Light in the Valley of the Shadow of Death: Stories of Ukrainian Christians During the War

Edited by Roman Soloviy (Langham Global Library)

Twelve Ukrainian Christians hold onto light amid a profoundly dark time. The news is not full of updates from the front like it was in the first months of the war between Russia and Ukraine. Even if it was, it wouldn’t carry the light these 12 writers bear in their contributions to a much-needed perspective on what it means to be a Christian during war.

The 12 writers of Light in the Valley of the Shadow of Death: Stories of Ukrainian Christians During the War include a seminary rector, a pregnant mother, theologians, military chaplains, a widow and a pastor.

Their stories begin before Russia’s full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, 2022, and carry through the following days, weeks, months and now years. They are harrowing, raw, heavy and vulnerable. They do not shy away from expressing anger, fear, guilt or shame.

Some fled Ukraine. Some stayed. Some joined the Ukrainian military. For most or all, comfort and security were stripped away, leaving concern only for bare necessities and for family.

Theirs are not thoughts after the conclusion of hostilities or during days of official peace. Nor are they calls from the sidelines or Monday morning quarterbacking. These are reflections from within the crucible.

These 12 testimonies are active, ongoing, in-the-moment questions and experiences without knowing the outcomes. They are written and lived amid hope, not amid hope realized.

The writers do not soft-pedal their questions of God or their pain. In so doing, they challenge comfortable and safe Christianity. They also reveal how strikingly the Ukrainian people continue to do theology, philosophy, biblical study and reflection, ministry and art—even amid war, sharpened and focused by the war.

Some, like Kseniia Trofymchuk, discovered what it means to be a refugee. This experience taught Kseniia: “A person is always more than a checklist of needs” (p. 90). Refugees do have needs, but they are people who are more than their needs.

Pavlo Horbunov, crediting deception as the starting place of war, points out: “There is no sense in saying that everyone has their own truth. No! Everyone may have their own interests, but there is only one truth” (p. 102). War can focus the mind.

Denis Gorenkov’s contribution is a literary jewel that should be read and read again—a parable structured on the Genesis 1 creation narrative.

Tucked within the stories are lessons all can learn from, such as the three things that helped Yevhen Yazvinskyy overcome fear as he served on the front line.

I don’t know how these 12 individuals had the capacity amid their circumstances to write such profound testimonies. Since they did, we owe it to them to read, to reflect on and to grow from their stories.

Eric Black, executive director/publisher/editor
Baptist Standard

Author Carmen Joy Imes takes readers on a theological journey to show the church is still a necessity in today’s culture.

In Becoming God’s Family, Imes doesn’t shy away from controversial and polarizing issues impacting the church as she encourages lament, repentance and the desire not to break fellowship with others among local, global and intergenerational Christians.

Rather than focusing on differences and seeing church as a social club, Imes encourages the reader to consider what the church could be when everyone surrenders themselves under the lordship of Jesus Christ.

Imes starts with giving the Christian reader a firm grip of their identity with God, reminding us “every human being is the image of God.”

She continues her discussion on family by focusing on families and God’s involvement with Abraham, Moses and others throughout the Bible.

“God’s promises are not aimed at helping us reach our personal goals. Instead, God’s promises transcend our personal lives and stretch wide to encompass others we will never even meet,” Imes said.

Imes emphasizes we need each other, and we are not meant to be by ourselves.

She also addresses the dysfunction, division and trauma within the Old and New Testament and ways the church can learn from what God already is showing his people through Scripture.

Imes pulls readers to the teachings of Paul as she highlights the work of Jesus making us one as a community full of people who otherwise had nothing much in common.

Becoming God’s Family is a deep dive into what a solid, theological view from Scripture can do for readers looking to understand what it means to be the body of Christ.

Kendall Lyons, news reporter

Baptist Standard

It Became to Me a Joy: When God Shines Brightly through the Broken Places

By Connie Dixon (Woman’s Missionary Union)

This time of year, bubble wrap flies off shelves as we pack precious gifts for tucking under the tree or dispatching safely to faraway places. Sometimes we just wish God would bubble-wrap us and those we love to keep us from heartbreak and brokenness, but he does not.

In It Became to Me a Joy, national Woman’s Missionary Union President Connie Dixon highlights times “when God shines brightly through the broken places” in her life, in those of others and in Scripture.

