A rocket hit Leora’s high-rise apartment building in Israel, but she found protection in her “safe room.”

Later, one of her three adult children came to her apartment in blood-drenched clothes before leaving again. He soon returned a second time in bloody clothes, needing to change again.

The Israeli woman shared her story with Doug Hall, who served on the second Texas Baptist Men volunteer team cooking meals in Israel since the war began.

“There’s an obvious weight of war that sits over the country all the time,” Hall said. “It affects everyone.”

Hall met Leora when he and other volunteers arrived at a hospital in Ashkelon, about 10 miles north of Gaza, to deliver food. Twenty-nine TBM volunteers in two teams worked in the first few weeks of fighting. A third TBM team arrived in Israel this week.

“We spent maybe 30 minutes talking” to Leora, Hall said.

On the first day of fighting, a rocket hit the lower part of her apartment building and “wiped out a market that she visited three or four times a day,” he added. After spending about 10 minutes in her safe room, the woman went downstairs to help the injured.

On the first or second day, her son arrived wearing the bloody clothes. Leora was “obviously emotional when she would speak about that because you’re seeing your son return, then he walks right back out the door and goes out to be involved in the fighting,” Hall said. “And then he comes back later and says, ‘I need some more clothes.’ And then disappears again.”

The son had been “helping wounded and dying people, dragging them out of harm’s way,” Hall said.

After the first days of conflict, the children of the woman at the hospital were all safe and none of her family members had been injured or killed.

“She had gone to several funerals of kids that were at the concert that you saw on the news,” Hall said. “Her children had friends that were at that concert, so she went to their funerals.”

‘Always felt safe but I never felt at ease’

TBM volunteers do not get involved in the issues behind the conflict. “We were there to provide help and hope to the folks there, whoever it was, whether it was Israeli, Palestinian, Arab; it didn’t matter,” Hall said.

Though in a safe location, the volunteers still caught glimpses of the war.

“We would hear the rockets,” Hall said. “We would hear the booms in the air.”

A team driving to Tel Aviv one evening “saw an interception of a rocket by Iron Dome,” which involves Israeli missiles intercepting rockets intended for populated areas.

Since returning to Texas, Hall often receives questions about whether he felt safe.

“I always felt safe,” he said. “But I never felt at ease, because there is a constant presence of the reality of war and the fact that for centuries war has raged over the land.”

The war is ever-present in the minds of the people who live in Israel and Gaza, while the volunteers work preparing up to 3,000 meals a day.

Hall told of the long days of work faced by TBM volunteers. They rose early, some by 4:30 a.m., with a devotional at 6 a.m. After prayer time together, the volunteers ate breakfast and then started cooking, which continued until early afternoon.

After a light lunch, Israeli and TBM teams delivered the sandwiches and meals “to wherever our Israeli partners said they needed them,” he said.

“Sometimes we wouldn’t get back from that until 5:30 or 6 p.m. or even later,” he said. When there were evening cooking opportunities, volunteers didn’t return until 8:30 or 9 p.m.

‘Thank you for coming’

As the Americans encountered people living in Israel, a pattern emerged in the response they received. Hall recalled being in a market one evening when a woman approached him along with her son and his wife and infant. The young man, about 18 or 19 years old and in the military, had his weapon with him.

The TBM volunteers tended to stand out when in public, especially when they were together as a group. The woman asked him “who I was and why I was there,” Hall said. “So, I told her we are with an organization called TBM, and she kind of looked at me then asked, ‘What does that stand for?’

Hall explained that TBM is a Christian volunteer organization that helps people whenever there’s a disaster or a problem.

“And that, you could see, registered, and she reached out and touched me and said, ‘Thank you for coming,’” Hall continued. “Every person that we encountered like her, the conversation would always end, ‘Well, thank you for coming.’”

TBM is “providing help, immediate help with food, and hope” to people in Israel, and it moves them to know “they have a partner, a Christian partner,” Hall said.

“We may not ever see the ultimate healing that we normally look for,” he continued. There are few opportunities in Israel right now to actually share the gospel with people, “but they do arise in intimate conversations with various people,” he said.

“Certainly, we provide the help that everybody is used to seeing TBM provide and then, from our conversations, I do know that they would see that as us walking alongside them and providing some hope as well, that they weren’t standing alone.”

PLAINS, Ga.—Georgia Baptist disaster relief volunteers are preparing meals for hundreds of Secret Service agents, Georgia Highway Patrol troopers, National Guard troops and others providing security during several days of memorials for former first lady Rosalynn Carter.

