by | Mar 7, 2024 | Uncategorized
The late prime minister welcomed our engagement at a crucial time—and changed my mind about public witness.
Brian Mulroney, prime minister of Canada from 1984 to 1993, passed away last week at age 84.
Mulroney was known as a leader capable of pushing big ideas. But he also opened doors for evangelicals in Canada to engage with the government on major issues. His encouragement was very important, coming at a time when Canadian evangelicals were wrestling with how to present a gospel witness to civil society.
One year before Mulroney became prime minister, I was invited to lead the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada (EFC), the Canadian affiliate of the World Evangelical Alliance. Prior to my arrival, the EFC had been relatively inactive. It was largely a collection of files accompanied by an occasional public meeting.
I had grown up as the son of a Pentecostal pastor on the Saskatchewan prairies. For us, politics was considered outside the orbit of Christian concern. However, two provincial premiers, both Baptists, saw things otherwise, and their actions provided fodder for earnest conversations as to what Jesus meant when he said, Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.
On one hand, Tommy Douglas, a pastor with socialist leanings who became premier of Saskatchewan, introduced the first universal health care system in North America. Meanwhile, in the neighboring province of Alberta, E. C. Manning was a free-enterprise capitalist who also preached every Sunday on the radio.
Despite their influence, our church had no interest in public engagement, apart from bringing people to Christ and preparing them for eternity.
However, as the EFC president, I perceived that the evangelical community could not stay out of issues boiling within our political spheres. Abortion was becoming a major topic of debate, one that …
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by | Mar 7, 2024 | Uncategorized
Without offering details on the nature of the Justice Department inquiry, the denomination’s administrative entity says it’s “grateful” that “no further action” will be taken around its response to abuse.
An 18-month-long federal investigation into the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) Executive Committee has concluded without any charges or action against it, the Executive Committee said on Wednesday.
The country’s largest Protestant denomination has been the subject of a Justice Department probe following a 2022 report that showed SBC leaders refused to respond to allegations of abuse due to legal liability and failed to enact policies to protect its members from predatory pastors.
The Executive Committee—with staff at its Nashville headquarters and dozens of elected trustees from across the country—oversees everyday business for the SBC. The entity said it was informed last Thursday that its part of the investigation had concluded “with no further action to be taken.”
A spokesperson for the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York declined to confirm or comment on the status of the inquiry when contacted by CT.
The Justice Department has not publicly acknowledged or commented on the SBC investigation since it began. Federal grand jury subpoenas and proceedings—for better or worse—are shrouded in secrecy. To protect the accused and the integrity of the investigation, the government often doesn’t disclose who had been involved.
According to the Executive Committee, the investigation was expected to look into multiple entities. Presidents of each of its seminaries and agencies had signed a letter in 2022 agreeing to participate and saying, “Our commitment to cooperating with the Department of Justice is born from our demonstrated commitment to transparently address the scourge of sexual abuse.”
Jonathan Howe, the interim president of the Executive …
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by | Mar 6, 2024 | Uncategorized
Focused on the evangelical school’s handling of sexual violence, the federal penalty is by far the largest in the Department of Education’s history.
The US Department of Education (DOE) announced on Tuesday that it has fined Liberty University $14 million for its failures to report campus crimes and its treatment of sexual assault survivors. The culmination of a long-running federal investigation, it is by far the largest fine for such a campus safety violation, according to the department.
Liberty is the largest evangelical college in the country, with the school reporting in 2022 about 16,000 students on campus and 130,000 students enrolled overall. The school has $4 billion in assets. It is among the colleges awarded the most federal aid in the country, with students receiving $772 million in 2017 according to ProPublica.
Colleges receiving federal aid are required by the Clery Act to report crime statistics and campus threats. After a complaint in 2021, the DOE reviewed Liberty’s handling of campus safety from 2017 to 2023.
The federal government found the failures at Liberty centered on its handling of sexual crimes. The department’s final review concluded that Liberty had failed in 11 areas, from timely responses to sexual violence to reporting crimes either to the department or the wider community.
“Students, faculty, and staff deserve to know that they can be safe and secure in their school communities. We respond aggressively to complaints about campus safety and security,” said Richard Cordray, who oversees federal student aid for the DOE, in a statement.
In response, Liberty acknowledged that “there were numerous deficiencies that existed in the past. We acknowledge and regret these past failures and have taken these necessary improvements seriously.” It did not name sexual assault survivors in its statement, as the federal report …
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by | Mar 6, 2024 | Uncategorized
Evangelical voters’ focus on policy over character came much earlier than you think.
The stakes in the presidential election could not have been higher.
The American economy was stagnant. Several years of the worst inflation in decades made each trip to the grocery store a painful experience. Federal spending was out of control. Drug use was on the rise. The country was in a tense standoff with both Iran and Russia, with no resolution to either conflict in sight.
But Christians were especially worried about the nation’s morals. Abortion and divorce rates were on the rise. Views of sexuality and gender were changing rapidly, and pornography use was rampant.
The incumbent president was no help. The White House was occupied by a churchgoing Democrat who was seen by many politically conservative evangelicals as weak and ineffective. He was more influenced, they thought, by secular liberals in his administration than by anyone with a biblical worldview. He wouldn’t stand up to forces of evil in the world, evangelicals decided. In fact, he was letting secular humanists persecute American churches and jeopardize Christians’ First Amendment rights.
It was time to stand up for freedom. It was time to stand up for God. And it was time to “make America great again,” in the words of the campaign slogan of the Republican candidate most of them came to support.
This Republican challenger also professed Christianity. But he went to church a lot less than the Democratic incumbent, and he’d been divorced. He “was not the best Christian who ever walked the face of the earth,” one of his supporters conceded, “but we really didn’t have a choice.” When it came to choosing candidates, evangelical Christians had once cared about character first and foremost, but now …
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by | Mar 6, 2024 | Uncategorized
As a Bible professor in an evangelical institution, I feel the tension of teaching truths that might offend.
When I began my studies at Wesley Theological Seminary, several upperclassmen warned me about taking courses offered by George Wesley Buchanan, a no-nonsense professor who demanded excellence from his students and graded them accordingly. One faculty member derisively charged Buchanan with interpreting Scripture according to Judaism rather than Christianity. Since I was young, impressionable, and desired to succeed in my first year of studies, I avoided Dr. B. like the plague.
Forty-five years later, I stumbled upon George Buchanan’s autobiography, which recounts his difficult years at Wesley and how his colleagues often misunderstood his research and, at times, maligned him. His book is titled An Academic Hound Dog Off the Leash, and Buchanan—now in his 90s—wanted to set the record straight before heading off to glory.
His memoir captured my imagination, and I eventually came to respect the man I once shunned. I discovered Buchanan earned a reputation in wider academic circles as a first-rate scholar, especially among elected members of the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas, a prestigious biblical society whose past presidents included venerated figures like C. H. Dodd, Rudolf Bultmann, Joachim Jeremias, C. K. Barrett, Oscar Cullmann, and John Barclay.
Using metaphorical language, Buchanan likened his fellow faculty members to “collie dogs” who spent their time keeping the sheep within the fold and rounding them up whenever they strayed. Their main job was to protect the theological borders of their institutional pasture. By comparison, Buchanan identified himself as a “hound dog” who followed the scent of biblical truth wherever its trail might lead.
After reading Buchanan’s …
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