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FROM THE EDITORS With all eyes on the upcoming presidential election in November, The Christian Post is diving into the issues that Evangelical voters and church leaders from a broad swath of backgrounds and opinions say are most significant in 2024 and beyond. CP’s year-long article series “Politics in the Pews” aims to do just that. We begin with pieces by CP reporter Ryan Foley looking at church ballot collection and the differing views on whether congregations should participate in ballot harvesting if legal in their state (pp. 18-21). CP Mainline Church Editor Michael Gryboski looks back at the push for Evangelical engagement in politics sparked by the Moral Majority and its lasting influence (pp. 28-31). Beyond Evangelical political engagement, CP documents the spate of churches voting to leave The United Methodist Church ahead of the denomination’s annual conference and the growth of a theologically conservative denomination that has surpassed 4,200 member congregations (pp. 4-5). We also look at concerns surrounding the rising discontent among American pastors and what that means for the state of the American Church in a piece by senior reporter Leonardo Blair (pp. 6-8). As Jesus called believers to fulfill the Great Commission, CP Assistant Editor Leah MarieAnn Klett looks at the often risky work of global missions, the response to the National Geographic documentary “The Mission,” and the beliefs that drove 26year-old missionary John Chau as he sought to share the Gospel with the Sentinelese tribe, which led to his death (pp. 40-42). Circling back on the multitude of problems facing the U.S., CP Executive Editor Dr. Richard Land looks at the state of the American family and our nation’s future amid declining marriage rates and the predominance of children being raised in singleparent households as citizens place greater value on “self-fulfillment in sexual selfgratification” at the expense of our children (p. 13). We hope you find this issue informative and edifying, and as always, we value your support. — CP Editors SUPPORT our mission with a paid subscription to CP Magazine FOLLOW our social media accounts (Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Apple News, Google News, Smart News, Flipboard, Telegram, Gettr) SUBSCRIBE to and SHARE our newsletters with your family and friends

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February 2024, Volume 8

EDITORIAL Executive Editor: Richard Land Senior Managing Editor: John Grano Managing Editor: Melissa Barnhart

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CO N T E N TS

CHURCH & MINISTRIES: 4 /

Conservative alternative to United Methodist Church surpasses 4,200 member congregations

6 /

With rising discontent, more than half of American clergy seriously considered quitting: study

10 /

7 trends impacting church leadership in 2024

OPINION: 12 /

How can we avert civilizational collapse?

13 /

Is America leading the world in ‘child neglect’?

US:

14 /

Half of pastors ‘very concerned’ younger Christians not supporting church financially

16 /

Fashion boutique and Christian ministry helping hundreds of girls in foster care

POLITICS: 18 /

Churches urged to assist ballot collection efforts, voter education ahead of 2024 election

22 /

Megachurch that collected nearly 20K ballots challenges other churches to step up in 2024

26 /

Virginia megachurch mulling ballot collection efforts in 2024

28 /

Does the Moral Majority still impact American politics today?

WORLD:

32 /

Iranians secretly translating the Bible into their heart languages to share Christ with their people

36 /

'Inhumanity': Pastors shown footage of Hamas atrocities during private embassy screening

ENTERTAINMENT: 38 /

John Tesh says immersing himself in Scripture played key role in cancer recovery: 'The devil is after your mind'

40 /

'The Mission' doc reignites debate over John Chau's tragic death, ethics of Evangelical missions

BOOKS:

44 /

Mike Pence on prioritizing family over politics, the 'Billy Graham Rule' and what's next

46 /

‘God’s Grand Finale’: End Times expert says churches know little of the side of Jesus in Revelation

TRAVEL: 48 /

Travel: Put these 3 places on your list

CHRISTIANPOST.COM

CONSERVATIVE ALTERNATIVE TO UNITED METHODIST CHURCH SURPASSES 4,200 MEMBER CONGREGATIONS BY MICHAEL GRYBOSKI

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theologically conservative denomination launched in 2022 as an alternative to the United Methodist Church has amassed over 4,200 member congregations. The Global Methodist Church, officially launched on May 1, 2022, ended 2023 with 4,281 member churches, according to GMC Transitional Connectional Officer Keith Boyette. Boyette told The Christian Post that while most of the GMC’s churches were formerly UMC, there are congregations of different origins. “The current member congregations are predominately former UMC congregations, but we do have member congregations that have come from other denominations, or who were previously nondenominational or independent, or new church plants that have already been recognized as member congregations,” he said. UMC churches “both within and outside the U.S.” continue to seek affiliation with the GMC, added Boyette, who expects more churches to join after the UMC General Conference on April 23 to May 3 at the Charlotte Convention Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. Over the past few decades, the UMC has dealt with a divisive debate over whether to change its Book of Discipline to allow for the blessing of same-sex unions and the ordination of clergy in same-sex romantic relationships. Efforts to change the Book of Discipline have consistently failed at the General Conference level, largely due to the voting power of mostly theologically conservative delegates from Africa. Despite this, many theological liberals within the UMC have actively refused to follow or enforce the rules by officiating same-sex unions or ordaining openly gay clergy. For example, in November 2022, the UMC Western Jurisdiction voted to make the Rev. Cedrick D. Bridgeforth of the California-Pacific Conference a bishop, even though he is in a same-sex marriage. At a special session of the UMC General Conference held in February 2019, delegates voted to add Paragraph 2553 to the Book of Discipline, which created a temporary process for congregations to disaffiliate from the UMC due to the debate over homosexuality. According to numbers compiled by UM News and accessed by CP, 7,660 congregations left the UMC from 2019 to 2023, with more than 5,600 voting to disaffiliate last year alone. The provisions of Paragraph 2553 expired at the end of 2023. The GMC is not the only denomination that has been created in response to the thousands of congregations that have voted to leave the UMC since 2019. White’s Chapel, a Texas megachurch that left the UMC in 2022 and identifies as theologically centrist, launched its own network of churches known as the Methodist Collegiate Church.

CHRISTIANPOST.COM

WITH RISING DISCONTENT, MORE THAN HALF OF AMERICAN CLERGY SERIOUSLY CONSIDERED QUITTING: STUDY BY LEONARDO BLAIR

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s American pastors have grown increasingly discontent with their profession, more than half have seriously considered leaving pastoral ministry since 2020 for various reasons, a new study from the Hartford Institute for Religion Research suggests. In "I'm Exhausted All the Time — Exploring the Factors Contributing to Growing Clergy Discontentment,"

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released as part of the Institute's larger project "Exploring the Pandemic Impact on Congregations," researchers surveyed a nationally representative group of 1,700 religious leaders in the fall of 2023 then compared the findings to responses provided by clergy and their congregations in earlier EPIC surveys. "The further we are from the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the more we observe larger percentages of clergy

pondering alternatives to their present congregation, vocation, or both," the research team led by Scott Thumma, professor of Sociology of Religion at Hartford International University for Religion and Peace and director of the Hartford Institute for Religion Research, stated in the report. The data suggests that as of fall 2023, 53% of religious leaders had seriously considered leaving pastoral ministry at

"disconcerting" reality that implies "clergy are in the midst of a challenging time." The average clergyperson was described as a 59-year-old leader who had served in their position for a median of seven years and was 80% more likely to be white and male. Some 75% were employed full time, and 60% of them served solo rather than as part of a team of leaders. While most pastors reported taking a day off during the week, only a few have taken a sabbatical in the last decade. About a third held paid employment beyond their ministry work, and this was found to be more common among pastors who served part time. Nevertheless, more than a quarter of fulltime pastors reported additional employment. In their efforts to explain the rising discontent among clergy, researchers examined questions of overall health and wellness among the leaders. They found

that it did not appear that "a large percentage of clergy have suddenly become unwell or are suffering a dramatic emotional or spiritual disease and then thinking about leaving." Researchers found that the changing religious landscape in America, sped up by the pandemic and enforced lockdowns, has led to the challenging times that pastors now face, causing more of them to think of changing churches or leaving the profession altogether. "The post-pandemic turnover has left our lay leadership depleted; people's sense of connection and commitment is less than before; it's hard to get people to do DIY church in the way that we did before; people seem to be more demanding of services. Plus — people's doubt is at an all-time high. I'm spiritually exhausted from talking people back into faith — am I even doing them a favor?" one pastor in the study said.

CHRISTIANPOST.COM

CHURCH & MINISTRIES

least once since 2020. This share is significantly higher than the 37% of pastors who reported in 2021 that they had similar thoughts since 2020. About 44% of pastors also said they seriously considered leaving their congregations at least once since 2020. This is more than double the 21% of pastors who reported this sentiment in 2021. "While there is some overlap in these two thoughts, it is not entirely the same group of leaders considering leaving both their current congregation and the ministry profession altogether. About a third of leaders report having both thoughts, a third have considered one or the other (11% consider only leaving their congregation and 20% consider only leaving the profession) and the final third have never considered leaving either," researchers explained. The growing discontent among pastors was described in the report as a

Researchers pointed to the decadeslong decline in in-person attendance and church membership numbers. "The current post-pandemic dynamics are being amplified as they act in consort with these long-evolving religious developments," Thumma and his team noted. "Fewer people from younger generations now participate. Vitality measures are down, and greater numbers of attendees increasingly concentrate in the larger churches. Any post-pandemic rebound that happened did not rectify this situation, far from it. Less than half of congregations have recovered to or surpassed their prepandemic reality across several key measurements, such as attendance numbers or financial health," they explained. "In the midst of this, following an uncommon burst of organizational elasticity that was essential to survive the pandemic, many congregations have curtailed their desire to change or continue to adapt to an ever-developing reality. Collectively, churches are now even less willing to change than they were just prior to the pandemic," the report added. Though the median percentage of congregants who volunteer at their churches has rebounded since the pandemic, it is still lower than what it was before the pandemic, researchers said. In the early stages of the pandemic, regular church volunteers fell from 40% to 15%. In 2023, that share got as high as 35%, as core attendees are now opting to attend services virtually, and a majority of congregations offer both virtual and hybrid opportunities to worship. The disruption in business as usual and an unwillingness of churches to adapt has led to what researchers say is diminished morale, as 35% of churches now claim their future looks "uncertain." "I am leaving the congregation in a few months. The leadership is moving backwards, and the congregation is only aging. [We are] getting some new folks, but [they are] all 60+ [years of age], and [the church has] lost most [of the] people under 60 since the pandemic. And the collapse of institutions like the church —

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all [these factors] are equally significant in me leaving," one pastor told researchers. The data show that pastors are more likely to want to leave their congregation when there is more conflict or if they don't have a good relationship with members. Other factors that sparked increased thoughts of leaving a congregation, though to a lesser degree include: an unwillingness of the congregation to change to meet new challenges, falling congregational vitality and diminishing attendances of 50 or fewer attendees. For pastors thinking about leaving ministry altogether, researchers say the findings reflect a much more complex list of factors driving the shift. "Unlike switching, where a few key factors accounted for much of the dynamic, increased thoughts of ministerial departure significantly relate to a good many different qualities of the clergy and their context. The combination of decreased attendance after the onset of the pandemic in addition to the longterm dynamics noted above such as decline and aging, conflict and a lack of new people all have demoralized many religious leaders in challenging contexts," they noted. One pastor compared his struggles to Moses' experience during the Exodus journey when the Israelites complained constantly about their diet of manna, demanding meat, like when they were in Egypt. "The number of older people who are projecting onto me their unprocessed grief at all the changes they have experienced … they complain constantly," the pastor is quoted as saying. "No matter what I do, someone will be unhappy. I very much relate to Numbers 11." The study notes that demographic factors such as age, sex and race also factored into how pastors frequently think about quitting ministry. "When clergy ages were sorted into generational clusters, an interesting age pattern did emerge. Pastors in the baby boomer (born 1946-1964) and millennial (born 1981-1996) generations were much more likely to think frequently of quitting ministry. This makes sense for baby boomers who are nearing retirement and

perhaps for millennials who may be reconsidering their vocational choice while still relatively early in their career," researchers explained. "Pastors in Generation X (born 19651980), however, thought less often of leaving perhaps due to having less freedom to change vocations and those silent generation (born 1928-1945) clergy who chose not to think of quitting ministry were almost certainly serving in the midst of their retirement," they added. Black pastors were found to be slightly more likely to switch congregations than pastors of other races, while female pastors were slightly more likely to have thoughts of leaving ministry altogether because they tended to be serving in worse congregational contexts. Pastors who served full time and those who did not have a team were also found to be more likely to harbor thoughts of quitting ministry altogether. "Being a part of a staff of ministers usually implies employment in a larger church. Indeed, size is strongly correlated with ministerial discontent. The larger the church, the fewer thoughts of leaving the pastoral ministry one has," the study reads. "Therefore, a pastor is less likely to consider leaving the ministry in a larger congregation — a position possibly with a better salary, a built-in network of relationships, a distributed workload, and the support of additional staff. Conversely, being in a congregation between 51 and 250 worship attendees most highly relates to increased thoughts of leaving the ministry. These placements are most likely to be solo positions and be full-time status but have the least support and resources." Researchers also found that the denomination a pastor belongs to also affects how likely they were to have thoughts about leaving the ministry. "Catholic and Orthodox priests were least likely to entertain such thoughts while mainline Protestant clergy were the most likely," they said. "Even though a large percentage of Evangelical clergy also ponder leaving the ministry, proportionately fewer of them do so in comparison to their mainline Protestant peers."

