The Year of the Evangelical

America prepared for a bicentennial, and religious identity dominated the presidential campaign.

Illustration by Christianity Today / Source Images: Getty, CT Archives

CT started 1976 on a contrarian note. As the nation prepared to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, a Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary professor argued that the real birth of America happened not in 1776 but in 1740. The January 1976 cover story argued, “We’ve picked the wrong year.”

What occurred in [1740] was nothing less than an inner American revolution, a spiritual declaration of independence that made the political reshuffling thirty-six years later an inevitability. The year 1740 was the crest of that wave of spiritual power called the Great Awakening. …

The message of personal commitment and individual decision central to the Awakening reached a wider audience than the issue of taxation without representation. The merchant class of the port cities might be inflamed by the irritating tax laws, but how much popular appeal did that issue have? Colonial America was a rural society. One authority states that only one out of twenty Americans lived in the city. While Boston was certainly a powerful radiating center, it could influence only a minority in the northern colonies, and by no means the whole seaboard.

To inflame the colonists sufficiently against Great Britain there had to be embers that were rekindled by the taxation issue, not created by it. The spiritual independence fostered by the Great Awakening saturated the colonies from Massachusetts to Georgia, from the Atlantic deep into the Appalachians.

Secondly, as a cause for rebellion the Great Awakening had a deeper appeal than the taxation issue. The spiritual appetite aroused in 1740 created a search for “something more,” a dissatisfaction with the status quo that refused to fade with time. Two centuries before, the Puritans of England had followed religious impulses that led to the beheading of King Charles. Is it any less likely that in 1740 transformed hearts would seek a transformed society and would want to free themselves once again from a monarch’s rule?

Most Christians, of course, were happy to celebrate 1776. CT reported that more than 1,000 overtly religious celebrations across the country were “thanking God for America.”

These endeavors range from production of a new hymnal, drama and musical presentations, and a conference on religious liberty to bell-ringing and large-scale outreach efforts. In addition to the officially recognized projects are many by individual churches and other religious groups in just about every city in the land. They all add up to a gigantic religious celebration of the nation’s first two hundred years.

The [American Revolution Bicentennial Administration] wants every bell in America rung on July 4 for two minutes at 2 p.m. EDST (11 A.M. Pacific time) when the Liberty Bell will be rung in Philadelphia. The American Bible Society is promoting participation by churches in the bell-ringing observance. In conjunction with it, the ABS is distributing to churches and synagogues a copper-colored bell-shaped pamphlet containing verses from Isaiah 61 and bearing the title “Proclaim Liberty Throughout the Land.”

CT’s regular arts column, Refiner’s Fire, noted a surge of interest in science fiction in the 1970s but couldn’t decide what it meant.

Michael Crichton’s Andromeda Strain may have contributed to bringing scifi out of the closet. Crichton placed the action of the novel in the near enough future to avoid the fantastic ethos that has usually been a part of this genre.

The most visible evidence of the new popularity of science fiction is the continual replaying of the television series “Star Trek.” It has gathered a group of fanatical fans among the young. …

All this new activity may be deeply significant or it may simply mean that the Saturday morning “Jetson” fans have grown up and are unwilling to leave science fiction behind. I leave that profound determination to someone else. …

The subjects of science fiction are overwhelmingly politics, technology, and their interaction. Religion, sex, and other interesting social activities normally appear only peripherally or occasionally.

A review of Bob Dylan’s music—from his early protest songs through his electric turn and the Rolling Thunder Revue tour—reached sharper conclusions about his “almost Christian” music.

He views man in the light of the cosmic struggle between good and evil. Man must choose to follow God and truth or fall into death, decay, and ultimate judgment. …

Bob Dylan pioneered the message song; he remains at its forefront. He asks metaphysical questions and tries to give some answers, which are less than Christian. But he has affected many young people and continues to do so. We need to understand what kind of spiritual guidance he gives.

CT also reviewed some notable names in literary fiction, including Saul Bellow, Joyce Carol Oates, and the madcap maximalist conspiracy-theory capers of Thomas Pynchon.

The vision of Pynchon is one of apocalypse, of decadence, of a streamlined Doomsday Machine tooling, to the accompaniment of a kazoo chorus, down “the street of the twentieth century, at whose far end or turning—we hope—is some sense of home or safety. But no guarantees” (V.).

At age thirty-nine, Thomas Pynchon is perhaps one of the most accomplished American writers of our time. He has published short stories in various magazines, but his reputation rests primarily on his three novels. … He synthesizes philosophy, sociology, science (he was an engineering major at Cornell), popular culture, the humanities, and theology. And his novels are brilliant collages of literary modes and styles, defying classification. One reviewer commented that it is easier to nail down a blob of mercury than to describe a novel by Pynchon.

The three novels have been aptly characterized as an extended meditation on the twentieth century.

CT’s most controversial article of the year challenged readers to rethink the way they understood the gospel, taking cues from James Cone’s Black liberation theology. The author, described as “an angry evangelical from Chicago,” wanted readers to join him in the declaration, “Down with the Honky Christ—Up with the Funky Jesus.”

Most white people understand what a black person means when he calls someone a “honky.” If they can’t define it verbally they feel what it means—oppressor, bigot, slave-trader, exploiter, and in many ways, middle-class. A honky belongs to the status quo, the safe, the comfortable.

“Funky,” on the other hand, may be a new term to many of you. In black parlance funky often has certain positive connotations. For example, if I call a song funky I mean that either voice or instrument stepped creatively from behind the strictures of the notes, boldly and freely authenticating his or her own soul in the rendition of the number. Funky stands opposite to honky—liberated, authentic, creative.

These two adjectives used in relation to the Gospel incarnate in Jesus pinpoint the problem I see in traditional evangelical circles, black or white. We and our leaders have been preaching a honky Christ to a world hungry for the funky Jesus of the Bible. The honky Christ stands with the status quo, the funky Jesus moves apart from the ruling religious system. Jesus stood with and for the poor and oppressed and disinherited. He came for the sick and needy.

A Black Baptist minister from Boston offered a more measured reflection on the racial politics of the era, looking at efforts to integrate public schools through busing programs.

First, the problem is racism. Certain minorities are not wanted, not liked, and/or feared. Many bugaboos, superstitions, and stereotypes have been resurrected, if they ever were dead, against blacks, Hispanics, and other minorities.

Second, some people have found the issues of integration and busing advantageous. Because of greed and overt political ambition, they are willing to exploit the school situation for their own self-aggrandizement and political advancement.

Third, too many flame-feeders wanted to keep the busing crisis alive because they have profited by it, particularly in overtime pay, while the situation remained heated. That is the economical issue.

Psychologically, the cost of busing cannot be measured …

The big political story of the year was the presidential election. The Democrats nominated Jimmy Carter, a populist peanut farmer who told people he was a “born again” Christian, to run against incumbent Gerald Ford. The candidates’ religious commitments became a major campaign issue.

Ford is open, though not vocal, about his religious views. A lifelong Episcopalian, he credits the spiritual deepening of his life in recent years to involvement in prayer groups, study of the Bible, and the influence of other Christians, especially evangelist Billy Zeoli.

In a letter to Zeoli he stated that he had received Christ as his personal saviour and was being helped through prayer and Bible study (he and Zeoli study together periodically using the paraphrased Living Bible). He encouraged his son Michael to select an evangelical seminary. But he smokes a pipe, dances, and drinks cocktails before supper, and these practices disturb many conservative Christians (Episcopalians traditionally have not looked on them as vices). …

Carter, a Southern Baptist who takes a regular turn teaching a men’s Sunday-school class at the rural Plains (Georgia) Baptist Church, is the most outspoken of the four about his faith. He grew up in the church but not until 1966 did he have a conversion experience. He won’t discuss details but says he emerged from the experience a transformed person and began spending a lot of time in prayer and Bible reading.

He said he spent more time on his knees during the four years he was governor than in all the rest of his life put together. He tells his critics that he’s never tried to use his position as a public official to promote his beliefs, adding, “and I never would.” But whatever role he might have in the future, he explains, it will be with the same personal relationship with Christ he’s had in the last ten years.

The year 1976 seemed like “the year of the evangelical.” Political reporters asked candidates if they were “born again,” and analysts asked each other, “Will evangelicals swing the election?”

It is commonly acknowledged that America’s fastest-growing religious configuration is the evangelical Protestant community, whose current size is usually estimated to be some 40 million members—or at least 20 per cent of the population. If this percentage is projected to the electorate, it means that of, say, 80 million votes cast in the presidential election, 16 million will be by members of evangelical churches (both inside and outside the big denominations) and by those who identify with evangelical cultural traditions.

Evangelical voters are strongly concentrated in eleven southern states and six border ones (Maryland, West Virginia, Delaware, Kentucky, Missouri, and Oklahoma). They are also found in fairly large numbers in several midwestern and north-central states (such as Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, and Nebraska). The southern and border states have 177 electoral votes, and Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, and Nebraska have 33, for a total of 210. This is short of the 270 needed for election, but evangelicals in other states (Ohio and Pennsylvania, for example) could provide the victory margin in a close election.

