The Wonder and Terror of Hearing God’s Voice in a Disaster

When Mount St. Helens erupted, plants returned amid ruin. This pandemic holds the same glory.

In late March 1980, while walking through the cabin of a passenger ship on the Salish Sea, I noticed a newspaper on a table and stopped in my tracks, surprised by a dramatic photograph under a headline reporting a small eruption on the summit of Mount St. Helens. I was returning from a college work week at a Young Life camp in British Columbia. The eruption on March 27 was the first indication that Mount St. Helens had awakened after its last eruption in 1857.

Later, on the top deck of the ship, I joined some other students gathered around two guitar players. They were singing “God, Make Us Your Family” by The Fisherfolk—a rousing, inspiring chorus and haunting, evocative verses about God’s restoration of the earth and the family of all mankind. I felt somber and thoughtful, standing on the upper deck in the dark as we passed under the lights of the Lion’s Gate Bridge along the downtown Vancouver waterfront.

Everyone in the Pacific Northwest knew that they lived near volcanos. Mount Hood, Mount Rainier, and Mount Baker are prominent and stunning features on the horizons of Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver. But no one (except geologists) spent any time thinking about what their presence really meant. They were supposed to be extinct, weren’t they?

Now in the global COVID-19 pandemic, a question that seemed distant and perhaps irrelevant when everything was going well for us has risen to the surface—where is God in all of this anyway?

The eruption

Everyone in the region remembers where they were when the unthinkable happened on a Sunday morning, May 18, 1980. I was in Bridle Trails State Park, a large forested park in Bellevue, Washington, again working for Young Life. I stood in the quiet forest with other staff waiting to start an orienteering course. Suddenly we heard this mysterious and massive BOOM at 8:32 a.m. like a cannon shot. A few of us joked, “Maybe Mount St. Helens blew up!” We found out later that day that it was indeed Mount St. Helens erupting 100 miles south.

After our course finished, we drove to Seattle for another Young Life session, listening to the radio’s blizzard of breaking news about the eruption, which in a matter of hours had basically shut down the entire state. The Interstate 5 freeway to the south was closed at the Toutle River Bridge, which was in imminent danger of being washed away by lahars—torrents of melted glaciers and snowfields mixed with enormous amounts of volcanic ash, rock, and downed trees. The lahars had blown out every other bridge on the river from the mountain to the freeway.

Later that day, the flood of ash-laden meltwater reached the Columbia River and shut down all shipping traffic from Portland, Oregon (and upriver ports), to the Pacific Ocean. The mountain passes to the east were closed due to zero-visibility conditions and black skies at midday due to falling volcanic ash. At our afternoon session, some the staff at the training weekend who had traveled from Oregon and Eastern Washington discovered they were now stranded, unable to return home to Yakima and Portland. As they say, then and now, we were all in uncharted territory.

The initial blast event resulted in impressive destruction. It was triggered by an earthquake, which caused the north side of the mountain to collapse in the largest landslide (two billion tons of rock, glacial ice, and snow) ever recorded. This then released gases, steam, and lava from below in an enormous blast, sending an ash cloud 12 miles into the sky. Winds blew the ash plume east, and significant ash fell on Eastern Washington.

In coming days, the ash cloud would travel across the entire United States, eventually circling the globe. The top 1,300 feet of the mountain were lost, replaced by an enormous crater that opened to the north. Fifty-seven people were killed, 200 homes were damaged or destroyed, and 27 bridges were taken out by the debris flowing down the Toutle River valley. The largest lahar filled the floor of the river valley for 14 miles downstream to an average depth of 150 feet. Hot, hurricane-force (pyroclastic) winds carrying rock debris flattened 143 square miles of forest in a large arc north of the volcano, and an additional 42 square miles of forest was killed with the dead trees left standing upright. A large area at the base of volcano was turned into a plain of pumice rock. Spirit Lake, a deep, pristine, cold-water lake was filled with hot ash and mud, its surface covered with a raft of dead trees.

Translation help

Several years ago, I found the gravestone of the poet Denise Levertov (1923–1997) in Lakeview Cemetery in Seattle while attending the funeral of a close friend and rector of my former church. After the service, I looked up Levertov online and read several books of her poetry. Her words in the poem “Immersion” struck me:

There is anger abroad in the world, a numb thunder,
because of God’s silence. But how naïve,
to keep wanting words we could speak ourselves,
English, Urdu, Tagalog, the French of Tours,
the French of Haiti …

It concludes:

God’s abstention is only from human dialects. The holy voice
utters its woe and glory in myriad musics, in signs and portents.
Our own words are for us to speak, a way to ask and to answer.

Some years later, I bought another of Levertov’s books. In it, the essay “Janus” recounts an evocative memory when she and several neighbor girls trespass onto the grounds of an apparently abandoned house. Perched atop a garden’s brick wall, they are struck with awe by a flowering tree. The caretaker of the house runs out of the house and yells at them to leave. She reflects: “Wasn’t it one of the earliest intimations of how close to one another are beauty and terror, how intimately related?”

The words fear, dread, and awe, when studied for their modern and archaic meanings, point to a fusion of terror and being wonder-struck with awe—two sides of the same coin. Perhaps this is why every time angels appear in the Bible, they preface their message with “Do not be afraid!”

The aftermath

Ten days after the eruption, the first three scientists from the US Forest Service arrived at the blast zone by helicopter. They knew the event would be an unequaled chance to document the return of life after a major disturbance. Their general expectations were that the destruction would be total: Trees, plants, and animals would not return to the site for perhaps decades or centuries, and initial colonization of the blast zone would consist of invasive species coming in from the edges of the zone. Their assumptions were proved wrong almost immediately:

So it was that [ecologist Jerry] Franklin opened the helicopter’s side door and hopped out. His boots sent up little puffs of ash when they hit the ground. He glanced down, but instead of the gray he expected, he saw a bit of green poking up next to him. He knelt. It was a plant shoot, maybe 2 or 3 inches tall. ‘I’ll be damned,’ Franklin thought. It was Chamaenerion angustifolium, a plant much more widely known by its common name, fireweed.

As Franklin discovered, some of the first plants to come back were fireweed and pearly everlasting, which grew back rapidly from underground rhizome-like root systems that survived the blast. In his new book about the eruption, Eric Wagner writes that in England, fireweed is called rosebay willowherb or bombweed because it was the first plant to colonize the blast zones in London after the Blitz. Another group of plants to return quickly to Mount St. Helens was legumes such as lupines and low-growing red alders, which have nitrogen-fixing bacteria on their root systems, allowing them to colonize the nutrient-poor tephra (fine volcanic ash) deposits.

These “early-successional” plants were the first stage in a series of relatively transient ecosystems that will ultimately give way to the restoration of a conifer forest “climax community” similar to what existed before the eruption. The process is called “succession” by ecologists. Return of old-growth forests will take centuries—if not interrupted by new volcanic events.

This was the just the start of extensive research into the eruption’s effects that continue today. Mount St. Helens has become the most studied volcano in the world. The results of studies at the site have changed the science of ecology, now that we know life returns to a highly disturbed area in diverse and unexpected ways. In another line of Levertov’s poem, she sees God’s voice in “the poor grass returning after drought, timid, persistent.” Not unlike Franklin’s fireweed growing in volcanic ash.

Our current crises

The COVID-19 pandemic and a historic economic collapse, like flash photographs—brightly illuminate and expose everything and everyone, revealing realities we rarely care to think about: food supply lines supported by low-paid workers in poor conditions; injustices of health care access; salary disparities; the vulnerabilities of immigrants and the homeless; conditions in nursing homes that spread disease; and on and on. The effects of these intertwined crises also relate to how we approach the underlying and accelerating global climate change. But perhaps God is speaking to us in this current emergency in the manner Levertov articulated: “The holy voice utters its woe and glory in myriad musics, in signs and portents.”

Since the end of February, we have seen the heroic and inspiring stories of medical professionals and ordinary people responding to the pandemic—treating COVID-19 patients, sewing face masks, distributing food from closed schools, shopping for elderly neighbors—the very kinds of selfless actions documented by Rebecca Solnit in her book A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster. Solnit describes the aftermath of several famous disasters, including the great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906; the London Blitz in 1940-41; the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York City; and Hurricane Katrina in late 2005. She discovered in her research that most people, contrary to expectations, when confronted with disaster, embrace it with a kind of joy and pitch in to improvise and help the victims and themselves survive and recover—like plants springing from ash.

