18 Christian Colleges Closed Since the Start of COVID-19

Enrollment numbers, financial challenges, and the pandemic spelled the end.

Iowa Wesleyan University freshman Emma Soukup started crying when she heard the news that her school, a 181-year-old United Methodist institution, would close at the end of this semester.

She told the Des Moines Register it felt like a tornado devastated her home. She called her dad. “I don’t know what to do,” she told him.

She is not the only one.

A new study from Higher Ed Dive found three dozen colleges and universities have closed or merged since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Eighteen of them are Christian, including Methodist, Lutheran, Roman Catholic, Baptist, Church of Christ, and Independent Christian Church institutions. One minute they were there—seemingly as solid as the buildings, invested with the mission of integrating faith and learning, full of students’ hopes and ambitions—and then they were gone.

The schools were all small and struggling before COVID-19. They faced devastating demographic shifts, declining enrollment, internal conflict exacerbated by ongoing crises, and, most of all, unrelenting financial challenges. Some would have certainly closed even without a global health crisis. For others, the coronavirus was the last stiff breeze that blew them over the edge.

“Small institutions are resilient or they wouldn’t still be in existence,” said David Fincher, head of Central Christian College of the Bible, which absorbed St. Louis Christian College in 2022. “At the end of the day, though, there’s only so much resiliency gets you when there’s a perfect storm.”

In Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, a mainline Lutheran university saw the storm rising in high school statistics. Fewer and fewer students attended the region’s …

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Barely Anyone Reads the Bible in Germany. So Why Are Luther Bibles Selling So Well?

A revised edition of Reformer’s translation ranked among 2022 bestsellers.

Only 4 percent of Germans say they read the Bible every day, according to a poll conducted by Insa-Consulere and the German Christian news agency IDEA. A full 70 percent say they never read it at all.

And yet in 2022—500 years after its initial publication—Martin Luther’s German translation of the Scripture was a bestseller once again. The German Bible Society (Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft), based in Stuttgart, sold 130,000 copies last year.

This could, perhaps, presage a resurgence of Bible reading, but Christoph Rösel, the Bible society’s general secretary, would be surprised if that’s the case. It’s more likely, he said, that people care about the historic importance of the Bible for German language and literature. They buy it out of curiosity and respect.

“It is and will remain a classic,” he said. “Our understanding of the world and nature, our art, literature and music, our annual holidays have all been shaped by Luther’s Bible and the religious practice derived from it over the centuries.”

Just don’t ask too many questions about what that Bible says.

“People may not know it much,” Rösel explains, “beyond the parts they already have in their head.”

The German language is peppered with idioms from Luther’s translation, like better an end with horror than a horror without end” (Ps. 73:18–19) and “growing with his pounds” (Luke 19:11–27). Every day, people use words developed by the 16th-century Reformer to express the holy text in workable, common language—vocabulary like bloodhound, baptism of fire, and heart’s content.

And the language itself owes a debt to Luther.

“Luther’s …

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After Fasting Deaths, Kenyan Police Find Dozens Buried on Preacher’s Property

Christians and politicians are once again calling for authorities to protect citizens from dangerous faith leaders.

In the forest compound owned by the founder of Good News International Church, Kenyan police have discovered dozens of starving people and 65 bodies buried in unmarked graves. They arrested two people who weren’t starving: the church’s leader, Paul Mackenzie, and Mackenzie’s ministry partner, pastor Zablon Wa Yesu.

Since Friday, authorities searching Mackenzie’s land outside the coastal town of Malindi have exhumed bodies in shallow graves, including mass burials with as many as seven people—men, women, and children.

The investigation follows the police rescue of 15 members of Mackenzie’s congregation from the property earlier this month. Their fasting was so severe that four died before they reached the hospital. Others continued to refuse food despite being emaciated.

Police believe the victims are acting at the direction of Mackenzie, an end times preacher who promised them heaven if they starved to death.

Christians in Kenya have longed for a solution to regulate the spate of fraudulent preachers in their country. Mackenzie’s high-profile case has once again alarmed them, their politicians, and their neighbors, upset at the fatal consequences to manipulative, cultish practices by leaders who claim to be pastors.

Police found nine more starving people on Monday, when they arrested Yesu, who was reading a Bible on the property. Yesu said he wasn’t fasting but had a planned to in June. Authorities have not yet released details on the condition of the bodies or how long they have been buried.

The horrific discoveries at Mackenzie’s property have reignited the call for the government to ensure illegal and dangerous activity cannot use religious freedom as a cover.

Kenyan president …

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We Are Not Our Worldview

As Christians, we often define ourselves by ideology, but Jesus calls us to a deeper sense of identity.

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

Sometimes a perfectly good word loses its meaning so much that it ought to be set aside, at least temporarily. Calling someone a “fundamentalist” in 1923—when the word designated Christians who believed in the supernatural—is a very different thing than in 2023, when it conveys sectarian militancy.

Several years ago, I realized another good word had lost its meaning: “worldview.”

