Some Christian Schools Take On the Cost of Inclusive Education

Megan Fowler

Despite the challenges of accommodating ADHD and other learning difficulties in the classroom, advocates see the missional benefits.

Illustration by Elizabeth Kaye / Source Images: Getty

All four of Jessica Borisch’s kids have attended Dutton Christian School (DCS), a school serving pre-K through eighth grade students outside Grand Rapids, Michigan.

With her youngest, though, things were different. In first grade, Gabe had trouble sitting still. In second, he struggled to adjust to instruction during pandemic lockdowns. By fifth grade, schoolwork was too much for him to get through.

Borisch got him tested. Gabe’s ADHD, she learned, made it hard for him to stay focused on classroom tasks. He needed more support.

Research shows that as many as 1 in 3 kids with ADHD (attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder) don’t get the school services they need. In public schools, students can receive accommodations for ADHD, including quieter workspaces or adjusted directions for assignments. In private Christian schools, administrators may worry that accepting students with learning challenges will take away from the experience of other students in the classroom.

And without taxpayer funding for such programs, many Christian schools must raise money themselves to cover the additional costs for specialists, said Susan Verheul, vice president of executive initiatives at the Association of Christian Schools International.

DCS sees providing education for all students as part of its mission and partners with the All Belong Center for Inclusive Education to provide assessments and resources for neurodiverse students. All Belong works with nearly a hundred Christian schools, including 50 in Michigan, where it’s headquartered.

To evaluate Gabe for attention issues, DCS had All Belong conduct a comprehensive assessment of his strengths and struggles. They gathered information from Gabe, his parents, and his teachers and evaluated his academic progress and attentiveness.

With the help of All Belong, Gabe gets extra help to stay on task in his regular classroom, and he also attends pullout classes with a group led by a special education teacher. Gabe’s teacher reformats his study guides using pictures, graphs, and flow charts, which his brain can process easier than lists of text. Plus, teachers alert parents of upcoming assignments ahead of time since time management can be harder for students with ADHD.

“One thing I appreciate is that they give different tests that help them demonstrate they grasp central concepts but without some of the less-relevant information,” said Borisch. “Sometimes he takes the same tests as his fellow neurotypical students to see how he handles it, and he is so proud when he does well. He’s still being pushed, but also accommodated.”

All Belong CEO Becky Tubergen sees inclusion as an opportunity. In her view, teaching students and teachers to work with ADHD students not only expands their ability to accept others but also expands their vision for the kingdom of God.

This kind of work requires teachers to invest a lot of time on the front end. But much of teaching already is front-loaded, like teaching students the classroom rules and procedures early so they can lean into those routines throughout the school year.

“It’s about building relationships,” said Tubergen, “and that’s not an extraordinary thing.”

While Christian organizations (including the Wheaton Center for Faith and Disability) are speaking out about welcoming and supporting students of all abilities, few are offering the kind of training and resources All Belong does.

Founded in 1979 as the Christian Learning Center, the ministry helped launch one of the earliest inclusive education programs in West Michigan and went on to advocate for tuition equity within Christian schools so parents of kids with disabilities didn’t have to pay additional fees.

The rise of the school choice movement could play a role in more private schools accommodating students with ADHD and other learning difficulties. With state voucher programs expanding—including education savings accounts (ESAs) universally available in 11 states—more families are eyeing private options.

Texas’ recently passed ESA program allows special education students to access up to $30,000 per year for tuition. In the meantime, public school systems worry that diverting funds will disproportionately harm their support for students with special needs.

All Belong’s training urges Christian educators to resist seeing students who have trouble sitting still or following directions as sinfully defiant. Drawing from Christian and secular research, the ministry’s “See-Think-Do” method prompts teachers to observe students to find patterns in their behavior rather than jumping in to correct it.

“God has designed the student uniquely, and we want to be curious about the learner, not the label,” said Betsy Winkle, All Belong’s director of student services and chief operating officer. “This is beneficial for that particular learner but also helps kids see the fullness of God’s kingdom and what it means to see each other well.”

It can sting when parents who want to educate their kids in Christian settings find that a school either won’t admit children with learning disabilities or won’t provide accommodations for neurodivergent students.

Such families often hear no from several schools before they get a yes, said Carolyn Beall, educational support programs director at Annapolis Area Christian School (AACS).

It’s not uncommon, she said, for a Christian school to build out support for one or two students, then do away with it once they graduate.

When a family with several children at AACS wanted the school to admit their daughter with Down syndrome and offered to help fund a program, school leaders wanted to invest in something that would be sustainable.

Up until then, the school had only a tutoring program for students with learning disabilities. It was expensive, almost doubling the cost of tuition. Superintendent Rick Kempton, who previously spent 28 years advocating for inclusion at a Christian school in California, was convinced there was a better way.

The journey brought the school to All Belong. But it’s not easy to change an entire educational ethos. It takes buy-in from budgets, families, and teachers themselves. Kempton took a group of teachers who were skeptical about inclusion to visit the ministry’s headquarters.

“I knew if I got them on board they would win the day for us, and they did,” Kempton said.

Kempton then hired Beall, who had worked for 15 years in special education in the Annapolis, Maryland, public schools, to develop a robust program to accommodate learning disabilities.

“It’s hard, and there have been lots of challenges with teachers saying, ‘This is too hard. I have been teaching like this my whole career, and I can’t do things differently,’” she said. “When you can talk to them about how each child in the room is made in God’s image, they usually have the heart for it.”

Kempton said he had to constantly remind the faculty that God called the school to this ministry and they are all in it together. He reminded the faculty that they were making a difference not only in the life of each child but also in whole families.

“We embraced the idea that we are ministering to this family, partnering with this family, and can’t tell this family that some of their children can come but one cannot,” he said.

Today, AACS has 850 students across four campuses, and 20 percent of those students receive some kind of extra support. For half those students, it’s for ADHD.

AT DCS in Michigan, 50 of the 654 students in kindergarten through eighth grade have an ADHD diagnosis.

Cindy Groot, the school’s director of educational support services, said teachers struggle most to create learning plans for students every year—to write out what each child needs in the classroom and monitor goals. But they don’t do it alone: DCS provides specialists, enrichment coordinators, paraprofessionals, and All Belong to help.

“We are aware of challenges when there is a diagnosis, but we dig deeper to find out how we can best support them not only in their challenges but in their strengths,” said Groot. Staff members prioritize “getting to know that child, which is different than looking at a diagnosis, and how to help them succeed academically.”

Borisch said the accommodations DCS provided for Gabe transformed his experience in middle school. Gabe and his classmates are taught that God made each child and values them all as they are, and they treat each other accordingly.

“Tolerance is so off the charts at Dutton that it blows my mind,” she said.

- More from Megan Fowler

Inkwell

Stock the Library of Your Mind

Nadya Williams

Good writing flows from a lifetime of good reading.

"In Prison" by Cyprian Kamil Norwid

In a dark, dank prison, a man is writing, intent on the scroll in front of him. He is unsure if he will live to finish this work, but he hopes he will. He still has much more to say. Sometimes he wonders, Will anyone read it? Or will this work, the greatest of his life, be heartlessly fed to the fire after his death? And if readers find it, what will they think of it?

But there is no time to waste on these questions, the unknowns. He rushes ahead, eager to get ideas down on the fragile scroll before he forgets, or before they come for him, as they so surely will one day soon.

In AD 423, Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius was imprisoned on a charge of treason and executed the following year. We best remember him today not for the injustice he suffered but for what he accomplished during his imprisonment. Awaiting his death, Boethius composed a stunning work that has received well-deserved and renewed attention of late: The Consolation of Philosophy.

The story of how Boethius wrote this unusual book of dialogue with Lady Philosophy is also the story of one glaring absence: library access for the author. You can’t tell it while reading his work, but once you see it, you can’t unsee.

How can a man write an entire book like this, quoting poetry, summarizing ideas, covering the Greco-Roman canon so thoroughly and precisely, all from memory? This case is a strong testimony to the existence of an extraordinarily well-stocked library housed in the author’s mind.

We all possess our own distinctive “libraries of the mind,” literary scholar William Marx argues in his new book by this title. Each of us owns an invisible library that keeps growing over the course of a lifetime, shaping us into the people we become.

It is a rather chaotic process, of course, completed in stages. Lifelong readers begin stocking their inner library from a young age. From the first book someone ever read to you as an infant, the construction project of your inner library began.

In these early years, perhaps the library was stocked with simple classics. Inevitably, some of these earliest books eventually became forced into a sort of mental backroom storage in your mind, where they now dwell in the subconscious.

My six-year-old daughter recently came across Are You My Mother? and had no recollection of us ever reading it to her, even as the book still bears distinctive marks of toddler-chewing on the cover. But then, upon re-reading, the sweet tale of the bird and the Scary Snort who helped it get back in the nest came flooding back.

The library of the mind is no static, fixed entity. It keeps expanding as long as you keep reading—and gets cobwebby with neglect. It’s not just the stories or plots of certain books that shape the reader but also poignant turns of phrase. Entire short poems or snippets stick in our mind for the long haul, and mental images take shape when reading, jumping off the page and into our lives. I often find particular Bible verses or hymns coming to mind in a given situation.

