by | May 23, 2024 | Uncategorized
Believers in the diaspora reference Daniel and the “writing on the wall” as many mull if helicopter accident portends more changes to come.
Iranian Christians in the diaspora shed few tears over the death of President Ebrahim Raisi, killed in a helicopter crash along with the foreign minister and six others in the northwest mountains of Iran.
The leadership vacuum will be filled within 50 days by a new election. But it comes at a tumultuous time for the Islamic Republic, which last month launched an unprecedented missile attack against Israel. Coming in the context of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, Iran’s other proxies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen have harassed the Jewish state and its Western allies.
Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei declared five days of mourning, assuring there would be no change in the nation’s direction.
Raisi’s term in office was beset by internal protests over religious repression, alongside discontent with an inflationary economy. But while he oversaw restoration of diplomatic ties with rival Saudi Arabia, relations with the West severely deteriorated due to strengthening ties with Russia and China, as Iran enriched its uranium supply in suspected pursuit of a nuclear weapon.
“Countless thousands of Christians are specifically praying for God’s will in Iran,” said Lana Silk, CEO of Transform Iran, which oversees a network of churches in the nation. “I believe his hand is on all these key events.”
She advised the Western church to pray for new God-fearing leadership.
Of the now deceased leader, Christians expressed a diverse emotional response.
“From all of my contacts, the reaction among educated and socially engaged Iranians is joy,” said Shirin Taber, executive director of Empower Women Media, dedicated to the promotion of international religious freedom. “With the …
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by | May 23, 2024 | Uncategorized
On praying past the end of silver linings to a God who often does not answer as I hope.
Around the bonfire at church camp on the Oregon coast, we sang “River of Life” to get warmed up, and then, to mellow the mood for the gospel presentation, “Seek Ye First.” A haunting descant rose over the melody, swelling my 12-year-old heart with grateful longing. I walked forward to accept Jesus into my heart, and a counselor prayed for me, shadows from the flames flickering across our faces.
Back home again, I needed to learn how to pray. I thought it was weird for the Lord to expect me, gangly and grappling with my fleshly nature, to carry on what felt like a nonreciprocal relationship with an invisible, inscrutable, and ineffable God—but I was willing to give it a shot.
Only I couldn’t tell if I was doing it right. “God is not a vending machine,” our youth minister told us. “You have to pray according to his will.” So I began by asking for help in various areas of self-improvement: I should be nice to my brother. I should have a cheerful attitude when vacuuming with the heavy canister Electrolux and not slam my bedroom door when I got mad. I needed to avoid Judy Blume books that celebrated masturbation and stop sneaking the M&Ms my mom hid in the freezer. God, please help me to be better.
My self-examination concluded, I tendered other requests, like to make the premier soccer team and for a boy to return a crush. When those things didn’t happen, I swallowed a slight doubt. Perhaps James 4:3 was at play here: “When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.” Maybe I had bad motives.
Much else went unasked because I didn’t know how to say …
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by | May 23, 2024 | Uncategorized
The Netflix adaptation of an acclaimed Chinese sci-fi series is anxious about time. Christians don’t have to be.
Time is running out in Netflix’s 3 Body Problem.
An alien race, the San-Ti, announces that they will arrive on Earth in 400 years. Before they get here, they intend to “kill” science, preventing humanity from developing the technology to wipe them out.
This otherworldly threat precipitates most of the action in the eight-episode TV series, adapted from Chinese author Liu Cixin’s popular book trilogy, Remembrance of Earth’s Past . The show focuses on a group of Oxford scientists who try valiantly to thwart the San-Ti’s devious plan. That includes theoretical physicist Jin Cheng (Jess Hong), who comes up with an outlandish scheme to intercept the San-Ti fleet using the principles of nuclear thermal propulsion.
The characters in 3 Body Problem are desperate to save themselves from impending doom through intellectual innovation and technological prowess. Their frantic race to save humanity brings a common question to the fore: What are we doing with the time we have left?
Our relationship with time is fraught. Time imposes demands and restrictions. Every day, there are deadlines to meet, deals to acquire, and dinners to cook. There isn’t “enough” time to pursue hobbies or dreams.
Compounding these pressures is our culture’s obsession with turning back the clock. Creams and serums tout the erasure of wrinkles and age spots in three to six months. Researchers study ways to extend our life span; some are even striving to reduce one’s biological age.
As we seek to slow time down, we bemoan the speed at which it passes. Vacations feel far too short. Children grow up too fast. Our loved ones pass away sooner than we expect. We turn to “slow living” in the hopes …
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by | May 23, 2024 | Uncategorized
Rebecca McLaughlin takes care to filter their legitimate claims from their flawed assumptions.
Maybe you believe that the Bible opposes same-sex sexual relationships. Where in the Bible would you begin to explain your view? Maybe you doubt that the Bible opposes same-sex sexual relationships. Where in the Bible would you begin to build an argument for affirmation? Or maybe you are unsure whether the Bible affirms or opposes same-sex sexual relationships. Where in the Bible would you begin to inquire about the matter?
Whichever position you might find yourself in, Rebecca McLaughlin’s new book will point you to precisely the place in the Bible where you should begin—with the gospel and Jesus. More about that in a bit.
The book, Does the Bible Affirm Same-Sex Sexual Relationships? Examining 10 Claims about Scripture and Sexuality, brings together two recent trends of books by evangelical writers.
One trend is believers who experience same-sex sexual attraction, or self-identify as “gay,” writing first-person accounts about their journeys of faith and sexuality. This trend includes: Wesley Hill’s Washed and Waiting (2010); Christopher Yuan’s Out of a Far Country (2011); Rosaria Butterfield’s The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert (2012); Gregory Coles’s Single, Gay, Christian (2017); Jackie Hill Perry’s Gay Girl, Good God (2018); David Bennett’s A War of Loves (2018); and Rachel Gilson’s Born Again This Way (2020).
These writers, each in their own style, recount their calling to be followers of Jesus and consider how to live and love faithfully and fruitfully according to the gospel. Together, they set forth a spiritual vision of holiness and righteousness that is relevant for every believer and the whole church.
Another trend is scholars and pastors writing …
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by | May 22, 2024 | Uncategorized
His reporting was marked by a cheerful determination to uncover truth, which friends and coworkers attributed to his faith.
Marshall Allen, an investigative journalist who insisted that uncovering truth was fundamental to Christian faith, died on May 19. The 52-year-old suffered a heart attack a few days earlier, according to his former employer ProPublica, one of the world’s leading investigative journalism organizations.
Allen’s unflinching reporting on the US health care industry brought relief to patients and some changes to how hospitals and insurers operate. He said the industry “exploits people’s sickness for profit”—but showing that took intense determination and extended investigations.
For one reporting project on poor hospital care in 2011, he interviewed 250 doctors, nurses, hospital administrators, and patients. The resulting series in the Las Vegas Sun was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and the Nevada legislature introduced new requirements for hospitals as a result.
In another investigation, Allen reported that Dignity Health, a large religious health system that described itself as carrying on “the healing ministry of Jesus,” had refused to cover the medical expenses of an employee’s three-month-premature baby. Dignity claimed the woman hadn’t filled out the necessary paperwork and that she bore sole responsibility for a nearly $1 million hospital bill, though she had enrolled her baby with the insurer from the NICU.
After Allen called the company with questions, Dignity reversed its decision and retroactively covered the baby, who survived.
“Some people might think that Christians are supposed to be soft and acquiescent rather than muckrakers who hold the powerful to account,” he wrote in The New York Times. “But what I do as an investigative reporter …
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