In the past 50 years, the center of Christianity has shifted from the West to the Majority World. As Zambian mission leader Lazarus Phiri told me during a recent interview, “Those who were once a mission field are now looking like a mission force.” Yet all too often, well-meaning mission partners in the West operate Read more...

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As a pastor, I’ve found one of the main difficulties in leading faithfully and living as good neighbors is that we can’t always choose our neighbors or the context and circumstances in which we lead and live. And in a time of tense divisiveness, global conflicts, natural disasters, and other complex crises, this sense of Read more...

The post Pastors and Public Servants: Lead Your Neighbor as Yourself appeared first on Christianity Today.

Bill Pannell, a Black evangelical who pushed white evangelicals to recognize their captivity to the culture of American racism, died on October 11 at age 95.  The evangelist and seminary professor argued that the Good News is all about reconciliation—between God and humanity, but also horizontally, between people—and Christians are called to the ministry of Read more...

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As the sirens wailed on October 1, Nirit Bar-David took refuge in her familiar safe room. Iran had just launched another 180 missiles at Israel, and she had about a minute to take cover. So did the other 350 residents of Israel’s only Messianic Jewish moshav. Sitting on a pine-covered ridge about ten miles west Read more...

The post How Messianic Jews Are Serving Israelis Displaced by Hamas and Hezbollah appeared first on Christianity Today.

I first met the late William Pannell in 1993 in a hallway of Christianity Today. I was in my early 20s, just a year removed from graduating college. Dr. Pannell was visiting his old friend, former CT president Paul Robbins, and the pair was on a leisurely tour around the office.  I remember being enthralled Read more...

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In his 1990 essay collection, Wendell Berry considered the question “What are people for?” The answer, in true Berry fashion, is a beautifully intricate web of answers that add up to human flourishing.  That flourishing is connected to the flourishing of the environment around us, and this answer also has deep theological roots. God’s promises in Read more...

The post What Are Parents For? appeared first on Christianity Today.

Billy Adkison, 91, spent his life farming in East Texas; he never wanted to go to outer space. “I don’t want to be higher than pulling corn and lower than digging taters,” he told CT. All the same, he has watched the skies from his yard to catch a glimpse of the International Space Station Read more...

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Jack Iker, a Texas bishop who took 48 congregations and 15,000 parishioners out of the Episcopal Church USA and helped start the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), died on October 5. He was 75. Iker was a conservative Anglo-Catholic who made common cause with evangelicals—whom he called “strange bedfellows”—in order to fight against liberal Read more...

The post Died: Jack Iker, Anglican Who Drew the Line at Women’s Ordination appeared first on Christianity Today.

In an animation landscape full of sequels, prequels, and remakes, The Wild Robot is a welcome respite. Based on Peter Brown’s eponymous 2016 novel and brought to the screen in painterly style, the film tells the story of a robot stranded on an island and forced to adapt to her woodland surroundings. Programmed to be Read more...

The post The Robot Will Lie Down With the Gosling appeared first on Christianity Today.

Years ago, I taught a Bible study that I knew would be controversial. I was a couple years into seminary, and my church asked me to join a team of teachers for the weekly women’s Bible study. We were going through Genesis, and I received the sign-up sheet after everyone else had already selected their Read more...

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