Pastor, Should I Stay or Should I Go (to Another Denomination)?

Matthew Z. Capps

It requires pastoral wisdom to walk with members who feel at home in your church but burdened by the weight of its denominational baggage.

Klaus Vedfelt / Getty

Anthony Chute begins his introductory essay in Why We Belong—a book exploring evangelical unity and denominational diversity—by recounting a scene from Charles Schulz’s 1966 classic, It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown:

… an interesting exchange takes place as Linus pens his annual letter to the Great Pumpkin. ‘When are you going to stop believing in something that isn’t true?’ inquires Charlie, to which Linus shoots back, “When you stop believing in that fellow with a red suit and white beard who goes ‘Ho, Ho, Ho’!” Charlie Brown looks at the camera and says dryly, “We are obviously separated by denominational differences.”

Linus’s line is whimsical, but it names something substantial. Denominational differences can feel stark. It’s also an intriguing window into Schulz himself, who grew up nominally Lutheran, then joined a Church of God congregation in Minnesota, later attended a United Methodist Church when he moved to California, and eventually distanced himself from the church altogether. In his later years, Schulz quipped, “I guess you might say I’ve come around to secular humanism” (Good Grief: The Story of Charles M. Schulz).

Reading his story, I can’t help but wonder what prompted those shifts. Were they theological? Personal? How did the pastors of these churches counsel him in these moments? Was he pushed away? There could have been many factors. The relationship between personal convictions, the local church, and denominational affiliation is rarely simple.

I write as a convictional Southern Baptist. I hold a master’s degree from one of our denominational seminaries. I also have a professional doctorate from a seminary that champions its evangelical ecumenism and am now pursuing a PhD at a seminary affiliated with the Anglican Church of Australia (Yes, I am still a Baptist). On Sundays, I happily pastor a Baptist church in North Carolina, where some members come from a range of Protestant evangelical traditions.

Some made the transition because their doctrinal convictions changed. Others made the change because they moved to the area and are drawn by shared convictions or relational connections. And occasionally, someone leaves for the same kinds of reasons.

But then there are those who leave—or contemplate leaving—not because of our preaching or our polity but because they are unsettled by our denominational ties. For some, the concerns are tied to deep wounds or painful past experiences because of how our denomination handled specific issues. Then there are those who consider leaving not because of heresy or scandal but because of disillusionment. They’re weary, ired, or simply drawn to another tradition over secondary issues like the meaning and mode of baptism, or tertiary matters like eschatology. These moments call for more than explanations. They call for pastoral presence, clarity, and patience.

Regardless of one’s tradition, it’s not uncommon for church members to raise concerns about denominational affiliation. Maybe they read something on social media. Maybe they saw a headline from a reputable media outlet. Sometimes the reporting is correct, but the concern is shaped by confusion about how denominations actually function. Sometimes the reporting is flawed—driven by misinterpretation or personal grievance. And sometimes, the concern is both well-informed and warranted.

Part of pastoral leadership involves clarifying the identity and purpose of our denominational structures. The word denomination is derived from the Latin denominare, which means “to name.” In other words, denominations name their distinctives. Doing so is good because it clarifies important convictions and provides shape to missional partnerships. Broadly speaking, evangelical denominations have always emerged at the intersection of conviction and cooperation. They help churches locate themselves within a confessional tradition, providing both theological boundaries and practical alignment.

Denominational structures provide systems for accountability and organization. They create space for shared purpose— missions, benevolence, education. In many ways, they formalize the guidelines for the types of collaborative ministry we see in the New Testament (see Acts 15:1–35; 1 Corinthians 16:1; 2 Corinthians 8:1–7, 19). Today’s structures may vary, but their purpose isn’t new.

So when a member is considering leaving because of denominational affiliation, it may be helpful to outline how that affiliation actually works. How does the broader denominational body relate to the local church body? What kind of authority does the denomination exercise? Does the issue at hand even reach the local level? Sometimes, the issue prompting concern has little bearing on the local body. Other times, it does. In either case, the member may need help seeing the connection clearly.

When possible, the disillusioned could be encouraged to stay and serve as agents of change. Like many other associative bodies, denominations often reflect the old adage “You get out what you put in.” Of course, this varies across Protestant denominations. But in general, I’ve found that many people bring faulty expectations to their understanding of denominations. While there is no perfect church or denomination, I still believe denominations serve a good net purpose.

Beyond clarifying how a denomination functions, it’s vital to understand what’s really behind the concern. Before you meet with a church member on such matters, pray for biblical wisdom and the guidance of the Spirit—it’s essential. James reminds us that if we lack wisdom, we should ask God, “who gives generously” (James 1:5). Wisdom is often what’s needed because the relationship between personal convictions, the local church, and denominational affiliation can be a complicated one.

It also takes patient listening and intentional questions. Proverbs 20:5 says, “The purposes of a person’s heart are deep waters, but one who has insight draws them out.” That’s our aim. Behind every concern is something deeper—maybe fear, maybe frustration, maybe a desire for justice, maybe a genuine theological shift. But we won’t know unless we ask pointed questions.

I’ve found it helpful to put the following questions on the table:

Are you considering leaving because our church or denominational leaders have adopted false doctrine, promoted heretical teachings, or refused to confront those who teach those things?
Are you considering leaving because immoral, unethical, and unbiblical behavior is either ignored or tolerated among the leaders or members of this church or our denomination?
Are your concerns based on biblical conviction or communal conflict?
Are the concerns prompting your consideration of leaving a hasty reaction or a prayerful and informed departure?
Have you thought through the implications of this decision for your faith, your family, and your future?

These questions can open the door to difficult conversations. And sometimes, the answers are hard to hear. That’s why it’s essential to be aware of your disposition. Every member mutters from time to time, but it stings when someone tells you they’re contemplating leaving the church. It’s difficult not to take it personally—even if their reasons stretch beyond the church to the denomination.

As the conversations unfold, it’s helpful to remember Paul’s words to Timothy: “Correct, rebuke and encourage with great patience and teaching” (2 Tim. 4:2). That kind of shepherding should always walk hand in hand with what Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 5:14, “Warn those who are idle and disruptive, encourage the disheartened, help the weak, be patient with everyone.” That last line is easy to overlook, but it matters—patience is to be given to all.

In light of this, I often ask myself: What concerns can I honor and what convictions should I challenge? That question guides how I respond, whether I’m offering counsel, correction, or caution. In the end, we are called to model gracious, wise, nondefensive shepherding—knowing when to listen, when to push back, and when to let go supportively with care.

And if it’s time to let go, I try to remind them that there’s a right way to leave and a wrong way to leave. Hopefully, they’ll be able to speak graciously about how God used the church in their lives, share their reasons with humility and wisdom, and not torch the bridge behind them on the way out. After all, their brothers and sisters in Christ will still be here. As Paul wrote, we are to “make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace” (Eph. 4:3).

Finally, let me offer one suggestion that may be of preventive aid.

On the front end, having a robust membership process allows the church to outline its confessional convictions and denominational distinctions. Joining or parting ways with a local church should never be an easy decision. That’s why, when we interview new members, we ask specific questions to understand the reasoning behind their desire to join our church, especially if they’re coming from a like-minded church in our area.

We’ve also followed an example from other churches and developed a church covenant that outlines the expectations of our members. In many of these covenants, you’ll find a line similar to this: “If we leave this congregation, we will join another gospel-preaching church as soon as possible, where we can carry out the spirit of this covenant and the principles of God’s Word.” A line like this lets prospective members know up front, “If you leave, we are going to follow up with you because we care for your soul.” In a culture shaped by consumeristic individualism, statements like that matter. They create space for clear expectations and accountability.

All this to say, when it comes to Christians and church membership, I am convinced that being clear about doctrinal and denominational distinctives from the outset is just as important as how you shepherd someone when they are deciding whether or not to leave the local church.

I affirm the Nicene Creed, in that “I believe in one holy, catholic and apostolic Church.” But I am also aware that within Protestantism, we have “one Lord, one faith” and many expressions. I agree with Carl Trueman, who once said on a panel discussion, “Thank God for denominations. That means someone somewhere actually believes something!”

We shouldn’t dissolve our differences. We should make them clear. In some instances, those differences are secondary or tertiary in matters of theology or ministry practice. However, there are other cases—when comparing Protestant traditions with Roman Catholics, the Eastern Orthodox Church, Jehovah’s Witnesses, or Mormons—where there is no commonality in matters of biblical authority, the doctrine of God, and salvation. Potential departures in the former category require care and kindness. Potential departures in the latter require us to offer clarity and strong caution.

In the end, when it comes to my like-minded Protestant brothers and sisters, I return to the prayer of Jesus—that Christians “may be one” in their unity on the primary matters of historic orthodoxy (John 17:21).

