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 15, 2024 | Uncategorized
A new study finds white evangelicals are most eager to see their faith reflected more in the government, but very few say they support Christian nationalism.
In a country where 80 percent of adults believe religion’s influence is in decline, white evangelicals stand out as the group most likely to want to see their faith reflected in the US government.
According to a new survey from the Pew Research Center, most white evangelicals want a president who reflects their religious beliefs, believe the Bible should have some influence on US laws, and see the retreat of religion as a bad thing.
Yet they oppose adopting Christianity as an official religion and very few (8%) have a “favorable” view of Christian nationalism.
Overall, nearly half of adults see the decline of religious influence in the country as a bad thing. White evangelicals are the most likely to see the trend negatively, at 76 percent. The majority of other Christians across traditions agree.
Most Americans want to see someone in the White House who stands up for their religious beliefs. Though few see either candidate in the 2024 race as particularly religious, more than two-thirds of white evangelicals believe Donald Trump comes to their defense.
Despite the increasing buzz around Christian nationalism from candidates on the stump or on social media, Pew found that most Americans (54%)—and most Christians—have not heard of the term at all.
“Even those who think the United States should be a Christian nation and the Bible should have a great deal of influence on the law, most of them are reluctant to say that they have a favorable view of Christian nationalism. So there seems to be some negative stigma with the term,” Michael Rotolo, lead author of the report, said.
While a plurality of Americans (44%) believe the government should promote Christian moral values, …
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by | Mar 15, 2024 | Uncategorized
An oft-forgotten mummy in Scripture teaches us how idolatry deadens, but Jesus awakens.
This piece was adapted from Russell Moore’s newsletter. Subscribe here.
Over the past several weeks, I was away with a Christianity Today group, teaching through Exodus up and down the Nile River in Egypt. Along the way, I found myself in lots of temples and tombs—many of them filled with the embalmed corpses of ancient Egyptian kings and queens.
As I was there, though, I couldn’t help but think about the American church. With all the talk—some legitimate, some not—of an “exodus” away from religion, I wonder if we’ve lost the point. Maybe the American church isn’t dead. Maybe it’s not even dying. Maybe the predicament is worse than that. Maybe the American church is mummified.
Mummies are more than just a way of disposing of bodies; they represent a specifically ancient Egyptian vision of life and death. Mummification, after all, isn’t easy. Only a society as technologically advanced as ancient Egypt could accomplish embalming bodies in a way that could preserve them for thousands of years. Mummification reflects a certain stability of the powers-that-be. Pharaohs and governors, and those they choose to be with them, are those who are mummified—an assumption that in the life to come, power is defined just as power is now; the first will be first and the last will be last. Denial, as they say, is sometimes just a river in Egypt.
Christians often forget the most famous mummy in Scripture—the way the Book of Genesis ends. Joseph, the hated younger brother of the sons of Israel, was, of course, sold into slavery, reported to be dead, and then rose to power in Egypt. He was so thoroughly acclimated into the Egyptian way that his own brothers did not recognize …
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by | Mar 15, 2024 | Uncategorized
I needed female heroes, and I found them in ancient churches.
I grew up believing women could do it all. In rural South Dakota, I was surrounded by farm women, who are some of the toughest, most resilient people I have ever met. My mom could bake delicious chicken and also slaughter them.
South Dakota also frequently leads the nation in the percentage of women and mothers who work outside the home. So as a young girl, I never doubted that women could do whatever they wanted, that they were as equally capable as men. I could become president. I could be an astronaut. I could do whatever I set my mind on doing.
But as I prepared to do so, I discovered a gap between what I had always been told and what I now saw—and that gap was distinctly female-shaped. Despite the many women visible in the workforce in South Dakota, women felt largely invisible when it came to the work of theology. My home church had never had a female preacher. During seminary, I had one female professor. In my doctoral studies, I had two, but none in my religion classes.
I was confident that Scripture supported women in teaching and leading the church: Women were the first to proclaim the gospel (Luke 24:5–12), and Paul names women like Junia and Phoebe, who acted as apostles and deacons (Rom. 16:1, 7). But compared to the pages and pages dedicated to Peter and Paul, Augustine and Aquinas, Calvin and Luther, women often felt like names merely mentioned in the margins.
I wanted more than names. I wanted to see women leading. I wanted to see women teaching. I wanted to see their faces and hear their stories. I wanted exemplars I could imitate: women who, with Paul, could say, “Imitate me, just as I imitate Christ” (1 Cor. 11:1, NLT).
I wanted heroes.
Eventually, on a trip to Italy, I found them. It …
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by | Mar 14, 2024 | Uncategorized
Anna Broadway’s survey of global singleness challenges a marriage status hierarchy within the church.
For evangelical Christians, conversations about singleness tend to be predictable. Whether it’s a sermon, a panel discussion, or a conference message, discussions are usually relegated to the topic of how this season can be escaped through dating or marriage. Singleness is often presented as a means to an end but rarely as a valuable end in itself.
Over time, this mindset has cultivated a shallow theology of singleness within the church. Our disproportionate focus on escape routes from singleness leaves us unable to convincingly portray the beauty of this season or provide a substantive balm for the difficulties it brings. Furthermore, we struggle to highlight and celebrate all that a single, celibate, and often childless life can teach us about the Christian journey.
In part, this is because our reading of Scripture has led us to elevate our call to physical fruitfulness over our baptismal identity. We have created a hierarchical relationship between marriage and singleness, with marriage holding the place of greater spiritual maturity and singleness the lesser. Married men and women often serve as the source of Christian wisdom for singles, but the single season is seldom lifted up as a source of wisdom for those who are married. This marriage status hierarchy shows up in singles’ conferences, which frequently feature married speakers, while conferences on marriage hardly ever include single speakers.
To effectively minister to a growing population of singles both young and old, we need to learn from those who have spent time thinking deeply about their experience with singleness. We need a conversation that centers their voices and provides a vision for how singleness is not merely a pathway to a better life …
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