Also in recent weeks, remarkable occurrences in nature have resulted from essentially the whole world being at a standstill. As Levertov writes: “the unearned retrieval of blessings lost forever”—yet another word from God? Significantly lower greenhouse gas emissions have been reported in every nation. Air quality has dramatically improved in all the world’s most polluted cities: Delhi, Beijing, and Los Angeles. Residents in Northern India are seeing the Himalayan Mountains on the horizon for the first time in decades. Wild animals have been returning to areas normally crowded with tourists—bears appearing in Yosemite Valley, lions in South Africa taking naps on roads. In the Pacific Northwest, orcas, dolphins and whales have returned to waters usually transited by freighters, tankers and cruise ships, benefiting from the drop in underwater noise. The canals of Venice have become clear and filled with marine life.

The entire world has borne witness to these glories, as Levertov might say. Could it be that God speaks—reminding us that our collective actions affect both human civilization and the natural world for good or for ill? How can we play a role in the culmination of God’s kingdom—a civilization more equitable, just, and prosperous for both humans and nature? We can reimagine, rethink and restructure our economy, energy sources, natural resource utilization, and more. In the words of the song I heard on that evening 40 years ago, “Let the prayer of our hearts daily be: God, make us your family.”

Gerald Erickson is a marine scientist and writer in the Seattle area. His outlook on life has been formed from being present on the interfaces between his ecumenical Christian faith, science, and the arts.

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Testimony

The Humbling of a Proud Hindu

Kamesh Sankaran

How God got my attention when I thought I was too good for grace.

Courtesy of Whitworth University

In the Gospel of John, Jesus speaks to the Jewish leader Nicodemus, who was curious but also confused about the notion of being born again. In the course of explaining the difference between birth through ordinary means and birth through the Holy Spirit, Jesus tells Nicodemus, “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit” (John 3:8).

These words capture something of my own experience of new birth. At the time I came to faith, I was a PhD student in aerospace engineering at Princeton—the sort of person, in other words, who ought to have known about things like the source and consequences of airflow. Even so, I was utterly perplexed by what had happened. Like Nicodemus, the source and consequences of being born again were beyond my comprehension.

Looking back at the events in my life—more than 20 years after my conversion—I can see with greater clarity how God was working behind the scenes. My struggle against him, fueled by ignorance and pride, was utterly futile.

Advanced Beyond My Age

I grew up in southern India in a small city. My brothers and I were first-generation high school graduates, so the fact that I ended up working toward a NASA-funded PhD in advanced space propulsion at Princeton is nothing less than a miracle. And, like many miracles recorded in Scripture, it had a deeper purpose: to draw me to Christ.

My hometown is prominent in Hinduism because of its historic temples and a renowned monastery. Hinduism is in the soil, water, and air. I grew up in a devout Hindu family that was inseparable from the highest echelons of religious leadership. My commitment to Hinduism grew deeper when I left home at age 11 to study at a boarding school run by a prominent religious leader, where I excelled beyond the expectations of my family and my teachers. Paul’s testimony, in Galatians 1, of “advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people” (v. 14), applied just as well to my progress in Hinduism. Many years later, I would become a leader in the Hindu Students Association at Princeton.

Before arriving there, I had been exposed to Christianity through friends, the prominence of Catholic colleges in India, and Christian movies released in the US. I was also intellectually curious about various world religions. I remember seeing the icons and statues in Orthodox and Catholic churches and thinking them to be similar to the gods I worshipped. I did not consider Christianity to be fundamentally different from Hinduism, but merely an appropriate religion for a different society.

On the other hand, I harbored a deep disdain for Christian cultural and moral values, as they were represented by Western culture. Like most Hindus today, I thought they were a form of debauchery. Compared to the teachings of Hinduism, they seemed intolerably lax. In my mind, then, Jesus could qualify as one among many in the pantheon of gods, but nothing more. My commitment to Hinduism also included a strong nationalist element (and the worldview behind it), and this resulted in a deep mistrust and antipathy toward religious conversion—especially conversion to Christianity.

Despite this, God was crucially at work, preparing me to receive Christ through my friendship with a fellow PhD student. As I worked alongside him for more than 12 hours a day, I respected him as a colleague, and eventually I became close friends with him and his family. On a few occasions, the Cross of Christ came up in casual conversation. Sensing that I was missing something, my friend explained that Jesus Christ died bearing our sins to reconcile us to God.

This was something I had never heard before. And it offended me! I was a deeply religious person, someone diligently striving to be good. How could my friend think that anyone, much less someone like me, was a sinner in need of salvation? Yes, I had problems, but wasn’t I capable of fixing them myself? Why would I need Jesus to bear my sins?

Out of respect for a friend and fellow researcher, I asked him to provide evidence for his explanation of the Cross. He readily encouraged me to read Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis, an author I recognized from his other popular works. But I quickly realized that I needed to go directly to the primary source, so I asked my friend to buy me a Bible.

Over the next few months, other stories from the Bible came up in our conversations. The parable of the Prodigal Son did not sit right with me, in part because God was not supposed to be like the profligate father in that story. He was supposed to reward good moral conduct, not irresponsible rebellion. In reality, I identified more closely with the other son, who did not seem to need grace. The parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector (Luke 18:9–14) also blew the fuse of my understanding of God. How could a man who defrauded his own people by conspiring with foreign occupiers have a better outcome before God than a religious leader who followed all the rules? I had to get to the bottom of this Christian “thing.”

In tandem with my intellectual quest, God was showing me the futility of “kicking against the goads,” as he described Paul’s own pre-conversion resistance (Acts 26:14). In a brief but decisive period, God exposed my false sense of self-sufficiency, which I had based on financial prosperity, academic success, and a strong relationship with my family. In short order, I experienced unexpected and unexplainable failures in each of these areas—financial, academic, and relational. The blows came from different directions, but their cumulative effect was devastating. By removing the frail crutches on which my life was built, God exposed the reality of my profound weakness—especially my utter inability to fix relational brokenness. I was in more pain than I had imagined possible, and I was devoid of the props on which I was accustomed to resting.

Knowing no other way out, I decided to end my own life. In the midst of this darkness, a voice within me spoke: “This is why Jesus had to die for you.” It came from nowhere, but at that moment my brokenness pointed to a greater brokenness in my relationship with God. I had nothing to lose, so I decided to ask my friend if I could attend church with him. My call came on a Sunday morning, just as he and his family were leaving the house to attend worship. That morning I heard the gospel, and I responded with a broken and open heart.

An Ananias and a Barnabas

My experience of becoming a Christian wasn’t like flipping a switch. Believing the gospel didn’t automatically lead me to conformity to Jesus Christ or produce the immediate fruit of righteousness in me. While I desperately desired the gift of forgiveness, I was reluctant to change anything else about my life or worldview. Given the enormous differences between Christianity and my earlier Hindu beliefs, my new life had to be nurtured before spiritual growth could occur.

Intellectually, I wrestled with three fundamental questions: Who is God? Who am I? What is my relationship with God? The more I pondered these questions, the clearer it became that the answers offered by Hinduism and Christianity are utterly incompatible. I had to reject the former to receive the latter. Functionally, I had to rethink all of life from a clean slate because I simply did not have a framework or vocabulary to make sense of my new identity.

Paul needed an Ananias to spark his conversion, but he also needed a Barnabas to accompany him in his new journey of faith. God similarly ordained the support I needed to grow as a disciple. While Hinduism ties one’s religious standing to one’s birth status, Christianity teaches that the ground is level at the foot of the cross. My new Christian community cared not about my first birth but about my new birth: my confession of faith, my commitment to fellowship, and my desire to live wholly for Christ.

Every genuine Christian conversion is a miracle—a transition from spiritual death to eternal life, from enmity with God to adoption into his family. Yet God seems to take special delight in seemingly impossible cases—like Paul, a former persecutor—so that the riches of his grace might shine all the brighter. When I consider the chasm between my old outlook on life and my new life in Christ, I can only marvel at God’s work of redemption—and fall down at his feet in praise.