CHURCH & MINISTRIES

CHRISTIANPOST.COM

7 TRENDS IMPACTING CHURCH LEADERSHIP IN 2024 BY MICHAEL GRYBOSKI

he Lewis Center for Church Leadership of Wesley Theological Seminary offers seven trends its researchers believe will impact church leadership in the new year. In its report, the Washington, D.C.based seminary first lists “mainline malaise,” given the considerable decline among mainline Protestant denominations. "The typical mainline congregation is facing the need to adjust its expectations and ministry models," the report notes. "And mainline denominations face a need to realign their institutional infrastructure, including everything from judicatories and church agencies to theological education and parachurch organizations, to conform to current realities." The second trend is “stable finances,” with researchers finding that while congregations face many challenges, “a mounting body of evidence suggests the financial condition of most congregations remains surprisingly strong.” The report cites research from the Lake Institute on Faith and Giving, which found that in 2023, the “median income” churches in the United States was “up nearly 42% from three years ago.” Researchers with the Lewis Center speculated that the financial strength came from multiple factors, including a successful shift to online giving during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns and strong giving from older members. The third trend is “small is beautiful,”

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with the Lewis Center finding that while most Americans attend relatively large congregations, “small, nimble, highly personalized expressions of church seem to increasingly be the ‘green-growing edge’ of growth and development.” “Fresh Expressions, micro churches, house churches, and small online communities have an undeniable appeal in this time when so many are distrustful of institutions,” the report adds. “Many traditional churches focus the energy of their participants on sustaining the church’s institutional structures. But smaller communities can focus more on nurturing relationships and individual spiritual growth.” The fourth trend projected for the new year is “expanding roles for lay leaders,” with the Lewis Center finding that many congregations increasingly rely on the laity for leadership, for reasons including being unable to financially sustain a fulltime ordained pastor. “In some sectors of the church, there are more laypersons serving as pastors,” the report adds. “In 2019, for example, 12 percent of United Methodist churches were served by a lay pastor who is neither enrolled in nor a graduate of an accredited seminary in a degree or nondegree bearing program.” The fifth trend focuses on the “rise” of a “de-churched generation,” with attention given to the much-documented rise of religiously unaffiliated Americans and their offspring. “It is often said that the Christian faith is

always just one generation away from extinction. The children of today’s Nones, unlike their parents, are being raised with little to no connection to church,” the report adds. “Reaching this growing cohort of dechurched young people, a generation removed from the practice of the faith with few religious memories, will require an entirely new evangelistic playbook.” The sixth trend focuses on Sunday school and the belief among researchers that the classic model of Christian education might have “run its course” in the age of the internet. “In our internet age, both children and adults are accustomed to more interactive and engaging ways of learning. Many churches no longer have the critical mass of young families required to support a range of grade- or age-level classrooms,” researchers say. “Sunday school superintendents and directors of Christian education are scrambling to figure out how to engage families, experimenting with classes that are held less frequently or at alternate times, developing more intergenerational and service-related activities, and equipping and motivating parents for faith education at home.” The “need for new models of faith formation” is the seventh trend. According to researchers, there is a challenge to the longstanding belief that “those in the pews on Sunday will be formed in faith through the elements of worship, particularly preaching.”

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“This ‘faith formation by osmosis’ approach has probably always been hit or miss,” the researchers explain. “But its limitations are even more glaring in this time when church attendance is more sporadic, and many churches report that even their most faithful attendees are often in church only one or two Sundays a month.” One possible new way to help faith formation, according to the report, is the Messy Church movement, which began in 2004 at an Anglican congregation in the United Kingdom. Messy Church involves bringing together a congregation to do an assortment of things geared toward both adults and children, and usually outside of a traditional church environment.

“Messy Church enables people of all ages to belong to Christ together through their local church. It is a way of being church which is particularly suited to families, but welcoming to all,” noted Messy Church USA. “It meets at a time and on a day that suits local families and is particularly welcoming to people who have never belonged to a church before.” On New Year’s Eve, Thom S. Rainer, founder and CEO of ministry resource group Church Answers, listed what he called “9 dangerous fault lines for churches in 2024.” These included ignoring pressing issues, having too much complexity and “busyness” in its schedule, being obsessed with finding the “perfect” pastor, lacking a “true evangelism

initiative,” outdated staff hiring practices, “doctrinal deviation,” failing to deal with toxic members, delaying maintenance and facility repairs, and a “lack of priority of groups.” “One clear trend we see today is that healthier churches tend to focus more on groups: small groups, Sunday school classes, community groups, life groups, etc. Those who participate in groups tend to give more, attend worship more frequently, be more involved in ministries, and serve with joy,” wrote Rainer. “Any or all of these nine fault lines could become earthquakes that produce tsunamis in 2024. I pray that you will deal with the fault lines in your church before it becomes too late.”

CHRISTIANPOST.COM

HOW CAN WE AVERT CIVILIZATIONAL COLLAPSE? BY WALLACE B. HENLEY

njoy the New Year because time is speeding us toward civilizational collapse, according to a recent study by experts at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Though the MIT report does not include it, there are other threats even greater than the material environment and economic breakdowns: The crash of spiritual and moral climates. Irish poet W. B. Yeats spoke of the spin to chaos and breakdowns brought on because the strategic center “could not hold.” Yeats did not identify those centers of cohesion, but many who study social stability and strength would include a healthy worldview, and spiritual vision of the transcendent values that stretch us beyond the merely material and the sources from which those factors arise. In Western Civilization that would be the Bible. When, at the end of the Second World War, General Douglas MacArthur was assigned the task of restoring civilization in the Pacific — entire cultures and their societies — he said, “It must be the spirit if we are to save the flesh.” Many students of civilization would agree that the Bible is the sturdy source of the worldview and values of Western Civilization. It has been at the center of strength, and if it is lost, the civilization dependent upon it weakens. Jordan Peterson, a noted expert in the nature of civilization, described the Bible as the “bedrock” of Western Civilization. In

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fact, quality of life is a major concern of God. He revealed the principles of healthy civilization in the commands He gave Moses at Sinai. The Lord stated that He was giving those principles so that “it would go well for” Moses and the people he was leading toward the new society birthed at Sinai. It is forgetting God, and the fact that He made us humans the keepers, and stewards of the Paradise that God Himself pronounced as “very good.” Thus, the environmental movement is right when it calls us to remember our assignment to care for the natural world. The highest quality of care will be given by people who recognize it as the creation and gift of God to humanity. The core of moral leadership and the sense of Holy Stewardship are essential if peace and order are to establish highquality civilizations with minimum legal enforcement. Thus, we must not only face the hard questions raised in reports like that from MIT, but the spiritual and moral issues as well. By that measure, the future looks dim and doubtful whether Western civilization will still be around. The Bible is also the source of the blessings that

abound in cultures that take it seriously, even if not perfectly. Perhaps this is among the reasons Jordan Peterson has termed the Bible the “bedrock” of civilization. The strong center of cohesion of family is symbolized by the “hearth.” Though the literal version is gone from the modern world, the symbolism of this place of family gathering for conversation and learning endures. Author Mary Eberstadt said that the family should be “at the point of casting along core values...” In a nation where many of the churches have lost the sense of priority for Sunday school, homes forgetting and smothering the “hearth,” and schools and other public institutions are without a Bible, who shapes the worldview and moral values of the people who form the society and are blessed with the privilege of “tending their garden” of virtue? Interestingly, at least one media class understands their role, and even calls themselves the “influencers.” They add their shrill voices to the extremes of the political establishments and the outcome is social and artistic chaos that weakens and finally destroys civilization. 2024 is upon us and unless we return to the strong structures of civilization, the collapse might appear before 2040. Who will teach worldview and moral values to new generations of children? Consider the fact that some internet stars call themselves "influencers.”

IS AMERICA LEADING THE WORLD IN ‘CHILD NEGLECT’? BY RICHARD D. LAND

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OPINION

mericans are more accustomed than they should be to hearing that their country is leading the world in this category or that cultural development. And they tend to just assume that whatever the subject or category is, it is a positive development. After all, it’s America! This tendency to narcissistic self-regard has never been one of America’s more attractive traits, and it has served to blind Americans to serious problems bringing serious, perhaps catastrophic harm to its people. Melissa Kearney, an MIT-trained economist, has authored a blockbuster new book, The Two-Parent Privilege. How Americans Stopped Getting Married and Started Falling Behind. The book’s dust jacket asserts that Kearney “makes a provocative, data-driven case for marriage by showing how the institution’s decline has led to a host of economic woes — problems that have fractured American society and rendered vulnerable populations even more vulnerable.” Kearney does indeed make her case succinctly and convincingly. Americans are unique in the degree to which we condemn our children to being raised in single-parent (almost exclusively mothers) homes. Pew Research conducted a study in 2015 covering 130 countries which shows that the U.S. has the world’s highest rate of children living in single-parent households, and the gap between the U.S. and the rest of the world is vast and cavernous. Approximately one out of four (23%) of American children under 18 years of age is living in a single-parent home. Worldwide, the percentage of children living in such circumstances averages 7%. In contrast to America, in China (3%), Nigeria (4%), and India (5%), the percentage is drastically lower. In Canada, the percentage is 5%. Adding to the dilemma, the Pew study revealed that U.S. children “from Christian and religiously unaffiliated families” were “about equally likely to live in this type of arrangement.” Kearney’s message is powerfully argued and economically it is impeccable. As a result of the sexual revolution and the cultural elite’s implacable determination to never criticize that revolution’s consequences

on the culture — and especially on its most vulnerable victims, the children — the elites remain mute. The evidence for this willful blindness is massively evident. Kearney writes that “the absence of a father from a child’s home appears to have direct effects on children’s outcomes — and not only because of the loss of parental income” and that for the social and economic well-being of children, America needs to “restore and foster a norm of two-parent homes for children.” The evidence is overwhelming that Kearney is correct, but her message is hardly new or unique. The late, great Daniel Patrick Moynihan led the way in saying much the same thing in his groundbreaking report on the black family (The Negro Family: The Case for National Action, commonly known as The Moynihan Report). George Gilder emphasized the critical importance of the nuclear family in Sexual Suicide (1973) and Men and Marriage (1986). Charles Murray, Losing Ground (1984) and Coming Apart (2012) plowed some of the same ground. Among others, Linda Waite and Maggie Gullager in The Case for Marriage: Why Married People Are Happier, Healthier and Better Off Financially (2001) make the same case, pointing out the powerful evidence that long-term, stable marriage is good for children and their parents. I even attempted to make the case myself in Imagine! A GodBlessed America. How It Could Happen and What It Would Look Like (2003). In that year, I reported on the groundbreaking study, a Report to the Nation from the Commission on Children at Risk, titled Hardwired to Connect: The New Scientific Case for Authoritative Communities, sponsored by YMCA of the USA, Dartmouth Medical School, and the Institute for American Values. The Commission warned that one in five children in America was at serious risk for emotional and physiological problems because of a “connection crisis.” In other words, the hard evidence continues to mount that failing to provide children with stable, close familial and community relationships to provide moral and spiritual meaning harms children’s biological and emotional development is extremely detrimental. And the evidence has been accumulating for over a generation that this is so. With such large numbers of our children being denied that two-parent family environment, as a society we are practicing collective emotional and spiritual child abuse of an entire generation of American children. The evidence of the damage to our children is there. It has been there for over a generation. And yet, our cultural elites continue to either ignore the evidence or to disconnect it as mere conservative propaganda. America’s future will in large part depend on whether we revalue marriage, parenting, and child-rearing at the expense of the self-destructive and false search for meaning and selffulfillment in sexual selfgratification. Our nation’s children await our answer.

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HALF OF PASTORS ‘VERY CONCERNED’ YOUNGER CHRISTIANS NOT SUPPORTING CHURCH FINANCIALLY BY LEONARDO BLAIR

hile young adults have been found to be more generous with their time volunteering than older generations, just over half of pastors say they're “very concerned” that younger Christians don't support their local churches financially, a new study shows. The finding comes from research presented in Barna’s latest and final report in their The State of Generosity series—Investing in the Future, created in

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partnership with Gloo and Kingdom Advisors. Data for the study was gathered online through a survey of 2,016 U.S. adults, conducted from Nov. 12–19, 2021. An additional online survey of 516 U.S. Protestant senior pastors was also conducted from March 25–April 5, 2022. The study shows that while millennials and Gen Z adults are great when it comes to giving their time to churches, some 51% of pastors say they're “very

concerned” about them not financially supporting the church, while another 43% are “somewhat concerned.” “The fact is financial giving is a driving force of a church’s efforts. Pastors’ concerns may stem from a pragmatic reality: The future of the Church depends in large part on generosity. And that generosity will soon hinge on a generation who presently exhibit less financial security and lower levels of Christian affiliation, church attendance

Preferences” which was based on input from more than 1,000 American Evangelical Protestants, researchers found that when it comes to giving, younger donors have a more “global mindset” and a broader range of causes they want to support with their dollars. “While there are many differences among younger Evangelical donors, what stands out even more is how different younger donors are from older donors,” researchers wrote in the report. “Younger donors are far less given to focusing on their local area or even domestic work in general. At least regarding charitable giving among Evangelicals, it appears to be true that the younger generations have a much more global mindset than their parents or grandparents,” researchers added. “This spells significant opportunity for international organizations, but also potential long-term concern for local/ domestic charities.” Mark Dreistadt, the founder and

president of Infinity Concepts, painted younger Evangelical donors as far different from other generations in a statement shared with The Christian Post. “Younger donors have a much more international focus,” he said. “They seek variety in their giving. They’re less trusting but do less planning or research. Unlike older donors, younger donors are a mix of perspectives rather than a strong common voice. Not only that, but they feel less strongly about their perspectives than do older donors.” Grey Matter Research President Ron Sellers said many ministries and charities looking to survive in the current donor climate might need to provide more diversity in their programming. “What leaders need to realize is that they can’t effectively reach the 35-yearold donor with the same strategy they used to reach their 65-year-old donors,” Sellers said. “Organizations may need to provide more variety in programs and messaging to retain these donors.”