Matthew Z. Capps serves as lead pastor of Fairview Baptist Church in Apex, NC and as second vice president of the North Carolina Baptists. He is the author of several books, including Drawn by Beauty and Every Member Matters.

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With Student Visas in Limbo, Chinese Ministries Soldier On

Yixiao Ren

Even if incoming classes shrink, a Pittsburgh church sees a plentiful harvest.

Macancy / Unsplash

Eugene Ooi was driving toward Pittsburgh’s university district at dusk in June 2009 when a dazzling sunset brought about an epiphany.

“I started imagining how many [Chinese] students and scholars here must be longing for … a warm and welcoming home away from home.”

A native of Malaysia, Ooi was familiar with the feeling, as he moved to the States at 17 for college. So through his church, Pittsburgh Chinese Church Oakland (PCCO), he started a new small group called Xinjia, or “Home Away from Home,” focused on reaching out to Chinese students at the nearby colleges of Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Pittsburgh, and Duquesne University.

That first year, Home Away from Home saw a remarkable season of growth, “one we haven’t quite experienced again in the same way since,” Ooi noted. Around seven or eight out of every ten newcomers came to faith and many now serve in churches around the world. The Chinese students were hungry for community and interested in learning about Christianity.

“You could say this was God’s reward or confirmation for our decision to fully commit to campus ministry,” he said.

Today, Ooi is still ministering to Chinese international students as the church’s campus minister, yet global trends and geopolitics have changed the church’s ministry. An increase in Chinese students’ economic level has made the church’s practical outreach efforts, such as offering rides or free food, less effective. More students are suspicious or fearful of interacting with Christians in the US as the Chinese government tightens the reins on religion. Students are also more likely to return to work and live in China rather than staying in the US due to challenges securing work visas.

Recently, the Trump administration announced that it planned to “aggressively” revoke visas for Chinese students it believes have “connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields.” In May, the US suspended the process for foreigners to apply for student visas before restarting it a month later, adding the requirement that all applicants set their social media accounts to “public” for government review.

In the midst of the uncertainties, Chinese student ministries like PCCO’s are seeking to adapt.

“If we do make any changes to our approach, it’s not because of politics—it’s because we want to grow, to be renewed in our minds, and to continually seek better ways to connect with students,” Ooi said.

PCCO’s campus fellowship now has six groups spread across the three universities. Many of the Chinese students attending the groups have decided to stay in Pittsburgh this summer instead of returning to China, as they fear they won’t be able to reenter the country, said Situ Junqing, a minister at the fellowship. The government recently deported several Carnegie Mellon students and recent grads after revoking their visas.

“There’s a general feeling of instability, this fear of the unknown,” Situ said.

He noted that many students who come to study in the US face family pressure, as their parents invested a significant amount of money into their education. Students also don’t want to take part in China’s intense work culture, so the thought of returning home is emotionally taxing. “The pressure is intense,” he noted.

Situ sees this as an opportunity to help ground the students’ identities in biblical truth, rather than their careers or their ability to stay in the US. “I do believe these moments offer opportunities to walk with people, help them apply truth to their lives, and pray together,” he said.

Tsun-En Lu of the diaspora Chinese ministry Ambassadors for Christ (AFC) said that although the Trump administration has threatened to revoke Chinese student visas, that doesn’t necessarily mean there will be a large-scale policy shift. US universities, as well as industries like medicine and engineering, need talented Chinese students. “Once some political or interest-based conflicts are resolved, things will return to fundamentals, [as] cooperation is more of a need than competition for both societies,” he said.

Lu, director of AFC’s Discipleship Resource Center, noted that the number of Chinese international students has been dropping in the past decade, a decline the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated. Yet ambitious Chinese families are still set on sending their children to top-tier schools in the States, and those who do come are often more intentional in their studies and plan to stay long-term, Lu said.

“They carefully choose schools, study diligently, plan their finances, and have a more favorable view of Christianity” and they are curious about American society, he said. “So from a campus ministry perspective, that’s actually good news. … It’s actually easier now to build real relationships.”

Back in Pittsburgh, PCCO conducted an online survey for members of the student ministry to gauge their needs. He found that young professionals, including those with H-1B work visas or green cards, were the most anxious, as they are more inclined to stay in the US, while many undergraduates or graduate students plan to return to China.

Ooi organized talks over the summer to explain to students their constitutional rights if immigration officers were to knock on their doors or ask to speak with them. But the turnout was lower than expected, which he believes signals that the students weren’t very concerned.

Courtesy of Eugene Ooi

Home Away from Home hosting a barbecue and picnic in June 2013.

“I think the pressure might be greater for those who haven’t yet come to the US and don’t know what to expect, whereas those already here have somewhat adjusted to how things are and feel it’s okay,” Ooi said.

While the leaders of the fellowship don’t know how the policy changes will impact the incoming class this fall, they know there will continue to be opportunities to tell new students from China about Jesus, as their mother church has done for nearly a century.

PCCO is a church plant of Pittsburgh Chinese Church, whose origins date back to 1937, when missionary Lizzie Shaw gath ered 13 children in Pittsburgh’s Chinatown for Bible study. Pittsburgh’s steel mills attracted many early Chinese immigrants, then later Chinese students came to attend the city’s universities. Pittsburgh Chinese Church was established in 1967.

Steve Sheng, one of the pastors of PCCO, noted that campus ministry has always been an integral part of their church because of its location. The church leadership want to strengthen the connection between campus fellowships and the local church.

For many Chinese immigrants, college is a pivotal time in their faith journeys. Ooi grew up attending church in Sabah in East Malaysia, and he felt called to go into ministry during a youth conference as a teen. While attending the University of Georgia, he got involved in student ministry and met his wife, Meiru, and together their hearts became burdened for mainland Chinese people.

They thought that meant they would go to missions in China one day, but the couple instead moved to Pittsburgh in 2005 for Ooi’s ophthalmology residency. They began attending PCCO and doing ministry with Chinese international students. Soon they “realized how vast the Chinese harvest field was even in this city,” Ooi said.

Situ and his wife, Yin Shengjun, who are from Shanghai, came to faith through the PCCO fellowship while they were attending grad school. Originally from a Buddhist background, Situ struggled to accept the exclusivity of Christianity after Yin, his then-girlfriend, connected with Meiru and became a believer. Then in 2012, he attended a PCCO retreat where during a prayer session, he felt the Holy Spirit move in him. Crying uncontrollably, he began to understand the gospel.

The Oois mentored the couple, walking with them through a difficult breakup, then witnessing Situ’s genuine growth in faith. “They basically watched us grow, break up, argue, slam doors—I don’t know how many times their doors were slammed,” he said, laughing.

Courtesy of Eugene Ooi

Left to right: Eugene, Situ, Meiru, and Shengjun after serving together at a retreat in 2015.

Seeing the impact college ministry had on their own lives, the couple started mentoring college students while working and raising their four children in Pittsburgh. They believe Chinese student ministry is a vital part of global missions; they are making disciples who go back to China or other parts of the world. “The discipleship is not necessarily for the Pittsburgh church but for God’s global church,” Situ said.

In July, the campus ministry team gathered to discuss new ways to reach students. Situ noted that the changes—both geopolitical and generational—forced them to think and pray about their strategy.

“Of course, God is in control,” Situ said. “We just need to be faithful and think through things both spiritually and rationally. I look at myself and realize that if God had just let us do whatever we wanted, we wouldn’t be here serving today.”

Ooi noted that the new generation of Chinese college students needs more than just biblical teaching—it needs “a new kind of connection.”

Traditionally, Chinese student ministries have reached students by putting on events like Chinese New Year dinners or hosting churchwide evangelistic rallies. But in the past decade, the fellowship leaders have found that students are less likely to attend large events but respond when Christians make an effort to befriend them.

“We must build deep relationships, enter into their lives, understand their academic stress, emotional struggles, and relational conflicts,” he said.

The fellowship follows a “life cycle” based on the school year: welcoming new students in August, focusing on outreach evangelism from September to December, and shifting to discipleship from January to May. The leaders host gatherings in the homes of families who live nearby and weekly meetings in classrooms to increase their physical presence on campus. This year, they plan to participate in more school-sponsored events and organize their own events, such as career talks or mental health workshops, to connect with more students.

As Christianity has grown in China in past few decades years, more students come to the college with background knowledge of Christianity or as Christians themselves. Still, most Chinese students hear the gospel for the first time while studying in the US.

Ooi leverages this change by pairing Chinese Christian students with mentors and encouraging them to take “an active role in leading [the fellowship’s] on-campus activities so they can genuinely feel a sense of belonging.”

