Billy Graham’s Granddaughter Says ‘I’m Not Sure Jesus Would Be Welcomed in an American Church Today’

May 27, 2021

In a CNN Business article highlighting two pastors on a mission to stop QAnon theories among evangelicals, Billy Graham‘s granddaughter, Jerushah Duford, said, “I’m not sure Jesus would be welcomed in an American church today.”

Who Is Billy Graham’s Granddaughter?

Duford’s mother is author Virginia ‘Gigi’ Graham, the oldest of the five children children from the late evangelist Reverend Billy and Ruth Graham. Duford’s father, Stephan Tchividjian, who used to work as a clinical psychologist and Baptist minister, now serves as the founder and president of the Board of the National Christian Foundation of South Florida, and as the co-executive director of Lifework Leadership of South Florida. Duford is one of six children. Two of her brothers are well-known in the evangelical communities, Basyle ‘Boz’ Tchividjian was a former child abuse prosecutor who has been helping church abuse victims find justice and Tullian Tchividjian was the former pastor of a megachurch in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, until infidelity within his caused him to step down.

“My grandfather Billy Graham would have spoken out against QAnon.” Duford said, “He was very true to God’s Word. It was just Gospel and Scripture. And you can’t do that and believe in QAnon.”

What Is QAnon?

QAnon is a movement that started with an anonymous post on the digital image board 4chan in 2017. The controversial conspiracy theories began with writings about supposed classified intel regarding President Donald Trump’s battle with a group of devil-worshiping pedophiles who traffic children and kill them for their blood. Since then, it has grown a cult-like following with even elected officials parroting QAnon talking points. The result has been a large segment of evangelical Christians believing the rhetoric.

Biden Admin Reverses Trump Decision on the U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem

Stephanie Martin

May 27, 2021

While visiting the Middle East this week to support the current ceasefire, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced that the United States will take several steps to mend diplomatic relations with the Palestinians. At a yet-to-be-determined date, America will reopen its consulate in Jerusalem and designate it as an autonomous office. Also, the United States will provide almost $40 million in financial aid to Palestinians, an amount that includes $5.5 million in emergency funds for Gaza. These steps represent reversals of decisions made by the Trump administration.

Antony Blinken: Both Sides ‘Deserve Equal Measures of Security’

Antony Blinken, America’s top diplomat, met separately this week with both Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The Biden administration had been criticized for being slow to address the recent Mideast violence. Before a ceasefire was declared, 11 days of attacks and fighting claimed more than 250 lives, mostly Palestinians.

“As I told the president,” Blinken said, “I’m here to underscore the commitment of the United States to rebuilding the relationship with the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian people, a relationship built on mutual respect and also a shared conviction that Palestinians and Israelis alike deserve equal measures of security, freedom opportunity and dignity.”

Under former President Trump, the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem was downgraded, relegated under the authority of the ambassador to Israel. The administration made that switch after moving the embassy to Jerusalem in 2018.

The previous president also had ended almost all financial help to Palestinians, citing worries that money was ending up in terrorists’ hands. Blinken promised that U.S. funds won’t land with Hamas, which both America and Israel consider a terrorist organization. He also said he’ll work to “rally international support” for Gaza as it rebuilds.

“We know that to prevent a return to violence, we have to use the space created to address a larger set of underlying issues and challenges,” Blinken said. “And that begins with tackling the grave humanitarian situation in Gaza and starting to rebuild.”

Tensions remain high in the area, and the truce is described as precarious. The cause of the latest dispute, the threatened eviction of Palestinian families, hasn’t yet been settled in court.

Benjamin Netanyahu: Israel Must Defend Itself

After meeting with Blinken, Netanyahu said, “We also reiterated that whatever happens, Israel will always reserve the right to defend itself against a regime committed to our destruction, committed to getting the weapons of mass destruction for that end.” The prime minister, whose political career remains uncertain, added that he’s urging America not to renew the nuclear deal with Iran.

Netanyahu says any violation of the ceasefire will result in a “very powerful” response against Hamas. Peace won’t be possible in the region, he adds, until Palestinians recognize Israel as a “Jewish state.”

The Biden administration has backed Israel’s right to defend itself. But it’s also facing pressure from some Congressional Democrats to take a tougher stand against Israeli violence.

In an open letter to Biden this week, more than 500 Democrats who worked on his presidential campaign urge him to “hold Israel accountable for its actions and lay the groundwork for justice and lasting peace.” They write, “The very same values that motivated us to work countless hours to elect you demand that we speak out… We remain horrified by the images of Palestinian civilians in Gaza killed or made homeless by Israeli airstrikes.”

Republican Versus Democrat? Or Religion Versus Science?

Religion News Service

May 27, 2021

religion and science — The Rev. Patricia Hailes Fears, pastor of the Fellowship Baptist Church in Washington, receives the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine during a gathering of a group of interfaith clergy members, community leaders and officials at the Washington National Cathedral, to encourage faith communities to get the COVID-19 vaccine, Tuesday, March 16, 2021, in Washington. Photo by Danielle E. Thomas/Washington National Cathedral

(RNS) — As public health officials grapple with the slowing rate of COVID-19 vaccinations in the U.S., two groups of Americans stand out as being particularly resistant to rolling up their sleeves for the shots: Republicans and white evangelicals.

In mid-April, about 20% of white evangelicals said they would “definitely not” get the shot, compared with 13% of all Americans, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation survey. About 20% of Republican respondents said the same.

Given the increasing overlap between the two groups, it is reasonable to assume that evangelicals’ religious beliefs are driving Republicans’ statistical resistance, as well. Certainly, religious beliefs — about the end times and God’s power to heal — may be fueling some of this skepticism, but there’s much more to the story.

Sociological research has shown that the way Americans think about the relationship between science and religion has changed drastically over the past few decades. The chasm that appears to exist today between these two sources of cultural authority wasn’t as wide in the past. And a bird’s eye view of history may offer some hope that bridge building is possible.

In 1972, researchers for the General Social Survey, working with the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, began measuring how confident Americans felt in the people leading certain key cultural institutions. Since then they’ve occasionally asked Americans to rate how confident they felt in the people leading the scientific community and organized religions.

Timothy O’Brien, a sociologist at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and Shiri Noy, an assistant professor at Denison University’s anthropology and sociology department, pored through 30 waves of the GSS to track how these attitudes have changed over time. The researchers found that in the 1970s, Republicans were more likely to place their confidence in science than religion, while the opposite was true of Democrats.

By 2018, these attitudes had completely reversed.

White evangelicals played an important role in this switch as they migrated into the Republican party. But even after excluding white conservatives from the dataset and controlling for beliefs about the Bible, O’Brien and Noy found that the same patterns still held. Compared with Democrats, even secular, religiously unaffiliated Republicans have become more closely aligned with religion over time.

Crying as a Spiritual Discipline May Change How You See the World

Religion News Service

May 27, 2021

spiritual discipline — Photo by Claudia Wolff/Unsplash/Creative Commons

(RNS) — Early in seminary, I had a startling realization: I hadn’t cried in years. While this isn’t particularly unusual — sadly, it’s all too normative — it struck me as serious deficiency for an aspiring clergyperson. I felt that I was missing out on a core part of what it meant to be human. I worried that this failing would hinder my ability to provide meaningful care.

So I adopted crying as a daily spiritual practice, spending a few minutes of each day in tears. It did help me offer better pastoral care as I had hoped, but it was more than that. I had been unprepared for how intentional weeping would recalibrate my entire emotional baseline and kick off a decade of frequent tears that changed how I relate to other people and the world.

At the beginning of this spiritual experiment, I was so divorced from my feelings that I had to engage extreme stimuli to provoke tears. I would imagine my parents dying and what I would say to them on their deathbeds. I watched videos of refugees who had fled their homelands talking about the lives they had abandoned and their fragile hope for the future. If I sat in that overwhelming emotion for long enough, my eyes would swell and I could give myself over to weeping.

