Transubstantiate

The government didn’t have the votes to pass a controversial bill in Karnataka. So it found another way.

Last month, a delegation of Christian leaders met with Thawar Chand Gehlot, the governor of the southwest Indian state of Karnataka. Their aim: to discourage Gehlot from signing an anticonversion ordinance that they believe will embolden religious radicals to stir unrest.

Despite what Bengaluru archbishop Peter Machado described to CT as a “courteous and welcoming” reception, Gehlot signed the ordinance the following day, May 17, making Karnataka the 13th out of India’s 29 states to pass legislation of this kind.

The ordinance prohibits numerous behaviors including conversion by “force, undue influence, coercion, allurement or by any fraudulent means or by marriage,” and forbids anyone from helping or conspiring on conversions. It allows people beyond the convert—including family members, relatives, or even colleagues—to file complaints.

The ordinance also stipulates a jail term ranging from three to five years and a fine of 25,000 rupees (roughly $320). If the convert is a woman, child, or Dalit, the punishment can increase to up to 10 years in prison.

India’s first anticonversion law passed in the state of Madhya Pradesh in 1967. In recent years, as the Hindu nationalist Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) has gained power across India, the party has begun to frequently promise these laws on the campaign trail.

But passing this legislation proved challenging in Karnataka, a state known widely by Westerners as the home of Bengaluru (Bangalore), a tech hub for many multinationals. Afraid that the majority party lacked the votes to pass an anticonversion bill, the governor directly promulgated it as an ordinance, or temporary law, that can remain in effect until it is replaced by a law.

“The …

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Compiled by Matt Reynolds.

A Concise Guide to the Life of Muhammad: Answering Thirty Key Questions

Ayman S. Ibrahim (Baker Academic)

What can we know about the Islamic prophet Muhammad—about his historical profile and his religious teachings? In a follow-up to his 2020 volume A Concise Guide to the Quran, Ayman S. Ibrahim—an Egyptian-born scholar who directs the Jenkins Center for the Christian Understanding of Islam at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary—points curious Christians to the range of answers given by Muslims themselves. “It is imperative,” he writes, “to understand and evaluate the life of the man [Muslims] revere. This one man directly influences the lives of one-fifth of humankind and, indirectly, a significant portion of non-Muslims all around the world.”

The Discerning Life: An Invitation to Notice God in Everything

Stephen A. Macchia (Zondervan)

Perhaps without intending it, many believers treat spiritual discernment as a skill to call upon only as needed: at a crossroads in life, say, or at times of confusion and uncertainty. By contrast, Stephen A. Macchia, who directs the Pierce Center for Disciple-Building at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, views spiritual discernment as an all-encompassing way of life. “It’s the choice of the bold and courageous to know God intimately,” he writes in The Discerning Life. “It’s an invitation to all who desire a lifestyle that continuously seeks God’s presence, power, peace, and purposes … in good times, hard times, major inflection points, and everyday moments too.”

50 Ethical Questions: Biblical Wisdom for Confusing Times

J. Alan Branch (Lexham Press)

If you’ve ever wondered what Christians should …

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Survey finds nondenominational churches have the least baggage in people’s minds.

Most Americans are open to a variety of denominations of Christian churches, including many people of other faiths or no faith at all.

Americans have a wide range of opinions and impressions about Christian denominations, but most won’t rule out a church based on its denomination, according to a new study from Lifeway Research. From a list of nine denominational terms— Assemblies of God, Baptist, Catholic, Lutheran, Methodist, Pentecostal, Presbyterian, Southern Baptist, and nondenominational—more Americans rule out Pentecostal than any other denomination. Just over half of Americans (51%) say a church with Pentecostal in the name is not for them.

But for each of the other denominations in the study, most Americans say a specific religious label in the name of a church is not an automatic deterrent for them. Americans are most open to nondenominational and Baptist churches.

One in three (33%) say a church described as nondenominational is not for them, while 43 percent say the same about a church with Baptist in the name. A 2014 phone survey from Lifeway Research also found Baptist and nondenominational churches among those Americans were most open to and Pentecostal the denominational group they were least open to.

“Church names vary greatly,” said Scott McConnell, executive director of Lifeway Research. “Names including St. Peter, Trinity, Crossroads, and Presbyterian reflect biblical people, theology, modern imagery, or references to the branch of Christianity the church is tied to. Most people have preexisting impressions of denominational groups when they see them in a church name or description.”

Americans have more favorable than unfavorable impressions of …

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(UPDATED) Terrorists target Mass in Ondo, a normally peaceful southwestern state which recently passed grazing restrictions affecting Fulani herdsmen.

ABUJA, Nigeria – Terrorists launched a gun and bomb attack at the end of a Catholic Mass in southwest Nigeria on Sunday, killing an estimated 70 worshipers according to residents and church leaders.

The terrorists attacked the St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church in Owo, Ondo state, at about 9 a.m., church leaders and residents told Morning Star News (MSN) in text messages shortly after the attack.