For Boethius, it was these books, the fruit of a lifetime of reading, that gave him the imagination and the beautiful words that comforted him in prison. Consolation of Philosophy is, at its heart, the story of the consolation that books will grace lifelong readers with in their moments of deepest distress.

I have recently begun the position of interim director of the MFA in Creative Writing program at Ashland University. I find myself asking, How might I encourage the next generation of Christian creative writers? As of this August, it is my job to seek good answers to this question.

The program has not previously had a distinctive focus, and enrollment has dwindled to the low single digits. I am now rebuilding the program with a new focus on training creative writers for the public good and for the good of the church. And I keep returning to the Boethian answer to the question of what is essential for this program.

Really, every single one of us must read more, and this is especially true for creatives. We must read more than we write. For those coming into the MFA, everything must begin with cultivating a personal library of the mind and the soul. From what fount will the writing flow, otherwise?

I worry that for too many writers today, creativity comes from within. You are your own muse and rescuer, ready to resolve any difficulty in your life or writing (and the two surely overlap and inform each other) with just the right degree of caffeine and medicinal cheesecake or chocolate. All writing becomes, by default, memoir—the grittier the better. The model of Boethius provides a different model: Good writing flows from a lifetime of good reading.

The modern view of creativity as coming from within rather than from the riches of earlier tradition is not unique to writers. As trust in institutions is at an all-time low, tradition and authority have become dirty words, and the circle of acceptable influences has shrunk.

Taken to its logical conclusions, reading becomes unnecessary if inspiration is found chiefly within the writer. But the results are not only narcissistic, they are also remarkably boring and unoriginal. In contrast, think of every great writer you have ever read. I guarantee that every single one of them has been a voracious reader.

Indeed, while I am beginning student recruitment for the program, I must admit that some of the best writers historically did not hold an MFA or receive any sort of training in writing. After all, a degree specifically in creative writing is a fairly recent concept. Instead, the best writers have always been prolific readers.

Consider Abraham Lincoln. With less than a year of formal schooling, he was an autodidact, simply reading and learning on his own—reading his way successfully into a career in law. As we read any of his writings now, such as the famous Gettysburg Address, we have to admit that he had a way with words. But his gift did not come from within. Lincoln’s writings are suffused, in particular, with biblical language, because his library of the mind was steeped in the imagery of the Bible.

More recently, consider the classic example of the Inklings. Though most of them were academics by training, we do not know them for their scholarly publications. Instead, the incredible library of the mind that each had accumulated from a life spent immersed in classical and medieval literature, philology and linguistics, the Bible, philosophy, and theology yielded the fruit of works that now undergird our contemporary understanding of Christian storytelling. Their inspiration was in the Boethian mode—one that I would now like to bottle and spritz on aspiring poets, novelists, and essayists!

The source of Boethian creativity takes years—decades, really. Our reading life, after all, is cumulative. C. S. Lewis had accumulated a rich library of the mind because he had been reading mythology, literature, and everything else he could get his hands on since childhood.

But what about prospective writers who have not grown up around books, only to discover a love for poetry in high school or college? Not everyone begins in the same place. But one must begin somewhere, sometime, someplace. Why not now?

Read words that will make you stop whatever else you had thought of doing to stay with the book. It might be the sort of book or essay or poem you cannot set down until you have finished it.

Or it might be one that makes you stop mid-paragraph. Then, settled into a reverie, you experience that out-of-body experience that only graces quiet readers—the delight of the words gently seeping into your very bones.

Nadya Williams is books editor for Mere Orthodoxy and author of Cultural Christians in the Early Church (2023); Mothers, Children, and the Body Politic (2024); and Christians Reading Classics (2025). Find her on Substack at Cultural Christians in the Early Church.

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Books

The Apocalypse Has Two Faces

Jeffrey Bilbro

But a frustrating new attempt to chart its cultural history does little to unveil either one.

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

It is hard to imagine a more tiresome book about a more fascinating subject than Ed Simon’s The Dove and the Dragon: A Cultural History of the Apocalypse.

The book’s premise is intriguing: a sweeping intellectual history of apocalyptic thought from the Zoroastrians to QAnon. And Simon promises to interpret this history through his “schema,” which revolves around two categories: “the gentle dove,” symbolic of “hopes for a coming millennium when all shall be perfected,” and “the vengeful dragon,” defined as “an emissary of destruction, a creature of fire who comes to annihilate.”

You could write an illuminating and important book showing how artists, politicians, and religious leaders have deployed these two apparently opposing visions across the centuries. Indeed, such a book might reveal the complicated ways they actually depend on one another. Unfortunately, that book remains to be written, though Simon has at least gathered plenty of raw material to inspire a future author.

Things begin to fall apart from the outset as factual and syntactic errors pile up. Simon quotes from “David” Alter’s The Art of Biblical Poetry while making an argument the actual scholar, Robert Alter, refutes in that book. Elsewhere, he draws a dubious comparison between the 1572 St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, in which French Catholic mobs massacred Protestant countrymen, and the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution. “A single night” of the first event, he asserts, “killed three times as many people” as the entirety of the second. Almost no historian would agree with this claim, which is likely why he cites none.

The plague of Justinian supposedly occurred “a century” before the 14th-century Black Death (Justinian was emperor in the sixth century). A discussion of the 19th-century preacher William Miller, who predicted Christ would return in 1843 or 1844, appears under the heading “The Burned-Over Country: America’s First Great Awakening.” Miller, of course, was active during the Second Great Awakening. I will spare you instances of garbled grammar; dangling modifiers, for instance, recur often.

These errors don’t inspire confidence in Simon’s idiosyncratic and usually unsubstantiated assertions. A few examples: The canonization of Revelation “was a seminal accident” based on confusion about its author’s identity, but the Quran was “divinely imparted” to Muhammad. “The cause of the American Revolution was fundamentally religious and millennial”—apparently taxation and representation were inconsequential. The alliance between evangelicals and Catholics opposing abortion owes to evangelical millennialism rather than any shared convictions about the sanctity of life. Because of the atomic bomb’s destructive power, “history thus divides before and after 1945 in a manner that no other event matches in significance, certainly not the birth of Christ.” Ronald Reagan was “agnostic.”

What does all this have to do with apocalypse as dove or dragon? I have no idea, and if Simon knows, he isn’t telling.

In lieu of real analysis, we get authoritative-sounding, cryptic declarations: “The French Revolution was both fulfillment and negation of the Enlightenment.” “If apocalypse wasn’t real it would be necessary to invent it, and so we did.” “Just as every millennium necessitates an apocalypse, so every apocalypse may reveal a millennium.”

When Simon does recall his opening promise to interpret events and figures through the dove-and-dragon paradigm, the results are banal. Muhammad, he writes, comes “in the guise of both the dragon and the dove, just like Christ.” Moore’s law, an Intel cofounder’s hypothesis regarding periodic improvements in computing power, “signaled either the emergence of an apocalyptic dragon, of a millennial dove, or both.” The book never elucidates such koan-like claims.

Part of the problem is that Simon’s working definition of apocalypse is so expansive as to be nearly meaningless. Sometimes he hews close to a standard definition: the end of history as we know it and, at least on the Christian account, the return of Christ. But apparently many other events or rhetorical habits count as well. Identifying one’s geopolitical enemies as the Antichrist, for instance. Any revolution, any disruptive historical event, anything that “unveils” anything. “Revolution is millennium,” he instructs us. In fact, almost anything “new” merits inclusion in Simon’s litany: He interprets a question from French American writer J. Hector St. John de Crèvecœur—“What then is the American, this new man?”—as “Edenic” and “millennial” in equal measure.

One might aptly describe the book’s structure, like the structure of many of its sentences, as a tedious concatenation of loosely related characters, incidents, and observations. There is no discernible narrative thread, no analytic framework to speak of, merely a catalog of undigested historical anecdotes.

Simon’s own summation of his study’s payoff reveals just how trivial it is. As he writes on the last page (with another typo), “If a reading of this book demonstrates anything, it’s that that every century has a contingent of people, both smaller and larger depending on circumstance, who are convinced that they’re living in the last days.” I’m not sure he needed 238 pages to demonstrate this. Whether T. S. Eliot is right to say the world will end “not with a bang but a whimper,” that is certainly how this book ends.

Nevertheless, sifting through the myriad examples gathered here, one glimpses the possibility of a more illuminating narrative. Across the centuries, threats and promises of apocalypse have served both to control and to comfort. Often, the promise of comfort relies on a related promise to bring some semblance of control to a chaotic or oppressive situation.

If you are afflicted—a member of a persecuted sect in a powerful empire, say—then it makes sense to imagine the peaceable kingdom coming in the wake of a definitive, divine judgment. Only after God casts Satan and his works into the lake of fire can such people hope to see the lion lie down with the lamb and the New Jerusalem descend from the heavens. It’s no wonder that the enslaved, the colonized, the proletariat were drawn to Girolamo Savonarola’s searing rhetoric against Renaissance-era corruptions, Nat Turner’s slave uprising, Miller’s prophecies, Joseph Smith’s new revelation, or Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels’s secularized vision of eternal peace and justice.

Yet time and again, as many of these examples indicate, this yearning to judge God’s enemies and usher in a harmonious kingdom takes an ugly turn. Gurus, cult leaders, or demagogues co-opt this vision to consolidate their own power rather than to remove political or economic barriers preventing judgment from running down as waters and righteousness as a mighty stream.

