Transubstantiate

A Christian who wants to see God’s will done “on earth as it is in heaven” is piloting the first lunar flight in more than 50 years.

Victor Glover will pray his way to the moon.

When the Artemis 2 takes off sometime late next year, four astronauts will strap into a gumdrop-shaped capsule atop a tower of rockets taller than the Statue of Liberty. Mission control will count down—10, 9, 8, …—and a controlled explosion with 8.8 million pounds of force will fire, throwing the four astronauts from the coast of Florida into high-earth orbit, where another engine, setting spark to a mixture of liquid hydrogen and oxygen, will thrust them beyond the bonds of Earth for the first time in more than half a century.

And Glover, the pilot of the spacecraft, will say a few words to God.

He told CT he will listen to God, too, attending to the quiet stillness in his mind where he can lay down his own personal interests and desires and truly say, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

“I know that God can use us for his purposes,” Glover said. “When Jesus was teaching the disciples to pray, he used that very specific prayer that we all know, ‘Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name …’ So, listen, I am a messenger of his kingdom; his will be done.”

Glover was named Monday as one of the four people who will lead humanity’s return to the moon more than 50 years after we stopped going. The other members of the crew are Reid Wiseman, Jeremy Hansen, and Christina Koch, who will be the first woman to go to the moon.

Glover, 46, is a Navy captain who flew combat missions in Iraq before becoming a test pilot, a NASA astronaut, and a crew member of the International Space Station. He will become the first Black man to go to the moon, breaking a racial barrier the American …

Continue reading…

Don’t diminish Jesus’ ministry in your celebration of his work on the cross.

Good Friday services were well celebrated within my Afro-Baptist ecclesial tradition. And unlike liturgical settings, where gathered worshipers depart from the service in silence to await the jubilant praise of Easter Sunday, our Good Fridays were often the most energetic services of Holy Week. They were also the zenith of each preaching year and usually featured sermons on Christ’s seven last words.

Many of us have heard a sermon preached on the sixth word, “Tetélestai!,” which is commonly translated into the English phrase “It is finished!” It is one of the few transliterated Greek verbs many believers are familiar with. On that dark day, Jesus shouted this word from the cross shortly before giving up his spirit—conveying the hope of Good Friday.

Tetélestai comes from the Greek verb teleō. In most ancient Greek contexts, the verb means “to finish, accomplish, or complete.” We rightly view this proclamation as Jesus signaling that his death has satisfied the wrath of God fully and forever—that he alone has accomplished the work of atonement, of redemption, and of mediating the way to God.

This statement seems to be the peak of John’s presentation of the salvation story—the time to play the Hammond organ, grab the tambourines, lift holy hands, and sing “Hallelujah,” for Jesus has paid it all!

But there is another moment in John’s Gospel where Jesus states he has finished his work: just one day earlier, on Maundy Thursday—a day that was foreign to me before I stepped into my first pastorate.

Although my childhood church held revival services throughout Holy Week, there was no event held to celebrate the fifth day. And even when …

Continue reading…

We must envision a kingdom that outlasts us.

We all know the first words of Genesis: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” Far fewer of us can recall the last words of Genesis: “They embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt” (50:26, ESV throughout). The first sentence is cosmic in scope; the last, anticlimactic at best. But what if the future of the church has as much to do with the bone box as with the Big Bang?

Today, many Christians refer to Joseph as a model. Some focus on Joseph’s victimhood, trafficked into slavery by his own brothers. Others point to his struggle against temptation, fleeing from the unwanted advances of Potiphar’s wife. Still others focus on his rise to leadership in Egypt, demonstrating how influence can be exerted with integrity. But perhaps the most crucial example we can take from Joseph is not from his life but from his skeleton.

Genesis ends with Joseph’s brothers seeking his forgiveness—a plea that can be viewed as manipulative and self-serving. Nonetheless, Joseph extends mercy, and through him, the line of Israel is delivered from famine.

What’s striking, though, is not what Joseph gives to his brothers but rather what he asks of them: “I am about to die, but God will visit you and bring you up out of this land to the land that he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. … And you shall carry up my bones from here” (Gen. 50:24–25).

When the Book of Hebrews speaks of Joseph in its description of faith, the only thing it mentions is the bones: “By faith Joseph, at the end of his life, made mention of the exodus of the Israelites and gave directions concerning his bones” (11:22). Why?

This odd request reveals Joseph’s …

Continue reading…

Christian parents need to be prepared, more than ever, to discuss this difficult topic with our children.

Where I live in Nashville, it has been a dark time of unspeakable tragedy. Six lives were lost: three wonderful children and three amazing adults.

Nashville is a very small big town. We’re all connected, one way or another—which means we’ve all been impacted by the lives and the loss of all six of these individuals. I personally knew one of the victims, Katherine Koonce; and for the rest of my life, I will feel the loss of the brilliance, strength, kindness, and humor she brought to our community.

