Transubstantiate

You won’t remember most of it, but that was never the point.

About five years ago I was having coffee with a local pastor, and we were discussing literature and my passion for reading. I was telling him about how vital I believe reading to be for us as ministers.

After hearing me out, my pastor friend sighed and said, “You know, I envy your ability to read like that. I really do. For me, the main reason I don’t read is because, whenever I do read, I don’t remember any of it.”

“You mean fiction or nonfiction?” I asked him.

“I mean all of it,” he said. “It doesn’t matter whether it’s a story or a book of statistics. I spend all that time reading and then, three days later, I don’t remember a bit of it.” He paused and then added, “So, truth be told, it just seems like a bad use of time to me.”

I sat forward and said, “But that’s the point I’m trying to make. Remembering what we’ve read is not the most important thing about reading; instead, just doing the reading is what matters. Taking the time is the whole point!”

Then I added, “I completely share your frustration—I’m only saying that uploading information to our brains is not the main reason for reading.”

I then pulled out a book from my briefcase, one I had stayed up into the wee hours of the morning grappling with and marking up. “You see this?” I asked him, putting Mircea Eliade’s classic The Sacred and the Profane on the table between us. “I have now dedicated at least 15 hours to this book … and I can barely tell you any of what I have read. Now, don’t get me wrong, there are certain ideas that stay with me. But the vast majority …

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The Scriptures denounce officials who abuse their authority to harm rather than protect the people they serve.

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

The nation stands shocked, once again, by a video of horrific violence by police officers against a young Black man beaten to death—this time Tyre Nichols of Memphis.

We instinctively flinch from watching this video because most people with a functioning conscience intuitively know it to be evil. At this moment, Christians should acknowledge not only that the Bible condemns this sort of police behavior but also why.

Whenever a violent revelation like this occurs, some are immediately defensive, saying, “Not all police officers are like this; most are good.” And, of course, that is true; but that truth makes such actions even worse.

That’s why, among those I know, police officers are some of the angriest of everybody at this kind of behavior. They see it in the same way I might view preachers using the Bible to “justify” their financial grifting or sexual predation. I realize what they’re doing and, even further, how awful it is. Good police officers see such horrors the same way.

This killing would be a grave moral evil no matter what group of people carried it out. Tyre Nichols was a human being made in the image of God, and to take his life not only robs his family of their loved one but also assaults his Creator. But the fact that this violence was carried out by those entrusted with maintaining justice perverts the situation even more.

Police brutality is wrong not because the idea of policing is wrong. However one interprets Romans 13, we can all agree the apostle Paul acknowledged the legitimate authority of those charged with keeping order and restraining injustice. Paul recognized this in his own life. …

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Hobby Lobby’s David Green and other Christian funders back three-year effort to reintroduce people to Jesus.

The first time she saw an ad for “He Gets Us,” a national campaign devoted to redeeming the brand of Christianity’s savior, Jennifer Quattlebaum had one thought on her mind.

Show me the money.

A self-described “love more” Christian and ordinary mom who works in marketing, Quattlebaum loved the message of the ad, which promoted the idea that Jesus understands contemporary issues from a grassroots perspective. But she wondered who was paying for the ads and what their agenda was.

“I mean, Jesus gets us,” she said. “But what group is behind them?”

For the past 10 months, the “He Gets Us” ads have shown up on billboards, YouTube channels, and television screens—most recently during NFL playoff games—across the country, all spreading the message that Jesus understands the human condition.

The campaign is a project of the Servant Foundation, an Overland Park, Kansas, nonprofit that does business as The Signatry, but the donors backing the campaign have until recently remained anonymous—in early 2022, organizers only told Religion News Service that funding came from “like-minded families who desire to see the Jesus of the Bible represented in today’s culture with the same relevance and impact He had 2000 years ago.”

But in November, David Green, the billionaire co-founder of Hobby Lobby, told talk show host Glenn Beck that his family was helping fund the ads. Green, who was on the program to discuss his new book on leadership, told Beck that his family and other families would be helping fund an effort to spread the word about Jesus.

“You’re going to see it at the Super Bowl—‘He gets Us,’” said Green. …

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As blockade begets an emerging humanitarian crisis, Artsakh’s Armenians receive groundswell of support.

Armenian Christians have been calling for help. As their ethnic kin in the Caucasus enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh approach two full months under a near-complete blockade imposed by alleged eco-activists from Azerbaijan, the voices have amplified.

“Everyone knows this is the Aliyev regime,” stated Biayna Sukhudyan, a pediatric neurologist trapped inside the Delaware-sized mountainous region, which Armenians call Artsakh. “There is no time to wait and allow the next genocide, because this is genocide.”

The doctor referred to Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev, and several investigations have linked the protesters to his government. When the blockade began on December 12, official statements attributed the long-haul demonstration to illegal gold and copper mining on their still-occupied but internationally recognized sovereign territory.

In 2020, Azerbaijan launched a 44-day war to retake a region under three decades of de facto control by ethnic Armenians. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Artsakh declared itself an independent state, and with Armenian military assistance was able to hold Nagorno-Karabakh and additional Azeri territories—pending peace negotiations.

A vastly improved Azerbaijani force, aided by drone technology from Turkey, recaptured three-quarters of the land through bloody combat. Russia mediated a ceasefire, and its peacekeepers guard the Lachin corridor—the one road connecting over 100,000 beleaguered Artsakh residents with Armenia and delivering the 400 tons of daily food and medicine that supply their needs.

Since the end of the war, Sukhudyan has traveled every two months to Nagorno-Karabakh, which lacked specialist doctors. This time, amid acute shortages in …

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A new book records the reflections on church and state in China by the imprisoned pastor and other house church leaders.