Thus it was that crusades waged in the name of holy war and liberation led to the massacre of European Jews and Eastern Christians. And that Communist ideology provided rhetorical justification for some of the most oppressive regimes in the 20th century. And that Nazism leveraged a sense of grievance and a promise to usher in a new millennium, the Third Reich, to gain widespread support for genocide.

The great promise of Christ’s return, however, differs fundamentally. Only God himself, not any human ruler, can inaugurate the Apocalypse. Scripture makes this point memorably in Daniel 5, with its account of the disembodied hand appearing during King Belshazzar’s grand feast. Daniel translates its mysterious “writing on the wall,” informing the arrogant king that God has numbered the days of his kingdom, has weighed him and found him wanting, and has given his kingdom to the Medes and Persians (vv. 26–28).

The unexpected demise of Babylon is a dramatic unveiling—in keeping, thematically, with Daniel’s later revelations. What is revealed? That God is the ultimate king and judge. That unjust rulers, no matter how entrenched they seem, will one day be overthrown.

In this way, a Christian apocalyptic hope relativizes all claims to earthly power. Empires will fall. The martyrs will reign with Christ. While some have twisted this confidence in God’s supreme sovereignty to justify passive acceptance of injustice on earth, this certainty has also freed many for humble, redemptive work. By lifting the impossible burden of saving the world from our shoulders, this eschatological hope liberates us to give ourselves—like Daniel—in faithful service, confident that God’s rule will be revealed in God’s time.

Jeffrey Bilbro is professor of English at Grove City College and editor in chief at Front Porch Republic. His most recent book is Words for Conviviality: Media Technologies and Practices of Hope.

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News

DC Churches to Trump: Stay Out of Our Parking Lots

Haleluya Hadero

Ministers protest presence of federal officers scaring people away from houses of worship.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) vehicles in Washington DC.

Andrew Leyden / Stringer / Getty

Black and mainline Protestant clergy in Washington, DC, are demanding that immigration officials stop using their church parking lots.

“We want to remind those federal entities that the property of houses of worship is private and therefore should not be used without expressed permission from those worshipping entities,” the coalition wrote in a public letter signed by nearly two dozen religious and community leaders, including some who work with interfaith and social justice organizations.

Immigration arrests have spiked under President Donald Trump, who has made deportations and large-scale roundups a cornerstone of his second term. Shortly after he was inaugurated, Trump reversed a decades-long policy that prevented officials from carrying out enforcement in churches and other religious institutions. Christian and Jewish groups challenged the new policy in court, arguing it has led to more surveillance. But in April, a federal judge sided with the administration.

In their letter, the DC ministers say that if Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers or other federal officials park on their property, it can make it look as if they support the Trump administration’s move to police the city as well as the “disappearance of our neighbors, family members, and friends.”

Patricia Fears, the pastor of Fellowship Baptist Church, a predominantly Black congregation in the northwest quadrant of Washington, told CT she has heard from roughly ten Black and Latino churches that said they’ve seen either ICE vehicles or unknown cars, some of which carried masked men, in their parking lots. ICE did not comment for this story.

Fears, who organized the letter with an interfaith organization, said officers weren’t arresting congregants but using the church lots to stage operations and detain people nearby. The presence of federal officers limits ministry. Some people, including undocumented immigrants, are staying away from the churches, she said.

“It really causes people not to come to a place where they should and could have peace,” Fears told CT. Over the weekend, she said, she was asked to go and pray privately with people whose loved ones were arrested, including some who went to work and never came back.

Graylan Hagler, who organized the letter with Fears and serves as a senior adviser to the progressive interfaith organization Fellowship of Reconciliation USA, said in an email that he began hearing reports from local clergy after Trump announced earlier this month that he would put National Guard troops in the district.

The ministers who signed the letter are also calling on other houses of worship not to allow federal law enforcement to use their property “for any means as long as Home-Rule,” which has given DC limited self-governance for decades, “is not respected.”

The Trump administration has argued a federal takeover of the city police department is necessary to quell high crime rates in DC. But critics, including many Democrats, note the district’s violent crime rate is at its lowest level in decades and have accused Trump of using racial tropes about urban crime to justify the takeover. Partisan bickering over DC’s crime data continued this week while the White House also released an executive order that would expand the National Guard’s role in law enforcement across the country.

- More from Haleluya Hadero

Culture

Comics and Capes Can Be Christian Formation

Paul Marchbanks

Superhero stories like Superman and Fantastic Four depict a moral clarity that’s helpful for our kids.

Illustration by Abigail Erickson / Source Images: Getty

When our girls were moving through secondary school, my wife and I began taking weekly strolls about the neighborhood, loading this midweek hour with conversations about scheduling, money, and parenting challenges.

We thought this to be pretty good child-rearing practice; routine talks increased the chances we were handling our kids in a similar, or at least complementary, fashion. For us, training up children in “the way they should go” (Prov. 22:6) included making observations about goals, friendships, and behavior, then responding with prayerful deliberation. One consistent challenge: reaching consensus about which TV shows, books, and movies were appropriate at each developmental stage.

During this period, we met another couple who was certain that godly parenting necessitated drastic measures to prevent cultural contagion. Within a year, they moved from the Central Coast of California to rural Idaho with the express purpose of erecting walls around their children’s minds. They believed public schools and popular media pushed too many dangerous ideas to risk further delay. Instead of wrestling with endless questions about the spiritual impact of new books and shows, they opted to step out of the ring altogether.

Was a cloistered life what my own family should have been pursuing if we took seriously the admonition to “set your minds on things above, not on earthly things” (Col. 3:2), to think about what is honorable, just, and pure (Phil. 4:8)?

My wife and I decided that the discernment necessary to “see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not” (Mal. 3:18) required encountering a wide array of fictional situations. Scriptural narrative provided a foundation for our kids, and both faith-informed and secular tales built upon that foundation by elaborating the consequences of embracing or ignoring Christian teaching. As a family, we read aloud, reserved time to watch shows and films together, and engaged in dinnertime exegesis.

Some choices were easy. Mister Rogers winsomely illustrated the power of loving those marginalized by disability or race, VeggieTales songs on a loop taught lessons about selflessness, and conflict-driven episodes of Little House on the Prairie dramatized situations in which virtues could transform the villainous. Our own love of 19th-century classics meant our daughters heard Jane Austen’s Emma while working on handstands in the garage, and I read Charles Dickens’s Hard Times and Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre en route to distant gymnastics meets and vacation destinations. These novels, together with titles like Little Women and Anne of Green Gables, provided opportunities to discuss both healthy and destructive responses to fear, loneliness, and loss.

Other choices proved more difficult.

I discovered superhero comics in late elementary school and collected Marvel and DC titles well into adulthood, and I wanted to share my passion with the girls while they had time to immerse themselves. But aware that superheroes often resolve disagreements with violence, my wife was wary. How might Wonder Woman’s use of force influence a daughter faced with a recalcitrant sister? We started withholding superhero cartoons for a week when one of our kids pushed or pinched her sibling soon enough after watching a show to suggest a connection.

Were we playing with fire? Did knocking adversaries into little pieces in the Lego Batman video game, watching animated Teen Titans pummel their adversaries, and reading colored panels in which the Uncanny X-Men killed hostile extraterrestrials foster aggression in our girls? Were there any benefits to exploring this type of story? Why not confine our kids to tales with grounded, relatable characters in everyday situations, and history with its verifiable truths?

The Christian authors of The Fellowship of the Ring, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and A Wrinkle in Time each contend that fantasy provides valuable opportunities for readers young and old, opportunities to deepen understanding of a God whose unfathomable love and ineffable nature transcend logic’s efforts to measure and categorize. Though none of the three wrote or celebrated comic books, their central claims about fantasy apply well to the thematically complex superhero myths that have evolved over the last century.

Like the fairy tales J. R. R. Tolkien classes as a type of mythopoeia, tales about caped heroes open us to divine possibility. Fictional superhumans prime the imagination to apprehend an omnipotence that bends and breaks the physical laws that fantasy regularly suspends. In a poem written to a doubting C. S. Lewis in 1931, J. R. R. Tolkien affirms that “God made” and “Evil is,” truths he claims sub-creators (writers) validate whenever they “[sow] the seeds of dragons” or describe stars as “living silver that sudden burst / to flame like flowers.” As Tolkien writes elsewhere, by ensuring that recovery and consolation follow great suffering, fantasy also anticipates the truly joyous ending the Gospels promise.

Lewis stopped tiptoeing around his love of fantasy once he realized imagination could extend logic’s finite vision of reality. In fact, he stepped into fantasy’s current at the same time he plunged into the saving depths of belief. Removing mythopoeia from children’s lives, he later observed in “On Three Ways of Writing for Children,” removes an opportunity to counter fear with hope. Beside the “terrible figures” in such tales, fantasy sets up the “immemorial comforters and protectors, the radiant ones.”

Madeleine L’Engle rounds out this trio of writers confident that fantasy provides an effective springboard for an “assurance of things hoped for” though unseen (Heb. 11:1, ESV). In the autobiographical Walking on Water, she holds that fiction of all kinds opens us to possibilities we might otherwise ignore, like our potential to “respond more courageously and openly” to whatever challenges we face. Fantasy fiction offers to take us still further, she attests, drawing away from the secular world’s “dirty devices” and moving toward a vaster reality “interested not in limited laboratory proofs but in truth.”