But over several months, my threshold dropped. It became easier and easier to make tears come. Soon, all I needed to do was watch a video of a dog being reunited with its owner or sit through a particularly tender moment in church and I’d find tears running down my cheeks.

Eventually, I gave up the intentional daily practice altogether, as I now cried several times a week without any deliberate effort. After a relatively brief period of time, I was just someone who cried easily.

Ever since, I’ve been fascinated by the relationship between tears and underlying emotional temperament — and the power crying has to not only disrupt our own spiritual calcification but to prophetically disrupt the world.

Our religious texts are filled with crying. Before he confronts his brothers, Joseph flees the room to find a place to weep. The Prophet Muhammad cries at the bedside of his son Ibrahim as he lies dying. Arjuna is desolate and sobbing at the opening of Bhagavad Gita, before Krishna makes meaning of his tears. Jesus famously weeps beside Lazarus’ body, before the first resurrection takes place. Again and again, a pattern arises: Tears precede moments of great transformation.

Research suggests this isn’t incidental: The act of crying may change underlying brain chemistry. I recently spoke with William H. Frey, author of the 1985 book ” Crying: The Mystery of Tears,” and perhaps the world’s foremost expert on the physiology of crying. Frey has collected tears from people as they cried at sad movies, and compared their chemical composition to tears from the same subjects brought on by an onion being pulverized in an open blender.

“What we found,” Frey said, is that “emotional tears really are different from other kinds of tears. They are not only unique to humans, they are a unique kind of tear.”

Frey and his researchers found that tears of emotion contain reliably and significantly higher levels of adrenocorticotropic hormone, a neurotransmitter released in response to stress, as well as elevated levels of endorphins.

Frey hypothesized that these proteins were not merely a byproduct of tears, but that tears allow the body to reduce the levels of cortisol in the brain. Put simply, he said: “Emotional crying alleviates stress. And one of the things we know is that unalleviated emotional stress can damage the brain.”

Why the Evangelical Sexual Abuse Crisis Is the Spiritual Warfare of Our Time

Religion News Service

May 27, 2021

(RNS) — This month marks three years since the world crashed in on me.

Not the whole world. But the cornerstone of my world that is the church.

Many of us felt the temblors in 2016 as we watched many in our evangelical world excuse and even embrace an abusive man as president in the name of political power. In hindsight, I see now that acceptance of abuse had been going on for a long time in the contemporary church, which may be why so many couldn’t understand why tolerance of this abuser was such a big deal to some of us.

But 2016 opened my eyes, as it did for others. As I started to see, I started to listen.

In April of 2017, I posted a question to abuse survivors on my Facebook wall. The responses created such an unexpected avalanche that it turned into an article at Christianity Today titled ” Ten Things Sexual Assault Victims Want You to Know.” A few months later, following the revelation of longtime, widespread abuses by Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein, the #MeToo movement took off, soon followed by its sister hashtag, #ChurchToo.

In January of 2018 I sat in my hotel room watching the video of abuse survivor Rachael Denhollander’s powerful testimony at the sentencing of her abuser, Larry Nassar, the former USA Gymnastics national team doctor. Then, in May of 2018, in another hotel room, while attending a conference — ironically, on the subject of women and the church — I awakened early in the morning to new details about yet another case of abuse cover-up that was unfolding.

Angry and afraid, I set out that morning to a meeting and the conference. But I didn’t make either one. Instead, I stepped into a crosswalk where, until just before it hit me, I didn’t see a bus coming.

I still can’t unsee what I saw in that moment.

Nor can I unsee so much more that I’ve come to see since then.

I believe now that I needed to go through the accident in order to understand what happens to victims of abuse and how trauma works. I thought I had understood, but I did not.

The conference I missed went on as scheduled. One of the women attending — Kerry Hasenbalg, a stranger to me — was so moved by the details of my accident that she awoke in the middle of the night in her hotel room and was prompted by the Holy Spirit to search the Bible for what it says about each of the bones that had been broken.

My new friend’s anagogical reading of the Scriptures in those early hours, which she later shared with me, follows a tradition commonly used by medieval Bible commentators, including St. Augustine. The 20th century writer Flannery O’Connor describes this approach as “a way of reading nature,” an ability “to see different levels of reality in one image or one situation” that can allow us to see and participate in the work God is doing around us.

The Scriptures tell us that life is in the blood, and blood is encased in the bones. When many core bones are broken, as mine were, life is hindered from flowing properly through the body. A broken pelvis symbolizes the broken gateway for fruitfulness. The shoulder is associated in the Bible with power, and Ezekiel prophesied against Egypt for oppressing the Lord’s people by tearing open their shoulders and wrenching their backs.

The ribs are the container for the heart and the lungs, the breath of life and the heart of God, a reminder that woman, made from the rib of Adam, needs men to be part of healing the brokenness of the church. Such brokenness can occur in many ways.

In my case, the brokenness was caused by a bus, a vehicle that moves the masses, reflecting the way women have been run over by systems and institutions. These anagogical readings pointed to how the bride of Christ needs intentional and careful healing — re-membering, re-habilitating, and re-presenting to both heaven and to earth.

For Augustine, to remember is to gather up together all that we know, experience, imagine and dream. To re-member — or re-gather — those who have been broken in or by the church is — literally and symbolically — to remember who and what the church truly is.

Before the accident, I hadn’t thought much about spiritual warfare since decades before, when I attempted to read but couldn’t get past the first five pages of Frank Peretti’s “This Present Darkness.“

These days I think about spiritual battles a lot.

I think about the mysterious stranger in the Book of Genesis who wrestled with Jacob through the night. When the stranger could not overpower Jacob, he wrenched Jacob’s hip from the socket, but then blessed him, too.

Like Jacob, I can say, “I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.”

Like Jacob, I am left with pain that prowls around my hip, coming and going, taking me by surprise every time, like a bus bearing down on me from out of nowhere. The pain always reminds me of the greater spiritual pain in the body — not only my body, but in the body of Christ. I think especially of the pain of those who have been abused and have yet to receive the blessing of the justice and reconciliation that heal.

Like Jacob, I don’t know if I am — or we in the church are — wrestling with man, with angels or with demons. Or all three.

But the wrestling gives me hope. As hard as it is to see the deeds of darkness come to light, there is solace in knowing that these secret sins are being revealed and that in being revealed are losing some of their power. The wrestling reveals, too, who is for the victims and who is not, who is being deceived and who is doing the deceiving.

While I was writing this essay, the pain came back.

In the midst of it, I had a dream that I was fighting with a demon who was trying to attack a beloved, vulnerable friend. The demon grew more vile and disgusting as the dream went on, transforming from shadow to spirit and, finally, to flesh and blood, when I could finally grab its carnal arm. I held it tightly to bring it down.

And in the dream, I was angry, but not afraid.

This article originally appeared here.

by Karen Swallow Prior

Are Pastors Mandated Reporters Regarding Child Abuse?

Stephanie Martin

May 27, 2021

Are pastors mandated reporters of crimes such as child abuse? South Dakota, Kansas and Virginia are among the states looking into adding pastors and other church staff to the list of mandatory reporting to report suspected child abuse. Other states are deciding whether to tighten existing “mandatory reporter” laws by removing confidentiality from religious conversations such as confession. The debate comes amid continued efforts to safeguard children from sexual abuse and to expose predators who exploit their role as trusted church leaders.

Mandatory Reporting Laws Vary by State

Although every state requires certain professionals and institutions to report suspected child abuse, the nature of those fields varies. Most commonly, the list of mandated reporters includes health-care providers, teachers and school personnel, day-care workers, and police officers. Some states expand that to include substance-abuse counselors, domestic-violence professionals, clergy members and even film processors. California statutes, for example, identify more than 40 professionals as mandatory reporters.

