NASHVILLE (BP)—The Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee has begun an investigation into the circumstances leading to the resignation of Willie McLaurin.

McLaurin resigned Aug. 17 after confessing to falsifying his education background. He was serving as the interim president and CEO and was thought to be the leading candidate for the permanent role.

He had served the Executive Committee as vice president for Great Commission relations and mobilization since 2019 and served many years at the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board prior to coming to the Executive Committee.

“We have recently begun an internal review of these matters and anticipate the completion of this review in time for the September SBC Executive Committee meeting,” Jon Wilke, the Executive Committee’s director of media relations, told Baptist Press in a written statement.

Baptist Press submitted a list of questions Aug. 25 to Executive Committee Chairman Phillip Robertson and interim President and CEO Jonathan Howe related to McLaurin’s background.

The list included questions about the vetting process surrounding McLaurin’s initial hiring at the Executive Committee, his military background and any potential ramifications to the Executive Committee’s pending legal challenges.

“The questions you have asked are very similar to the ones the board is asking as well,” Wilke said. “Any findings will first be shared with the members of the EC and what findings can be made public will be made public at that time.”

The full Executive Committee is scheduled to meet Sept. 18-19 in Nashville.

WASHINGTON (RNS)—Owen Strachan, former Southern Baptist seminary professor turned anti-woke activist, has spent years warning that liberals were undermining America’s evangelical Christian churches.

Now Strachan is taking aim at a new threat: “mono-ethnic Christian nationalism.”

In a series of recent posts on social media and in his newsletter on Substack, Strachan makes clear that the ethnicity in question is European American.

Christian nationalism—or, as Strachan described it, “the unbiblical view that we must preserve white ethnicity to build a Christian nation”—has taken root in the Reformed wing of the evangelical church, he warns.

Strachan has singled out for disfavor Christian nationalist activists such as Andrew Torba, founder of the far-right social media platform Gab, and conservative internet influencer Matt Walsh, who describes himself in his X—formerly Twitter—profile as a “Theocratic fascist” and bestselling children’s author.

“By the minute, we are smoking out white nationalism—godless ethnocentrism—in Christian circles,” Strachan wrote in a series of posts on X. “By grace, we will fight this wicked ideology.”

Calling out racism and antisemitism

Strachan, provost of Grace Bible Theological Seminary in Arkansas and author of Christianity and Wokeness, said he has been concerned for some time that racist and antisemitic ideas have been finding their way into conservative churches.

He felt the need to call out the trend earlier this month after a video appeared of Walsh saying white Americans needed to have more children to save the country from outsiders. Strachan already had seen comments from Torba on social media, since deleted, saying God created different ethnic groups with a purpose and preserving them “is to preserve God’s creation and is therefore an inherent good.”

Strachan called Torba’s comments “hot nonsense” that was nonetheless invading churches. Torba declined to be interviewed for the story or to respond to Strachan’s comments.

Once a rising star among Southern Baptists, Strachan is a former president of the Council on Biblical Manhood & Womanhood, an influential group that promotes complementarian theology, based on the idea men and women have biblically circumscribed roles in the family and society.

He taught at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary before moving to Arkansas.

But in recent years, he has become best known for his stature within a corner of the evangelical world known for its love of stark Calvinist theology and dark-suited, bespectacled and bearded pastors, often tagged by evangelical insiders as “Theobros.”

Calvinism, the teachings of 16th-century French Protestant theologian John Calvin, undergirds some mainline Protestant denominational beliefs but is represented most prominently in various evangelical groups that identify as Reformed.

As political and cultural polarization has deepened over the past decade in the United States, it has attracted the Theobros and other ultraconservative Christians, because Calvin’s theology also inspired early American religious colonists such as the Puritans.

Hot topic among Calvinists

Christian nationalism has become a hot topic among these Christians. In its extreme form, the ideology claims special privileges for Christians—including the right to rule, no matter what the outcome of elections.

It often views Jews, Black Americans, immigrants and progressives as God’s enemies. Early forms of Christian nationalism were outspokenly antisemitic and racist and were especially opposed to interracial marriage.

A bestselling book, The Case for Christian Nationalism, published in 2022 by Canon Press —founded as a ministry of Christ Church, an influential Calvinist congregation in Moscow, Idaho—argued that “interethnic” marriage can be sinful and that America should be run by Christians.

The author, Stephen Wolfe, later clarified he does not think “interracial marriage, interethnic marriage, or intercultural marriage” is sinful.

Canon is now a private company whose authors include Douglas Wilson, pastor of Christ Church. Wilson also owns a minority share of Canon.

In 2022, he wrote a blurb praising a book on Christian nationalism by Torba, who is known for expressing antisemitic and white nationalist views.

Strachan said Wilson had a responsibility to call out racist ideas in Reformed churches.

“I’m very interested—with a lot of people—to see how Moscow operates in days ahead,” Strachan said. “Because I think they bear a real duty.”

Embrace ethnic heritage, reject ‘kinism’

In a phone interview, Wilson said he agreed with Strachan that he has a responsibility to speak about racism or antisemitic ideas. He also said he has seen glimpses of racism in Calvinist circles.

“I see guys flirting with something I don’t want them flirting with,” he said.

He rejected the ideas proposed by Walsh that white Christians needed to have more white babies to save the country or any notion that interracial marriage is sinful.

“You can have an ethnic affection for your people,” he said. “The problem would come when you mandate or say we are going to discipline you or come down on you hard if you marry outside the tribe.”

Wilson also pointed to a pair of 2022 statements issued by the Knox Presbytery of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, of which Christ Church is a part. Those statements condemn both antisemitism and kinism, which claims God wants different ethnic groups to be segregated.

“While an ethnic heritage is something to be grateful for, and which may be preserved in any way consistent with the law of God, it is important to reject every form of identity politics, including kinism—whether malicious, vainglorious, or ideologically separatist/segregationist,” read one of the statements, which are published on Wilson’s blog.

But Wilson said Wolfe’s book had been misunderstood, arguing political progressives are looking for ways to make conservative Christians look bad.

“I think the strategy is, very simply, for the progressive left to kick the dog until the dog bites,” he said.

