Expert: Ukraine’s Ban on Russian Orthodox Church Is Compatible with Religious Freedom

by | Sep 13, 2024 | Uncategorized

During Tuesday night’s presidential debate, Kamala Harris accused Donald Trump of a fondness for dictators, alleging that he supported a negotiated settlement with Vladimir Putin following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Trump, declining to affirm that a Ukrainian victory would serve US interests, replied that if he were still in the Oval Office, the war would never have happened, and he claimed that he could bring it to an end even as president-elect.

Both candidates failed to address the most salient current issue on Ukraine for evangelicals: religious freedom.

Last month, the Ukrainian parliament overwhelmingly approved a proposal to ban the activities of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) and compel the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) to break all ties with the patriarchate in Moscow. President Volodymyr Zelensky signed the bill into law, hailing his nation’s “spiritual independence.”

Some Republicans, including vice-presidential candidate J.D. Vance, have accused Ukraine of “assault[ing] traditional Christian communities.” Vance linked these alleged violations to the continuation of US military support, stating that military aid should be used as leverage to ensure religious freedom.

The charge is nonsense, said a leading Ukrainian expert in an interview with CT.

The law, said Maksym Vasin, director for international advocacy and research at the Institute for Religious Freedom in Kyiv, is meant to protect Orthodox believers in Ukraine from Russian propaganda. The State Service for Ethnic Policy and Freedom of Conscience (DESS) studied ROC and UOC documents to demonstrate the continuing link between the two churches, despite the UOC’s postwar assertion of independence. Each of the UOC’s 10,000 parishes has now been given nine months to demonstrate that it is not connected to the ROC, subject to court judgment.

However, the GOP is not alone in its concern.

Pope Francis stated last month that no church should be abolished “directly or indirectly” based on how its people pray. The World Council of Churches urged “caution.” And according to various reports, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, considered first among equals in the Orthodox world, sent a delegation to Ukraine to inquire about canonical structure and whether individual UOC parishes are being forcibly transferred to the rival Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU).

The state said 1,500 parishes have voluntarily aligned with the OCU since 2018.

In 2019, Bartholomew granted autocephaly (canonical independence) to the OCU, a then-schismatic body that had earlier broken off ties with Moscow. The move, supported by the United States, shifted OCU allegiance to the ecumenical patriarch’s church in historic Constantinople.

Orthodoxy first spread among the Slavic people from Kyiv, which was joined to the ROC in 1686. Following passage of last month’s law, the OCU reached out to the UOC for dialogue, emphasizing the need for unity and reconciliation.

CT spoke with Vasin, who contributed a chapter analyzing an earlier draft of the law in last year’s Security, Religion, and the Rule of Law, about the response of Ukrainian evangelicals, the limits of individual criminal prosecution, and whether the law should be considered a “ban.”

Please explain the aim of the new law.

The law aims to terminate Russian influence on Ukrainian society through Russian religious centers and to limit the propaganda of the chauvinistic ideology of Russkiy Mir (Russian World) in Ukraine. Ever since Soviet times, Russia has systematically used religion and religious centers of various denominations, primarily the ROC, as a tool of propaganda to achieve its military and geopolitical goals.

Churches are then manipulated to exert totalitarian control over their citizens or are closed down if they refuse to cooperate. This repressive policy is clearly visible in the eastern and southern regions of Ukraine, annexed following the Russian invasion. There, the Russian authorities are carrying out brutal repression against Ukrainian Christian churches and religious communities of various denominations, including Muslims and Jews who do not support Russian aggression.

Putin and the Kremlin want to maintain a key instrument of influence in Ukraine, namely the ROC and its affiliated local Orthodox eparchies and parishes. For this reason, Russia is most vocal critic of the Ukrainian government’s initiatives aimed at protecting religious freedom from abuse.

Is the new law a “ban” of the UOC?

It is a ban of the ROC in Ukraine, because of its open support for Russia’s  war.

It is not an immediate ban on the activities of the UOC, which is not even directly mentioned. The government will issue directives to break administrative and canonical subordination to the ROC or other Russian religious centers. If a religious community refuses to sever these ties, the government will have the right to apply to the court to terminate the activities of this legal entity, given the danger to national and public security. But if the defendant parish complies during these hearings, the court case will be dismissed.

Thus, it is wrong to say that this law bans the UOC. Instead, the law allows this church and any other religious associations in Ukraine to liberate themselves from the influence of Russian intelligence services and stop being mouthpieces for Russian propaganda.

It is up to the UOC priests and parishioners to decide whether they will continue to agree to be used by the Kremlin or whether they will end their dependence on the ROC and Russian authorities.

Your analysis of an earlier version of the law advised the government to concentrate on individual criminal proceedings against clerics who collaborated with Russia. Why is this not a sufficient safeguard against Russian interference?

Religious communities should not be responsible for the activities of their clerics, and a ban must be the last resort if other measures have been ineffective. But in recent years, it has become increasingly clear that the ROC is losing the features of a religious organization and has become an instrument of political influence in the hands of the Kremlin.

Therefore, now, when it comes to the existence of the people of Ukraine in the face of genocide committed by the Russian military, the UOC must make a clear choice to refuse any ties with the ROC. This is a reasonable requirement of the law that meets the expectations of Ukrainian society, which is on the verge of survival.

The UOC can fulfill this simple legal requirement and continue to exist legally in Ukraine. However, when the UOC bishops refuse to obey the law and claim persecution, it becomes evident that its leadership wants to maintain its dependence on Moscow.

Court rulings will consider the assessment of DESS. But its previous director, prior to her removal, reviewed changes in UOC internal canons and stated in 2022 that it was independent of Moscow.

It is not enough for the UOC to declare independence alone. It must be confirmed not by words but by practical actions, such as the condemnation of traitorous bishops and priests who have collaborated with Russia—especially in the ROC-annexed UOC eparchies of Crimea, Berdiansk, and Kherson.

The government has several requirements for the UOC, the fulfillment of which could demonstrate not declarative but actual termination of influence from Moscow.

