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Shanoah Bruner is among the quarter of American adults who find themselves in the “sandwich generation,” raising children under 18 and supporting aging parents.At her home in the Indianapolis suburbs, the 40-something mom lives with her husband, tween and teen daughters, mother-in-law, and biological father.The caretaking role comes naturally to Brune
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The Caregiving Boom Needs Spiritual Support
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You Abused and Oppressed Me, Dad. I Forgive You.
How a community’s example of radical forgiveness helped me relinquish my own rage.Father’s Day is a multibillion-dollar affair. In the weeks leading up to it, men’s ties, BBQ aprons, and golf-themed gifts fly off the shelves.My own view on Father’s Day has a complicated history. After an abusive, impoverished childhood (detailed in my recent memoir, Motorhome Prophecies), I sometimes felt an anger toward my dad as intense as what Salvador Dalí, the Spanish surreali
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Paternity Leave Made Me a Better Christian Dad
Time off at the very beginning helps fathers prepare to bring up their children in the “discipline and instruction of the Lord.”When our first daughter was born, in the fall of 2021, she couldn’t nurse properly. For my wife, feeding her was an every-few-hours exercise in pure pain. Lactation consultants were consulted, to little avail; a minor tongue-tie operation, newly trendy in such cases, didn’t help either. We thought about switching to formula, but my wife was dead
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Faithful Fathers
Reports of the death of fatherhood have been greatly exaggerated. There are many good dads, like mine, quietly blessing their children.Problems with fathers are nothing new. They go back to the beginning. Genesis alone is a vast catalog of fathers’ sins, whether those of Adam, Noah, and Lot, or the patriarchs themselves.What about good fathers, though? Here is C. S. Lewis, writing in the 1940s: We have learned from Freud and others about those distortions in character and errors in thought
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Church ‘Homelessness’ Must Not Be Grieved Too Quickly
It’s okay to mourn what’s lost without losing hope for what’s to come.This piece was adapted from Russell Moore’s newsletter. Subscribe here.In his New York Times column this week, my friend David French wrote about what it was like to be “canceled” by his denomination, the Presbyterian Church in America. He later told me how stunned he was by how many people responded immediately—grieving their own “cancellations” from churches or ministries
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PCA Will Investigate ‘Jesus Calling’ Book
The author of the bestseller died last year. The investigation will determine if the book is appropriate for Christians.The Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) at its annual meeting on Thursday voted to investigate the Christian appropriateness of the best-selling book Jesus Calling by Sarah Young, who was part of the PCA and died in August last year at age 77. Young was one of the most-read evangelicals of the last 20 years.Pastors in the denomination are concerned that Young’s use of th
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Interview: A Writer’s Creative Calling Isn’t Found in the Middle of a Crowd
Award-winning author E. Lily Yu speaks about her faith, her deep love of language, and the perils of “moving with the majority.”E. Lily Yu is that rare creature: a writer of exceptional skill who is grounded in faith, literary history, and a lifetime of reading. Her short story collection Jewel Box was a finalist for a Los Angeles Times Book Prize, her novel On Fragile Waves won the Washington State Book Award for fiction, and Yu herself has received the LaSalle Storyteller Award and
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3 Ways I’ve Learned to Support China’s Christians Better as an American Pastor
Don’t let political rivalry define our perspectives of each other.I serve as senior pastor of a medium-sized church in Cary, North Carolina. Besides being multicultural and multiethnic, we are also politically diverse: There are Democrats, Republicans, and many politically “homeless” people who have a difficult time identifying with either party.This year, like many pastors and church leaders in the United States, I find myself yet again leading my congregation through a season
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Southern Baptists’ Nuanced Divides on Display at Annual Meeting
From a wider slate of six candidates, president Clint Pressley takes the “strange honor” of leading the convention’s growing factions toward missional unity.In the weeks before the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) annual meeting, newly elected president Clint Pressley finished reading Malcom Gladwell’s book on precision bombing in World War II, Erik Larson’s bestseller set in the lead-up to the Civil War, and a history of a 19th-century mutiny on a Royal Navy vesse
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Why Does Southern Baptist Abuse Reform Keep Hitting Hurdles?
Leaders and advocates are grateful for the convention’s support but frustrated at the inability to enact their plans.
