Author: Chris Boyd

“Our students are resilient, but the burden is great.”

Two California Christian colleges are mourning losses after a deadly shooting at a country and western dance hall last night.

A Pepperdine University freshman and a recent alumnus of California Lutheran University were among the 11 people killed as a shooter launched smoke bombs and fired bullets across the crowd at an 18-and-up college night at Borderline Bar & Grill in Thousand Oaks, California.

A sheriff’s sergeant and the gunman, identified as 29-year-old David Ian Long, also died in the shootout. At least 18 others were injured.

School officials said that 16 Pepperdine students, including from Seaver College and the School of Law, were known to be at Borderline on Wednesday. Among them was 18-year-old Alaina Housley, who didn’t make it out of the bar when her friends escaped through a broken window.

On Thursday morning, her uncle—former Fox News correspondent and Pepperdine alumnus Adam Housley—told news media that her iPhone still showed her location as inside Borderline. By the afternoon, her family’s worst fears were confirmed. At least two other Pepperdine students were injured in the attack; they were released from the hospital today.

Justin Meek, a graduate from nearby Cal Lutheran, was also killed. The school canceled classes Thursday and Friday.

Christians have tweeted their prayers for both campuses and all the victims.

“Many are burdened by a sense of certain loss for many in the Borderline shooting…,” said Pepperdine president Andrew K. Benton. “May God grant comfort to all impacted by this senseless tragedy. Our students are resilient, but the burden is great.”

Benton joined fellow campus leaders expressing grief and anger over the shooting at a prayer …

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Should we cheer or moan when online churches perform virtual baptisms?

Virtual Reality Church’s first baptism took place in a 3D house with an underground pool and a massive billboard overhead proclaiming “A Special Baptism and Communion service.” Alina Delp, 46—portrayed as a purple, robot-like avatar—stood submerged in the water while Pastor D. J. Soto proclaimed her new life in Christ and her sins washed away. When her avatar floated to the surface, dozens of congregants and family members cheered, their avatars sending heart and clap icons floating skyward.

Delp rarely leaves her house due to erythromelalgia, a rare condition that makes it painful to be outside for longer than a few minutes. Baptism would have been difficult for her in the past. With the virtual baptism, her family members from all over the country were able to witness the event in real time.

“When the opportunity came to me, I just had to do it. I was so excited that church was an option for me, that baptism was an option for me,” she said.

She believes it was a real experience, just like getting baptized in water.

“It was powerful. As D. J. was speaking and I was under the water, I could feel this life I lived before being lifted away, and there was this new, amazing future for me,” she said, getting emotional. “I was there. It counts.”

Virtual Reality (VR) Church is just the newest iteration in a series of digital church trends that have picked up steam in the past few decades—from livestreaming entire church services, to virtual campuses that stream a sermon, to fully digital churches and digital missionaries.

Such technology is increasingly used for evangelism and spiritual identity. More than three-quarters of Americans own a smartphone, and nearly …

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Has “holistic mission” won the missiological battle? Its champions say so, but their boast might be premature.

In recent years, the ideal of “holistic mission” has dominated thinking about the church’s call to make disciples of all nations. Broadly speaking, a “holistic” approach weaves together two essential threads of mission: sharing the gospel of eternal life through faith in Christ and meeting people’s earthly needs, which often involves challenging political and economic forces that breed injustice and poverty.

Influenced by liberation theology, the work of the Lausanne Movement, and books like Ron Sider’s Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, holistic mission came of age in the 1970s and ’80s through the missional church movement. Today, its animating spirit can be found in institutions like the Christian Community Development Association and the global Micah Network. As Sider likes to say, and as Al Tizon repeats in Whole and Reconciled: Gospel, Church, and Mission in a Fractured World, “We won.”

In the 1980s, holistic-mission advocates used the language of “transformation.” Then, under the influence of Latin American theologians, they pivoted to “integral mission.” Tizon, executive director of Serve Globally (the international-ministries arm of the Evangelical Covenant Church) and a missions professor at North Park Seminary, argues for recasting holistic mission in terms of reconciliation.

As Tizon acknowledges, this proposal is indebted to a host of theologians and missiologists (whom he cites generously). His purpose is more about showing how this newer paradigm meets the needs of the prevailing global situation. He begins the book with a series of chapters on “The Whole World” that address the effects of globalization. Though he …

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Jesus built his church from a group of enemies. Why did I love to sting mine?

On a typical Thanksgiving I would have been in the house with my family, putting the final touches on the meal. We might even have talked about religion and politics as we worked, but not in a bad dinner conversation kind of way. For the better part of a decade, we had all read the same theologians, admired the same pundits, and echoed each other’s opinions on social issues.

