Maui Fires Burn Site Where Hawaiian Queen First Brought Christianity to the Island

Once the capital of the Hawaiian kingdom, Lahaina was home to Maui’s first church and seminary.

In the aftermath of the worst disaster in memory on their island—the deadliest fire in US history—Maui’s Christians gathered on Sunday morning to offer prayers, continue to coordinate relief efforts, and mourn the loss around them.

At Grace Bible Church Maui, pastor Jonavan Asato likened the destruction to the death of a loved one. “When you look at that town and the memories that you’ve had there, it’s not just a home,” he said with tears in his eyes. “It’s a part of our culture. It’s a part of our island.”

Days before, his church had sent supplies by boat to Lahaina—the former capital of the Hawaiian kingdom, a landmark in 200 years of missionary history in Maui, and the site that bore the brunt of the brush fires that devastated the west side of the island.

Having witnessed the scorched cars, the embers of Front Street, and smoke dissipating from the more than 2,000 buildings burned, Asato asked his congregation to stand up and face in the direction of Lahaina as he repeated, “We speak life and light to you in Jesus’ name.”

In Lahaina, local Christians grapple with the widespread damage. While the leaders of Lahaina Baptist Church were “amazed” to learn that their church was still standing—despite everything around it “literally in ashes”—all but two of their church families lost their homes.

“I would estimate that over half the residents of our communities lost their homes and possessions. The big question is: Where will those people live? It will take years to rebuild,” pastor Barry Campbell wrote on Facebook on Sunday. “Another big issue is jobs. If the hotels and resorts are closed …

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Two Anglican Church Plants Leave for the Episcopal Church

Resurrection South Austin is the latest to go, citing issues around race, women, sexual minorities, and abuse response.

In the past year, two Anglican congregations in the US have left their more theologically conservative denomination for the mainline Episcopal Church.

Formed in 2009, the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) is known for taking in breakaway Episcopal congregations and clergy, though these two departing churches—Resurrection South Austin in Texas and The Table in Indianapolis—didn’t have previous ties to the Episcopal Church.

Both were church plants belonging to the Church for the Sake of Others (C4SO), an Anglican church-planting movement that predates ACNA and, for the past decade, has functioned as a diocese in the denomination. Its parishes span across California, Texas, the Midwest, and the South. Very few of its clergy or churches were Episcopalian before, and many of its members come from evangelical backgrounds.

Some Anglicans see C4SO as less conservative than others in the denomination due to its focus on justice and since it’s among the dioceses that ordain female priests.

Clergy at the departing churches attributed their decision to a range of issues where they felt out of alignment with the ACNA as a whole and for which they faced backlash from fellow Anglicans online.

They cited their convictions around the inclusion of women in leadership, hospitality toward sexual minorities, opposition to white supremacy, treatment of people of color, and response to abuse victims in the church (including a contentious investigation in the Upper Midwest Diocese).

Though LGBT inclusion was not named as the primary impetus for either church’s withdrawal, it became the impasse for the more theologically conservative minority who decided not to stay during the transition to local Episcopal dioceses.

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Interview: ‘We Are Not in Heaven’: Niger Analyst Explains Christians’ Concern After Coup

Wary of West African war and Western sanctions, Christian minority in the jihadist-plagued Sahel region nervously prays for peace.

The military coup in Niger has now entered its third week. Four days after the July 26 putsch, the 15-member Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) threatened military action if democratic rule was not restored within seven days.

That deadline has passed, and leaders are still mulling their options while imposing sanctions against the junta, the group of military officials that seized power. But worried by the seventh coup in the Sahel region since 2020, the remaining democratic nations in West Africa believe they must draw a line in the sand.

Neighboring countries Mali and Burkina Faso, both with military governments after their own recent coups, have warned that any foreign intervention in Niger will be considered an act of war against them as well.

Niger suffered its last coup attempt in 2021, right before the elected president—now deposed—was sworn in. The former French colony had been the last bastion of Western military cooperation against jihadist militants in the Sahel, amid the expanded regional influence of Russia through its Wagner mercenary unit.

Niger, meanwhile, is the world’s seventh-largest producer of uranium.

CT interviewed Illia Djadi, Open Doors’ senior analyst for freedom of religion and belief in sub-Saharan Africa. Though he resides in London, he is a citizen of Niger, a nation which ranks No. 28 on the World Watch List of the top 50 nations where it is most difficult to be a Christian.

Djadi provided the regional context, described the difficult but improving situation of Christians, and issued a strong appeal against military intervention:

How serious is the situation in Niger right now?

I am very sad. As a Nigerien, I find the situation difficult to watch.

But as an analyst, …

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5 Books That Help Us Find Rest in Jesus

Chosen by Sarah J. Hauser, author of “All Who Are Weary: Finding True Rest by Letting Go of the Burdens You Were Never Meant to Carry.”

The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness: The Path to True Christian Joy

Timothy Keller

When we connect every experience and interaction with ourselves, constantly overanalyzing what we’ve said or what people think, we can easily grow exhausted. In this brief book, Keller shows us the freedom we can experience when we understand our identity and worth in Christ. When there’s no need to perform or manage our ego, we find, as Keller says, a “blessed rest that only self-forgetfulness brings.”

Soul Care in African American Practice

Barbara L. Peacock

In our busy, frantic lives, practices like prayer, spiritual direction, and soul care can end up on the back burner. Using the examples of ten African American faith leaders, this book invites us to return to these practices to find the rest and soul transformation so many of us crave. As Peacock writes in her conclusion, “God has used servant leaders in the African American faith community to blaze paths of internal spiritual freedom that manifest externally.”

Out of Solitude: Three Meditations on the Christian Life

Henri J. M. Nouwen

Priest, professor, and theologian Nouwen writes incisive, convicting words with humble, pastoral gentleness. In this book, he reflects on three scenes in the life of Jesus to show us how communion with God through solitude enables us to live the Christian life with depth and courage. Out of Solitude helps us quit finding our worth in usefulness or accomplishments.

Analog Christian: Cultivating Contentment, Resilience, and Wisdom in the Digital Age

Jay Y. Kim

Our attention is divided now more than ever. With technology and social media, we’re endlessly distracted, constantly comparing, and inundated by outrage—all of which …

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Manipur Mobs Destroyed Hundreds of Our Churches. Yet God Calls Us Christians to Repent.

Are we using this calamity to hide from our sins?

Since the beginning of May, more than 180 people have lost their lives in the northeastern Indian state of Manipur. Most of these victims are Christians from the minority Kuki-Zo tribe and, in turn, thousands from these communities have fled from the violence for shelter in other parts of the state or country.

Manipur is a hill-locked state with a fertile valley in the middle. The Meiteis occupy the valley districts, whereas the hill districts are the ancestral home of the various tribal communities, predating the British colonial administration. Both the hill districts and the tribal people are protected under a special act of the Indian Constitution that restricts land ownership in tribal areas.

The current conflict began after the tribal community’s peaceful protest against the Meiteis’ efforts to become a “scheduled tribe” (which would also give them access to this hill land) was met with violent retaliation by a radical Meitei mob. The violence was further fueled by explosive lies spread purportedly by the Meitei community themselves, which quickly spread to the state capital, Imphal. Violent mobs started ransacking tribal houses, churches, educational institutions, and hospitals, and attacking people, including women and children.

I am a pastor with the Evangelical Baptist Convention, and the following is an account of one of our pastors in Imphal who shared with me his experiences when the violence first unfolded.

-Chinkhengoupau Buansing

On the afternoon of May 3, 2023, we received news of clashes between the tribal community and the Meiteis in a village about 60 kilometers (about 37 miles) outside Imphal, the city we lived in. We were shocked but we did not expect the violence to escalate so …

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Despite Trump’s Indictments, Evangelicals Continue to Back His 2024 Run

Many evangelicals have stuck with the former president through his legal troubles, moral failings, and public indiscretions

On the eve of former president Donald Trump’s indictment on charges that he attempted to overturn the presidential election of 2020, Franklin Graham, head of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Samaritan’s Purse, appeared on Greta Van Susteren’s show on Newsmax to share his take.

“It’s a sad day for America,” Graham said.

The indictment—the third Trump has faced in the span of four months—“is an attempt to … inflict enough political wounds on this man to where it will be impossible for him to run” for president in 2024, Graham said.

According to Graham, this is but the latest attempt by Democrats to discredit Trump. First, there was Robert Mueller’s investigation on whether Trump colluded with Russia in the 2016 election. Then, a probe into the Trump Organization’s tax returns, and finally, accusations of sexual harassment by women that “seem to come out of the woodwork.”

Next week Trump may face yet more charges in Georgia for attempting to interfere in the presidential election of 2020. The investigation has taken nearly two and a half years and could bring charges to nearly 20 people.

After all the scandals Trump faced in his presidency and beyond, is he still susceptible to “political wounds”?

Trump’s political career has been morally fraught from the start, and a plurality of evangelical supporters stuck with him through the Access Hollywood tape, the white supremacist Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, revelations of Trump paying hush money to Stormy Daniels, his impeachments, and the Capitol insurrection.

Some conservative evangelicals may be turned off by Trump’s legal fights and pivot to a …

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A ‘Stubborn’ Child, She Became a Missionary to Those Stereotyped as Such.

How Florida’s Brenda Carter decided to spend 30 years of her life serving the Hakka people in Taiwan.

Deep in the countryside of Miaoli County, Taiwan, Brenda Carter has lived among the Hakka people for more than 30 years. Part of the Chinese Han population, the Hakka trace their lineage back to northern China. Their name is a nod to their migration south and can be translated as “guest worker” or “sojourner.” The four million Hakka in Taiwan make up about 15 percent of the country’s population.

A native of Florida, Carter describes her role in the community as a “matchmaker,” a title she uses intentionally—as well as non-traditionally.

“I am not here as a preacher. I am here as a matchmaker. The job of a matchmaker is to introduce two people, giving them a chance to get to know each other and build a relationship. But the matchmaker cannot force them,” said Carter. “I came to give people the opportunity to get to know the God who created and loves them, to build a beautiful relationship with God.”