But are pastors mandated reporters? Currently, clergy are considered mandatory reporters in about half of all states. But even those laws vary because of the unique nature of pastoral care. Some states that include clergy as mandatory reporters exempt pastors from that requirement if abuse is disclosed or discovered during “pastorally privileged conversations.”

Steps for reporting suspected abuse also vary by state. Anyone concerned about a child’s safety or welfare can file a report voluntarily. Some states have even changed the laws to make all adults, regardless of their profession, mandatory reporters.

More States Seek to Add Clergy to the Mandatory Reporting List

Lawmakers in several states have recently taken steps that could impact clergy responsibilities and liabilities. In South Dakota this week, a House committee approved a bill that adds church staff and clergy to the list of mandatory reporters. The bill, HB 1230, now heads for debate on the House floor.

Opponents, including the South Dakota synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, say the bill’s definition of “church staff” is too broad. Employees such as secretaries and worship leaders shouldn’t be included as mandatory reporters, they say.

Supporters, meanwhile, say the bill will ease the weight on pastors—especially those in assistant roles—and prioritize the well-being of children. HB 1230, says Rep. Scyller Borglum, R-Rapid City, will “alleviate young pastors of the burden of having to decide whose loyalty to pursue” if they discover a superior is behaving illegally. “By passing this bill into law, we will take the burden off young clergy and…say to them, ‘You have to do this. It’s very simple. It’s very straightforward. It can’t offend anybody in your church because frankly, this is the law and we prioritize children over people’s influence and egos.’”

Are pastors mandated reporters? Virginia’s House of Delegates and Senate unanimously passed a bill this week that adds clergy to that state’s list of mandatory reporters. The bill is now in the hands of governor Ralph Northam. The move to add clergy to Virginia’s list was inspired by the recent sexual-abuse conviction of a Manassas youth leader. Some people say his church protected him because he is the senior pastor’s son.

In Kansas last month, State Sen. Tom Holland, D-Baldwin City, introduced a bill making clergy members mandatory reporters. Senate Bill 37 is being called Sheldon’s Law, honoring a boy who was assaulted during a church lock-in.

Are pastors mandated reporters? “Clergy leadership are adults that children must be able to trust to keep them safe,” Holland says. “This bill mandates that they report suspected abuse or neglect to authorities. It is an extra layer of protection for all Kansas children.”

Should Communications With Clergy Be Private?

California lawmakers are currently considering making a key change to the state’s Child Abuse and Neglect Reporting Act. If passed, the amendment would do away with the confession exemption, meaning clergy would need to report abuse suspicions gleaned from conversations that had previously been viewed as private, or privileged.

7 Tips for Youth Small Group Success

Todd Jones

May 26, 2021

Leading a youth small group can be tough! Whether you’re a full-time, part-time or volunteer youth worker, you’ve certainly experienced difficulties in a youth small group.

I can’t tell you how many volunteers and youth workers have confessed to me that they experience major anxiety before meeting with their small groups. A volunteer once told me he has a hard time sleeping the night before, and his palms get sweaty when it’s almost time to break into small groups.

But a youth small group doesn’t have to be that way! It can be one of the best ministry experiences you ever have. Maybe you weren’t trained or need a refresher on how to make small groups an enjoyable experience.

No magical duct tape will fix all your youth small group issues, but the essentials listed below will help you lead the best small group possible.

Follow these 7 steps to youth small group success

1. Create a safe environment.

First, it’s important to create an environment where students feel safe. Make the group a place where kids know their words will stay there and they’ll be loved. Start every session by reinforcing to attendees that this is a safe environment where gossip doesn’t happen but where people respect one another’s opinions. As the leader, this means you must be intentional about loving students where they are rather than acting like a parent. Kids need to know that they’re safe when they share and that they’ll be loved and helped rather than scolded or condemned.

2. Communicate that nothing is off limits.

If your goal is to see students grow in your youth small group, they need to be able to share whatever they’re dealing with. Trust me, some gnarly stuff will come up. The world that teens are growing up in is a very difficult place, so they need to know they can share what they’re facing. You can tell a student you’ll talk about something later if what they bring up doesn’t go with the topic at hand. But if you say that, make sure to actually go back and talk about it.

3. Push for real conversation.

Church lifers and Christian-school students are the worst at this. (You know exactly what I’m talking about!) Some students give the “right” answer to every single question just so they can move on. They never actually discuss anything or talk about what they’re really experiencing. Push for real-life answers and authentic conversations. That means you must be real as well. Share your own life experiences. Students need to know you’re not perfect. If you’re willing to be real, that will spill over to the youth small group very quickly.

4. Don’t go deeper than kids are ready to go.

A few years ago, one of my leaders wanted all the students to immediately share with her their drug, sex and alcohol problems because she just knew they all had them. But kids will reveal their deep pain and issues only with relationship and with time.

That can happen, but don’t force students to go deeper than they’re ready to go. Now, if it’s been six months and you don’t even know the names of your students’ friends, then you’ll have to pry. But don’t expect the first week to be about all their deepest, darkest sins.

5. Don’t get discouraged if students don’t get it right away.

We’ve all had the experience of asking a question and getting only silence and eight blank stares. It’s brutal! Push kids to talk in the youth small group, but remember the previous point: It takes time. One of my former students never talked in small groups; he maybe said 20 words all year. But that summer, we were playing at the beach, throwing sand at each other, and he began asking me a bunch of deep theological questions about the existence of God.

Kids might not answer right away, but that doesn’t mean they don’t get it. They may text you or message you the next day to discuss something or talk to you about it two months later at camp.

6. Allow for fun to happen.

When you get a bunch of teens together, they’re going to goof off—and that’s okay. You need to allow for fun and also acknowledge when funny things happen. If you don’t acknowledge that junior high boy’s fart, for example, getting back on topic will take way longer than if you’d just made a joke about it and moved on.

Start with a funny game or question, because you do want kids to have fun. But remember to bring the discussion back to the topic at hand. Early on, one of my biggest mistakes was thinking that if I made students behave, they wouldn’t like me. I was so wrong! If you make kids behave, they’ll not only still like you but will also respect you.

7. Give opportunities for salvation.

After all, this is ultimately why we do what we do. Provide opportunities within each youth small group session for students to accept Christ as their Savior.

A youth small group is well worth the effort. Just keep these essentials in mind to create a positive experience for you and the kids you serve.

This article originally appeared here.

Technology in Small Groups – Is Google Attending Your Meeting?

Roger Carr

May 26, 2021

As a small group leader, you want to create a safe environment. Why would voice assistants put this at risk? Voice assistants have become extremely popular in many households, but what about using this kind of technology in small groups?

Be Aware of Technology in Small Groups

These are devices that can:

Tell you the time
Discuss the weather
Set alarms
Add items to your grocery list
Play music
Send emails
and many, many more things

All of this can happen just by telling it what you want. These devices are hands free. The device continually listens to conversations for a key phrase or name. Once it recognizes the key phrase or name, it executes the spoken command that comes next. Nothing happens if it doesn’t recognize a command. Amazon Alexa, Apple Siri, and Google Assistant are some of the more popular technologies used for this purpose.

They are currently used with mobile and smart home devices.

What Do Voice Assistants Have to Do with Small Groups?

Voice assistants can help with researching topics or getting definitions of words. They can record lists and notes the group wants to record. Voice assistants can even be used to read Bible passages for the group.

But there is also a downside to having voice assistants active during a small group gathering. Remember, they listen to the conversations taking place. They sometimes hear conversations in other rooms. And the technology is not perfect.

The device could:

Interpret something said as containing the wake-up word. This could prompt it to speak. If this happened during a small group meeting, it could make members uneasy and affect the conversations in a bad way.
Randomly laugh in the middle of a serious conversation.
Record and send conversations to someone not in your small group.

Although very unlikely, there is a record of these things already happening. I don’t believe the benefits are worth the risk.

