by | Feb 26, 2024 | Uncategorized
Religious tourism initiative at ancient city recalls Moab, Byzantium, and Arab tribal Christianity, amid speculation on Paul’s possible first missionary journey.
Imagine yourself as Indiana Jones, traversing the narrow, nearly mile-long Siq gorge, with mountain cliffs towering on either side. Turning a corner then reveals the vast expanse of the ancient city of Petra and its majestic Treasury, the first-century rock-carved tomb of an ancient Nabatean king. You pass by the 121-foot-tall structure and its statues of Roman and Egyptian gods, making your way up a steep 800-step ascent to the equally impressive Monastery.
But before reaching Petra’s largest monument, you turn off the path into a different sort of ruin, mosaics lining the floor around half-sized recycled columns as incense wafts through the air. But unlike in the Harrison Ford movie, you do not meet an 11th-century knight preserved by the Holy Grail. Instead, the Greek Orthodox metropolitan of Jordan passes you a cup of Holy Communion.
In January, he offered the first Christian prayers in Petra in 1,400 years.
Other generations of film aficionados may prefer The Mummy Returns, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, or even Mortal Kombat: Annihilation. While onsite Hollywood productions provide revenue for Jordan, this is dwarfed by the $5.3 billion the country earns from its tourism industry. In 2022, Petra received 900,000 visitors, nearly one-quarter of the national total.
But now, the Hashemite kingdom is adding a religious component.
“It is a great blessing to be in this holy place in Petra,” said Archbishop Christoforus, before proceeding to offer the bread and wine. “We are not thinking of what surrounds us in stone, but of the saints and spiritual identity in its heritage, history, and civilization—and our great and blessed [Jordanian] homeland.”
In 2021, Jordan launched a five-year national …
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by | Feb 26, 2024 | Uncategorized
Mountain Gateway became the latest Christian ministry to run afoul of the Ortega regime.
When Hurricanes Hilary and Idalia flooded Nicaragua’s coast last August and September, evangelical ministries in the country stepped up and served.
President Daniel Ortega and his wife, vice president Rosario Murillo, had expelled the Red Cross from their country last July after the organization had criticized the country for its inhuman treatment of prisoners. The departure had left a gap in humanitarian aid for the country.
One of these Christians organizations that came through was Mountain Gateway. The American missions and development agency was one of many that helped organize a major event that started out by providing emergency aid like food, clothing, and medicines, and continued as a major evangelistic campaign where thousands heard the proclamation of the gospel.
The event, called Buenas Nuevas Nicaragua (Good News Nicaragua), united more than 1,300 evangelical churches from 13 of Nicaragua’s 15 departments in a massive two-day evangelistic event in the capital, Managua, last November. Local news estimated that up to 300,000 people attended the gathering, and despite ongoing tensions between the Ortega administration and churches, a pro-government publication even highlighted the event.
But the gathering’s success in sharing spiritual encouragement and provisions ultimately had little effect on softening the government’s latest crusade against Christian ministries.
Since 2018, the Ortega administration has imprisoned and exiled Catholic priests who have criticized the regime. But as the population of Nicaraguan evangelicals has grown, so has persecution of the evangelical church. A report recently published by Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) registered 310 severe violations of freedom of …
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by | Feb 23, 2024 | Uncategorized
After pop star’s surprise witness ends with a bang, evangelical leaders discuss whether to axe apocalypse talk as ineffective evangelism.
When two Brazilian pop stars began chatting on live TV two weeks ago, few likely thought their conversation would start a debate about the end times.
On February 11, in the midst of Carnival, Baby do Brasil joined fellow veteran Ivete Sangalo in a trio elétrico, a truck equipped with a powerful sound system that drives through the streets as partygoers follow. The two greeted each other in Salvador, a city of nearly three million in northeastern Brazil, and quickly exchanged compliments about their careers.
Then Baby do Brasil took the mic.
