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CT Editors’ Top Print Features of 2023

CMS Admin — Wed, 20 Dec 2023 06:00:00 +0000

In 2023, we published nearly 100 articles in our nine print issues, including 51 feature-length essays. It’s hard to choose, since they’re all of our favorites, but we attempted to narrow down 10 pieces that we felt everyone should read. Here are our print editors’ feature picks for 2023:

Check out the rest of our 2023 year-end lists here.

The post CT Editors’ Top Print Features of 2023 appeared first on Christianity Today.

CT Editors and Contributors Respond: What Are You Thankful for in 2021?

CMS Admin — Wed, 24 Nov 2021 12:00:00 +0000

In a year marked by COVID-19 and other worldwide struggles, we asked several staff members and regular contributors of Christianity Today to share a few things they are thankful for in 2021.

Kara Bettis, CT associate features editor

The verse that has been swirling in my head over the second half of 2021 is Proverbs 16:9: “In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps.” I am grateful for the ways that I have witnessed God’s sovereignty in my life this year.

We did not plan for a lockdown, for sickness and death, or for churches and workplaces to halt in-person gatherings. But he knew. I did not plan for the upheavals—both joyous and painful, personal and communal—that I’ve experienced in 2021. But he knew.

My past year was marked by milestones: entering a new decade and graduating with a master’s degree in theology. But among those landmark events, I’m thankful for the divine in-between moments: snowy hikes, a half-dozen weddings, watching my best friend’s baby grow, gospel conversations, baptisms. Life goes on; we can only sit in the paradoxical beauty and discomfort of the already and not yet.

Matt Reynolds, CT’s books editor

In the past, when I’ve pondered the “What are you most grateful for?” question around the Thanksgiving table, I’ve sometimes found myself stumped, either because my brain freezes in the moment or because it’s tough to pick just one blessing among many. No such trouble this year. When you welcome your first child into the world, your contribution to any gratitude exercise comes pretty neatly gift-wrapped.

There’s just so much to praise God for as baby Ezra rounds the three-month mark. For starters, he’s alive, healthy, and happy, despite his parents’ stumbling and bumbling.

And speaking of those parents, they’re holding up awfully well, all things considered. Thinking back to those first few sleep-deprived days—when the prospect of juggling the rigors of childcare and the workaday world seemed daunting, to say the least—I marvel at how immeasurably brighter our outlook has gotten. Whenever I get a load of our little one wiggling around on his changing table, batting at his plastic sloth toy, or drifting off to dreamland in his whale-themed PJs, my heart swells with joy. With this particular knitting-in-the-womb project, I can’t help thinking God’s outdone himself!

Kelli B. Trujillo, CT’s projects editor

There is much I am profoundly grateful for when I look back over the past year, including the opportunity to work on CT’s special projects, the bittersweet joy of sending my oldest child off to college for the first time, and God’s sustenance of our small church plant during the challenges of the pandemic. Several rounds of quarantining at home also reminded me how thankful I am for life’s simple pleasures like good books, board games, the family dog, and laughter.

One specific thing I’m especially grateful for is the opportunity I’ve had this past year to be part of a master naturalist program through my state’s Department of Natural Resources. It’s been awesome to observe and learn deeply about a myriad of Earth’s living things, from click beetles to double-crested cormorants, from wetland Great Blue Lobelia blooms to towering tulip poplars. What an ongoing joy it is to delve into God’s Second Book. In the words of one of my favorite hymns, “Now thank we all our God with hearts and hands and voices, who wondrous things has done, in whom his world rejoices.”

Jay Kim, CT contributor, teaching pastor at WestGate Church

I have much to be thankful for this past year, but because of the specific season I'm in, I'm especially thankful for the church leaders who've gone before me. In January 2022, I will be transitioning into the lead pastor role at WestGate Church in Silicon Valley. I owe everything to Christ, but I owe much to my predecessor Steve Clifford and his wife, Dana, who've both been my greatest allies, advocates, and cheerleaders throughout this process. I'm in awe of their generosity and humility in what has been undoubtedly a season of grief and loss. Sadly, such selflessness is rare in transitions like these. But Steve and Dana both have offered me a vision of what genuine kingdom-mindedness can look like. I hope to embody and express even a fraction of their depth and maturity in the years to come.

Hannah Anderson, CT contributor, author of Humble Roots

“Your Father knows what you need before you ask him” (Matt. 6:8).

My husband teases me that the way to get my full, undivided attention is to put a “Manager Special” sticker on his shirt. He’s not wrong. Usually brightly colored, these tags signal a drastic price reduction on products that a store needs to sell quickly, and over the years, they’ve been a source of God’s provision for us—especially in lean times.

But God’s also used “Manager Specials” to reveal his generosity, inviting us into experiences and tastes we’d never naturally pursue. We’ve tasted cheeses from faraway places, enjoyed the beauty of overstocked bouquets, and once even sampled caviar because I couldn’t resist the 90 percent off sticker.

But here’s the thing about “Manager Specials”: You don’t get to choose what’s on offer. You have to enter the store with curiosity, flexibility, and openness; but if you do, you also might leave with unexpected goodness.

In the same way, embracing God’s unexpected provision means relinquishing a level of control over what we think should happen in our lives, trusting that he knows what we need. But by letting go of our inclination to consume God’s grace, we open ourselves to receive it. And when we do, we might find ourselves receiving not just our daily bread but our brioche, croissants, and sourdough too.

Stefani McDade, CT associate editor

I know last year was a difficult year for many, but 2021 was far worse in my own world. I felt cast adrift in many ways—personally and professionally—for much of the year. In the midst of it all, my favorite verse was the simple assurance of Jesus, who said that “in this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” These words calmed my spirit countless times, carrying me through dark days and fitful nights. When my sick heart tasted the bitter dregs of one too many hopes deferred, the Lord’s quiet mercy held me fast. That is truly what I am most grateful for.

But there were also bright spots and mundane gifts that brought joy to our home and delight to our lives. My husband and I got a new puppy named Theodore (meaning “gift of God”)—who finally began living up to his name once he stopped peeing in our home thrice an hour! My family from Canada is staying with us for the holidays, rekindling connections that have been long-distance for most of my adult life. And in the end, I find there’s nothing like fall weather to fill my soul with gratitude for simple things, like soup and sweaters.