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and charitable giving than their elders,” Barna researchers noted. “A proactive response might start with building on a shared conviction among pastors and young parishioners: that churches have a responsibility to guide the next generation into a life of greater generosity.” While they are worried about the financial giving of younger adults, some 57% of pastors surveyed for the study said they're “not concerned” about the giving of older generations. One in three, or 34% of pastors reported that older congregants at their church are “extremely” effective in showing their generosity, while only 5% said the same about their younger congregants. A majority, 56%, of pastors described their younger congregants as only “somewhat” effective when it comes to being generous. In a 2022 study called “The Generation Gap: Evangelical Giving

FASHION BOUTIQUE AND CHRISTIAN MINISTRY HELPING HUNDREDS OF GIRLS IN FOSTER CARE BY NICOLE ALCINDOR

f a room of teenage girls with two supportive and loving parents were asked to list the belongings they have stored in their bedroom closets, many would likely name more items than they can hold in their hands. However, if a room of teenage girls transitioning into foster care were similarly asked to name the worldly items they have in their possession, many would be unable to form a list beyond the clothes on their backs. While the most important needs of the 191,000 teenage girls in foster care in the United States are food, shelter, and a sense of security and guidance from a loving family, a Christian ministry in Florida is providing a different unmet need. In Tampa, a Christian ministry and fashion boutique called Loft 181 are addressing the dire need for clothing among hundreds of foster girls. Loft 181 accepts clothes, shoes, accessories and other personal items from various donors and area residents and donates the items to 13- to 18-yearold girls in foster care. The initiative has served roughly 400 girls in 2023. “One of the reasons why clothing is the most desired need among girls in foster care is because when they're sometimes taken into foster care it's because there's an unsafe situation in their home. They're usually taken abruptly from their home and not allowed to take the time to gather their belongings,” said Loft 181 Manager Jennifer Whitten in an interview with The Christian Post. “The foster girls in these scenarios are

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often not allowed to go back to retrieve those belongings. Law enforcement will come in or a social worker will come in and remove them from that situation. Then, they're taken directly into foster care with whatever possessions they have on them.” Whitten, whose sister-in-law originally founded Loft 181, took over as the manager of the boutique about a year ago. She said although the initiative primarily helps teen girls in foster care and those rescued from human trafficking, they've also served younger girls and those who've aged out of foster care to avoid denying any girl the chance to receive donations. Loft 181 is affiliated with One More Child, which is a national organization serving foster children, trafficking survivors and other vulnerable children and families. The boutique schedules hundreds of appointments with foster girls seven days a week. At the appointments, the foster girls not only have the opportunity to visit the area in the store where the clothing and accessories are displayed and try on the clothing items in the fitting rooms, but they also have the opportunity to visit a Gospel room in the store. In the Gospel room, volunteers monitor the girls as they fill out prayer request forms and allow the girls to enjoy fruit or homemade pastries. “We hope that each girl who visits Loft 181 leaves not only feeling loved and cared for but also having hope in the future God has planned for her,” Whitten said.

“One of the most rewarding things for me about Loft 181 is just seeing the transformation in the girls. Oftentimes, when they first walk through the door, they just have no self-confidence. Their heads are hung. They won't make eye contact. They don't really want to talk to you. And we expect that from them. We don't try to push them too far,” she added. “We do our best to earn their trust, and we do that through just loving on them, being gentle, being kind, trying to give them a really excellent experience, going over and above to make them feel special.” Whitten said one way that she and the roughly 100 other volunteers helping with Loft 181 will try to make the foster girls feel special is when the teens come to the boutique, they will complement the girls when they are trying things on in the fitting room. “One of the coolest ways we're able to kind of break down those barriers that they build is in our fitting rooms. We have a lovely fitting room. We write their names on the door. And we only have one mirror in our fitting rooms, so the girls have to come out in order to see themselves,” Whitten said. “When they come out, me and our volunteers will 'ooh' and 'aww' over the girls. We really make a big deal out of them; how beautiful they are, how God made them. You should see their faces. You should see how their face changes, how they light up,” she continued. “They start making eye contact. They'll start talking to us. Oftentimes, that's all it takes. It’s that one time coming out in the

▲ Courtesy Loft 181/Tonya Mullins

▲ Loft 181, a clothing and accessories boutique, and the Christian ministry One More Child are serving girls in foster care. | Courtesy Loft 181/Tonya Mullins

said the volunteer work doesn’t come without challenges. “I would say one of the most challenging parts of volunteering here at Loft 181 is that it's never easy to hear these girls' stories; to sit and listen to the things they've gone through in their lives,” Peake said. “Even as they're telling you about the things you can pray for and all the hardships they face and things they're stressed about, the things they're anxious about; sometimes you just stay in our Gospel room and your heart just breaks for people that you just met,” she added. “While that is one of the most challenging parts, it's also rewarding to be able to have made an impact in their lives, to be able to give them something to be excited about, to feel proud and

feel confident. And then, from there, you know, it's one of the things you can just sit and pray on by remembering their prayer requests.” Loft 181 volunteer Joyce Baumgartner, 78, told CP she remembers many of the girls' prayer requests and keeps them in her heart and regularly prays for them. “I have a list of girls and prayer requests that I keep in my Bible and I try to pray for them as often as I can. It's just rewarding. It just makes you feel like you're doing something that is beneficial. And not just praying for them once and then throwing the card away; not knowing what's going on. But all of our volunteers are still praying for these girls,” she said. One More Child representative Joe McLeod, who is based out of Lakeland, Florida, told CP that his life's mission is to help children in need, and he's been able to fulfill that mission through the collaborative efforts of his organization and Loft 181. “Our mission is to serve vulnerable children and struggling families. We work extensively in the foster care arena. And we help foster parents. We support foster families. We also work with survivors of child sex trafficking,” McLeod said. “The work that we do aligns well with the mission and the work of loft 181. We were partners for a little while, but then it just made sense to officially join Loft 181 as part of One More Child because we're able to serve more foster children and trafficking survivors that way.”

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fitting room, and then they're ready to be our friends. And that lays the groundwork for us to be able to build a relationship with them by the end of the appointment, and be able to share the Gospel with them. I think being able to just see where they came from when they first walked in the doors and how their mood and demeanor changes is the most rewarding part for me.” Among the roughly 100 volunteers helping with Loft 181, Christian high school student Emily Peake, 16, said she has “always had a passion for working and serving other people.” “I go to a Christian school. We do a lot of volunteering. We work a lot with One More Child. But, for me, Loft 181 is a place where I can really see God working in the lives of girls who, in reality, are not much different than me. They're just in a different situation. Being able to go through and volunteer and be a picture of the love of God to these girls who are just really in need of it is one of the most powerful things that I think ever touched my life,” Peake told CP. “I'm just really honored to have gotten to be a part of it. Loft 181 is a ministry that you can fall in love with. There are so many ways you can get involved. You can just see such a great impact on the people around you, and being able to see the Lord move in such mighty and powerful ways throughout this organization has really helped deepen my love of volunteering here.” As rewarding as serving others through Loft 181 has been for Peake, she

▲ Supporters pray as President Donald Trump speaks during an 'Evangelicals for Trump' campaign event held at the King Jesus International Ministry on January 3, 2020, in Miami, Florida. | AFP via Getty Images/Jim Watson

CHURCHES URGED TO ASSIST BALLOT COLLECTION EFFORTS, VOTER EDUCATION AHEAD OF 2024 ELECTION BY RYAN FOLEY

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by mobilizing churches and the faithful to "bank" votes before Election Day.

REJECTING THE 'NEGATIVE CONNOTATION' OF 'BALLOT HARVESTING'

2020 COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdowns. "Ballot harvesting" describes the process in which a person, sometimes a paid political operative, collects absentee ballots en masse from voters and turns them in on their behalf. Although many conservatives were urged to vote in person during the 2020 presidential election in which Democrat President Joe Biden won, leading Christian and conservative activist organizations have given space at their annual conferences this year to stress the importance of evening the playing field

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hristian and conservative advocacy organizations are urging churches to take an active role in voter outreach and ballot-collection efforts as the 2024 presidential election is fast approaching, saying they must take advantage of mail-in ballot laws even if the majority of them prefer to vote in person. The term "ballot harvesting" has become a buzzphrase in recent years with the expansion of mail-in and absentee ballot voting, which became a more mainstream way to vote during the

The term "ballot harvesting" carries a negative connotation for many conservatives as it is often used to make the practice appear nefarious or outside the bounds of the rules. But since several state election laws allow for such efforts, other terms like "ballot gathering" or "ballot collecting" are becoming popular alternatives amid attempts to get Christian conservatives more engaged in the effort. Gina Gleason, who leads the Real Impact ministry focusing on ballotgathering efforts at the California-based megachurch Calvary Chapel Chino Hills, identified 17 states where churches can feasibly take an active role in ballot collecting during a panel discussion at the Family Research Council's Pray, Vote, Stand Summit in Washington, D.C., last September. Those states include: California, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Maryland, Nevada, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and Wyoming. In an interview with The Christian Post, Gleason said that while she believes "the best way to vote would be to walk into a polling location and vote in person," "California law says that a person can turn in a ballot for any person." She recalled, "Prior law said that you had to be a family member or reside in the same household." "Well, that was abolished, and it just opened it up to anyone … whether it's a neighbor or whether it's a stranger knocking at your door. So, anyone can turn a ballot in for a voter. And there is no limitation on the number of ballots that you can turn in," Gleason said. Jason Yates is the CEO of the

advocacy group My Faith Votes, which describes itself as a "non-partisan movement that motivates, equips and activates Christians in America to vote in every election, transforming our communities and influencing our nation with biblical truth." His organization is also encouraging churches to get involved in ballot-collection efforts. "I agree that we all should be looking at ways that we can leverage what's available to get more people voting," Yates told CP. He believes that encouraging people to "only vote on polling day at a polling place" ends up "suppressing some of the potential votes that could be brought in." "Everyone should be taking full advantage of the opportunities that are given to vote, and I think … churches being involved in that process is really important," he added. Yates cited survey data finding that most born-again Evangelical Christians reported that their churches did nothing to "help or encourage" them to vote as a reason why churches should take a more active role in promoting civic participation. Gleason told CP that in light of the "negative connotation" of the term "ballot harvesting," she prefers to use the phrase "ballot collecting." Yates prefers the term "ballot gathering" to describe what his organization is "encouraging churches to do." He wants to portray activities undertaken by churches as different from "ballot harvesting," which he described as a system where "political operatives are paid to collect [a] large number of ballots." "My Faith Votes is creating some guides and toolkits for churches" to legally engage in such efforts, he explained. Yates predicted that such material will include "some legal guidance around what they can and can't do" in their particular state and "lay out specific processes that they can follow to make sure that they're abiding by the laws of their particular state." The materials will also include other information "that will help them just encourage people to vote." Yates anticipated these guides and toolkits would be ready in late 2023 or

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early 2024. My Faith Votes will also share materials to help people register to vote and promotional videos that churches can play during services talking about the importance of voting. "[Then we'll lay] out a process that the church can follow to encourage people to bring their ballots … to the church and drop them off there," Yates detailed. The My Faith Votes head pushed back on the idea that efforts to encourage churchgoers to vote in elections constitute a "political" activity by churches. "While it is, I would say, a civic activity, I don't see it as a political activity. … Ballot gathering is not … an attempt to be partisan or to tell people how to vote," he contends. "It's encouraging them to vote and be involved in the process and having the church play an active role."

STEPS CHURCHES CAN TAKE Gleason elaborated on the steps a church seeking to engage in ballot collecting should take, beginning with obtaining permission from church leadership. "Pray about it, educate yourself about the laws of your state, what you can and cannot do, and how it would benefit your church and your local community," she added. Real Impact Ministries has also compiled a sample letter those wishing to engage in ballot collecting can send to their pastor. Gleason urged those wanting their churches to collect ballots to "prepare early," maintaining that "right now is the time to prepare" with primary elections early next year. "Build a team, train the team, make sure the team knows all the laws that you know, and that way, when they are standing at the table, they have answers for the people turning their ballots in," she said. Gleason listed tables, signs, pens, lockboxes and glue sticks as necessary supplies for churches hoping to orchestrate a ballot collection effort. Once a church obtains ballots from

voters and places them in lockboxes for security, Gleason said they must be turned in to the proper election officials. She clarified that churches are not official dropbox locations and warned places of worship not to identify themselves as such.

VOTER EDUCATION TOOLS Faith-based organizations' efforts before the 2024 election also extend to voter education. My Faith Votes has a tool called My Voter Hub, where "people can sign up for election reminders, things that give them information about everything they need to know for Election Day and/or … the election as a whole." At the Family Research Council's Pray, Vote, Stand Summit in September, one panel discussion promoted iVoterGuide, a project of the American Family Association that has evaluated the policy positions of more than 13,000 candidates and educated 6.8 million voters in 2022, as a resource for faith-based voters. Debbie Wuthnow, the president of iVoterGuide and vice president of AFA Action, described the resource as a "onestop shop for information regarding the election." By typing in their address, voters will gain access to a "personalized ballot" that will include all federal candidates running for elected office, statewide candidates in 40 states and state legislative candidates in 35 states. The website examines the candidates' ideology and features scorecards detailing how legislators vote on legislation and spotlighting endorsements candidates have received and contributions they have given to other candidates or causes. iVoterGuide also sends candidates a questionnaire featuring 30 to 35 questions probing their opinions on matters related to the "right to life, the economy, healthcare, energy [and the] Second Amendment." The site contains information about ballot measures related to election integrity and the abortion issue.

COMMUNITY IMPACT TEAMS

CHRISTIANS MUST 'VOTE IN EVERY RACE AND EVERY ELECTION' At the Pray, Vote, Stand Summit, Wuthnow shared voter registration statistics as she attempted to make the case that Christians have an obligation to vote in all elections, not just high-profile presidential contests. She informed the crowd that 65% of eligible voters are registered to vote. Wuthnow did not touch on voter turnout in presidential elections but stated that 38% of registered voters participate in off-year elections in which there is no presidential election. Wuthnow clarified that the 38% of registered voters who vote constitute

26% of eligible voters. She also brought up statistics for primary elections, which she characterized as the most critical races in some parts of the country since many electoral districts are drawn to favor one party or the other in the general election. In primary elections, 20% of registered voters and 14% of eligible voters vote. As school board elections have become increasingly important in American politics, Wuthnow lamented that just 6% of registered voters and 4% of eligible voters cast ballots in such contests. She warned that the low level of participation in school board elections means that small but influential interest groups such as "educational activists" and "trans activists" play an outsized role in determining the outcome. Wuthnow also addressed the phenomenon of "under voting," where voters select candidates in high-profile races such as the presidential contest and gubernatorial election while not voting for candidates further down the ballot, such as a state representative or an auditor, a factor she attributed to "a lack of information" about the lesserknown candidates. Wuthnow added that, on average, "35% to 45% of ballots have at least one race that is left blank." She concluded her presentation by urging Christians to "vote in every race and every election." Gleason is hosting an all-day workshop at Calvary Chapel Chino Hills that will discuss various topics, including ballot collecting for churches, voter registration laws and "legal do's and don'ts for churches." The workshop is designed for pastors, church representatives, members of Community Impact Teams, as well as organization leaders and teammates. The conference will not be livestreamed, but it will be posted online at a later date.

