not offer many solutions to the crisis facing tuition-driven institutions, but that does not mean none exist.

Christian higher education has a long association with the ideals of serving the common good and living life for a higher purpose. Brown’s book helpfully illustrates why that connection might be fraying. For anyone interested in conversations around changes in higher education, the purpose of institutions, and the consequences of economic policies and competition, Capitalizing on College is a worthwhile read.

Elizabeth Stice is a professor of history at Palm Beach Atlantic University, where she serves as assistant director of the Frederick M. Supper Honors Program. She is the author of Empire Between the Lines: Imperial Culture in British and French Trench Newspapers of the Great War.

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How One Reader Found a Home At Christianity Today

“Christianity Today is evidence that there is good thinking within the Church regarding the Bible and how it intersects with our world.”

Morgan Lee

Anya Borodii

In February 2022, Christianity Today’s then-public theologian Russell Moore spoke about the intersection of faith and politics at Emily Barr’s church in Nashville. Emily was paying close attention. The political climate had left her feeling isolated from fellow believers and “dumbfounded” to see Christian leaders supporting politicians whose actions seemed to violate “the morals I was raised with as a Christian conservative.”

Russell’s words and wisdom resonated deeply with Emily.

“I remember thinking, Okay, there are other Christians out there experiencing what I am,” she said. “I’m not the only one seeing a disconnect.”

After hearing Russell speak, Emily began encountering his work on social media and found his podcast, The Russell Moore Show. She began reading Christianity Today more regularly, grateful for the publication’s coverage of domestic and global issues affecting the church. (Russell became Christianity Today’s editor in chief in August 2022.)

“It was a slow trickle, accessing all these resources,” she said. “But it started with the influence of Dr. Moore. His perspective helped me understand why I felt disconnected from my community, my tradition, and my politics—my previous politics.”

Emily grew up in a churchgoing family in rural Illinois. She remembers accepting Jesus personally at the age of 7, after her pastor presented a slideshow about a mission trip he had returned from. Her faith deepened from summer camp and Youth for Christ events before she attended Wheaton College, her father’s alma mater.

Before settling in Brentwood, Tennessee, Emily worked as a missionary art teacher in a Spanish-speaking community in Los Angeles, taught public-school art in the Chicago area, and then moved to Massachusetts to attend Harvard Graduate School of Education. She met her husband at a church in Cambridge, Massachusetts, as she trained teachers in Boston Public Schools.

Now a mother of two teenage girls, Emily has become a consistent Christianity Today reader. In the past year, she’s appreciated CT articles that resonate with different aspects of her everyday life, such as parenting, public education, caregiving for aging parents, and the influence of social media.

She also listens to CT’s podcast The Bulletin regularly, enjoying its faith-based commentary on current events. “I’m just so thankful that Christians are thinking and talking about stuff that matters and that’s immediately applicable to my daily life,” she said. “CT’s content helps me stay sane and hopeful right now in what seems like a hopelessly polarized country.”

Emily also appreciated CT’s recent podcast, The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, an investigative study of the Satanic Panic and how the ensuing hysteria diverted the Church from confronting abuse within its ranks. She drew parallels with the 1980s, 1990s, and the present, feeling both reassured and unsettled by the cyclical history.

“The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea definitely put me in a little tunnel,” she said. “I remember those days, that emphasis on outward, moral behavior, and how it backfired. I had a hard time getting out of my car and talking about what we’re going to have for dinner after listening to those episodes.”

Because of her Midwest roots, experience as a missionary, and career in mostly urban educational contexts, Emily values a conversation that includes the diverse perspectives of Christians around the world. She’s found more of that conversation in Christianity Today’s reporting on the global Church.

“We ought to be reminded that Christians look and act differently and have different traditions and backgrounds and ideas about how the world works best. And Jesus is enough to bind all of that together,” she said, noting that more than one-third of CT’s readership is from outside of the United States.

“The extent to which we let our own tribe or our own denomination or our own tiny little corner of the world dictate how we see God’s kingdom limits our ability to really listen to and love our neighbors.”

Emily grieves for the many in her generation who have stopped attending Church because they have grown weary of its politicization. CT has helped keep her from growing overly cynical.

“Christianity Today doesn’t align with a party,” she said. “They are critical from a theological perspective on things in society that are contrary to the Word of God, but they do it in a way that is accessible, with language that values compassion and different points of view.”

Emily believes that “loving and winning people to Christ” requires an openness toward them—a characteristic she believes Christianity Today embodies. “CT is thinking about almost every topic in a way that is fruitful and invites conversation,” she said. “It doesn’t shut down. It doesn’t shame other people. It’s like, ‘Come and talk about this with us.’”

Emily and Russell are both local to the Nashville area, and she recently ran into him at the grocery store.

“I was able to thank him personally for the way his work has encouraged me to ask hard questions, remain hopeful, and love others,” she said. “Christianity Today is evidence that there is good thinking within the Church regarding the Bible and how it intersects with our world. That makes me really happy.”

News

Ethiopia’s Urban-Renewal Project Raises Expectations for Rural Christians

Morgan Lee in Bishoftu, Ethiopia

A farmer and witch doctor turned pastor advocate for better roads and improved water access.

Top and bottom left: the road that links the TRI school and the village. Top right: A community church in Ethiopia.

Illustration by Christianity Today / Source Images: Courtesy of Three Roots International

Pastor at his local congregation. Evangelist to his neighborhood. Community board member. But first, Abebe Woldegiorgis was a witch doctor.

Woldegiorgis hails from the rural outskirts of Bishoftu, a city one hour southeast of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital, and grew up in his country’s historic Christian denomination, the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church. Though many residents followed this tradition, superstition and ritual still dictated aspects of their day-to-day lives. Woldegiorgis once helped enforce these practices, asking that people who brought goats or sheep to slaughter during the community’s annual festival receive blessings.

Woldegiorgis quit school after fifth grade and supported himself and later his wife and three children by helping with occult sacrifices, following directions of a man he calls “the prophet,” a witch doctor.

“I used to hate evangelical Christians,” said Woldegiorgis. “I tried to kill them.”

Woldegiorgis felt this rage personally at the wedding of the prophet’s son when he gifted the groom inexpensive perfume and the prophet lashed out at him. Wounded, Woldegiorgis got drunk. “You are the Devil,” he told the witch doctor. “I’m going to the Protestants.”

Woldegiorgis’s decision lost him his livelihood and the church community he had known since a priest baptized him as a baby. But it also gave him an overwhelming sense of peace, and he no longer fought his anxiety with alcohol and drugs. He persisted in his new faith, despite the dearth of evangelicals in the area and the requests of Orthodox priests that he not evangelize door-to-door in their communities.

This faith also connected him with Three Roots International (TRI), a ministry that helps locals to organize for community development. Woldegiorgis served on an association for parents and teachers and one for leaders from several villages known as the Community Development Committee (CDC).

Like his fellow leaders and neighbors, Woldegiorgis lives in a compound with multiple shelters. Residents construct homes and barns with tin roofs and wooden frames, filling the gaps with mud. Dozens of bunched-up, thorny acacia branches serve as fences.

Many villagers have painted the inside and outside of their homes. One leader’s living room features kelly-green walls, with gold tinsel snaking around picture frames. But nearly everyone lives without basic infrastructure, including electricity, plumbing, and reliable roads.

Woldegiorgis wants the government to address those needs. He sees this advocacy as tied to his faith, and quotes Nehemiah 2:17: “Jerusalem lies in ruins, and its gates have been burned with fire. Come, let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, and we will no longer be in disgrace.”

Bishoftu has been free of the violence that has devastated parts of the country in recent years, but the area struggles with persistent poverty. Last year, the government took a loan from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank but also devalued its currency, causing the birr to overnight lose 30 percent of its value compared to the US dollar.

Nevertheless, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has continued with his ambitious plans to elevate Ethiopia’s image, starting with the country’s capital. Wide sidewalks and protected bike lanes have replaced hundreds of homes and businesses. Tall, elegant streetlights line the road from the city’s airport. White Christmas lights gleam as they spiral around palm trees.