Ed Gilbreath, CT’s vice president of strategic partnerships

This has been a hard year. Family struggles, health challenges, and a general sense of sadness over the state of the world have made 2021 unforgettable for all the wrong reasons. The headlines are relentless—conspiracy theories, anti-Asian hatred, Haiti, hurricanes, Afghanistan, January 6, CRT. And oh yeah, that pesky pandemic with its reliable supply of arguments and deaths. Like I said, it’s been a hard year.

Yet will I give thanks.

Even amid chaos and uncertainty, I long to praise God. He has reminded me that the sadness I’m experiencing now is there only because he has planted in our souls a yearning for something better. Something eternal and whole.

“May I never forget the good things he does for me,” said the psalmist (103:2, NLT). And I choose to echo that stubborn announcement of praise. May I never forget the freedom I have to worship the God who saved me. May I never forget the gift of being Dana’s husband and DeMara and Daniel’s dad. May I never forget the blessing of working with faithful women and men at a company where I have the privilege of creating content and convening conversations designed to bring God’s church together across its glaring divides.

There’s plenty to lament in 2021, and there will no doubt be even more in 2022. But amid the sadness, I’m going to do my best to choose gratitude over fear and remember all the good things he has done for us. May we never forget.

Michelle Ami Reyes, CT contributor, vice president and cofounder of Asian American Christian Collaborative (AACC)

When I reflect on this past year, I am reminded of God’s faithfulness. The year 2021 has been one of the most difficult I’ve ever endured, and without a doubt God has preserved my life amid much pain and suffering.

From navigating the stresses of a global pandemic, to skyrocketing anti-Asian racism and the murder of six Asian women on March 16 in Atlanta, to responding to a winter storm in Austin, Texas, this past February that left our community in crisis for weeks, my bones feel weary.

Yet God has sustained me. In the words of the psalmist in Psalm 119:50, “My comfort in my suffering is this: Your promise preserves my life.” The word of God and the testimony of his church has given me breath in my lungs and life in my spirit to keep on keeping on. This Thanksgiving I cannot forget the heartache, but I can praise God for his faithfulness and for his mercy that is new each morning in the midst of the heartache.

Russell Moore, CT’s chair of theology

In a year in which I lost my father, I am grateful that he lived double the years of his age when he was told he wouldn’t survive the night, then the week, then the year, then the decade—until he outlasted his cardiologists and no one was left to tell him that anymore. I am grateful that the man who was determined not to die until he had raised his children was able to love and be loved by his grandchildren too.

In a year in which I lost my denomination, I am grateful for all the good people there who taught me for 50 years that “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” And I am thankful for grace so amazing that I still believe that.

In a year in which so many lost their loved ones to plague, I am grateful to look around the Thanksgiving table at my wife and five sons, all of whom I love and hold a little closer now.

In a year when most of us lost community, I am grateful for two groups of friends who found ways to keep together, reading Four Quartets in Nashville or discussing books and bearing each other’s burdens over Zoom.

And I am grateful, in all this and more, that Frederick Buechner was right when he wrote, “What’s lost is nothing to what’s found, and all the death that ever was, set next to life, would scarcely fill a cup.”

Derek Rishmawy, CT contributor, campus minister at UC Irvine

The apostle Paul says it’s the will of God for us to give thanks in “all circumstances” (1 Thess. 5:18).

Last Thanksgiving, I wondered if I would have another with my father. I spent part of the day in the hospital with him and my mom, as he had still not recovered from an infection after a massive spinal surgery. He’d been in the hospital for two weeks already, had two surgeries to clean the wound that week, and had a third scheduled for the next day. It was a glum day, but during the coronavirus spike, it was a miracle the nurses let me in to visit at all. And so, I thanked the Lord.

One year later, we’re planning our son Constantine’s first Thanksgiving dinner. He will be four months old, and we plan to dress him as a turkey. He’ll sit—or really, be held—at the table with my dad, after whom we named him. I am not sure which has more hair at this point, but I do know it will be a grace to see them both seated there together, each follicle on both of their heads accounted for by our heavenly Father. And I will thank the Lord again.

Michael Cosper, CT’s director of podcasting

My dad’s favorite restaurant was a hibachi grill at a strip mall near his house. When he and Mom walked in the door, the hosts greeted them by name and took them to the table where Dad’s favorite chef cooked. He’d fry rice and toss shrimp while Dad gave him a detailed rundown of the family’s news: good grades for grandkids, promotions at work, embarrassing medical details, and the antics of neurotic dogs.

We lost Dad suddenly in March, marking the year with tremendous grief. At his memorial, the chef from the hibachi grill showed up. He knew our family’s names, our kids’ names, and our stories. He told us how proud Dad was of us and how grateful he was to have known my father.

The year 2021 has been tumultuous for many, including our family. At each crossroads and challenge, I’ve wished Dad was here. But I’ve also imagined him telling stories about us at the hibachi table while a volcano made of onions shot flames toward the ceiling.

More than ever, I realize what a gift a good dad is, and for 2021, that gift—even in his absence—is the source of my deepest gratitude.

Morgan Lee, CT’s global media manager

One September morning this year, I craned my neck and attempted to take in Michelangelo’s masterpiece: the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. The Renaissance genius completed the work in 1512, only several decades removed from Johannes Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press, a tool that catalyzed widespread text literacy. Prior to that, many knew the story of salvation solely through stained glass and frescoes. But it wouldn’t have been fair to consider them illiterate.

On the contrary, many read nature—that is, they could derive meaning from an atoll’s reflection in the clouds, a wind arriving at a particular time of year, the swirl of the current in a recurring spot. In fact, making meaning from these details brought the Polynesians to Hawaii.

Much of our literacy of the natural world was supplanted first by the printed page and then by the digital one. But I’m grateful to now live in a place where many notice microclimates, learn the names of fern species, and know every Hawaiian word for rain. I’m grateful for a surfing instructor who stressed to an incredulous me that you could learn to read the ocean. I’m grateful for my new home, which was also my ancestors’. And I’m grateful that literacy can be staring at how the sunlight hits the foam and the wakes and determining if this my next wave.

Susan Mettes, CT associate editor

Each day, my toddler invites me to look at the moon, the birds, and the wawa (water). His mind gets blown by starfish and hermit crabs. I sometimes come across him sitting quietly on the floor, inspecting a flower from the garden, and then he turns to me and holds it out like a trophy. Each thing he names is like an announcement of thanksgiving.

