Transubstantiate

A tribute to the late author of “The Book of the Dun Cow,” “Jesus: A Novel,” and “Water, Come Down!”

Last week, Walter Wangerin Jr. passed away, and a unique voice fell silent. His wife Thanne (short for Ruth Anne), his family, and a few close friends from Valparaiso University were with him when he died.

I first encountered Walter as a speaker at a conference in which we both participated. A slender man with a handsome, angular face and a shock of dark hair, he stalked the stage like a Shakespearean actor. I thought of the accounts of Charles Dickens sitting onstage in the great halls of England, reading his stories to a mesmerized audience.

Yet Wangerin was neither reading nor sitting. He was performing in the purest sense of the word, weaving stories and concepts together in erudite prose, directing our minds and emotions much as a conductor directs an orchestra’s sounds—now meditative and melodic, now electrifying and bombastic.

We got to know each other mainly through the Chrysostom Society, a group comprising 20 or so writers of faith. Walt usually sat quietly on the margins, stroking his then-shaven chin while observing everything around him with piercing blue eyes. He rarely showed emotion, and when he spoke, he acted as a peacemaker, calming the heated arguments that sometimes emerged from the gaggle of writers. A pastor by profession and calling, he seemed thrilled simply to be in the company of writers.

A few years before, he had written The Book of the Dun Cow. At the time, he was trying to support his family on the salary provided by his predominantly African American church, and his days were filled with counseling, parenting, social work, and the many tasks of an inner-city pastor.

To his surprise more than anyone’s, his first book won the National Book Award in the science fiction category, …

Continue reading…

Michael Bird offers a trusty primer on reading and understanding God’s Word.

At my seminary, I regularly teach a course on biblical interpretation, and I always begin in the same way: by showing students a picture of the “Bible Bar.” This was a real product (no longer available, I believe) that claimed to offer a truly “biblical” snacking experience.

Each Bible Bar contained only seven ingredients, the seven foods mentioned in Deuteronomy 8:8, which were thought to be plentiful in the Promised Land: wheat, barley, vines (raisins), figs, pomegranates, olive oil, and honey. (Personally, I’m glad they didn’t add any milk from the land flowing with milk and honey, since I’m lactose intolerant, but having sampled the bar once, I can only conclude that it’s a shame Deuteronomy 8:8 doesn’t mention salt.)

Every semester, after introducing the Bible Bar, I ask my students a series of questions: Is this what we are meant to glean (pun intended!) from Deuteronomy? Is the inspired text of Deuteronomy 8:8 a recipe book for the best on-the-go energy boost? Were these foods the only things growing in Canaan? Do these foods alone have “spiritual” significance?

Because our Bibles don’t come with an instruction booklet, readers sometimes come up with unusual uses and applications. When I was in high school, the latest craze was a book called The Bible Code. In it, Michael Drosnin argued that the Hebrew Bible contained crossword puzzle–like codes that supposedly embedded terms like “Hitler” and “Pearl Harbor.”

For a brief time, The Bible Code was a sensation, but it was quickly forgotten for obvious reasons. God doesn’t want us to read behind the text for hidden codes. He wants us to read the Bible carefully and …

Continue reading…

Spirit-filled content creators test theological limits on social media.

Michael Paul Corder says he “cut his teeth” praying in public by going around to grocery stores and striking up conversations, asking folks if they wanted to pray. But even in the Bible Belt of East Tennessee, he found people were often hesitant or embarrassed.

Not so, he said, on TikTok.

Corder does a livestream open prayer every day, in which he prays for the hundreds of people who hop into the virtual chatroom without embarrassment. Many of his nearly 165,000 followers who join express feeling relief or calm when he prays for them. Their pain or healing is not something that can be verified, Corder admits, but still, he believes their presence testifies to something missing from their churches.

“At those churches, they’re not praying for the sick, or if they are, they’re not seeing results. At mainstream churches, you get more of a philosophical lecture,” Corder told Religion News Service.

Sometimes on his livestreams, Corder will pray in tongues—a practice popular among charismatic and Pentecostal Christians who say the unknown language is a gift from the Holy Spirit, as described in Acts 2.

“I think words are not the greatest at describing the sensation,” Corder said. “It’s being filled, it’s being baptized.”

“It’s a little mysterious,” he added, saying he speaks in tongues when the Holy Spirit moves him.

Pentecostal or charismatic TikTok is a thriving community of diverse Christians. It’s multilingual and multicultural and spans generations. Its hashtags have millions of views. Here, Christians who identify as charismatic, nondenominational, Assemblies of God, or Pentecostal all gather to share encouragement and witness for …

Continue reading…

Olympic dreams inspire countless millions to pursue goals they’ll never achieve. Here’s why that’s a good thing.

I still remember how it felt when I first saw it. The year was 1984, and the Olympics were held in Los Angeles. Families around the globe gathered around their glowing televisions as stories of striving and victory flooded into their living rooms.

I was eight years old, and enraptured. The torch relay, the opening ceremonies, the extraordinary accomplishments of Carl Lewis and Edwin Moses and Mary Lou Retton, and the succession of medal ceremonies where the American flag unfurled and tear-stricken athletes sang our national anthem—all captivated me. Most captivating of all was the men’s gymnastics team winning the gold medal. My soul was elevated.

Perhaps you’ve seen a seagull on a pier over the ocean. When the wind is right, the bird has only to stretch out its wings and it will rise on the streams of the air. That’s the way it felt. It was a dream and a yearning and a flight of the soul all at once.

That yearning set the spheres of my life in motion. It inspired me to begin a career in gymnastics. It filled my mind with brilliant images when I lay down to sleep. It sustained me through countless hours of training and an excruciating series of injuries. It took me all around the country and even over the oceans, as I became a junior national all-around champion and member of the national team. It even took me to a college I could never have afforded otherwise, and an NCAA championship in my freshman year at Stanford University.

Then it came crashing down. A few months before the Olympic Trials in 1996, I fell from the horizontal bar and broke my neck. In a blink, my gymnastics career ended in failure and a lifelong sentence of spinal damage and chronic pain.

As a person of faith, I believe that history …

Continue reading…

Class action alleges apologetics organization misrepresented the ministry and “bilked” faithful Christian donors.

An NFL football player and his wife are suing Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM), claiming the world’s largest apologetics ministry “deceived faithful Christians” and “bilked tens—if not hundreds—of millions of dollars from well-meaning donors.”

Derek Carrier, a tight end for the Las Vegas Raiders, and his wife Dora Carrier were regular listeners to RZIM podcasts and gave the ministry $30,000 in January 2020.

They supported RZIM’s mission to “touch both the heart and the intellect of the thinkers and opinion-makers of society with the truth of the gospel” and trusted the integrity of the ministry’s leadership. They didn’t know that Zacharias had owned multiple spas where he sexually abused employees and had been credibly accused of preying on women in multiple countries.

Now the Carriers say they believe Zacharias and the leadership of RZIM “misrepresented the true nature of their ministry and the use of funds donated in support of their stated purpose.” Ravi Zacharias’s estate, administered by his widow Margaret, is also named as a defendent.

The lawsuit, filed in Atlanta on Thursday, asks the federal court to certify the Carriers as representatives of a class of donors harmed by RZIM. According to their lawyers, the class would include people like the Carriers who gave large sums to support apologetics, but also donors who gave $5, $10, or $100.

“I would imagine the vast majority of donors gave under $100,” Kim Johnson, an attorney representing the Carriers, told CT. “Nobody is going to file a claim for $100. Nobody can bear the costs of going to court for such a small amount. A class action allows us to represent …

Continue reading…

Despite the risks in the region, Christians are flocking to camps and targeted villages to provide resources and spiritual care.

Back in April, when armed men began attacking his village in the middle of the night, a pastor of a local church in northern Mozambique woke his family to flee. He took his two older sons and his wife took their two younger sons. In the midst of chaos and confusion, shouting and shooting, they escaped in two different directions.

The pastor and his sons hid in the surrounding bush all night before returning to the village, near the town of Palma, to look for the rest of their family. The next morning, he found their hut caved in and the remains of his four-year-old son, who had been beheaded by the attackers. All he and his sons could do was dig a hole in the ground to bury the young boy’s body and weep together. To this day, his wife and second-youngest son are still missing.

This pastor shared his story with CT through English-speaking ministry partners in Mozambique. He asked that he and his village remain unnamed for security reasons, but his story is not unique as conflict escalates in the northern province of Cabo Delgado.

Countless innocent civilians are fleeing the area where insurgents have been burning entire villages to the ground and brutalizing their inhabitants—including beheading, recruiting, capturing, enslaving, and committing sexual crimes against them. The violence has killed thousands of people and displaced upward of 800,000, a number that is growing rapidly and may soon reach one million, United Nations officials warn.

“The north of Mozambique, especially Cabo Delgado province … is being affected by Islamic insurgents, who at some stage claim to be linked with Islamic State,” said Mauricio Magunhe, faith and development coordinator for World Vision Mozambique.

“For the …

Continue reading…

The internet and new gospel partnerships fueled church growth in the early 2000s, but bigger isn’t always better.

Mark Driscoll rose to prominence in the early days of the internet. Unlike his megapastor predecessors like Robert Schuller and Bill Hybels, Driscoll harnessed technology to build his brand and bypass cultural gatekeepers who might hinder or influence his success. He formed a talented media team to expand his reach and, inadvertently, reinforce his ego through an online presence. Quickly though, his star rose too far, keeping him at arm’s length from the collaboration and counsel of those who could lend wisdom to his youthful, combustive pastoral ministry.

In this episode of The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill, host Mike Cosper breaks down how technology shaped the messaging and marketing of Mark Driscoll and how personal brand can isolate a leader even as it fuels a ministry’s growth. Cosper interviews broadly, from Mars Hill media team members to Collin Hansen of The Gospel Coalition, to investigate how narcissism grows, how theological movements birth new leaders, and why the church’s love affair with charisma and certainty demands we develop a better moral imagination. Rethink your admiration for celebrity pastors. Reevaluate your attraction to religious trends. And, reflect on your own willingness to stand “sola” when church becomes about something other than the Gospel.