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The Family Research Council's National Director for Community Impact Tim Throckmorton stressed the importance of churches creating "Community Impact Teams" at the panel discussion. He identified the primary benefits of a Community Impact Team as "information," "equipping," "alerts" and "mobilization," praising the "boots on the ground influence" of such an organization for creating a heightened "level of awareness" about important political issues among churchgoers. "The churches that do this have found that volunteerism ticks up, more people are being made aware and their communities are blessed because they are encouraging people to run for office, they are training people to run for office, they're researching and vetting candidates that are running for office at a local level." During a "Community Impact Training" event hosted by the Family Research Council last October, Throckmorton insisted that every Community Impact Team needs to have a leader, preferably "someone with character" and "someone that you can count on." Recommended additional members of a Community Impact Team include a researcher and writer, someone who deals with communications, data and social media, a person dedicated to prayer and another individual focused on mobilization that "plans events." Throckmorton cited voter registration drives, voter education in the form of "non-partisan voter guides" and candidate forums as examples of activities Community Impact Teams could engage in or lead. He also suggested that members of Community Impact Teams should attend local government meetings such as school board meetings and town council meetings. Throckmorton, who has personal experience serving on a Community Impact Team, discussed how, as a result of team members attending such events, "relationships were built between the church and those leaders in the community."

"Often, when something is going on at a local level, and you're made aware of it, just showing up makes a great difference," he added. "And so this is where attending the meetings helps you see what the need is and assess what the need is, and in some cases, that's where the CIT begin to see how they could get plugged into a local setting." Throckmorton highlighted a resource dedicated to Community Impact on the Family Research Council website. He also plugged iVoterGuide as a resource for Community Impact Teams. Additional resources are available in a booklet compiled by the Family Research Council, titled Community Impact Resource Manual: How to Establish a Ministry at Your Church. At the end of the training session, FRC President Tony Perkins recalled creating a course called "God and Government" when he led a Community Impact Team 20 years ago and announced that he was putting together a "rework of this course" that will be transformed into an "online video series for our Community Impact Teams." "When you pull your team together, you'll be able to, each week, you can have a one-hour course" focusing on a particular subject within the course, Perkins said.

▲ Churchgoers drop off their ballots at Calvary Chapel Chino Hills, a megachurch in Chino, California. | Gina Gleason

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MEGACHURCH THAT COLLECTED NEARLY 20K BALLOTS CHALLENGES OTHER CHURCHES TO STEP UP IN 2024 BY RYAN FOLEY

your door. So, anyone can turn in a ballot for a voter. And there is no limitation on the number of ballots that you can turn in.” Real Impact's efforts haven't been limited to California. Gleason recently told Christian conservatives gathered at the Family Research Council's Pray Vote Stand Summit in Washington, D.C., in September there are 17 states where churches can feasibly take an active role in ballot collecting. Although many conservatives would rather vote on Election Day and have criticized "ballot harvesting" efforts in the past, national leaders are stressing that if Christians don't take advantage of early voting and mail-in ballot laws, they could be at a political disadvantage. Tony Perkins, president of FRC, a national Evangelical advocacy group and think tank, told attendees of a Community Impact Training event on Oct. 3 that "if we want to win, we need to take advantage of the laws." "Let me just encourage you to take advantage of our opportunities to vote early," he said. "Let me give you an example in Arizona in the midterm election. Some of you may have heard what happened when there were issues with the voting machines and people were waiting in lines for hours, and some people gave up, and they went home. Well, what happened was the not-soconservative party had banked a lot of votes before Election Day. But conservatives, we like to vote on Election

Day. ... But if we want to win elections, we need to take advantage of the laws."

BALLOT COLLECTING AT CALVARY CHAPEL CHINO HILLS

POLITICS

California megachurch that collected nearly 20,000 ballots in the last two elections is encouraging churches nationwide to host ballot collection efforts to boost Christian turnout in the 2024 election as Americans grow increasingly willing to cast their votes before Election Day. Through its Real Impact ministry, Calvary Chapel Chino Hills, led by Pastor Jack Hibbs, seeks to equip churches "to stand for righteousness in the public square.” The ministry's leader, Gina Gleason, says the megachurch, which has about 10,000 regular congregants, first got involved in ballot collecting after laws changed in California. “We saw that ballot collecting or ballot harvesting, the way they describe it in legislation … was passed into [California] law in 2016,” Gleason recalled, noting it was “first implemented in the 2018 election." The new legislation resulted in “significant wins” for Democrats and progressive candidates that year. After that, “we decided that we would do the same activity at the church because it was legal.” “The California law says that a person can turn in a ballot for any person," Gleason told The Christian Post. "Prior law said that you had to be a family member or reside in the same household. Well, that was abolished, and it just opened it up to anyone … whether it’s a neighbor or a stranger knocking at

Gleason also spoke at the FRC's Community Impact Training, where she said she felt the Lord calling on her to get involved. After Gleason researched the topic, Pastor Hibbs told her, “We need to do ballot collecting.” She assured the pastor that she was “already working on it.” The church began training volunteers to collect ballots on tables in the church courtyard for the 2020 election. “I trained our volunteer team, and we set up our tables in the courtyard with our volunteers behind the table, and behind the volunteers and the table were lockboxes. So when a person walked up to our table, we looked at the ballot, made sure that the ballot was filled out correctly, because there are just a few requirements on the ballot, and that ballot was dropped into the lockbox," she said. A church ballot collection manual compiled by Gleason identifies the components of the ballot envelope that Calvary Chapel Chino Hills examines before turning them in: a voter signature, the date, the voter’s printed name and

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their address. The manual instructs voters to leave blank a field on the envelope reading “I authorize the person below to return my ballot” so that “the volunteer who delivers the ballot to the elections’ office” can fill it out. “Now, once the ballots were dropped into the lockbox and the box was getting full, two volunteers emptied out the ballots [and] walked them into a locked room at the church,” she added. Gleason said California law requires those engaged in ballot collecting to “turn the ballots into the county where the voter is registered to vote."

Chino Hills is located in San Bernardino County and miles from Los Angeles County, Orange County and Riverside County. “People who live in those counties attend our church. So we set up our collection tables for four different counties and … the counties were identified with a big sign,” she explained. “And the people walked up to whatever county they registered to vote in and they dropped [their ballots] off to that volunteer. Then the volunteers made sure that all the ballots were dropped in the correct lockbox and they separate them out, making sure once again they're

correctly filled out, and then they take the ballots to the county registrar for their particular county.” Gleason estimated that Calvary Chapel Chino Hills collected approximately 6,000 ballots in the 2020 election cycle. That number increased to 13,335 in the 2022 election cycle. She vowed that we “will be conducting the same type of activities that we conducted [during] this last election in 2022 and prior elections.” “We will be collecting … mail-in ballots at the church, and we invite people to bring in their ballots and any other person that they want to carry the ballot into the church on their behalf … they’re welcome

▲ Churchgoers of Calvary Chapel Chino Hills drop off their ballots at specific tables based on which of the four southern California counties they reside. | Gina Gleason

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THE LEGALITY OF BALLOT COLLECTING Because of state laws on ballot harvesting, not every church will have the ability to engage in ballot collection

efforts like Calvary Chapel Chino Hills. At the Family Research Council’s Pray Vote Stand Summit, Gleason listed the states where it is feasible for churches to engage in ballot collection: California, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Maryland, Nevada, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and Wyoming. Ballotpedia, which bills itself as the encyclopedia of American politics, has more information about the legality of ballot collecting in each state. Specifically, 12 states have limits on the number of ballots a person can return on others’ behalf, meaning that ballot collection efforts by a large church are not feasible in some states, including: Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Dakota and West Virginia. Thirteen states limit who can return ballots on behalf of another person: Arizona, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma and Texas. Alaska, Connecticut, Kentucky and Pennsylvania only allow ballot collecting in certain circumstances, while Mississippi and Wisconsin do not have “laws specifying whether someone may return ballots on behalf of voters.” Ballotpedia lists Montana and South Carolina as states that allow “someone chosen by the voter to return their ballot.” Alabama is the only state that has banned ballot collecting. At the event, Gleason credited her church’s ballot-collecting efforts with positively affecting the outcome of a school board race in the surrounding community. “Our local school district was run by progressives,” she declared, specifically referring to “Planned Parenthoodsupported candidates” as well as those endorsed by “Democrat leadership.” “Tony Thurmond, who is the California [state] Superintendent of [Public] Instruction, actually came out to walk door-to-door for one of the progressives because they wanted to hold on to this

seat,” she continued. “The reason he did that was because he knew that our large church was very involved in what’s going on in the community and they wanted insurance.” Gleason said the progressive candidate lost, expressing gratitude that Calvary Chapel Chino Hills member Sonja Shaw was elected president of the Chino Valley Unified School District Board of Education. “All of us working together made a difference in that election,” Gleason said, citing Shaw’s victory as an example of how “you can make a difference in your community.” She stressed that churches have to remain nonpartisan as they engage in ballot-collecting efforts, meaning they can't promote political parties or particular candidates. “If you are collecting ballots at a church, you never ask what party they’re with or what candidates they’re supporting. You take everyone’s ballots, no questions asked," she said. The ballot collection manual contains a letter from attorney Harmeet Dhillon assuring that “ballot collection by your church will not jeopardize your 501(c)(3) status as long as you do not promote or advance any candidate over another,” referring to the church’s tax-exempt status with the Internal Revenue Service. Calvary Chapel Chino Hills’ efforts to get Christians engaged in the political process are not limited to ballot collecting. The church also holds voter registration drives every Sunday all year long. Gleason outlined at the Pray Vote Stand summit that Calvary Chapel Chino Hills creates “voter guides for school board and city council races.” Gleason hosted an all-day workshop at Calvary Chapel Chino Hills on Oct. 21, where she discussed ballot collecting for churches, voter registration laws and “legal do’s and don’ts for churches.” The workshop is designed for pastors, church representatives, members of church community impact teams as well as organization leaders and teammates.

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to do that. "We believe that Christians should vote, and we want to make it as easy as possible for the Christian to vote,” she asserted. “Because they’re going to be at church on Sunday anyway, we thought it would be a great way to serve the church body, and we just make it easy to do that.” Gleason said the congregants were “very supportive and appreciative” of Real Impact's efforts. "They are just very excited to see a church that would be willing to be involved in what’s going on at election time and in our culture," she added. “I think that people value the fact that a church is willing to collect ballots and they recognize that the church volunteers can be trusted with their ballots. I think that’s why we collected so many this past election. Every election … the number of ballots we collect increases. The word gets out that we’re doing this, and people come from all over Southern California to deliver their ballots to us.” Gleason said “increased voter turnout” has been a benefit of churches engaging in ballot collecting. The manual she created expands on this point further, stating that “a greater turnout by Christian voters has the potential to impact these election results, thus ushering in a greater possibility that biblically grounded policy will be introduced, protecting the principles we hold dear.” “To the people that do not like voting by mail and ballot collecting … I agree with them. I believe the best way to vote would be to walk into a polling location and vote in person," she said. "Nonetheless, it is the law in California and there are plenty of people who are willing to collect ballots and I feel that it would help Christian turnout if we also collect ballots and other churches collect ballots.”

VIRGINIA MEGACHURCH MULLING BALLOT COLLECTION EFFORTS IN 2024 BY MICHAEL GRYBOSKI

▲ Voters cast their ballots in the voting booths at the early vote location at the Charleston Coliseum and Convention Center in North Charleston, South Carolina, on October 16, 2020. | LOGAN CYRUS/AFP via Getty Images

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ballot harvesting; it's making Him known," she said. "We decided to sit this one out because it is a lot of work — worth it, but still a lot of work," she said. Instead of ballot collecting, Pryor said Cornerstone was engaged in other election-related activities, including "voter registration and signing up election officers." Additionally, Cornerstone's leadership "talks often about voting and voting biblically according to those values." "We will consider doing ballot gathering again in the 2024 cycle, provided our state laws don't change to prohibit it and we have sufficient staff and volunteers to make sure it's done correctly, securely and timely," Pryor added. Bunni Pounds, president and founder of the conservative Christian group Christians Engaged, told CP that "a lot of churches" were considering ballot banking as a practice for 2024. "They're looking at 'can we have our church be a place where ballots are dropped off, to make sure to protect those ballots, and make sure that we have poll watchers watching over those situations?'" said Pounds. "So, I definitely think churches nationally that are concerned about election integrity are looking at how they can facilitate those, especially in purple and blue states." Pounds said, "churches should be caring about all things related to civics and our republic," believing that churches often "have had a hands-off approach to our election systems and the way that things are run." "Very few people of faith engage as election judges, as poll watchers. Very few believers participate in adopting candidates and working on campaigns. And those days have to be over if we want to protect our republic," she continued. "I do believe that they have been abandoned by our political party apparatuses and have not been engaged in the way that they need to be

engaged." Pounds believes that "Bible-believing churches" are "the low-hanging fruit for the conservative movement," adding that "it's the people of faith that are going to hold firm to traditional values based on the Bible that are going to vote — as long as the Republican Party stays within the platform that they hold right now — for a Republican." Gina Gleason, who oversees the ballot-gathering efforts at the Californiabased megachurch Calvary Chapel Chino Hills, told CP in an earlier interview that churches should consider engaging in the practice where it is legal. Her church has collected nearly 20,000 ballots combined in the last two election cycles. Gleason has been one of the driving forces behind the movement, speaking at national Christian conservative advocacy conferences last summer to encourage churches to participate in ballot collection. She told Christian conservatives gathered at the Family Research Council's Pray Vote Stand Summit in Washington, D.C., in September that there are 17 states where churches can feasibly take an active role in ballot collecting "Pray about it, educate yourself about the laws of your state, what you can and cannot do, and how it would benefit your church and your local community," Gleason said. "Build a team, train the team, make sure the team knows all the laws that you know, and that way, when they are standing at the table, they have answers for the people turning their ballots in."

