Transubstantiate

What looks like “resting in God” might actually be a mask for resignation.

When we suffer, we may outwardly appear to be “resting in God,” accepting whatever he gives us. But what looks like rest might actually hide a dangerous and deadly spiritual resignation. The truth is, we’ve lost hope and plastered a Jesus sticker on the face of our despair.

After the death of my infant son Paul, what looked to others like rest was a mask for resignation. I’d begged God to spare my baby’s life, but he died even as I was praying. In the days that followed his death, I planned a funeral, spoke of God’s goodness, and offered words of sound theology—theology that I believed. I said I was resting, trusting, and standing on the promises of God, but internally I was actually turning my face away from God.

I was too ashamed to admit to others, and even to myself, how disappointed I was with God, so I numbed the pain with platitudes that I wanted to believe while I distanced my heart from the Lord. My once-vibrant faith soon drifted into apathy and prayerlessness because I’d lost hope that God was even listening.

Months later, in desperation, I finally cried out to God again. I had nowhere else to go. He met me in my discouragement and drew me back to him. I felt a newfound freedom in being completely open with him, so I began voicing my fears, journaling my questions, and praying through Psalms as I processed my grief. This season of wrestling with God in prayer finally reengaged my heart. Instead of answers, I found rest in God himself and a peace beyond my understanding. My journey of wrestling in prayer amid suffering is what eventually led me out of hopeless resignation and into real trust.

The Reason to Wrestle

Wrestling in prayer is crying out to God, asking for what …

Continue reading…

Lessons I’ve learned in praying for and working with the Chinese church.

Last week, a friend asked me to meet for coffee. She is a young mother, and after seeing the now-world-famous image of a young Afghani mother handing away her baby over a barbed wire fence to an American soldier, my friend found herself struggling to emotionally grapple with what she had seen. Though she has been praying consistently for the situation in Afghanistan, as the image continued to loop through her mind. She wanted advice regarding how to be concerned for the suffering church without succumbing to the heavy emotional toll of it all.

While working with the Chinese church over the past 16 years, I have had to do some processing and learning after watching brothers and sisters in Christ in another cultural context suffer deeply. In December 2018, I watched as a group of Chinese men and women I have prayed and worshiped with were viciously attacked and jailed. Watching their suffering from a distance over the joviality of American Christmas deeply impacted my understanding of Christ’s calling.

Roughly 70 years ago, the global church witnessed what was thought to be the end of the church in China. Similar to what we are witnessing today in Afghanistan, citizens (and especially Christians) scrambled to leave China after the Chinese Community Party took over. The Chinese government persecuted the church in the immediate years following. Thousands abandoned Christ.

But there was a generation of men and women who laid down their lives as the seeds of the Chinese church today. They remained faithful as individuals and as the corporate church. And when the time was right, the gospel spread across their country in such a way that today the Chinese church is the largest numerical church in the world. Christians in China …

Continue reading…

We can imitate those in Acts 6 who responded to the needs of neglected and oppressed women.

This is a revelatory moment for American Christianity. A continuous stream of stories of abusive ministry leaders and racial injustice is driving many Christians to question their identification with their churches. So are the old stories, showing that the oppression of women and ethnic minorities is more woven into the American Christian story than we were taught or ever wanted to admit. Not every recent assessment of this story is compelling or accurate. But what’s clear is that our reckoning hasn’t reached back far enough.

The oppression of vulnerable women and ethnic minorities isn’t central just to the American church’s story, or even to the Western church’s story, but to the earliest days of the church itself, “when the number of disciples was increasing” (Acts 6:1–7).

There was a lot of good news for Greek-speaking (Hellenist) Jewish Christian widows in those early days. They followed a Messiah who not only rose from the dead and ascended to heaven but who in the temple itself specifically denounced the teachers of the law for “devour[ing] widows’ houses.” (Mark 12:40). They saw the Spirit of the Lord at work healing the sick, delivering the possessed, and redeeming the lost.

But this new Christian community was also neglecting these minority women, overlooking them in the daily distribution of food. The same disciples famous for having “shared everything they had” (Acts 4:32) weren’t sharing with them. The old prejudices continued, with the Hebraic Jewish widows being fed and the Hellenists left hungry. The oppression that Jesus denounced in the temple was happening at the table.

Both the widows and the broader community of God knew that …

Continue reading…

What do you do when someone challenges your faith? One of the world’s most sought-after Christian apologists, Lisa Fields, combines her passion for biblical literacy with her heart for sharing God’s love to all those she meets.