Chinese students made up 18 percent of Carnegie Mellon’s student body in 2023, according to the school’s official enrollment data. Ooi noted that even if the Trump administration’s policies mean a couple hundred fewer Chinese students come this year, there are still thousands of Chinese students for Ooi and his team to reach.

Currently many Chinese students are struggling with belonging, Ooi said. “The US doesn’t feel like home, they face unfriendly attitudes, and it’s hard to find work, yet going back to China doesn’t seem like a better opportunity,” he noted.

This is an opening for students to reconsider where their true home lies, Ooi said.

“This may be an opportunity for students to realize there is a third way: It’s not America or China but Jesus Christ,” he said. “So we continue to work, no matter the environment.”

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Review

The Book of Psalms Is the Bible’s ‘Little Bible’

Blake Adams

We should read it not as an assortment of poems and songs but as a single rhapsody on God’s covenant promises.

Illustration by Christianity Today / Source Images: Getty, Unsplash

Late in the fourth century, a man named Palladius of Galatia left his home (somewhere in present-day Turkey) and journeyed into the Egyptian desert, intent on meeting the ancient monks we now remember as the Desert Fathers. One afternoon, he realized he had wandered into the middle of a monastic community. Although he didn’t immediately see any of the monks, he could hear them chanting psalms from the mouth of every surrounding cave. Describing the experience decades later in a book, The Lausiac History, he recalled feeling as though “one is high above the world in Paradise.”

This story came to mind as I read Reading the Psalms as Scripture, a short work by James M. Hamilton Jr. (a seminary professor) and Matthew Damico (a pastor). This book is not a commentary, a study guide, a devotional, an overview, or even an introduction to the Psalms, though to varying extents it embodies all these genres. Instead, it boldly ventures to say what the Book of Psalms is and to propose we read it accordingly.

As the book’s title suggests, Hamilton and Damico regard the Psalms as a book of Scripture. This point might appear so basic that it’s barely worth mentioning. But Hamilton and Damico mean at least two things by it.

First, the book of Psalms is a book. It is not merely an assortment of songs, like hymns in a hymnal, but a coherent, unified work of literature that we can read in sequence.

This fact easily escapes us. At a glance, the Psalms have no plain order. They are not arranged chronologically: The oldest (perhaps Psalm 90, attributed to Moses) doesn’t appear first. Psalms were not added to the book as they were written. Nor are they organized by author, theme, subject matter, or genre.

There are certain signs, however, that the arrangement isn’t entirely random. Certain clusters of psalms, such as Psalms 1–2 or Psalms 15–24, have long been recognized as discrete literary units.

Hamilton and Damico perceive a unity not only within these smaller units but also throughout the Psalter. This unity had not been agreed upon before the psalms were composed. The authors hypothesize that “David started this process of organizing the Psalter into an intentionally arranged collection, and … it seems that people who came after David completed it.” In this sense it is possible to “attribute” the Psalter to David, even if he did not author every psalm. In fact, it is possible to think of the Psalter as a single, grand psalm: a rhapsody on God’s covenant promises, full of repeating themes and refrains.

Just as we can miss the forest for the trees, so we might miss the Psalter for the Psalms. The Psalter, however, includes material besides psalms—namely, the superscriptions, small headings included for many purposes. Some name the author (as with those that specify, “Of David”). Some convey liturgical instructions (as with Psalm 22, which begins, “For the director of music: To the tune of ‘The Doe of the Morning’”). Others identify the genre of the psalm (as with Psalm 145, “A psalm of praise”) or indicate the historical context behind its composition (as with Psalm 3, “A psalm of David. When he fled from his son Absalom”). Some superscriptions run to multiple lines, while others employ a single word.

Superscriptions are key textual tools for tracing literary units, large and small, within the Psalter. So are the poetic devices the book highlights, like parallelism or acrostic and chiastic structures. Incorporating them into our reading is the first step toward comprehending the Psalms as a unified Psalter.

The crucial next step is ensuring that King David remains at the center. We need not credit him with composing all 150 psalms, but his personality, vision, and biography are their unifying force. In sum, not every psalm is “of David,” but all are Davidic.

We see this in the basic story line proposed by Hamilton and Damico, which unfolds in five stages, corresponding to what biblical scholars recognize as the five “books” of the Psalter. Book 1 (Pss. 1–41) takes its inspiration from David’s suffering under Saul and other historic foes. Book 2 (42–72), from his reign as king. Book 3 (73–89), from the end of his royal line on earth. Book 4 (90–106), from God’s vow of faithfulness to his covenant with David. And book 5 (107–150), from the promised triumph of the Messiah who would bring about its ultimate fulfillment.

When we comprehend this structure, the authors argue, the Psalter emerges as a prophetic document through and through, “written from a messianic perspective, to sustain and provoke a messianic hope.” Seen this way, the book’s prophetic significance extends beyond a select few “messianic” psalms. Indeed, the entire Psalter is a sustained prophecy concerning the king to whom God pledges himself, despite the nation’s schemes. Here, in poem after poem, song after song, we find the unified theology of the Psalms.

In highlighting the Psalter’s prophetic thrust, Reading the Psalms as Scripture has implications for understanding how the New Testament writers used Old Testament passages. Far and away, they cited the Psalms more than any other Old Testament source. By some estimates, the New Testament quotes or alludes to over 100 of the 150 psalms, with Psalm 110 alone inspiring 22 such mentions. All this suggests that Hamilton and Damico are correct to portray the Psalter as playing a pivotal role in stoking and conceptually framing the messianic expectations that prevailed thereafter.

There is a possible pushback to the way Hamilton and Damico emphasize the Psalter’s overall structure. One Old Testament scholar, David Willgren, has argued that the choice of which Psalms to include should take precedence over their order. After all, not all the psalms of ancient Israel appear in the Psalter, and although ancient editions may differ in how they number the psalms, they agree on which ones belong. Seen this way, the psalms themselves, not their sequencing, are the most stable feature of the Psalter.

But the insights of Hamilton and Damico can complement rather than contradict this perspective. What distinguishes their own perspective is the conviction that we should sing the psalms, not merely interpret them. Their ultimate agenda is elevating the Psalter to a central place in Christian formation and the prophetic identity of the church—the same place it held for the New Testament writers.

The second core claim Hamilton and Damico make builds on their first. If the book of Psalms is a book, it is also a book of Scripture. By this, they do not merely affirm the Psalms’ divine inspiration and authority. They also suggest that the Psalms engage other books of Scripture, just as those books engage each other.

The Psalter stands apart from the rest of Scripture as an anthology of songs and poems. Accordingly, most scholars bring it into conversation with songs and poems from other ancient Near Eastern cultures. While this comparative work is fruitful, Hamilton and Damico emphasize that the key literary backdrop to the Psalter is other earlier Scriptures. Like all the Bible’s books, the Psalter, to invoke a term from biblical scholarship, is intertextual: It exists in conversation with Scriptures written before it. It quotes from them, alludes to them, and interprets them, just as later Old Testament books quote, allude to, and interpret the Psalms.

When we combine the two main ideas Hamilton and Damico advance—reading the Psalms as both a book and a book of Scripture—we arrive at their overarching objective: presenting the Psalter as Christianity’s premier “sourcebook for a faithful conception of who we are and how we ought to live in God’s world.” The authors want the church to embrace the Psalms as one of its primary distinguishing marks, just as ancient monks did by chanting them into the howling wilderness.

By emphasizing the Psalter, the authors hardly mean to exclude the rest of Scripture. As Martin Luther taught, the Psalter “might well be entitled a Little Bible, wherein everything contained in the entire Bible is beautifully and briefly comprehended.” Moreover, as Hamilton and Damico take pains to point out, the Psalter is connected to the rest of Scripture and meant to be read alongside it. Even so, it is a unique microcosm of the entire Bible, elevated in song. Unlike, say, a historical book we can reading and understand, a psalm remains unfinished until it is sung. That is what makes it a psalm.

We cannot read the Psalter in the same way we would read any other book of the Bible. On this, Hamilton and Damico are clear. Memorizing is a good devotional practice for, say, a letter of Paul, a section of a Gospel, or a story from Old Testament history. With the Psalms, however, memorizing and singing is how we actually “read” them. To be sure, Hamilton and Damico don’t wish to exclude all other hymns or spiritual songs from the church’s worship. Yet they acknowledge that the Psalms do something these other songs don’t. Once we understand the Psalter as a messianic text whose ultimate subject is Christ, we can see how it defines the church’s prophetic existence within the world.

Through the Psalms, we can reassert our Christian identity in a secular age. “If we know the ‘little Bible’ inside and out, we are on our way to knowing the whole thing,” write Hamilton and Damico. “And if we know the whole thing, we’ll know what it looks like to love the Lord and walk in wisdom, and we will not be lured by the prevailing narratives and vacuous promises of the world around us.”