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Virginia megachurch is mulling whether it will again engage in ballot collection efforts, also known as ballot harvesting or ballot banking, during the 2024 presidential election after doing it for the 2022 midterms but not for the 2023 election in which every seat of the state legislature was up for grabs. The practice, which gained popularity among Democrats during the 2020 election, involves a person collecting absentee or mail-in ballots from voters to turn them in on their behalf, a legal practice in many states. Cornerstone Chapel of Leesburg, a nondenominational congregation affiliated with the Calvary Chapel Association of Churches, oversaw a ballot collection effort in 2022. Cornerstone spokesperson Pam Pryor, who previously served in the U.S. State Department during the Trump administration, told CP the church gathered ballots during the 2022 midterm election cycle, as the practice is legal in Virginia. "It is legal, and many people were concerned about the integrity and the processing of their vote — was it secure, was it counted, etc.," Pryor said. "We took all measures to ensure the protection of the ballot from the time it was received until we dropped it off at the election headquarters." Pryor says it is "hard to say" what impact Cornerstone's ballot collecting had on election outcomes, noting that while "it was not a great election" for their mostly conservative but growing local area in the Washington suburbs of Virginia, she did "think it made people feel better about the electoral process." Although Virginia saw every seat of its General Assembly on the ballot in last November's statewide elections in which Democrats took control of both chambers, Pryor told CP that Cornerstone didn't engage in ballot banking in 2023. "Why has your church decided to not do ballot harvesting during the 2023 election cycle? Our primary focus is not

DOES THE MORAL MAJORITY STILL IMPACT AMERICAN POLITICS TODAY? BY MICHAEL GRYBOSKI

he Moral Majority was the most influential 20th century conservative Christian political advocacy group in the United States, according to prominent Christian activists who credit the movement with making the religious right a force in American politics today. Founded by the Rev. Jerry Falwell in 1979, the Moral Majority advocated for conservative positions on issues like abortion, homosexuality and school vouchers. It also helped millions of Christians register to vote. Although the organization dissolved in 1989, many believe the Moral Majority continues to have a lasting impact on 21st century U.S. politics. The Christian Post spoke with longtime conservative Christian activists to discuss their memories of the Moral Majority, its long-term impact, and what, if anything, they believe has replaced it in the modern day.

THE ‘BOOSTER ROCKET PHASE’ OF EVANGELICAL POLITICS Gary Bauer, a longtime conservative Christian activist who served as head of

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the Family Research Council from 19881999 after serving under President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, told CP he was "assigned to work on the values issues” during his time in the administration, including school prayer, sanctity of life issues, and school choice. “That election in 1980, that was the election where there was such a dramatic shift of Midwestern Catholics and Southern Evangelicals from the Democrat Party to the Republican Party,” Bauer said, adding, “these issues were the things that drew those voters to Reagan." Bauer, who now leads American Values, said he began representing the White House at Moral Majority meetings so that he would “become well known in that community.” The activist told CP that Reagan was aware of the importance of “promoting traditional American values” and, along those lines, “became the first president to regularly refer to the sanctity of life in the State of the Union address." “He issued sanctity of life proclamations during his presidency,” Bauer continued. “It’s been forgotten now, but he actually, while president, wrote a pamphlet, a little booklet, just on the issue of the sanctity of life, which had never been done before by a sitting president, or any president really.” Another item championed by the Reagan administration, according to

Bauer, was to require federal bodies to have “the pro-family equivalent of an environmental impact statement” whenever they proposed new rules. “Under the law today, if you are building a project, you've got to file a statement on how the project will impact negatively on the environment,” he explained. “So, we put out an executive order that required every government agency, when they proposed any regulation or sent the regulatory proposal to the White House, to include in that what the impact would be on the family.” Ralph Reed, founder and chairman of the Faith & Freedom Coalition, who in 1995 was the subject of a Time magazine cover story about his activism, worked alongside the Moral Majority in the 1980s. “I was in North Carolina in 1984 when the Moral Majority was a major player in turning out Christians and mobilizing Christians. Dr. Falwell came to North Carolina on a couple occasions, and I got the opportunity to visit with him,” Reed added. “I also worked with a guy named Lamarr Mooneyham, the head of the North Carolina Moral Majority. He was the head of the state chapter, and I was organizing Christian young people, so we collaborated on that. And then Dr. Falwell spoke at a number of student conferences that I organized in the '80s.” Shortly after Falwell shut down the

▲ The Rev. Jerry Falwell Sr. founder and leader of the conservative Christian advocacy group the Moral Majority, giving remarks at a Moral Majority event in Cincinnati, Ohio, in September 1986. | Courtesy of Liberty University

While viewing the Moral Majority as “indispensable to the rise of Evangelical civic engagement in the late 20th century,” Reed felt the group was “sometimes limited in its tactical and strategic prowess.” “They did rallies all over the country that mobilized and activated Christians, but in terms of building a county-bycounty infrastructure or a state-by-state infrastructure, or a precinct-by-precinct trade worker infrastructure, that never really happened at Moral Majority. That ended up being the work of the Christian Coalition in the 1990s,” Reed said. Kris Ullman is the president of the conservative group the Eagle Forum, a group whose founder, anti-feminism activist Phyllis Schlafly, often worked with Falwell on various political issues. Ullman moved to Lynchburg, Virginia, with her family as a teenager, which meant she “heard a lot about the Moral Majority and Jerry Falwell." “I did grow up in a very conservative, pro-life family,” she said. “It was nice at that time to know that there was an organization of primarily Baptists who

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Moral Majority in 1989, Reed was hired to serve as the first executive director of the Christian Coalition, a similar organization founded by televangelist Pat Robertson. Reed saw the political work of Robertson and Falwell as being the “twin engines” of the “booster rocket phase of the re-engagement of Bible-believing Evangelical Christians” in national politics following generations of a “self-imposed internal political exile that dated back to the Scopes trial in 1925.” “Falwell was an enormously influential figure in fundamentalist and Independent Baptist circles. He proved to be a remarkably adept strategist and operator who was able to build a broad coalition that included pro-Israel Jews, Mormons, and Southern Baptists, among others,” Reed continued. “In other words, he showed himself to be far more ecumenical than I think anybody would have anticipated. In working with others whose theology he did not share, he blew the trumpet and issued the clarion call for Christians to come out of the pews and get into the precincts and make a difference.”

were fighting on a lot of the same issues.” “Knowing that there was this group of very conservative citizens and this organization that was rallying conservatives to the pro-life, pro-family cause had a big impact on me.”

GALVANIZING PEOPLE OF FAITH When looking at the long-term impact of the Moral Majority, Bauer said an example of the enduring influence is found in the still-existing voting bloc of religious Americans. “The group of people that are motivated to vote based on their views on the role of the family, the role of religion in our society, those kinds of issues, which continues to be a significant voting bloc in American politics,” Bauer said. “Particularly on the Republican side, candidates (presidential and congressional) will do all sorts of things to try to signal to those voters that they're

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their values into the public square and make a difference in public policy, I think we'd have a very different country today,” Reed said. “Dr. Falwell was a historic figure in more ways than one, but just the difference that he made politically in the trajectory of the United States was a historic achievement by itself.”

'MORE FRACTURED THAN WE WERE IN THE '90S' Reed said another “clear” example of the “long-term impacts” of the Moral Majority are the many born-again Christians who hold or recently held positions in the federal government. “I mean, you got a born-again Christian as Speaker of the House. You had under Donald Trump probably more conservative and Evangelical Christians serving at every level of government,” he said. “Whether it was Sarah Huckabee as press secretary, or Dina Powell who was deputy national security advisor, Ben Carson in the cabinet, Sonny Perdue in the cabinet, Sam Brownback at the State Department, Mike Pompeo at the State Department, Betsy DeVos at Education. I could just go on and on and on.” There are many Christians in federal government that “most folks don't even know," Reed said. “They're not household names, they're staffers. But they all came out of the pro-family and pro-life movements. And all of that is a legacy of the Moral Majority and the work that came after it.” Regarding what group, if any, currently serves as the replacement for the Moral Majority, Reed cited groups like his organization, Faith & Freedom Coalition, the Family Research Council, Concerned Women for America, and Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America. Reed, who described the Christian Coalition as “a successor organization,” said it was “the intermediate rocket” that took conservative Christian activism “from Earth's atmosphere to other planets.” Ullman isn't sure there is one

organization that filled the role of the Moral Majority, believing that conservative Christian activism is “a lot more fractured than we were in the '90s.” She cited examples of groups like FRC, Catholic Vote and Focus on the Family, which each seem more centered on one particular religious denomination than the Moral Majority was. “Even though we work together on similar issues, I think what I'm seeing now is that people are being drawn towards groups that identify to a particular faith,” Ullman told CP. Bauer believes that there are “all kinds of groups out there” that work on the "same types of issues,” listing as examples the Faith & Freedom Coalition, Focus on the Family, FRC, and the American Family Association. He noted that Faith & Freedom Coalition, which spends tens of millions of dollars during election seasons trying to mobilize the Christian vote, does “a tremendous amount of work in elections, passing out voter guides and so forth.” “I think it’s had a real influence on American politics,” Bauer told CP. Bauer also believes that conservative organizations like the Heritage Foundation, which “was not started to deal with these issues,” has over time focused on family values matters, adding that the conservative think-tank “realized that this is where the real passion is for the conservative movement.”

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going to be somebody that would be sensitive to those concerns, try to represent the values of those voters.” Bauer believes that the rise of Donald Trump was an example, pointing out that, initially, “there were questions that values voters had about whether he was the real thing or not.” According to Bauer, Trump’s decision to have Republican Gov. Mike Pence as his running mate in 2016 and his promise to fill Supreme Court vacancies with prolife nominees helped him make muchneeded inroads with conservative Christian voters. “Trump directly said, ‘I will fill any Supreme Court vacancy that occurs in my presidency with nominees who are committed to the sanctity of life,’” he noted. “Even George W. Bush wouldn't say that. He used to say, ‘Well, I'll put strict constructionists on the Supreme Court.’" “Not only did Trump say it — and I think that had a great deal to do with his election — he got three opportunities and appointed three justices that fulfilled his promise and, as a result, Roe v. Wade was overturned.” Ullman believes that when the Moral Majority was formed, it “was a time where political activism on behalf of religious people was really just beginning.” “It was a time where [people of faith] started to think that they could have an impact on politics through elections, on public policy through issues. I think that they galvanized religious people to get more involved in the political process,” she added. “Before, people kind of thought that your religion, your faith and your politics were meant to be kept separate. They were one of the groups that really allowed people to get involved and to realize that they could take their faith into the public square.” Reed also saw the work of the Moral Majority and Robertson as being a decisive turning point that dramatically changed the look of U.S. politics. “If Jerry Falwell in 1979, and later Pat Robertson with his endeavors, had not made it clear to Evangelical Christians, Bible-believing Christians, that they had a moral and a spiritual obligation to bring

“There's a lot of people at the state level, state family policy councils, who fight on these issues. So, it really has multiplied to be many, many different organizations,” Bauer concluded.

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IRANIANS SECRETLY TRANSLATING THE BIBLE INTO THEIR HEART LANGUAGES TO SHARE CHRIST WITH THEIR PEOPLE BY CP STAFF

s the underground Church continues to grow in Muslim-majority Iran, Bible translators are putting their lives on the line to bring the Gospel into the local dialects so that their friends and neighbors can have access to the written word of God for the first time. Through the work of the translation agency unfoldingWord, Christians in Iran and across the globe have been able to translate the Gospel themselves into more native languages. The Christian Post interviewed a representative from unfoldingWord, Evan Thompson, who preferred to use a fake name or pseudonym for his safety. "There are 1.45 billion people in the world who speak about 5,500 languages that do not have the whole Bible in their heart languages. ... The Church has expanded exponentially in the last 20 years. And what these folks have learned is that you can lead someone to Christ, but if they don't have a church, they don't survive on their own," Thompson said. "You can start a church, but if that church doesn't have the Bible in its heart language, it will typically only last one generation. Iran, for example, has churches operating underground. And there are thousands of underground churches in many other parts of the world," he added. UnfoldingWord, a nonprofit organization that has been around for

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roughly seven years, "works with Church leaders around the world who are seeking to establish their churches in sound doctrine, but lack access to Bible translations in the languages their people speak."