In their easily recognizable yellow shirts and caps, the disaster relief volunteers have been busy in mobile kitchens preparing evening meals that included roast beef, mashed potatoes, green beans, salads, rolls and fire-roasted corn.

At lunchtime, they’ve served up chicken fajitas, turkey sandwiches, ham sandwiches, chips and soft drinks. For breakfast, they’ve been dishing up grits—a southern favorite—along with eggs and omelets.

“It’s just a privilege for us to be able to do this,” said David Reynolds, a Baxley, Ga., resident who is heading up the project. “We know that we’re helping not only the Carter family, but also these support people.”

The disaster relief volunteers served 700 meals on Sunday and expected to double that on Wednesday, when crowds were expected to gather again in Plains for the former first lady’s private funeral at Maranatha Baptist Church.

Georgia Baptist disaster relief teams routinely are deployed across the state and nation to assist victims of earthquakes, floods, wildfires, tornadoes and hurricanes.

The overall goal is “to bring hope, healing and help” to those who need it most, said Chris Fuller, a longtime disaster relief volunteer and a retired campus minister for Baptist Collegiate Ministries.

And, this week, the goal is to make sure hundreds of security personnel serving in a tiny town with few restaurants are well-fed.

WASHINGTON (RNS)—A trio of Christian leaders are visiting the U.S. capital carrying a letter signed by churches in Bethlehem urging President Joe Biden and congressional lawmakers to push for a permanent cease fire in Gaza and work to establish lasting peace in the region.

The leaders—two prominent ministers and a young Palestinian Christian activist—arrived in Washington, D.C., Nov. 27 in hopes of brokering a meeting to present Biden and other political leaders with the letter.

“God has placed political leaders in a position of power so that they can bring justice, support those who suffer, and be instruments of God’s peace,” the letter reads. “We want a constant and comprehensive ceasefire. Enough death. Enough destruction. This is a moral obligation. There must be other ways. This is our call and prayer this Christmas.”

The letter was signed by representatives from Bethlehem’s major Christian communities, listing churches affiliated with Greek Orthodox, Syriac, Armenian, Catholic and Lutheran traditions.

The letter noted Advent, the liturgical season when Christians prepare spiritually for Christmas, begins next week. But the signatories pointed out that Christmas celebrations in Bethlehem, which draw thousands of pilgrims and tourists from all over the world to the city annually, largely have been canceled this year to express solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.

‘Season of death and despair’

“This should have been a time of joy and hope. This year, it is a season of death and despair,” the letter reads. “This year, Christmas prayers are the only moment of hope in the middle of this human catastrophe caused by the war. There will be no manifestation of joy for the children. This year, Christmas celebrations are cancelled in Bethlehem.”

Munther Isaac, pastor of Bethlehem’s Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church, said he traveled to the United States to present policymakers with the letter because he considers stopping the war a religious mandate.

“I truly believe that God is in solidarity with those who are victims of injustice and oppression, and thus the church should have the same position,” said Isaac, who also serves as academic dean at Bethlehem Bible College. “God is under the rubble.”

Isaac lamented the brutal Oct. 7 attack by Hamas in southern Israel, which left around 1,200 dead and hundreds kidnapped. He also expressed outrage at the subsequent assault of Gaza by Israel, which has resulted in more than 13,000 deaths in the region and displaced most of the area’s roughly 2 million residents, sparking an ongoing humanitarian crisis.

“We want (lawmakers) to hear a different perspective,” he said. “We want to think that there must be other ways. Killing children like this can never bring peace.”

The visit from Isaac and his companions—Jack Sara, president of Bethlehem Bible College and general secretary of the Middle East and North Africa Evangelical Alliance for the World Evangelical Alliance—comes amid an ongoing multi-day cease-fire between Israel and Hamas.

On Monday, officials announced the pause in hostilities would be extended for two more days, allowing additional aid to enter Gaza and for the release of more hostages held by Hamas as well as Palestinians imprisoned by the Israeli government.

Desire for lasting peace

But Isaac stressed a short-term pause would not be enough to achieve the greater goal of a lasting peace.

“This cannot be a four- or five-day cease-fire and then go back to the same destruction,” he said. “All we want for Christmas is a constant and comprehensive cease-fire and an end to this war.”

The pastor expressed deep concern for his fellow Palestinians, railing against Israel’s decades-long occupation of the Palestinian territories—including Bethlehem in the West Bank. He voiced gratitude for some of his religious partners in the United States and other prominent Christian voices who have been among those calling for a cease-fire in Gaza.

But overall, Isaac said, he and others in Bethlehem have been “very disappointed” in the response of many Christians to the war.