“Everyone has a worldview,” the saying went. It was and is true, of course, that the grid through which we see reality shapes who we are. But over the years, I’ve grown weary of hearing the word “worldview” invoked as a list of current culture war controversies with the “correct” Christian view attached.

I’ve also become increasingly convinced that “worldview” talk assumed something I don’t find to be true or biblical: which is the belief that people adopt cognitive axioms and apply them to their lives. Anyone who’s dealt with real people knows that the reverse is found to be true far more often. I have seen countless people with “biblical worldviews” reverse course in an instant when they’re caught in an extramarital affair.

Tim Keller’s foreword to a new translation of J.H. Bavinck’s Personality and Worldview (Crossway) analyzes many of my reluctances. Some of you yawn at even the mention of a long-dead Dutch Reformed theologian, but the book is worth its price if for nothing else than the Keller foreword and the introduction written by its translator and editor, James Eglinton. Both point out the crucial difference …

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Our Civic Leaders Are Not Above the Law

Trump’s arrest is another reminder that presidents don’t have political immunity in a democracy

In the past couple weeks since Trump’s arrest, I’ve seen some reactions from his conservative supporters along these lines: “If they can go after Trump, they can also go after you”—which is the whole point of the rule of law.

Donald Trump was indicted on 34 counts of falsifying business records. He and his defenders claim the indictment is a “witch hunt” and is evidence that the justice system has become politicized.

Politicized justice is a real problem. In many countries, the courts are not independent and there are few checks and balances protecting their integrity. In such cases, courts become little more than rubber stamps for executive rule or, on the other end of the spectrum, for the tyranny of the majority.

Judicial independence is a cornerstone of the rule of law for a free society. Without it, newly empowered parties have a habit of prosecuting, imprisoning, and even executing former presidents and prime ministers on flimsy charges as political revenge. Officeholders will seek to stay in power by any means necessary to escape prosecution. Political life deteriorates into a soap opera of charismatic criminals rotating between prison and the presidency.

But that should not lead us to make the opposite mistake and grant all former presidents and officeholders immunity from any legal prosecution. Officeholders are human, like the rest of us, and just as prone to sin, corruption, and criminality. As Christians, we should know this better than anyone.

In fact, it is precisely because of their access to power and wealth that officeholders are likely to face even greater temptation and have more opportunity to commit crime. Unless we think they are somehow immune to such temptation, …

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Nashville Shooting Intensifies Attention Around Christian School Safety

Administrators are seeking ways to “be alert and sober minded,” adding specialized training, personnel, and physical upgrades.

Last month’s shooting at The Covenant School was not only the deadliest in Nashville—it was also the most high-profile attack on a church school in the US. The incident has shaken views of Christian schools as safe havens against violence and led administrators across the country to revisit their own security measures.

“There’s been a sense of, ‘Those problems don’t seem to happen in our types of schools,’ and (the Nashville shooting) shattered that,” Sean Corcoran, who leads Brainerd Baptist School in Chattanooga, Tennessee, told Reuters.

He said the recent shooting exposed how deadly incidents can happen even when leaders “did everything right”—The Covenant School had security cameras, locking double doors, alarms, and procedures in place from a training the year before.

Safety is among the top reasons parents choose private education, but how schools protect students—staff trainings, building features, and procedures—is up to its leaders.

Several church security experts told CT they see an uptick in interest following mass shootings. The Nashville shooting in particular has been a wakeup call for parents who send their children to Christian schools and church academies.

Indiana mom Brooke Wine chose Heritage Christian School for her daughter because they have numerous security guards on campus, including at an entry point for vehicles.

“Without the proper ID or badging system, you get stopped and checked,” Wine told CT. “I personally felt much safer with my child going to a place with increased protection, in comparison to many other schools we looked into.”

At the Dade Christian and Masters Academy in …

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Our Worship Is Turning Praise into Secular Profit

With corporate consolidation in worship music, more entities are invested in the songs sung on Sunday mornings. How will their financial incentives shape the church?

When worship leader Jonathan Anderson selects the song “Lion and the Lamb” for a service, he thinks about what it means for his multigenerational Assemblies of God church to sing about the return of Christ and his final victory: Every knee will bow before the Lion and the Lamb.

“We have older people who love to imagine seeing God’s face, who look forward to that, to seeing pure beauty,” said Anderson, who serves at Bethel Church in Tallmadge, Ohio.

Songwriter and recording artist Leeland Mooring (who performs with the band “Leeland”) started composing the song at a worship event. He found himself and those with him profoundly moved by the words and music as they took shape.

Mooring told NewRelease Today, “We were just weeping, and there wasn’t a dry eye in the room …. God dropped the whole chorus of the song on me right there.”

Eight years after its release, “Lion and the Lamb” remains among the top 30 contemporary worship songs sung in churches on Sunday, with recordings by popular bands including Leeland, Shane & Shane, and Big Daddy Weave.

