Author: Chris Boyd

In an age weary with suffering, how can we pray?

As the father of two elementary-aged children, the news of the May 24 mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas—just three hours south of my home in Austin, which resulted in the death of 19 children and 2 teachers—shook me deeply.

Driving my daughter to school the morning after, I felt acutely the fragility and unpredictability of life, and I found myself becoming intensely afraid—and increasingly angry.

Only 10 days prior, a racially motivated 18-year-old man, dressed in body armor and wielding a rifle with a high-capacity magazine, shot and killed 10 people at a Buffalo supermarket, wounding 3 others. Eleven of the 13 victims were Black.

A day after the mass shooting at a Tops Friendly Markets store in upstate New York, a gunman entered Geneva Presbyterian Church, in Laguna Woods, California—where a group of parishioners had gathered for a lunch to honor a former pastor of a Taiwanese congregation that uses the church for its worship services—and shot and killed one person and wounded five others.

One nation bombs another, a denomination keeps a secret list of abusive pastors, a man is profiled because of his skin color, a Christian is persecuted because of her faith, and thousands are cruelly displaced from their homes—all of it occurring against the backdrop of a global pandemic.

It’s tempting to shut down emotionally in light of all of this violence. It’s tempting to give into despair. “So goes the world,” we might say, wishing it were otherwise but feeling powerless to make a difference. It’s tempting to distract ourselves with busywork or to reach for spiritual platitudes to numb the pain. “Let go and let God.” “God works …

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Angry but not shocked at racist violence, the victims’ families at funerals this week have a prayer: Let these deaths not be in vain.

Buffalo this week is bearing the heaviness of 10 funerals all at once.

Even though organizers tried to stagger funeral times, hundreds of cars converged on one cemetery on Wednesday for back-to-back burials. One local congregation, Elim Christian Fellowship, held memorials two days in a row this week, gathering hundreds to cry, sing, and proclaim that death did not have the last word over the loved ones they lost.

The church called for 30 days of mourning in honor of longtime member Celestine Chaney, 65. Chaney was among the 10 people killed in a racist attack at their local grocery store back on May 14. Most of the victims were devout Christians, active in Black churches in Buffalo.

The city’s Christians aren’t rushing the grieving process, even as national news reporters have left town and attention has shifted to another horrifying shooting at a Texas elementary school.

“I’m sure God is angry with what he sees,” said Bishop Glenwood Young Sr., who leads the Church of God in Christ in Western New York. Young’s sister-in-law, 77-year-old Pearl Young, was one of the victims at Tops Friendly Market.

The grief and anger in Buffalo is different than after other recent mass shootings. The shooter, based on officials’ accounts, targeted Black people because of his white supremacist beliefs. He killed the elderly, people called mother and auntie by their friends and neighbors. The incident added to the poor neighborhood’s troubles by creating a food desert, with the grocery store indefinitely closed after the shooting.

At the funerals and around the community, conversations swelled with righteous anger. CT heard from people who held to a firm belief that God would do something to address …

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64 scholars sign document they hope will ground more Christians in holiness doctrines.

Sixty-four scholars and theologians have signed on to a “Wesleyan witness,” a six-part, 62-page document they hope will shape the future of Methodism, define orthodox Wesleyanism, and ground more Christians in the story of sanctification and restoration through grace.

“This is classic, orthodox Wesleyan theology,” said Asbury University New Testament professor Suzanne Nicholson, who is one of the authors. “The power of the Holy Spirit is greater than the power of sin. It doesn’t matter your class, your race, your gender, God is at work among the faithful, and that leads us to a full-orbed devotion to who God is.”

“The Faith Once Delivered” was first drafted in January at a summit for “The Next Methodism.” Scholars allied with the evangelical wing of the United Methodist Church, as well as holiness and Pentecostal denominations, came together, formed five working groups, and co-wrote statements on five theological topics: the nature of God, Creation, revelation, salvation, and the church. A sixth section on eschatology or “the fullness of time” was added later.

Three editors—Wesleyan scholars Ryan Danker, Jonathan Powers, and Kevin Watson—revised the final document. It was published online by the John Wesley Institute on Monday.

Danker, who is director of the institute, told CT the document is not intended to be polemical, or even really original. The hope is to offer “a constructive voice” that clearly articulates the Wesleyan understanding of Christian orthodoxy.

“These are faithful Wesleyan scholars who are committed to the faith once delivered, to Nicene Christianity,” he said. “Methodism is entering a period …

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Matthew D. Kim believes addressing pain is part of a preacher’s calling.

Matthew D. Kim is no stranger to pain, either personally or as a pastor. In Preaching to People in Pain: How Suffering Can Shape Your Sermons and Connect with Your Congregation—which won CT’s 2022 Book Award for church and pastoral leadership—Kim encourages preachers not to avoid addressing pain from the pulpit. Kim served for many years as the director of the Haddon W. Robinson Center for Preaching at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. He’s recently been appointed the Hubert H. and Gladys S. Raborn Chair of Pastoral Leadership at Baylor University’s George W. Truett Theological Seminary. Author and Denver Seminary professor Angie Ward spoke with him about how preaching to pain is a critical aspect of church health.

