Transubstantiate

Churches should welcome questions. That doesn’t require embracing perpetual doubt.

What makes Christianity hard?

There are many possible answers to this question. How you answer it reveals a great deal not only about yourself—your temperament, your station in life, your mind and heart—but also about the context in which you live. Christians in different times and places would answer quite differently.

Suppose, for example, you live in Jerusalem just a few decades after the crucifixion of Jesus. What makes Christianity hard is not belief in the divine or the great distance separating you from “Bible times.” You’re in Bible times, and everyone believes in the divine. No, what makes it hard is the suffocating heat of legal persecution and social rejection. Confessing Christ’s name likely makes your life worse in tangible ways: Your family might disown you; your master might abuse you; your friends might ridicule you. The authorities might haul you in for questioning if you strike them as a troublemaker.

Or suppose you’re a nun in a medieval convent. You’ll live your whole life here, never marrying or bearing children or having a home of your own. You are pledged to God until death. You’re what people will later call a “mystic,” though that’s a rather dry term for having visions you often experience as suffering: ecstatic glimpses of the consuming fire that is the living Lord. What makes Christianity hard? You certainly don’t wonder about the existence of God—you’ve seen God with your own eyes. Nor are fame and wealth a source of temptation; your life is hidden away from the world. But your life is not easy. Faith remains hard.

Or imagine you’re someone else, somewhere else: a priest at a rural parish in early modern …

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A children’s ministry veteran explains where kids’ Bibles tend to go wrong—and highlights a few that get it right.

The best children’s Bibles are remarkable works of faith and art. They offer young readers and their families an engaging and accessible introduction to biblical stories and the loving, holy character of God.

But there are plenty of children’s Bibles on the market, and for every wonderful option, another fails to meet this goal. Too many choose moralism over the gospel, standalone heroes’ tales over richly connected narratives, and inaccuracy over truth and care for the original text. The story of God’s love and mercy through the millennia becomes little more than a Christianese-filled Aesop’s Fables.

I’ve long worked in children’s ministry, including leading the children’s ministry at my own church, so I’ve read through and taught from many children’s Bibles over the years. There are Bibles that are a pleasure to read aloud to preschoolers, and there are some that are so simplified (or so convoluted) that story time becomes the worst part of the lesson. For this article, I chose to reread eight of these Bibles, selecting both time-honored bestsellers and promising newcomers:

• The Big Picture Story Bible
• 365 Bible Stories and Prayers
• The Beginner’s Bible
• Precious Moments Storybook Bible
• The Children’s Illustrated Bible
• The Jesus Storybook Bible
• The Biggest Story Bible Storybook
• God With Us: A Journey Home

When re-examining these Bibles, I focused on crucial stories of Creation, Jesus’ birth, and his death and resurrection. I also looked at how each book told the stories of biblical heroes like David and Jonah, and noted which stories the authors chose to include (or exclude). Finally, it was important to me to see how the stories were told, looking at the …

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Birds of a feather might flock together, but Christians must flock to Christ.

Cleanliness is next to godliness.

Forgive and forget.

Growing up in my conservative, mostly evangelical, rural Texas town, I went looking for accepted truisms in the Bible—only to discover they’d never been there at all. Gradually, I came to realize life could be more complicated than those sayings allowed, and yet I’m still surprised every now and again when I find myself clinging to some pithy proverb with the spiritual ardor that ought to be reserved for chapter and verse.

This too shall pass.

God works in mysterious ways.

I walked the aisle of my Baptist church when I was nine years old, accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, and never looked back. I was active in Girls in Action, Bible Bowl, and my best friend’s charismatic church youth group. I attended Baylor, a Christian university. Everywhere I turned, I saw people who looked like me, talked like me, thought like me, and worshiped like me.

You are the company that you keep.

Birds of a feather flock together.

I assumed that kind of flocking was biblical in the prescriptive sense. Didn’t the Bible exhort us not to forsake the gathering of the saints (Heb. 10:25), placing a high value on “doing life with” like-minded people? Living in such a homogeneous world seemed like the natural order of things. I couldn’t yet see the shadow side—how easily we slip into idolizing our own reflections, mistaking the familiar for the proper and the customary for the righteous.

Today my thinking is more complicated. Now that my eldest is a teenager, I see the benefit of encouraging her to flock with friends who share our values or faith. There are no guarantees in parenting, but the company children keep, especially at such a crucial …

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Alexei Navalny was willing to stand alone—knowing he’d never be alone in the bigger story.

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

Russian president Vladimir Putin murdered another Christian this week. It was just another day in Putin’s supposed project of protecting “the Christian West” from godlessness. After all, they tell me, one can’t create a Christian nationalist empire without killing some people.

Before the world forgets the corpse of Alexei Navalny in the subzero environs of an Arctic penal colony, we ought to look at him—especially those of us who follow Jesus Christ—to see what moral courage actually is.