“Western churches have, sadly, continued to weaponize the Bible,” he said. “The narrative of some Christians and churches is completely dehumanizing to Palestinians—labeling all Palestinians as Hamas or terrorists, or not getting the whole history.”

Gaza is home to a small Christian community that is among the oldest in the world, Isaac noted. The fighting has destroyed or damaged churches, including an airstrike on the campus of the Church of St. Porphyrius in Gaza City that killed more than a dozen people taking shelter there.

“We have Christians in Gaza who are literally fighting for their lives,” Isaac said. “Right now, we’re concerned that this long and continuous Christian presence might come to an end.”

KHARTOUM, Sudan (BP)—A return to Sharia law might be in store for Sudan as civil war nears its 10th month there, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom said in its latest fact sheet on the Sahel Region of Africa.

The Sudanese Armed Forces under the country’s transitional leadership of General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan has recruited thousands who worked as intelligence operatives of former pro-Islamic President Omar al-Bashir, the commission said, raising concerns among Christians that al-Burhan has hopes of establishing Sharia law.

Christian persecution eased when al-Bashir was overthrown in 2019. However, a transitional government aimed at establishing democracy has been in jeopardy since civil war began in April between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group under the leadership of General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.

“After the fall of the Bashir government, the transitional government granted Muslim and Christian groups some important freedoms, earning praise and support from the U.S. government,” the commission stated.

“However, the outbreak of new conflict in April 2023 within the state security apparatus has severely diminished any possibility of safe, open religious practice in Sudan.”

Sudan’s deterioration is part of a recent political trend across the Sahel, including Mali, and Niger, where armed forces attacked an already weak national government and established a military coup.

The new under-resourced state is supported by external forces, including the Russian-backed Wagner Group, to confront “extremist elements.”

While cracking down on violent extremists, the new government uses accusations of extremism as a pretext for suppressing religious minorities, the fact sheet stated.

“The state then begins to perpetrate religious freedom violations in the campaign against violent extremist groups,” the commission stated.

“At the same time, competing ethnic and religious groups which historically distrusted one another may take sides for or against the new government, change alliances, or form armed auxiliary units to survive. This posturing may result in further effects on individuals’ freedom of religion or belief.”

Eric Patterson, president of the Religious Freedom Institute, said the trend shows the connection between international religious freedom and U.S. international governmental relations.

“For those who say that issues of religious freedom and human rights are somehow tertiary, or fourth- or fifth- or sixth-tier things, what we see in this region (is) how closely intertwined (are) issues of religious identity, issues of religious political systems, and how closely these are tied to national security imperatives, both for the people on the ground and for our United States allies,” Patterson said.

Patterson was a panelist in a conversation the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom hosted Nov. 9 on religious freedom in the Sahel.

Across the Sahel, “the presence of insurgent groups, ethnic and religious conflict, and the continual intervention of military actors in politics have a direct impact on religious communities,” the commission said.

During al-Bashir’s regime which spanned 20 years, the commission considered Sudan a Country of Particular Concern for religious freedom violations, denoting “systemic, ongoing and egregious” violations. USCIRF downgraded Sudan to its Special Watch List of countries to be monitored in 2019, and removed the country altogether from its list of religious freedom violators in 2020.

 But the overthrow of the transitional government in April represents “grave threats to religious freedom” there, USCIRF Vice Chairman Frederick A. Davie said in a Nov. 9 conversation.

Sudan suffered decades of civil wars that began in the mid-20th century before the country split in 2011, establishing Sudan as a majority Muslim north and a majority (60.5 percent) Christian South Sudan. Christians comprise about 5.4 percent of Sudan’s 48 million people.

BOSTON (BP)—In the nearly four centuries since its founding as America’s first park, Boston Common has witnessed some of the most important news events of American history—from public hangings during Colonial days to celebrating American independence in 1776 to Union soldier recruitment in the 1860s.

Earlier this month, Boston Common witnessed the sharing of history’s greatest news—the gift of salvation God offers in Jesus Christ.

Jaime Owens, lead pastor of the historic Tremont Temple Baptist Church just a few blocks from Boston Common, led 15 congregants to the park to give away copies of the Gospel of John and sandwiches and to share their faith.

While at the park, the group initiated conversations through a sign saying, “Ask a pastor anything.” A number of interesting questions came Owens’ way, including one from a Muslim who wondered how Christians could believe in a God who died on the cross.

Another nonreligious man asked what the world would be like if everyone lived like the Good Samaritan.

In each case, Owens shared the gospel. He also teamed other experienced personal evangelists with less experienced ones to strike up conversations, hand out food and talk about Jesus.