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF IRANIAN BIBLE TRANSLATORS The Christian Post heard from two Iranian women risking their lives to help translate unfoldingWord's Open Bible story resources from Farsi into other Iranian dialects for evangelizing. Both women Bible translators have chosen not to give their real names for this article to protect their identities and maintain their safety. The first woman, using the name Miriam, said she gave her heart to Christ after coming to the realization that she is "God's child and daughter." Miriam is part of a people group in Iran that is made up of millions of natives. She says she is often treated as a secondclass citizen because of how those from other people groups view her status in her people group. Miriam's life could be in danger if the Iranian government finds out that she follows Jesus in the Islamic Republic,

which Open Doors ranks as the eighthmost hostile country for Christians. "God is my Father. I feel deeply honored to be part of this work of bringing God's Word to my people," Miriam said. Despite having children and knowing that her life is at risk for believing in Jesus, Miriam said she will not stop working to translate the Gospel into her heart language. "I cannot even imagine leaving this work unfinished. I must complete this work and see the result. I want to see my beloved ones experience salvation in Christ. This is my dream; that my people can talk about God and speak His name freely without any hesitation; without any fear they can talk about God," she said. Miriam was introduced to Christianity through a friend in college who gave her a Farsi New Testament. She had to read the Bible alone and in secret, an act that left her without much of a clear understanding of the Christian faith. After college, Miriam married into a strict Muslim family. But, no matter how hard she tried to adapt to the strict religious practices of Islam, she could not find God as a Muslim. Miriam said she didn't give her life entirely to Jesus until after she heard about Transform, an online class offered in Iran that covered the basic teachings of Christianity. She watched the classes secretly

▲ Iranian Christians attend the New Year mass at the Saint Targmanchats Armenian Church in Tehran, on January 1, 2023. | Atta Kenare/AFP via Getty Images

is a limitation for our people. I have this language specialty and experience, this expertise so that I can help my own people. People like my mother can read this book," Miriam said. "I have a Bible in Farsi, and I can read it. But I cannot understand the more complicated concepts in it because Farsi is not my heart language. I couldn't establish a relationship with the Bible in Farsi. I'm very fluent in Farsi. I studied hard and had great teachers. Still, I cannot establish a relationship with the Bible in Farsi," she continued. "How about other people who don't have my educational advantages? My family and friends? Having the Gospel in my heart language makes it much easier to talk to my family about Jesus. They can understand and accept Him easily."

'JESUS FED ME' Another Iranian Bible translator who is

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through various digital platforms. And during one of the class sessions, she gave her life to Christ. Following her conversion, Miriam's husband caught her one day watching the Transform Iran pastor on television. Miriam could no longer hold back the truth about her faith from her husband. "By the grace of God, he did not get angry. He said, 'I know you are a seriousminded woman, and if this is important to you, it's OK,'" Miriam recalled. Miriam's husband began watching the class with her, and several months later, he also gave his life to Christ. Before her husband's conversion, the Transform Iran pastor asked her if she would get involved in Bible translation because of her expertise in her heart language. Miriam accepted the offer even if that meant risking her life to help translate the Bible into more Iranian tongues. "We are not allowed to study our heart languages in Iranian public schools. This

using the pseudonym Stella accepted Jesus into her heart after her husband died of cancer. Following her husband's death, Stella was left alone to care for her young son. During that time, she relied on the peace of God as her only hope. "God has helped me. The Name of Jesus Christ was in my life. I didn't need anybody. Jesus fed me, put clothes on me and gave me peace," she said. Stella learned more about God through a Bible translated into Farsi. At first, she thought Christianity was a religion. But, now she understands that Christianity is a relationship. "When I was a new believer, I was thinking that, 'OK, I'm going to just switch religions.' But, when I got to know the Holy Spirit, I understood that this is a relationship, not religion," Stella said. Stella is currently working on a Bible translation in her heart language. Her sister-in-law became a Christian thanks to her work translating the Bible. Stella

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worked for five years alongside her family as they helped her review the translation of the Bible, and now she works as part of a larger Bible translating group. "I love my mother language. I'm telling the poetry; I write the context. I write the sentence. I record it. … I know all of this is God's work for us. God wants us to do this. … I am thinking about my mom, my father, my childhood. And everyone that doesn't have it right now. I really want to bring God to my town and my people," she said.

A DIRE NEED FOR BIBLE TRANSLATIONS Before unfoldingWord was launched, traditional Bible translation agencies across the globe have done "marvelous work" and continue to do so, Thompson noted. However, he said the number of Western Bible translators that Bible translation agencies can send overseas is dropping, and the demand for Bible translation is increasing rapidly. "The group that founded unfoldingWord developed a way to address this problem. We call it churchcentric Bible translation. ... It's Bible translation incorporated into the life of the Church as part of its discipleship," Thompson noted. "Most of those unreached people have neighbors who know Christ, and they're taking the Gospel to them. And what unfoldingWord does is we equip the Church in every people group with a goal of translating the Bible in every language." To help local churches translate the Bible, unfoldingWord provides people groups with open-source software and open-licensed biblical content that's breaking the copyright barriers to source texts. The organization also has comprehensive translation guides to answer difficult Bible translation questions. The organization offers essential doctrinal education to protect the theological integrity of the

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translations. "unfoldingWord provides training for indigenous Bible translation teams over Zoom and sometimes in neutral locations," Thompson said. The training locations are kept secret to protect participants in certain countries where practicing Christianity is not accepted. "Our training allows for indigenous Bible translation teams to be able to use best practices when they are translating the Bible for themselves. One of the ways that I like to say it is: 'We don't make Bible translations. We help develop Bible translators.' Because that's what the Church really needs all over the world."

ISSUES BRINGING TRANSLATIONS TO IRAN Thompson said unfoldingWord has aided Iranian natives who have translated the Bible into dozens of native languages. However, he said there are some unfortunate limitations to the organization's ability to aid translators in Iran. He cited strict government policies prohibiting Iranians from studying their heart languages or their native tongues in public schools. "All of these oppressive countries, like Sudan, like Iran, and some others we could name, are trying to Islamasize their whole population. And one of the ways that they do that is by forcing them to speak this one national language, and it's causing their heart languages to die out," Thompson said. In Iran, the government recognizes Farsi as the national language. However, many natives speak other Iranian dialects more fluently. "It's very much like anybody that comes to America from someplace else, and we put them in American schools to learn English. Unless their family makes it a point to keep their native languages ... alive in their families, by the second or third generation, the kids can't speak

their native language anymore," Thompson said.

THE FEW RESPONSIBLE FOR THE MANY Miriam believes God has blessed her with a huge responsibility to help translate the Bible into more Iranian languages. "This is not just a scientific book. This is God's Word. I felt some tension. I was scared that I would not do the work well enough, but I'm very happy to make it available so that my people can establish a relationship with the Bible. That's why I got involved with this Bible translation project," she said. When asked if she can imagine the day when the Bible is completed in even more Iranian languages, Miriam said it will take many years, and she doesn't know if she'll live long enough to see the project's conclusion. "I want my children to experience the result of my work so that they can know Jesus through their heart language. I never thought this project would grow like this. But I've learned that it's not just about me," Miriam said. "I need this team that has been pulled together. For safety, we have many people working on this project secretly. There may be several Christians in one Iranian family, but they cannot share their faith with each other openly," she continued. "We need more people who can speak my heart language to continue working on this project. … I want to ask for prayer … to recruit people into the project who know our language well."

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'INHUMANITY': PASTORS SHOWN FOOTAGE OF HAMAS ATROCITIES DURING PRIVATE EMBASSY SCREENING BY SAMANTHA KAMMAN

ASHINGTON — Dozens of pastors gathered at the Israeli Embassy for a private screening of raw footage and audio of Hamas gunning

down civilians in their homes and bragging about killing Jews as they seek to bear witness to the brutality of the Oct. 7 attacks. In partnership with the embassy, the

International Fellowship of Christians and Jews hosted the screening of a 45-minute video compiled by the Israeli government showcasing the murders committed by Hamas on civilians in southern Israel.

▲ The mother, and immediate family of Valentin (Eli) Ghnassia, 23, who was killed in a battle with Hamas militants at kibbutz Be’eeri near the Israeli border with the Gaza Strip, grieve during his funeral on October 12, 2023, at Mount Herzl Military Cemetery in Jerusalem, Israel. | Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images

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walk barefoot into the vehicle. The girl in the video is noticeably injured, and the back of her pants were stained with blood. In one of the audio recordings played alongside the video clips, a Hamas terrorist purportedly uses a dead Jewish woman's phone to call his parents and brag about murdering 10 people. He instructed them to pull up WhatsApp to see his murder victims. "I killed 10 people," one of the terrorists said. "Ten people with my bare hands." "Your son is a hero," he added. Another disturbing clip showed a Hamas terrorist trying to use a farming tool in an attempt to decapitate a lifeless body. An audio clip purported to show Hamas terrorists discussing how some victims were beheaded. An in-home security video showed a father and his two young sons trying to flee their home, but the father was killed by a grenade. Another scene shows the two boys crying over the death of their father as a terrorist rummages through the fridge and pulls out a drink. The 45-minute video also contained several photos of the victims, including multiple babies killed by Hamas. Some of the victims' bodies appeared to have been burnt by the terrorists. Bishop Paul Lanier, The Fellowship's chairman of the board of directors who opened the event with a prayer, delivered remarks after the video concluded. He expressed a desire for the screening to inspire a change in those who watched the footage. In an interview with CP, Lanier clarified his remarks, saying Christians are typically "peace-loving people" who want to focus on joy and good things instead of focusing on tragedy. "And our Christianity will not allow us to do that," the bishop said. "We have to throw light upon the inhumanity, the brutality that took place, and equally be as fervent and bold and determined to stand for life and the people of Israel." As some Christian leaders have issued calls for a ceasefire, Lanier questioned how anyone could use faith to defend a ceasefire when the danger is still present. "As long as Hamas is firing weapons and holding hostages, a ceasefire is

entirely incongruent with reality," he said. Jonathan Avendano, managing director of the National Hispanic Pastors Alliance, of which several pastors in attendance are affiliated, argued that the only way to stop evil is to "erase it." "There's a quote: 'If Israel surrenders, then Israel will be obliterated. But if Hamas surrenders, then there will be true peace," he told CP. That Hamas-run health authorities' death toll figures in Gaza don't break down combatant deaths and civilian deaths, but the United Nations expressed concern that women and children are "bearing the brunt" of the casualties. In an interview with The Christian Post, Benjamin decried the Hamas-run health ministry's death toll numbers as fake, noting that this has been part of Hamas' modus operandi for years. He highlighted the false claim that Israel had bombed an Anglican hospital in Gaza as a recent example. At first, it was reported that Israel was behind the explosion at the al-Ahli Hospital that reportedly killed around 500 people. However, it was later confirmed that the Palestinian Islamic Jihad had misfired a rocket, and the death toll was dozens, not hundreds. Benjamin also highlighted the various ways Israel is attempting to reduce civilian casualties by designating areas for Gazan residents to safely evacuate from the north to the south. Benjamin said 150 trucks filled with humanitarian aid are going into Gaza per day, and Israel is providing water to Gaza despite the war. "Israel is adhering to International Human Rights Law 100%," Benjamin proclaimed. One of the most significant challenges for Israel right now, according to Benjamin, is that the Jewish state is forced to justify actions not long after it experienced a horrific attack. "It's our obligation, let alone right, to defend ourselves and make sure that this never happens again," he said. "And we hope that the entire world gets that."

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The footage shown during the event was collected from various sources, including Hamas body cameras, security cameras, social media posts, cell phone cameras and first responders. The event did not permit attendees to record the footage due to concern that some victims' families have yet to see the graphic videos and photos of their dead loved ones. Before the screening began, Eliav Benjamin, the embassy's deputy head of mission, delivered opening remarks, contending that Israel shouldn't apologize for any of its actions and must defend its people. The screening comes amid mounting calls for a ceasefire in Gaza. After Hamas militants killed over 1,400 people (over 1,110 civilians) in its Oct. 7 surprise attack, the Hamas-run health authorities state that over 27,000 people in Gaza have been killed since Israel launched retaliatory airstrikes and a ground offensive October. Benjamin stressed that Israel is fighting a "just war," not just on its behalf but on behalf of the free world, and is doing all that it can to prevent civilian casualties. "This is not a war of religion," Benjamin said. "It is, in a way, a war of civilizations, or the civil world against those who don't believe in civilizations." In the first set of videos, Hamas members are seen breaching the border in Gaza and infiltrating Israel through a hole in the fence. The terrorists proceeded to shoot at cars driving down the highway, killing the passengers inside and dragging their dead bodies out of their vehicles. "Allah is great, Allah is great!" some of the terrorists could be heard chanting. Other video clips showed Hamas terrorists attacking civilians in their homes or shooting at the attendees of the Supernova Music Festival, where the terrorists killed around 260 people. Some of the video clips showed the armed Hamas militants dragging injured and bleeding festival attendees and throwing them into the back of a pick-up truck, presumably taking them to Gaza as hostages. Another clip showed Hamas terrorists pulling a bound and injured Israeli citizen out of the back of a truck, forcing her to

JOHN TESH SAYS IMMERSING HIMSELF IN SCRIPTURE PLAYED KEY ROLE IN CANCER RECOVERY: 'THE DEVIL IS AFTER YOUR MIND' BY LEAH MARIEANN KLETT

▲ John Tesh at Web Central during Grammy Week 2001 at The Staples Center, Los Angeles, California, Febeuary. 20, 2001. | Scott Gries/Getty Images

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ask when you pray, believe that you receive it, and you will have,’” he said. “I thought, ‘Wow, my mountain right now is cancer.’ My wife and I started digging deeper to understand the true nature of God.” “I've read the Bible for years, but I never really truly landed on those Scriptures. And that really started a journey of dual-modality for me, science and doctors, and also, what does the Bible say about health and healing?” Today, the Grammy-nominated composer and concert pianist is cancerfree — a miracle he attributes to his Christian faith, the support of his wife and the wisdom of doctors. “There are some churches that teach healing and only healing through faith, but that's not what worked for me,” Tesh said. “What worked for me was using what God did for medicine, and then also being able to renew my mind and have a focus of what God really wanted for me and be able to visualize my future.” Tesh has leveraged his experiences to create an online course, "The Secret to Answered Prayers," aimed at teaching individuals how to pray with authority and combine faith with science for a more holistic approach to healing and wellbeing. The impetus for "The Secrets to Answered Prayers" online course came after a survey of his nearly 2 million social media followers who expressed a desire to learn how to create a deeper prayer life. “Don't talk to God about sickness; talk to sickness about God,” he said. He emphasized that the course is not about dismissing medical science but rather integrating it with faith, with a focus on emphasizing the impact of negative self-talk and the importance of adopting a positive and faith-filled mindset. “When I first discovered these Scriptures, I prayed throughout my day and I believed, but I made a mistake — after my first round of three years of treatments, I decided not to get any more scans and the cancer came back with a vengeance. And I understood then truly

that faith and medicine needed to work together. And I think it's a dangerous thing that some churches do, where some of them don't teach this at all.” Tesh, whose radio show, "Intelligence for Your Life," airs on 350 stations and reaches 14 million people each week, said he’s heard countless stories from those who have been transformed by the course. “I think renewing your mind has become more revelatory for people than just hey, how do I pray?” he said. “When you’re finally able to consistently renew your mind, then then you can start you can start with belief and not unbelief. That's really one of the biggest things that people say is, ‘Oh my gosh, I've been able to renew my mind, and I can see more clearly what God wants from me.’” Reflecting on his health today, Tesh said he’s cancer-free and continues to perform and maintain a busy schedule: “ I'm 71 years old, and I just did six concerts in a row, and each concert is three hours long,” he said, adding that at each of his shows, he shares the Gospel and how it changed his life onstage. “I've been looking for ministry my whole life, and it was it was right there and in front of me,” he said. “There are a lot of people that are hurting, and COVID made it worse. That’s really where I feel like I'm meant to be, sharing this testimony.” The radio host revealed he has another cancer scan coming up next week — “and I believe it’s going to be clear,” he said. “But if it’s not, I'll go after it,” he said. “I feel like I have so many weapons at my disposal that fear is entirely absent. And once you understand where you're going after this life, you just don't have any fear. I had a lot of fear when I was going through all those treatments; it was really scary for all of us. But I don't have that anymore.”

