by | Sep 14, 2023 | Uncategorized
The Kuki share ancestry with the Chin in Myanmar and the Mizo in India’s Mizoram, all of whom have a history of Christianity and turmoil.
The ongoing attacks against the minority Kuki tribe by violent mobs in the northeastern Indian state of Manipur has brought attention to this mostly Christian people group. Since May, more than 180 people have been killed, hundreds of churches have been destroyed, and thousands have been displaced as the Hindu-majority Meitei people, who live in the lowlands, violently retaliated against the Kuki’s peaceful protests over efforts to give Meitei access to the hill land where they live.
The Kuki people in Manipur share ancestry with the Chin in Myanmar (also known as Burma) and the Mizo in India’s Mizoram state, southwest of Manipur. Due to their encounters with missionaries, nearly all Mizo and Kuki identify as Christians, along with 90 percent of Chin people.
In this Q&A explainer, we will explore the roots of the Chin-Kuki-Mizo people, the ongoing persecution and conflicts these groups face, how they encountered Christianity, and the ways Christianity has changed their society.
How are the Kuki, Chin, and Mizo people related?
They shared the same ancestors, practiced the same religion, and inhabited a swath of hill country in the borderland of modern-day India and Myanmar. In the 1890s, the British divided the land into Chin State in Burma, Mizoram and Manipur states in India, and the Chittagong Hill Tracts in Bangladesh.
Chin-Kuki-Mizo are a Mongol people, and today they speak related but distinct Tibeto-Burman languages. More than one million Chin live in Myanmar, one million Mizo live in Mizoram, half a million Kuki live in Manipur, and tens of thousands of Kuki live in Bangladesh. In addition, due to the ongoing fighting between the Myanmar army and the Chin people, hundreds of thousands of Chin have fled …
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by | Sep 14, 2023 | Uncategorized
But then my path to preaching took an unexpected turn.
My sophomore year of high school, I met a girl at a party. We talked on the phone for a few weeks before finally setting a date to meet up again. She lived in the Lincoln Park projects in Huntsville, Alabama. I relied on her directions when I drove to pick her up, but I couldn’t find her house. Before giving up, I decided to get out and walk, in case she spotted me.
That was a mistake. The locals noticed my car circling their block, and a group of young men came over. One of them asked, “Who are you?” His tone invited confrontation: You have stepped into my territory. Why are you here?
Looking around at the plastic bags blowing in the wind, clothes drying on flimsy lines, weeds amid patches of dirt, I could not see anything worth fighting over. But behind the interrogator stood three or four more young men, one with a gun. The weapon changed the stakes of the conversation. It was a question of life or death.
A rush of adrenaline began in my chest. I couldn’t control my rapid heart rate, but I could control my expression, so I adopted a calm exterior.
I had been in this situation before and knew I would have to navigate it so they didn’t feel trapped. I had to be strong but not threatening, certain but not disrespectful.
Who are you? The situation called for a simple statement of my allegiances: I am from Johnson High, and where I live is not your concern. But maybe because there was a gun involved, the question turned existential. I thought, Who am I, really? A boy grown into his adult body, now capable of wielding the same violence I’d witnessed from my father? A kid determined to be the opposite of that man? My mother’s hope?
At 16, I was …
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by | Sep 14, 2023 | Uncategorized
I used to hate cats. Now my pet is a daily reminder of God’s generosity to me.
I’ve hated cats all my life. Well, maybe not all my life. My mom has a picture of me, maybe six years old, playing with kittens in my grandpa’s barn, and I remember begging to take that little furball home. But my mom hated cats, and I soon did too.
My husband’s family had a cat, and when we were dating, I shuddered whenever I visited. The creature was unbearably forward and gross. I was convinced the cat tried to kill me one night by sitting on my head while I slept, even though my husband insists she was just being cozy.
My thinking on felines held firm for about two decades. Our sweet dogs were all the pets I ever wanted, while cats, by contrast, were disgusting to me. They walked on tables with their little cat feet. They seemed mysterious and inscrutable.
I rolled all cats together with the evil Snowbell from E. B. White’s Stuart Little: “malevolent, self-absorbed, negative, obstinate, witty, bellicose, evil, loathsome, loquacious, testy, ingenious, narcissistic, kooky, eccentric, relentless, boorish, emotional, loud-mouthed and loco.”
Then our youngest child went full-court press for a pet cat. He sang their praises. Knowing my fears, he researched a cat species bred for their friendliness to both dogs and humans and then found a local veterinarian breeder who raises the things in her home.
His campaign came at an opportune time for him. We were post-COVID, post-lots-of-losses. His older siblings were moving into realms that aren’t yet for him, and I felt like he needed something. Maybe at that moment, I would have given him almost anything. So for the love of my son, I swallowed my apprehension, and we called the breeder and reserved a fluff-some kitten. …
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by | Sep 13, 2023 | Uncategorized
Moderate Christian nationalists shouldn’t be smeared. But neither should extremism be defended.
In the opening pages of his newly published polemic against Christian nationalism, American Idolatry, Christian sociologist Andrew Whitehead describes his unsettling discovery, as a young man, of tension between his identities as a Christian and an American. In his childhood church, the “American flag and the Christian flag at the front of the sanctuary symbolized the close connection between the two,” he writes. “To be one was to be the other,” and finding space between them was “disorienting” and “uncomfortable.”
As Whitehead’s faith matured, he left behind the unconscious Christian nationalism of his youth. But in that same span, a large swath of the American Right—some evangelicals and other professing Christians included—have taken it up, in many cases explicitly adopting the label.
When I began researching my own book on the subject, the term wasn’t in wide use, but it went mainstream in 2021 following the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, where symbols of Christianity mixed freely with political violence. Since then, Christian nationalism has been widely advocated in works such as Stephen Wolfe’s The Case for Christian Nationalism and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-Ga.) reportedly forthcoming book by the same name. Critique of the belief has accumulated, too, in books like Whitehead’s and mine.
But a troubling third branch of the conversation has also sprouted: anti-anti-Christian nationalism. It’s a branch that should be cut off.
Following the pattern of anti-anti-Trumpism, anti-anti-Christian nationalism is not in favor of its object—or, at least, not openly so. But Christian nationalists …
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by | Sep 13, 2023 | Uncategorized
In a new study from A Rocha France, an overwhelming number of Protestant and Catholic respondents say “caring for the earth is caring for your neighbor.”
Most French Christians—92% of Catholics and 87% of Protestants—think the environment and climate change should be more present in the life of their local parish or church community. Half of them—52% of Catholics and 58% of Protestants—believe the church should speak out on environmental issues and climate change.
That’s according to a new survey from the Institut Français de L’Opinion Publique (French Institute of Public Opinion or IFOP), the nonprofit Parlons Climat (Let’s Talk Climate), and the Christian environmental organization A Rocha France, which revealed for the first time how French believers view the current climate crisis.
The survey explored the relationship between religious practice and ecological attitudes among the French population, offering insight into personal environmental commitment, the expected role of the church, and the connection between the intensity of religious practice and the willingness to take environmental action.
While the study does not fully represent French Christian attitudes toward environmental concerns, it sheds light into how Catholics and Protestants view climate change and the church’s role in this issue, researchers said.
The results suggest that the French Protestant community is growing more and more concerned about climate change, with 80 percent of Protestant respondents agreeing that we need to “radically change our lifestyles now to combat environmental degradation and climate change.”
However, practicing Christians were divided on the role of the church in the face of climate crisis, with 42 percent of both Catholic and Protestant respondents agreeing that it would be a good idea to invite “associations …
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