The UOC has already condemned the war, stopped prayers for the ROC’s Patriarch Kirill, and called on Ukrainian members to defend their country against Russian aggression. Why is canonical separation necessary?

Some UOC bishops and priests continue to pray for Kirill and do not condemn his statements justifying Russian aggression, such as calling it a “holy war.” At present, it does not appear that the entire UOC leadership has severed its ties with Moscow. Each case should be considered separately. And if senior leaders refuse to comply with the government’s legitimate demands, the individual parishes can prove in court that they have done everything to be independent of Russia’s influence.

Slavic nations have fought wars previously without shifting religious orientation. Should religious liberty allow citizens and clerics to adhere freely to the spiritual heritage of either Kyiv or Moscow, independent of current politics?

Freedom of religion is a fundamental human right. But it should not be abused for political purposes, especially in the context of a brutal war to destroy Ukraine. If we look at history, Moscow illegally established its canonical influence over the UOC. Now, the Ecumenical Patriarchate is trying to correct this historical injustice. The Ukrainian government’s intervention in this process is necessary only because the UOC leadership allows Russia to use it to spread the “Russian World” propaganda, collaborate with the Russian military, and weaken Ukraine’s resistance.

How have Ukrainian evangelicals responded to this law?

The Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations (UCCRO), except the UOC, supported President Zelensky’s initiative to protect them from Russian influence. The council includes various evangelical churches, including Baptists, Pentecostals, Adventists, and Lutherans. Their statement condemned the ROC, calling it an accomplice to the “bloody crimes of the Russian invaders.” The council furthermore confirmed that religious rights and freedoms are respected in Ukraine, even in the face of a brutal war.

Evangelicals, like the other denominations, see that the main threat to religious freedom in Ukraine is Russian aggression, which has killed dozens of clergymen and destroyed hundreds of churches and houses of worship in Ukraine.

The Orthodox world is divided about the legitimacy of the Ecumenical Patriarch’s recognition of the OCU. And some argue that this law is evidence of government persecution of the UOC, to compel their merger. Should there be one Orthodox church in Ukraine, or does religious freedom demand a plurality if believers so choose?

This law does not force Orthodox churches to unite. Since 1991, every religious community in Ukraine, as a legal entity, has the right to freely and independently choose its canonical subordination. The only restriction is the prohibition of ties with countries that have committed armed aggression against Ukraine, meaning Russia.

Religious pluralism is a sign of flourishing religious freedom, of which Ukraine can be proud and can continue to cherish.

What consequences will Ukraine suffer if the UOC continues to protest this law?

The UOC is advised to break ties with Russia now and not wait for a court judgment. Even if the court bans some local parishes, their members can continue to freely practice their faith and hold worship services without the status of a legal entity. Unlike Russia, Ukrainian legislation allows unregistered religious communities to operate and retains a broad scope of religious freedom for their members regardless of denomination.

But it would be beneficial for Russia if the UOC ignored the law and continued to play the role of a martyr church. The Kremlin will undoubtedly use future court decisions against the UOC to spread propaganda about religious persecution, while concealing their war crimes against Ukrainian churches in the occupied territories.

I hope the government will implement this law without haste and in accord with legal procedure, to protect Ukraine’s religious communities from Russian influence.

Some Republicans argue that the issue of religious freedom is one reason the US should stop contributing to the war effort in lieu of a negotiated settlement. How would you respond?

Despite undisputed US commitment to freedom of speech, the House of Representatives is not averse to debating a bill to ban TikTok over its links to China, due to concerns about national security interests. Similarly, the law adopted in Ukraine seeks to protect Ukrainian society from “Russian World” ideology and the influence of Russian intelligence services through the churches, while remaining unequivocally committed to the value of religious freedom.

The Kremlin uses religion as a tool of war. Russia will use any reason, real or fake, to deprive Ukraine of international military support.

The post Expert: Ukraine’s Ban on Russian Orthodox Church Is Compatible with Religious Freedom appeared first on Christianity Today.

Taste and See If the Show is Good

by | Sep 13, 2024 | Uncategorized

Of this year’s Emmy-nominated television shows, my husband and I have watched all of The Crown, a fair bit of Abbott Elementary, and a couple episodes of Only Murders in the Building. We used to have a Hulu subscription, so we watched the first season of The Bear and several seasons of What We Do in the Shadows. (We’ve since canceled our subscription, so regrettably, no Reservation Dogs.)

Ask me what I liked or disliked about any of these shows, and I can tell you: the dialogue, the sets, the costumes, the pacing. But you might not agree with my verdicts. I find What We Do in the Shadows, a show about vampires living on Staten Island, extraordinarily funny. Laugh-out-loud funny. But Ted Lasso, a show about a soccer team? Three years ago, it took the Emmys by storm. I have friends who love it. But I watched, and I’m sorry … Ted Lasso just isn’t for me.

Taste. As the saying goes, there’s no accounting for it—but Christians are certainly inclined to try. We’re told to turn our thoughts to “whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable” (Phil. 4:8). So which paintings and novels and TV shows qualify?

I think this is the wrong question to ask. As CT’s culture editor, I often encounter writers trying to discuss their favorite pop albums or hit summer movies this way. Don’t worry, they argue, this is actually Christian! Or at least it has Christian themes. The film mentions gardens and water and wine. The song touches on love and hope in ways that resonate with Scripture. It’s okay for Christians to like this show because it’s not just good TV. It’s true, noble, right, pure, lovely, and admirable.

This kind of analysis usually falls flat. It tends to feel like a stretch—silly at best, disingenuous at worst. And yet, I understand the appeal. We don’t want the works of art we love to run counter to the claims of our faith. We want to follow Paul’s injunction to “set our minds on things above,” so we go looking for loftiness in sitcoms and pop songs (Col. 3:2). We fear returning to a reflexive fundamentalism that sees “worldly” music, literature, or cinema as inherently dangerous.