He also said he agrees with Strachan that churches need to address overt racism.

“I would say, ‘We’re way ahead of you,’” Wilson said. “I condemned this nonsense decades ago.”

For his part, Strachan hopes his comments will lead to an anti-kinist movement among evangelicals, similar to the anti-woke movement he is a part of. That movement was attracted by Calvinists and Christian nationalists, but that partnership may now be on shaky grounds.

‘Colorblind’ outnumber overt racists

Still, Strachan said he’s gotten some pushback for his remarks from fellow Calvinists who see him as betraying their team by being critical. He plans to address the issue of kinism during a meeting in September organized by G3, a Calvinist organization with Baptist ties.

George Yancey, a professor of sociology at Baylor University, said Strachan is like a lot of Americans who want to believe race does not matter anymore, but who draw the line at overt racism. That belief, however, rejects any notion of institutional racism or the view that past racism still affects American culture.

“I think colorblind is the right word,” he said. “He’s a true believer.”

Yancey said he has been seeing signs of outright racism in Christian nationalist circles, taking the form of kinism.

He suspects Americans who hold a colorblind view like Strachan’s exceed the number who hold intentionally racist forms of Christian nationalism. While Christians of all stripes have spoken against Christian nationalism, Strachan’s willingness to criticize allies in his war on wokeness is striking.

Strachan’s analysis is right in this case, Yancey said.

“And if he’s right about something, I’m going to say he’s right,” he said. “This kind of kinism is racism—and racist in the traditional sense of being racism. If he is going to go after them, I am going to say, ‘Go after them.’”

BRENTWOOD, Tenn.—Many Americans believe financial prosperity is God’s plan for them, but they need to give more to ensure that blessing.

According to a Lifeway Research study, 52 percent of American Protestant churchgoers say their church teaches God will bless them if they give more money to their church and charities, with 24 percent strongly agreeing. This is up from 38 percent of churchgoers who agreed in a 2017 Lifeway Research study.

Additionally, churchgoers are more likely today than in 2017 to believe God wants them to prosper financially (76 percent, compared to 69 percent) and that they have to do something for God in order to receive material blessings from him (45 percent, compared to 26 percent).

Today, 3 in 4 churchgoers (76 percent) believe God wants them to prosper financially, including 43 percent who strongly agree. A little less than half (45 percent) believe they have to do something for him in order to receive material blessings from God, with 21 percent strongly agreeing.

“In the last five years, far more churchgoers are reflecting prosperity gospel teachings, including the heretical belief that material blessings are earned from God,” said Scott McConnell, executive director of Lifeway Research.

“It is possible the financial hits people have taken from inflation and the pandemic have triggered feelings of guilt for not serving God more. But Scripture does not teach that kind of direct connection.”

Most churchgoers believe God wants them to prosper financially—a belief especially prevalent among both the youngest and least educated churchgoers. Churchgoers ages 18 to 34 (81 percent) and 35 to 49 (85 percent) are among the most likely to say God wants them to prosper financially.

Furthermore, those who are high school graduates or less (81 percent) or have some college education (80 percent) are more likely to hold this belief than those with a bachelor’s degree (67 percent) or graduate degree (65 percent).

Belief that God wants people to prosper financially also is more common in some religious settings than others. Methodist (93 percent) and Restorationist movement (88 percent) churchgoers are among the most likely to hold this belief. And those with evangelical beliefs are more likely than those without such beliefs to agree (80 percent vs. 74 percent).

“Pursuing holiness was never designed by God to be a plan for financial riches,” McConnell said. “The size of one’s finances is not the measure of anyone’s service to God nor relationship with Him.”

As more churchgoers affirm prosperity gospel beliefs, younger churchgoers—those 18 to 34 (63 percent) and 35 to 49 (66 percent)—are more likely than older churchgoers—those 50 to 64 (53 percent) and over 65 (31 percent)—to affirm their church teaches that if they give more money to the church and charities, God will bless them.

“This research does not rule out the possibility that biblical teachings were poorly heard by more young adults, but they definitely have experienced a lack of clear biblical teaching on the reason for generosity,” McConnell said.

Denominational and demographic differences

African American churchgoers are the most likely to say their church teaches that if they give more money to the church and charities, God will bless them in return (71 percent). And those who attend worship services one to three times a month are more likely to say the same than those who attend at least four times a month (57 percent vs. 49 percent).

Churchgoers without evangelical beliefs are more likely than those with such beliefs to say their church teaches that if they give more money, God will bless them (55 percent vs. 48 percent). The opposite was true five years ago when 41 percent of evangelicals and 35 percent of non-evangelicals agreed.

Denominationally, Methodist (85 percent) and Restorationist movement (71 percent) churchgoers are among the most likely to agree their church teaches God will bless them if they give more money.

Of the three beliefs surveyed, churchgoers are least likely to believe they have to do something for God in order to receive material blessings from him. Still, like the others, this belief is most prevalent among younger churchgoers.

Those 18 to 34 (65 percent) and 35 to 49 (58 percent) are more likely than those 50 to 64 (43 percent) and over 65 (22 percent) to hold this belief. In 2017, churchgoers ages 35 to 49 were the least likely age group to agree (19 percent).

“Large numbers of young adults attending church regularly still believe their good deeds can tilt God’s gifts in their direction,” McConnell said.

Those who are high school graduates or less (50 percent) or have some college education (48 percent) are more likely than those with a bachelor’s degree (38 percent) or a graduate degree (30 percent) to agree. And African Americans are the most likely to agree (65 percent).

Among regular church attenders, those who attend a worship service least often (one to three times a month) are more likely than those who attend at least four times a month to say they have to do something for God in order to receive material blessings from him (49 percent vs. 42 percent).

Methodist (85 percent) and Restorationist movement (68 percent) churchgoers are once again the most likely to hold this belief. And those without evangelical beliefs are more likely than those with such beliefs to agree (50 percent vs. 37 percent).

The online survey of American Protestant churchgoers was conducted Sept. 19-29, 2022, using a national pre-recruited panel. Quotas and slight weights were used to balance gender, age, region, ethnicity, education and religion to reflect the population more accurately. The completed sample is 1,002 surveys, providing 95 percent confidence the sampling error does not exceed plus or minus 3.3 percent. Margins of error are higher in sub-groups.