‘Encouraging because we can do it together’

It marked the first week of what Owens hopes will be at least a monthly time of personal evangelism for church members.

“In my preaching, I’ve always emphasized sharing the gospel personally with those God has placed in our lives—neighbors, coworkers, unsaved family,” Owens said.

“But we had never considered going downtown together to openly share the gospel. This is a new direction for us. It’s one way we can carry out the mission, and it’s encouraging because we can do it together.”

Tremont Temple dates back to 1839. Abraham Lincoln once spoke at the church, and Charles Dickens first read “A Christmas Carol” on American soil there. Today, the congregation is affiliated jointly with both American Baptist Churches and the Southern Baptist Convention.

Carl Bradford, an associate professor of evangelism and missions at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, said the timing couldn’t be better for churches like Tremont Temple to get more involved in personal evangelism.

Bradford believes people are more open to the gospel during the holiday season than other times of the year. He notes research has shown more people are searching for churches online during Christmas and Easter than at any other time of the year. The same studies, he says, show Christmas and Easter are the highest attendance Sundays of the year in many churches.

“Though not everyone in the world understands the gospel message, many do embrace the spirit of giving behind Christmas,” Bradford said. “The season’s emphasis on generosity and goodwill can make people more open to hearing the gospel.”

Bradford also notes many people struggle through the holidays because of all the cultural pressures attached to the holidays. Often, those people are open to hearing about what Jesus has done for them.

‘A whole lot of seeds being sown’

At Lincoln Avenue Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Ill., the holiday season comes during the middle of a fresh evangelistic push. While the church is in a transition period between lead pastors, interim pastor Eric Reed has been encouraging the church to focus on evangelism.

“There was a real sense of: ‘We’re going to be OK. We’re good.’” said David Higgs, the worship pastor at Lincoln Avenue. “But [Pastor Reed] brought this to our attention. We knew we were good, but we couldn’t just settle there. We don’t want to settle. The way he put it is, ‘When the sheep catch their breath and get comfortable, they tend to nibble, and they nibble on each other.”

So, the church decided to go all in on an initiative they call “Engage J-Ville,” which is all about personal connections and community connections. Leveraging an evangelistic prayer app through their state Baptist convention, church members began praying for and sharing the gospel with friends and neighbors who didn’t have a relationship with Jesus.

The church also had several events scheduled throughout the fall and into the holiday season, including a Fall on the Farm outreach and a Christmas concert.

To create a visual reminder of their commitment to sharing the Good News, the church has a display of ping-pong balls. Each represents a person who heard the gospel through someone in the church.

“We’ve not, to my knowledge, heard of any immediate people coming to Christ yet,” Higgs said. “But there are a whole lot of seeds being sown. We’re hearing that, so we’re just going to watch those be planted and trust the Lord will work.”

NASHVILLE (BP)—The team searching for the next leader of the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee said it has moved into what it calls an investigation phase, according to a public statement from the group.

Neal Hughes, chairman of the SBC Executive Committee president/CEO search team, said the group is “following the vetting process for EC personnel as outlined by our attorneys and approved by the trustees in the recent September meeting.”

The investigative process includes a checklist of numerous references, background checks and psychological evaluations.

At the September Executive Committee meeting, Hughes outlined the search team’s four-phase process: the invitation phase, the interview phase, the investigation phase and the introduction phase.

Hughes said the team is “united and prayerful as we press forward with the hopeful goal of presenting a candidate in February.”

The Executive Committee is scheduled to meet Feb. 20-21 in Nashville.

The permanent position has been open since the resignation of Ronnie Floyd in mid-October 2021.

In August, interim president and CEO Willie McLaurin abruptly resigned after confessing his education credentials were forgeries.

Hughes said the team will release another update in early January.

“We ask you to continue to join us in seeking God’s good and perfect will for the next leader of our SBC Executive Committee. Pray for patience, wisdom, discernment and continued unity in the journey,” he said.

WASHINGTON (RNS)—Four Christian leaders and education advocates are seeking the Oklahoma Supreme Court’s permission to join a lawsuit filed by the state’s attorney general that aims to prevent the opening of an online Catholic charter school.

The plaintiffs—Melissa Abdo, Bruce Prescott, Mitch Randall and Lori Walke—contend the Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board’s decision to sponsor the St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School undermines religious freedom in the state and will lead to discrimination against nonreligious students.

“The separation of church and state is not the sole responsibility of the state. The church has to do its part to hold that line and continue to honor that separation,” Walke said.

St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School would be the country’s first publicly funded religious charter school.

Attorney General Gentner Drummond has argued in his own filings the decision violates Oklahoma’s Constitution. He has said he is ready to take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court if needed.