As a therapist, I’ve sat with thousands of families in 30 years of counseling children. I know the heartache and panic that comes with trying to walk kids through trauma. So when I first heard of the shooting, my first thought was that we should never have to have these conversations with anyone, let alone kids.

But as I have had the immense, heart-wrenching privilege of spending time with the Covenant families—both in the reunification center and in a meeting for the parents and teachers—I realized they wanted help in knowing how to talk to their kids about what feels unspeakable.

How can parents navigate telling their kids about what happened, both here in Nashville and at other schools across the nation?

First, stay calm as you are talking with your kids. They need to feel like you are a safe place to ask questions and process their feelings.

Second, try to be the primary source of information for your kids. They need to hear about the situation not just factually but also age-appropriately.

Third, let them lead the conversation and ask the questions. Children have the innate ability to ask for the information they need.

Fourth, ask them what feelings they are experiencing, and give them space to …

Continue reading…

We owe to Scripture something we don’t owe any other book: our obedience.

I grew up in a home that prioritized reading. My father was a first-generation college student, and he majored in business to support his family. He allocated a portion of his monthly wages to the Book of the Month club through Easton Press. He and my mom would dine on bologna boats (mashed potatoes and cheese on fried bologna) so that he could afford to receive a great book in the mail each month.

Those leather-bound copies with gilded pages made a strong impression on me as a kid. From those beautiful editions I read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Walden, Jane Eyre, and because of their beauty, I knew they were a different sort of reading from my R. L. Stine paperback novels.

Similarly, Christians recognize the Bible as a different sort of book from all other books. While God may inspire an artist, or the Holy Spirit draw a reader toward a divine revelation through art, the Bible is more than a mere literary experience.

Recognizing the Bible as literature opens us up to a fuller appreciation of the holy book than if we treat it like an instruction manual or to-do list. It is a bibliography of genres, including poetry, song, lament, prophecy, history, narrative, parables, letters, dreams, and so forth. We should practice reading to enjoy the fullness of that literary experience.

However, as a book divinely authored by God, the Bible also stands apart from all literature penned by human authors. God inspired human writers to pen the words, but God also authorized those pages. No matter what other beauty, truth, and goodness may be found elsewhere, other works of literature lack the authority that Scripture has over Christians.

In Paul’s second letter to Timothy, he assures the young disciple, “All Scripture is God-breathed …

Continue reading…

As a Black pastor, I appreciate how the diverse campaign helps my congregation reach our neighbors.

If you’re on Twitter, you’re used to seeing hot topics trend for a few days and eventually fade into Twittersphere history. But there’s one recent cultural moment that continues to elicit discussion and opinions from across the board—the He Gets Us commercials about Jesus that aired during the Super Bowl.

The campaign’s 30-second ad called “Be Childlike” and a 60-second ad called “Love Your Enemies” were not preachy or heavy-handed—they simply conveyed the message that Jesus knows what it’s like to be human. And yet these ads have sparked a national conversation and have spurred strong reactions from every point on the political and theological spectrum.

Some people felt the ads were too liberal, or they were upset that the ads did not overtly share the gospel. Others objected to the conservative nonprofit organization behind the commercials and questioned their motives. Still more criticized the campaign’s spending, wondering why these millions of dollars were spent on these commercials rather than going toward helping the poor. However, many have pushed back against these criticisms and pointed out the positives.

All these debates may be worth having—but regardless of these objections, the campaign’s reach is undeniable.

About 189 million people saw the ads, and McQueen Analytics—an independent polling firm conducting research on the campaign—shows that they resonated with a wide range of people. This includes those who are not believers but want to know more about Jesus.

In spring of 2022, nearly a third (32%) of “spiritually open” people strongly agreed that the ads remind us that “Jesus …

Continue reading…

For his entry into Jerusalem, Jesus picked a symbol of lowliness rather than military might.

Christian churches throughout the world will begin our holiest week of the year on what is popularly known as Palm Sunday. It commemorates one of the few events in the life of Jesus recorded in all four gospel stories: his entry into Jerusalem, followed by a raucous and warm welcome and a lot of waving branches. (Only John 12:13 mentions they were palms.) In Israel today, churches still reenact the journey from the Mount of Olives to Jerusalem—the route supposedly taken by Jesus all those centuries ago.

As a kid, even in the nonliturgical world of the Black Baptist tradition, I recall receiving my palm branch and dutifully marching into the sanctuary with a palm in one hand and my unintelligible King James Bible in the other. This year on Palm Sunday, I will be the adult trying to make sure my children don’t use the palms as weapons to tickle and annoy their siblings.

As I study this story in Scripture, I’m struck by the fact that the primary symbol for this day—a palm—was not chosen by Jesus.

