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What Jesus’ midnight prayer in the garden tells us about cosmic conflict in the supernatural realm.

“Father, if it is your will, please heal your servant; yet not our will, but yours be done.” As a child, I recall hearing this kind of prayer and feeling deeply puzzled. If it is your will? I thought. Why wouldn’t it be God’s will to heal his servant?

Such prayers are not theologically incorrect—they echo the words of Christ himself and, rightly understood, believers ought to pray likewise. But wrongly understood, such prayers can be deeply confusing and troubling.

Imagine a young girl hearing people pray those words for her mother suffering with terminal cancer. What is she to think? Why wouldn’t God want to heal mommy—does he want her to suffer and die? Doesn’t God love mommy and me?

Even the most spiritually mature adults can struggle with the purpose and effect of their prayers—particularly when God seems absent or silent in their hour of greatest need, despite how faithfully and fervently they pray. If God is perfectly good, all-powerful, and knows our needs before we ask (as Jesus himself taught in Matthew 6:8), how could our prayers make any difference in God’s action? Wouldn’t God already know, will, and do whatever is preferable regardless of whether or how we pray?

These are not easy questions to answer, and they bring up sticky theological quandaries, such as how God’s sovereignty and human free will could possibly coexist. On this issue, Christians land on various parts of a spectrum, seeing it as some form of divine determinism, an optimistic vision of human partnership with God, or something else. Some see prayer primarily as a personal devotional practice that does not influence divine action, while others assume that unanswered prayers reflect …

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Few Protestant traditions continue the footwashing that Jesus did at the Last Supper. Some want a revival of the practice.

Americans get cold feet when it comes to footwashing, experts say.

Maundy Thursday is a Holy Week service marking the Last Supper. In some faith traditions, that service has included footwashing from the example in John 13, where Jesus washes his disciples’ feet during the supper and says, “Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you” (v. 14).

According to interviews with theologians and pastors, footwashing is now a rare practice even in churches that consider it a part of Maundy Thursday or regular worship. There do not appear to be recent surveys of how often US churches participate in the ritual. A 2009 survey found a decline in footwashing in one Anabaptist denomination, despite the tradition’s high view of the practice.

Most evangelical traditions have historically embraced John 13 as an example of sacrificial love rather than as a specific commandment for a worship ritual. That approach was clear in a widely discussed Super Bowl ad this year from the He Gets Us campaign featuring footwashing. Other traditions like Pentecostalism that do include footwashing in church services don’t practice it very often.

“Other than Maundy Thursday service, the practice is few and far between,” said Lisa Stephenson, a theologian at Lee University who has done research on footwashing, especially among Pentecostal churches.

Eastminster Presbyterian Church in Columbia, South Carolina, does footwashing in church every few years.

It can be a “a visible sign of an invisible grace,” said Ben Sloan, the pastor of missions at Eastminster. But he added with a laugh, …

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Every year, we celebrate a dying and rising God who fulfills the hopes of ages past.

If you’ve ever attended a liturgical church during Holy Week, you’ve likely recited the Apostles’ Creed—a confession that affirms the climactic events of Jesus’ life.

At the heart of this confession, between the phrases “was crucified, died, and was buried” and “on the third day he rose again from the dead,” you’ll find the mysterious (and some might say pesky) phrase “he descended into Hell.”

Although it’s largely overlooked in evangelical churches, dwarfed by the giants of Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday, Holy Saturday in the liturgical calendar commemorates the day when Jesus’ body laid dead in the grave. But it also honors the “Harrowing of Hell”—an idea that traces back to a handful of verses in the New Testament referring to Jesus’ debated descent into the netherworld.

After all, one verse reads, “What does ‘he ascended’ mean except that he also descended to the lower, earthly regions?” (Eph. 4:9). For “After being made alive, [Christ] went and made proclamation to the imprisoned spirits—to those who were disobedient long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built” (1 Pet. 3:18–20). Later, Peter adds, “For this is why the gospel was preached even to those who are dead, that though judged in the flesh the way people are, they might live in the spirit the way God does” (1 Pet. 4:6, ESV).

That these (and other) verses imply that Christ descended into hell is an interpretation discarded by a number of respected Christian thinkers including Wayne Grudem and John Piper, who argues there’s …

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As Moscow and Kyiv trade insinuations over concert hall killing claimed by ISIS affiliate, Christian leaders focus on compassion and forgiveness instead of blame.

Russian evangelicals used Sunday sermons to condemn a terrorist attack that killed more than 130 people at a Moscow concert hall.

As Russia’s Baptist union prayed for “God’s mercy and protection,” its Pentecostal union conveyed its “bitterness and sorrow.” Vitaly Vlasenko, general secretary of the Russian Evangelical Alliance, called it a “painful shock” that could unleash “unbridled revenge” against terrorism.

But many in Russia are wondering: Who are the terrorists?

