Page 1291 – Christianity Today (2024)

Update (Feb. 26): Several pastors spoke up after David Yonggi Cho's sentencing to defend his character and values.

First, Cho apologized to his church congregation when elders accused him of embezzling, and refused to blame the crime on his son in court, Taiwanese pastor Mao-Song Chang told The Gospel Herald, which describes itself as "the world's largest pan-denominational Chinese Christian news provider."

Cho also has a simple lifestyle and spends much of his resources on social welfare, Bob Rodgers Sr., pastor of Louisville's Evangel World Prayer Center and a personal friend of Cho, explained to Charisma. He attributes the scandal to Cho's "prodigal" son.

On Sunday, Cho told his Yoido congregation that his conviction was the hardest day of his 50 years of ministry, and said, "God forbid, if God calls me back today, I will still be able to go to the Kingdom of God," reports The Gospel Herald, which notes other details of the 78-year-old's Sunday sermon.

—–

The founding pastor of the world's largest Pentecostal congregation has been sentenced to three years in prison for embezzling 13 billion won (US$12 million) in church funds.

David Yonggi Cho, 78, founded Yoido Full Gospel Church, an Assemblies of God-affiliated denomination that has grown to more than 1 million members. Last year, CT noted how the pastor emeritus faced indictment for an alleged stock scheme with his son.

Last Thursday, the Seoul pastor was convicted of embezzlement as part of a scheme in which he arranged for the church to buy stock from his son Cho Hee-jun at more than three times the market price.

Hee-jun was sentenced to three years in prison for colluding with his father. Hee-jun, 49, previously served as chairman of the Yeongsan Christian Cultural Center.

Church administrators warned David Cho against purchasing the stock at an inflated price, but the pastor said he had to help his son out of a tight spot, according to Cho Hee-jun's arraignment document. Cho was also convicted of evading 3.5 billion won (US$3.2 million) in taxes, according to Yonhap News Agency.

Church elders have also accused the pastor of embezzling additional funds.

The Seoul Central District Court, which handed down its sentence Thursday, ordered Cho to pay a 5 billion won (US$4.7 million) fine. Cho's prison sentence was suspended five years; Hee-jun was jailed immediately.

Cho first came under investigation in 2011, when church elders accused him of embezzling $20 million. Cho also has been criticized for privatizing church assets. CT previously reported on the investigation of Cho, and noted in 2006 that Yoido Full Gospel had selected Lee Young-hoon to replace Cho as head pastor.

In the latest sign of Coptic Christians' troubles spreading beyond Egypt, seven Christian men have been shot execution-style on a beach outside Benghazi, security officials in Libya announced Monday.

The bodies were found with gunshots to the head in an area where kidnappings and assassinations are common and Islamist militants are active, Reuters reports.

The victims "had been abducted from their homes by armed men," reports Middle East Concern. "These gunmen had gone door-to-door through an apartment building searching for residents who were Christian."

Libya, particularly the Benghazi area, is hostile to Christianity. The nation rose from No. 17 last year to No. 13 this year on Open Doors' World Watch List, which labeled Libya as the "most difficult North African country in which to be a Christian." Religion News Service recently reported on the religious freedom concerns of Libya's Christians, most of whom are foreign workers.

Ronnie Smith, an American Christian inspired by John Piper to leave his Austin church and work as a chemistry teacher in Benghazi, was shot and killed Dec. 5 while jogging in the area. Smith had been preparing to administer the final exam for his course before flying back to the U.S. for Christmas.

CT previously reported the release of an American citizen and three other foreign Christians held in a Benghazi jail last February for allegedly distributing pamphlets that promoted Christianity. Nearly 50 Egyptian Christians were arrested in Benghazi last March on charges of illegal immigration and were accused of attempting to evangelize Muslims.

In Libya, proselytization for any religion other than Islam is punishable by death.

CT previously examined whether Coptic evangelism is really on the rise in Africa, based on recent arrests in Libya and Sudan.

As a professor of Spanish and Portuguese, I work with people who appreciate and embrace linguistic diversity. This semester in particular, many of my students are already on their third or fourth language. I love how they constantly seek opportunities to practice with native speakers. They'll find common activities to engage in just to have that immersion time with them.

My students get it. They take full advantage of the languages spoken in our country, but many others ignore it or disdain it. The latest reminder of that came earlier this month, with the negative reactions to Coca-Cola's "America the Beautiful" commercial. Even weeks after the spot aired during the Super Bowl, the commercial continues to draw millions on YouTube.

Why do citizens of a country that claims to celebrate diversity and inclusion of all races and cultures react so defensively against a song that honors many languages? This controversy shows Christians the importance of how we approach the de facto English-only policy in the United States, so often loaded with racist sentiments. There is no legislation of an official language in the United States, a policy I think makes both practical sense and biblical sense.

I teach a class titled, "The U.S. Experience: Latinos, Language, and Literacy." We focus on issues of language and literacy in Spanish-speaking communities in the United States. Research shows that providing students with instructional activities that parallel their communities' cultural touchstones—language, traditions, and even things like hip-hop music—helps improve academic outcomes. Such educational practices tell us that allowing different approaches to language and literacy in targeted communities signals uniqueness to the group that is not deficient, defiant, or in any way less American.

But is not only about languages, it is about race. Last summer, 11-year-old Sebastian de la Cruz sang the National Anthem, in English, in his mariachi suit and received a similar blast of comments questioning his "right" to sing it. The current Miss America, Nina Davuluri, also received her share of hateful comments. They are both American citizens, but xenophobic views and ignorance suggest that only those who are white and speak English as their native language are the ones that deserve the title.

People have the right to keep and maintain their heritage culture and language without being accused of rejecting mainstream American norms. Nina, Sebastian, and I are all proud to be Americans, but we also choose to honor our cultural heritage and, in my case, my Spanish language, just as much as we are fully engaged in mainstream culture.

Not acknowledging and valuing the linguistic diversity of our country often leads to separation not only from our brothers and sisters, but also from God. We are taught to love each other as Christ loved us (John 13:34), but are we doing this when we join in the rhetoric of exclusion of groups unlike us?

And, since we are made in God's image—diverse in language, race and cultures—we can say that diversity is part of his infinite plan. That means diversity isn't something we can simply put up with or remain indifferent toward. As Christians, we see, and perhaps even pursue, linguistic diversity for ourselves or for our children as a more complete experience of God's love. Revelation 7:9 tells us that God's people are to come together from "every nation, tribe, people and language "to worship. And the opportunity to do this is here, in the United States.

How can we cling to the reconciliation mandate found in Galatians 3:28 that says, "There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus," when we exclude, reject, and insult people's distinctiveness? We have a moral and social responsibility to fully engage in the task of reconciliation that challenges unjust dominant ideologies of language and cultural identity. When we do, we uphold the spirit of Corinthians 12:12-27, in which Paul describes unity and diversity in the body.

As Americans, we are so blessed to have access to this diversity in our very own backyard: in our parks, our workplaces, our churches, and our schools. Even if we find ourselves conveniently isolated from other races, in any town in the United States, we will find someone that looks, talks, or lives differently than us. As Paul reminds us: "Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it." So, Coca-Cola got it right in at least one way: America the Beautiful is so because it is so diverse.

Elena Foulis teaches at The Ohio State University, loves to read and write book reviews, and is a member of Vineyard Christian Fellowship in Columbus, Ohio.

This morning I had a terrifying realization. I’d started the day in my typical fashion, by skimming my Facebook wall and Twitter feed to find an article worth reading—a friend-approved, literary jolt to motivate the hamster in my head to start its daily run. Scrolling through these articles is a bit like walking through a middle school hallway, with all the usual suspects: the nerds correcting everyone’s theological grammar, the goths singing dirges of the church’s imminent demise, the cool kids gossiping about some pastor’s latest faux pas.

I finally clicked on a link to one of those “How to Get the Average Millennial to Come to Church” articles, expecting a satisfying eye roll. Instead, my jaw dropped and I let out a tiny yelp. This average Millennial, the one that everyone’s trying so hard to understand—it’s me!

My heart started pounding as I read through the descriptors. “Average Millennials hold multiple degrees.” Check. “They are technologically savvy.” Check. “Many haven’t been able to find jobs in their fields of expertise.” Check. “They probably have amassed a sizable debt.” Double check.

It was distressing to see myself fitting into the cookie-cutter Millennial mold. Articles such as these don’t paint a pretty picture. According to them, Millennials are entitled couch potatoes, suffering from arrested development. They have an inflated sense of self-worth, and they think they can run a company the first day they walk into a new job.

Of course, Millennials have their retorts. “We aren’t lazy; we were just dealt a bad hand.” “Our parents told us we could be whatever we wanted when we grew up, and we believed them.”

Back and forth it goes.

But as an “average Millennial,” I don’t feel entitled. I’ve worked as a laborer on a construction site and as an administrative assistant (read: receptionist) for an oral surgeon. I know the value of a hard day’s work just to pay the bills. I also don’t blame my current struggles entirely on my upbringing. What success I’ve had, I owe to the generosity of my parents, mentors, and church. How do I rectify these discrepancies?

The answer, of course, is that I’m not the “average Millennial.” Nor is anyone else. I may share a few commonalities with other members of my generation, but I’m also unique.

The truth is, the “average Millennial” is a myth.

Lighthouse or Mirage?

