Quick To Listen

From a numbers perspective, for every American church, there are about two people returning home from incarceration annually. Yet, just 1 in 5 churches (22%) that average 250 or more attendees have formal ministries for people leaving correctional facilities according to a LifeWay Research survey of 1,000 evangelical and mainline pastors conducted earlier this year. Many pastors just aren’t aware of how dramatically incarceration affects their congregation, says Dominique Gilliard, a pastor at Convergence Covenant Church in Oakland, California. “Churches have created a cone of silence around this issue. It becomes so stigmatized. I can’t tell you all the times I go and preach or teach at a church and the pastor is completely unaware that people are dealing with this,” said Gilliard, who is writing a book about restorative justice. “People are lined up after service to come to talk to me because this is the first time that they heard their church talk about this.” Once church leadership and attendees decide th

Katelyn and Morgan are off this week, so we're presenting Quick to Listen listeners with Katelyn's recent appearance on Christianity Today's other podcast: The Calling. In this episode, Katelyn chats with The Calling's host Richard Clark about being a woman on the cutting edge of evangelical leadership, her new book, A Woman’s Place, and personal and professional challenges she's encountered when pursuing her calling. Quick to Listen will return with a new episode next week. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In anticipation of his upcoming film about Nat Turner, a slave who led a rebellion against the system, its filmmaker and star, Nate Parker told CT that he hoped the movie would unsettle American Christians. “[I hoped] Christians would be put at a crossroads, that this would be a moment where they have to ask themselves, Wow, this is the Word, but it's very clearly being used to oppress—Where is the line?” the Birth of Nation creator said in an interview with CT earlier this month. “I ask myself: if Christ was here, how would he react to the misuse and misrepresentation of his name and his actions? How might we be more effective in holding ourselves as Christians accountable to his actual word? I, for one, believe that partisanship should have nothing to do with the actions of Christ. You're either Christlike, or you're not.” In the past two weeks, however, Parker has come under scrutiny after Variety reported that the woman who accused Parker and his college roommate of raping her while they were students at

Did you see the Americans’ sweep the hurdles last night? Do you go to bed at night still thinking about Katie Ledecky breaking her own world records? Do you have dozens of hours of unwatched pool play handball games on your DVR? We have a podcast for you. Two-time Olympian Josh Davis—who swam with Michael Phelps in his last Olympics—and recently-returned-from-Rio correspondent Tim Ellsworth joined Quick to Listen this week. Despite the euphoria of attending the games and winning medals—Davis won five medals during his trips to the Atlanta 1996 and Sydney 2000 games—making the transition back to the real world can be difficult at times. “I think everyone experiences it to varying degrees, but there is a letdown,” said Davis. “When you come off a church retreat, church camp, summer project, mission trip, and you come back to the regular world, it’s like ‘Oh man.’ It’s kind of like leaving heaven.” Sharing his experiences with young people across the country ultimately made the transition easier, says Davis, a p

If voter turnout is any indication, Americans don’t care that much about local elections. During presidential elections, about 60 percent of those eligible head to the polls. During midterms, it's only about 40 percent. It gets worse. During municipal elections, voter turnout falls another 20 points, with only 1 in 5 of those eligible voting for mayor. But local level politics--often affecting housing, transportation, education, and business--can have significant repercussions for communities. And it’s more than voting, says Stephen K. Reeves, the associate coordinator of partnerships and advocacy, for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. Reeves advises Christians to start showing up at city meetings and spending time with their local leaders. “In our current political climate in Washington, there’s so much gridlock,” said Reeves. “People often turn to the state and local level to get things done, [the level] where you have more problem solvers, people who are more about making a difference in a more immediate