It is the candidacy of former Georgia governor Jimmy Carter, a Southern Baptist Sunday-school teacher that has people talking about a possible evangelical voting bloc. Carter’s public expression of down-home religious commitment has raised questions—and eyebrows—for some voters (especially Jewish ones), but it has unquestionably gained him evangelical support. Evangelicals and Carter speak the same born-again, Christ-is-my-Saviour language.

Not all evangelicals were happy with Carter. Some specially questioned his judgment when he gave an interview to Playboy, known for its nude centerfolds, and were disappointed by his stand on the moral issue of abortion.

Carter’s positions appear ambiguous to some evangelical critics. His views on abortion have evoked the most vocal controversy to date. Contrary to many accusations, Carter says he had no input at all on the Democratic platform plank on abortion. That plank opposes a constitutional amendment to limit abortion. Carter says his position is similar, “but I would have worded it differently.” He also states that he personally opposes abortion and “will do everything possible to minimize its need” if he is elected President.

In a speech for anti-abortion candidate Ellen McCormack, convention delegate James Killilea cited opposition to Carter on the abortion issue by a Catholic writer and by Harold O. J. Brown, a teacher at Trinity seminary in suburban Chicago and a leader in the anti-abortion Christian Action Council. In describing Brown as “an evangelical like [Carter],” he quoted the theologian as saying: “For someone to say that he is morally opposed to abortion and then that he is against doing anything to stop the present flood of abortions is rather like Pontius Pilate’s action in washing his hands at the trial of Jesus.”

One pro-life picket outside the hall carried a sign saying, “Carter is nothing but a 621-month-old fetus.”

Many Republicans didn’t seem interested in talking about faith and tried to tamp down religious messages at the national convention. CT called readers’ attention to one conservative who seemed different: Ronald Reagan.

Talk-show host George Otis of Van Nuys, California, recently interviewed former California governor Ronald Reagan on spiritual and moral issues. Excerpts of Reagan’s views: …

When you go out across the country and meet the people you can’t help but pray and remind God of Second Chronicles 7:14, because the people of this country are not beyond redemption. They are good people and believe this nation has a destiny as yet unfulfilled. …

I certainly know what the meaning of “born again” is. … In my own experience there came a time when there developed a new relationship with God and it grew out of need. So, yes, I have had an experience that could be described as “born again.” …

You cannot interrupt a pregnancy without taking a human life. And the only way we can justify taking a life in our Judeo-Christian tradition is in self-defense.

Carter won in November, receiving about 1.6 million votes more than Ford. CT’s editor in chief reflected on what that said about prayer.

I have been musing over an indisputable fact: some Christians were praying for the election of Jimmy Carter and others were praying for the election of Gerald Ford. All had their prayers answered—God said no to some and yes to others.

- More from Daniel Silliman

Church Life

Q&A: Eric Mason on Ministering to Men and Witnessing in Politics

Interview by Benjamin Watson

The Philadelphia-based pastor discusses how the church can engage Black men and have a biblical approach to government.

Illustration by Elizabeth Kaye / Source Images: Unsplash, WikiMedia Commons

Church conversations about masculinity are rooted in biblical truth but can sound different among Black Christians who have to contend with false ideological and religious movements, such as the Nation of Islam.

The Just Life’s Benjamin Watson sat down with pastor Eric Mason, who leads Epiphany Fellowship Church in Philadelphia, to talk about how the church can better engage Black men and give them tools to chart their own course. Mason believes the church has lost the manhood talk and must think creatively about ministering to men. Watson and Mason also discuss biblical justice and how the Chrisitan should relate with the government during times of disagreement.

Here are edited excerpts from their conversation.

We’ve lost the manhood talk the same way we’ve lost the justice talk. Because if you think about it, what would the Evil One want most to take out of our conversations from a biblical perspective? He wanted to take our manhood, obviously, because of the leadership, because of the order, because of all the sorts of things we see in Genesis, and because of all the ills that have a tie directly to manhood (or lack thereof). But he’d also want to come in and frustrate the justice talk because it keeps people in pain and hurt and without restoration.

I do believe what you said in relation to it. I’m going to give you the perfect example. The Nation of Islam is falling apart. Nobody knows that. Mosque No. 12, which Elijah Muhammad’s son started in Philly, and all the mosques, they’re now meeting in, like, a house, like a small little row house with barely any people in it.

But what keeps them relevant is that [Louis] Farrakhan has mastered the ability to talk to men about their key buttons. One of the things that we’re missing is the reason Black men are attracted to these different groups is because they talk about what’s wrong with the country, what’s wrong with situations.

They tell the whole story.

They’re saying we have to be responsible, and they speak truth to power. I believe that we have to have a comprehensive message that includes those things within it, in relation to how we apply the gospel to the area of justice. Because that is an issue that men want to know about. [They’re asking,] What can I do to be a change agent?

There’s another thing I see with men. I remember I was talking about how to manage money, and how it took years for me to get my wife and me out of debt, pay off our student loans, credit cards, and all of that. I said I ended up having to get an accountant, a financial planner, and started an LLC. I didn’t realize how much the men were listening. They were like, “Hey, Pastor, talk to us more about that.” So I related it and said, “I had to begin to have a financial vision for my home. And I believe God is going to hold me responsible for that and [for] building generational wealth for my kids, even as a pastor.”

Now, we have financial seminars with hundreds of people there. And dudes are in there connecting that. They’re saying, Why didn’t anybody tell me this? Particularly in our community, because we’re not taught from childhood about money in a particular way.

Let’s talk about politics for a little bit from a justice perspective. Do you think the church has the primary role in bringing about and correcting injustice, or is it the government? Or is it a combination of both? Some people would say the government has created policies over time—we can name a litany of them—that have been unjust policies, and we see the ramifications of those. The government needs to be the one to fix those things.

Then others would say, I can’t trust the government for anything and it’s the church that has to lead when it comes to racial injustice, but also poverty, education. How do you navigate the balance? Whose responsibility is it?

I want to come back to that because I want to address a bigger issue. In the Western world, we have a very entitled way that we look at the relationship between the church and government that wasn’t afforded the people of God in history.

I just haven’t had the time to do it, but I wanted to do a biblical theology of the relationship of the people of God throughout Scripture and throughout history with government. I want to ask the Bible questions. Anywhere in Scripture, did it make it the people of God’s responsibility to fix government? I’m just asking the Bible a question.

Now, what do I see in the Bible? I do see that the people of God were always a prophetic voice to government. I always saw that. Now, you got to understand, they were under absolute monarchies. We’re in a democratic republic. I would say we’re in new orders when it comes to the relationship.

When you think about world history, yes.

Yes, until the Edict of Milan, Christianity was illegal. So even our relationship with government before then was different until the Edict of Milan.

We’re some pretty entitled, privileged Christians.

So you understand what I’m saying? So in us approaching the subject … I have to say, “No, no, let’s back up. What does the Bible teach our relationship with government is in the New Testament?”

It’s two things. I’m going to sound like a sellout, but it’s the Bible. Fundamentally, it’s going to speak out against injustice, pray for government, and support where we can biblically.

Titus chapter 3 verse 1 says, “Remind them to submit to rulers and authorities, to obey, [and] be ready for every good work” (CSB). So we’re not talking about obeying carte blanche. We’re talking about obeying as long as God’s cool with what you’re being obedient to.

As long as they’re not telling you to do something totally incongruent to the gospel.

Absolutely. This is what it says though: “To be ready for every good work.” That means to serve government. Then it says, “To slander no one, to avoid fighting, and to be kind, always showing gentleness to all people” (v. 2). Why? Because verse 3 is going to tell you: you were lost. So don’t slander government officials. This is what the scriptures are saying.

- More from Interview by Benjamin Watson

CT Responds to the ‘We Are Not a Monolith’ Statement

Marvin Olasky

A note from the editor in chief.

Andrey Cherkasov / Getty

Christianity Today does not have a large staff. Unlike the newspapers of old, we do not have dozens of beats, with a full-time reporter for each one. I don’t enjoy admitting it, but last year we had only one dedicated beat with a full-time reporter: immigration. Happily, that reporter is very dedicated and very talented: Andy Olsen in 2025 turned out numerous stories showing the tragic turn in immigration ultra-enforcement.

Here are just three of our 2025 headlines: “Migrants Pushed Chicago to the Brink. They Also Brought a Revival.” “ICE Goes After Church Leaders and Christians Fleeing Persecution.” “They Led at Saddleback Church. ICE Said They Were Safe.” These were deeply reported stories, not opinion pieces: street-level, not suite-level. But no one reading them would mistake which side CT was on: We headlined one story “The Churches That Fought for Due Process,” and CT fought for that as well.