L’Engle and her fellows recognize that scientific empiricism, useful for identifying material likelihoods, cannot validate truths that elude quantification. The same limit applies to stories that toe a scientific line. The historical novel and realistic film demand that we consider the plausibility of their representation, forcing us to dismiss or apply their conclusions—with crucial emotional consequences for ourselves. If we decide that a particular tale is authentic but far removed from our daily lives, we may experience a painful sympathy—as when watching soldiers caught in a hail of bullets at Normandy—but emerge relieved by the distance that time and space provide.

Superhero films aren’t limited by “laboratory proofs” or concerns about applicability. Instead, they nurture virtue conceptually in children. The incredible situations of these movies discourage practical deliberations while encouraging flights of inspiring fancy. Like a seedling removed to a greenhouse to stimulate growth far from the stressors of hostile bugs and extreme weather, a virtue cultivated in the safely imaginary can grow to ample size before returning to its native environment.

Most superheroes, breathing the rarified air of ideals uncomplicated by political pragmatism, model this inattention to the conventions that slow and complicate virtuous action in the real world. Batman does not ask Commissioner Gordon to vet his strategy for taking down Carmine Falcone before Batman tackles the mob boss in his lair. Captain Marvel does not run her plan of action by Congress before stopping an alien invasion. Both possess a simple, uncomplicated desire to save as many lives as quickly as possible.

In James Gunn’s recent Superman, reporter Lois Lane questions why our hero intervened to stop a land war on the far side of the globe without first conferring with either the US president or the secretary of defense. A delayed response, he observes, would have cost lives: “People were going to die!” Instead of allowing himself to grow numb to statistics about disasters, he considers the opportunity to prevent hundreds of deaths a mandate and acts.

The superheroes my imagination soared with as a kid shared this moral clarity. Superman’s willingness to confront villains grew my own notion of courage well before I had to face bullies in the locker room or defend a minority position in a fraught department meeting. The telepath Professor X, capable of reading and controlling others’ minds, usually entered another’s mind only when invited or when doing so would prevent tragedy. This exercise of patience, gentleness, and self-control (Gal. 5:22–23) provided the nascent professor in me with important lessons about the influence a teacher can wield.

Spider-Man’s mantra, “With great power comes great responsibility,” distills the ethos of many a superhero whose selflessness proves as extraordinary as their special abilities. As a teenager, I absorbed the absurd beauty of loving one’s enemies (Matt. 5:44) the more readily because the X-Men, mutants with unsettling powers, repeatedly put themselves in danger to save the very bigots persecuting them. In Marvel Studios’ recent films, the Hulk saves the general determined to capture and weaponize him, Captain America rescues Bucky Barnes even as the brainwashed friend tries to kill him, and Shang-Chi spares the father who considers his own son’s life disposable.

In Jake Schreier’s Thunderbolts, the morose Yelena Belova sets aside deep bitterness and grief to help a man whose own private darkness threatens to destroy her along with the rest of the world. That she lost her youth to training as an assassin, a calamity few of us can begin to comprehend, does not make risking her life to help someone threatening her the less inspiring. Belova’s transformation invites viewers of all ages to consider whether fixation on their own troubles may sabotage a capacity to give and receive love.

And though the most saintly sacrifice of a life (let alone a fictional one) can only distantly echo Christ’s salvific act on the cross, superheroes who give their lives help seed the imagination to embrace the incomprehensible. In The Fantastic Four: First Steps, Matt Shakman conveys this principle of loving sacrifice in possibly the most optimistic, family-friendly superhero film ever made. (Yes, even more uplifting than The Incredibles.)

Shakman floods his ’60s-era, alternative Earth with a joie de vivre that somehow avoids becoming saccharine. Bright lighting and a cool color palette join good-natured humor and a surprising forthrightness absent from more cynical superhero movies. When the team fails to solve a problem endangering the planet, they admit their failure to an expectant crowd that cheered their return only moments earlier. Instead of prevaricating, Reed Richards unhesitatingly shares details sure to turn the world against them. They admit declining to sacrifice one of their own in a utilitarian exchange that would have saved the entire planet.

As it turns out, however, a blood sacrifice is necessary, and three different characters step willingly toward the altar. This, I think, is one of the most valuable gifts superhero tales can grant to children trained by an anxious society to think first about their own well-being: the greatest form of love involves giving life itself for another (John 15:13).

Will kids learn from such stories that physical force can destroy as well as protect? Most definitely, and we can pray they never have to deliver or receive violence themselves. Even if our kids never face such situations, having imagined the beauty of sacrifice will prepare them to renounce their lives in other ways and to appreciate more fully the one surrender that saves them.

Paul Marchbanks is a professor of English at California Polytechnic State University. His YouTube channel is “Digging in the Dirt.”

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News

The Hard Life of a Kenyan Christian Teacher at a Muslim School

Pius Sawa

Sween Ambeyi can’t be seen reading the Bible, but she doesn’t want to be unemployed.

Muslim pupils studying at the Ganjoni Primary School in Mombasa, Kenya.

Andrew Kasuku / Contributor / Getty

At Bil el Burbur Primary School in Wajir County, Kenya, 35-year-old Sween Ambeyi sits on the bare ground in the hot sun and points to a small blackboard hanging on the acacia tree behind her. The 16 Muslim seventh graders—6 girls and 10 boys—sit separately. Though a hijab covers her, Ambeyi is a Christian, as are four out of five Kenyans, according to the 2019 census.

Although Kenya guarantees freedom of religion, Ambeyi cannot worship openly in Wajir due to community pressure. Muslim community leaders force her to wear a hijab. “It is either you obey or be sacked,” Ambeyi said. “When you cover your face like them, they will regard you as one of their daughters. Otherwise, they will beat you up for wearing skirts and other dresses.”

She also has to hide her Bible reading. “I can open my phone and read the Bible, then pray silently,” she told CT. “That’s the only option.”

She also faces bullying and harassment. Community leaders do not allow Ambeyi or other non-Muslims to touch a Quran. Female students and fellow teachers mock her for not having experienced female genital mutilation, a common practice in the area.

Ambeyi said she can’t punish or argue with male students. “Even if a male student is in the wrong, you have to keep quiet, because they will rush home and come with their mothers.” In this culture, mothers fiercely protect their sons. Ambeyi added that the mothers start conflicts with the teachers.

But for Ambeyi, quitting is not an option. Ambeyi said unemployment would be worse, and going back to college to start another career would take years.

When she graduated as a teacher in 2019, Ambeyi worried she wouldn’t find work. She took a friend’s suggestion to search for a job in the majority-Muslim counties of northeastern Kenya. Schools there struggle to hire teachers due to instability caused by the terrorist group Al-Shabaab. (The group killed five people in April 2025 and has targeted teachers in the past.) That’s how she ended up in Wajir a year later.

“You see, life rotates around finance,” Ambeyi said.

Ambeyi first took a temporary position at Machesa Primary School for a monthly salary of 10,000 Kenyan shillings ($77 USD) and started applying for permanent public school jobs. She hoped to gain enough experience at Machesa to qualify for a job with a steady salary and opportunities for promotion. Four years later, the government posted her at the better-paying (about 34,000 shillings or $264 USD) but even-more-remote Bil el Burbur, a school with 300 students and only 4 teachers. Until she can qualify for transfer closer to her home in Western Kenya, Ambeyi has to blend in with the Islamic community in Wajir.

Kenya’s teachers face a high unemployment rate, a factor that pressures Christian teachers like Ambeyi to work in schools hostile to their faith. Around half of qualified Kenyan teachers are unemployed despite severe understaffing at many schools, especially near the Somalian border. Many teachers avoid Muslim-majority counties due to threats from terrorists, which increases competition for more-desired positions. Julius Ogamba, Kenya’s education cabinet secretary, blamed the unemployment crisis partly on uneven teacher distribution across counties. Inadequate salaries, slow government hiring processes, and a mismatch between popular high school teacher specialties (like humanities) and in-demand subjects (like science) may worsen unemployment and burnout.

Media outlets have blamed bureaucracy and corruption for teachers’ underemployment. Politicians allegedly circumvent the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) and give appointment letters to their relatives or sell them to the highest bidders.

Despite having completed college degrees and one-year internships, new teachers must seek temporary positions or private-school jobs before qualifying for permanent roles in public schools. But even then, their spots aren’t guaranteed. The TSC stirred controversy in 2024 for failing to guarantee probationary teachers permanent positions, forcing them to reapply for their jobs.

Some teachers say their peers resort to bribing TSC officials to get a position. For those who don’t offer bribes, such as Ambeyi, financial need can drive them to take jobs from equally desperate schools.

Ambeyi hopes to get a transfer to a school in a majority-Christian area, but Burton Wanjala—a teacher who has worked in a Muslim-majority area for five years—said getting a transfer is not that easy. Wanjala tried and failed several times. He explained that head teachers can only approve transfers under one of three conditions: medical reasons, replacement, or security reasons. A doctor must recommend a medical transfer. Replacement requires swapping positions with a willing teacher from another school. Security reasons require a clear threat, such as when the killing of nonlocal teachers by Al-Shabaab led to a mass exodus of teachers in 2014 or when the government withdrew all nonlocal teachers in 2020.

