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Research shows our society's widespread isolation. What's the church's role in alleviating it? While technology, living situations, and neighborhood have all played roles in perpetuating these feelings of loneliness, arguably so have many of churches, says Ashley Hales, the author of Finding Holy in the Suburbs: Living Faithfully in the Land of Too Much. “There’s a sense that our church structures have made people more lonely,” said Hales. “People can just come as they please. If they’re really unknown, they’re not getting plugged into any smaller forms of community.” Part of it is changing cultural expectations of church, said Hales. “We want church to be this customizable religious experience, instead of saying this is the bride of Christ, it’s going to be painful to be a part of, that it’s one of the only organizations where people of every tribe, tongue, and nation are getting together amidst different socioeconomic and racial differences,” she said. “ Hales joined digital media producer Morgan Lee and ed

After years behind bars and on death row, Asia Bibi was recently acquitted of blasphemy charges by Pakistan’s Supreme Court. But although the verdict technically liberated the mother of five, many in Pakistan responded to the announcement in anger, with protests erupting in the country’s major cities. Her family is currently in hiding and seeking asylum in a Western country. Overwhelmingly Muslim, Pakistan is a challenging place for the Christian (and Ahmadiyya community.) It ranks No. 5 on the 2018 World Watch List of the 50 countries where it’s hardest to be a Christian. The US Commission on International Religious Freedom also classifies Pakistan as a Tier 1 Country of Particular Concern. It recently booted out 18 international non-governmental organizations, including the Christian nonprofit World Vision. The reality is that most of the country’s Christians are people who historically are from a lower caste system, which although officially abolished, still exists in the country, says Michael James Nazir-

On Sunday, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram published a four-part series on more than 400 allegations of sexual misconduct affiliated with the independent fundamental Baptist movement. The scope of their reporting spanned nearly 1,000 churches and organizations across 40 states and Canada. The report noted: One hundred and sixty-eight church leaders were accused or convicted of committing sexual crimes against children, the investigation found. At least 45 of the alleged abusers continued in ministry after accusations came to the attention of church authorities or law enforcement. But what is the independent fundamental Baptist movement? Historically it has meant a firm belief in the “fundamental doctrines, that is to say, the essential doctrines of the Christian faith” and “an insistence that you should only extend Christian fellowship to people who profess to believe the gospel.” said Kevin Bauder, a research professor of systematic theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary and the author of a two-part v

We’re in the midst of what could be a significant transition for American pastoral salaries. A lawsuit challenging the longstanding clergy housing allowance is in the court of appeals. Last year’s tax reform bill made significant changes to the standard deduction, which could have dramatic effects for the level of giving churches have historically relied upon. As CT Pastors recently reported, “staffing costs typically account for 45 to 55 percent of a church’s budget. But with recent changes in costs, demographics, and giving in US churches, many are questioning that model.” Beyond these larger changes, churches, whether part of denominations or nondenominational, have long struggled with knowing how to fairly compensate pastors and other employees, says Brian Kluth, who currently leads the National Association of Evangelical’s Financial Health initiative, which seeks to improve the financial health of pastors and church. “There are real critical pay issues for people in church and really at all levels and al

A little over a week ago, a 26-year-missionary was killed by members of an isolated tribe on a remote island near India, Myanmar, and Thailand. As CT reported: According to news reports based on Chau’s journal entries, the Oral Roberts University graduate shouted, “My name is John, and I love you and Jesus loves you,” to Sentinelese tribesmen armed with bows and arrows. He fled to a fishing boat when they shot at him during his initial visit, with one arrow piercing his Bible. The young missionary did not survive a follow-up trip on November 17. Chau was working with All Nations, whose stated mission is “to make disciples and train leaders to ignite church planting movements among the neglected peoples of the earth.” Mary Ho, the international executive leader at All Nations, described Chau as a “very interesting young man” and “very focused.” “Since he was about 18 years old, I believe, he took a mission trip and on that mission trip he really felt a call to be a missionary,” Ho said. “Around that time he st