In this way, the “little Bible” of the Psalter offers a potentially radical approach to Christian formation. Through it, the church can demonstrate to a watching world that its borders are held by not an army but a choir.

Blake Adams is a writer and editor living in Glen Ellyn, Illinois.

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As Nigerian Health Care Crumbles, Patients Seek Alternatives

Emiene Erameh

How Christian hospitals are caring for neglected cataracts and common ailments.

An ophthalmologist examines a man's eye as part of a free medical outreach program in Nigeria.

NurPhoto / Getty

When a friend pointed out a white spot in Onjefu Agbo’s eye, he knew he’d have to pay for treatment himself. Barely able to see out of his left eye, Agbo sought care at several facilities that couldn’t identify the problem before doctors at Meserat Defar Eye Clinic in Ikeja, Lagos state, Nigeria, diagnosed him with an advanced cataract.

They recommended a surgery costing 75,000 naira (about $49 USD). Agbo earned only 15,000 naira (about $10 USD) monthly at the time: “I was at a loss on where to get that kind of money, having spent a lot to get the diagnosis.”

While visiting his parents in Jos, Plateau state, Agbo heard a radio ad about an annual outreach at Vom Christian Hospital offering the procedure for free. He traveled 30 minutes by public transportation to the hospital, where doctors conducted new tests, then removed Agbo’s cataract and implanted an artificial lens.

“Life would have been better if government facilities are as responsive as these faith-based organizations are,” he said.

Agbo was not unusual in finding it hard to get adequate medical attention in Nigeria. Public hospitals in Nigeria bustle like markets, with consulting areas so full waiting people have to stand. A 2022 study showed Nigeria’s emergency hospital bed capacity stood at 0.9 beds per 1,000 people, less than half the global average.

Within the broken infrastructure, less than 5 percent of Nigerians have public health insurance, and 70 percent pay for their health care out-of-pocket. According to the World Health Organization, Nigeria should have 237,000 doctors but only has 35,000 for a population of over 200 million. And like Kenya, Nigeria is hemorrhaging medical staff to emigration.

Christian hospitals and ministries are trying to fill health care gaps. An Evangelical Church of West Africa (ECWA) Evangel hospital in Jos—known locally as Jankwano, meaning “red roof”—offers free surgeries for patients with vesicovaginal fistula—a condition that’s rare among women in developed countries but is a public health concern in developing nations such as Nigeria.

Emmanuel Adewara—the senior pastor of First Baptist Church in Kubwa, Abuja—said his church organizes a medical outreach every July and has a sick bay for treating common ailments such as malaria and typhoid. When Nigerians can’t afford care, Adewara warned, some turn to dangerous practices.

Some turn to cheaper traditional herbal remedies, but without proper dosages they may complicate rather than heal what started as minor ailments. Others turn to pastoral prayer rather than going to the hospital.

“We believe in supernatural healing.” Adewara said. “We believe in divine health. We do all those as a church. But we still have great commitment to orthodox medicine, which we encourage people to do.”

Some Nigerians have also fallen back on faith healers, putting themselves at risk of exploitation. The country has seen several cases of fraudulent pastors bribing people to fake healings during services. Some HIV patients may have died after pastors told them to stop taking antiretroviral drugs.

Meanwhile, the death of former Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari made headlines beyond usual obituary coverage because of the location of his passing: an elite hospital in the United Kingdom on July 13. The London Clinic—where Buhari died after falling ill during a routine visit—boasts private luxury rooms with dressing gowns and spa products.

All that did not help Buhari. It did help Abdulsalami Abubakar—the former military head of state who helped transition Nigeria from military to democratic rule in 1999—who admitted he once received treatment there. Both clergy and journalists, such as Onjefu Agbo, lamented that public officials and wealthy private citizens seek treatment abroad instead of improving Nigeria’s health care system.

An article in one scholarly journal, Health Policy and Planning, indicated that reforms achieved limited success because “senior politicians did not spend political capital to ensure fundamental institutional reforms.”

Reforms could have helped Adesuwa Osunde last year when a public hospital in Abuja couldn’t finish her three children’s eye and dental exams because there were too many patients.She took them back the next day, but by the time a doctor finished their exams and prescribed the right follow-up tests, the lab had closed for the day.

“These people don’t care about us. If they did, at least they would make hospitals work,” Osunde said. If reforms continue to lag, she worries next time could be worse: “What if there is an emergency?”

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ERLC President Steps Down Amid Southern Baptist Discord

Kate Shellnutt

After four years under Brent Leatherwood, SBC pastors look for a leader to rebuild trust in its public-policy arm.

Brent Leatherwood at the SBC annual meeting in 2025.

Roy Burroughs / Baptist Press

Pamphlets with a photo of Brent Leatherwood alongside House Speaker Mike Johnson dotted thousands of gray chairs in the Dallas meeting hall where the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) gathered in June.

Leatherwood, the president of the embattled Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), spoke from the US Capitol lawn in a promotional video touting Southern Baptists’ lobbying efforts in Washington. He pleaded with the convention to allow its public-policy arm to continue its work.

Ultimately, it was enough for the ERLC to withstand calls for its elimination and for Leatherwood to keep his job.

For seven more weeks.

Leatherwood stepped down Thursday, the culmination of a tumultuous few years when growing numbers of Southern Baptists saw him and the ERLC as out of line with their own political stances and everyday church life.

ERLC board members accepted his resignation and thanked him for his leadership during a divisive time, appointing chief of staff Miles Mullin as acting president in the interim. Leatherwood—a 44-year-old church deacon who previously worked for the Republican Party in Tennessee and on Capitol Hill in DC—did not cite a reason for his departure, only that it was “time to close this chapter of my life.”

“His resignation from the ERLC is a sign of how difficult it is to represent Southern Baptists in the political sphere … and to do it in a time of polarization in the convention,” said Griffin Gulledge, pastor of Fayetteville First Baptist Church in Georgia and a leader with The Baptist Review.

At the SBC’s annual meeting this year, 43 percent voted to abolish the ERLC. The proposal didn’t pass, but the split showed dwindling confidence in the entity. Even Albert Mohler, president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, had spoken up in an interview to voice his “grave doubts about the utility of the ERLC.”

The ERLC’s most vocal detractors consider the entity’s activity as evidence of broader liberal drift in the conservative denomination, calling out positions on immigration and guns. Other pastors saw Leatherwood’s ERLC as detached from the 47,000 local congregations that make up the SBC.

In the weeks since the annual meeting, Leatherwood stayed hard at work as the ERLC saw major news unfold: a string of Supreme Court rulings at the end of June and the congressional budget reconciliation bill in July. Both included moves toward a longtime ERLC aim of defunding Planned Parenthood.

Amid all the public responses to political happenings, Leatherwood prepared another statement for the ERLC board: his resignation.

The trustees had discussed Leatherwood’s future at ERLC before. Last year in July, he faced online backlash for calling Joe Biden’s decision to drop out “a selfless act.” The next day, the ERLC’s former board chair erroneously declared that Leatherwood had been fired—only for the ERLC to retract the announcement since the decision came without a formal vote.

In the SBC, the convention votes in trustees for each entity, and the trustees oversee entity leadership.

Even among ERLC supporters, many left the meeting in Dallas last month assuming that if the ERLC gets to stay, it’ll have to make changes—likely starting at the top.

“The messengers to the SBC annual meeting have signaled with their ballots over the last couple of years that trust has been breached and must be rebuilt,” said Andrew Hébert, a pastor from Longview, Texas.

Former ERLC presidents drew from their theological and pastoral backgrounds to speak into current issues; Leatherwood brought public policy know-how that positioned him well in DC but, to some, made him feel less connected with the people in the pews.

“I am praying that the trustees will choose someone who understands the churches of the Southern Baptist Convention and can wisely represent their concerns in the public square,” said Hébert. “Policy experts can be hired, but the leader of the entity must know how to engage with pastors and churches.”

Much of the criticism directed at the ERLC predates Leatherwood, back to Russell Moore’s “never Trump” stance during his tenure leading the entity nearly a decade ago. (Moore now serves as editor in chief of CT.) And Moore’s predecessor, Richard Land, said disagreements over the ERLC’s work are “inevitable” but its work remains crucial.

Senator James Lankford, an Oklahoma Republican and a fellow Southern Baptist, recently thanked Leatherwood for his engagement in Washington.

“He has a very challenging task to be able to speak for us without speaking for us,” Lankford said at an ERLC event during the SBC annual meeting, underscoring the independence of Southern Baptist churches. “He’s everywhere. He’s speaking out about abortion, about adoption, about international religious liberty. … He’s out there working on it.”

