Ideas

Cambodian Christians’ Government Endorsement Represents a ‘Modern-Day Miracle’

Bob Craft

With major gatherings and promises of continued religious freedom protections, evangelists are eager to see the gospel keep spreading in the Buddhist nation.

Christianity Today December 10, 2019
Office of the Council of Ministers / Government of Cambodia

Last weekend the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association held its first rally in Cambodia, with Franklin Graham preaching before thousands in Phnom Penh. Organizers called it a “historic event” and the “perfect time” for the global organization to encourage the faithful minority trying to reach their country for Christ.

Momentum around the spread of the gospel in Cambodia has been mounting for years, with another significant gathering taking place a couple months before.

In October, the government of Cambodia held its largest-ever meeting with Christian leaders, with Prime Minister Hun Sen addressing over 3,000 leaders representing more than 7,000 local churches. It was only the third time in the history of the predominantly Buddhist nation that this official gathering with the head of government had taken place.

Amid heavy security, smiles, and countless selfies, the prime minister entered Koh Pich Convention Center in Phnom Penh. He addressed the Christians gathered and thanked them for their involvement in education, ethics, and social projects. He praised the church’s role in contributing to the peace and stability of the nation through promoting human dignity and unity.

Among the many leaders in the audience were the leaders of the two largest groups of evangelical churches in Cambodia: General Secretary Heng Cheng of the Evangelical Fellowship of Cambodia (EFC) and Pastor Uong Vibol of the National Christian Churches Network, Cambodia Council (NCCN-CC). The chairman of the board of NCCN-CC, Pastor Uong Rein, was appointed to help organize the church leaders and offer prayer for the prime minister and the Kingdom of Cambodia at the event.

Praise from the Prime Minister

Courtesy of Bob Craft

The gathering has grown since 2010, when 400 Christian leaders first met with officials from the ministry of religion. At that first event, officials were presented with the Creation story using Cambodian music, dance, and drama. I was there as a ministry partner from the US, and it brought tears to my eyes as I prayed for the Buddhist officials who were watching. They were clearly moved and pledged continued religious freedom for the church leaders who, even then, represented almost every province in Cambodia. In 2012, the Cambodian ministry of religion approved and attended the public celebration of Easter with worship organized by the NCCN-CC involving 18 different associations and denominations.

Nearly a decade later, the evangelical networks have continued their plan for church planting and evangelization across the country, and only in May of 2017 did the prime minister begin to address Christians in large gatherings like the one in October.

While elsewhere in the region, Christians face government restrictions, Cambodia’s church leaders have seen their work not only permitted but championed and celebrated from the highest levels of government.

This year, Hun Sen commented on the contribution that the Christian community had made in society to combat violence and addiction within Cambodia. And he specifically thanked Christians for participating in the peaceful, democratic elections that had helped keep the Cambodian People’s Party in leadership. (Hun Sen has been in office since 1985.)

The leaders of the national evangelical networks can celebrate the event as an answered prayer. The prime minister assured Christians that their religious freedoms would continue, meaning evangelicals can continue their coordination in a years-long plan to reach all of Cambodia—each and every village—with the gospel.

Looking back through all the struggles in the history of the gospel in Cambodia, this event is nothing less than a modern-day miracle. The year 2019 will prove a landmark year for Cambodia, with the growth of the church standing in stark contrast to the repression and trauma of its historic past.

Christianity After Year Zero

Few countries in the world have a more glorious or gruesome history than Cambodia. The Cambodian people once ruled an empire that stretched over most of modern Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia, and into Vietnam. The center was near Siem Reap, where magnificent temple ruins of Angkor Wat, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, reflect Hindu, Buddhist, and Khmer imagery.

By the time the first Protestant missionaries arrived in 1923, Cambodia was part of French Indochina and had been reduced to its current boundaries, with an estimated population of 2.5 million. Christian and Missionary Alliance (C&MA) missionary Arthur Hammond began Bible translation into the Khmer language in 1925, with printed versions available about 30 years later. Christianity had long been characterized by most Cambodians as a “foreign religion” beginning during the period of the French Protectorate (1863–1954) As a consequence, there were only 700–1,000 Christians in Cambodia by 1970.

The political climate of Southeast Asia, and particularly in Cambodia, had not proven to be a fertile seedbed for the gospel. However, a change of government in 1970 under Prime Minister Lon Nol led to a period of religious freedom. Missionaries were again allowed into Cambodia, the number of Cambodian believers rose to as many as 10,000, with approximately 30 churches in Phnom Penh by 1975. Then suddenly, Lon Nol was overthrown by the infamous Pol Pot, Marxist leader of the Khmer Rouge revolution in April 1975.

Pol Pot declared “Year Zero,” in an attempt to reset the country politically, socially, and religiously. Missionaries were evacuated from Cambodia when the Khmer Rouge came to power. By the end of 1979, 80 percent of Cambodian believers had been martyred during the horrors of Pol Pot’s Killing Fields. Most Christians were among more than 1.3 million Cambodians whose bodies were scattered in more than 20,000 mass burial sites called “killing fields” throughout the country, in what many consider the worst genocide of the 20th century.

There may have been as few as 200 remnant believers who were meeting in secret among the ruins of Phnom Penh city. The Vietnamese military invaded and occupied Cambodia from 1979 to 1989 as they scoured the countryside looking for any remaining Khmer Rouge fighters. The church was suppressed and remained underground during the Vietnamese occupation.

Office of the Council of Ministers / Government of Cambodia

Pastor Im Chhrorn from the C&MA, currently 88 years old, survived the killing fields and kept the remnant believers encouraged. Vibol, now the NCCN-CC president, had also survived as a teen, escaping brutality and bullets of the Khmer Rouge by hiding in the jungle. Some years later he made his way into Phnom Penh, taking refuge in a Buddhist temple. He eventually came to Im with questions about a god named “Jesus,” whom he’d read about in a library book.

Pastor Vibol was caring for orphans in one of the poorest areas of Phnom Penh when I met him in 2002 and partnered with him soon after to provide Bibles and training for Christian workers and new believers. At that point, Vibol was already the head of a group of over 300 churches that made up the NCCN-CC. Soon, he saw even more church growth and new churches established as Cambodian trainers and Scripture flowed from Phnom Penh into the countryside villages.

58,000 New Believers in 2019

During the past fiscal year, the NCCN-CC reported 58,313 new believers from the evangelistic efforts of their more than 3,000 established churches. Who would have imagined this kind of growth in a single year, considering the history of Cambodia?

The two major gatherings in Phnom Penh—Franklin Graham’s rally and the prime minister meeting—are noteworthy for gathering Christians and Christian leaders in a country where the faith remains a minority. But even more significant and effective gospel work is happening at a smaller scale throughout the year. A network of provincial leaders meets each month in Phnom Penh for fellowship, reporting, and resupplying of materials needed for evangelism and discipleship, with teams focused on going into unreached villages and establishing house churches.

Their approach is inspired by the principle of Matthew 13:31–32: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all your seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and perch in its branches.”

The prime minister’s pledge of continued religious freedom means that the door will remain open for their ministry—whether through mass events or seeds planted through small-scale neighborly outreach. We will continue to pray that God will work through his people at this opportune time and that the gospel will spread across Cambodia, including to 8,600 villages and communities that still do not have a church.

Bob Craft is the founder and president of Reach a Village. He has served in ministry throughout Southeast Asia for nearly 30 years and has worked in Cambodia with the NCCN-CC since 2002, helping train local pastors and Christian workers in church growth and church planting.

Books
Excerpt

What If I’m Not the ‘Submissive’ Type?

Rebecca McLaughlin

I used to be repulsed by Ephesians 5. Then I learned to see Paul’s instructions through a gospel lens.

Illustration by Mallory Rentsch

An excerpt from CT’s Beautiful Orthodoxy Book of the Year. Here’s the full list of CT’s 2020 Book Award winners.

Confronting Christianity: 12 Hard Questions for the World's Largest Religion (The Gospel Coalition)

Confronting Christianity: 12 Hard Questions for the World's Largest Religion (The Gospel Coalition)

Rebecca McLaughlin (Author)

Crossway

240 pages

$13.52

I was an undergraduate at Cambridge when I first wrestled with Paul’s instruction, in Ephesians, for wives to “submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord” (5:22, ESV). I came from an academically driven, equality-oriented, all-female high school. I was now studying in a majority-male college. And I was repulsed.

I had three problems with this passage. The first was that wives should submit. I knew women were just as competent as men. My second problem was with the idea that wives should submit to their husbands as to the Lord. It is one thing to submit to Jesus Christ, the self-sacrificing King of the universe. It is quite another to offer that kind of submission to a fallible, sinful man.

My third problem was the idea that the husband was the “head” of the wife. This seemed to imply a hierarchy at odds with men and women’s equal status as image bearers of God. Jesus, in countercultural gospel fashion, had elevated women. Paul, it seemed, had pushed them down.

Gospel Roles

At first, I tried to explain the shock away. I tried, for instance, to argue that in the Greek, the word translated “submit” appears only in the previous verse, “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ” (Eph. 5:21), so the rest of the passage must imply mutual submission. But the command for wives to submit occurs three times in the New Testament (see also Col. 3:18; 1 Pet. 3:1).

But when I trained my lens on the command to husbands, the Ephesians passage came into focus. “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Eph. 5:25). How did Christ love the church? By dying on a cross; by giving himself, naked and bleeding, to suffer for her; by putting her needs above his own; by sacrificing everything for her. I asked myself how I would feel if this were the command to wives. Ephesians 5:22 is sometimes critiqued as a mandate for spousal abuse. Tragically, it has been misused that way. But the command to husbands makes that reading impossible. How much more easily could an abuser twist a verse calling his wife to suffer for him, to give herself up for him, to die for him?

When I realized the lens for this teaching was the lens of the gospel itself, it started making sense. If the message of Jesus is true, no one comes to the table with rights. The only way to enter is flat on your face. Male or female, if we grasp at our right to self-determination, we must reject Jesus, because he calls us to submit to him completely.