In 2026, on this side of the chaos in Minneapolis, the Trump administration may be recalibrating. What comes next is up for debate throughout America, including among our Latino brothers and sisters in Christ. Late last month, Christianity Today published “ICE Is Devastating Some Latino Churches,” an opinion piece by Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference (NHCLC).

In it, Rodriguez offered his political conclusions after observing plummeting Sunday service attendance in predominantly Latino churches. He also saw what we had learned: Congregants fear they may be subjected to heavy-handed and indiscriminate federal immigration enforcement under the Trump administration. Rodriguez has been a Trump supporter, and we welcomed his willingness to offer some criticism.

Others did not welcome that, noting that Rodriguez continues to support President Donald Trump. A coalition of Latino Christian leaders published an open letter—“We Are Not a Monolith, We Are a Multitude”—expressing “disagreement and concern with the media representation” of Rodriguez and his organization as “the primary voice representing the Latino evangelical community.” The group cited CT’s publication of the article as contributing to that notion.

That was not our intention. We thought it newsworthy that Rodriguez seemed to be backing away from some support of Trump. Maybe he is not: Time will tell. Regardless of what other media have done, we certainly did not say Rodriguez is “the primary voice” of Latino evangelicals, because as our coverage has shown, many Latinos (and others) vigorously oppose ICE policies. The NHCLC is important, but so are other organizations such as the National Latino Evangelical Coalition.

CT President and CEO Nicole Martin notes this: “CT has a robust record of speaking out against unjust immigration policies and practices. We take seriously the call of Christ to care for those in greatest need by elevating the stories of the most vulnerable (Matt. 25:40).”

She adds that Rodriguez’s article “speaks to the harsh realities facing Latino communities in America and the heartbreaking effects of federal enforcement in many churches. It is one piece of our extensive coverage of immigration under this administration, which includes on-the-ground reporting, listening and lament, and a diversity of opinion articles like this one.”

Martin concludes, “At CT, we know ethnic monoliths do not exist, believe Christians are called to compassion for immigrants, and appreciate the steadfastness of leaders consistent in their opposition to harsh immigration practices. We are committed to publishing a range of evangelical perspectives on this and other important matters.”

We take seriously the specific concern in the open letter that publishing Rodriguez’s column “reinforces the misleading notion that a single leader can speak for the breadth and diversity of the Latino Christian community.” But we know, and anyone aware of the variety of Latino experience and beliefs knows, that this is not the case. He is one well-known figure who wrote an op-ed.

We ask that CT be judged by the full breadth of our immigration coverage, especially stories by Andy Olsen and Emily Belz, and our commitment to publishing perspectives that represent the breadth and diversity of the Latino evangelical community. We grieve with those who grieve over the state of violence and the fear facing Latinos and immigrant communities in our country.

Sho Baraka, editorial director of CT’s Big Tent program, says CT “will never conform to the current media zeitgeist, which rewards insular ideas and homogeneous thinking. CT continues to honor our brothers and sisters in Hispanic and Latino churches and invites them to bless us with their voices, making a more integrated witness of Jesus’ church.”

We invite more Latino leaders and journalists, whether liberal or conservative, to propose op-eds of their own. Of course we won’t be able to publish all, but we will publish some. As John Milton wrote nearly four centuries ago, “Who ever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter?”

Marvin Olasky is editor in chief of Christianity Today.

- More from Marvin Olasky

News

Christians in Southern Lebanon Debate Staying or Leaving

Ghinwa Akiki and Hunter Williamson in Beirut, Lebanon

Weary of another conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, pastors and congregants weigh their options and find comfort in Psalm 91.

Smoke from an explosion due to Israeli bombardment rises in the hills of Rmeich in southern Lebanon.

Vincenzo Circosta / Getty

Last Monday night, Micheline Nahra lay awake listening to the familiar sound of gunfire and explosions as the latest war between Hezbollah and Israel continued into its second day.

Located just two kilometers from Lebanon’s southern border with Israel, Nahra’s village, Deir Mimas, has been at the front lines of multiple conflicts between the two countries. As a Christian village unaffiliated with Hezbollah, Nahra and other Deir Mimas residents knew their village was not a target of the Israeli strikes, but that reassurance did little to alleviate the fears of the 56-year-old mother. (CT agreed not to use Nahra’s real name due to security concerns.)

The next morning, Nahra called her neighbor across the street to check in on her as she prepared for the arrival of her grandchild. Nahra stood on her balcony, looking out toward her neighbor’s house, which is located next to the home of an Orthodox priest. As the two women talked, an Israeli tank shell suddenly struck the neighbor’s and the priest’s houses.

“I saw the fire and the smoke in front of my eyes,” Nahra said.

Over the phone, she heard her neighbor screaming before she hung up. The neighbor wasn’t harmed, but the priest’s son was injured. Shortly after, the Lebanese Red Cross came and took him to a hospital.

Nahra is not sure why the houses were hit. Nonetheless, it reflected the growing danger facing thousands of Christians in southern Lebanon, where Hezbollah has long had a stronghold. An Israeli strike on the Christian-majority village of Qlayaa, which is near Deir Mimas, killed a Maronite priest Monday.

Since March 2, Hezbollah and Israel have been engaged in a full-scale conflict—their second in less than two years—as part of the wider Middle East war between the US, Israel, and Iran. In Lebanon, the fighting has displaced hundreds of thousands of people, but in the country’s south, many Christians are choosing to stay in their homes despite intense ground fighting, airstrikes, and evacuation orders.

Immediately after the attack in Deir Mimas, Nahra, her husband, and their son packed their belongings and went to stay at her sister-in-law’s home in the center of the village where they believed they would be safer.

It was the fifth time that Nahra had been displaced in her lifetime.

The last time Nahra and her family fled the village was during the 2024 war between Hezbollah and Israel. They relocated to Lebanon’s capital, Beirut. But this time, they are choosing to stay in Deir Mimas due to financial constraints, their attachment to the land, and fear of what could happen to their house if they leave.

During the last war, Israeli troops moved into Deir Mimas and entered people’s homes, including Nahra’s. “They damaged everything,” Nahra said. “They made it dirty. They stole a lot of things from the house. It was horrible.” Other residents in southern Lebanon reported similar accounts, with some homes covered in graffiti.

After a cease-fire agreement in November 2024, the family returned home and repaired what they could.

Choosing to stay, however, is neither easy nor safe. Nahra noted that rockets regularly fly over the village and an interceptor missile fell once on the roof of a home 50 meters away from where they are staying now. The fighting has also cut electricity to the village, forcing residents to rely entirely on generators and solar panels.

In the face of this danger, Nahra is leaning more on her faith and her church.

On Friday night, she gathered with fellow Catholics and Orthodox Christians at Saint Michael Church for a Lent service. Around 40 people attended, including the priest whose home was shelled and his son, who had returned from the hospital. Despite the sound of explosions, Nahra felt a sense of serenity as the congregation prayed and read from the book of Psalms.

Multiple passages touched her deeply, particularly Psalm 91, which speaks of God being a refuge in times of hardship.

“Every time I read it, I feel we are surrounded by God’s power,” Nahra said. “But yesterday in particular, I really felt his embrace.”

Some Christians in South Lebanon have chosen to flee to safer parts of the country, where locals have turned hundreds of public schools and private institutions into makeshift displacement shelters.

With a young infant and two elderly members in his family, Maroun Shammas felt it was not wise for his family to stay in Deir Mimas. Early last week, the pastor of Baptist Church of Deir Mimas made the difficult decision to leave the village.

He and his family first tried to evacuate on Tuesday, but after driving north, road closures caused by the threats of bombings forced them to turn around. The next morning, they made a second attempt. This time they succeeded, but the first stretch of the trip was eerie as the family drove along deserted roads.

After about two hours, they reached a seminary on the outskirts of Beirut that was hosting displaced families from Deir Mimas and other parts of Lebanon. It was the same place Shammas and his family stayed for a few months during the war in 2024.

Photo by Hunter Williamson

Pastor Maroun Shammas stands at the entrance of the seminary where he and his family sought refuge after fleeing Deir Mimas.

“When we arrived, we had mixed feelings because we felt that once again, we were in a familiar place where we feel safe,” Shammas said. “At the same time, displacement is difficult, because you have to leave your home, the place where you live, the place where your memories are.”

This is the eighth time fighting has displaced Shammas.

“We hope this time will be the last,” he said. “I don’t know what the future holds for us, but we have the same longing to return and start over in the place we love and serve God.”

The day after Shammas and his family arrived at the seminary, his relative Najib Khoury landed at Beirut’s international airport after visiting Switzerland for the birth of his grandchild.

His flight arrived Thursday afternoon, just as Israel issued mass evacuation orders to several neighborhoods near the airport. Under the threat of impending airstrikes, friends of Khoury picked him up and drove him to a relatively safe part of Beirut, where he stayed the night. The next day, he departed to his village, Borj El Moulouk, which is next to Deir Mimas.