Beautifully written and brutally honest in 12 chapters that each start with a Scripture and quote, the author begins with defining joy and the overarching question, “Is it possible to have joy and to struggle?”

Dixon likens life’s storms to sudden wind and sand in her native New Mexico that blow stacks of tumbleweeds that impede movement. She tells of a struggle with her and her husband’s fuel business in tiny Elida and the biblical Anna’s struggle and response to her widowhood, noting in both cases sometimes joy seems delayed.

The ensuing chapters address individual, family and corporate issues and tragedies from perfectionism and comparison to guilt and shame, health, her own eating disorder, suffering physically and emotionally, and the universal question, “Why me?”

The stories evoke a variety of emotions from laughing at a 1973 toilet paper crisis to smiling over Connie’s 5’10” frame and size 11½ cowboy boots that look like skis.

Others lead to compassion and tears, such as her pregnant friend Debbie who delayed cancerous brain surgery to deliver a healthy baby girl she mothered just a few months or to weeping for her sister-in-law whose parents were cruelly murdered by their nephew.

Bible examples follow each story—some familiar like Saul in Acts 22, and other more obscure such as Rizpah in 2 Samuel 21.

Using an easy conversational style, the Wayland Baptist University graduate adds sound advice. She notes sometimes God delivers us from the fire, at times through the fire and occasionally by the fire.

When dealing with comparison, she advises from Exodus: “Follow the cloud … not the crowd.” She offers words to the church in tragedy: “Rejoice together, mourn together and support one another,” remembering “God is our lifeboat.”

She urges choosing courage over fear, giving control to God and developing a personal relationship with him as she clearly outlines the way to salvation in the volume’s closing chapter.

It Became to Me a Joy echoes the Vacation Bible School/camp song “I’ve Got that Joy, Joy, Joy, Joy Down in My Heart” and the assurance deep, everlasting joy shines from the light of Jesus for those who love and trust him.

Connie Dixon’s stories clearly illustrate the availability of that inner joy through struggles, tragedy and weariness as well as in times of peace, ease, progress and success. Her words and suggestions in “Food for Thought” and “Dig a Little Deeper” help lead the reader along that path.

A quick read, the book makes a great gift for yourself and those in need of abundant and abiding joy.

Kathy Robinson Hillman, former president

Texas WMU and Baptist General Convention of Texas

Waco

Encountering Pope Leo XIV: Baptist Reflections on the Beginning of a Pontificate

By Steven R. Harmon (Nurturing Faith)

Be honest. Even the least liturgical Baptist among us must confess to a certain curiosity about the College of Cardinals and fascination with the process of selecting a new pope.

Steven Harmon, a historical theologian with Texas Baptist roots, helps unpack that process for non-Catholics and pull back the curtain—at least a little bit—on the Conclave. In the process, he offers insights into the first American-born pontiff, Pope Leo XIV.

Harmon, who has represented the Baptist World Alliance in dialogue with both the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion, journeyed to Rome to report and reflect on the election of a successor to Pope Francis.

In an engaging and accessible style, Harmon offers a day-by-day recounting of his time at the Holy See Press Office. Along the way, he provides non-Catholics a useful introduction to relatively unfamiliar concepts such as synodality—a major emphasis introduced by Pope Francis on listening to God’s voice by hearing all voices within the church. On a practical level, he also helps identify the various religious orders and decipher the abbreviations that identify them.

In dramatic fashion, Harmon recalls the second day of the Conclave, when puffs of white smoke rising from the chimney atop the Sistine Chapel signaled to onlookers the College of Cardinals had reached a decision. Cardinal Robert Prevost—a dual citizen of the United States and Peru—was the choice, and he assumed the title Pope Leo XIV.

Harmon explains the likely historical significance of the title the new pope selected, given the role of Pope Leo XIII as originator of modern Catholic social teaching. He provides first impressions of Pope Leo XIV, along with reflections on the pope’s early public addresses and admiration for his talent as a communicator. As a sign of the times, he also notes the fake memes that proliferated on social media, attributing spurious quotes to the new pope—usually along political lines.

Encountering Pope Leo XIV builds bridges of understanding. In divisive days, Baptist and other non-Catholic readers would benefit from the insights it offers.

