Dads: Put Down the Shotguns and Let Your Daughters Go

Scripture portrays young women not as their fathers’ pets but as pillars in God’s kingdom.

Oliver Rossi / Getty

Last week, CCM artist Matthew West debuted a new single at the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting in Nashville. Unlike his other hits, West’s latest offering is a satirical take on a piece of advice common among evangelicals: “Modest Is Hottest.” Written as a letter from a father to his daughters, West croons:

Modest is hottest, the latest fashion trend
Is a little more Amish, a little less Kardashian
What the boys really love is a turtleneck and a sensible pair of slacks
Honey, modest is hottest, sincerely, your dad.

Response to the song was swift. Some loved and shared it widely, while others critiqued what they saw as underlying themes of misogyny and the policing of women’s bodies. There are plenty of reasons to object to the phrase “Modest is hottest.” But this particular song has less to do with modesty and more to do with the challenges and insecurities that modern dads face as their daughters mature. “My daughter’s [sic] might actually disown me after this one,” West joked in a Tweet announcing the music video. “It’s for all of the fathers out there whose daughters are joining TikTok and starting to date. The struggle is real.” In the opening shot of the video, the West daughters sit on the couch wearing shorts, legs fully exposed, and continue doing exactly what they want to do despite their father’s singing in the background. They lay out in the sun, make online dance videos, style a tank top, and roll their eyes when dad claims that “what the boys really love is a turtleneck and a sensible pair of slacks.” Obviously, this is not what “the boys” love. It is what boys who have become fathers love. Seen through this lens, the song sits within an emerging genre of viral content: the funny family video that satirizes the trials of parenthood and family life in song. In this respect, West’s “Modest Is Hottest” tracks with common themes in the “family values” vlog genre. In this case, it’s the outdated father trying to connect with his growing daughters.

But his song is only superficially about fatherly angst. If you look closer, it exposes a limited understanding of the father-daughter relationship. And that understanding is rooted in a narrow nuclear family model—as opposed to the kinship model found in Scripture, which recognizes both the nuclear and the extended family. In our contemporary setting, we often equate daughterhood with childhood, which means daughterhood functionally ends when a woman leaves home or marries.

With that assumption in mind, fathers today often want to delay or resist the natural maturation of girls to womanhood because it means losing them. (See Bob Carlisle’s 1995 hit “Butterfly Kisses.”) We see this same resistance and angst in West’s song. The opening lines allude to both the passage of time and marriage:

Dear daughter, it’s me your father
I think it's time we had a talk
The boys are coming round ’cause you're beautiful
And it’s all your mother’s fault.

It's not that West doesn’t want his daughters to be attractive. It’s that he knows what happens when a young man falls for a young woman. It’s what happened when he fell in love with their mother. He married her and started his own, separate family. Here, we see how the primacy of the nuclear family in the modern West puts pressure on father-daughter relationships. Lacking a vision for extended kinship networks, we, along with West, can’t quite see how an adult daughter who’s married or moved away from home might relate to her father. So a young woman’s relationship to other males creates something of a zero-sum game for her dad. If she marries and has children, she exchanges her identity as “daughter” for “wife” and often “mother.” And boys beginning to recognize her beauty is the first step in this process.

When the stakes are that high, it’s no wonder fathers want their daughters to wear turtlenecks and a sensible pair of slacks. It’s no wonder they make jokes about having shotguns ready when potential suitors come around. It’s no wonder they want to continue to think of daughters as “Daddy’s Little Princess.” Of course the father-daughter relationship will change as a woman matures. This is inescapable. But it need not end or be a source of loss.

Where I live in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, extended kin networks are the norm. And while correlation is not causation, I’ve noticed a particular linguistic feature: Daughters continue to call their fathers “Daddy” well beyond childhood. Daughters who’ve gone onto their own homes, careers, and marriages still speak of their “daddies.” Scripture too gives us a vision of extended, interlacing family relationships, where a woman doesn’t have to choose between being a daughter and a wife (and often a mother). She can be both precisely because she’s not an extension of either her father or her husband. She can mature past childhood into womanhood without the risk of losing the father-daughter relationship when she creates a new relationship with a husband.

Scriptural mentions of daughterhood often represent daughters as adults, not children. In Numbers 27, for example, the grown, married daughters of Zelophehad—Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milkah, and Tirzah—petition Moses to receive their deceased father’s land rather than have it pass out of their family—a petition God tells Moses to grant.

Job’s daughters are named as more fair than other women, but perhaps even more significantly, Job gives them inheritance with their brothers (Job 42:14-15). Psalm 144:12 describes grown daughters “like pillars carved to adorn a palace”—a source of both stability and beauty. And Luke 2 introduces us to the widowed octogenarian prophetess Anna as “the daughter of Penuel” (v. 36). But perhaps the most interesting biblical reference to daughters coming into full maturity is found in Joel 2:28–29:

And afterward,
I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your old men will dream dreams,
your young men will see visions.
Even on my servants, both men and women,
I will pour out my Spirit in those days.

Fulfilled at the Day of Pentecost, Acts 2 records how the Spirit of God descended on those gathered in the upper room, filling both men and women with the power to do what they were called to do. Perhaps then, the best way to grapple with the changing dynamics of the father-daughter relationship is not to try to stop a daughter’s growth or to chase boys away but simply to embrace the change.

This requires a vision of a woman’s life that goes beyond her being handed off from one man to another. It requires understanding daughters not as the pets of their fathers but as pillars in the palace of God who are vital, strong links between generations in both this life and the life to come. And ultimately, it means honoring them as daughters of their heavenly Father, recognizing that his Spirit dwells within them, equipping and empowering them to every good work.

Hannah Anderson is the author of Made for More, All That’s Good, and Humble Roots: How Humility Grounds and Nourishes Your Soul.

News

Wire Story

Jim Bakker to Pay $156K Over COVID-19 Cure Claim

Jim Salter – Associated Press

After settlement, the televangelist and his church can no longer sell his Silver Solution as treatment. His lawyers, though, say state officials “unfairly targeted” the show.

Chuck Burton / AP

Jim Bakker and his southwestern Missouri church will pay restitution of $156,000 to settle a lawsuit that accuses the TV pastor of falsely claiming a health supplement could cure COVID-19.

Missouri court records show that a settlement agreement was filed Tuesday. It calls for refunds to people who paid money or gave contributions to obtain a product known as Silver Solution in the early days of the pandemic.

The settlement also prohibits Bakker and Morningside Church Productions Inc. from advertising or selling Silver Solution “to diagnose, prevent, mitigate, treat or cure any disease or illness.” Bakker, in the agreement, does not admit wrongdoing.

Republican Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt sued Bakker and Morningside in March 2020. Schmitt sought an injunction ordering Bakker to stop selling Silver Solution as a treatment for COVID-19 on his streaming TV program, The Jim Bakker Show. The lawsuit said Bakker and a guest made the cure claim during 11 episodes in February and March of 2020.

Schmitt said in a news release on Wednesday that Bakker has already made restitution to many consumers, and must pay back another $90,000 to others.