People told Khoury he was crazy for going back home, but the pastor of the Marjayoun Evangelical Baptist Church in Borj El Moulouk didn’t want to be anywhere else.

“My heart is here,” he said. “I’m not a hero, but I love this area.”

After arriving in the village on Friday, Khoury led a Bible study with about 25 people at his church. Explosions rang out throughout the meeting, and as Khoury stood at the pulpit, he cried, moved by the hymns that the worship leader had chosen. He said the songs reminded him of a shepherd he saw in Beirut the night he arrived. The shepherd had walked for two days from the southern port city of Tyre to Lebanon’s capital with his goats and planned to walk four more days to reach the country’s eastern Beqaa Valley.

“If a shepherd didn’t accept to leave his herd behind … how could I not be with mine?” Khoury said.

As Khoury spoke with CT over the phone on Saturday, the sound of airstrikes could be heard in the distance. The pastor described two incidents in recent days in which Israeli troops fired warning shots at Christians as they attempted to get their belongings from their homes in evacuated areas. One of those families is now sheltering in the church.

But Khoury also said that this conflict is not as intense as the war in 2024. Back then, Hezbollah had a stronger presence in the area, and Israeli attacks on the group damaged and destroyed the homes of many believers, including Khoury’s.

So far, only a few families in Khoury’s church have fled. One Syrian family returned to Syria, while two others moved to a Christian district further north. But with the church doors now open, they plan to return to Bourj El Moulouk soon.

Like Nahra, Khoury finds strength in Psalm 91, which has been the church’s slogan since an earlier war between Hezbollah and Israel in 2006. He is particularly comforted by verse 7:
“A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you.”

“I am clinging to this promise,” Khoury said, “and just yesterday, I was encouraging the church with it.”

Farther south, Christians face an equally precarious situation in the border village of Rmeich. Many of the towns around it lies in ruins, destroyed during the 2024 war and subsequent conflict.

This has left the village isolated as one of the only inhabited villages in the area, according Tony Elias, the Maronite parish priest at Saint Georges Church.

For the time being, the road to Beirut remains open, but it is unclear for how much longer. Elias noted that the village is seeking additional fuel to ensure that it can continue to run the generators that are providing residents with electricity.

Rmeich is one of the dozens of villages that sit within a huge swath of the territory in southern Lebanon to which Israel has issued evacuation warnings. But Elias said local officials and residents have decided not to leave. He said residents fear Rmeich could be used as a staging ground for attacks against Israel if people evacuate their homes.

Those concerns are not without precedent. Two years ago, an Israeli strike against a Hezbollah target destroyed the home of Emanuela Beatrice Tini while she was away from the village. In the blink of an eye, the 54-year-old Romanian expatriate and her husband lost the home they had invested 20 years of work into.

Tini sold her gold to help finance the reconstruction of the home, which she and her husband only finished a few months ago.

“We are very tired of this war,” she said. “We had just gotten out of a war two years ago. We need a break.”

Two days ago, Tini and her husband packed their belongings in preparation for the possibility that Israeli troops force them to leave their homes. The Romanian embassy also urged Tini to leave.

“But where would I go?” she said. Rmeich has been her home for the past few decades. It is also a place where she sees great needs and opportunities for ministry. She serves at her church with administration, cleaning, and cooking. She also loves to visit locals and share the gospel with them.

“God put me in Rmeich to serve him,” she said. “I asked God, ‘Why did you put me in this very difficult place? There’s always a war here.’ But then I understood that God needs me here.”

- More from Ghinwa Akiki and Hunter Williamson in Beirut, Lebanon

News

Cuba Lacks Fuel, Food, and Power. Christians Provide a Lifeline.

Hernán Restrepo

Trump’s recent oil blockade exacerbated an already desperate situation in the Communist country.

Members of the Iglesia Hermanos en Cristo Faro de Luz unloading supplies that will be distributed to people in the church and the community.

MCC / Fairpicture Photo / Alfredo Sarabia

Forty-year-old Moisés Pérez Padrón, who has lived in Cuba his whole life, says he’s never seen a worse crisis than the one the country is currently facing.

“The streets are full of garbage. You see children and elderly people searching for food or something they can sell among the trash,” said Pérez Padrón, director of Trans World Radio’s (TWR) office in Cuba. “Power outages last more than 12 hours a day, and families are destroying furniture in their homes just to use the wood for cooking.”

Born into a Christian home, Pérez Padrón is the son of the administrator of the only Baptist nursing home in western Cuba. He studied at the Havana Baptist Theological Seminary, where he now serves as vice rector. He is also copastor of Salem Baptist Church in Arroyo Apolo, a neighborhood in southern Havana.

Each day, Pérez Padrón enters a recording studio to produce Messages of Faith and Hope, a five-minute devotional podcast he sends out through Facebook and WhatsApp groups. His voice is also heard on the radio through TWR’s broadcasts from the Caribbean island of Bonaire on the 800 AM frequency.

In recent weeks, his messages have focused on placing hope in God rather than in political leaders. Quoting Isaiah 28:16, he emphasized the firmness of Christ, the precious cornerstone.

“Let us build on the solid rock,” he said. “Let us trust in Christ and his Word—not in political agreements or false religions, but in him.”

On January 29, president Donald Trump signed an executive order threatening tariffs or sanctions on any country that sends oil to Cuba, attempting to force the Communist-run island into making significant political and economic reforms. Four months earlier, hurricane Melissa swept through Cuba’s five provinces, displacing more than 735,000 people while destroying homes and basic infrastructure. In additional, Cuba faces a sharp population decline due to low birth rates and the mass exodus of young people.

Amid the chaos, churches and Christian ministries have stepped in to provide food, clothing, hygiene products, and above all, spiritual comfort. About 85 percent of Cuba’s population identify as Christians, according to the World Christian Database. Most are Catholic, while about 11 percent are evangelical. Despite facing persecution, including arbitrary detentions, threats, and harassment (see sidebar), Christians are largely able to worship freely in the country.

“You can go to the churches; the churches are open, and the government knows where they are. There’s no impediment to holding services in those churches on Sundays,” said Pérez Padrón. “But the real problem in Cuba regarding religious expression is that … space is limited. You can’t just go and build a new church.”

One of the most consistent Christian ministries has been Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), which has worked in Cuba for 43 years and currently supports five social programs carried out by the Association of Brethren in Christ (BIC) churches and the Christian Center for Reflection and Dialogue, a Christian organization that promotes human rights and supports vulnerable populations.

In the past year, MCC sent six shipping containers of humanitarian relief to Cuba, which included canned meat, relief kits, feminine hygiene products, infant care kits, school supplies, laundry detergent, and bed sheets.

Jacob Lesniewski, MCC’s regional codirector for South America, Mexico, and Cuba, is based in Mexico City but often visits the island, most recently in January. What he saw left him heartbroken.

“When you arrive in Havana, you can tell something isn’t right,” he said referring to the streets full of garbage, frequent blackouts, and lack of fuel at gas stations. “But it’s nothing compared to what you begin to see as you travel farther east. Entire cities look like ghost towns. There are factories, schools, and hospitals that once functioned but now stand empty and severely deteriorated.”

An outbreak of chikungunya—a viral disease spread by mosquitos that is easily treated with the painkiller acetaminophen—has infected more than 50,000 people since November 2025 and caused 55 deaths due to the shortage of medicine.

Lesniewski acknowledges the enormous logistical challenges involved in delivering aid. Since the oil embargo, the BIC congregations could not use trucks to distribute supplies. Instead, supplies had to be transported in carts pulled by underfed horses. Gasoline is sometimes available, but it must be purchased in dollars instead of Cuban pesos and is extremely expensive.

Yet the bureaucratic process of bringing supplies into the country proved surprisingly simple.

“You would think that in a Communist country, there would be endless obstacles,” he said. “But it’s quite the opposite—they are eager to receive help.”

Mayra Espino, a 70-year-old sociologist and researcher at the Christian Center for Reflection and Dialogue, has had numerous opportunities to leave Cuba as she served as a visiting professor in Spain, Honduras, and the United States. Yet she has chosen to remain.

Her decision reflects what Lesniewski calls “the stubborn resilience of Cubans.” Despite everything, many love their island and continue to find ways to cope with the crisis.

As a scholar, Espino identifies three main causes behind the current situation.

“The difficulties we are experiencing began even before Trump’s oil blockade,” she said. “First, the emigration of skilled professionals accelerated after the pandemic. Second, the current government has been unable to offer opportunities to the population. And third, the economic blockade has caused many businesses—especially in tourism—to collapse.”

Evangelical Christians, she notes, have gained a reputation for their social work on an island frequently hit by hurricanes. After four devastating hurricanes struck Cuba in 2008, local churches repaired the roofs of their non-Christian neighbors before fixing those of their own members—a gesture that earned them newfound respect.

“In a country where the state can no longer provide basic services like health care and education, Christian churches have become essential spaces for society—not only to receive humanitarian aid or spiritual comfort, but also to build community,” Espino said.