The Oklahoma faith leaders are represented in their effort to sway the case by Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Education Law Center and the Freedom From Religion Foundation. They previously filed a separate lawsuit in a district court this summer.

The board is represented by the conservative Christian legal group Alliance Defending Freedom.

Accountable to taxpayers

When she learned about the board’s decision to allocate public funds to St. Isidore, Abdo, a Catholic resident of Tulsa County, immediately felt the need to counter assumptions that the lawsuit was an anti-Catholic effort.

“I’m Catholic. This happens to be a Catholic school effort. But I would never expect people of another faith to pay for educating children in the Catholic faith,” she said.

A longtime public education advocate, Abdo sits on the public school board in Jenks, Okla., a suburb of Tulsa, and the Oklahoma State School Boards Association board of directors.

Besides her misgivings about religious freedom, she also expressed concerns about whether St. Isidore will be able to comply with all obligations imposed on public schools, such as holding open meetings and keeping records open.

“It’s a very big responsibility when we are accountable to the taxpayers because they’re paying for school,” she said.

The senior minister of Mayflower Congregational Church in Oklahoma City for the past 15 years, Walke said her advocacy for the separation of state and church stemmed from her Southern Baptist upbringing.

Her church, which is aligned with the United Church of Christ, counts many queer parishioners, and Walke said she is worried St. Isidore will discriminate against LGBTQ+ students.

“They explicitly state that they are going to be part of the evangelizing mission of the church. … Of course, they mean their particular flavor and brand of Christianity, which does happen to be homophobic, not to mention misogynist,” she said.

She said she also fears that support for St. Isidore will siphon funds from Oklahoma public schools.

St. Isidore arises from a joint effort of the Oklahoma City and Tulsa archdioceses. The board rejected the school’s application in April before approving it in June. In October, it issued a formal contract of sponsorship. The application is now in the charter agreement phase.

‘Open-door enrollment policy’

Brett A. Farley, executive director of the Catholic Conference of Oklahoma, said claims that St. Isidore will discriminate against certain students are unfounded.

“Catholic schools have always maintained an open-door enrollment policy, so claims of alleged discrimination are politically motivated and untrue,” he said in an email.

He estimated the student bodies of the Catholic schools in the state are 25 percent non-Catholic on average.

On its website, St. Isidore said it will offer “the best of the Catholic intellectual tradition” and comply with the Congregation for Catholic Education’s recommendations. This 1997 document promotes a religious education, respectful of parents’ inputs, and directed “toward the whole person—body, mind, soul and spirit.”

St. Isidore plans to open for the 2024-25 school year and aims to serve 1,500 students after five years of operation.

Farley noted that other Oklahoma religious schools are already receiving public funds through “the Lindsey Nicole Henry scholarship program, the Equal Opportunity Scholarship program, and the newly-created Parental Choice Tax Credit.”

St. Isidore’s right to exist is backed by the state’s superintendent of public instruction, Ryan Walters, who said the lawsuit “discriminates against some Oklahomans due to their faith.”

In February, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt also voiced his support for the Catholic charter school. “Am I supportive of the Catholics going out and setting up a Catholic charter school? 100 percent. I think that’s great,” he said at a news conference, adding, “Just like I don’t shy away from my faith, I don’t expect anybody to shy away from their faith, either.”

Discrimination ‘funded by government money’

Like Walke, Randall said he was inspired by his own Southern Baptist education. A Baptist minister and CEO of Good Faith Media, Randall is also a citizen of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, a Native American tribe located in Okmulgee, Okla.

“When I hear about public funding of religious education, it really concerns me not only as a Christian but also as an Indigenous person, that discrimination will be funded by government money,” he said.

Randall’s grandmother attended Chilocco’s Indian school, a missionary boarding school for Native Americans that operated from 1884 to 1980. At Chilocco, students endured forced assimilation and were encouraged to cut their hair, exchange their clothes and abandon their native tongue, Randall said.

“I know from the stories of my grandmother and her relatives what happens when the church is given federal dollars to assimilate a large swath of people towards their belief,” said Randall.

Prescott, a retired Baptist minister, is primarily concerned that St. Isidore will be unable to welcome students with special needs. During the 1960s, Prescott worked as an educator in a private religious school in Houston and said the institution struggled to meet disabled students’ needs.

He said public schools are better positioned to welcome these students and should receive the entirety of public funding.

“Religion and religious education need to be paid for by their constituents. Voluntary contribution is how we’ve always done it,” he said.

Rosalynn Carter, the first lady who prioritized humanitarian causes in the United States and abroad, died Nov. 19 at the age of 96.