Your book focuses on an often-overlooked reality for preachers: In any congregation receiving a sermon, there will be listeners who are in pain. To begin, how do you define pain and suffering?

Pain is something that’s universal and yet also so individualized. Even though we all share in pain, we’re not going to experience or process pain and suffering in exactly the same way. So I would say that suffering and pain are about where we each experience discouragement or loss. They have to do with an internal discouragement, frustration, or anger with a situation and feelings of hopelessness about it.

In your book, you mention six universal types of pain: painful decisions, painful finances, painful health issues, painful losses, painful relationships, and painful sins. Have you seen an increase in particular types of pain over the past two years?

I think most of us recognize that loneliness, anxiety, depression, and other mental health issues seem to be at the forefront in …

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Denhollander and Russell Moore respond to the third-party investigation of sexual abuse in the SBC.

Rachael Denhollander is horrified by the information inside the monumental third-party investigative report into sexual abuse in the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). But she’s not surprised.

“The most sobering part,” Denhollander tells CT public thologian Russell Moore, “is that we should have known, and in many cases, we did know and did nothing.”

The first woman to pursue criminal charges and speak publicly against USA Gymnastics’ team doctor Larry Nassar, Denhollander is an internationally recognized voice on the topic of sexual abuse. As an attorney, author, advocate, and educator, she speaks with gravity and clarity about the crisis of sexual abuse in the SBC and the extreme abuses of power that allowed it.

This is a heavy episode on a devastating topic, but we hope you’ll stick with it. Denhollander’s wisdom provides key ways to resist injustice and honor the vulnerable in a critical time.

“The Russell Moore Show” is a production of Christianity Today
Chief Creative Officer: Erik Petrik
Executive Producer and Host: Russell Moore
Director of Podcasts: Mike Cosper
Production Assistance: CoreMedia
Coordinator: Beth Grabenkort
Producer and Audio Mixing: Kevin Duthu
Associate Producer: Abby Perry
Theme Song: “Dusty Delta Day” by Lennon Hutton

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Investigation: SBC Executive Committee staff saw advocates’ cries for help as a distraction from evangelism and a legal liability, stonewalling their reports and resisting calls for reform.

Armed with a secret list of more than 700 abusive pastors, Southern Baptist leaders chose to protect the denomination from lawsuits rather than protect the people in their churches from further abuse.

Survivors, advocates, and some Southern Baptists themselves spent more than 15 years calling for ways to keep sexual predators from moving quietly from one flock to another. The men who controlled the Executive Committee (EC)—which runs day-to-day operations of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC)—knew the scope of the problem. But, working closely with their lawyers, they maligned the people who wanted to do something about abuse and repeatedly rejected pleas for help and reform.

“Behind the curtain, the lawyers were advising to say nothing and do nothing, even when the callers were identifying predators still in SBC pulpits,” according to a massive third-party investigative report released Sunday.

The investigation centers responsibility on members of the EC staff and their attorneys and says the hundreds of elected EC trustees were largely kept in the dark. EC general counsel Augie Boto and longtime attorney Jim Guenther advised the past three EC presidents—Ronnie Floyd, Frank Page, and Morris Chapman—that taking action on abuse would pose a risk to SBC liability and polity, leading the presidents to challenge proposed abuse reforms.

As renewed calls for action emerged with the #ChurchToo and #SBCToo movements, Boto referred to advocacy for abuse survivors as “a satanic scheme to completely distract us from evangelism.”

Survivors, in turn, described the soul-crushing effects of not only their abuse, but the stonewalling, insulting responses from leaders at the EC for 15-plus years. …

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“Shy” creator drew stories of sin and salvation seen by millions.

His name did not appear on his art. Most of the millions who have seen it do not know who he is.

But Fred Carter’s art is unforgettable.

He drew bodies that were heavy—weighted with humanity and the possibility of redemption. He painted biblical characters who seemed real enough that their struggles and stories could be the viewers’ own. He depicted sin so that it was tempting; salvation so it mattered.

And his art was reproduced by the millions. It was distributed across the country and around the world while he remained in anonymity.

Carter—an African American artist who drew gospel tracts, evangelical comic books, and Black Sunday school curricula—died on May 9 at the age of 83.

He was the close collaborator of Jack Chick, pioneer of the popular evangelistic cartoons known as Chick Tracts. According to Christian Comics International, more than half of Chick Tracts were drawn by Carter.

Carter worked with Chick for eight years before Chick acknowledged the partnership, despite the obvious, dramatic difference between the men’s two art styles. Some suspected Chick was trying to hide Carter’s contributions, perhaps out of a desire to claim all the credit or out of fear the presence of a Black man would spark controversy.