Leatherwood, in his earlier appeals, defended the significance of having a Baptist voice in Washington and downplayed his own stances. “This is not about me,” he said in a video. “This is not my entity but yours,” he told the convention crowd.

Leatherwood’s children survived the 2023 Covenant School shooting in Nashville, and some Southern Baptists objected to his advocacy for a state law to restrict guns from people deemed a threat to themselves or others. The ERLC also faced ongoing criticism and defended itself against accusations of being pro-amnesty for its advocacy around refugees and involvement in the Evangelical Immigration Table.

The SBC operates as a convention bringing together independent churches rather than a hierarchy, so individual Southern Baptists often disagree on approaches to political and cultural issues and how the convention should engage.

In recent years, leaders beyond the ERLC have grown their platforms and resources to engage Southern Baptists around political and cultural commentary. Mohler at Southern Seminary discusses current events on his popular Briefing podcast each weekday. The Center for Baptist Leadership, a group within the SBC that wants to see conservative revitalization, offers articles and podcasts, saying it aims to “serve as a better Baptist voice in the public square.”

After Leatherwood’s resignation, Mohler said, “Southern Baptists will be grateful to Brent Leatherwood for the investment of his life and work through the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission,” and extended prayer for him, his family, and “the future and faithfulness of the commission itself.”

Scott Foshie, the chair of the ERLC board of trustees, called Leatherwood “a consistent and faithful missionary to the public square.” A fellow trustee, Mitch Kimbrell, cited the pro-life advances made under Leatherwood, including defunding Planned Parenthood and donating 40 ultrasound machines to pregnancy centers.

Leatherwood’s statement said, “It has been an honor to guide this Baptist organization in a way that has honored the Lord, served the churches of our Convention, and made this fallen world a little better.”

Mullin, the ERLC’s current vice president and chief of staff, will take over for Leatherwood in the meantime. Before the ERLC, Mullin worked in Christian higher education and taught church history; he holds a master’s degree from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and a PhD from Vanderbilt University.

The board has not yet announced a search committee to find Leatherwood’s replacement—a tough ask given the $3.3 million entity’s contentious place in the SBC today. “Even as your smallest institution, we attract outsized attention and scrutiny,” Leatherwood told the convention in June.

“A lot of people are wondering if there’s anyone who can navigate the pressures of this job or withstanding the daily brunt of well-funded antagonists,” said Gulledge. “Whoever the trustees choose to lead the organization in the future must be committed to doing the hard work to rebuild the relationship between the ERLC and the churches and pastors it represents.”

This is a breaking news story and has been updated.

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News

India Army Dismissed Christian Officer for Refusing Religious Rituals

Divya Chirayath

A Delhi court ruled the lieutenant disobeyed his superior’s orders by not taking part in Sikh and Hindu worship.

Indian army soldiers from a Sikh regiment.

NurPhoto / Contributor / Getty

When Samuel Kamalesan, a Christian officer in the Indian Army, asked to not take part in certain Hindu and Sikh rituals in his regiment’s weekly religious parades, the army dismissed him without a trial in 2021. Left without a job and cut off from military benefits, Kamalesan challenged his termination in the Delhi High Court, claiming it violated the right to freedom of religion guaranteed to every citizen by the Indian Constitution.

This June, the court ruled that the dismissal was justified, claiming that choosing his religion above the lawful command of his superior was an “act of indiscipline.”

The court further emphasized that officers like Kamalesan have an additional responsibility to foster bonds and unity in the troops. Yet some legal scholars questioned how that requirement for religious bonding fits in a secular country like India.

“When someone is removed from the forces for not participating in religious rituals (because it would lead to destroying the unity), is it not an acknowledgement that there cannot be any other bonding agent apart from religion?” Sri Harsha Kandukuri, a legal researcher, wrote in The News Minute.

Some Christians decried the ruling. A. Santhanam, a Jesuit lawyer, told Crux that the dismissal “constitutes religious coercion and undermines India’s secular character” and said that “no authority or order can compel someone to act against their beliefs—such coercion amounts to a form of violence.”

A current member and a former member of the Indian Army told CT they had not faced the coercion Kamalesan had experienced. As a minority in the military, Christians decide based on their personal consciences how to engage with the dominant Hindu or Sikh religious rituals that are a part of military life.

During colonial rule, the British recruited soldiers into either class regiments (each one made up of a single ethnic group) or class company regiments (each one made up of a mix of religions and ethnicities). The British believed that recruiting from a single ethnic class would foster a sense of communal pride, which in turn would make it harder for the troops to unite and fight against the British.

Recruiting extensively from the Sikh, Rajput, and Gorkha communities, the British officers considered these groups “martial classes” that were biologically more suited for the military and warfare.

After India gained independence from Britain, the government tried to remove class-based recruitment, but single-class regiments in the Indian Army remain prevalent. Religion serves an important motivational function in the army. For instance, the war cries of some regiments are slogans invoking Hindu deities or verses from Sikh holy texts. Each regiment has designated religious teachers to lead the troops every week in worship known as “religious parades.”

Despite the deep-rooted presence of religion and ethnic divides, the Delhi High Court in its judgement maintained that the Indian Army is a “secular institution” and that officers should place troop morale over their religious convictions, reiterating the popular principle in the Indian Army that “my religion is my soldier’s religion.”

Kamalesan, who joined the army as a lieutenant in 2017, was part of the 3rd Cavalry Regiment, an armored regiment that uses tanks and predominantly recruits Hindu and Sikh soldiers. The regiment has a mandir (Hindu temple) and a gurdwara (Sikh temple) on its premises but has no church or Sarv Dharm Sthal, a shrine where people of all faiths can worship. For instance, a Sarv Dharm Sthal in a regiment with Hindu and Christian soldiers might have both the Bible and Hindu sacred texts, along with sermons from different religions taking place one after the other.

Leading a troop of about 20 Sikhs, Kamalesan was required to join weekly religious parades, as well as religious festivals. Kamalesan claimed in his petition to the Delhi High Court that he was willing to “remain present with his fellow troops in the temple courtyard,” take off his shoes and belt, put on a turban with clean hands when necessary, and “view the rituals in the inner shrine.”

All he sought exemption from was entering the innermost part of the gurdwara or mandir when Sikhs and Hindus performed rituals like puja (prayers), arti (waving a lamp in front of a deity), or havans (burning sacrifices in front of a deity).

Yet the commanding officer of the regiment refused and forced Kamalesan to participate. Soon after, Kamalesan’s superior initiated disciplinary action against him. According to Kamalesan’s petition, his superiors harassed him—verbally abusing him, mocking his faith, and threatening to end his career. They also subjected him to military punishments, including placing him on nighttime guard duty without sufficient rest, causing sleep deprivation.

Kamalesan’s superiors also prevented him from getting promoted, the petition said. They barred the Christian lieutenant from taking any upskilling courses needed for advancement. His annual evaluations contained negative remarks about his religious beliefs. And despite passing the requisite exams, Kamalesan watched as his juniors got promotions and he remained at the same rank.

Officers told Kamalesan that if he agreed to join in the religious rituals, even if it meant prostrating halfway before the idols, they would lift all the restrictions and sanctions against him. The petition also said they sent him to counseling sessions with the pastor of the local church, other Christian officers, and religious teachers, who tried to explain to him the necessity and rationale behind these religious rituals.

When Kamalesan’s superiors saw no change in his stand, they issued a show-cause notice in 2019 ordering him to explain his “acts of misconduct.” While he filed complaints, authorities rejected them.
In March 2021, Kamalesan received a final notice that the Indian Army was dismissing him permanently without pension or benefits. Military court denied him the chance for a trial because his superiors claimed his case was sensitive since it involved religion.

Although the Delhi High Court supported the military’s decision, the Indian Constitution allows Kamalesan the right to appeal to the Supreme Court.

A 31-year-old Christian soldier from a Northeastern regiment was surprised to hear about Kamalesan’s experience. Although he had served in the military for the past decade, he said he had never seen any commanding officer force soldiers to perform religious rituals. CT granted him anonymity, as speaking out on these issues could cost him his job.

“In our regiment, we are never forced to bow down before idols, apply tika [a paste of vermilion or sandalwood applied on the forehead], or eat food offered to idols,” he said. “We are only expected to attend both Christian and Hindu sermons.”

He serves in a regiment with personnel belonging to a mix of religions, and the religious parades take place in a Sarv Dharm Sthal.

Despite the freedom in his regiment, the soldier does not always shy away from eating food offered to Hindu idols, known as prasad. “While taking prasad, we always tell ourselves and others, ‘Why avoid it? Even if it’s food offered to their gods, we still have our true, living God,’” he said. “But even then, sometimes we take it and sometimes we leave it.”

