THE TRUTH ABOUT HOW THE INTERNET STARTED.

Leader explains why the movement is seeing its biggest membership bump in 30 years and its mission for the years ahead.As CEO of the United Kingdom’s Evangelical Alliance (EA), Gavin Calver sometimes compares the organization to the polarizing British breakfast spread Marmite: You either love it or you hate it.The EA hears plenty from its critics, taking hits for stances on issues like transgender identity, and is calling on Christians who love them from a distance to actually join.“We’re asking, ‘Will you please stand with us as someone who loves Marmite, not dislikes it?’” Calver said. “In our culture, it makes it a little lighthearted, but it needs very little explaining. People get it quickly.”More churches, organizations, and individuals are responding to the call, and after record growth in the past year year, the tally of dues-paying individual members recently topped 23,000. The total is a signal of the group’s influence to government officials and societal leaders, allowing the EA to represent evangelicals more effectively in the wider culture.Many of the new individual members signed up when EA representatives spoke at member churches, so much of the recent growth “reflects the constituency we already have,” according to Calver. Still, the EA’s membership is becoming more ethnically diverse and trending younger, he said, with most of its growth happening “beyond the southeast of England where we were strongest to start with.”Calver recently spoke to CT about his vision for the EA, why so many new members are signing up now, and how evangelicals in the UK are staying united despite their differences.This interview has been edited for length and clarity.Continue reading...

Eastern Orthodox poet Scott Cairns reflects on his new collection, his journey of faith, and poetry's capacity to apprehend inexhaustible realities.Fans of the Harry Potter series might recall the magical tents from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. In the film version, when the Weasleys take Harry and others to the Quidditch World Cup, the audience sees rows and rows of small tents, seemingly designed to sleep only one or two people. Harry is confused as he witnesses the others walk into a single tent, which can hold much more than its external size betrays. Once Harry follows suit, he stands in awe at a spacious interior containing several bunkrooms, a dining room, and a large living room.This scene gives a helpful image for the ideas and realities Scott Cairns takes up in his new collection of poems, Lacunae. Cairns is an Eastern Orthodox poet whose work, besides ten poetry collections, includes essays, a spiritual memoir, and the text of two oratorios. Many of the poems in Lacunae concern the mystery of divine things, infinite in scope, somehow fitting within finite spaces and times. Just as Harry Potter was surprised to find all that was contained within an ostensibly small tent, one is shocked to find the fullness of God contained in Mary, and even more so, contained within every Christian by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.Joey Jekel, a writer and classical educator in Texas, spoke with Cairns about Lacunae, as well as the nature of poetry and the theology that informs his own.To borrow language from Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, could you give a brief account of your “sacred history?”I was raised as a Baptist, albeit a Baptist of what we might call a particularly brittle sort. I suppose the saving grace of those years was that my parents wore our community’s fundamentalism relatively lightly. My father liked saying that a ...Continue reading...

The author and journalist reflects on her own life and the American landscape.

"The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays." - Søren KierkegaardAll throughout history, people have turned to prayer to deal with tests and hardships. Men and women from all walks of life have found comfort, strength and guidance by lifting up their concerns to God.Here is a collection of 10 prayers that reach for something more. Each reflects a deep desire to not only receive God's blessings, but to become a blessing to others. And every one of them reminds us that God will make us able and ready to do that.? Let's allow these prayers to inspire us to grow in our faith and to live more like Christ.Photo credit: ©Getty Images/FotoDuets

"The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays." - Søren KierkegaardAll throughout history, people have turned to prayer to deal with tests and hardships. Men and women from all walks of life have found comfort, strength and guidance by lifting up their concerns to God.Here is a collection of 10 prayers that reach for something more. Each reflects a deep desire to not only receive God's blessings, but to become a blessing to others. And every one of them reminds us that God will make us able and ready to do that.? Let's allow these prayers to inspire us to grow in our faith and to live more like Christ.Photo credit: ©Getty Images/FotoDuets