Not every “Millennial” article is authored by a curmudgeon, harrumphing about “kids these days.” I’d like to think this discussion began as a genuine attempt to understand the values of a generation that has confounded expectations. Church leaders, horrified to discover that Millennials were dramatically under-represented in churches, sought ways to bring them back. But how can you attract what you don’t understand?

Authors eagerly jumped to the rescue: “You want to know how to attract Millennials? We’ll tell you what they are like, what they like, and how you can change your church to draw them in and keep them.”

Enter statistical analysis, the proven cure for whatever ails your church. The surveys poured in, the stats were compiled, and the illusive “average Millennial” started coming into focus. But statistical analysis is limited—economic situations, political affiliations, and other figures only go so far.

So like a geneticist filling the sequence gaps of dinosaur DNA with that of frogs, authors inserted personal opinions into their analysis: I know a few Millennials that seem to have problems with authority, so that must be a trait all Millennials share. Philosophers have a name for this type of reasoning. They call it “the fallacy of composition.” An observer assumes that one member of a group is representative of the whole.

So how did this guesswork so easily influence perception of Millennials?

Thank a psychological effect known as “perceptual vigilance.” Have you ever learned a new word, and suddenly, you start seeing it pop up everywhere? That’s perceptual vigilance. The word isn’t actually showing up more frequently; you’ve just become attuned to it. Your brain used to tune it out, but now you recognize it when you hear it, so you think you’re hearing it more often.

Similarly, when you read that all Millennials are entitled, your brain makes a mental note every time an individual under 30 acts that way. Before you know it, you’ll see entitled Millennials everywhere, hogging the roads, cutting in line, and demanding more from church services.

In reality, this “average Millennial” isn’t a lighthouse leading us to better understanding; it’s a mirage, a Siren, drawing us away from the full picture. It only distracts from the truth about Millennials: every single one of us is unique. And who do you want filling the pews of your church, statistical Frankensteins or in-the-flesh human beings?

I don’t mean to criticize statistical analysis. It’s actually very helpful if used in the right way. But in this case, it’s only muddied the waters. If we’re looking at the Average Millennial to comprehensively understand this generation, we’re missing the point of disciple-making. Besides, the Millennial generation is usually defined as anyone born between the early 1980’s and 2000. Do you really expect to find much consistency among a group comprised of 13 to 30-year-olds? That doesn’t even take into account gender, racial, and economic differences.

The very conversation over attracting Millennials is demeaning. Nothing makes you feel loved and respected like being quantified as a percentage point in hopes of filling seats. Most of these articles are written as if the Millennials aren’t in the room—”Not now, little kid; the adults are trying to figure out how to deal with you.” And what about the many Millennials that already attend churches? Don’t lose sight of your current blessings in a culture that demands more, more, more!

No Silver Bullet

So how can your church attract more Millennials without unwarranted stereotyping? You can put down your pen and pad of paper. I’m not going to give you a formula. If you’re looking for a silver bullet, let me save you some time—it doesn’t exist.

Instead, I’d suggest that you stop thinking of Millennials as aliens from another planet. I, for one, am tired of lying on an operating table, being dissected by scientists in white lab coats. I can almost hear the muffled voices from behind surgical masks: “If you look here, you’ll see the gland that makes Millennials prefer service projects over worship programs,” followed by a chorus of, “Fascinating!”

First and foremost, Millennials are people, each one created uniquely in God’s image. And they’re more like you than you realize. People aren’t some kind of codex to solve, if only you knew the password. They’re diverse, dynamic, and fragile—try “cracking the safe” one too many times, and they’ll lock down, maybe forever.

Advertising agencies have picked up on something that churches seem to have missed. Dr. Pepper has a new series of commercials called “/1” promoting individuality. Motorola has ads celebrating the unique customization of rides, pets, bodies, and now phones. Even McDonalds is promoting its Quarter Pounder BLT with shots of people expressing their talents (no matter how odd), encouraging you to try new things and “top yourself.”

Pandering? Of course. But also telling.

I’m not saying individuality should trump community in the church. I’m saying that communities are most beautiful when they celebrate the diversity within. Communities were never meant to be hom*ogeneous. Why are we so intent on generalizing away Millennials’ miscellany?

Perhaps the problem also lies in the “attractional” mission structure. Church leaders are so concerned with how to lure more Millennials to their congregations (and keep them there) that they’ve forgotten their prime mandate: “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” (Matt. 28:19). We love to have made disciples; it’s more difficult to go make them.

Can you imagine Jesus gathering his disciples the way we try to gather followers? Jesus sees Peter and Andrew and says, “Come, follow me.” They look at each other, not quite willing to take that first step. So Jesus says, “Will you do it for a … Scooby-snack?”

Obviously, that’s ridiculous. No, the preexistent Son of God descended to us, meeting us in our small, sinful lives and calling us his own. When he assumed humanity, he wasn’t looking for the perfect incentive to draw us to himself; he was giving himself to us.

Many church leaders adopt an “ends-justify-the-means” approach to ministry, seeking the least amount of effort for maximum pay-off, and in some cases people flocked to fill their seats. But not anymore. Many Millennials smell the pandering a mile away. Are church leaders really no better than advertisers, collecting personal data to better advertise to a Millennial consumer?

Stop looking for the perfect mousetrap—”If I turn this crank, the boot will kick the lever, the diver will do a backflip into the pool, the net will fall down on the Millennial ‘mouse,’ and I’ll win!”

Also keep in mind, when you tune your service to attract the Average MIllennial, you may end up losing everyone else. I remember attending a youth group that served up nothing but silly games and contests to see who could eat the grossest food. Many kids ate it up, but my friends and I didn’t. We wanted something more, something deeper. So we stopped going. I found new avenues for church involvement—my parent’s Sunday school class and working in the nursery.

By doggedly hunting the Average Millennial, you will walk right past the Atypical Millennial, the Unique Millennial, and the Exceptional Millennial. And they’ll just go somewhere else.

Greater than Fiction

Do you really want to know what Millennials are like? Stop seeking secondhand information. Go out and meet actual people. Find ways to get involved with a local college. Venture into the community. Have lunch with your 20-something coworkers. I think you’ll find the Millennials you meet to be less perplexing than you assumed—and far more interesting and wonderful than that Average Millennial you’ve read so much about.

Or maybe they’ll be shy and self-conscious, in need of loving encouragement. Or maybe they really will be entitled and egotistical, in which case, they’ll need an example of humility. Expect to be surprised.

I know Millennials that attend traditional, liturgical services, others who are drawn to smaller house church settings, and many who love the vibrant excitement of a megachurch.

Study of the Average Millennial gives no insight into the real Millennials in your community—the living, breathing people just waiting to have God’s blessings poured into their lives. How can you best minister to them? I can’t say. But there’s no better way to find out than by asking them yourself.

Kyle Rohane is a writer living in Amarillo, Texas.

Copyright © 2014 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

I walked into the filled college lecture hall. The room seats about 200. The seats are terraced up to the two-doored exits at the auditorium's rear. I took my place alone on the floor of the semicircle, eight foot white boards and smart-screens behind me.

I stare around the room, trying to make eye contact with every person present. This is a breakout session at a conference on the "missional life." For this session, I have been asked to speak on evangelism, or as I prefer to call it, "Cross-Spiritual Communication" or, "How to talk about your faith without being a total jerk."

Once everyone is settled in, they realize that this is not going to be a typical evangelism seminar. I ask the room a question, "How do we Christians lie … How do we lie when evangelizing?"

At first the room is still and silent. It always starts silent when I ask this question. And then, once the question sinks in, hands dart up all over the room … the thoughts and ideas jump from the seats more quickly than we can even collect them. It feels like most people have never considered the question before, and then, as they ponder it for the first time, the epiphanies naturally flow. It is like pure discovery in action.

You want to know what is most enlightening about this phenomenon for me? I have witnessed this exact same scene more than twenty times before. Every time I ask this question to a mixed room of informed churchgoers, the room does not stay silent for more than a pregnant moment. Never, not once has a room been baffled or confused by the question. The look in people's eyes is never, "I don't think we lie." Instead, at least after that first momentary pause, it is not if we lie, it is instead, how many different ways we lie. And, as each person shares around the room, most all the other heads nod along in agreement.

Another fascinating thing that occurs is the lovely exhale of peace and freedom that follows an honest and thoughtful exchange about such matters … it is like we have always known such things to be true deep down inside, but we have never been given permission to just say the thoughts aloud.

I want to encourage an exhale of peace and freedom here. I am going to take a few minutes to simply start the conversation. Here is a short list, in no particular order, of seven of the ways that I am aware that I and others have lied (and still do) when we practice cross-spiritual communication. I hope that you will add your own thoughts in the comments below. Maybe we will get to share a classroom of epiphanies togetherright here in Leadership Journal.

1. We lie when we claim we are more confident than we really are. The culture of pretending within Christianity seems almost at an epidemic level. Many of us feel the need to hide our doubts and questions. We feel compelled to act like our faith life is totally satisfying, when in fact it often feels limited, dry, cold or numb. I think we also believe that our "witness" will be less powerful if we reveal a less than "perfect" religious experience. The funny thing is that the opposite is often true. Non-Christians are often drawn to stories of an authentic and even struggling faith.
2. We lie when we claim that unexplainable things are in fact explainable. God is transcendent and beyond even the shadowy wisps of imagination in our finite minds. The Trinity, for instance, is not as simple as a metaphor of water (ice, water, steam) or an egg (shell, white, yoke). Sometimes I think we would be better off if we just said, "These ideas are so beyond me that if God did reveal them to me, I am pretty sure my brain would explode."
3. We lie when we don't acknowledge our doubts within the drama of faith. This is similar to number one above but just on a more detailed level. When another person challenges us with a difficult theological/philosophical issue, sometimes it is best to just admit that those questions are very challenging and even emotionally taxing on the soul (I think people like to know that our faith is so important to us that it does impact our soul-state in both encouraging and difficult ways.) Difficult questions for me include: What is the destiny of people with no access to the true and loving message of Christ's gospel? Where did evil come from? Why did God put this whole human story into motion when it has caused so much pain?
4. We lie when we pretend like the Bible doesn't say some really nasty things when in fact it does. For instance, God commands genocide. He just does … at least from a clear and honest reading of the Bible. There is also a verse that says, "Happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks (Psalms 137:9)." If we want the Bible to be our document, we need to own the whole thing. (The same thing can be said for the atrocities in the story of the church, past and present.)
5. We lie when we claim we understand other beliefs, faiths and world views. We need to stop saying things like, "I understand Islam," or, "I know what a Muslim thinks/believes." Do you want someone saying that they understand your faith experience because they once lived in a Greek Orthodox neighborhood? Do you think a Muslim would accurately understand your beliefs because they read a book about Christianity (particularly one written by Muslim scholars)? Belief systems are extremely diverse (heck, in Christianity there are hundreds of Protestant denominations alone, before we even talk about Orthodox, Coptic, Armenian, Syrian, Palestinian, just to scratch the surface). Other religions are just as diverse. Further more, faith experience can be as specific as a neighborhood, family or individual.
6. We lie when we claim that all of our beliefs are a "10". This one is probably going to frustrate some people, but we are disingenuous when we claim all of our dogmas with equal veracity. To put it another way, on a scale of one to ten, not all Christian beliefs are a "10." Do I believe in the historicity of a floating zoo? Yes I do. Do I hold to the specific details of that historic event with the same "lay my life on the line" conviction as I do the historical death on a cross and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth? No, I do not. The details of the zoo are not a 10 for me. Jesus is a 10.
7. Finally, and most importantly, we lie (insidious and barbaric lying) when we pretend like we really, really, really love the other person when in fact we don't. We do not love people when we dismiss their story (including their hopes, values, beliefs and convictions). We do not love people when we do not empathically listen to them, as opposed to spending that time formulating a counter-argument. We do not love others when we reduce them to labels, caricatures, or opponents. If we love, then we will find them shockingly beautiful and fascinating creations. We will find their stories riveting. We will radiate affection. Humans know deep down when they are or are not truly loved.

I would like to close with a different sort of lie. This is not a way that I lie, but instead a way that I was lied to. I was lied to by religious people. They told me that cross-spiritual communication is dangerous. It is dangerous because when I do it, there is a strong possibility that it will divide and the other person will become my enemy.

Well, in my experience sharing my faith around the world and in my post-Christian city, if we can share honestly, authentically and with humility, division does not happen. Instead, Friendship Happens.

Tony Kriz is a writer and church leader from Portland, Oregon, and Author in Residence at Warner Pacific College.

Copyright © 2014 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

Our church, Journey of Faith, has served the South Bay for over 100 years. We've always had a commitment to reach those who do not know Jesus Christ, both here and abroad. It was that commitment which led us to try and help New Joy, a struggling and dying church in nearby Bellflower, California.

New Joy, for numerous reasons, had been steadily declining since 1962. They had around 250 people back then, but had dwindled to 49 in 2008, having been without a senior pastor since 2005. Journey of Faith wanted to turn New Joy into a satellite campus for the main campus in Manhattan Beach, California. The plan was four-fold: fix the facilities, provide high quality worship, provide a weekly message on High Definition DVD, and provide a campus pastor who could shepherd the congregation and develop new ministries to reach the community.

Five years later, sadly, Journey of Faith decided to no longer support the Bellflower campus. The Bellflower campus never lived up to the expectations of Journey of Faith. Bellflower did not break the 100 person average Sunday morning attendance, has not shown signs that it will be able to become self-sufficient, and seems irrelevant to the community. So after much prayer, the Bellflower campus was launched as an independent church again.

The difficult journey of separating one church back into two has been filled with heartache, disappointments, and many tears; yet, we learned many lessons. Key to them were the differences in big church vs. small church thinking. For us, these lessons will guide our future endeavors to help struggling churches turn around and reach their community and world for Christ.

Define the Relationship

Ever heard of a "DTR?" Merging churches need them, too (not just dating couples). Our first lesson was the need to define the relationship up front. Defining the relationship helps eliminate misunderstandings, conflict, and hurt feelings. This allows both sides to determine if they want to continue. If expectations are clear from the beginning, then if either one of the churches does not like the agreement, then they are free to walk away and neither side is upset.

The three types of possible church "mergers" are Rebirth, Adoption, or Marriage. Rebirth is the restart of an older church or a church that has been in decline for a number of years. The church is usually rebirthed in the same location with a different name. Many from the old congregation will attend the "new" church. The rebirthed church will have a different style of worship and philosophy of ministry. The church will most likely have the same theological bent and be associated with the same denomination. The pastor of this new church will likely be a church planter who has the benefit of a church building but the leadership will be new.

Adoption is when one church becomes part of another church. The adopting church defines the theology, philosophy of ministry, the kinds of ministries within the church, and the style of worship. The church being adopted learns this new culture and accepts the fact that the old church does not exist any longer. The current leadership of the adopted church is not added to the leadership team of the adopting church. On top of that, most, if not all staff at the church being adopted is released.

Marriage is usually between two healthy churches in order to become one stronger church. These churches are normally in the same general vicinity. This allows the "married church" to have a stronger presence in the city, more effective outreach, and a better utilization of the resources that God has entrusted. For this to work, the leadership of both churches needs to be in theological and philosophical agreement. Compromises would need to be made on both sides in order to make a healthy transition.

Looking back on the process Journey of Faith undertook with New Joy, the leadership of Journey of Faith did not clearly define the relationship up front. Many if not all of the problems we experienced could have been avoided, if this had been done correctly. Everyone agreed this was not a "rebirth," but the leadership of Journey of Faith Manhattan Beach viewed the relationship as an "adoption" whereas the leadership of New Joy viewed the relationship as a "marriage." The differences in the leadership's point of view were enormous and impossible to overcome!

This difference in understanding the relationship between the two churches caused needless conflicts. The first was the evaluation of the long-term administrative assistant. The administrative assistant that had been on staff at New Joy for nearly twenty years needed to be replaced. The previous two pastors knew that she lacked some skills which the church needed to grow, but were unwilling to replace her. After careful evaluation, we determined to replace the current administrative assistant with someone who is bilingual, had Microsoft office skills, and who had front- and back-office experience. The leadership (elder) was concerned more about possible fallout on the campus rather than the adequate performance of the employee. Eventually, after many headaches and discussions, we replaced this administrative assistant with one who could fulfill the requirements of the job.

Another area of conflict was in the many discussions about worship style. New Joy preferred and enjoyed a much more traditional style of worship. There were choirs, quartets, an organ, and weekly special numbers. Journey of Faith changed the style of worship, eliminating the organ, choirs, quartets, and special numbers. The leadership of New Joy objected strenuously to this change and forcefully lobbied for a more "balanced" (the old way of doing worship) approach to worship. If we had communicated more clearly when New Joy was adopted that the old way of doing things no longer existed, it might have made for a smoother transition.

Leadership Team

Developing a strong leadership team( in our case, an Elder Board) is a top priority for any church. Churches rise or fall based on the quality of their leaders. In an attempt to ease the transition and build unity between the two campuses, we decided to add an elder to the elder board of Journey of Faith when acquiring the Bellflower campus; this elder would be one of the leaders of the old New Joy congregation. In hindsight, this wass perhaps the biggest mistake we made. First, although this elder is a good man, his worldview was different than the main campus. This elder was committed to saving the Bellflower campus, at all costs, not expanding the ministry of Journey of Faith. For example, when discussing the budget, the idea of making the Bellflower campus live within its own means of support was never a serious topic. Yet, if other ministries on the main campus were not producing fruit, serious discussion was given to terminate or scale back that particular ministry. The same standards of support were not held universally by this particular elder.

A second major issue is that an elder from a small church does not understand the complexity of a large church ministry. A large church is as different from a small church as Wal-Mart is different to a convenience store. A small church elder often does not easily understand the scope and breadth of large church ministry. A typical elders' meeting at Journey of Faith begins and ends with prayer. After prayer, team reports are given (financial, outreach, school, deacons, etc.); the reports are usually brief and to the point, except when there is an issue or a major decision that needs to be made. Questions are asked, but there is very little discussion. An elder or leader from a small church often tends to micro-manage and provides more detail about every event or occurrence at "their" church. Journey of Faith found that at the Bellflower church, ministry was more controlled instead of released.

A third major issue of bringing on a small church elder is the lack of understanding that the health of the organization (the whole church, including both campuses) is more important than any particular member of the organization. This does not mean that a large church does not care for those in need, but it does mean that the ministry of the church does not stop because one person is hurting.

