Category: Christian news

As an Old Testament scholar, I’ve been spending much of my time writing a commentary on Exodus. And as I worked through the first chapter, considering the predicament of the enslaved Hebrews in Egypt, it hit me: The exploitation of the Israelites was made possible by the drastic administrative policies Joseph implemented during the years of famine. The descendants of Jacob had arrived in Egypt under the (somewhat) mutually beneficial arrangements Joseph had made with the support of the... Read More

It is midnight, and my phone is ringing. Blinking the sleep out of my eyes, I roll over to see my older sister’s name flashing across the screen. “Hello?” My sister says nothing at first. She is crying. The sound jolts me awake. “Are you okay?” I ask. Finally, she speaks: “I killed my baby.” Shock lodges itself in my throat. My sister’s pain is suddenly in my chest, crushing my heart against my rib cage. I scramble down the bunk bed ladder, my feet slipping on the rungs, and... Read More

American Christianity is in cultural and political decline. In 1937, 70 percent of Americans reported that they belonged to a church. These numbers held relatively steady through much of the 20th century. But in the past 25 years, an estimated 40 million Americans have stopped attending church. As Ernest Hemingway said, bankruptcy comes gradually and then suddenly. The American public square, previously white and Protestant, is quickly becoming a pluralistic bazaar of diverse cultures,... Read More

How do we talk about Big Things when it seems so risky? It feels hard these days to even mention Jesus in conversation when we are faced with hostility toward Christianity. As faith is declining in the West, how will people find Christ if we can’t talk about him with nonbelieving friends and family? Our churches, families, and communities often feel so polarized we can’t talk about politics or values either. Because of this, we’re understandably wary of talking about God or Christ or... Read More

Andar Ismail, a prolific Christian writer who distilled theological truths into short stories accessible to ordinary Indonesians, died of congestive heart failure on August 25. He was 84. From 1981 to 2022, the pastor and seminary professor wrote 33 books, each containing 33 short stories, for his Selamatseries. Ismail described his literary style as gado-gado (“hodgepodge”)—after an Indonesian dish with mixed vegetables and peanut sauce—because the stories were an amalgamation of... Read More

In 1929, a Kansas preacher named Charles Sheldon had to get something off his chest. Best known as the author of In His Steps (1896)—a novel that encouraged Christians to ask, “What would Jesus do?”—Sheldon reflected on a recent experience during a stormy winter night in Topeka. Most of the town was shut down that evening. But there was one exception: the local college’s basketball arena. There, the scheduled game took place, and fans packed the gymnasium to the rafters. “I... Read More

Amid a spike in violence against religious minorities in Bangladesh, a national council of Buddhists, Hindus and Christians is renewing a campaign for the Muslim-majority South Asian nation to remove Islam as the state religion.  In mid-July, student-led protests demanding reform of the country’s job quota system turned violent, culminating in the collapse of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government on August 5. After Hasina’s resignation, the anger aimed at her government... Read More

Not long ago, I visited my 99-year-old father and 97-year-old mother. My dad had just passed his driver’s test again, and a year before that, he published yet another book. He told me he wants to take up painting again. Then, with a mischievous look in his eye, my dad turned to me, a 60-something baby boomer, and said, “Son, what are you going to do with yourself? You’ve got your whole life ahead of you!” A hundred years ago, this kind of comment would have seemed nonsensical. But the... Read More