With this lens in place, I saw that God created sex and marriage as a telescope to give us a glimpse of his star-sized desire for intimacy with us. Our roles in this great marriage are not interchangeable: Jesus gives himself for us, Christians (male or female) follow his lead. Ultimately, my marriage is not about me and my husband any more than Romeo and Juliet is about the actors playing the title roles.

Recognizing that marriage (at its best) points to a much greater reality relieves the pressure on all concerned. First, it depressurizes single people. We live in a world where sexual and romantic fulfillment are paraded as ultimate goods. But within a Christian framework, missing marriage and gaining Christ is like missing out on playing with dolls as a child, but growing up to have a real baby. When we are fully enjoying the ultimate relationship, no one will lament for the loss of the scale model.

It also takes the pressure off married people. Of course, we have the challenge of playing our roles in the drama. But we need not worry about whether we married the right person, or why our marriages are not flinging us to a constant state of Nirvana. In one sense, human marriage is designed to disappoint. It leaves us longing for more, and that longing points us to the ultimate reality of which the best marriage is a scale model.

Ephesians 5 used to repulse me. Now it convicts me and calls me toward Jesus: the true husband who satisfies my needs, the one man who truly deserves my submission.

Christ-Centered Theology, Not Gendered Psychology

Desiring to justify God’s commands, Christians sometimes try to ground this picture of marriage in gendered psychology. Some suggest that women are natural followers, while men are natural leaders. But the primary command to men is to love, not to lead, and I have never heard anyone argue that men are naturally better at loving. Some claim that men need respect while women need love, or that we are given commands corresponding to natural deficiencies: Women are better at love; men are better at respect. But to look at human history and say that men naturally respect women is to stick your head in the sand with a blindfold on!

At best, these claims about male and female psychology are generalizations. At worst, they cause needless offense and give way to exceptions: If these commands are given because wives are naturally more submissive, and I find that I am a more natural leader than my husband, does that mean we can switch roles? Ephesians 5 grounds our roles in marriage not in gendered psychology but Christ-centered theology.

I have been married for a decade, and I am not naturally submissive. I am naturally leadership-oriented. I hold a PhD and a seminary degree, and I am the trained debater of the family. Thank God, I married a man who celebrates this! Yet it is a daily challenge to remember my role in this drama and notice opportunities to submit to my husband as to the Lord, not because I am naturally more or less submissive or because he is more or less naturally loving, but because Jesus went to the cross for me.

A Withering Critique

Ephesians 5 sticks like a burr in our 21st-century ears because centuries of “traditional” gender roles have often meant wives contorting around the needs of their husbands, while husbands assert their dominance.

But Paul does not say that the husband’s needs come first, or that women are less gifted in leadership than men, or that women should not work outside the home. At least one of Paul’s key ministry partners was a woman who did just that (Acts 16:14), as did the idealized wife described in Proverbs 31. Paul does not specify that wives should earn less than their husbands, or that families should privilege the husband’s career over their wife’s.

Paul is clear elsewhere that men cannot abdicate their responsibility to ensure that their families are provided for. But this does not mean the husband must be the primary breadwinner. In biblical terms, the value of work is measured not in dollars but in service. Indeed, Jesus himself, the archetypal leader, did not earn money, and he was financially dependent on some of his female followers (Luke 8:2–3).

Viewed closely, Ephesians 5 is a withering critique of common conceptions of “traditional” gender roles that have often amounted to privileging men and patronizing women. In the drama of marriage, the wife’s needs come first, and the husband’s drive to prioritize himself is cut down with the brutal ax of the gospel. This is no return to Victorian values. Rather, it is a call to pay attention to the character of Christ.

The Ultimate Man

We will never understand the Bible’s call on men and women unless we see Jesus as the ultimate man. He had strength to calm storms, summon angel armies, and defeat death. But his arms held little children, his words elevated women, and his hands reached out to heal the sick. Jesus drove traders out of the temple with a whip. But he tenderly welcomed the outcast and weak.

After he had been mocked, beaten, and abused by his guards, Jesus was displayed to the crowds wearing a crown of thorns and a purple robe to ridicule his kingly claim. The Roman governor Pilate announced, “Behold the man!” (John 19:5, ESV). These words drip with irony. Jesus, beaten and humiliated out of love for his people, was and is the perfect man. No one who uses the Bible’s teaching on marriage to justify chauvinism, abuse, or denigration of women has looked at Jesus.

Content adapted from Confronting Christianity: 12 Hard Questions for the World’s Largest Religion by Rebecca McLaughlin, ©2019. Used by permission of Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, Wheaton, IL 60187. www.crossway.org.

This article appeared in the January/February, 2020 issue of Christianity Today as "What if I'm Not the 'Submissive' Type?".

Books

Christianity Today’s 2020 Book Awards

Our picks for the books most likely to shape evangelical life, thought, and culture.

Mallory Rentsch

When the calendar flips from one decade to the next, we typically see a flurry of articles and blog posts taking stock of the decade just past. What were the defining events, trends, and personalities? Which films, albums, and books left the largest mark?

Analyzing the religious landscape of the last 10 years at The Anxious Bench, historian Philip Jenkins concluded with this postscript: “What are the most influential Christian books of the past decade? I scarcely know where to begin!” On his blog, Alan Jacobs replied, “There aren’t any. In our moment Christians are not influenced by books, at all.”

Naturally, I can think of several 2010s books I would classify, with varying degrees of conviction, as game-changers. And I have my own thoughts—somewhat more upbeat, but hardly Pollyannish—about the state of Christian reading habits. But perhaps that category of “influence” is worth a longer look.

The lives and afterlives of great books are hard to forecast. Some make waves right from the starting gun. Others take the scenic route, ambling along until some twist of circumstance lifts them from obscurity. Herman Melville died long before Moby-Dick became a staple of college literature courses and great-American-novel debates. When Oswald Chambers died, My Utmost for His Highest existed only in fragments of lecture and sermon notes, awaiting his wife’s expert harmonizing. Rare though such stories are, you just never know.

Leaving aside the pantheon of consensus classics, you still find plenty of books that exercise a quieter influence, instructing, delighting, encouraging, and convicting a wide range of everyday believers. They’re not “influential” in the big-picture sense of causing cultural tremors or paradigm shifts—only in the humbler sense of spurring changed lives, renewed minds, and renovated hearts.

Christians who write books write with all the motivations native to sinful humanity. Ideally, however, the gospel liberates us from chasing after influence, as commonly defined. We can lay our manuscripts before the throne of grace, trusting in God to use them as he wills for the building of his kingdom and the equipping of his saints.

I’d love to peek one decade into the future and see Christians still talking about at least some of the titles featured in this year’s book awards. Or maybe they’ll be talking about books no one’s heard of yet. One thing’s for sure: Through the bestseller list or the bargain bin, God will make his influence felt. —Matt Reynolds, books editor

Apologetics / Evangelism

Confronting Christianity: 12 Hard Questions for the World’s Largest Religion

Rebecca McLaughlin (Crossway)

“Confronting Christianity is the book you’ve been waiting to give to your skeptical friends! Drawing on her experience working with secular university professors and students, McLaughlin effectively identifies the 12 most commonly heard objections on college campuses today and responds to them with clarity and concision. Using detailed research and a wealth of statistics, McLaughlin smashes many of the cultural myths held about Christianity. She paints a compelling picture of a faith that is global, diverse, intellectually robust, and existentially appealing.” —Jo Vitale, speaker, Ravi Zacharias International Ministries

(Read an excerpt from Confronting Christianity.)

Award of Merit

Cultural Apologetics: Renewing the Christian Voice, Conscience, and Imagination in a Disenchanted World

Paul M. Gould (Zondervan)

“This is an extraordinary and original book, quite unlike anything I’ve ever read on the subject. Well written. Practical. Insightful. Stimulating. Challenging. Any Christian, church, or Christian organization wanting to do serious evangelism in the 21st century should read this book.” —David Robertson, director of Third Space, a project of the City Bible Forum in Australia

(Read an excerpt from Cultural Apologetics.)

Biblical Studies

Christobiography: Memory, History, and the Reliability of the Gospels

Craig Keener (Eerdmans)

“Since the early 1990s, a broad consensus has emerged that the Gospels are best understood as a modified form of ancient biography. Keener persuasively demonstrates that biographies from this period were expected to provide accurate information about their subjects, especially when they were written within living memory of those subjects. Biographers based their work on research, written sources, and eyewitness testimony, and they did not feel the freedom to simply make things up. If anything, the Gospel writers were even more careful than their contemporaries. This is a groundbreaking work by a prolific scholar. It strengthens our confidence that the Gospels provide accurate information about Jesus.” —Matthew Harmon, New Testament professor, Grace College and Seminary in Winona Lake, Indiana

(Read CT’s interview with Craig Keener.)

Award of Merit

Reading Romans with Eastern Eyes: Honor and Shame in Paul’s Message and Mission

Jackson W. (IVP Academic)

“Reading Romans with Eastern Eyes introduces Western readers to Eastern cultural concepts (particularly the honor-shame dynamic and the matrix of social expectations and behaviors related to it) and demonstrates how these concepts play a major role in Paul’s letter to the church in Rome. This is a sophisticated exercise in cultural analysis for the sake of better understanding the Bible, and it should serve as a methodological primer for and a prime example of such an approach for the foreseeable future.” —Matthew Emerson, executive director, Center for Baptist Renewal

(Read CT’s interview with Jackson W.)

