Transubstantiate

Christian communities in former Soviet Union nations reap the benefits of still-secularized holiday, winning recognition and opportunities for the gospel.

Kris Kringle should be in Kyrgyzstan.

If he is efficient, that is. The Central Asian nation, according to a 2007 study by Swedish consultants, is the geographic center best situated for his annual toy delivery campaign.

Regional evangelicals welcome his advent.

With snowfall and freezing temperatures from November to April, Old Saint Nick would feel right at home in the mountainous peaks that raise overall topographic elevation to 9,000 feet. But whatever the religion of his army of elves, Father Christmas would have to adjust to Islamic customs in the valleys below.

Quick to seize on the marketing opportunity, the 90-percent Muslim-majority nation declared 2008 as “The Year of Santa Claus.”

There was eventual pushback. Frustrated with the following revelry, in 2012 the Kyrgyz Muslims’ Religious Administration (KMRA) issued a fatwa forbidding celebrations on New Year’s.

Not Christmas. Not even Xmas. The birth of Jesus is an official holiday.

But it is observed on January 7, not December 25. The 7-percent Christian population is mostly Russian Orthodox, who follow the Eastern almanac. And since independence in 1991, the government has honored its primary religious minority with few Muslim objections.

New Years Day celebrations on January 1, however, are a holdover from the Soviet era. The atheistic communists banned Christmas in 1917, and in 1935 reconstituted it as a secular holiday, one week earlier. No baby Jesus, but no Santa Claus either.

The Russians instead promoted a vague ethereal figure named Ded Moroz, which translates as “Grandfather Frost.” And they kept the trappings of tree decoration, gift giving, and family gatherings. With Islam suppressed as well as Christianity, over time the …

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A new song highlights a growing interest outside the Egyptian church in reviving an ancient language of the Christian world.

The darkened New York church was packed with almost 1,000 congregants holding candles, as a group of six singers sung out Christmas news in an ancient language few New Yorkers had ever heard.

“Shere Veth-le-em, etpolis enni-epro-feetees, the-etav-mes Pikhrestos en-khets, pi-mah esnav en-Adam,” they sang at Calvary-St. George Episcopal Church’s candlelight service. “Eksmaro-ot alethos, nem Pekiot enagha-thos, nem Pi-epnevma ethowab, ge avmask aksoti emmon. Nai nan.”

The choir was performing a new song by composer Laura Jobin-Acosta in the Coptic language, which is nearly extinct except for where it pops up in Coptic liturgy. It is very unusual to have new art in Coptic and in a Protestant worship service, say Coptic leaders.

Calvary-St. George’s music director, Kamel Boutros, was born in Egypt and grew up in the evangelical church there. He wept as he conducted the new song at the service.

“I felt God’s presence,” said Boutros. “I felt Jesus’ love for every single soul in that space. I hadn’t felt something like that for years.”

An ancient language that originated before Christ and incorporates hieroglyphics and Greek, Coptic is a term that also applies to the earliest Christians in first century Egypt. The growth of the language coincided with the growth of Christianity there. The country’s Coptic Orthodox Church is its oldest church, but today in Egypt, Christians across traditions—both Orthodox believers and evangelical Protestants—identify themselves as Copts.

The Muslim conquest of Egypt in the 600s eventually established Arabic as the predominant language instead of Coptic. Today there are almost no native speakers of the Coptic …

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Even with today’s nonstop Christmas soundtrack, churches can still embrace the storytelling and nostalgia that comes with seasonal hymns.

“Once a year,” wrote Brennan Manning in Reflections for Ragamuffins, “the Christmas season strikes both the sacred and secular spheres of life with sledgehammer force: suddenly Jesus Christ is everywhere.”

It’s true. When I walk through the grocery store, trying to remember if I have vanilla extract in the pantry, I hear Nat King Cole crooning, “O Come All Ye Faithful” in the background. My daughter comes home from preschool singing, “Joy to the World” (they have been practicing for next week’s school Christmas performance). On Sunday mornings, the hymns include “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” and “Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus.”

Christmas music is the soundtrack to my life in December. Yet those of us who try our best to center the Incarnation throughout the season experience both joy and exasperation as we hear rich carols shuffled together with “Santa Baby” and “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.”

We worry that the saturation of Christmas music in everyday December life has watered down the meaning and worshipfulness of spiritual carols. It’s hard not to wonder: Has the singing of Christmas carols become an exercise in sentimentality and nostalgia? Do they still have a place in congregational worship?

During the first week of December this year, the most popular songs used in US churches, according to Christian Copyright Licensing International (CCLI), were all Christmas carols. The top five were “O Come All Ye Faithful,” “Joy to the World,” “O Come O Come Emmanuel,” “Hark the Herald Angels Sing,” and “Joy to the World (Unspeakable Joy)”—Chris …

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Local leaders weigh in on the Muslim-majority nation’s new penal code and whether governments should legislate morality.

Last week, Indonesia’s parliament approved a new penal code that received backlash from the United Nations and human rights groups inside and outside the Southeast Asian nation.

The new code, which replaces a colonial-era code enacted while the archipelago was under Dutch rule, includes the criminalization of cohabitation and sex outside marriage, bans insulting the president, and keeps in place blasphemy laws that have been used at times against religious minorities, including Christians. The law will go into effect after a transitional period of three years.

Home to the world’s largest Muslim population, Indonesia places a high value on religious harmony—known officially as Pancasila—among its 277 million citizens, and its constitution guarantees freedom of religion. Christians, who make up about 10 percent of the population, have mostly kept quiet on the new code.

CT asked five Indonesian Christians for their thoughts on the new criminal code’s article on cohabitation and extramarital sex, as well as other articles on blasphemy and criticizing the president. They explained how enforcement matters and why many Christians share the same stance on morality but disagree with the government’s attempts to legislate it.

Ihan Martoyo, director of the Center for Research and Community Development, Universitas Pelita Harapan (UPH) in Tangerang:

Many reports in Western media found the Indonesian new criminal law controversial, especially the point related to sex outside marriage. But only a few explained that the offense regarding extramarital sex is in fact a complaint offense (delik aduan), which does not apply unless a close family member—a spouse, a parent, or a child—reports the offense …

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Remembering the heroics and good works of athletes, coaches, and fans.

This third Sunday of Advent, millions of Christians will be at church. But millions will also be glued to a screen, anxious to find out if the Argentinian GOAT will at long last claim a World Cup title. Though past his prime, the 35-year-old team captain Lionel Messi has been sublime in the competition, with five goals and three assists under his belt, and is leading the golden boot race in his fifth World Cup.

Although the reserved Messi, whose right arm bears a tattoo of Jesus crowned with thorns, has not expressed his faith openly beyond pointing to heaven after his goals, this World Cup has featured numerous heroics of confessing Christians.

Leading the freewheeling French attack against Argentina will be 36-year-old striker Olivier Giroud, who has Psalm 23’s “The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want” tattooed in Latin on his right arm. During this World Cup, Giroud became the all-time top scorer for France with four magnificent goals.

While the team’s talisman Kylian Mbappé has lived up to the hype with his blistering speed and lethal shooting, Giroud has provided a reliable focal point in offense and his selfless play has created openings for his teammates. “I try to speak about my faith whenever I can,” he said after winning the World Cup in 2018. “I feel I have to use my media profile to talk about my commitment to Jesus Christ.”

During most of the past decade when Giroud played for two clubs in London, he attended St. Barnabas Church in Kensington, which belongs to the evangelical wing of the Church of England. During France’s quarterfinal against England, when he netted a header …

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But evangelicals have rightly made it more gospel centered.

Conservative evangelical Christians have sometimes been eager advocates of the modern campaign to “keep Christ in Christmas” and preserve the traditional religious meaning of the holiday.

There’s one major problem with this campaign: The original religious message behind the American Christmas was not evangelical at all.

Instead, it was the creation of Unitarians, Episcopalians, and other liberal Protestants who had little interest in several key tenets of the evangelical understanding of the gospel.

Those of us who are evangelical in our faith can still have a merry Christmas. But if we want to do so in a way that foregrounds the gospel, we may have to discover a new approach to the holiday that does more than simply preserve the old.

Here’s the story.

Among the 17th- and 18th-century American colonists, the Christians who most closely resembled modern evangelicals uniformly refused to celebrate Christmas. The New England Puritans were strong opponents of Christmas, not only because of its connections with Roman Catholicism but also because, in 17th-century England, it had become a day known more for excessive drinking and gaming than for any religious observance.

Even at the beginning of the 19th century, long after the Puritan religious fervor had largely dissipated in New England, Congregationalists in the region continued the Puritan practice of not observing Christmas in their homes or their churches. Massachusetts, which in the Puritan era punished those who dared to celebrate Christmas, did not recognize it as a state holiday until 1855.

Though perhaps slightly less hostile to Christmas than the Puritans, the major American evangelical denominations of the late 18th and early 19th century likewise …

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After losing my father as a child, I learned to see the Incarnation as my true lineage.

As a kid, I loved combing through the Christmas cards my family received each year. In the days before social media, those annual pictures in the mailbox helped me feel connected to long-distance friends and family.

After my father died, however, Christmas cards served as a reminder of what I’d lost. Photos of smiling, intact families and their cheerful greetings were like salt in a wound. Holidays are always hard for the bereaved. But for me, they added a layer of shame to the grief I carried year-round. As a hurting child, I intuited: My siblings and I were no longer Christmas card material, because our family was no longer whole. For that reason, we never sent another holiday greeting after my father’s death.

Our cultural fixation with the nuclear family takes on a religious tone around Christmas. We conflate Mary, Joseph, and Jesus nestled in the crèche with our own sentimental notions of family togetherness. We invite families up to light the Advent candles in church. We gather around extended family tables to celebrate. In all the hype, it’s easy to assume that “peace on earth” comes exclusively in the form of a whole and healthy family in front of a Christmas tree.