Ken Camp, managing editor

Baptist Standard

Silent No More: Bible Women Speak Up, A Poetic Meditation

By Christine Kohler (Resource Publications)

This brief book (only 59 pages) offers a collection of poems written from the perspectives of female Bible characters of varying fame from across the Old and New Testaments.

As the subtitle suggests, each poem invites the reader to take in a character’s perspective deliberately and contemplatively.

The book offers a welcome invitation to pause and think about these women. Their stories often seem to serve as asides, included in the biblical narrative or in sermons merely as supports for the “main characters” we’re really supposed to learn from in the Bible—the males.

Only a handful of women in the Bible could be classified as having “main character energy,” as my Gen Z kids would say. Few of those biblical women who could be described as having “main character energy” are praised.

Reading these poems the way Kohler intended them to be enjoyed—as meditations—I cannot help but conclude, we sorely have missed out by not spending more time considering the human experiences of these remarkable women.

Their place in God’s supernatural story made the women of each poem important enough to appear in Scripture. Even so, I feel like I’m meeting them for the first time in Kohler’s poems.

Silent No More is a beautiful book, well worth spending time to contemplate. Seeing biblical women with fresh eyes evokes a surprising depth of emotion, perhaps because Kohler and her poems accomplish something many women need, in Baptist life and ministry especially —a sense of community.

Hearing the once silent voices of the women of the Bible, I not only understood them better, but also felt, in a new way, the great cloud of witnesses to be found in Yahweh’s daughters before me.

Dare I say, in seeing and hearing the once silent women of the Bible, I, too, felt more heard and seen?

I’d gift this book to my sisters in the faith who are struggling or to my own sons in the hope it might help them be more attuned to voices that often go unheard.

I am certain I will come back often to the poems in Silent No More, anytime I need a reminder of God’s care for the quiet ones, the ones who didn’t assert “main character energy,” but who God saw as essential in telling his story.

Calli Keener

Amherst, N.H.

And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle

By Jon Meacham (Random House)

In recent weeks, I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve heard someone say, “Our country has never been so divided before,” or “We’ve never experienced violence like this.” Since I was reading this masterful biography of Abraham Lincoln at that point, I kept saying to myself, “Um, not so fast. …”

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and presidential biographer Jon Meacham provides a much-needed corrective both to Christian nationalists who paint all respected American figures of the past as sterling evangelical believers and to secularists who deny any Christian influence on American history.

Meacham gives focused attention to the complex, evolving and sometimes contradictory faith of Lincoln. He notes Lincoln’s early upbringing in anti-slavery Baptist churches in Kentucky and Indiana. Young Abe Lincoln never professed the faith of his father Thomas or submitted to baptism—perhaps in part because of his strained relationship with his parents and undoubtedly in part because of his difficulty accepting some stern Primitive Baptist doctrines. Even so, as a child, he preached to his playmates—reciting from memory the sermons he heard on Sunday.

As Meacham notes, Lincoln continued to maintain a conflicted and somewhat-distant relationship with organized religion for much of his life. He obviously read the King James Version of the Bible regularly, and he drew deeply from its poetic phrases in his speeches.

However, Meacham points out Lincoln also read a wide variety of theological and philosophical works that helped shape his views. In particular, Lincoln was influenced by abolitionist minister Theodore Parker, whose sermons about a “moral universe” whose arc “bends toward justice” not only made an impression on Lincoln, but also—a century later—on Martin Luther King Jr.

During the Civil War years, Lincoln’s resistance to joining a church continued, but particularly after the death of his son Willie, he attended church services on a much more frequent basis and prayed regularly. He also sought the wise counsel of ministers he respected as he struggled with the burden of guiding the nation through a bloody war.

One of the most insightful sections of And There Was Light is Meacham’s treatment of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. He provides an almost line-by-line exposition of the text—not only mentioning its numerous scriptural allusions, but also providing the rich biblical background for the references.

For much of his life, Lincoln’s relationship with Christianity was of a man “feeling his way through the twilight.” While the precise contours of Lincoln’s faith remain a mystery, Meacham makes a strong case for the depth of his faith.