“Everyone, pay attention, because we have entered the apocalypse,” she said. “The Rapture is expected to happen in the next five to ten years. Seek the Lord while you can find him.”
Sangalo, who seemingly had not anticipated her cohost venturing into eschatology, made a crude joke.
“I won’t let it happen because we will bang the apocalypse,” she said, referencing her new song “Macetando,” which roughly translates to “smashing” or “banging.”
Baby do Brasil followed up by asking Sangalo to sing “Minha Pequena Eva,” her hit from the ’90s, which tells of a couple isolated in a spaceship when an atomic war takes place on Earth.
“I’m going to sing ‘Macetando’ because God is telling me to,” Sangalo replied.
As Baby do Basil shouted, “Oh, glory,” Sangalo began to sing.
The awkward exchange soon went viral, generating plentiful commentary, numerous memes, and one TV show anchor even signing off, “Let’s be happy before the apocalypse.” Scorned by many Brazilians (one tweet described the exchange as “clowneries of a believer”), the …
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by | Feb 23, 2024 | Uncategorized
Despite some tension within churches over the candidates, evangelicals mostly side with the former president’s track record over their former governor Nikki Haley.
In the lead-up to South Carolina’s primary contest on Saturday, former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley held a news conference to tell supporters that she’s “not going anywhere” and is committed to offering voters an alternative to former president Donald Trump.
Meanwhile, her presidential rival—who has a 2–1 lead in her home state—spoke at an evangelical conference in Nashville, touting his record on issues important to conservative Christians during his first term and pledging to continue in his second term.
Trump pledged to 1,500 attendees at the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) convention that despite threats from the Left, “no one will be touching the cross of Christ under the Trump administration, I swear to you.”
“Christian voters had a good relationship with Nikki and they liked Nikki, but they do love Trump,” said Chad Connelly, who was at the NRB gathering.
The South Carolina native and former two-term chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party is the founder of the conservative Christian organization Faith Wins, which involves 16,000 pastors in evangelical voter registration.
Connelly said the thing he hears most from faith leaders is that Trump “did what he said he was going to do … that’s a rare politician. That’s the number one comment.”
Specific policies come up more than others: Trump’s releasing a list of potential Supreme Court nominees in 2016 and then nominating three conservative judges to the court, as well as his move of the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.
But more than any particular list of issues motivating this election, multiple sources described a deep sense of personal loyalty that …
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by | Feb 23, 2024 | Uncategorized
Christ’s resplendence in the Transfiguration says more than we think.
Jesus Christ is arguably the most famous man who ever lived. His image is everywhere. But what did the God-Man from Nazareth actually look like?
We often imagine a particular “look” based on artistic renderings we’ve seen, but many of these designs are influenced by the artist’s culture. And while we may be able to assume certain visual traits based on the time and culture in which Jesus lived, there is little explicit evidence for these assumptions. In fact, the Bible tells us very little about Jesus’ appearance at all.
Other than Isaiah’s remark that he “had no beauty or majesty” (Is. 53:2), the Scriptures never tell us how tall Jesus was, what kind of hair he had, his body type, the color of his eyes, what sort of clothes he wore, or even the color of his skin.
It’s somewhat unexpected for the Bible not to comment on Jesus’ physicality, since back then a person’s physical looks often corresponded to their character traits. Ancient authors might note aspects of their main character’s appearance to highlight or foreshadow something about them.
For example, the Old Testament tells us King Saul was “as handsome a young man as could be found anywhere in Israel, and he was a head taller than anyone else” (1 Sam. 9:2) and King David was “glowing with health and had a fine appearance and handsome features” (1 Sam. 16:12). Each of these descriptions signaled their heroic and kingly appeal to the people of Israel.
The New Testament narrative only focuses on Jesus’ appearance in the Transfiguration (see parallel accounts in Matt. 17:1–8; Mark 9:2–8; Luke 9:28–36; 2 Pet. 1:16–20). And although there is much we …
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