According to a release from the Carter Center, she died peacefully, with family by her side.

Her husband, Jimmy Carter, served as president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. Much of the Carters’ 77-year marriage found them working together.

After her husband’s term as president, the Carters moved back to their hometown of Plains, Ga., where they were active at Maranatha Baptist Church. The former president taught a popular Sunday school class, and Rosalynn served as a deacon.

In 1982, they established The Carter Center to address health crises, ensure fair elections and resolve conflict around the world. Rosalynn created and led the center’s Mental Health Task Force, having advocated for mental health reform during her husband’s time as Georgia’s governor and as president.

She also established the Rosalynn Carter Institute for Caregivers to advocate for the unique needs of people providing care for children and adults.

Helping others

The Carters spent decades volunteering with Habitat for Humanity and established an annual building project to provide affordable housing in the United States and internationally.

In 1999, Rosalynn was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom alongside her husband. She was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 2001.

The first lady authored her autobiography, First Lady from Plains, and co-wrote Everything to Gain: Making the Most of the Rest of Your Life with her husband. She is also the coauthor of three books on mental health.

Rosalynn Carter is survived by her husband, four children and numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Evangelicals agree all people—including immigrants—should be treated with respect and mercy, but they hold divergent views on how that translates into public policy, an official with the National Association of Evangelicals said.

“The reason we have people lining up at the border is that we don’t have a functional legal system that admits a reasonable number of immigrants both for work and for family,” Galen Carey, vice president of government relations with the National Association of Evangelicals, told participants at the Evangelical Convening on Immigration. The Evangelical Immigration Table sponsored the Nov. 17 event in Houston.

Carey participated in a panel along with Phillip Connor, senior demographer at FWD.us, an advocacy group focused on immigration and criminal justice reform; Hannah Daniel, policy manager with the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission; and Kathryn Freeman, Texas advocacy strategist for World Relief Texas. Eric Black, editor and publisher of the Baptist Standard, moderated the discussion.

Expand public officials’ ‘field of vision’

Freeman, former public policy director for Texas Baptists’ Christian Life Commission, encouraged Christians to help elected officials expand their “field of vision” in regard to what their evangelical constituents really believe about immigration.

“I think there’s a narrative of who the voters are that gets stuck in their head and in their imagination, and so, they think they’re in step with their constituents,” she said.

She pointed to a Lifeway Research study showing significantly larger percentages of Americans who are “evangelical by belief,” as opposed to “self-identified evangelicals,” support immigration policies that promote family unity and provide immigrants a pathway to citizenship.

Daniel noted messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention 2023 annual meeting in New Orleans approved a resolution urging government leaders to “provide robust avenues for asylum claimants” and to “create legal pathways for permanent status for immigrants who are in our communities by no fault of their own, prioritizing the unity of families.” The resolution condemned “any form of nativism, mistreatment or exploitation” as “inconsistent with the gospel.”

Several panelists encouraged evangelicals to encourage lawmakers to support the bipartisan Dignity Act of 2023, HR 3599.

The Dignity Act seeks to strengthen border security, while also providing undocumented individuals—particularly DACA recipients and Temporary Protected Status holders—a path to pursue legal status.

Michael DeBruhl, a retired Border Patrol official who now directs the Casa del Sagrado Corazon shelter in El Paso, noted the border security system was created to process Mexican nationals entering the United States illegally, and it was “woefully unprepared” for a massive influx of refugees and asylum seekers from other countries.

Mexican nationals who entered the United States without documentation and who were apprehended by Border Patrol 20 years ago largely went unseen by the general public, he noted. Today, those who are seeking refugee status, asylum or humanitarian parole are in the public eye.

“Now we see that population. They are visible to us,” he said.

DeBruhl participated in a panel along with Julie Mirlicourtois, executive producer of the Maybe God podcast and ACROSS, a documentary film series about asylum seekers; and Yonathan Moya, founding executive director of Border Perspectives.

“Nations from all over the world are coming to the southern border” of the United States, Moya said.

Rural Republicans in the Texas House of Representatives joined Democrats in defeating a plan to use tax dollars to support private education, including religious schools.

In the fourth special session of the Texas Legislature this year, the House voted 84-63 to approve an amendment by Rep. John Raney, R-College Station, that stripped educational savings accounts—essentially school vouchers—from HB1. The $7 billion omnibus education bill included funding for public schools and more money for teachers.

House members debated the amendment about three hours before voting—once again—to reject any effort to divert public funds to private schools. The Texas House repeatedly has rejected school voucher-type programs for more than two decades.