Chick, for his part, said the decision was Carter’s.

“Fred is rather shy and declines to put his name on the art,” he said.

Carter appears to have only given one interview in his 49-year career, speaking briefly to a Los Angeles Times reporter in Rancho Cucamonga, California, in 2003. His statements were simple and straightforward.

About his calling: “It’s almost not like a job. It’s like a ministry I always wanted …

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The chief concert technician for Steinway & Sons gave Bibles to the world’s greatest pianists and told them about Jesus.

Franz Mohr, former chief concert technician at Steinway & Sons in New York, has died at 94.

He was, in his own assessment, “just a piano tuner who loves the Lord.”

But Mohr’s expertise and backstage support was valued by the world’s most famous concert pianists, including Van Cliburn, Vladimir Horowitz, Artur Rubinstein, Glenn Gould, Rudolf Serkin, and Emil Gilels. They relied on his deep musical knowledge and technical skill.

He traveled around the world with them, protecting and servicing their concert-grade grand pianos, each of which was built by 200 Steinway & Sons artisans and cost more than $200,000. Mohr prepared the pianos with tuning, voicing, and adjustments for optimal performance to the artist’s particular liking. Between concerts, he could be found in Steinway Hall’s basement in Manhattan, doing regular, meticulous maintenance.

His true passion, however, was unashamedly proclaiming the love and hope of Christ to this niche community.

“He was like a magnet drawing them in,” said Tom Carpino, Franz’s pastor at The Bridge (Nazarene) Church, in Malverne, New York, “and bringing the Bible’s message to whomever he could.”

Franz was a member of The Bridge for more than 40 years and served for many years as an elder. He also regularly spoke to Christian groups and worked with Crescendo International, a Cru ministry.

“With my little tuning hammer I have shared the Lord in unbelievable places,” he said.

He died at home on March 28 from complications related to COVID-19.

Mohr was born in Nörvenich, Germany, on September 17, 1927. He was the second of three sons in a musical family in which Mendelssohn, Mozart, and Beethoven were as …

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The power of introverted hospitality in an extroverted world of church ministry.

Perhaps the most difficult area for me as an introverted Christian woman and pastor’s wife has been the biblical call to hospitality and our culture’s interpretation of this calling.

Popular Christian discussions of hospitality are often centered around women, especially homemakers, and include strikingly extroverted elements of actively inviting over neighbors and strangers, making meals for a crowd, instituting an open-door policy, and embracing noise and mess.

While I have benefitted from and been challenged by such views, they often feel like impossible standards I will never be able to meet.

But then I remember that Jesus had no home on earth to invite others into. When he sat with the woman at the well or crossed the sea to purge a single man of his demons, he wasn’t trying hard to attract crowds at a neighborhood block party. Sometimes, no one could find him—he was off on his own, displaying suspiciously introvert-like tendencies.

And yet he embodied hospitality—which translates from the Greek to love of the stranger—in everything he did, to everyone he met.

Henri Nouwen wrote in Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life that the term hospitality “should not be limited to its literal sense of receiving a stranger in the house—although it is important never to forget or neglect that!—but as a fundamental attitude toward our fellow human being, which can be expressed in a great variety of ways.”

When we remember Jesus, the concept of hospitality breaks out of its enclosed husk and is revealed for what it truly is: the eyes to see the marginalized and lonely, the heart to embrace those in pain, the ability to offer an unhurried and loving presence in …

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While Presbyterian Church in Taiwan has historic ties to the push for independence, most Chinese congregations in the US avoid highlighting the ongoing political polarization.

As soon as they heard that a gunman attacked a Taiwanese church in California on Sunday, some Taiwanese correctly assumed political motives.

The clash between the desire for Taiwan’s independence and the desire for its reunification with China has a long history with current relevance. Still, among diaspora churches in the US, the issue typically lingers beneath the surface.

At Chinese-speaking congregations, where Christians from mainland China worship together with those from Taiwan and Hong Kong, pastors usually want to avoid stirring political division. Even some predominantly Taiwanese churches may have members that fall on either side.

But a smaller number of older, Taiwanese-speaking congregations—like Irvine Taiwanese Presbyterian Church, where the shooting took place—are more likely to see the issue as a significant part of their cultural and theological background. Though the Southern California church belongs to the Presbyterian Church (USA), it also has close, deep-rooted relationship with the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan.

“Presbyterian Church in Taiwan is a church that advocates for Taiwan independence,” said T. N. Ho, a Taiwanese Christian and a former elder of a Northern California Bay Area Chinese Church. “Other Chinese churches do not have a clear-cut position.”

The biggest Protestant denomination on the island, the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan has long defended the island’s people and culture—spanning from the 19th century missionaries who prioritized preserving indigenous leaders and traditions to the church’s political stances favoring democracy over Chinese nationalist rule in the 1970s, ‘80s, and ‘90s. The church’s symbol is …

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