by | Nov 30, 2023 | Uncategorized
Pastors are looking to new options as technical difficulties plague their go-to video conferencing platform.
On a hot night in August, Yong Shao, a small group leader of a house church in a major city in northern China, was about to start the weekly Zoom Bible study when he started receiving a barrage of messages from his small group members with an unexpected problem: Zoom wasn’t working for them.
An IT professional, Yong went into troubleshooting mode. He suggested they update the Zoom app and switch to using cellphone data instead of Wi-Fi. In the past, these tricks worked when Zoom was down—but this time, nothing. As a backup, they decided to switch to an audio-only group call on WeChat, which Yong’s church typically avoided due to government surveillance and censorship on the app. (CT has changed all names of people in China in this article due to security concerns).
Thankfully, the group didn’t face any interruption or abrupt termination even as they mentioned sensitive religious words like Christ and eternal life. Yet the app limited the number of participants to 15 people, so some were unable to join, and the group’s worship leader was unable to share the audio of the worship songs they planned to sing.
Since that night, Yong and the small group have continued to face problems with Zoom and have no choice but to continue to use WeChat.
Other Christian ministries in China have faced similar issues using Zoom in the past three months, according to interviews CT conducted with nine Chinese church leaders and ministry workers. While the company has not made any official announcement of being kicked out of China (Zoom’s service status website states it is operational in China), users on Reddit and Zoom’s website have also complained about the outage as well. Zoom did not respond to CT’s …
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by | Nov 29, 2023 | Uncategorized
The Evangelical Theological Society has its first female president. But what about intellectual life for women in the pews?
The scandal of the evangelical mind is pink.
Or to put it less dramatically, there’s another scandal of the evangelical mind—beyond the widely recognized one, introduced by Mark Noll’s landmark book and rightly the topic of conversation for 30 years since—that has yet to receive the attention it requires. This is the scandal of the intellectual life of Christian women, and it is only becoming more acute, even alongside milestones like the election of the first female president of the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS).
After all, the conversation about women in the ETS, while significant, pertains to very few women—those in academia and, therefore, in attendance at this kind of conference. But what about the vast majority of Christian women, those whose primary calling is outside the ivory tower?
It would be easy to turn this conversation into a lament over the doors closed to talented women scholars who would have made excellent academics, had that path been open for them. We can consider Dorothy Sayers as a particularly famous example. She solved her own scandal of the evangelical mind with a brilliant intellectual career outside of academia. She also found herself in a lamentable situation where she felt forced to choose this career over motherhood.
Still, her story reminds us that at any point in world history, only the tiniest fraction of Christian women could be academics. The average woman had to figure out a different way of loving God with all her mind.
What I have not seen acknowledged sufficiently to date is this important reality: Women, whether married or not, mothers or not, face a different intellectual scandal than men. Yes, God commands all of us to love …
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by | Nov 29, 2023 | Uncategorized
CT picks 7 new holiday albums to add to your favorites.
The biggest holiday music release of the season has been Cher’s new album, Christmas, featuring guests like Stevie Wonder (whose charming rendition of “What Christmas Means to Me” deserves a place on your Christmas playlist).
But this year’s crop of new Christmas music from Christian artists offers more than covers of the old standards. There are thoughtful folk ballads, carols sung over lo-fi beats, and choral arrangements with vibrant brass accompaniment. As you celebrate, prepare, wait, and pray this season, the latest songs from musicians on this list might make apt additions to your seasonal soundtrack.
As usual, I’m having a hard time getting my family to listen to new Christmas music. My four-year-old is only interested in Relient K’s 2007 Christmas album, Let It Snow Baby … Let It Reindeer, which I don’t mind. A pop-punk arrangement of Handel’s “Hallelujah” chorus is always a spirit-lifter.
Every Christmas, Michael W. Smith
If your yearly Christmas playlist still includes tracks from Michael W. Smith’s almost-cinematic 1989 album, Christmas, you’ll be glad to know that his latest album, Every Christmas, features new music that encompasses an array of choral arrangements (“Caroling, Caroling” and “How Great Our Joy”), fully orchestrated anthems (“Here with Us,” “God with God”), and contemporary ballads (“Freeze the Frame”).
Smith has a knack for incorporating dramatic orchestral arrangements into contemporary songs, and a Christmas album is the perfect place to flex that ability. “Here with Us” begins with a brass fanfare and swelling strings that fall away as Smith sings: …
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by | Nov 29, 2023 | Uncategorized
Sick, hungry, and weary, Palestinian Christians are urged by IDF to leave the northern strip, while outside advocates debate a West Bank escape. Temporary cease-fire offers window of opportunity to decide.
Two weeks ago, two Christian women sheltering at the Catholic church in Gaza received phone calls from the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). The soldiers told them—and by extension the rest of their Christian community—to flee their places of shelter within five days. They must go south, like the rest of Gaza’s civilian population.
Today is Day 15, and a four-day temporary cease-fire has now been extended.
An IDF official told CT there was no specific directive given to Gazan Christians. Those who remain will not be targeted, but their safety cannot be guaranteed.
But despite the calm of the last six days, most are choosing to remain in the two largest churches that shelter Gaza’s roughly 1,000 Christians. Some believers briefly returned to their homes to gather supplies and warmer clothes, according to CT sources. Several found their homes destroyed.
Both Saint Porphyrius Greek Orthodox Church and Holy Family Catholic Church are located in the north end of the strip, in its capital of Gaza City.
Under original terms of the truce, 50 Israeli hostages will be traded for 150 Palestinian prisoners. Israel stated a one-day extension is possible for every additional 10 hostages released—but that it will continue its military pursuit of Hamas once the truce expires.
Despite the danger—in fact, because of it—one Christian leader in regular contact with Christians in Gaza wants them to stay put.
“The body of Christ all over the world should work hard on maintaining, providing for, protecting, and helping the Christians inside the Gaza Strip,” Nashat Falamon, director of the Palestinian Bible Society, told CT prior to the truce. “I don’t think they should be encouraged to leave, …
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by | Nov 28, 2023 | Uncategorized
The next generation values open-mindedness and is highly skeptical of religious institutions. But they haven’t given up on God.
In 2021, Springtide Research Institute put out a report on the “State of Religion and Young People.” From the data, the institute identified a trend they called “faith unbundled.”
53% of young people said, “I agree with some, but not all, of the things my religion teaches.”
55% of young people said, “I don’t feel like I need to be connected to a specific religion.”
47% of young people said, “I feel like I could fit in with many different religions.”
These figures weren’t a surprise to me. Gen Z is at once the most racially and ethnically diverse and the least religious age cohort in American history. In 2019, the polling firm Barna Group found that, among practicing Christians, millennials “report an average (median) of four close friends or family members who practice a faith other than Christianity; most of their Boomer parents and grandparents, by comparison, have just one.” I’d presume this figure is even higher among my Christians peers, as we find ourselves in community with those of other faiths and with “nones.”
Data also shows that members of Gen Z are wary of traditional religious spaces. From the Springtide report:
55% of young people said, “I don’t feel like I can be my full self in a religious congregation.”
45% of young people said, “I don’t feel safe within religious or faith institutions.”
47% of young people said, “I don’t trust religion, faith, or religious leaders in those kinds of organizations.”
Almost 50% of young people told Springtide they don’t turn to faith communities due to a lack of trust in the people, beliefs, and systems of organized religion.
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