Jules Woodson remembers the spark of hope she felt when a sea of yellow ballots went up across the hall at the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) annual meeting in 2022. The vote in favor of abuse reform following a watershed abuse investigation was her sign that the messengers cared about victims like her and were willing to listen and make changes.At this year’s annu
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Love in an Attention Crisis
Readers of the Latin Bible could see how close love and diligence are.Anyone who has studied a foreign language knows the fun of stumbling across a word that looks familiar. It’s like a treasure hunt. In my first weeks of high school Latin, I found that my own surname, Vincent, was a Latin word for “conqueror,” which gave rise to the word vanquish. That’s a pretty cool find for a slightly bored 15-year-old!It was my enthusiasm for surprising derivatives that inspired me t
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Kids Aren’t Cheap. That Doesn’t Fully Explain Why We’re Ambivalent About Having Them.
A new book explores why what was once a default life stage now feels like an increasingly fraught choice.
In a recent Guardian article about “America’s premier pronatalists,” the journalist mentions her own assumption that “the main thing that [makes having kids] hard [is] that it’s now so incredibly expensive to raise children.”“No,” the father of the profiled family replies. “Not at all”—and in a significant sense, I think he&rs
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I’m an Evangelical Parent of Adult LGBTQ Children. Now What?
My theology is squarely orthodox. Now I need fellow Christians to help me work out a sustainable vision of day-to-day life with my children.For evangelical parents who hold to the church’s long-standing doctrines on gender and sex, waking up to the reality of LGBTQ children in our homes frequently marks the beginning of a difficult journey.Often blindsided by the development, many parents feel ill-prepared for the work of discernment required to move forward. They hunger for instruction an
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All Churches Should Require Background Checks
As a former police officer and PCA elder, I believe this basic step can protect congregations from predators.For years, Jimmy G was seen as great guy and a leading member at his local community church—he was the go-to volunteer for all the ministries others avoided. On most Sunday mornings, you would see him serving alongside his wife in children’s ministry. But then something happened. Jimmy was suddenly arrested for multiple counts of aggravated sexual assault—some of them in
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Tony Evans Steps Away from Ministry, Citing Old Sin
The first African American to have both a study Bible and a full Bible commentary bearing his name said he will submit to the “biblical standard of repentance and restoration.”Tony Evans, the longtime leader of a Dallas megachurch and best-selling author, has announced that he is stepping back from his ministry due to sin he committed years ago.“The foundation of our ministry has always been our commitment to the Word of God as the absolute supreme standard of truth to which we
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The SBC’s Abuse Prevention Work Is Not Done
Five years ago, our messengers pledged to take substantive action to end sexual abuse in our churches. We cannot let another year pass with that promise unfulfilled.Just over five years ago, a fire broke out in one of the world’s most famous houses of worship, the cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris. In the days following, officials confirmed that one reason the fire grew out of control was that the security team, after hearing the alarm, miscommunicated and responded at the wrong location. T
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The Generous Genius of Jürgen Moltmann
Memories and reflections of the famed theologian from his last overseas doctoral student and friend of 33 years.When he died at home in Tübingen, Germany, last Monday morning at age 98, the world could justly say that Jürgen Moltmann was the leading Christian theologian of the second half of the 20th century. He had championed liberation theology from South America, then imported it successfully to the West. He had inaugurated an eschatological “theology of hope” and freshl
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Some Churches Call Clergy Sexual Misconduct an ‘Affair.’ Survivors Are Fighting to Make It Against the Law.
Advocates push for legislation criminalizing sex between ministers and those they spiritually guide.Krystal Woolston struggled with her mental health as a teenager, but she headed to college hoping for a brighter future. Then, a married pastor who seemed to care about her gave her a different path forward. He told her God wanted her to have sex with him to help her heal.Looking back 12 years later, Woolston realizes how vulnerable she was to his spiritual manipulation.“I was just falling,
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Most Pastors Still Oppose Same-Sex Marriage
Levels of support for LGBTQ relationships have plateaued among Protestant clergy.
Almost a decade after the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage across the country, most pastors remain opposed, and the supporting percentage isn’t growing any larger.One in 5 US Protestant pastors (21%) say they see nothing wrong with two people of the same gender getting married, according to a Lifeway Research study.Three in 4 (75%) are opposed, including 69 percent who strongly disagree with same-sex
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Southern Baptists, Outsiders Hear Our Confessions Too
Baptist confessions have long drawn attention beyond the church. The proposal on male pastors will too.Messengers from around the country will soon gather in Indianapolis to conduct the business of the Southern Baptist Convention. As in recent years, they will consider the exact relationship between the association and its member churches—a question of unique significance to Baptists who have historically valued local church independence.This week, they will be asked to take final action o
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Southern Baptist Digital Hymnal Gets Saved
Worship leaders convince curriculum company of the value of lifewayworship.com.Lifeway no longer plans to shut down its online music ministry resource lifewayworship.com .
In July 2023, the companyannounced its plan to retire the platform—a “digital hymnal” that provides users with chord charts, vocal arrangements, and orchestrations—thenpaused those plans a week later after a strong response from customers. After a year of reevaluation and interviews with worship leaders
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I’ve Preached the Gospel Countless Times. The Love of the Amish Preached it to Me.
An excerpt on grief, forgiveness, and the gospel from Beechdale Road: Where Mercy Is More Powerful Than Murder.On Sunday, June 21, 2020, 18-year-old Linda Stoltzfoos of Bird-in-Hand, Pennsylvania, was kidnapped and later murdered by Justo Smoker—my brother-in-law.As you might expect, my family journeyed through tremendous grief, anger, and pain. But as you might not expect, we also journeyed through the challenge of receiving unexplainable grace, kindness, and mercy at the hands of the Ami
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Evangelicals Don’t Love Donald Trump Enough
Christians who wave away the former president’s sexual immorality may be the most anti-Trump constituency of all.This piece was adapted from Russell Moore’s newsletter. Subscribe here.For the first time in history, a former (and possibly future) president of the United States is now a convicted felon. A jury found that Donald Trump falsified business records to cover up a hush money payment to a porn star, with whom he had an affair, in order to keep the story from hurting his 2016 p
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Indian Christians Relieved as Election Results Limit Hindu Nationalists
With Modi’s BJP denied an outright majority in parliament, church leaders credit prayer movements and hope the restoration of coalition politics will protect religious minorities.The world’s largest democracy underwent a significant political shift in its 2024 general election, as Indian voters upended the previously unshakable dominance of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) remains the largest coalition an
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Many Southern Baptist Women Care More About Calling Than What They’re Called
As the SBC debates restrictions around titles and roles, female leaders continue their work in women’s ministry in their local churches.
When women’s ministry began dominating her schedule, taking too much time from her responsibilities at work and at home, Jacqueline Heider submitted a letter of resignation.Her pastor responded by offering her a paid position.That was 18 years ago. Since then, Heider has led women’s ministry at Warren Baptist Church. She serves on the lead tea
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Doubting Thomas: Why the Evangelical Crush on Aquinas Needs to Mature
Thomism is experiencing a renaissance in theology, but there’s a reason it’s controversial.To engage with the medieval Italian priest Thomas Aquinas (1224–74) is to approach one of history’s greatest theological giants. Aquinas is second only to Augustine in his influence on Western Christianity—and his legacy of Thomism is a vast ocean. Academic discussions in theology and philosophy demand Aquinas and Thomism as conversation partners.Yet evangelicals, in particula
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Ban the Mob, Not the Bible
Christians are the victims of hate in some places and the targets of hate speech laws in others. How can believers advocate for nations to address both threats in a consistent, principled way?Hate speech is a thorny problem in many countries of the world. Nations such as Pakistan and Sri Lanka, for example, regularly demonstrate how it can be used to incite violence against Christian minorities. But even Western nations that highly value freedom of expression have experienced demonstrations on c
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This Is the Way: How the Dao Helps Chinese People Understand Christ
Ancient philosopher Zhuangzi’s teachings can be a means of evangelism.In the opening lines of the Gospel of John, God’s eternal presence is rendered as “the Word,” a translation of the Greek word logos. In many translations of the Chinese Bible, including the popular Chinese Union Version, you will find this concept rendered as “the Dao (Tao).”In English, Dao is commonly translated as “the Way.” In Chinese, the word (道) indicates a teaching
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Inside the ‘Secret World’ of Global Evangelism to Muslims
While reporting from conflict zones in Africa and the Middle East, Adriana Carranca met evangelical missionaries sent from surprising places.In a 2007 article, CT described British church historian Andrew Walls (1928–2021) as “the most important person you don’t know.” Among his greatest achievements was helping turn the attention of Western scholars to the remarkable growth of Christianity in the Global South. Walls’s work on what he then called “non-Western
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How to Make Friends at Church
It’s tough to plunge into a new congregation. Here’s how to get your head above water.Once, a man decided to attend religious services while visiting a new town. He went to the meeting location and made a bunch of new friends, just like that.The man in question was the apostle Paul, and we learn this story of his visit to Philippi, including that friendly Sabbath, from Acts 16. Unfortunately, most of us aren’t like Paul in multiple key respects, so perhaps the story should be a
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