ATLANTA (BP)—Senior adults suffered the largest increase in suicides among Americans as nearly 50,000 people in the United States killed themselves in 2022, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in its latest report.

The 8 percent rise in suicides among adults 65 and older was the highest driver in suicide deaths, the CDC said, with 10,433 deaths in that age group alone. That’s compared to 9,652 adults over 65 who killed themselves the previous year.

Suicide declined 8.4 percent among the youngest Americans the CDC tracks—ages 10-24— falling from 7,126 to 6,529.

Senior adults have needed mental health assistance especially after the COVID-19 pandemic, the American Association of Retired Persons reported. More than 45 percent of adults 50 and older suffered from anxiety, 34 percent lost interest in activities, and 31 percent suffered depression or hopelessness, the AARP said in a study of 2,000 older adults conducted Feb. 24 to March 1, 2022.

‘Devastating mental health crisis’

Overall, the CDC tracked 49,449 suicides among Americans ages 10 and older in the numbers released August 10, a 2.6 percent increase from the 48,183 deaths in 2021.

Suicides briefly declined in 2019 and 2020 after consistently rising since 2000, but began rising again in 2021, the CDC said.

The increase underscores a “devastating mental health crisis in America,” U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murphy said upon the release of the latest numbers, which are provisional.

“Mental health has become the defining public health and societal challenge of our time. Far too many people and their families are suffering and feeling alone,” Murphy said.

“These numbers are a sobering reminder of how urgent it is that we further expand access to mental health care, address the root causes of mental health struggles, and recognize the importance of checking on and supporting one another.”

Among other CDC suicide numbers:

• Suicide rose 6.6 percent among 45- to 64-year-olds, rising to 15,632 from the previous 14,668.
• Males outnumbered females in suicide deaths, 39,255 compared to 10,194.
• Whites, who accounted for 37,459 suicides, far outnumbered other ethnic groups including Blacks and African Americans, 3,825; Hispanics and Latinos, 5,120; Asians, 1,458, and American Indian or Alaska Natives, 650.

Help for anyone suffering thoughts of suicide is available through the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. Connect with a trained crisis counselor by texting or calling 988, or connecting online at 988lifeline.org.

PHILADELPHIA (BP)—Most Gen Z adults say their lives have been transformed through Scripture despite their three-year decline in Bible engagement, the American Bible Society said in the latest chapter of the 2023 State of the Bible.

The oldest Zoomers—another informal name for Gen Z—were toddlers when the world was abuzz with turn-of-the-century Y2K projections, and many still live with their parents. Some Zoomers are as young as 11, too young even to be included in the American Bible Society study limited to ages 18 and above.

“Gen Zers have been described as curious, digitally savvy and advocates for change. We see all of this reflected in our research, but we also see a generation struggling to find their footing with faith,” Chief Ministry Insights Officer John Farquhar Plake said in announcing the latest release from the report.

While only a 10th of the generation regularly engages with the Bible, Zoomers still confess a significant interest in the Bible and its message.

“Ministry leaders may be surprised to find how open Gen Z adults in their communities are to discussions about God’s word,” Plake said. “And if the trends we’re seeing continue, it’s crucial to be having those conversations now.”

The latest chapter of the study holds key findings about Gen Z and the interest in Scripture:

• 44 percent are “extremely curious” about Jesus, but the interest is higher among the youngest adult Zoomers.
• 56 percent of Zoomers ages 18 to 21 said they are curious about Jesus or the Bible, but only 34 percent ages 22 to 26 said the same.
• Curiosity has sharply declined since 2022, when 77 percent of all Gen Z adults reported curiosity in Scripture.

Scripture engagement among Gen Z adults registers at 10 percent, down from 12 percent in 2022 and 14 percent in 2021.

Despite low Scripture engagement:

• 49 percent of Zoomers ages 18 to 21 say the Bible’s message has transformed their lives, and 52 percent of those 22-26 say so.
• 58 percent of Gen Z identify as Christian, including Catholic, Protestant and “other” Christian traditions.
• 34 percent identify as agnostic, atheist or having no religion.

Even non-practicing Christians and non-Christian Zoomers are open to scriptural experiences and conversations.

The American Bible Society found:

• A quarter of non-practicing Gen Z Christians would accept a Christian friend’s invitation to stream a church service, watch a TV show or movie about Jesus, or attend a Christian concert.
• 18 percent percent of non-Christian Zoomers said they’re open to eating a meal in a group where biblical issues are discussed.

The American Bible Society expanded the State of the Bible this year to explore the various ways people connect with God, incorporating nine spiritual temperaments bestselling author and former Southern Baptist pastor Gary Thomas presented in the 1996 book Sacred Pathways.

The Bible Society found the largest chunk of Zoomers—27 percent of those ages 18 to 21, and 32 percent of those above 21—identify as naturalists and connect best with God while in nature.

The smallest portion identify as intellectuals, including 2 percent of younger adult Zoomers and 6 percent of older Zoomers. Intellectual Zoomers connect best with God when they learn something new about him.

The State of the Bible annually looks at the Bible, faith and the church in America. The ABS collaborated with the University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center in designing the study conducted online and via telephone to NORC’s AmeriSpeak Panel.

The 18-minute survey, conducted Jan. 5-30, produced 2,761 responses from a representative sample of adults 18 and older within the 50 states and Washington, D.C.

NASHVILLE (BP)—A filmed stage adaptation of The Hiding Place, the true story of Corrie Ten Boom and her family’s hiding of Jewish refugees from the Nazis during World War II, is set for a special theatrical release.

The story follows Corrie, along with her sister Betsie and father Casper, as humble watchmakers in the Netherlands who risk their lives seeking to hide Jews from the horrors of the Third Reich just around the corner.

The stage play, adapted from Corrie’s internationally best-selling memoir, was filmed last year in front of a sold-out audience in Nashville. It will show in select theaters nationwide Aug. 3 and Aug. 5 before an international release Aug. 16.

The project was adapted for the stage by A.S. “Pete” Peterson.