If there are voice assistant devices near your small group meeting location, I recommend you add an item to your preparation checklist to disable them while your small group is meeting. when it comes to creating a safe environment, it is best to be safe.

Question: Are voice assistants useful to you? What is your opinion about them being active during a small group meeting?

This article originally appeared here.

UPDATE: Ravi Zacharias Survivor on the Mixed Apologies From Top RZIM Leaders

Jessica Lea

May 26, 2021

UPDATED May 26, 2021: Lori Anne Thompson, one of the survivors of Ravi Zacharias’s abuse, has published a response to the apologies she has received from Abdu Murray, a senior leader with Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM), and has also commented on the private apology she received from RZIM president Michael Ramsden.

“It is clear to me that Mr. Murray has been an agent of oppression, whether or not he becomes an agent of liberation remains to be seen,” said Thompson on Twitter. “His apology has been issued to me privately and publicly. I have accepted it on both occasions.”

Abdu Murray recently appeared on apologist Sean McDowell‘s podcast, where he spoke with Sean and his father, Josh McDowell, and apologized for the significant errors that he and RZIM have made over the past several years.

In her Twitter thread, Thompson linked to an article she published on her blog on May 11, prior to Murray’s public conversation with the McDowells. The post includes private apologies she received from both Murray and Ramsden and her response to each.

In the letter he sent to Thompson, Murray said that while he would like to apologize to her face to face over Zoom, he recognizes that she might not feel safe in that situation. He also said, “While there is much to say about how God has humbled me, of greater importance is for me to hear from and learn from you to allow me to make a more complete apology…I am profoundly sorry that my awakening in this area has come at your expense. In that humility, I ask your forgiveness.”

In her blog, Thompson observed, “Trust once broken is not easily restored” and that she and her family have suffered greatly from Murray’s and Ramsden’s “incompetence” and “explicit cruelty.” Nevertheless, in her response to Murray, she told him that his letter “was written with care and personal insight — I appreciated both.” She also condemned the personal attacks Abdu Murray has received on social media.

The apology Ramsden sent to Thompson was notably brief. In her reply to him, Thompson said that it “lacked the detail of Mr. Murray’s extensive self-reflection…You gave me little insight as to your current frame of mind, or what you have read, listened to, or grappled with for the purposes of engendering trust — thereby failing to do so.”

Thompson concluded her thoughts on Murray’s interview with the McDowell’s, saying, “I cancel his debt to my person and entrust him to his fellows for further accountability.”

ChurchLeaders original article written on May 21, 2021, below:

After remaining “largely silent on social media since Ravi’ [Zacharias]’s abuses were made known,” Ravi Zacharias International Ministries’ (RZIM) Abdu Murray has finally spoken publicly about the abuse. Murray joined Josh and Sean McDowell in a conversation Friday afternoon, where Murray apologized for significant errors that he and RZIM have made over the past several years.

“I let my misplaced loyalty for Ravi speak louder than my conscience and my sense of compassion,” said Abdu Murray of his initial reaction to the allegations made by Lori Anne Thompson that Ravi Zacharias had spiritually and sexually preyed on her. “I’m so very sorry for repeating Ravi’s explanations for his email exchanges.”

Doing so “perpetuated a false narrative” that Lori Anne and her husband, Brad, were predators, instead of Ravi himself being the predator, said Murray. “I should have done better.”

The Story Behind the Ravi Zacharias Allegations (Part 1): Lawsuits, NDAs, and Email Threads

The Story Behind the Ravi Zacharias Allegations (Part 2): ‘Cursory’ Investigations and More Accusations

Abdu Murray on RZIM’s ‘Extremely Regrettable’ Response

Abdu Murray told the McDowells that he joined RZIM in 2015 and became the North American Director for RZIM in 2017. In 2019, he became RZIM’s senior vice president and general counsel. The reason Murray has waited until now to speak out about Ravi Zacharias’s sexual abuse is because he “didn’t want to come out and say something without really marinating in what had happened.”

Some of the regrets that Murray has from how he has responded to the allegations against Zacharias is that he was quick to defend the apologist and to repeat Zacharias’s version of events. It was “extremely regrettable,” he said, that RZIM “rushed to speak” in response to the spa workers’ sexual abuse accusations last year and defended Zacharias before investigating him. Murray said that he did not want to make that mistake again.

The RZIM leader said that he wholeheartedly endorses the apology the RZIM board issued after the release of an independent investigation found the allegations against Zacharias to be credible.

Sexting, Spiritual Abuse, Rape: Devastating Full Report on Ravi Zacharias Released

In addition to endorsing that apology, Murray said he personally wrote a handwritten apology to Lori Anne Thompson for not believing her and for perpetuating lies about her. Even after investigative journalist Julie Roys published Thompson’s version of events in September 2020, Murray said he “looked for any reason to discount it.” He was so concerned about Zacharias’s public honor that he failed to see the damage to Lori Anne Thompson from the resulting public shame. Murray said that when emails exchanged between Thompson and Zacharias were leaked in 2017 and 2018, he should have pushed harder to find out what had actually happened and should have sought the help of sexual abuse experts immediately.

Beth Moore: ‘Chronic Regret Can Nearly Kill Us.’

Jesse T. Jackson

May 26, 2021

Bestselling Christian author and former Southern Baptist Beth Moore used her Twitter platform to explain to her nearly 1 million followers it wasn’t until middle-age that she could fully accept she had been forgiven for her sins.

Moore said this unbelief lead to a dangerous cycle. She said she used to believe the “harsh difficulties” she was experiencing in her life were consequences of past sins she had committed — even though she had repented.

“It’s a rough way to live,” Moore said, “thinking that every bit of your hardship and suffering you brought on yourself with your foolish faithless decisions.” That type of existence “can be overwhelming and demoralizing.”

Beth Moore: Jesus Is Merciful

In the midst of her faith journey, she said she “found Jesus so merciful,” while reaping the harvest from the whirlwinds she had sown. Also Christ’s mercy was evident “in the suffering that simply accompanies life on terrestrial ground strewn with thorn and thistle.”

“Chronic regret can nearly kill us.”

“Sow something new [of the Spirit],” Moore reminded her followers. She said she couldn’t “break out of the cycle of defeat” until she started to fully accept she been forgiven for her sins by Jesus Christ.

Moore Warns Not to Omit Sin From Vocabulary

Moore said, “We lose our whole theology of the cross,” when we lose sin from our vocabulary. Moore said joy is found in acknowledging our sins, and that’s why she’s convinced many have trouble finding joy. The Living Proof Ministries founder pointed out that Psalm 32:1 says, “Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.”

Moore said to those who feel they can’t get past their sins and end up drowning in a seas of regret, “There is mercy, there is forgiveness at the foot of the cross.” Jesus remains faithful and “loved you all along,” preparing a future for you “unbridled from your past.”

God’s grace is without an ounce of resentment, so don’t let that generosity be in vain, she said. She encouraged her followers to “Live, sons & daughters of God, in the full consequences of Christ’s cross by faith, fully forgiven & made utterly clean.”

Moore Returned From a Social Media Hiatus

Moore’s social media encouragement comes after putting herself in a “time out” as she called it for most of the month of April 2021 where she didn’t engage in any social media. In the final message Moore posted before her hiatus, she said, “I don’t trust myself. Gonna punch somebody. I can either get ugly or get off.”

Is It Safe to Sing at Church Yet?

Adelle M Banks

May 26, 2021

(RNS) — On Pentecost Sunday, some members of Southwood Lutheran Church in Lincoln, Nebraska, sang hymns without masks for the first time in more than a year.

They vocalized “Multilingual Grace” in four languages after music director Denise Makinson taught them how to express thanks in Spanish, Arabic, Swahili and Korean.

“I do have to say it was quite emotional yesterday to hear the congregation singing all the hymns,” Makinson said in an interview on Monday (May 24). “It was definitely something I missed.”