Brigadier Neil John, a former Christian army officer, said that he participated in all religious parades and rituals—including bowing before idols, doing arti, and eating prasad—during his 33-year tenure, as he believed it was part of his duty. He said that Paul’s message in 1 Corinthians 8 about eating food sacrificed to idols guides his conscience, as “an idol is nothing at all in the world” and “there is no God but one” (v. 4).

He believes that no matter what religion military leaders come from, once they are part of a regiment, they must stand with their troops and worship the divine—regardless of what forms their gods take—to maintain morale.

Yet he feels that the punishment against Kamalesan was exceedingly severe.

“Religion is very personal. A mandir parade is a parade where the unit commanding officer is attending; therefore, all below him attend,” he told CT. “But to compulsorily expect individuals of other faiths to follow rituals and practices intrinsic to a particular religion is rather harsh.”

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When Praise Is Power, Secular Songs Are the Enemy

Kelsey Kramer McGinnis

Christian artists and influencers draw from a theology of worship as battle to warn about music’s dark side.

Illustration by Elizabeth Kaye / Source Images: Getty

When Doechii’s song “Anxiety” went viral at the beginning of the summer, thousands of social media users participated in the dance trend, posting videos of themselves shimmying back and forth to the lyrics “Somebody’s watching me, it’s my anxiety.”

Then, Christian content creators jumped on the “Anxiety” bandwagon—to rebuke the song. Some warned that “anxiety is a demonic spirit”; others posted musical rebuttals. One creator posted a video in which he claimed that the song is “demonic” and gave him sleep paralysis.

Their claims resemble warnings about 1980s and ’90s rock music from fundamentalists like Bill Gothard and Jim Logan. But the new wave of Satanic Panic over popular music doesn’t stem from fiery preachers in suits—this time, it’s Christian influencers and musicians stoking alarm.

Meanwhile, popular worship music from charismatic outlets like Bethel Church has recentered power and spiritual warfare. The theology, in turn, escalates fears about what music can do, or rather, what music can be used to do: Christians who view their worship as a weapon become more likely to see music as a weapon that can be used against them.

Music affects human hearts and minds. But is it a weapon that evil forces use against listeners?

Bethel holds to a “theology of encounter and presence” and sees musical worship as “a means to carry out revival in our world,” according to Emily Snider Andrews, executive director of the Center for Worship and the Arts at Samford University. Andrews said that, in Bethel’s framework, musical worship is an “infiltrating” force for Christians to “invade society” and build “kingdom culture.”

The lyrics of the song “Revival’s in the Air,” for example, speak of coming culture change (“Revival’s in the air; / Catch it if you can” and “The dawn is breaking”). And the song “We Make Space” invites God to “invade, take over this space” and “surround, engulf.”

These ideas and beliefs extend beyond Bethel. Popular worship leader and songwriter Rita Springer hosts a podcast called “Worship is My Weapon.” The song “Sevens” on Brandon Lake’s new hit album calls listeners repeatedly to “ready the weapon of praise.”

Todd Korpi, dean of digital ministry at Ascent College, said that beliefs about the power of musical worship vary in “Spirit-filled” traditions. But in general, he said, Christians in charismatic or Pentecostal communities share the belief that “when we sing together, we come into alignment with one another” and that there is real power in that “all-encompassing unity.”

Former Bethel worship leader Sean Feucht is a prominent example of an artist who explicitly frames worship as culture war. Most Bethel collaborators aren’t as combative but still believe in the power of musical worship. And beliefs about its wonder-working power—like the ability to manifest literal “glory clouds” of gold dust above a singing congregation—are common.

In addition to encountering a theology of worship that treats praise as power, a generation of young Christians and spiritual seekers are finding a chorus of online voices theorizing about the spiritual power of music and warning about its dangers.

Recently, Christian rapper Hulvey told podcaster George Janko that his “spirit will feel disturbed” when listening to some secular hip-hop music. Author and hip-hop artist Jackie Hill Perry has speculated that some secular music succeeds because the producers have help from demons.

Theatrical preachers are performing mass exorcisms and reanimating conversations about spiritual warfare and demonic possession. Some Christian influencers declare that “secular concerts are demonic rituals,” and others post that, the closer they get to God, the more unbearable secular music becomes to listen to.

The popular podcast Girls Gone Bible recently featured a guest who suggested that Satan is musical in nature and that demons can “sing through” musicians when they are drunk or high.

“If you know anything about the spiritual realm you know large artists like [Taylor Swift] are operating in darkness,” one influencer posted on Instagram, talking about why she doesn’t let her daughters listen to Swift’s music. Instead, she says, she “blasts [Forrest] Frank.”

Now, as Christian music’s popularity is growing, some artists and influencers are seizing the moment to reassert the niche as a spiritually safe and nourishing space in an otherwise dark entertainment industry.

Christian musicians claim that they are making music using God’s tuning, suggesting that sonic frequencies can positively or negatively affect bodies and minds. Other artists post that audiences can replace “toxic” secular music with their faith-based songs.

Charismatic Christians have historically read biblical narratives about music—such as the story of David playing the harp to soothe King Saul in 1 Samuel 16:23—as evidence that there is something particularly powerful about the medium.

“We have passages describing Paul and Silas singing in prison or Miriam and the women singing in Exodus,” said Tim Larsen, professor of theology at Wheaton College. “Charismatics will read these as saying that there is a spiritual efficaciousness to praise. And there seems to be a strong connection between music and the prophetic.”

Larsen suggests that music is one of many channels for the spiritual that Christians can point to in Scripture, but that superstition arises when believers start to see the vehicle itself as having special power.

But not all charismatic Christians see music the same way. In the Vineyard movement, a neo-charismatic association that grew out of Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa, California, worship leaders tend to emphasize music as a channel for individual intimacy with God rather than a vehicle for collective empowerment or breakthrough.

“In practice, music has a sacramental quality in that it can be filled by the real presence of God,” said Caleb Maskell, associate national director of theology and education for Vineyard USA. He added that the sacramental understanding of music doesn’t stem from belief in the mystical power of music. “In reality, it’s the people who are filled with the presence of God.”

Adam Russell, director of Vineyard Worship USA, said that over the past 20 years, he has seen a movement in contemporary worship music away from intimacy and toward “intensity.”

“My Pentecostal brothers and sisters have a really strong sense that when we worship, we’re doing something apostolic or bringing the kingdom,” said Russell. “But in Vineyard, we’re not about bringing the kingdom; we’re discovering the kingdom. It’s already been sown. We’re not here to enforce it upon culture.”

Maskell and Russell contrast Vineyard’s view of the power of musical worship with the theology articulated in lyrics about praise as a weapon or the act of worship as warfare. According to Russell, Vineyard has been criticized in the past for producing sentimental “love songs to Jesus,” but that emotional earnestness without a battle mentality is what sets it apart and keeps music in its proper place theologically.

“Some people might say that Vineyard songs are a little sappy,” said Russell, “and maybe so. But that’s been our superpower: to sing directly to Jesus, from the heart.”

Examples of less “sappy” and more militant songs are easy to find these days, including at least three ranking among the top 100 sung in churches. Bethel Music’s “Raise a Hallelujah” includes the lyrics “My weapon is a melody” and “Heaven comes to fight for me.” It’s an anthem about singing “hallelujah” in the presence of the Enemy to drive out darkness.

Elevation Worship’s hit song “Praise” features the lines “Praise is the water / My enemies drown in” and “My praise is my weapon. / It’s more than a sound. / My praise is the shout / That brings Jericho down.” Similarly, the chorus of Phil Wickham’s “Battle Belongs” frames prayer and worship as a fight (“When I fight, I’ll fight on my knees / With my hands lifted high”).

In Vineyard churches and at Bethel, encounter with the divine is a goal of congregational singing. Vineyard emphasizes intimacy and introspection; Bethel emphasizes inbreaking and victory. The latter tends to grant more agency to the act of singing, but worshipers in both circles believe that musical worship does something.

Maskell said musical worship that tries to summon God to act is misguided. “Worship as intercession is about drawing close to the presence of God in my own life and relationships, not ‘God, do things to other people,’” he said.

But scholars see a fine line between keeping music in its proper place theologically and dismissing its potential to be an agent of spiritual formation.

Korpi said that charismatic Christians generally take seriously the “formative power” of media, including film, music, and literature. There is a difference between avoiding, for one’s peace of mind, lyrics or images that depict immorality and attributing invasive, corrupting influence to them.

Panic about the potential dangers of certain kinds of music is rooted in the belief that if Christians can mobilize music as a weapon of spiritual warfare, music can also be used against them. Preachers and politicians who railed against hidden messages in rock or heavy metal during the ’80s stoked fear that music could invade listeners against their will, opening a door for evil into the mind or soul.