Children & Youth

(Tie) Far From Home: A Story of Loss, Refuge, and Hope

Sarah Parker Rubio (Tyndale Kids)

“Far From Home meets a felt need for children in Christian families around the world who are being uprooted and displaced because of their faith. The story within this story of a refugee child is the account of the child Jesus’ flight into Egypt to escape certain death. Comforting yet realistic, the book encourages little ones in the midst of confusing and sometimes dangerous situations. It’s also a tool for teaching young readers to have a heart of compassion and to pray for persecuted Christians worldwide.” —Nancy Sanders, children’s author

(Tie) Jesus and the Lions’ Den: A True Story about How Daniel Points Us to Jesus

Alison Mitchell (The Good Book Company)

“I really appreciated how the book connected the dots from the story and life of Daniel to the story and life of Jesus. I wish there were more books that would take Old Testament stories and messages and point kids to their fulfillment in Christ. The story line was easy to follow, and I enjoyed how the graphics draw kids in to look for Jesus moments.” —Julie Lowe, faculty member, Christian Counseling and Educational Foundation

Award of Merit

One Big Heart: A Celebration of Being More Alike Than Different

Linsey Davis (Zonderkidz)

“The colorful and joyful cover grabbed my attention right away. To my surprise, it was full of different skin tones! The delight continued on every page of this vibrant story. Linsey Davis splendidly shows how, when it comes to ethnicity, ability, emotion, or interest, different is very good. ‘God made each us unique’ is the common thread woven throughout this charming story.” —Dorena Williamson, author of GraceFull, ColorFull, and ThoughtFull

Christian Living / Discipleship

(Tie) The Common Rule: Habits of Purpose for an Age of Distraction

Justin Whitmel Earley (InterVarsity Press)

“This book is an excellent blend of theological, personal, and practical insight. It describes problems unique to our time in a way that’s easily relatable, in part because Earley makes good use of personal anecdotes rather than merely citing sociological data. The strength of the book is how well he connects these common problems to simple, usable practices of resistance. And the summaries and quick tips at the end of each chapter will make it a wonderful tool to revisit regularly.” —Matthew McCullough, pastor, Trinity Church in Nashville, Tennessee

(Read an excerpt from The Common Rule.)

(Tie) Be the Bridge: Pursuing God’s Heart for Racial Reconciliation

Latasha Morrison (WaterBrook)

“You don’t have to be American to find this compelling, robust, grace-filled roadmap to racial reconciliation eye-opening, heart-rending, mind-expanding, and personally challenging—we Brits have plenty to ponder. But Latasha Morrison made me look back on my seven years working on Madison Avenue with a sharper recognition of how white privilege had propelled me there—and how an English accent didn’t hurt either. Be the Bridge combines judicious examples of America’s mistreatment of non-white races with insights into how that mistreatment has perpetuated a host of injustices to which the dominant race is often blind.” —Mark Greene, executive director, London Institute for Contemporary Christianity

(Read CT’s review of Be the Bridge.)

Award of Merit

We Too: How the Church Can Respond Redemptively to the Sexual Abuse Crisis

Mary DeMuth (Harvest House)

“We Too is an incredibly timely and beautiful book. It carefully combines grace, truth, and a deep love for the church. DeMuth has a clear eye for justice as God prunes and purges his church, and her book is full of practical advice for those in ministry. Her prose is clear, appropriately vulnerable given the topic, and well-crafted to usher her readers into stark conversations about sex, power, and culture.” —Ashley Hales, author of Finding Holy in the Suburbs

The Church / Pastoral Leadership

The Care of Souls: Cultivating a Pastor’s Heart

Harold Senkbeil (Lexham Press)

“I will be returning to this book again, to read it carefully and slowly. The rhythms and the wisdom in The Care of Souls reminded me of the books by Eugene Peterson that shaped my soul as a young pastor—books that God, in his mercy, used to keep me from boarding my own ship to Tarshish. Senkbeil’s images and analogies aren’t drawn from boardrooms but from agrarian themes of shepherding, sheep dogs, and farming, all of which are far closer not only to biblical images but also to the realities of pastoral life, in which anything good grows slowly and follows the contours of a particular place. Many books on pastoral ministry convey information; this book renewed my joy in being a pastor and, every once in a while, traced a tear at the corner of my eye.” —Timothy Paul Jones, professor of family ministry, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

Award of Merit

Spirit and Sacrament: An Invitation to Eucharismatic Worship

Andrew Wilson (Zondervan)

“I found this book useful during a time when I was thinking through different questions of liturgy. Wilson combines sound argumentation with beautiful prose. I may not have agreed with everything he has to say, but I enjoyed reading it. And where I disagreed, his argumentation made me think more carefully as to why.” —Juan Sanchez, senior pastor, High Pointe Baptist Church in Austin, Texas

(Read an adapted essay from Spirit and Sacrament.)

CT Women

What Is a Girl Worth?: My Story of Breaking the Silence and Exposing the Truth About Larry Nassar and USA Gymnastics

Rachael Denhollander (Tyndale Momentum)

“In January 2018, I watched Rachel Denhollander testify against her abuser, Larry Nassar, the former USA Gymnastics national team doctor. It was an absolute privilege to read her story in this powerful memoir. In it, Denhollander shines a powerful light on the issue of abuse, discusses the lack of response from trusted people in her life, and shares her story of building a case against Larry Nassar. Her book helps us grieve over abuse, learn how to care well for its victims, and prevent it from occurring in the future.” —Chelsea Patterson Sobolik, policy director, Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission

(Read CT’s review of What Is a Girl Worth?)

Award of Merit

His Testimonies, My Heritage: Women of Color on the Word of God

Edited by Kristie Anyabwile (The Good Book Company)

“This is a book that the church needs today, combining thoughtful reflection, robust theology, and diverse perspectives. The devotionals span the human experience, meditating on truths about Scripture, suffering, joy, and injustice. They are grounded in eternal truths but expressed in the context of the particular times and places in which these women live. For women of color, this resource will likely quench a thirst that’s been felt for some time. For the rest of us, this resource should help train us to learn from diverse sources and seek out voices we have ignored.” —Kaitlyn Schiess, staff writer, Christ and Pop Culture

Culture & the Arts

Write Better: A Lifelong Editor on Craft, Art, and Spirituality

Andrew Le Peau (InterVarsity Press)

“Writing, and especially writing that’s thoughtful, engaging, and creative, can often seem like an arcane art—one that feels out of reach for many. In Write Better, longtime editor Andrew Le Peau offers concise, thoughtful advice on a number of writerly topics: struggling with creativity and writer’s block, crafting sentences that captivate and reward readers, publishing, and even copyright and legal issues. Above all, Le Peau encourages writers by reminding them of the gift that God has given to them. Writing can be an insular, introverted activity, but LePeau does well to remind us that writing should ultimately be a blessing to others.” —Jason Morehead, pop culture blogger at Opus

Award of Merit

Adorning the Dark: Thoughts on Community, Calling, and the Mystery of Making

Andrew Peterson (B&H)

“Falling somewhere between memoir and manual, this odd and wonderful tale about Peterson’s calling and craft has to be the most remarkable book of its kind this year. In so many ways, it shows—rather than tells—by giving the reader an abundant sense of the arduous journey undertaken by artists who want to glorify Christ with their art. As he presents it, that journey is full of stops and starts, catastrophes and conundrums, moments of profound, worshipful clarity, but also seasons of struggle and hard work to win that clarity back. At turns vulnerable and exuberant, Adorning the Dark is both eminently practical and yet inspires with the comforting wisdom a trusted friend would give.” —Taylor Worley, associate professor of faith and culture, Trinity International University

(Read CT’s interview with Andrew Peterson and an excerpt from Adorning the Dark.)

Fiction

Light from Distant Stars

Shawn Smucker (Revell)

“Shawn Smucker’s genre-bending novel, about a single week in the life of middle-aged mortician Cohen Marah, is a book to be savored. When Cohen’s father is found critically injured, questions abound—not the least of which is: Did Cohen do it? Thrust into the past, Cohen relives important moments in his childhood, coming face-to-face with a tragic memory that has shaped his life in grievous ways. When past and present collide and Cohen is forced to reconcile his current reality with a history that seems more terrible fantasy than fact, grace becomes a sacred hope that holds the very power of redemption. Light from Distant Stars is a singular experience, one infused with all the beauty and mystery of a broken creation that groans as in the pains of childbirth.” —Nicole Baart, novelist, author of You Were Always Mine and Little Broken Things

Award of Merit

Throw

Ruben Degollado (Slant)

“Tough, real, and heartfelt. Throw is a richly drawn, immersive look into South Texas Mexican-American culture in all its conflicting facets, mingled with a story of guilt and forgiveness, despair and newfound hope in Christ.” —R. J. Anderson, fantasy and science-fiction author

History / Biography

God in the Rainforest: A Tale of Martyrdom and Redemption in Amazonian Ecuador

Kathryn Long (Oxford University Press)

“The romantic legend of Jim Elliot and his missionary friends, speared to death in 1956 by Waorani warriors, is firmly fixed in evangelical folklore. The subsequent Christian conversion of the Waorani is often recounted triumphantly as proof of God’s redemption of indigenous peoples, stimulating many missionary vocations and helping to raise funds for a new wave of Bible translators. At the other extreme, secular critics accuse the Ecuadorian missionaries of ethnocide, as ‘the new conquistadors’ of Latin America. Long cuts through these rhetorical tropes, subjecting them to searing analysis. She provides a detailed reconstruction of Waorani religious culture from the 1950s to the present, examining the complexities and failures that have been airbrushed from the idealized narratives.” —Andrew Atherstone, tutor in history and doctrine, Wycliffe Hall, University of Oxford

(Read CT’s article on God in the Rainforest.)

Award of Merit

(Tie) Anointed with Oil: How Christianity and Crude Made Modern America

Darren Dochuk (Basic Books)

“Anointed with Oil provides fascinating insight into how religion became embedded in the modern US economy and how fossil-fuel capitalism became embedded in US faith and values. It is a detailed and panoramic survey of the relationship between different approaches to Christianity and different approaches to industry and commerce. It contains colorful and potent characters and is lively despite its length. Dochuk’s style is always clear and fluent. He digs deep and gives the reader a strong sense of the power that oil and its unsustainable benefits have over the American soul.” —Stephen Tomkins, author of The Journey to the Mayflower: God’s Outlaws and the Invention of Freedom

(Read CT’s review of Anointed with Oil.)

(Tie) One Soul at a Time: The Story of Billy Graham

Grant Wacker (Eerdmans)

“Wacker’s biography presents a well-researched window into Billy Graham as a man who had a powerful public career as an evangelist. It contains short, readable chapters that unveil the real Graham, flaws and all, and the incredible impact he had on millions of people. Wacker does an excellent job showing how Graham was able to skillfully understand the trends of his era and speak to individuals in a powerful, life-changing way. While Graham constantly adapted the fine nuances of his approach to the ever-changing culture and his specific audiences, Wacker effectively points out his heart never changed. He consistently sought to give every person the opportunity to embrace the Good News of the gospel.” —Karin Stetina, professor of theology, Biola University

(Read an excerpt from One Soul at a Time.)