Truth is, the best music, literature, and cinema do reference our faith, in a way. These works tell stories, and Christianity tells the grand story underneath them all. Insofar as works of art tell the truth about human nature and the world in which we live, we’ll be able to find those threads of connection—even if only as simple as “sin is real.”

The gospel of Jesus makes sense of sacrifice and typifies love, and distinguishes life from death. Now, as in the beginning, there is the Word, undergirding comedy and tragedy, absurdity and futility, suffering and joy. In that sense, every artwork is that Athenian altar of Acts 17, inscribed to a too-often unknown God.

But whether a television show gets us thinking about what’s noble and pure often has less to do with the show itself and more to do with us as viewers. For Paul, the altar to the unknown God was the basis for a sermon pointing to the God he knew in Christ Jesus. Yet for thousands of Athenians who’d passed it day in and day out for decades, it made no such connection.

Rephrasing my earlier question, then: Which paintings and novels and TV shows qualify for me?

Which pieces of art can move each of us—with our unique aesthetic sensibilities, our God-given proclivities for particular jokes, our besetting sins—to reflect on what’s admirable and right?

Posing the question this way doesn’t disregard the guidelines in Philippians 4:8. Some films or songs or texts—such as those with wildly gratuitous violence or pornographic sexuality—will never help any of us meditate on things above. Art isn’t like meat sacrificed to idols (1 Cor. 8:4–8); it’s not all neutral for the Christian. Not everything is on the table.

Yet this approach does allow for personality, flexibility, and yes, taste. I reveled in the award-winning show Breaking Bad and its companion, Better Call Saul. Those series are violent, but they didn’t tempt me to wrath. I spent the days after each episode meditating on good intentions and underlying motives and how susceptible we are to faulty explanations of our own behavior.

But Baby Reindeer I couldn’t stomach. Its portrayal of human brokenness aligned with my understanding of sin-corrupted reality. But the show’s depictions of sexual violence made me queasy; they stuck with me too long after I’d turned off the TV. The show felt dark; it made me feel dark. I decided not to finish the series.

The reverse may have been true for a different believer: yes to Baby Reindeer, no to Breaking Bad. In that sense, art is like that idol-sacrificed meat: A stumbling block for one of us won’t be for the other (1 Cor. 8:9–13).

This makes the task of the Christian critic at once more difficult and more interesting. Our job is not to justify our taste in culture but to explain what we see from a vantage point oriented to Christ. Not, This art is actually kinda Christian, but rather, Here’s what I realized as a Christian encountering this art.

We needn’t try to force cultural artifacts into a set of parameters they were never meant to meet, grading on a curve so our favorites get a pass. Instead, we come to those artifacts as changed people, minds renewed, and see what there is to see.

This is not how most of us think about taste today, whether we are Christians or not, but it harkens to an older tradition. Once, philosophers thought of taste not in terms of “what band you like, what books you read, what clothes you wear,” writer Kyle Chayka explained in a recent interview with the critic Ezra Klein. They understood it rather “as a more fundamental human experience, like a moral capacity, a way of judging what’s around you and evaluating what’s good and … almost making it part of yourself.”

Developing taste like that will require confidence, born of sanctification and informed by the Spirit, about what is good and worthy of our attention. It will require humility, too, about our own capacity to see rightly, our self-flattering accounts of what we like and dislike, and the fact that our minds could always change, perhaps from the benefit of another believer’s view.

This is how I hope my own taste will come to operate as a Christian culture critic: as a bellwether for the admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy. As an aid to my faith. As a means of encountering God in a brushstroke, a laugh line, a well-written truth.

Kate Lucky is senior editor of culture and engagement at Christianity Today.

The post Taste and See If the Show is Good appeared first on Christianity Today.

A Pastor’s Wife Was Murdered. God Had Prepared Him for It.

by | Sep 13, 2024 | Uncategorized

When disaster strikes, it’s easy to comfort ourselves with empty phrases like “It was a freak accident” or “That’s so unlikely to happen.” Much easier, certainly, than acknowledging that none of us are immune to tragedy. We soothe ourselves with statistics of survival, but inside we know the path of our lives has already been determined. Data is no weapon against God’s sovereignty. 

Those unlikely, catastrophic events do happen—as they did to Davey and Amanda Blackburn. Davey, a pastor, had hardly expected to come home one morning and find his pregnant wife fighting to survive on the kitchen floor. He couldn’t have guessed that a violent crime would take Amanda’s life and tear his family apart.

Nearly nine years after Amanda took her last breath, he’s able to see that with God in control, even such brutality isn’t just random senselessness. But the pathway he took to reaching that conclusion wasn’t so smooth. In his new book, Nothing Is Wasted: A True Story of Hope, Forgiveness, and Finding Purpose in Pain, Davey documents his walk through that season of grief, sharing what he learned about trusting God amid horrific tragedy.

‘Things seem too easy’ 

When I first heard about Amanda’s savage murder, I was eight months pregnant. Only weeks before, I had moved back to my hometown of Indianapolis. Amanda, already the mother of a 2-year-old boy, had been pregnant herself[AM3] . She lived in downtown Indianapolis, just a few miles from my sister’s house.

The murder hit me deeply as an expectant mom and fellow Christian. Amanda was the picture of an all-American girl, the last person anyone would expect to be killed in a drug-fueled robbery. The community was shaken—heartbroken and shattered for Davey, their son Weston, and Amanda’s close-knit family. 

Given Amanda’s close connection to ministry and evangelism, local Christians were especially rocked. Everyone seemed to have a connection to the family, including me, when I discovered a member of my Bible study was Davey’s cousin. 

The Blackburns had moved to Indianapolis after feeling God’s call to start a church there. In the book, Davey writes about launching Resonate Church and planting his family in this new Indianapolis community. The church grew, friendships formed, and Amanda’s budding venture as a furniture restorer began to thrive as well. With a second child on the way, their lives seemed charmed—almost too much so. 

In the brief time Amanda spent in the hospital before her death, Davey remembered something she had said months prior: “Davey, things seem too easy right now. There’s no way this can last. I feel like we’re about to walk into a tough season.”

