Good News for Iraq’s Christians: More Autonomy, Less Dhimmitude

As Erbil Christians finally get to govern themselves, Chaldean Catholic archbishop Bashar Warda explains to CT how ISIS freed Christians from the centuries-old understanding that they are second-class citizens.

This week, the Christian enclave of Ankawa in Erbil, the capital city of Iraqi Kurdistan, was designated by the autonomous region’s prime minister as an official district with administrative autonomy. Starting next week, Christians will directly elect their own mayor and be in charge of security, among other matters.

Prime Minister Masrour Barzani called Ankawa a home for “religious and social coexistence, and a place for peace.”

Archbishop Bashar Warda, the Chaldean Catholic archbishop of Erbil, called it an “important” and “strategic” decision.

“Our confidence in the future of Kurdistan makes us encourage Christians not only to stay,” he told Kurdistan 24, “but also to invest in this region.”

Ordained a priest in 1993, Warda was consecrated in his current position in 2010. With Iraq’s hemorrhaging of Christians since the 2003 US invasion, Warda’s bishopric in the autonomous Kurdish region soon became a providential band-aid.

Beginning in 2014, ISIS drove Christians from Mosul and their traditional homeland in the Nineveh Plains, and thousands took refuge in Erbil and other cities in the secure northeast. From 1.5 million Christians in 2003, the Chaldean Catholic church now estimates a population of fewer than 275,000 Christians.

Warda has long been investing to turn the tide.

In 2015, he established the Catholic University of Erbil, and has coordinated relief aid from governments and charities alike. The situation stabilized following ISIS’s defeat in 2017.

But freedom does not come from politics alone. Two years ago, Christians endorsed widespread popular uprisings against the political class. Violently suppressed, the …

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Philip Yancey: God Can Love ‘A Cynical Sneak Like Me’

An excerpt from the best-selling author’s memoir, “Where the Light Fell.”

At a vulnerable time in my spiritual development, I found myself at a Bible college with a 66-page rule book and little emphasis on grace. Other students seemed quite content in the controlled environment. In me, however, the campus culture encouraged more cynicism than faith.

My cynicism gradually softened over the course of my sopho­more year. I found some relief in a new Christian Service assign­ment: “university work.” Four of us male students started visiting a nearby state university every Saturday night with the goal of engaging students in conver­sations about faith.

On our first visit I am dazzled by the plush dorms and student lounges, so different from the utilitarian buildings at the Bible col­lege. Entranced, I study the bulletin boards covered with splashy posters announcing concerts, plays, and other student activities. I want to be one of these people more than I want to convert them.

Strolling through the campus, I notice a group of athletes sitting on a patio. “Where are you guys from?” I ask.

“We’re with the Yale baseball team. How about you?”

“Um, I attend a Bible college down the road, and we came over here to see if anyone wants to talk about spiritual things.” They ex­change smirks. I continue, “You see, in God’s economy …”

“That’s funny,” one of the athletes interrupts. “I didn’t know God had an economy.” His teammates laugh, and blood rushes to my face. I head toward the student center to watch TV.

“Don’t worry, Philip,” my fellow students reassure me when I re­port on my botched attempt at witnessing. “At least you sowed the seed. God’s …

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Don’t Let Religious Liberty Claims Mask Bad Faith Arguments

Inconsistent and insincere appeals for exemptions to public health rules are undermining important freedoms.

If you believe in religious liberty only when it’s good for society, then you really don’t believe in it. A sincere commitment to religious liberty requires support for exemptions that allow people to do things you might disagree with, whether that’s Mennonites refusing to serve in the military, Catholics declining to work with same-sex foster parents, or Native Americans doing drugs.

So supporters of religious liberty and robust religious exemptions might feel conflicted about a court ruling in Pennsylvania that rejected religious exemptions to mask mandates in schools. On the one hand, the best information from public health experts says masks are a good, simple way to reduce the spread of the coronavirus. On the other, shouldn’t we support the rights of people we think are wrong?

Religious liberty is too important to let it get misused. It’s not a waiver to avoid all inconveniences in life or, worse, a tool to make political statements. For religious liberty to survive political and legal scrutiny in the future, we must safeguard exemptions against abuse. We can’t let appeals to shared faith or shared “enemies” mask bad faith arguments that undermine our religious liberty.

At the height of World War II, West Virginia schools required students to begin their day by saluting the flag and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. For Jehovah’s Witnesses these requirements amounted to idolatry, violating their deeply held convictions. They refused, at significant personal cost.

Eventually, the US Supreme Court ruled that these students should not be coerced to participate, famously declaring, “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, …

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Why Church Shouldn’t Just Be on Facebook

The reasons worship services should be offline are all too human.

Every week, in the front lobby, the secretary of the church I attended in kindergarten updated the archive of sermon recordings. This was in the early 1990s, so the archive was a spice rack of cassette tapes, with maybe two or three copies for each sermon, in case multiple homebound church members wanted to listen simultaneously.