I experienced so much upheaval in 2021 that I scored a home run on the Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale. And I know that’s true not just for me. Our whole society is shaken. So, many of the things I thank God for this year have to do with being spared worse: a vaccine for a pandemic, fellowship in my grief, and a new home when we had to leave the old one on the other side of the world. The water running in the house again. The mail arriving after months on odyssey. That the wreck wasn’t worse.

But I realize that while these things might seem weighty, I still need—and receive—one of Job’s lessons in a sweet, soft child’s voice: Look to God’s creation for perspective. Perspective leads us disciples to give thanks to God for the things we have and not just the things we escaped. I, too, am thankful for the moon, the birds, the flowers, a baby’s laughter, the color green. These are, no matter what, very good things. And I’m thankful my attention is so often directed their way.

Jeremy Weber, CT’s global director

While I pride myself on knowing spelling, grammar, and style guides as well as any veteran journalist, I’m thankful to have a sharp new critic of my Spanish right at home: my five-year-old son. We are raising our kids bilingually, and it’s been rewarding this year to see him already correct my conjugations while bittersweet to already struggle to keep up in his chats with my wife and her Latino family. (Just don’t tell him that Octonauts and his other kids’ shows have English versions!)

I’m even more thankful for the dozens of bilingual believers worldwide who have sacrificially enabled us to turn a March 2020 pandemic experiment into a multilingual publishing initiative now with 800-plus translations across 10 languages, reaching 2.5 million readers and counting. I’ve long loved how CT circulates Christian wisdom across tribe and nation, and I feel honored to play a role in better connecting the body of Christ across tongues.

The word gracias, Spanish for “thanks,” shares a Latin root with grace in English, and “unmerited divine favor” certainly describes how our translation teams have come together and held together. Regardless of the new quirks to navigate, like French punctuation rules or Russian basenames for SEO, I’ve never felt more connected to the global church and more thankful to be part of the family of God.

Tom Lin, CT contributor, president of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA

After nearly two years of mostly online ministry, I’m seeing a spiritual hunger in college students as they return to campus. Over 30 percent of students are agnostic or atheist or have no spiritual belief, but many are longing for something supernatural and are carrying their spiritual hunger in plain sight. Right now, on campuses all over the country, InterVarsity campus communities are welcoming new students into groups that worship, pray, and study the Bible together.

I’m so thankful for partnerships with Cru and other campus ministries. We launched the EveryCampus movement because we sensed God leading us to mobilize volunteers to pray for a student movement to be planted at every campus in the US by 2030. It’s so good to be on this mission together!

I’m most thankful for the powerful movement of the Spirit at work on college campuses. Like many of us, students perceive that the chaos and confusion in our world are not how God intended things to be. We’re praying with deep hope and expectancy for revival on campus—a season of breakthrough in word, deed, and power that ushers in a new normal of kingdom experience and fruitfulness.

Daniel Silliman, CT’s news editor

When I joined the welcome team at my church a few weeks ago, I was told to ask Liz how to do it. Liz, a longtime member, is the best at welcoming people to our little congregation in Johnson City, Tennessee.

So I asked her for her secret, and she said, “Well, I like weird people. And the weirder they are, the more I like them.”

Then she looked me full in the face and said, “I like you.”

I’m thankful for that.

I’m thankful for a church that knows me and welcomes me and accepts weird people with the proclamation of the gospel of the One who said, “Let all who are weary come unto me.” Jesus gives us rest, and in that there is space for grace—and space for a community of faith to include a journalist who too often spends weeks and even months deep in the details of abusive Christian leaders and the corrupt systems that protect them.

The church has borne a lot of grief this year. My grief and the grief I report on for CT have taken a place alongside death, depression, and addiction. We’ve come together, carrying the burdens of broken relationships, broken bodies, and a broken world, to hear again the declaration of the truth of the Resurrection and eat the bread of life.

“We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body,” Paul once wrote. “All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow” (2 Cor. 4:10, 15).

But you can’t say all that when someone shows up to the early service, so I hold out a bulletin and say, like Liz taught me, “I like you.”

Heather Thompson Day, host of CT podcast Viral Jesus, associate professor at Andrews University

This year, I am thankful for people. With all that we have lost through COVID-19, I’ve had to be conscious of how many incredible people I get to cherish. I am so grateful for people who help me walk through bad days and who join in my joy during good ones.

In the past year, I have had women hold me up in prayer as if it was their full-time job. I’ve watched my children wake up and read their Bibles and my husband move across the country so I can be closer to my parents. I have come to my job totally exhausted and left renewed and energized because of the students who remind me why I do what I do.

I am in awe of a God who made us to be relational beings, and this year, more than anything, I am moved by the beauty of so many different people. I am grateful for friends, both online and in person, for family, for coworkers, and for students. I am grateful for authors and speakers I don’t even know who inspire me with their words to keep going.

I am thankful for relationships. I am grateful for people.

Andrea Palpant Dilley, CT’s online managing editor

One evening several weeks ago, I opened our front door to find a total stranger holding a box of hot food. Someone from our new church had set up a meal train after hearing about our flooded basement. Dirty dishes were piling up in our sink, our kids were using a bucket for a toilet, and my husband and I were laboring night and day to pump out sewage water.

As newcomers to Wheaton, that meal—and the many that came after—dropped us deep into Christian community right when we needed it most.

The plumbing debacle, however, was only one among many pain points over the last several months. The other crises in my life have been far worse and more personal than a flooded basement. And yet I've never been more grateful than I am now. I'm finally doing what I should have been doing all along: giving thanks for my daily bread.

Every single day that goes by without drama is a day I thank God for. And even when trauma hits, I'm grateful then too. I know God is with me. And God’s people are with me, standing on my front porch and handing off my actual daily bread. For today or any day, that is enough.

The post CT Editors and Contributors Respond: What Are You Thankful for in 2021? appeared first on Christianity Today.

CT Books – 10-23-24

Matt Reynolds — Wed, 23 Oct 2024 15:58:50 +0000

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October 23, 2024

Devaluing Mothers and Children

It’s an observation that a great many thinkers, Christian and otherwise, have echoed: To measure the moral health of a society, look at how it treats its weakest and most vulnerable members. As a close corollary: Look at how it treats those whose value can’t be summed up in snapshots of economic productivity.