As she lay unconscious in the hospital bed, he was convinced God would heal her, but that belief soon passed when doctors told him Amanda was brain-dead. Suddenly, Davey faced a question he never anticipated: What happens when God doesn’t answer our prayers in the way we wish? 

This question anchors the narrative of Nothing Is Wasted, where Davey candidly shares his experience in the aftermath of Amanda’s death, recounting depression, confusion, and even sinful responses (like feeling prejudice against men of color because the killers were Black).

To its credit, the book doesn’t advertise “feel-good” Christianese as a formula for overcoming suffering. Rather, it honestly portrays the stages of grief and their effects on one’s faith. “What do I do with God now that it seems His calling actually led us into this tragedy?” writes Davey. “If He were God, couldn’t He have prevented this? And if He were good why wouldn’t he have?”

Readers also get to know Amanda in her own words through some of her journal entries, where she recalled feeling peaceful about moving to Indianapolis and blessed by Hillsong United lyrics that read, “I will take up my cross and follow Lord where You lead me.” We meet a woman who was fully devoted to the Lord and grateful for his hand in nearly every aspect of her life. 

The utter injustice of Amanda’s death was nearly impossible for Davey to comprehend. The world without Amanda felt unsettled, dark, and temporary, as he imagined Amanda entering heaven with the little girl he never got to meet, Everett Grace. He writes, “I could feel my heart longing for an otherworldly place—one that would last forever, one that could not be shaken or torn down, one that could not be stolen from me.” 

Like many survivors, he also felt guilt—for going to the gym that morning, leaving the car unlocked, and talking on the phone in the driveway before heading back inside. Davey writes of being comforted by Amanda’s father, who assured him that God was not surprised—that he had “orchestrated things ahead of time to show us that He’s in this!”

Davey began seeing small signs of this orchestration at work. A casket was mistakenly sent to the funeral parlor made of reclaimed barn wood, which was Amanda’s favorite material to work with in her furniture restoration business. He then found that the church hosting her celebration of life service had also used reclaimed barn wood to renovate its stage and walls.

Past conversations with Amanda and her detailed journal entries revealed God’s prophetic provision for a future where Davey would be on his own, something they couldn’t have anticipated then. “I know it may not be like this forever, and you may have things ahead of us that are unbearable,” she wrote in a prayer. “When the valleys do come, please keep our family strong.”

These glimpses of God’s providential care shape the book into a guide for those facing tragedy, encouraging them to recognize the supernatural signs of his presence where they least expect it.

An architecture of hope

As Davey put his life back together, a divine architecture of hope took shape. It helped him view Amanda’s killers, at least in part, as victims of their life circumstances. It gave him the freedom to cultivate forgiveness.

Seemingly insignificant memories would resurface in Davey’s mind, illuminating clear markers of God’s preparation for moments of resentment and disorientation. “Your sin and my sin murdered Jesus,” Davey recalled a pastor telling him at seven years old. Remembering this remark, he was reminded that no matter how violent a crime, all sin is deadly in God’s eyes. 

Along the way, God provided words of wisdom, encouragement, and prophecy from meticulously placed pastors, friends, and community members. When Davey began having regular nightmares, consistently jolting awake at exactly 6:37 a.m., random friends began texting him with prayers right at that moment each morning. None of them knew about the nightmares. 

“You were built for this. You have been placed in this position for such a time as this.” In a serendipitous meeting one day, Davey heard these words from a local Black pastor who worked with inner-city youth like the ones who killed Amanda. 

Such confirmations began to appear at every turn. All the signs and wonders could only point back to God, who was leading Davey to something far bigger than himself or Amanda. Davey recalls hearing God say, “I’m a God who restores out of the ruin,” and that he would “completely” restore this situation too. 

In one of the book’s most powerful pages, a friend asks Davey if he thinks Amanda would have chosen to move to Indianapolis if she had known her fate in advance. The question floored him, but in considering it, he remembered something Amanda wrote just one day after moving. It read, “I will take up my cross and follow wherever you lead.”

Soon, a rush of other divine moments came flooding back: a night of small-group prayer, when the Holy Spirit had clearly been moving; the morning before Amanda’s death, when Davey found her face-down on the bedroom floor in the posture of a surrendering prayer. He could finally see that Amanda would have said yes to Indianapolis even if she had known what was to come.

Ministry to the grieving

Nothing Is Wasted covers nearly eight years of Davey’s life, showcasing his process of healing and the restoration of his faith, trust, and mission. Without sugarcoating the details, Davey offers a pathway to a deeper purpose within our pain—even the worst kind. 

Ultimately, as the court case proceeded against Amanda’s killers, he was able to look them in the eyes and say, “I do not hold this against you.” He recognized a recurring theme amid his pain and the pain of others he met on the journey. Simply put: Nothing is wasted. Our pain and tragedies will be used for God’s purpose and our good, no matter how bad things get. 

This realization resulted not only in the book but also in Davey founding the Nothing Is Wasted ministry, through which he hosts a popular podcast, along with classes and retreats for those walking through hard things. 

He remarried and had another child, still cherishing the love he had with Amanda and mourning the loss of his unborn daughter. Over the years, he’s faced hurtful rumors, hateful criticism, and even murder accusations, but he walks forward in his divine calling to minister to the grieving. 

In this book, readers will find resonance, hope, and a truth that holds even in the darkest of nights.

Ericka Andersen is a weekly columnist at World magazine. She is the author of Reason to Return: Why Women Need the Church and the Church Needs Women.

The post A Pastor’s Wife Was Murdered. God Had Prepared Him for It. appeared first on Christianity Today.

The Church Can Help End The Phone-Based Childhood

by | Sep 13, 2024 | Uncategorized

As American kids head back to school this fall, many will do so with smartphones in hand. The average age at which American kids receive their first phone is just 11, and most public schools only ban nonacademic classroom phone use—and struggle to enforce even that.