“I was really excited to be able to have a chance to work on it, but the more I dug into the project, the more I became aware of the huge, long-lasting legacy of Corrie Ten Boom,” Peterson said.

“This is not just something that I can take lightly and potentially mess up. I really need to do the hard work of honoring how many people love this story. It was something I needed to take with enormous seriousness and responsibility.”

The Ten Booms’ story has gained fame among evangelical Christians over decades.

Corrie’s memoir has sold millions of copies over the nearly 50 years since its publication in 1974. A film adaptation, produced by Billy Graham’s World Wide Pictures, was released in 1975.

Peterson was commissioned by a theater founded by Jeanette Clift George, who played Corrie Ten Boom in the 1975 movie, to write the story for the stage to honor George after she died in 2017.

Tell classic story in a fresh way

Because the theater format is three-dimensional, it allows the classic story to be told in a fresh way, he said.

“You necessarily have to figure out what works for the medium in which you’re wanting to tell the story,” Peterson said.

“The stage is necessarily three-dimensional, which is kind of what separates it from film and the novel artform.

“I had a lot of fun landing on the idea of the clock shop and the Ten Booms as watchmakers, which is kind of an important theological idea. The Dutch Reformed tradition believes really strongly in the sovereignty of God, that God is in control at all times and you can trust in that,” he said.

“In that context, leaning on this idea of the whole show almost being a clockwork that has been designed by its maker … kind of reinforces the story.”

The project was directed for the stage by Matt Logan, who said it was not always easy for Corrie to hold strong to her theological beliefs.

“She (Corrie) was a real person, and she had doubts and the struggle for faith was real,” Logan said.

“I think that’s the powerful point of telling stories. That struggle allows us as an audience to go: ‘Oh I struggle with that. I struggle with faith. I struggle with doing the right thing. And this is showing me they did too, and yet were still able to be resilient.’”

Actress calls role a personal ‘wake-up call’

Corrie is played in the film by Nashville stage actress Nan Gurley, who told Baptist Press portraying Ten Boom was a “wake-up call” for her own Christian faith.

“There’s always the challenge when you play a real historical figure,” Gurley said. “You want to get it right and you want to tell it truthfully and authentically.

“Telling this kind of a story can be a personal wake-up call, where you go: ‘OK I profess to know Christ. I profess to follow Christ and try to live a life of obedience. But what hills would I die on?’

“The Ten Booms choose to put their lives at risk to save Jews. … It had a huge impact on me in a positive way to think, what will I die for if I’m ever challenged this way.”

Gurley said Corrie and the Ten Boom family can be an example to Christian believers because they were prepared for their big moment before it came.

Before they helped hundreds of Jews escape to safety during the war, the family would often foster the children of missionaries in their home.

Even though Corrie struggled with doubt, she would later return to the very concentration camp where she was held and turn it into a rehab facility for survivors.

“The story of Corrie and her sister Betsie and her father needs to be told generation after generation,” Gurley said.

“It’s easy to look at Corrie and Betsie and Casper Ten Boom and go, ‘Oh they were these icons of the faith.’ These are amazing people who did the impossible and sort of put them on a shelf as an icon of the faith.

“I want people to be encouraged that these were ordinary, unknown people living hidden lives of obedience day after day. The rhythm of their lives was an open door in hospitality. The stakes were life and death, but they were ready for it.”

Peterson hopes this new medium for the Ten Booms’ story of forgiveness, love and hospitality will inspire believers to draw close to each other.

“In the middle of a shooting war … their weapon of choice was to love their neighbor and to be hospitable to the people around them no matter who they were,” Peterson said.

“I believe that art creates gathering points for community. If we create a great stage play or a great film, people go to see that together and rightfully done, that should result in community. That’s something that I believe is vital to the church.”

WASHINGTON (RNS)—Some 600,000 people leave U.S. prisons every year, only to encounter a series of roadblocks to reintegration.

Stanley Frankart knows. He was one of those people.

Frankart’s various forms of incarceration began at age 10, when he broke a schoolmate’s jaw. He then cycled in and out of juvenile detention centers and correctional institutions on various drug charges. When he was 16, he shot someone in the face and got a 10-year sentence.

By the time he left prison in 2017, he had spent 18 years under the supervision of the legal system.

These days, Frankart goes back once a week to his old prison, Richland Correctional Institution in Mansfield, Ohio, to coach soon-to-be-released prisoners who are hoping to make a new life when they are released.

Through a nonprofit he founded in 2015 called Young Christian Professionals, the 32-year-old former prisoner teaches a blend of what he calls Christian character development and professional business practices to help incarcerated people prepare for life on the outside.

“It was just natural that I was here to minister and pastor individuals who come from where I come from,” said Frankart, who is married and the father of two girls.

Young Christian Professionals has a staff of 75, mostly volunteers, who run an eight-week curriculum in prisons across Ohio—with startups in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Illinois—followed up by one-on-one support for prisoners after they’re released.

The program pairs study of Christian principles with practical employment skills. It teaches prisoners how to shake someone’s hand, look them in the eye, tie a necktie and properly enunciate. Frankart calls this “business etiquette,” much of which he himself learned from books.

About 1,800 prisoners and their family members have gone through the program, which Frankart started while still in prison. Funding comes mostly from The Witness Foundation, which trains and funds Black Christian leaders.

Reentry into the free world is challenging

Frankart was part of the inaugural cohort of Witness Fellows and recently shared his story on a “Footnotes” podcast with Jemar Tisby.

Reentry is a huge challenge for many formerly incarcerated, who encounter a combination of laws and rules that block them from jobs, housing and voting.

A report from the Brennan Center for Justice found “a prior criminal conviction all but ensures a lifetime straddling the poverty threshold.” Most employers conduct background screening on candidates for full-time positions.

Various state legislatures have enacted as many as 27,000 rules barring formerly incarcerated people from holding professional licenses. Public housing is often denied to people with a criminal record.

Those hardships disproportionately affect Black Americans. While Black Americans make up 13 percent of the population, they account for 38 percent of people in prisons and jails. They are incarcerated at five times the rate of whites.

