Quick to Listen

Last week, the radio personality many Christians know as “The Bible Answer Man” announced his conversion to Eastern Orthodoxy. From CT’s report: Last Sunday, 67-year-old Hank Hanegraaff and his wife entered into Orthodox Christianity at St. Niktarios Greek Orthodox Church in Charlotte, North Carolina. The former Protestant is well known among evangelicals as The Bible Answer Man. Since 1989, Hanegraaff has been answering questions on Christianity, denominations, and the Bible on a nationally syndicated radio broadcast. A champion of evangelical Christianity, he’s best known for arguing against cults, heresies, and non-Christian religions. Hankegraaff’s conversion didn’t surprise James Stamoolis, the author of Eastern Orthodox Mission Theology Today, who has previously written on why evangelicals are attracted to this older iteration of Christianity. Stamloois points to Orthodoxy’s highly sensory services which include both incense and icons, as well as “the whole idea of authority.” “I know a lot of people who have converted from Protestantism to Catholicism and Orthodoxy because it’s fixed. It’s settled. 'We don’t have women priests. We’re never going to have women priests,'” said Stamoolis, who grew up in the Orthodox tradition but now identifies as a “card-carrying evangelical.” Ironically, Orthodoxy’s association with tradition came after the church proved to be highly successful at contextualizing across different cultures, says Stamoolis. “A lot of it has to do with their theological methodology,” he said. “[They] were successful and imbued so much in the culture.” Stamoolis joined Morgan and Mark on Quick to Listen this week to discuss why there are so many different Orthodox traditions, the theological underpinnings of theosis, and what Christianity is like without the theological ideas of Aquinas and Augustine. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Perhaps no group can take more credit for Donald Trump’s victory than the 81 percent of self-identified white evangelicals who elected him into office last November. Following an inauguration that featured evangelical leaders Franklin Graham and Sam Rodriguez, Trump has named evangelicals to more than half of his cabinet positions and fulfilled a key campaign promise with the arrival of Neil Gorsuch on the Supreme Court. Yet, for Trump’s white evangelical critics, concerns about his treatment of refugees and immigrants, among others, have persisted. Many are also worried about white evangelicalism’s witness to both fellow Americans and evangelicals of color. Earlier this week, Quick to Listen co-host and CT editor-in-chief Mark Galli led a discussion with three evangelical leaders to discuss their collective opposition to Trump during the election and how they understood the state of the evangelical movement now. Dan Darling, the vice president of communications for the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, Katelyn Beaty, former Quick to Listen co-host and CT’s print managing editor, and Julie Roys, host of the national talk show Up For Debate on the Moody Radio Network joined Galli on the stage at the Evangelical Press Association’s annual convention in Lombard, Illinois. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Last year, the government passed a number of laws making it harder to share one’s faith. The legislation required missionaries to have permits, made house churches illegal, and limited religious activity to registered church buildings, effectively restricting Christians from evangelizing outside of their churches. (The jury’s still out on whether the legislation will hold up in court.) Earlier this year, the Russian government took another step in its decade-long crackdown against Jehovah’s Witnesses. From CT’s report: The Justice Ministry submitted a Supreme Court case to label the Jehovah’s Witnesses headquarters an extremist group. This would allow Russia to enact a countrywide ban on its activity, dissolving its organization and criminalizing its worship. The ban would impact about 175,000 followers in 2,000 congregations nationwide. “Without any exaggeration, it would put us back to the dark days of persecution for faith.” Jehovah’s Witnesses make up a tiny percentage of the country’s population--but their unpopularity has made it awkward for Russian Protestants who “don’t consider themselves as extreme—or as annoying—as the Witnesses, and they aren’t too eager to speak out against the recent case against them.” One key group contributing to this complicated environment is the Russian Orthodox Church which staunchly believes that faith should have a “robust communal dimension,” — not confined to a private relationship between a person and God, says Andrey Shirin, who moved to the US from Russia more than 25 years ago and currently works as an assistant professor of divinity at John Leland Center for Theological Studies. “The notion that people should be free to exercise their faith or not to exercise any is really uncontroversial,” said Shirin. “It all depends on how this is interpreted.” Shirin joined Morgan and Mark this week on Quick to Listen discuss Putin’s popularity among American evangelicals, whether the country’s evangelicals should be concerned about their future, and how the Orthodox Church kept its credibility after the Communist era. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Since the beginning of the year, more than 800 congregations in 30 American cities have joined the New Sanctuary Movement (NSM). An interfaith effort organized by Christian activist Alexia Salvatierra, NSM religious institutions have pledged to open their doors to undocumented immigrants worried that authorities may arrest them or separate their families. (Read CT’s interview with Salvatierra.) At this point, most of the churches that have joined the New Sanctuary Movement are progressive congregations. New Season Christian Worship Center in Sacramento is one of the few evangelical congregations that’s announced something similar, what Time Magazine recently called a “safe haven” program. The program is specifically focused on meeting the urgent needs of undocumented immigrants, those fleeing domestic violence, or those affected by gang fights. So far, New Season has set up more than two dozen beds for congregants looking to escape immigration raids and hosted more than half a dozen families. “A safe haven is a place where we can offer a place of rest from turmoil from those things which are troubling people,” said Charlie Rivera, who pastors New Season’s Spanish language ministry and leads the safe haven program. “We offer a sense of hope and spiritual help.” The church’s program is not meant to oppose or thwart the government, said Rivera. “We’re not here to break any law or do anything illegal,” he said. “Our main goal is to assist people who are in need.” Rivera joined Morgan and Mark to discuss why he doesn’t believe his church is harboring criminals, why New Season has seen a surge of Hispanic attendees, and how Christians can encourage undocumented immigrants to do the right thing. (Note: New Season’s pastor, Sam Rodriguez, serves on CT’s board, and recently appeared on Quick to Listen to discuss his rationale for praying at Trump’s inauguration.) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In the past few months, life has suddenly gotten worse for dozens of South Korean missionaries ministering in China. From CT’s report: In the past few months, China has expelled dozens of South Korean missionaries from Jilin, a northeastern province that neighbors North Korea. News media reported the raids, with estimates of the total expulsions ranging from 30 to 70. “Chinese authorities raided the homes of the missionaries, citing a problem with their visas, and told them to leave,” one human rights activist and pastor told Agence France-Presse (AFP). He said that most were on tourist or student visas. The majority of South Korean missionaries working in China serve North Korean defectors who cross the border. There are at least 500 officially registered South Korean missionaries in China, though this number could be as high as 2,000. While missions took off in South Korea in the late 1970s—making the country the No. 2 missionary-sending country by 2006—its foreign presence has been on the decline in the last decade. In fact, 2017 marks 10 years since 23 South Korean church volunteers were abducted by the Taliban while traveling in Afghanistan on a medical aid trip. They were released 43 days later, but not before two of them were killed. The trauma caused by the event didn’t shake the South Korean church’s resolve on missions, said Julie Ma, a theology professor at Oral Roberts University. “Church leaders said they will still go forward with the gospel but with more caution and wisdom,” said Ma, one of the first South Korean missionaries in the Philippines. “I think this terrible experience taught the Korean church a lot of things.” Ma joined assistant editor Morgan Lee and editor in chief Mark Galli on Quick to Listen to discuss the rise and decline of South Korean missions, the consequences of the 2007 Taliban hostage situation, and what led her to become a missionary. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

According to Don Whitney, Professor of Biblical Spirituality, a biblical fast needs a purpose beyond hunger. Christians of a more liturgical bent are in the middle of the ascetic season of Lent, discipling those “desires of the flesh,” hopefully with a measure of cheerfulness. But you don’t have to have high regard for Lent, to appreciate the fact that Jesus didn’t merely command fasting, but instead just assumed his followers would fast. When talking about it in the Sermon on the Mount, for example, he began, “And when you fast.” Why does Jesus—and Piper, Bonhoeffer, and a host of witnesses--think fasting is a normal part of the life of faith? What difference does it really make? Then there is this: If we were to get good answers to those two questions, how exactly do you do it? What constitutes “fasting”? And how can one do it so that (a) it really does increase our hunger for God and (b) brings some cheer into our lives? According to Professor of Biblical Spirituality at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Don Whitney, fasting has a unique quality among the spiritual disciplines. “Unlike any of the other spiritual disciplines, we actually feel this one in our bodies.” It’s this trait that, according to Whitney, serves as a constant reminder of whatever purpose we set out to accomplish through out fast. Whitney joined editor in chief Mark Galli and guest-host, Online Managing Editor, Richard Clark on Quick to Listen to talk about about the reasons we should fast, pitfalls to avoid, and whether a fast from social media really counts as a genuine application of the ancient spiritual discipline. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Mark Dever, the Senior Pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church and president of Nine Marks, shares insights on Tim Keller's planned transition from Redeemer Presbyterian. They discuss the shift from a megachurch model to independent congregations, emphasizing the importance of training new leaders for sustainable growth. The conversation highlights the role of churches as community hubs and the need for diverse preaching voices to enhance congregational life, advocating for deeper community engagement over personality-driven structures.