Fuel shortages have also led to public outrage over corruption. An investigation by Miami’s El Nuevo Herald revealed that Cuba resold 60 percent of the Venezuelan oil it received to China, with the proceeds allegedly lining the pockets of Cuban Communist Party leaders.

Amid growing frustration and despair, Pérez Padrón worries most about the safety of his family. He and his wife have two daughters, ages 5 and 6. As hunger rises, crime has also increased, especially in large cities such as Havana and Santiago, he said.

His voice breaks as he explains how he tells his daughters why the family has chosen to remain in Cuba rather than leave.

“We don’t tell them all the details of what’s happening, so they won’t worry,” he says. “In the middle of the hardships we face, we show them that there are still reasons to thank God. I have a job. They can go to school. God is good.”

Religious Freedom in Cuba

Although educated by Jesuit priests, dictator Fidel Castro established an atheist communist system after taking power in 1959. His government persecuted Christian pastors and sent them to labor camps, along with homosexuals, merchants, and political opponents of the regime.

Many Christians either fled the country or abandoned the faith, and the church shrank significantly. During the 1970s and 1980s, Christian communities survived through small but resilient groups of believers despite censorship and discrimination.

At the same time, under Castro, Cuba’s literacy rates rose dramatically—99 percent of the population could read and write by age 15—and malnutrition became relatively rare. These social advances allowed him to maintain a level of popularity.

Conditions began to change in the 1990s after the collapse of Soviet Union s parked both economic crisis and a renewed interest in faith. In 1992, Cuba’s Communist Party amended the constitution, redefining Cuba from an “atheist” state to a “secular” one.

Much of the credit for this shift has been attributed to the Catholic Church. Papal visits to the island became a priority for the Vatican beginning with Pope John Paul II’s historic trip in 1998. The day after meeting with Castro, the government reinstated Christmas as a public holiday.

Pope Benedict XVI visited the island in 2012, and shortly afterward the government permitted Good Friday celebrations. In 2016, a historic religious event occurred in Havana’s airport as Pope Francis met Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church, the first meeting of Catholic and Orthodox primates since 1054.

Evangelical outreach also increased during the Obama administration. In 2015, the US government listed “religious activity” as one of 12 authorized reasons for Americans to travel to Cuba. That same year, Baptists sent their first full-time missionaries to the island in 54 years.

According to the most recent US State Department report on religious freedom, Pentecostals and Baptists are likely the largest Protestant denominations in the country with about 150,000 and 100,000 members respectively.

House churches—recently authorized by the government—represent another significant and often unregistered section of the Christian community. According to the Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy (ASCE), between 20,000 and 30,000 house churches gather throughout the country.

Other belief systems also remain influential. An estimated 70 percent of Cubans perform religions practices with roots in West Africa—such as Santería—particularly when seeking immediate help for issues like fertility, illness, or business matters.

Despite the recent opening, censorship persists. Christian newspapers and magazines are banned from circulation on the island, and religious groups are barred from owning radio or television stations. The creation of denominations that did not exist before 1959 is also restricted.

Open Doors ranked Cuba as the most dangerous country in Latin America for Christians on its latest World Watch List, placing it 24th worldwide. Meanwhile, the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights reported at least 873 violations of religious freedom in 2025, including arbitrary detentions, intrusive surveillance, repeated interrogations, threats, harassment, and—in some cases—physical or verbal abuse of minors at school because of their religious beliefs.

News

Nigeria Evicts 40,000 from Floating Slum

Emmanuel Nwachukwu

Christians struggle to help displaced residents find shelter.

Residents evacuate in a boat following forceful eviction and demolition of homes in the Makoko slum in Nigeria.

Toyin Adedokun / Getty

Every Saturday morning, Joshua Idowu, 37, picks up his soccer cleats and a whistle and leaves his home in Makoko, a century-old fishing community in Nigeria’s Lagos State that’s known as the “Venice of Africa.” For 45 minutes he treks across the floating settlement of wooden homes sitting on stilts above the polluted Lagos Lagoon until he reaches a sandy playing field, or “pitch,” opposite Makoko.

More than 60 boys ages 7 to 15 have already arrived by boat or through neighborhood boardwalks, ready to play. He leads them through gospel songs and prayers in the local Egun language before beginning soccer drills. “I also use this as an opportunity to teach them [Christian] morals,” Idowu said.

The children in Makoko attend overpopulated and underresourced makeshift schools, so when Idowu started teaching soccer in July 2024, he hoped it would provide a future for some of the boys living in the slum.

Then, beginning in December, the government demolished many of their homes. Idowu said he hasn’t seen some of the boys since.

“The children had to either relocate with their parents or [start working to help] support those who lost their businesses to the demolitions,” Idowu said. “Nobody is sure what’s next for them.”

With little notice and no plans for alternative housing, the Lagos State government displaced thousands of Makoko residents. It claimed the demolition was necessary for safety reasons and urban renewal.

Amphibious excavators knocked homes off their stilts and crushed the fragile wooden structures, collapsing them and sending household possessions into the lagoon. The state government demolished over 3,000 homes in Makoko, with the United Nations estimating the mass evictions displaced more than 40,000 people. Before the evictions, up to 300,000 people called the settlement home.

When residents in Makoko resisted the demolitions with protests, armed police accompanying the evacuation teams fired tear gas at them. Ten humanitarian organizations objected that “armed thugs, security personnel and demolition teams … set [homes] on fire with little or no notice, in some cases while residents were still [inside].”

The Lagos State House of Assembly halted efforts in February due to the backlash.

In Nigeria and throughout Africa, country leaders view urban-renewal projects as an opportunity to increase land value, improve the environment, revitalize decaying neighborhoods, and keep up with Africa’s booming population. But poor planning and execution can result in mass evictions that leave families homeless and desperate.

The Lagos State government defended the Makoko operation, as Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu had said his administration set aside $2 million in 2021 to redevelop the Makoko waterfront to meet international standards, and assured residents the government would compensate them.

Idowu said residents have lost trust in the Lagos State government and doubt they will receive any compensation.

Nelson Ekujumi, who convened a press conference for Nigerian advocacy group Coalition for Good Governance, called the demolitions necessary because slums expose residents to floods, fires, and hazards caused by proximity to high voltage power lines: “From a regulatory standpoint, [the government’s] concerns are valid … and something ought to be done to correct the observed anomalies.”

Others disagree. Marcel Mbamalu, a Lagos-based researcher, argued the state’s government has a history of sacrificing the poor and ignoring human dignity during demolitions: “This history reveals a systemic pattern: communities are repeatedly cleared with minimal warning, scant compensation, and little workable relocation strategy.”

Andrew Samuel, whose house in Makoko was razed last December, told CT he couldn’t recover his properties—electronics, clothes, and furniture. He said the government had promised to demolish houses only within 50 to 100 meters from the neighborhood’s power line, but the amphibious excavator went farther.

“They didn’t even give me time to collect anything from my house,” Samuel said. “I watched them scatter everything I owned. Now I can’t even recognize where my house was built.”

One resident reported the government had demolished both her home and her church, of which her husband is the pastor.

Many residents sell fresh and dried seafood caught from the lagoon, earning $3 daily. Unable to afford alternative housing since the demolition, some are now living in canoes and in makeshift shelters.

Makoko is one of the more than 169 slums in Lagos that house about 60 percent of the state’s 17 million people, according to a 2025 State of Lagos Housing Market report. The government has targeted many of these slums for sporadic mass evictions and demolitions in the past few decades, including the rundown waterfront areas of the Ikota River corridor, the Lekki Axis, Oko-Baba Sawmill, Mile 2, and Third Mainland Bridge.

Though residents live in these shantytowns legally, they may have only informal claims to their homes, and Nigeria’s Land Use Act of 1978 allows the government to seize land for public use. This leaves people who live there with little protection.

During one mass eviction over a decade ago, the government gave Makoko residents only 72 hours to vacate their properties. Men later hacked down homes with machetes and power saws, leaving around 3,000 people homeless. Many sought shelter in boats or churches.

This year, residents of Makoko, Sogunro, and Oko-Agbon likewise received short evacuation notices before amphibious excavators demolished their homes.

Mass evictions across Africa follow similar patterns of forced removal. In 2025, Ethiopia’s government evicted thousands in Addis Ababa and other cities for a development project that included plans to build a palace. In 2023, security forces in Angola demolished more than 300 homes the government claimed residents had built illegally, which “jeopardiz[ed] the completion” of its development projects. In July 2018, a mass eviction in Nairobi, Kenya, left 10,000 slum residents without shelter, bringing down churches and health centers as well.

Olamide Ajayi, cofounder of The Slum Project, told CT that slum residents resist relocation even after demolition due to deep-rooted attachment: “You have those living in a particular place for over 35 years of their life. It’s going to take a lot of time and rewiring.”

For the past five years, The Slum Project has visited a different slum in Lagos every December, partnering with local churches to provide food, medicine, and scholarships to children. Volunteers also share the gospel with them, Ajayi said, “to ensure that we do not leave them the same way that we met them.”