Pentecost is often celebrated as the “birthday” of the Christian church. It frequently includes a reading from the New Testament Book of Acts about the Holy Spirit descending on Jesus’ followers, who then begin to speak and understand languages they had not known.

“I think they were also emotional about it, to hear people’s voices,” Makinson said of Southwood’s congregants.

Some people sang with masks on, others with them off — a mix that is likely to continue across the country for a while as congregations navigate the “new normal” of the continuing pandemic when not everyone is vaccinated.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recent announcement that fully vaccinated people could generally resume pre-pandemic activities has played a part in new decisions by congregations. But the CDC’s guidance was about individuals; its advice for “communities of faith” has not been updated since Feb. 19 and currently does not mention singing.

The Hymn Society’s Center for Congregational Song has declared in its own latest guidance: “We do not currently recommend that congregations sing.”

UPDATE: After Considerable Outrage, Zondervan Halts God Bless the USA Bible’s Production

Jessica Lea

May 26, 2021

UPDATED May 26, 2021: HarperCollins Christian Publishing and Zondervan will not be publishing the God Bless the USA Bible after all. The news comes after the circulation of an online petition, as well as a letter written by several Christian authors who have published books with Zondervan.

“Zondervan is not publishing, manufacturing or selling the ‘God Bless the USA Bible,’” said the company in a statement provided to Religion Unplugged. “While we were asked for a manufacturing quote, ultimately the project was not a fit for either party, and the website and marketing of the NIV [New International Version] project were premature.”

HarperCollins Christian Publishing licenses the NIV translation of the Bible and is a parent company to Zondervan, which publishes that translation. HarperCollins is also a parent company to Thomas Nelson, which publishes the King James Version (KJV) and the New King James Version (NKJV) of the Bible.

The website for the God Bless the USA Bible previously stated that it would feature the NIV translation, but has since been updated to say that it will be using the “trusted King James Version translation.”

Elite Source Pro is the marketing consulting company responsible for the God Bless the USA Bible, and its leader, Hugh Kirkpatrick, met with HarperCollins on May 25 to explore the possibility of publishing the Bible through Thomas Nelson. The talk was unsuccessful, however, and HarperCollins will not be producing any version of the God Bless the USA Bible. Kirkpatrick said he plans to move forward with publication using a non copyrighted version of a King James translation.

The Christian authors who contacted Zondervan to protest the publication of the God Bless the USA Bible include Shane Claiborne, Doug Pagitt, Lisa Sharon Harper, Jemar Tisby, and Soong-Chan Rah. In a response to the news that Zondervan will no longer be publishing the Bible, the authors wrote:

We are delighted to hear that Zondervan has released a statement today that affirmed this Bible is not their product….It is entirely possible that the folks crafting this Bible will find another translation with another publishing house, but for now it is on hold, and we rejoice. We hope that future projects like this one will be reconsidered as well. We don’t need to add anything to the Bible. We just need to live out what it already says.

ChurchLeaders original article written on May 24, 2021, below:

A new Bible edition called the “God Bless the USA Bible” is set to release this September near the anniversary of 9/11. One of the primary people responsible for the Bible says the purpose of it is to bridge the deep divisions among Americans—and that it is not influenced by Christian nationalism.

“It’s the Holy Bible. It just leans toward you’re American and maybe you need to understand the documents behind America and what did these people believe?” Hugh Kirkpatrick, leader of Elite Source Pro, told The Tennessean. Elite Source Pro is a marketing consulting company based outside of Nashville that is responsible for developing this particular Bible edition.

“God Bless the USA” singer Lee Greenwood has endorsed the Bible, which will feature the chorus of Greenwood’s famous song, as well as the U.S. Constitution, Bill of Rights, Declaration of Independence, and Pledge of Allegiance. The Bible costs $49.99 and is being sold as an edition that is “perfect” for certain groups, including homeschooling families, new American citizens, brides, members of the military, and “anyone that loves America.”

Texas Courtroom Prayer Found Unconstitutional

Jesse T. Jackson

May 26, 2021

Justice of the peace Judge Wayne Mack developed a chaplaincy program in 2014 in Montgomery County, Texas, that granted volunteer chaplains the opportunity to open Judge Mack’s court sessions with prayer. On Friday May 21, 2021, U.S. District Judge Kenneth M. Hoyt ruled the chaplain-led prayer violated the Establishment Clause of the federal Constitution.

The ruling came after the atheist organization Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) sued Mack for his courtroom allowance of the chaplains’ prayers, saying they were unconstitutional.

Attorney John Roe regularly argues cases in Mack’s courtroom and is a member of the FFRF. He was also listed as a plaintiff on the suit. In a statement by the FFRF in December 2020, it acknowledged that Roe objects to any government official “dictating” how and when he prays. Roe recalled a time he was representing a client in Mack’s courtroom and the clerk of courts “demanded” he and the litigant enter the courtroom for prayer. Feeling compelled to oblige, Roe said he didn’t want to “jeopardize his business,” saying he was afraid not participating in the courtroom prayer would lead to Mack being biased against him and his client(s).

Mack explained to the court that the ceremony’s purpose was to “solemnize the proceedings in his courtroom” and “set the tone for everybody that’s in the courtroom…by speaking to the fact that this is a court of law and the rule of law will be applied and respected.” Mack also told the court that “a moment of silence or prayer often helps people center themselves emotionally in what can be an emotionally charged atmosphere.”

Also read: For 70 Years the National Day of Prayer Was Held at the U.S. Capitol Building. Not This Year

Mack who was a former licensed minister and almost majored in theology at Jackson College of Ministries, has been targeted for his courtroom-led prayer since March 2017 when FFRF and Roe first attempted to remove the practice from his courtroom.

Hoyt’s conclusion reads: “The Court is of the view that the defendant violates the Establishment Clause when, before a captured audience of litigants and their counsel, he presents himself as theopneustically-inspired, enabling him to advance, through the Chaplaincy Program, God’s ‘larger purpose.’ Such a magnanimous goal flies in the face of historical tradition, and makes a mockery of both, religion and law. Accordingly, the plaintiffs are entitled to a summary judgment. Therefore, the Court declares that the defendant’s practice of opening regular court proceedings with religious prayers is unconstitutional. Should the defendant violate this Court’s declaratory decree, an injunction will issue.”

Hoyt’s decision agreed that Mack’s courtroom prayers were “unconstitutionally coercive.” He felt the prayers promoted religion because the volunteer chaplains directed their prayers to the courtroom filled with members who are pending arrest or facing other ordered penalties. FFRF stated that Mack’s prayer practices are nothing like legislative prayer because that is directed to the judge, not the audience in the courtroom

FFRF co-president Annie Laurie Gaylor celebrated the victory, saying, “A courtroom is not a church, and a judge’s bench is not a pulpit. Today’s ruling is a victory for the constitutional rights of all Americans and for equal justice under the law.”

“In a time where the wall of separation between state and church is continually chipped away,” FFRF legal director Rebecca Markert said, “this decision is welcomed for its straightforward and accurate interpretation of the Establishment Clause, noting the prayer practice ‘flies in the face’ of our traditions.”

According to the FFRF, plaintiffs will seek to recover attorney fees and courtroom costs against the state following Hoyt’s ruling.

One Year After George Floyd’s Murder, Faith Leaders Still Want This

Adelle M Banks

May 26, 2021

social movement — People march for the one year anniversary of George Floyd's death on Sunday, May 23, 2021, in Minneapolis, Minn. (AP Photo/Christian Monterrosa)

(RNS) — Los Angeles pastor Stephen “Cue” Jn-Marie is quick to point out the movement for Black lives and Black Lives Matter has been going on for eight years, but he believes it was “an act of God” that transformed it last year into the largest social movement in U.S. and world history.

“Who can articulate that, but a faith leader?” he added.

For Jn-Marie, who founded the Church Without Walls in Skid Row, the Black Lives Matter movement is valid without faith leaders but, he said, clergy help “people see God’s heart for the movement.”