New regulations require buildings along main roads in Addis Ababa to turn on lights at night. The second phase of the corridor project, launched earlier this year, will add dozens of playgrounds, recreational spaces, parking garages, and electric vehicle charging stations.

The government has given Bishoftu similar treatment. In March, it announced plans to construct a new nearby airport. During a recent week, day laborers worked in trenches and operated heavy machinery for several miles along the city’s main roads, adding supports underneath them before pouring concrete.

The area’s crater lakes have made Debre Zeyit (as Bishoftu is also known) a regional tourist attraction, generating numerous roadside stands selling neon-colored swimsuits and plastic floaties.

But few villagers work in the local tourist economy. Instead, those who farm or raise cattle struggle. Inherited land subdivides over generations, leaving families with plots too small to sustain themselves. Those who don’t inherit land hope they can find work in Bishoftu as laborers.

The village isn’t far from the city—for those with options other than walking. Those who can afford Bajajs (what Ethiopians call tuk-tuks) hail them when they see them. But drivers usually can’t find enough customers to justify loitering in rural areas. During the rainy season, which starts in July, the flooded dirt roads are passable only in horse carts.

Woldegiorgis and other community leaders are nervous about the government’s larger aspirations. But they’ve seen the railroad and highway that cross through their region and do want authorities to pay more attention to rural infrastructure.

“People are being displaced,” said Woldegiorgis. “The project’s good impact is negated because people have lost homes.”

One of those will soon be Worku Aboye, 57, an Orthodox Christian who chairs the CDC. Aboye’s house sits where local leaders have committed to install an asphalt road. “These changes are bad for me but good for the next generation,” he said.

The government has sent him a letter saying it will compensate him with other land. Aboye prefers cash. He finished 11th grade before he began raising oxen and eventually made enough money to open a bank account, funds he used to rent a home in Bishoftu.

At age 25 he married his wife, Emebet, only 12, who gave birth to their first child at age 13. Emebet was still attending school and did not intend to marry young, but her brother didn’t believe she would ever marry if she didn’t marry Aboye, whose father was an Orthodox priest. Some said the family would be cursed if the wedding didn’t go through.

Though the couple has stayed married, Aboye said, “I would never advise anyone to do that.” The couple has six children. Their five oldest have left the farm life they grew up in for plumbing, fashion design, and engineering.

Three years ago, someone stole 45 radios from his youngest daughter’s school. Teachers had used the devices to continue classes during the COVID-19 pandemic. Angry about the crime, Aboye decided to join the CDC and now chairs the group of six men and six women (eight Orthodox and four evangelicals) who meet once a month to discuss challenges in their community.

The community nominates members to the CDC, but a government office must approve them. The CDC has no legislative authority but has effectively lobbied the local government to establish a main road in one village and install a bridge.

After trying for two years, Woldegiorgis helped villagers in another community with no well access convince the government to let them use a nearby tankard. The change is transformative: Some residents now have a water spigot on their own property.

Woldegiorgis, Aboye, and others now hope the government will improve a road linking the TRI school and the village. The rainy season batters the road, carving riverbeds in the dirt. When it erodes, it threatens the school’s perimeter and makes it nearly impossible to truck furniture, curriculum, or other provisions to the campus. School officials had to move the school’s gate after intense rain.

One recent Sunday night before the rainy season, a leader received word that the government would bring steel rollers at 6 a.m. Monday to smooth dirt and sand over the road. But the project abruptly came to a halt that morning when the government and a local union could not agree over who was covering the cost of the materials.

Aboye received a call later that week: Government leaders had miscommunicated about the compensation for the materials. Still, no one has come to finish the project more than a month later.

Seeing residents engaged in their community has heartened a 20-year bureaucrat who works closely with the CDC as a supervisor in Bishoftu’s bureau of education. (CT gave the official anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about his work.) One recent afternoon, he dropped by a local clinic, where the CDC tries to encourage more residents to use its labor-and-delivery and medical-testing services.

In a room with numerous charts hanging on the wall tracking vaccinations paid for by UNICEF or USAID, he reminisced about meeting with the CDC leaders last year to encourage their advocacy. He praised them for their vigilance in looking after their villages and school and having a “sense of ownership.”

The official is excited. He said expectations have gone up: “People everywhere are asking for their rights.” They want to know “how the government is using its resources” to provide electricity, roads, and infrastructure. He hopes people will see his efforts to support their work as an outgrowth of his belief: “The most important way to preach the gospel is through my work. … I want people to find faith in Christ through this.”

- More from Morgan Lee

Theology

One Holy, Universal, and Apostolic Church—Even Your Weird Denomination

Myles Werntz

It’s easy to focus on our differences from fellow Christians. But our unity by the Spirit is the deeper reality.

Illustration by Christianity Today / Source Images: Unsplash, Pexels

Even as a child, I had an interest in the divided church. Sunday mornings found my family in a United Methodist church, but on Sunday evenings my parents took me to a nearby charismatic church instead. We began the day with liturgy and the Eucharist and finished it, late into the night, speaking in tongues. And neither gathering seemed strange to me. The contrast nurtured an interest in and appreciation for how Christ’s church grows in 10,000 fields.

That curiosity stayed with me into adulthood, and since 2020 I’ve found myself in a similarly mixed position: I direct the Baptist Studies Center at one of the most well-known universities associated with the Churches of Christ (CoC).

I’d been teaching for a Baptist seminary in town, and when it was slated for closure, this new partnership struck me as opportune. For deep insiders to both traditions, however, the pairing seemed nearly impossible: The Churches of Christ and Baptists have enough in common to make them enemies.

Both are reforming Christian movements, and Alexander Campbell, a Churches of Christ forefather, once attended a Baptist church and called his newspaper the Christian Baptist. But that was long ago, and the denominations have long since diverged over musical worship (the CoC historically do not use instruments in church) and the nature of baptism.

This history of similarity haunts West Texas to this day. It’s not unusual, in many small towns, for the Baptist and Church of Christ congregations to be the only two churches around. Yet physical proximity has not diminished a sense of theological distance, and since I began this work, I’ve heard story after story of painful division: CoC parents forcing their daughters to break up with their Baptist suitors, Baptist churches mocking their a cappella compatriots across town.

As a Baptist newly ensconced in a Church of Christ school, I was shocked to realize how little the Baptist and CoC social networks in Abilene overlapped. I found myself at the intersection of two worlds—so distinct yet with so much in common. I determined I could proceed in one of two ways: begin with comparison, enumerating every difference, or begin with charity and ask what we share and why we share it.

Comparison and understanding of differences are not wrong, of course. But it seemed to me that if I wanted my position to be more than a pragmatic alliance—a marriage of convenience required in this time of widely declining seminary enrollment—then I must take the charitable road. I must commit (and help my students and colleagues and other fellow Christians commit) to a deliberate ecumenism that does not ignore theological disagreement but far more fundamentally attends to our shared confession of Jesus as Lord, a work which only the Holy Spirit makes possible.

Ours is not the only era interested in ecumenism; my most recent book, published today, details the ecumenical initiatives of the last century, from the wide-ranging World Council of Churches to innumerable lay initiatives and missions partnerships. The 20th century saw hardened institutional postures—which had historically divided Catholic from Orthodox and Protestants from other Protestants—gradually soften into dialogues that grew into new configurations altogether. We entered our faith’s third millennium with new denominational arrangements in Korea, India, the United States, and countries across Africa bringing together long-divided bodies.

That history does not mean our ecumenical future will be all roses. Just like those past efforts, it will involve disagreement and infighting. But we will see new successes too. Here in West Texas, Baptists and Churches of Christ may never agree in our theologies of baptism, but perhaps we can come to recognize the more important reality that both traditions exist as works of the Holy Spirit.

To confess that Jesus is Lord is only possible through the Spirit (1 Cor. 12:3). And that means that whatever our errors—for we can’t both be right about baptism—our unity in the Spirit is the deeper and more important reality.

