by | Jun 20, 2024 | Uncategorized
Evangelicals tend to assume our sexual ethic is deeply unpopular. But the wind may be shifting as thought leaders increasingly declare Christianity a cultural asset.
Christianity’s 2,000-year-old sexual ethic is not normal in the contemporary West and hasn’t been for some time.
The notion that sex should be confined to the bounds of a lifelong covenant of marriage between one man and one woman is not simply out of step with a culture reshaped by the sexual revolution and the LGBTQ movement. Many now consider our ethic to be something far worse than outmoded. It’s hateful, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center; “dangerous,” per the Human Rights Campaign; and a source of “great harm,” says prominent ethicist David Gushee.
Evangelical responses to these new norms have varied. Some have doubled down on traditional beliefs as a matter of basic orthodoxy. Some have remained quietly traditional while avoiding public confrontation. And some have joined exvangelicals and mainline Christians to propose a theological revisionism that affirms LGBTQ relationships and sex outside of marriage.
Despite their differences, all three postures understandably have a foundational assumption in common: that our traditional sexual ethic is deeply unpopular. That, at best, it’s a matter of difficult but necessary faithfulness, an obstacle to overcome in evangelism and discipleship—or, worse, a major cause of dechurching, deconversion, and rejection of the gospel.
But is it possible that Scripture’s view of marriage and sexuality is seen by a small but growing crowd outside the church as a feature, not a bug?
It might be too much to say the West is like G. K. Chesterton’s sailor who, having set off for adventure, found himself enchanted by the light of his own home shore. But I don’t think it’s too soon to …
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by | Jun 20, 2024 | Uncategorized
Catholic advocate awarded by US State Department explains why Christians are disproportionately targeted while the Islamic majority predominantly accuses its own.
Last month, mob violence took the life of Lazar Masih of Pakistan. Hundreds of Muslims responded with brutality to accusations that the 74-year-old Christian had desecrated a Quran—even before he could be tried under the nation’s blasphemy law.
A year earlier, in a similar blasphemy accusation, thousands of rioters burned hundreds of 400 homes and 26 churches, sending Christian villagers fleeing for safety. The US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has consistently condemned this hostile climate as unjust, including in a special update issued last December.
“The brutal killing of Lazar Masih is an alarming reminder of the dangers of merely being suspected or accused of blasphemy in Pakistan,” stated USCIRF chair Stephen Schneck. “The country’s draconian blasphemy law signals to society that alleged blasphemers deserve severe punishment, which emboldens private individuals and groups to take matters into their own hands. Pakistani authorities must hold those responsible for his death accountable.”
Accountability is rare.
In 2011, Pakistan executed the assassin of Salman Taseer, a former governor outspoken in his criticism of such laws. But from 1994 to 2023, 95 individuals were killed in blasphemy-related extrajudicial attacks, according to data compiled by the Lahore-based Centre for Social Justice (CSJ). Stretching back to 1987, at least 2,449 people have faced legal accusations.
USCIRF has recommended Pakistan be classified as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) since 2002 for its violations of religious freedom. Created by the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA), the independent bipartisan watchdog lobbies US policy to press reform on egregious offenders. …
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by | Jun 20, 2024 | Uncategorized
Six ways Christians often make the problem worse and five steps toward a solution
Led by Malawi’s chief law enforcement officer, 19 armed agents surrounded Martha Chizuma’s home in the capital city of Lilongwe at 4 a.m. on December 6, 2022. Whisked away in her pajamas in the early morning darkness, Chizuma, the director general of Malawi’s Anti-Corruption Bureau, was forced to kneel on the floor for questioning at a police station before being released. Her arrest was retribution for her efforts to expose high-level corruption in the government.
A London-trained lawyer and formerly Malawi’s government ombudsman, Chizuma was the first Malawian anti-corruption leader chosen through a purely merit-based process. “People fought against my appointment, and now they wanted to undermine me ,” she explained, especially because she was leading a grand corruption probe that was “a test case of the government’s commitment to integrity.”
Those who engineered her arrest presumably hoped to silence a godly public official determined to “spit fire at corrupt politicians,” as the Nyasa Times reported several days later. They have not succeeded.
The fight against corruption takes courage like Martha’s, in part because corruption offers massive rewards. Its global financial toll is notoriously difficult to estimate, but the total may exceed $1 trillion annually. Every year, 25 percent of the world’s adults pay at least one bribe. The demand for bribes from public officials causes many Christian-majority nations to have unfavorable rankings on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index.
Too often, evangelicals are part of the corruption problem, which takes many forms: bribery, fraud, nepotism, human trafficking, …
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by | Jun 20, 2024 | Uncategorized
This isn’t a female problem, but a human one.
The sight of an airplane soaring above me used to make my eyes sting with longing. At that time, I was a college dropout, a 52-pound brittle skeleton, years of anorexia having gnawed me down to little more than organs and skin.
Whenever I heard the planes, I would look up at the sky and imagine the people up there, busy living life, probably flying to important business meetings and conferences in Hong Kong or Los Angeles, or whatever important things people who aren’t dying of an eating disorder do. And I would stop to clutch at the visceral ache in my chest, remembering the days when I dreamed of becoming a journalist who traveled the world.
Twenty years later, I am doing exactly that. I write long-form stories from around the world. I am now that busy person on the plane, flying to meetings and conferences. I’ve ridden on horseback in the jungles of Burma to report on an unconventional humanitarian aid organization; flown a two-passenger airplane over the ice kingdoms of remote Alaska to report on Alaska Natives; driven past giraffes and gazelles grazing in open fields while reporting on missions to Chinese migrants in Kenya.
I am finally living the dream that seemed like a fantasy 20 years ago, when I had lost all purpose and meaning in life. But now, pregnant with my second child, I’m giving it up to be a stay-at-home mother, for who knows how long—and I am not okay.
I know how incredibly privileged I am to have the option not to work. I also know it’s a blessing to have children when so many women struggle with infertility and miscarriage. So it’s with some shame that I confess: I’m terrified of the upcoming transition from working mother to stay-at-home mother.
I have nursed this …
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by | Jun 19, 2024 | Uncategorized
While the Texas megachurch said it “did not have all the facts” about Morris’s earlier misconduct, the woman who spoke out said she had informed its leaders years ago.
Gateway Church founder and senior pastor Robert Morris has resigned, and his Texas megachurch is launching an investigation into allegations of abuse from 35 years ago.
Morris—a former advisor to President Trump and leader of one of the largest nondenominational churches in the country—is leaving after an Oklahoma woman, Cindy Clemishire, shared a story of being molested by the pastor when she was a minor in the 1980s. He has led the congregation since 2000.
In a statement Tuesday announcing Morris’s resignation, Gateway’s board of elders said they were “heartbroken and appalled” to learn that what they believed was an extramarital relationship was allegedly abuse of a child, The Christian Post reported.
“Regretfully, prior to Friday, June 14, the elders did not have all the facts of the inappropriate relationship between Morris and the victim, including her age at the time and the length of the abuse,” they said. “The elders’ prior understanding was that Morris’s extramarital relationship, which he had discussed many times throughout his ministry, was with ‘a young lady’ and not abuse of a 12-year-old child.”
The elders had initially responded on Friday saying Morris had already disclosed what happened and “undergone restoration.” The pastor’s earlier statement to The Christian Post referred to the incident as “inappropriate sexual behavior with a young lady.”
In a statement released Tuesday, Clemishire said she had been working for years to have Morris held accountable, including notifying the church of her story in 2005. She said at the time at least one pastor and one elder had been informed that the abuse started …
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