Transubstantiate

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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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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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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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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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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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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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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I had never heard of him, but here he was convincing me to pray for a country I couldn’t even find on a map.

It was October 1959.

I was a sophomore at Wheaton College, majoring in history and planning to attend law school after graduation. One Friday night, four friends convinced me to drive with them into Chicago to attend an all-night prayer meeting.

The leader of the prayer gathering was one George Verwer, a 20-year-old student at Moody Bible Institute whom I had never met before. The focus of our evening was to pray for unreached Muslims in Muslim-majority countries. No one in my group of friends had ever thought about Muslims, much less about doing anything on their behalf.

I had become a Christian a couple of years before this meeting, and was deeply in love with Jesus. I knew about missionaries and was even attending the same school as Jim Elliot and Nate Saint, who had died in the South American rainforest while evangelizing to the Huaorani people a few years earlier. But “missions” still felt like something for other believers to embark on. I didn’t even have a desire to leave the US on holiday.

Nevertheless, my friends persuaded me into spending my Friday night in a room that I soon found out was devoid of coffee, alcohol, or food. Instead, the space was full of people who were hovering over maps of the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent, and Southeast Asia, praying for the Lord to send laborers in obedience to his mandate in Matthew 9:36–38.

I walked towards the skinny young man I assumed was George, intending to shake his hand. Instead, he poked his finger into my chest and growled, “What country are you praying for?”

“What’s left?” I said, barely above a whisper.

“YOU’VE GOT LIBYA!” he thundered and sent me to join one of the prayer groups.

I had no idea …

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The founder of Operation Mobilisation moved untold numbers to proclaim God’s love around the globe.

George Verwer had a question.

When the 18-year-old and his friend finished praying in a dorm room in Maryville, Tennessee, Verwer looked at his college buddy and asked, “Well? Are you ready to go?”

Dale Rhoton was startled. He had only just heard Verwer’s idea that they should sell what they owned and use the money to buy a truck that summer, fill it with Spanish-language editions of the Gospel of John, and drive it to Mexico, where 70 percent of people didn’t have access to Scriptures. They had only just prayed about it.

“George,” he said, “it takes longer than that.”

Verwer didn’t see why it should. The future founder of Operation Mobilisation (OM) saw a spiritual need. They could meet that need. The rest didn’t matter to him.

“His one all-consuming passion in life has been to be a channel, whereby people would become long-term friends of Jesus,” Rhoton later wrote. “His comfort zone is breaking out of his comfort zone. He only really feels secure when he’s risking it all.”

That lifelong “Verwer fervor” for missions moved untold numbers of Christians to cross borders, cultures, and continents to proclaim the good news of God’s love. OM became one of the largest mission organizations of the 20th century, sending out thousands every year on short- and long-term trips. OM currently has 3,300 adult workers from 134 countries working in 147 countries. An estimated 300 other mission agencies were also started as a result of contact with OM or launched by former OMers.

Verwer died Friday at the age of 84.

Lindsay Brown, who led the International Fellowship …

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How God rescued me from a life of getting whacked.

You’re probably familiar with the popular arcade game called Whac-A-Mole, where mechanical moles randomly pop out of their holes while you try whacking them with a mallet before they retreat. I grew up in a “reverse Whac-A-Mole” world, feeling like the only mole in a family of mallets.

All the men in my family had significant issues. When I was 12, my dad left our family for a married woman with three kids. While some divorced fathers become “Disneyland dads”—showering their kids with gifts and fun events to make up for their physical absence—mine didn’t. He withheld both financial and emotional support, and he rejected or mocked conventional displays of affection, even to the point of withholding birthday or Christmas gifts.

He was also verbally abusive. According to my mom, as he was exiting our family, he only came home to eat, sleep, and berate my brother and me. He especially relished picking on me, nicknaming me “Idiot Child” (as well as something worse that is crude and unprintable). In Matthew 7:9, Jesus asks, “Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone?” Well, I have someone I can nominate.

But my dad wasn’t the only disaster in our family. His father was a sullen man who apparently had a mean streak. I’m told that when my dad was about five years old, the two of them were having a conversation about electricity. My grandfather handed my dad a paper clip and told him to stick it into an electrical outlet to see what would happen. Such displays of malice may help explain why my dad ended up such a mess.

When my grandfather was in his 60s, he decided he had cancer, so one day he jumped in front of a speeding train …

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