The hour-long Jim Bakker Show is filmed in southwestern Missouri. The consent agreement notes that during the program, Silver Solution was offered to those who agreed to contribute $80 to $125.

Baker’s attorneys—Derek Ankrom and former Democratic Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon—said in a joint statement that Bakker and Morningside Church Productions are pleased to put the matter behind them so they can “continue the important work of Morningside Church.” They noted that the agreement includes “no findings whatsoever that our clients violated any laws or misled” consumers.

Nixon had previously claimed that Bakker was being unfairly targeted “by those who want to crush his ministry and force his Christian television program off the air,” and that Bakker did not claim that Silver Solution was a cure for COVID-19.

The lawsuit cited a discussion on the program on February 12, 2020, in which Bakker spoke with Sherrill Sellman, referring to her as a “naturopathic doctor” and a “natural health expert.”

“This influenza that is now circling the globe, you’re saying that Silver Solution would be effective?” Bakker asks. Sellman, according to the lawsuit, replies: “Well, let’s say it hasn’t been tested on this strain of the coronavirus, but it has been tested on other strains of the coronavirus and has been able to eliminate it within 12 hours.”

“Yeah,” Bakker says.

“Totally eliminate it, kills it. Deactivates it,” Sellman replies, according to the lawsuit.

Also in March 2020, US regulators warned Bakker’s company and six others to stop selling items using what the government called false claims that they could treat the coronavirus or keep people from catching it. Letters sent jointly by the Food and Drug Administration and the Federal Trade Commission warned the companies that their products for treating COVID-19 were fraudulent, “pose significant risks to patient health and violate federal law.”

Silver Solution, a form of colloidal silver, consists of silver particles suspended in a liquid. The solution is often described by manufacturers as having the power to boost the immune system and cure diseases. But it has no known benefit in the body when ingested, according to officials with the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, a federal scientific research agency.

Experts say ingesting colloidal silver can have serious side effects. The NCCIH says it can turn skin blue when silver builds up in the body’s tissue.

Nixon, who served two terms as governor from 2009 to 2017 and is now a partner at the Dowd Bennett law firm in St. Louis, said Bakker immediately complied with orders to stop offering Silver Solution on his show and ministry website after receiving the warning letters from the FDA and FTC.

Meanwhile, Arkansas’ attorney general filed a lawsuit similar to Missouri’s in June 2020. That case is still pending.

- More from Jim Salter – Associated Press

News

Died: Thelma Battle Buckner, COGIC Minister and Mother of the Minnesota Gospel Twins

Daniel Silliman

She led a congregation in a denomination that doesn’t believe in women in leadership, fostered more than 1,000 children, and sang the music that God taught her to play.

Courtesy of Gospel Temple / edits by Rick Szuecs

Thelma Battle Buckner learned to play piano in dreams.

She took one lesson as a child, but then the teacher left, and she prayed for help. She received visions in her sleep of her practicing—lessons from God, as she understood it—and quickly learned “Jesus Loves Me,” “How Great Thou Art,” and “Just a Closer Walk With Thee.”

Later, when she played for her father’s Pentecostal revivals, and later, when she and her children performed for Minnesota Lutherans and on the public radio show A Prairie Home Companion, and still later, when she pastored a Church of God in Christ congregation in St. Paul even though the denomination does not believe that women should lead churches and neither did she, she would apologize for her limited skill.

But then she would say, “Don’t blame me if I can’t play any better. God taught me.”

Buckner always recognized her own limitations and God’s call on her life to rise above them. She responded to God with worship, thanksgiving, and work—and urged those around her to do the same.

“I will always serve the Lord,” she sang in one of the gospel songs she wrote herself. “And let me tell you why / He has given me strength in trouble / My guiding light in the sky.”

Buckner died on June 11 at age 89.

The Gospel Temple Church of God in Christ in St. Paul will celebrate her life with music on Wednesday. She will lie in state in the church on Thursday. And she will receive a homegoing service on Friday.

From a long line of fervent Pentecostals

Buckner was born to Nathan and Bessie Wainwright Battle in Racetrack, Mississippi, on April 26, 1932. Her parents were sharecroppers and partners in Pentecostal ministry, regularly leading revivals around the state.

During the summer, Nathan Battle often preached every night. A revival would last a few weeks, Buckner later recalled, but “if the Holy Spirit broke out, it could go on for an entire month.”

The Battles came from a line of revivalists and fervent Black Pentecostals and passed down family stories about the power of God. According to one, Buckner’s grandfather was being cheated out of cotton profits by a white landowner—a common problem for Black families struggling to survive as farmers after the abolition of slavery—and he decided to leave and find a new place to sharecrop. The white owner stopped him with a shotgun.

Buckner’s grandfather started praying in tongues, and it scared the white man, who used a racial epithet and swore Black people “don’t speak other languages.” The man then begged them to leave his land, just as Pharaoh once asked Moses and the Hebrew children to leave their bondage in Egypt.

The story delighted Buckner, and when she was a child, she loved the sound of people praying in tongues and all the noise of a revival.

“There would be singing, shouting, clapping, and jumping,” she wrote in her memoir in 2013. “Folks gave their lives to Christ from all that preaching, shouting, clapping, and jumping.”

After she learned to play piano, Buckner, who was nicknamed “Sassy,” contributed to the holy noise. She was baptized in a Mississippi river at 10, and she gave her life to church, worship, and revival whenever she wasn’t in school.

A difficult marriage

In 1950, Buckner married a young Pentecostal preacher her family had known before he moved from Mississippi to Ohio. Though she had only met Arthur Buckner twice, they corresponded by mail and she agreed to marry him and move to be with him in Ohio.

She quickly regretted the decision.

“What did I know at 18?” she said. “We married as strangers and didn’t know how to get acquainted.”

In 1952, they moved from Ohio to Minnesota, where Buckner’s older brother had started a small Church of God in Christ, but the marriage did not improve.

Buckner’s husband left her at home during the day while he went to work and at night while he went to preach at various churches around the city. She wanted to accompany him and participate as a partner in his ministry, but he refused.

When Buckner got pregnant, he didn’t want her to leave the house at all. And she got pregnant five times in 11 years—including with three sets of twins. Buckner had eight children by age of 29 when Arthur abandoned her. He went to preach at a revival in Chicago in 1961 and never returned.

Buckner was mostly glad to be left to raise the children on her own. She started working at a local factory and trusted God to provide.

“I’m just taking a moment to testify,” Buckner told the church after her husband left. “Every day the Lord makes a way.”

‘It was hard trials and tribulations’

A short time later, Buckner took in eight of her sister’s children when her sister was too ill to care for them. Then she started taking in children whose parents were struggling with drugs and alcohol. She took care of an estimated 500 kids before the county government licensed her as a foster care provider in 1972.

In 1985, she bought a 100-year-old, nine-bedroom house in St. Paul so she could take in more children. The exact number of children she cared for is unknown, but it is believed to be more than 1,000.

“You see a need, you take care of it,” Buckner said. “I don’t know how successful I was. It was hard trials and tribulations and bumping my head. Only way to raise a child is to be persistent.”