Kamesh Sankaran teaches engineering and physics at Whitworth University.

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Pastors

My Experience as a Trauma Chaplain Helped Me Fight Anxiety

Steve Cuss

Identifying our fears can better help us pastor ourselves and others better.

Illustration by Rick Szuecs / Source images: CiydemImages / Getty / Clément H / Unsplash

I was 24 and a week into marriage when I walked into my first intensive care unit as a trauma chaplain. I had never seen a dead body before. I had never experienced deep grief before. Within two hours of my first day on the job—a 28-hour overnight shift—I was standing in a room with a dozen screaming people. Their mother had suddenly died on the surgery table; the doctor and nurses had just ushered the family into the room to give the news. I showed up about three minutes later to utter mayhem: wailing and flailing, one person hitting her head against the wall in a steady rhythm, another dry heaving into a trashcan. I felt completely detached, like I was watching a scene from a movie. I remember thinking, “At least the doctors and nurses are here, they will know what to do.” But within a minute, they were gone. It was just me and the distraught family. I wonder if they were thinking, “At least the chaplain is here, he will know what to do.”

Over the course of a year of death and tragedy, I slowly learned how much was also bubbling under the surface of my own life and how it would boil over in moments of trauma. For example, every time a gurney burst through the double doors of the emergency room, with an EMT straddling the person frantically doing chest compressions and shouting commands, I would pray a prayer: “Please God, don’t let it be my wife. Don’t let it be anyone I know.” When it wasn’t my wife, I would breathe a sigh of relief and pray, “Thank you, God, that it is not my wife or anyone I know.” Or, when I was asleep in the overnight room having already attended to four deaths and the beeper went off to announce a fifth death, my response would be anger at the person for dying and inconveniencing me.

Of course, these are very human reactions to pain and trauma. But a pastor or counselor cannot be present to those in pain without empathy or while reacting angrily or with judgment.

I attended to more than 300 deaths that year. When I later I transitioned into a lead pastor role, I was surprised to learn that even though I was no longer in a daily environment of trauma and death, triggers and stresses bubbling just under the surface still existed. In fact, they inhibited my ability to be emotionally available and fully connect with people.

Over the years, I have dedicated my vocation to helping pastors move from stress and burnout to emotional and spiritual health. I have found that understanding the nature of chronic anxiety, why it shows up and how to move through it, can mitigate a good deal of pastoral stress.

Diagnose the anxiety

Though there are many excellent pathways to emotional health for pastors, I have found Murray Bowen’s family systems theory the most effective and accessible. Bowen’s groundbreaking framework can help us understand stress, pressure, and chronic anxiety.

Anxiety covers broad territory, from PTSD to acute anxiety to chronic anxiety. All of these diagnoses are quite different and require a different set of tools and treatments to manage. In his book Family Systems and Congregational Life, Bowen defines acute anxiety as an automatic reaction to a real, short-term threat—such as hyperventilating after a near car accident.

Chronic anxiety looks and acts like acute anxiety but is a reaction to a perceived threat rather than a real or immediate one. And rather than having a short duration, it is almost continuous. Bowen noted that chronic anxiety is frequently generated by relational issues because it is often in our relationships that we form our perceived needs.

I have found it helpful to define Bowen’s theory as “what happens after you don’t get what you think you need.” Chronic anxiety is generated in the gap between what is happening in the moment and what we think we need to be okay. For example, I have a constant need for people to like me. I always need to know the answer. I need every sermon to be gold standard.

These are not real needs, of course. They are perceived needs. But when I don’t get them, I get reactive. I behave oddly. Maybe I work harder to impress someone; maybe I fish for a compliment after a sermon. Maybe I raise my voice in a meeting or try to get the last word in.

This is why I find Bowen’s theory of anxiety so helpful—it is less focused on worry or fear and more focused on identifying perceived needs in our lives. And identification is key: Our bodies cannot discern the difference between acute and chronic anxiety unless we train them to. Our bodies behave as if we are under threat even when we are not. My body cannot discern between the real danger of an impending car accident and the perceived danger of a negative email hitting my inbox Monday morning.

Recognize symptoms of anxiety

The initial step from being controlled by anxiety to managing itis to notice its presence through three simple questions.

First, where does anxiety start for you? Anxiety technically starts in false belief, but I have found that we first notice it physiologically: a spinning mind, a racing heart, or a tightening body. For me, it manifests in spinning thoughts. If I am worrying about something while I fall asleep and return to it as soon as I wake up, I know that I am anxious. The key is to know it, name it, and then (as discussed later) form the habit of immediate intervention.

Second, how do you react once your anxiety shows itself? One sign of anxiety is that your attempted solution to anxiety only makes your anxiety worse. For example, those of us who need to be understood might get quite anxious when we are misunderstood in an elders’ meeting. We might react by speaking more or exerting more authority, but that very rarely accomplishes anything other than increased anxiety. Some people will simply misunderstand us—and some people even have a vested interest in doing so when resisting leadership or change. Noticing our reactions can interrupt the cycle.

Finally, what do you think you need that you do not really need? If chronic anxiety is the engine, false beliefs are the fuel. This could be having people’s approval, appearing impressive, or always being right. Awareness is a powerful tool to flip the dynamic of anxiety. When we are anxious but unaware, we are in its grip. When we notice it early, we can manage it instead of letting it manage us.

Because pastors are often others-focused, we can be the last to know that we are anxious. If you don’t think of yourself as an anxious person, you can ask a loved one or team member. Chances are they already know when you are anxious, and if they feel safe, they may offer you the gift of telling you. None of us is immune to the impact of chronic anxiety.

A spiritual response to anxiety

As I have studied the nature of chronic anxiety, I have concluded that it has a spiritual nature, not just a psychological one. Chronic anxiety competes for the space in our awareness where God resides, so it is difficult to be aware of God’s presence when we are in the grip of chronic anxiety.

Once we detect anxiety, we can use it to discern between perceived and real needs, and we can have a profound encounter with grace in the moment.

Sometimes several times per day I pray, “Jesus died to free me from _______.” Jesus died to free me from the need to preach perfect sermons. Jesus died to free me from the need to be understood. Jesus died to free me from needing to have the last word.

At the core of these prayers lies a crucial question: In my pastoral vocation, am I seeking self to meet my needs—which often generates chronic anxiety—or God? In our early efforts to detect where anxiety is at play, we have to be kind to ourselves. It will take brave practice and time to learn to depend on God in our pastoral pressure, moment by moment.

These truths took me almost a decade to really live, but the results are real. Now that I know my triggers, I can move from being in the grip of anxiety and not knowing it to recognizing anxiety much earlier and preempting it. When I am walking into an elders’ meeting and I know I may not have every answer to every question, rather than get anxious or defensive I can simply acknowledge ahead of time that Jesus died so that I can be fully present even if I do not have an answer. Or when a critic takes a cheap shot, I am able to give the gift of the last word and truly be at peace.

Anxiety may say, “It is all on me,” or, “There are no good options.” But the good news is that not only is God with us, but he is ahead of us, already at work in that difficult meeting or upcoming Sunday service. That was perhaps the most profound lesson I learned as a trauma chaplain—when I walked into rooms saturated in anxiety, it wasn’t my job to fix things. Rather, my job was to pay attention to the God who was already present with these people.

This was the lesson as a chaplain, and this is my ongoing lesson as a pastor: It is not all on me. God with me is good news. And recognizing that God is already at work ahead of me truly sets me free.

Steve Cuss is the author of Managing Leadership Anxiety: Yours and Theirs. He holds a Master of Divinity degree from Emmanuel Christian Seminary and serves as lead pastor at Discovery Christian Church in Colorado.

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Ideas

Despite Bad News, Evangelical Philosophy Is Flourishing

Michael W. Austin

And that’s good news, because it helps us pursue goodness, truth, and beauty.