Nadya Williams, a scholar who left the professoriate to homeschool her children, worries that contemporary society devalues the work of raising young kids because we use the wrong scorecards to assess its worth. In this, she argues, there are troubling parallels with ancient cultures, which failed to recognize the image of God in all people.

Williams explores these parallels in her book Mothers, Children, and the Body Politic: Ancient Christianity and the Recovery of Human Dignity. CT editor Kate Lucky, herself a young mother, reviewed the book.

“[D]isdain for mothers and children, Williams demonstrates, was … characteristic of antiquity,” writes Lucky. “Drawing on myths, literature, and histories from Greek and Roman writers, she describes a past in which women were sexually exploited, infants were left ‘exposed’ on ‘village dung heaps,’ and anyone who couldn’t achieve military victory on the battlefield was a second-class citizen by default.

“It’s Christianity, she argues, that changed all of this—that gave us the human rights we take for granted, that blessed the meek and lowly instead of kowtowing to the powerful. ‘It is because of two millennia of Christian valuing of human life,’ she states forcefully, that ‘we do not delight in the suffering of the weak.’ Both the life of Christ and the writings of the church fathers demonstrate that ‘the church is responsible for caring for the bodies and souls of the neglected and the abandoned at all ages and life stages, because their lives are priceless.’

“It’s a compelling argument, albeit a familiar one. What’s novel here are Williams’s through lines between the past and the present, some so bold they seem drawn in thick marker. Just as ‘the practice of exposure of infants’ emphasized a ‘utilitarian commodification of infants and children as things,’ she argues, so today ‘we see … the common practice of aborting children with Down syndrome.’ Back then, the spoils were concubines and slaves. Now, they’re stock options. But in both systems, the people who matter are the ones out winning—not the baby with the viral infection, not the mother with sweet potato in her hair. Do we really, Williams asks, want to return to that brutal pre-Christian era?

“Some of Williams’s assertions—that sending kids to school is a ‘severing of bonds’ echoing the child’s separation from the mother’s womb, for instance—will be ‘agree to disagree’ for many readers. (She acknowledges this.) Some of her evidence for cultural phenomena—the posters in her ob-gyn office, a new housewives show that she hasn’t watched—is thin, even if she understands the phenomena correctly.

“But even readers who disagree with Williams’s strong stances on surrogacy, contraception, or working mothers will appreciate the connections she makes, which are compelling, creative, and challenging. And the basic point stands: People matter because they’re made in the image of God. When we forget that, a lot goes awry.”

A Baseball Legend’s Spiritual Crisis

Branch Rickey, who entered the baseball Hall of Fame on the strength of his front office prowess for multiple professional ball clubs, is best known for an act that transcended the playing field: signing Jackie Robinson, the first Black player to grace a Major League roster.

While many baseball fans know Rickey by virtue of this defining achievement, fewer know how Christian faith shaped his career within the sport and his life outside of it. Paul Putz, a historian specializing in the relationship between sports and faith, takes up this topic, among many others, in The Spirit of the Game: American Christianity and Big-Time Sports.

In a recent excerpt for CT, Putz describes a spiritual crisis Rickey faced several years after Robinson broke baseball’s color barrier. After meeting with a Methodist bishop who appeared to dismiss certain core Christian beliefs, Rickey found his convictions severely shaken. But the ordeal had a happy ending, in that it prepared the ground for his influential backing of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes.

“Rickey was not a stickler for theological specifics,” writes Putz, “but for him Christian faith could only have practical meaning for an individual if it was grounded in core Christian doctrines about the deity of Christ and the reliability of the Bible. Rickey could not wholeheartedly follow a bishop who seemed to reject those beliefs.

“In Rickey’s mind, more than his own Methodist faith was at stake—the future of the country depended on the continuation of personal Christian commitment. Theology and politics were intertwined. Bishop Wicke’s liberal theology and intellectualism could undermine America’s spiritual foundation and lead to communism.

“Rickey’s shaken faith made him eager to connect with Christians who shared his approach to religion. In a letter to a friend a few months later, Rickey recounted it all: the lunch with Bishop Wicke, the letter he wrote but never sent, the distrust he felt for denominational leaders. ‘If I were “testifying” in an old-time Methodist class meeting,’ he reported, ‘I would close my remarks surely,—“pray for me, my Christian friends, pray for me,”—and I would really mean it.’

“Don McClanen knew nothing about this in April 1954 when he announced his [Fellowship of Christian Athletes] idea with a letter sent out to 20 prominent Christian athletes and coaches across America, including Rickey. The goal, McClanen explained in the letter, was to ‘provide an opportunity’ for athletes and coaches ‘to speak and witness for Christ and the wholesome principles of good character and clean living to the youth of our nation.’”

Matt Reynolds

Senior Editor, Books

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Our September/October issue explores themes in spiritual formation and uncovers what’s really discipling us. Bonnie Kristian argues that the biblical vision for the institutions that form us is renewal, not replacement—even when they fail us. Mike Cosper examines what fuels political fervor around Donald Trump and assesses the ways people have understood and misunderstood the movement. Harvest Prude reports on how partisan distrust has turned the electoral process into a minefield and how those on the frontlines—election officials and volunteers—are motivated by their faith as they work. Read about Christian renewal in intellectual spaces and the “yearners”—those who find themselves in the borderlands between faith and disbelief. And find out how God is moving among his kingdom in Europe, as well as what our advice columnists say about budget-conscious fellowship meals, a kid in Sunday school who hits, and a dating app dilemma.

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CT Books – 11-13-24

Matt Reynolds — Wed, 13 Nov 2024 15:54:37 +0000

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November 13, 2024

The Anchors of the Black Church

Does it make sense to speak of a single entity called “the Black church?” Or should we instead speak of Black churches, plural, in a nod to the theological and cultural diversity that exists underneath the larger Black church umbrella?

Walter Strickland II charts a range of trends and tendencies in his landmark study of Black faith in America, Swing Low. (The book contains two volumes, one that relates a narrative history of the Black church and another that compiles primary-source writings from key Black church figures.) Yet Strickland, a professor at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, identifies a common core of five theological commitments, or “anchors,” that give this tradition an enduring cohesiveness.

Claude Atcho, a Virginia pastor who wrote Reading Black Books: How African American Literature Can Make Our Faith More Whole and Just, reviewed Swing Low for the November/December issue of CT, which went live on our website earlier this week.