A priest at the church, Andrew Abayomi, told MSN that as the worship service was coming to an end, the terrorists threw explosive devices and shot at worshipers.

“We were in worship Mass when the terrorists attacked us. They shot at the congregation while breaking into the church by throwing improvised explosive devices at the church building,” Abayomi said. “Some of us hid inside the church as they shot randomly at us. This lasted for about 20 minutes before they retreated.”

He said it was difficult to give details about the number killed and injured, as leaders were focusing on transferring the wounded to hospitals. Circulated videos showed bloody images of men, women, and children strewed among the pews.

Among other Owo residents, Loye Owolemi said about 70 worshipers were shot dead and others abducted when terrorists attacked the church service.

The Associated Press reported that one kidnapping victim was the presiding priest. Pope Francis was aware, stated the Vatican, and is praying.

Nigeria, ranked No. 7 on Open Doors’ 2022 World Watch List (WWL), led the world in Christians killed for their faith last year at 4,650 (from October 1, 2020 to September 30, 2021), up from 3,530 the previous reporting period. The West African nation’s 470 attacks on churches trailed only China’s tally.

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The Christian majority in America needs to shake off its malaise and work with Black pastors to end shooting violence.

Chicago might be a strange perch from which to write this appeal for gun reform. After all, Governor Greg Abbott of Texas recently invoked that well-established dog whistle and the refuge of Republican politicians and many of their Christian supporters: the deaths of Black kids due to gun violence in Chicago. For them, my city is proof positive that gun laws don’t work.

But here I sit, as one of Chicago’s young pastors at one of its most historic Black churches, bidding for a favorable response from the larger, politically dominant, white evangelical denominations in America.

I write to them because these denominations, like the Southern Baptist Convention, are politically influential in states with senators who could, if pressured by their base, be moved to act. They have swung elections in the past, when issues important to them drove them to the ballot box. These senators and representatives might not listen to a Black pastor in Chicago, but they will listen to a cluster of white pastors in Georgia, Florida, Alabama, and Tennessee.

I am not the first Black pastor to appeal to the white Christian majority to shake off their malaise and address pressing issues of justice. Martin Luther King Jr. made a similar appeal in 1963 from another unlikely place: a Birmingham jail. The issues are different, but the admonition is the same. There must be some white Christians of goodwill who sense that something is terribly wrong with gun violence among the children in our nation.

About 30 years ago, The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) began an aggressive recruitment of young Black clergy. Their seminaries sought young Black aspiring ministers who had no direct experience with the troubled racial history of their denomination. …

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Thérèse of Lisieux teaches us to have childlike faith and stop protecting our vulnerabilities.

I have a Bible from my youth, one I purchased for myself when I was in middle school. I underlined a number of verses during those formative years of adolescence. Flipping through the pages now, I see a common thread in the passages I singled out. They are predominantly calls to action, the instructional sections that mapped out an identifiable way for me to feel I was doing enough to satisfy God.

One of my greatest recurring anxieties is the possibility that I might in some way not be taking my sin seriously enough. That sounds ultraspiritual, but it is more fear-driven than pious. I review not just my actions but every internal agenda, and I come to the same conclusion as Jeremiah: The heart is a convoluted mess (Jer. 17:9). I scrape my mind for any residue of wrong that might need to be confessed and eradicated, only to discover new twisted layers underneath. Pulling the lid off of my soul felt like staring into a bottomless cauldron of horrors.

It never occurs to me in the midst of all the soul-scrubbing that perhaps part of what God desires for me is freedom from the self-loathing and cruel harshness that tries to pass itself off as making me more like him. The very self-admonishment I equate with holiness is in fact distorting my perception of God.

Pursuing the path of taking “full responsibility” for my sin only pushes me toward despair, because I find that the problem is deeper and more pervasive in me than I can begin to address (“Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me”—Romans 7:21). I am unable to discern my true motivations with certainty. The more I dissect my confessions, the less adequate they seem, pulling me further down the rabbit hole of introspection.

My attempts …

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Echo Church’s Andy Wood will take over for the well-known pastor and author on September 12.

After more than four decades, the pastor of one of the largest and most influential churches in the United States is ready to step down.

And he has named a young couple to take his place.

“This afternoon, at our all-staff meeting held at the Lake Forest campus, I was finally able to publicly announce that we have found God’s couple to lead our congregation, and that they have agreed to come!” Saddleback Church pastor Rick Warren told his Orange County, California, congregation in an email on Thursday.

Today’s email included a link to a video featuring Warren and his wife, Kay, along with Andy and Stacie Wood of Echo Church in San Jose, California. Andy Wood, 40, is currently Echo’s lead pastor, while Stacie Wood is a teaching pastor. They will have the same roles at Saddleback.

Founded in 2008 as South Bay Church, Echo now has four campuses and draws about 3,000 people to weekly services. Like Saddleback, Echo has ties to the Southern Baptist Convention, though neither church uses the word Baptist in its name. A graduate of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Andy Wood has also worked with church planters through the SBC’s North American Mission Board.