Illustration by Mallory Rentsch / Source Images: WikiMedia Commons / Aaron Burden / Nathan Dumlao / Unsplash

Philosophy is vital for Christians today. It equips us to love God with our hearts and minds. It teaches us to think well and cultivate Christian character. It helps us to understand the history of the faith and the development of foundational doctrines, such as the Trinity and the Incarnation. And it enables us to engage the culture.

As C. S. Lewis put it, “Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered.” I would add that good philosophy must also exist to help us to pursue goodness, truth, and beauty, which are all grounded in the nature of our great God.

My experience studying philosophy at Talbot School of Theology continues to shape me not only as a philosophy professor, but as a member of my local church, husband, father, soccer coach, and friend. Whatever intellectual and moral virtues I possess, I owe in large part to my training in philosophy.

That’s why I was dismayed to hear that Liberty University has dissolved its philosophy department. What terrible news for the five excellent scholars and teachers who will no longer be employed as of June 30; for the students who will miss out on the transformative experience of studying philosophy at a Christian school; and for the American church, which needs more evangelicals trained in philosophy, not fewer.

Any university worthy of the name—especially a Christian one—needs philosophers to do what they do in the classroom and beyond. As Baylor University’s Francis Beckwith put it:

Liberty’s decision reflects something of a trend in higher education. Philosophy and other fields in the humanities aren’t seen by some as essential to a university education. People mistakenly think graduates in these fields are unable to find gainful employment, even though the data show otherwise, and they completely disregard the role philosophy and the humanities can play in the spiritual growth of students, regardless of their major.

As the president of the Evangelical Philosophical Society, I’m disappointed when Christians don’t see the value in the pursuit of the good, the true, and the beautiful. But I also see a picture broader than the most recent news of a department closing. While the prospects of philosophy departments are grim in some cases, evangelical philosophy is also flourishing.

There has been a renaissance in Christian philosophy since the 1960s, and evangelical philosophers have been a significant part of this movement. Christian philosophers like Alvin Plantinga, Eleonore Stump, Robert and Marilyn Adams, and William Alston were instrumental. Evangelical philosophers like William Lane Craig, J. P. Moreland, Doug Geivett, and Jerry Walls have been a part of it as well.

Now a new generation of evangelicals continues this work, both in the United States and around the world. Evangelical philosophy is flourishing at places like Biola University, Houston Baptist University, and Tyndale University, to name just a few.

Seminary students can receive a top-notch philosophical education at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, Denver Seminary, or Talbot School of Theology. Palm Beach Atlantic University has just announced a new Master of Arts degree in philosophy of religion, opening in the fall of 2021.

Evangelical philosophers also publish in all areas of philosophy. The Evangelical Philosophical Society has numerous conferences around the United States every year, with hundreds of scholars and apologists in attendance. The society’s journal, Philosophia Christi, publishes excellent philosophical work by evangelicals, other Christians, and our secular colleagues.

Kent Dunnington at Biola and Ross Inman at Southeastern Seminary are representative of the many evangelicals who have published excellent scholarly works with top academic presses. Dunnington’s Humility, Pride, and Christian Virtue Theory and Inman’s Substance and the Fundamentality of the Familiar are just two examples of the fine work that scholars are doing today.

And evangelical philosophers write for the church, making our work accessible to the people in the pews. We write on a wide variety of topics, exploring the implications of our faith for all of life. We engage the culture for the sake of the kingdom, help equip people in our churches, and seek to shape the hearts and minds of our students for a lifetime of serving God in the home and in their vocations.

For example, Paul Gould’s award-winning book Cultural Apologetics expands our view of what apologetics is, how it can help build the church, and the ways it can be used to truly reach others with the gospel. My own just-released book, God and Guns in America, uses philosophy alongside theology and biblical studies to address the gun debates in the United States from a thoroughly Christian point of view.

But arguably the most important work done by many evangelical philosophers happens in the classroom. That work takes different forms. I’m a professor at a public university, so I strive to love my students and help them think carefully and well about life’s big questions. At Christian institutions, evangelical philosophers help their students integrate their faith into all of life. They train future doctors, nurses, teachers, filmmakers, pastors, missionaries, business professionals, and university professors to see their personal and professional lives in the light of Christ. They teach them how to think hard, and think well, in a Christlike way.

That matters to the life of the church. If you’ve ever bemoaned the lack of discipleship in American evangelicalism, philosophy can help us with this, because it can help those who study it develop intellectual and moral virtue. A slow and careful reading of Plato’s Republic, Augustine’s Confessions, Kierkegaard’s Works of Love, or contemporary philosopher Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung’s Glittering Vices can be a fruitful exercise in Christian spiritual formation.

At its best, a Christian philosophical education helps us love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. It equips us to love our neighbors as ourselves in ways that we might not be able to do without philosophical training. You don’t need a philosophy class or degree to love God and your neighbor, of course, but it can help you do those things in some wonderful and unique ways.

Practical education is important, but given the pace of change in our world, the practical soon becomes passé. Students with a philosophical education, however, know how to think. Because of this, they are able to adapt to changes in industry. They can adapt to changes in the culture that impact how to do ministry well in a given context.

In fact, philosophy is intensely practical. This might sound ludicrous, but philosophers explore issues like the character of God, the true nature of justice, the proper application of scientific knowledge, the structure of good arguments, and the nature of virtue and its connection to human flourishing. All of this is obviously relevant to our daily lives.

In a culture where humility is in short supply, where people who can give sound but also winsome arguments seem rare, evangelical Christian philosophy has much to offer. We must not cast it aside. We should do what we can to encourage its impact in the culture, growth in the church, and continued presence in our Christian institutions of higher education.

Michael W. Austin is the president of the Evangelical Philosophical Society. He teaches philosophy at Eastern Kentucky University and his latest book is God and Guns in America.

- More from Michael W. Austin

News

Wire Story

Q Hosts Nutritionist Who Promotes ‘Building Immunity’ Over Vaccines

Jack Jenkins – Religion News Service

Joshua Axe’s talk at last month’s virtual event has raised concerns among experts.

DrAxe.com

The founders of Q have hosted talks promoting what experts say are unfounded claims that alternative health methods such as practicing gratitude and consuming essential oils can combat or even prevent contracting the novel coronavirus, sparking pushback from at least one ally of the group.

The talks took place on platforms affiliated with Gabe Lyons and his wife, Rebekah, both of whom are influential evangelical Christian authors and speakers. The two founded Q, which is described on its website as “a learning community that mobilizes Christians to advance the common good in society.” The organization hosts an annual conference that resembles TED Talks and features prominent Christian speakers, as well as business leaders, politicians and entertainers. Videos of the talks and affiliated podcasts are distributed via apps to digital devices such as Apple TV.

Lyons recently hosted two coronavirus-themed conversations with Joshua Axe, who is listed as a chiropractor and nutritionist on his website, which sells a wide variety of alternative health supplements such as essential oils. The website does not describe Axe as an expert on epidemiology, but it does boast that his company, Axe Wellness, has won accolades in Tennessee. The nature of his practice is unclear: the state’s Department of Health lists his chiropractic license as expired as of 2013.

The first conversation occurred on a February 28 episode of the “Rhythms for Life” podcast, a reference to Rebekah Lyons’s book Rhythms of Renewal, which is described as outlining methods to “overcome anxiety with daily habits that strengthen you mentally and physically.”

In the podcast conversation with Gabe Lyons, Axe downplayed the threat of the novel coronavirus by claiming “we’ve actually had worse threats in the past;” suggested the pharmaceutical industry and “the media” benefit from “driving fear” around the pandemic; and claimed he has “complete confidence” that he could either avoid infection from the coronavirus or defeat it in a few days by boosting his immune system through alternative methods such as ingesting ginger tea and oregano oil.

“I’m in complete confidence that if I’m exposed to the coronavirus that either I won’t get it, or if I do get it, that, hey, it will be a few days and I’ll be fine afterwards,” he said. “Because when your immune system is strong—God designed our bodies to fight viruses. And that’s the thing: For me, it’s an attitude and mentality of faith over fear.”

Axe did not discuss vaccines other than to argue that pharmaceutical companies “are developing a vaccine around” the pandemic and that there is “a big industry there.”