Last week, theologian and ethicist Wayne Grudem offered his endorsement of GOP candidate Donald Trump. In “Why Voting for Donald Trump Is a Morally Good Choice,” Grudem conceded that Trump had been far from perfect: He is egotistical, bombastic, and brash. He often lacks nuance in his statements. Sometimes he blurts out mistaken ideas (such as bombing the families of terrorists) that he later must abandon. He insults people. He can be vindictive when people attack him. He has been slow to disown and rebuke the wrongful words and actions of some angry fringe supporters. He has been married three times and claims to have been unfaithful in his marriages. These are certainly flaws, but I don’t think they are disqualifying flaws in this election. Grudem concedes that while Trump’s character is problematic, he concludes that the billionaire is “a good candidate with flaws” because “most of the policies he supports are those that will do the most good for the nation.” Trump isn’t the only candidate whose reputation

Earlier this week, ESPN’s analytics site FiveThirtyEight gave Hillary Clinton a 60 percent of winning the presidency in November. Should Clinton win this fall, however, it’s unlikely she’ll be thanking many evangelicals. According to a Pew Research Study from earlier this month, only 16 percent of evangelical voters said they would vote for her. Not only that, when asked about their motivation, an overwhelming number suggested that they were either voting for Donald Trump because they didn’t like Clinton or were only voting Clinton because they disliked Trump more. (Overall: 30 percent supported Trump and would vote for him, 45 percent said they would vote for Trump because they did not want Clinton to win, 10 percent would be voting against Trump for Clinton and only 6 percent said they would vote Clinton because they backed her. Read CT’s report.) This disdain has been around for a long time. Alan Noble, an English professor at Oklahoma Baptist University, remembers listening to talk radio disparaging Clint

The world can be divided into two camps: people who are playing Pokémon Go and people who haven’t realized what they’re missing. Drew Dixon falls in the former camp. An avid gamer and editor-in-chief of the nonprofit Game Church, the Nashville resident has spent the greater part of this month catching Pokémon, while exploring his city and making new friends. Earlier this week, Dixon wrote for The Local Church on what Christians miss by turning the gaming phenomenon into a recruitment tool. “I’m beginning to suspect that by plotting ways to leverage Pokémon Go to get more people in their pews, many churches are missing out on the exploratory, community-building spirit that makes the game such a powerful cultural force—the same spirit, in fact, that represents its greatest opportunity for churches nationwide,” he wrote. One question churches might start asking themselves instead: ”How could we possibly engage in this game redemptively in a way that would be loving to our neighbor and would celebrate something i

On Tuesday, President Obama honored the lives of the five Dallas police officers shot dead last week by a sniper in Dallas. He also reflected on the deaths of two black men, Philando Castile and Anton Sterling, who were shot dead by police officers last week, and of the suffering he’s witnessed during his time in the White House. “I’ve seen how inadequate words can be in bringing about lasting change,” said Obama. “I’ve seen how inadequate my own words have been. And so, I’m reminded of a passage in John’s Gospel, ‘let us love, not with words or speech, but with actions and in truth.’” (Note: We’re aware that the president actually quoted 1 John.) In the wake of last week’s shootings, Joshua DuBois, the former head of the White House’s Office of Faith Based Partnerships, responded with action, creating a form letter for citizens to send their local police chiefs. As of writing, the tweet has been retweeted nearly 5,000 times. “I live outside of DC and realized I had never had a conversation with my police chi

“As a psychiatrist, I diagnose mental illness. Also, I help spot demonic possession.” That’s the headline from a Washington Post essay from Richard Gallagher, a Catholic Ivy-league educated mental health professional who has worked for decades with priests to determine the difference between the two phenomena. While Gallagher’s colleagues have raised their eyebrows at the nature of his work, “careful observation of the evidence presented to me in my career has led me to believe that certain extremely uncommon cases can be explained no other way,” he writes. Part of that comes with experience, says Eric Johnson, a professor of pastoral care at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. When “you have experience with people with schizophrenia and dissociative identity disorder and someone that is demon-possessed, you know the difference,” says Johnson, recalling what others who have worked with those in both situations have told him. (Johnson has not himself worked directly with anyone he believes suffered from dem