Taking that fact as our starting point won’t resolve the divisions between churches. If the Holy Spirit works in and through church traditions in different places over time, then we should not be surprised to find varying records of theological and cultural development. We can’t expect the Coptic church in Egypt to look like the Roman Catholic Church any more than American evangelical congregations will be identical to Pentecostal churches in Argentina. We read the same Scriptures and confess the same Christ, but history creates deep craters and long memories.

There is a way of talking about “the work of the Spirit” that drifts off into thin air, referring to anything and everything positive that happens in the world. So let me be more specific. In some of the oldest confessions of the faith, the church is described in terms of four marks, four attributes that signify the work of the Holy Spirit in creating the church: It is one, holy, universal, and apostolic.

“One” refers to unity: There is only one body of Christ. It cannot be divided and should work to mend divisions. “Holy” means the church shares in God’s own holiness and is called to bear it into the world. “Universal,” also translated “catholic,” means that what a church fundamentally teaches is not its own peculiar teaching but core doctrine all churches share in common. And “apostolic” means that a church shares in the teaching and authority that belonged to the apostles.

In any church with these four marks, then, our question should not be whether the Spirit is working but how the Spirit is working in its midst. And we must listen for the answer charitably, asking God to help us see what he is doing in other parts of the body of Christ.

This presumption that the Spirit is in fact at work also invites us to ask the same question about our own traditions, to ask where we have frustrated the Spirit’s work. Two things can be true at once: that the Spirit gives all churches the same vocation of living into the Spirit’s call and that churches do not yet fully live out that calling to be one, holy, catholic, and apostolic. The Spirit’s unity is also the Spirit’s critique, calling us to look at what we have valued, but also at what we have downplayed or even denied.

Charitably encountering “strange” churches can only help us here, for very rarely are we the first to raise some question in our faith. More often, other Christians in other times, places, cultures, and traditions have already asked it and sought answers in new strategies of engaging with Scripture, missions, worship, structural authority, and more.

For instance, liturgical renewal—a concern for the church’s holiness among all the people—has appeared among Catholics, Methodists, Baptists, and Episcopalians. Debates over women’s ordination—a concern about who has apostolic authority—have appeared among the Orthodox, Catholics, Presbyterians, and beyond. A concern for the holiness of the body gave rise to medical missions in some corners of the world and charismatic healing ministries in others. The selfsame work of the Holy Spirit, across the 20th century, would yield new fruit in unexpected places.

We can’t undo the hard history of division among Christians by confessing the Spirit’s common work. Nor does that confession undo our theological and practical errors. But it gives us a different footing on which to ground the work of unity.

Just as the Jerusalem church could recognize the Corinthian church or the Galatian churches, so we can be curious and gracious toward fellow Christians in worlds very different from our own. We can ask how the Spirit is moving to mark the new church in old ways, albeit ways which are now still strange to our eyes.

Myles Werntz is the author of Contesting the Body of Christ: Ecclesiology’s Revolutionary Century. He writes at Taking Off and Landing and teaches at Abilene Christian University.

- More from Myles Werntz

News

Muslim Mob Attacks Christian Youth Retreat

Philip Situmorang

Recent incidents have led to debates over where Indonesian Christians can worship.

An aerial view of a village near Sukabumi where the attack on the villa occured.

Anadolu / Contributor / Getty

In late June, 36 Christian students gathered at a spacious white villa in Sukabumi in Indonesia’s West Java for a retreat organized by Indonesian Christian Youth Movement. Ranging from elementary to high school ages, they sang worship songs, listened to sermons, and played games.

Suddenly, on the afternoon of June 27, a mob of about 200 Muslims marched to the home shouting, “Destroy that house!” according to video clips posted on social media. Claiming that the group was unlawfully using the private residence as a religious worship site, they stormed the place, forcing the teachers and children out of the house. The mob damaged the home’s main gate, windows, gazebo, garden, and toilets, according to media reports. They also threw a motorbike into a nearby river.

Rita Muljartono, a leader at the retreat, noted that when the mob arrived, “we were all in shock, and we were trying to calm down and trying to keep the kids calm, and we went out of the room to get into the car.” She recalled in a video she posted on Instagram, “And it happened so fast that the kids couldn’t get their clothes, their bags, their equipment. We just herded them into the car.”

As they evacuated the premises, Muljartono noted all of their cars had been destroyed, as the mob had thrown rocks and broken their windows.

“This incident was really traumatizing for us and for the children in particular, as they experienced it firsthand,” she said in the video. She noted that even after the children returned home, they had trouble sleeping and have been afraid of loud noises.

After the homeowner’s younger brother filed a report on the vandalism, the police detained eight people involved in the destruction of the villa.

Christian groups as well as human rights organizations have decried the attack, noting that Indonesian law does not prohibit Christians from worshiping outside church property. Indonesia has the largest Muslim population of any country in the world, yet its government is secular and based on the principals of Pancasila: a political philosophy of monotheism, civilized humanity, national unity, deliberative democracy, and social justice.

Still, attacks on churches and Christian groups are increasing in Indonesia as government officials question whether to regulate non-church buildings serving as “prayer houses,” or places for Christians to offer prayers, praise, and worship. (The house used for the retreat would be considered a prayer house.)

“Worship like this does not have to be restricted, because it is an inherent right of religious individuals, a human right,” said Darwin Darmawan, general secretary of the Communion of Churches in Indonesia (Persekutuan Gereja-Gereja di Indonesia, PGI). “And in my opinion, as long as it does not interfere [with people around them], neighbors or the community should not prohibit it.”

Tangkil village head Ijang Sehabudin, said that the Sukabumi attack stemmed from information circulating among residents on the morning of the attack. A video stated that young people staying at the home of Maria Veronica Ninna were singing Christian worship songs.

Ijang said he and other local leaders went to the house, asking the retreat organizer to stop the gathering, but the group ignored the request. As they returned to their office to write a formal appeal letter, the mob had already started marching toward the house. “They felt that their environmental rights were being disturbed because this house is legally only a living place, not a place of worship,” Ijang told a local publication. He also said it wasn’t the first time Christians had worshiped in the house.

In a meeting between the homeowner’s brother, Yongki Dien, and local officials after the vandalism, Yongki denied the accusations by local residents that the house was a place of worship. Rather he said they used it for “just gathering and praying normally,” adding that he had coordinated the meetings with his neighbors.

Yongki agreed to stop holding religious activities at the home. The local government will compensate the family with $6,250 for the damages.

Recent years have seen an increase of religious freedom violations, according to reports from the Setara Institute. In 2024, the group recorded 402 violations—including church closures, vandalism, and mob attacks—compared to 329 the year before. West Java was the province with the highest number of violations in 2024 at 38, as Islamic right-wing groups have a strong influence in local politics.

Securing a building permit to construct church buildings in Indonesia is difficult, as a 2006 law requires churches to secure signatures of approval from 60 Christians and 90 people from another faith. Between then and 2015, more than 1,000 churches closed.

In late July, a group of Muslim men disrupted a Christian gathering and damaged the facilities of a prayer house belonging to Indonesian Faithful Christian Church’s Anugerah Padang congregation in West Sumatra. The attackers threw objects, injuring two children who were attending a service. Earlier that month, hundreds of Muslims in West Java protested the construction of a church building, claiming the church leaders had failed to communicate enough with the community about construction plans. In South Sulawesi, local officials denied a Catholic church a building permit after residents of the village voted against it. The church had waited 45 years for the permit.

The PGI, which represents 104 churches in the country, urged churches to continue worship and not to retaliate against the recent vandalism. Darmawan, the general secretary, said that any churches that gather for worship in buildings that aren’t legally church buildings should try to get the needed permits. Yet he also urged the government to facilitate and expedite the process for churches.

He also calls on congregations to “build good relationships with the surrounding community so that people realize the presence of the church is not a threat to their faith.”

Anis Hidayah, chair of the National Human Rights Commission, deplored the attack on worshipers in Sukabumi.