On the Thanksgiving two weeks after the 2016 election, however, I stood alone on my deck and wept. Five years earlier, God had begun using a series of major life events to resurrect long-buried aspects of my story. In the process, I had come to see the world very differently than my family did—and come to see certain family members as something like wrong-headed adversaries.

Now, where I saw catastrophe, all they could see was me “overreacting.” I felt alienated and disoriented.

As I struggled to make sense of my predicament, Jesus’ cryptic warning to his disciples came to mind: “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn ‘a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household’ ” (Matt. 10:34–36).

Initially it seems ironic that Jesus, whom we hail as the Prince of Peace, announces that he will disturb the peace. But I’ve learned that what he disturbs is an artificial peace, one achieved through conformity and uniformity—foundational characteristics of the Tower of Babel (Gen. 11:1–4). Since it depends on establishing and maintaining sameness, this peace can’t offer a violent …

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Darkness, in its many intimidating and frightening modes, is not the final word.

As I walked among the glistening gold-plated stupas of the Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon, Myanmar (formerly Burma), it was hard to believe that just miles north, a genocide took place masterminded by the country’s military.

The Rohingyas, a people-name once unknown, is now a common point of our conversations. But even as we assume the worldwide accusations are self-evident behind the genocide of these ethnic Muslims in the heart of a Buddhist country, complexity rules—a fact of which the small Christian community there is well aware.

We wonder at the silence of the country’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991. What are the factors in the social architecture of Myanmar that have contributed to this seemingly unforgiveable tragedy?

To begin, Myanmar is a country of 54 million people, divided into eight major ethnic races grouped by region, more so than language or ethnic affiliation. These regions camouflage its actual 135 distinct ethnic groups!

We too quickly assume that globalization is good, unifying people of all kinds of cultural strands. Democracy and human rights we value so highly are not necessarily embraced. Tribalism often rules, and Myanmar is a prime example. Mistreatment of ethnic or religious minorities is nothing new in what was formerly Burma. Internally, there are some 600,000 displaced persons, not counting the tens of thousands still in camps in Thailand and other surrounding countries.

The Military Rules

Although Myanmar is, nominally speaking, a country with a government of an elected parliament, it is still the military who rules. Myanmar held general elections in 2015; however, 25 percent of the seats in parliament are controlled by the military. …

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An understanding of human dignity and responsibility belongs in the development of artificial intelligence for military uses.

Recently, Google hit the pause button on a military artificial intelligence project amidst thorny ethical questions raised by its own employees. Increasingly in new drone and surveillance systems, human knowledge and actions are augmented and soon might be sidelined altogether. Should we shirk our responsibility and pass authority onto these machines? For Christians, the complex conversation about how AI should be developed as weapons centers on a biblical understanding of human dignity and responsibility.

For Google employees, protest began in April 2018 over involvement in a program to continue work on an AI-based image recognition program for the Department of Defense arguing that Google should not be in the business of war since the company’s historic slogan has been “Do no evil.”

The program, simply referred to as “Project Maven,” is designed to be used in identifying enemy targets on the battlefield. The research would improve an AI system, which processes a massive amount of video data captured every day by US military drones and reports back to military and civilian analysts with potential targets for future military engagement. The New York Timesreported that the Pentagon has spent billions of dollars in recent years to develop these systems and often partners with leading technology firms.

Yet, thousands of Google’s employees, including many senior engineers, signed a letter to CEO Sundar Pichai in protest of the firm’s involvement in Project Maven. In June, Google announced that it would not renew the government contract for Project Maven. Employees rejoiced at this decision, but Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos and others have criticized the move arguing that dropping the …

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Our most effective weapon against injustice is carried and concealed in our hearts.

The tanks don’t always stop in China, as they did when the world watched a lone, brave man stand in Tiananmen Square and face down tanks designed to quell opposition to the government.

Few were watching in 2016 when the Reverend Li Jiangong and Ding Cuimei, his wife, stood before a bulldozer ordered by the government to demolish their church.

“Bury them alive for me,” an angry member of the demolition team reportedly said.

The bulldozer did. Li managed to scratch his way out. But his wife didn’t make it.

That turned out to be a step too far even for the Chinese government at the time, which soon hauled the demolition team in for questioning. But the deed was done—and whether politically intentional or not, it is a symbol of a brutal repression of the Chinese church that is only gaining momentum.

Since the Communist takeover, the church has always been subject to repression by authorities. But slowly since 1982, the government had been giving the church space to breathe. As late as the spring of 2011, Chinese officials were saying publicly that “religion is good for development,” according to a 2012 report in Foreign Policy. The government donated land, built churches, and authorized research on positive Christian contributions to society.