At no point did Gabe Lyons challenge Axe’s claims, which appear to be directly refuted by a statement published on the website of the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, operating underneath the National Institutes of Health. (It was to this statement that the NIH directed an inquiry from Religion News Service when asked to comment on the contents of Axe’s talks.)

“The media has reported that some people are seeking ‘alternative’ remedies to prevent or to treat COVID-19,” the statement reads. “Some of these purported remedies include herbal therapies, teas, essential oils, tinctures, and silver products such as colloidal silver. There is no scientific evidence that any of these alternative remedies can prevent or cure the illness caused by COVID-19.”

Rebekah Lyons posted about Axe on Instagram shortly after his appearance on the podcast, saying “Who do you call to get insight on boosting immunity in light of the Coronavirus? (Axe) of course!”

Gabe Lyons hosted Axe again during the Q 2020 Virtual Summit that took place April 22-23, featuring speakers such as conservative commentator Eric Metaxas, theologian Tim Keller, and hip-hop artist Lecrae. Axe was originally listed in a session titled “Fighting Pandemics” but, according to correspondence acquired by RNS, appears to have changed the segment to “Building Immunity” after encountering pushback from independent researcher Jake Dockter.

Neither Gabe Lyons nor Axe returned RNS requests for comment or to verify the exchange.

Axe’s presentation at the conference occurred immediately after a short question-and-answer session between Gabe Lyons and a physician on the topic of the coronavirus. Q 2020 featured multiple segments that appeared to follow a similar setup: two differing or opposing perspectives on one topic—such as a later debate between Metaxas and columnist David French on whether Christians should vote for Donald Trump.

After the Q&A with the physician, Lyons introduced Axe by asking, “Is all our confidence going to be in future medicine or vaccines, or is there anything we can be doing as people—is there any way in which we can live, and the way God has designed us—to fight off viruses?”

Axe then launched into an 18-minute talk in which he promoted “herbal and natural forms of medicine,” argued that positive emotions are crucial to health, suggested “the media” has caused more disease than helped people by promoting “fear” during the pandemic and declared “the ultimate way to protect yourself and your family during any health crisis is to put your faith in God and follow the health principles laid out in the Bible.”

Axe also criticized White House coronavirus response coordinator Anthony Fauci by putting up a slide in which he quotes the doctor as saying “our Ultimate Hope is a vaccine.”

“A vaccine—again, that’s not the ultimate solution,” Axe said. “The ultimate solution is God, and also, secondarily, supporting this body God has given us, strengthening our immune system so we can fight off not only this virus, but every virus we’re exposed to in the future.”

The precise origin of the Fauci quote is unclear. While the White House adviser has said similar things in the past, there is no indication he capitalizes “ultimate hope” or that the phrase is meant to be a religious reference.

The segment triggered minor backlash from some viewers on Twitter and from Tearfund, an evangelical Christian relief and development agency based in the United Kingdom. A vice president of Tearfund USA, the group’s US-based arm, spoke at a previous Q gathering and was listed as one of the 2020 speakers as well.

“The Q Ideas forum brings together many perspectives, which we value,” read a tweet from the group. “But in this case we were extremely disappointed. As soon as the talks streamed we immediately raised our concerns with them. We hope they’ll exercise better judgment in the future.”

[Editor’s note from CT: A Q&A on the Q site includes the caveat that participants may encounter perspectives they disagree with. “At Q, we pride ourselves on providing Christian leaders with a wide range of viewpoints on every issue we cover, so that you can be sure you’re getting a full perspective. This means you might not agree with every talk or speaker you see on Q Media, but that’s the point—we want to help you see the complexity of each issue so that, whatever your viewpoint, you can engage this cultural moment well.”]

According to Gabe Lyons’s exchange with Dockter, the head of the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Francis Collins, was also reportedly invited to address the Q conference. But Dockter told RNS that he contacted Collins to raise questions about Axe’s appearance on the same program. According to correspondence obtained by RNS, Collins responded: “Many thanks for providing this information, which certainly gives me pause.”

Collins did not speak at the Q 2020 conference; his office did not respond to requests from RNS to verify the authenticity of the emails or the invitation to speak.

- More from Jack Jenkins – Religion News Service

Ideas

The Pandemic as God’s Judgment

Todd Mangum

Does the biblical pattern of disaster and discipline with a call to repent apply to COVID-19?

Illustration by Mallory Rentsch / Source Images: WikiMedia Commons / Jeremy Yap / CDC / Unsplash

Is this pandemic God’s judgment against us? This is a difficult question to ponder. To ask it, I do not presume ourselves to be under either the blessings and curses of theocratic Israel or the apocalyptic doom of Revelation. However, I do see patterns of biblical teaching indicative of God’s ongoing engagement in the affairs of human life and his willingness to use extreme measures to accomplish his purposes.

When confronted with disaster, Scripture calls us to look to God for both comfort and self-censure. Prophets from Moses to Malachi point to sin and the need for repentance as reasons behind various disasters. Likewise, John the Baptist and Jesus launch the New Testament with prophetic warnings and calls to repentance.

Early in Romans, the apostle Paul observes, “the wrath of God is being revealed … against all ungodliness and unrighteousness” (1:18, ESV). To the Corinthians, Paul holds up Old Testament patterns of judgment as “types,” “examples to us”—historic precedents to heed (1 Cor. 10:1–12; Rom. 11:20–21). When chastising the Corinthians for desecrations of the Lord’s Supper, Paul warns, “why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep [have died]” (1 Cor. 11:30). Paul labels sickness and death as a “judgment” (v. 29), even for these New Testament believers. Hebrews 12, citing Proverbs, tells believers in the same vein, “‘do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, … for the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant” (Heb. 12:5, 11, ESV).

Does the coronavirus pandemic fit as divine judgment and discipline?

It is important to clarify that God’s wrath comes with mercy (Hab. 3:2; 1 Chron. 21:13). We can discern his mercy in the pattern of smaller catastrophes preceding greater ones, granting opportunity for repentance sooner rather than paying larger consequences later. The ten plagues of Egypt increased in severity in part because, early on, Pharaoh and his people “did not listen,” but rather “turned and went into his house with no concern even for this.” (Ex. 7:22–23, NASB). How quick are we to dismiss extraordinary acts of God as quirks of nature, forces we can harness with enough resilience and resourcefulness? Scripture labels this mindset hardening the heart (Ex. 8:19; Prov. 28:14). It is dangerous.

Some will demand prophetic confirmation of any divine judgment. But given the full and clear teaching of canonical Scripture at our stage in redemptive history, we are owed no more prophetic confirmation than the rebuff of such expectation at the end of Jesus’ parable about the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:27–31).

Nevertheless, the Lord has raised up poignant prophetic voices in our midst, from Jeremiah Wright, Jim Wallis and Diane Langberg to John Piper and James Dobson. While none of them claims inerrant inspiration, each has sounded loud notes of biblical warning. Jeremiah expressed God’s frustration at how his people stubbornly closed their ears to (mostly unnamed) prophets “sent again and again” (Jer. 25:4, 29:19). Perhaps this indicts us too.

What must God do to get our attention?

God may disrupt the human cycle of selfishness by awful means and call us to account. Global pandemics thankfully are rare, but when they do occur, they usually spread through trade routes of prosperous, powerful nations—inherently prone to prideful pursuit of profits and indifference toward God (Deut. 8:10–14). Is this pandemic part of a larger pattern? Consider other catastrophes that have struck North America over the past 20 years: 9/11; Superstorm Sandy; hurricanes Katrina, Maria, Irma, and Harvey; California wildfire; Midwest tornado spikes; swine flu, and now COVID-19. Have we hardened our hearts so as to write off a warning as mere acts of nature? Shouldn’t we rather ask if we could be under divine judgment?

We need not look far for reasons. God opposes the proud and uses catastrophe to undermine arrogance. James 4:13–17 calls out the “sin” of living life as functional atheists, operating as though God is paying us no real attention, presuming our security lies simply in planning and protecting our profits. James 5 calls down severe judgment on the rich—in our day, we who put “In God we trust” on our mammon had best take heed.