The song’s continued popularity means congregations lift those powerful words in praise each week, as Mooring and his cowriters (industry veterans Brenton Brown and Bethel Music’s Brian Johnson) hoped. And each time churches like Anderson’s sing “Lion and the Lamb,” it adds up—especially if the service is livestreamed—for Christian music licensing companies, corporate labels, and private investors who have come to see the Christian corner of the industry as a previously untapped income stream.

A portion of the rights and royalties for Mooring’s song, which would …

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Neither Snow Nor Rain Nor Sabbath: Mail Delivery Debate Goes to Supreme Court

An evangelical from Pennsylvania argues the postal service should have accommodated his Sabbatarian beliefs.

Maybe if Gerald Groff had only asked for one Sunday off, that would have been okay. Or he could have just asked for part of Sunday, shifting his schedule to deliver the mail after church, and that would have been fine too.

But Groff was a Sabbatarian, refusing to deliver mail any Sunday or any part of a Sunday. According to solicitor general Elizabeth B. Prelogar, that meant it was “unwarranted” and “inappropriate” for him to ask the United States Postal Service to accommodate his ongoing, every-week religious commitment.

“It’s about the nature of the accommodation,” Prelogar told the US Supreme Court during oral arguments in Groff v. Dejoy on Tuesday. “You’re just excusing someone from doing part of their job.”

The attorney representing the evangelical postal worker protested that wasn’t the right way to think about religious accommodations. The mail carrier wasn’t shirking. There were just limits on his time, because of his faith.

“It’s not a get-out-of-work free card,” attorney Aaron Streett said. “He offered to work Saturdays and non-Sunday holidays.”

The court will now have to consider when an employer has to accommodate an employee’s religious practice. In the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972, Congress said that employers have to be accommodating—as long as that doesn’t cause “undue hardship” to their businesses. A few years later, in Trans World Airlines v. Hardison, the Supreme Court ruled that a “hardship” meant anything “more than a de minimis cost,” using the Latin for “minimum” or “trifling.”

The nine justices and two lawyers debated …

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Died: Charles Stanley, In Touch Preacher Who Led with Stubborn Faith

First Baptist Church Atlanta pastor lived by the motto “Obey God and leave all the consequences to him.”

Charles Stanley once took a punch to the face for his church. The longtime pastor and oft-praised preacher, who died on Tuesday at age 90, fought hard to lead in his Southern Baptist congregation, earning him a reputation for faithful obstinacy, a commitment to following God’s will, and a life of devout prayer.

He frequently repeated his life motto, which he learned from his grandfather: “Obey God and leave all the consequences to him.” That kind of obedience wouldn’t come without cost, Stanley said, but God rewards stubborn faith.

“Granddad told me, ‘Charles, if God tells you to run your head through a brick wall, you head for the wall,’” he wrote in his 2016 memoir, “‘and when you get there, God will make a hole for it.’”

Stanley was the pastor at First Baptist Church Atlanta for 51 years. He started as associate minister in 1969, when the megachurch had 5,000 members, and remained in the pulpit until 2020, when it had about 15,000 members. He also preached daily on the radio and television through In Touch Ministries, which he founded in 1972, and was widely regarded as one of the best preachers of his generation, along with Charles Swindoll and Billy Graham.

Stanley’s son, Andy, is also a megachurch pastor in Atlanta and a much-praised preacher. They were the only father-son duo to rank on Lifeway Research or George W. Truett Theological Seminary’s lists of most-influential living preachers.

Stanley was a founding member of both the Moral Majority and the Christian Coalition, served as president of the Southern Baptist Convention at a key moment in the struggle between conservatives and moderates, and wrote more than 50 books.

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ERLC President, Covenant Parent Urges Tennessee to Pass Proposed Gun Reform

Southern Baptist leader Brent Leatherwood calls on the state to “restrain evil” through Governor Lee’s plan to keep weapons from those deemed a threat to themselves or others.

Writing as the president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) and the father of three children who survived the shooting at the Covenant School in Nashville, Brent Leatherwood pleaded with Tennessee’s elected officials to “oppose evil and protect innocent lives” by taking action on gun reform in the state.

In a letter published by The Tennessean, Leatherwood backed a proposal by Gov. Bill Lee to enact extreme risk protection order legislation, allowing authorities to temporarily restrict weapons from people at risk of hurting themselves or others.

Leatherwood urged the lieutenant governor and legislators to overcome partisan divides to move forward, even if it requires extending the legislative session to do so.

“Yes, it is true we live in a world tainted by terrible acts and deeds, but that is never an excuse for inaction,” he wrote.

“While it may not prevent every instance of this sort of violence, it will prevent some, and thereby save innocent lives. That should be more than enough reason to advance this proposal.”

His discussion of the government’s responsibilities to protect its citizens and their essential liberties, including the right to life, echo a thread he shared on Twitter last week in response to statistics that gun deaths among kids in the US grew 50 percent in two years.

Leatherwood, who worked as the executive director of the Tennessee GOP prior to his six years at ERLC, said “we all have a responsibility” to address gun violence as a community—including Christians who are called to love their neighbors and “law-abiding …

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