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It’s been a bloody year in the Central African Republic. Two months ago, a massacre claimed the lives of dozens of people in the country after suspected Islamist rebels attacked a group of civilians. The massacre was just the latest in a wave of violence for the country of 4.5 million. At the beginning of this year, the CAR’s capital had been considered a safe haven in the war-torn country. It was the only place the government claimed control, as three-quarters of the landlocked nation is occupied by armed groups. But since the spring, the country has witnessed an upsurge of violence, notably with attacks targeting churches and church leaders in the capital city, Bangui, and Bambari, another important city in the country. Four Catholic priests were targeted, with three of them killed in separate Islamist attacks. In response to the violence from the past couple years, a militia composed primarily of Christians has also committed atrocities against Muslims. But the unrest hasn’t divided the church, says Paul M

Elections often call attention to white evangelicals whose votes and voices play a significant role in national elections. But their attitudes and values don’t necessarily represent those of evangelicals from different racial and ethnic backgrounds. Case in point: Latino evangelicals. According to data from the Billy Graham Center Institute at Wheaton College and LifeWay Research, 41 percent of Hispanics with evangelical beliefs voted for Trump in 2016. What were the issues that most influenced their vote? According to the same survey, 19 percent said improving the economy, 14 percent said helping those in need, and 14 percent said a candidate’s position on immigration. “Most Latinos will tend to be socially conservative on issues like abortion and same-sex marriage but will tend to be social liberals on issues like education and immigration, so we’ve tended to be divided on how we spread the vote,” said Juan Martínez, who currently serves as professor of Hispanic studies and pastoral leadership at Fuller The

A Chicagoland megachurch pastor has sued a Christian media personality and two former church-members-turned-potential-whistleblowers for defamation. According to Harvest Bible Chapel pastor James McDonald, former Moody Radio host Julie Roys and bloggers Ryan Mahoney and Scott Bryant published and helped publicize false and damaging financial information about the congregation. But should Christians so at odds actually be taking each other to court? In many cases, no, says Ken Sande, the founder of Peacemaker Ministries and the current president of Relational Wisdom 360. “Typically, conflict between Christians involves some foundation of sin,” said Sande. “Lawyers can dress that up in legal terms, but what it really comes down to in 99 percent of the cases is sin. Keeping one’s word. Slandering. False representation. Bitterness. Anger. Unforgiveness. Those are all spiritual issues that the church has jurisdiction over and a judge can’t touch.” Sande joined associate digital media producer Morgan Lee and editor

Last year, Vice President Mike Pence pledged support to Christians, Yazidis, and other minorities forced out of their homelands in Iraq by ISIS. Religious freedom advocates and groups in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq cheered the news. Then, the money didn’t come. Last week, the Trump administration announced a multimillion-dollar assistance plan to bring the total funding over the past year for religious minorities in Iraq to nearly $300 million. The money will be used to rebuild communities, preserve heritage sites, secure left-behind explosives, and empower survivors to seek justice. Those charged with administering the funds have their work cut for them. “From the time of the US invasion to now, you have seen a Christian church of over a million people that has been reduced to 100,000 people,” said Mindy Belz, senior editor at World Magazine, who has visited and reported from Iraq frequently over the past two decades. When Saddam Hussein’s regime was first toppled, Christians were hopeful, says Belz.

