Dr. Tony Evans argues in a recent article that Black History Month can promote unity within the church and within the country. Evans has been the senior pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas for more than 40 years, and his church’s website describes him as a “relevant expositor”—communicating solid, biblical truths while staying in tune with the current culture.

“We have limited the degree to which God’s presence will flow in us and through us because if what we call unity is not transforming individuals, churches and communities, then it is simply sociology with a little Jesus sprinkled on top,” said Evans in the article.

Tony Evans Explains How Black History Month Can Help Foster Unity in the Church

In a Feb. 21 article published by RELEVANT, Evans evoked quite a few emotions as he recounted the reasons we all—regardless of ethnicity—need Black History Month. The pastor welcomes conversations surrounding racial reconciliation. Evans explained that the subject of race “often only lurks in the shadows of Christendom.”

“Black/white relations and racial reconciliation across any racial barrier needs to be a ‘front and center’ subject—I say that in light of the emphasis God Himself places on His body living, acting, moving, communing and serving in oneness and unity in His Word,” Evans said.

Our country, and even our churches, have become divided. Division among people is not a new thing. In Ephesians 2:14-15, Paul reminds us how Jesus himself “reconciled racially divided groups.”

Evans went on to discuss how unity—a “oneness of purpose”—and racial reconciliation are interwoven. “The reason we haven’t solved the racial divide in America after hundreds of years is because people apart from God are trying to invent unity, while people who belong to God are not living out the unity we already possess,” he said. “The result of both of these situations has been, and will continue to be, disastrous for our nation.”

Evans’ son, Jonathan, used to play on several teams in the NFL as a fullback. Evans used the analogy of a football team, with dozens of members and only 11 athletes allowed on the field at a time, to paint the picture of a church. “We are each gifted with certain strengths and skills,” he said, “but unless we intentionally (and with race in America, we must be interventional) bring these together under the overarching purpose of God, we will continue to run in circles on the field and never cross the goal line together.”

On Facebook, Evans wrote,

Only when we define ourselves and see our relationships in light of the absolute authority of Scripture and the overarching rule of God in our lives can we begin to place salve on the open wounds that have kept America in general and Christians in particular in a perpetual state of disunity.

With 1.6 million followers on social media, Evans has received thousands of reactions and comments on his posts regarding Black History Month.

One said, “Love this expression of love and Truth with all my heart, let us not only hear but bring into full action daily.”

“With the help of the Holy Spirit the church can be what it is supposed to be,” added another.

Popular author and pastor-teacher John MacArthur recently claimed that civil rights hero Martin Luther King Jr. “wasn’t a Christian at all” and that his “life was immoral.”

MacArthur, who for more than five decades has pastored Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, made these comments while criticizing The Gospel Coalition (TGC) and Together for the Gospel (T4G) during a Q&A session at his church. 

A clip of his controversial remarks were posted to social media.

“There are some major organizations that have been around for the last at least 10 years—one is The Gospel Coalition—started out with noble intent to bring different people together, leaders, pastors, theologians, around the gospel,” MacArthur said. “It was very much like T4G—Together for the Gospel.”

“[T4G] had that conference. We had as many as 10,000 people. I was a part of that every year, these huge conventions and it was Together for the Gospel,” MacArthur continued. 

Nevertheless, MacArthur went on to allege that T4G “bought into the deceptiveness of the woke movement and the racial baiting that was going on a couple of years ago, and it literally put them out of existence.” 

While T4G held its last conference in 2022, it remained a popular event among evangelicals, with nearly 12,000 attending the final conference. 

MacArthur continued, “I was thinking the other day how interesting it was that the last panel discussion I was on at a T4G event was to honor [pastor and theologian] R.C. Sproul, who had died.”

“The T4G guys wanted to honor him with a panel and we spent an hour, an hour and 15 minutes—it was just this beautiful tribute to R.C. from all of us who knew him so very, very well,” MacArthur said. “And the strange irony was a year later, they did the same thing for Martin Luther King, who was not a Christian at all, whose life was immoral.”

In 2018, T4G commemorated the 50th anniversary of King’s death. That same year, TGC, in partnership with the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, likewise held a conference to reflect on King’s impact and legacy.

RELATED: ‘Star Trek’ Star Nichelle Nichols Trusted Jesus After Listening to Martin Luther King Jr., Says Evangelist

“I’m not saying [King] didn’t do some social good, and I’ve always been glad he was a pacifist or he could have started a real revolution,” MacArthur went on to say. “But you don’t honor a non-believer who misrepresented Christ and everything about the gospel in an organization alongside honoring someone like R.C. Sproul.”

LONDON (RNS) — The tattoo spelling “GOD” sits prominently between the man’s eyebrows, a letter disappearing with every furrowed expression.

The green ink, which draws sideways glances from nearby tables as Arash sips his cappuccino, would swiftly get him arrested or killed back home, apostasy being a crime of the highest order. But the British courts were not so convinced of his newfound religious beliefs.

Arash, an Iranian who converted from Islam to Christianity and sought asylum in the U.K., has had a difficult time proving he is really Christian. Immigration officials were skeptical when they read his application and saw the pictures of his permanent brow, said Arash, whose name has been changed by request to protect his family members who remain in Iran.