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ohn Tesh believes “renewing your mind” is one of the most important biblical mandates — yet one of the most overlooked in modern society. “I have found that many people don't truly understand that there are dark forces, that the devil is after your mind,” the 71-year-old pianist, author and radio host told The Christian Post. “They don't understand that. It's hard to believe because there are so many movies about it and all that. Many people think that when a thought comes into their mind, it comes from them, and it's not. It’s put there by some other force.” “If you have so much unbelief and doubt in your heart, it's like two pickup trucks that are chained together going in opposite directions, and you can't get anywhere. A consistent prayer life is like a muscle; you have to work on it. And then, you'll read a Scripture in the Bible and all of the sudden, you face a different challenge, and that Scripture comes alive in a different way.” Tesh knows firsthand the power of prayer: In 2015, the Emmy Award-winning host was diagnosed with a rare form of prostate cancer and given just 18 months to live. “I was told to get my affairs in order. I became a cancer patient,” he recalled. During this time, Tesh, with the encouragement of his wife, Connie, leaned into the power of prayer and explored what the Bible says about healing. Despite his upbringing in the Methodist Church and early exposure to Scripture, like many young adults, Tesh strayed from his faith during college, only to return to it later in life. His journey through cancer, he said, deepened his faith greatly. He credits a CD from preacher Andrew Wommack, which emphasized Mark 11:23, for providing a breakthrough moment. “He said that the Bible says, ‘Whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says,’ and ‘For whatever you

'THE MISSION' DOC REIGNITES DEBATE OVER JOHN CHAU'S TRAGIC DEATH, ETHICS OF EVANGELICAL MISSIONS BY LEAH MARIEANN KLETT

hen John Chau, a 26year-old missionary, was killed by the Sentinelese tribe after he traveled to North Sentinel Island—an isolated region of India—to share the Gospel with the uncontacted group, responses were polarizing. Some, both in the Evangelical and secular arenas, condemned Chau’s journey as a reckless one that reflected deep levels of ignorance, pride and cultural superiority. Others applauded his

▲ John Chau | Courtesy of All Nations

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commitment to the Great Commission, the biblical mandate to reach all nations with the Gospel, despite great personal risk. The new National Geographic documentary “The Mission” delves into Chau’s background and history to understand the young missionary and the beliefs that drove his passion for reaching the lost, ultimately losing his life in pursuit of that goal. The documentary, from husband-andwife filmmaking duo Amanda McBaine

and Jesse Moss, explores Chau’s personal writings, social media and diaries and features interviews and accounts from those who knew him best, including his inner circle, family and pastor. Woven throughout the film is a poignant letter from John’s father, psychiatrist Patrick Chau, who blames “extreme Christianity” for his son’s death. “When we read about John's death, an act of radical faith, I think that we were left with more questions than answers, like what propelled him to this faraway

missionaries Jim Elliot and Nate Saint, who were speared by a group of the Waodani tribe — and the Narnia series' The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. “He thoroughly prepared himself physically, spiritually for this moment,” McBaine said. “He’d read, I think, 100 books in the year before actually going; religious books, books of past missionaries, but also cultural anthropology books to try and be careful and do as much as he could to prepare for knowing what he is bringing of his western self to this place. And I think that that thoughtfulness was something that was, for sure, available in his diaries. This was someone who did not want to die. This is someone who loved life.” Throughout his teen and young adult years, Chau took part in missionary trips to Mexico, South Africa and Iraqi Kurdistan, fueling his passion for reaching the remote Sentinelese Island, which he described as “Satan's last stronghold.” In 2017, he joined the missionary training group All Nations, which has a vision “to see Jesus worshiped by all the peoples of the earth,” and trained at the group’s North American Hub in Kansas City. International Executive Leader of All

Nations, Mary Ho, detailed the extensive measures Chau took over his nearly decades-long training. She underscored his consultations with experts like Don Richardson, author of Peace Child, linguistic and wilderness emergency medical training, and his proactive approach to learning about cultural anthropology. “He was one of the most prepared young men I know,” she said. “He had made many short-term mission trips to hard places like Iraq. He came to All Nations to get equipped on how to tell Jesus' stories because he knew the Sentinelese were an oral culture. You don’t want to preach at them; you want the art of telling stories, and how to make disciples and how to start simple churches. He was highly prepared, and that is very well-documented.” Through animated flashbacks, the documentary dramatizes how, in 2018, Chau illegally traveled to the Sentinel Islands and attempted to communicate with the tribe. The tribe resisted Chau's attempts to communicate with them, at first shooting his Bible with an arrow. When Chau returned a second time, intent on delivering the Gospel to the

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place to bring the Gospel to this uncontacted tribe, and who is this tribe that we've heard almost nothing about, and how have they escaped the world's attention?” Moss, who, along with McBaine, doesn't identify as religious, told The Christian Post. “That was kind of remarkable and its own mystery. There were a lot of news stories about John and his tragic death, but they were very reductive. We felt if we could take the time, and we had the support, which we ended up getting from National Geographic, we could take on this really challenging and sometimes uncomfortable story. And that's what we've tried to do.” “The Mission” seeks to present a nuanced narrative, giving a dimensional view of Chau’s decade-long preparation for missionary work. He’s portrayed as a suburban church kid, educated in Christian schools and a participant in “accountability groups” with his peers to avoid unbiblical behavior, like watching pornography. An avid outdoorsman, Chau grew up reading adventure books like Robinson Crusoe, The Adventures of Tintin and End of the Spear — which tells the story of

▲ John Chau with his parents | Courtesy of All Nations

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unreached people, they shot him dead with an arrow. Heavily featured in the documentary are historian Adam Goodheart, author of the North Sentinel chronicle The Last Island, and linguist Daniel Everett, a former missionary who turned to atheism after a stint working among the Pirahã people of the Amazon rainforest. Everett is particularly critical of Chau’s mission, framing it as both an unethical form of invasion and, ultimately a fruitless endeavor. “You could argue, depending on where you come from when you come to this story, that John died for any number of reasons: That he was naive, that he truly died for his faith, that he was enchanted by the story to the degree that he lost perspective on the true inherent risk of what he was undertaking … that he had been shaped by stories of heroic young men who set out to prove themselves and managed to survive,” Moss said. The filmmakers attempt to navigate contrasting views with care, from those who admired Chau to those questioning his decisions. They sought to, they told CP, create a safe space for all voices, including those critical of missionary work and its implications of consent. “We hope it raises questions more than it gives people answers,” McBaine said, adding that filmmakers wanted those who are sympathetic to Chau to consider the implications of missionary work, and skeptics who deride his mission “see him in more human terms.” “I don't think people should go to that island,” McBaine said. “It's illegal. It's a problem for a number of reasons. But … my hope is, whatever you come to this project with, afterward, you have a conversation. “These are really difficult questions,” she said. “I don't know if there's a lot of answers. I do think that when I watch this film, every time, I'm left with the takeaway of understanding that as we get older, you're not really the center of the narrative. As you get older, you understand it's a very big picture. And you're part of it, but what happens when you decentralize yourself from the narrative? And I'm not sure that John ever

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got to that place with what he did, but I will never know.” But for some, like Jaime Saint, the grandson of missionary Nate Saint, Chau's story draws parallels to his own grandfather's legacy. He underscored the importance of obedience to God's calling, a lesson he learned from his grandfather’s endeavor to reach the Waodani tribe in Ecuador, which resulted in his and his colleagues' martyrdom. “With the story of my grandfather, people look back and say, ‘They shouldn't have gone in, they should have done things this way or that way,’” he said. “When we look at it, they were being obedient to God's call. People throughout history, in obedience to God's call, have been killed. That doesn't make sense to the world. Eternity will tell whether we're right or wrong.” Saint also reflected on the broader impact of such missionary endeavors, sharing how the work of his grandfather and others has been transformative for the Waodani tribe, decades after their death. Members of the Waodani tribe eventually convinced Nate’s son, Steve, to move his family to Ecuador and live with them, which they did for a year-anda-half. Today, Jaime Saint serves as the executive director at Indigenous People’s Technology and Education Center, which develops tools to train indigenous Christ followers in skills to open doors to the Gospel. “God knew what He was doing then, and He knows what He's doing today. We don't see the entirety of the masterpiece that He is writing,” he said. “But we know the end of the story. And so, when we know the end of the story, we don't have to be afraid of the chapters that come before. “John didn't have to know what all the chapters were going to be. We don't have the right to question the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. We don't have the right to say we need to have all of the chapters. What we do know is that He is faithful, and He will make sense of all the difficult chapters before the story comes to an end. It’s a story that is continuing to be written today.” Saint also challenged the notion

presented by some in “The Mission” that missions should be avoided because of potential risks, such as introducing diseases to untouched tribes, emphasizing that the ultimate call to spread the Gospel transcends earthly concerns. “We aren’t called to obey governing authorities if they say don't do something other than what the Bible says we must do,” he said. “People throughout history have been put in prison and killed for their faith; the Church did not grow without people who have been martyred. There are always going to be critics anytime someone lives out their faith, but we are not accountable to the critics. We're accountable to the Lord of the harvest.” And since Chau died in 2018, Ho said she’s noticed an increase in global awareness and prayer for the North Sentinelese people. Like Saint and Elliot, she said, Chau’s narrative has inspired new generations to engage in missionary work. In her view, Chau's commitment has already begun to bear fruit, inspiring young individuals to consider missions and spreading awareness of remote tribes like the North Sentinelese. As "The Mission" rekindles conversations around the costs and implications of missionary work, Saint said he believes the eternal impact of such work, often realized through sacrifice and obedience, will be revealed in God's perfect timing. A secular world that cannot comprehend the gravity of eternity and the requirement of every Christian to participate in the Great Commission, he said, will never understand this calling. “We don't talk about suffering in the American church, the theology of failure,” he said. “When John died, a lot of people said, ‘What a failed mission.’ But what is our definition of success and failure in the Christian life? “John himself said the measure of success in the Kingdom of God is obedience, and that he wants to be obedient to Jesus Christ because he thinks Jesus is worth it. The measure of success for us as Christians is obedience.”

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MIKE PENCE ON PRIORITIZING FAMILY OVER POLITICS, THE 'BILLY GRAHAM RULE' AND WHAT'S NEXT BY LEAH MARIEANN KLETT

▲ Former U.S. Vice President Mike Pence (C) and his wife Karen Pence (L) and Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, tour the Iowa State Fair on August 11, 2023, in Des Moines, Iowa. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

hroughout his career, from serving as governor of Indiana to vice president of the United States, Mike Pence has led with a simple yet profound truth: the prioritization of the family, in tandem with faith, will lead to a richer, more fulfilling life and a stronger nation. “The wellspring of our nation's strength has always been the faith of the American people and American families,” the 64-yearold told The Christian Post. “And when our faith is strong, when our families are strong, America is strong.” And in an era where professional demands often overshadow personal time and loneliness is an "epidemic," Pence is advocating for a return to the dinner table in his new book, Go Home for Dinner: Advice on How Faith Makes a Family and Family Makes a Life, co-authored with his daughter, Charlotte Pence Bond. For the former vice president, the book, which follows his autobiography So Help Me God, is not just a memoir but a testament to the balance he has strived for between public service and private life — a balance he's quick to stress wouldn't

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be possible without biblical principles and wise practices. Pence shared how, during his political ascent, from Congress to the governorship of Indiana, and finally to the vice presidency, he often faced the question, "Where do you see yourself in five years?" His consistent reply, "Home for dinner," wasn't just a clever retort but a principle he lived by; he made a commitment to be home, every night, with his wife, Karen, and their three children. Despite the intensity of political life, he maintained that the dinner table was where his family's bond was nurtured, echoing Ronald Reagan's sentiment that "all great change in America begins at the dinner table." “When I think about the concern that tens of millions of Americans have for the future of this country, I want to encourage people, 'Focus on your own, make your family a priority,’” he said. “I hold the view that faith makes a family, and family makes a life. And in these busy days, I hope they go home for dinner. The encouragement and the stories in this book hopefully make people smile, but also may also make them think about their own

“But it wasn't long after that criticism came that the #MeToo movement emerged and many really tragic stories have occurred out of corporate America. I'm pleased that some positive changes have happened in workplaces around the country. But for us, I can tell you, whether it was that criticism, or when Mrs. Pence as second lady of the United States was criticized for teaching at a Christian school in suburban Washington that adhered to a biblical view of marriage, we take those things in stride. As the Bible says, we ‘count it all joy.’” The former vice president revealed he’s also choosing to rest in God’s sovereignty after suspending his presidential campaign in late October. “While we worked hard on the campaign, as I announced a few weeks back, we concluded this is not my time,” he said. “And while we feel disappointment about that, people have said, ‘How are you doing?’ and I say, ‘Everything in my life that matters is great. My wife loves me. My kids are healthy. I stopped counting after that.’ And I think when we really focus on making God's priorities our priorities in our life, the disappointments that come in our careers are put in their proper perspective.” Looking toward the future, Pence said he remains open to opportunities to serve the country while continuing to advocate for conservative values. He emphasized his commitment to life issues, indicating that his future endeavors would prioritize the sanctity of human life and support for families, including adoption reform. The American people, he said, are "the most faith-filled, freedom-loving, generous, hardworking, and idealistic people the world has ever known” — and he hopes the U.S. government will someday match the caliber of its citizens. He highlighted that the values uniting Americans, like cherishing freedoms, faith and family, outweigh the divisive details of policy and opinion. And amid the busyness of the holiday season, Pence encouraged families to engage in civil discourse, to remember shared histories and to cherish the unity that familial relationships foster. In doing so, he believes America can find a path to reconcile its differences and rediscover its foundational strength. “I honestly believe that for most Americans, what unites us in this country will always be much greater than whatever divides us,” he said. “Most Americans cherish our freedoms. Most Americans cherish faith, love their families, and want what's best for their kids, their grandkids and their future. It's that we get to the details of policy where we have differences of opinion, we have differences in some values. But I really do believe it's around that dinner table, with a family member across the table, where you're reminded that you've got history, you've got common experiences, and that creates conditions where you can have dialogue. "Some of the divisions in the public square are related to people spending more time out there than around that dinner table and with their families,” he continued. “[My family] hopes that if folks take nothing else from this book, they know that we're a family where our faith in Christ, our commitment to each other, our imperfect ways to live out that faith, are a priority for us and have richly blessed us through extraordinary and tumultuous times in our life."