When President Joe Biden designated April as “Second Chance Month” to bring awareness to these barriers and promote opportunities for former prisoners, he directed the federal Small Business Administration to offer more business startup loans to applicants with criminal records.

Frankart, who also leads a weekly “reentry worship” at Crossroads United Methodist Church in Canton, Ohio, believes church and parachurch ministries have not done a good enough job helping former prisoners reenter society.

“That connectivity piece that gets missed when people just come in for programs or Bible studies—there’s no relational component,” he said.

He describes leaving prison with a black plastic trash bag stuffed with his belongings and not even a ride to a halfway house in Mansfield, Ohio, where he was due to report later that day.

These days, he personally drives just-released prisoners to their destinations and often buys them their first meal.

“We get involved in whatever resources they may need. Maybe it’s housing, maybe it’s employment, maybe it’s expungement (of offenses), driver’s licenses. Whatever the case may be, we walk with them through that experience.”

More support needed for reentry

Harold Dean Trulear, national director for Healing Communities USA, an organization that trains congregations to help prisoners after their release, said there are many groups dedicated to offering support for those reentering society, but probably not enough.

“The sheer numbers of people coming home every year far exceeds the capacity of these organizations,” said Trulear, who is also associate professor of applied theology at Howard University in Washington, D.C. “And that’s why there’s always room for more.”

Frankart’s own turnabout began on the floor of Richland one day in 2011, when he was 21 years old. Two gangs got in a fight, and Frankart found himself on the floor badly beaten, kicked and stabbed.

“I remember laying on the ground and realizing in that moment how powerless I was over my own life,” he told Tisby on the podcast. “And so through this process, I’m on the ground and I said, ‘God, Jesus, whoever you are, if you’re real, get me off of this ground.’”

That began a journey in which he attached himself to three Christian men in prison and began studying the Bible under their direction. He followed that up with self-study, including a 16-week Urban Ministry Institute capstone curriculum and a leadership role in the local prison chapter of Fellowship of Christian Athletes.

In 2015, he was sitting in the prison’s library studying when he saw what he called a ragtag group of men and started a conversation with them. It then dawned on him, “Your mission field is here.”

Young Christian Professionals was born.

Prisoners don’t have to be believers to enroll, and there’s no expectation that they profess a Christian faith when they leave. But they will be exposed to Christian teachings.

The best part of the program, Frankart said, is that many people who have reentered society successfully will go on to volunteer to help others.

“We kind of have what we call a replicable model,” Frankart said. “We raise up individuals who want to spearhead the initiative. We support them. We walk with them through that process.”

(RNS)—Russell Moore has a bit of advice for his fellow American Christians in his new book, Losing Our Religion.

Don’t lie.

A simple principle, based on the Ninth Commandment’s ban on bearing false witness, and one many Christian leaders are tempted to break by repeating claims that are popular but untrue, argues Moore.

“I’m not really talking to the people who are intending to deceive and destroy—yes, I would hope they stop lying too,” said Moore in a recent interview about the new book. “I’m talking more about the disconnect between what people really believe and what the expectations of the tribe demand. And that is what I see to be so dangerous and exhausting to people.”

Following Moore’s advice could come with consequences. The former Southern Baptist ethicist was a rising star in 2013, when he was elected president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission after the group’s former leader left amid scandal.

Moore was known for his love of 1970s outlaw country stars Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson, his advocacy for immigration reform and his skepticism about the close ties between the Republican party and evangelicals.

Things went well until the rise of Donald Trump, which turned evangelical leaders into would-be contestants on a real-life version of “The Apprentice”—Trump’s reality television series—“all clamoring to make the cut on the next episode and fearful of hearing the words you’re fired,” he writes in Losing Our Religion.

Moore’s criticism of Trump as a candidate and as president, along with his advocacy for survivors of abuse in the SBC, made him enemies and eventually cost him his job. In 2021, he resigned from the ERLC to take a new role at Christianity Today, where he is now the editor-in-chief.

Inspiration for new book

His new book was inspired by conversations Moore has had in recent years with disillusioned evangelicals, some of whom he said are feeling a sense of despair at the state of the church and American culture. The book is part altar call for his fellow evangelicals and part retelling of the surprising lessons he’s learned in recent years.

The book recounts Moore’s struggles to reconcile what he believed with how he saw Christian leaders acting during the Trump era. He recalls a Baptist leader who told him he was playing the game of leadership wrong.

That leader suggested Moore give people “90 percent of the red meat they expect”—referring to conservative politics and the culture wars—and then he could spend 10 percent of his time on things he cared about, like immigration.

He also recalled being told to “get real”—meaning he should give up on naive ideals like telling the truth or acting with personal integrity, because the cultural and political stakes were too high for such niceties.

“People who have higher expectations for themselves and for others are often made to feel naive and stupid,” he said.

That willingness to do anything to succeed in politics, he writes, was rooted in the way churches treated celebrity pastors and leaders. As long as they got the job done, those celebrities could be terrible people and Christians would shrug it off.

That habit of overlooking the character flaws of Christian celebrities—such as disgraced former megachurch pastors Bill Hybels and Mark Driscoll or abusers like the late evangelist Ravi Zacharias—made it easier for evangelicals to overlook Trump’s flaws, Moore said in an interview.

Downstream consequences

The way being a star pastor means you can get away with anything meant it was easier for Christians to accept unethical politicians.

“There’s always this sense of the mission is too important to be worried about character,” he said.

Moore said he often knew something was wrong in Southern Baptist and evangelical circles but talked himself out of saying anything—because everyone else seemed to be acting as if everything was OK.

He recalled teaching about a famed meeting between SBC legends Paige Patterson and Judge Paul Pressler at the Cafe Du Monde in New Orleans that helped launch a conservative takeover of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, as if it were the SBC equivalent of Martin Luther nailing his 95 Theses to the Wittenberg door.

That mythology didn’t match the “Machiavellian lack of character” he saw among SBC leaders. Still, he said, it was as if there were things he was not allowed to notice or to say anything about. He realizes now he should have trusted his instincts.

“When I look back over my life and ministry, there were countless times where my mind was wrong,” he said. “And there were a lot of times when my heart was wrong—but very few times where my gut was wrong.”