What do you do when someone questions your deepest beliefs? How do you respond? What does it feel like to hear someone challenge core ideas that you not only believe are true, but you’ve built your life upon? For many of us, these doubts can cause us to question who we are and maybe make us wonder if we’ve wasted our time believing a lie.

On this episode of Where Ya From?, Rasool talks with Lisa Fields about her journey to becoming an apologist. She shares how a season of doubt played tricks with her mind and forced her to reevaluate what she believed, and how this journey even led Lisa to a career that would not just be difficult—but almost impossible—for a young, Black woman.

Bio of Guest:

Lisa Fields is one of the world’s most sought-after Christian apologists. She combines her passion for biblical literacy with her heart for sharing God’s love to all those she meets. Lisa is a graduate of the University of North Florida with a Bachelor of Science in Communications and Religious Studies. She also graduated from Liberty University with a Master of Divinity and a focus in Theology. Her time in seminary propelled her into her calling as an apologist.

During her last year of seminary, her passion to teach others how to defend their faith became very clear. It was then that the Jude 3 Project was born. As founder and president, Lisa’s primary mission for the Jude 3 Project is to help the Black Christian community know what they believe and why they believe. Lisa speaks regularly at evangelism, apologetic, and biblical literacy events at various universities and churches across the country.

Notes and Quotes:

• “Jesus looked at Peter and said, ‘Will you also go?’ And Peter said, ‘How can I go? You have the words of eternal life’” (John 6:67–68).

Continue reading…

The First Nations Version of Ephesians 3-4:16.

As he ministered among native tribes, pastor Terry Wildman would reword parts of Scripture to reflect the language and perspectives of his people. This year, his efforts to “indigenize” Bible translation turned into an official version of the New Testament published by InterVarsity Press.

The following is an excerpt from Ephesians in the First Nations Version, which released on Tuesday.

A Great Mystery Revealed

Because I, Small Man (Paul), follow the Chosen One and represent you Nations in this way, I have been arrested and put in chains. I am sure you have heard how the Great Spirit chose me, because of his great kindness, to be a wisdomkeeper to all Nations. Creator chose me, by a sacred vision, to make known this hidden wisdom that I have already spoken about.

When you hear this message, you will understand how I see the mystery of the Chosen One. This mystery was not made known to the generations of humankind that walked before us in the same way his Spirit has now told it to his holy message bearers and prophets.

This mystery is that the people of all Nations have equal share in the blessings promised to the tribes of Wrestles with Creator (Israel). They have full membership in the same body and are included in the promise through the Chosen One as told in the good story.

Chosen to Tell the Good Story

The gift of Creator’s great kindness came to me in a powerful way and created in me a desire to serve this good story. Even though I am small and weak among his holy people, he still chose me to tell all Nations about the mysterious treasures he has hidden in the Chosen One and about the unfolding of this ancient plan—a great mystery that was hidden away for many ages in Creator’s heart. So that …

Continue reading…

Participating in interfaith work at the Ivy League university is a help not a hindrance to the exclusivist claims of Christian faith.

Last week, The New York Times ran a provocative piece stating that the new president of the Harvard Chaplains is an atheist. Greg Epstein was elected unanimously last spring by his fellow Harvard chaplains. I am one of the people who voted for him.

For seven years, I have worked at Harvard as an evangelical campus minister employed by InterVarsity Christian Fellowship (IVCF). I believe the Bible is authoritative and entirely trustworthy as God’s Word. I believe that Jesus alone is the way of salvation, and that no one comes to the Father except through him. So why would I vote for an atheist to lead the Harvard Chaplains?

The answer lies in the unique, decentralized approach of the Harvard Chaplains and how that group of leaders from many faiths (or no faith) has opened doors for gospel-centered ministry on the campus of a prestigious Ivy League school. The real Harvard Chaplains group—not the one poorly represented in the media—tells a different and very significant story of how evangelicals can flourish in interfaith spaces without compromising faith, truth, or mission.

In response to The New York Times profile, many Christian and conservative media outlets were quick to fuel the sense of aggrievement felt by religious people who are understandably trying to protect themselves against the rising tide of secularism. In so many words, they’re concerned that “even faith spaces will be ruled by secularists, should Harvard have its way.”

Had I not been in the room where it happened, I might have had a similar reaction to the news.