Navalny was perhaps the most-recognized anti-Putin dissident in the world, and he is now one of many Putin enemies to end up “suddenly dead.” He survived poisoning in 2020, recuperated in Europe, and ultimately went back to his homeland despite knowing what he would face. Speaking of his dissent and his willingness to bear its consequences, Navalny repeatedly referenced his profession of Christian faith. My Christianity Today colleague Emily Belz discovered a 2021 trial transcript at Meduza, in which Navalny explains, in strikingly biblical terms, what it means to suffer for one’s beliefs.

“The fact is that I am a Christian, which usually sets me up as an example for constant ridicule in the Anti-Corruption Foundation, because mostly our people are atheists, and I was once quite a militant atheist myself,” Navalny said (as rendered by Google Translate). “But now I am a believer, and that helps me a lot in my activities because everything becomes much, much easier.”

“There are fewer dilemmas in my life, because there is a book in which, in general, it is more or less clearly written what …

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A clash over leadership at the landmark evangelical church in Boston is testing the strength of democratic governance.

A years-long fight over leadership styles and decision-making processes at historic Park Street Church in Boston has boiled over into accusations of abusing spiritual authority and authoritarianism.

There are petitions calling for a congregational review of the leadership’s decision to fire a popular former minister, an open letter defending the current senior minister, public statements about “escalating difficulties,” and overt campaigning for rival slates of elder candidates ahead of the church’s annual meeting. People on both sides of the division say the congregation is besieged by spiritual warfare.

The conflict will come to a head on Sunday with the regularly scheduled vote on elders and budgets, which has become a “referendum” on the current leadership, according to a letter that the chair of the board of elders sent to the congregation on February 11.

At the 220-year-old church, once led by a founding father of modern evangelicalism, members are being asked to end the turmoil by voting to affirm the calling of its current senior minister, Mark Booker.

“We are a church in conflict,” Booker said in a video message to the church. “A yes vote on this would not mean that somehow I am a perfect leader or that I am doing everything just right. … But it is a way to say, I believe this church will be better off, Park Street will be better off, with Mark in the role of senior minister in the future.”

CT spoke to 15 current and former church leaders and members about the turmoil at Park Street. Most spoke on condition of anonymity, saying they were afraid of being fired or otherwise punished—even kicked out of the church—if their names appeared in print. …

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Following in the footsteps of South Korea, the most-Christian country in Asia opens its own fundraising office.

Three years ago, a group of nearly 48 former Compassion International–sponsored children in the Philippines decided it was time for them to start investing in kids in their own country.

“Because we believe in the power of Christ and the strategies of Compassion in changing lives, we came together and decided that it is now our turn to do the same,” said Glendy Obahib, one of the core leaders of the Compassion Alumni Sponsorship Movement (CASM). “We were blessed with the gift of sponsorship and now we want to become a blessing to others through the same sponsorship.”

A new initiative from Compassion International will make this work even easier. Filipino nationals will now be able to sponsor children within the country and fund community development programs thanks to the establishment of Compassion Philippines Inc., an in-country support office.

The sole focus of Compassion Philippines will be fundraising, unlike Compassion International, which runs the programs. Compassion Australia is helping the new organization set up a legal identity and consulting on registration, insurance, and hiring so that Compassion Philippines can operate as a separate legal entity from Compassion International in the Philippines.

Currently, according to Precious Amor Tulay of Compassion Philippines, the new organization is pursuing bank account approval and securing government permits that will allow them to raise funds and enable donors to claim tax deductions.

Compassion’s staff hopes that this transition will increase support to the Philippines. Today, most of the funding for sponsored children in the Philippines comes from the US, Australia, and South Korea.

“By equipping local fundraising teams, we’re …

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Introducing 11 of the dozens of diaspora ministries working to unite one of the world’s fastest-growing gospel movements.

Last week in Tehran, thousands rallied to commemorate the 45th anniversary of the Islamic revolution that established Iran’s modern theocracy. Last October in London, 130 Iranian Christians gathered to worship and pray, and celebrated a quiet decision to establish an evangelical alliance.

Time will tell which gathering was more consequential.

In 1979, one month after the fall of the shah, 98 percent of Iranian citizens voted to approve a constitution installing an Islamic government. Four decades of religious authoritarianism later, an online poll indicated that only 16 percent of the population would vote for it again.

An earlier survey, furthermore, found that only one-third of Iran’s population call themselves Shiite Muslims. More than half identified as either atheist, agnostic, no religion, vaguely spiritual, or Iran’s ancient Zoroastrian faith.

Those responding “Christian” totaled almost a million.

Thousands more Christians have fled persecution, taking refuge among the extensive Iranian diaspora in the West. Some have established ministries to evangelize among them, while others broadcast satellite TV programs, engage in remote discipleship efforts, or preside over a network of underground house churches.