God’s passionate concern is for the vulnerable—the orphan, the widow, the immigrant, the refugee. The Lord will not allow prosperity devoid of such concern to stand (Ex. 22:21–24; Deut. 10:16–20; Isa. 10:1–4; Jer. 5:28–29; Amos 4–8; Mal. 3:1–6). “Whoever shuts their ears to the cry of the poor will also cry out and not be answered” (Prov. 21:13).

If this pandemic is a judgment from God, our response should not be to point a sanctimonious finger at others but to lament and repent, with prayers like unto Daniel 9:3–19, where the person of God owns and confesses “our sins” and pleads for God to “forgive us” (2 Chron. 6:36–39, 7:12–14). In such moments we are most in sync with prophets like Habakkuk and Jeremiah. Sharing their lamentations, we also are put in position to observe: “And yet, your mercies are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness” (Lam. 3:23).

Human sin in such times can be redeemed by God for greater purpose. Besides instilling fear of the Lord, plagues historically have prompted people to prepare for the afterlife. Jesus underscored the transience of material things and the foolishness of building one’s life on such sand (Matt. 7:24–27). Christians need not fear death. Confidence in Christ and eternity has led many to give their own lives to minister to the sick and dying, a visible witness to resurrection hope.

Followers of Christ are not called to pronounce God’s condemnation but rather to examine themselves. Our own repentance serves as one aspect of our larger kingdom mission to relieve suffering, mourn with the grieving, care for the sick, encourage the weak, and comfort the afflicted even as we plead for God’s mercy. With this pandemic, I see the seriousness of God’s demand for repentance and receive any discipline God may intend as coming from the hand of my loving Father.

Todd Mangum is Clemens Professor of Missional Theology, Missio Seminary.

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

- More from Todd Mangum

News

Where Do White Evangelicals Get Their Coronavirus News? The White House

Ryan P. Burge

While most agree with the response from public health officials, confidence in the Trump administration outweighs the news media.

Drew Angerer / Getty Images

With claims of a “plandemic” and other conspiracy theories swirling, the need to communicate accurate, trustworthy information about the coronavirus is becoming more crucial.

Leaders like Ed Stetzer have called on Christians to be discerning in what they believe and share, worried that promoting false information “can end up harming others and … hurt your witness,” as he wrote on his CT blog The Exchange.

So where are believers looking for information on the spread and risks of COVID-19? Recent survey data indicates that white evangelical Protestants’ go-to sources don’t always line up with the rest of the population.

While a majority of both evangelicals and the population overall believe public health officials have gotten a lot right in their response, evangelicals are more confident in the Trump administration’s response and less confident in the media than non-evangelicals are, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted last month and provided by the Roper Center.

Evangelicals were more divided over how the media has covered the pandemic, with 60 percent saying it was covered well and 40 percent saying it was not covered well. (Among the rest of the population, the split was closer to three-quarters and one-quarter, respectively.)

Overall, white evangelicals were more likely to believe that the severity of the COVID-19 threat had been exaggerated by a range of sources.

Around two-thirds of white evangelicals said the news media had greatly or slightly exaggerated the risks posed by COVID-19. Just under half (44.5%) said the same of Democrats in Congress.

Almost two thirds of white evangelicals, though, believe that President Donald Trump’s response to the coronavirus has been “about right.” They are more confident in the president’s response than in any other group’s, including public health officials like those with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Just 3 in 10 respondents who were not white evangelicals think that the president’s response was “about right.”

In comparison, the group that the general public thinks has “gotten it about right” is public health officials, with nearly two-thirds (63.9%) approving of their messaging. Non-evangelicals were almost twice as likely to say that the media had covered the outbreak properly (42.4%) compared to white evangelicals (23.7%).

Evangelicals’ perceptions of COVID-19 responses are related to where they seek information about the pandemic.

The Trump administration was named by white evangelicals as the source they would most likely rely on as a major source of news. That was followed by national news networks and local news outlets. Public health officials were the fourth most consulted source.

For the rest of the population, national news ranked at the top, followed by public health officials and local news. Compared to non-evangelicals, white evangelicals were less likely to turn to state elected officials like governors for pandemic information.

Looked at broadly, white evangelicals express a greater skepticism of the news media than the general public. Two thirds believe that the news media has exaggerated the risk of the coronavirus. They also express less confidence in public health experts to accurately convey information about the pandemic (53.6% versus 63.9% of the rest of the population).

Politics is a factor. Since most white evangelicals align with the Republican Party, they are inclined to take a more positive view surrounding Trump and a more negative view toward sources like Democratic lawmakers and the media, which Trump frequently criticizes.

The politicization of the virus is something that public health officials were concerned about during the early stages of the outbreak. Before the current coronavirus outbreak, survey data indicated that political ideology was a bigger influence on coronavirus concerns than faith. As I wrote in mid-March: “Politically conservative Protestants who attend church frequently are far less concerned with a major epidemic. …”

If people are receiving conflicting messages and cannot agree on the severity of the coronavirus, slowing its spread and finding a cure could prove to be much more difficult.

Ryan P. Burge is an instructor of political science at Eastern Illinois University. His research appears on the site Religion in Public, and he tweets at @ryanburge.

- More from Ryan P. Burge

News

Largest Christian Radio Company Faces Financial Crisis Due to Coronavirus Downturn

Daniel Silliman

Salem Media makes cuts as more churches and ministries pull spending during the pandemic.

Drew Patrick Miller / Unsplash

The largest Christian radio company in the United States suffered a major financial blow as ongoing industry challenges collided with the economic impact of COVID-19.

Salem Media Group reaches an estimated 298 million weekly listeners on 3,100 stations branded as The Fish, The Answer, Faith Talk, and more. The megabroadcaster rose to dominance with a revenue model that protected it from some of the ad volatility suffered by its secular counterparts, but that hasn’t been enough in this recent downturn.

Salem’s share price has dropped from a high of about $30 in 2004 to about $6 in 2018 and to 80 cents on Monday. The company’s investment value has been downgraded to “poor quality” and “high risk” by Moody’s, a top credit ratings agency.

On Tuesday the board of directors announced that it would temporarily suspend quarterly payments of dividends to shareholders. The top executives’ salaries were cut by 10 percent.

Financial analyst Michael Kupinski, who specializes in media and entertainment companies, wrote that he expects Salem to “weather the storm,” but not without taking drastic measures. According to Kupinski, that could include “asset sales and aggressive cost cutting,” such as selling off some of the 100 stations owned by Salem or laying off some of its more than 1,400 employees.

Salem did not respond to Christianity Today’s requests for comment. In its most recent financial filing, vice president and chief financial officer Evan Masyr wrote that “it is impossible to predict the total impact that the pandemic will have on our business.”

Salem airs religious programing from teachers such as Chuck Swindoll, John MacArthur, Tony Evans, Eric Metaxas, and the late J. Vernon McGee, as well as contemporary Christian music and conservative political commentary from Sean Hannity, Hugh Hewitt, Mike Gallagher, and Sebastian Gorka.

The business of ‘block programming’

Christian radio has long been seen as more financially stable because of its intimate relationship with listeners and a business model pioneered by Salem to sell airtime to churches and ministries to broadcast their own recordings.

Traditional radio stations make about 95 percent of their income from advertising. Christian radio companies sell spots to advertisers, but also make money from selling “block programming” to preachers who want reliable access to the airwaves.

In 2019, Salem netted $48.5 million from sales of block programing to David Jeremiah, Charles Stanley, Focus on the Family, and other major Christian ministries. The company made an additional $30.5 million from block programming sales to local churches and ministries. The same year, Salem made $16.4 million from national advertising and $51.8 million from local advertising, financial records show.

But with the economic impact of the pandemic, the company saw declines in both advertising and block programming sales. Experts expect a 40-percent decline in radio ad revenue and a drop in charitable giving that puts pressure on churches and ministries to cut back on their spending.

Salem notified shareholders that COVID-19 was going to impact profits at the end of March.

More listeners in crisis

Though revenue is down, the size of the audience has grown since the start of the pandemic. More than a quarter of Americans say they are listening to more radio because of COVID-19, according to market research from the Nielsen Corporation. In the same survey, 60 percent said they trusted radio to give them reliable information and connect them to their communities.

That’s especially true for Christian outlets, according to Jennifer Epperson, a member of the National Religious Broadcasters board of directors and chair of its radio committee.