John writes, “They took palm branches and went out to meet him” (John 12:13). Why did the crowd choose palm branches? It could simply have been that palms were nearby. But history tells us there might have been a deeper reason: Those plants were symbolically linked to military victories and Messiahship.

A generation before Jesus, when Simon Maccabee drove Israel’s enemies out Jerusalem, people celebrated by waving palm branches:

On the twenty-third day of the second month, in the one hundred seventy-first year, the Jews entered it with praise and palm branches, and with harps and cymbals and stringed instruments, and with hymns and songs, because a great enemy had been crushed and removed …

Continue reading…

Alumnus Dondi E. Costin steps in to lead years after Jerry Falwell Jr.’s scandal.

Two and a half years after Jerry Falwell Jr. stepped down in scandal, Liberty University named its new president on Friday: Dondi E. Costin, the outgoing president at Charleston Southern University and a retired US Air Force major general and chaplain who earned a pair of master’s degrees from Liberty.

Costin’s appointment represents the first time the school hasn’t had someone named Jerry at the helm, as he succeeds interim president and longtime board chair Jerry Prevo and the two Jerry Falwells before him. Liberty’s founding family is still represented in leadership; pastor Jonathan Falwell—son of the late Jerry Falwell Sr. and brother to Jerry Falwell Jr.—has been appointed chancellor.

Costin, an Air Force Academy graduate who concluded a 32-year military career as chief of chaplains at the Pentagon, spent the past five years leading Charleston Southern, a Christian college of around 3,500 students in South Carolina.

“There are fewer differences than one might imagine between the processes and procedure of the military and higher education,” Costin told CT’s Creative Studio in 2019. “If you can survive and thrive in a complex bureaucracy like the Pentagon, then you can do it in a complex bureaucracy like higher education.”

At the Lynchburg, Virginia, campus, some high-profile challenges linger. Last year, Department of Education officials launched an investigation into the school’s handling of sexual assault claims, following a lawsuit from Jane Doe survivors and a campus movement calling for an audit of the school’s Title IX office. Former president Jerry Falwell Jr. continues to challenge the terms of his departure, suing earlier this month over …

Continue reading…

In Lent, we realign our identity in Christ and recover our sense of being loved into existence by our Creator.

As a Singaporean, I grew up immersed in a national culture defined by stress.

These instincts were arguably more learned than anything else—my Malaysian father and South Korean mother moved to the country from the United States in the 1990s. So much of how I grew up was shaped by the intensity of Singapore’s academic culture, shuttling between exam-heavy course loads, afterschool tutoring, and reams of practice papers to complete.

Different phases of my life would come to mirror this rhythm: spending hectic days in high school between writing long essays and serving in church, balancing responsibilities during military service while leading a small group and trying to keep up with reading, managing the busyness of my undergraduate life and subsequent tenure as a graduate student, and, even now, trying to uphold different commitments to ministry, creative writing, editing, friends, and family amid a full-time job.

The last time I felt thoroughly burnt out was about five years ago, as an undergraduate in England. Between reading and writing essays for class, keeping active in Christian fellowships, participating in theater productions, and rowing by dawn, I found myself gradually compromising my sleep schedule. Seven hours a night got slashed to six or even four and a half. I’m not entirely sure what drove me back then. Perhaps it was a feeling of duty and responsibility I felt I owed the people I had made promises to or a desire to not let any part of my university life slip by. Lurking beneath all this, perhaps, was an impulse toward optimization.

Optimization can be described in two ways, opines writer Jia Tolentino. First, it is a means of achieving profitability by “satisfy[ing] …

Continue reading…

Shootings have become normal to the American public. But as Christians, we know better.

Over the past few days, my city, Nashville, has been grieving and suffering after a terroristic murderer attacked a Christian school and slaughtered six people—including three children.

Whenever a school shooting happens in America, our country is shocked and pays attention for a time. But within a matter of weeks, most people add these events to other names on a list of horrors—Columbine, Parkland, Sandy Hook, Uvalde, and so on. But as others can attest, it’s different when such a tragedy happens in your backyard.

Some of the boys and girls fleeing for their lives were children of dear friends, and almost everyone I know is connected—closely or loosely—with the victims. We all know the church, the school, our neighbors in the Green Hills neighborhood. Things will not be the same here for a very long time.

And yet Americans—especially Christians—should ask just how much we have adjusted ourselves to this kind of horror. How numb to it all have we become?

While I was still in the haze of this awful news, a friend who is an expert in domestic terrorism texted me to warn about people calling for the release of the murderer’s reported “manifesto.” My friend pointed to research showing that publishing these sorts of documents can fuel more incidents like it—as seen by the way that past mass murderers have cited those who came before. I trust this leader that such best practices are right.

Yet I wonder about all the “manifestoes” we have seen. I’m referring not to the deranged screeds of mass murderers but to the hate and rage that have become so commonplace in our society that we barely even notice them anymore. How long can we live like this and pretend …

Continue reading…