“The African American Christian tradition is never merely intellectual,” writes Atcho. “It is inherently celebratory and participatory, its doctrines culminating in praise and action. Likewise, Swing Low embodies the very theological tendencies it describes, which is perhaps its greatest strength. Beyond telling the story of African American Christianity, the book offers a vivid encounter with the Lord at its center. It radiates God’s faithfulness to his church, no matter the oppression or obstacles it faced.

“In particular, Strickland’s narrative demonstrates the enduring witness and gift of Black faith on American soil. Early on, American colonists were frequently hesitant, if not outright unwilling, to evangelize Black slaves. One missionary, Francis Le Jau, insisted that slaves sign a pledge, wherein they promised not to ‘ask for holy baptism out of any design to free [themselves] … but merely for the good of [their souls].’

“This form of Christianity, to borrow the language of Strickland’s fifth anchor, was purposefully devoid of deliverance. Out of this truncated gospel, however, African American Christians recovered the deliverance motif that runs through Scripture, setting ‘trajectories for African American Christianity that are evident among Black Christians today.’ In refusing to accept a slaveholder’s gospel, Black believers cultivated a more biblical expression of Christian faith on American soil, one rooted in the love of God and neighbor. They advanced a gospel that touches body and soul.

“In such ways, the advent of Black Christianity played a pivotal role in fusing orthodoxy (right belief) and orthopraxy (right practice). In a famed second-century apologetic for Christianity, the Epistle to Diognetus, the anonymous author states that ‘the Christian is to the world what the soul is to the body.’ Reading Strickland’s account, one can hardly help concluding that God, in his providence, appointed the Black church as a corrective conscience to its white counterpart—a cleansing ecclesial soul to a compromised ecclesial body.”

Tending and Keeping the Christian Past

The concept of a priesthood of all believers is familiar within Protestant Christianity. Protestant traditions, of course, recognize formal offices in the church, like pastors and elders. But they also charge all followers of Jesus with “ministering” the truths of Scripture to each other through such means as encouragement, exhortation, edification, and rebuke.

Just as believers are called to act as caretakers of our gospel inheritance, argues Australian scholar and Christian convert Sarah Irving-Stonebraker, they are also called to act as caretakers of our historical inheritance. Her new book, Priests of History: Stewarding the Past in an Ahistoric Age, summons all Christians—not just Christian historians—to the work of “tending and keeping” our ancestors’ legacies.

In his review for the November/December issue, Bethel University history professor Christopher Gehrz argues that there are gaps in Irving-Stonebraker’s understanding of this “priestly” mission.

“[I]f Irving-Stonebraker’s critique of the Ahistoric Age is mostly persuasive,” writes Gehrz, “it’s also incomplete, leaving unexamined or underexamined two versions of ahistoricism that are particularly influential among some groups of Christians.

“First, she doesn’t seem to realize the wide popularity of providential history within certain evangelical circles. Plenty of American believers are convinced that God has specially called and blessed the United States and continues to superintend its unfolding history.

“This is certainly a way of finding identity in a story that claims transcendent meaning, but as many other Christian historians have long argued, such an interpretation of the past is deeply problematic on both historical and theological grounds.

“Second, it’s dismaying that Irving-Stonebraker has so little to say about the ahistorical thinking that undergirds promises to ‘make America great again.’ Perhaps this is less of a problem in Australia than it is in the US, but what CT editor in chief Russell Moore wrote in a 2016 New York Times piece remains true in 2024: ‘White American Christians who respond to cultural tumult with nostalgia . . . are blinding themselves to the injustices faced by their black and brown brothers and sisters in the supposedly idyllic Mayberry of white Christian America.’

“To her credit, Irving-Stonebraker doesn’t want us to look at the past ‘through rose-tinted sentimentality.’ Nor would she have us look away from ‘the horrific wrongs of history.’ Chapter 7 introduces abolitionists like Mary Prince, Anne Hart Gilbert, and Elizabeth Hart Thwaites. And chapter 8 presents Frederick Douglass as ‘a model of how to engage with the sin of the past,’ someone who called out the sources of injustice while holding out hope for redemption.

“However, Irving-Stonebraker would rather celebrate Christian opposition to evils like white supremacy than examine Christian complicity in them. On balance, she spends far more time suggesting how Christians can keep or ‘guard’ the past (holding to historic orthodoxy, retrieving past practices for discipleship, telling inspirational stories of Christian witness) than how they can tend it, which includes reckoning with noble and ignoble legacies alike.”

Matt Reynolds

Senior Editor, Books

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Nominate a Book for the Christianity Today Book Awards

CMS Admin — Tue, 04 Jun 2024 05:00:00 +0000

Dear publishers and authors,

Each year, Christianity Today honors a set of outstanding books encompassing a variety of subjects and genres. The CT Book Awards will be announced in December at christianitytoday.com. They also will be featured prominently in the January/February 2025 issue of CT and promoted in several CT newsletters. (In addition, publishers will have the opportunity to participate in a marketing promotion organized by CT’s marketing team, complete with site banners and paid Facebook promotion.)

Here are this year’s awards categories:

1. Apologetics/Evangelism

2a. Biblical Studies

2b. Bible and Devotional

3a. Children

3b. Young Adults

4. Christian Living/Spiritual Formation

5. The Church/Pastoral Leadership

6. Culture, Poetry, and the Arts

7. Fiction

8. History/Biography

9. Marriage, Family, and Singleness

10. Missions/The Global Church

11. Politics and Public Life

12a. Theology (popular)

12b. Theology (academic)

*In addition, CT will be naming a Book of the Year, chosen from the entire pool of nominees by a panel of CT editors.

Nominations:

To be eligible for nomination, a book must be published between November 1, 2023 and October 31, 2024. We are looking for scholarly and popular-level works, and everything in between. A diverse panel of scholars, pastors, and other informed readers will evaluate the books.

Authors and publishers can nominate as many books as they wish, and each nominee can be submitted in multiple categories. For larger publishers (those with 50 or more employees), there is a $40 entry fee for each nomination (defined as each title submitted in each category). For smaller publishers (those with fewer than 50 employees), the entry fee is $20 per nomination. And for self-published authors, the entry fee is $10 per nomination.

To enter your nominations, click here to access the submission form. Download the form, fill it out as instructed, and email a copy (along with PDF versions of each nominee) to bookawards@christianitytoday.com. (In the box marked “total submissions,” please indicate the number of nominated books and give an estimate of the resulting nomination fees, based on the payment scale mentioned above. We will verify these totals, and begin sending payment invoices in early July.)