“The home office thought it was fake,” Arash told Religion News Service, referring to the ink he got in 2017.

“They think he did that for some effect, but he didn’t,” Maria Wilby, director of the Refugee, Asylum Seeker and Migrant Action group, said over the phone.

“In the midst of ill health, of having an operation this year, he has not lost touch with the church. He is finding solace in God,” Wilby said, adding that religion is “probably the only thing that’s kept him alive.”

Converts fleeing religious persecution make up the biggest chunk of claims from Iranian asylum-seekers coming to RAMA for help, according to Wilby.

The Islamic Republic forbids anyone born Muslim from converting to another religion, with violations punishable by arrest and even death. There are about 1.25 million Christians in Iran and those born Christian are allowed to practice their beliefs in the shadows, but converts face increasing persecution, including mass arrests last summer. In addition to government pressure, converts are often exiled from families or forced into Islamic marriages, according to Open Doors International, a watchdog monitoring global Christian persecution.

But converts who have fled Iran are finding it much harder to prove their faith once they cross the border.

“The things that one does to articulate a genuine Christian faith are very difficult objectively to prove. So much of the question of faith is about our relationship between us and God and that can’t be verified in one sense in court,” said Mark Wallace, the priest at St. Peter’s Colchester Church who testified on behalf of Arash.

Wilby agrees. “How do you prove those things? Membership is something that’s prescribed,” she said, arguing that the current requirements to be determined a “practicing Christian,” such as church attendance, are unreasonable.

When war breaks out in the world, many Christians wonder if it is a sign of the end times and if Jesus’ return is imminent. However, the idea of the rapture is not even in the Bible, says author, speaker, and “Holy Post” cohost Skye Jethani.

“People believe all kinds of things that aren’t actually in the Bible,” Jethani said in a video published Jan. 25. He gave as examples the ideas that the “forbidden fruit” in Genesis was an apple, that Jonah was swallowed by a whale, or that there were three wise men present at Jesus’ birth. “And the rapture?” said Jethani. “Well, that’s actually not in the Bible at all.”

Skye Jethani: We’ve Misunderstood Jesus’ Return

Skye Jethani, who has a Masters of Divinity degree from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and who served as a pastor for eight years, specifically addressed the idea that at some point in the future, all believers in the world will vanish because they are “caught up into heaven with Jesus,” leaving unbelievers behind to “face the terrors of the Tribulation.”

RELATED: ‘Hatred of Jewish People’ Is a Sign of the End Times, Says Pastor Greg Laurie

This view of the end times, part of a framework known as dispensationalism, was depicted in the “Left Behind” books series and films. However, said Jethani, the rapture is not mentioned in the Book of Revelation, the primary (although not the only) text Christians refer to regarding what the Bible says about the end of the world. Revelation contains “not a word” on the subject.

Another passage relevant to end times discussions is Matthew 24, one of two texts “rapture advocates go to,” Jethani said. The chapter recounts Jesus explaining his return to his disciples, saying he will return suddenly while people are going about their daily lives. Verses 36-43 of that chapter say:

But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left.

Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left. Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into.

The common understanding of those who believe in the rapture is that this passage is saying when Jesus returns, he will bring his followers to heaven, leaving unbelievers behind.

But this text compares Jesus’ return to the “days of Noah,” Jethani pointed out, and those who were “taken” in the days of Noah were destroyed in a flood while God saved those who were left. So the common view of what being “left behind” means is a misunderstanding. 

On the Feb. 14 episode of her podcast, Christian actor Candace Cameron Bure interviewed a California couple about their upcoming book “Fighting for Family.” Chris and Julie Bennett, parents of four, spoke about following God’s calling, embracing risk, and making connections to help people battle loneliness.

The Bennetts, both graduates of Baylor University, host the “Finding Family” podcast and founded Welcome Home Lifestyle to create family-themed content. Chris Bennett, lead pastor of Vintage Church Malibu, had been ministering in Oklahoma when the family decided in 2018 to uproot and move to Los Angeles.

RELATED: ‘What A Glorious Day!’—Candace Cameron Bure Celebrates Gospel Focus of Son’s Wedding

Shortly after that, Julie was diagnosed with Stage 3 cancer, their housing plans fell through, and the pandemic hit. Instead of returning to Oklahoma, the Bennetts decided to “trust that God was gonna take care of us through the journey,” said Chris.

“We realized faith is very naïve. You know, God will only sometimes tell you enough to get you to say yes,” he said. “And then you step out and you realize, ‘Oh, there’s a lot he didn’t show me.’ But that’s the trust piece…I heard somebody say, faith is spelled R-I-S-K.”

Chris Bennett & Julie Bennett on Opening God’s Invitations

Julie Bennett described their family’s adventures as opening “an invitation from God,” who always proves faithful. God came through for them so often, she said, that “I will take this leap every time.”