In honor of the long weekend, Morgan and Katelyn thought they would take some time to appreciate the good things in life. Joined with podcast producer and host of CT’s other podcast, The Calling, Richard Clark, Morgan and Katelyn discuss the precious moments they look forward to, a few great articles they’ve read in the last week, and suggest some things our listeners can check out to enrich their weekend. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On Sunday, Lebron James led the Cleveland Cavaliers to victory over the Golden State Warriors in Game 7 at home in Oakland. At one time, the Warriors had led the series 3-1, before they lost three in a row for the first time since 2013. During the Warriors’ Game 6 loss to the Cavaliers, Steph Curry fouled out for the first time all year before throwing his mouth guard into the stands. He was then suspended after swearing at the referees. Later, his wife Ayesha Curry tweeted that the game was “absolutely rigged for money” before she later deleted it. Not everyone was happy with the reaction of either Curry, a couple known for their Christian faith. (Some called for the NBA to suspend Steph, while Ayesha deleted her tweet following criticism on Twitter.) While Steph is open about his faith, he has largely communicated this through his actions, rather than bold proclamations of faith, says columnist Marcus Thompson, who has covered the Warriors for nearly two decades. “In the absence of words, you should probabl

Forty-nine people lost their lives after a gunman opened fire in an Orlando nightclub early Sunday morning. In the days since the shooting, mainstream and social media responses have discussed and analyzed hatred and violence against LGBT communities, the merits of gun control, anti-Muslim sentiments, whether prayer is an appropriate response to tragedies, and if Christians who hold to traditional views on marriage are complicit in anti-LGBT violence. Are the array of opinions and facts available on our phones or television screens actually helping us? “We use media when we can’t be present,” says Andy Crouch, CT’s executive editor. While this type of technology makes many things possible--including this very podcast, and the article you are currently reading--it has several major disadvantages, Crouch says. “The one thing that media are really bad at doing is the one thing needed in the immediate wake of any trauma for any person or community: the silence that’s possible when you’re present in the body but i

Former Trump University students say their school duped them into paying as much as $35,000 for its real estate seminars. So they sued and the case is currently in court. You probably know what happened next. Last week, GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump went after the judge presiding over the civil fraud lawsuits—because of his ethnicity. “He's Mexican. We're building a wall between here and Mexico,” said Trump, who claimed that the Indiana-born US District Judge Gonzalo Curiel faced an “absolute conflict,” in ruling on the billionaire’s case. Trump’s words were the “textbook definition of a racist comment,” said GOP Speaker of the House Paul Ryan. Trump has since suggested that his remarks were “misconstrued.” Trump’s words were wrong, but it’s also incorrect to think that someone can do their jobs without their ethnic background coming into play, said Gabriel Salguero, the founder and president of the National Latino Evangelical Coalition, who joined Quick to Listen this week. “God’s sovereign will plac

Last Saturday, a four-year-old boy climbed the wall of the Cincinnati Zoo’s gorilla exhibit and tumbled into the moat. After Harambe, the zoo’s 17-year-old gorilla, dragged the boy through the water multiple times, a zookeeper shot and killed the animal. Over the weekend, the story provoked national speculation, fury, and sadness over parenting, zoos, and dead animals. While zoo officials were right to kill Harambe to protect the toddler, the Bible is clear that animals have value, says Karen Swallow Prior, an English professor at Liberty University, and a member of the Faith Advisory Council of the Humane Society of the United States. “Let’s go back to Genesis and the Bible. Very clearly there is something that we as human beings share with animals, in terms of having animation, having a moving spirit,” said Prior. “We are made in God’s image, animals are not, but we still have the breath of life in us. God himself indicates in the Genesis account that there is a special relationship between humans and anima