The attack on Friday that killed at least 137 people at the 6,200-seat Crocus City Hall was claimed by the ISIS affiliate in Afghanistan’s Khorasan Province (ISIS-K), which seeks an Islamic caliphate in Central Asia. Its statement emphasized it was targeting Christians and came in the “natural framework” of its war against the enemies of Islam.

Earlier this month, the US embassy in Moscow had issued a warning to avoid large gatherings. American officials stated they shared their intelligence with Russia. On March 7, Russia said it thwarted an attack on a synagogue, and a few days prior, security services killed six ISIS-K terrorists during a shootout in the nation’s Muslim Caucasus region.

The group was also linked to the 2017 St. Petersburg metro bombing that killed 15.

ISIS-K was formed by extremists seeking a more violent path than the Pakistani Taliban in 2015, the same year Russia formally intervened in Syria to support President Bashar al-Assad. A Sunni group, ISIS and its affiliates oppose Assad’s Alawite faith as heretical and considers Shiite Muslims as apostate.

In January, ISIS-K killed 95 Iranians in Tehran at a memorial service for Qasem Soleimani, leader of the …

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Sandra Glahn studies the record of an Ephesian goddess to aid our reading of a challenging passage.

As a female New Testament scholar, I simply do not have the luxury of avoiding 1 Timothy 2:11–15, where Paul, after stating that women should “learn in quietness and full submission,” claims they “will be saved through childbearing.” The “saved through childbearing” verse has been quoted to me by more strangers and (possibly) well-meaning acquaintances than any other, but one particular time stands out.

I don’t remember what context could have possibly made his statement appropriate, but one day about ten years ago, a young man said in a conversation about my teaching, “Well, you are saved through childbearing.” In this instance, I was in a position of authority over him, and I could tell that his “joke” sought to return me to my rightful place.

“Then I guess I am not saved,” I quipped back, knowing that his interpretation of this verse depended on my literal procreation. I also knew, unlike him, that my body was giving many signs that I might never bear a child. (As a side note, by God’s grace, I eventually did become somebody’s mother.)

My story provides a minute glimpse into the horrendous ways that women have been hurt by the misuse of 1 Timothy 2:11–15, and in the introduction to her recent book Nobody’s Mother: Artemis of the Ephesians in Antiquity and the New Testament, Sandra L. Glahn gives a heartbreaking picture of her experiences with infant loss as well as encounters with this text in cultures where it stands supreme in determining how women might participate in the church. She, like I, internalized messages about womanhood and how the worth of women is measured. There must be many arrows in our quivers, they …

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Christians should celebrate from Palm to Easter Sunday—and everything in between.

As a child, my twin and I would often stage elaborate bake-offs during the school holidays. One year, I made an Easter cake with three chocolate crosses and a crown of thorns. I drowned these elements in large pools of jammy blood.

Sure, it was gratuitously gruesome—and I’m not surprised my sister’s saccharine fluffy chick cupcakes were the favored choice. But from an early age, I have shirked the propensity to avoid the grittiness of Easter. To me, its bloodiness is the very reason the Cross brings so much hope.

Many Christians around the world will celebrate Palm Sunday this weekend to commemorate Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Some 2,000 years ago, crowds of Jews laid out palm branches on public streets to welcome their “Messiah”—the conquering king who they believed would overthrow the Roman government and liberate them from its hostile occupation.

While many oppressed people today still desperately need this kind of physical deliverance, Jesus’ journey did not end there. Instead, his road to Jerusalem culminated in the Cross, which brought an entirely different kind of liberation.

Palm Sunday marks the start of Holy Week, the days leading up to Jesus’ betrayal, death, and resurrection. It is a period from the ancient church calendar when Christians look forward to the victory of Easter Sunday with joyful anticipation.

But it is also a time of great sorrow—marked by suffering, betrayal, and brokenness. And because of this, it speaks powerfully to those whose countries, relationships, or mental health situations are increasingly unstable. In a world desperately in need of hope, we cannot just brush past the anguish of Holy Week and …

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The “cheerful prudery” of Ned Flanders has given way to vulgarity, misogyny, and partisanship. What does this mean for our witness?

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

I guess Ned Flanders goes to strip clubs now.

Until this week, I hadn’t thought about the caricatured born-again Christian neighbor on the animated series The Simpsons in a long time. New York Times religion reporter Ruth Graham mentioned him and his “cheerful prudery” as examples—along with Billy Graham and George W. Bush—of what were once the best-known evangelical Christian figures in the country. Indeed, a 2001 Christianity Today cover story dubbed the character “Saint Flanders.” Evangelical Christians knew that Ned’s “gosh darn it” moral demeanor was meant to lampoon us, and that his “traditional family values” were out of step with an American culture this side of the sexual revolution.

But Ned was no Elmer Gantry. He actually aspired to the sort of personal devotion to prayer, Bible reading, moral chastity, and neighbor-love evangelicals were supposed to want, even if he did so in a treacly, ultra-suburban, middle-class North American way. As Graham points out, were he to emerge today, Flanders would face withering mockery for his moral scruples—but more likely by his white evangelical co-religionists than by his beer-swilling secular cartoon neighbors.