Wanjala said head teachers who allow transfers rarely receive replacements due to the shortage of teachers in the region, so they may not want to approve these switches. But, Wanjala said, “you can bribe bosses at the Teachers Service Commission, and you will receive a transfer letter directly without passing through the head teacher.”

The TSC requires newly employed teachers to work at their assigned schools for a minimum of five years before seeking a transfer. Ambeyi has served for less than two. She said she knows of teachers who have managed to get transfers approved before the five-year mark. But as a Christian, Ambeyi won’t pay a bribe or fake an illness. As she waits, Ambeyi prays Al-Shabaab won’t attack her.

“I know one day God will open a door for me and get a transfer to my home area,” she said. “As for now, I have to continue complying to these conditions, as long as I don’t fall in trouble with the Somali Muslim community.”

- More from Pius Sawa

Books

Review

Faith Crises Feel Urgent. But They Shouldn’t Be Rushed.

Dorothy Littell Greco

While our spiritual wilderness seasons have no definite timeline, God has all the time in the world.

Illustration by Mallory Rentsch Tlapek / Source Images: WikiMedia Commons, Unsplash

There are multiple parallels between being married and being a person of faith. One we seldom talk about is that both relationships bring us face-to-face with disappointment.

Though marital disappointments look and feel different from those we experience with God, the church, or fellow believers, they share the same common denominator: expectations.

All of us carry expectations for each other, specifically for the people we’re closest to. Expectations are not bad. In fact, some of the expectations we hold for our spouses are essential to the success of our marriages, and we typically agree on them long before exchanging rings. Faithfulness, honesty, and fidelity belong in this category.

However, we also tend to carry subjective, unspoken hopes for our partners that rarely get discussed in premarital classes. These might involve division of household labor, the caliber of family vacations, and whose career will get put on hold to care for children.

Some expectations are heavily influenced by our families of origin. (Said by my husband early in our marriage: “My mom always made turkey and lasagna for Thanksgiving dinner.”) Others flow from our personality types. (Said by me early in our marriage: “Can we please find a working definition for punctuality and cleanliness?”) Though navigating disappointment feels unpleasant, it can helpfully pinpoint any unrealistic expectations and guide us toward negotiating ones that are based on who we actually married.

We cannot enter into marriage unencumbered by expectations—and we cannot embark on our spiritual journeys without expecting God and fellow believers to show up in certain ways. Religious expectations come from many sources, such as sermons, conference speakers, and books. I don’t think it’s possible to read Scripture without making assumptions about the life of faith, including the assumptions that our physical needs will be provided for (Matt. 7:9), that God will protect us from harm (Prov. 4:12), and that physical healing will follow confession and prayer (James 5:16).

Even to faithful followers, such biblically based promises can fuel confusion or anger when, say, a layoff comes days after buying a house or cancer ravages a child. Just as how we process marital disappointment affects the quality and longevity of our marriage, how we process spiritual disappointment affects the course of our relationship with God.

Based on the current buzz about deconstruction and deconversion, abandoning the faith seems to be a growing trend. But disappointment doesn’t have to lead us away from God. (Nor is disappointment the only reason folks deconvert.) Catherine McNiel and Jason Hague’s new book, Mid-Faith Crisis: Finding a Path Through Doubt, Disillusionment, and Dead Ends, offers a welcome alternative.

Similar to other well-known books that focus on spiritual journeys (see M. Scott Peck’s The Road Less Traveled and Brian McLaren’s Finding Faith), the authors base their work on the premise that faith has “predictable stages that include disorientation and disintegration.” Mid-Faith Crisis gives names to these stages as Inherited Faith, Confident Faith, Mid-Faith, and Conscious Faith, plotting them along a chronological line from childhood to adulthood. (Readers like me, who came to faith later in life, may feel that the authors’ first stage doesn’t necessarily align with their lived experience.)

What precipitates the shift from Confident Faith to Mid-Faith? McNiel and Hague use the bulk of their book to consider this question. As they argue, the journey toward a conscious, mature faith will route most of us through a spiritual wilderness that feels unpleasant, disorienting, and at times frightening. The authors name seven possible catalysts for these wilderness periods, grouping them under a single heading: “The Crisis.”

Mid-Faith Crisis does not rush through these catalysts; it gives each one its own chapter. They include doubt, toxic churches, abusive or morally corrupt leaders, unanswered prayer, long-term suffering, the crumbling of our theological constructs, and a loss of emotional connection to God. One of the book’s strengths lies in how the authors lead readers through the various wildernesses.

Doubt kicks off their list for good reason. It is a common—perhaps the most common—catalyst for a crisis of faith. Doubts emerge for many reasons, including an insufficient or faulty understanding about who God is and the cognitive dissonance we feel when our beliefs and our realities no longer align. For instance, many of us have tried but failed to make sense of how an all-knowing, all-loving, all-powerful God does not stop the horrible evil that happens all around us. Questioning his character or backing away from our beliefs may seem like the best solution because it eases that inner tension.

But the reality is, we will never be able to fully know God or resolve all our questions because the glass we look through will always be opaque. We are finite beings, and no amount of Windex will provide us with an unobstructed view of an infinite, holy God. McNiel and Hague encourage us to accept that mystery and unanswered questions are not antithetical to following Jesus. Rather than assuming doubt is “the beginning of the end” of our faith, they reframe it as an essential component of that faith, because it forces us to wrestle with our beliefs and recommit to the trajectory of our journey. They write, “Since there is no path named Certainty, we choose the one named Faith.”

Each of the chapters covering a particular cause of mid-faith crisis is thoughtful and robust. At least for me, however, chapter 6 (“When Our Prayers Fell Silent”) reads as the strongest and most resonant. I imagine that most followers of Jesus have diligently, faithfully prayed for a specific (godly) outcome, only to have their hopes and expectations crushed. Even Jesus faced this reality when he pleaded for the cup of suffering to pass him and yet died by crucifixion.

Hague opens up about repeatedly petitioning God to give his autistic son, Jack, the ability to speak. He vulnerably recounts his pain and how he finally came to realize that “prayer can become all about how persuasive we can be at getting God to do what we want.” Indeed. His honesty, as well as the not-yet-answered prayer, gives Hague’s conclusion real heft: “It’s worth spending time with God, worth practicing how to live in God’s presence, even though we can’t control what God does, even though we know God won’t make all our dreams come true or remove all our pain.” In other words, it’s worth figuring out how we might learn to love God in the darkness. The authors offer numerous handholds for this.

Throughout the book, the writers differentiate humans’ bad behavior from the reality of a good and faithful God, which helps reorient readers from confusion and misplaced expectations back to the Cross. One of the most salient questions McNeil and Hague ask is “How can we be formed such that the searing pain of the world carries us to the suffering Jesus—rather than pull us, like the tides, further and further away from the God who is close to the brokenhearted, the hope and comfort we long for?”

Because they write as fellow sojourners who name and validate the pain and confusion that often accompanies a life of faith, they establish themselves as trustworthy guides. Their gentle, pastoral approach gives readers permission to feel and grieve the losses connected to their crises. (I unexpectedly found tears running down my face several times.)

Hague and McNeil bring the book to a close by referring to Jesus as the Good Shepherd who leads us out of the darkness into verdant pastures and spaces of rest. While readily acknowledging that “we will at times feel lost,” they assure us that “we are never, ever alone.” They say, “How long will we stay here in our mid-faith crisis? There’s no way to be sure. … And there is no rush. The shepherd has all the time in the world.” Because we often feel impatient when a crisis hits, we need to remember that faith is a lifelong journey—not a sprint.

None of us can predict what kind of hardship and loss we may encounter in the years ahead or foresee how such seasons will affect our faith. Mid-Faith Crisis presents a compelling argument for holding onto Jesus during those long, dark days and exchanging doubt, disillusionment, and disappointment for a deeper, more trustworthy faith.

Dorothy Littell Greco is the author of Marriage in the Middle: Embracing Midlife Surprises, Challenges, and Joys and the forthcoming For the Love of Women: Uprooting and Healing Misogyny in America. You can find more of her work on Substack or on her website.

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News

Payday Lender Restrictions Weaken, as Christian Orgs Step In

Sebastian Rodriguez

Millions of Americans borrow loans with triple-digit interest rates each year. Tennessee just sent those costs even higher.

A Rapid Cash office in Las Vegas, Nevada, offers short-term payday loans.

Jim West / UCG / Universal Images Group via Getty Images

On the streets of Memphis, dozens of small stores advertise “the cash you need, fast,” in big letters, “free money” painted onto the windows in neon colors, or “flexible payment options” plastered onto the front door.

These payday loan stores lend several hundred dollars to people who often can’t afford to repay them. What the shops market as flexible payment options can turn into debt at an annual percentage rate as high as 600 percent.

“Memphis is known as the payday loan capital of the world,” said Travis Moody, founder and CEO of Forward Memphis, a Christian nonprofit helping borrowers pay off debt in the Tennessee city. “There are more payday loan stores in Memphis than Starbucks and McDonald’s combined.”

More than 12 million Americans borrowed payday loans in 2022 alone, and according to Moody, the short-term fix often turns into a cycle of debt.

This year, some restrictions on payday lenders have loosened.