Finalist books:

If your book is chosen as one of the four finalists in any category, we will contact you and ask that you send a copy of the book directly to the judges assigned to that category. We will provide mailing addresses for each judge.

Deadline:

The deadline for submitting nominations is Friday, July 19, 2024.

Any questions about any aspect of the process? Email us at bookawards@christianitytoday.com.

Thank you!

—Christianity Today editors

The post Nominate a Book for the Christianity Today Book Awards appeared first on Christianity Today.

Iran Attacks Israel

CMS Admin — Tue, 16 Apr 2024 11:31:00 +0000

Iran’s intentions, the implications for other global conflicts, and the necessity of a strategic and supportive American response are all discussed on this special episode of The Bulletin. Hosts Mike Cosper and CT editor in chief Russell Moore talk with former Congressman Adam Kinzinger about Iran’s missile attack on Israel over the past weekend.

Today’s Guest:

Adam Kinzinger served in the US House of Representatives from 2011 to 2023. A member of the Republican Party, Kinzinger originally represented Illinois’s 11th congressional district and later Illinois’s 16th congressional district. After President Donald Trump was defeated in the 2020 presidential election, Kinzinger became known for his vocal opposition to Trump’s claims of voter fraud and attempts to overturn the results. Kinzinger served in the US Air Force, flying missions in Iraq, Afghanistan, South America, and Guam. He has served in the Air Force Special Operations Command, Air Combat Command, Air Mobility Command, and Wisconsin Air National Guard. He is presently a lieutenant colonel in the Air National Guard and founder of CountryFirst.

“The Bulletin” is a production of Christianity Today

Executive Producer: Erik Petrik

Producer: Clarissa Moll and Matt Stevens

Associate Producer: McKenzie Hill and Raed Gilliam

Editing and Mix: TJ Hester

Music: Dan Phelps

Show Design: Bryan Todd

Graphic Design: Amy Jones

Social Media: Kate Lucky

The post Iran Attacks Israel appeared first on Christianity Today.

Evangelicals Agree That Biden Should Drop Out

CMS Admin — Thu, 18 Jul 2024 14:55:00 +0000

With mounting scrutiny over President Joe Biden’s fitness for the 2024 election, most evangelical Protestants believe that Biden should drop out of the race, though a sizable number of Black Protestants continue to back him.

A new poll from AP-NORC found that evangelicals agree with the rest of the country: 67 percent of evangelicals and 70 percent of Americans overall want Biden to withdraw.

Among both groups, fewer than one in five (18%) see him as capable of winning the election. Less than 2 percent of Republicans say Biden can win.

Concerns around Biden’s abilities accelerated after his performance in a debate with former president Donald Trump in June, and a growing list of Democratic politicians and supporters have come forward asking him to step aside.

In one interview, he said he’d only drop out if “the Lord Almighty” asked him to.

Black Protestants are more likely than the average American to want Biden to stay in; 45 percent say the president should continue running, but just 32 percent of evangelicals and 28 percent of Americans say the same.

Earlier this month, Biden, who is Catholic, talked about his faith while visiting a Black church in Philadelphia, where supporters came to his defense.

Just under half of Black Protestants say Biden can win in 2024.

Both evangelicals (74%) and Americans (70%) overall say they aren’t confident that the 81-year-old president has the mental capacity for office, far more than those who say the same about his opponent. Fewer than a third of Black Protestants say they doubt Biden’s mental capacity.

“The fact that our elderly leaders—one struggling to put sentences together, the other ranting with insanities and profanities—won’t leave the scene is about more than an election year,” wrote CT editor in chief Russell Moore after the debate. “It’s about what it means to live in an era of diminished expectations.”

For months, Americans have expressed disapproval in the presidential candidates from the major parties. Younger voters are particularly turned off: Over 40 percent of adults under 30 have an unfavorable view of both Trump and Biden, according to Pew Research Center.

In the poll, conducted days before last week’s assassination attempt, evangelicals were also somewhat torn on Donald Trump as a candidate. Just under half—46 percent—said he too should withdraw so his party can select a different candidate. Only a quarter of Republicans surveyed wanted Trump to be replaced on the ticket.

Evangelicals had some reservations about Trump’s character. In poll breakouts provided to CT, they were more likely to say neither candidate was honest (34%) than to describe Trump (31%) or Biden (28%) that way.

Yet most still believe he has the right vision for the country and can win the upcoming presidential election. Voters across parties agreed that Trump was more capable of winning.

Evangelicals also believe Trump is in better shape than Biden. Sixty-three percent were confident in his mental capacity.

The post Evangelicals Agree That Biden Should Drop Out appeared first on Christianity Today.

Died: Letha Dawson Scanzoni, Who Argued Feminism Is Biblical

CMS Admin — Mon, 05 Feb 2024 14:00:00 +0000

Letha Dawson Scanzoni, who launched a biblical feminism movement but lost influence among evangelicals because of her support for LGBTQ affirmation, has died at 88.

With a pair of articles published by Eternity magazine and a follow-up book, coauthored with Eternity editor Nancy Hardesty, Scanzoni pushed evangelicals to rethink what the Bible said about women. She challenged the idea that women’s equality with men and liberation from customs and cultures that devalued women was somehow secular. According to her, it was a biblical idea first.

“Evangelicals have the tradition of taking Scripture very seriously,” Scanzoni once said. “When we looked at Scripture, we saw it not limiting women, but liberating.”

Scanzoni and a small cohort of people who agreed with her started the Evangelical Women’s Caucus in the early 1970s as part of Evangelicals for Social Action, the progressive Christian group that produced the Chicago Declaration, an evangelical call to oppose racism, materialism, militarism, and the forces that produce economic inequality. The women’s caucus convinced the group to include language opposing sexism.

Within a few years, the Evangelical Women’s Caucus (now called Christian Feminism Today or the Evangelical and Ecumenical Women’s Caucus) was hosting independent annual conferences and had about 1,500 members.

A controversy over homosexuality split the group in the 1980s, though, and the Evangelical Women’s Caucus lost about 80 percent of its membership. Scanzoni, who wrote Is the Homosexual My Neighbor? with theologian Virginia Ramey Mollenkott in 1978, stopped getting invitations to speak at evangelical institutions and could no longer publish articles in most evangelical magazines.