One year ago, the death of George Floyd under the knee of a police officer galvanized the nation — and eventually much of the world — into months of historic protests against police brutality and systemic racism and in support of Black lives. Clergy were often front and center in these protests and their clarion call not only to politicians but also to religious leaders sparked a racial reckoning within churches, synagogues and mosques. On the anniversary of his death, these leaders reflect on how much has changed — and how much there is still do to.

“George Floyd’s murder brought a renewed urgency to stop the epidemic of anti-Black police violence and deep-rooted injustices in our justice system,” said Madihha Ahussain, senior policy counsel for Muslim Advocates. She pointed to what she described as the historic verdict in the trial of Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer, who was found guilty of murdering Floyd when he knelt on Floyd’s neck, as evidence “change is possible.” But, she said, there is still so much more to do.

She noted work Muslim Advocates has been doing on behalf of Muhammad Muhaymin Jr., a disabled Black Muslim who died in police custody in Phoenix in 2017. Recently released video footage reveals an eerie echo of Floyd’s death, as Muhaymin screams “I can’t breathe,” under the knee of a police officer.

“We must fight to ensure the other officers involved in Floyd’s murder are held accountable. We also must fight for Muhaymin, Ronald Greene, Daunte Wright, Adam Toledo, Breonna Taylor and so many other victims of police violence,” Ahussain said.

Often leading the charge have been Black ministers. The Rev. Greg Drumwright of Greensboro, North Carolina, is one.

Man Whose Viral CRT Video Was Banned From TikTok Is ‘a Legend,’ Says Sean Feucht

Stephanie Martin

May 26, 2021

When public school teacher Jonathan Koeppel spoke out against what he calls liberal indoctrination of students, he was banned in some circles and embraced in others.

Koeppel, a Christian who teaches Spanish in St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana, recently went viral for his public comments at a school board meeting. After warning about Critical Race Theory (CRT) and controversial theories about gender, Koeppel told administrators, “Don’t push this ideology on children. I’m not going to work in a district that’s okay with that.”

Before TikTok banned video of his comments as hate speech, Koeppel racked up more than 10 million views. Now some Christians and conservative media outlets are hailing his bravery, and Koeppel is selling merchandise at BraveTeacher.com to “fight for preserving American Values.”

Sean Feucht on Jonathan Koeppel: ‘This Guy’s a Legend’

After leading worship outside Louisiana’s state capitol on Sunday, musician and religious-freedom advocate Sean Feucht spoke with Koeppel. In a video posted to Instagram, Feucht asks the teacher about his motives and credits him with fighting against indoctrination that’s currently filling America’s schools and even churches.

Koeppel tells Feucht he’s alarmed by “two things that crazy people are trying to push on children”: the idea of infinite genders and CRT, which he says assumes all white people are oppressors and all people of color are victims who can’t succeed due to structural racism. “I need to expose this,” Koeppel says. “No kid should learn that.”

Christians need to be bold and start attending school board meetings, the teacher adds. “We have to get involved in our political process,” says Koeppel, noting that various states are trying to “promote these ideologies” through legislation.

“This guy’s a legend,” Feucht says of Koeppel at the end of the video. “We need thousands more like him in America.” On his website HoldtheLine.live, Feucht urges Christians to do God’s work, “stand up and speak truth to our government leaders,” and “change a nation.”

Jonathan Koeppel: God ‘Can Use Anybody’

As a result of his brief public comments, Koeppel was featured on Fox News, Newsmax and Washington Watch With Tony Perkins. Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, says Koeppel’s story is “exactly why we need believers in public education.”

On Washington Watch, the teacher explains that residents of his Republican-leaning community hadn’t really been aware of the ideologies that local schools were promoting. Parents and especially teachers are now thanking him for his warning, says Koeppler. “They see these things creeping into their classrooms that have nothing to do with real learning, and they’re frustrated.”

Koeppler believes that many fellow citizens share his views and values but are “scared to death” to speak out. “The righteous are supposed to be bold as a lion,” says the teacher. “How can you be a Christian and live in fear?”

Going viral wasn’t his plan, says Koeppler, but it shows how God is always at work in our world. “Because I was just simply doing my job and being a Christian at the same time, God was able to use me,” he says. “He can use anybody.”

Preston Sprinkle: Jesus Left the 99 to Pursue the One—And That Means Trans People

Jason Daye

May 26, 2021

Dr. Preston Sprinkle is a biblical scholar and international speaker who serves as the president of the Center for Faith, Sexuality & Gender. He is a New York Times best-selling author who has written numerous books including, “People to Be Loved: Why Homosexuality Is Not Just an Issue” and his latest, “Embodied: Transgender Identities, the Church, and What the Bible Has to Say.” Preston and his wife, Chrissy, live in Boise, Idaho, with their three daughters and son.

Other Ways to Listen to This Podcast With Dr. Preston Sprinkle

► Listen on Apple
► Listen on GooglePlay
► Listen on Spotify
► Listen on Stitcher
► Listen on YouTube

Other Podcasts in the LGBTQ and the Church Series

Juli Slattery: This Is How the Church Can Begin the LGBTQ Conversation

Gregory Coles: It’s Possible to Be Same-Sex Attracted and Fully Surrendered to Jesus

Mark Yarhouse: How to Pastor Someone Who Has Gender Dysphoria

Ed Shaw: How God Has Used Same-Sex Attraction to Equip Me As a Pastor

Sean McDowell: Scripture Is Very Clear About God’s Design for Sexuality

Rachel Gilson: How Jesus Helps Me Say No to My Same-Sex Desires

Caleb Kaltenbach: Do You See the LGBTQ Community Through God’s Eyes?

Laurence Koo: A Call for the American Church to Welcome Single (LGBTQ) Believers

Key Questions for Dr. Preston Sprinkle

-What does it really mean to be “trans”?

-Why is the conversation around trans identities so important to the church right now?

-Does Scripture give us guidance for understanding gender dysphoria and trans identities? How would you respond to people who say it does not?

-What would you say to the average pastor regarding how to better minister to people who are questioning their gender?

Key Quotes from Dr. Preston Sprinkle

“If you ask 10 different people, what does it means to be trans, you might get 12 different responses.”

“There is a whole movement within the trans community, especially among younger people, who would say, you don’t even need to have gender dysphoria to be trans. If you just say you’re trans, you’re trans…So that is a complication when you engage this conversation.”

“Mark Yarhouse likes to say, ‘If you’ve met one trans person, you’ve met just one trans person.’”

Does the SBC Oppose Women Pastors — or Culture? A Surprising History

Beth Allison Barr

May 26, 2021

In 1967, Watts Street Baptist Church in Durham, North Carolina, made history as the first Southern Baptist Church to ordain a woman—Addie Davis—to pastoral ministry. This moment seemed to hint at a bright future for SBC women. Indeed, by the early 1980s the SBC had ordained around 200 women pastors.

SBC’s Forgotten History of Women Pastors

Which means that when Rick Warren ordained three Southern Baptist women to pastoral ministry at Saddleback Baptist church last week, he was adhering faithfully to an SBC tradition more than 50 years old.

Except that he wasn’t.

Ordaining women as SBC pastors is not an ordinary part of the SBC world—making Rick Warren’s actions extraordinary rather than ordinary. Within just a few years after Addie Davis’ ordination, the SBC had begun taking steps that would culminate in mandating female submission within marriage and declaring the pulpit off limits to SBC women.

In fact, the controversial author of Christianity & Wokeness, Owen Strachan (who’s at least for the moment still an SBC faculty member at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary) articulated on Twitter the current SBC stance on women preaching: “There is no exception to 1 Timothy 2:9-15. Not Mother’s Day, not when a woman has real gifting, not when the elders endorse women preaching. Based on his creation order, God only calls men to lead, preach, teach, & shepherd the flock. Find a church that stands for this truth.”