“People need facts, but they can get fact fatigue, so they want comfort,” said Epperson, a 30-year veteran in the industry. “With the Christian radio station, you can do both.”

Salem was founded by Edward Atsinger III and Stuart Epperson (distantly and indirectly related to Jennifer Epperson). The two met at Bob Jones University and then moved to California and bought a radio station in Oxnard. The station gave them access to the Los Angeles market, the second-largest radio audience in the country.

According to a Forbes profile, Atsinger and Epperson realized that with a market that big, they wouldn’t have to pay preachers to record programs they could broadcast. Preachers would pay for access to their giant pulpit. And they could continue to produce their own programs and sell advertising too.

Salem’s reach became clear in 1988, when one LA station started calling for a protest of Martin Scorsese’s new movie, The Last Temptation of Christ, which many conservative Christians found offensive. So many people showed up at the entrance of MCA Universal Studios that the protest shut down the highway.

By the early 2000s, Salem stations reached an audience of about 100 million listeners, and they were major players in the largest markets across the country, giving Christian preachers access to loyal listeners in major metro areas. The company went public and expanded into conservative talk radio.

Salem dominated Christian radio and set industry standards. Other Christians in the industry sometimes complained about Salem’s emphasis on business and accused the company of treating nonprofit radio ministries and smaller Christian companies as rivals rather than co-laborers for the gospel. Some Christians leaders also complained about Salem’s outsized influence on evangelicals—criticizing the company for promoting right-wing politics, contemporary worship music, and self-help theology.

Challenges of media changes

The company’s share price peaked in 2004 and has been on a downward trajectory since then as the media market has evolved and radio has had to compete with podcasts, streaming music, and other new media. Salem has diversified, expanding into online content and publishing, and found ways to cut costs. In 2019, Salem brought in $265 million. The company entered 2020 expecting a slight decrease in revenue, before the market was disrupted by the pandemic.

Despite the recent downturn, the founders of Salem are investing more in the company. Financial records show that since the beginning of March, Atsinger has acquired more than 170,000 additional shares of Salem stock, and Stuart Epperson more than 300,000.

Jennifer Epperson said there is reason to be optimistic about the future of Christian radio, despite the current crisis.

“I don’t think radio is going away anytime soon,” she said. “Radio is an intensely personal medium. You can hear someone breathing with that microphone. And someone that close—that’s a friend. … As a radio host you welcome people with your tone and walk along with your listener as a friend, even through disaster and COVID. You really do life together, and that’s the beauty of radio.”

- More from Daniel Silliman

Books

Review

Are Great Novels a Thing of the Past?

Darren Dyck

Or are reports of their death greatly exaggerated?

Source images: Nicoolay / Getty / Jadugar DS / Envato

Whenever anyone writes a book, as Joseph Bottum has, lamenting that things just aren’t what they used to be, critics predictably rise up to decry the crotchety old author and his take. And Bottum’s provocative new offering, The Decline of The Novel, seems tailor-made to elicit just such reactions. No doubt more than a few skeptics will feel compelled to list any number of “good” or even “great” novels written in recent years, laying to rest any anxieties they might have about the obsolescence of this particular art form.

The Decline of the Novel

Joseph Bottum (Author)

St. Augustines Press

150 pages

$25.00

Now, it seems likely that Bottum would disagree strenuously with many of his critics about what constitutes excellence in novel writing. But he’s not really interested in arguing that no good novels are being written today. At the very least, that’s not his primary claim. His point is more that even if these good novels exist, nobody’s reading them.

But let me back up a little. Before I say anything more about The Decline of the Novel, you have to understand what Bottum thinks a novel is. (Here’s where things get interesting.) The entire premise of Bottum’s book is that the novel, as a genre of prose fiction, is “Protestant, all the way down.” He has a number of ways of expressing this thought: that the novel is Protestant in essence, for instance, or Protestantly inflected. Elsewhere, he calls Protestantism the “genus of the modern novel.”

What he means, I think, is that the rise of the novel as the modern genre of fiction and the growth of Protestantism go hand in hand, and that the novel, consequently, has certain features that tie it closely—integrally, even—to the Protestant faith. The most important of these, Bottum insists, is its emphasis on interiority, the inner lives of characters.

Responding to Disenchantment

As Bottum writes in the opening page of his book, “all human beings are interior selves and the characters in a novel are their readers.” Even in novels ostensibly about other things (like politics), interiority is, in a sense, always the thing the novel explores. But novels do more than just privilege their characters’ inner lives; according to Bottum, they map out the individual soul’s journey as it strives “to understand its salvation and achieve its sanctification.” And though this journey occurs within each individual soul and is typically marked by a growing self-understanding and awakening of virtue, it also needs to be made in the external world of people and things.

Which leads me to another of Bottum’s claims: Being modern (which both the novel and Protestantism are) means having to face the fact that the world has become disenchanted. Unlike medieval people, he might say, who lived in a realm full of meaning (and who didn’t read or write novels), modern people look around and see only indifference, a world in which meaning has gone underground. (This prompts us, the argument goes, to turn inward.) Accordingly, one thing that makes the novel both modern and Protestant is that it responds to this disenchantment of the world, this “thinness,” this “crisis” of the modern self. Indeed, in Bottum’s view, it is part of the novel’s work to depict, via interiority, the reconnection of reality and meaning.

And it can do this in various ways. In Sir Walter Scott’s Waverly, Bottum’s example, the world is made meaningful (or “thickened”) by an appeal to the past, an attempt to recapture what’s “missing from the modern experience.” In Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield, meaningfulness is reasserted through the suggestion that there is a fundamental “unity of concept and thing,” despite the fact that “perversions” of truth abound and language is used almost exclusively in the service of power or desire. Words, in Dickens, are capable of naming reality.

To put it a little differently, Bottum thinks the novel isn’t just whatever any given novelist or reader wants it to be, but rather a specific thing with a specific purpose, and the work it does is fundamentally metaphysical: It teaches us how to have “modern selves.” The work of Bottum in The Decline of the Novel, by contrast, is to account for the failure of the novel to do what it was meant to do, what its form suggests it should do.

After introducing the novel as he understands it, Bottum spends the rest of his book looking at individual authors and works, which, taken together, bespeak a narrative of decline. From the already mentioned Waverlyand David Copperfield, he moves forward in time to consider Thomas Mann’s modernist masterpiece Doctor Faustus and then proceeds into the present age to discuss Tom Wolfe’s college-sex-romp satire I Am Charlotte Simmons and a handful of works of “popular” fiction (including graphic novels, children’s fiction, and what Bottum calls “middle-brow” literature).

Now, while I would love to spend an afternoon talking with Bottum about Thomas Mann, he’s really at his best and most pointed when discussing novelistic failures—novels, in other words, that don’t or can’t fulfill their metaphysical mandate. His last two chapters on Wolfe and popular fiction, in particular, contain a number of provocative assertions. To take just a couple examples: Alice Munro “has prose so fine it can’t lift anything heavier than a small cup of tea,” and “In November 1988, the novel as an art-form sputtered out and died. And a man named Neil Gaiman killed it.”

But beyond these occasional zingers, Bottum highlights in these chapters a critical difference between novels by Scott, Dickens, and their contemporaries and those authored more recently. As the influence of Protestantism on our culture has diminished, novelists and readers alike have lost a sense of the significant. Unlike classic novels, which treat significant things seriously—which is to say, in depth and humanely—modern novels tend to fall into one of two categories: Either they treat insignificant things seriously (think Munro’s teacups), or they treat serious things superficially (as with graphic novels, which grant the existence of good and evil but can only treat them unrealistically). Ultimately, this failure or inability to recognize and treat the significant seriously is a metaphysical one. We not only live in a disenchanted world, but we have forgotten or no longer believe that it was once enchanted.

Grand Claims

One could take issue with any number of Bottum’s contentions in The Decline of the Novel. His central nexus of ideas, that Protestantism ought to be understood in terms of interiority and that the novel, in privileging—in being built on—interiority, is therefore Protestant, requires further examination. While Bottum clarifies that the novel isn’t Protestant to the exclusion of non-Protestant novelists, one wonders what to do with, say, Fyodor Dostoevsky, who was decidedly not Protestant but whose novels are known for both their psychological realism and their characters striving after salvation.

