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  • Who Restricts Religion More, Politicians or the People? Pew Crunched the Global Data.
    by Jayson Casper on March 18, 2024 at 6:00 pm

    Annual report grades 198 nations and territories, with 9 in 10 harassing believing communities. China and Nigeria score the worst. Government restrictions on religion are at a global high. Social hostility toward religion, however, has ticked downward. So concludes the Pew Research Center in its 14th annual analysis of the extent to which 198 nations and territories—and their citizens—impinge on religious belief and practice. Some sort of harassment of religious groups was recorded in all but eight. The 2024 report, released earlier this month, draws primarily from more than a dozen UN, US, European, and civil society sources, and reflects conditions from 2021, the latest year with fully available data. The global median on Pew’s 10-point scale of government restrictions reached 3.0 for the first time ever, continuing a steady rise since the baseline score of 1.8 in 2007. Overall, 55 nations (28%) recorded levels marked “very high” or “high,” only two lower than last year’s total of 57. Nicaragua was highlighted for harassment of Catholic clergy. Regional differences are apparent: The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) scored 5.9, up from its baseline score of 4.7. Asia-Pacific scored 4.2, up from 3.2. Europe scored 3.1, up from 1.7. Sub-Saharan Africa scored 2.6, up from 1.7. And the Americas scored 2.1, up from 1.0. Pew’s 20 measures of government restrictions included efforts to “ban particular faiths, prohibit conversion, limit preaching, or give preferential treatment to one or more religious groups.” Some pertained to COVID-19, such as Canada’s fines against open churches. A further 13 measures for acts of religious hostility by individuals or groups included “religion-related armed conflict or terrorism, mob or sectarian violence, harassment over attire for religious reasons, ...Continue reading...

  • Metaphors Have a Power That’s More Than Metaphorical
    by Raed Gilliam on March 18, 2024 at 4:00 pm

    Joy Clarkson peels back the veil of overfamiliarity from commonplace expressions and images. I’m afraid these men would only slow me down,” says a cocksure Benedict Cumberbatch in the role of the godfather of computer science, Alan Turing. A 2014 biopic, The Imitation Game, portrays Turing as a lonely, world-changing genius who reluctantly takes on help from less intelligent colleagues who’d only threaten his efficiency and from whom he has to hide secrets that threaten his clearance, career, and life. As it turns out, he will need his friends’ help to keep his job, and together, they crack the Nazis’ Enigma code and create the prototypical model for a computer, the Turing machine (this is history, not a spoiler!). One of Turing’s many contributions to the development of computing intelligence was the Turing test—a method designed to probe a machine’s ability to display intelligent behavior a human observer might confuse for human behavior. Needless to say, we’ve come a long way in that department. In (successfully) designing computers to match and exceed many aspects of our own cognitive faculties, we find ourselves in a chaotic battlefield where grim doomsday jeremiads about AI and utopian techno-optimist manifestos vie for the soul of humankind. Guiding these rapid-fire developments is a powerful metaphor: the human mind as computer. And the more we use this metaphor, the more readily we come to believe it. And yet, as this mindset has infused itself into our collective unconscious, it’s been met with more and more resistance. Consider philosopher and cognitive scientist Tim van Gelder, author of the 1995 essay “What Might Cognition Be, If Not Computation?” In it, he suggests that the Turing machine (a computational model) is less helpful for ...Continue reading...