Last week, two-time Southern Baptist Convention president Jack Graham announced that his church would withhold its donation to the denomination’s Cooperative Program (CP). Southern Baptist churches decide individually whether to donate a percentage of their tithe to a common pot which funds state conventions, national denominational agencies, seminaries, and church planting and missions entities like the North American Mission Board and the International Mission Board. Less than two percent of the Cooperative Program’s budget funds the Southern Baptist national public policy arm, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, led by Russell Moore. But the 2016 election demonstrated that Graham and Moore were on separate political pages. In an interview earlier this month, Graham noted an “uneasiness” among church leaders about the “disconnect between some of our denominational leaders and our churches.” While initially a critic of Donald Trump, Graham later joined Trump’s list of faith advisors and penned several editorials explaining his support. Moore, on the other hand, consistently spoke out against Trump and at one point criticized his Religious Right supporters as defined by “the doctrinally vacuous resentment over a lost regime of nominal, cultural ‘Christian America.’” These critiques didn’t sit well with Graham. “There was a disrespectfulness towards Southern Baptists and other evangelical leaders, past and present,” Graham told The Wall Street Journal in an article about SBC pushback to Moore from December. But Graham insists that he’s “not angry at the SBC, and neither are our people.” “I’m not working to start a movement to fire anyone,” he said in an interview explaining his church’s decision from earlier this month. Graham more or less represents mainstream Southern Baptists, suggests Ed Stetzer, who has years of experience working in SBC entities. “Jack Graham is not a fringy character who is accustomed to throwing grenades from the sidelines,” said Stetzer. “…He is well-respected and a mentor to many pastors.” And while Southern Baptists are not always going to agree with every idea or strategy that their CP giving supports, “the goal of the ERLC is to represent Southern Baptists.” “The question is, what does that mean?” said Stetzer, who currently holds the Billy Graham Distinguished Chair for Church, Mission, and Evangelism at Wheaton College. Stetzer joined assistant editor Morgan Lee and editor in chief Mark Galli on Quick to Listen to discuss SBC unity in light of the election and how Christian conscience should direct giving to Christian institutions. (Note: since this recording, the SBC’s executive committee announced that it would be studying CP escrowing.) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For researchers to dub your congregation a multiethnic church, the body can’t include more than 80 percent of a given racial group. Today, only five percent of Protestant churches make this threshold. If we applied this same 80 percent metric to American denominations, few would be considered multiethnic. (Assemblies of God and the Seventh-day Adventist Church are key exceptions, according to 2015 Pew Research data.) This wouldn’t have necessarily been the case in colonial America. In fact, for decades, whites and blacks (some who were enslaved and others who were free) worshiped at the same churches—Methodist, Anglican, Presbyterian, and Baptist. Not all denominations’ equally reached enslaved people with their message, says Eric Washington, a history professor at Calvin College. The “stodgy” and “erudite” tradition of Anglicanism didn’t resonate as broadly—although former Methodist Absalom Jones was ordained as the first African American Episcopalian priest by the end of the 18th century. In contrast, many African slaves were drawn to Methodism’s theological emphasis on born-again conversions and total depravity and its preachers’ open-air, multiethnic services, says Washington. “[In Methodism,] there was no education requirement to be an exhorter or lay preacher,” said Washington, who is also the director of Calvin’s African and African Diaspora Studies. “So enslaved men who had a recognized gift to preach or exhort—they were encouraged in that.” But congregations began to split when denominations blocked African American men from taking on more official church leadership roles—or, in the case of the Methodists, when church leaders threw out several of their black church members for praying in the “wrong” part of the church. Washington joined assistant editor Morgan Lee and editor-in-chief Mark Galli on Quick to Listen to discuss the Great Awakening’s impact on African enslaved and free people, the overlap—if any—between conversion and emancipation, and the history of plantation churches. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Betsy DeVos is set to run the United States Department of Education after the Senate confirmed her appointment earlier this week. Many criticized DeVos’s nomination because she has little experience in public education. She attended a private school, and beyond mentoring in the public schools, she has never attended, taught, or sent children to public schools. A Christian, (DeVos has attended Rob Bell’s former church Mars Hill) her appointment has raised questions about Christian support for public schools. In short: Can Christians who homeschool or enroll their children in private school still support public schools? One’s familial education choices don’t affect the extent to which one can support public schools, says Andrea Reyes Ramirez, the executive director of the Faith and Education Coalition for the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference. (Read Ramirez’s piece offering practical steps from earlier this week.) “At this point, we know that 90 percent of America’s children are in public schools so I think that as believers we need to engage and think afresh about our personal engagement with strengthening the public schools whether our children are at public schools or not,” she said. According to Ramirez, Christians who do opt for homeschooling or private schools should be conscientious of potential unintended consequences of their decisions. “We have to be cautious about being so focused on taking care of our own children that we isolate ourselves from the beautiful, made-in-God’s-image children in our community,” she said. “I think it’s a great discipleship opportunity for the children in our home, to connect the dots and say, ‘We’re thinking about what’s best for our family. We’re praying about how to school you, and in addition, we’re praying about how to make a difference in our community.’” Ramirez joined assistant editor Morgan Lee and editor-in-chief Mark Galli to discuss why 2017 is such a seminal year for public education, where she stands on the DeVos appointment, and how asking God to help her better use her brain helped her get through stats class. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices