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Donald Trump stands wrapped in the arms of Secret Service agents—their dark sunglasses and suits blending like a many-armed, many-eyed modern seraphim. Blood streams from his right ear, and his face is contorted with rage, determination, and pain. He thrusts his fist skyward. Behind him, the Star-Spangled Banner yet waves. You couldn’t pose a more iconic image if you tried. In the months before the assassination attempt, I watched dozens of old Trump speeches and read a stack of his... Read More

Great to Good Jae Hoon Lee (IVP) Highly driven performers and organizational leaders often speak of making the leap from good to great. As his book title suggests, Korean pastor Jae Hoon Lee believes the church (and individual Christians) should invert that mindset, pursuing Christlike character rather than earthly power and glory. “Jesus referred to himself as a good shepherd, not a great one,” writes Lee, whose reflections draw upon his Korean church context. “He attributed his... Read More

As a college student, I never missed a State of the Union address. Feeling a sense of patriotic duty, I sat through the whole bloated spectacle: the obsequious handshakes, interminable applause, and extravagant promises to vanquish foes, blot out injustice, and kickstart a golden age of prosperity. But over time, I came to see all that for what it was. Then came a series of epiphanies about other allegedly sacred observances. Presidential debates? A wasteland of sound bites. The nominating... Read More

Too many of us assume that Christian nationalism promises a road map to a New Jerusalem or a New Rome or a New Constantinople. That’s understandable, given the triumphal and martial rhetoric of would-be theocrats. But what if the actual road map is to none of those places?  What if the new Christian nationalism wants to take us not to the rebuilt shining city on a hill of Cotton Mather’s Massachusetts Bay Colony but just to double coupon night at the Bellagio in Las Vegas?  Journalist... Read More

I have often longed for my own personal trainer, not so much for getting in better physical shape but for better understanding the whats and hows of Christian faith. To some degree, such training is the aim of those like me, who teach theology in a formal setting. But we can only accomplish so much in a 15-week class period. Parents, too, are (hopefully) striving to train children in the faith without sounding overly preachy. Whatever my own relative success or failure in either arena,... Read More

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... Read More

In a special episode of The Bulletin, Christianity Today’s senior director of CT Media, Mike Cosper, interviewed New York Times columnist Frank Bruni about his book The Age of Grievance. Where polarization has split churches, families, and friendships, Bruni suggests that the root of this polarization is grievance, an animating impulse in our culture that focuses on scarcity instead of abundance. This conversation offers a way forward for Americans or anyone who looks at... Read More

Daive Njuguna’s first Chinese class at the University of Nairobi was the most fun he’d ever had in college. The teacher was a jovial young woman from China who cheerfully corrected her students as they struggled to pronounce ni hao (hello) and qing (please) and xie xie (thank you). Njuguna laughed throughout the class. He was only vaguely aware that the Chinese government was funding the course via the Confucius Institute, part of Beijing’s “cultural soft power”  offensive to... Read More

I grew up in a small evangelical church in California’s Central Valley where there were more blue collars than white. About 25 families filed into the pews each Sunday; they were loving, generous, and thoughtful. We camped the Sierra Nevadas, backpacked Yosemite, and set crab traps in Half Moon Bay. We studied the Word, shared meals when misfortune struck, and made more after-church trips to Taco Bell than any human being should be able to withstand. It was evangelicalism of the sunny... Read More

Daniel Bourdanné, a scientist from the central African nation of Chad who inspired young evangelicals around the world as the general secretary of IFES and a longtime champion of Christian book publishing in Africa, died on September 6 at age 64 as a result of cancer.  After years of ministry to students, Bourdanné became general secretary of IFES (International Fellowship of Evangelical Students) in 2007, serving in this role until 2019. An avid reader (and sometimes writer) from 2018... Read More