Ken Camp, managing editor

Baptist Standard 

Serving God Under Siege: How War Transformed a Ukrainian Community

By Valentyn Syniy (William B. Eerdmans)

Valentyn Syniy and his family, his colleagues—everyone he knew in Kherson, Ukraine, had plans. Some of their plans were about what to do if the Russians invaded. Many of their plans were for better days.

On Feb. 24, 2022, better days were set aside.

Tavrisky Christian Institute, where Syniy is president, was readying to celebrate its 25th anniversary later in 2022. Instead, Russian occupying forces commandeered the school on the west bank of the Dnipro River, looting everything from it, destroying the institute’s extensive library and severely damaging buildings.

Fortunately, Syniy and others had made plans for such an occasion. Their plans enabled them to relocate themselves and the institute to Ivano-Frankivsk in western Ukraine.

Serving God Under Siege tells the story of their evacuation, relocation and months of learning to live in a new place where everything seemed different—the food, the culture, the customs—even among fellow Christians. Eerdmans has scheduled Serving God Under Siege for release Oct. 9.

War consumes … everything, and Syniy portrays war’s consumption with haunting clarity. War consumes patience, reflective thinking, confidence, time, resources. But it also magnifies values and the importance of friendships and partnerships, especially those broad relationships developed over years. Syniy expresses gratitude to the many who lightened the burdens carried by Ukrainian refugees inside and outside Ukraine.

He relays the heartbreak and horror of war with a skillful balance of honesty and propriety. He ranges through the full spectrum of human emotion brought on by war, enabling the engaged reader to feel some of the trauma and tragedy, such as when families and friends go their separate ways, not because they want to, but because an invading army forces decisions.

The trauma isn’t just carried in a person’s thoughts and feelings. It’s also carried in their voices and bodies, in their posture and the way they walk, even down a safe street in western Ukraine, as though trying to make themselves as small a target as possible.

Remarkably, Syniy and his compatriots kept working amid the turmoil of war. They turned their attention to gathering and delivering humanitarian aid, to strengthening partnerships, and to continuing theological education and pastoral ministry—these latter two out of necessity. They made the best lives they could in new places, in part by celebrating life events that happened there, even in the earliest months of the war.

War memoirs often are written after the truce or surrender. Though Syniy wrote after the Ukrainian forces pushed Russian occupiers out of Kherson, there has been no truce or surrender in this war. The war still is raging, giving Syniy’s account the sense of reading unfolding action, because the story he tells hasn’t ended yet outside the book.

Serving God Under Siege has much to teach those who want to learn about Ukrainian culture, the psychology of war, putting one’s theology and faith into practice, the effects of humanitarian aid and what it means to be a refugee.

Eric Black, executive director/publisher/editor
Baptist Standard

The Core of the Christian Faith: Living the Gospel for the Sake of the World

By Michael W. Goheen (Brazos Press)

Stories shape character. Narratives form identity. New Christians whose lives were shaped by the stories of their culture need to be re-formed by a different story—a better narrative.

Author Michael W. Goheen believes followers of Jesus are called to live out the gospel for the world’s sake. However, they need a spiritual formation and discipleship process to equip them for that task.

Goheen calls on the church to reclaim its “missional dynamic” by teaching four key elements of Christian discipleship—the good news of God’s kingdom, the biblical story in its fullness, the church as God’s missional people, and the missionary encounter with culture. In the process, he reiterates many of the same themes presented in the books he wrote previously with Craig Bartholomew—The Drama of History and The True Story of the Whole World: Finding Your Place in the Biblical Drama.

While readers of his earlier books may feel a sense of déjà vu, Goheen breaks new ground with his emphasis on the “missional dynamic” of the church. He asserts the mission God gives to his people requires a missionary encounter—a point at which Christians find common ground with the good in nearly every culture, while also confronting the idolatry that undergirds it and permeates it.

Understanding the grand, sweeping narrative drama of Scripture is not enough unless, as disciples of Jesus, we live out our role in that continuing story and teach others to do the same—continuing Christ’s mission and making known the kingdom Jesus embodied.

Ken Camp, managing editor

Baptist Standard

Dangerous Dilemmas: Patrick Wigglesworth’s Bizarre Bible Adventure, Book 3

By Liz and Jack Hagler (Tyndale Kids, 2024)

Dangerous Dilemmas not only perfectly pegs the daily decisions of preteens and early teenagers, but also defines issues Bible characters face in Psalms through Malachi. Previously, in Over My Head, Book 1 of Patrick Wigglesworth’s Bizarre Bible Adventure, the lad “got yanked into the Bible” as he humorously journeyed and journaled through Genesis to Deuteronomy guided by Moses. In Book 2, Tricky Times, Joshua led the boy from Joshua through Job.

