by | Oct 31, 2023 | Uncategorized
Catholicism, Protestantism, and indigenous culture shape the interpretation of these experiences and how people relate to those who have passed away.
When Octavio Esqueda was one, his little sister died.
Over the next nine years, his mother suffered five miscarriages. He remained an only child.
His parents had another daughter when he was nine, only for her to die several years later in a pool accident.
“My parents had extremely different experiences with both deaths,” said Esqueda, who grew up in Mexico and now lives in Southern California. “The first one brought a lot of despair to my parents.”
Between the deaths of their two daughters, Esqueda’s parents had left Catholicism and embraced evangelicalism.
“The second [death] was obviously hard, but the difference was they knew they had hope in the Resurrection and hope in Christ,” said Esqueda, a professor of Christian higher education at Talbot School of Theology.
“For people who don’t have hope in the Resurrection, or if you’re a Roman Catholic and there’s some uncertainty in the question of where your relatives are, you hope for the best but you don’t really know. These tendencies to find connections with dreams or other forms are very important for people to keep that relationship alive.”
Latin American and US Latino perspectives on death are diverse and have been shaped historically by indigenous and Roman Catholic teachings and theology, resulting in syncretistic holidays like Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) and Día de los Fieles Difuntos (All Souls’ Day).
With the more recent arrival of Protestantism in Latin America in the 1870s, and as many in the region immigrate to the US, many Latin American evangelicals have embraced perspectives on death that they consider to be more faithful to the Word of God while also trying …
Continue reading…
by | Oct 31, 2023 | Uncategorized
Beginning next year, the largest Muslim country in the world will use the Bahasa name for Christian holidays.
The Indonesian government announced last month that it will stop using the Arabic term for Jesus Christ—Isa al Masih—when referring to Christian holidays and will instead use the Bahasa term Yesus Kristus beginning in 2024.
The change will alter the names of three national holidays: the Death of Isa al Masih (Good Friday), the Ascension of Isa al Masih, and the Birth of Isa al Masih (Christmas).
Many Christians are excited about the change as they have long used Yesus Kristus in their worship and everyday lives. They see the move as indicating that the Muslim-majority country is recognizing their terms and respecting Christians, who make up 10 percent of the population with 29 million believers.
Saiful Rahmat, deputy minister for religious affairs, noted that Indonesian Christians requested the name change.
“All of the Christians in Indonesia are supporting this [change] to show that our reference to Isa al Masih in the calendar year actually refers to Jesus Christ,” said Budi Santoso, director of Kartidaya (Wycliffe Indonesia). He and other Christian leaders noted the importance of the name change, as it would differentiate the Jesus Christians worship from the description of Isa in the Quran, where he is seen as merely a prophet.
Yet some believers fear the change could be the beginning of increased legislation over the terms Christians are allowed to use in Indonesia, leading to problems like Malaysia’s former ban preventing non-Muslims from referring to God as Allah (the ban was later struck down after a protracted legal battle).
They worry that if Indonesia goes on to ban the term Isa al Masih, this could hurt contextualized ministry to Muslims, as the connection between Isa in the Quran and …
Continue reading…
by | Oct 31, 2023 | Uncategorized
Christian leaders from mainland China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Singapore weigh in on the ancient Chinese practice—which includes tai chi—and its physical and divine connotations.
In the 1980s the practice of Qi Gong became widespread in China, with more than 60 million practitioners at one point, according to Pew Research Center’s study on religion in the country.
Today Qi Gong practitioners can be found all around the world, from the US and Canada to Europe and South Korea.
Qi Gong incorporates a mix of meditation and breathing exercises accompanied by a series of languid movements or static postures. The Chinese character for qi (气) refers to energy or life force, while gong (功) refers to cultivating a skill.
The practice was touted by Chinese officials and scientists for its health benefits and was not regarded as a religion or a superstition but as a “precious scientific heritage,” Pew researchers said.