This week, 10 states announced that they would sue the Obama administration following its executive order mandating that school districts allow transgender students to use their bathroom of their preferred gender. On Wednesday, the House of Representatives passed an amendment aimed at preventing the US government from withholding federal funds from North Carolina, after the state passed its controversial “bathroom bill,” requiring people to use the bathroom that matches their birth certificate this March. This comes on the heels of the Justice Department’s decision to sue the state for the law for “state-sponsored discrimination.” Few of these political fights have helped anyone better understand the nuances of transgenderism, says Mark Yarhouse, the author of Understanding Gender Dysphoria and founder of the Institute for the Study of Sexual Identity. “People experience legislation as an attack on the things that they believe in, and other people think that legislation is symbolic of the things that matter t

If you’re on Facebook, you’ve probably glanced at--and maybe clicked into--the trending headlines on your timeline. Maybe you thought these stories were generated by an algorithm. You’d be wrong. Instead, Facebook employed a team of people who selected these stories, with a bit of influence from management. Higher-ups repeatedly instructed the team to keep “stories about the right-wing CPAC gathering, Mitt Romney, Rand Paul, and other conservative topics from appearing in the highly-influential section, even though they were organically trending among the site’s users,” reported Gizmodo, which broke the story. “Facebook’s bottom line and their shareholders’ best interests are Facebook’s best interests,” said our guest Adam Graber, who writes about technology and the church. “Facebook wants to keep you on their site and keep you clicking. If they can keep a trending topics bar to help you do that, they’re going do that. Yes, they’re looking to keep their users happy but their users aren’t necessarily the ones

Last week, John Kasich and Ted Cruz suspended their presidential campaigns, making Donald Trump the presumptive Republican nominee. The news left many evangelicals praying for Nebraska senator and avid Trump critic Ben Sasse to jump into the race as a third party candidate and sharing Russell Moore’s article on voting for “the lesser of two evils.” D.C.-based pastor and writer Thabiti Anyabwile took a different tact. “Let the hate begin,” he tweeted earlier this week. “But if choice is between [Hillary] Clinton and Trump, I'm voting Clinton. I'll go back to not voting when this man is defeated!” But a lot of people aren’t convinced. Just prior to Cruz’s concession, polls showed anywhere between 16 percent to 24 percent of churchgoing evangelical voters faced with a Trump vs. Clinton matchup, would choose to stay home or vote for a third-party candidate. (Here’s a deep dive into the numbers.) Anyabwile, who has emphatically stated that he is no fan of Clinton, has abstained from voting in recent previous presi

Everything’s possible if you work hard enough. At least that’s what shows Biggest Loser (NBC), Extreme Weight Loss (ABC) and Fit to Fat to Fit (A&E) suggest to their audiences. But it’s not necessarily true, as The New York Times reported this week in an in-depth examination about the lives of Biggest Loser contestants—many of whom regained the weight they had lost over the course of the show after they left. As the Times reports, biology—specifically one’s metabolism—plays a significant role in determining a person’s weight and their ability to lose weight. This news may bring relief to the former contestants, but it also ought to challenge society about its own assumptions about individuals and weight. “As Christians we want to be welcoming to everyone and not judge someone based on their size but when it gets down to it, a lot of times we may think What is wrong with this person that they haven’t taken care of their health?” says CT’s online associate editor and reality television show fan Kate Shellnutt.

On Saturday, Beyoncé released her 12-song visual album, Lemonade, in which the 20-time Grammy award winning artist known for “Single Ladies,” “Irreplaceable,” and “Crazy in Love,” explored themes of anger, loss, redemption, and resurrection. The album’s lyrics and imagery also included a plethora of Christian references, including mentions of the “Holy Book,” “baptism”, and visuals of the Bible. “Chapters” within the visual album are named “emptiness,” “forgiveness,” “resurrection,” and “redemption.” “[I] went to the basement, confessed my sins, and was baptized in a river,” Beyonce says at the beginning of “Intuition.” “I got on my knees and said 'amen'... and said 'I mean.'” In “Anger,” text reading “God is God and I am not” momentarily appears on the screen, a section that moved Zakiya N. Jackson, who wrote about her initial reaction to the album’s release on Collected Young Minds. “It really is about being frustrated and angry, this sense of this isn’t right, what I have experienced. But even in the midst