At the same time, she and six of her eight children started performing gospel music. First they played in the Gospel Temple, where they attended, and then around the city and the state. They performed as Thelma Buckner and the Minnesota Gospel Twins, and they were a big hit at Lutheran churches and with Garrison Keillor, creator and host of A Prairie Home Companion. They appeared on the show multiple times.

Called to ministry

At 62, Buckner faced a new challenge when her elder brother died and there was no one available to lead the Gospel Temple. She tried to hire a minister, and then another and then another, but no one was willing to take on the small church. She felt God telling her that she should do it.

“I didn’t believe in women priests,” she said. “I came from the old school. I didn’t think I should even be a pastor.”

Buckner was reminded of Moses, who also thought he was unqualified to lead God’s people and his brother should do the job. She thought of Jesus’ statement that if his followers didn’t praise him, the rocks themselves would cry out. And she made a decision.

“I said, ‘Okay, Lord, I’ll speak whenever you want me to,’” Buckner said. “I refuse to let a rock talk in my place, so I’m going to serve the Lord, hallelujah.”

She led the church for 15 years, retiring in her 70s. Gospel Temple is now pastored by her son Dwight.

She went back to school and earned a doctorate from the Minnesota Graduate School of Theology in 2002, at age 70, and launched a ministry teaching young people to sew. They called her “Granny.”

Bucker is survived by her children Gwen Onumah-Onikoro, Bessie Jean Manga, Jesse Buckner, Dwight Buckner, Patrick Buckner, Patricia Lacy-Aiken, Arthur Buckner, and Aretta-Rie Johnson.

- More from Daniel Silliman

Theology

Francis Collins: How Christians Can Help Curb COVID-19

Interview by Timothy Dalrymple and Ted Olsen

A conversation with the director of the National Institutes of Health.

Pool / Getty Images

Over the last year of the US pandemic, a few key scientists and medical professionals have been lifted onto the national stage by their timely expertise. Americans turn to them for information, insight, and even pastoral care of a certain kind. Among those is the physician-geneticist Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and founder of BioLogos.

Timothy Dalrymple, president and editor in chief of Christianity Today, and Ted Olsen, CT’s executive editor, spoke recently with Collins about the Delta variant, vaccine hesitancy among evangelicals, and how Christians can come alongside communities that are still crippled by the virus.

Dalrymple: I understand there is an effort to get more folks vaccinated before July 4, and that’s the reason for this conversation. But first, tell us about the Delta variant.

This Delta variant, which is the one that decimated the country of India, is leading to all kinds of terrible tragedies. It has now also taken over in the United Kingdom, where now they’re wondering whether they can actually open up—which they planned to do—because this virus is spreading so rapidly.

It’s about 50 percent more contagious than the previous record holder, which is the one we call Alpha. But Delta is even more contagious. And unfortunately, this has now come to the US, and in the last couple of weeks, about 6 percent of the viruses that were isolated from infected folks are this Delta variant. It’s likely to grow very rapidly now, just because of its ability to spread.

It seems also really good at spreading amongst young people, who are often the folks who haven’t gotten around to getting vaccinated, because they thought maybe this wasn’t such a threat to them. And this certainly can be a threat.

Dalrymple: So what I’ve heard is that the Delta variant is more transmissible, perhaps more likely to lead to hospitalization, and yet the vaccines seem to be effective against it.

That’s the good news. If you get both doses—not just one but both doses—of the Pfizer or the Moderna vaccine, you are protected about at the 90 percent level from getting sick from Delta. And that’s something you would really not want to pass up.

So I know there’s still about 90 million people out there who have not yet rolled up their sleeve for that first shot, and many people still on the fence wondering, “Is this really safe? Is it really something that I want to do for myself?” Here’s one more really good reason to get off the fence.

Look at the data. There’s lots of information there. Go to the website that’s called getvaccineanswers.org if you’re interested in having some of your questions answered. And then make a decision, because this is potentially going to ruin our plans for getting back to something approaching normal. If we have communities where vaccination levels are still pretty low, Delta is potentially going to cause another round of outbreaks, and it’s going to be preventable, if we can move quickly now to get shots in arms.

Dalrymple: I check the Johns Hopkins dashboard every day, and for a long time there, every state was blue, which indicates that the rates are still falling. Now I see a couple of states that are showing pink or red again. Are you starting to see a breakout of containment in a couple places?

I think that is unfortunately the case. For a while we could see rates falling in all 50 states, and boy, was that wonderful to see after what we’ve been through for the last year and a half. And really only back in January, where there were hundreds of thousands of new cases every day and thousands of deaths.

And we’ve come way down from that, by like a 90 percent drop in the number of cases and deaths, but that’s not a guarantee that will continue. As you’re saying, when you start to see a shift in a few places, that’s a warning that we’re not exactly where we need to be.

But we could be again, now that we’ve had these vaccines out there for almost a year, beginning with the original large-scale trials. We’ve been able to see just how effective and how safe they are in the real world, and for people who haven’t yet figured out that it’s something they want to take advantage of, this would be a great moment to look again.

Let me say one other thing that we have to think about, and that is those people who can’t get vaccinated. Those would be kids under 12. But it would also be people who have cancer, who are on chemotherapy. They could get it injected but it probably won’t work. They won’t have an immune system that can respond to it.

Dalrymple: Right.

Or my friend who has a kidney transplant, who, because of the suppression therapy he has to be on, can’t respond to the vaccine. Those people are counting on the rest of us to develop enough community immunity that this virus won’t keep going and won’t threaten them. So yeah, this is a “love your neighbor” kind of moment. It’s not just about your own self-protection. It’s also about helping other people around you—and it seems like that’s what Christians have always been called upon to do and have always risen to that challenge. This would be a great time to do so.

Dalrymple: Obviously, we’ve been concerned about vaccine hesitancy among evangelicals. Do you have any data on whether that hesitancy is declining? Are we making new progress? I’ve had a hard time finding any updated data on that.

I look at the various polls that are put out by the Kaiser Family Foundation and others. It hasn’t been terribly encouraging. Yes, I am an evangelical Christian, and it does trouble me that this seems to be a group where the hesitancy is particularly strong. And there are lots of reasons and lots of questions, although many of those have really good answers.

But for some reason, in many churches, there’s still sort of this sense of, okay, well, we’re trusting in God here, and therefore we don’t need to reach out and take advantage of these vaccines that might, by something we’ve heard on social media, have something wrong with them.

First of all, there’s a lot of things on social media. Please don’t pay too much attention to those. Go and look at the real data—getvaccineanswers.org is a good place to do that. But secondly, if you’ve been praying for protection for yourself and your family from COVID-19, and now these vaccines come along that are safe and effective, it kind of seems to me like that’s an answer to prayer. It felt that way to me, being part of the process of getting those developed. Maybe think of it as a gift from God—but a gift you’ve got to unwrap.

Which means roll up your sleeve.

Olsen: I’m curious about the folks who have received both doses and have been masking. How can they further show love for neighbor, not knowing who may be unvaccinated? I’ve checked my box, I got a vaccine, but now I wonder, “There’s this Delta threat, and I don’t know if there’s anything I should be doing.” Not necessarily for myself, but for the community.