Religious liberty concerns voiced

“It was encouraging to hear, on more than one occasion, that legislators shared the concerns of many about how a proposed education savings account might affect religious liberty and what may happen if the state government began to involve itself in the affairs of private religious schools,” said John Litzler, public policy director for Texas Baptists’ Christian Life Commission.

A bipartisan coalition that included 21 Republicans along with all the House Democrats voted to strip the education savings accounts from the bill, in spite of seven months of lobbying by Gov. Greg Abbott to pass legislation granting parents “school choice.”

“I will continue advancing school choice in the Texas Legislature and at the ballot box, and will maintain the fight for parent empowerment until all parents can choose the best education path for their child. I am in it to win it,” Abbott posted on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

‘Morally centered bipartisan coalition’

Charles Foster Johnson, executive director of Pastors for Texas Children, particularly praised the Republicans in the House who stood against vouchers, even after the governor pledged to support the primary opponents of any representatives who opposed the education savings accounts proposal.

“A strong, clear, morally centered bipartisan coalition of urban Democrats and rural Republicans once again saved Texas public education by staving off a voucher program—as they have done so many times before,” Johnson said. “But, the heroes are our Republican friends in the House who are paying a heavy political price for their courageous stand for our children.”

Johnson also commended several Texas Baptist pastors who “made critical calls at a strategic time” to encourage their representatives to stand firm in their opposition to vouchers.

Texas lawmakers still have the opportunity to provide much-needed funds for public education, Litzler observed.

“The fourth special session is not over. It continues through Dec. 7. There is still time for our elected officials to pass legislation that would increase school funding, provide retention bonuses for teachers, revise the A-F rating and STAAR accountability system, and create a school security grant that would fund security officers on campus, security cameras, fencing and more,” he said.

“The Texas Baptists Christian Life Commission will continue to advocate for the Texas legislature to fully fund public education in our state throughout the remainder of the special session.”

DALLAS (RNS)—The End Times are not a topic Robert Jeffress needs much prompting to talk about.

When war broke out between Israel and Hamas on Oct. 7, the senior pastor at First Baptist Church in Dallas, quickly prepared a sermon series on the Apocalypse, which would be accompanied by a forthcoming book on the subject.

On Nov. 5, as the last notes of “Redemption Draweth Nigh,” a hymn about Jesus’ return, resonated in First Baptist’s 3,000-seat sanctuary, Jeffress asked his audience, “Are we actually living in what the Bible calls the End Times?”

The war in Gaza is not the only sign Jeffress submitted as evidence that the period presaging Jesus’ Second Coming, detailed in the Bible’s Book of Revelation and other Scriptures, is coming closer.

He noted, too, rising crime rates, the proliferation of nuclear weapons and natural disasters before announcing, “We are on the verge of the beginning of the End Times.”

“Things are falling into place for this great world battle, fought by the super powers of the world, as the Bible said. They will be armed with nuclear weapons,” Jeffress said.

Looking at current events as fulfillment of prophecy

Other prominent evangelicals have taken up the theme in their sermons. The day following Hamas’ attack, in which Israeli cities were barraged and some 1,200 people were massacred, Greg Laurie, senior pastor at the Harvest Riverside Fellowship in California, framed the violence in terms of End Times prophecy.

“The Bible tells us in the End Times that Israel will be scattered and regathered,” Laurie said. “The Bible predicted hundreds of thousands of years ago that a large force from the North of Israel will attack her after she (Israel) was regathered and one of the allies with modern Russia, or Magog, will be Iran or Persia.”

Before calling the church to pray for peace in Jerusalem, Laurie added, “If you get up in the morning and read this headline “Russia Attacks Israel,” fasten your seatbelt, because you’re seeing Bible prophecy fulfilled in your lifetime.”

While apocalyptic theology is threaded throughout the Bible and came to America with the Puritans, End Time prophecy has gone through cycles of popular acceptance among Christians. It has different strands, but in its most widely known version, known as dispensationalism, Israel is a linchpin to the events of the last days, when, after the Rapture, a coterie of 144,000 Jews are to be converted to Christ before eternity begins.

Israel’s supporters ‘on the right side of God’

Evangelical Christian pastors such as Jeffress have long prompted the United States to be an actor in these events. In his second sermon in the End Times series, on Nov. 12, Jeffress quoted the speech he gave at the ceremony dedicating the new U.S. embassy in Jerusalem in 2018: “For America to be on the right side of Israel is the same as being on the right side of history, and the right side of God.”

The embassy’s move from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem was the fulfillment of a promise Donald Trump made in 2016 as he ran for president for the first time, one applauded by pro-Israel evangelicals. In August 2020, as he ran for reelection, then-President Trump told a campaign rally in Wisconsin: “We moved the capital of Israel to Jerusalem. That’s for the evangelicals.”

