WACO—Many Americans are “always on”—scrolling through social media, checking email or searching the internet, author Angela Gorrell, assistant professor of practical theology at Baylor University’s Truett Theological Seminary, noted.

In her book Always On, she writes about how social media spaces can be instruments of God’s unconditional love—but also sources of anxiety, jealousy and depression.

In this interview, she discusses tools for understanding social media and enabling Christian communities to address its use in constructive ways.

From your perspective as a practical theologian, are the social media strategies you recommend aimed solely at people of faith?

Practical theology takes different forms. Ultimately, I aim to write about issues—like social media—that matter to people and shine the light of the gospel on them. I also research and write about theology and faith in practice, how people express and perform their values, hopes and beliefs through practices, rituals, disciplines, activities, relationships, work—through their way of life. While I write about social media from a Christian perspective, much of what I have written about using social media mindfully and having “interested conversation” about media is applicable to people from a variety of religious and philosophical perspectives.

There is much talk about how people spend too much time on social media, to the point of ignoring family and friends when in their presence. How much is too much? And what problems can this create for people?

The most important thing for people to realize is that how you spend time online is more important than how much time you spend online. There are a variety of issues that “passive,” unintentional, unregulated, time online can extend and nurture. I say extend because all these issues can also be in-person issues. For example, empathy burnout, depression, anxiety and jealousy.

We often encounter an enormous amount of suffering online, and the amount of suffering and the velocity of these encounters—rapidly seeing multiple examples back to back in articles or our newsfeeds—can nurture empathy burnout. We can become numb to the suffering we see online and take it but do nothing about it or think very little of it. Likewise, being on social media and passively scrolling through people’s status updates, tweets and stories for unbounded sets of time and looking at copious amounts of content but never replying, messaging, posting or sharing has been linked to depression and anxiety.

Similarly, passive following, which is following people closely that we do not know (such as celebrities) or people we do not see regularly in person (for example, high school friends) has been linked to jealousy, which can negatively impact how we perceive ourselves and our lives … When we see someone a lot in person or talk to them regularly by phone, we know that their lives have a lot more going on than what they are sharing online.

What strategies do you suggest to help people use social media wisely?

The goal is meaningful participation. I encourage people to limit passive scrolling and following as much as possible. Create something and share it online. Join conversations. Reply to people’s statuses rather than just clicking emojis. When you see that someone is celebrating, share their joy in a significant way. Share it as your status with a note of congratulations or text them or call them.

When you notice someone is mourning, message them. When you encounter suffering online, stop scrolling and do something in response. Get offline, take a walk and pray about this suffering. Give money to an organization that is relieving this suffering. Find other articles and educate yourself on the issue. Learn more about how to help or how to invite other people to care.

Any suggestions as to how and where people might create a space to ask and answer questions about social media use?

Asking powerful questions about people’s online experiences that encourage storytelling and helping each other think about new media can happen around the dinner table, in a church small group or on a road trip in the car. When family and friends ask each other about one another’s lives, we can include asking questions about and discussing social media experiences. We can ask curious, open-ended questions without simple yes or no answers like:

1. How do you make decisions about what to respond to online?
2. Have you ever been frustrated or sad about new forms of technology? What causes frustration or sadness for you?
3. When have you had a joyful experience online? Could you describe a time when you felt heard, affirmed or understood online?
4. How does social media help you love God and others and/or prevent you from loving God and others?
5. When have you had a painful experience online? Could you describe a time when you felt unheard, bullied, left out or misunderstood online?
6. What are the top two feelings you experience when using social media, and why do you think this is so?

How can we do a better job of using social media?

Develop a rhythm for life with your friends or family that specifically addresses technology—when you will use it and for what purposes, when you will not use it, what boundaries you will have. Using social media constructively requires intentionality. I encourage people to find times in their week or month or year to not use devices and social media and to write down their plan on a calendar.

A college student told me that he and his friends put all their phones in the center of the table at restaurants and say that the first person to pick up their phone during dinner pays the entire bill. Since they started this ritual, no one has picked up a phone during dinner. Practices like these help people to be present to people they are with in person.

It is a great idea to put all devices away at night one to two hours before bed so minds and bodies can get prepared for sleep. I know families that have a basket for this purpose in their homes. I especially encourage parents to make sure children under 18 do not have a device in their room during sleeping hours so they can get adequate rest. I invite people to consider turning off notifications from all social media platforms and email and only check apps and email at a certain time each day.

It also is important to have a plan for difficult moments and conversations online. What will you do when you get angry, disagree with someone else or feel depressed about your life or feel left out? What will you do next?

It is equally important to think about what you will use social media for. How can you use social media to love people well, truly stay connected to people, expand your thinking on certain subjects, remain humble and open to being corrected, and nurture your creativity and increase your compassion? How might meaningful participation online support goals like these?

Persistent rumors linking the Evangelical Immigration Table—and, indirectly, the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission—to progressive billionaire George Soros prompted Baptist Press to publish a Jan. 9 “explainer” disputing those claims.

The question-and-answer article carried by the SBC Executive Committee’s information service particularly cites a story appearing on breitbart.com—the far-right syndicated website—that credited the Evangelical Immigration Table with “persuading multiple governors to allow refugees to resettle in their states.”

A Dec. 11 article on that website asserts, “Executives at World Relief and the Evangelical Immigration Table—an organization with links to the Soros-funded National Immigration Forum—have been lobbying governors across the country to bring more refugees to their states.”

Blogs seek to link ERLC to Soros

The Baptist Press article stated: “A number of blogs have circulated those rumors, charging the group and those affiliated with it as advancing an ‘open borders’ mass immigration agenda. Those claims have proved to be false.”

One such website claimed Soros “has bought and paid for the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.”

Another alleged ERLC President Russell Moore “has been bought by leftist elites and is being used to advance a leftist agenda.” That article asserted, “It is a fact—not hearsay—but fact that Russell Moore accepts money from George Soros through his Evangelical Immigration Table.”

While the rumors proliferated in recent weeks, elaborate conspiracy theories linking the Evangelical Immigration Table and its partner organizations to Soros date back at least six years, when the Evangelical Immigration Table bought advertising supporting immigration reform.

Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, told the Christian Post at that time, “No funding from George Soros has been used by the Evangelical Immigration Table.”

The Baptist Press question-and-answer article notes the Evangelical Immigration Table is supported by the National Immigration Forum. The Open Society Foundations, founded by Soros, provided a grant to the National Immigration Forum.

“However, the grant in question represented just 2 percent of National Immigration Forum’s overall budget, and further, EIT has never received or utilized any money from either George Soros or a Soros foundation,” the Baptist Press article states. “Additionally, the ERLC never has funded or been funded by EIT or NIF.”

The article also adds that the ERLC “never has received funding from Soros.”

Evangelical Immigration Table draws wide support

Baptist Press quoted Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum: “Quite simply, there has never been a single penny from George Soros that has gone toward the work of the Evangelical Immigration Table.”

The Evangelical Immigration Table is a coalition of partnering organizations and individuals committed to a bipartisan solution on immigration. According to the group’s statement of principles, the coalition is committed to advocating for a solution that “respects the God-given dignity of every person, protects the unity of the immediate family, respects the rule of law, guarantees secure national borders, ensures fairness to taxpayers, and establishes a path toward legal status and/or citizenship for those who qualify and who wish to become permanent residents” in the United States.

“The ERLC frequently participates with coalition groups on issues important to Southern Baptists,” the Baptist Press article states. “ERLC’s work with a coalition does not signify agreement with the other coalition members on every issue.

“As such, the ERLC continues to work with other members of EIT to advocate for a solution to immigration reform. The ERLC originally partnered with EIT under the leadership of then-president Richard Land, partly in response to the Southern Baptist Convention’s 2011 resolution, ‘On Immigration and the Gospel,’ which called for a just and compassionate solution to immigration reform.

“Messengers to the 2018 SBC annual meeting likewise passed a resolution ‘On Immigration,’ and current ERLC president Russell Moore has remained part of the coalition, advocating for immigration reform as stated in both the 2011 and 2018 resolutions.”

Ironically, a prominent voice citing the alleged links to Soros—and blurring distinctions between the National Immigration Forum, the Evangelical Immigration Table and the ERLC—in recent months has been Fox News Radio host Todd Starnes, a former reporter for Baptist Press.

“Every freedom-loving Southern Baptist ought to be asking their pastors why a Southern Baptist agency is affiliating itself with an organization funded by a known anti-American leftist,” Starnes said.

The Evangelical Immigration Table has drawn support from a wide range of Christian groups and individuals. In addition to Moore and Rodriguez, it is headed by leaders of World Relief, World Vision, the Assemblies of God USA, the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, the National Association of Evangelicals and the Wesleyan Church, among others.

Its statement of principles has been endorsed by several former presidents of the Southern Baptist Convention—Jack Graham, Ronnie Floyd, Johnny Hunt, James Merritt, Bobby Welch and Mac Brunson—along with Paul Baxley, executive coordinator of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, and Elijah Brown, general secretary of the Baptist World Alliance.

Daniel John Yeary, longtime Baptist minister, died Jan. 4 in Houston. He was 81. He was born Dec. 28, 1938, to John and Eileen Yeary in Miami, Okla. He grew up in Cleburne, where he earned nine varsity sports letters at Cleburne High School and was a student leader at First Baptist Church. Yeary then attended Hardin-Simmons University where he played quarterback under Coach Sammy Baugh and was president of the Baptist Student Union. As a student at HSU, he served on staff at Colonial Hill Baptist Church in Snyder and Southside Baptist Church in Abilene. He and Melinda Millican married on March 31, 1961. Following Yeary’s graduation from Southwestern Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, where he received the J. M. Price Scholarship Award as outstanding student in the School of Religious Education, he began leading student work for the Kentucky Baptist Convention. After two years, he was called to lead the college ministry at First Baptist Church in Lubbock. Under his leadership, the ministry grew so large the church initiated one of the first student-led worship services in the country. More than 1,000 students attended each Sunday. From Lubbock, the Yearys moved to South Main Baptist Church in Houston, where he served as associate pastor and developed a pioneering ministry to single adults. In 1975, he was called to University Baptist Church in Coral Gables, Fla., as senior pastor. Under his leadership, the church grew to exceed 2,000 in attendance any given Sunday. After 18 years in Florida, the Yearys followed God’s call to Arizona, where for two decades he served as pastor of North Phoenix Baptist Church, one of the nation’s largest churches. Facing the challenge of leading the church and being his wife’s primary caregiver during her long struggle with Multiple Sclerosis, Yeary stepped down from his pastorate at North Phoenix. The couple moved to Waco in 2013, where he was interim pastor of First Woodway Baptist Church and adjunct professor at Baylor University’s Truett Theological Seminary. Following Melinda’s death in 2016, he moved to Houston in 2017 to be closer to his children and grandchildren. Hardin-Simmons University awarded Yeary an honorary doctorate in 1996, granted him the HSU Distinguished Alumni Award in 2003, and named him to the HSU Hall of Leaders in 2009. Yeary was preceded in death by his beloved wife of 55 years, Melinda, and his brother, Ron (Speedy) Yeary. He is survived by son Wes Yeary and daughter-in-law Erica; daughter Missy Yeary Wells and son-in-law Steve; son Doak Yeary and daughter-in-law Amy; and 10 grandchildren. He was looking forward to the birth of his first great-grandchild at the end of this month. A service celebrating his life and faith will be held at 1 p.m. on Jan. 10 at South Main Baptist Church in Houston. In lieu of flowers, the family requested memorial gifts be made to South Main Baptist Church in Houston or the Fellowship of Christian Athletes.

LOS ANGELES—Kurt Lange, lead pastor at East Coast International Church north of Boston, texted Kristen Kansiewicz, “How do you know if a person is emotionally healthy?”

While that is a big question—one Kansiewicz ended up writing an entire book about, instead of just responding in a text—it’s not uncommon for Kansiewicz, a licensed counselor and staff member at East Coast International Church, to get texts like that as Lange or one of the other pastors is writing their sermon.

Kansiewicz also is the founder of Church Therapy, which provides low cost mental health services in churches and offers training for counselors specializing in Christian integration.

Her model is about getting counselors in church settings—not only to ensure congregants get the professional resources they need, but also in the hopes of prompting pastors to talk more openly about mental health.

“My presence keeps mental health at the front,” she said. “Decreasing stigma happens all the way from the sermon on Sunday to the way we interact with people who arrive at our church.”

One in five adults in the United States experience mental illness, and suicide is the second leading cause of death among people ages 10 to 34, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

But historically, faith traditions have been reluctant to talk about mental health and categorized suicide as a sin, often leaving survivors and family feeling neglected and hurt.

“That lack of community, that lack of inclusion, that lack of feeling that you are part of the body of Christ contributes to suicidality,” said author and pastor Rachael Keefe.

Stuck in the in-between

When Matt Stanford, CEO of the Hope and Health Center & Institute in Houston, started his career, churches were resistant to even having a conversation about mental health.

Although there still are examples of faith leaders continuing to condemn suicide, over the years, Stanford said, he has seen many faith groups starting to move away from viewing suicide as an “unforgivable sin,” and the conversation is starting to change—with Hope and Health Center providing mental health training to about 80 faith communities around Houston and a new training at least once a week.

But that doesn’t mean faith groups have fully dealt with their past.

“I think the problem right now is that it’s more of a conversation, like, yes, there’s a problem. Yes, we need to be involved. And that’s kind of where it is. It hasn’t been able to move forward yet,” said Stanford, who earned his doctorate in behavioral neuroscience at Baylor University.

But that “in-between place,” without a new alternative narrative, still is contributing to the problem, Keefe said.

“If we don’t speak out against the shame and stigma, then we are participating in it,” she said. “Suicide is mentioned seven times in the Bible; not one tells us God’s response.”

The idea of addressing the shame and stigma can be a Goliath-level challenge for some places of worship.

“I think a lot of faith communities don’t know how to address it,” said Melinda Moore, clinical psychologist and assistant professor in the department of psychology at Eastern Kentucky University and co-lead for the Action Alliance’s Faith Communities Task Force.

The task force, she said, is “trying to demonstrate some leadership on how faith communities could address the problem of suicide in a loving, prayerful way.”

Moore lost her husband to suicide over 20 years ago. She continued going to church, but, she said, “I did not feel supported by my church.”

She did, however, feel supported by Christ and, for her, that was enough at the time.

“But faith communities can be doing so much more,” she said. “Unless the pastor or the rabbi or the priest addresses the issue of suicide, (parishioners) are not going to know it’s OK to open up about it.”

Bible-centered counseling

Pastoral and biblical counseling have been common in the past and often are still present in churches today. In 2012, Spotswood Baptist Church in Fredericksburg, Va., created an entirely separate biblical counseling center.

The center focuses on using “biblical perspectives” to help patients and keeps the cost for each visit on a donation-basis; its counselors pray at the beginning and end of each session.

Gene Willis, director of biblical counseling, said they always let people know they aren’t approaching this from your typical clinical basis and that it’s from a biblical perspective—and that’s why people come, he said.

“People come because they know that,” Willis said. “We want to be different. We don’t want to be your typical analysis where it takes God out of the picture. We put God in the picture.”

Willis said they’ve seen thousands of people since they’ve opened and are usually booked a month out. Spotswood’s senior pastor, Drew Landry, knows that nobody is immune from the “difficult, dark days of life,” including those in the Bible.

“There are people in Scripture who went through things like this,” Landry said. “Their faith has enabled them to persevere through the difficult seasons of life.”

For him as the pastor, it has been important to have a place to refer someone when they come to him with larger problems. And, he said, it has allowed the entire congregation to be more open about their own mental health.

“Because we have a counseling center, we have also had one of our staff members be pretty transparent when he’s had an opportunity to preach and teach,” Landry said. “I guess we’ve kind of given our congregation permission to have the conversation.”

Although two of their staff members currently are working toward getting their license, Spotswood currently doesn’t have a licensed therapist on staff.

Kansiewicz said there’s always going to be a place for pastoral counseling but hopes churches will look for licensed therapists for people who need longer-term or deep psychological help.

“That’s important to not get in over your head,” she said. “But also, a licensed counselor is mandated in more situations than a pastor is.”

Stretched thin

Stanford recognizes faith organizations already are stretched thin. But it would be a misconception to think any church is immune to this problem, he said.

“They look at their community and think it’s not important because nobody is talking about it,” he said.

But, he pointed out, they likely aren’t talking about it because of the stigma—not because it’s not a problem.

“Everyone has a story,” Keefe said. “If one in (five) people have a mental health challenge, everyone has a story. If you’re not the one struggling, someone you know and love has had mental health struggles.”

But faith groups don’t have to start an entire counseling center to impact their communities. For some places of worship, the next step might simply be mentioning mental illness and suicide in a newsletter or during prayer.

“It’s a very simple way to start bringing some of that in,” said Keefe. “And when that becomes more comfortable for people, when it becomes routine that these kinds of prayers are accepted, maybe they will share their own prayer requests.”