“This has actually harmed the right to freedom of religion and belief, which is a basic right that is not only regulated in the human rights law but also in the constitution and international conventions on civil and political rights,” Hidayah said.

Questions over permits for religious activities are not an excuse for residents to attack others, she added. She also encouraged different faith communities to engage in dialogue and understand the different styles of worship in other religions. For Muslims, corporate worship takes place in a mosque, which may make it more difficult for them to understand why Christians gather outside the church.

The head of the Indonesia’s Center for Religious Harmony, Muhammad Adib Abdushomad, argued that as a growing number of Christians use non-church buildings as prayer houses, the government needs to regulate them to prevent tensions in the community.

While prayer houses are “a religious expression guaranteed by the constitution,” their purpose as a place of worship “has an impact on the public space,” Abdushomad said in a statement. “So there is wisdom in its implementation and indeed this type of prayer house does not yet have formal procedures that can be used as a reference.”

Yet Christians view requiring permits for prayer houses as an overreach.

“The context in Indonesia: We have regulation that if you want to construct a place of worship, you have to get a permit with many requirements,” said Irma Simanjuntak, who attends an ethnic Batak church in North Sumatra’s Pematangsiantar. “But now the radical community also prohibits worship activity in retreat houses and in our houses.”

Rio Boelan, a member of the Protestant Church in Western Indonesia in Bali, noted that while it’s important to inform local officials if they are holding a retreat, “worship doesn’t require a permit because it’s a human right.”

Meanwhile, Muljartono, the teacher at the Sukabumi retreat, agreed.

“As Christians, we still have to worship,” she said in the video. “It can be anywhere, either at home or in church.”

- More from Philip Situmorang

Books

Review

How to Be Faithful When You’re Too Busy to Think

Kenna Hartian

Tara Sun’s new book is a practical and realistic call to Christ-centered faithfulness for women who are overbooked and overwhelmed.

Illustration by Mallory Rentsch Tlapek / Source Images: Getty, Unsplash

It was well past 1 a.m., and I was still frantically working on an article with a deadline just hours away. I was exhausted but couldn’t sleep yet. Between classes and work, I knew the article wouldn’t be in on time if I didn’t finish it immediately—but I was near tears as I remembered the editing I still had to do. To top it off, I wasn’t going to have time to read my Bible, and I felt enormously guilty about it. I couldn’t even look forward to going to bed, knowing I’d have to get up far too early and spend the next day working feverishly.

This late-night rush to finish homework happened far more times than I could count last semester. And it wasn’t that I was procrastinating. Between full-time classes, my internship at a local newspaper, attempts to have a social life, and work as a conservative speaker, writer, and podcast host, I barely had time to think, let alone get everything done.

Probably every woman has gone through a period of feeling that it’s impossible to keep up. Tara Sun knows this well. Sun is a mother, the host of the podcast Truth Talks with Tara, an influencer, a speaker, and the author of several books, most recently the aptly titled Overbooked and Overwhelmed: How to Keep Up with God When You’re Just Trying to Keep Up with Life. Using her own struggles with busyness and distraction, Sun shares what she’s learned about prioritizing faith and slowing down.

Sun’s central theme is that “Jesus is better.” In fact, she writes, “before we named this book Overbooked and Overwhelmed, I toyed with the idea of including ‘Jesus is better’ in the title. … This is the bedrock upon which this whole book stands.”

We are overwhelmed not only because we have a lot to do, Sun argues, but also because we’re distracted and focusing on the wrong things. We’ve filled every space in our lives with something—be it scrolling social media for a quick five minutes, watching TV while doing mundane tasks, or listening to podcasts while we travel—using up time we should be giving to Christ.

“The little choices we make each day, saying yes to either devotion or distraction, add up,” Sun says. “Our choices, like ignoring our Bible yet again and scrolling social media, may feel inconsequential in the moment, but those choices put down roots too, whether we realize it or not.”

To break this pattern, she explains, we need to examine ourselves and discern what we’re desiring above the Lord, because the things we value influence how we live. We naturally long for peace, comfort, security, and acceptance, but too often we’re seeking them from sources other than God. In the midst of our over-busy, fast-paced lives, the fundamental answer to our feelings of overwhelm is to prioritize Jesus over our calendars.

But practically, how do we do that when our lives feel like a never-ending whirlwind? Sun stresses the importance of building habits and taking the time to reflect on what God has done in our lives.

Each chapter ends with reflection questions women can use to examine our minds and hearts and reorient our lives to focus on Christ. I know from experience that taking time to journal through questions like this can be a more effective teaching tool than reading alone, and Sun does a good job highlighting and then dismantling lies readers may have come to believe about busyness and distraction. Her practical tips for reorienting life around Jesus are tips we can actually follow.

In a few places, however, Overbooked and Overwhelmed struck me as a bit wordy and redundant, as if Sun didn’t have quite enough substance for a project of this size. For instance, when Sun is explaining the importance of devotion to Christ, she says the same thing multiple times in different ways. Her conversational tone would feel natural in an Instagram caption but didn’t always translate well to print.

A more serious flaw was some of Sun’s scriptural exegesis. Though the bulk of Overbooked and Overwhelmed is biblically sound, Sun sometimes plays fast and loose when turning to Scripture to support minor points—points that could have stood on their own as simple Christian prudence or that could have been better supported with other parts of the Bible. In these spots, Sun would pull a lesson the story wasn’t meant to teach or use a verse to make a point that had nothing to do with what the passage was saying.

For example, Sun gives a quick recap of the story of David and Goliath from 1 Samuel 17, focusing on the part where Saul gives David his armor to try on. David “tried in vain to go,” verse 39 says, and could not, “for he had not tested them” (ESV throughout). Sun concludes this retelling by commenting that “David playing dress-up in Saul’s armor teaches us something profound: What fits for some may not fit for others.”

That’s not false, and it may even be reminiscent of Paul talking in 1 Corinthians 9 about becoming all things to all people so he can deliver the unchanging gospel. But it’s not the point of David and Goliath. The story is about David’s faith and his total reliance on God, rather than external things like Saul’s armor, to defeat the giant.

It’s also not scripturally inaccurate to recognize, as Sun does, that human limitations can be a good thing: “Limitations, if seen through the lens of Christ, are liberating. They push us towards God’s strength when we come to the end of ours. And they are license to give two of life’s most precious commodities—time and energy—to the things of God.”

But when Mark 10:14 says, “Let the children come to me,” Jesus is not talking about the beauty of limitations. He’s highlighting God’s love for children and saying we should come to Christ with a trusting, childlike faith.

It’s not necessarily wrong to draw this kind of subpoint from Scripture—but it’s certainly not strong argumentation. And it risks looking as if the Bible is being used in service to a predetermined point rather than serving as inspiration and authority.

Fortunately, most of Overbooked and Overwhelmed doesn’t follow that pattern. The book is helpful for women who feel that they can’t keep up with life, much less their faith. As someone who is constantly overbooked and overwhelmed (you thought that frantic writing session was just last semester? You should see my summer schedule!), I found Overbooked and Overwhelmed to be encouraging.

Sun was at her best in calling out situations we don’t normally think of as problematic in our day-to-day lives, such as constantly being distracted and surrounded by the noise of social media, overbooked calendars, and overwhelmed hearts:

If we’re being honest, a lot of us don’t see distraction as a detriment to our souls. We don’t see the problem. Don’t we deserve to enjoy what makes us feel happy and rested? Don’t we deserve a little relief and entertainment when we work hard or when life is hard? Is distraction really that soul deep? What if it’s just the norm in this thing we call the twenty-first century?

It might be the norm, but Sun makes a compelling case that it shouldn’t be. Even when we don’t think our distractions are a big deal—it’s just five minutes on Instagram—they add up and often, subtly but surely, reshape our lives for the worse.

That’s especially true when we allow ourselves to be distracted from spending time with Jesus. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying the things God has given us, Sun acknowledges, but we must not let them distract us from God as the source and center of our lives.