Last week, the world’s leading climate scientists released a sobering report, which claimed that there are only a dozen years to keep the Earth’s climate from increasing by 1.5 degrees Celsius. If the planet fails to do so, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned, the risk of drought, floods, extreme heat, and poverty for hundreds of millions of people will massively increase. To avoid barreling toward this future, the entire world will have to make massive changes in the way it currently consumes energy. “It’s a line in the sand and what it says to our species is that this is the moment and we must act now,” Debra Roberts, a scientist who worked on the report, told The Guardian. “This is the largest clarion bell from the science community and I hope it mobilizes people and dents the mood of complacency.” But upending the status quo is incredibly difficult work, says Peter Harris, cofounder of A Rocha, an international Christian nature organization. A former parish minister, Harris

Last week, Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. He was never seen again. Now, Turkish officials believe Khashoggi, a longtime critic of the country, was murdered by Saudi officials. That same week, US officials visited the Saudi Arabian capital city of Riyadh and reported that the country seemed to be loosening some of its harsh religious laws, including reforming its religious police—once tasked with enforcing shari’ah law on the streets and in homes—and has instituted new government programs to quash extremism. Last fall, the 33-year-old Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman announced plans last October to modernize Saudi Arabia and return the restrictive Muslim country to “what we were before: a country of moderate Islam that is open to all religions and to the world.” And while the Crown Prince, whose often known by his nickname MSB, has made real strides in advancing freedom, including letting women drive, incidents like Khashoggi’s reported death, suggest

Last week, millions of Americans were caught up in the Senate’s Supreme Court hearings. There, psychologist Christine Blasey Ford testified that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh sexually attacked her while the two were in high school. Several hours later, Kavanaugh emphatically refuted Blasey Ford’s allegations. The hearings came months after Justice Anthony Kennedy, long seen as a swing vote on the court, announced his retirement. This news prompted alarm from the pro-choice community who feared that the new balance in the Supreme Court would overturn Roe v. Wade. Despite their fears, Kavanaugh’s confirmation seemed on track until Blasey Ford’s allegations went public. Shortly after the hearing, a book excerpt from Tim Keller, the founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church, appeared in The New York Times. “Christians cannot pretend they can transcend politics and simply ‘preach the Gospel,’” he wrote in his latest book Prodigal Prophet: Jonah and the Mystery of God’s Mercy. “Those who avoid all pol

Earlier this month, you couldn’t turn a television on without seeing footage of Hurricane Florence. As of recording, the storm has been blamed for the deaths of 42 people in Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina, and costing billions of dollars of damage. Yet, in many ways, national attention has already moved on. That’s something that Puerto Rico knows too well. It’s been a year since the storm claimed 64 immediate deaths and catalyzed the exodus of thousands of Puerto Ricans from the island and a sense of hopelessness in the territory at large. The loss of community was especially hard for Puerto Ricans like Gadiel Ríos, a pastor in Arecibo, who stayed on the island. “Everyone lost their friends, everyone lost family,” said Ríos, who is also the founder of the ministry ReformaDos. “The main problem we are facing now is despair and then because of their despair people tend to [fall] into depression...People feel lonely and frustrated.” Ríos joined associate digital media producer Morgan Lee and editor

Several years ago, the Obama administration set a target of resettling more than 110,000 refugees for resettlement in fiscal year 2017, the highest goal since 1995. This week, the Trump administration set the ceiling on the number of refugees that can be resettled in the United States next year at 30,000. Even as the number of refugees allowed in America has dropped since Trump took office, the State Department has named international religious freedom as one of its primary goals. To some extent, these two policies work against each other, says Jenny Yang, who provides oversight for all advocacy initiatives and policy positions at World Relief. “The countries from which Christians are most persecuted are those that there are the most refugees from,” said Yang. Only 18 and 5 refugees from Iraq and Iran respectively—countries where many Christians have been persecuted in recent years—have been resettled in the US since the beginning of the year. “You have a lot of persecuted Christians who are refugees and beco