However, Qi Gong is not free of religious meaning and is imbued with Buddhist and Daoist (Taoist) influences, argues Hsiao Guang (a pseudonym), a former Qi Gong master from China who converted to Christianity and wrote a book, first published in simplified Chinese in 1998, that examined the practice’s cultural, social, and spiritual roots.
Buddhist Qi Gong practitioners, for instance, are able to reach a point where they desire nothing, while Daoist Qi Gong practitioners aim to achieve the highest state of enlightenment so that they will never die, he wrote.
Qi Gong is also commonly considered a form of traditional Chinese medicine since it is used to promote healing. And it serves as the foundation for tai chi and other types of martial arts, where practitioners are often trained to concentrate on building qi (or chi) in particular muscles to increase strength and resistance.
Yet for all the popularity Qi Gong has enjoyed through the years, it has not escaped controversy. The …
Continue reading…
by | Oct 31, 2023 | Uncategorized
Revelations of a scandalous amicus brief raise the question: Who’s driving the SBC?
There’s a story my family has told since before I was born about my great-uncle Johnny. When his four daughters were teenagers, the family took a long trip in which they had to stop in a familiar town for dinner.
About 30 minutes out, Aunt Betty Jane and the girls started talking through the variety of eating options and, after 10–15 minutes of deliberation, they agreed upon the best restaurant. But when they arrived in town, Uncle Johnny, who hadn’t said a word, pulled into a different restaurant, got out of the car, and walked silently inside, leaving five dumbfounded women looking at each other and wondering what had just happened.
That story—at least, a sinister reading of it—came to mind as I tried to process last week’s revelation of an amicus brief filed in April by legal counsel for the Southern Baptist Convention, the SBC’s Executive Committee, Lifeway Christian Resources, and The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
The case is Samantha Killary’s lawsuit against the city government of Louisville, Kentucky, where law enforcement employees allegedly enabled her years-long sexual abuse by her father, also a police officer.
No SBC entity is named in the lawsuit. But because it is similar to other lawsuits being brought against the SBC and the Executive Committee in Kentucky, legal counsel apparently advised these entities to file the amicus brief, encouraging the state Supreme Court to exclude “non-offender third parties” from Kentucky’s recent change in the statute of limitations for abuse claims.
This may protect the SBC from legal liability, but it harms Killary and excuses the institution that hurt her. It is an enormous betrayal to abuse survivors …
Continue reading…
by | Oct 30, 2023 | Uncategorized
The war has spurred millions in donations to ministries that provide everything from emergency supplies to security gear for future attacks.
When war broke out in Israel, organizations and ministries working in the country put crisis plans into action. They called up trained workers and volunteers, retrieved supplies from stocked warehouses, and drove bulletproof vehicles to deliver aid to victims and gear to first responders.
And they looked to Christians in the US and around the globe to help fund their efforts.
The International Christian Embassy Jerusalem (ICEJ) has received millions in donations since the war broke out, more than any other two-week period in its history.
Christians United for Israel (CUFI), which calls itself the largest pro-Israel organization in the US, sent $1 million to fund first responders within days of the October 7 barrage and continues to fundraise.
And The Joshua Fund, founded by Christian author Joel Rosenberg, has collected over $685,000 in donations. The organization is operating 21 aid distribution centers, delivering pallets of toilet paper, bottled water, and other supplies.
“We’ve had literally thousands of new donors, and giving to our Rapid Response Fund has never been greater,” said executive director Carl Moeller. “So many of our donors just want to know how to pray—and to let people over there know that believers in the US are praying and giving to meet their needs.”
Around half of US evangelicals consider support for Israel and the Jewish people to be an important priority in their charitable behavior. For years, giving to nonprofits that work in the Holy Land has been on the rise. Some rank among the biggest Christian charities in the US.
“We were able to mobilize immediately because of the partnerships we have,” said Yael Eckstein, president and CEO of the International Fellowship …
Continue reading…