When my schedule is busy, I tend to reach for my phone or turn on a TV show during breaks because I just want to turn my brain off. Even when I get up in the morning, my first instinct is to scroll rather than read my Bible, because thinking itself can feel overwhelming. Overbooked and Overwhelmed reminded me anew that the fleeting comfort from numbing my brain will leave me empty and less mature in Christ.

“Netflix and Instagram may provide a hit of dopamine or a retreat from reality, and they definitely have their perks, but those perks are fleeting for our souls,” Sun writes. “A well that will always run out, a cistern too broken to hold anything of value. But how our souls really, truly, and deeply find satisfaction is through devoting ourselves to God.”

It’s easy to remember God works in us to sanctify us—and too easy to forget we have a responsibility as believers to make the right choices. Though God is working in our hearts, we still have a responsibility, Sun says, to “roll up our sleeves and participate in the work God starts and sustains in us.”

Practically, Sun advises, that may look like being more specific about the habit you want to form and layering it on top of something you’re already doing. Say you want to get some Bible reading in every morning, but you can’t seem to make time. Could you listen to Scripture while you’re making breakfast, commuting, or working out?

For women who desperately want to be closer to God but are so busy we can barely think, these practical ideas are a blessing. Sun provides realistic ways of keeping Christ the focus of our lives, including suggestions for reflection and creating goals. She explores the tendency to say yes too frequently and God’s ability to work through us—including our weaknesses and the times we have to say no. And she makes sense of our limitations, pointing out that Christ, though fully God, is fully human, and therefore had physical limitations too. Jesus, the Son of God, needed to spend time with his heavenly Father just as we do. He prioritized it where we too often do not.

It is vital to refocus our minds and hearts on the one who matters most, because our stress and responsibilities can only be handled through him. Even when our responsibilities are good, if we’re not focusing on Jesus, they can become burdens too heavy for us to bear.

“A wasted life happens,” Sun says, “when we let our forgetfulness of who God is and what we were made for allow us to live small and live forgetful of His goodness, His truth, and His commission.” I needed that reminder, and I know many women—and men—do as well.

Kenna Hartian is the Habecker fellow at Christianity Today.

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Culture

The Documentary That Devastated Me

Valerie Red-Horse Mohl

I’m a Native American and a Christian, and “Sugarcane” also moved me to prayer.

A statue of Mary and Baby Jesus looks over St. Joseph’s Mission, a former Indian residential school in British Columbia, in the documentary, Sugarcane.

Christopher LaMarca / Sugarcane Film LLC

A Native American–directed documentary, Sugarcane, made history earlier this year when it earned a nomination for an Academy Award.

Codirected by Julian Brave NoiseCat (Secwepemc Nation) and Emily Kassie, the film investigates the abuses against and disappearances of Indigenous children at Saint Joseph’s Mission Indian Residential School in British Columbia—and also delves into the traumatic legacy of the larger Native American Indian residential school system across Canada and the US. Highlighting stories from survivors and descendants, Sugarcane exposes for the first time a pattern of infanticide, the killing of babies who were fathered by priests and born to Indigenous girls.

Although it didn’t take home the Oscar, Sugarcane garnered critical acclaim, winning Best Documentary at the National Board of Review, US Documentary Directing Award at the Sundance Film Festival, and Best True Crime Documentary at the Critics’ Choice Awards. Since its 2024 debut, the movie has screened globally, sparking a grassroots movement to uncover the truth about hundreds of other schools.

From the mid to late 1800s until the 1970s, hundreds of thousands of Native children were forced to attend state-funded Christian schools in an attempt to “anglicize” and assimilate them into Canadian and American society. They were not allowed to speak their native languages or practice cultural traditions. Many were beaten and verbally abused, and thousands are believed to have died. Many young children perished because they attempted to escape, freezing in the harsh Canadian winter.

In Canada alone, a report by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission identified 3,200 children who died while attending residential schools. Canada’s institutions were very similar to facilities in the United States; between the two countries there were approximately 500 residential schools, often operated by Catholic and Protestant denominations.

As a documentary filmmaker myself, I appreciate the years of research that went into the making of Sugarcane. As a Christian—and Native American by heritage—I’m devastated by the shameful stories of violent sexual crimes and infanticide. It would be hideous if these crimes had been committed by hardened criminals. It’s all the more appalling that they were perpetrated by church leaders, entrusted to be child caretakers and preachers of the gospel.

The night after watching Sugarcane, I couldn’t sleep. I’d cringed, screamed, and wept through the movie, and now I couldn’t stop thinking about it. My father, who was Cherokee and born on Indian territory in Oklahoma, was forced to attend a boarding school as a very young child. Although I do not believe he was sexually abused, our family has certainly felt the effects and emotional scars of his traumatic experiences.

As I felt God calling me to react to Sugarcane, I prayed that the Native American community might understand that these actions were not of Jesus, and might believe that the Lord will judge the violent school officials. Indeed, one emphasis of Jesus’ ministry was his admonishment of church leaders for hypocritical behavior. He called them “whitewashed tombs,” beautiful on the outside but full of bones on the inside (Matt. 23:27–28). He chastised those who honored him with their lips while their hearts were far away (Mark 7:6–8). And he warned that if someone caused a child to stumble, it would be “better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea” (Matt. 18:6).

I continue to pray that the Native American community may understand the true nature of Jesus Christ: his love, his mercy, his support of children and others who are persecuted. Native Americans are in general a faithful people. According to recent surveys, around 6 in 10 identify as Christian believers. And yet one must wonder how much harm the horrors of these boarding schools did to the message of the gospel and trust in the church.

According to codirector Emily Kassie, Sugarcane is being screened post–award season for government officials, in classrooms, and in tribal community locations, including in New Zealand. I hope that through these screenings, Native communities can understand that beyond sin and hypocrisy there is healing and redemption at the hands of our Lord. Scripture promises ultimate judgement and victory from God (Rom. 12:19; 1 Cor. 5:10), and this gives me peace that I hope I can convey in my own life.

I also pray that as Christians we will remember that God created many peoples and cultures and that even though we are all one in Christ, we cannot ignore the differences between us. I encourage people of all backgrounds to celebrate Native American heritage and culture while also understanding tribes’ heartbreaking histories. Many tribal nations have museums and celebrations to which all are invited.

I recently led a Bible study based on the book B eyond Colorblind: Redeeming Our Ethnic Journey. Author Sarah Shin writes that “when we experience internal transformation in our ethnic journeys, God propels us outward in a reconciling witness to the world. Ethnic healing can demonstrate God’s power and goodness and bring good news to others.” My own ethnic-healing journey has been a story of two communities (Native American and Christian) intersecting and fusing to result in the inner contentment of my identity; of my mission; and of the deep, abiding love of Christ.

My prayer is that all of us can love the way Jesus loves us, with that love bringing healing and reconciliation to Native American communities and beyond.

Valerie Red-Horse Mohl (Cherokee) is a board member of Christianity Today, a finance professional, and an award-winning documentary filmmaker. She teaches part-time within Native American Studies at Stanford University.

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Theology

Put Down the Shofar

Brad East

Contributor

The early church earnestly considered the question of Gentile observance of Jewish law and customs. Their answer was a firm no.

Moses with the Tablets of the Ten Commandments by Rembrandt.

WikiMedia Commons / Edits by CT

One day a student approached me after class with an urgent question. The course was on the doctrine of the church, and we’d spent a few weeks on Abraham, Israel, and the law of Moses. Some years back, my student’s family left a mainstream congregation to found a house church which sought to be more like the Christian communities in the Book of Acts. Though Gentiles, they began observing Jewish customs and celebrating the festivals commanded by Moses, including Passover.

My student asked me earnestly, “Were we wrong?” This small church was trying to heed the admonition of James to “be doers of the word,” following “the perfect law, the law of liberty” (1:22–25, RSV throughout). And their logic was impeccable: The Torah (the Hebrew word for the law of Moses) is God’s Word for God’s people. Baptized Gentiles are members of God’s people; therefore, they ought to obey these commands.