Many Christian leaders stay silent—or make claims they know are not true—out of fear, Moore argues in the book. Pastors who go along with the crowd get to keep their job. Those who step out of line are punished. And all it takes is a few angry donors or church members to make a pastor’s or leader’s life miserable.

He predicts many pastors in the future will have day jobs or side hustles to protect themselves—rather than because the church can’t afford to pay them a salary.

“Pastors are increasingly not wanting to put their entire lives under the threat of one small group of people within a congregation,” he said.

Friends and lessons

Despite his concerns about the state of the church, Moore is hopeful. During his challenges, he’s made a number of new friends among people he used to view as “theological squishes”—people too willing to compromise on doctrine or theological lightweights.

Among his dearest friends is bestselling author Beth Moore (no relation), herself now a former Southern Baptist, who helped him keep the faith at some of his worst moments.

He said he was grateful for these new friends and for the way people stuck by him in unexpected ways.

He is also surprisingly hopeful about the future of the Christian church in America. In the interview, Moore recalled spending time teaching a semester at the University of Chicago, where he’d spent his days in the classroom and his evenings talking with groups of evangelical students. They often would ask practical questions about how to pray or how to relate to their fellow students in a secular setting.

Those students, he said, were serious about living out their faith.

“I would tell them, ‘I don’t think your classmates hate you as much as you think they do,’” he said. “‘And if you would just have a little more confidence, then you actually could engage them.’”

These days, Moore gets hope from younger Christians, his friends, his faith and the lessons of Willie Nelson. In the book, Moore tells the stories of Nelson’s early struggles to break into country music, only to fail because he was trying to be someone he wasn’t.

Nelson left Nashville, traded country music’s marketing and rhinestone cowboys for bandanas and a more authentic sound, and found an audience, along with fellow outsiders like Jennings.

There’s a lesson in that for Christians, he said.

“Often there will be a small group of people who look like dissenters and rebels but who actually love and care about their institution or their tradition,” he said. “But it means there’s going to be change.”

WASHINGTON (RNS)—From a young age, Nils Gulbranson remembers asking a lot of questions during Bible studies. Gulbranson describes spending his free time as a teen Googling Christian scholars’ views on different topics, digging through sermons and scouring YouTube videos until he found satisfying answers.

With the release of Chat GPT, the former computer science student turned finance intern saw an opportunity to build the resource he wished he’d had as a young evangelical Christian in Minnesota.

About three months ago, Gulbranson, 23, started work on Biblemate.io, a “Christian ChatGPT” to help interrogative minds who are looking for biblical answers to life’s difficult questions.

“The big difference from ChatGPT is that it’s a model grounded in a biblical and theological view of the world,” Gulbranson, now a finance intern in Boston, said about his version of the chatbot. It relies on an ever-growing database of sermons, books and academic articles to inform the answers it offers.

AI raises ethical questions

The launch of ChatGPT in November 2022 by the research laboratory OpenAI has spurred both excitement and trepidation among Christians, forcing existential questions on the level of what it means to be human, along with ethical dilemmas: How much is too much help from a chatbot when writing a sermon? What about leading a whole worship service, like a ChatGPT avatar did in early June at a Lutheran church in Germany?

Gulbranson sees a number of uses for Biblemate.io in a church context—for pastors doing sermon research, for church volunteers drafting a Bible study guide, for curious teens like he once was who want to go deeper in youth group.

But he also hopes non-Christians will use the chatbot for their questions about God. He pointed to one of his favorite features, the “explain to me like I’m 5” tool.

“You type a hard-to-understand theological concept, and it would dumb it down and explain it the way you would to a 5-year-old kid,” he said.

“The goal is to give responses rooted in unwavering biblical truth,” said Gulbranson, who said he tried to generate sources from “well-respected scholars” for his database, citing William Lane Craig and C.S. Lewis. Of course, Gulbranson acknowledged, not every Christian agrees on just what is biblical truth.

For example, he explained, on a question such as whether Christians should speak in tongues, the chatbot should pull out what the Scriptures say and then offer perspectives from different denominations.

Gulbranson wants Biblemate.io to give politically neutral responses on topics where Christians often don’t see eye to eye, such as same-sex marriage or LGBTQ ordination.

“I don’t want to create a division because we see it all the time with Christians that are more conservative and Christians that are more progressive,” said Gulbranson, who declined to reveal which camp he identifies with.

“Jesus himself was not a socialist. He wasn’t a capitalist. He never explicitly said: Hey, this is the correct political ideology,” he added.

Seeking input on how to improve product

Soon after its release, Gulbranson sought feedback from other Christians on social media. On the Facebook group “AI for Church Leaders & Pastors,” he brainstormed with fellow AI enthusiasts about how to improve his new chatbot.

The group of nearly 4,000 members, including pastors, churchgoers and worship leaders, chats about creative ways to use tools such as ChatGPT, Jasper (an AI content generator) or MidJourney (images generator) in their ministries.

Joe Suh, an engineer, also finds himself regularly asking for advice from the group on his new project. At the beginning of the year, he started developing Pastors.ai, a chatbot that draws on churches’ sermon libraries to answer people’s questions. It’s a chatbot, Suh said, that he initially designed for himself.

“I wanted to be able to ask my pastor some very personal questions: How should Christians think about divorce? How do we love our LGBTQ+ neighbors? Questions I would be a little bit shy to ask in person. Now we can do that, because it’s read hundreds of hours of sermons,” he said.

For this 45-year-old who has worked in Silicon Valley for 25 years, Pastors.ai was also an occasion to reconnect with his faith. When his church moved online during the pandemic, staying engaged and paying attention was hard, he admitted.

Excited by ChatGPT’s launch, he teamed up with co-workers from the e-commerce software firm he founded in 2022 and worked full time on the chatbot.

Recently, Pastors.ai obtained OpenAI credits and Suh plans to demonstrate the tool at numerous AI events this year.

Mixed reactions from Christians

The biggest challenge, he said, is to get churches to accept it.

“There are mixed reactions. In one camp, people are blown away. They think it’s magical,” Suh said. “A second camp is a bit more skeptical, especially church leaders.”

Some pastors even went as far as questioning the chatbot’s claims, arguing the tool distorts their words.