Some churches post the Suicide Prevention Lifeline in a highly trafficked area or put up information about what support groups are around the area. Other faith organizations bring in speakers, start support groups or find training events in their area.

Stanford said people are more likely to go to clergy before they go to a mental health care provider or physician. It’s important to train faith leaders how to respond and where they can lead people to get the help they need—instead of trying to stand in for psychiatrists and psychologists.

Stanford said one of the most important things they do at his center is try to help faith leaders recognize and identify what to look for, develop safe and effective responses, facilitate small groups and become a “Peer Mental Health Coach.”

“(People) don’t walk in the door and say, ‘Hey, I woke up this morning, and today is the first day of a six-month decline in depression in my mood. And then six weeks from now, I’m going to be in a depressive episode, so I need you to help me,” Stanford said.

Instead, he said, they walk in the door complaining about losing another job or about not getting along with their spouse.

“(Faith leaders) tend to focus on the now,” he said. “‘OK, you’re not getting along with your wife—well, that’s a problem. We got a marriage class. Or you’re not getting along with your wife—it’s a communication issue, start praying together.’”

Kansiewicz has noticed there are not enough licensed counselors that understand how to bridge traditional secular counseling with that of people’s faith.

“People come to me because they’re like, ‘Oh, I would never go to counseling except for I know who you are when you’re in the church building.’ And so, it makes them feel safe,” she said.

Her program is working to address that problem in churches—and at little cost.

“(We) really train up our counselors and teach them that it’s possible to work in a church setting,” she said. “A lot of students that I went to school with really have a heart for working with the church, and they just don’t think it’s possible.”

When there’s a therapist present, the culture of mental health in the church really changes, she said. Now her congregation sees going to Kansiewicz as “a badge of honor”—whereas most of her patients hadn’t ever gone to counseling before.

“That’s the sign they’re really serious about moving forward emotionally and spiritually,” she said. “They want to tackle the stuff they’ve never dealt with before.”

Editor’s note: Texas Baptists’ Counseling Services offers confidential assessment, counseling and referral services for ministers and their families, along with counseling resources for all Texas Baptists and group presentations on mental health topics. Contact Katie Swafford at (800) 388-2005 or email counselingservices@texasbaptists.org. 

Luke Mendez to Calvary Baptist Church in Abilene as youth pastor.

____________________________________________________________________________________

Choral musicians from First Baptist Church in Waxahachie performed at Carnegie Hall recently. As part of the Distinguished Concerts Orchestra and Singers, they presented the premiere of “Sing Christmas!” by composers Mary McDonald and Joel Raney. The choir performed the cantata before a sold-out crowd in the Stern Auditorium, with McDonald conducting and Raney providing piano accompaniment. “It was a full house that heard the gospel through music that evening,” said Chett Haynes, associate pastor of administration and worship at First Baptist Church. Haynes led the group of 68 singers and 36 guests from Waxahachie to New York at the invitation of Hope Publishing Company.

Ferrell Foster, director of ethics and justice with the Texas Baptist Christian Life Commission, will begin work in February as content specialist for care and communication with Prosper Waco. He will work with Prosper Waco CEO Suzii Paynter March, former CLC director and past executive coordinator of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, on projects and initiatives that advance benchmark indicators in health. He also will implement partnerships to build and strengthen a continuum of care for behavioral and mental health services in Waco. Foster has served with the Baptist General Convention of Texas Executive Board staff since 2000, working several years in the communications office before joining the CLC. He is the former editor of the Illinois Baptist. He holds a doctor of ministry degree in Christian ethics from Hardin-Simmons University’s Logsdon Seminary.

Texas Baptist Men disaster relief workers responded to a dozen disasters in multiple locations in 2019, giving more than 72,000 volunteer hours. Deployments included flooding throughout Southeast Texas and tornadoes in the Dallas area. When combined with out-of-state ministry partners who worked in Texas under TBM supervision, disaster relief workers donated more than 86,500 volunteer hours. TBM crews prepared more than 52,000 meals, distributed more than 1,000 Bibles and recorded 83 professions of faith in Christ that resulted from more than 8,100 ministry contacts.

Dallas Baptist University granted an honorary Doctor of Humanities degree to Jesse Rincones, executive director of the Hispanic Baptist Convention of Texas. Rincones, former pastor of Alliance Church in Lubbock, spoke at DBU winter commencement services. He encouraged the new graduates to face the challenges of their calling with faith and not to underestimate the impact of doing small things with excellence.

Ten years after graduating from Hardin-Simmons University, motivational speaker Roy Juarez Jr. returned to the Abilene campus recently for a public reading from his recently published autobiography, Homeless by Choice: A Memoir of Love, Hate and Forgiveness. Juarez spent his adolescent years homeless in San Antonio due to domestic violence. Eventually, he graduated from high school and went on to earn a business degree from HSU. Since 2010, he has traveled extensively, speaking to more than 450,000 students, educators and parents.

Jeffry Archer, associate dean of user services at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, will join Baylor University as dean of university libraries, effective June 1.  As dean, Archer will lead the Baylor University Libraries, which includes special collections such as the Armstrong Browning Library; the Texas Collection and University Archives; the Institute for Oral History; the Keston Center for Religion, Politics, and Society; and the W. R. Poage Legislative Library. Archer went to work with the McGill University Library and Archives in January 2017. Before joining McGill, Archer served more than two decades with the University of Chicago library.

Carlos Montaño sintió el llamado de servir a Dios a temprana edad, pero no fue a algo específico al principio. Aun así, Montaño sabe que Dios ha guiado su vida y continúa llevándolo a lugares a los que él nunca imaginó.

“Mi llamado ha sido un proceso en el que el Señor ha abierto puertas y yo entro por ellas,” él dijo.

