French evangelicals are working together to show people Jesus at 2024 Olympic Games. For many people who live in Paris, the Summer Olympics are going to be kind of a problem. In fact, though the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad are not scheduled to start until the end of July, Parisians were already bracing themselves this spring. Metro ticket prices will double, for example, and some have questioned whether the system can handle the expected influx of 16 million people. Student housing has been requisitioned to accommodate staff planning the Olympics. There is concern about the river Seine, the ..read more

Young, evangelical, and African American churchgoers ask the most. When churchgoers show up to their church’s worship service, they’re often hoping to have a guest with them. A Lifeway Research study of US Protestant churchgoers finds 3 in 5 (60%) say they have extended at least one invitation in the past six months for someone to attend their church, including 19 percent who have made one invitation, 21 percent with two invitations and 20 percent with three or more invitations. A third of churchgoers say they haven’t invited anyone to a worship service at their church in the past six months ..read more

The public square is increasingly hostile to religion. But don’t be surprised when Olympic athletes overflow with thanks to God. The opening ceremonies of the Olympics are extravagant celebrations of national glories and global unity. But if you watch past this week’s opener to the Games themselves, you’ll notice an unusual pattern: Athletes are always talking about God. If you caught last month’s Olympic trials, you’ll have noticed the same thing. Athletes of every kind continuously gave God the credit, often in explicitly Christian terms. It was almost like a competition within the competit ..read more

The candidate's "unburdened by what has been" and "coconut tree" lines push her party toward a troubling partisan divide over the past itself. President Joe Biden is out of the 2024 race, and Vice President Kamala Harris is angling to lead her party’s ticket. In the surge of interest in her revised candidacy this past week, online attention has focused on two of her turns of phrase. One is a line Harris has apparently been repeating for many years, returning to it so often that a four-minute clip of her saying it dozens of times is trending on social media. That line—a call to envision and wo ..read more

As smartphones steal potential readers in Indonesia, booksellers are looking to new ideas. Only 1 out of every 1,000 Indonesians is an avid reader, according to UNESCO’s 2012 reading interest index. The country also ranks second to last in a list of the world’s most literate countries, which examined tests as well as “literate behaviors” such as the number of libraries and newspapers and the availability of computers and years of schooling in a nation. In such a challenging climate, can local Christian publishing survive? Indonesian pastors and publishers say yes, although it might look diffe ..read more

Meet Olympians who love God from around the world. Many Olympics lovers learn that their favorite athletes love Jesus through social media posts or postgame interviews following their success on the field, court, or track or in the pool. But the overwhelming majority of Christians competing in the Games won’t end up on the podium. For many, simply arriving at the Games will be a testament to overcoming injuries, mental health challenges, or grief due to the loss of loved ones. Below are the stories of Christian athletes from 13 sports and 20 nations, all eager to make their countries—and thei ..read more

The Book of Psalms reminds us that worship demands our unequivocal devotion and allegiance. The Psalms capture the full range of human experience. Personal and collective, sorrowful and rejoicing, remembering God’s faithfulness and wondering what has become of it—the biblical book, prayed by generations of believers, invites us to enter God’s presence with piercing honesty. For those of us weaned on the positivity of American evangelicalism, the psalms of lament can take us aback. The authenticity of their angst pushes the boundaries of what we have witnessed in corporate prayer. It calls us ..read more

In an absence of resources, leaders struggle to train pastors. When Samuel Ndima was a student at a Bible college in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, he struggled to complete assignments in his theology courses. Though he grasped the material, he had to scramble when it came to anything requiring research. Ndima’s seminary fees included only a few textbooks, but many papers required research from books, journals, and commentaries. Like most of his classmates, Ndima could barely pay tuition and had no money to buy additional books. The few copies of essential texts were perpetually checked out of ..read more

It’s not migrants. Christian shelters are seeing more single moms who can’t shoulder the cost of living. It was 2:45 p.m., and people were lined up around the block in Tribeca, Manhattan, for the 3 p.m. intake at the emergency shelter of the Bowery Mission, a Christian nonprofit that has served New Yorkers since 1879. “Am I on the list?” one woman called out to Lea Burrell, the Bowery manager. The woman had to get in a standby line. Just inside the doorway, a security guard, new to the job, started to cry when she saw the people lined up—she felt like she could have been in that line too. Eve ..read more

The announcement came a day after he faced online backlash for commending President Joe Biden’s decision to drop out. The president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), Brent Leatherwood, suddenly lost his job Monday in a historic and unprecedented move by trustee leadership. A brief statement from ERLC gave no reasoning for Leatherwood’s termination, which came a day after he issued remarks applauding president Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw from the 2024 presidential race. Leatherwood had been on staff with ERLC—the public policy and advocac ..read more