“Kay and I believe so much in this couple,” Warren said in a statement announcing the transition. “We love them so much, and we are confident that God has prepared and chosen them to take up the baton and run the next leg of the Saddleback marathon.”

The search for a new pastor began last summer, in part because of ongoing health problems for Warren. He told the church last year that he has spinal myoclonus, which causes tremors and blurred vision, and that it has worsened in recent years.

Saddleback leaders spoke …

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We’re made to have a herd. Made to transcend it, too.

“This is awful.”

That’s what a pastor said to me recently about the tribalization he sees not just in the culture but in his own church. The angriest debates are not over whether a claim is true, but over what side a person has pledged allegiance to by affirming its truth. Red state or blue state? Cracker Barrel or Whole Foods?

The pastor is right that this is a lamentable state. But it’s not “awful.” Not awful enough, anyway.

The Christian church learned in the first century that fragmentation was a question of sorting before it was a question of splitting. In saying “I am of Paul” and “I am of Cephas,” one was swearing a loyalty and merging one’s own conscience into a herd defined by something short of Christ (1 Cor. 1:10–17, NKJV).

Biologists and psychologists would find that unsurprising. Many would say that humans evolved with a need to differentiate between “in group” and “out group,” the familiar and the strange. It’s “natural,” some would tell us, to ask, “Who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:29).

All of us would agree that this sort of hive mind is a necessary function at times. If a fire breaks out in your Sunday morning service, you don’t want a thoughtful discussion about possible means of escape. You want the whole gathering, as one, to suspend their personal judgments and move. The problem that we see right now—ratcheted up to an unprecedented level by social media—is that there seems to be no off switch for the hive mind.

Social psychologists Jonathan Haidt and Dacher Keltner have found that one factor is most important in shifting people away from hive-mind tribalism. This factor …

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God has set a feast for us in the world, and we shouldn’t feel guilty about savoring it.

I am convinced that most of us have a Tiny Puritan who lives in our heads. He sees all pleasure as temptation. He thinks the safest way to stay morally pure is to be chronically wary of one’s own enjoyment. When we find ourselves enjoying something (be it a particularly overripe peach, an amazing piece of music, or a first kiss), he furrows his brows, grumbling, “Sinner! Be careful! You might get carried away!” The Tiny Puritan is a nuisance, but we’re afraid to get rid of him, because we really do want to be good.

The Tiny Puritan believes all pleasures are guilty pleasures. Did you enjoy that movie? The Tiny Puritan suggests you could/should be doing something more productive or spiritual. Did you love those donuts? The Tiny Puritan suggests that you are a glutton.

We all handle the Tiny Puritan in our own special way. Some people learn early in life to lock the Tiny Puritan in a box and bury him somewhere deep in their subconscious, boldly enjoying pleasures both innocent and salacious. Some of us try to bargain with the Tiny Puritan, enjoying some small pleasures, but not without being flattened slightly by his derisive scoff. We end up trying to follow all the Puritan’s demanding rules, just so he’ll shut up.

It reminds me of one of my favorite films: Babette’s Feast. The 1980s Danish film follows the life of two sisters (Martine and Filippa), the children of a sincere but austere Lutheran pastor, who live a strict and pleasureless life on a barren and remote coast of Jutland. Each, in her turn, falls in love but turns the suitor down out of a misguided sense of duty and piety. They justify their self-denial as a triumph over worldly temptation, but regret haunts their quiet moments. …

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Marriage seminar set up a clash between religious teachings and gay rights, but “alienating” comments are not criminal, court rules.

Standing tall in the raised pulpit of the St. Martini congregation in the northern German city of Bremen, Olaf Latzel, 54, cut a stark figure in his black gown and two white preaching tabs.

But it wasn’t his presence that caused a stir in Germany; it was what he had been preaching from that pulpit.

In October 2019, in a marriage seminar for about 30 couples, Latzel commented on what he called the “homolobby.” He attacked homosexuality, calling it “degenerative,” and said, “These criminals are running around everywhere” during the Berlin Pride Parade.

“All this gender s—,” he said, “is an attack against God’s order of creation. It is demonic and satanic.”

The address was posted on YouTube, where the words of the United Protestant Church minister raised a furor. The regional body of the church, which has a quasi-official status in Germany, initiated disciplinary proceedings. The local government launched an investigation and ultimately prosecuted Latzel for hate speech.

Latzel’s case has attracted less international attention than a similar one in Finland, where a politician was prosecuted for tweeting out Bible verses and a Lutheran bishop for publishing a pamphlet on biblical gender roles. But in both, observers saw a long-expected clash, as increasing concerns for the dignity and rights of LGBT people came into conflict with deep commitments to free speech and religious liberty.

This month, however, a German court decided that the Bremen minister is not guilty of inciting hatred against LGBT people.

On May 20, 2022, Judge Hendrik Göhner said that “these statements are more than alienating from a social point of view—especially …

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