We know this is a problem. Research from academics like Jonathan Haidt and Jean Twenge continues to show American young people are in a mental health crisis, and there’s compelling evidence that the phone-based childhood is the leading cause. And the church is not an outlier here; if you’ve worked in youth ministry recently, you understand the challenges that come with a room full of teens who are chronically online. If you’re young yourself, you understand how tightly tech use is linked to belonging and how difficult it can be to pull your attention away from your own device out of fear that you may be missing out.

Christians have already begun to consider how churches can encourage safer digital media use in ministry and approach tech use as a matter for discipleship. But I want to recommend another response with a long history in the church: political discipleship.

If we believe that the gospel has the power to speak to our whole lives, we must recognize that this includes our digital lives, and not just individually but together: as families and congregations, yes, but also in politics. Political discipleship—how we follow God as people rooted in a certain time and place in a political community—can be part of how we love and serve God and neighbor in our digital age.

I understand why some Christians are wary of getting involved in politics and government, whether for theological or historical reasons or simply because of skepticism about the government’s ability to do anything productive. But if we have the opportunity to advocate for public policies that promote safety and flourishing for us and our neighbors, we must steward that responsibility well, like the servants in the parable of the talents in Matthew 25. From time to time, we may have a duty to step into the role of advocate for those who cannot advocate for themselves.

That particularly means children and teenagers whose families do not have the knowledge, resources, or wherewithal to make limiting screen time a priority. Low-income children are two to three times as likely as their peers to develop mental health conditions, and some research shows that they’re also more likely to spend a lot of time online. Phone-free public schools would provide at least some respite from intentionally addictive digital media. 

So how has the church historically engaged in political discipleship for the good of our neighbors? Christians who navigated the rapid technological, economic, and social changes of the Industrial Revolution provide examples we can learn from today.

The shift from agrarian to industrial economies in the US and UK brought with it new convenience and opportunities, but also new dangers for children. Sound familiar? It may be difficult for us to imagine now, but this was an era without mandatory schooling or many safety regulations. Children often worked alongside parents or other adults in fields or factories. 

Without the labor laws we now take for granted, children sometimes worked 16-hour days or longer. They had few breaks. Injuries were common, and no special care was taken for children. Even child prostitution was found in many workplaces, as historian Penelope Carson wrote for Christian History, and there “were no safety regulations, and financial penalties and beatings were imposed for the slightest slip or misdemeanor. Accidents and deaths were all too common.” Orphans were particularly vulnerable, with no guardians to intervene on their behalf.

But some Christians did intervene, playing an integral role in the passage of child labor laws on both sides of the Atlantic. Richard Oastler, a devout Methodist and abolitionist of the 19th century, began spreading public awareness once he learned how children were treated in British factories. Then, he sought legal solutions to ensure the protection of children. Oastler’s sometimes radical methods and rhetoric got him in trouble more than once, but his concern for the poor and victims of injustice helped pass the UK’s Factory Acts of 1833 and 1847, which limited work hours for women and children. 

Decades later, in the US, an Episcopalian priest named Edgar Gardner Murphy was concerned for the well-being of children working in mills. For years, he advocated for legislation that would shorten the hours children worked, raise the age of children working in factories and mines, and outlaw overnight work. Understanding that reforms were essential to protect children from employers and sometimes their own parents, he established the National Child Labor Committee (NCLC) in 1904 to spread awareness and advance policy solutions. 

Just two years after the establishment of the NCLC, conversations about reforming child labor laws were elevated from a state to a federal level, and the committee succeeded in highlighting both the injustice of child labor and the benefits that public schooling would provide. Many parents and employers were content with the status quo, but photographs taken by Lewis W. Hine exposed the plight of children working in factories and mines, prompting legislative action. 

Smartphones don’t pose the same physical dangers as early industrial mines or cotton mills, but their risk for American children is real. So is Christians’ responsibility to intervene on vulnerable kids’ behalf by advocating for better public policy around tech in public schools. 

Of course, there’s no guarantee that our advocacy will succeed. History and current polls alike suggest that in spite of our best efforts, proposals to protect kids online have a high chance of failure. Many parents—and certainly many kids—would rather maintain the status quo. That possibility shouldn’t discourage us from trying.

In a speech at the International Christian Political Conference in 1977, Sen. Mark Hatfield of Oregon listed many bills he had championed or voted for because of his Christian faith. “As it happens,” he continued, “each of these proposals was defeated. Yet in each case, a witness was borne, I trust, to the goals which would move us in the direction of the kingdom, as I understand it.” Even if we don’t get the policies we want, we can still practice this kind of faithfulness in the public square. We can still bear witness to the hope we have in Christ, trusting that God will accomplish justice.

At a practical level, Christians—and especially pastors and other church leaders—should build relationships with school board members, state and local officials, and even members of Congress who can shape tech policies in our local schools. We can make the case to these leaders, just as Oastler did with British policymakers two centuries ago, that we have both the duty and ability to better protect vulnerable youth and families in our communities—to better love our neighbors.

Emily Crouch is a public policy and communications professional living and working in Alexandria, Virginia. She leads college student programming and the fellowship for early-career congressional leadership development at the Center for Public Justice. 

The post The Church Can Help End The Phone-Based Childhood appeared first on Christianity Today.

What It Takes to Plant Churches in Europe

by | Sep 12, 2024 | Uncategorized

The goal is audacious. But as far as James Davis, founder of the Global Church Network, is concerned, Christians need deadlines. Otherwise, they will never do what they need to do to fulfill the Great Commission.

His group gathered in Zurich, Switzerland, last September with 400 ministry leaders from across Europe who committed to raising up and equipping more than 100,000 new pastors in the next decade. The network plans to establish 39 hubs in Europe, with a goal of 442 more in the years to come, for training church planters, evangelists, and pastors to proclaim the gospel.

“A vision becomes a goal when it has a deadline,” Davis said at the event.

“So many Christian leaders today doubt their beliefs and believe their doubts. It is time for us to doubt our doubts and believe our beliefs. We will claim, climb, and conquer our Mount Everest, the Great Commission.”

