An experienced evangelical educator sees challenges ahead—but opportunities too. Of the approximately 900 religiously affiliated colleges in the United States, over 200 maintain some sort of evangelical identity. In his memoir Academically Speaking: Lessons from a Life in Christian Higher Education, seasoned educator Rick Ostrander recounts his vocational journey while offering reflections on evangelical higher…
After an accident on a radio tower, Federico Magbanua went on to inspire a generation of pastors in the Philippines. When the late Federico “Fred” Mission Magbanua Jr. preached a radio sermon on offering one’s body as a living sacrifice, he probably didn’t imagine he’d one day hear these words again as a 10,000-watt radio…
Rob Reiner’s documentary makes a strong case against political extremism in the name of Christ—for those who already agree. Heave an egg out a Pullman window,” social critic H. L. Mencken famously said in 1925, “and you will hit a fundamentalist anywhere in the United States.” I often think about Mencken’s line when I read…
How their disaffiliation stands to have a bigger impact on their communities and why leaders are hopeful they’ll come back. Black Americans are the most religious non-religious group in the country. In a new Pew Research Center report on the growing segment of unaffiliated “nones” in the US, they stand out for their faithfulness. Nearly…
Church leaders believe Christ still offers the answers that the religiously unaffiliated are looking for, even if religious baggage is driving them away. With 28 percent of Americans saying they don’t belong to a religious tradition, the “nones” now outnumber any single faith group in the US, according to a Pew Research Center study released…
Being a “strong Black woman” was my badge of honor, until it almost killed me. There are many issues of pressing concern for Black Christians in America, such as ensuring Black lives matter in our churches, reaching Black youth with the gospel, discipling the next generation of Black church leaders, battling white Christian nationalism, and…
Even Gary Chapman clarifies it’s not about picking just one. When Katie Frugé and her husband, Lafayette, decided to get married in 2007, they were 21 and did not know what they did not know. “We were too young to get married and too young really to care,” said Frugé, who is now director of…
A year ago, I saw the cure for casual Christianity. On February 8, 2023, a routine 50-minute chapel at Asbury University turned into a 16-day event that captured attention around the world. I streamed the service from my office that morning. After a message from the speaker, a student gospel choir closed in song. I…
Multiple blazes torched at least eight evangelical churches, as pastors grieve and bury the dead. This January marked Chilean pastor Alex Ugarte’s 24th anniversary at Iglesia Evangélica Bautista Esperanza Viva (Living Hope Evangelical Baptist Church) in Viña del Mar, a milestone that prompted him to ask himself if he should transition to something new. His…
Believers are learning how to celebrate and evangelize amid Tsagaan Sar’s Buddhism-infused rituals. Before college students travel home to celebrate Tsagaan Sar, Mongolia’s Lunar New Year, Dagdansengee Delgersaikhan, the general secretary of the student ministry IFES in Mongolia, discusses with the students how to approach the country’s biggest holiday with their new Christian faith. It’s…