Missions / Global Church

Women in God’s Mission: Accepting the Invitation to Serve and Lead

Mary Lederleitner (InterVarsity Press)

“Equal parts prophetic and pastoral, this book puts Lederleitner’s heart as a scholar-practitioner on brilliant display, showcasing her unique blend of gifts in research, missions practice, and engagement across theological traditions. Women should read it to be reminded of their non-negotiable role in Great Commission fulfillment. Men should read it to gain a better understanding of their responsibility to help remove obstructions that many women face in missions organizations. Ultimately, the stories and research presented here remind us that God’s mission in the world depends on both men and women responding to the church’s missionary mandate. Neither should ever feel sidelined.” —Daniel Yang, director of the Send Institute at Wheaton College’s Billy Graham Center

(Read CT’s interview with Mary Lederleitner.)

Award of Merit

Christian Mission: A Concise Global History

Edward Smither (Lexham Press)

“Christian Missions: A Concise Global History is just that—compact but complete. In just 200 pages, Smither covers mission history from the inception of Christianity to the present day. For each age of church history, he explains how and by whom mission work spread in each and every part of the world. The strength of this book is its global focus. In the last chapter, Smither notes that the majority of mission work in the 21st century is carried out by majority-world missionaries and lay believers, just as it was during the early-church era.” —Robin Hadaway, professor of missions, Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary

Politics and Public Life

In Search of the Common Good: Christian Fidelity in a Fractured World

Jake Meador (InterVarsity Press)

“In Search of the Common Good is timely not only in its theology and praxis but in its faithful capture of our era’s sense of disintegration, isolation, and uncertainty. Yet Meador does not follow other critics of the loneliness of the liberal order into a call for a new culture war offensive to compel external Christian virtue via the power of the state. Rather, he invites readers to push deeper into robust community, to cling to hope and work together to incarnate it in every sphere of our lives.” —Bonnie Kristian, contributing editor, The Week

Award of Merit

Religious Freedom in Islam: The Fate of a Universal Human Right in the Muslim World Today

Daniel Philpott (Oxford University Press)

“Few controversies desperately need to see the light of day as much as religious freedom. Outside of Communist regimes, in no wider segment of the world’s population is religious freedom more absent than in Islamic nations; this is simply an incontrovertible fact. To Philpott’s credit, Religious Freedom in Islam is committed to ‘dignify both sides’ of a debate that features ‘Islamoskeptics’ and ‘Islamopluralists.’ Moreover, it does so by doing the hard work of statistical and cultural analysis, which is needed to inform such debates.” —J. Daryl Charles, Acton Institute affiliated scholar in theology and ethics

(Read CT’s review of Religious Freedom in Islam.)

Spiritual Formation

On the Road with Saint Augustine: A Real-World Spirituality for Restless Hearts

James K. A. Smith (Brazos)

“Augustine towers over history. I knew this, but I’d forgotten how much he wrestled with the issues that keep me awake at night: ambition, sex, friendship, death, and more. He’s been where we are. On the Road with Saint Augustine is a rare book. It’s weighty, beautiful, and insightful. I opened this book expecting to learn from and about Augustine, but I didn’t expect that he would become my traveling companion. We have more in common with this ancient African monk than we realize.” —Darryl Dash, pastor and church planter, author of How to Grow

(Read CT’s review of On the Road with Saint Augustine.)

Award of Merit

As I Recall: Discovering the Place of Memories in Our Spiritual Life

Casey Tygrett (InterVarsity Press)

“While we might think our souls are formed through classic disciplines like prayer, meditation, or gratitude, Tygrett demonstrates that our journey toward wholeness will fall short without the practice of remembrance. With gentle encouragement and eloquent prose, he invites us on a pilgrimage into our past through practical exercises that help us see our memories for the redemptive treasures God intends them to be. Even painful memories, when brought into the presence of God, can come together to form a powerful story of identity, enabling us to live with uncertainty and flourish in resilience.” —Tricia McCary Rhodes, author of The Soul at Rest

Theology / Ethics

Justification (2 vols.)

Michael Horton (Zondervan Academic)

“Few works of theological scholarship deserve to be called ‘magisterial,’ but Justification is among them. Sober, generous, with but a few broadsides and almost always in good humor, Horton presents the Protestant case for justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. Those already persuaded will take comfort and refuge in the logical, exegetical, historical, and theological arguments on display. Those who remain unconverted will now have a masterful summa of the doctrine in all its contours ready to hand. No consideration of the topic going forward will succeed if it ignores Horton’s work. It is a gift to theological scholarship and to the church.” —Brad East, assistant professor of theology, Abilene Christian University

Award of Merit

For the Life of the World: Theology that Makes a Difference

Miroslav Volf and Matthew Croasmun (Brazos)

“Volf and Croasmun give a critique of theology as we know it today: its sequestration within the academy, its entanglement with a business model of seminary and university life, and its cooperation with some forms of postmodern deconstruction that leave some of life’s most vital questions unattended. But the authors also offer a positive vision for theology that serves the community of faith by articulating a model of human flourishing under God.” —Nicola Hoggard Creegan, theologian, project director for New Zealand Christians in Science

(Read CT’s review of For the Life of the World.)

The Beautiful Orthodoxy Book of the Year

Confronting Christianity: 12 Hard Questions for the World’s Largest Religion

Rebecca McLaughlin (Crossway)

“This could be the most significant apologetics book of this decade, effectively updating Tim Keller’s The Reason for God by taking into account the very different questions and objections we encounter today, especially around sexuality, gender, and slavery. McLaughlin writes with confidence but also with a winsome and sympathetic tone. Confronting Christianity offers an unusual combination: It is theologically robust yet very outsider-friendly. Some of the more conversational books out there can be quite light (and even simplistic) theologically, and some of the more solid books can be somewhat tone-deaf. McLaughlin (like Keller) really embodies truth and grace in how she writes.” —Sam Allberry, pastor and speaker, author of 7 Myths about Singleness

“Do we need yet another apologetics book addressing the most common indictments of Christianity? The answer in this case is a resounding yes. McLaughlin brings sound argumentation and evidence to counter Christianity’s critics, but she also offers compelling personal stories. This is not a dry philosophical tome, even though it astutely answers difficult questions. McLaughlin demonstrates with intellect and grace that Christianity’s truths hold up against even the fiercest opposition.” —Melanie Cogdill, managing editor, Christian Research Journal

“I find modern apologetics quite rancorous at times: Too often, instead of writing for outsiders who are curious about the faith, we pander to insiders who want to see their ‘enemies’ get a good roasting. But McLaughlin offers apologetics in the best sense: never brash or overbearing, never dismissive of objections, balanced and sympathetic, and ultimately a very confident and hope-filled argument for the truth and continuing power of the Christian message. Some of her positions might be controversial. But she is never eccentric or sensationalistic. She reflects the depth of Christian doctrinal and moral teaching as she sees it, and there is something about the book’s tone that creates space for readers to question, disagree, or argue back.” —Ben Myers, director of the Millis Institute at Christian Heritage College in Brisbane, Australia

(Read an excerpt from Confronting Christianity.)

Award of Merit

Surprised by Paradox: The Promise of “And” in an Either-Or World

Jen Pollock Michel (InterVarsity Press)

“While the news cycle is telling us that Christianity must check this box or that, and swallow down whatever else comes with it, Surprised by Paradox suggests that the God who became flesh in Jesus Christ opens up an alternate way of living between and beyond the boxes. Many authors have attempted to redeem the paradox of the Christian story by telling their audience to be satisfied with tension. Michel peers into the space between either-or and discovers a feast of God’s goodness. Read this book as a devotional guide or in a study group. It will deepen and enrich your faith in the God who defies our categories.” —Shawna Songer Gaines, pastor, Trevecca Community Church in Nashville, Tennessee

“Michel asks readers to suspend their need for black and white distinctions, learning instead to sit in the tension of mystery. As she traces the paradoxes at the heart of ideas like Incarnation, grace, lament, and the kingdom of God, once-unnerving mysteries start to feel like welcome realities. Beautifully written, Surprised by Paradox weaves personal experience, theological reflection, and solid exegesis into a book that will comfort, encourage, and rebuke. Her vulnerability will pull readers in to take a closer look, and her cogent arguments will beckon them not only to acknowledge the mystery of the Christian faith, but also to celebrate and herald it.” —Nika Spaulding, resident theologian, St. Jude Oak Cliff church in Dallas, Texas

“Surprised by Paradox is so thought-provoking and heart-warming that I could hardly put it down. I was continually surprised by the depth and beauty of each chapter. The book liberates us from the pressure of conforming to the categories and either-or labels imposed by popular culture, enabling us to embrace all that God has called us to be in all of life.” —Femi Adelaye, executive director, Institute for Christian Impact in Africa

(Read CT’s review of Surprised by Paradox.)

This article appeared in the January/February, 2020 issue of Christianity Today as "The 2020 Book Awards".

News

Christmas Celebrations Canceled in Iraq After Deaths of 400 Protesters

Jayson Casper

Amid show of solidarity by Chaldean patriarch, some Iraqi Christians hope to lead nation to Jonah-like repentance.

Pastor Ara Badalian leads members of National Baptist Church in prayer at Baghdad's Tahrir Square.

Pastor Ara Badalian leads members of National Baptist Church in prayer at Baghdad's Tahrir Square.

Christianity Today December 9, 2019
Courtesy of National Baptist Church

Distributing food to protesters with 40 fellow church members under the Jumariyah bridge near Tahrir Square in Baghdad, Ara Badalian made a poignant observation.

“This movement is a flood, occupying the hearts of the youth and the poor, without any religious discrimination,” the pastor of National Baptist Church recalled to CT. “It has broken down all the walls that divided Iraqis.”

It is at the bridges—about a dozen span the Tigris River, which bifurcates the Iraqi capital—where most violence has taken place. The protest movement, which began in October, has resulted in more than 400 deaths, around a dozen of them security personnel. Over 17,000 people have been injured.

