by | Jun 6, 2024 | Uncategorized
As the SBC debates restrictions around titles and roles, female leaders continue their work in women’s ministry in their local churches.
When women’s ministry began dominating her schedule, taking too much time from her responsibilities at work and at home, Jacqueline Heider submitted a letter of resignation.
Her pastor responded by offering her a paid position.
That was 18 years ago. Since then, Heider has led women’s ministry at Warren Baptist Church. She serves on the lead team, working alongside fellow ministry heads at the church, which spans four locations in the Augusta, Georgia, area.
Heider developed Bible studies and discipleship programs. She launched a special needs ministry, carrying over what she learned from caring for her own daughter with special needs. She became the executive director of the church’s crisis pregnancy center.
There was a time when Heider considered whether the title of “minister to women” would be a better fit than “director,” but she realized that it wouldn’t really change anything. She was getting to do the work she loved, with the support she needed, and that’s what mattered to her.
“I’m not saying it’s not valid and I don’t think it’s necessary. … It’s just not ever been a hill that I want to die on,” said Heider. “If you start getting concerned about your title and what you can’t do, it takes away from the work you are called to do.”
Women’s ministry titles have been the most talked-about issue going into next week’s Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) annual meeting, when around 11,000 messengers will vote on whether to amend their constitution to state that only men can serve as “any kind of pastor.”
Supporters see the change as a necessary stance for biblical roles for men and women …
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by | Jun 6, 2024 | Uncategorized
Thomism is experiencing a renaissance in theology, but there’s a reason it’s controversial.
To engage with the medieval Italian priest Thomas Aquinas (1224–74) is to approach one of history’s greatest theological giants. Aquinas is second only to Augustine in his influence on Western Christianity—and his legacy of Thomism is a vast ocean. Academic discussions in theology and philosophy demand Aquinas and Thomism as conversation partners.
Yet evangelicals, in particular, have had an unresolved relationship with Aquinas over the years. The pendulum of 20th-century evangelical scholarship on Aquinas has swung between strongly negative appraisals (from Francis Schaeffer and Cornelius Van Til, for example) and, since the 1980s, more appreciative receptions (such as from Norman Geisler and Arvin Vos). Yet in the last decade or so, there has been a Thomist renaissance within evangelical circles.
Evangelical apologists were first attracted to his epistemology, especially his defense of an evidentialist view of the relationship between faith and reason, which assumes that reason can ascertain the existence of God. Evangelical theologians then began retrieving his “classical” doctrine of God’s oneness in the face of modern Christological and Trinitarian trends, which they perceived as slippery slopes to unorthodox views—which promote a social trinity and a hierarchical subordination of Jesus to the Father, for instance.
In the face of pressures from secularization and the identity crisis felt in some evangelical quarters, Aquinas can be perceived as a bulwark of a “traditional” theology that needs to be urgently recovered—and is thus in danger of being idealized in an uncritically positive retrieval.
Previous generations of Protestant scholars …
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by | Jun 6, 2024 | Uncategorized
Christians are the victims of hate in some places and the targets of hate speech laws in others. How can believers advocate for nations to address both threats in a consistent, principled way?
Hate speech is a thorny problem in many countries of the world. Nations such as Pakistan and Sri Lanka, for example, regularly demonstrate how it can be used to incite violence against Christian minorities. But even Western nations that highly value freedom of expression have experienced demonstrations on college campuses that have turned into physical attacks.
Furthermore, evangelicals have expressed grave concern about the misuse of hate speech laws to censor and punish reasonable expression of traditional Christian beliefs. Trials in Finland and proposed legislation in Canada, for example, threaten to criminalize the view that homosexuality is contrary to the will of God, even when limited to quoting Scripture.
Attacks against Christians vary in different parts of the world, and to protect against all of them requires a carefully nuanced, principled argument. Fortunately, United Nations documents provide good guidance. Unfortunately, many politicians find it easier to score points with heavy-handed national legislation.
What is hate speech?
Article 20 in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), first proposed in 1966 and ratified by 173 nations, prohibits “any advocacy of national, racial, or religious hatred” that involves “incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence.” But in a careful attempt to balance Article 20 with freedom of speech, the 2012 Rabat Plan of Action permits restrictions on an exceptional basis and only when “narrowly defined” by law.
Taken together, it is clear that hate speech pertains to intense emotions of detestation or vilification, which create an imminent risk for persons belonging to these targeted groups. It does not, however, …
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by | Jun 5, 2024 | Uncategorized
While reporting from conflict zones in Africa and the Middle East, Adriana Carranca met evangelical missionaries sent from surprising places.
In a 2007 article, CT described British church historian Andrew Walls (1928–2021) as “the most important person you don’t know.” Among his greatest achievements was helping turn the attention of Western scholars to the remarkable growth of Christianity in the Global South. Walls’s work on what he then called “non-Western Christianity” was amplified by the efforts of David B. Barrett (1927–2011), whose groundbreaking research on global religious statistics produced the World Christian Encyclopedia, coedited by Todd Johnson and Gina Zurlo.
We now know that the demographic center of Christianity shifted to the Global South during the 20th century in dramatic fashion, and we also know a lot more about how it actually happened. Evangelicalism, as one of the fastest-growing demographic blocs within global Christianity, has contributed significantly to these transformations.
Today, more than 77 percent of the world’s evangelicals are Africans, Asians, and Latin Americans. Even if a significant number of American evangelicals may favor some form of Christian nationalism (though the numbers are likely exaggerated), and even if a majority of white American evangelicals voted for Donald Trump, what often goes unstated is that the vast majority of the world’s evangelicals are neither white nor American. Evangelicals around the world are not united on matters of politics and race, but they lay great stress on the Bible, the central message of the Cross, and man’s need for conversion.
Evangelicalism, then, is plainly not an American movement. The vast majority of the world’s evangelicals live in the Global South, and they are actively engaged in sending missionaries …
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by | Jun 5, 2024 | Uncategorized
Ancient philosopher Zhuangzi’s teachings can be a means of evangelism.
In the opening lines of the Gospel of John, God’s eternal presence is rendered as “the Word,” a translation of the Greek word logos. In many translations of the Chinese Bible, including the popular Chinese Union Version, you will find this concept rendered as “the Dao (Tao).”
In English, Dao is commonly translated as “the Way.” In Chinese, the word (道) indicates a teaching or way of living that aligns with the heavens. It can also refer to the omnipresent essence of all creation in Daoism, a tradition of thought and religious practice that encourages its followers to seek immortality and achieve wisdom for discerning right responses to circumstances.
What does the Dao, or Word, of God have to do with the Dao of Daoism?
When I lived and taught in China, I encountered many sensitive hearts and inquisitive minds that were open to spiritual matters. Yet these seekers would often turn to the traditions of their ancestors for answers before considering the Christian gospel. My lack of familiarity with Chinese religion and philosophy hindered my witness, and so I decided to become a serious student of Confucian, Daoist, and Buddhist traditions.
Now, as a scholar of Chinese Christianity and religions, I have a much better sense of the ways that Chinese philosophy and religion can both converge with and diverge from Christian thought. I have a clearer sense of how people of Chinese descent connect their cultural heritage to their Christian faith.
Christian missionaries and scholars have a long-standing tradition of sincere dialogue with other religious and philosophical traditions. In Acts 17, Paul observes the inscription to an unknown God in Athens, Greece, and proclaims …
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