In the past, some Hakka people traditionally lived in tulou, which are large, circular residences often three to four stories high. Multiple generations lived within a unit and the largest could hold up to 800 people.

“The Hakka community is like their tulou buildings. To protect themselves, there are very few windows facing outward, and it is difficult for outsiders to fight their way in,” she said. “But rather than saying the Hakka community is hard soil for the gospel, perhaps we ought to say that they are a neglected community.”

A love of the people

Carter first came to Taiwan in 1986 and spent two years teaching alongside numerous foreign missionaries at Christ ’s College Taipei. But her heart was for those the school was not already …

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After Another Kidnapping, Many Haitian Christians Can’t Travel, Work, or Worship Safely

The threat of gang violence around Port-au-Prince continues to disrupt ministry.

Pastor Samson Doreliens ministers “right in the middle of the violence in Port-au-Prince,” the site of the July 27th kidnapping of an American nurse and her daughter who remain missing.

The 600 active congregants of the Evangelical Baptist Mission of South Haiti (MEBSH) Church of Cote Plage are torn by the gang violence that has overtaken the city, Doreliens told Baptist Press.

“Some are drawn closer to God because they believe it is God only who can do something to take the pain away,” he said of the congregation. “Others are discouraged, questioning why God is letting all kinds of things happen to the country: violence, natural disasters, etc.”

Florida Baptist Haitian Fellowship President Jackson Voltaire helped organize the Baptist Missionary Confraternity of Haiti (Confraternitè Missionaire Baptiste d’Haiti) (CMBH), a convention of hundreds of churches spread across six regions there.

Those in the Western Region including Port-au-Prince worship under tremendous safety risks, he said, while those in rural communities can minister more freely.

“They hold worship services with a great deal of difficulty,” he said. “But thank God that’s happening mainly in the metropolitan areas where Port-au-Prince is. In that region, the Western Region, we have hundreds of churches operating, but again … with great difficulty.”

Attendance has dropped at the MEBSH Church of Cote Plage, Doreliens said, where many members have lost their jobs or simply can’t travel to work amid the violence. Sunday offerings are donated to the poor and widows.

Churches have reduced the frequency of worship services and Bible study and have cancelled evening events. Community …

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What If Churches Ask for More and No One Says Yes?

Jake Meador has a provocative proposal for reversing dechurching. But it may not be that simple.

More than 1 in 10 Americans—around 40 million of us—stopped attending church in the last 25 years.

New research using cell phone location data suggests weekly church attendance (defined as 36 weeks of the 47 studied) is at just 3 percent. And even where church attendance has rebounded since pandemic shutdowns, congregational involvement still lags.

A shift of this scale is impossible to ignore, but it’s certainly possible to misunderstand.

What if there’s an explanation we’ve overlooked, asked author and Mere Orthodoxy editor Jake Meador at The Atlantic last week—a reason apart from the usual headline-making factors like church corruption, abuse, and theological differences?

Drawing on The Great Dechurching, a forthcoming book from pastors Jim Davis, Michael Graham, and Ryan P. Burge, Meador argues that “the defining problem driving out most people who leave is … just how American life works in the 21st century.”

Everyone is busy. Job hours are long and unpredictable. Finances are precarious. The kids have soccer. The baby’s not sleeping through the night. The grandparents need more help around the house. A friend is visiting. I’m tired.

“Contemporary America simply isn’t set up to promote mutuality, care, or common life,” Meador summarizes, so we’re “lonely, anxious, and uncertain of how to live in community with other people.” Forever in the red on time and energy, we don’t spare any of our resources for church.

If that’s true, a church’s first impulse might be to make membership easier, to demand less of overbusy congregants so they’ll still show up. But maybe “the problem isn’t that churches …

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Religious Liberty Doesn’t Have to Make Polarization Worse

If it’s done right, it can actually make it easier for us to live together.

Americans support religious liberty—in general. But they are deeply polarized about how far the natural and constitutional right of individuals to respond to their conceptions of the divine should extend. And unfortunately, Americans tend to be reluctant to extend religious liberty broadly to views they find unsympathetic.

I think that’s sad. Religious liberty is for everyone and should be cherished by all. It’s also ironic, as I argue in my new book, Religious Liberty in a Polarized Age, because historically, the central social purpose of religious liberty was to reduce the fear and anger people feel when they’re threatened with penalties for living according to their religious commitments.

Fear and anger produced cycles of violent retaliation in 16th and 17th century Europe among Protestants and between Catholics and Protestants. In response, Americans embraced principles of religious liberty. The founding father James Madison called it the “true remedy” for the “disease” of religious conflicts and their threat to “the health and prosperity” of the nation.

Today’s conflicts between progressives and conservatives are, thankfully, less violent. Yet we also see cycles of coercion, fear, resentment, and retaliation. We also live in an age when people’s response to “ultimate concerns” vary greatly and are often understood in opposition to each other. Progressives sometimes seek to compel conservative religious people or groups to support same-sex marriages or transgender procedures, in violation of their consciences. Conservative Christians sometimes seek to secure privileges for Christianity, forcing acknowledgements from those who aren’t …

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