“That has been an interesting reaction,” Suh said with a laugh.

In a recent article, RJ Kang, a Presbyterian pastor from Illinois, pointed out that as interesting as these AI tools are, church leaders need to remain careful “not to rely on it as a replacement for the discernment that comes from prayer and seeking God’s will.”

In November 2020, as part of his monthly prayer intention, Pope Francis noted AI could “make a better world possible, if it’s joined to the common good,” but he also invited Christians to pray the tool always remains at the service of human intelligence.

During June’s Southern Baptist Convention meeting in New Orleans, messengers adopted resolutions regarding AI, urging pastors to use these tools in “honest, transparent, and Christlike ways.”

For Gulbranson, this vigilance isn’t surprising.

“It’s a new uncharted territory,” he said. “AI among Christians might seem a bit taboo.”

It’s only a matter of time before churches understand more clearly how these technologies work and how to benefit from AI tools, explained Suh. “Once they know, they will make rules around it.”

PHILADELPHIA (BP)—Black Christians score 10 percent higher than all other Christians in spiritual vitality, according to a new scale of holistic spiritual health the American Bible Society introduced in its 2023 State of the Bible report.

The Spiritual Vitality Gauge measures spiritual health through a set of nine concise questions focused on beliefs, practices and faith in action among self-identified Christians, the Bible society said July 13 in releasing its findings in the report’s fourth chapter.

The higher score among African Americans, when compared to whites and Hispanic Americans, should not be surprising, the American Bible Society said, as Black Christians lead in nearly every measure of spiritual life the study uses.

“State of the Bible research shows overwhelmingly that Black Christians lead the way on virtually every desirable metric. This group has a lot to teach the rest of the American church,” the American Bible Society wrote.

“People in this group are more likely to attend church weekly, to read the Bible, to be ‘Scripture Engaged,’ to be ‘Bible Centered,’ and now to display spiritual vitality in their lives.”

Religion has been a source of resiliency for many racial and ethnic groups, the American Bible Society said, referencing a 2020 article from researchers at Case Western University based on a study of historical and contemporary literature. The church’s appeal to Black Americans is both spiritual and practical, the Case Western article asserts.

“Historically and contemporaneously, the Black church, in addition to being a religious institution, is a social, cultural, civic, educational and political institution that is central to Black communities,” the article reads.

“Because of social, economic, and institutional disenfranchisement, Black Americans have traditionally had difficulty accessing public and private services. As a result, Black churches tend to offer a greater number of community programs and mental health services than white churches.”

Specifically, Black Christians registered 76 on the spiritual vitality scale of 0-100, at least 10 percent higher than the 68 among Hispanic Americans and the 69 among whites.

How do people connect with God?

The American Bible Society also explores the various ways people connect with God in the study’s fourth chapter, incorporating nine spiritual temperaments bestselling author and former Southern Baptist pastor Gary Thomas presented in the 1996 book Sacred Pathways.

Naturalists, those who connect best with God while in nature (32 percent); ascetics, connecting most with God while alone, reading the Bible or praying (14 percent); and contemplatives, connecting with God when they sense he is touching their heart (11 percent), ranked as the top three temperaments among study participants. Thirteen percent of those studied feel no connection to God.

Consequently, those who connect best with God in nature were least likely to attend church services, with 72 percent almost never attending church and only 11 percent attending weekly. Contemplatives scored highest in church attendance, with 48 percent attending weekly and 31 percent attending almost never. Among ascetics, 42 percent attend weekly.

In addition to church attendance, the American Bible Society studied how spiritual temperaments impact spiritual commitment, beliefs about God and scriptural engagement.

Evangelical Protestants and historically Black Protestants were more prevalent among ascetics, with the temperament accounting for 23 percent of both groups; followed by naturalists, accounting for 22 percent of Evangelical Protestants and 21 percent of historically Black Protestants.

The State of the Bible annually looks at the Bible, faith and the church in America. The American Bible Society collaborated with the University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center. The 18-minute survey, conducted Jan. 5-30, produced 2,761 responses from a representative sample of adults 18 and older within the 50 states and D.C.

WASHINGTON (RNS)—For the past decade, a handful of megachurches have dominated worship music, churning out hits such as “Goodness of God,” “What a Beautiful Name,” “King of Kings” and “Graves Into Gardens.”

Although churches like Australia-based Hillsong and Bethel Church in California have met with scandal and controversy, worship leaders still keep singing their songs.

A new study released July 11 found few worship leaders avoid songs from Hillsong and Bethel, two of the so-called Big Four megachurches that dominate modern worship music.

The study revealed most worship leaders connect with songs because they’ve experienced them firsthand at a conference or by listening to them online, or because a friend or church member recommended them, rather than seeing the song at the top of the charts or on a list of new songs.

Elias Dummer, a Christian musician turned marketer who is part of the research team behind the study, said most worship leaders think they have good reasons for picking the songs they use in worship. But they may not be aware of how social forces—like the popularity of certain churches—affect their choices.

“While people say that they care about the songs, they pick the same four churches over and over again,” Dummer said.

The new study is based on a survey of more than 400 church worship leaders in the United States and Canada conducted in the fall of 2022, drawn from both social media groups of worship leaders and an email list from a major music publisher.

How do worship leaders select music?

Worship leaders were asked what they thought about the pace of new music being produced, how they picked new songs, what they thought the motivations were behind new songs and whether they’d pick a song—or avoid it—based on the artist or church that produced it.

Only 16 percent of worship leaders said they were less likely to choose a song with ties to Hillsong, while about 1 in 4 said they were less likely to choose songs with ties to Bethel (27 percent).

More than half of worship leaders said they were likely to choose songs with ties to Hillsong (62 percent) while nearly half (48 percent) said they were likely to choose songs with ties to Bethel.

Researchers also found recommendations from friends on social media (54 percent), congregation members (56 percent) and church leaders (76 percent) made it more likely that worship leaders would choose a song. Hearing a song at a live event (76 percent) or streaming online (70 percent) also made it more likely they’d choose a song.

“The most influential factors in discovering a new worship song are peer endorsements and personal experiences,” the study indicated. “Worship leaders mainly trust their friends and fellow church leaders to provide them with song recommendations.”

