by | Mar 18, 2024 | Uncategorized
A Christian reconciliation group in Israel and Palestine warned that war would come. Now the war threatens their relevance.
Just before sunrise on October 7, 2023, Salim Munayer’s wife, Kay, shook him awake at their apartment in Jerusalem. His cellphone was popping with alerts.
“WhatsApp is going crazy,” she said.
Munayer reached for his phone. His extended family was anxiously reporting hearing air raid sirens, not uncommon in Israel and often short-lived. But this time, the alarms kept blaring.
It didn’t take long to learn what had happened: Hamas militants from Gaza were launching thousands of rockets into Israel. On the ground, they had breached the border and were massacring hundreds of civilians. Munayer had awoken to the bloodiest terrorist attack in his country’s history.
He leapt from bed and ran to rouse his sons.
Daniel Munayer, Salim’s second oldest, remembers his father storming into his room and shouting, “Daniel, it’s happening,” adding, “It’s war.”
Daniel clutched his head. “Oh, Lord have mercy. Lord have mercy.”
Salim, 68, is the founder of Musalaha, a faith-based peacebuilding organization that works to restore relationships between Israelis and Palestinians using what it says are biblical principles of reconciliation. Daniel, 32, is the executive director.
Founded in 1990, Musalaha is the oldest and most well-known Christian peacemaking organization in Israel and Palestine. Its name means “reconciliation” in Arabic, and for more than three decades its faith-based approach has set it apart from secular peacebuilding groups.
Neither of the Munayers was shocked that Hamas attacked Israel, though they never foresaw the sophistication and brutality of a rampage that murdered about 1,200 Israelis or the devastation of Israel’s military response …
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by | Mar 18, 2024 | Uncategorized
I want to continue to call myself a complementarian. But we need to reclaim the term.
Is there a future for complementarianism? I don’t mean whether the God-ordained concept of complementarity between men and women will itself continue to exist—those of us who hold to the principle of equality and distinction between men and women understand it to be grounded in Scripture itself. Rather, I’m speaking of complementarianism as a specific movement, a coherent framing of some of those biblical convictions.
I’d very much like to be able to continue describing myself as complementarian by conviction, believing that Scripture prescribes particular roles for men and women in the church and in the home. But in recent years, the increasing cancellation, co-option, and cannibalization of complementarianism as a term has led me to question whether I will continue to use it to describe my beliefs.
Since the word complementarianism was first used in the late 1980s to describe or frame the theological beliefs I hold, the concept has been subject to much critique. Now as Christians, we should not fear inquiry but embrace healthy and respectful criticism. It compels us to interrogate our thinking, identify our unspoken assumptions, and grow in our understanding and knowledge of God.
But cancellation is different. Cancellation doesn’t simply say, I think you are wrong, and here’s why. It says, You don’t deserve to exist. There is no place for you here. And unfortunately, an increasing number of opponents of complementarianism are choosing to leapfrog over critique to land on cancellation. Indeed, many newer and younger commentators now typically condemn all expressions of complementarianism—in every time and in every place—as being inherently abusive and intolerable.
I share …
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by | Mar 18, 2024 | Uncategorized
When I married into a Jewish family, antisemitism hit home. Now, the holy day reminds me of our future hope.
On October 7, 2023, my mother-in-law called.
“Have you seen the news?” she asked urgently. “Terrorists have attacked Israel. Where are the kids? Are they at home with you? Can you keep them home from school this week?”
She knows antisemitism all too well. Her husband is a Jew who traces his lineage back to the tribe of Levi. His ancestors immigrated to America from Poland and Russia in the early 1900s. They maintained their heritage and ancient faith through centuries of opposition, faithfully attending synagogue, reading from the Torah, and celebrating holidays such as Passover. They broke bread and drank wine in remembrance of when God rescued their people out of slavery in Egypt.
Today, my father-in-law is a Christian. As we break the matzoh, we remember Jesus, whose body was broken for us. As we drink the wine, we remember his blood poured out for the salvation of many. This meal, while it reminds us of our Savior who freed us from slavery to sin, is also a promise of what is to come. For the generations who have suffered, this meal is a reminder of God’s redemption. It gives us hope.
Though he rarely talks about it, my father-in-law has told us stories about his childhood growing up in Miami. His family went to synagogue every Saturday, and he and his Jewish friends attended Hebrew school five days a week. His father owned a grocery store in the 1950s and ’60s, working sunup to sundown every day except the Sabbath. He supported his family in a community where Jewish, Black, and Hispanic people were often unwelcome.
“I remember going to the beach and seeing signs on the bathroom doors that read, ‘No dogs or Jews allowed,’” my father-in-law told me. “I remember …
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by | Mar 18, 2024 | Uncategorized
Only on our best days do we get a glimpse of the joyful labor to come.
There’s an old saying regarding work: “Find something you love to do, and you’ll never work a day in your life.”
It’s a nice idea—albeit a tall order to achieve. Some jobs are harder to love than others, and even the most meaningful work can exhaust or frustrate us. Our relationships with work can be complicated; even the most diligent among us succumb to quitting fantasies from time to time.
And often, the demands of life mean we can’t devote ourselves to finding work we love to do. We simply have to do the work necessary. Stacks of bills don’t care about our job satisfaction or our inherent gifts. That weird pink mold growing in the shower doesn’t take vacations. A good few of us are doing jobs we don’t love to do, and we may very well be doing them until the Lord returns.
Most of us picture endless years of vacation in the New Jerusalem. In the ongoing debate over whether the best vacations happen in the mountains or at the beach, the oceanless description of the new heavens and earth has threatened more than one saint’s concept of eternal bliss. But no matter the landscape, few think of the hereafter as a place of work.
For many, heaven is the ultimate quitting fantasy. After all, it’s the eternal Sabbath where we cease our labors, right? Well, yes and no.
Revelation 14:13 does promise that the saints will “rest from their labor.” But in Revelation, that word labor means “toil,” as in the travail of persecution the saints will face in this life.
In Isaiah 65, God speaks of work occurring in the new creation:
[My people] will build houses and dwell in them; they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit. … My chosen ones will …
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by | Mar 18, 2024 | Uncategorized
How groups like Hillsong learned to let go of the literal in favor of creative collaboration.
The refrain “He is for you” doesn’t translate neatly into Spanish. In the English version of Elevation Worship’s song “The Blessing,” the phrase repeats and builds with each repetition. But in Spanish, the line is “Él te ama” or “He loves you.”
“I’m glad the translators did that,” said musician and translator Sergio Villanueva, who pastors a Hispanic congregation at Wheaton Bible Church in Illinois. “To convey that idea in Spanish—‘He is for you’—you would have to use a lot more words. Spanish is a beautiful language, but we use more words and longer words.”
The translation choice in “The Blessing” (“La Bendición”) reflects a growing interest among English-speaking worship artists in producing thoughtful, singable, and culturally informed translations of their music.
Often, artists are intent on using translations that are as close to word-for-word as possible. But as influential songwriters and megachurches expand their reach, teams of translators are helping produce new versions of popular worship songs that are faithful to the originals without trying to replicate wording that isn’t as accessible or evocative in another language.
“You have to honor the intention of the original songwriter, even if that means changing exactly what the words are saying,” said Villanueva, who has translated for Keith and Kristyn Getty, Sovereign Grace Music, and Kari Jobe.
The international distribution and transl ation of English-language worship music has accelerated over the past four decades, but not consistently.
In the 1980s and early ’90s, Integrity Music began releasing …
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