Category: Christian news

Xiaofei Wang, a pastor’s wife at a house church in the Chinese port city of Xiamen, had long heard of families overseas who would adopt children with special needs from China. Some of these adoptive parents had limited finances and other children to care for, yet they were eager to bring another child into their home. She began to wonder, “Why aren’t there families in China willing to adopt these children?” In 2014, Wang began volunteering with a Christian nonprofit that cares for... Read More

The common language of worship has a way of capturing the heart even when the mind cannot understand. I remembered this as I wiped my tears while Spanish-speaking Christians sang passionately around me at The Sent Summit conference in Orlando last month. Though my tourist-level Spanish could not bear the weight of references to the divine, I knew the meaning of the song in my soul. Voices rang to the glory of God. Words I couldn’t translate expressed the depth of our depravity encompassed... Read More

In his 1996 novel, In the Beauty of the Lilies, John Updike has a fictional Reformed Presbyterian minister feel his faith abandon him like an exhale, leaving his “habitual mental contortions decisively relaxed.” For this minister, the experience was one of relief, “an immense strain of justification” lifted “at a blow.” Unbelief, in this sense, is not so much a choice of the will but the relaxation of the will, with the mind clicking into an atheist-materialist position that feels... Read More

Canadian Christians increasingly find their pro-life values in conflict with their nation’s rapid acceptance of medical assistance in dying (MAID). Many say churches could be a refuge in Canada’s pro-MAID culture, reminding people of human dignity and providing community supports that can help them resist the lure of MAID. But chances are, most Canadian Christians haven’t heard their pastors discuss MAID—and clergy, despite their pro-life convictions, are likely still learning about... Read More

It is Sunday morning and quiet throughout our house. The first morning light is slipping through our blinds, just enough for my husband to read his Bible and for me to write. The only thing I hear is our coffee percolating. Sunday mornings are easily the most peaceful time in our otherwise noisy, demanding schedule. During the pandemic with churches closed, we learned to savor Sunday mornings as especially convivial and serene. After a couple quiet reading hours, my husband, Chris, would... Read More

For the first few minutes of Kendrick Lamar’s new song, I only half listened, nodding in time to the hypnotic beat while responding to emails on my laptop. Then came the line that made me sit up and stare bug-eyed at my husband, who was listening beside me on the couch. “Did he say Lecrae?” We kept listening. A few minutes later, Kendrick said the name again. My mouth dropped open. When the song ended, we played it from the top, this time listening carefully. The untitled track,... Read More

You may be tempted to read The Pursuit of Safety: A Theology of Danger, Risk, and Security with an eye toward determining whether and to what extent its author, Wheaton College theologian Jeremy Lundgren, agrees with your own risk assessments and safety measures. Don’t. Though Lundgren leaves some hints about where he lands on discrete safety questions—most controversially, COVID-era rules and parenting decisions—his interest here is the bigger picture. Pursuit is an expansive... Read More

This piece was adapted from Russell Moore’s newsletter. Subscribe here. My family is from one of the most hurricane-prone places in the United States—our hometown was virtually wiped from the map by Hurricane Katrina. Because of this, we spend hurricane season tracking each tropical depression with dread and then, often, relief, when the storm moves somewhere out of the path of the people we love. This time, though, with Hurricane Helene, we exhaled too soon. Instead of hitting the... Read More