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corner of the world and being there for their spouse and for their children in new and renewed ways. We will strengthen America by strengthening families and faith.” Pence's book delves into how such familial practices have shaped his decision-making process and provided a sanctuary from the busyness often celebrated by mainstream culture. For example, early on, Mike and Karen Pence made intentional choices, such as relocating their family to Washington, D.C., to ensure they remained a unit, a commitment they extended through Pence's tenure as vice president. Go Home for Dinner also candidly addresses personal challenges the Pences faced, including infertility and career setbacks. Pence shared how these experiences, while difficult, solidified his commitment to family and faith — and how, paradoxically, focusing on what matters at home has consistently opened unforeseen professional doors. “If God didn't exist, it would never make sense to put your family ahead of your career because there would be a cost to that,” Pence said. “The truth is, our culture likes to tell young people that ‘you can have it all, you can have everything,’ and you actually can't. "But I have come to believe, since I put my faith in Jesus Christ as a young man and have been working ever since to make that walk with the Lord real in my life, that when we make God's priorities our priorities, that He blesses us. I don't mean in material ways; I mean in deeper and more meaningful ways in terms of richness in relationships and satisfaction in life.” Now the grandparents of three young girls, Pence said he and Karen continue to make family a priority and spend time with their three children, who are scattered across the nation: "Over the last three years, we've done a lot of traveling around the country ... and Mrs. Pence almost invariably finds a way to spend time with our kids that are in California, Arizona and Florida, as we speak. I have a sense that's accelerated a little bit since our granddaughters were born over the last three years," he said with a chuckle. It was this commitment to protecting his marriage and by extension, his family, that compelled Pence to follow the Billy Graham Rule both in his personal and public life. The rule, named after evangelist Billy Graham, is a practice of avoiding situations that might be perceived as compromising to one's marriage. For Pence, this means avoiding dining alone with women other than his wife and not attending events serving alcohol without his wife by his side, something he famously told The Hill in a 2002 interview. The revelation garnered both support and criticism from the corporate press: some viewed it as a means of safeguarding relationships, while others derided it for potentially limiting professional opportunities for women. Reflecting on the polarizing reactions to his adherence to the rule, Pence stressed that maintaining professional boundaries has not hindered opportunities for women in his team, instead fostering a respectful work environment. “It was remarkable that we were being criticized for putting a premium on respecting our marriage and avoiding the appearance of impropriety and also creating conditions in the workplace that were respectful of the men and women that worked with us,” Pence said.

▲ Courtesy of Jeff Kinley

‘GOD’S GRAND FINALE’: END TIMES EXPERT SAYS CHURCHES KNOW LITTLE OF THE SIDE OF JESUS IN REVELATION BY MICHAEL GRYBOSKI

n author and expert on the End Times has released a new book detailing the nature of God as revealed in the New Testament book of Revelation, with the hope that it will help believers better understand who God is. Jeff Kinley, co-host of the popular podcast “The Prophecy Pros” alongside Todd Hampson, released God's Grand Finale: Wrath, Grace, and Glory in Earth’s Last Days (Harvest Prophecy). “The Bible’s last book is God’s final word to mankind—and the breathtaking revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ,” notes the book’s Amazon description. “Though this letter describes depravity, devils, and destruction, it also provides an incredible portrait of our almighty God,

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delivering profound insights into who he really is.” The Christian Post spoke with Jeff Kinley about his book, touching on topics like how Revelation is often misinterpreted and how Christians should approach the last book of the Bible. Here are lightly edited excerpts from that interview. CP: You have written other books about the End Times. What would you say makes God's Grand Finale different from your earlier works? Kinley: Well, this book specifically targets the book of Revelation not from just an apocalyptic standpoint explaining the End Times, but also revealing the character of God throughout the whole book.

The premise of God's Grand Finale is that God's last book that He ever wrote He wanted us to understand what was going to happen in the last days. But He also wanted us to know Who He was, as His final word to the Church. So, that really is the approach that is different from any book that I have ever seen written on Revelation. CP: In Chapter 2, you warned against saying such things as “I don’t do theology. I just love Jesus," writing that "with such declarations, the church is plunged into a new dark age where ignorance and emotions become the guiding principles for the current generation of professing Christians." Would you say that it is also the case with the popular cliche of “Christianity

those first century churches is for them to get their relationship, their doctrine, and their lives calibrated to Who God is, to God's character. The only way He could do that was to send some messages to them that would rebuke them for their error and then offer them a way back to Himself. And so, five of the seven churches received severe rebukes from Christ, two did not. But I think they mirror many churches today. And so, that's why it’s so relevant for today because those seven churches, we can look around us today and say, 'Wow, there's that church, there's Ephesus, there's Smyrna, there's Sardis, there's Philadelphia, and so it’s a relevant section of the book. So, I wanted to spend more time on it. CP: In the book, you pointed to the fact that John, the author of Revelation, used the word "like" to describe a lot of what he saw, as in comparable to. Do you believe a lot of people who read Revelation fail to consider this when trying to interpret what is written? Kinley: I think it’s very important, as with all Bible interpretation, that we pay very close attention to the specific language and word choice that God uses in His Bible. John does that. He sees things that are very futuristic that are not comparable to his first century experience. And so, he has to use words like "like" and word pictures and that type of thing, and that tells us that we don't exactly know what these things are going to look like or to be like. But then other times, John is very, very specific with his language. He gives us specific numbers, specific places, specific names, and specific descriptions of things, so not everything is vague, but some things for sure John wasn't able to put into his first century language. CP: In Chapter 9, you described how Jesus will look and act at Armageddon, noting that "The risen Christ is the hero of the ages, a conqueror for all time. The world knows virtually nothing about this Jesus described in Revelation. And sadder still is that the church knows very little of this side of Jesus as well." Why do you believe that the church knows very little about this End Times side of Jesus?

Kinley: Two reasons. Number one, we tend to spend most of our time about Christ in the Gospels. And we get our vision, our image, our view of God from the Gospels. But the rest of the New Testament really tells us more about the character of God and Who Christ is. And when we get to Revelation, specifically chapter one, there's a vision of Christ there, but it's unlike anything we hear preached in most churches today. By the time we get to Revelation 19, the close of the age, we see a Christ coming back to essentially, get rid of sin, get rid of sinners, to set the world right again. Which is really something that everybody wants to happen in their heart. They want evil to go away, they want righteousness to reign, justice and fairness, and Christ is going to bring that kind of Kingdom immediately following his second coming. CP: At various times in the book, you outlined different perspectives on certain parts of Revelation, such as the identities of the two witnesses who prophesy, according to Revelation 11. Why did you believe it was important to describe different views on Revelation, even when you have a specific view that you prefer? Kinley: Basically, because God doesn't fill in those blanks for us in the book of Revelation. So, it is hard to be completely dogmatic about some of our conclusions as to the identity of the two witnesses, for example. I think there are clues, there are hints, there are certain word choices and certain activities of the two witnesses that tend to mirror some of the former prophets like Moses and Elijah. But we're not told exactly, so we can't be 100% sure, but we can have at least some sort of a confidence in coming to that conclusion. CP: What do you hope people take away from your book? Kinley: The main thing is that they just know God and love Him more. That's the last book of the Bible and God wants us to know Who He is. And Revelation was written so that we could know our God better. And so, that's what I want people to do: to know God, to love Him more as a result of this book.

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isn't a religion. It's a relationship"? Kinley: I'd say there's some similarity and overlap there. The basic idea is that we try to make God into our own image. We customized Jesus, if you will, to fit our preconceived thoughts about Him or emotions. We want to express love for God, but the basic premise of worship is that we cannot worship a God that we do not know. And it goes back to John 4 when Jesus told the woman at the well that God is searching for worshipers who will worship Him in spirit and in truth. And so, there has to be a theological foundation for Who God is before we can ever even love that God. In order to truly love God, we have to first do a little bit of theology. CP: Regarding the book of Revelation, you wrote that it is not "a riddle to be solved, but a revelation to be believed. It’s not a metaphoric tale laced with undecipherable symbols, but rather, a literal scene-by-scene depiction of history, to be written down in advance of its fulfillment." Do you believe a lot of churches have this misunderstanding about the book of Revelation? Kinley: I do. I think people view Revelation as sort of being off limits to Christians because of its apocalyptic language, because some of its symbolism that's in there. Also, it’s ironic because number one, it is the last book God ever wrote, so you'd think that it would be an important book, which it certainly is. But the very word, "Revelation," means to uncover or reveal or to unveil, not to hide. So, the irony is that people think that it’s a book of hidden knowledge when the very title of the book tells us that it is a book that tells us Who God is and tells us what's going to happen. And with a little bit of study and a little bit of guidance, it really isn't that hard to understand. CP: You dedicated two full chapters to the topic of the letters sent to the seven churches mentioned in Revelation. Why did you believe that the topic needed to be covered in two chapters rather than just one? Kinley: I think because Jesus' heart is for His bride, the Church. He loves His Church, He loves believers very, very much, and the thing He wanted most for

TRAVEL: PUT THESE 3 PLACES ON YOUR LIST BY DENNIS LENNOX

rom an overlooked part of France and a Mexican beach resort to a classic college town, I have compiled my travel recommendations for 2024. My picks weren’t suggested by AI or copied from some listicle shared on social media. Rather, they are based on actual travel experiences, as I can hardly recommend going somewhere I haven’t visited myself. With that in mind, consider making plans to visit the following three places.

DORDOGNE, FRANCE This region in southwest France, historically part of the province of Perigord, is probably the best-kept destination in a country that is the most-visited country in the world. While this column will feature more on Dordogne over the coming weeks, I wanted to highlight it now as a place to visit in 2024. In Dordogne, Americans can find everything they want in the Old World. Castles and chateaus, centuries-old churches, quaint countryside towns and villages, all things gastronomy — especially foie gras — and a wine scene that is admittedly overshadowed by nearby Bordeaux. Domaine de Rochebois is highly recommended. Not only does the chateau-turned-hotel have all the amenities expected of a five-star hotel, including a golf course, but the location makes it a good base to discover everything the surrounding region has to offer.

▲ Le Buisson-de-Cadouin is typical of the small towns and villages found in the French region of Dordogne. | Dennis Lennox

▲ The Chapel of St. John, a Romanesque church from the early 12th century, in Chancelade, France. | Dennis Lennox

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▲ The streets of the old town in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. | Dennis Lennox

PUERTO VALLARTA, MEXICO

▲ Early morning in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. | Dennis Lennox

The antithesis of a soulless resort factory is the 80-room Villa Premiere Boutique Hotel. Located along Mexico’s Pacific coast, Puerto Vallarta is an authentic Mexican city that wasn’t purpose-built for tourists. Locals and visitors alike congregate on the cobblestone streets of the old town (Viejo Vallarta) with its thriving arts scene and along the malecon, the beachfront promenade that overlooks the Bay of Flags (Bahia de Banderas). While Villa Premiere does offer an allinclusive package, the small number of rooms make for a unique experience. It feels more like a private club than a resort. Even all-inclusive skeptics will be won over by the attentive service and well-appointed rooms. For those wanting to leave the property, dinner at the fine dining restaurant Cafe des Artistes is highly recommended.

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▲ The quaint downtown of Oxford, Mississippi. | Dennis Lennox

OXFORD, MISSISSIPPI Football games will always be the big draw in this classic college town. Yet, it’s entirely possible to visit Oxford and never see the University of Mississippi play a game at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium. Dominating the quaint downtown is the landmark square with its National Register of Historic Places-listed courthouse. The stately postbellum edifice was built to replace an earlier courthouse burned in 1864 by Union troops during the Civil War. On all four sides of the square are numerous storefronts, some dating back more than a century. Anchoring it all is Neilson’s, which claims to be the oldest store anywhere in the South. Within walking distance are several excellent restaurants, including City Grocery, McEwen’s and Saint Leo. Not far away is Rowan Oak, where the acclaimed author William Faulkner lived and did much of his writing. Book a room at the Graduate. For something a little quieter, try The Oliver Hotel. ▲ Rowan Oak in Oxford, Mississippi, was the home of the author William Faulkner. | Dennis Lennox

VOL VIII FEB 2024

TRAVEL

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