Also present the day Jeffress spoke in Jerusalem was the televangelist John Hagee, who in 2006 founded Christians United for Israel, now the largest pro-Israel organization in the United States. On Oct. 22, Christians United hosted a “Night to Honor Israel” rally at Hagee’s Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, with Israeli public figures on hand, as well as U.S. Senators Ted Cruz and Tom Cotton.

Hagee was also a speaker at the giant pro-Israel rally held Nov. 14 in Washington, where he reaffirmed his commitment to Israel.

“There is only one nation whose flag will fly over the ancient walls of the sacred city of Jerusalem. That nation is Israel, now and forever,” he said, greeted by cheers.

Claiming some 10 million members, Hagee’s organization has become powerful politically, according to Daniel Hummel, author of Covenant Brothers: Evangelicals, Jews and U.S.-Israeli Relations.

“It is quite a large group, but it’s even more significant that they are organized and have demonstrated over the years that they can actually focus their energy on a local level and a national level to advocate their position,” Hummel said.

The group’s gatherings have become an obligatory stop for GOP presidential hopefuls wishing to articulate their support for Israel in front of Christian Zionists.

“Most of them don’t get into the prophecy stuff,” said Hummel. “They’ll talk more about the national interests that the U.S. has in supporting Israel and about the cultural values that Israel and the U.S. share.”

But Hagee often speaks about the prophecies that drive his support for Israel. A week after Hamas’ attacks, Hagee’s Sunday sermon detailed the unfolding of the End Times, while a timeline illustrating every step from Jesus’ resurrection to the renovation of Earth by fire was displayed in the background.

The recent Hamas attacks draw us closer to the church’s Rapture, he claimed.

“The Bible blessed the Jewish people directly and through the Jewish people blesses us, the Gentile people,” he said.

Hagee added: “Israel is God’s prophetic clock; when the Jewish people are in Israel, the clock is running. When the Jewish people are out of Israel, the clock stops.”

Some view Christian Zionism as insensitive

This logic scandalizes some scholars as well as Jews, who see evangelical support for Israel as compromised by its cosmic hope for their conversion.

“They (Christian Zionists) believe a tiny minority of living Jews will, in the End Times, convert to Christianity, and the rest will be damned to hell for their disbelief,” wrote Steven Gardiner, research director at the Political Research Associates, in a 2020 essay titled, End Times Antisemitism.

In a 2005 sermon, Hagee himself claimed God sent Adolf Hitler to perpetrate the Holocaust to push European Jews toward Israel. He later made clear he didn’t view either Hitler or the Holocaust as positive.

But End Times theology need not be raw to come across as insensitive to the violence suffered by both sides in the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

On Nov. 12, Jeffress began his sermon by asking the congregation if they knew what could explain the numerous attacks against Israel.

“Spiritual reasons,” he said.

On International Students Day, Nov. 17, Wayland Baptist University recognized the 77 international students enrolled at Wayland Baptist University—and noted the challenges many had to overcome to pursue their education. “It takes tremendous courage and faith to be an international student,” said Debbie Stennett, coordinator of international student affairs at Wayland. “I’m still amazed that 17- to 19-year-old kids fly across the globe alone or drive down from Canada or up from Central America without knowing anybody here except maybe a coach and the person on the other end of their emails. Wayland currently serves 54 undergraduate and 23 graduate students from 39 countries. Sixty-three international students attend classes on the Plainview campus, while 14 are served at one of Wayland’s external centers.

Howard Payne University students Layton Pratt and Ryan Robertson spent two years designing and developing what would become AuroraGuard, a wearable device for antiviral and antibacterial disinfection, as part of a project-based design course in engineering design. Pratt and Robertson presented their paper on the design project at the International Conference on Electrical, Computer, Communications and Mechatronics Engineering in Tenerife, Spain. The conference was sponsored by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Pratt is a junior from Spicewood majoring in engineering science and the Guy D. Newman Honors Academy, and Robertson is a senior from Euless majoring in engineering science.

East Texas Baptist University honored 91 graduating seniors with the presentation of their official ETBU class ring during a Ring Blessing ceremony Nov. 15. Each ETBU class ring features the university seal, surrounded by the cornerstones of ETBU—Veritas, Mores and Scientia, Latin for truth, character and knowledge. Images inscribed on the ring—historic Marshall Hall, the Light on the Hill, Max Greiner’s Divine Servant statue and the Bible—are meant to remind alumni of God’s work in their lives and their transformational experience at ETBU.