So, what happened? Why did the Southern Baptist world, when on the cusp of broadly accepting women in ministry, suddenly change its mind?

Women Pastors: A Sudden Change of Heart

Barry Hankins, in his 2002 study Uneasy in Babylon: Southern Baptist Conservatives and American Culture, offers an intriguing argument. It is because cultural resistance is at the heart of SBC conservative values. Opposing women in ministry is “not merely a matter of biblical authority, as SBC conservatives would like everyone to believe,” he writes in his conclusion to chapter 7. “On women…the culture has clearly decided in favor of egalitarianism, which provides SBC conservatives an opportunity to do what they do best—oppose the cultural mainstream in the name of biblical authority and conservative evangelicalism.”

Wait. Did you catch that? The SBC flipped its stance on women in ministry not because of the Bible but because the conservative faction that took over the SBC in the late 1970s grounded their identity in cultural resistance. As Hankins writes in the introduction, “conservative leaders came to believe that America, including the South, was in the throes of a cultural crisis that necessitated a warlike struggle against the forces that were hostile to evangelical faith.”

Women in ministry, at least in the Southern Baptist mind, became connected to the American crisis of the family. The only way to preserve the family, SBC leaders decided, was to oppose women’s growing equality with men in leadership roles. In a fascinating section of chapter 7 in Uneasy in Babylon, Hankins uses Al Mohler to demonstrate the SBC flip-flop. For those of you who don’t know, Al Mohler—now one of the staunchest SBC objectors to female ordination—once vigorously supported women pastors. As Hankins writes, “when the Southern Baptist Convention messengers adopted the 1984 resolution that opposed the ordination of women, claiming that they were second in Creation but first in the Fall, Mohler was filled with a sense of righteous indignation, so much so that he helped lead a student protest that resulted in the placement of an advertisement in the Louisville Courier Journal opposing the SBC resolution.”

Yet shortly thereafter, Mohler changed his mind. Hankins describes how this was connected to a meeting between Mohler and Carl Henry, in which Henry challenged Mohler’s defense of women in ministry. It was also connected to Mohler’s growing belief that secular trends in American culture were corrupting the Christian family—leading to higher rates in divorce, single parents, etc. When Larry King asked why the SBC deemed a submission statement (declaring that wives were to submit graciously to the authority of their husbands) necessary for the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message, Mohler explained: “No one really thought it needed to be said until recently. It is a major event for a denomination to change its basic confession of faith, and in adding this statement, Southern Baptists are responding to what we see as a real crisis in the culture over the family.”

Cultural Resistance and Biblical Literalism

Isn’t that interesting? But wait, isn’t SBC resistance to women pastors grounded in Paul’s teachings (just as Owen Strachan said)? Isn’t it because of SBC adherence to the Bible? Well, sort of. Barry Hankins helps us understand this too. While Southern Baptists have always adhered to believing in the Bible (inerrancy, if you will), they have not always insisted on biblical literalism. This insistence on absolute adherence to the face value of biblical texts began to emerge in the 1980s alongside the conservative emphasis on cultural resistance. Interpreting Pauline passages as literal prohibitions for all women, such as “women be silent” and “I do not permit a woman to teach or assume authority over a man,” became a litmus test for orthodoxy. As Hankins writes in the introduction,

one conservative SBC president articulated the slippery-slope argument employed by many conservatives. The view that the Bible contains error is worth fighting against. That’s the first domino to fall. Then you move into areas like the resurrection of Christ, the deity of Christ, soteriology, the whole works—all stem from your view of scripture.

I find it rather striking that the two times conservative Baptists have taken up inerrancy as a weapon have been at moments when women’s equality was gaining momentum—first, during the nineteenth-century suffrage movement, and second when women during the latter half of the twentieth century were poised for legal, economic, and even Southern-Baptist-preaching-equality with men.

It will be interesting to see how the SBC responds to the red flag Rick Warren has just thrown down. Will they acknowledge their long Baptist history of ordaining women? Or will they, like Owen Strachan, double-down as cultural warriors fighting the heresy of preaching women? I don’t know the answer, but I do recommend that you read Barry Hankins’ Uneasy in Babylon while we wait to see what happens. At least, then, you will have a better understanding of why gender has become so central to the SBC culture wars.

This article originally appeared here.

This post is by Beth Allison Barr, who is poised these days to discuss the most recent spat about women in ministry among the Southern Baptists. Beth is the author of The Making of Biblical Womanhood.

Worthy of Family Worship

Don Whitney

May 26, 2021

After nearly a half-century in ministry, including preaching in 47 states, it is my observation that few Christian homes practice regular family worship. I would even venture to say that in most of our best churches, most of our best men do not lead their wives — and children if they have them — in family worship.

Having your family in a good, Bible-teaching local church is crucial to a Christian marriage and parenting. But it is unlikely that church attendance alone will impress your children with the greatness and glory of God such that they will want to pursue him once they leave home. In this article, I want to convey one main point: God deserves to be worshiped daily in our homes by our families.

Worthy of Daily Worship

The Bible clearly implies that God deserves to be worshiped daily in our homes by our families.

Although there are few explicit commandments in Scripture about family worship (though see Deuteronomy 6:4–9), evidence for its practice abounds. For example, Abraham evidently led his family in the worship of God; otherwise, how would Isaac have known to ask, “Where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” (Genesis 22:7)? Leading his family in worship is something that “Job did continually” (Job 1:5).

Family worship is one of the best and most practical ways husbands administer the cleansing water of the word of God to their wives (Ephesians 5:25–26) and fathers bring their children up “in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4). When Peter commands husbands to show honor to their wives “so that your prayers may not be hindered” (1 Peter 3:7), he is likely referring to mutual prayers, not merely those of the husband.

Our Little Churches

The lives of our Christian heroes also testify that God deserves to be worshiped daily in our homes by our families.

The growing emphasis on family worship today is not a contemporary Christian fad. A study of church history reveals that believers have always understood the Bible to teach the practice. We know, for example, that the first generation of Christ-followers after the apostles read a portion of Scripture, prayed, and sang Psalms together as families. The same was true for Luther, Knox, and the Puritans. Both the Westminster Confession (1647) and the Second London Confession (1689), the most influential of all Baptist confessions of faith, contain the identical phrase: “God is to be worshiped everywhere in spirit and in truth; as in private families daily, and in secret each one by himself” (emphasis added).

Jonathan Edwards, Charles Spurgeon, the missionary John G. Paton, and Martyn Lloyd-Jones, though all had many heavy responsibilities, led their families in the daily worship of God. Virtually all of our Christian heroes could be shown to believe what Edwards declared: “Every Christian family ought to be as it were a little church” (Works of Jonathan Edwards, 25:484). And part of the life of every church and every Christian is worship.

Your Body Will Be Whole: A Physician’s Meditations on Heaven

Kathryn Butler

May 26, 2021

During my surgical training, I helped care for an aging professor who bemoaned his declining health. His mind still moved in academic circles, pondering the high points of chemistry and physics, but arthritis had so fused the bones in his neck that he couldn’t nestle into a pillow anymore. Cancer riddled his chest, and squandered nutrients, until his frame wasted to skeletal proportions. The simple routine of enjoying a meal pitched him into coughing, and pneumonia festered from the secretions that pooled in his lungs.

One day, after one of many bronchoscopies to clear his airways and ward off a ventilator, he motioned to me and mumbled something. I drew closer, listening for his raspy voice above the hiss of the oxygen mask.

“Don’t get old,” he said.

Wages of Sin

While our medical conditions and paths in life vary, all of us will join this professor in his grief at some point, if our Lord tarries, as we endure the failure of our earthly bodies.

It’s easy to dismiss this truth when we’re healthy and can so easily enjoy the fruits of God’s exquisite design. When we savor the rush of air through our lungs as we run, or the vigor of our limbs as we dance, the precision and fluidity of God’s creation moves us to thanksgiving. We join with the psalmist in his praise: “You formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:13–14).