It’s also worth considering the very convenient selection of novels Bottum chooses to discuss. Even though his choices are meant to be representative, one could examine an entirely different slate of texts and come up with an entirely different narrative—and maybe not even a narrative of decline. Ultimately, it all depends on how you define novel.

It is undeniable that Bottum’s book is provocative. It makes claims that at times seem too grand for its mere 152 pages of evidence, but when these claims are discussed and debated by readers, then perhaps Bottum’s aims are accomplished.

But here’s the thing: If Bottum is right not just about the decline of the novel but about the decline of novel reading as a serious enterprise, those critics I mentioned at the beginning of this review won’t be rising up—or, at least, rising up in any great number—to contest his claims. For no longer, Bottum insists, is reading novels considered a necessary component of participation in public life; no longer is it a widely recognized means of gaining insight into the human condition; no longer is it a popular way to consider and critique society’s ills.

While the devout few likely still expect novels to express truths of one sort or another, for the vast majority of people, reading long-form, soul-exploring fiction as a “genuinely religious” act is no longer a possibility.

Darren Dyck is an assistant professor of English at Ambrose University in Calgary, Alberta, where he teaches, among other things, courses on medieval literature and the 19th-century novel.

- More from Darren Dyck

News

How Christians Are Hacking Their Way to Coronavirus Help

Whitney Bauck

Introducing new technology to connect patients and families, an app to support for caregivers, and more opportunities for crowdfunding.

Daniel Balakov / Getty Images

When Michelle Brock’s grandmother passed away in early April, it wasn’t due to COVID-19 complications. But the global pandemic kept her family from filling her hospital room with loving presence the way they longed to.

“I wasn’t able to travel back to Florida to where my grandparents live, and it was a really hard time knowing that even my grandpa couldn’t be there,” Brock said.

This desire to prevent anyone else from feeling alone in their final moments prompted Brock to join a COVID-19 hackathon hosted by FaithTech, a platform focused on bridging the gap between faith and technology.

Though Brock is a graphic designer and documentary filmmaker who doesn’t consider herself tech-savvy, the hackathon connected her with a team whose skills complemented hers. Together, they dreamed up a solution to the predicament Brock and so many others had encountered during the pandemic.

The result of their teamwork was Sound of Your Love, a service that collects voice recordings from friends and family that can be played with a single tap, which is easier than accessing voicemail or arranging FaceTime calls.

“Even if you get to the point in your illness where you’re too weak to hold a screen up or have a conversation, we still wanted there to be a really easy way for people to leave a message,” Brock explained.

With Sound of Your Love, friends and family can dial in and leave a voice message that will be looped into a “soundtrack of love.” Its interface makes it simple for caretakers or medical professionals to hit play one time rather than navigate individual recordings or calls from loved ones.

While it’s a simple solution, it represents just one way that Christians are combining compassion and technological know-how to address the unique challenges brought on by the coronavirus. Rather than using business acumen to fatten their own wallets in the midst of the crisis—as currently some titans of industry are doing—a few Christians are instead thinking like entrepreneurs to provide services to others at little or no cost.

Beyond the hackathon, which generated a dozen winners and 55 projects to connect neighbors, the elderly, health care workers, pastors, and volunteers, Christians are starting grassroots projects to meet needs from a distance.

Christian author and speaker Jefferson Bethke, who has half a million followers on Facebook, created a public spreadsheet at the beginning of the pandemic to connect followers in need with financial gifts from strangers.

The project ended up helping over 700 people and drew in fellow leaders to get involved with creating a new platform. Now Bethke—in partnership with activist Christine Caine, author Ann Voskamp, photographer Esther Havens, and entrepreneur Jessica Kim—has evolved the initiative into Show Up Now, a website, app, and social campaign that encourages peer-to-peer generosity just like the original spreadsheet did, but with an added layer of prayer and outreach. Since launching, the Show Up Now website has fielded 1,157 requests for financial help and a few hundred requests for prayer.

“A lot of times in pandemic or crisis moments, the world operates out of scarcity,” Bethke said. “But Christians are meant to operate out of abundance.”

The movement taps into a wider trend of people using peer-to-peer fundraising to get their needs met in this moment of economic distress. Popular crowdfunding site GoFundMe is in more demand now than it’s ever been in its 10-year history, with coronavirus-related campaigns on the site raising over $60 million at the end of March. Though it offers an imperfect answer to complex problems, crowdfunding remains a popular option for people who need help immediately and can’t wait for more systemic solutions to emerge.

In addition to a financial component, Show Up Now encourages other forms of practical action by partnering with Ianacare (which stands for “I Am Not Alone Care,” but is pronounced like “eye on a care”), an app developed by Kim and her business partner Steven Lee. Originally launched last summer as a way to support family caregivers, Ianacare is designed to rally a social network to help check in emotionally, send gift cards or meals, volunteer to get groceries, provide pet care, and more.

The pandemic has made this mission feel all the more pressing, Kim said. In addition to the surge of medical needs around the virus, those offering care for non-coronavirus illnesses are still doing so. Ianacare has tailored some of its options for “caring without contact” responses.

“COVID-19 has increased the demand for care at home, because we cannot go into the hospital,” she said. “A lot of organizations and nonprofits are no longer operating. So people who are caregiving need help, but their resources have become even more limited. That’s where friends and family need to really show up. Because we are the only option right now for people who are caregiving.”

Float Me Through is another platform connecting people who have pandemic-induced financial needs with those willing to give a little spare cash.

Put together by a team at Useful Group, a marketing and advertising agency that frequently works with Christian publishers, Float Me Through was born from a small coalition of people wanting to do more to help those around them. According to chief creative officer Nick Rynerson, the agency was “lucky” to escape the financial hardships hitting many other small businesses. And though the company took on some pro bono work for nonprofits addressing the crisis, Rynerson and his coworkers wanted to do more.

“We almost immediately started thinking, ‘What can we do that would actually be helpful to other people?’” Rynerson said.

Though the government and nonprofits have provided some avenues for financial relief, Rynerson loved the idea of a no-strings-attached form of giving that would be more immediate and personal. His first thought was like Bethke’s: create a simple Google form where people with needs could ask for help and people who wanted to help could sign up to donate. It soon evolved into a slightly more sophisticated website where people could enter their needs in dollar amounts, with the option to add comments, and they would be matched in the back end with someone willing to help.

“We just wanted to make it so that if people needed help, they could get help without red tape,” he said. “And if somebody wanted to help another person but didn’t know where to start or everybody in their network was doing okay, it would be a place where they could jump in and help people.”

For now, the site is limited to Illinois residents to keep the initiative local and encourage neighbors caring for neighbors. But if there’s enough interest from other locations, the Useful Group team could create sister sites that accomplish the same function in other places, Rynerson said. He’s not invested in whether the project lasts a few weeks or a few years—he just hopes it facilitates generosity in new ways.

“A lot of people who have resources aren’t super used to direct giving,” he explained. “If this spurs them to help people they know outside the platform better and then they never use the platform again, great.”

These sites and apps might look like straightforward tech solutions to coronavirus-created problems. But they’re all driven more by a desire to connect people to one another than they are by a propensity for slick bells and whistles.

And the faith and empathy driving the people who created them provide useful insight for church leaders or anyone looking for creative ways to serve their communities in a time of crisis.

From Bethke’s perspective, the key is collaboration. He highlights his experience working with a team to come up with creative solutions as more meaningful than what he might have done on his own. Brock believes Christians have a unique call to be a “non-anxious presence” in the context of a world fighting panic. And Kim thinks getting as close as possible to the person you’re trying to serve is the best way to make sure any solutions you offer actually address the most pressing pain.

Though no person will balance all of this perfectly, Rynerson believes that Christians have been prepared for moments just like this one to serve and love a hurting world.

“As a faith community, both liberal and conservative, we’ve been talking about these things for 2,000 years—what it means to love your neighbor and to sacrifice for them,” he said. “I think the church can be champions of the call to love each other and to love our communities in this unique time.”

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