A final area where expectations needed to be more clear was in our hiring practices. Journey of Faith's philosophy of hiring at the large, main campus is to hire the best person for the job, not the person in the church who needs the job. Sometimes this is one in the same, but not always. Too often churches hire someone who needs a job regardless of the person's ability level. The church is then hamstrung with an employee without the skills to help the church grow. This is not to question the motives of a small church elder, (I am sure that the elder believes that they are doing the loving thing), but what elders of small churches do not realize is that sometimes by helping one person the whole church suffers.

Moving Forward

A healthy working relationship still exists between the Manhattan Beach campus and the Bellflower campus. New Joy has retained the name Journey of Faith, Bellflower and members from Journey of Faith, Manhattan Beach, continue to serve at the Bellflower campus in various ministries—such as leading worship and "His Table" (a community food outreach to the working poor).

The lessons we learned from the Bellflower experiment are many, but they didn't come easily. By not understanding the different ways that the two churches thought about ministry, staffing, and leadership, our differences were ultimately irreconcilable. While this was unfortunate, we'll carry the wisdom we earned with us as we move forward.

Copyright © 2014 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

Just now, there is a small subterranean war in American evangelicalism about who Abraham Kuyper actually was. Jamie Smith, reporting from the front lines of James Bratt’s magisterial new biography of Kuyper, cautions us to receive “Kuypers” with suspicion until we’ve read about the man’s life and legacy. But while the bun fights of theologians and theorists go on, Gary Haugen and Victor Boutros have claimed and revitalized a very real Kuyper, in my opinion, with a practical, pressing theology of public justice. The Locust Effect yields the best of his legacy.

Like Haugen and Boutros, Kuyper wrote during a time of major social crisis, one characterized by not only an alarming and widening gap between the rich and the poor, but also the corruption and atrophy of institutions of public justice. Haugen and Boutros, in making their case that building those institutions out of the ash of corruption has been done before, cite almost entirely late 19th-century sources: Kuyper’s world. And it was in that context that Kuyper developed what the English world has come to call his architectonic critique, writing in 1889: “we must courageously and openly acknowledge that the situation calls not only for the physician but most certainly for the architect as well.”

Therein the parallel to The Locust Effect, which describes public justice as the “the most fundamental and the most broken system” in a developing world full of broken systems (p. 128; for a full primer see their 2010 Foreign Affairs article, “And Justice for All“). Haugen and Boutros hasten to qualify that they are not dismissing poverty alleviation, clean water projects, micro-finance, health care (etc.) as merely secondary concerns, or that these initiatives should receive less resourcing, but rather that the positive development these projects make cannot be secured apart from the rule of law. The non-governmental world has caught up with the fashionable ideas of When Helping Hurts, of the now well-aged debates over efficacy and models of foreign aid, but it has been slower to recognize that no kind of development can be secured, can last, if the poor live in fear of violence, and if even their modest gains can be ripped out from under them by systems of justice which not only fail to protect but all too often actively harass and destroy. What’s required is nothing less than what some have called a “simultaneous realization of norms.”

Paul Collier, the famous economist and author of The Bottom Billion, has already given us a reasonably readable and academically sound picture of what that package of norms might be. Public justice and the rule of law of is one of four critical pieces (his list comprises foreign aid, security, trade, and laws and charters). Any approach to development, argues Collier, that focuses solely on only one or two pieces of this package tends to fail. Hernando de Soto, another economist invoked in The Locust Effect, makes a long argument that no development can take place apart from the basic settlement of property rights, or the rule of law which tells you who owns what and how legitimate buying and selling can go on.

So we need special and sustained attention to governance, to the rule of law, which has been seriously neglected by the NGO community, according to Haugen and Boutros, but we do not only need such attention. Skimmers of The Locust Effect may find themselves alarmed that a more holistic approach is not foregrounded, but the book is meant to focus on one of those elements, what it calls the most fundamental, not dismiss the others. It is a call especially for the NGO world to recognize that although we may be turning the page on our helping hurting, we haven’t turned the page on sustaining our helping, structurally transforming systems of gross injustice. We must, in other words, courageously and openly acknowledge that the present situation calls not only for the physician, but for the architect as well.

The Locust Effect does somewhat surprisingly run the risk of being overly technical at times, a technicality liberal political scientists can adore (pilot projects on how to build systems of justice, step-by-steps, empirical studies, etc.), but public theologians may find it a little lopsided.

The great and marvelous thing about developed public justice is not merely that it keeps my neighbor from stealing and raping; by far the greater and more marvelous thing about developed public justice is that such an inclination almost never passes my neighbor’s mind. The astonishing metric of success is, in fact, not enforcement itself but the relatively thin level of enforcement needed. There is no police state large enough to coerce its citizens into moral behavior; coercive power is a blunt, last resort. If Canadians (or Americans) wanted to overthrow the police, we certainly could: our officers of the peace have neither the numbers, the mandate, nor the firepower to resist such an onslaught. No, what is marvelous is that we (or most of us, at any rate) do not want to overthrow our police; they are our public servants, and we respect and obey them not only out of “fear of the sword” but also a formed desire for peace, order, and good government (at least in her Majesty’s Dominion). Therein lies a political culture that is the benchmark for highly functioning public justice.

Again, nothing strikingly new here, as more than a few development experts have labored to show that “democratic institutions” and “public justice systems” which lack the underlying social architecture fast become empty forms, impositions, rootless institutions.

But I wonder if we don’t then also need to hear from another 19th-century voice, one whom Kuyper much revered in his own day, that of Pope Leo XIII and his encyclical Rerum Novarum. Leo’s bracing argument in that encyclical was about development too, about the deep and widening divisions between the rich and the poor, about the abuse of laborers, and about building sustainable systems of public justice. Only two years after Kuyper’s “On Manual Labor,” Leo wrote in Rerum Novarum that “if human society is to be healed now, in no other way can it be healed save by a return to Christian life and Christian institutions.”

These two men, Abraham Kuyper and Pope Leo XIII, had much in common (evidenced by the Bavinck Institute hosting a consultation on Rerum Novarum in Rome this fall), but one of the most significant commonalities was their call for a public theology to underwrite a renewed social architecture, a robust public justice.

That is one of the somewhat conspicuous absences in The Locust Effect. Not that the International Justice Mission should somehow transform into church mission—the IJM’s missiology of justice is very fine as it is—but in tackling the hugely important and enduringly vital work of state building and justice-making, there is less attention paid to the political cultures that must grow alongside, simultaneously with, the institutions of state and law. This gap is more conspicuous if only because of what Scott Thomas calls the context of the developing world, where strong religion and weak states are often the rule, and many social and political communities are struggling to make—or not to make—the same legal and political transformations that the developed world has undergone. This is not just because of the easy answer of corruption, but because sometimes the models of Westphalian statehood and its attendant sovereignty are repulsive to other political theologies. Hence today’s explosively controversial debate over the nature of pluralism, of westernization vs. modernization, of what ideas and norms make possible, or are carried by, certain political forms and institutions.

The locusts of lawless violence, as Haugen and Boutros write, have indeed “been allowed to swarm unabated in the developing world … laying waste to the hope of the poor,” but the high-water mark of public justice—the goal, if you will—is not only a state with the institutions to restrain violence, but a political culture which demands, over time, less of that restraint. I do not mean utopia, as though on this side of the eschaton the coercive power of the state (or its deterrence) will ever pass from need. I mean only that simultaneous to the technical institutions of justice must be the growth of political solidarity, of “faith in our common life.”

The one sally Haugen and Boutros do make into political culture is the dynamic they call the 15-70-15 Rule, though they admit it has no social scientific basis. With it, they mean to say that 15 percent of the populace wake up intent to game the system in a predatory way, 15 percent wake up earnestly ready to do good, and 70 percent wake up waiting to see who gets the upper hand and follow along. That insight tracks with Hannah Arendt’s report on the “banality of evil,” though it also underscores how essential cultural formation is. The logical conclusion is otherwise not altogether different from most of the post-apocalyptic blockbusters in today’s media marketplace: once the systems and institutions which secure our humanity collapse, a Hobbesian war of all against all will erupt (tellingly, Thomas Hobbes is invoked several times in The Locust Effect).

The metaphor that provides the title of The Locust Effect, then, is not one that I love: locusts are a plague of nature, of God, a sweeping deus ex machina, a devouring force of nature. The sin of the human heart certainly can seem that way, but the cultural formation of desire matters too: it deserves saying that it is not only the deterrence and protection that developed systems of public justice have in their favor, it is their broad public legitimacy. No public justice system, developed or not, can ward off the hordes of locusts Haugen and Boutros describe. The essential challenge is the root of the swarm, not only its deterrence. Law has a moral role, certainly, but it is not the only or even decisive source of such morality. This is precisely why religion being absent from any conversation about structural transformation in what Philpott, Toft, and Shah call “God’s Century” seems a bit odd.

Of course, a good place to start, a critically overlooked one, is building capacity in the world’s public justice systems. But it is not only the place. It must be concomitantly realized alongside other basic things, like economic and social development, and most essentially a growth in (often political-theological) legitimacy of those institutions, for which certain basic freedoms, like freedom of religion or belief, are indispensable.