Many multitask, while few collaborate—until now.

At the London gathering, members from over 40 diaspora churches and ministries voted almost unanimously to partner together in an evangelical alliance. Further votes were taken to choose a seven-member steering committee to represent the whole, tasked to take a year to study and recommend best practices, as an additional 60 leaders observed proceedings online.

Momentum had been building for years. Named the Iranian Leaders Forum (ILF), previous …

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Cutting off “toxic” people is social media’s go-to mental health advice. But Jesus commands us to seek conversation and reconciliation.

Toxic. Abusive. Oppressive. Unhealthy.

I’d never heard those words used so often as I have in the last four years. At times, it has seemed like everyone I know is deciding to handle conflict with friends, colleagues, and churches by deciding to leave.

Maybe some of this is a generational shift as younger generations embrace the idea of “breaking the cycle,” or perhaps some of it stems from how the COVID-19 pandemic led many of us to reassess our lives. And nowhere has the pattern been clearer than on social media, where people have filmed themselves leaving their jobs, written posts torching the churches they’re exiting, and shared video diaries explaining how a breakup would help them heal.

For many, leaving has become the gold standard of mental health—and staying has become suspect, maybe even delusional.

Leaving and staying, though, are neutral terms. Leaving isn’t inherently good, and staying isn’t inherently bad. We need to better examine the ways in which we’re doing both. Instead of leaving (or staying) by default, we need to learn to pursue healing, accountability, repentance, forgiveness, and endurance.

Let me start with a necessary caveat: If you’re in a church, organization, or relationship that is hurting you, leaving may well be the right choice. It’s impossible to give universal advice here, but I am not suggesting that anyone live under abuse. In a large organization, if a domineering leader isn’t even available to talk, let alone repent if needed, it likely makes sense to leave outright.

My concern here is the more ambiguous situations, the situations where we too often make decisions based on our imagination and assumptions …

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Rob Reiner’s documentary makes a strong case against political extremism in the name of Christ—for those who already agree.

Heave an egg out a Pullman window,” social critic H. L. Mencken famously said in 1925, “and you will hit a fundamentalist anywhere in the United States.” I often think about Mencken’s line when I read the coverage of evangelical Christianity at left-leaning websites such as Salon, Rolling Stone, Mother Jones, and MSNBC—drop an egg out of a Boeing 737 at 30,000 feet above red America, and you will hit a “Christian nationalist.”

Discussion of Christian nationalism has exploded in the last three years. The phenomenon has been blamed for the Trump presidency, the January 6th insurrection, the overturning of Roe v. Wade, and the possibility of another win for former president Donald Trump on Election Day. The latest offering in this vein is God & Country, a documentary film that arrives in theaters this month.

Directed by Dan Partland and produced by Rob Reiner, God & Country astutely includes interviews with high-profile Christian intellectuals, activists, and authors including Jemar Tisby, David French, Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Phil Vischer, Skye Jethani, Doug Pagitt, Rob Schenck, and CT editor-in-chief Russell Moore. Yes, the selection communicates, even these people think Christian nationalism is dangerous.

In one sense, God & Country is a brilliant piece of documentary filmmaking. It succeeds in warning against political extremism in the name of Christ and makes a significant and necessary contribution to our understanding of American religion and politics in the Trump era.

Many scenes are hard to forget: There are Seven Mountain dominionists in a packed arena reciting the “Watchman’s Decree,” a prayer to “take back and permanently control positions of …

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After an accident on a radio tower, Federico Magbanua went on to inspire a generation of pastors in the Philippines.

When the late Federico “Fred” Mission Magbanua Jr. preached a radio sermon on offering one’s body as a living sacrifice, he probably didn’t imagine he’d one day hear these words again as a 10,000-watt radio frequency current surged through him in a near-death accident.

It happened one night in early 1961, while Magbanua was working at the Far East Broadcasting Company (FEBC) gospel radio ministry. He was mulling over a job offer in the United States with a salary far greater than what he currently made as an FEBC engineer and as a pastor of a small Baptist church.

Suddenly, the warning lights on the 308-foot radio tower went out. Magbanua loaded some new bulbs into a bag and began climbing the structure. From his home nearby, his daughters and his wife, Aliw, watched him scale the tower.

What Magbanua didn’t realize was that the grounding system—which diverts energy to the ground to prevent surges—wasn’t working. A radio frequency current “hit his head using his body as a lightning rod,” his friend Harold Sala later told God Reports. “Literally, he was being executed by the tremendous surge of electrical power.”

The program that was airing at that moment was one that Magbanua himself had hosted on Romans 12:1–2. “Through the sparking, he heard his own voice in his head saying, ‘Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice,’” recounted former FEBC head Dan Andrew Cura.

Miraculously, Magbanua was released by the current and fell to a step that was several feet from the top of the tower instead of falling 300 feet to the ground. He managed to climb down the ladder …

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