In response, the Chaldean Catholic Church decided last week to refrain from holding public celebrations of Christmas, trading tree decorations and holiday receptions for prayers of intercession.

“Instead of bringing hope and prosperity, the current government structure has brought continued corruption and despair,” Bashar Warda, the Chaldean archbishop of Erbil, told the United Nations Security Council last week.

“[Iraqi youth] have made it clear that they want Iraq … to be a place where all can live together as equal citizens in a country of legitimate pluralism and respect for all.”

Protesters have demanded the dissolution of parliament, widespread government reforms, and amendment of the sectarian-based 2005 constitution.

A member of National Baptist Church gives food to protesters in Baghdad.Courtesy of National Baptist Church
A member of National Baptist Church gives food to protesters in Baghdad.

Ratified following the United States-led 2003 Iraq War, the current constitution gives the Middle East nation’s Shiite majority (55% of the population) the leading position of prime minister, as well as the influential interior and foreign ministries.

The Sunni minority (40%) receive the speaker of parliament and the defense ministry. The Kurds, who comprise only a third of the Sunni population but are concentrated in their own autonomous northern region, receive the presidency and finance ministry.

Islam is established as the religion of the state and the foundational source of legislation. Christians are among three religious minorities guaranteed religious freedom, though the constitution protects the Islamic identity of the majority.

While the protests have been cross-sectarian in Baghdad, they’ve paradoxically been strongest in the nine Shiite provinces in southern Iraq.

“People don’t want foreign interference from anywhere, and especially Iran,” said Ashur Eskrya, president of the Assyrian Aid Society in Iraq. “Minorities are waiting to see the outcome, but these protests may be the solution to give them their rights and let them live in peace.”

Open Doors ranks Iraq No. 13 on its list of countries where it is hardest to be a Christian.

Religious minorities have seen their share of the population shrink from eight to five percent since the American invasion, according to the US Institute for Peace (USIP). Yazidis are now the largest, with between 600,000 and 750,000 adherents. Christians were between 800,000 and 1,250,000 before the war, but have now dwindled to less than 250,000. Evangelicals number about 3,000.

Members of National Baptist Church in Baghdad's Tahrir Square.Courtesy of National Baptist Church
Members of National Baptist Church in Baghdad’s Tahrir Square.

Despite their small numbers, Eskrya has seen all denominations participating in the protests. Badalian said they are doing so as citizens, not as Christians.

But it is often the churches that give visibility to the protesters.

“The situation is a disaster” with “weapons in every corner,” Alnaufali Jajou, the Chaldean archbishop of Basra, southern Iraq’s leading city, told AsiaNews. “As a church, we are close to young people in the streets and provide them with food and shelter every week.”

But violence has forced his diocese to suspend all non-pastoral activities. Nationwide, the Chaldean church has called for three days of prayer and fasting. And out of respect for the dead and in solidarity with all the injured, Patriarch Louis Raphael Sako canceled all public and church-based celebrations of Christmas.

Sako has visited protesters in the hospital; mostly Muslims, but also Christians.

“There’s evil and it’s increasing. The role of Christians in Iraq is to repent and return to God,” said Salwan, an Iraqi TV director who called into SAT-7, a Christian satellite TV channel, comparing the situation to that of Jonah in Nineveh. (The biblical Assyrian city was located across the Tigris from modern Mosul.)

“We are not many in numbers, and don’t have the power to make a change, but we trust that our prayers will be answered.”

To some degree, they have already. USIP research surveying 175 interviewees across Iraq found Patriarch Sako the second-most influential religious figure in the country, though far behind the Shiite Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. And when asked to name the religious leader they most respected outside their own sect, the majority of Iraqis surveyed named a Christian figure.

But not all Christians are enthusiastic about the uprising.

Syriac Catholic archbishop Yohanna Mouche of Mosul, in the nation’s Sunni-majority north where most Christians live, told Aid to the Church in Need that the demonstrations—though appropriate—may result only in taking revenge on political enemies.

“There is no government, no respect for the human person … and in the Nineveh Plains, we have had enough,” he said. “In the end, it’s the people who will be the victims.”

Influenced by Iranian-backed militias, the regional government in Mouche’s northern province has outlawed demonstrations. So Christian activists launched a virtual campaign of solidarity, apologizing that they could not participate in the streets.

And in Qaraqosh, the largest Christian city in the vicinity, one church held a prayer vigil parading Iraqi flags in solidarity.

Eskrya said many Christians are beginning to return to the Nineveh Plains, following their displacement by ISIS to neighboring Iraqi Kurdistan. Yet they are afraid that protest-driven instability might uproot them again.

But still, pinched between the threats of extremist Sunnis and Shiites, there is much sympathy for the egalitarian promise of the current uprising.

“A sectarian system makes you afraid of your neighbor,” Eskrya said. “Having one nation will help everyone accept each other, and we now have a light at the end of the tunnel.”

Ashty Bahro agrees, but he is less hopeful. The problem is not with the system of government, said the former director of the Evangelical Alliance of Kurdistan, but with those who run it. If a true system of decentralized federalism is established, it will help all Iraqis and especially the minorities.

He just doesn’t expect it will happen.

“Sunnis want Iraq to be Sunni, and Shiites want it to be Shiite. This will never end,” Bahro said. “But at least everyone wants Iran to leave.”

Last month, leaked documents detailed the political control exercised by Tehran.

But so far, it is only Christians that are leaving, according to Bahro. Monitoring the situation as head of the aid agency Zallal Life, he said that since the uprising began, 100 Christian families from Kurdistan have fled across the border to neighboring Turkey, or on to Jordan and Lebanon.

But his organization, which primarily serves the 80 to 150 mostly Muslim refugees that flee northeast Syria for Kurdistan every day, is also baking cookies for the 2,000 Christian families that remain.

On November 29, a rare win for protesters came in the resignation of Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mehdi, following criticism of the government by Ayatollah Sistani.

But the resignation has not satisfied the protest movement, which continues to be under assault. At least an additional 25 were killed over the weekend.

“If they stop now, nothing will change,” said Bahro. “After that, I really don’t know.”

Badalian, the Baptist pastor, is more optimistic. He thinks a new government will soon form and institute widespread reforms in order to absorb the anger of protesters and not risk losing further legitimacy.

“We are praying for peace, justice, and the political leaders to react positively,” he said.

“We hope the coming days will be better.”

News

The Bible App’s Most Popular Verse of 2019: ‘Do Not Worry’

Megan Fowler

YouVersion users look for comfort the third year in row, while Bible Gateway’s list includes John 3:16 and multiple psalms.

Christianity Today December 9, 2019
Matthew Henry / Unsplash

In this series

For the third year in a row, YouVersion users clung to exhortations against worry more than any other verses in the Bible.

In 2019 YouVersion users read 35.6 billion chapters and listened to 5.6 billion chapters through its online and mobile Bible app. In all of this reading, Paul’s advice in Philippians 4:6 was the most shared, highlighted, and bookmarked verse of the year: “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.”

The verse contains similar themes to YouVersion’s most popular verses in 2018, Isaiah 41:10 (“do not fear, for I am with you”) and 2017’s top verse, Joshua 1:9 (“do not be afraid; do not be discouraged”).

Other popular verses in 2019 were Matthew 6:33 and 2 Timothy 1:7.

“We’re encouraged to see so many people turning to the Bible in response to their worries, remembering what God has done in their lives, and choosing to trust in his faithfulness,” said Bobby Gruenewald, pastor and innovation leader for Life.Church and YouVersion founder.

CT previously reported on some of the issues white evangelicals say they worry about, according to a Pew Research Center survey: undergoing a personal health crisis (75%), being able to pay their bills (67%), or being the victim of a home invasion (72%) or terrorist attack (66%).

For Bible Gateway users, the most popular verse of 2019 was a traditional favorite, John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” Jesus’ well-known summary of the gospel alternates with the oft-misunderstood Jeremiah 29:11 as the most-searched verse of the year on Bible Gateway’s website and app.

Jonathan Petersen, content manager for Bible Gateway, said the reason these verses remain so popular with Bible Gateway users is how frequently the verses come up in conversations, sermons, and even from the mouths of celebrities.

“We believe the continual high ranking of these verses reflects the hope and encouragement needed by everyone around the world, and we’re honored to be able to bring the Word of God wherever it’s needed,” he said.

Philippians 4:13, Romans 8:28, Psalm 23:4. Romans 12:2, and Psalm 23:6, 5, 1, and 3 round out the top 10 verses searched on Bible Gateway.

The site receives visitors from over 200 countries and offers 200 versions of the Bible in 70 languages. Most visits to Bible Gateway come from the United States, Great Britain, Mexico, Canada, and Colombia. The countries where visits to Bible Gateway increased the most in 2019 were Morocco (376%), Isle of Man (128%) Dominica (59%), Comoros (59%), the British Virgin Islands (56%), and Vatican City (37%).

Eleven years after its inception, YouVersion Bible App continues its worldwide expansion. Use of the app grew by nearly 50 million unique installs in 2019, a 30 percent increase over 2018, with most of the new users located outside the U.S.

In total YouVersion has had 400 million unique downloads worldwide. Countries that saw the greatest increase in usage were Algeria, Chad, and Poland. Compared with 2018, Bible engagement increased in Algeria by 261 percent, despite the Algerian government’s recent crackdown on churches. Users in Chad and Poland increased their Bible engagement by 116 percent and 75 percent, respectively.

YouVersion

YouVersion

YouVersion provides readers with 2,013 Bible versions in 1,343 Languages, including 527 Audio Bibles in 417 languages.

The following countries showed the greatest increase in Bible engagement during 2019, according to YouVersion:

Algeria

261%

Chad

116%

Poland

75%

Bangladesh

74%

Morocco

69%

Myanmar

56%

Afghanistan

56%

Uganda

51%

India

51%

Tanzania

47%

In the US, the American Bible Society’s 2019 State of the Bible survey conducted by Barna shows that Bible engagement has increased slightly, but that over a third of adults now say they never turn to the Bible, up 10 percentage points from 2011 (25%).

News

Died: Reinhard Bonnke, Record-Setting Evangelist to Africa

Kate Shellnutt

Founder of Christ for All Nations, the German Pentecostal held one of the biggest evangelism crusades in history.