That sort of care for those who can’t make it to church on Sunday—whether occasionally or long-term, due to old age, chronic illness, or disability—is uncontroversial. Most churches have long since moved past cassettes to a podcast format or YouTube or CDs, but the basic idea of using technology to bring at least the sermon to those who can’t worship in person is here to stay, and so it should be. Though not a sufficient fulfilment of our duties on its own, it’s easily defensible as an outworking of the Christian responsibility to care for the sick (Matt. 25:36), “preach the word” (2 Tim. 4:2), and “look after orphans and widows in their distress” (James 1:27).

But what about conducting church—or, at least, its group worship and teaching—on Facebook? Many congregations tried this or something similar for the first time during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Facebook reported that the week of Easter 2020, when pandemic shutdowns were just becoming widespread was, “the biggest for group video calls on Messenger and the most popular week of Facebook Live broadcasts from spiritual Pages, ever.” People seemed to take quickly to its ways of connecting when separated by COVID-19.

On Facebook, churches can form “groups” or “pages.” They can host chats and post memes that members and followers will see and respond to. …

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Interview: William Lane Craig Explores the Headwaters of the Human Race

The philosopher and theologian ventures a new hypothesis on Genesis, human origins, and the historical Adam.

As head of the ministry Reasonable Faith and a prolific writer on topics of philosophy and theology, William Lane Craig has spent decades staking out sophisticated positions on the toughest questions of Christian faith. But for a long time, his beliefs on one controversial topic—the place of Adam and Eve in biblical and biological history—have remained unsettled. Craig considers this matter at length in his latest book, In Quest of the Historical Adam: A Biblical and Scientific Exploration. Science and religion scholar Melissa Cain Travis spoke with Craig about his views on Genesis, human origins, and the historical Adam.

You describe Genesis 1–11 as “mytho-history,” arguing that an ancient-Near-Eastern audience would not have understood this text as a literal historical narrative. How do you define mytho-history, and how does it function in divine revelation?

I’m not using the word myth in the popular sense of a falsehood, but rather in the folklorist’s sense of a traditional, sacred narrative explaining how the world and humanity came to be in their present form. History is a narrative concerning real people and events, and so a mytho-history would be a sort of fusion of the two: a narrative concerning real people and events told in the language of myth in order to ground a culture’s identity and institutions in events of the primordial past.

One reason you support the mytho-history classification is the presence of what you call “fantastic elements” in the text. What are these, and how do they differ from supernatural elements?

I define “fantastic elements” as those which, if taken literally, are so extraordinary as to be palpably false. Myths are typically …

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Southern Baptists Agree to Open Up to Abuse Investigation

Executive Committee decision comes after weeks of heated debate and division.

It took three weeks of scheduled meetings, at least three law firms, dozens of statements, hours of closed-door briefings, and extensive back-and-forth debates across boardooms, social media, and Zoom calls for the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee (EC) to agree to the terms of a third-party investigation into its response to abuse. But on Tuesday, it did.

The EC voted 44–31 on in favor of waiving attorney-client privilege in the investigation, after a half dozen members resigned and several switched their position in favor of the waiver. For a moment, it felt like the conclusion of a long and heated process, though the decision is only the start of a long investigative process.

EC chairman Rolland Slade, who oversaw the proceedings, expressed his relief after the tally was announced. Then he remarked, “I want to express sorrow over the conduct we have displayed as Southern Baptists.”

For the EC—the denominational body tasked with Southern Baptist business outside the annual meeting—the debate pitted the desire to open fully to the investigation against concerns that such transparency would threaten its financial solvency, insurance coverage, and other fiduciary duties to protect the entity.

As the clash played out, Southern Baptist voices including seminary presidents, state convention leaders, and thousands of pastors spoke out to put pressure on the EC to comply with the requirement to waive attorney-client privilege, which had been approved when the denomination called for the investigation at its annual meeting in June.

“Taking steps towards honesty, transparency, repentance, those are great things. Those are worthy of celebration,” said Georgia pastor Griffin …

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Philip Yancey, as Few Could Have Imagined Him

The writer’s new memoir sheds light on an upbringing steeped in bigotry and a lifetime of “useful” pain.

Philip Yancey knew he would write a memoir the day he lay strapped to a backboard, not knowing if he would live or die. This was in 2007, after he had already written numerous books and won global acclaim as a journalist spotlighting issues of faith in the stories of other people. Yet it took a careening Jeep, five rolls down an embankment, and a broken neck to persuade him irrevocably to write the full truths of his own story.

I saw Yancey four years ago as he was writing it. We sat over lunch in an earthy café in Colorado sharing the challenges of writing memoir. How do we account for the span of our life? When do we break our silence? How much truth is enough?

Since then, I’ve been anxiously awaiting how Yancey would answer those questions for himself. Here’s my report: Where the Light Fell is in many ways a classic spiritual autobiography tracing one man’s conversion from cynic to believer. But it’s more. It’s a searing family story as revelatory as gothic Southern fiction. It’s an exposé. It’s a social critique. It’s a tragedy. It’s a tale of redemption. More than anything, though, it’s a story few could have imagined.