Under the current administration of President Xi Jinping, however, the government is tearing down some churches (like the 50,000-member Golden Lampstand Church in Shanxi Province in January) and closing others (most notably, Zion Church, Beijing’s largest house church). The Chinese government is working furiously to recreate the church in its image. Regulations announced last year formalized policy that has, in practice, been in effect for some …

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We are obsessed with making progress, but the Bible reminds us it is often important to go back.

Returning does not resonate in 2018. Who wants to come back to something? We would rather push forward no matter what the cost, reach new heights, or at the least be a few steps farther along than where we started. Within this framework, to return is to regress or worse, to fail.

But returning can be beautiful. Great-hearted Odysseus, sitting on the shores of Ogygia, weeping, broken, with tears streaming down his weathered face as he looked homeward is a powerful picture of the beauty of the longing of returning. Odysseus wanted nothing more than to return to his home, his land, his child, and most of all his beloved wife; returning gripped him. Everything else became tasteless and colorless; even the beautiful nymph, Kalypso, with all she had to offer, became bland and washed-out.

Odysseus saw beyond the charms and allures of Kalypso. From an etymological perspective, his feat was even more pronounced because Kalypso comes from the Greek verb kalyptō, which means to conceal and, by implication, to deceive. Kalypso attempted to charm Odysseus, but she failed because Odysseus had a one-track mind. He was all about returning. Sirens, lotus-eaters, men, gods, suitors, nothing could get in his way. There is an insight here.

Returning is also an important idea in Scripture, especially returning to God. Perhaps we are missing what is most important in life because we have forgotten the importance of returning or even how to return. Like a lost ship at sea that eventually runs aground, we are stranded, isolated, and in despair not knowing what to do or where to go. We try to move forward, but since we have lost our orientation, forward may not mean progress. But here’s the good news: We can always return, and that is progress. …

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Jailed Christian mother acquitted by Supreme Court after eight years. Violent protests erupt in major cities.

Today the Supreme Court of Pakistan acquitted Asia Bibi of committing blasphemy against the Prophet Muhammad, a crime punishable with death in the Muslim country, amid threats of nationwide paralyzing protests and “horrible” consequences to judges and army generals if the Christian mother of five was released.

In response, protests have already erupted in Islamabad, Lahore, and Karachi, among other cities.

In their final judgment, reviewed by CT, reversing Bibi’s convictions by two lower courts and removing her death sentence, the panel of three judges ruled that Bibi was “wrongly” accused by two sisters with the help of a local cleric, based on “material contradictions and inconsistent statements of the witnesses” that “cast a shadow of doubt on the prosecution’s version of facts.”

“Furthermore, the alleged extra-judicial confession was not voluntary but rather resulted out of coercion and undue pressure as the appellant was forcibly brought before the complainant in presence of a gathering, who were threatening to kill her; as such, it cannot be made the basis of a conviction,” they wrote.

“Therefore, the appellant being innocent deserves acquittal,” the judges concluded.

One even accused Bibi’s accusers of violating a covenant made by Muhammad with Christians in the seventh century but still valid today.

“Blasphemy is a serious offense,” wrote justice Asif Saeed Khosa, “but the insult of the appellant’s religion and religious sensibilities by the complainant party and then mixing truth with falsehood in the name of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) was also not short of being blasphemous.

“It is …

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The quest to detach morality from divine revelation has only led to one dead end after another.

Can science tell us how we ought to behave? In Science and the Good, a book that crosses the boundaries of history, philosophy, and psychology, sociologist James Davison Hunter and philosopher Paul Nedelisky examine nearly 400 years of scientific attempts to discover the sources and meaning of morality. That effort, they conclude, has failed. Science can tell us the way things are but not the way things ought to be. In the language of philosophy, it can’t derive an “ought” from an “is.”

Hunter and Nedelisky define the scientific quest for morality as an attempt to use empirical methods to discover universal principles for ethical action. The scientists and ethicists engaged in it operate from the assumption that everything about life on earth can be explained by natural processes alone.

Before the dawn of the Enlightenment era, late-medieval scholastics such as Thomas Aquinas had produced moral theories based on theological, rather than naturalistic, premises. They believed that through observation of the created order, one could discover the purposes for which God had designed particular creatures or activities—and the moral laws that flowed from those purposes. But in the 17th century, the Dutchman Hugo Grotius and other political philosophers wanted to discover a moral code that could operate without invoking God.

With Christendom split into competing factions that were slaughtering each other over sectarian disagreements, Grotius and like-minded intellectuals doubted whether religion could create a universal moral consensus. Could science succeed where religion had failed? Instead of speculating about divine purposes for creation, Grotius thought, moral theorists should ask one question: …

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