Christianity Today December 7, 2019
Courtesy of Christ for All Nations

German evangelist Reinhard Bonnke, whose record-setting crusades led him to be nicknamed “the Billy Graham of Africa,” died Saturday at age 79.

His ministry, Christ for All Nations (CfaN), claims that more than 79 million people came to Christ as a result of Bonnke’s career, which spanned from 1967 until his retirement in 2017. The Pentecostal evangelist preached a prayerful message of Christ’s transforming power while also boasting miracles and healings.

“Those who knew him off-stage can testify to his personal integrity, genuine kindness, and overflowing love for the Lord,” said his successor, CfaN evangelist Daniel Kolenda. “His ministry was inspired and sustained by his rich prayer life, his deep understanding of the Word, and his unceasing intimacy with the Holy Spirit.”

Christianity Today reported from Bonnke’s largest in-person event, where 1.6 million gathered on a single night to hear him preach in Lagos, Nigeria. CT featured Bonnke and his ministry in an issue the following year, calling him “one of the continent’s most recognizable religious figures.” Historians have said that no Western evangelist spent as much time in sub-Saharan Africa as Bonnke.

Following his death, many African Christians offered their condolences on Twitter, saying “Rest well” and “Africa will never forget you.” The government of Nigeria stated that President Muhammadu Buhari, who is Muslim, “joins Christendom at large in mourning the passing of renowned evangelist, Reinhard Bonnke, 79, describing his transition as a great loss to Nigeria, Africa & entire world.”

Kenyan politician Esther Passari shared how “I spoke in tongues for the first time at Rev. Reinhard Bonnke’s 1988 crusade. He picked me from the crowd and arranged a meeting where he prayed for God to use me. I send my condolences to his family and his congregation. Rest In Peace, Man of God.”

His ministry was not without controversy among evangelicals, as CT wrote in 2001:

While some hail him as a spiritual giant, others scoff when he promises miracles and anointing. Critics say the last thing African Christianity needs is more preachers who focus on spiritually shallow events. They say the quality of disciples, not the quantity of the crowd, is the key to reaching Africans. Still, ordinary Africans adore him.

Bonnke himself is as complex as he is controversial. While his crusades are often high in hype and hoopla, the evangelist is a caring pastor, single-minded in purpose and genuine in nature. Both on and off the stage, his goal is simple: to win the heart of Africa for Christ.

The son of a pastor, Bonnke felt the call to African missions as a kid, going on to attend seminary in Wales and become ordained in the German Pentecostal Church. He led a congregation in northern Germany then became a missionary in the tiny nation of Lesotho in southern Africa. There, the Spirit gave him a vision of the African continent “washed in the blood of Jesus,” leading to his mass evangelism ministry. He founded CfaN in 1974.

Only within the past several years has the ministry organized crusades in the US, CT reported, where Bonnke’s name was more familiar among Pentecostals and charismatics than evangelicals at large. While a longtime friend of preachers such as Kenneth Copeland and Benny Hinn, Bonnke was more deliberate about avoiding “name it, claim it” theology in his own preaching and about being open to financial oversight.

He told CT in 2013, “Some people call me a healing evangelist. I do not like that. I define myself as a salvation evangelist who also prays for the sick. Wherever we go, 95 percent of the meeting is a clear preaching presentation of the gospel.”

“Billy Graham has inspired me personally,” Bonnke wrote on Facebook after Graham’s death in 2018, “when he preached in a tent in Hamburg, Germany. I always felt connected to him.”

Hillsong senior pastor Brian Houston cited Bonnke as an inspiration, saying, “I love the way salvation resonates in his spirit, whether he’s on a platform speaking to millions or behind the scenes having a chat—Jesus is always on his lips.”

Bonnke was the author of 40 books and wrote in his 2009 autobiography, Living a Life of Fire, “I still have only one sermon. I preach the simple ABCs of the gospel.”

He died at home, surrounded by family, and is survived by his wife, three children, and eight grandchildren.

News

Samoa Bans Kids from Church as Measles Outbreak Kills 63

Griffin Paul Jackson

Advent will be “mellow” on South Pacific island as government restricts public gatherings amid vaccination campaign.

Masked children wait to get vaccinated at a health clinic in Apia, Samoa.

Masked children wait to get vaccinated at a health clinic in Apia, Samoa.

Christianity Today December 6, 2019
Associated Press

Children in Samoa have been temporarily banned from attending church services and other public gatherings, due to a growing measles outbreak that has claimed more than 60 lives and threatens to cancel Advent celebrations.

The government of the South Pacific island nation was closed today and yesterday, as officials and public health workers turned all their attention to an immunization campaign.

Prior to the outbreak, less than a third (31%) of the island’s population of about 200,000 were protected by a measles vaccine, according to Reuters. After cases were reported and a national emergency was declared in mid-November, nearly another third received immunizations in the following two weeks.

As of yesterday (Dec. 5), 82 percent of infants and children up to 4 years old have been vaccinated, along with 93 percent of those between 5 and 19 years old.

Even so, more than 4,300 Samoans have been diagnosed with measles and at least 63 have died. Of those, all but 3 were children; 55 were 4 years old or younger. About 20 more children are in critical condition.

In a nation where many are not vaccinated, the prime minister made it clear that Christian leaders are needed to encourage their countrymen to get vaccinated.

“The government needs the support of all the village councils, faith-based organizations, and church leaders, village mayors, and government women representatives,” said Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi in a state address last Sunday. “Let us work together to encourage and convince those that do not believe that vaccinations are the only answer to the epidemic. Let us not be distracted by the promise of alternative cures.”

Indeed, many Samoans had never received childhood immunizations, either out of lack of awareness about the potential severity of measles or from seeking the help of traditional healers.

“Some of our people pay a visit to traditional healers thinking that measles is a typical tropical disease, which it is not,” the prime minister told the Associated Press.

Radio New Zealand (RNZ) reported that Malielegaoi has threatened to jail anyone who discourages vaccination and offers promises to provide alternative methods of healing. On Thursday, Samoa’s attorney general confirmed that an alleged anti-vaxxer had been charged with “incitement against the government vaccination order.”

According to Reuters, low vaccination rates in Samoa have also been attributed to rising fears after a pair of infants died following vaccinations last year, though the deaths were later determined to be caused by incorrectly mixed medicines and the responsible nurses were found guilty of manslaughter.

During the nationwide vaccination campaign, roads have been shut down to nonessential vehicles, and families in need of vaccinations were directed to hang red flags outside their homes.

“The government issued [an order] that all the young children must be stopped from attending any gatherings,” Losi Antonio, a priest with Mulivai Catholic Church, told RNZ. “So I asked our parish here to please make the children stay home, especially from babies up to 17, 19 years old.”

He said normally during this season the churches would be filled with the sounds of children singing. But not now.

“Even if they go, there’s not much celebration that was planned, but those who are in New Zealand it will be the same feeling. It’s going to be a very mellow Christmas for Samoans,” Teleiai Edwin Puni, chair of the Pacific Leadership Forum in Auckland, told RNZ.

“Christmas this year will be a sad one for these families,” Puni said in a Facebook post yesterday, calling for assistance for families who have lost children. “We want to reach out to them with your help.”

The sadness, and the urgency, is felt across the island where life in many places has come nearly to a standstill.

“All our schools are closed, national exams have been postponed,” Vavatau Taufao, general secretary of the Congregation Christian Church in Samoa, told Reuters. “We are still having church services but if it gets worse we will have to stop church altogether—and it’s almost Christmas.”

Samoa’s Mormon community has already suspended all church gatherings until the national state of emergency is lifted.

Island officials have pushed to distribute vaccines, carrying out a door-to-door mass vaccination campaign, but infection rates were thought to be rising. While some remain defiant of the government’s campaign, and its orders to keep children away from public gatherings, the island is largely frozen in fear over the epidemic—and, for some, over the forced vaccination campaign.

In some ways, the anti-vaccination mentality in Samoa is a manifestation of the larger international anti-vaxx movement. CT reported earlier this year on why some American Christians refuse vaccinations for themselves and their children because of moral objections.

Measles outbreaks are on the rise, even in the developed world, in recent years. And they often strike in tight-knit ethnic and religious subcultures, as it did among New York’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish community last winter, and Washington state’s Ukranian and Russian immigrants this past spring. Evangelical churches and Christians schools, where resistance to vaccinations is sometimes present, have also been connected to some measles flare-ups.

In 2019 in the United States, there were over 1,200 measles cases from January through early November, the most since 1992 and more than double the amount reported in any of the last 10 years, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Measles can spread easily in communities where people are unvaccinated.

On Sunday, Samoan Christians across denominations united to pray for God’s mercy and healing. Leaupepe Kasiano Leaupepe, chairman of the National Council of Churches, said the joint effort was in tandem with the government’s initiative.

“May the first day of the last month of this year bring us together, united through prayer, as we ask for God’s healing powers over our nation suffering from this disease,” said Leaupepe, according to the Samoa Observer. “We acknowledge the hard work by doctors and nurses within all hospitals. We commend your efforts through treatments and may God use your line of work as a way to showcase his love for his people.”

Gratitude toward the nation’s health workers, and the generosity of other countries, has been a common theme among political and religious leaders in the past week.

“The answer to our prayers is with us,” the prime minister told the nation in his address, “through the services of the doctors and the nurses and all health personnel.”

News

Amid Christian Crackdown, China Recognizes Missionary Lottie Moon’s Church

David Roach

The historic designation comes as the government shuts down fellow Christian congregations in the province, leaving advocates to wonder whether it represents propaganda or progress.

Christianity Today December 6, 2019
Shandong Penglai Church / China Christian Daily

As the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) collects its annual Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions, China has designated a church attended by the offering’s namesake a protected historical and cultural site. But a religious liberty watchdog wonders if the designation is part of an effort to deflect attention from religious persecution in the Shandong province.

China’s decision to protect the historic Southern Baptist missionary’s church “is ironic,” given Shandong’s status as “one of the worst places in China” for Christian persecution, said Massimo Introvigne, editor in chief of Bitter Winter, a magazine that monitors religious liberty in China. But “it makes sense” in “the framework of international propaganda.”