And yet, our vitality has a time limit. When we neglect the truth that the body is a temple for the Holy Spirit, we prime ourselves for disease (1 Corinthians 6:19–20). The cigarettes we smoke blacken our lungs; our overindulgences at the dinner table coat our arteries in cholesterol; our extra glasses of alcohol inflame and destroy the liver.

Even when we aim to steward our bodies well, our health eventually fails, because “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). The consequences of sin penetrate even to our vessels and bones, unraveling the physiological systems that God has meticulously interwoven. As we age, our immune system deteriorates, and we succumb to infections. Calcium hardens our arteries, driving our blood pressure dangerously high. Our bones thin, our spine weakens, and we stoop toward the dust from which we came. Even our face reveals the march of time, as the production of elastin in our skin dwindles and creases deepen around our eyes.

This inching toward death, with our bodies slowly falling apart as the years march by, awaits us all. As Paul reminds us, “Sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned” (Romans 5:12). The brokenness that afflicts the world also afflicts our earthly bodies, ushering us from the bloom of youth into pain, fragility, and ultimately the grave. For many of us, humiliation and pain, frustration and grief accompany us on our decline.

Redemption of the Body

Yet we have hope.

As we toil in the shadow of the cross, despising our tally of diagnoses and wrangling with ever-mounting aches and pains, we cling to the promise that when Christ returns, “he will wipe away every tear from [our] eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” (Revelation 21:4). We confess our belief in the “resurrection of the body” through the Apostles’ Creed, because the New Testament teaches that the transformation already begun in us through the Holy Spirit will come to completion in the new heavens and the new earth.

“We know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now,” Paul writes. “And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies” (Romans 8:22–23). In saving us from all our sins, Christ has also saved us from their wages, including the heavy toll upon our bodies.

Christianity, then, doesn’t promise that our souls will float in heaven, wrenched from their corporeal vessels. Instead, when we pine for Christ’s return, we anticipate a complete renewal: a softening of the heart, a sanctification of the mind, and even a renewal of the bodies that in their present form so easily wither and break. And all so we might know God and enjoy him forever, for his glory.

Church Metrics – Looking Beyond Attendance

Geoff Surratt

May 25, 2021

For the past 30 years the primary indicator of health in church metrics is weekend attendance. We know that “healthy things grow.” so obviously the faster our church grows the healthier it is. We celebrate the largest and fastest growing churches as the models we all want to emulate. When a new church plant explodes in growth we crowd around the pastor to learn his secrets.

The challenge is that healthy things aren’t the only things that grow. Weeds grow faster than healthy plants, and cancer cells kill the body by growing faster than other, healthier cells. By focusing on numerical-growth church metrics we may inadvertently feed the very thing that could choke out true health.

Another challenge with tracking attendance for church metrics is that it doesn’t always measure what we think it does. I remember talking to another pastor in our community a few years ago. He was excited about the sudden growth he’d seen over the past few months. I wanted to be excited for him, but the church I served had recently gone through a moral failure by a key leader, and our attendance was shrinking at the exact time his was growing. Attendance growth isn’t always as it appears.

Finally, the church metrics of weekend attendance is becoming irrelevant. In a culture of online church, sermon podcasts and declining frequency of attendance even among committed members, the number of people sitting in pews or stack chairs from week to week no longer reflects the true size of a congregation. We need to move beyond butts in seats as a primary measure of the health of a congregation.

So what should we measure? The go to answers are baptisms, giving and small group participation. There is nothing wrong with measuring these areas, but it is still incomplete. To truly understand how healthy we are as a church we have to know how we are caring for the three circles of people we are called to shepherd; our neighbors, our followers and our disciples.

Neighbors

Key word: Compassion
Key questions: Who are our neighbors and how are we easing their pain?

A neighbor is anyone who comes into contact with your church. Neighbors live next door to the church and next door to people who attend your church. Neighbors are the school and city officials who interact with your congregation. Your neighbors are the people who serve your members in restaurants, stores and entertainment venues. Your neighbors may never walk into your church, but they are still your responsibility.

In the story of the Good Samaritan Jesus not only broadens the definition of a neighbor, he shows how to treat our neighbors with compassion. Unlike the religious leaders in the story, the Samaritan has compassion for his neighbor. He bandages his wounds and provides for his needs. He isn’t concerned about where the injured man attends synagogue; he is a neighbor so he cares for him. A major component of the mission of our church is to discover where our neighbors are hurting and how we can help.

A healthy church cares for their neighbors both corporately and personally. When there is a crisis in the community a healthy church is the first to step in to help, and when there is a need in a neighborhood healthy church members are the ones who stand in the gap. Measuring health begins with tracking how compassionately we care for our neighbors. How are we easing their pain?

Followers

Key word: Provision
Key questions: Who are our followers and how are providing for their needs?

A follower is anyone who considers your church their church. This is tricky, because there are a lot of people who claim your church whom you’ve never met. They may attend only on Christmas and Easter, they may drop in a few times a year, or they may just watch online, but a follower would consider your church the place to:

Get married
Have a family member’s funeral
Be baptized
Dedicate their baby

Regardless how deep their connection, if they consider your church their church they are a follower and you have responsibility for them.

We see Jesus’ provision for followers in the story of feeding of the 5000 when he says to Phillip, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?” (John 6:5) I imagine the disciples thought, “Why are they our problem? They are adults, let them figure it out for themselves. Besides, it would take a miracle to take care for all these people.” Jesus believed, however, that He and the disciples should care even for casual followers.

The bigger your church grows the more followers you attract. Conservatively your church has twice as many followers as average weekend attenders. A church of 300 on Sunday has 600 followers, a church of 3000 has 6,000 followers, and a church of 30,000 on a weekend carries the weight of 60,000 people. That is larger than the town I live in. We love to attract huge crowds, but if we are faithful to Jesus’ example we have to also provide for the needs of the ever growing circle of followers.

Disciples

Key word: Direction
Who are our disciples and how are we helping them grow?

A disciple in this context is anyone committed to the vision, values and mission of your church. It includes the staff, leaders and elders, as well as the committed attenders who support and love your church. You are responsible to do everything possible to ensure the disciples are growing in their faith and reflecting the model of Christ.

The growth of His disciples was Jesus’ primary mission while he was on earth. He taught them, challenged then and rebuked them, all with the goal of seeing them grow in their understanding of him and their commitment to the Kingdom. When he knew his time grew short and the cross loomed ahead, he withdrew with his disciples for one last time. He washed their feet, he fed them, and he taught them the core value of love. As he faced the cross his attention was on the 12 men who would soon abandon him. His commitment to the disciples wasn’t based on how much they gave, led or served; it was based solely on his love and care for them.

This is the commitment we are called to as leaders in the church. We are never told we will give an account for the number of people we can convince to sit in an auditorium on a Sunday and listen to us talk and sing. We will, however, be held accountable for the disciples who follow us as we follow Christ. How are we loving them and helping them grow?

The Shift

Before Online Church, traveling youth sports teams, and the ability to work from anywhere, weekend attendance was a decent indicator of the effectiveness of a church. Today weekend attendance is nothing more than a popularity contest. The “winner” is the church with the best band, coolest website and best speaker. Churches grow to thousands overnight and we all want to know the secret to their phenomenal growth.

The bigger question is how are caring for the flock God has entrusted to us? How can we measure the impact we are having on the hurts in the lives of our neighbors? How can we discover the true needs of the followers of our church and how can we know we are meeting those needs? How can we make sure that the disciples around us are growing more like Christ?

When we are faithful with the people God gives us, our neighbors, followers and disciples, He can trust us with more. Our job is to plant and water, it is God’s job to make it grow. What if over the next 20 years we become as intentional about church metrics on measuring and improving how we are care for people as we’ve been on filling buildings for the past 20 years? Can you imagine the harvest?

This article appeared here.

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