Montaño creció en Bolivia, con dos hermanas y tres hermanos, en un hogar con padres que dedicaron sus vidas al ministerio. Estudió en un instituto de arte en Cochabamba donde se concentró en música. De los 42 estudiantes que empezaron con él en el cuarto grado, él fue uno de los 15 que se graduaron del duodécimo grado.

A principios de los 80s, recibió la oportunidad de una iglesia en Georgia para estudiar la universidad en Estados Unidos. Como estudiante, él continúo usando sus dones para servir en iglesias en Georgia, donde tuvo responsabilidades como ministro de jóvenes y de música. También trabajó extensivamente ministrando a través de conciertos, conferencias, avivamientos y otros trabajos misioneros.

Esas experiencias eventualmente lo llevaron a Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary en Fort Worth, donde él y su esposa hicieron su hogar y criaron a sus hijos.

Un asunto de familia

Su hija Carlena y sus hijos, Charly y Caleb, se hicieron participes del ministerio de sus padres instantáneamente. Ya que sus hijos estudiaron en casa, ellos podían viajar con sus padres, mientras también usaban la música para hablar de Jesús con otras personas—y mostrar un poco de la cultura latinoamericana.

“Hemos disfrutado mucho esto. Ha sido un privilegio servir en el ministerio,” Montaño dijo.

Él notó que el ministerio de la familia muchas veces proveía a algunas iglesias en Estados Unidos la oportunidad de interactuar por primera vez con alguien de América Latina.

Mientras estudiaba en la universidad, Montaño solo conoció a otros cuatro estudiantes de América Latina, y Atlanta era la única ciudad en Georgia en la que él podía encontrar algunas iglesias hispanas. Fuera de la universidad y en algunas iglesias localizadas en áreas metropolitanas, Montaño cuenta que sus interacciones con otros hispanos—usualmente inmigrantes de primera generación—ocurrían en los ranchos o granjas de miembros de iglesias que él visitaba y donde ellos trabajaban.

Él vio eso como una puerta abierta para que no solo pudiera adorar con las iglesias, pero también introducir su cultura con iglesias anglo y ayudarles a ver cómo Dios se comunica a través de otros idiomas y otras culturas, él dijo.

Con un estilo de música de las tribus indígenas Aymara y Quechua de las Montañas Andes, la familia ofrece una “probadita de esas culturas,” Montaño mencionó.

Muchas veces, miembros de las iglesias que ellos visitaban también invitaban a la familia de Montaño a sus casas, dando oportunidad para estrechar la relación y conocer más de la cultura.

Apoyando a las iglesias de América Latina

Mientras iglesias en Estados Unidos conocían por primera vez de las culturas en Latinoamérica, Montaño les informaba cómo grupos indígenas todavía no han escuchado de Dios.

Gracias a las relaciones que los Montaño han hecho con iglesias en América Latina, ellos han podido encontrar apoyo para sus ministerios.

El ministerio de la familia Montaño continúa cambiando, dependiendo del contexto en el cual se encuentran. A veces buscan juntar fondos para comprar útiles escolares para familias en Centroamérica o la construcción de un nuevo edificio para una iglesia.

El ministerio ha abierto las puertas para que la familia experimente cosas hermosas y también algunas situaciones difíciles, Montaño dijo.

Mas de la mitad de su ministerio se ha realizado en zonas rurales de Latinoamérica, donde Montaño y su familia han aprendido cómo muchas personas viven con mucho menos que las familias en Estados Unidos, él notó.

Ya que le dan mucha importancia a la contextualización, los Montaño han encontrado ministros que necesitan apoyo en sus localidades y aprenden cómo les pueden ayudar. También quieren que otros cristianos descubran sus llamados.

“Así como Dios ha usado diferentes eventos en mi vida para guiarme, también queremos que Dios nos use en las vidas de otros para que ellos sigan su llamado,” Montaño explicó.

Tiempos cambian, nuevas puertas se abren

Dios ha usado a los Montaño en conciertos para miles de personas en América Latina, donde muchas personas han escuchado por primera vez acerca de Jesús.  También han apoyado a iglesias en crecimiento con materiales de construcción, programas para niños y ayuda médica misionera.

“Oro que Dios siga abriéndoles las puertas, así como Él lo hizo conmigo,” él dijo.

Ahora Montaño entiende que Dios puede estar abriendo otra puerta para él y su familia.

Sus hijos ya son adultos, y ellos están empezando a tener sus propias familias con sus parejas.

Aunque no tengan la oportunidad de viajar y ministrar juntos, Montaño sabe que esto puede traer una nueva etapa en su servicio a Dios. También entiende que Dios puede estar guiando a sus hijos a usar los que ellos han aprendido y conectarse con otras áreas del ministerio por sí solos, así como él lo hizo antes.

“No me importa donde Dios los ponga. Solo espero que ellos nunca dejen de servirle,” Montaño dijo. “Espero que ellos siempre digan, ‘yo debo de vivir para otros y no para mí.’”

Después de 38 años de ministerio, Montaño dijo que él ha aprendido que confiar en Dios es la única manera en la que los cristianos llegaran a donde tienen que ir. Sin importar cual sea el reto o el problema, Dios tiene un plan, él dijo.

“Tal vez no sepamos a donde iremos al final, pero siempre es grandioso seguir a Dios a través de las puertas que Él abre,” Montaño dijo.

MIAMI (RNS)—President Donald Trump insisted he is favored by God during a Jan. 3 speech to evangelicals.

He also went through a roll call of evangelical rallying points and challenged the faith of his Democratic rivals as he kicked off a new campaign initiative aimed at conservative Christians.

“I really do believe we have God on our side,” Trump told the crowd of roughly 5,000 gathered at El Rey Jesús Church in Miami.