“At a time when everybody is talking about religious repression in China,” Introvigne, an Italian sociologist of religion, told Christianity Today, the government may be attempting to state, “You say we are persecuting Christianity in Shandong, but exactly in Shandong we are honoring Lottie Moon.”

News of the historical site designation for Wulin Shenghui Church of Penglai in Shandong broke last month in the Chinese publication China Christian Daily and made its way to the US via a release from the SBC’s International Mission Board, which has received $4.5 billion through the Lottie Moon Offering since its inception 120 years ago. The IMB’s Week of Prayer for International Missions this year is December 1–8.

A monument dedicated to Lottie Moon was built by Chinese Christians in 1915.Courtesy of IMB
A monument dedicated to Lottie Moon was built by Chinese Christians in 1915.

Wulin Shenghui Church was constructed in 1872 by Southern Baptist missionaries but was closed to foreigners for decades before reopening in the late 1980s. Preserved within the church is a monument honoring Moon erected by Chinese Christians in 1915, three years following her death.

Moon lived in Penglai, then known as Tengchow, from 1873 to 1912 and attended the church for much of that time. She gained fame for her passionate evangelism, her reports back to the US, and her death, which some claim was due to starvation from giving all her own money to Chinese people suffering in a famine. (Others claim the starvation story is a myth, including historian Regina Sullivan in her book Lottie Moon: A Southern Baptist Missionary to China in History and Legend.)

Chinese authorities reopened the church building in 1987 during a visit by representatives of the Woman’s Missionary Union (WMU), an SBC auxiliary that promotes missions. At the time, Chinese officials said local Christians would be permitted to use the building for worship, and the WMU announced plans to take American tour groups to the area beginning the following year.

Today, the church has 4,000 members, according to China Christian Daily, and a 2001 addition gave it a seating capacity of 1,400.

Local Baptists likely will be happy with the historical site designation, Introvigne said, because “to honor a figure which is clearly connected to the Baptist tradition [seems] to run counter” to the Chinese government’s effort to “de-denominationalize” the state-sanctioned Three-Self Patriotic Movement. China’s campaign to remove denominational divisions within state-sanctioned Christianity is part of a larger effort known as “sinicization” aimed at reducing Western influence on religion and making it more Chinese.

Religious persecution in general has increased in China since a 2017 law tightened restrictions on religious gatherings, buildings, and teachings. This year, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom listed China among 16 nations recommended for designation as “countries of particular concern” for “egregious violations” of religious freedom.

Despite any positive effects the historical site designation may have, Shandong remains a region of acute Christian persecution. In May, Persecution.org reported that China’s State Administration of Religious Affairs had established a station in the province to forcibly remove crosses, ban minors from attending church, shut down religious training centers, and remove religious symbols.

Last month, government officials replaced a statue of Jesus on the top of one Shandong church with a lightning rod, AsiaNews.it reported. A separate church had its cross forcibly removed this Easter, according to Persecution.org. Introvigne said thousands of underground house churches have been shut down in Shandong along with some government-sanctioned churches.

Religious groups known as xie jiao—organizations deemed heterodox by the government either for their theology or their political views—are among the most heavily persecuted in Shandong. The Church of Almighty God, which believes Jesus has returned to earth as a Chinese woman, had more than 50 members arrested in Shandong earlier this year, Bitter Winter reported.

Amid the religious persecution, Chinese Southern Baptist leader Amos Lee is hopeful the historical site designation of Lottie Moon’s church could be “part of the work of God.”

“Even in China we should not discount that God is really up to something,” Lee, executive director of the Chinese Baptist Fellowship of the United States and Canada, told CT. If God used the pagan king of Babylon as “a servant of God” in the Old Testament, he may also be softening the hearts of Chinese leaders.

“Nothing is impossible with God,” he said.

Introvigne also is hopeful for change in China, but he remains skeptical of the ruling Communist Party’s reasons for protecting Moon’s church. “It’s surely easier to honor a dead evangelist than to grant basic liberties to the living ones,” he said.

David Roach is a writer in Nashville, Tennessee.

Books
Excerpt

Nobodies Were the First to Know

Daniel Darling

When God announced the birth of Christ to sweaty, uncouth shepherds, he signaled something important about the kind of Messiah he was sending.

The Annunciation to the Shepherds, by Jacopo Bassano

The Annunciation to the Shepherds, by Jacopo Bassano

Christianity Today December 6, 2019
National Gallery of Art

A couple of years ago, I had the opportunity to appear on a top-rated national morning show. When I got the email confirming my appearance, my stomach tightened a bit, and I think my feet lifted off the ground. My first thought was, Wow, this will sell a ton of books. And my second thought was, Do I need to buy a new suit? I was excited and yet very, very nervous. Somehow I managed to get through the experience without totally embarrassing myself.

The Characters of Christmas: The Unlikely People Caught Up in the Story of Jesus

The Characters of Christmas: The Unlikely People Caught Up in the Story of Jesus

Daniel Darling (Author)

Moody Publishers

192 pages

$13.65

Being on a big-time television news show is one of the best ways to try to announce big news. Public-relations professionals work hard at securing these opportunities, trying to get their guests in front of millions of eyeballs. But when God announced the birth of Jesus to the world, he used the opposite approach. He didn’t send Jesus to 30 Rock, but sent the host of Heaven to a common field outside Bethlehem. And the people he chose as his spokesmen were unpolished, sweaty, uncouth shepherds.

Today shepherds are romanticized in nearly every Christmas pageant. Many of us have donned a modified pillowcase and grabbed a walking stick to appear in a Christmas pageant at church or school. But in the first century, nobody thought shepherds were cute. And certainly nobody thought they were important. But there they were, the first to know at Christmas.

A Kingdom for Outsiders

Shepherds were not really considered part of polite society in those days. They were required to tend their flocks outside the city gates. The only reason shepherds had any significance was because sheep were a valuable commodity, especially as it got closer to Passover, when many lambs would be sacrificed in the temple.

The work of shepherds was (and still is) extraordinarily difficult. They had to wrangle obstinate sheep. They had to ensure their flocks were well fed. And they had to fend off predators: wolves or even larger animals, like bears or lions. Sometimes unsavory characters would come in and try to steal the sheep. This is why shepherds were awake on this night. Most likely they were sleeping in shifts, ensuring the livestock was not compromised.

And yet there is something significant and powerful about the inclusion of the shepherds in the Jesus story. Luke is reminding us, by mentioning the shepherds, that the kingdom of God isn’t just for the insiders, but for outsiders, like shepherds, like the poor classes where Mary and Joseph came from. It reminds us that the kingdom of God is often made up not of the noble and wise, but of the underclass, those people that have no business being near royalty. Immanuel, God with us, means God is truly among all classes of people, not simply the connected or well-resourced.

The presence of the shepherds in the Christmas story also tells us a little bit about just what kind of Messiah Jesus would be. He would come to us as a Savior, as a King, as a Lion, but also as our shepherd. Though this vocation was not viewed with respect by peers, Scripture always portrays shepherding as a high calling, perhaps the most repeated image of leadership in the Bible.

God refers to himself as Israel’s shepherd (Gen. 48:15; 49:24; Jer. 31:10). In Psalm 23, David is grateful to affirm that “the Lord is my shepherd.” And the prophets Ezekiel (22:23–29) and Jeremiah (10:21; 23:1–4; 50:6–7) often warned God’s people about poor shepherds—bad leaders who exploit rather than lead. To shepherd, in God’s world, is to sacrificially care for the vulnerable ones under your protection. Shepherds in those days didn’t drive their herds but gently led them.

Today, sometimes even in Christian circles, leadership as shepherding is viewed as negatively as it might have been among the sophisticated in the first century. Though spiritual leaders in Scripture, from the Old to the New Testament, are often compared to shepherds, many evangelical leadership texts dismiss this idea. I once heard a prominent pastor mock the idea, saying that a CEO or a general is a better description of Christian leadership. But it’s hard to dismiss how intentional the Holy Spirit is in including this vision of gentle yet firm leadership both as the way God leads his people and how God intends his followers to lead. Among Jesus’ last words to Peter were, “Feed my sheep” (John 21:17). This is how we demonstrate God’s love: by taking care of others with soft hands and compassion.

This is why I believe the announcement of the coming of Jesus—himself the Good Shepherd (John 10:11)—had to happen in a shepherds’ field. Luke is telling us that this ruler who is to come would be different than the rulers his people were used to seeing. He wouldn’t be a Caesar who ruled only by brute force. He wouldn’t be a Herod, who governed by treachery, murder, and paranoia. No, Jesus would be, among all of his attributes, a shepherd. And he would entrust himself and his message to shepherds.

The Lamb of God would first be held and handled by those who knew how to appreciate and care for a lamb. And yet, more than anybody, these shepherds knew the ultimate fate of each lamb for which they cared. I imagine they heard the prophecy of Isaiah more keenly than anyone in Israel. They tended the very lambs that would be sacrificed at Passover. And yet a Lamb was come who would be the final sacrifice. This Lamb wouldn’t simply cover their sins as the sacrifices did, but he would actually become sin. John the Baptist said about Jesus later, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29, ESV).

The good news of the coming of the Lamb of God, slain for the sins of the world, announced among lambs set aside for the temple sacrifice and in the city of David, Israel’s last great shepherd: This is God declaring to his people that Jesus, both the Good Shepherd and the Lamb of God, was coming to make true peace between God and man.

The World’s First Missionaries

One minute they were watching the flocks, maybe catching a few minutes of sleep after a night shift, and the next minute they were witnesses to salvation history. The display in the heavens must have been spectacular, as the sky around them filled with the host of Heaven praising God and worshiping him. Not even the greatest performance on earth with the most talented musicians could parallel the incredible celebration that unfolded on the big screen of the sky before these shepherds. The plan of God, conceived from time immemorial—the plan of redemption, promised in the Garden—was unfolding before their eyes.

I always find it interesting how God seems, throughout Scripture, to show up in the middle of an ordinary person’s daily routine. It’s not like the shepherds got an email invite the day before: Meet up at field 1 for an epic event! And yet even though they were caught by surprise, these men of humble means and reputation responded in ways that prove God’s wisdom in entrusting the announcement of the birth of Jesus to them.