That room was of course a Zoom call. It took place in the spring. As a group of about 30, we voted on a slate of chaplains for next year’s executive board. I was …

Continue reading…

Welsh Nobel Prize-winner John Houghton saw sin at the heart of this ecological crisis.

The sixth report from the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is alarming—but not surprising.

The panel’s first assessment of scientific research on climate change in 1990 found that burning fossil fuels substantially increases the atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases—including carbon dioxide, methane, chlorofluorocarbons, and nitrous oxide—causing a rise in the global mean temperature and warming up the world’s oceans.

“Consequent changes,” the first report said, “may have a significant impact on society.”

The second, third, fourth, and fifth IPCC assessments found more evidence and growing consensus that human activity is causing climate change and that its impact will hurt a lot of people.

The sixth assessment, released in August, is more urgent and emphatic, but it reaches the same conclusion. The IPCC now says climate change not only may have a significant impact on society, it will.

Policy makers, scientists, and concerned citizens who pick up the final version of the report might be surprised by one thing, though: It is dedicated to an evangelical Christian who said the root problem of climate change is sin.

“Looking after the Earth is a God-given responsibility,” John Houghton once wrote. “Not to look after the Earth is a sin.”

Houghton, who died of complications related to COVID-19 in 2020 at the age of 88, was the chief editor of the first three IPCC reports and an early, influential leader calling for action on climate change.

His concerns about greenhouse gases, rising temperature averages, dying coral reefs, blistering heat waves, and increasingly extreme weather were informed by his training at as atmospheric …

Continue reading…

A recent abortion ban isn’t the victory it seems. But it is a test run for pro-life Christians.

Many people counted down until midnight last night, waiting not for a New Year but for the possibility of a post–Roe v. Wade America. That’s because, due to a legal technicality, the Supreme Court of the United States had until then to overturn a new Texas abortion law before it went into effect on September 1.

The fact that the Supreme Court didn’t intervene has some Christians wondering: Is Roe now effectively gone?

The reason this case, in particular, is of such intense interest to both sides of the abortion debate is because the law in question, Senate Bill 8, seems to effectively ban abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy. Unlike the Mississippi law that will come before the Court this year, this law is different. It is not enforced by the state but rather by private persons who can sue anyone involved in an abortion—except the woman seeking the procedure.

Still, because a law seeming to prohibit abortion is now technically on the books, some have wondered if this means the almost fifty-year era of Roe v. Wade is at its end. And the answer to that is probably not—at least not yet.

Thought it’s hard to discern the motives of nine justices, it is well within the realm of possibility that the Court’s decision to stay silent was not a way of undoing Roe but rather a means of not making such a decision before the Mississippi Dobbs case.

Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization pertains to the State of Mississippi’s law banning most abortions after fifteen weeks from conception. If the law is upheld, it would directly challenge Roe’s framework of an almost unlimited right to abortion, especially before fetal viability (as defined by the Court). That case does …

Continue reading…

As leaders, how do we avoid the faults of online life without shirking our public responsibility?

Recently, Caitlin Flanagan argued in The Atlantic that we really need to quit Twitter. She joins a long line of people who’ve sworn off the medium (at least for a time). Andrew Sullivan, Chrissy Teigen, Alec Baldwin, and other celebrities have publicly quit social media. Ta-Nehisi Coates famously left Twitter (and his 1.25 million followers) after an online argument with Cornel West in 2017.

In her essay, Flanagan examines how Twitter destroyed her “ability for private thought” and enjoyment of reading. She even admits to being a Twitter addict.

I am too. I have committed a thousand times to take a break from social media, just to find myself sneaking a look, consumed by shame, as if I huffed some glue real quick between work and picking up the kids. There are nights when I’m up too late, reddened eyes locked onto a screen, finally shaking myself out of my stupor with a cry: “Why am I doing this?”

We’ve all heard the studies. Social media decreases our ability to think critically, increases rates of depression, and fuels anxiety and distraction. Facebook and Twitter often make our conversations more combative. And online advocacy often usurps the more enduring (and more boring) work of governance and institutional change.

Nevertheless, most public discourse is now online. So even if social media is a cesspool, we still have to ask the question: Do some Christians have a moral responsibility to wade into the mire to voice opposition to bad legislation, promote good work, or amplify the concerns of the marginalized?

To cite one particularly disheartening example, sexual abuse victims of a lay leader in my own denomination took to Twitter this summer to highlight the ways leaders and systems …

Continue reading…