Trump was at the church to launch “Evangelicals for Trump,” a new initiative for his 2020 reelection bid. Many in the audience wore red hats emblazoned with the president’s campaign slogan: Make America Great Again.

The event came in the wake of a bombshell editorial calling for Trump’s removal from office published in December at the evangelical magazine Christianity Today. The editor-in-chief of the magazine, founded by famed evangelist Billy Graham, described the president as “morally lost and confused” and said the impeachment case against him was solid and “unambiguous.”

Trump dismissed Christianity Today as “far left” at the time, and he has appeared eager to reinforce his support among evangelicals in recent weeks.

Familiar themes

He regularly invoked Christian nationalist themes throughout his address in Miami, tying faith to the country’s history and future. He described the United States as “not built by religion-hating socialists” but by “churchgoing, God-worshipping, freedom-loving patriots.”

He argued that “a society without religion cannot prosper, a nation without faith cannot endure, because justice, goodness and peace cannot prevail without the glory of Almighty God.”

He then extended the theme to his own reelection, saying, “We’re going to win another monumental victory for faith and family, God and country, flag and freedom.”

Trump spent much of the speech touching on subjects he often mentions when speaking to evangelical Christian audiences—religious freedom, Israel, his administration’s opposition to abortion and his claim that he has made it permissible to say “Merry Christmas” again.

“Above all else in America we don’t worship government, we worship God,” Trump said as the crowd erupted in applause.

The president repeatedly characterized religion itself as under attack or “under siege” in the United States, saying that people of faith have no greater champion than him. He noted a recent shooting at a church in Texas and the stabbing of Jews at a Hanukkah gathering in New York, adding that he would strive to combat anti-Semitism.

He did not mention his controversial travel ban—originally proposed as a ban on Muslims entering the country—or attacks on Muslim Americans and their houses of worship that have occurred during his presidency.

Challenged faith of Democratic challengers

However, Trump did take shots at the field of Democratic candidates vying to replace him.

“As we speak, every Democrat candidate is trying to punish religious believers, and silence our churches and our pastors,” Trump said. “Our opponents want to shut out God from the public square so they can impose their extreme anti-religious and socialist agenda on America.”

It is unclear what Trump meant by “punish religious believers,” although he made reference to a short-lived proposal by former candidate Beto O’Rourke of Texas, who once suggested faith-based institutions should lose their tax-exempt status if they don’t support same-sex marriage. O’Rourke later clarified that he was referring only to religious institutions that provide public services, not individual houses of worship.

Trump also mocked Pete Buttigieg, until recently mayor of South Bend, Ind., who has referenced faith repeatedly during his presidential campaign. The president joked that “nobody can pronounce (Buttigieg’s) name” before questioning the authenticity of the Democrat’s religious beliefs.

“All of a sudden he has become extremely religious,” Trump said. “This happened about two weeks ago.”

Buttigieg, an Episcopalian, has discussed his faith repeatedly since he first initiated his presidential bid in January 2019. The Democratic candidate also tweeted a reference to faith after Trump’s speech, saying, “God does not belong to a political party.”

Trump’s quips regarding the Democratic candidates’ religious views contrast with remarks he made during his 2016 campaign. After Pope Francis seemed to suggest the businessman was “not a Christian” in February of that year, Trump responded by arguing that such theological critique was inappropriate.

“No leader, especially a religious leader, has the right to question another man’s religion or faith,” Trump said at the time.

Surrounded by supporters

The Miami event opened with several evangelical leaders praying over Trump. Paula White, newly minted head of the White House’s Faith and Opportunity Initiative, and Jack Graham of Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, flanked the president as Pastor Jentezen Franklin of Gainesville, Georgia, called Trump “a fighter and a champion for freedom” and thanked God for sending him to the Oval Office.

“I thank you, Lord, that he doesn’t claim to be perfect, but he is passionate,” Franklin said. He closed with a line that appeared to reference Trump’s campaign slogan: “Lord, do something so great in him and in this nation that the pundits on TV and the news anchors will be amazed at how great America is because God is great in America again.”

Some observers speculated the choice of venue—El Rey Jesús Church, a massive congregation of mostly Spanish-speaking worshippers—may have been a strategic play by Trump’s campaign team to garner support among Hispanic evangelicals. The subgroup of Christian conservatives does not fit squarely within either major political party and has been touted as an important swing vote ahead of the 2020 election.

“It is not only logical but—arguably—politically brilliant that the President will kick off 2020 with the launch of his reelection’s evangelical outreach at a Latino megachurch in the state of Florida,” Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, told Religion News Service.

“According to exit polls, 29 to 30 percent of Latinos voted for President Trump in 2016. The driving forces behind that Hispanic support may this time garner even greater support: faith values and economic opportunity.”

Also in attendance at the Miami event was Tony Suarez, a vice president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, who endorsed Trump in 2016. Suarez said he attended the gathering because he supports the president, and he predicted evangelicals of all stripes would back Trump come Election Day.

“Other than one article from (Christianity Today) that I believe to be an anomaly, Evangelical support for our president is as strong as it’s ever been,” Suarez said via text message. “Beyond Evangelical support, no one expected President Trump to receive much of the Latino vote as he did in 2016 and I predict it’ll be even higher in 2020.”

There are signs that securing Hispanic evangelical support will not be uncomplicated for Trump, however—especially when it comes to immigration policies, on which Hispanic evangelicals are less conservative than white evangelicals. Ahead of his visit, Guillermo Maldonado, pastor of El Rey Jesús, assured his congregants that they would not risk deportation if they decided to attend the event.

Progressive evangelicals respond

Trump may also have difficulty winning over evangelicals who are already unhappy with his presidency. Red Letter Christians, a progressive-leaning evangelical group, broadcast a response to his speech over Facebook.

