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A movement in Southeast Asia shows how real-time reporting is building Great Commission connections. Dwight Martin can tell you the exact number of churches in Thailand. At the start of 2019, his site reported 5,805. By the next week, the number would be different. While missionaries overseas, and even Western churches, often rely on broad estimates, he can calculate exactly how many subdistricts in the Buddhist kingdom have no churches at all (5,509) and how many people live in communities... Read More

North African nations bring church father to the silver screen. The students at Wheaton College were surprised: Wait, Saint Augustine was African? Shown the international award-winning Augustine: Son of Her Tearsfor a freshman seminar that reads his Confessions, they witnessed history brought to life beyond the text, said Sarah Miglio, dean of curriculum. So did the Muslim actors who depicted the story of the Christian theologian. The cast and creators now want to remind the world—and... Read More

Mark DeMoss represented Christian organizations through highs and lows, but we’re all tasked with representing Christ. I’ve spent my entire professional life at the intersection of two fields increasingly held in low esteem by much of society: public relations and Christianity. In January, nearly two years removed from cancer treatment, I announced my decision to close the PR firm that bears my name, after occupying a front-row seat for so much evangelical history. Having worked with... Read More

Done right, Facebook offers a chance for discernment and connection. Facebook decided to kick off 2019 with a challenge: Compare your first profile picture to your most recent one to see how hard aging hit you over the past ten years. I pulled up my first profile picture and stared at it, the air exiting my lungs and an odd numbness seeping up from my toes. Hello, fresh-faced person. I remember you. I remember that shirt, the wallpaper in that kitchen, that haircut. I also remember the night... Read More

A Supreme Court cruelty reveals how we can love our neighbors. Had Domineque Ray been a Christian, he’d have been executed with a chaplain kneeling by his side, praying with him. But Domineque Ray was not a Christian, and he did not want a Christian chaplain. He wanted his imam present in the execution chamber instead. At a January 23 meeting, the warden at the Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama, refused Ray’s request. Ray’s imam, who has ministered at Holman... Read More

After an unflinching look at its racist past, SBC’s flagship seminary aims to honor a more diverse population on campus. After overhearing a tour guide honoring the early leaders of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary buried in Louisville’s Cave Hill Cemetery, Latevia Priddy felt like she had to speak up. “It’s like you’ve given a one-sided version of the history of Southern,” Priddy, a biblical counseling student, explained later to a staff member at her... Read More

Important developments in the church and the world (as they appeared in our March issue). Asia Bibi exonerated, awaits asylum After eight years in prison and on death row, Asia Bibi no longer faces legal threats over allegations of blasphemy. In January, the Supreme Court upheld her acquittal and denied requests for further review made by the Muslim leader who brought charges against her. But the Pakistani Christian remains in danger of violence from vigilantes and has struggled to obtain... Read More

After shedding its for-profit status, GCU becomes a bigger competitor in the traditional Christian college space. With 90,000 students online and on campus, Grand Canyon University (GCU) now ranks as the biggest Christian college in America. After a decade growing its bottom line and its enrollment as a for-profit entity, GCU transitioned to nonprofit status in July 2018. Meanwhile, the for-profit college industry that GCU tried for years to leave behind continues to crash. The Pentecostal... Read More

Schools and scholars can help the Christ-centered movement become all the more Jesusy. Historian Mark Noll’s prophetic call in The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind launched a thousand more laments about the shallowness of evangelical scholarship and thinking. The judgment remains accurate as far as it goes. American evangelical Christians are American Christians, and Americans have never valued the life of the mind as much as they might. But where Noll’s 1994 volume lamented the... Read More

“The biggest barrier to reaching cultural Christians is that there is no clear starting point for a conversation.” Ed: How do you define cultural Christianity? Dean: Cultural Christianity is difficult to define because there is no established category that exists for this religious group. I believe it begins by understanding that this is an actual religion. Cultural Christians claim to be Christians, but by that claim they mean they are not atheists, agnostics, Jewish, or Muslim. They... Read More