Good news here too: the conversation and practice between both technical institutions of public justice and the political culture that sustains them is getting onto the front of diplomatic agendas, through organizations like Chris Seiple’s Institute for Global Engagement and Brian Grim’s new Religious Freedom & Business Foundation. The Locust Effect is an outstanding and long overdue contribution to a development conversation with some very exciting voices; it shouldn’t be read alone, but it also should not be missed by serious advocates of public justice.

Robert Joustra is assistant professor of international studies at Redeemer University College and editor, with Jonathan Chaplin, of God and Global Order (Baylor Univ. Press).

Copyright © 2014 Books & Culture. Click for reprint information.

On June 14, 1911, the largest ship in the world left the docks in Southampton, 80 miles southwest of London, on her maiden voyage to America. Topped by four smokestacks and stretching nearly three football fields long, the imposing vessel sailed first to Cherbourg, directly across the English Channel in France, then to Queenstown, Ireland, then through the iceberg-filled Arctic Ocean to New York City.

The seven-day voyage to New York was uneventful. The Olympic was the first of three new liners that would be sailing between the Southampton and New York City. During World War I, the Olympic carried troops and cargo in support of the war. Then she remained in service as an ocean liner until1935, when the Depression and competition made large ships much less profitable.

Her sister ship, the Britannic, launched in 1914, had brief pre-war service as a passenger ship, and then was refitted as a hospital ship for the war. It was sunk by a mine in 1916. The third Olympic-class ship was launched in 1912. Its maiden voyage was cut short by an iceberg, as were the lives of most of its passengers.

Never heard of the Olympic or the Britannic? Nor have most of us. But we have all heard of the other sister ship. The voyage of the Titanic is as well known in Beijing as it is in Brisbane, Bangalore, and Baltimore.

The soldiers in David Finkel’s book Thank You for Your Service are the Titanic. If War is Hell, Finkel shows the reader of this grim book that life after war can be as bad as—or even worse than—war itself. Finkel’s relentless chronicle of two surviving soldiers, two soldiers who take their own lives, the widow of a soldier killed in Iraq, and the soldiers’ families left me exhausted.

In addition to following the lives of enlisted soldiers and their families in the aftermath of war, Finkel takes us to the top of the Army’s chain of command for a look at how the vice chief of staff of the Army leads the effort to cut the suicide rate among soldiers. He also shows us the people trying to help soldiers or get help for them.

If Finkel wrote a similar book about Olympic-class vessels, it would chronicle a half-dozen survivors and a widow from the Titanic along with a few of the people trying to help them.

It would be easy for most readers to come away from this book angry at the Veterans Administration, or at Congress, or the President, or anyone else who is supposed to be caring for the veterans of our wars. I am a soldier and the father of three women in their early 20s. In those very conflicting roles, I am happy the women in the lives of the soldiers in this book stood by their men when they came back from Iraq depressed, abusive, and dangerous to everyone around them. But in at least two cases, the father in me was hoping those abused wives would take their children and run.

The wrenching problems Finkel documents so well have a larger context that this book does not address. When I told my wife about this book, her first reaction was, “You came back so normal.” We really hadn’t talked about it much, but it was clear she was and is relieved that I did not return depressed, sad, angry, lonely, bitter, or lost—one or more of these would be an average-to-good day for the soldiers and their families in Finkel’s book.

The significance of the title of this book deserves its own examination. People who live in the most populated parts of America have little contact with soldiers, except to say “Thank you for your service” in an airport or a restaurant.

People walk up to me in airports and restaurants and thank me for my service. They buy my coffee at Starbucks. They smile. This may seem trivial. But I first enlisted in 1972, during the Viet Nam war, three months before my draft number came up. I was 18. Less than two years later, with the draft ended and the war winding down, I flew home in uniform. My right hand and right eye were bandaged. My face was swollen from the bits of metal still lodged in my skin. I would fully recover after being blinded and peppered with shrapnel in a live-fire missile testing accident.

No one in Logan Airport, Boston, thanked me for my service.

One of the heart-wrenching scenes in the book takes place in Warrior Transition Battalion. The WTB is the place where veterans who are not ready for civilian life get the services they need to rejoin civilian life, or at least try to get those services. Tausolo Aieti, one of the soldiers the book follows in his recovery, avoids the funeral of a 21-year-old soldier in the WTB who took his own life. We get a brief report of the service in the chapel. During the service, one of the eulogists steps to the podium and “declares in the most mystified voice, ‘What is there to say at this point except thank you for your service?’ “

In this sad context, “Thank you for your service” could not be a more hollow gesture. Every soldier, sailor, airman, and Marine serving in the past decade has heard that phrase from people who clearly have no connection to the military or the undeclared wars of this century. But for those of us who served during Viet Nam, “Thank you for your service” would have put us in shock, a welcome shock. I had a 23-year break in service. I left the all-volunteer Army when it was still in disrepute. I re-enlisted in 2007 into an Army that gets more respect than any other public institution. What a change.

When someone thanks me for my service, I deeply wish some of the guys I served with 40 years ago could put on the uniform for just a day to hear those words.

Finkel’s book reaches into the depths of what soldiers who served in this war are being thanked for. A few months before I deployed to Iraq in 2009, I visited Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio. BAMC (Bam-See is what everyone there called it) is one of the treatment centers for soldiers who have lost limbs. I met soldiers who lost as many as three limbs and were in the process of rehabilitation.

But Finkel’s soldiers have injuries that go deeper than their bodies. When you see young men and women fighting back from physical injury, it makes the story Finkel tells even more sad. At BAMC I saw a soldier speed along the walkway on two spring-like prosthetic legs. Nothing could bring his legs back, but he looked very happy to be moving. Two years before I met that soldier, I was MEDEVACed from the scene of a downhill bicycle racing crash with a smashed vertebra and nine other broken bones. I remember how happy I was the first day I got out of bed wearing a neck and chest brace, walking the halls of the hospital with my IVs on a rolling hanger. Having your wits and knowing you will get better is a rush.

Brain injuries don’t give that thrill. Fighting against the invisible scars of PTSD, Adam Schumann is lost inside his own injuries. His wife Saskia tries to live with the depression and rage and the withdrawal. But she has lost the man she married even when he is physically present. Adam was a model soldier and a good husband when he left for his third tour in Iraq. A different man came home. Schumann’s story ends on a relatively happy note, with the possibility of recovery.

In the tenth chapter we follow the last months of Jessie Robinson before he commits suicide. At the opening of the chapter we learn how Jessie killed himself and we get the Army version of how he died. The rest of the chapter is told in large part in text messages Jessie’s wife Kristy started saving in her phone because “things had gotten bad enough that she wanted a record of what was happening.”

She wrote the messages hurriedly and hid them in a “Tasks” folder in the phone. Here are a few:

November 1: “Jessie overturned the coffee table. He took my cell phone away from me. When I tried to leave the house he held me and pushed me back inside the house. I was holding Summer [Jessie and Kristy’s infant daughter] in my arms durring [sic] all of this. He said if I called the police they would take Summer away from both of us. He wouldn’t let me near the front door or patio door.”

December 25: “This morning Jessie left at 9 a.m. When I got out of bed I found the Christmas tree tossed off the deck into the back yard. He came home just after 2 p.m., took a shower and went to bed.”

January 20: “Jessie woke up at 5:00 and began yelling again. He said that tomorrow he is going to raise a stink. He grabbed my hair and ear and shoved my face to the bed while I was feeding Summer.”

April 10: “Jessie was arrested for domestic battery.”

That was her last entry. She left with Summer soon after. At that point, Jessie’s suicide— an overdose of acetaminophen—was three months and nine days away. We follow Kristy for another year as she tries to put her life back together.

Finkel’s book is important for anyone who wants to understand PTSD and just how bad the invisible injuries of war can be. Finkel gives you the Titanic. Now let’s turn to the Olympic.

In 2004, Alpha Company 1-106th, part of an Illinois-based Army National Guard Aviation Battalion, deployed to Iraq for 15 months. One of their missions was flying their Blackhawk helicopters in support of 2nd Battalion, 2nd Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division, commanded by Lt. Col. Peter Newell, the lead Army unit in the Battle for Fallujah.

Several books have been written about the Battle for Fallujah in 2004. Newell earned a Silver Star in that battle for leading his battalion to victory and leaving his armored vehicle under fire to recover one of his soldiers.

When I deployed to Camp Adder, Iraq, with Task Force Diablo in 2009, Alpha Company 1-106th was our air assault company. Many of the flight crew soldiers who deployed in 2004 were back in 2009—most in new roles through promotions, but still together. Peter Newell, now a Colonel, was the Camp Adder commander. During the deployment, I flew to the Iran-Iraq border on Newell’s Blackhawk and on several other missions with Alpha Company.

One of the first missions I flew with them was to Al-Kut, a routine supply mission to a MEDEVAC forward base. We had a few hours to kill on the ground in Al-Kut, so I talked to each of the four men on the flight crew. They were just four regular guys from Alpha Company who were assigned this particular mission. They’re not special in any unhappy way, so—like the Olympic—nobody tells their story.

In the left pilot seat was Chief Warrant Officer Patrick Schroeder, an Instructor Pilot with 21 years of service. A native of Sherman, Illinois, he joined the Army in 1988 and served as a UH-1 “Huey” mechanic for four years before attending flight school. He has been a pilot “24/7” ever since. In 2003 he took a job as one of the pilots who fly the Governor of Illinois. Because he deployed in January of 2009, Schroeder served as a pilot for Governor Rod Blagojevich from shortly after the time he took office in 2003 until shortly before the notorious governor was removed from office in 2009.