  • Died: Michael Knott, Christian Alternative Musician Who Helped Launch Tooth & Nail
    by Kelsey Kramer McGinnis on March 18, 2024 at 2:43 pm

    Knott wrote rock operas, sang with honesty and conviction, called out hypocrites, and bucked the norms of the Christian music industry. Michael Knott, whose music and influence helped cultivate the Christian alternative music scene of the 1990s and 2000s, died Tuesday at the age of 61. He is survived by his daughter, Stormie Fraser. Knott was the founder of the label Blonde Vinyl and later collaborated with Brandon Ebel to launch the highly influential Tooth & Nail Records, known for bands like Underoath and MxPx. His raw, innovative, and controversial music pushed against the norms of the industry and laid the groundwork for contemporary communities around Christian alt music. “Knott helped prove that Christian music could be something legitimate, rather than running two to three years behind mainstream trends,” said Matt Crosslin, who runs the site Knottheads and has become an unofficial archivist of Knott’s work. Even with his reputation for bucking standards, Knott’s sense of mission was earnest and singular. “He wanted people to come to Jesus and be saved,” said Nathan Myrick, assistant professor of church music at Mercer University. “He seemed to offer a way of holding faith and raw authenticity in tension.” Knott was born in Aurora, Illinois, and grew up with six sisters in what he described as a modern “von Trapp family.” They were constantly singing and immersed in music through their father, a folk singer, and their mother, a church organist. When Knott was in second grade, his family moved to Southern California, where he began to take piano and guitar lessons at the YMCA. He started writing songs in his preteen years and would bury them in a folder in his backyard, convinced that nothing would ever come of his private creative life. Despite his early shyness about his songwriting, Knott ...Continue reading...

  • Gender Roles Beyond the Western Church
    by Interview by Kara Bettis Carvalho on March 18, 2024 at 12:00 pm

    Scott W. Sunquist calls the American church to observe the diversity in ecclesiologies around the world. The recent revival of interest in biblical gender roles—how men and women serve in the church and function at home in relation to each other—seems to be focused in the Western church, especially in the US. Christianity Today reached out to Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary president Scott W. Sunquist, who is also a missiologist with expertise in non-Western Christianity, to ask about the global context around gender and the church. This interview has been lightly edited for style and clarity. How have the terms of the gender roles debate come to be defined in the evangelical church? Two prefatory comments: First, “evangelical” has become a contested category, so whenever we ask about “the evangelical church,” we need to further specify which family or tradition we are talking about. Secondly, much of the “debate” regarding gender roles occurred when my family was overseas, so we missed the initial formation of the discussion around the words complementarian and egalitarian. They were new concepts that began to spread in the late 1980s. The evangelical debate around this has been very different from the larger and broader ecumenical discussion regarding the roles of men and women. The Orthodox church does not ordain female priests and neither do Roman Catholics. Protestant mainline churches began opening all offices of the church to women in the wake of the great missionary movement, where women dominated the pioneering work. Pentecostals from the earliest years of the movement recognized the equal function of women and men and so, in that tradition, women were planting and pastoring churches in the early 20th century. The bifurcated (“either/or”) view of gender roles ...Continue reading...

  • Complementarian at Home, Egalitarian at Church? Paul Would Approve.
    by Gordon P. Hugenberger on March 18, 2024 at 12:00 pm

    The biggest New Testament passages on gender roles may have more to do with marriage than ministry. Christianity Today once featured a cartoon depicting the apostle Paul arriving at Corinth and saying rather meekly, “I see you received my letter.” Greeting him on the road is an angry mob of women holding placards reading “Women of Corinth unite” and “Paul the apostle is a male chauvinist pig.” It is an amusing picture, but its sentiment is far from the truth. For his time period, Paul’s letters were radically liberating and dignifying for women, who had few rights in eastern Greco-Roman culture. Paul’s teachings about women have sometimes been misunderstood and misapplied in ways that are denigrating to women. For example, rather than giving attention to Paul’s emphasis on the husband’s obligation to put his wife’s interests well ahead of his own, people have often misconstrued Paul’s comments on wifely submission as a charge to husbands to make their wives submit; as permission for husbands to boss their wives around; or as justification for meanness, abuse, or even violence against women. Related to their views on these and other texts regarding marriage, evangelical churches continue to be sharply divided on the question of the role of women in church leadership. They have often polarized on a spectrum, with complementarians (those who believe there are distinct, complementary roles for men and women in marriage, church, and sometimes society) on one side, and egalitarians (those who deny there are distinct roles for men and women) on the other. Despite the regrettable divisiveness that has sometimes resulted from these differences, some evangelical churches have decided to respect the strengths of both views and focus on the deeper unity between complementarians ...Continue reading...