The question is not a trivial one, nor is it obscure in American Christian life. You’re likely familiar with shofars blown in public, Seder meals for Passover, and circumcision for baby boys. But as common and well-intended as these may be, I want to explain why I told my student that, yes, his house church was wrong—or at least, misguided. The New Testament is not silent on the question of Gentile observance of the law of Moses. And its answer is a firm no.

The apostles are clear that Gentiles—that is, non-Jews, people who do not descend biologically from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—need not become Jewish to follow Christ. Indeed, Paul goes further, particularly in his letter to the Galatians, where a young church had been convinced that God required circumcision and law following for Gentile salvation. He writes there that if Gentiles are circumcised, “Christ will be of no advantage to you” (5:2–4). Any who say otherwise, he charges, are preaching “another gospel,” one that is “accursed” (1:7–9).

Yet for all that clarity, I understand why the question is perennial. It certainly mattered to the early church—arguably it prompted the first theological crisis the apostles faced, and every document of the New Testament bears the impression of this debate. The question could be phrased from two different perspectives. Jewish believers asked, On what basis may Gentiles join us? Once included, Gentile believers asked, On what basis is the Torah authoritative for us?

The question didn’t stand alone but drew together a host of others: the oneness and justice of God, the sacrifice of Christ, the authority of Scripture, the election of Abraham, the vocation of the Jews, the scope of salvation, the gift of the Spirit, the purpose of faith, and the efficacy of baptism. Given its implications, everything hung on getting the answer to this question right.

The New Testament is written more or less entirely from the first perspective. This presents a conundrum for a church that has long been majority Gentile: How should we interpret texts written by Jews to Gentiles joining a religiously and mostly ethnically Jewish movement? The questions they were answering are subtly different from the questions we face today.

Nevertheless, we should start with their debates. Very early the apostles realized that Gentiles were eager to join the faith. It took the intervention of the Spirit to help them see that this was God’s will (Acts 10:1–11:18; Gal. 2:11–21). But eventually they couldn’t deny that Gentiles were receiving faith, baptism, and the gift of the Holy Spirit. Christ himself was welcoming Gentiles into his family, the family of Abraham.

What does it mean to become a child of Abraham? For Jewish believers, the answer in Genesis 17 came from God in no uncertain terms: “This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your descendants after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised,” and any male not circumcised “has broken my covenant” (vv. 10–14). You couldn’t ask for a clearer command.

This is the biblical case pious Jewish believers brought forward for the apostles to consider. These believers were neither xenophobic nor racist, as they are sometimes labeled. They simply wanted Gentiles to join the family on the terms God had set. As they understood the Scriptures, that meant circumcision. And circumcision in turn stood for following the whole law, because it is the sign of the covenant and the doorway into all its obligations. On this, Paul agreed: “Every man who receives circumcision … is bound to keep the whole law” (Gal. 5:3).

It was hardly unreasonable for faithful Jewish Christians to suppose this long-standing command would remain the same for Gentile converts. After all, God’s command to Abraham even included circumcising foreigners joined to his house (Gen. 17:12–13)! So Jewish believers applied Scripture to the newfound situation of baptized Gentiles: “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved. … It is necessary to circumcise them, and to charge them to keep the law of Moses” (Acts 15:1, 5).

It seems to me that many believers today are like early Gentile Christians ready to go “all the way” as new members of Abraham’s household. This was the exact attitude that animated my student’s house church. They read the opening chapters of Acts and wanted to imitate the early church. A worthy impulse! But what they failed to do—and what I believe too many Gentile believers fail to do—is follow this thread of debate through the rest of the book.

The apostles approached the question of Gentiles and the law with the utmost seriousness. In Acts 15, we see them meet in Jerusalem with the church’s elders to consider the matter (v. 6). Peter bore witness to the work of the Spirit in Gentiles like the God-fearer Cornelius, whose story is recounted five chapters prior (vv. 7–11). Barnabas and Paul bore witness to the “signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles” (v. 12). And finally, James arose to deliver the verdict (vv. 13–21).

The council’s answer was unambiguous: No, Gentiles need not be circumcised to follow Jesus; no, Gentiles need not be law observant to join the church; no, salvation is not impossible apart from the Torah. The grace of God is sufficient for all, and faith in Christ is available to all.

As Paul would later write, “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise” (Gal. 3:27–29).

If James announced the ruling, Paul provided the reasons. Jesus is the Messiah of Israel. As the seed or descendant of Abraham, he is the one in whom all the promises of God are fulfilled (Gal. 3:14–18; 2 Cor. 1:20). The love of God comes to a head in him; grace and truth are flesh and blood in Mary’s son (John 1:17). To have Jesus, then, is to have everything: God as heavenly Father, Abraham as human father, and every promise God made to Abraham—blessing, family, election, covenant, inheritance, and posterity. In a word, life.

Take note that Peter, James, and Paul retain the background assumptions of the pro-Torah party in the Judean church. Redemption is not found apart from Abraham, or the covenant God established with him, or the people of God as a whole. As Jesus affirmed, “Salvation is from the Jews” (John 4:22).

Yet through Jesus, Gentiles are adopted as children of Abraham just as Jews and Gentiles alike are adopted as children of God (Rom 3:9–8:25; Gal. 3:6–5:1; Eph. 2:11–22). It was always God’s intention to bless the families of the earth (the Gentiles) through the one family of Abraham (the Jews). Christ “is our peace, who has made us both one,” reconciling Jews and Gentiles “to God in one body through the cross” so that “through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father” (Eph. 2:14, 16, 18).

In this sense, the pro-Torah party was right: Jesus is not a way to avoid either Abraham or his family. Jesus is a way—the way—to join them. He doesn’t “abolish the law and the prophets” but fulfills them (Matt 5:17–18). As Paul outlines in exacting detail in the Book of Romans, God is faithful simultaneously to Abraham, to his biological descendants, and to his adopted children.

Still, the apostles’ verdict at the Jerusalem council opens further questions for present-day interpretation. Neither circumcision nor Torah observance is a condition for receiving salvation in Christ—granted. But what then of Moses’ law? What is its status for faith, discipleship, and the church? How should Christians read it as the Word of the Lord to and for his people?

The place to start is where the New Testament is clearest: Gentiles are not meant to keep the law of Moses. They are not supposed to keep kosher, celebrate Jewish festivals, or circumcise their boys as a ritual sign of Torah observance. To do so is spiritually risky, suggesting—just as Paul warned the Galatians—that Christ alone is insufficient for salvation or implying that God is unable or unwilling to bring Gentiles into the fold as Gentiles.

This is the insecurity of the younger brother or, better said, the adopted sibling. Yet Paul reiterates time and again to Gentile Christians that Christ is enough. Torah observance is not the “next level” for spiritual maturity or devotion.

Confessing faith in Christ, we receive him in baptism, where his Spirit writes his law on our hearts, and we rise from the waters as children of God and Abraham both. Circumcision adds nothing to this, nor can anything else: “For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation” (Gal. 6:15). “Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a sabbath. These are only a shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ” (Col. 2:16–17).

To be sure, Gentile Christians who use shofars or host Seders do not claim God requires these things for salvation. Yet many believe that Torah observance, if not mandatory for Gentile Christians, is nonetheless spiritually wise and edifying. This strikes me as difficult to square with the plain teaching of Galatians about Gentiles and the law.

Others simply want to get in touch with the Jewish roots of Christian faith. At the risk of raining on a well-meaning parade, allow me to place a question mark next to this practice. Seder meals, for instance, are not an ancient ritual long extinct; living Jewish families hold them every year. Gentile Christians trying on a Jewish rite that their own faith doesn’t instruct them to observe may not be “another gospel.” But it is in danger of slipping into a kind of ethnoreligious cosplay.