When I first met Wang Yi, he ushered me into a conference room overlooking a landscape of old and slightly run-down office buildings in central Chengdu, western China’s most important metropolis. It was 2011, and his church was then called Early Rain Reformed Church, later taking the name Early Rain Covenant Church. Like many churches that weren’t registered with the government, it was housed in an office building. This one was fairly old, with one functioning elevator that groaned its way up to the 19th floor. I had taken one look and walked up.

I explained that I was working on a book about the revival of religion in China. I had been to many rural churches in traditional Christian heartlands of China, such as the province of Henan, but felt that big, urban churches like his were becoming more important. Would he let me sit in on his services and talk to congregants?

Pastor Wang immediately agreed on two conditions: First, no photography in the church; and, second, if I wanted to quote anyone, I was welcome to do so but needed their permission. His reasoning was simple: Early Rain had nothing to hide. It was a public institution. All were welcome, and no one should be restricted in what they wrote. So if I wanted to visit his church that was my right. And if I wanted to write something, that was also my right as a free person. His restrictions were simply means to respect the privacy of those who attended, and to keep the service dignified.

At that point I had worked in China off and on since the mid-1980s. I knew that for me to visit his church regularly carried inherent risks. I asked him about the building security guards downstairs and whether they would report to the authorities that a foreigner was regularly …

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This month, white Christians can love their Black siblings in the church by seeing their struggles in context.

When I was a college student, Black History Month came around and my church took the time to celebrate. People dressed in African garb, sermons addressed the struggles Black people everywhere faced, and the congregation took action steps to help marginalized people.

But my Bible college at the time did nothing. There were no school-sponsored events or presentations on this topic, and professors avoided the topic altogether. I sat in class, shifting uneasily between anger and sadness. I could not understand how a topic so important in one culture could be so completely ignored and buried in another.

Confused, I asked one of my white friends to explain why nobody acknowledged Black History Month. His response was like that of his colleagues. “I don’t see color,” he replied, delivering this line as if it were a mic-drop moment.

To him, it was a no-brainer. But what my friend failed to realize is that when Black and brown people hear the words “I don’t see color,” what we really hear is that our color—which makes us who we are—can be easily dismissed. It tells us that the way God created us is somehow invalid and that only without color are we worthy to be recognized and valued.

Every single time a white brother or sister says this to me, it makes me feel the weight of my ancestors’ mistreatment and suffering. Imagine telling people who wake up Black every single day that they live in a society that doesn’t see color—when every experience they have suggests otherwise!

And herein lies the problem. Because many white Christians have not witnessed racial injustice firsthand, they feel no need to discuss the topic.

The dialogue tends to go something …

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Can human sexuality be a nonessential issue for a denomination that seeks to “stand in the center”?

The Evangelical Covenant Church (ECC) does not ask its pastors to subscribe to extensive statements of faith. The denomination wants church leaders to unify around six essential doctrines concerning salvation, the Bible, the significance and mission of the church, the role of the Holy Spirit, and freedom in Christ.

And since 2015, it has also asked ECC ministers to refrain from participating in same-sex weddings.

That last detail has become a sticking point for some ECC pastors who have changed their position on whether or not faithful Christians can be in same-sex relationships—and whether or not that should be a litmus test for fellowship.

“We agree on 99.9 percent of things,” said Micah Witham, an LGBT-affirming pastor at Awaken Church in St. Paul, Minnesota. “This one matter … I would contend is a nonessential.”

This summer the denomination’s pastors will vote on whether or not to expel Awaken and Quest Church, in Seattle, for their positions on LGBT issues. The Covenant Executive Board voted in October 2022 to remove both from the roster of ECC churches after pastors from the Washington State and Minnesota congregations participated in same-sex weddings.

This isn’t a new fight for the ECC. In 2018, the denomination suspended a North Park University chaplain who officiated a wedding for two men. The following year, First Covenant Church, a prominent and historic Minneapolis congregation, was expelled after church leaders said they would affirm LGBT members, host same-sex weddings, and ordain married gay people.

Some hoped the decisive action would settle the issue. But Dan Collison, pastor of First Covenant, said at the time he didn’t think the conversation was over.

“Ultimately, …

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Looking to the monarchy can show us the pitfalls of prideful politics.

This essay was originally commissioned for a private convening of British and American Christian leaders organized by The Center for Christianity and Public Life and the UK-based Faith in Public.

After the death of Queen Elizabeth in 2022, many commentators insisted that the time for monarchy has passed. The crown is a gaudy bauble unsuited to the modern, utilitarian state, so arguments generally went, not to mention a medieval anachronism that makes a messy mix of religion and politics.

I’m sensitive to the appeal of both arguments, especially the latter. But with a view from the States after eight years of acrid and tumultuous politics—and with another presidential campaign on the verge of further embittering our national life—the monarchy has begun to look pretty handy.

Its use is not, as critics tend to assume, in creating a grandiosity of state. It is rather in containing it, attaching it to a figure whose relative permanence, undemocratic selection, and minimal real power allow him to absorb outbursts of national feeling instead of such outbursts loosing their chaos into workaday politics and governance. Give us a king like the other nations have, I am increasingly inclined to plead, so that he might provide a stabler outlet for our anger, fear, and aspirations.

That’s not to say, of course, that the United Kingdom’s politics are never vitriolic or overwrought. But the contrast in how the US and UK handle our respective heads of government is telling.

There, an unpopular prime minister may be ignominiously tossed out in a matter of weeks. Here, presidential elections have stretched into two-year sagas, each dubbed the most important of our lifetimes and treated as an existential battle for …

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