To be clear, family is a gift from God worth celebrating and supporting. God created the family in part to teach us how to love and be loved. The world needs to see families doing the hard and holy work of togetherness. But as New Testament scholar Esau McCaulley writes, “Our image of family at Christmas—well-decorated, wealthy, happy, and intact—actually sits uneasily beside the gospel of the first [Christmas].”

Jesus’ own family was not exactly Christmas card material. His first “Christmas” …

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Our picks for the books most likely to shape evangelical life, thought, and culture.

When my alarm buzzes on the morning of an especially busy day, I often respond with a strange lack of urgency. A low rumble of dread builds as I ponder all the chores, errands, or work tasks that need completing. But instead of resolving to get up and get cracking, I linger in bed, nearly paralyzed by the weight of responsibility. I know what I need to do, but for some reason I can’t summon the willpower to do it.

Something similar plays out in the lives of many Christians, according to Uche Anizor, a professor at Biola University’s Talbot School of Theology. They know they’re supposed to love God, study Scripture, and pursue a life of holiness, but they can’t escape the clutches of spiritual indifference. In Overcoming Apathy: Gospel Hope for Those Who Struggle to Care, Anizor appeals to lukewarm believers, not with an accusing glare or a motivational speaker’s bullhorn, but with the compassion of someone who has fought this battle himself.

It’s a worthy choice for CT’s Book of the Year. Across the board, the judges who read and evaluated it commended Anizor for putting his finger on a problem that routinely flies under the radar, even as it sinks so many of God’s people into a spiritual quagmire.

Like Overcoming Apathy, all of our Book Awards winners have the capacity to awaken slumbering souls, whether they ring out with theological wisdom, literary beauty, pastoral warmth, or everyday encouragement. Don’t sleep on any of them. —Matt Reynolds, CT books editor

Apologetics & Evangelism

The Air We Breathe: How We All Came to Believe in Freedom, Kindness, Progress, and Equality

Glen Scrivener | The Good Book Company

The Air We Breathe is a book for this moment. Western …

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A firing at Dane Ortlund’s Naperville Presbyterian Church spurred a rare legal determination that could be a useful case study for churches.

A 2021 firing of a female staff member from a Chicago-area church led by pastor and author Dane Ortlund was determined to have “substantial evidence” of retaliation, according to an investigation into alleged discrimination by the state of Illinois.

The former director of operations at Naperville Presbyterian Church, Emily Hyland, said her termination came days after privately complaining to two elders about gender discrimination from Ortlund. At the time, she had worked at the church for eight years, and he had been senior pastor for six months. After her firing, she filed charges over gender discrimination and retaliation at the state agency.

The Illinois Department of Human Rights (IDHR) did not find evidence that the church or Ortlund discriminated against her based on her gender. Evidence shows that “Ortlund … never made any discriminatory remarks directly related to [Hyland’s] sex,” the report said, nor was there evidence of discrimination that rose to the level of a “hostile work environment.”

But the agency found “substantial evidence” that she was fired “in retaliation for having engaged in prior protected activity.”

Even if there is no “actionable” discrimination found, employers cannot retaliate against an employee for making a report, said employment lawyer Ed Sullivan.

Ortlund, a pastor in the Presbyterian Church in America, is the author of Gentle and Lowly, a bestseller. A longtime member of the Naperville congregation, he became its pastor in October 2020, with Wheaton College president Philip Ryken leading the installation.

Ortlund declined to comment to CT on the allegations, but in the state filing, the church said that Hyland …

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The Incarnation exists for the Atonement, but it is also so much more.

Wait … is this actually on the Incarnation? If you take up Athanasius’s fourth-century classic On the Incarnation for your Advent or Christmas reading, you’ll likely find yourself asking this very question. For you’ll soon make the discovery that many Athanasius readers make: On the Incarnation is mostly not about the birth of Jesus.

On the topic of the baby in the manger, Athanasius has only a little bit to say. Everything he does say about it is certifiably mind-blowing: “The incorporeal and incorruptible and immaterial Word of God comes into our realm, although he was not formerly distant. … But now he comes, condescending toward us in his love for human beings.” Merry Christmas!

But most of Athanasius’s narrative energy goes into telling us about the risen Lord who died and now lives forevermore. You might wonder where the Christmas in your Christmas reading went.

Part of the problem is that Athanasius has a great mind and a full heart and wants to share the whole truth. Helmut Thielicke once voiced the theologian’s can’t-say-it-all lament in exactly these seasonal terms: “I have to speak about everything at once like the preacher who cannot talk about Christmas without touching on the theme of Good Friday and pointing out that the crib and the cross are hewn out of the same wood.” But to everything there is a season, and we ought to be able to focus on the Incarnation during this season.

I remember the disappointment I felt going to church one Christmas when, for whatever reason, I was especially well attuned to the buildup of the whole holiday. It was one of those years when all the carols were really connecting with me, wherever I happened to hear …

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