It should go without saying that I do not mean that churches should not teach or learn about Passover, whether in Scripture or in contemporary Jewish practice, perhaps in friendship with Jewish neighbors. But Gentile Christians curious about Passover need to remember that they have a Passover meal of their own: the Lord’s Supper. This is the church’s memorial meal of the new covenant wrought by the blood of Christ. As Paul wrote to the Gentiles in Corinth, “Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us: Therefore let us keep the feast” (1 Cor 5:7–8, KJV).

As to the authority of the Torah for Christians today, it remains God’s Word for his people. For Gentiles, it is a narrative that reveals God’s creation of the world, his calling of a people, and his deliverance of them from bondage in Egypt. It further unveils his will for this people as a nation distinct from other nations, including guidance for royal governance, ritual sacrifices, and moral behavior.

Christian tradition has tended to say that the first two kinds of instruction were specific to the Davidic kingdom of ancient Israel and its Levitical priesthood centered on the Jerusalem temple. Now that they are fulfilled in the priest-king Jesus, they have much to teach us but are not binding the way that, for example, the Ten Commandments still are. This too stems from the verdict in Acts 15.

The tricky business is what the church should think about the status of some of these commands for Jewish Christians. Peter and James in the Book of Acts seem to presuppose the law’s continuing authority for Messianic Jews, and even Paul in Romans and Galatians appears to assume that the church will include the circumcised and the uncircumcised in perpetuity, just as it will always include both men and women. The apostles did not easily foresee a day when the super-majority of Christ’s body would be Gentiles and the Resurrection would be centuries behind us.

I am in the minority of Christian theologians who believe that parts of the ceremonial Torah remain binding on all Jews, including baptized believers. It’s not salvific for Messianic Jews any more than the moral law is salvific for Gentiles—yet I think it’s binding just the same.

I can’t argue the full case here, but let me show you why it matters. Paul’s driving vision was for Jews and Gentiles to be united and reconciled in Christ without Jews becoming Gentiles or Gentiles becoming Jews. He came to realize that this was God’s plan all along. By the Spirit’s power, this unity is itself a testimony to the Father’s matchless glory (Eph. 1:3–23) and a preview of the countless multitudes in Revelation, who hail from both the 12 tribes of Israel (7:1–8) and “all tribes and peoples and tongues” (v. 9). What they share is love for the Lamb of God.

Paul anticipated this final unity when, some 25 years after the Resurrection, he wrote to Jewish and Gentile believers in Rome struggling to share a common life. After much dense argument, he summarizes the Good News for them: “Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God’s truthfulness, in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs, and in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy” (15:8–9).

This single sentence says it all, and in so doing it captures Paul’s purpose in writing to them: “that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (v. 6). The Lord, in short, wants to hear both Jews and Gentiles singing aloud with one voice. This polyphony of praise is the point of all God’s ways and works in the world. No believer need envy another’s part. When the result is harmony in difference, then we know we are on the right path. When someone’s part goes silent, then we know that something has gone wrong.

Brad East is an associate professor of theology at Abilene Christian University. He is the author of four books, including The Church: A Guide to the People of God and Letters to a Future Saint.

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News

How to Lead a Youth Group Through a Missile Attack

Jill Nelson

Ukrainian teens and tweens learn to pray and read Psalms through a Russian bombardment.

Sergey Vivchar, left, and the Baptist youth group that he leads in Dnipro, Ukraine.

Sergey Vivchar

At 1:30 a.m. on July 26, Sergey Vivchar heard his city’s air-raid siren and jumped out of bed. He knew he had less than three minutes to find a safer location before Russian missiles hit.

He went to the corner of his bathroom, away from the windows, and sat down. He got on his phone and sent a group message to the Baptist youth group he leads. Many of the 30 teenagers were scared.

“These kids carry pain and trauma far beyond their age,” Vivchar told Christianity Today. “Some cry during air raids. Others tremble and hide. Some simply scream in fear.”

This night was particularly long. Vivchar, a pastor at Ark Church, counted 30 explosions that shook the eastern city of Dnipro, Ukraine. The drone and missile attacks continued until 5 a.m.

A 12-year-old girl named Tanya told the group, “I’m afraid! I’m afraid all the time.” Vivchar led them in prayer. He guided the group through breathing exercises. He asked them to repeat the Bible verses they studied during summer camp, from Psalms 58 and 62, where David talks about putting his trust in God even when his life is in danger.

The group continued to send voice memos and texts. Tanya said she felt better, but another explosion made her panic. Vivchar asked the group to pray again.

“Yes, it’s a little bit easier for me now,” said Tanya.

The barrage killed three people and wounded six. Russia has intensified its aerial campaign in recent months, with hundreds of drones firing upon civilian centers nearly every night. The attacks have overwhelmed Ukrainian defense systems.

Last Monday, US president Donald Trump changed his 50-day cease-fire deadline. The new deadline is 10 days. He threatened to enforce “very severe tariffs” on Russia and secondary tariffs on countries buying Russian oil and gas if President Vladimir Putin doesn’t agree to end his war in Ukraine.

“I’m not so interested in talking [to Putin] anymore,” Trump said. “He talks, we have such nice conversations, … and then people die the following night” in a missile strike.

Many Ukrainians question whether Putin will accept a cease-fire, even with US pressure.

Trump announced the new deadline on July 28. That night, Russian missiles and drones rained down in three cities, hitting a hospital and killing at least 22 people, including a 23-year-old pregnant woman.

One of the cities was 20 miles west of Dnipro. “The sounds of the explosions there were so powerful that I heard them in our city,” Vivchar said. “Maybe Putin didn’t hear about Trump’s ultimatum?”

Each day that passes brings more deaths, he added. Vivchar frequently sees social media posts from friends across the country who have lost loved ones, and three deacons from his church have died fighting on the frontlines, including one last month. The soldier, Volodymyr Holer, was a close friend of Vivchar’s and left behind a wife and a five-year-old.

Vivchar is encouraged by one of the last texts he got from Holer, telling him he needed to keep ministering to teenagers.

“If Ukrainians don’t have believers who trust Christ and who follow Christ, we don’t have a Ukraine,” the text said. “I cannot see Ukraine without Christ and without Christians.”

Vivchar, who has worked with teens for 16 years, said God is at work in Ukraine, even as the country faces suffering and grief. When the full-scale war began, 70 percent of Ark Church’s 150 congregants fled. But then the church gained 700 new people, who came to Dnipro from regions Russia occupied. The church’s youth programs have drawn many into the pews on Sundays, and Vivchar has seen a lot of teenagers come to faith in Christ and engage in daily Bible reading and prayer.

But the entire country is feeling the strain of more than three years of war.

Vladyslav Sobolevskyi, adviser to the commander of Ukraine’s 3rd Army Corps, told CT that many soldiers have been fighting since 2022. Approximately 2,000 soldiers have been on the frontlines since 2019. Some have served since the first Russian invasion in 2014, Sobolevskyi noted.

Vivchar said the church is also encountering fatigue.

Many Christians, including pastors, have left the country. Others, like Vivchar, have stayed to help meet the spiritual needs all around them, but sent their families away to keep them safe. Vivchar’s wife and eight-year-old daughter are temporarily living in England alongside a group of Ukrainian orphans and foster families. His wife serves as a translator for the group. Sometimes he misses them desperately.

Vivchar said 90 to 95 percent of Ukrainians have experienced some form of psychological distress from war and displacement. Teenagers have missed out on much of their childhood due to both COVID-19 lockdowns and years of war.

“They sit all the time in a basement because almost every day Russia tries to kill us,” Vivchar said.

A 2024 JAMA Pediatrics study concluded that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has greatly impacted the mental health of Ukrainian adolescents, with those exposed to war “more likely to screen positive for PTSD, depression, anxiety, substance use disorder, and eating disorders.”

Vivchar has taught his youth group the trauma-response techniques he learned during a spring retreat sponsored by The Renewal Initiative. He said one of the most helpful tools involves bringing yourself “back to the present moment through breathing, sensory awareness, and prayer.”