In Book 3, Dangerous Dilemmas, David, Solomon and Daniel pull 11-year-old Patrick from Psalms to Malachi. Liz and Jack Hagler combine Jack’s imaginative melding of fiction and fact with Liz’s engaging black-and-white illustrations to create a hilarious and poignant graphic novel in the form of Patrick’s illustrated journal describing his adventures as a kid and a time traveler.

As the story begins, fifth-grader Patrick serves as student council president when all the presidential candidates who beat him drop out. That means he’s in charge of planning the carnival, barbecue and science camp and leading the morning Pledge of Allegiance although he’s often late. Then, King David tugs him into another biblical tumble.

Sure enough, Patrick becomes one of David’s sheep and makes grass angels as the shepherd snatches him from the enemy. Next, he meets King Solomon, and the two write a promo-rhyme, “Proverbs Are Like Vitamins.” Meanwhile, back at school, Patrick’s mom, little sister and her friends save the newly combined carnival/barbecue complete with a kissing booth.

Not done yet, Patrick trips through Ecclesiastes and Song of Solomon, sipping fresh pomegranate juice, illustrating a love letter, and morphing carnival kissing into a peck-on-the-cheek.

The real challenge arrives in remembering the names of 16 different prophets who wrote 17 Bible books. The task just about “fries his brain” until he discovers clever lines like “Habakkuk has your back” and “Zesty Zechariah.” Thankfully, “Daniel’s the Name, Veggies Are My Game!” steps up as his new guide. Patrick stops to help plan the sixth-grade science camp he can’t even attend. Fortunately, the science teacher makes an exception. Unfortunately, the fifth-grader has to be the gofer, mopper, bad-news teller and handle tough jobs just like the prophets.

Those camp tasks help Patrick draw often humorous prophet lessons. He writes a super hero story, “My 10-Day Adventure with Daniel Eating Only Veggies.” After reading Joel, the gofer “borrows” a jar of live locusts from the camp storeroom, but he can’t return them because the cook fries them for supper. He follows Jeremiah into the cistern, helps search for Hosea’s missing wife, and better understands Micah when his own clothes are stolen from the shower house. No, the prophets didn’t have it easy, but even Jonah got a do-over, Patrick observes.

Liz and Jack Hagler have added Bible references to help readers dig deeper since Dangerous Dilemmas isn’t a Bible storybook, although it does contain them. Instead, the graphic novel offers engaging ways for young readers to better understand scripture and apply biblical lessons to the dangerous dilemmas of life. As Patrick learns, “If you want wisdom, take a proverb, you’ll feel tip-top. And once you taste these wisdom nuggets, you’ll never want to stop.”Hopefully, Desperate Dilemmas can help girls and boys never want to stop learning about God.

Kathy Robinson Hillman, former president

Texas WMU and Baptist General Convention of Texas

Waco

Lord Remember Me

By David Vernon (Xulon Press Elite)

Author David Vernon considers Samson’s prayer as a reminder for us of God’s grace, forgiveness and power.

Samson’s prayer for the Lord to “remember me” is highlighted with the author’s commentary on Samson’s legacy, his appearance in the hall of faith, and the struggles of everyday life.

His book is best read as you review Judges 13 through 16, a study that Vernon did while traveling with the Singing Men of South Texas in Ukraine and studying the life of Samson.

Vernon offers a unique take on the story of Samson, looking at him as more than just a Nazarite with long hair, his lust for women and his dealings with Delilah and the Philistines.

Rather than seeing his prayer in Judges 16 as a “pitiful end to a sad and tragic life,” the author examines Samson’s life as he compares his faults to those who struggle to follow the Lord and his commands in the present day.

Vernon covers topics like the importance of a strong and vibrant prayer life, much like the one similar to Samson’s parents.

Other topics include the work of the Holy Spirit, the sanctity of life, honesty in relationships, love, and seeking what God desires in our lives.

