The champion of “native missions” trained more than 100,000 evangelists but got in trouble for financial mismanagement.Athanasius Yohannan, who built one of the world’s largest mission organizations on the idea that Western Christians should support “native missionaries” but got in trouble for financial irregularities and dishonest fundraising, died on May 8. He was 74 and got hit by a car while walking along the road near his ministry headquarters in Texas.Born Kadapilaril Punnoose Yohannan and known for most of his ministry as K. P., Yohannan founded Gospel for Asia in 1979. Over the next 45 years, the organization trained more than 100,000 people to preach the gospel and plant and pastor churches in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and other places in Southeast Asia, according to a recent ministry report. Gospel for Asia raised as much as $93 million in a year and in 2005 reported it was supporting about 14,500 indigenous evangelists and pastors in same-culture and near-culture ministry. Christians in the US were asked to give $30 per month to support them.“If we evangelize the world’s lost billions … it will be through native missions,” Yohannan wrote for CT. “The native missionary is far more effective than the expatriate. The national already knows the language and is already part of the culture. In many instances, he or she can go places where outsiders cannot go.”Yohannan’s death was mourned by Gospel for Asia, the church that he started and served as metropolitan bishop, and prominent political leaders in India.“He will be remembered for his service to society and emphasis on improving the quality of life of the downtrodden,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi wrote on social media. “May his soul rest in peace.”Both the governor of Kerala and the ...Continue reading...

Aaron Renn outlines individual, institutional, and missional strategies for adapting to a hostile culture.Rarely does an essay cause such a stir as Aaron Renn’s “The Three Worlds of Evangelicalism.” Published in First Things in 2022, Renn’s framework for describing Christianity’s fall into cultural disfavor since the 1960s elicited a wide range of responses, from wholehearted agreement to sympathetic skepticism to vociferous disagreement, and seemingly everything in between.Renn’s essay categorizes the recent history of evangelicalism in the United States into three periods, or worlds. In the positive world, Christianity was in a position of cultural dominance; most Americans, even those who were not particularly religious, recognized the importance of Christianity to the country’s collective moral fabric. In the neutral world, the broader culture came to see Christianity not as uniquely good, but still as a belief system and worldview doing more good than harm.Since the early 2010s—the dates themselves, Renn admits, are not binding—evangelicalism has been in the negative world. Here, culture and its elites are inherently suspicious of evangelical Christianity, especially when it challenges or conflicts with emerging, more attractive ideologies. Christians in the negative world, according to Renn, will encounter resistance to previously acceptable beliefs and behaviors. This resistance could take many forms, from simple yet pronounced disagreement all the way to the dreaded C-word: cancellation.Less than two years after his essay, Renn’s book, Life in the Negative World: Confronting Challenges in an Anti-Christian Culture, updates and elaborates on his framework and provides tangible resources for Christians concerned about this cultural transformation. Renn’s ...Continue reading...

Aaron Renn outlines individual, institutional, and missional strategies for adapting to a hostile culture.

"The Office" actress Angela Kinsey has recalled a time she refused to say a scripted joke on the popular NBC sitcom about a gay character that she didn't believe accurately portrayed Christians or the love of Christ.?

Christians today aren't the first to wonder about the parts of Jesus' life the Bible doesn't comment on.

The good news is that no matter how hopeless we may feel in these chaotic days, Christians can embrace and share a hope the world can neither recreate nor destroy.

According to a new survey, only 6% of professing Christians possess a biblical worldview, as many Americans embrace syncretism.

Churches are combating syncretism among millennials and Gen Z amid a rise of social media healers who call on ancestral spirits.Millions of Black South Africans seek guidance from sangomas, traditional healers or so-called witch doctors who use their spiritual gifts to connect with ancestors, prescribe herbs to heal illnesses, and throw dry bones to predict the future.It’s a centuries-old tradition that has continued in the majority-Christian country and has adapted for the internet age: A new breed of influencer sangomas are positioning themselves on social media as digital-entrepreneurial-spiritual seers.Church leaders across several major denominations in South Africa have long decried the practice as involving “evil, devilish, and unclean spirits.” But as the online sagomas draw in a mass audience of millennial Christians—a generation eager to “decolonize” their lives and reconnect to indigenous African roots—church leaders have new concerns around syncretism as well as internet scams.Condemnation of sangomas and African ancestral worship is the strongest cog uniting European-legacy churches like Anglicans, Baptists, and Catholics as well as African-initiated churches like the Zion Christian Church (ZCC), said Tendai Muchatuta, a cleric with the Apostolic of All Nations Church in Johannesburg.Both kinds of churches say the practice, despite its popularity, is not compatible with Christianity.The ZCC is the largest African-initiated church in Southern Africa, with about 12 million churchgoers, including some 9 million in South Africa. Bauleni Moloi, a ZCC pastor in Johannesburg, called sangomas “dubious agents of darkness out to sway Christians from the true focus on the gospel of the cross.”But younger Christians are more likely to disagree. Many millennial and Gen Z South Africans embrace ...Continue reading...