Last week, John MacArthur and a dozen other Christian leaders launched a website presenting The Statement on Social Justice & the Gospel. In the statement, the signatories claim that the social justice movement endangers Christians with “an onslaught of dangerous and false teachings that threaten the gospel, misrepresent Scripture, and lead people away from the grace of God in Jesus Christ.” Over the course of 14 sections, the Statement addresses cultural narratives “currently undermining Scripture in the areas of race and ethnicity, manhood and womanhood, and human sexuality” and argues that a secular threat is infiltrating the evangelical church. At the time of this recording, the Statement has received around 7,000 signatures. The statement comes at a time when a series of blog posts and sermons attacking social justice from MacArthur, a popular California pastor and author, had sparked controversy in the evangelical community. The harsh reaction to MacArthur’s ideas was shaped by the events of the past fo

This spring, California assemblyman Evan Low introduced legislation that would have designated paid “conversion therapy” services as a fraudulent business practice. Until last week, Low’s measure seemed set to pass. It moved through both of California’s legislative chambers and governor Jerry Brown had shown no sign of opposition. But last Friday, Low quashed his own legislation after meeting with Christian leaders who had expressed concerns about how the bill might affect their ability to minister to those in the LGBT community. “Some would say this is crazy,” Low, who is gay and the chairman of the legislative LGBTQ caucus, told The Los Angeles Times. “Why would you pause when you don’t need to, when you’re in the driver’s seat?” One answer was Low’s relationship with Kevin Mannoia, the former president of the National Association of Evangelicals and a leader in the Free Methodist Church. Over the course of the summer, Mannoia met with and developed a relationship with Low. Last week, Mannoia wrote an op-ed

The Catholic world is reeling after a devastating month of sexual abuse revelations. At the beginning of August, a Pennsylvania grand jury reported that hundreds of priests abused at least 1,000 children since the 1940s and that dozens of church officials covered it up. Then, this past week, a prominent archbishop claimed that Pope Francis knew about—and covered up—the actions of Theodore McCarrick, a former cardinal who has been accused of sexually harassing adult seminarians and abusing a child. For lay Catholics, the litany of sex abuse stories has been devastating. “The ultimate source of authority and power that the normal Catholic needs week to week is their priest,” said John Armstrong, the president of ACT3 Network, an organization which works to foster Christian unity. “It’s not the Vatican, not the structure of the Vatican, not even the Pope, though he’s the Holy Father to Catholics.” Because of this close relationship, the church betraying their trust can feel even more intense. “When the priest is

Check out this headlines from the past decade: “Why Don’t Most Men Go to Church?” Christian Century, October 2011 “Why Men Still Hate Going to Church” CT Pastors, Summer 2012 “7 Actions to Engage Men in Your Church” Pastors.com, March 2014 “Why Do Men Hate Church and What Can Be Done About It?” The Tennessean, Jan 2015 Mending Men’s Ministry, Christianity Today, June 2018 And then there’s a newsletter, The Masculinist, which reflects on a monthly basis on the factors driving men men from church. Aaron Renn, The Masculinist’s author and creator, said the idea for his project came both from the knowledge that church attendance skewed female and the realization a number of non-Christian writers, authors, and cultural commentators were grabbing this group’s attention. “What is it that all of these people are reaching men with essentially a secular self-help message and the [church’s message] isn’t working?” said Renn. “...When I became a Christian I maybe naively took everything in. I felt like the teachings that

This week was the first year anniversary of the alt-right’s violent rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Over the course of that weekend, attendees and counter-demonstrators engaged in violent confrontations and one alt-right member drove a car into a crowd, killing a woman and injuring dozens more. The city has subsequently elected a new mayor and lost its city attorney, police chief, and city manager. Meanwhile, many in the city are divided over whether last year’s brazen racist attitudes came from those outside of the city or that only embodying of the town’s racist lineage. Walter Kim was interviewing for a pastoral job the weekend of the protests and moved down to Charlottesville later that month. The pastor for executive leadership at Trinity Presbyterian Church, Kim’s first year on staff has been radically shaped by their aftermath. At his own church, “there has been lament. An urge to repent. A galvanizing toward action. A befuddlement about what that action should be. A desire to individually and inst