Believers can take from this study that a devotion to God and a desire to live a holy life are the solutions to avoiding the pitfalls encountered by Samson.

Lord Remember Me serves as a unique reminder that the Lord can use anyone and anything for his glory and purpose. The book also serves as a reminder that everyone has a choice in living for the Lord rather than for self.

Kendall Lyons, news reporter

Baptist Standard

You Have a Calling: Finding Your Vocation in the True, Good and Beautiful

By Karen Swallow Prior (Brazos Press)

Author Karen Swallow Prior offers a helpful and insightful examination of what it means to discover and live out one’s calling. Prior seamlessly weaves together biblical principles, literary examples and wisdom gained from personal experience.

She begins by distinguishing calling and vocation from work and passion. Work has inherent value, in addition to providing income and—perhaps—a sense of fulfillment, but calling has a higher purpose. Passion can provide the fuel to help us achieve some great purpose, but many individuals labor in jobs totally unrelated to their passions. They may be called to something far greater than what could be a fleeting passion.

Sometimes, specific vocations or callings may be only for a season of life, but all Christians share a common lifetime calling, Prior asserts. She makes a compelling case that every Christian is called to pursue truth, goodness and beauty, because those transcendent qualities are characteristics of God.

You Have a Calling obviously would make an excellent gift for a recent high school or college graduate who is seeking to discover his or her purpose. It can serve as a good reminder to retirees or to those who soon will retire that employment lasts for a season, but calling lasts for a lifetime. And Christians at any stage in life will resonate with Prior’s admonition to live authentic lives of wholeness and integrity before God.

Ken Camp, managing editor

Baptist Standard

Anchor Point: How to Lead with Faith, Find Strength, and Rebuild with Hope

By John Crowder (Invite Press)

During my 20-plus years of ministry, I’ve only recommended one book to ministers. Now, I recommend two books. The first is Marshall Shelley’s Well-Intentioned Dragons: Ministering to Problem People in the Church, republished in 2013 as Ministering to Problem People in Your Church: What to Do with Well-Intentioned Dragons.

Church conflict is interpersonal conflict. As long as ministry involves people, Shelley’s book is indispensable for the inevitable church conflict and helped me more than any other book.

Likewise, some degree of disaster will visit your church or your life. John Crowder’s Anchor Point: How to Lead with Faith, Find Strength, and Rebuild with Hope is indispensable for preparing yourself—as much as a person can be prepared for disaster.

Crowder begins by taking us back to the evening of April 17, 2013, when a fire in a fertilizer facility in the Central Texas town of West flashed into a devastating explosion heard as far away as 45 miles and felt as far away as 50 miles. Crowder’s first-person account of what followed is gripping—perhaps because I was one who heard the explosion.

In the chaos of responding to a disaster, it is easy to be overwhelmed and to neglect practical concerns. This book is designed to prepare leaders for that overwhelm, even in the first moments.

Crowder emphasizes the necessity of presence, outlining a short list of things leaders need to do in the first 24 hours. From here, he charts the path beyond disaster. And that’s where this book shines.

Chapters 4 through 9 are a master course in disaster response. Every minister and church leader should study Crowder’s counsel on taking care of themselves in order to take care of the church and larger community. They should become familiar with his description of the phases and emotions of disaster recovery. They should rehearse his advice for responding to anger, frustration and criticism, which is some of the best counsel in a book packed with excellent insight.

Not to be neglected are his two chapters on managing financial assistance and interacting with the media. In the middle of everything else needing attention during a disaster, finances and the media can turn a situation on a dime—for better or worse. Crowder’s counsel here is invaluable.

One of Crowder’s gifts is telling the story straight—with all its pain—without losing hope or discouraging the reader. Another is the fact he wasn’t an expert in all—or any—of this before April 17, 2013. Much of what he shares in Anchor Point: How to Lead with Faith, Find Strength, and Rebuild with Hope he learned while going through the disaster’s aftermath.

One more thing about Crowder’s counsel: It doesn’t just apply to major, community-wide disasters. It also applies to the disasters that strike smaller groups of people—such as a car wreck, a house fire, a cancer diagnosis. That transferability is just one reason Anchor Point is the second of two books I recommend to all ministers … and anyone else who needs to be ready for the unexpected.

Eric Black, executive director/publisher/editor
Baptist Standard