Lisa Sharon Harper, founder of Freedom Road and the person chosen to deliver the response, singled out Trump’s recent decision to kill Iranian military leader Qassem Soleimani, which the president celebrated at the beginning of his speech.

“We oppose President Trump’s order to assassinate Gen. Qassem Soleimani last night,” Harper said. “Our faith compels us to speak, and our conscience will not permit us to be silent. … We speak here as followers of Jesus, who said, ‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.’”

She also bemoaned Trump’s support among her fellow evangelical Christians.

“We must not lend support to compromised evangelicals with our silence,” she said. “History will remember this unholy collusion between white evangelicals and Donald Trump. We must speak up.”

ELKTON, Tenn. (BP)—Stephen Feinstein, pastor of Sovereign Way Christian Church in Hesperia, Calif., will be nominated for second vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention at the SBC annual meeting in June 2020 in Orlando.

Chris Bolt, pastor of Elkton Baptist Church in Elkton, Tenn., announced on Dec. 31 his intention to nominate Feinstein, saying he is a representative of the SBC’s future: “a future which likely includes more bivocational pastors serving smaller and more diverse churches in increasingly hostile ministry contexts.”

Feinstein said his main goal with the position is to be an example of a small-church pastor who gets a seat at the SBC table.

“The vast majority of SBC churches are small,” he said. “Yet our convention celebrates large churches and the pastors of large churches. It would be nice for other pastors of small churches to know that the convention values us, too.”

Feinstein said one way the SBC can communicate its belief in the importance of all faithful churches—not just the large ones—is by including on the annual meeting platform more small-church pastors who are faithful to the Scriptures.

“This will communicate that pastors don’t have to buy their way into office with large (Cooperative Program) donations from their megachurches,” Feinstein said. “If my election in even a small way can communicate this, then that is my main goal.”

According to Annual Church Profile records, Sovereign Way Christian Church has reported no Cooperative Program giving, no Lottie Moon Christmas Offering giving, and no Annie Armstrong Giving in any of the past three years.

However, the church did report Great Commission giving of $7,857 in 2019 with a budget of $235,226.22 (3.3 percent Great Commission giving). The church also reported a membership of 95 and average worship attendance of 123 in 2019.

Experience as a bivocational minister

Feinstein said the nature of his ministry and outside work has prepared him for the future landscape of the SBC.

“Being a bivocational pastor for as long as I was certainly taught me how to maintain faithful ministry to the people of God, and yet have a strong reputation with those outside of the church,” he said.

Feinstein was raised in a secular Jewish family but became a Christian when he was 17, according to Bolt. He began his teaching ministry at age 20 and began serving as pastor 10 years later.

In addition to his pastoral ministry, Feinstein is a major in the U.S. Army Reserve and has served as a chaplain through the North American Mission Board since 2009.

He holds a master of arts from Liberty University and a master of divinity from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Feinstein and his wife Bonny have two children.

DURHAM, N.C. (RNS)—On a rainy evening a week before Christmas, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove shuttled two of his three children to a rehearsal of a cantata at St. John’s Missionary Baptist in Durham, N.C., where he serves as an associate pastor.

While they were rehearsing, he checked in on José Chicas, an undocumented immigrant who has been living for more than two years in a clapboard house the church owns next door.

Wilson-Hartgrove then hopped into his gray Honda minivan and drove five miles north to collect a few boxes and suitcases belonging to a man named Gordon.

Gordon, who did not want to give his last name, was recently released from prison. He is now the newest resident of the six-bedroom house of hospitality where Wilson-Hartgrove and his family live in community with some friends.

For Wilson-Hartgrove, the life of an activist and writer is all-consuming. A son of the South—Wilson-Hartgrove grew up in the small town of King, N.C., about 95 miles west of Durham—he remains both devoted to the region and one of its staunchest critics.

Breaking out of a white evangelical cocoon

At 39, Wilson-Hartgrove has spent the better part of his life breaking out of the white evangelical cocoon he grew up in. He settled in a poor, mostly black neighborhood and preaches in a predominantly black church. He and his wife, Leah, have adopted an African American boy. In recent years, he has traveled the country with Pastor William J. Barber II, the charismatic civil rights leader.

Anyone following Barber’s trajectory may recognize the 6-foot-6 Wilson-Hartgrove towering beside his mentor. The two first met when Wilson-Hartgrove was 16, and they have worked together since.

They have been especially close over the past decade. Barber called Wilson-Hartgrove the scribe for the Poor People’s Campaign that he founded, serving as the main author of the national movement’s printed materials.

“Every prophetic movement needs a scribe,” said Barber. “Jeremiah had Baruch,” he added, referring to the biblical prophet and his scribe. “Jonathan is our Baruch.”

Abandon ‘slaveholder religion’

But Wilson-Hartgrove is a writer in his own right, and his books are intended for white evangelicals who he hopes might be persuaded to abandon what he called in his 2018 book “slaveholder religion.” While the term is not uniquely his, he uses it to explain today’s historic parallels with 19th century faith and politics.

Slaveholder religion is Wilson-Hartgrove’s shorthand for a faith that turns a blind eye to systemic racism and instead prizes obedience and law and order, while idolizing capitalism and corporate interests.

Wilson-Hartgrove’s most recent book, Revolution of Values: Reclaiming Public Faith for the Common Good, is his 13th. In it, he tells the stories of people harmed by poverty, voter suppression, cruel immigration policies, mass incarceration, ecological devastation, militarism.

Wilson-Hartgrove hopes to convince white evangelicals they have misread the Bible and help them discover, as he has, the black freedom movement’s understanding of Scripture as focused on justice and freedom.

He worries the religious right’s focus on political power has coincided with the rise of the so-called nones, those who claim no religious affiliation.

“I think that’s a real concern for Christian communities,” he said. “A lot of people don’t want to have anything to do with the church.”