As Graham says, a raunchy “boobs-and-booze ethos has elbowed its way into the conservative power class, accelerated by the rise of Donald J. Trump, the declining influence of traditional religious institutions and a shifting media landscape increasingly dominated by the looser standards of online culture.” (This article you are reading right now represents something of this shift, as I spent upward of 15 …

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In the village of Kemadang, long dry spells threatened local farmers’ livelihoods until a church-led granary brought hope.

Standing in her rice field in the rural village of Kemadang along the southern coast of Java, 53-year-old Marni Mariani pointed to the dry soil at her feet. “This is the land that we will harvest in three weeks,” she said. Yet due to the lack of rain this season, two of her four rice fields have already failed.

She noted that she doesn’t sell the rice harvest from her plot, which measures 32 by 49 feet, but rather that the food is for her family to eat. “But sometimes if there is a famine and the harvest is small, we are forced to buy [rice] from outsiders,” she said. “That’s what burdens us here.”

Yet since 2020, Marni hasn’t needed to worry about buying rice at a high price. Her 70-year-old neighbor, Mbah Gepeng Harjo, also no longer struggles to buy the expensive seeds and fertilizer he needs to cultivate the rice fields that he tends to. (Mbah means “old man.”)

That’s because of an innovative church-run granary program created by local pastor Kristiono Riyadi of Kemadang Javanese Christian Church that seeks to maintain community food reserves, especially during times of drought. It provides a grain savings and loan program and a produce buyback program. It also sells seeds at an affordable price.

The granaries are a local solution to tackling food insecurity in Indonesia, a widespread problem facing nearly 1 out of every 10 Indonesians and that is only increasing as the climate becomes more unpredictable. The poverty rate in the regency of Gunungkidul, where Kemadeng is located, is about 16 percent, with about 6,000 families living in extreme poverty.

The church also sees their work as an outreach to share the love of God to the community by helping with …

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Rather than follow the equal protections secured in Supreme Court decisions, the Biden administration opted for a complicated and soul-killing alternative.

Nine federal departments have issued new regulations governing social service grants for a range of programs including drug rehabilitation; assisting penitentiary inmates reentering their communities; sheltering the homeless; aiding needy families with dependent children; settling refugees; and providing overseas lifesaving aid in response to natural disasters, war, famine, and public health crises.

The regulations take effect on April 4, 2024, governing tens of billions of dollars in taxpayer funds. And they represent a threat to the many Christian ministries that have long provided these social services with the help of federal grants while maintaining their religious identity and mission.

Rather than follow the rule of equal treatment secured in recent Supreme Court decisions, the Biden administration opted for outdated and unwieldy alternatives that will entangle the government in the work of religious nonprofits offering social services.

Since the 1996 welfare reform enacted in the Clinton administration, faith-based organizations have been invited to compete on an equal basis for social service grants under the “Charitable Choice” act sponsored by former senator John Ashcroft.

At the time, it seemed foolish for federal grants to exclude community-serving organizations that were already embedded in depressed neighborhoods via churches and storefront outlets, and whose mercy workers were known to the poor and trusted by those they were serving. These ministries of hope had a holistic approach that proved especially effective for addressing certain afflictions.

Early in 2001, then-president George W. Bush created the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives to nurture the idea. The hope was that …

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A seminary professor from Sierra Leone shares how African arrivals are changing the church in Belgium and the rest of the continent.

Joseph Bosco Bangura is out to reshape how we think about migrant churches.

For more than 25 years, he has been exploring how new Christian movements open up opportunities to engage with and transform societies. Bangura’s research on the growing Pentecostal movement in his home country of Sierra Leone revealed both its popular appeal and the creative ways charismatic and Pentecostal churches have accommodated indigenous African religious traditions.

Now he’s turning his focus to the impact of migrant churches in Europe. Bangura, who teaches missiology at the Evangelical Theological Faculty (ETF) in Belgium and Protestant Theological University (PThU) in the Netherlands and also pastors a migrant church, spoke with CT about the opportunities and challenges facing migrant congregations in secularized European societies.

What motivated you to study migrant churches in Europe?

There is always a connection between people’s mobility and the spread of their faith. Any time the Jews migrated—in fact, it is from them that we have the term diaspora—something happened to their faith. The same was true in the early church. They didn’t go immediately; persecution brought about their dispersal. Migration inevitably coincides with the spread of the gospel. It widens the possibility of bringing new aspects of the faith to places where they were not initially known.

In Western Europe today, there is a greater awareness among indigenous [i.e., white European] churches of the missionary implications of migrant communities. What can they do for the configuration of the church in a secular Europe? They might be the lifeline for the survival of the faith in a secularized world.

Mission organizations are taking the …

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