Schroeder would say nothing about flying the governor except that he enjoyed the times he was able to fly Lieutenant Governor Patrick Quinn and looks forward to flying for Governor Quinn when he returns from deployment. Schroeder was married just a month before his current deployment and took his R&R (Rest and Recreation) leave as a honeymoon in Australia.

Next to Schroeder in the right pilot seat was Chief Warrant Officer Nathan McKean of Decatur, Illinois. McKean served 12 years, beginning with four years in the Navy building bombs on the aircraft carrier USS Stennis and in a combat search and rescue unit based in San Diego. McKean came home in 2001, enrolled in college, and joined the Army National Guard.

After leaving active duty, McKean decided he needed a good job that would allow him time off for military duty—lots of time off. In 2002, he took a job as an engineer on the Norfolk Southern Railroad. Within a year he was training to go to Iraq, then left for a deployment of 15 months.

Soon after he returned, he went to flight school for a year, then had additional training before his current tour in Iraq. McKean estimates he has worked on the railroad for 2-1/2 years, but has more than seven years’ seniority.

Behind McKean on the right side of the Blackhawk was Sgt. Steve Sunzeri of Naperville, Illinois. Sunzeri has six years in the Illinois Army National Guard. From 2003-7 he served as a scout and infantryman with Charlie Company 2-106th Cavalry. In 2006 he completed the requirements for a Bachelor of Arts degree in history. Then in 2007 he reclassified to become a flight crew chief, deploying in 2009 with Alpha Company.

In the left seat behind the pilot was the door gunner, the youngest member of the crew and the one with the most combat deployments. Cpl. Michael Randazzo, of Queens, N.Y., is on his third deployment in six years of Army National Guard service. In 2009 he was 24 years old. Randazzo enlisted shortly after graduating from high school, serving first as an infantryman on a 15-month combat tour. When he returned from Iraq, Randazzo worked for an executive protection company until June 2008, when he volunteered to return to Iraq as a door gunner. Near the end of that tour, he volunteered for a second consecutive tour as a door gunner with Alpha Company.

After the 2009 deployment, he planned to go back to the U.S., apply to flight school, and deploy to Afghanistan as a pilot.

Who flew the Blackhawks that moved troops and rescued wounded soldiers in Iraq and still perform those missions in Aghanistan? Soldiers like these. All of Alpha Company went home together in January of 2010. Nearly all of the flight companies in the Pennsylvania National Guard that deployed with Alpha Company to Camp Adder in 2009 have already been to Afghanistan since that deployment.

I am glad Finkel wrote Thank You for Your Service and that Farrar, Straus & Giroux published it. The tale of the saddest survivors of Iraq needs to be told. But important as they are, these stories do not represent even a large fraction of the total experience of American soldiers in the Iraq War. Most of us came home and went back to work and raising families. Many others made the military a career and either have retired or plan to.

Most soldiers, like the Olympic, served when their nation was at war, then sailed through good weather and storms for the rest of their life and peacefully retired.

Neil Gussman is the strategic communications and media relations manager for Chemical Heritage Foundation, a library and museum in Philadelphia. He is also public affairs NCO for the 28th Combat Aviation Brigade, Pennsylvania Army National Guard.

Copyright © 2014 Books & Culture. Click for reprint information.

Peter Randolph, a slave in Prince George County, Virginia, until he was freed in 1847, described the secret prayer meetings he had attended as a slave. "Not being allowed to hold meetings on the plantation," he wrote, "the slaves assemble in the swamp, out of reach of the patrols. They have an understanding among themselves as to the time and place. … This is often done by the first one arriving breaking boughs from the trees and bending them in the direction of the selected spot.

"After arriving and greeting one another, men and women sat in groups together. Then there was "preaching … by the brethren, then praying and singing all around until they generally feel quite happy."

The speaker rises "and talks very slowly, until feeling the spirit, he grows excited, and in a short time there fall to the ground 20 or 30 men and women under its influence.

"The slave forgets all his sufferings," Randolph summed up, "except to remind others of the trials during the past week, exclaiming, 'Thank God, I shall not live here always!' "

It is a remarkable event not merely because of the risks incurred (200 lashes of the whip often awaited those caught at such a meeting) but because of the hurdles overcome merely to arrive at this moment. For decades all manner of people and circ*mstances conspired against African Americans even hearing the gospel, let alone responding to it in freedom and joy.

No time for religion

The plantation work regimen gave slaves little leisure time for religious instruction. Some masters required slaves to work even on Sunday. Even with the day off, many slaves needed to tend their own gardens, which supplemented their income and diet (others opted to socialize, to dance, or get drunk).

One of the largest obstacles was sheer prejudice. Many masters believed Africans were too "brutish" to comprehend the gospel; others doubted Africans had souls. Anglican missionary to South Carolina Francis Le Jau reported in 1709, "Many masters can't be persuaded that Negroes and Indians are otherwise than Beasts, and use them like such."

Such thinking was combated by men like Puritan Cotton Mather, who, in his tract The Negro Christianized, pleaded with owners to treat their "servants" as men, not brutes: "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thy self. Man, thy Negro is thy neighbor."

Some 18th century masters believed conversion would make slaves "saucy," since they would begin to think of themselves equal to whites. As one put it, "A slave is ten times worse when a Christian than in his state of paganism."

Other masters believed conversion would make slaves "saucy," since they would begin to think of themselves equal to whites. According to John Bragg, a Virginia minister, slave owners agreed that conversion would result in the slaves "being and becoming worse slaves when Christians." Some even believed "A slave is ten times worse when a Christian than in his state of paganism."

There were legal complications as well. Many masters in colonial America believed if a slave was baptized that, "according to the laws of the British nation, and the canons of the church," he must be freed. Colonial legislatures sought to clear up this matter, and by 1706 at least six had passed acts denying that baptism altered the condition of a slave "as to his bondage or freedom." It wasn't just economics but a twinge of Christian conscience that prompted the legislation. As Virginia's law put it, it was passed so that masters, "freed from this doubt, may more carefully endeavor the propagation of Christianity."

But clergy were in short supply even for whites in the eighteenth-century South. In 1701 Virginia, for example, only half of the forty-some parishes containing 40,000 people were supplied with clergy. And regarding white settlers in Georgia, one missionary said, "They seem in general to have but very little more knowledge of a Savior than the aboriginal natives."

Finally, there were cultural obstacles. In 1701 the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts was formed, and one of its purposes was to seek the conversion of slaves in colonial America. As an arm of the Church of England, however, it was less than effective with the "target" population. Le Jau described his refined and rational method of teaching African Americans: "We begin and end our particular assembly with the collect. … I teach them the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Commandments. I explain some portion of the catechism … "

With culture, prejudice, and injustice joining forces, few slaves were converted. As one missionary reported in 1779 about conditions in South Carolina: "The Negroes of that country, a few only excepted, are to this day as great strangers to Christianity and as much under the influence of pagan darkness, idolatry, and superstition as they were at their first arrival from Africa."

It would, it seemed, take a miracle to turn things around. And a miracle is just what America had already begun to experience.

Miracle on the plantation

In 1733, during a local revival instigated by his preaching, Jonathan Edwards noted, "There are several Negroes who … appear to have been truly born again in the late remarkable season." When the Great Awakening arrived in full—with shouts and groans and spiritual ecstasy—blacks began to swell the crowds coming to hear revival preachers. In Philadelphia, George Whitefield reported, "Nearly 50 Negroes came to give me thanks for what God had done to their souls." In the late 1740s, Presbyterian Samuel Davies said he ministered to seven congregations in Virginia in which "more than 1,000 Negroes" had participated in his services.

Presbyterian theology and Anglican liturgy, however, held little appeal to most blacks. Not until Methodists and Baptists arrived—with their emphasis on conversion as a spiritual experience—did black Christianity begin to take off.

John Thompson, who was born a Maryland slave in 1812, said he and his fellow slaves "could understand but little that was said" in the Episcopal service his owner required them to attend. But when "the Methodist religion was brought among us … it brought glad tidings to the poor bondsman." It spread from plantation to plantation, he said, and "there were few who did not experience religion."

Baptists and Methodists prized spiritual vitality more than education in clergy, so if a converted African American showed a gift for preaching, he was encouraged to preach, even to unconverted whites. Thus arose the earliest black preachers of repute, men with names like "Black Harry" Hosier, Josiah Bishop, "Old Captain," and "Uncle" Jack.

The Great Awakening, then, planted the seed of a more experiential type of Christianity that blossomed suddenly late in the eighteenth century. Black Methodism in the U. S. grew from 3,800 in 1786 to nearly 32,000 by 1809. Membership in black Baptist congregations increased as well, from 18,000 in 1793 to 40,000 in 1813.

Southern whites were not necessarily comfortable with this. Though a few masters argued that slaves "do better for their masters' profit than formerly, for they are taught to serve out of Christian love and duty," others kept their slaves distant from the Christian preaching. Francis Henderson, a fugitive slave, said his master had refused him permission to attend a Methodist church saying, "You shan't go to that church—they'll put the devil in you."