It’s a great question. I do think it’s a time for those of us who have had already the opportunity to get immunized—and I’m one of those—to become ambassadors to those who are still not sure.

Go to Google and type in “We can do this,” and it’ll take you to a site that has hundreds of organizations, hundreds of churches, the National Association of Evangelicals, you’ll see they’re right there, joined up together to try to be in that space of providing encouragement to people who are still not sure. Individuals can be ambassadors. Just go to We Can Do This, and they’ll send you a whole bunch of links to information that you can use to answer other people’s questions.

Because sometimes that’s the way people’s minds really get made up—not because they hear some government guy, that would be me, talking about this. It’s because of a neighbor who has the information, or their doctor, or their priest, or their clergyman. All of those are trusted voices. By the way, 90% of doctors have gotten immunized, and that tells you something about what they think about the importance of the vaccine. And the We Can Do This site is a place to empower yourself, if you want to be one of those trusted voices and aren’t sure how.

Dalrymple: Thank you for pointing us toward that. On the international front, are you concerned that sub-Saharan Africa might be the next India?

I’m really worried. I’ve been worried all along that Africa is in a vulnerable position because of health care delivery limitations; access to vaccines, which has been very limited up until now; and of course with these variants coming along that are even more contagious. So far Africa hasn’t been hit too hard, but there’s no reason that could not be in the future.

So we as citizens of the planet and people who care about our brothers and sisters, regardless of what country they’re in, we should be doing everything we can to try to help make sure that vaccines do become as readily available as possible as soon as possible.

One of the things that I’m caring most about as head of the NIH—we have a global health mission as well—is to try to see in the longer term what we could do to get vaccine manufacturing capabilities more widely distributed. Why don’t we have vaccine manufacturing in Ethiopia, in Senegal, in South Africa, instead of depending on just a few places in the world? We need to fix that in the long term.

Olsen: One last question. Other than prayer, is there something that American Christians can be doing to help folks overseas? How can we help organizations on the front lines?

Certainly for organizations that are committed long term to supporting health care in Africa, this is a crucial moment to be sure they have the resources they need. Because it won’t just be about vaccine doses. It’ll be about the personnel out there and delivering the vaccines in hard-to-reach places. People mostly have their favorites, I think, whether it’s World Vision or whatever. This is a time to double down on being generous, and Christians are pretty good at that.

For more information, go to christiansandthevaccine.com and getvaccineanswers.org.

- More from Interview by Timothy Dalrymple and Ted Olsen

News

O For Six Unmasked Tongues to Sing: England Still Quieting Worship

Kate Shellnutt

Bands are rocking post-pandemic services, but congregants can’t yet join in.

Holy Trinity Brompton / YouTube

Last Sunday at London’s Holy Trinity Brompton church, the band repeated the chorus, “Awake my soul and sing / Sing his praise aloud” before a sanctuary of masked worshipers who, according to government restrictions, could not comply.

Holy Trinity Brompton (HTB) is one of the largest Anglican congregations in the United Kingdom, and, like fellow churches across the country, still faces what some Christian leaders consider an inconsistent and discriminatory ban on singing during indoor worship services.

In England, COVID-19 precautions mandate that no more than six amateur singers can sing indoors, and guidance for churches has indicated that “indoor communal singing should not take place,” according to the Evangelical Alliance of the UK.

Many churches, like HTB, have moved to hybrid services on Sundays, offering adapted worship back in their sanctuaries and continuing to livestream for those at home. While a few members of the worship band may raise a hallelujah during the worship set, the rest of the congregation attending in person is not supposed to join in.

HTB now offers four services at its Brompton Road location and a total of 10 Sunday services across other sites, but those who register to attend are asked to agree to a set of terms and conditions—including that “congregational singing and chanting is not permitted.” Leaders ask that parishioners engage in worship in other ways as the team on stage performs.

After enduring lockdowns and months spent worshiping over screens, getting to be together on Sunday morning is a blessing, even if the congregation has to be on mute during the worship set. But it’s not easy to keep quiet, pastors say.

“To hear more and more about how much God loves us through the sermons and to not have an outlet to let it all out, it can feel like a dam ready to burst,” said Greg Willson, pastor of Redeemer Church Manchester. “I think for our church, it has developed more of a love and longing to sing together in worship. It’s not like we didn’t love it before, but when something you love is taken away, a sense of urgency takes its place.”

Willson has occasionally led music during Redeemer’s Sunday services at a local pub, either solo or with another person, but says it feels “bridled and held back” to sing without his whole flock. The congregation is buzzing about an upcoming outdoor worship gathering where they’ll actually get to sing together.

To adapt to the current restrictions, Willson’s church has leaned into other aspects of worship that don’t involve raising their voices, such as humming, hand-raising, and body posture.

At Emmanuel Oxford, another evangelical congregation, attendees are notified, “Guidelines do not presently allow us to sing together, however we can worship! We can raise our hands, speak out words to God, kneel, clap and celebrate. It’s an opportunity for us to be creative and express our hearts in different ways.”

The regulations around singing are part of governmental guidelines for reopening during the pandemic. Churches must also comply with social distancing, masking requirements, and registration for all attendees to allow for contact tracing should the virus spread at a service. Many are also skipping social time before and after services, not distributing Bibles in seats, and not collecting tithes in person.

Especially when singing is allowed in other circumstances—paid choirs, for example, can perform without size limits and soccer fans can join in song to cheer on their teams—British leaders are questioning whether the singing restrictions for their services remain necessary.

“The ban on congregational singing made sense when evidence was poor, and caution about the potential spread of the virus was justified,” said Danny Webster, spokesman for the EAUK, “but singing together is at the heart of evangelical church practice and persisting with this ban despite evidence, and despite inconsistencies, is disappointing, and we want the government to act.”

Webster said while a small portion of churches have begun to sing together anyway, the EAUK advises against defiance. The organization, which represents thousands of churches across denominations, sees the guidance against singing as carrying the full weight of the law.

In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declared it safe for vaccinated people to attend full-capacity worship services and sing in indoor choirs, unmasked.

The pressure to change the regulations in England is mounting as nearby Wales has moved to allow indoor congregational singing again and as Scotland has in certain areas. Christian leaders hoped to see a change this week, but the update in regulations was pushed back until July 19.

Multiple Anglican bishops have spoken up against the policy. Jim Bethell, a junior health minister in the House of Lords, emphasized the risk of singing given the coronavirus’s airborne spread, but also acknowledged the inconsistency in the guidelines.

“Having looked at the scientific evidence, with a sense of regret that we are letting down those with a passion for singing and religious worship, and in the hope that we can get rid of them very soon,” he said.

Willson, whose church plant in Manchester continued to attract attendees despite the pared-down pandemic setup, said one upside was seeing Christians find a sense of church and connections in smaller groups outside Sunday mornings.

“We can sing in smaller groups, have those casual chats, and even eat a meal together,” he said. “That’s been a real blessing from God.”