Just under half (47 percent) of those worship leaders were concerned about the number of new songs available for churches to sing. The study found the big four churches release about 40 to 50 new songs each year, on top of the hundreds of songs available from other sources—from modern hymn writers to artists on YouTube.

About 40 percent said there is a bit too much new music, while a small number (4 percent) said they were “completely overwhelmed” by new music. A quarter (27 percent) said they could handle more music.

That last number surprised research team member Marc Jolicoeur, worship and creative pastor at Moncton Wesleyan Church in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada.

“We can’t exactly say why they would want more songs, whether that means they’re looking for more diverse theological views, for more diverse styles, or more diverse voices,” he said.

What inspires new worship songs?

Only a third of worship leaders thought songs were written with the needs of local churches in mind, while slightly more thought songs were divinely inspired.

Just over half (57 percent) thought songs were inspired by something that happened in a writer’s life. Few believed songwriters wrote songs out of obligation to a contract.

For his part, Dummer said worship songwriters likely do have contractual obligations to meet—and it is unlikely they have moments of personal spiritual inspiration for all of the songs they write.

“There’s a lot of throwing things against the wall,” he said.

Still, it’s more likely that worship songwriters are writing from personal experience than from trying to communicate theological principles, said research team member Shannan Baker, a postdoctoral fellow at Baylor University. That’s in part because it would be easy to get things wrong by using the wrong phrase or word.

Baker said she’d done some interviews with writers who said they often start writing sessions with other musicians by talking about what’s going on in their life and seeing if a theme emerges. Despite the popularity of megachurch-driven hit music, worship leaders often consider songs on a case-by-case basis, rather than thinking about where those songs came from, she said.

Glenn Packiam, a former worship leader and songwriter turned pastor, said understanding how songs get written—or how they get chosen for worship—is a complicated task. And it often starts by trying to figure out what song, or what message, works best in a local congregation.

“Our No. 1 priority was to write songs for the people in our church,” said Packiam, who led worship for years at New Life Church in Colorado Springs. “We wanted to write songs that helped the church find language for the various experiences that we’re going through.”

 He pointed to a song called “Overcome,” written by Jon Egan, a colleague of his at New Life in the early 2000s. That song became a rallying cry for the church when New Life pastor Ted Haggard resigned in scandal and later, when the congregation was reeling from a shooting at the church.

“That song ended up being a gift for our church,” he said.

Packiam, now pastor of Rockharbor Church in Costa Mesa, Calif., went on to study worship music as a ritual while earning his doctorate.

Once songs go out into the world, they will mean different things in different contexts, Packiam said. They may provide comfort to those grieving or inspiration to those facing a challenge. The songs have a life of their own once people begin to sing them in worship.

Packiam believes there are more than consumer forces at work in worship songs.

“I don’t want to look at a particular song or a particular church that’s making music and say, ‘Oh gosh, it’s just a conglomerate machine,’” he said. “What if the Lord is blessing this and causing it to produce fruit?”

WASHINGTON (RNS)—Out of the 7,100 languages that exist, the Bible has been translated into more than 700, making it the most-translated book in the world. Yet, those remaining languages—many of them extremely rare—have vexed Bible translators for decades.

Two scientists are looking to new advancements in artificial intelligence to help close the gap.

“We want to reach all the languages on Earth. The goal is to reach everyone,” said Joel Mathew, a research engineer who alongside Ulf Hermjakob recently launched the Greek Room, an AI-powered technology to help streamline the highly technical process of biblical translation.

Combining Hermjakob’s long experience with natural language processing technologies and Mathew’s field knowledge of Bible translation, the two USC Information Sciences Institute researchers developed the technology with an aim to target “very low-resource languages that are not even in the top 500,” Mathew said.

The Greek Room includes three main tools: spell-checking, world alignment that ensures consistency in translation, and Wildebeest, used to detect improper characters in a script.

The two scientists met in 2015 when Mathew joined USC to complete a master’s degree in computer science. There, he met Hermjakob in the AI division of the Information Sciences Institute. They bonded over a shared passion for languages and their Christian faith.

Mathew, the son of two Bible translators, has observed firsthand the difficulties that come with manual translation by local church members. In his hometown, New Delhi, he took notes of all the tasks that technology could accomplish.

Spell-checking usually requires many people and time, he explained. In the context of translation into rare languages, only local church members are qualified, and they don’t have technology to back their work.

“These are not trivial problems. These are very hard problems. But big companies are not interested in solving them. It’s not their business model to target very rare languages,” he said.

When Mathew shared with him some of the problems Indian translators faced on the ground, Hermjakob jumped at the occasion.

“I always had this feeling to know how, at some point, I could apply my skills to my faith,” said Hermjakob, who earned a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Texas.

Change the traditional model of biblical translation

With their project, Mathew and Hermjakob want to work on languages that do not even have a written system, grammar codes, dictionaries or spell-checkers.

“We are thinking of languages like Uyghur or Oromo,” Hermjakob said. Oromo is spoken in Ethiopia and Northern Kenya.

Recently, they have been approached by an Indian consultant specifically interested in the spell-checking and world-alignment tool for Bible translation in Kolami, a language spoken in western India that counts 130,000 native speakers.

The Greek Room also hopes to change the traditional model of Bible translation. Historically, translations were done by Western missionaries, who could only work on two languages at most in their lifetime, Hermjakob explained. With the Greek Room, the two researchers encourage a local church-driven model.

“Local churches and local language communities are asking for translations of the Bible in their heart language,” Mathew said. In a multilingual context, he added, the heart language is the one in which people express their deepest feelings and is usually their native language.

This first version of the Greek Room focuses on quality control so translators can prioritize other tasks that require more judgment, like finding a way to translate a concept that doesn’t exist in a given language. In their next version, the two researchers want the tool to suggest better translations.

Now that their codes and data are available on GitHub, they hope other users will integrate their research into their tools and innovate further.

Their initiative, supported by the Wycliffe Bible Translators USA organization, is part of a broader program directed by Every Tribe, Every Nation that hopes to make the Scripture available in every language by 2033.