Francis Asbury, the famous Methodist bishop, complained, "We are defrauded of great numbers by the pains that are taken to keep the blacks from us."

And Francis Asbury, the famous Methodist bishop, complained, "We are defrauded of great numbers by the pains that are taken to keep the blacks from us."

By 1820, one white Presbyterian minister, Charles C. Jones, could still moan, "But a minority of the Negroes, and that a small one, attended regularly the house of God, and … their religious instruction was extensively and most seriously neglected."

A slave conspiracy in 1822 and a revolt in 1831 didn't help matters. The conspiracy was led by Denmark Vesey who, as one co-conspirator confessed, "read in the Bible where God commanded that all [whites] should be cut off, both men, women, and children, and said it was no sin for us to do so, for the Lord commanded us to do it." The slave revolt, the bloodiest in U.S. history, in Southampton, Virginia, was led by Nat Turner, a prophet and preacher, who said he had been directed to act by God. After such incidents, masters were even more reluctant to let blacks gather alone for any reason.

Still, the southern conscience, pricked by northern abolitionist agitation, prompted increasingly more slave owners to take the Great Commission seriously. Slave owners wanted to prove that slaveholding could be a positive good for both owners and slaves.

In 1829, the South Carolina Methodist Conference appointed William Capers to superintend a special department for plantation missions—the first official and concerted effort of the sort. Four years later, Charles Jones began a ministry to evangelize slaves and to convince others to do likewise.

Jones, called "the apostle to the negro slaves" was, in fact, a slave owner. He came from a distinguished Georgia family and eventually owned three plantations and 129 slaves. A man with one compassionate eye and another fierce with purpose, Jones urged his southern brethren to "look to home" first. "The religious instruction of our servants is a duty," he wrote in 1834. "Any man with a conscience may be made to feel it. It can be discharged. It must be discharged … as speedily as possible." This would not only win the approval of God and their own consciences, he argued, but also the respect of the North.

After the major denominations—Methodist, Presbyterian, and Baptist—split over slavery, efforts to evangelize slaves accelerated. Southern whites were eager to show northerners that a gentle, Christian society—slave and free—could flourish in the South.

According to some southerners they succeeded: by 1845, one southern churchman crowed that the slave mission "is the crowning glory of our church."

Missing teachings of white Christianity

The gospel presented to slaves by white owners, however, was only a partial gospel. The message of salvation by grace, the joy of faith, and the hope of heaven were all there, but many other teachings were missing.

House servants often laughed among themselves when summoned to family prayers because the master or mistress would read, "Servants obey your masters," but neglect passages that said, "Break every yoke and let the oppressed go free."

House servants often sneered and laughed among themselves when summoned to family prayers because the master or mistress would read, "Servants obey your masters," but neglect passages that said, "Break every yoke and let the oppressed go free."

One white evangelist to slaves, John Dixon Long, admitted his frustration: "They hear ministers denouncing them for stealing the white man's grain, but as they never hear the white man denounced for holding them in bondage, pocketing their wages, or selling their wives and children to the brutal traders of the far South; they naturally suspect the Gospel to be a cheat and believe the preachers and slaveholder [are] in a conspiracy against them."

The institutional church, in both the North and South, had long before deserted the slaves—even the Methodists, who early on insisted that slave owners, upon their conversion, free their slaves. But by 1804, the General Conference agreed to let Methodist societies in the Carolinas, Georgia, and Tennessee allow their members to buy and sell slaves. And in 1808, the annual conference of the Methodist church authorized each conference to determine its own regulations about slaveholding.

After Denmark Vesey and his fellow conspirators (many of whom were Methodists) were arrested, southern clergy felt constrained by public opinion to affirm the racial status quo. Baptists and Episcopalians in Charleston denied any intention of interfering with slavery. By the early 1800s, the southern churches had completely folded on the issue.

In instance after instance recorded in countless slave narratives, the conversion of masters made matters worse for slaves. As ex-slave Mrs. Joseph Smith explained it, the non-religious owner simply gave slaves Sundays off and ignored them the entire day. But Christian owners, eager for the sanctification of their charges, could not let Sundays pass without due vigilance.

As Smith explained, "Now, everybody that has got common sense knows that Sunday is a day of rest. And if you do the least thing in the world they [the owners] don't like; they will mark it down against you, and Monday you have got to take a whipping."

Some didn't wait until Monday. One slave reported that his master served him Communion at church in the morning and whipped him in the afternoon for returning to the plantation a few minutes late. Susan Boggs recalled the day of her baptism: "The man that baptized me had a colored woman tied up in his yard to whip when he got home. … We had to sit and hear him preach, and [the woman's] mother was in church hearing him preach."

It is amazing that under these circ*mstances any slaves found the Christian message convincing. And yet blacks clearly saw the difference between the message of the Bible and the slaveholding culture in which it was taking root.

It is not difficult to see why Frederick Douglass called slaveholding piety "a cold and flinty-hearted thing, having neither principles of right action nor bowels of compassion."

Siezed by the Spirit

It is amazing that under these circ*mstances any slaves found the Christian message convincing. And yet blacks clearly saw the difference—a difference white owners were utterly blind to—between the message of the Bible and the slaveholding culture in which it was taking root. When William Craft's supposedly Christian master sold his aged parents because they were no longer an economic asset, Craft said he felt "a thorough hatred, not for Christianity, but for slaveholding piety."

Slaves, when hearing the Christian message, were struck by something that transcended their culture. Many of them described how they were seized by the Spirit, struck dead (so to speak), and raised to a new life. Such conversions took place in the fields, in the woods, at camp meetings, in the slave quarters, or at services conducted by the blacks themselves.

John Jasper, a famous black preacher in Richmond, for example, was converted while at work as a stemmer in a tobacco factory. He remembered that when "de light broke; I was light as a feather; my feet was on de mount'n; salvation rol'd like a flood thru my soul, an' I felt as if I could knock off de fact'ry roof wid my shouts."

Josiah Henson said he was "transported with delicious joy" when he heard a sermon from the Book of Hebrews that said Christ tasted death "for every man." He exclaimed, "O the blessedness and sweetness of feeling that I was loved!"

Such experiences were so real that nothing masters did or said could shake their Christian confidence.

Of course, this experience of faith was not sustained by the "family prayers" led by the master or mistress, or the formal worship at which both blacks and whites gathered on Sundays. Such formats were heavily proscribed by the sensibilities and fear of white Christians.

In such settings, gifted blacks were sometimes allowed to preach. They were usually limited to assisting white preachers, which included the obligatory admonition at the end of the service for slaves to pay attention to the teachings of the white preacher. One ex-slave said, "We had some nigg*r preachers but they would say, 'Obey your mistress and master.' They didn't know nothing else to say."

Even when blacks met alone, though, preachers had to be circ*mspect. As one put it, "If a colored preacher or intelligent free Negro gains the ill-will of a malicious slave, all the latter has to do is to report that said preacher had attempted to persuade him to 'rise' or to run away; and the poor fellow's life may pay the forfeit."

Then, when alone with his black brothers and sisters, he would add, " … iffen they keeps praying, the Lord will set 'em free."

Invisible church

Yet it wasn't just the message that was chained by the circ*mstances, but the very style of worship blacks yearned to express. Sarah Fitzpatrick, an Alabama slave, noted, "White fo'ks have deir service in de mornin', an' nigg*rs have deirs in de evenin', a'ter dey clean up, wash de dishes, an' look a'ter eve'thing. … Ya' see nigg*rs lack [like] ta shout a whole lot, an' wid de white fo'ks al' round 'em, dey couldn't shout jes' lack dey want to."

Although some southern whites forbade blacks from meeting alone, this didn't stop slaves from taking risks to enjoy their own experience of the Spirit. Ex-slave Charlotte Martin, for example, said her oldest brother was whipped to death for secreting off to a worship service.

Lucretia Alexander explained that after enduring the white preacher's sermon ("Serve your masters. Don't steal your master's turkey. … Do whatsoever your master tells you do to"), her father would hold worship secretly in one of the slave quarters. "That would be when they would want a real meetin' with some real preachin'. … They used to sing their songs in a whisper and pray in a whisper."

To get a little distance between themselves and their masters, slaves would often meet in woods, gullies, ravines, and thickets, aptly called "hush harbors."

To get a little distance between themselves and their masters, slaves would often meet in woods, gullies, ravines, and thickets, aptly called "hush harbors." Kalvin Woods recalled singing and praying with other slaves, huddled behind quilts and rags, hung "in the form of a little room" and wetted "to keep the sound of their voices from penetrating the air."

On one Louisiana plantation, slaves would steal off into the woods and "form a circle on their knees around the speaker, who would also be on his knees. He would bend forward and speak into or over a vessel of water to drown the sound. If anyone became animated and cried out, the others would quickly stop the noise by placing their hands over the offender's mouth."

Such secrecy was not required everywhere, and in many places and upon a variety of occasions—Sunday worship, prayer meetings, baptisms, and revivals—blacks worshiped alone and in full voice. As one ex-slave put it, referring to camp meetings: "Mostly we had white preachers, but when we had a black preacher, that was heaven."

Frederick Law Olmsted described one New Orleans service he attended in 1860. A man sitting next to him "soon began to respond aloud to the sentiments of the preacher, in such words as these: 'Oh yes!' and similar expressions could be heard from all parts of the house whenever the speaker's voice was unusually solemn, or his language and manner eloquent or excited."