- More from Kate Shellnutt

News

Messianic Jews Say ‘Fake Rabbi’ Was Wrong Way to Reach the Ultra-Orthodox

Jayson Casper

Unpacking the motives of an accused undercover American in Israel and lessons learned for Christians wanting to engage Haredi Jews.

Illustration by Rick Szuecs / Source Images: Blake Campbell / Tanner Mardis / Unsplash / Ktoytor / Getty / Envato

How far can one go to “reach the Jews”?

The apostle Paul put himself “under the law” to give the gospel to his Hebrew brethren (1 Cor. 9:20).

Allegedly a Gentile, Michael Elkohen did the same to reach the modern Jews most fastidiously under the law—the Haredim, often known in English as “ultra-Orthodox.”

Approximately 1.2 million Haredim live in Israel, jealously guarding their traditions.

Dressed in black-and-white garb with a hat, long beard, and side curls, in 2011 Elkohen appeared next to an Iranian Christian on MorningStar TV and prayed for a Muslim world revival.

“When Jesus walked the earth, he was Jewish,” Elkohen told the host, Rick Joyner. “The church, the non-Jewish part of the body, is supposed to stir us to jealousy.”

For more than a decade, his would-be jealous Haredi neighbors were completely unaware. To the insular community in the French Hill section of Jerusalem, Elkohen was a beloved rabbi, scribe, and mohel—performing circumcisions.

In April, the Israeli anti-missionary organization Beyneynu sent shockwaves through the Haredi world with a report claiming that Elkohen was in fact a missionary from New Jersey, whose father is buried in a Mennonite cemetery.

“Other anti-Semites attack the Jews as individuals or as a people,” said Tovia Singer, a rabbi and founder of Outreach Judaism. “But the missionaries are attacking the Jewish faith and working to erase it from the planet.”

The spiritual damage is considerable.

Though there is no evidence anyone was converted in Elkohen’s community, Singer claims that the alleged missionary’s manuscripts and religious services are all invalid. And his presence at prayer may have falsely achieved minyan, the necessary quorum of 10 adults, prompting Torah readings that to Haredi Jews now constitute speaking God’s name in vain.

The 42-year-old Elkohen first moved to Israel with his family in 2006, obtaining citizenship after presenting papers as a Jew related to a famous mystical rabbi in Morocco. Having obtained rabbinical ordination through an online Orthodox US institution, in 2014 he went on to study at a yeshiva in the West Bank.

It was then he gained the attention of the anti-missionary organization Yad L’Achim, who confronted him. Confessing his evangelistic purpose, Elkohen replied that he had since “repented” and “chose Judaism.”

A few years later, Elkohen was living quietly among the Haredim when they rallied around him as his wife—who said she was descended from Holocaust survivors—died from cancer. The community raised money to support the husband and five children in need.

But in April, Elkohen’s 13-year-old daughter told classmates about Jesus.

Beyneynu investigated and felt it had to act. There are 30,000 missionaries in Israel, the organization estimates, and 300 organizations dedicated to evangelizing Jews.

Messianic Jews were quick to distance themselves.

Michael Brown, a popular radio host, author, and apologist, circulated statements from Jews for Jesus, Chosen People Ministries, and One for Israel that deplore deception.

“I know of no Messianic Jews who support what he did,” Brown told CT. “We are open and forthright about our faith.”

Tsvi Sadan, an author, stated that Elkohen was “probably a loner who … convinced himself that he is a Jew.” He observed that among Christians who decide to keep the Mosaic law, some take it further and live as Orthodox Jews in emulation of Paul’s words to the Corinthians: “To those under the law I became like one under the law … so as to win those under the law.”

“This kind of understanding,” Sadan wrote, “turns Paul into a con artist.”

According to a Pew Research Center report released last month, there are 1.4 million Americans “of Jewish affinity” who are counted separately from the 7.5 million Jews in the United States. With neither Jewish lineage nor religion, 60 percent identify as Christian and 8 percent as Messianic Jews. Meanwhile, Pew found only 4 percent of American adults raised Jewish by religion are now Christian.

“Clearly, if he wasn’t Jewish, it’s pure fraud,” said Jamie Cowen, a Messianic Jewish lawyer. “If he really was Jewish but then masqueraded himself as ultra-Orthodox when he never lived that way previously, I would say it’s misleading at best and fraudulent at worst.”

Brown agreed but held out other possibilities.

Haredi Jews who come to believe in Jesus might initially share their faith in an “underground” way. And Messianic Jews who desire to share the gospel with them might take on Haredi traditions to join the community, provided they were up front about their intentions.

“The problem,” Brown said, “is that if you had any success at all, you would immediately be kicked out of the community.”

Sources described the Haredim as one of the most overlooked unreached people groups in the world. A senior staff member at Jews for Jesus (JFJ), requesting anonymity to protect his efforts in sharing the gospel with Haredim, said they heavily regulate the internet and social media.

Some even engage cell phone companies to supply unique number patterns to their community. Deviation from the pattern immediately alerts the user—and anyone monitoring—of contact from the outside.

Despite its apparent austerity, a major subgroup of the Haredi movement, Hasidism, began as an 18th-century popular revival. Eastern European Judaism at the time confined learning to the educated elite. But Israel Ben Eliezer, known as the Baal Shem Tov—in Hebrew, “master of the good name”—said that the spiritual life is for everyone.

Today, at 13 percent of the population, the ultra-Orthodox are the fastest-growing segment in Israel. But this is from birthrate, not conversion. Averaging 6.5 children per family, their fertility rate doubles that of other Jews. Devastated by the Holocaust, they feel a responsibility to replace those lost.

“We respect the Haredim for their love of the Bible and devotion to the Jewish people,” said the JFJ source. “Do others feel this way? I hope so.”

Yet many do not.

During the pandemic, their close-knit community and commitment to worship were blamed for the spread of COVID-19. Around the world, memories of enmity have given the ultra-Orthodox little trust in the nations that host them. And in Israel, they are the only officially recognized Jewish sect, gaining privileges from the government and obliging public Sabbath observance on secular Jews.

To protect their ways, the Haredim keep a severe culture of honor and shame, shunning anyone who diverges from community standards.

Rick Joyner, executive director of MorningStar Ministries, told CT that his organization sends missionaries into difficult areas, where they may have to conceal their identities as Christians.

“We never sanction denying our faith,” he said. “But we leave it to the discretion of the missionaries how and when to share their faith.”

MorningStar contributed financial support to Elkohen, though it did not send him. Joyner accepted his Jewishness at face value and now withholds judgment about reports in the media.

But he understands the anger. Throughout history, Christians have persecuted the Jews, at times massacring those who refused to give up their beliefs.

“I for one am glad for all the Jews who did not convert to such a false representation of Christianity,” said Joyner. “But it seems that this is now a wound so deep, only Jesus himself can heal it.”

Elkohen believed that Jesus would.

Living in anticipation of the Second Coming, Jewish conversion to Christianity was not Elkohen’s goal, Joyner said. He wanted only to love and learn from the Haredim, ready to help them “once they recognized their Messiah.”

Others are trying to help them now.

Sean Steckbeck, a Gentile from Tennessee, hesitates to call himself a Christian, in deference to his wife. After moving to Israel in 2002, he married a Messianic Jew originally raised in a kibbutz, who later joined an ultra-Orthodox community. Steckbeck’s efforts to obtain Israeli citizenship were ultimately successful, after a 10-year legal battle culminated in Israel’s Supreme Court.

First serving as a youth pastor, Steckbeck also founded Simeon’s Cry Ministries, named after the biblical figure who held the baby Jesus after waiting for the consolation of Israel. Steckbeck trains Messianic Jews in disciple-making movements to fulfill their call to be “light to the nations.”

But three years ago, his team started the Adullam Outreach Center in Jerusalem to help the “off the derech” (OTD) Haredim, those who have left the “path.” Named after the cave where David gathered “all who were in distress” as he fled from Saul, the center provides emergency shelter and classes on how to live in the outside world.

Unorthodox, a four-part Netflix series about this community, was nominated for two Golden Globe awards. It tells the story of a 19-year-old woman who ran away from an arranged marriage.

“OTDs flee because they don’t fit in,” said Steckbeck. “They try but fail to follow the stringent rules, and many swing from one extreme to another.”

Some OTD outreach efforts encourage this, helping young Haredim learn how to party and experiment sexually. Others, run by the ultra-Orthodox themselves, recognize the pull to “sow one’s wild oats” and instead help the wayward return to the law-abiding fold.

Adullam teaches them discernment—and it draws many in.

But it also draws opposition. Last year, an extremist anti-missionary group threw rocks at the center over the course of two weeks, and one participant was stabbed.

Steckbeck is fully transparent about his belief in Jesus as Messiah. Even so, most of Adullam’s programs are run by OTD Haredim, many of whom still believe in God. Though they are often rejected completely by their community, some of their distraught parents try to maintain ties.

“We take a back seat and give them tools to reach their families,” said Steckbeck. “A new believer sharing the gospel is more powerful than a trained missionary.”

Anecdotal reports state there are followers of Jesus among the Haredim, sources said. But since most Messianic Jews came from the non-Orthodox community, efforts to share the gospel with the ultra-Orthodox are still in their infancy.

What would a Haredi expression of faith in Jesus look like?

The JFJ source said there is no desire to pull them out of the only community they have ever known. But Brown said that when there is a sufficient number, a new community would need to be formed.

For Steckbeck, Jesus will call it into being.

“Like Paul said: They have a zeal, without knowledge,” he said. “Ultimately, the Haredim will help the Jews coronate the coming Messiah, once they recognize him as Yeshua.”

Additional reporting by Jeremy Weber

- More from Jayson Casper

News

Wire Story

Most Pastors Agree Abuse Should Ban Them from Ministry

Aaron Earls - Lifeway Research

Misconduct toward children or adults is seen as a permanent disqualification across almost all denominations.

Zayne Grantham Design / Lightstock

As Christian groups and denominations debate the proper response to clergy sexual misconduct, most pastors believe those who commit such crimes should withdraw from public ministry permanently.

At the recent Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting, the topic of pastoral sexual abuse and assault dominated much of the conversation and business, including passing a resolution that “any person who has committed sexual abuse is permanently disqualified from holding the office of pastor.”

A study from Nashville-based Lifeway Research revealed a significant majority of US Protestant pastors share that opinion whether the victim is a child or an adult.

“Most current pastors believe the office of pastor is incompatible with having sexually abused or assaulted another,” said Scott McConnell, executive director of Lifeway Research.

“This does not convey that they believe these behaviors are beyond God’s forgiveness, but a large majority believe sexual abuse is a permanent disqualification from ministry leadership.”

https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/LhO4F

Child sexual abuse

More than 4 in 5 Protestant pastors (83%) say if a pastor commits child sexual abuse, that person should permanently withdraw from public ministry. For 2 percent the time away should be at least 10 years, while 3 percent say at least five years and 3 percent say at least two years.

Few point to a shorter time frame as appropriate—1 percent say at least 1 year, and fewer than 1 percent say either six months or three months. Another 7 percent say they aren’t sure how long the time frame should be.

While majorities of every demographic group of pastors support a permanent exit from public ministry for child sexual abuse, some are less supportive than others. Pentecostal pastors (60%), African American pastors (67%), pastors with no college degree (69%), and pastors 65 and older (76%) are among those least likely to support permanent withdrawal.

The US Sentencing Commission reported that 98.8 percent of sexual abuse offenders were sentenced to prison and their average sentence was almost 16 years.

“The five years or less time frame, that 7 percent of pastors suggest is appropriate, does not even cover the length of the typical prison sentence for offenders convicted of sexual abuse,” said McConnell. “In contrast, more than 10 times that number of pastors do not hesitate to say the disqualification from ministry should be permanent for a pastor who commits child sexual abuse.”

Adult sexual assault

A sizable majority of Protestant pastors (74%) also supports a permanent withdrawal from public ministry for any pastors who commit sexual assault and abuse of any adult member of the congregation or staff. One in 20 say the time away should be at least 10 years (5%), at least five years (5%), and at least two years (5%).

Again, few pastors back shorter time frames, with 2 percent saying at least a year, 1 percent at least six months, and fewer than 1 percent at least three months. Fewer than 1 percent say the pastor does not need to withdraw at all. Almost 1 in 10 (9%) say they’re not sure.

Pentecostal pastors (44%) are the only demographic in which a majority do not support permanent withdrawal from public ministry for pastors who commit sexual assault of adults under their care and supervision in church. Other demographics are also less supportive of the pastor stepping away permanently, including African American pastors (58%), pastors without a college degree (63%), and pastors 65 and older (69%).

“When someone sexually assaults an adult, it is both a violent sin and a crime. It is the opposite of the love, care and respect toward another the Bible teaches,” said McConnell. “The role of pastor has incredibly high standards in the Bible, including that the overseer of those in the church be above reproach or beyond criticism. Seventeen percent of pastors think someone could move beyond reproach in this matter given enough time.”

A 2019 Lifeway Research study found many Protestant churchgoers believe there are additional undisclosed instances of Protestant pastors sexually abusing children or teens (32%) or sexually assaulting adults (29%). In that same study, 3 in 4 churchgoers (75%) say they want a careful investigation of the facts if someone accused a pastor at their church of sexual misconduct. Few (14%) say their reaction would be to want to see the minister protected.

Compared to their perspective on abuse, pastors are much more divided over the proper response to adultery, according to an additional 2019 Lifeway Research study. While clear majorities say pastors who commit child sexual abuse or sexual assault should withdraw permanently from ministry, only 27 percent believe that should be the result of a pastor committing adultery. A plurality (31%) is not sure.

“While adultery implies a consensual affair, it is not such a simple distinction for those serving in the role of pastor, as indicated by the 31 percent who were not sure in the previous survey,” said McConnell. “For a pastor who holds a position of trust and spiritual authority over those in their congregation, an adulterous relationship with one of them, where an imbalance of power exists, would still constitute sexual assault.”

For more information, view the complete report.

- More from Aaron Earls - Lifeway Research

Ideas

In the Push for Racial Justice, There’s a Middle Path Between Passivity and Aggression

George Yancey

Real moral suasion is about relationship-building, not browbeating.

Illustration by Mallory Rentsch / Source Images: Kira Auf Der Heide / Unsplash / Hunain Bin Shahid / Pexels / Francesca Lagonika / Getty Images

We all know that race relations are toxic in our society today. Debates over statues, critical race theory in education, police reform, and election reform are only the tip of the iceberg.

Some would have us believe there are only two routes to ending racial alienation: Either we take a passive, colorblind approach, or we take an aggressive, antiracist approach. But there is a third and better way to solve the problem. To understand that path, it is valuable to understand first how we use reason, power, and moral suasion to affect others’ actions.

By way of illustration, let’s say that you have a child unwilling to clean up his room. How do you get him to do start doing that? Or you have a friend dating a guy who is mentally manipulative and even abusive. You fear for her safety. How do you get through to her? Or you are teaching a student who needs to put more time into his studies. Can you get him to do that? Or your aunt is picking up some of the most toxic QAnon philosophy. How do you show her the error of those ideas?

One option is to not try to convince your son, friend, student, or aunt to change. But we often are in situations when we believe that we must change the perspective of others.

If we want to persuade someone to change, we have the options of using power, moral suasion, or possibly reason. But to be honest, I think using reason to convince others is overrated. Most of us are not as driven by reason as we’d like to think. Confirmation bias and groupthink tend to interfere with our ability to rely on just our intellect to make decisions. We easily mistake our emotional desires for rational conclusions.

If reason is not reliable, then we are left with the other two options: power and moral suasion. We can change people’s ways by using some form of social, political, legal, or other power. Or we can find a way to persuade individuals that making those changes is the right thing to do. Except for rare circumstances, when people make changes due to the influence of others, there is typically some degree of power or moral suasion in play.

There are many forms of power that can be used. A parent obviously has some power over a child. Legal power can be used to hand out punishment. Social power can be used to stigmatize anyone who does not submit to demands or change their attitudes. Those with material resources can withhold those resources. In these battles over power, people either fear losing it when they have it, or they fear not getting it from the person in control.

There is a time when power needs to be used. I want the police officer to use power to stop the bank robber. As a parent, I need to exercise my power to stop my young kids from making foolish decisions, such as only eating candy. I have used physical power to stop a physical altercation.

Power is a necessary tool when there is a need to deter. But there is a cost to using it. People who alter their beliefs or actions due to fear are likely to go back to their old habits when the fear is removed. If we rely upon power to get what we want, then we will continue to overpower others to get our way.

For example, Cubans justifiably used power to throw off the oppressive regime of Fulgencio Batista. But the movement installed Fidel Castro, who went on to use his newfound powers to continue the oppression in a different format. Those who gain power through power often are unwilling to relinquish it once they have it. Those who gain power will not always use it for righteous means.

But if reason is ineffective and power brings its own dangers, then what we have left is moral suasion. We can persuade individuals that it is right to change their mind or to take certain actions. Once people become convinced that the new actions are the moral thing to do, then change is likely to occur.

When some people think of moral suasion, they may think of a wild-eyed evangelical preaching incessantly. Or they may think of a liberal professor indoctrinating students. Nothing could be further from the truth. Real moral suasion requires that we build rapport with those we want to persuade. It means we must accurately understand their point of view. We must also learn to admit when they are correct. And we should be willing to find areas of agreement with those we are attempting to persuade.

In other words, real moral suasion is about relationship-building, not browbeating.

Moral suasion, done properly, has the power to unite us by making us want to identify with and care for each other. It can make us want to work with others and find out what is good for them. It is not about forcing people to believe what they do not want to believe. It is about coming together to find common ground and moving forward together. When people change through moral suasion, then they are likely to maintain their new attitudes regardless of changing social attitudes.

Of course, sometimes we still need to use power. My experience of raising three boys under seven illustrates this point: I must use power to get them to eat what they should, get bathed, avoid dangerous play, avoid mistreating their brothers, clean up after themselves, and so on.

But as they get older, I must rely less on power and more on moral suasion. I must convince them that it’s right to eat the proper types of food, bathe, treat their brothers well, and clean up after themselves. Beyond learning how to make smart decisions, when they get older, I will no longer have the power to enforce those views. Then they will do what they want instead of what I can force them to do.

What does all of this have to do with our dysfunctional race relations? We have had hundreds of years of racial abuse in this country. While we do not have the same degree of racial abuse today, we are still suffering from the effects of that abuse. The big questions is: What are we going to do with the enduring effects of that abuse? Disagreement on that question is a major source of our racial alienation.

There are those who believe the best way to answer that question is to ignore race. This has been called the colorblind approach. There are others who emphasize an aggressive, proactive tactic to address racism in all its myriad forms. Much of this effort falls under a general rubric of antiracism. Racial conflict in the United States is often tied to the enduring argument about how aggressively we should tackle modern expression of racism.

For the most part, individuals in both groups rely on power to move their perspectives forward. Whether it is political, social, or cultural power, supporters of colorblindness and antiracism seek to force individuals to accept their particular point of view. If supporters on either side of this debate gain enough power to force their perspective on others, then history teaches us that they will do whatever they need to do to maintain that power. They will do so not because they are evil but because they are all too human.

But what if we looked in a different direction? What if moral suasion and relationship-building became our approach to constructing our racial future? What if we worked at understanding the perspective of others and collaborating to find functional compromises? What if we built rapport to create unity around common identity rather than fear? Would that not be a better path?

What would it look like if we relied on moral suasion, instead of power, to put forward our racial vision for society? There would be less saber rattling in social media and on political talk shows and more discussions that attempt to understand the perspective of others. We would learn how to actively listen and express ourselves in ways that communicate our desires to others. We would figure out solutions that do not denigrate others and that others can help us to implement.

Bringing people together to solve problems rather than argue with each other would qualitatively alter our race relations for the better. Trying to use moral suasion in a healthy way brings people together rather than driving them apart.

We know this from other areas of our lives. In our interpersonal relationships, we know it is not healthy to just overpower each other. There are marriages where one spouse consistently overpowers the other spouse. And we have seen how unhealthy those relationships become.

We know those marriages would be qualitatively better if the spouses learned how to communicate with each other and find solutions that meet the needs of both. While sometimes power is necessary, we know that good relationships depend much more on using moral suasion than force.

Yet in our current society, we often deal with race by consistently trying to overpower our “enemies,” rather than by finding ways to communicate and persuade them of our perspective. Why can’t we work at finding common values and agreements? Why can’t we listen to each other until we accurately understand the interests and desires of others? Should not everyone be “quick to listen, slow to speak,” as James 1:19 reminds us?

Sometimes I think that we already know what we need to do to improve race relations but we simply don’t want to do it. But we are going to have to live in this society together. We are going to have to find answers to the racial issues of our day. We can choose to remain in a power struggle with each other, or we can begin to learn how to dialogue in a healthy fashion.

Many people on different sides of these racial issues have a vested interest in continuing our unproductive fighting. But if we learn to stop listening to those voices and start listening to each other, we can finally take important steps toward real racial unity and equality.

George Yancey is a professor of sociology at Baylor University and author of the forthcoming book, Beyond Racial Division (IVP).

Speaking Out is Christianity Today’s guest opinion column and (unlike an editorial) does not necessarily represent the opinion of the magazine.

- More from George Yancey

Remembering Richard N. Longenecker, Scholar Who Rethought Judaism and the Apostle Paul

L. Ann Jervis

He never forgot that when he was studying the New Testament, he was studying Holy Scripture.

Courtesy of William B. Eerdmans Publishing / edits by Rick Szuecs

Richard N. Longenecker was astonishingly productive. A world-class New Testament scholar, he not only taught and wrote prodigiously, but he helped create and care for a loving and wonderful family along with his beloved wife, Fran. In addition to his family and scholarly work, Dick served several times as a part-time Baptist pastor. If that weren’t enough, in order to make ends meet in expensive Toronto, for several years Dick worked in construction, doing home renovations.

I once asked Dick how he did it all. He told me that he would try to make two days out of one, starting work very early, having a rest midday and then starting all over again. Hard work and creativity were essential qualities of Dick Longenecker.

Dick was my dissertation director, mentor, and friend. He died on June 7, a few weeks before his 91st birthday.

There are many things to celebrate about his life and work, but the foundation of who he was might have actually been his humility. His humility was, in fact, profound. Dick was always aware that when he was studying the New Testament he was studying Holy Scripture, and that for all his effort at language study and research, he might have misheard God’s Word.

He came from a small city in the American Midwest, but Dick’s abilities took him to Wheaton College and Northern Baptist Theological Seminary, then Edinburgh and Cambridge and the heights of biblical scholarship. He taught at Wycliffe College in the University of Toronto for 22 years.

Dick was a distinguished evangelical New Testament scholar whose work was exceptional both for its range and its prescience. At a time when the vast majority of scholars and church people thought that Paul rejected and condemned Judaism as woefully legalistic, Dick offered an alternative.

He showed that Paul did not regard Christ as the solution to the dilemma of a petrified works religion, for he had not in fact felt dissatisfied in his ancestral faith. Fundamental to Judaism, as Paul understood it, was the idea that the Mosaic law was not to be treated legalistically. This reevaluation of the Judaism that shaped Paul was very much ahead of its time.

It was not until 13 years after his groundbreaking 1964 book, Paul, Apostle of Liberty, that full scale reevaluation of ancient Judaism took off with E. P. Sanders’ Paul and Palestinian Judaism.

Dick was at the vanguard of those who pondered whether Paul thought that believers’ faith in Christ was actually incorporation into Christ’s own faith. Dick also led the way in bringing back early 20th century ideas about the centrality of “being in Christ” for Paul. Before many other Biblical scholars, Dick was thinking about early Jewish Christianity (see The Christology of Early Jewish Christianity), and about how the Bible was interpreted in the early church (see Biblical Exegesis in the Apostolic Period).

Dick’s contribution to understanding the apostle Paul is massive—and, in my view, still underappreciated. His commentary on Galatians is a staple of every scholar and serious Bible reader.

I am one of Dick’s former doctoral students, but there are many. During his 22 years at Wycliffe College, he attracted dozens and dozens of fine students, many of whom are now leaders in the field of New Testament studies and ancient Judaism. When Paul, Apostle of Liberty was republished in 2015, some 50 years after its initial appearance, one of New Testament scholarship’s current leading lights, Douglas Campbell, wrote the foreword. He was also a former doctoral student of Dick’s.

Students came from far and wide to study with Dick, both because of the excellence and range of his scholarship, and because he was so highly regarded in the evangelical world. Dick was known to be a first-rate scholar who kept the church in view. He was an editor at Christianity Today, served on the translation committee of the New International Version of the Bible, and became president of the Evangelical Theological Society in both the United States and in Canada. Dick was invited to lecture and preach all over the world.

Dick’s reputation exceeded his academic achievements and distinctions, however. He was known to be a man of exceptional character and grace. Dick was unfailingly gracious, which for someone who was honest and given to plain speaking, was almost an art form. He was also a terrific storyteller and very witty. Students adored him and still remember his classes. It may be old-fashioned, but it seems fitting to describe him as the quintessential Christian gentleman.

What stands out most to me now is Dick’s unconditional kindness and graciousness. He was nonjudgmental and extremely generous. Dick was an outstanding friend to me, as I know he was to others. Dick made the name Christian come alive: it meant love and help and sharing of joy.

He once wrote that “Life is for living,” adding, “Christians have a special interest in life. … because through Christ they have come into living relation with God, who is life’s creator, redeemer, sustainer, and eventual re-creator.”

Another time, he wrote that the Good News is that God gives calls us to active participation new life, in being the new creatures God has made us. He explained that “True faith in Christ, Paul says, is always actively ‘expressing itself through love’ (Gal 5.6).”

Perhaps the best way to describe the remarkable Richard N. Longenecker is that he was a man of new life and true faith. He will be remembered.

- More from L. Ann Jervis

Christianity Today Announces New Publication That “Revives the Christian Imagination”

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Carol Stream, IL June 21, 2021 – Christianity Today has added a nascent publication and digital community, Ekstasis, into its media ecosystem to further its joint pursuit of Beautiful Orthodoxy—communicating the truth, goodness, and beauty of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Christianity Today’s president and CEO, Timothy Dalrymple, explains that “Ekstasis revives the Christian imagination, offering artful contemplation that nurtures the soul, and illuminates a path that leads through beauty and awe to a profound and joyous faith in Jesus Christ. In a clamorous and contentious age, we view Ekstasis as a kind of digital cathedral, a sanctuary from the noise, a place that captures our attention through loving art and luminous words.”

Ekstasis Founder Conor Sweetman created the publication and community in 2016 to reach fellow believers with work that slants toward the triumphant and glorious aspects of life in Christ, framed through life, the arts and literature.

Sweetman shares, “There are so many excellent, inspired artists and writers at work today. Ekstasis wants to draw them together in a unique way to enjoy, influence and galvanize one another in faithfulness to Christ while immersed in the intellectual and creative life. Whether poet, photographer, painter, writer, musician or simply a patron of the arts, there is an exciting part to play in these ecstatic times.”

Along with an annual publication, Ekstasis features a thriving digital community where both young and old generations of believers are seeking new ways of pressing into the depths of what it means to follow Jesus.

The newest print issue, Ekstasis Issue 8, releases this week. This issue, along with several of the most recent issues, are now available to order at https://www.ekstasismagazine.com/buy-magazine. The most recent digital content is available at https://www.ekstasismagazine.com.

For more information, contact Cory Whitehead, CT’s executive director of mission advancement at cwhitehead@christianitytoday.com or 630.384.7223.

# # #

Christianity Today is an acclaimed and award-winning media ministry that elevates the storytellers and sages of the global Church. Each month, across a variety of digital and print media, the ministry carries the most important stories and ideas of the kingdom of God to over 4.5 million people all around the planet.

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From a long line of fervent Pentecostals

A difficult marriage

‘It was hard trials and tribulations’

Called to ministry

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Child sexual abuse

Adult sexual assault

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