by | Aug 2, 2023 | Uncategorized
With a vision of Jesus, he started a credit union that enabled dozens of churches to buy buildings.
As far as anyone knows, Carmel Jones started the only financial institution in the history of Great Britain that began with a religious vision. But if Pentecostals aren’t supposed to start credit unions based on dreams about Jesus speaking to them on a church roof, no one ever told him.
“I had no one to guide me but God,” Jones said.
Jones, a Church of God in Christ minister who founded the Pentecostal Credit Union (PCU) in 1979, died on July 22 at the age of 85. He started the credit union so that Black pastors would have access to capital to buy churches. Today, it is the second largest in Great Britain, with about 2,000 members and nearly nine million pounds in deposits (the equivalent of about $11 million in the US).
The PCU has financed the purchase of dozens of church buildings, providing homes for some of the most prominent Black Pentecostal congregations in the UK, including the Assemblies of the First Born Church, the New Testament Assembly, New Testament Church of God, and Rauch City Church.
“He was the church’s Black banker!” said John and Penny Francis, co-leaders of Rauch City, in an interview with Premier Christianity. Their multisite London church “started with Reverend Carmel Jones, who gave us our first mortgage when our high street bank turned us down.”
Delroy Powell, bishop of the New Testament Assembly, recalled Jones as a “disruptive visionary,” who was far ahead of his time, figuring out how to use the financial system to benefit Black Christians.
Jones was born in Jamaica in 1936 in the Bye-berry district of St. Elizabeth Parish. He was the fifth of six children born to Roslyn Samms and Arthur Jones, a small farmer.
His mother raised him in the Anglican …
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by | Aug 2, 2023 | Uncategorized
Sometimes the blatant evils portrayed in scary movies and shows can reveal the more subtle sins within us.
There’s been a fascinating upward tick in the horror genre’s popularity lately, especially among young people.
Just two decades ago, drama was by and large the most popular genre for TV and movies. But a 2022 Deloitte study found that Gen Z’s third favorite genre is horror, just one percentage point less than action, with comedy at number one. The genre’s popularity extends beyond Gen Z: Among American adults, 71 percent of those under the age of 35 say scary movies are enjoyable (compared to only 23 percent of those aged 65 and over). That said, I’m among the 29 percent of young adults who don’t like scary movies.
Paranormal horror manifests the unseen reality of spirits and demons beyond my control, making it hard for me to brush my teeth without feeling like something is watching. Gothic horror affirms that what was done in the past can haunt me. Slashers make me question human beings’ capacity for evil, making everyone suspect. In short, horror movies are horrifying to me precisely because they spotlight the darkest parts of the human heart and of the world, and I don’t always want to be reminded of that. And like many Christians, I wonder how watching horror movies and shows can be edifying.
But given horror’s current cultural moment, some believers have made compelling defenses for the genre: Horror can speak to the supernatural reality of the world, demonstrate the power to overcome evil, and become an evangelistic tool to reach unbelievers. Recent popular shows like Midnight Mass are praised for their “thoughtful and thorough critiques of religion.” In fact, nearly every one of the top horror movies of all time deal with some kind of Christian theme or …
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by | Aug 2, 2023 | Uncategorized
How the efforts of global advocacy groups depend on the capacity of local leaders.
Every November, churches around the world dedicate a Sunday for the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church (IDOP).
Unfortunately, it is slightly misnamed—reflecting the significant corrections needed for our efforts in advocacy on its behalf. It should be the International Day of Prayer with the Persecuted Church.
But it also needs an additional adjective.
Christian, secular, and government-led religious freedom advocacy has increased in the last decade, not least with the impetus of the Trump administration. The results, however, remain elusive. Religious minorities continue to face adversity, scapegoating, discrimination, and violence.
We need to renew our understanding of how we can enact change in countries of persecution, so that Christian advocates can remove the severe constraints that impact their ability to witness, make disciples, and live out God’s calling on their lives. After a visit to Nigeria last year, I believe there are three steps that need to be taken for this to happen.
The first step is the creation of well-resourced and professional institutions.
In my five years of interaction with local believers, I have observed that they are not yet equipped to research, document, and report on human rights abuses. Many Western groups advocate for—but not with—Nigerian Christians, while local ministries are generally invited only to co-sponsor statements written by foreigners.
The Christian Association of Nigeria, the most representative national Christian body, is active and vocal. But it lacks the thorough reporting and policy recommendations that can properly influence government actions and inform external lobbying.
Terrorist attacks on church communities are well-known, as well …
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by | Aug 1, 2023 | Uncategorized
Two new books probe the mysteries of Abraham Lincoln’s public and private relationship to religion.
If Abraham Lincoln still matters to Americans in the 21st century—and he does—a major reason is that there’s much at stake politically in how we remember him. This is as true of Lincoln’s religious beliefs as for any other part of his life. In a nation deeply divided over the proper role of religion in the public square, it makes a difference whether our greatest president was a religious skeptic or an orthodox Christian, a devotee of Thomas Paine or a disciple of Jesus.
The debate began almost immediately upon his death. Although Lincoln had never joined a church, Christians typically insisted on his devout faith. Although the late president had quoted extensively from the Bible, non-Christians protested that he doubted much of what it said.
Professional historians joined the debate in the first half of the last century, but they haven’t resolved it. There are outliers, but most agree that by the time of his presidency, Lincoln was not an atheist, if he ever had been. Most agree, as well, that he was almost certainly not an orthodox Christian, if by that we mean someone able to assent wholly to one of the major Christian confessions. It’s been difficult to determine beyond this, thanks to limitations in the surviving evidence.
After his death, countless acquaintances claimed intimate knowledge of the state of Lincoln’s soul, but these testimonies are hopelessly contradictory and their objectivity is doubtful. In addition, Lincoln’s voluminous personal papers are characterized by a pervasive, seemingly intentional ambiguity. Lincoln scholars all acknowledge that he used biblical language, but the questions of why he alluded to the Bible and how much of it he believed remain unanswered—and …
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