Davis has a number of very motivated partners in this project, including the Assemblies of God, the Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee), and the International Pentecostal Holiness Church. The network also counts The Wesleyan Church, the Church of the Nazarene, the Foursquare Church, the Church of God in Christ, and OMF International (formerly Overseas Missionary Fellowship) as members of a broader coalition working to complete the Great Commission in the near future. If it turns out their European goal is a bit beyond reach, they will still undoubtedly do a lot between now and their deadline.

And the Global Church Network is not alone. In Germany, the Bund Freikirchlicher Pfingstgemeinden (Association of Free Church Pentecostals) has announced plans to plant 500 new churches by 2033. The group, celebrating its 150th anniversary in 2024, told CT it is currently planting new congregations at a rate of about seven per year. Raising up new pastors is key to its growth strategy. 

And the Bund Evangelisch-Freikirchlicher Gemeinden in Deutschland (Association of Free Evangelical Churches in Germany) has planted 200 churches in the past decade. It has grown to about 500 congregations with 42,000 members. The Free Evangelicals also have plans to launch 70 new churches by 2030, at a rate of 15 per year, and then start another 200 by 2040. 

“Goal setting is a bit of a thing in Europe,” said Stefan Paas, the J. H. Bavinck Chair for Missiology and Intercultural Theology at the Free University of Amsterdam and the author of Church Planting in the Secular West.

He’s not convinced it’s a good thing for Christian missions, though. In fact, he doesn’t think ambition, verve, and goal setting actually work.

Paas’s research shows that supply-side approaches—the idea that if you plant it, they will come—seem promising and often demonstrate early success, but the results mostly evaporate. While it is widely believed that planting new churches causes growth, he said, that’s not what the evidence shows.

“Yes, newer churches tend to draw in more people and more converts, but they also lose more,” Paas told CT. “There’s a backdoor dynamic where people come into newer churches but then leave.”

He examined the Free Evangelicals’ membership statistics from 2003 to 2017 and found that church plants often correlated with quick growth but then slow decline. 

“It’s one thing to draw people, and another thing to keep them,” he said. 

Part of the problem, according to Paas, is that the things that attract people to new churches, like great music, dynamic preaching, and a sense of real passion about something happening, don’t translate into deeper discipleship. People don’t get more involved or committed, and when church stops being new or exciting, they fade away. 

This is why church plants often seem very successful in urban contexts, where lots of new people arrive every day; it can ironically prove easier to attract new converts in deeply secular contexts, such as former Communist countries. But getting people to come in the front door is not as big of a challenge as connecting in deep, meaningful, and life-transforming ways. Many newcomers don’t last.

Paas says Christians should focus more on contextualizing, trying new things, and training pastors to build real relationships. While Davis and others argue ambition is necessary to mobilize people to evangelize the world, church plants in Europe succeed through experimentation and creativity, according to Paas.

“Experimental spaces and fresh expressions are much more important than traditional church plants,” he said. “Innovation is much more important than growth-driven entrepreneurship.”

One church doing this is in Eisenach, a small town with about 42,000 inhabitants in the eastern German state of Thuringia. Eisenach has historical ties to the Protestant Reformation—Martin Luther and Johann Sebastian Bach both lived there, though at different times—but today about 70 percent of the population has no religious affiliation. They are, as the Germans say, konfessionslos (“without confession”).

“Belief is just not a thing here,” said pastor Cordula Lindörfer. “When Eisenachers are in trouble, or in crisis, they don’t think of God or the church. They never look to the supernatural. They just don’t see it as relevant.”

That can make planting a church rather tricky. So Lindörfer and her team, with the support of the Association of Free Evangelical Churches, decided not to start with a Gottesdienst (church service) but to focus first on three other G’s: gemeinschaft, geniessen, and gestatten—community, enjoyment, and permission.

At StartUp Church, their plant in Eisenach, the team invites community members to monthly brunches to discuss topics like whether “justice for all” is a utopian pipe dream or something that could be achieved. The church’s first event, back in 2020, was at a pub. They advertised it as a meetup to “discuss doubts, beliefs, talk about God and the world.”

Today, StartUp has a weekly gathering at a local bar named Cat’s Leap, and families socialize at a local park. 

At one recent gathering, people explored the different possible perspectives in the story Jesus told about workers in a vineyard all getting paid the same, even though they worked different amounts (Matt. 20:1–16). 

Lindörfer said most of the people who come to StartUp are between 30 and 40 years old. Her own job is less that of a typical pastor—she doesn’t do a lot of preaching and teaching—and more moderator and convener.

“Eisenachers are all ready for a conversation; they all have opinions and ideas,” she said. “For me it’s all about creating a space where they feel welcome, where people come to connect rather than compete.” 

Paas thinks this is probably the real future of church growth in secular Europe. Success will have less to do with big goals and more to do with the difficult ones, and it will focus on the daily work of making friends, building connections, showing people God’s love, and inviting them to imagine that Christian faith could be relevant to their lives. 

Anyone who thinks that church planting in Europe is going to be quick and easy should probably stay home, Paas told CT. “Otherwise, you’ll get disappointed; you may even lose your faith,” he said. 

Paas hasn’t lost his. 

When he surveys the mission work taking place across the continent, he finds hope in the promise, as Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 1:18–31, that God uses foolish things to accomplish divine purposes. 

“I know this is God’s work,” he said. If I didn’t believe that, I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night.” 

Church Plant Struggles to Take Root in Liechtenstein

Driving south on European route 43, you might notice there are only five exits for the country of Liechtenstein. Or you might not notice, given how quickly the 24-kilometer-long German-speaking monarchy flies by. 

Sandwiched between Austria and Switzerland and surrounded by the Alps, Liechtenstein is one of the world’s smallest nations. It is also one of the richest. Liechtenstein’s gross domestic product is a staggering $197,000 per person. That’s more than twice the economic value produced in the United States every year and more than three times the value produced by Germany, which is considered Europe’s “economic powerhouse.”

So most people, if they think about Liechtenstein at all, don’t think of it as a mission field.

But most people are wrong, according to the father-son pastor team Paul and Mike Clark. Since June 2022, the Clarks have been trying to plant a church in Liechtenstein. 

“Here there is just as much need for the gospel as elsewhere,” son Mike Clark, 44, told CT on a walk through the capital of Vaduz, a town of about 6,000 people located down from the castle where the monarch, Prince Hans-Adam II, lives with his family.

About 70 percent of the 40,000 people are Roman Catholic. There are some small minorities of other religious groups—8 percent of the country identifies as Reformed Protestant and 6 percent as Muslim—but most people are counted as Catholic. 

“Don’t let the official statistics fool you,” Mike Clark said. “Only about 10 percent of these people are in church on any given Sunday.”

Convincing Liechtensteiners to consider going to church—and to an evangelical church at that—has proved to be quite challenging in a country defined by private capital and established Catholicism. Few people seem interested in conversations about faith. Few seem to feel they have spiritual needs. The idea of something different than nominal Catholicism is very foreign to them.

“We’ve tried just about everything to connect with people,” said Paul Clark, a 72-year-old American who has spent decades in Europe. “Setting up an informational table in Vaduz’s city center. Starting a gospel choir. And now launching an Alpha course in the summer,” which teaches the basics of Christianity.

The gospel choir was popular, but no one came back to the church to visit. Getting permits from city hall for the Alpha course demanded lots of time and energy, but the classes weren’t especially popular.

Maybe it will turn out that people are just not that interested in church. Currently, there are actually more casinos (seven) in Liechtenstein than non-Catholic congregations (five). There are only two evangelical churches: Free Evangelical Church in Schaan and Life Church Liechtenstein in Eschen, where the Clarks minister to a small group of people and dream of reaching many, many more. 

Life Church meets once a month in an office park on the outskirts of town. The church’s setup is simple: a few rows of plastic chairs, a drop-down screen with a background image of the Alps, a smattering of tabletops in the back, and a mix of homemade cakes and store-bought chips and guacamole for visitors to snack on. 

Paul Clark leads worship on acoustic guitar alongside a young man from Brazil playing cajon. One Sunday, about 25 people came to the 4 p.m. service. Most were from partner churches in eastern Switzerland and western Austria. They sang “10,000 Reasons” and “Goodness of God” in German. Paul reminded them what the church plant is all about. Quoting the German lyrics of “Shine Jesus Shine,” he prayed that Jesus would shine the light of his Father’s glory on Liechtenstein.

If numbers remain low, they might close by the end of 2024.

“In my experience, if a church isn’t gaining traction in the first couple of years, it won’t ever,” Paul Clark said. 

Church plants in Germany, Liechtenstein, and Switzerland show the challenges—and opportunities—for evangelicals in Europe.

He knows what he’s talking about. Paul Clark first came to Europe from Michigan in the 1970s with Teen Challenge. He met his wife, Mechthild, who was also working with Teen Challenge, in West Germany. In the past 50 years, the couple has helped establish six European churches in collaboration with the Association of Free Church Pentecostals. They’re in the German states of Saarland, Rhineland-Palatinate, and Thuringia.

Mike Clark followed in his parents’ footsteps and has helped start ministries in Missouri, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman. 

Both the Clarks, however, say Liechtenstein may be the toughest place they’ve ever tried to tell people about Jesus. Planting a church has been harder here than anywhere else they’ve experienced.

“There’s a cost for following Christ here,” Mike Clark said. “It’s not your life, but it is a certain loss of anonymity and the social pressure that comes with saying, ‘I follow Jesus.’ ” 

But the father-son pair remain resolute. They believe—or maybe hope is a better word—that some hungry souls have questions about faith that they can’t explore in the context of the Catholic church. They want people in Liechtenstein to have a local evangelical option. Today, many would have to go out of the country for that.

In fact, the original idea for the plant emerged when visitors from Liechtenstein came to the Clarks’ more established church, FCG Bregenz (Free Christian Church Bregenz) in Austria. Similar to Life Church, FCG Bregenz operates out of an office park. It’s located in a former textile factory area on the shores of Lake Constance, in a building with a modern, postindustrial feel.

Heading over to Austria, as boundaries between some of the richest nations flitted by, Mike Clark noted, “Borders are no big deal when it comes to commerce in this part of the world.”

He added, “People shouldn’t have to cross borders to come to Christ.”

FCG Bregenz is very international, though, as are many evangelical churches in Europe. Austrians attend services, but so do people from Germany, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein, as well as expats from Kenya, Syria, and the United States.

Mike Clark himself grew up in Germany; studied theology in the US; earned a doctorate in law in the Netherlands; and, with his wife, Laura, spent 15 years in church emergency and development aid work before feeling the call to plant a church in Austria and then another in Liechtenstein. 

The Clarks founded FCG Bregenz in 2016. Mike Clark, who was ordained in a Pentecostal church in 2004, has led it since 2020. 

He brings all of that experience to ministry and his cross-cultural identity comes through when he preaches. When he pops on stage, worshipers might think they are at church in the US. With his beard, skinny jeans, gray sweater, white tennis shoes, and iPad, “Pastor Mike” looks the part of a hip megachurch pastor. But then he starts preaching in excellent German. 

About 60 people attend his Austrian church on a given Sunday, and about that many watch online. According to Mike Clark, FCG Bregenz is one of several churches planted in the westernmost Austrian state of Vorarlberg in the past 10 years. Most of the churches in the network have fewer than 50 worshipers every Sunday, which makes FCG Bregenz a leader. The church has become a training ground for church planters looking to evangelize more Europeans.

Evert van de Poll, a Dutch missiologist, said Europe presents a particular challenge for evangelism. The weight of a cultural Christian heritage and a century of secularization means few people are seeking out churches. 

New forms of individualized spirituality can be quite popular, but that rarely translates into curiosity about spiritual experiences at an evangelical church.

