A late historian explores how crusade hymns told both the classic story of gospel salvation and the evolving story of evangelical worship music.Crowds of over 50,000. Famous special guests. Hundreds of cities in the US and around the world. Beloved, catchy songs. For many, these might sound like readouts from the Taylor Swift Eras Tour hype machine. But exchange the glittery girl power for the gospel in baritone, and you have one of the most successful musical touring acts in the postwar world: the Billy Graham Crusades.The first association that “Billy Graham Crusade” may evoke is not musical at all, but rather a close-up shot of the evangelist, with his penetrating, wide-eyed gaze and raised forearms, thundering, “The Bible says …” Admittedly, music was not the main focus.Yet as the late historian Edith Blumhofer shows in her final book, Songs I Love to Sing: The Billy Graham Crusades and the Shaping of Modern Worship, neither Graham’s ministry nor the late-century rise of contemporary Christian music can be understood without it. As crusade song leader Cliff Barrows pursued his main goal—“sing to save”—he and his teammates bridged stylistic, cultural, and generational divides, transforming evangelicals’ music into the harmonic blend of old and new that is familiar today.Mining rich resourcesBefore unpacking this highly original book, a few words about the author. Blumhofer is an American religious historian renowned for her empathetic biographies of hymnist Fanny J. Crosby and evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson, as well as broader studies of evangelicalism and Pentecostalism. She concluded her career with this new study, sadly succumbing to a battle with cancer in the process.To finish the project, she tapped Jesus People expert Larry Eskridge, with whom she had for many years directed the Institute ...Continue reading...

President William Ruto commissioned church leaders to meet with Haitian law enforcement, military representatives, and a gang leader to discuss Kenya's security mission.Kenya’s leaders aren’t saying much publicly about the security force they plan to send to gang-embattled Haiti. But they’re talking a whole lot with God.Last month, as armed groups escalated their insurgency in Port-au-Prince and plunged Haiti deeper into a historic humanitarian crisis, pastors advising Kenya’s government met for three days at a hotel in Nairobi to pray.In a sky-blue conference room at the Weston Hotel, three Kenyan pastors joined Haitian and American ministry leaders and Kenya’s first lady, Rachel Ruto, to plead for divine assistance for the beleaguered Caribbean country. They prayed for the 2,500-person multinational police force Kenya has volunteered to lead to help Haitian law enforcement. At one point, meeting participants told CT, group members wept.After two days of prayer, the first lady dropped in on an album release party in another part of the Weston, which President William Ruto owns, and announced her office had formed a prayer committee for Haiti. “We cannot allow our police to go to Haiti without prayer,” Rachel Ruto told fans of the Kenyan gospel group 1005 Songs & More.Kenya agreed last October to spearhead a UN-authorized international security mission to Haiti, but the deployment has faced various delays, including legal challenges and questions about funding.The prayer marathon was part of a broader effort by the Ruto administration to strategize “a spiritual solution for our police and people of Haiti,” according to the first lady. The initiative, coordinated by the administration’s “faith diplomacy” office, has so far included a national prayer gathering, a 40-day prayer guide for Haiti, and an official fact-finding ...Continue reading...

President William Ruto commissioned church leaders to meet with Haitian law enforcement, military representatives, and a gang leader to discuss Kenya's security mission.Kenya’s leaders aren’t saying much publicly about the security force they plan to send to gang-embattled Haiti. But they’re talking a whole lot with God.Last month, as armed groups escalated their insurgency in Port-au-Prince and plunged Haiti deeper into a historic humanitarian crisis, pastors advising Kenya’s government met for three days at a hotel in Nairobi to pray.In a sky-blue conference room at the Weston Hotel, three Kenyan pastors joined Haitian and American ministry leaders and Kenya’s first lady, Rachel Ruto, to plead for divine assistance for the beleaguered Caribbean country. They prayed for the 2,500-person multinational police force Kenya has volunteered to lead to help Haitian law enforcement. At one point, meeting participants told CT, group members wept.After two days of prayer, the first lady dropped in on an album release party in another part of the Weston, which President William Ruto owns, and announced her office had formed a prayer committee for Haiti. “We cannot allow our police to go to Haiti without prayer,” Rachel Ruto told fans of the Kenyan gospel group 1005 Songs & More.Kenya agreed last October to spearhead a UN-authorized international security mission to Haiti, but the deployment has faced various delays, including legal challenges and questions about funding.The prayer marathon was part of a broader effort by the Ruto administration to strategize “a spiritual solution for our police and people of Haiti,” according to the first lady. The initiative, coordinated by the administration’s “faith diplomacy” office, has so far included a national prayer gathering, a 40-day prayer guide for Haiti, and an official fact-finding ...Continue reading...