Despite her marginalization, Scanzoni continued to identify as an evangelical. And she always insisted her beliefs were based in the Bible.

“She knew Scripture,” biographer Kendra Weddle wrote, “and could quote chapter and verse with the most ardent biblical scholars. But more than that, the Bible was a constant source of inspiration and guidance. She also experienced a vibrant relationship with Christ.”

Emerging church leader Brian McLaren said Scanzoni showed him that faithful commitment to Scripture would almost inevitably lead to conflict with evangelical gatekeepers.

“I watched her take the same biblical texts that the (white male) evangelical gatekeepers used to oppress others and instead use them to liberate,” he wrote. “I think of her first and foremost as a courageous biblical interpreter.”

Scanzoni was born on October 9, 1935, in Pittsburgh and was raised in Mifflintown in central Pennsylvania. Her parents, James and Hilda Dawson, ran a gas station and diner. They worked most Sundays and were not churchgoers, but sent young Letha to church with her best friend, a pastor’s daughter. When she was 11, Scanzoni had a conversion experience and, with the help of the pastor’s wife, answered an altar call at the church.

As she later recalled the experience, there was a lot of talk about sin and repentance. But she only felt overwhelmed by the love of God. Later, she looked at the sky and marveled at the grandeur, in awe of a Creator who cared so deeply and personally for her.

Scanzoni was a talented trombonist and at 16 was accepted into the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. She also started playing for churches and religious rallies, including a Billy Graham evangelistic event. She started to share her testimony as part of her performances and sometimes offered a devotional or led a Bible study. She soon learned that some Christians placed sharp limits on where and how a woman could speak.

The lines weren’t always clear to her, though. Historian Isaac Sharp writes that Scanzoni was once confused when a minister asked her to talk about her faith during a trombone performance for men in prison. She knew the minister didn’t believe women should teach men. He clarified that testimony was not teaching, a distinction that didn’t make sense to Scanzoni.

As a young woman, she also learned she could not always trust her fellow Christians to treat her with basic respect. A man in leadership at the Youth for Christ meeting she attended at Eastman kissed her without her consent.

Scanzoni transferred from Eastman to Moody Bible Institute’s music program in 1954. There, she met and married John Scanzoni and left school before graduating to support her husband’s calling to the ministry and then to graduate school, where he studied the sociology of families.

She helped her husband write several sociology texts and followed him to Bloomington, Indiana, where John got a job teaching at Indiana University. While raising two boys, Scanzoni also began writing articles and books on her own, applying biblical wisdom and sociological insight to modern family life.

She wrote several books—including Youth Looks at Love, Sex and the Single Eye, and Sex Is a Parent Affair, which talked about the best way to teach children about sex. Sex Is a Parent Affair was endorsed by Focus on the Family founder James Dobson, who also wrote the foreword.

Scanzoni didn’t think of herself as a rabble-rouser or a crusading feminist. Nor, she later recalled, did anyone else.

“Most people thought of me as a homemaker, a stay-at-home mom,” she said. “I wasn’t the kind of person who would speak out to boldly challenge theological professors and traditional translations. … I was living my days caring for children and doing freelance writing.”

In 1963, however, Scanzoni got angry over an article published in Eternity magazine. Charles Ryrie, a professor of systematic theology at Dallas Theological Seminary, wrote about women in the church, arguing that “a woman cannot do a man’s job in the church any more than a man can do a woman’s job in the home.”

Scanzoni wrote a response, which quickly grew too long to be an effective letter to the editor. She put it aside but then later returned to it to turn it into an article. Eternity published it in February 1966 under the title “Woman’s Place: Silence or Service?” In it, she argued that “inconsistency coupled with inflexibility produces many problems” for Christian women, many of whom were gifted by the Holy Spirit to meet the needs of the church and to fulfill the Great Commission.

“As the men sit in their theological castles debating women’s proper place,” Scanzoni wrote, “Christian women faithfully toil in the vineyards, uneasy about ‘breaking a commandment of God,’ yet even more fearful lest the work remain undone.”

She followed the piece up two years later with an article on egalitarian marriage, which Eternity titled “Elevate Marriage to Partnership.”

The editor of the piece sent Scanzoni an appreciative note.

“I’ve just finished editing your article, and I’m really impressed with it,” Hardesty wrote. “And I don’t think it’s radical or provocative at all. It’s just right and true and like it should be. But then, I’m only a woman.”

Scanzoni replied with an invitation to coauthor a book, and the two started working on All We’re Meant to Be. The book came out in 1974.

The next year, the Evangelical Women’s Caucus organized its first independent meeting, coordinated by CT editor Cheryl Forbes and two others. Virginia Ramey Mollenkott opened the conference with the declaration, “The Bible supports the central tenets of feminism.”

Some prominent evangelicals disagreed, however, and started raising questions about egalitarian women’s respect for Scripture. They argued that some of the feminists crossed a line and weren’t actually evangelical.

“Some of the most ardent advocates of egalitarianism in marriage over against hierarchy reach their conclusion by directly and deliberately denying that the Bible is the infallible rule of faith and practice. Once they do this, they have ceased to be evangelical,” CT editor Harold Lindsell wrote in 1976. “Anyone who wishes to make a case for egalitarianism in marriage is free to do so. But when he or she denigrates Scripture in the process, that’s too high a price to pay.”

The Evangelical Women’s Caucus continued to grow, however, until it was divided by controversy over LGBTQ Christians. Scanzoni and Mollenkott released a book in 1978, arguing for the full inclusion of LGBTQ people in the church.

The book had started out with a broader focus. They planned to write about the pressing social concerns, with chapters focused on divorce, abortion, censorship, and homosexuality. But then Mollenkott came out to Scanzoni and told her she was a lesbian. As Scanzoni worked through her shock, she came to believe the arguments used for women’s liberation applied to LGBTQ people too.

“She called her approach ‘Love Thy Neighbor,’ where empathy and relationships are centered as opposed to rules or restrictions,” her biographer wrote. “She trusted that God’s love was liberating and this propelled her to the Bible—not away from it.”

For many conservative evangelicals, however, that confirmed the idea that feminism was the start of a slippery slope. The issue erupted at the Evangelical Women’s Caucus in 1978 and again in ’82 and ’84, and then ultimately divided the group in ’86. The organization passed a resolution saying “homosexual people are children of God,” taking “a firm stand in favor of civil rights protection for homosexual persons.”