Van de Poll said he has seen evangelicals successfully reach out to migrants and refugees in Europe. And some churches—in Great Britain, France, Germany, Austria, and even rich little Liechtenstein—are trying a more seeker-sensitive model, with contemporary worship, relevant preaching, and a message that the gospel matters today. 

But what works on one side of a European border, Van de Poll said, doesn’t necessarily work on the other. 

“You’d think that the basic principles are the same, but borders matter,” he said. “Pastors and missionaries need to appreciate Europe’s diversity and the dividing lines between different states; cultures; and their varying degrees of Protestant, Catholic, or secular influence.”

This may be the lesson the Clarks learn from Life Church in Liechtenstein. Despite their success in Austria and their varied international experience, nothing seems to be taking root in the affluent topology of Europe’s smallest German-speaking state.

Maybe next year, if the church can string things together that long, a few shoots of life will appear in
the soil.

But maybe not.

“If nothing comes from our efforts … we are probably going to close up shop,” Paul Clark said. “But God called us here, we know that.” 

Evangelicals Flourish in One Town in Switzerland

For a small town, Buchs has a surprising number of churches. The municipality on the eastern edge of Switzerland has a Roman Catholic community, of course, and a Swiss Protestant congregation, but it also has an Evangelical Alliance church, a Free Evangelical Church, a New Apostolic Church, an International Christian Fellowship, and the nondenominational GRACE.Church. 

In fact, there is about one evangelical congregation for every 1,000 people, which has earned Buchs the nickname “Canaan on the Rhine,” a promised land for Swiss evangelicals. 

Only about 2 percent of Switzerland identifies as evangelical. But in Buchs, for some reason, about 10 percent of people worship at an evangelical church.

Why is this town different?

The pastors leading churches in Buchs have a few theories. There may not be a sociological explanation, they say—the Holy Spirit works in ways beyond human comprehension. 

“There is something prophetic in this place,” Ben Stolz, pastor of GRACE.Church, told CT while sitting in a Buchs café drinking a cappuccino. “The town has a deep spiritual background.”

Ulrich Zwingli, the 16th-century Reformer, was born just outside of Buchs. The farmhouse where he was raised still serves as a place of pilgrimage and spiritual reflection.

More recently, the charismatic preacher Leo Bigger was born in Buchs. Raised a Catholic, he was a disco promoter and had his own rock band before becoming an evangelical and rising in the leadership of the International Christian Fellowship (ICF). Today he’s the pastor of the largest Protestant congregation in Switzerland, ICF Zurich, and the fellowship has grown to about 60 congregations in 13 countries. One of them is in Buchs, of course, led by wife-and-husband team Sarah and Werner Eggenberger.

Stolz’s church attracts about 150 people on an average Sunday, with another 30 or so checking in online. The nondenominational congregation is one of the largest in the city and is known for contemporary worship, a relaxed atmosphere, and topical sermons.

Stolz, who grew up in Buchs, describes it as a “modern,” “living” church. He dreams that one day Europe could be “dotted with vibrant, healthy communities” like GRACE.Church, “where people come to know Jesus Christ, experience healing, and thrive through their growing knowledge of the love and grace of our wonderful God.”

Some people, he knows, find that vision upsetting and even offensive. Several years ago, the Catholic theologian Günther Boss, just across the border in Liechtenstein, used GRACE.Church as an example of what was wrong with modern Christianity. He said its theology was thin, its sermons “repulsive,” and it was simultaneously too modern and too old-fashioned. 

“In their form they are very jazzed up, youthful,” Boss told the Liechtensteiner Vaterland, one of the country’s two daily newspapers. “But in their content they are reactionary and have very narrow moral ideas.”

Such criticisms are not uncommon in Europe. Free churches—those that operate without state-granted privileges—are often stigmatized as strange, antisocial sects. In Buchs, however, there are enough evangelicals that most people know one, and here attacks carry less weight than they might elsewhere. 

“We go to each other’s weddings, attend one another’s funerals, celebrate births and baptisms together,” Martin Frey, the pastor of an official, authorized Swiss Protestant church, told CT. “This helps educate people about the free churches and makes the ‘sect’ image seem outdated.” 

Frey considers Stolz a friend and likes to drink coffee with him at the café. He works with other evangelical pastors in town too. They have theological differences, of course, but he knows them, relates to them, and can see how invested they are in meeting Swiss residents’ spiritual needs. 

People in Buchs find something in an evangelical church, according to Frey, that they can’t find in more mainstream religious communities.

“To raise hands, to stand and sing, to proclaim in tongues is very, very far away from the typical Swiss mentality,” Frey said. “The Swiss tend to hold back.”

Yet some people in Buchs feel they’ve connected with God and other Christians only when they stop holding back—overcoming or at least overlooking their own instinctual restraint. 

Olivier Favre, a Reformed Baptist pastor and sociologist who coedited Phänomen Freikirchen (Free Church Phenomenon), argues this is the key to evangelicals’ success. They understand human needs. They show people how to connect to each other and have a relationship with the divine. 

“In our very individualized society, where many are alone, the idea of a personal relationship with God, belief that he answers prayers, that he can heal the sick and effect miracles, meets a spiritual need,” Favre writes.

In this way, of course, Buchs is no different than other European countries. The town may have a unique history, a sense of spirituality, and enough evangelicals that they’re not seen as odd and marginal as they are in other places. But still, people are people. Europe is Europe. And efforts to evangelize are all pretty similar. 

At a recent vision Sunday at GRACE.Church, Stolz laid out a plan to grow the church. The formula is friendship and faithful Christian witness, he told CT. He hopes this will soon lead to the construction of a new building in which to worship, making one of the many churches in Buchs a little more visible. 

He wants GRACE.Church to be like a light to people in the dark. Or a warm fire for those who are cold.

“People are lonely,” Stolz said, “and the churches here in Buchs are here to help build connections.” 

Ken Chitwood is CT’s European correspondent.

The post What It Takes to Plant Churches in Europe appeared first on Christianity Today.