But her organization doesn’t have the resources to help most displaced residents yet. “We do what we can,” Ajayi said. “Most of the [problems] are not within our control or theirs.”

In Makoko, Idowu is among the few Christians providing support to displaced residents. His church—Methodist Church Makoko, a Global Methodist congregation—shelters more than 40 people. Every night, men, women, and children spread their mosquito nets over woven mats, thin foam mattresses, or blankets laid on the bare concrete floor.

“It is quite unbearable,” he said. Food supplies are dwindling, and finding sanitary toilets, showers, and kitchens is difficult, Idowu said. Families also grapple with trauma after losing everything in a day. Idowu said displaced children may have to halt their education: “[Food and shelter are] what the parents will focus on now.”

Idowu worries he won’t be able to continue mentoring the missing boys from his soccer clinic. “They don’t have phones,” he told CT. “And I don’t know where they were relocated to.”

- More from Emmanuel Nwachukwu

Theology

Why I Changed My Mind on Bible Prophecy and Politics

Russell Moore

Columnist

“It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority.”

Illustration by Christianity Today / Source Image: WikiMedia Commons

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

Every time there’s a war or rumors of war in the Middle East, Americans start arguing over prophecy charts again. The onset of the Iran war is no exception. People debate about unverified reports—whether US service members are told they are fighting for Armageddon or whether some US or Israeli leaders expect a third temple in Jerusalem to result from this tumult in fulfillment of dispensationalist ideas about prophecy.

Prosperity gospel preacher John Hagee is still here, arguing from his pulpit that the Iran war is the prompt the Bible predicted for the end times, just as he was doing almost a quarter century ago with the Iraq War. There’s a relationship between how we view the end of the world and how we see the political events around us, but I’ve changed my mind on what that relationship is.

My doctoral dissertation was about how viewpoints on last things shaped evangelical Christian attitudes toward social and political engagement. In agreement with theologian Carl F. H. Henry’s important book The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism, I argued that overly utopian views of the thrust of history led to social gospel activism and thus usually to disillusionment. And I argued that overly pessimistic views of the kingdom of God—that history spirals downward until the sudden, cataclysmic coming of Christ, as in popular premillennialism—tend to deaden concern for social action that isn’t about winning souls to Christ.

I still agree with all of that. An understanding of the kingdom of God as a wholly present reality that can be brought in by human effort ultimately spawns a religion that is about social restructuring at the expense of personal renewal. And an understanding of the kingdom of God as a wholly future promise sees the world as a doomed project, for which the only remedy is for people to be rescued, soul by soul. Where I’ve changed is that I wonder whether, in 21st-century America at least, it’s not so much that end times theology influences politics as the other way around.

With the “kingdom now” category, we’ve had an entire century to see its trajectory. As Henry suggested in the 1960s, some churchgoers who aren’t sure whether Isaiah or Ephesians are the Word of God or not are fully confident about God’s position on energy policy. But these parts of the church tend not to have prophecy charts—unless it’s what “side of history” one should be on as it progresses.

What about the prophecy charts, though? Is that really the opposite problem—that these Christians are too focused on heaven, and their place in it, to be concerned about the things of earth? At least in some eras, the temptation of American Christianity has often been caricatured as a hyperspiritual otherworldliness. Is this why these Christians tend to think of love of neighbor only in the most individual and personal terms? For some, undoubtedly, that is the case. But for most of us, the fundamental problem is not otherworldliness but carnality. It’s not that we love the present world too little but that we love it too much.

What changed my mind on this is, first, how malleable the prophecy charts actually are. Here, I don’t mean the way certain pronouncements about the imminent end of the world have failed so repeatedly. The 1970s or 1980s, we were told, were the “terminal generation” because of the way Ezekiel clearly prophesied the European common market or the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan. Then the 1990s were the obvious end, because Saddam Hussein was allegedly reconstructing the Babylonian Empire.

When these things turn out not to be so clear after all, none of the prophecy teachers ever says, “Well, I was wrong. Let me go back to the Scriptures and see where I failed.” They usually just move to the next confident set of assertions. But the real problem of malleability isn’t so much the kind that takes years to track.

Instead, the problem is that now we can count on hearing certain answers whenever any political issue arises. For those who use Bible prophecy, the answer to “What will lead to the second coming of Christ?” always lines up with whatever their political tribe supports and can change as fast as that changes.

If the Iran war wraps up soon and the Iranian people finally have a free republic instead of a dictatorship, that will be, for some of these people, clearly the result foreseen in the Book of Daniel. If the war drags on for years, people who support the war will say, “Support the president,” and people who oppose the war will say, “This is the disaster the Bible foretold right before the coming of Christ.”

For some of these people, when the tribe was “America first” with no foreign interventions, that was God sparing the country from the “globalist” New World Order, and it was necessary for the second coming of Christ. And for some of these same people, now that President Trump is intervening in Venezuela and Iran, all this is prophesied, the right thing to do, and necessary for the second coming of Christ.

All of that is human. Very human. All too human.

But it’s more than that. It’s also that many people’s understanding of the kingdom of God seems to have different implications depending on the political or social questions at hand. For some on the “kingdom now” side, ushering in the kingdom meant supporting freedom, justice, and self-determination and denouncing authoritarianism and empire—unless the empire in question was the USSR or the authoritarians were Cuban.

And for the “kingdom future” people, there was always what we could call “the weave.” If the question was prohibition of alcohol, then God calls us to social action, to be salt and light in our world. If the question was Jim Crow, police-state segregation, then God forbids us to be distracted from saving souls by bringing politics into the church. And the same dynamic is at work in the same sectors today. Taking on abortion or gambling is Christians standing up for what is right (and I agree on both of those), but other matters the Bible takes up repeatedly—such as the treatment of the poor or partiality toward people on the basis of their race or ethnicity—are “social justice” and a “distraction.”

And so it goes.

Twenty-five years ago, I argued that an “already, not yet” framework of the kingdom is necessary for Christians to stop choosing between grace and justice, between love of God and love of neighbor, between regenerate hearts and thriving communities. I still think that. What I would change is that it’s not so much that we miss the what of the “already, not yet” but the who.

In what might be one of the most important passages in all of Scripture, Jesus said to his disciples, “The kingdom of God is not coming in ways that can be observed, nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you” (Luke 17:20–21, ESV throughout). Jesus himself is the kingdom of God in person. And he tells us not to be shaken by events, not to be conformed to this present age, but to keep looking to him.

Once we get bored by the actual Messiah, we will look for others. Once we lose our awe at the kingdom of God, we will look for other kingdoms. But the Christ of the kingdom frees us—from carnality pretending to be otherworldliness, from fear pretending to be conviction, from Machiavellianism pretending to be worldview, and from tribalism pretending to be community.

The kingdom of God—present already but not yet fulfilled—tells us what to care about (justice, peace, the poor, the vulnerable) while also shielding us from the disillusionment or bloodthirstiness that can come with expecting to have to bring the fullness of that kingdom on our own. As embodied in Jesus, the kingdom concerns us not just with outcomes but with ways and means, even as it prompts humility on how to get to those common goals.

I have no idea what will happen in Iran. I have no idea what will happen in the modern state of Israel. I have no idea whether we have 5 more minutes or 45 million more years before the Apocalypse. Jesus said, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority” (Acts 1:7).

Who needs a prophecy chart when we already have the Way?

Russell Moore is editor at large and columnist at Christianity Today as well as host of the weekly podcast The Russell Moore Show from CT Media.

Ideas

You Don’t Need a Decoder Ring Each Time You Suffer

Liz Hall, Kelly M. Kapic, and Jason McMartin

Two theologians and a psychologist on offering comfort for those in pain.

Illustration by Elizabeth Kaye / Source Images: Unsplash

“I know God is trying to teach me something. I just can’t figure out what,” Nicole said. She had suffered a devastating romantic disappointment, and she was hurt and angry—angry at the young man who had broken things off and angry at God, even though she was trying to behave in the “right” Christian way. So she had asked to meet me (Liz) for coffee to help her figure out what lesson she was supposed to learn. I worried more about the disruption in Nicole’s relationship with God than about her romantic heartache.

In looking for a decoder ring for her heartache, Nicole, like many of us, absorbed a way of thinking that sounds biblical but isn’t. In fact, “Everything happens for a reason” has become so ubiquitous it has drawn pushback. Kate Bowler’s best-selling memoir of that titlecaptures the common frustration when people offer the platitude as a comfort. The phrase has similar verbiage as Romans 8:28, but it empties the verse of its substance, replacing it with a cheap and easy bumper-sticker theology. Regrettably, it confuses cause with purpose and assumes we can decode God’s intentions.