  • Will ‘Complementarianism’ Survive?
    by Danielle Treweek on March 18, 2024 at 12:00 pm

    I want to continue to call myself a complementarian. But we need to reclaim the term. Is there a future for complementarianism? I don’t mean whether the God-ordained concept of complementarity between men and women will itself continue to exist—those of us who hold to the principle of equality and distinction between men and women understand it to be grounded in Scripture itself. Rather, I’m speaking of complementarianism as a specific movement, a coherent framing of some of those biblical convictions. I’d very much like to be able to continue describing myself as complementarian by conviction, believing that Scripture prescribes particular roles for men and women in the church and in the home. But in recent years, the increasing cancellation, co-option, and cannibalization of complementarianism as a term has led me to question whether I will continue to use it to describe my beliefs. Since the word complementarianism was first used in the late 1980s to describe or frame the theological beliefs I hold, the concept has been subject to much critique. Now as Christians, we should not fear inquiry but embrace healthy and respectful criticism. It compels us to interrogate our thinking, identify our unspoken assumptions, and grow in our understanding and knowledge of God. But cancellation is different. Cancellation doesn’t simply say, I think you are wrong, and here’s why. It says, You don’t deserve to exist. There is no place for you here. And unfortunately, an increasing number of opponents of complementarianism are choosing to leapfrog over critique to land on cancellation. Indeed, many newer and younger commentators now typically condemn all expressions of complementarianism—in every time and in every place—as being inherently abusive and intolerable. I share ...Continue reading...

  • Passover’s Promises for My Children
    by Jennifer Greenberg on March 18, 2024 at 12:00 pm

    When I married into a Jewish family, antisemitism hit home. Now, the holy day reminds me of our future hope. On October 7, 2023, my mother-in-law called. “Have you seen the news?” she asked urgently. “Terrorists have attacked Israel. Where are the kids? Are they at home with you? Can you keep them home from school this week?” She knows antisemitism all too well. Her husband is a Jew who traces his lineage back to the tribe of Levi. His ancestors immigrated to America from Poland and Russia in the early 1900s. They maintained their heritage and ancient faith through centuries of opposition, faithfully attending synagogue, reading from the Torah, and celebrating holidays such as Passover. They broke bread and drank wine in remembrance of when God rescued their people out of slavery in Egypt. Today, my father-in-law is a Christian. As we break the matzoh, we remember Jesus, whose body was broken for us. As we drink the wine, we remember his blood poured out for the salvation of many. This meal, while it reminds us of our Savior who freed us from slavery to sin, is also a promise of what is to come. For the generations who have suffered, this meal is a reminder of God’s redemption. It gives us hope. Though he rarely talks about it, my father-in-law has told us stories about his childhood growing up in Miami. His family went to synagogue every Saturday, and he and his Jewish friends attended Hebrew school five days a week. His father owned a grocery store in the 1950s and ’60s, working sunup to sundown every day except the Sabbath. He supported his family in a community where Jewish, Black, and Hispanic people were often unwelcome. “I remember going to the beach and seeing signs on the bathroom doors that read, ‘No dogs or Jews allowed,’” my father-in-law told me. “I remember ...Continue reading...

  • Heaven Isn’t Our Eternal Escape from Work
    by Jen Wilkin on March 18, 2024 at 12:00 pm

    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 ...Continue reading...

  • White Evangelicals Want Christian Influence, Not a ‘Christian Nation’
    by Harvest Prude on March 15, 2024 at 4:30 pm

    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, ...Continue reading...

  • The Witness of Women Is Written on the Walls
    by Lanta Davis on March 15, 2024 at 2:00 pm

    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 ...Continue reading...