Olmstead also noted "shouts, and groans, and terrific shrieks, and indescribable expressions of ecstasy—of pleasure or agony—and even stamping, jumping, and clapping hands were added."

He then focused on one worshiper: "The preacher was drawing his sermon to a close … when a small old woman … suddenly rose, and began dancing and clapping her hands; at first with slow measured movement, and then with increasing rapidity, at the same time beginning to shout 'Ha! Ha!' … her head thrown back and rolling from one side to the other. Gradually her shout became indistinct; she threw her arms wildly about instead of clapping her hands, fell back into the arms of her companions, then threw herself forward and embraced those before her, then tossed herself from side to side, gasping and finally sunk to the floor, where she remained … kicking, as if acting a death struggle."

Perhaps it was indeed a death struggle—with an oppressive culture that sought to wring life, physical and spiritual, out of her. But if so, it was one that moved toward resurrection. One ex-slave preacher talked about the effect of such services: "The old meeting house caught on fire. The spirit was there. Every heart was beating in unison as we turned our minds to God to tell him our sorrows here below. God saw our need and came to us."

Many black preachers didn't know a letter of the Bible or how to spell the name of Christ. "But when they opened their mouths," said one ex-slave, "they were filled, and the plan of salvation was explained in a way that all could receive it." Sometimes the exhorter merely related his conversion experience, or how God had comforted him in times of distress. When the preacher was exhausted, he said, the faces of the listeners "showed that their souls had been refreshed and that it had been 'good for them to be there.' "

Confident faith

By the time the guns of Fort Sumter pounded forth in 1860, the number of black Christians below the Mason-Dixon line had grown to an astounding half-million, not counting the thousands who participated secret slave worship. The numbers were uneven across the South: black Christians constituted 20 percent of the black population in South Carolina, but only about 10 percent in Virginia. In some cities, there were black congregations that numbered in the thousands. All in all, this was about double the number of black Christians from the early 1800s, and multiples more than in the early 1700s.

That blacks accepted the Christian gospel is remarkable in itself, considering the stumbling blocks thrown in their way. Certainly some of the success must be credited to white missionaries—both slave owners and abolitionists—who insisted that slaves hear at least the rudiments of the Christian message.

The Christianity that finally took hold of black souls, that grew and blossomed in its own distinct way, and that comforted and gave hope to a sorely oppressed people, was a different thing altogether than what whites had imagined.

But the Christianity that finally took hold of black souls, that grew and blossomed in its own distinct way, and that comforted and gave hope to a sorely oppressed people, was a different thing altogether than what whites had imagined. It was in some sense created and nurtured by blacks themselves, who refused to let whites frame their faith.

Instead they discovered for themselves the biblical message, as historian Arnold Toynbee put it, "that Jesus was a prophet who came into the world not to confirm the mighty in their seats but to exalt the humble and the meek."

This not only gave blacks hope but a confidence whites recognized and feared. Francis Henderson described her conversion this way: "I had recently joined the Methodist Church, and from the sermons I heard, I felt that God had made all men free and equal, and that I ought not be a slave—but even then, that I ought not to be abused. From this time I was not punished. I think my master became afraid of me."

Black boldness was due in part to their belief in God's special concern for the poor. As ex-slave Jacob Stoyer put it, "God would somehow do more for the oppressed Negroes than he would ordinarily for any other people."

But blacks were also bolstered by their trust in a coming judgment at which slaveholders would receive recompense. Moses Grandy remembered how during violent thunderstorms whites hid between their feather beds, whereas slaves went outside and, lifting up their hands, thanked God that judgment day was coming at last."

It was, in the end, a confidence in a God who would set things right, either in this age or in the age to come. At age 90, Jane Simpson recalled, "I used to hear old slaves pray and ask God when would de bottom rail be de top rail, and I wondered what on earth, dey talkin' about. Dey was talkin' about when dey goin' to get from under bondage. 'Course I know now."

Mark Galli is the editor of Christianity Today. This article orginally appeared in Christian History. To prepare this article, Mr. Galli relied upon Albert J. Raboteau's Slave Religion: The Invisible Institution (Oxford, 1978) and Milton Sernett's Black Religion and American Evangelicalism (Scarecrow, 1975).

A recent student demonstration over a Wheaton College chapel speaker's testimony on her religious and sexual conversion is the latest marker in the long-running debate over the way evangelical colleges approach sexual identity.

The protest focused on the personal testimony [listen/watch here] of a former leftist lesbian professor whose train-wreck conversion [CT's No. 2 most-read article of 2013] led her to become a pastor's wife and Christian author.

Students Justin Massey and Jordan-Ashley Barney organized "More Than a Single Story," the January 31 demonstration where Wheaton students sat on the steps of Edman Chapel and held signs that said "We're all loved by God," "This is not a protest," and "I'm gay and a beloved child of God," reports The Wheaton Record.

Massey and Barney were concerned that Rosaria Champagne Butterfield's testimony could negatively affect Wheaton students by making them think conversion to heterosexuality was the only answer. "We feared that if no conversation was added to the single message of the speaker that students who are not very well informed were going to walk into chapel, hear the message, and have misconceptions confirmed or that students who are LGBT would be told that this story is the absolute way that things happen," Massey told the student newspaper.

Students who protested were later invited to a "talk-back" session with Butterfield and a handful of college administrators. The Record also interviewed Butterfield regarding her interaction with the demonstrators. She said:

They had a number of suggestions for me on how I could, in many ways, improve my presentation. I was very thankful for them. We talked about whether sexual orientation is fixed or fluid and we disagreed on that. It was intense. We also talked about some issues on campus that desperately and immediately need to be rectified, and while I can't go into what those issues were, I really hope that the students felt my advocacy for them. So, we probably covered more in an hour and forty-five minutes than I would normally cover in a year.

"I am glad that students have felt the freedom to express their concerns about the manner in which we discuss issues of sexuality on campus and in chapel," Wheaton chaplain Steve Kellough told the Record. "These are things that matter. It is especially important for us in an evangelical Christian college to challenge one another to think Christianly, to think biblically, to think compassionately, and to be willing to think counter-culturally."

Wheaton President Philip Ryken openly responded to the demonstration by upholding the college's Community Covenant and its stance on LGBT issues.

"While we are not insulated from cultural conflicts over ideas, including our own students' search to understand how the truth of Scripture shapes each Christian's life, our educational model does not require us either to silence critical exploration of complex issues or to accede uncritically to cultural pressures," he wrote. In his estimation, Butterfield's testimony was "well-received by the student body."

Butterfield issued her own response to the demonstrators, writing at The Gospel Coalition that "hom*osexuality is a sin, but so is hom*ophobia." She also critiqued "three unbiblical points of view Christian communities harbor when they address the issue of Christianity and hom*osexuality"—the "Freudian position," the "revisionist heresy," and the "reparative therapy heresy." Regarding the last, she writes:

This position contends a primary goal of Christianity is to resolve hom*osexuality through heterosexuality, thus failing to see that repentance and victory over sin are God's gifts and failing to remember that sons and daughters of the King can be full members of Christ's body and still struggle with sexual temptation. This heresy is a modern version of the prosperity gospel. Name it. Claim it. Pray the gay away.

CT reported in 2009 how evangelicals have increasingly moved away from reparative therapy. Recently, Alan Chambers controversially closed Exodus International and apologized to gays and lesbians for the ex-gay ministry's nearly four decades of work.

The chapel event and protest prompted a wave of blogosphere discussion on the attitudes of Christian college administrators and students toward sexual orientation and identity questions.

In recent years, evangelical colleges including Wheaton, Biola, and Seattle Pacific University have seen a growing range of responses to LGBT issues, prompted in part by visits such as SoulForce's Equality Ride.

CT reported on the increasing LGBT litmus test at CCCU schools in 2009, when a Calvin College trustee ban on "advocacy of hom*osexual practice and same-sex marriage" stirred up faculty. Recently, one CCCU school starting permitting professors in same-sex relationships—at least for six months during a "listening period."

Both supportive and critical theologians and bloggers saw Butterfield's testimony at Wheaton and the student demonstration as a bellwether for the broader debate.

The demonstration highlights Wheaton's willingness to wrestle with controversial ideas and shows that evangelical Christendom is on track, wrote Eric tee*tsel, director of the Manhattan Declaration and a Wheaton alumnus, alongside R.J. Moeller.

By contrast, theologian and author Doug Wilson criticized what he saw as the Wheaton administration's lack of discipline in allowing the demonstration to occur, saying that "basic Christian morality is being surrendered by the effete evangelical elites."

Rachel Held Evans, blogger and author of Evolving in Monkey Town, supported the student protest as representing a needed conversation. "I'm with you in spirit — praying for you and cheering you on as you tell your stories," she wrote.

Meanwhile, Denny Burk, professor of Biblical Studies at Boyce College, said the protest highlights general confusion about sexuality among young evangelicals. "Students are eager to see if they might relieve the pressure by combining their Christian faith with acceptance of hom*osexuality," he wrote.

CT has covered a myriad of issues surrounding hom*osexuality, including the growing number of support groups for gay undergrads at Christian colleges, the decreasing number of Americans who believe hom*osexuality is a sin, how evangelical opinions on same-sex marriage have shifted, and how evangelical churches talk about hom*osexuality.