Tennessee recently raised the cap on the interest rate for a payday loan to 36 percent. Because that interest applies per installment, that means the annual percentage rate for these loans went from 459 percent to over 500 percent, Moody told CT. It’s the first time Tennessee has raised the cap since 2017.

Tennessee allowed higher interest rates “to allow those companies to still be able to survive, even though they were taking very high risk loans for folks,” said Republican House Majority Leader William Lamberth, according to NewsChannel 5 Nashville.

The state has a significant payday lending industry partly because it is where two of the country’s biggest private payday lenders began, according to the Chattanooga Times Free Press.

In the $8 billion industry, payday loans are small, typically $500 or less, and are meant to be short-term solutions for financial needs and repaid on the borrower’s next payday. On average, however, borrowers fall into debt five months of the year, according to The Pew Charitable Trusts.

With an average annual income of around $25,000, most payday borrowers can’t afford to repay the loans within 14 days and have to renew or reborrow, trapping themselves in a debt cycle that is hard to escape. Eighty percent of payday loans are rolled over because the borrower can’t repay them, and around four out of five borrowers get at least 11 payday loans in a row.

Christian organizations like Forward Memphis are responding by helping the victims of predatory lending. Moody, the CEO, has himself struggled through mountains of debt. He said many Christians are still unaware of the negative impact of payday loans.

“In the Christian world, we’re not talking about how this impacts poverty and the poor,” said Moody, who is also stewardship pastor at The Life Church of Memphis.

“You can’t read the Bible without Jesus talking about the poor,” he continued. “Even when he announced himself, he said, ‘I came to preach to the poor.’ And it’s like every word was dealing with people who were distressed.”

Oversight of the payday lending industry may be shifting at the federal level too.

The Trump administration tried to shut down the work of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) earlier this year and lay off its staff. The bureau provides the main federal oversight for payday lending, filing lawsuits against lenders like All American Check Cashing for “unfair, deceptive, and abusive practices while providing payday lending and check cashing services.”

In March, a federal judge blocked the administration’s plan to shutter the CFPB, but recently, the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit allowed the dismantling of the agency to go forward pending further proceedings.

“The administration’s attempts to dismantle the nation’s only consumer financial protection watchdog will expose millions of households to excessive fees and financial predators and increase risks to the nation’s financial system,” said Mike Calhoun, president at the Center for Responsible Lending, in a statement responding to the appeals court ruling.

The White House also issued an executive order in March threatening to eliminate the Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund, which provides financial and technical assistance to institutions certified as CDFIs.

CDFIs—of which Forward Memphis is one—are local organizations that help low-income borrowers with affordable loans and coaching services.

In response, the Treasury Department conducted a review of CDFI Fund programs and reported that the law requires them. Credit unions also supported CDFIs.

“CDFI Fund programs deliver an exceptional return on investment, bringing in more than $12 of private capital for every federal dollar,” wrote Jim Nussle, president and CEO of America’s Credit Unions, in a letter to the Treasury secretary.

Moody said Forward Memphis has not been significantly affected.

“No one believes [the CDFI Fund] is going away,” Moody said. “CDFIs are a better way to support the needy and the people in poverty than any type of welfare system. … What we do in community development is, we’re trying to help people move their lives forward, which in turn benefits the economy.”

Forward Memphis offers coaching and training for those in financial distress.

“The solution is not just giving people money,” Moody said. “What we have to do is help people reframe how to manage money. Some people didn’t learn it growing up.”

The organization helped Jillvona McJefferson, a single mother who moved to Memphis in 2021 so her daughter’s brain tumor could be removed at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

Facing eviction and carrying a $450 payday loan, McJefferson asked her pastor at The Life Church of Memphis for help, and then the pastor connected her with Forward Memphis.

“I felt shameful,” she told CT. “I didn’t want people to know what I was dealing with, because I felt like I put myself in the situation. … I’d hit rock bottom.”

But she found the process at Forward Memphis “wasn’t judgmental.” The organization connected McJefferson with her first-ever financial coach, who taught her how to manage her money better.

“I was always living check to check,” she said. “I was never a person that did not have a job; I was just mishandling my money. It was to the point that I needed Forward Memphis to redirect me.”

Her financial coach introduced her to concepts like the “snowball strategy.”

“The snowball effect is what really helped me out,” said McJefferson. “You put your least amount of debt first and try to eliminate that, then go from there. So I’ve been eliminating my debt, and I’m really debt-free.”

She hopes to buy a home soon for her and her daughter.

The borrower’s inability to pay is “what the predatory lenders are banking on,” Moody said. Because of the cycles of debt borrowers often fall into, advocates against payday lenders often refer to them as predatory.

Moody grew up in a primarily Black, working-class community, the kind of neighborhood where payday lenders tend to concentrate, he said.

“They’re only in financially distressed communities,” he said.

Faith-based organizations have a history of being an alternative to these lenders.

Historically, people founded credit unions in order to help low-income borrowers, and there are still several faith-based credit unions, according to The Christian Century. They offer things like “grace loans” with low interest rates, credit limits to prevent borrowers from overborrowing, and stricter eligibility requirements than payday lenders have.

Twenty-one states have laws strictly regulating payday loans, often through setting low interest rate caps that tend to drive payday lenders out of the state.

Compared to Tennessee’s 500 percent cap, Minnesota recently lowered the annual interest rate cap to 36 percent in 2023, closing the doors of even the top payday lenders. Exodus Lending is a faith-based nonprofit a local church founded in Minneapolis. It advocated for tighter state regulation of these lenders and also helped Minnesotans get out of debt.

“Since we passed the rate cap in 2023, all storefront payday lenders have chosen to close their doors rather than comply with a 36 percent interest rate cap,” Meghan Olsen Biebighauser, cofounder and policy and partnership director of Exodus Lending, told CT.

But predatory lending “always seems to pop up again,” she added.

States with few safeguards, however, like Tennessee, rely on CDFIs as one of the main counterbalances to payday lending.

“We need to figure out systemically how to remove barriers that allow people to have pathways to financial equity and financial freedom,” Moody said.

Moody still sees a lack of financial literacy among distressed borrowers as a key hurdle, and that’s an area where Forward Memphis can help regardless of the level of state or federal regulation.

“You need people like us that are focused on developing people,” said Moody. “We can fill the gap.”

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Ideas

Work Makes Love Visible

Norann Voll

Living in intentional Christian community with the Bruderhof taught me to honor God and neighbor through my mundane tasks—even on a barren farm.

Joe Deutscher / Unsplash

Growing up as one of ten kids in a farming family, I understood from a young age that work is an inescapable part of life.

Before breakfast, beds were to be made, pets and barn animals to be fed and watered, horse and cow stalls to be mucked out. There were never-ending baskets of laundry to deal with, floors to sweep, toilets to clean. And dishes to wash—an eternal mountain of dishes.

But it was only as an adult that I learned that work could also be an expression of love and worship.

The quest for a lived expression of the holistic relationship of work, faith, and practical realities is age old. It sits at the heart of the biblical narrative. It has driven generations of seekers to pursue the question “What is the life God wants for his people?”

One answer to this question comes from the Bruderhof community in which I grew up.

In the aftermath of World War I, a small group of German friends headed by philosopher and theologian Eberhard Arnold and his wife, Emmy, decided to attempt a life of shared faith in the Anabaptist tradition. Inspired by the Book of Acts’ accounts of the early church, whose members shared everything with each other (4:32), the Arnolds and their friends set up a voluntary household in the rural village of Sannerz, which became the first Bruderhof community.

Members warmly welcomed visitors, as we still do. But those expecting a spiritual retreat were in for a reality check when Arnold proffered a pitchfork and a place alongside him as he turned compost. As he put it:

Work must be indivisible from prayer, prayer indivisible from work. Our work is thus a form of worship, since our faith and daily life are inseparable, forming a single whole. Even the most mundane task, if done as for Christ in a spirit of love and dedication, can be consecrated to God as an act of prayer. To pray in words but not in deeds is hypocrisy.

Looking back, my childhood and adolescence at the Woodcrest Bruderhof community in upstate New York, one of 23 such communities now around the world, embodied this belief in work as prayer, prayer as work. Perhaps that is why, long before he and I started dating, I noticed Chris at the sink.

Chris had grown up in another Bruderhof community and moved to Woodcrest to attend a local university, where I was also a student. He would be there after our community’s evening meal finished, up to his elbows in trays and suds, laughing, talking, scouring.

He was studying English literature and journalism and could pen thoughtful poems and persuasive essays—but he wasn’t afraid to scrub pots, generally staying to the last. And he did what I hated most: cleaned out that sieve with all the bits at the bottom of the sink. Impressive.

Both Chris and I had recently taken church membership vows and were excited to be embarking on a lifetime of following Christ with fellow believers. We especially loved that in the Bruderhof, everyone was valued and celebrated for who they were, not what their careers were.

But as we prayerfully began a relationship, I worried from time to time that our work backgrounds might pose a possible hindrance. My family was decidedly blue-collar. His was not.

Before Christmas that year, my dad casually asked me one evening, “I know your young man is focused on his studies, but can he work with his hands?”

I passed this on to Chris during one of our pre-class walks by the river, where we loved to spot “our bird,” an elegant great blue heron. “Hmm,” was all he said in response.

On Christmas morning, underneath the tree, I found my present from Chris: a handcrafted maple and mahogany vase, the neck shaped like a wading heron. It was filled with golden blooms. “Work is love made visible,” the poet Kahlil Gibran famously asserted. And I knew Chris had proved him right.

Until then, I had had no idea that Chris was capable of this kind of craftsmanship. He later told me he’d grown up learning woodworking from his father, a pastor. My dad gave Chris’s vase a careful once-over with silent approval. We were a farming family and well versed in the 4-H pillars: head, heart, hands, health. Apparently, in their own way, Chris’s family was too.

During the remainder of our two-year courtship and throughout the early years of our marriage, Chris and I found the concept of work as a form of worship straightforward. He wrote and edited for the Bruderhof’s publishing house, while I taught in our primary school. We loved our work. We welcomed first one son, then a second, and poured ourselves into parenthood while continuing to find opportunities to serve within our community and neighborhood.

Then in November 2002, Chris and I accepted an invitation from our church to move to Australia to join a new Bruderhof community called Danthonia. We arrived in rural New South Wales to find a few brothers and sisters who lived in sheds and simple cottages on acres of barren land. There wasn’t much else, except work—lots of it.

At first, we thought farming would provide much-needed income and add value to the region. But by the time we arrived, the land was exhausted from two years of drought and 80-plus years of overgrazing.

As we labored to restore the land, our community started a hand-carved sign company. The first years were full of setbacks and surprises and hardly any sales.

Chris, when not working on administrative tasks, became skilled with chisels and helped carve sign letters, and when I wasn’t teaching school, I lent a hand with sales and sign painting. Bit by bit, the business grew.

At the same time, alongside other Danthonia members, we renovated sheds into homes, grew vegetables, built an abattoir, planted orchards, raised our children, and adapted to scorching droughts and torrential rains.

Work, worship, service, love. We poured ourselves into the land, community, and home, with mountains of toil before us, continents away from what we had known. Our life seemed to lack boundaries, the labor nonstop. Work as worship lost its idealized luster. Was this what God wanted for us?

It was around this time I came across the Hebrew word avodah—and our challenging life in Australia began to take on new meaning.

The Hebrew Torah uses avodah to describe the brutal toil of the Israelite slaves (avadim) in Egypt. It’s also the word for the hard labor of the Levite priests who offered sacrifices to God in the tabernacle and, later, the temple: stoking large fires, slaughtering animals, lifting heavy grain sacks. Today, Jews still speak of their daily prayers as avodah shebalev, “the work/worship that is in the heart.”

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks explains that, whereas English translations use words like “ceremony” or “service” for avodah to describe Passover commemorations (see Exodus 12), “hard work” would be a more accurate rendering:

The same word is used to describe slavery and freedom, bondage and liberation, Egypt and exodus. … Nothing has changed. There we were avadim, here we are avadim. There we had to work for a master, here we have to work for a Master. There it was hard, here it is hard. All that has changed is the master’s identity. There it was Pharaoh. Here it is God. But we remain avadim.

In the New Testament, perhaps the apostle Paul had something similar in mind when he styled himself “a slave of Christ Jesus” (Rom. 1:1, CEB)—not only as a statement of allegiance but also as an acknowledgement of the rigorous labor that true discipleship demands.

The ultimate example of avodah is Jesus himself, who challenges us to deny ourselves, take up our crosses, and follow him (Matt. 16:24). On the night he knew he would be betrayed, Jesus taught his disciples a profound lesson, performing a slave’s task by washing their feet. He reminded them—and us—that if the Master himself is willing to serve his servants, how much more ought they to care for one another (John 13:12–17).

In those early years in Australia, our work was rigorous, physically demanding in an intense climate with minimal infrastructure. Yet as I meditated on the meaning of avodah, I was propelled by the liberating thrill of undertaking kingdom work: engaging my heart, mind, and body to build something beautiful for God in a strange land.

Chris and I would walk home late after a day of work and an evening of worship, look up at the closeness of the stars, and realize the closeness of the relationships we were forming with our new brothers and sisters, our numerous guests, our neighbors, and each other.

I’m happy to say that those years of intense building up are in the rearview mirror now. Rhythms of rest, of course, are the underpinning to sustainable work habits. Our work life now has boundaries, our land is flourishing, and our business is established. We work hard and rest well.

I do not wish those early years in Australia back, but their lessons remain. We became a people of work as worship made visible. Each day held concrete opportunities to show love and forgiveness to others, to engage in a discipleship of heart and hand. Each day still does.

Chris and I have now lived at Danthonia for nearly 25 years. Not all Christians feel called to live in intentional communities like ours, but the call to work as worship is universal. It is what has inspired churches in our area to cook and serve a weekly meal for those who need food and fellowship. It is what has motivated an 86-year-old friend to raise funds for hundreds of village water tanks in Myanmar.

Avodah finds expression in myriad ways, and it is no doubt spurring the body of Christ to works of mercy both near at hand and in the world at large.

Naturally, in any shared life of work, family, committee, or church, we have the capacity to hurt one another. But in performing the undesirable tasks of service, we also have the capacity to honor Christ in the people whom we live with and love, whom we have hurt and who have hurt us.

In this way, a tradition of work becomes the fulfillment of love.

Some people clean toilets or teeth, sharpen knives or minds, craft wood or words. In all of our lives, and wherever we find ourselves, we can choose to turn the most menial work into acts of love as profound as washing another’s feet: brewed tea, swept floors, cooked meals, folded laundry, clean dishes. Avodah.

I still notice Chris at the community dish sink. I notice when he cleans out the shower drain with the same meticulous nature that he applies to wordsmithery. I notice the heron vase, which has flown with us across oceans and to several continents and still regularly graces our table.

All these remind me that when heart and hands work in harmony, motivated by love, there is the potential for something beautiful to be born: an act of worship.

Norann Voll lives at the Danthonia Bruderhof in rural Australia with her husband, Chris. They have three sons. She writes about discipleship, motherhood, and feeding people. Find her on Instagram, X, and Substack.

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Culture

12 Bible Verses and 3,000 Pushups

Christopher Kuo

At the Christian summer camp Deerfoot, young men are transformed by wilderness and “trail talk” relationships.

Campers stand on the pier at the Christian summer camp, Deerfoot.

Photo Courtesy of Ron Mackey

As a kid, Amit Merchant never felt that he had a close group of Christian friends. Shy and unassuming, he didn’t fit in with his youth group peers.

But when Merchant was 11, his parents announced they would be sending him to a summer program in the wilderness of upstate New York, a two-week Christian boys’ camp called Deerfoot Lodge. Merchant had never heard of the camp before, but he gamely agreed to go—a decision that would reverberate in his life for years to come.

During that first summer at Deerfoot, Merchant felt seen and heard by fellow campers and staff, connected to a community of Christian boys. He and another camper, Ben, became friends and began emailing back and forth as soon as camp ended.

In the decade since, Merchant has kept returning to Deerfoot: first as a camper, then as a counselor in training, then as a staff member, and now as the assistant camp director. Ben has remained a close friend; the two worked on staff together, and Merchant attended his wedding.

What keeps drawing Merchant back to Deerfoot is the chance to connect with other Christian men in a way that feels authentic, uninterrupted, and gospel centered. In the tech-free wilderness, Jesus feels present, and relationships feel more honest.

“It’s one thing to sit in a coffee shop and ask a friend to tell me what’s on his heart,” Merchant said. “It’s another thing when you’re trudging through the woods and you’re caked with mud and the bugs are biting. It strips away so much of the false pretense and identity that we try to present.”

Many others echo Merchant’s story. Since its founding in 1930, Deerfoot Lodge has left a lasting impact on generations of Christian men and inspires loyalty among its attendees. Dads who grew up going to Deerfoot now send their sons to camp, and college students who attended as kids now work as staff to mentor younger campers. Those I spoke with—whether fourth-generation “Deerfooters” or young boys who had only recently become enamored—described the camp with fervor and a kind of reverence, the way young men talk of their fraternity brothers or soldiers describe their military platoons. What was it about this camp that inspired such awe?

My desire for an answer to that question was, in part, a personal one. I grew up attending different Christian summer camps. But for years, friends have been telling me about their experiences at this particular place on Whitaker Lake. Access to Deerfoot’s Adirondack location is somewhat limited to the public, and every year about 80 percent of the camp’s attendance is made up of returning campers. (Deerfoot recently opened a second location in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, in part to try to address the long waitlist.)

My interest in Deerfoot also has to do with what’s happening outside its forested boundaries. The camp’s ongoing success comes amid a crisis for young men in America, in which many feel “unmoored and undervalued.” Boys typically lag behind girls in education outcomes, with worse GPAs and less likelihood of graduating high school. More women than men attend college, and about 28 percent of boys ages 3 to 17 have a mental, emotional, behavioral, or developmental problem, compared with 23 percent of girls. A recent Gallup poll that used data from 2023 and 2024 found that 25 percent of US men aged 15 to 34 reported feeling lonely, compared to 18 percent of young women.

What is plaguing so many young men across the country, and what might be the antidote to this malaise? Perhaps this small camp nestled in the Adirondack mountains—held in such esteem by so many boys and men—would have answers.

Photography by Evan France

Campgrounds at Deerfoot.

As you’re driving along New York State Route 30, it’s easy to miss the narrow road that leads to Deerfoot. Except for a small sign, there’s little to indicate that a camp is tucked away in this stretch of the woods. On a recent day in July, I maneuvered my Toyota Corolla down the dirt road that snaked through the woods and led to the camp, where Ron Mackey, Deerfoot’s executive director, was waiting for me.

Dressed in khakis, a light blue T-shirt, and Saucony athletic shoes, Mackey had the briskness of an administrator but the warmth of a pastor. He led me to a clearing where the main camp buildings emerged, several cabins framed in a semicircle around a large field sloping down to the lake. Adirondack maples, beeches, and ash trees ringed the clearing. Some boys were setting up tents to dry after a long hike; others splashed in the lake or surrounded a snapping turtle that had wandered onto the grounds.

Noticeably, no campers were on their phones. There’s no cell service on the campgrounds, and devices are stored in the camp office at the start of each session. “It’s fully present,” Mackey told me while we strolled the grounds. “We live eye to eye here, fully engaged in the thing at hand. We’re not divided and distracted by other things. Life is slower here.”

Mackey and the other Deerfoot staff have tried to preserve the rustic way of life that was first established at the camp’s founding early in the 20th century. In 1930, Alfred Kunz, a New Jerseyan who served as executive director for the Pocket Testament League, decided he wanted to set up a wilderness camp for young men. His goal was to impart “sane, constructive religious teaching of a solidly biblical nature” and to help boys “bridge the gap from boyhood to manhood successfully, and as well develop a rugged, well-balanced manly character.”

With $500 and a couple dozen boys from his church, Kunz set up a camping spot near the Kunjamuk River. Campers originally had to hike eight miles just to reach this spot. But the camp flourished, and eventually Kunz needed to expand, so he purchased a square mile of property near Whitaker Lake. Relying on volunteer labor and a 1922 Buick roadster, he cleared the area and set up the camp.

Not much has changed since those days. Campers still sing many of the same hymns before breakfast. There is no running water in the camper cabins, and there are gas lanterns instead of electric lights.

Like any all-male community, Deerfoot has its own idiosyncratic lingo and rituals. Boss is the most universally used phrase, a kind of all-purpose affirmation: there are “boss” prayers, “boss” hikes, “boss” meals. Beak is the opposite, signifying anything negative. An outhouse is called a “gudge,” staff members are called “chiefs,” and phones are “contraband.” Mornings begin with a salute and the firing of a blank from a cannon. Many campers and counselors participate in a shared practice called “3,000-12,” in which the goal is to memorize 12 verses and perform 3,000 pushups over the course of two weeks. At any given moment at Deerfoot, you may see a boy suddenly drop to the ground and crank out a set.

Campers at Deerfoot’s Adirondack location are divided into three age groups: woodsmen are 9 to 12 years old, pioneers are 13 to 14, and islanders are 15 to 17. Most of their time at camp consists of learning various skills, including archery, swimming, crafts, and wilderness survival. Every age group also participates in an overnight outdoor excursion, ranging from canoe trips to hikes in the High Peaks.

The goal is to forge relational bonds through experiences that are exacting and uncomfortable. Benjamin Thomas, a 15-year-old camper who has attended Deerfoot in Blue Ridge for three summers, recalls hiking a steep mountain trail during a downpour. Drenched in rain and sweat, he felt miserable. But one of his fellow campers, a boy named Ransom, started belting out a hymn, and soon the whole group was singing.

“I felt the presence of the Lord that day,” said Thomas. “It felt like we were invincible. It felt like he was right there with his hand on me, comforting me.”

Photography by Evan France

Campers huddle up for prayer at Deerfoot.

Deerfoot is built on the idea that transformation for men happens through relationships and that in-depth relationships between men often require shared experiences. Some at Deerfoot call this “trail talk”—the organic conversations that arise from hiking together or canoeing down a river.

“Intimacy among men needs to come from some shared activity,” said Jack Kubinec, a former staff member and camper. “I’ve seen in my own life [that] trying to be friends with guys in the real world, especially in a Christian context, it can be kind of like, ‘Hey, let’s sit around and have coffee,’ and it always feels awkward and never quite clicks.”

Every session, Deerfoot staff present the gospel to the campers. But the mission of Deerfoot—to build godly men through wilderness camping—happens not through flashy sermons or altar calls but through everyday interactions between staff and campers. It’s a “decentralized mentorship ministry,” as Craig Boronow, the Adirondack camp director, puts it.

“Every need of man is met by technology: We can work remote. We can have ‘friends’ remote. We can have entertainment. We can have sex remote,” said Dan Osborn, one of Deerfoot’s staff members. “All those things are remote. There’s a lot of isolation that occurs.”

Deerfoot does the opposite. It puts men in close proximity with each other: running ten miles back to camp after a week in the High Peaks or playing a camp-wide “naval battle” game, in which campers toss “bombs” made from clusters of leaves at each other.

“We get pegged as an adventure camp because we do adventures. But as uncompelling as this sounds, we’re really a relationship camp,” Mackey said. “We do relationships. Real ones. And that’s life-changing. And it’s also what so many boys and men are starving for at all ages.”

This model necessitates that Mackey and other camp leaders place an enormous amount of faith in their college-age staff counselors, the ones entrusted with exemplifying the way of Jesus. There’s a five-to-one ratio of campers to counselors. Every summer begins with three weeks of paid staff training. Deerfoot also has a summer-long counselor-in-training program for 17- and 18-year-olds called the Guide Program.

“If I were the counselor, I’m like a dad figure or maybe a grandfather figure to them,” Mackey said. “And they expect me to say certain adult things about God and Jesus. That’s what the grownups do. When it’s a really cool college guy and he’s celebrating Jesus, that makes an impact.”

Former staff member Kubinec remembers that when he was growing up, he never connected with the Christians at his evangelical megachurch, who didn’t share his interest in sports. “It felt like you couldn’t be a cool, funny guy and also love Jesus,” he said. When he first attended Deerfoot, he was surprised to see older counselors who were “six feet tall and ripped” but were also faithful followers of Jesus who served others. One of his defining memories was when a counselor sat patiently with him day after day, helping him learn how to dive—an encounter that gave him a glimpse of what it means to put others’ interests first.

“At times it’s hard to know what your masculinity is for,” he said. “When you’re growing up in school, masculinity is primarily talked about in terms of what you shouldn’t do. Deerfoot is a place that channels masculinity in a very healthy way, where it says that you don’t need to subdue your strength or your desire to yell or run around or do all these things that boys should do, but you should use that to serve others.”

Deerfoot, like many other Christian camps, can provide a “mountaintop experience” for campers, where the high of feeling close to Jesus quickly wears off once the summer is over. Mackey remembers a staff member telling him, “Jesus only works for me at Deerfoot. When I’m here, I hear it. I feel it. I want it. But when I go home, it’s a desert. It’s like he’s not there. It’s almost like a mirage.”

Since that conversation, Mackey has tried to conquer what he calls the “50-week problem.” How do you enable Deerfooters to sustain what they’ve learned and encountered even after they leave camp? He’s keen to emphasize that Deerfoot should never be a replacement for becoming involved in a local church.

“We’re not pretending to be a church,” he said. “We are constantly calling men to be engaged in their church. I hope every men’s ministry is a better ministry if they have Deerfooters in it.”

Deerfoot recently hired Osborn, a mission engagement director, to create programming for campers and alumni after the summer season wraps up. This year, Deerfoot will be launching a set of regional fellowships, in which local alumni will meet twice a year to do outdoor excursions together. The camp is also planning to set up a mentorship program where younger alumni can sign up to receive regular guidance from older Deerfooters.

Some alumni have already begun regularly connecting with each other. Douglas Goetz, 72, attended Deerfoot as a camper from 1961 to 1968 and was part of the first cohort of counselors in training. Now, he leads a weekly Zoom meeting on Monday nights for some other alumni, all of whom are over 60 and live across the US. The group of a dozen men spends time catching up—discussing the latest softball game or hike—before sharing prayer requests and discussing a devotional.

“By these Zoom meetings, we have remained brothers in Christ,” Goetz said.

My last night at Deerfoot concluded with a tradition that happens every camp session. Staff constructed a massive 15-foot bonfire on a grassy field near the lake, and all the campers gathered in front of it. As a plume of smoke rose into the sky and night gradually descended, each of the campers had the chance to throw a log into the fire and share one meaningful thing from their session.

One of the boys, dressed in a blue sweatshirt and flannel sweatpants, sidled up to the fire and tossed in a log. “I’m grateful for all the new friends I’ve made and how close Deerfoot has brought me to Jesus,” he said.

“I realized how big God is and how small I am,” another boy said.

“I really felt the Lord’s presence with me. I never want this to leave. I always want this to stay with me,” said another.

After many boys had shared, the entire group stood in an enormous circle. Placing their arms around each other, they began to sway and sing. Wood hissed and crackled. Sparks sprang from the flames and danced in the inky black sky.

Sons of Deerfoot, strong and true,
We will pledge ourselves anew,
And as we part to go our separate ways,
May the memories of these happy days
Keep us faithful unto him
Till we meet again.

Later that evening, I drove out from camp and into the night until the forest enveloped the sounds of laughter and song.

Christopher Kuo is a writer based in New York City. His work has been published in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Duke Magazine, and elsewhere.

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EASTER SALE

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