Asking why God caused or allowed suffering quickly gets us into complex tangles. Often referred to as theodicy, a “defense of God,” this idea names our cultural obsession to find an answer for pain. We might also be surrounded by well-meaning friends who assume sufferers are primarily struggling with why God would allow difficulties and how God is still good when he allows us to hurt. Defaulting to some version of “Everything happens for a reason” is a vague way to imply that God is in control and has good intentions. But it isn’t psychologically or theologically helpful.

As we’ve found in our research, those who suffer are not primarily asking why questions but how questions. We interviewed 81 Christians with past or current cancer diagnoses, and when we asked whether they struggled with why they got cancer, many of them replied, “Why not?” They pointed to the brokenness of the world as the cause of their suffering. Instead of asking why questions, they were trying to figure out how to get through the week. When we assume sufferers have primarily philosophical questions, we may misdiagnose their problems and thus apply the wrong remedy.

In another study, we asked a large sample of practicing American Protestant Christians going through suffering how much they endorsed some of the most popular theological explanations. These included the idea that God exerts control and plans for every detail of our lives (“Everything happens for a reason”); the assumption that obedience to God always results in success, prosperity, and freedom from suffering; and the belief that God allows suffering to cause us to grow. We expected that holding theological beliefs that answered the why question would help mitigate the challenge. But that wasn’t the case.

Most of the proposed theodicies were irrelevant to people’s suffering, and how strongly they believed in a particular theodicy made no difference. Two of the theodicies actually correlated with worse outcomes: The more people believed God controls every detail of our lives and the more they saw God as allowing suffering to make them grow, the more distress they showed. When we try to comfort others by explaining why God allowed their suffering, it may add to their distress.

This doesn’t mean God never uses suffering pedagogically—Scripture clearly shows that he does (Heb. 12:7–11). But there’s a vital difference between God’s ultimate purposes and our attempts to decode the meaning of each trial. Instead of focusing on defending God’s actions, we should help people to see that God is present in their suffering and will never leave or forsake them, no matter how bad it feels. Even unto death, God remains with them and works to redeem the suffering.

That doesn’t mean we can’t help those who suffer. Instead of focusing on the why, we can focus on the how and the what for. After all, the Bible says very little about why God allows suffering, but it does provide abundant resources for how to go through it. Questions like “How is God showing up?” or “What might God be up to?” are most helpful. In our interviews, many participants said they cared deeply whether God had a purpose for their suffering.

Saying God has a purpose for suffering neither negates divine sovereignty nor means the point of suffering is a lesson. A believer’s suffering is not meaningless. This is different from saying God has directly caused the suffering, thinks it’s good, or has some immediately discernible purpose.

A brief theological clarification will help. From Genesis through Revelation, Scripture affirms God as the king and sovereign over all creation. In one sense, as creator and sustainer of this world, God is responsible for all things. His holiness and justice imply that he will ultimately set the whole world right.

In our current place in history, however, the world and our lives are broken and suffering. In handling these tensions, the ancients found it helpful to distinguish between primary and secondary causation: We live, move, and have our being in God (Acts 17:28), so all we do is possible only because of his sustaining presence and power. (God is the “primary cause” of all things.) Yet the ancients also spoke of secondary causation. For example, while terrorists have beating hearts and continue to breathe because God sustains them, that doesn’t mean God thinks it is good when they hijack airplanes to fly into the Twin Towers. God condemns those actions. He is not indifferent to wickedness, injustice, human suffering, and the disruption of justice and peace. We know God is sovereign and opposes greed, infidelity, and abusive violence—but somehow, in patience and grace, God sovereignly allows these actions to occur under his rule.

The participants in our surveys revealed helpful insights into pastoral care. They saw that God could take their suffering and turn it into something good. This didn’t require them to call the suffering good or to adopt clichés in place of good theology. As one participant said, “Instead of saying, ‘Why is this happening?,’ I said, ‘What do you want me to do with this?’” That turn from asking why to affirming, “God is with me in the suffering, so how should I respond?” made all the difference.

While Romans 8:28 can be a superficial answer to suffering, it is also a pivotal and powerful declaration of God’s intentions. God takes the brokenness of our circumstances (the “all things” of the verse) and makes them useful in his loving purposes. The verse says nothing about causes but much about purposes.

It’s important to look at the verses surrounding Romans 8:28. Verse 29 tells us “good” means becoming like Jesus. Verse 30 shows the arc of God’s actions: calling, justifying, and glorifying. The good stands beyond a solid marriage or a healed body, though we should also bring those goals to our Father. Even becoming like Jesus is not the final purpose of suffering but a necessary step toward the ultimate goal: being drawn into loving closeness with God our Father as beloved members of his family. We see this through the rest of the chapter: Verses 14–18 show the Spirit’s role in revealing God’s fatherly love, and the chapter ends with the assurance of this abiding love, manifest in Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection, that survives even death.

Romans 8, from start to finish, shows God’s grand and ultimate purposes that he accomplishes through our suffering. More specific purposes are left unexplained. Is he building courage in us? Perhaps. Is he helping us to become more compassionate? Maybe. Is he providing opportunities for us to point our friends and neighbors to his goodness? Could be.

While it can be helpful to recognize some of the ways God uses our pain, trying to help people find the sole reason for their suffering runs the risk of trivializing it. I (Kelly) recently spent time with an older man who suffers from chronic and immobilizing pain. He told me he had thought his sanctification would slowly improve, especially since suffering is supposed to draw a person near to God. But his experiences have been up and down through the years. Some days were full of spiritual sweetness, while many were filled with wrestling with sin in ways that felt suffocating.

What characterizes those who come through suffering well? Earlier, we noted that most—about two-thirds—of our interviewees did not struggle with questions about why their maladies happened. Two things characterized these people: First, they leaned into God’s loving control over their circumstances, reporting striking experiences of God’s availability and nearness. Second, they had intellectual humility about both God’s reasons and his purposes for allowing their cancer.

Those who weathered their diagnoses best weren’t those who had found “the reason.” They were those who reacted like the participant who concluded this:

God has brought me through this cancer for a reason. And I don’t understand it. I don’t really have an answer as to why I think I got cancer. But do I have a closer relationship now with God? Yes. Do I understand where my home really lies? Yes. It’s not going to matter, because in the end I’m going to be with the Lord. What I think I’m going to need to understand may not be that important when you get there.

This is the intellectual humility—and relational confidence—that carries believers through. This is also why the best preparation for our suffering is not to study philosophical treatments of theodicy but to grow in intimacy with and healthy dependence upon God.

If you’re in Nicole’s position, suffering and searching for the lesson, give yourself permission not to know. God’s purposes may be larger than you can see, longer than your lifetime, or simply not yet revealed. Trust that not knowing the purpose doesn’t mean there isn’t one. What God has revealed is his desire to draw you closer to him—and his desire to be present in your suffering, loving you and working all things (even terrible things) toward the good of making you more like Jesus and in this way helping you experience how “wide and long and high and deep” is his love in Christ (Eph. 3:18).

Kelly M. Kapic is the author and editor of over 20 books and holds the honorary chair of theology and culture at Covenant College. Liz Hall is professor of psychology at Biola University and associate editor of Psychology of Religion and Spirituality. Jason McMartin is professor of theology at Biola University. The authors’ cowritten book, When the Journey Hurts, releases in April.

- More from Liz Hall, Kelly M. Kapic, and Jason McMartin

Ideas

We Should Demand More from MAHA

Matthew Loftus

Contributor

RFK Jr. and surgeon general nominee Casey Means identify real problems in American health and medicine. But their solutions are lacking.

Getty / Edits by CT

President Donald Trump’s nominee to be surgeon general, Dr. Casey Means, has made a lot of good points about the flaws in America’s health care system and our general approach to health and medicine. The Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement started by Health and Human Services secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has observed a lot of problems that need to be fixed. Unfortunately, neither Means nor the rest of the MAHA movement has much in the way of solutions.

In Means’s book Good Energy, she writes that many of our health problems today are the result of “too much sugar, too much stress, too much sitting, too much pollution, too many pills, too many pesticides, too many screens, too little sleep, and too little micronutrients.” Some of those things are more dangerous than others, but everyone agrees that too much sugar and not enough exercise are bad. A policy agenda focused on these hazards to our health would be welcome.

Unfortunately, RFK Jr. and the institutional MAHA movement have little to show after a year at the helm.

They’ve goaded individual manufacturers into taking artificial dyes out of certain products—at best a symbolic victory and at worst, in the words of farmer Garth Brown, “playing into the hands” of food companies that got us into this mess. They’ve completely folded on pesticides, yielding to agribusiness advocates within the Trump administration.

They’ve sowed doubt about vaccines. They came out with a new food pyramid that seems to reflect advances in scientific knowledge, but without any other policy directives it’s unlikely to change anyone else’s behavior. If significant improvements in health arrive during the next few years, it’s more likely that the wide rollout of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic will be responsible than social media posts from the HHS secretary.