“The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill” is a production of Christianity Today

Executive Producer: Erik Petrik

Produced, written, edited, and hosted by: Mike Cosper

Associate produced by Joy Beth Smith

Music, sound design, and mixing: Kate Siefker

Graphic Design: Bryan Todd

Social Media: Nicole Shanks

Editorial consulting: Andrea Palpant Dilley, Online Managing Editor

Christianity Today Editor in Chief: Timothy Dalrymple

Theme song: …

Continue reading…

Caroline Campbell’s project aims to inspire Christians to learn Scripture and see disabilities as a gift to the church.

Kenny Campbell was doing some spring cleaning when he found a stack of papers with his daughter Caroline’s handwriting on them. He looked at the pages and realized there was something special about them. It was Scripture, copied word for word by hand.

The Campbells attend Community Bible Church in Beaufort County, South Carolina, and their teenage daughter, who has Down syndrome, was writing down the verses their pastor preached on. Carl Broggi is an expository preacher, going verse by verse; Caroline had recorded those verses in her own hand.

“This is amazing, Caroline, how much you’ve written,” Kenny told her.

On a whim, he said she could do the whole Bible.

“Yeah, okay,” Caroline said.

Those two words kicked off a nine-year project. Starting in January 2012 and finishing in June 2021, Caroline, who is now 28, copied the entire Bible by hand. She started in Genesis and worked her way through Revelation, writing down all 782,815 words from her 1973 New American Standard Bible.

Caroline’s mother, Jennifer, estimates the completed manuscript is more than 10,000 pages. It is compiled in 43 binders.

Once she started, Caroline said, she just didn’t stop. She persisted out of her devotion to the Bible and her desire to encourage others.

“I want to inspire people to learn the Bible,” she told CT.

Kenny and Jennifer say this has been key to their experience of having a daughter with Down syndrome. They have had to learn not to put limits on her. When their daughter was diagnosed, they had deep concerns. But they soon decided to treat her like any other child. And then they learned that she would, on occasion, completely blow them away with the amazing ways she was different.

Bethany …

Continue reading…

As more evangelical figures embrace crowdfunding, is the format demanding too much of them?

To release her first contemporary Christian music album back in 2004, Beth Barnard signed a contract with Sparrow Records during her freshman year of high school.

Her 11-song debut was self-titled Bethany Dillon, a stage name she adopted at the recommendation of execs who thought her maiden name—Adelsberger—would be a mouthful. Through Sparrow (now Capitol Christian Music Group), Barnard spent most of her teen years recording music. Her hit songs were nominated for Dove Awards and appeared on WOW compilations.

She then married Shane Barnard—one Shane-half of Christian music group Shane & Shane—and realized that she wanted to stay at home with her family rather than record and tour. More than a decade and four kids later, Barnard sensed last year that she had another collection of songs to share. Only this time, she launched a Kickstarter campaign.

The crowdfunding site had allowed Barnard to release a worship album, A Better Word, in 2017. She turned to Kickstarter again in 2021 to bypass some of the business baggage she was happy to leave behind when she stepped away from the music industry years ago, like marketing efforts and hitting the road to promote the album.

Her fans remembered her and came through, giving more than $20,000 in the first 12 hours of the fundraiser in January.

“Thank you, thank you … not only for helping us meet the financial part of rolling this out, but also for what that speaks … that you’re behind this and excited about it,” Barnard told backers in a recorded video after her project was funded.

Kickstarter, where supporters can pledge for a one-time project, and platforms like Substack and Patreon, where they can pay to subscribe for content …

Continue reading…

Update: Judge rules epic of Gilgamesh fragment belongs in Iraq.

Update (July 29): Two years after federal officials seized the artifact, a judge ordered Hobby Lobby to officially forfeit a rare clay tablet containing a portion of the epic of Gilgamesh. The tablet will be returned to Iraq.

The Bible Museum, which was founded by Hobby Lobby owner and Bible collector Steve Green, has supported efforts to send the item back to its country of origin.

The ancient Mesopotamian text was purchased from Christie’s auction house in 2014 before being put on display in Washington D.C. in 2017. Hobby Lobby is now suing Christie’s, claiming the reputable auction house provided false information and provenance documents making it seem the tablet could be legally purchased, and was not looted during fighting in Iraq.

Hobby Lobby is also returning about 11,500 other antiquities to the Iraqi and Egyptian governments due to incorrect or incomplete documentation. Green has previously said he made a mistake, when he was building a collection for the Museum of the Bible, by trusting unscrupulous dealers.

—–

Original post (May 21, 2020): Another ancient document is causing controversy for the Museum of the Bible after a federal government prosecutor filed a claim that a six-by-five-inch clay tablet was stolen from Iraq. The US Attorney’s Office of Eastern New York says that Hobby Lobby legally purchased the Gilgamesh Dream Tablet for $1.6 million to loan to the museum, but the papers documenting the artifact’s purchase history were false.

“In this case, a major auction house failed to meet its obligations by minimizing its concerns that the provenance of an important Iraqi artifact was fabricated, and withheld from the buyer information that undermined the provenance’s reliability,” …

Continue reading…