A wave of resignations followed, and some of those leaving started a competing organization, Christians for Biblical Equality. At the same time, evangelicals opposed to Christian feminism launched the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. The group was necessary, they said, because of the “increasing prevalence and acceptance of hermeneutical oddities devised to reinterpret the apparently plain meanings of biblical texts.”

Scanzoni, for her part, found herself unwelcome in places she had been welcome before. Invitations to speak at evangelical conferences and colleges stopped coming. Pitches to write for evangelical outlets stopped being accepted. When her book on teaching children about sex was re-released in the 1980s, James Dobson withdrew his endorsement. The message was clear: She was no longer welcome.

“If faithfulness to the authority of the Bible also meant staying within a range of interpretive conclusions set by evangelical power brokers,” historian Isaac Sharp wrote, “evangelical feminists were out of luck.”

Scanzoni didn’t seem especially dismayed by her marginalization in evangelicalism, however. She believed Christ called her to continue writing, teaching, and preaching, and so she did.

“In Luke 4, we’re told that Jesus came into the world to proclaim good news to the poor, freedom for the prisoners, recovery of sight to the blind, and to set the oppressed to freedom,” Scanzoni said. “That is nothing less than a call to justice. That is nothing that each of us can’t have a part of, and each of us can be a little stream feeding into a great river.”

Scanzoni died in Charlotte, North Carolina, on January 9. She is survived by her sons David and Stephen.

The post Died: Letha Dawson Scanzoni, Who Argued Feminism Is Biblical appeared first on Christianity Today.

Brother, Can You Spare Some Time?

CMS Admin — Fri, 15 Sep 2023 05:00:00 +0000

his week on The Bulletin, hosts Mike Cosper, Clarissa Moll, and Bob Smietana discuss the darkness of our culture in hopes of finding light. Award-winning journalist Sam Quinones joins the show to talk about the opioid crisis; and, with all that’s heavy in the world, Mike, Clarissa, and Bob wonder aloud how pastors have held on as long as they have. Is it any surprise they’re quitting, and what can we do about it? Listen in for a conversation equal parts somber and spirited, weighty and winsome.

Joining us this week: Clarissa Moll is an award-winning writer and podcaster who helps bereaved people find flourishing after loss. She co-hosted Christianity Today’s “Surprised by Grief” podcast and is a frequent guest on podcasts and radio shows. Clarissa’s debut book, Beyond the Darkness: A Gentle Guide for Living with Grief and Thriving After Loss, was a best-selling new release in 2022. Her three new grief books for children, teens, and adults respectively release in 2024 and 2025. She is the producer of The Bulletin and widow of former CT editor Rob Moll.

Bob Smietana is an award-winning religion reporter and editor who has spent two decades producing breaking news, data journalism, investigative reporting, profiles, and features for magazines, newspapers, trade publications, and websites. Most notably, he has served as a senior writer for Facts & Trends, senior editor of Christianity Today, religion writer at The Tennessean, correspondent for Religion News Service, and contributor to OnFaith, USA TODAY, and The Washington Post. He is best known for his coverage of evangelical Christianity, end-time cat worshipers, and the human side of religion.

Sam Quinones is a journalist, storyteller, former LA Times reporter, and author of four acclaimed books of narrative nonfiction. His most recent book is The Least of Us: True Tales of America and Hope in the Time of Fentanyl and Meth, released in 2021. Columbia Journalism School selected him as a 2008 recipient of the Maria Moors Cabot prize, for a career of excellence in covering Latin America. He is also a 1998 recipient of an Alicia Patterson Fellowship, one of the most prestigious fellowships given to print journalists.

Resources Referenced: Pastors Share Top Reasons They’ve Considered Quitting Ministry in the Past Year – Barna Group Departure: Why I Left the Church by Alex Lang National Surveys | COVID-19 Religion Research by Hartford Center for Religion Research The Road by Cormac McCarthy

“The Bulletin” is a production of Christianity Today Executive Producer: Erik Petrik Producer: Clarissa Moll and Matt Stevens Associate Producer: Azurae Phelps Editing and Mix: TJ Hester Music: Dan Phelps Show Design: Bryan Todd Graphic Design: Amy Jones Social Media: Kate Lucky

The post Brother, Can You Spare Some Time? appeared first on Christianity Today.

People Get Ready

CMS Admin — Fri, 01 Sep 2023 05:00:00 +0000

This week on The Bulletin, Nicole Martin talks with Emmy award-winning journalist and author Janus Adams who attended the March on Washington in 1963. They discuss the events of that day and the reason “progress” is the wrong word to use when we talk about movement toward greater racial justice. Next, Nicole and Russell Moore tackle the declassification of marijuana, and Russell quotes Merle Haggard. (Do we need a Bulletin-themed weekly playlist?) Finally, Russell and Nicole talk with author and Bulletin producer Clarissa Moll about Jimmy Carter, hospice, and how we talk about the end of life.

Visit us on YouTube for Dr. Janus Adams’ full list of life lessons from the 1963 March on Washington!

Joining us this week: Janus Adams is an Emmy Award-winning journalist, historian, entrepreneur, and bestselling author of eleven books, Dr. Janus Adams is the host of public radio’s “The Janus Adams Show” and podcast. She has appeared on ABC, BET, CBS, CNN, Fox News, NBC’s The Today Show, and NPR’s All Things Considered. With more than 500 articles, essays and columns to her credit, her work has been featured in Essence and Ms. Magazines, The New York Times, Newsday, USA Today, and The Washington Post. Her syndicated column ran in the Hearst Newspapers for sixteen years. Her commentary has been broadcast on CBS and NPR, and published in the Huffington Post.

Clarissa Moll is an award-winning writer and podcaster who helps bereaved people find flourishing after loss. She co-hosted Christianity Today’s “Surprised by Grief” podcast and her debut book, Beyond the Darkness: A Gentle Guide for Living with Grief and Thriving After Loss, was a best-selling new release in 2022. She is the producer of “The Bulletin” and widow of former CT editor Rob Moll.

Resources Referenced: An oral history of the March on Washington, 60 years after MLK’s dream From Marijuana to Magic Mushrooms: Weighing Drugs’ Benefits and Detriments | Christianity Today Fearfully and Wonderfully Made by Phillip Yancey and Dr. Paul Brand Finishing Our Course with Joy by J.I. Packer

The post People Get Ready appeared first on Christianity Today.