(UPDATED) Migrant rights have been off-radar for many Panamanian Christians. But as pressures increase, some are speaking out ahead of this weekend's general elections.

Migrant rights have been off-radar for many Panamanian Christians. But as pressures increase, some are speaking out ahead of this weekend's general elections.Update (May 6, 2024): José Raúl Mulino will be Panama’s new president after the Realizando Metas (Realizing Goals) party candidate won 34.2 percent of the vote.Mulino began the campaign as the running mate of former president Ricardo Martinelli. (Martinelli previously served from 2009 to 2014.) When Martinelli was booted from the ticket after receiving a 10-year prison sentence for money laundering, Mulino assumed the top of the ticket. While other candidates fought to get him removed from the ballot for bypassing the party’s selection process, the country’s supreme court declared it legal two days prior to the election.Last month, Mulino promised to close the Darién Gap, where tens of thousands of migrants have crossed from Colombia to Panama on their journey to the US border. On Monday, the president-elect reiterated his desire to do so, saying that he will work with the governments of Colombia and the United States to jointly create a long-term solution.“Currently we have technology to survey the border, and I hope to start a repatriation process as early as possible,” he said in an interview Monday with Radio Blu.Mulino is set to be inaugurated on July 1.----On May 5, Panamanians will vote for a new president. The outcome of this election may have consequences for far more than its 4.4 million residents; it could change the migration reality for the hundreds of thousands of people traveling from South America, Asia, and Africa who pass through the Central American country en route to the United States.Leading in the polls is José Raúl Mulino, a candidate for Realizando Metas (Realizing Goals), a right-wing populist party founded by disgraced president Ricardo ...Continue reading...

Police in Pakistan are refusing to arrest Muslims who attacked a Catholic family and seized their farmland, and officers also damaged property, sources said.

In its 2024 report, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom has recommended that India be designated as a “country of particular concern” due to persistent and egregious violations of religious freedoms. The recommendation came as Kuki-Zo Christians in Manipur state solemnly marked the first anniversary of ongoing violence, which shows no signs of abating.

Non-Christians typically believe the gospel to the degree that Christians live the gospel.

Thousands of Christians will take time tomorrow during the National Day of Prayer to specifically pray for this nation, our leaders, and our future.

Christians today aren't the first to wonder about the parts of Jesus' life the Bible doesn't comment on.

Thousands of Christians will take time tomorrow during the National Day of Prayer to specifically pray for this nation, our leaders, and our future.

Fulani herdsmen attacked residents of a village in central Nigeria's Plateau state as they slept at 2 a.m. on April 19, killing 12 Christians, sources said.

Attacks on two predominantly Christian villages in Egypt last week came after days of rising tensions, which the state's security services did nothing to quell despite being notified of impending danger to Christians, according to a human rights group.

Thousands of Christians will take time tomorrow during the National Day of Prayer to specifically pray for this nation, our leaders, and our future.

There is to be one defining mark of a political Christian.

Christians can study creation for God's glory and our good. But science doesn't trump the Bible. God's Word is the ultimate authority because it's flawless.

Pouring rain didn't stop dozens from marching in the nation's capital on Saturday to stand in solidarity with persecuted Christians globally, with some asking why the American Church isn't doing more to spread awareness.?

Angry residents beat Coptic Christians and torched their homes last Tuesday in Egypt's southern Minya governorate over rumors that a church building was to be constructed there.

Taylor Swift's new album, The Tortured Poets Department, has garnered criticism from faith leaders who have taken to social media this week to express their distaste with the lyrical content that they believe mocks God and Christians.?

Grammy-nominated Christian singer Anne Wilson has released a new album blending contemporary Christian music with mainstream country stylings and a theme stressing that Christians are viewed as "rebels" in society, just like Jesus.?