He taught the teenagers how to count their inhales and exhales during a Russian attack and name things they can see, hear, touch, taste, and smell. The tools help, but he says the most important thing the teens have learned is that “Jesus is near, even in the darkest moments. That’s our comfort.”

One of the church youths, 16-year-old Anya Volkova, said Russia has attacked Dnipro approximately ten times this past year, usually on a large scale. She has things she does now on nights when suicide drones are crashing into buildings. She grabs her two cats and runs with her family to the nearest shelter.

Then, as she learned in youth group, she prays.

“I ask God to protect all of the people who are in danger now,” she said. “And as soon as I finish, the anxiety immediately leaves me, and I feel like everything is fine now because I entrusted it to God’s hands.”

- More from Jill Nelson

Pastors

Ministry Lessons from the Bottom of the Cave

Thomas Anderson

Elijah’s greatest lesson came not from fire on the mountain, but from a whisper in the dark. When pastors feel like quitting, God may be just getting started.

Marcia Straub / Getty

On my desk there’s a photo I usually keep facedown. It shows our church plant’s launch team in my living room, our hands joined in prayer and our faces bright with anticipation—27 people who believed God had called us to something extraordinary. Three years of preparation, planning meetings, financial sacrifice, and kingdom-sized dreams captured in a single frame.

The man in that photo believed he had ministry figured out. He believed faithfulness plus hard work plus prayer equaled predictable kingdom results. He hadn’t yet watched his calling crumble in real time. He hadn’t sat in a cave, wrapped his cloak around his face, and begged God to let him die (1 Kings 19:4, 13).

I keep the photo facedown because in my darkest pastoral season, I couldn’t yet see what God was doing. He was accomplishing something in the darkness that couldn’t happen in the light. He was teaching me truths about his character that I could never learn from spiritual strength. He was revealing depths of his love visible only from the bottom of the pit.

If you’re reading this with discouragement pressing against your chest like a stone—if you’ve wondered whether you misheard God’s call or whether your ministry has become a cruel joke—then you need to meet Elijah again.

Not the Elijah of Mount Carmel who calls down fire and makes false prophets look foolish. That Elijah is the pastor we all want to be.

I’m talking about the other version of Elijah. The one under the broom tree. The one who runs from a queen’s threat right after witnessing the most spectacular move of God since Sinai.

The Elijah nobody talks about

Here’s what nobody tells you about ministry: You can believe in God’s sovereignty with your mind and still forget that the Lord is God when the messenger arrives with bad news. In 1 Kings 19, Elijah has just orchestrated Israel’s greatest spiritual victory since Moses. But when Jezebel threatens to have his head by sunrise, the prophet who called down fire and rain forgets every drop of theology he’s ever taught—and runs for his life.

His fear doesn’t come from weak faith. It comes from a broken heart. Elijah isn’t disillusioned because he stopped believing; he is undone because he has believed deeply, passionately, sacrificially. He has given everything to see the one thing he desires: for God to be glorified in Israel. He longs for conversion, repentance, revival. He wants to be the instrument God uses to bring it about.

Then Jezebel’s threat shatters those hopes. And his world collapses.

You know the feeling. You pray and preach your heart out, but your church hasn’t grown in years. You shepherd 65 people who argue about the fellowship-hall carpet while prosperity preachers fill arenas. You celebrate spiritual growth in a new congregant but grieve as your child walks away from the faith. Your wife loves Jesus, but she’s tired of sharing you with everyone else’s crises.

Elijah’s despair isn’t a weakness. It is the grief of a shattered dream. He forgets his own name—which means “Yahweh is my God”—along with the very message he wants Israel to embrace.

When God doesn’t give you what you want

So Elijah flees—then he hides in a cave at Mount Horeb, wanting to die. God meets him, but not the way you would expect. First comes a wind that shreds mountains. Then an earthquake that splits the earth. Then a fire that consumes everything in its path. It is exactly what Elijah has always wanted: a spectacular demonstration of God’s power that would compel Israel to believe.

But Elijah stays hidden. He no longer wants to see glory. His dreams lie around him, shattered like broken pottery.

Then comes a whisper. Elijah wraps his cloak around his face, shielding himself from the displays of glory. God speaks—not with consolation, as you’d expect, but with confrontation: What are you doing here? This isn’t where you’re supposed to be. I’ve got work for you.

Then comes what might be the hardest assignment any faithful servant has ever received: Go anoint a Syrian king, a godless Israelite ruler, and another prophet who will finish what you started. You’re not the one to bring the revival you longed for.

Those are crushing words for a man who has lived for one thing.

But here’s what I’ve learned in my own seasons of spiritual dryness and ministry disappointment:

When a voice whispers, “You should always have your heart’s desires,” you can be sure it speaks with a hiss from a forked tongue.

But when you hear, “That treasure you long for? You can’t have it—but I’ll give you me instead,” you can always trust where that voice comes from.

God will not let you preach a message you refuse to live. He loves you too much to leave your idols intact, even when those idols are good things like ministry success, church growth, or seeing your children follow Jesus.

The ruthless compassion of God

What happens to Elijah next reveals something stunning about God’s character. Even when God appears to be hard on his servants, his provision is staggeringly loving, generous, and kind.

How does Elijah’s story end? In 2 Kings 2, as he prepares to pass his mantle to Elisha, something extraordinary happens. Elisha asks for a “double portion” of Elijah’s spirit (v. 9). Elijah responds with a strange condition: “If you see me when I am taken from you, it will be yours—otherwise, it will not” (v. 10).

Then verse 11: “As they were walking along and talking together, suddenly a chariot of fire and horses of fire appeared and separated the two of them, and Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind.”

Do you see what God did? The man who was once so dead to hope that he couldn’t bear to look at God’s glory in the whirlwind is now ushered into glory—by a whirlwind and chariots of fire. God knows the deepest desires of his servants’ hearts. The one who takes Elijah home is worth infinitely more than anything he ever took away.

And still the story gets better. In Luke 9, Elijah appears again—this time on another mountain. Alongside Moses, he stares into the transfigured face of Christ. The man who begged to see God’s glory but was told no—and the man who didn’t want to see it at all—is now beholding the glory of God in the face of Jesus.

What the darkness teaches

In my darkest pastoral season, when my church plant collapsed before it even began—three years of preparation evaporating in a matter of weeks, 27 faithful people scattering to other congregations—I questioned everything I thought I knew about God’s calling. But I also learned something I could never have discovered in the light of success: that God’s love for me has nothing to do with my ministerial performance. I learned firsthand how he pursues his servants with ruthless compassion, stripping away everything we think we need so we can discover that he alone is enough.

The darkness redefined me, not as a successful planter or even a faithful pastor but as a beloved son. It taught me that the approval I’d been striving for was already mine in Christ—apart from any ministerial achievement.

Here’s what I couldn’t see while sitting in my own cave of discouragement: God was reshaping my vision, slowly and kindly. Through loss and limitation, he revealed aspects of his character I could never learn through seasons of spiritual strength. He was showing me depths of his love that become visible only from the bottom of the pit.

Every shepherd eventually faces a choice. We can fixate on the treasures we’ve lost—the ministries we dreamed of, the family lives we hoped for, the congregations that would hang on our every word—or we can discover that Jesus himself is the treasure that can never be taken.

The pastors who endure and thrive aren’t the ones who dodge disappointment. They’re the ones who keep limping forward, having learned that God’s grace is sufficient and his power is perfected in weakness. They’ve fixed their eyes on him, not on what might have been, as their ultimate treasure.

Missionary and martyr Jim Elliot said, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” I would only add, “Especially when what you cannot lose is God himself.”

The darkness has something to teach you that the light cannot. Don’t waste your cave season longing for Mount Carmel. Let God strip away your idols—even the “good” ones—until he alone is your vision, your treasure, and the satisfaction of your soul.

Thomas Anderson is the pastor of disciple making at Grace Community Church in Fulton, Maryland.

- More from Thomas Anderson

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The Elijah nobody talks about

When God doesn’t give you what you want

The ruthless compassion of God

What the darkness teaches

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