Changing health behaviors is critical to getting control over chronic diseases. Means complains in her book that doctors are too quick to prescribe pills when “an ultra-aggressive stance on diet and behavior would do far more for the patient in front of them.” Means, who didn’t finish her ear, nose, and throat residency and doesn’t hold an active license to practice medicine, makes a good point. But has she ever sat with recalcitrant patients and tried an “ultra-aggressive stance on diet and behavior” with them?

Anyone who has practiced primary care medicine, as I have for over a decade, will tell you it’s not as simple as that. In fact, most patients will avoid coming back to your office if you try to be “ultra-aggressive” about any behavior in their lives. Means and RFK Jr. overestimate the power that individual lectures from doctors have on their patients’ choices and habits, which is not surprising considering that neither of them has ever treated chronic diseases like hypertension and diabetes over the long run.

Hyping the dangers of ultraprocessed foods may get lots of views and likes on social media, but it doesn’t tip the scale for a tired mom who just wants an easy dinner for her kids on a Wednesday night in between school and soccer practice. Accusing doctors of prescribing too many pills sounds good, but doctors who are dealing with real people in their offices prescribe pills because they want their patients to get better. What will make a difference, then?

Perhaps the most important thing that can be done at an institutional level is finding ways to make good food cheaper and more easily available. The MAHA movement has long called for a reduction in subsidies for crops like corn and soy that get turned into ultraprocessed food, but so far the Trump administration has not touched those payments, and the price of fresh fruits and vegetables has not changed much in the past year. The Department of Health and Human Services should also work with Congress to improve school lunches, which will require more funding because good food is not always the cheapest.

If we want more intensive lifestyle changes and help for the people most affected by chronic diseases, then dedicated community health nurses are more effective and less expensive than doctors. A lot of MAHA content is directed toward people who have the money to buy pricey organic food. But these nurses and other community health promoters are far better at caring for people who have suffered the most from decades of too much sugar and too much sitting.

Means quit a surgical residency, but her interests seem far more suited to primary care. In fact, I can imagine quite a different path for Means had she simply done her training in a specialty, like family medicine or pediatrics, where it’s still possible (if increasingly unusual) for patients to have continuous, lifelong relationships with their doctors. She very briefly had a boutique “functional medicine” practice where she could not prescribe medications, but in recent years she has focused far more on selling specialty products with unproven health benefits. Would she have pursued a career as a health influencer—including taking psychedelics and using mediums to open herself up to demonic powers—if her medical career had been built around meaningful interactions with patients?

I train medical students, interns, and residents nearly every day as part of my work as a family doctor. These trainees, because they have more classroom experience than clinical time treating patients, often come up with diagnoses and prescriptions that sound good on paper but won’t work because they don’t have the wisdom that comes after seeing and treating many patients. They don’t know what they don’t know, and when they’re not carefully supervised, they can do more harm than good.

Means reminds me of them, demonstrating the overconfidence that comes with a little bit of knowledge and the foibles of a movement better at social media than governing or healing. Americans should demand a better candidate for our nation’s top doctor—and demand more from the MAHA movement as a whole.

Matthew Loftus lives with his family in Kenya, where he teaches and practices family medicine at a mission hospital. His book Resisting Therapy Culture: The Dangers of Pop Psychology and How the Church Can Respond is forthcoming from InterVarsity Press.

- More from Matthew Loftus

Ideas

Hope for Freedom for Iran, but Expect a Mess for America

Bonnie Kristian

Staff Editor

Trump rightly campaigned against “endless wars” and nation building in the Middle East. His war on Iran is likely to repeat those very errors.

Smoke rises from a strike on Tehran on March 3, 2026.

Atta Kenare / Contributor / Getty / Edits by CT

Back in the early 2000s, in the final days of the American bumper sticker, there was one that repeatedly caught my eye. It was designed to look like an odometer or the reels on a slot machine—those little wheels with numbers or letters that rotate to track distance or to spell a word. This one had four spots, the first three set to I–R–A. At the end, a Q was sliding out of the fourth spot, and an N moved into its place.

That slide was slower than many anticipated, but two decades later, the United States is at war with Iran. Anyone of good conscience must hope it all works out for the Iranian people: that civilian lives are scrupulously spared, that the oppressive theocracy in Tehran falls, that a free, safe, and prosperous Iran soon emerges from the rubble.

That’s certainly my hope. But the past quarter century of US foreign policy suggests that it’s a hope in vain and that Iran will follow Iraq in more than mere chronology.

American wars of regime change in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya proved bloody, costly, and counterproductive, rife with unintended consequences for the security of the United States and the stability of the greater Middle East. And the broader record of recent US military intervention in the region—in Yemen, Somalia, and Syria—is hardly more encouraging. It’s no coincidence that our last three presidents all campaigned on ending this kind of war.

And what our government is doing in Iran is a war, contrary to what some feckless congressional dissemblers have claimed. Much like former president Barack Obama’s intervention in Libya in 2011, President Donald Trump’s strikes on Iran constitute a war without constitutional authorization, national debate, demonstration of necessity, or a clear endgame. Holding on to hope almost feels like a fool’s errand.

Consider the legal basis for this war—or rather, its absence. The US Constitution vests Congress with the power to declare war, and the 2003 invasion of Iraq was prefaced by intense national debate and a vote to authorize the use of military force. That vote happened in October of 2002, and the invasion began in March of 2003.

This time around, it was apparent for weeks that President Donald Trump was seriously considering strikes on Iran. But he didn’t bother to ask Congress for approval, and Congress didn’t bother with debate.

Only after the war started did our lawmakers muster some action—if it even deserves that name. The Senate voted down a resolution that would have ended the war unless it were explicitly authorized by Congress, but those wastrels in the House truly outdid themselves, voting not to vote by blocking consideration of a nonbinding resolution. These votes largely broke along party lines, as is typical of disagreements on presidential power. Yet even Democratic lawmakers who say they’re opposed to the war show little sign of having spine enough to stop it.

The most prominent dissenter on the Republican side is Kentucky’s Sen. Rand Paul, who sponsored the failed Senate bill. “Americans were not asked if they would bear the burdens of war,” Paul wrote in an op-ed for Fox News. We were merely provided with a social media announcement in the small hours of the morning.

“Because there was no national discussion about going to war, we do not know whether ground troops will be used,” Paul continued:

We have no idea how long the war will last. We have no idea who will lead Iran after the death of the supreme leader. And we have no idea how many casualties the American people are supposed to tolerate. We cannot know the answer to these questions because no one bothered to make the case that war with Iran was worth the sacrifice.

These questions of necessity, purpose, and outcome are not trifling matters. They cannot be brushed aside with the false urgency presidents tend to foster when they don’t want to wait for congressional approval and popular support. (A Reuters/Ipsos poll published March 1 found just one in four Americans back the war.)

Recent comments from Trump indicate he has expansive ideas about Iran. Initially declaring that “all” he wants is “freedom for the people,” he has since added eliminating Iran’s nuclear program (ostensibly “obliterated” in strikes last summer), for Iran to have “no ballistic missiles,” and for “somebody that is rational and sane” to lead in Tehran. In a particularly bizarre moment, he speculated that Iran’s military forces may simply give their weapons to the very protesters they’ve been shooting. And as for timeline, there is none: “I have no time limits on anything,” Trump told Time magazine. “I want to get it done.”

That sounds suspiciously like the “endless wars” and nation building Trump campaigned against—and a boon for what’s left of the Iranian regime. Tehran remains in the hands of hardliners and has no hope of conventional conquest. But it might well be able to pull the United States into another generational morass, another ghastly waste of lives, money, and strength.

Late last month, Vice President JD Vance said there was “no chance” that “we’re going to be in a Middle Eastern war for years with no end in sight.” That too may be a hope in vain. With no meaningful accountability from Congress and a president known to keep every option on the table, we can only wait and see.

In the meantime, the sheer durability of this pattern—of the American people voting for presidents who promise peace, only to have those very presidents start more wars—is discouraging. Hopeless, even. That’s the word I want to use, overwhelmed with a sense of déjà vu here at the end of yet another article about lawless presidential warmaking in the Middle East.

In a sense, perhaps, hopeless is the right word where mundane politics are concerned. “As a dog returns to its vomit, so fools repeat their folly” (Prov. 26:11), and it never serves to put our “trust in princes, in human beings, who cannot save” (Ps. 146:3). These are the passages that keep coming to mind as I follow the news from Iran. What else can I think?

But difficult though it may be amid the rising fog of war, I remind myself—and you—that neither this war nor any war or evil will have the final say. That we can and should look to a day without grimly circular news cycles, without violence and tyranny and strife and lies. That death itself will be destroyed, along with “all dominion, authority and power,” all error and inhumanity and moral sloth (1 Cor. 15:24–28).

We can count on it. And we can look with greater eagerness for the coming of that prince of peace of Matthew 12, who “will not quarrel or cry out,” who brings “justice through to victory,” and in whose “name the nations will put their hope.”

Bonnie Kristian is deputy editor at Christianity Today.

- More from Bonnie Kristian

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