Christians who see musical worship as ammunition in a spiritual war are primed to see music as a tool of their enemies. And when it’s easier than ever to access an endless stream of music to accompany daily life, Christians understandably want to understand its potential impacts on their emotional and spiritual well-being.

But the view that music can serve as a hidden inroad for spiritual oppression or the demonic is one that sows fear, said Larsen, cautioning that this kind of “magical thinking” verges on gnosticism. “Gnosticism promises hidden knowledge. Discipleship is about obvious, simple knowledge,” said Larsen. “Paul says, ‘Eat what you want and give thanks to God, and trust that he will protect you.’”

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Review

Remaking God’s Image in the Image of Secular Society

Nadya Williams

A religion scholar’s assumptions about historical progress distort the legacy of a central Christian doctrine.

Liubava Fedoryshyn / Pexels

[Correction: This article has been amended to better reflect the religious beliefs and scholarly arguments of Tomer Persico, the author of In God’s Image.]

Few ideas have changed the world as profoundly as the doctrine that all human beings who have ever lived bear God’s likeness. In Genesis 1:27, when God creates the first people, we learn that he painstakingly created them “in his own image.” Of all living beings, only men and women bear the very image of their Creator.

From the earliest days, this idea had profound implications, especially when compared with how other ancient civilizations viewed human beings. Put simply, the ancient world saw all people in stratified terms. Depending on a complex set of factors (always subject to change), some people were more valuable than others, more important than others, more powerful than others.

As documentary evidence attests, often in harrowing fashion, some people could be killed without their deaths being avenged or the murderers prosecuted. This pattern occurred during periods of war, but it could also prevail in peacetime, when the law deemed some people unworthy of its concern. Such was, in particular, the plight of widows, who had no one to pursue justice on their behalf.

In the Roman Empire, to use one example, this stratification was an obvious fact of life, an essential aspect of Roman social relations. Aristocratic, freeborn male Roman citizens were at the top of the social pyramid, with the emperor, of course, above all others. Women were seen as inferior to men, although freeborn (and especially imperial) women had some perks. (They could even own property, if they had at least three children.) Still, the earliest Roman legal codes noted women’s “levity of mind,” strongly implying a need for male guardianship at all stages of life.

And then there were the freeborn or freed urban poor. They were free in theory, but in a society that had no social safety nets, their lives were often short and unhealthy. At the bottom of the pyramid were the enslaved. Brutally conquered in Rome’s wars and sold at the empire’s many markets, they did not even legally own their own bodies.

All this is well-known and documented by historians, ancient and modern. So what difference did Christianity make in this world, and why? These questions bring us back to the doctrine of the imago Dei, which made Christianity the great equalizer—a faith that treasured all people unconditionally. The New Testament Gospels and Epistles routinely note the equality of all believers before God. Christ repeatedly interacts with people dismissed as utter outcasts by Jews and Romans alike.

The first believers strove to live the principle of the imago Dei. Early chapters in the Book of Acts give a striking depiction of communal life in the Jerusalem church, where commitments to sharing everything in common stood out as contrary to Roman norms. Similarly, the early martyrs Perpetua and Felicity, a noblewoman and her slave, defied Roman class distinctions by enduring imprisonment for their faith together, under the same conditions. Kyle Harper, a historian of the ancient world, has noted the revolutionary expectation in early Christianity that men and women would be held to the same standards of sexual purity.

The imago Dei’s influence did not stop in antiquity. Over two millennia, it has shaped the moral and ethical principles taken for granted in much of the Western world, as historian Tom Holland contends in his book Dominion. (In this essay and in my own recent book, I show how Christian beliefs about human dignity taught us to hate genocide.) Old Testament theologian Carmen Joy Imes has now authored three books on the revolutionary nature of the doctrine of God’s image for understanding the Old Testament and the church today.

And yet secularism uncomfortably coexists with religion in the modern world. The “Great Dechurching” is proceeding apace in America. Meanwhile, in most European countries, less than 10 percent of the population attends church services on any given Sunday. In Israel, where I spent part of my childhood, none of my classmates or friends regularly went to the synagogue, and public attitudes toward religion remain ambivalent.

Even in a secularizing landscape, the modern discipline of history has proudly claimed to model itself after the hard sciences, with their ideals of objectivity. Yet scholars bring moral and cultural assumptions to their research, which inevitably influence both the questions they ask and the answers they find. (One University of Chicago historian described the quest for objectivity as a “noble dream.”)

Religion scholar Tomer Persico arguably lets assumptions get the better of him in his latest book, In God’s Image: How Western Civilization Was Shaped by a Revolutionary Idea. The book revolves around Persico’s conviction that Christian beliefs about individual human dignity have bent the course of history toward secularism. Some of his claims could be construed as positing the superiority of secularism to religion. Early on, Persico writes, “Secularism does not simply entail the dwindling power of organized religion, but new perceptions of liberty and ethics. Democracy is not only a more or less efficient system of governance, but an expression of a new understanding about the value and significance of human life and about the source of legitimate authority.”

What exactly does Persico claim in this book? The chapters are remarkably disconnected, cherry-picking evidence and arguments without a clear rationale. If he gestures toward any clear thesis, it might be described like this: Modernity has been inimical to belief in God, and one driver of this secularization is the very individualism entailed in the conviction that each person bears God’s image.

Early chapters contrast ancient ideas about liberty with Christian alternatives, charting a shift toward people thinking of themselves as individuals rather than members of families and communities. Subsequent chapters discuss the religious wars that threw Europe into turmoil after the Reformation, as well as the political philosophy of John Locke, who theorized about maintaining civic peace in societies where people disagree about theology. As Persico sees it, the rise of religious diversity in Western societies opened the door for secularization to occur.

In chapter 5, “Meaning,” Persico reaches his underlying goal: depicting modern secularism as an outgrowth of Christian ideas about God’s image in humanity. The story of humanity rejecting religion, he concludes, is “the culmination of a millennia-long process of development, which began with the idea that all human beings were created in the image of God.” Does the arc of the universe really bend toward atheism as an essential companion to modern liberalism?

For Persico, belief in the imago Dei helped lay the groundwork for an “individualistic, liberal, and secular” culture that would evolve beyond it. As he elaborates,

By the nineteenth century, the concept of human dignity was no longer embedded in the image of God but instead negated it in the name of a secular conception of humanity. We thus explore atheism as an ethos and analyze secularization not as a process caused by the scientific revolution or driven by technological progress, but as a moral imperative. Religion was rejected in the name of personal autonomy and a wish to become fully human.

Persico’s use of the passive voice obscures agency. By whom was religion “rejected in the name of personal autonomy”? Whose “wish to become fully human” involves this outright and dramatic rejection of belief in God? Persico seems to assume that these statements describe the outlook of every rational person.

Persico is Israeli, and it’s possible the secular dynamics of life in Israel have profoundly influenced his assumptions. He has trouble imagining a state where commitments to God and democracy productively coexist. In fact, some statements in the book appear to dismiss the idea that contemporary Christian believers would regard the development of democratic ideals as anything but lamentable.

Consider, for instance, this aside at the end of his introduction:

Adherents of such belief systems would answer “no” to the question with which this book began—whether anything truly significant has happened over the past few centuries. For them, history is but a record of the suffering and upheavals between creation and redemption; the mighty shifts that humanity underwent with the dawn of the modern era are merely additional hurdles that the Lord of History has thrown in the way of true believers, who must grit their teeth and plow ahead without accepting change.

I suppose this means Persico wouldn’t be convinced by books like Sarah Irving-Stonebraker’s recent Priests of History: Stewarding the Past in an Ahistoric Age, which regards historical knowledge as an aid to strengthen faith rather than a “hurdle” to overcome.

All of this makes In God’s Image an incredibly frustrating read. Leaving aside the poor writing and argumentation—clunky and overly long sentences, illogically organized chapters, selective use of material—Persico shows little awareness that any intellectually serious person might take Christianity seriously, apart from any philosophical support it might lend to the rise of secular societies. Instead, he peppers the book with insinuations about the inevitability of human progress away from belief.

Ultimately, this book counts as a cautionary reminder about the assumptions some scholars bring to discussions of belief. Since the days of Herodotus, good historical writing has required an openness to be led by evidence—and a willingness to be proven wrong. Intellectual honesty demands no less.

Nadya Williams is the author of Cultural Christians in the Early Church and Mothers, Children, and the Body Politic: Ancient Christianity and the Recovery of Human Dignity.

- More from Nadya Williams

News

Wire Story

Republicans Accuse Christian College of Violating DEI Ban

Bob Smietana - Religion News Service

Following Trump’s executive order, Nashville’s Belmont University faces scrutiny for its “Hope, Unity, and Belonging” program.

Belmont University in Nashville, Tennesse.

Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

A prominent Christian college in Nashville, Tennessee, has hired an outside consultant to review its policies after politicians allied with President Donald Trump complained the school was violating the White House’s ban on diversity, equity and inclusion—commonly known as DEI—at colleges that receive federal funds.

In mid-July, US Rep. Andy Ogles, a Tennessee Republican, wrote to Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, asking her to investigate Belmont University’s “Hope, Unity, and Belonging” program, which he claimed was DEI in disguise.

“Belmont University, like all universities, must understand that if they persist in promoting racist DEI programs in violation of their students’ rights, they will be defunded,” wrote Ogles in his letter, which cited Trump’s executive order.

DEI programs have become commonplace in America’s college and universities, especially in the wake of protests after the death of George Floyd in 2020. But in April, Trump issued an executive order that labeled DEI programs as discrimination.

Ogles asked McMahon to “initiate an immediate compliance review” of Belmont and to report to Congress about any other “rebranding” of DEI programs at other colleges. The letter also accused Harvard, George Mason University, American University, and Northeastern University of similar rebranding.

April Hefner, Belmont’s vice president for marketing and communications, told Religion News Service that the school had launched an independent compliance review.

“While we make every effort to ensure compliance and continue to maintain our belief that Belmont complies with all applicable laws, we take seriously the concerns that have been raised,” a statement about the review read. “With this in mind, we are bringing in an external partner to initiate an independent compliance review.”

The review will look at any potential issues that have been raised by changes in federal or state laws and address those issues “thoroughly and responsibly,” according to the statement.

Once a Tennessee Baptist college—it agreed to split from the denomination in 2007 after lawsuit—Belmont describes itself as a “Christ-centered, student-focused community.” The school hosted presidential debates in 2008 and in 2020, when Trump debated Joe Biden during the COVID-19 pandemic. The school also has close ties to Nashville’s music industry and opened a medical school last year.

Ogles’s letter was prompted by videos shared by conservative activists, including Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA, in which a Belmont staffer described the Hope, Unity, and Belonging program as “just DEI” and said that there were undocumented students on campus. The video led politicians and activists to call for an investigation.

Republican US Senator Marsha Blackburn also sent letters recently to three Tennessee universities, including Belmont, accusing them of concealing their DEI programs. “Renaming woke-DEI programs to circumvent compliance and public scrutiny degrades the educational experience of your students and the trust placed in institutions of higher education like Belmont,” Blackburn wrote to Belmont President Greg Jones.

She added: “This administration has been very clear: postsecondary education programs funded by the federal government should benefit American citizens—not illegal aliens.”

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has also been critical of Belmont, alleging earlier this month that the school is obstructing immigration law by having undocumented students on campus. A Belmont spokesperson declined to address Noem’s comments, instead pointing to the school’s statement.

In a video update, Ogles said that he is a fan of Belmont and that his daughter applied to the school.

“I want to sing their praises, but I also have to hold them accountable, and this wokeness is in violation of President Trump’s executive order. Like Harvard, Belmont will be held accountable if they don’t correct course,” he said.

Ogles, who has close ties to businessman Lee Beaman – a member of Belmont’s board— called DEI “radically un-Christian.”

Belmont cited the school’s commitment to Christian faith in its statement.

“We remain committed to our core Christian identity and providing the highest quality educational experience for our students.”

- More from Bob Smietana - Religion News Service

Theology

How a YouTube Atheist Helped Me Out of Cynicism

Russell Moore

Columnist

Public debates about God often hinge on syllogisms. Alex O’Connor unexpectedly reminded me there’s more to truth than that.

Illustration by Christianity Today / Source Images: Youtube

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

When a Christian friend texted me an interview with Alex O’Connor, I expected my reaction to be an eye-rolling “Can you believe this guy?”

O’Connor—whether technically atheist or agnostic—is one of the most prolific YouTube/podcast skeptics of religion today. More than once, the algorithms have fed me video clips of the 26-year-old cynically dismissing the “superstitions” of Christians and the Bible. So I expected more cynicism, but then was surprised to realize that I was actually the cynical one. The clip moved me and prompted me to examine my own heart.

O’Connor, host of the Within Reason podcast, with over a million subscribers, was in conversation with host André Duqum on the Know Thyself podcast, which seems to be on the New Age side of the “spiritual but not religious” spectrum.

In the clip—excerpted from a much longer conversation—O’Connor displayed a kind of vulnerability quite rare for a person who has built his platform on confidence and rationalism. He confessed a pull toward cynicism, and said he didn’t like where it had taken him:

The person who looks at everything with a sharp edge and tries to debunk and criticize everything—it’s easy and it’s doable and I’ve certainly been there. I know in my family, when I was living at home, it was sort of constant. And you can always fall back on this idea of “I’m just trying to get to the truth. You said something I don’t think is true, and I’m just asking you a question. I’m just trying to understand your view.”

“But sometimes it is just inappropriate to do that,” O’Connor continued. “The intellect is like a knife or a chisel that you can use to tear away at false stuff, but you’re supposed to do it in the service of creating sculpture. You’re supposed to be bringing something out of whatever you’re chiseling away at.”

“If you take that chisel and just knock it all the way down through,” he said, “then you end up with nothing. … It’s like somebody trying to understand the Mona Lisa by looking through a microscope at the paint strokes.”

O’Connor then pointed to the famous philosophical thought experiment of a patient named Mary, who has lived all her life in a completely black-and-white environment, having seen no color at all. She’s been given voluminous factual information on the color blue, “about the wave length, about the effect it has on the consciousness—everything that could be even known and written down onto paper about blue.”

“The question is, when she steps outside of that room and looks at something blue, has she learned anything?” O’Connor asked. “And intuitively the answer is yes. Surely there is something that you can know that is not reducible to words on paper.”

O’Connor confessed that thinking this way—recognizing forms of knowledge that are non-propositional—is not easy for him, trained as he is in syllogisms and argument. But he recognized that there’s more to truth than what can be quantified and measured:

I think C. S. Lewis once wrote about how he realized that the problem with his worldview before he became a theist was that he was being asked to take the things that are most unnatural to him—numbers, abstraction—and say that’s the true thing, the thing that’s really there: the math, the syllogism. Whereas the thing that was most real to him—the narrative, the feeling, the experience—that’s the thing that’s wrong and fake and we should be suspect of. It seems like it was kind of the other way around.

This certainly isn’t any kind of conversion story. O’Connor will no doubt be back at the syllogisms this week in cyberspace. He is not at all backing down on his vision of a world without God. But consider the courage it took for him to say what he said—knowing that someone like me would say, “Aha! See! I caught you!”

Yet to do that would take cynicism on my end too. It flattens O’Connor to a collection of arguments rather than seeing him as a human who can image back the mystery of a personal God, a complicated person who can remind me of the things that matter most. Perhaps O’Connor had been cynically trapped in his syllogisms, but my first expectation of him was cynically trapped in somebody’s algorithms.

That’s the problem with so many of our public debates about God and the meaning of life—for Christians as well as for non-Christians. Most of the time, we are just giving Mary another set of facts about the wavelengths of blue.

To some degree, that’s what we must do. Paul debated the skeptics at the Areopagus and in the court of Agrippa. We are dealing, after all, with matters of a God who entered history in space and in time in the person of Jesus, and this “has not been done in a corner” (Acts 26:26, ESV throughout).

At the same time, God is not reducible to syllogisms and testing. If “in him we live and move and have our being” (17:28), then to examine him the way we would quarks or quasars would require godlike perspective, the ability to stand outside of and thus be able to interrogate the one who says, “I am who I am” (Ex. 3:14). The perplexity before a mystery we cannot comprehend is not an obstacle to our discerning the ultimate but rather a necessary first step.

That’s why the vision of God revealed in the Scriptures is quite different from the way we debate God as just another political or philosophical or cultural dispute in order to find who’s the winner and loser of the argument.

The message is to “taste and see that the Lord is good” (Ps. 34:8). When we ask, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” the message doesn’t give us statistics but instead says simply, “Come and see” (John 1:46). We can’t do that standing from the outside, examining good tidings of great joy the way one would a thing or a concept.

As Christians, we lose sight of this. We become cynical, and that cynicism is easy. In a time like this, it can be mistaken for a sign of intelligence. If I assume that everyone is fake, everything is a scam, then I will turn out to be right much of the time. And I will protect myself from the kind of vulnerability in which a Christian can sometimes admit doubting and an atheist can sometimes admit wondering. That leads us to joylessness, to a lack of wonder and awe, without which we cannot remove the veil that shields us from the glory of God (2 Cor 3:18).

Sometimes we get a little glimpse of how hardened we’ve become, how little we expect the Spirit to move in us or in others. Every once in a while, though, someone reminds us. Sometimes, at least once for me, that’s an atheist on YouTube.

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

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