God provides “a grace that is sufficient that you didn’t need before you stepped into” his adventure, Chris Bennett said. “I think faith looks really foolish on the outside.” He added, “God’s track record is what’s given me the faith to keep stepping out…The theme we see in Scripture is…whatever we do by faith, God will partner himself with.”

By asking tough questions and wrestling with Scripture, Julie said, God has “always brought me to something better and more whole.” Opening God’s invitations makes his Word come alive, and that Word “begins to create deeper fruit in me and bring more hope.”

Chris & Julie Bennett on ‘Fighting for Family’

In a culture where people are great at fighting with their families, the Bennetts wanted to share practical ways to fight for family. In their book, which releases March 12, they explore God’s heart for families and for lonely people who need community and belonging.

Dr. Albert Mohler recently suggested that having women serve in pastoral leadership has never “made sense” to “the vast majority of Southern Baptists” and expressed his desire for the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) to put the question to bed once and for all.

Mohler’s comments came in the context of a panel discussion hosted by the Kenwood Institute, which is a ministry of Kenwood Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky. The Institute exists to “strengthen Christ’s church, a pillar and buttress of the truth, by promoting and defending the whole counsel of God’s Word in the Reformed and Baptist traditions.”

The panel featured Mohler, who is the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (SBTS), Colin Smothers, who is director of the Kenwood Institute and executive director of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW), and Denny Burk, who is a professor at SBTS, president of CBMW, and a board member of the Kenwood Institute. 

A considerable portion of the discussion centered on the merits of the so-called Law Amendment, which was proposed by Virginia pastor Mike Law at the SBC’s annual meeting in 2023 and would update the denomination’s bylaws to allow a church to affiliate with the SBC only if it “affirms, appoints, or employs only men as any kind of pastor or elder as qualified by Scripture.”

Currently, churches must have a “faith and practice which closely identifies with the Convention’s adopted statement of faith” in order to affiliate with the SBC. And the denomination’s current statement of faith, called the Baptist Faith & Message 2000 (BFM2000), states, “While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor/elder/overseer is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.” 

By this standard, the SBC has disfellowshipped several churches for ordaining women to the pastorate, most notably Saddleback Church. 

Nevertheless, some questions remain about how closely a church must align with the BFM2000 with regard to women serving as pastors, particularly when women are not elders or lead pastors but serve as pastors over students and children or preach from the pulpit during Sunday services under the authority of an elder board. 

Mohler and others who agree with him have argued that the Law Amendment will remove such ambiguity and bring a close to the conversation in the SBC. Furthermore, it will make it untenable for churches with a more moderate approach to women in pastoral leadership to continue associating with the SBC. 

In order to be ensconced in the SBC constitution, the Law Amendment needs to be affirmed at two consecutive annual meetings. It was initially affirmed at the denomination’s 2023 meeting in New Orleans, and it will either be adopted or rejected in Indianapolis in June. 

RELATED: Survivor Responds to SBC Abuse Reform Task Force’s Plans for New Nonprofit ‘Abuse Response Commission’

“If this amendment were to fail, I don’t think this issue would go away at all,” Mohler said. “It would continue, and then every single year, there will be some call to take action on this, to clarify this, and I don’t see that as healthy for the Convention.”

On Monday (Feb. 19), the Southern Baptist Convention’s (SBC) Abuse Reform Implementation Task Force (ARITF) announced its plans to launch an independent non-profit organization to handle abuse reform within the SBC.

The announcement was made by Josh Wester, Chairman of the ARITF and lead pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church in Greensboro, North Carolina, during the Executive Committee’s (EC) opening plenary session Monday night.

West said that the task force has “endeavored for the last seven months to bring Southern Baptists a plan for abuse prevention and response that is biblical (because that’s what God requires), helpful (because it actually works), responsible (so it makes things better, not worse).”

“And above all else, we’ve aimed to make it simple,” Wester added.

RELATED: Hiding Behind Issues of Polity, SBC Leaders Ignored, Silenced, Ostracized Sexual Abuse Victims for Years, Report Says

“Sexual abuse is horrible,” Wester said. “Survivors have taught us how much pain and damage it causes.”

Wester shared that the ARITF has been “working to ensure that every Southern Baptist Church has access to free tools and resources to help them prevent and respond to abuse,” no matter the size of the church.

Wester said that as time passes since Guidepost’s investigation, Southern Baptists might feel “fatigued or weary” regarding the issue of sexual abuse and be tempted to just move on. “But here is the truth,” Wester said. “This issue isn’t going away. It’s a sin problem. And it runs deep.”

It’s not a theology problem, Calvinist problem, Arminian problem, small church problem, large church problem, old guy problem, or a young guy problem, Wester explained, going on to name alleged sexual abusers Paul Pressler and Aaron Ivey.

West said that “time itself isn’t going to solve this problem” and those who hope the problem will simply go away won’t protect anyone or “make any of our churches safer.”

RELATED: Texas SBC Pastor Aaron Ivey Fired for ‘Clear Pattern of Predatory Manipulation’

He then shared the three objectives the ARITF identified last August: expand the Ministry ToolKit, get those with a criminal conviction or civil judgment against them added to the Ministry Check website, and find a long-term home for abuse reform.