Unmaking and remaking

Not everything in this memoir will come as a surprise, especially for readers familiar with Yancey’s prolific writings on matters of grace, the problem of evil, and the author’s Southern fundamentalist background, particularly its role in justifying racism and segregation.

Although such themes are recognizable in Yancey’s memoir, the stories have a different feel. No longer do they serve mainly as anecdotal ramps onto larger explorations of doubt, grace, prejudice, and pain. Instead, we stay inside …

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Pat Robertson Retires from The 700 Club at 91

The outspoken host and pioneering Christian broadcaster has been the face of CBN since its founding 60 years ago.

After decades of offering Christian viewers his commentary on natural disasters, 9/11, AIDS, pot, divorce, diplomacy, plastic surgery, homosexuality, Islam, secular colleges, the end of the world, critical race theory, and a range of other moral issues, Pat Robertson has signed off as host of The 700 Club.

On the 60th anniversary of the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN), its 91-year-old founder announced that he would be stepping down and that his son, Gordon Robertson, would take over as full-time host of its flagship talk show.

Robertson, also the founder of Regent University and the Christian Coalition, has been a pioneer in evangelical broadcasting. He launched CBN as the country’s first Christian network in 1960, and CBN has grown to air in 174 countries and 70 languages. It added a 24-7 news channel in 2018.

At the helm of the Virginia-based network, Robertson was ambitious and creative, believing that CBN could grow to a place alongside major channels and thus have a greater impact for the kingdom.

As CT reported in 1982, “CBN began replacing pulpits and King James English with Johnny Carson-style sofas and soap-opera vernacular. Its anchor show, The 700 Club, assumed an upbeat, magazine format, complete with news spots from Washington, D.C. Other programs resemble familiar TV Guide lineups, with a top-quality soap opera, early morning news and chatter, a miniseries on pornography, Wall Street analyses, and entertainment for children.”

But particularly in the past couple decades, the long-running host became known for controversial declarations on politics and prophesy, which stirred even fellow evangelicals.

When Robertson called on the US to assassinate Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez 15 years ago, …

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How a Jewish Evangelical Won Trust with Arab Muslim Leaders

Apocalyptic fiction writer Joel Rosenberg’s new book describes his behind-the-scenes interactions with crown princes and presidents in search of peace and religious freedom.

Fans of Joel Rosenberg’s Middle East apocalyptic fiction can now read his real-time account of real-world peace.

Through behind-the-scenes meetings with kings, princes, and presidents, the Jewish evangelical and New York Times bestselling author had an inside scoop on the Abraham Accords.

For two years, he sat on it.

His new nonfiction book, Enemies and Allies: An Unforgettable Journey inside the Fast-Moving & Immensely Turbulent Modern Middle East, released one year after the signing of the normalization agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), finally tells the story.

During an evangelical delegation of dialogue to the Gulf nation in 2018, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Mohammed bin Zayed (MBZ), told Rosenberg of his groundbreaking and controversial plans—and trusted the author to keep the secret.

Named after the biblical patriarch, the accords were Israel’s first peace deal in 20 years. In the five months that followed, similar agreements were signed with Bahrain, Sudan, Kosovo, and Morocco.

Might Saudi Arabia be next? Mohammed bin Salman’s (MBS) comments to Rosenberg remain off the record. But asked if his reforms might include building the kingdom’s first church, the crown prince described where religious freedom falls in his order of priorities.

Enemies and Allies provides never-before-published accounts of Rosenberg’s interactions with these leaders, in addition to Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Jordan’s King Abdullah. Included also are exchanges with former president Donald Trump and vice president Mike Pence.

CT interviewed Rosenberg about navigating politics and praying in palaces and about whether he would be willing to lead similar evangelical …

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‘The Jesus Music’ Is a Love Letter to Fans

But like the CCM industry, it speaks an insider language.

I have a memory of being five or six years old and helping my mom prepare for a party with Amy Grant’s album Heart in Motion playing in the background. I knew (and still know) all the words to “Baby, Baby” and “Good for Me.” When I got married, my three sisters sang a parody of her song, “Lucky One” at the reception.

I know every song on Steven Curtis Chapman’s Speechless by heart. I saw DC Talk in concert at eight, tagging along with a friend whose parents led youth group. In high school, I worked in the music department of a Christian book store.

In other words, I grew up on Christian Contemporary Music (CCM).

The Jesus Music, a new film directed by Jon and Andrew Erwin about the rise of the genre, was made for me and for people like me—whose musical and spiritual worlds were formed and influenced by the music, musicians, and subculture of CCM. I enjoyed revisiting the music my parents and I played on repeat during the ’80s and ’90s, and I suspect that many viewers like me will as well. Viewers like me.

“This music,” musician Joel Smallbone (of the band For King & Country) says in the opening line of the trailer, “offers people a sense of hope and a sense of togetherness and a sense of joy, maybe that they’ve not experienced.”

That’s a sweeping claim, one echoed on the film’s website, which refers to the “universal power of music from these artists.”

Is this music really for anyone and everyone? Can everyone find in it a sense of hope, joy, or togetherness? No. Music isn’t a universal language, and the music featured in The Jesus Music comes from a brief fifty-year window and a small group of artists …

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