They believed. These men saw the angels, heard the witness, and believed. The scribes were too jaded. The royals were too sophisticated. The Romans were too dismissive. But these humble outsiders had the simple faith to look up, listen, and put their faith in the Christ child.

They could be awed. The world of the first century was pretty cynical. False messiahs had come and gone. The promise of Israel’s restoration seemed more like a pipe dream. And the Roman flag waved high above the temple mount. And yet here were people still willing to be awed. Luke says the shepherds possessed great fear. And wouldn’t you? You’re a lowly shepherd in a backwater town in a ravaged land, and all of a sudden the heavens open and angels start singing! Yes, you’d be fearful.

And yet there is something wonderful about the ability to still be awed by God. Today’s world is just as jaded as the world of the first century. Smart people are way too enlightened to believe in the supernatural. And yet Proverbs says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Real spirituality is a healthy awe, reverence, and fear of God—to know that you’re nothing and God is awesome. The closer you are to heaven, the greater your fear and awe of God.

I hope that, this Christmas season, your heart is open to awe and wonder. It’s easy to treat our religious traditions, especially Christmas, as a sort of ho-hum affair. But God visits those who are willing to fear and to awe, to wonder and to meditate. Have we stopped what we are doing long enough to see what God is doing around us? Have we sufficiently unplugged from the digital distractions that keep our minds moving but divert us from the supernatural? Are you willing to be awed by an awesome and powerful God and by the mystery of the incarnation of Jesus Christ?

Fearsome? Yes. But there is a sense in which our fear turns to faith. The angels said, “Fear not.” Why? Because Jesus is a Shepherd we should fear, but no longer have to be afraid of. This royal announcement on a cold night in Bethlehem meant that those who put their faith in this baby Jesus would experience peace with God. This is what the angels meant by “peace on earth toward men of good will.” In one sense, the angels were reminding the shepherds that the temporary peace being experienced in the Roman empire would one day give way to war. But only this Prince of Peace could usher in genuine shalom, true renewal. And this baby Jesus would offer personal peace with God. The one who came to shepherds would be the Good Shepherd of their souls. The Lamb of God would fully atone for sin. No more would worshipers need to sacrifice actual lambs.

They lived with purpose. Luke makes sure we know that the shepherds didn’t waste time gazing into the Bethlehem sky. Once they heard the witness of the angels, they “made haste,” to quote the King James Version (Luke 2:16). And wouldn’t you? They couldn’t keep this message to themselves. They abandoned all pretenses and bolted into Bethlehem, sheep and all, to find the Messiah. Imagine the sight they must have been, knocking on doors, waking up the locals, shouting the good news that the long-awaited Messiah had finally come. They didn’t simply marvel at the message. They believed it, and it changed their direction. A temptation for us, this Christmas, is to simply get full of “the feels,” the warm sentimentality of this season, and miss the good news at the heart of the holiday: Christ has come into the world to save you and to save me. The angel told the shepherds that this good news was “for you.” It was personal.

I like how Kent Hughes puts it in his commentary on Luke: “The truth is, even if Christ were born in Bethlehem a thousand times but not within you, you would be eternally lost. The Christ who was born into the world must be born in your heart. Religious sentiment, even at Christmastime, without the living Christ is a yellow brick road to darkness.”

The shepherds left their fields and became the most unlikely of messengers. John Calvin says of them, “Though God had, at his command, many honorable and distinguished witnesses, he passed by them, and chose shepherds, persons of humble rank, and of no account among men.” They became the world’s first missionaries, the first in a long line of ordinary, unheralded messengers of the gospel. God is on the move, building his church around the world, mostly through people you will never hear of: folks without significant Twitter followings, with no official titles, and of whom the world is mostly unworthy.

Go tell it on the mountain, the Christmas hymn urges us, that Jesus Christ is born!

Daniel Darling is works for the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission as vice president for communications.

Taken from The Characters of Christmas: The Unlikely People Caught up in the Story of Jesus by Daniel Darling (©2019). Published by Moody Publishers. Used with permission.

News

LGBT Rights-Religious Liberty Bill Proposed in Congress

Daniel Silliman

Fairness for All advocates hope legislation makes compromise seem possible.

Christianity Today December 6, 2019
Illustration by Rick Szuecs / Source images: Pete Marovich / Stringer / Getty / Dan Whitfield / Pexels / Sara Rampazzo / Unsplash

Congressman Chris Stewart doesn’t expect his bill to pass. But he is proposing the Fairness for All Act anyway. It’s a step of faith for Stewart, a Republican who represents Utah’s second district, and a marker on the bet that it’s possible to find a compromise that protects both religious liberty and LGBT rights.

“Congress can be a frustrating place to be because it’s so polarized. But I don’t think we can throw up our hands and quit,” Stewart told Christianity Today.

Smith proposes the Fairness for All Act in Congress Friday. Advocates of the idea of finding common ground for religious liberty and LGBT rights, led by the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU), have spent three years planning, discussing, and strategizing for this moment.

The law would prohibit anti-LGBT discrimination in employment, housing, and places of public accommodation, including retail stores, banks, and health care service providers. Currently, under federal law and in the majority of states, LGBT people can be evicted from rental property, denied loans, denied medical care, fired from their jobs, and turned away from businesses because of their sexual orientation.

The Fairness for All law would offer LGBT people substantially the same protections as the proposed Equality Act, a bill LGBT advocates have long promoted and Democrats in the House passed earlier this year, only to see it stall in the Senate. The Equality Act, however, includes no exemptions for religious organizations.

“The Equality Act was written in such a way that a religious person like myself couldn’t vote for it,” said Stewart, who is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “[Democratic legislators] wrote it so that they could say to LGBT people, ‘No Republican voted for it; they don’t care about people like you,’ which just isn’t true.”

The Fairness for All Act exempts religious groups—both churches and nonprofits—from the anti-discrimination rules. Churches wouldn’t be required to host same-sex weddings. Christian schools wouldn’t have to hire LGBT people. Adoption agencies could receive federal funding even if they turned away same-sex couples looking to raise children. The law would also protect the tax-exempt status of religious groups that condemn homosexuality.

The anti-discrimination rules would not apply to for-profit businesses with 14 or fewer employees, excluding them from the definition of “public accomodation.” This would mean small-business owners such as the Colorado baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a same-sex ceremony in 2012 would have the right to refuse service on religious grounds.

Strong Opposition

The legislation faces strong opposition from LGBT-rights groups who say it enshrines discrimination into law—and from conservative religious groups who say it concedes too much to LGBT-rights groups.

Leaders from more than 90 evangelical groups signed a statement rejecting any legislation protecting sexual orientation or gender identity after the CCCU started to advocate for a Fairness for All law in 2016. The list of signers included The Gospel Coalition president D. A. Carson, Focus on the Family president Jim Daly, First Things editor R. R. Reno, and Southern Baptist leaders Russell Moore and Al Mohler.

“Christians cannot support [Fairness for All] for this overarching reason: It is grounded in an unbiblical conception of the human person,” Owen Strachan, director of the Center for Public Theology at Midwestern Seminary, wrote in September. “The Scripture will not allow us to see any ungodly ‘orientation’ or ‘identity’ as essential to our humanity, as directed toward our flourishing, and thus enshrined in law as a protected category.”

Other evangelical leaders, however, including pastor Tim Keller, legal scholar John Inazu, and CT editor in chief Mark Galli, have argued that a both/and approach is possible. The Fairness for All idea has also received support from some legal scholars, and it has been endorsed by the Seventh-day Adventist Church and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. A similar law has been enacted in Utah, with the support of the LDS church.

Despite opposition from some conservative evangelicals, the CCCU has continued working toward a legislative solution that would connect religious liberty and LGBT rights. The organization partnered with the American Unity Fund (a politically conservative LGBT-rights group) and the 1st Amendment Partnership (a religious-freedom advocacy organization) to develop the legislation and build support for the legislative strategy.

“What are the available alternatives?” said Tim Schultz, president of the 1st Amendment Partnership. “Just hoping for permanent gridlock on this issue and just opposing LGBT rights ferociously at every turn. For practical reasons and, frankly, for witness-of-the-church reasons, that alternative is quite unattractive.”

Expanding the Coalition

Proposing the legislation is a step toward expanding the coalition of supporters, according to advocates. Shirley Hoogstra, president of the CCCU, said passing any major legislation is a long process that often moves in fits and starts. Even if the bill doesn’t pass this session, it could succeed in establishing Fairness for All as a viable political option.

“We found that people just don’t believe that religious people and LGBT people can come together. They say it’d be nice, but it’s just not possible,” Hoogstra said. “This signals to the deciders—House representatives and senators—that actually it is possible. We’re trying to explain and educate and socialize with our bill.”

If legislators come to think it’s possible to embrace LGBT rights and religious liberty, they may be able to convince voters. Michael Wear, chief strategist for the And Campaign and former faith outreach director for President Barack Obama, said that in a pluralist society where people disagree about very basic things, it’s critical that leaders help people find common ground.

“Proposing a bill helps voters imagine a different possibility,” Wear said. “It’s like, this is an option. This is on the table. We need to make this conversation more concrete, not less. Voters don’t have an imagination for how it would be possible. It takes leadership to take real risk and show them how it could be.”

The And Campaign has urged all the 2020 presidential candidates to come out in support of the Fairness for All Act.

Pursing Common Ground

Fairness for All advocates know, however, that they’re fighting an uphill battle. In many representatives’ districts, compromise can be costly come election time.

“The trend in society is towards polarization,” Schultz said. “It’s towards tribalism and crushing your enemies, like that Conan the Barbarian quote, ‘What is the best in life? To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of their women.’ But is that really how Christians should be doing politics?”

Chris Stewart doesn’t think so. He said his own commitment to religious liberty and a close relationship with a gay person made him think common ground was possible.

“I don’t want to be Pollyannaish,” he said. “But I think the uncertainty with these issues in the courts and with elections, after a period of time, will bring both sides into a position where they really think this is a workable compromise.”

The bill will be referred to committee for review.

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