A gradual rebirth

As a boy, Wilson-Hartgrove dreamed he might one day be president. Born into a family of Southern Baptists in a town 23 miles from Mount Airy, the fictional Mayberry of the Andy Griffith Show, Wilson-Hartgrove grew up believing Jesus was a Republican and America was on the right side of history.

In high school, he served as a page to South Carolina Sen. Strom Thurmond, an outspoken opponent of integration and civil rights.

Wilson-Hartgrove said his rejection of that white Christian worldview was gradual. He never had a crisis of faith.

“But I did come to (the) realization at the end of my time in D.C. that the way I had been taught to live out this faith didn’t seem like good news to me,” he said.

Barber played a role in Wilson-Hartgrove’s transformation. The two first met when Barber spoke to North Carolina’s Youth Legislative Assembly when Wilson-Hartgrove was a member.

After that speech, Wilson-Hartgrove invited the African American preacher to speak at his high school’s baccalaureate service—an invitation Barber accepted with some trepidation.

“I knew the history of white supremacy in that area,” Barber said. “My brother went with me. It was a little unnerving.”

Faith, reason and justice

Wilson-Hartgrove went on to attend Eastern University near Philadelphia, which defines its core values as “faith, reason and justice.” At the time, sociologist and Baptist minister Tony Campolo was on the faculty.

Eastern’s graduates include Bryan Stevenson, the noted death penalty lawyer depicted in the new film Just Mercy, and Shane Claiborne, the activist and founder of Philadelphia’s The Simple Way, a house of hospitality.

At Eastern, Wilson-Hartgrove met Leah Wilson, a Californian whose father, Jonathan Wilson, is a theologian and Baptist pastor. The young couple married and came to Durham, where Wilson-Hartgrove enrolled at Duke Divinity School.

In 2003, during the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the couple traveled to that country and Jordan as part of a Christian peacemaker team. On their way to Amman, the Jordanian capital, one of three cabs carrying the group was hit by shrapnel and landed in a ditch. The Iraqis who stopped to help took them to the town of Rutba, where they were treated at a makeshift hospital.

Practicing radical hospitality

The hospitality they received there was life-changing. When they returned to Durham they rented a sagging bungalow in the predominantly black neighborhood of Walltown and called it the Rutba House.

They welcomed neighbors in need of a meal or a place to stay. In those days, drive-by shootings and street drug deals were common and Wilson-Hartgrove would canvass the neighborhood on foot, praying with anyone he met.

The Wilson-Hartgroves adopted a black boy, JaiMichael, whom they met when he was in foster care. They have two more children, Nora, 10, and Nathan, 5.

In time, Wilson-Hartgrove was invited to join the neighborhood’s mostly black St. John’s Missionary Baptist Church as an associate minister. The house next door to the church became the site of Wilson-Hartgrove’s School for Conversion. The school is modeled after Tennessee’s Highlander Center, known for training many of the leaders of the civil rights movement. It runs after-school and mentoring programs and has a small library of books by and about figures in the American freedom struggle. Most of Wilson-Hartgrove’s income comes from the school.

The neighborhood is far more diverse now. Over the past 20 years, neighborhoods close to Duke University have gentrified with newer suburban-like two-story homes where smaller homes once stood.

The Wilson-Hartgroves have moved with their larger family into a newer and bigger home donated to them by a local builder. But they remain committed to the neighborhood, volunteering with the local community association and hosting monthly neighborhood potlucks.

“Jonathan is very much part of the neighborhood,” said Gann Herman, who chairs the School of Conversion’s board and lives nearby. “It’s one of the things I admire the most about Jonathan and the School of Conversion is how rooted it is in the neighborhood.”

A national stage

In 2013, Wilson-Hartgrove’s call took him beyond his immediate neighborhood.

North Carolina conservative Republicans had gained control of both chambers of the Legislature and elected a Republican governor, Pat McCrory, the year before. With complete control of the legislative and executive branches, they passed restrictions on abortion, refused Medicaid expansion, cut unemployment benefits and adopted restrictive voting laws that were eventually overturned by the courts.

On April 29, 2013, Barber, then president of the NAACP’s state chapter, led a protest to the state Legislature building in Raleigh to call attention to the attacks on the poor. Seventeen of the protesters—including Barber—were arrested for disrupting the Legislature’s deliberations.

That protest led to the start of the Moral Mondays movement that took root in North Carolina and led to more than 1,000 arrests over several years. When protesters returned to the Statehouse the first week in May 2013, Wilson-Hartgrove was among them.

Barber decided in 2018 to focus more on national change and launched the Poor People’s Campaign—a revival of Martin Luther King Jr.’s final campaign to highlight poverty and the plight of the poor in a nation of riches.

Wilson-Hartgrove went on the road with Barber to help spread the message.

Highlighting policies that harm people

In his latest book, he tells about his travels to El Paso, where he waded in the Rio Grande waters to help unite an immigrant woman living in the U.S. with her family on the other side of the river in Ciudad Juárez.

He also recounts a visit to Nashville, Tenn., where he befriended a former death-row inmate who spent 20 years in prison for a crime he did not commit.

And he tells the story of a trip to the Arizona desert, where he met with San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation leaders fighting to protect Oak Flat, a sacred patch of land 40 miles from their reservation.

Through each encounter, he tries to illustrate how U.S. policies have harmed individuals and groups he met.

Wilson-Hartgrove’s last two books were published by InterVarsity Press, known for its willingness to take on controversial subjects with a more diverse author pool than other U.S. evangelical publishing houses.

“Anytime you are telling stories of wading in the water between Texas and Mexico, you’ll have blowback,” said Jeffrey Crosby, IVP publisher. “But we went into it with eyes wide open, fully committed to supporting Jonathan and the book through whatever comes our way. We believe he’s thoughtfully wrestled with the issues and the way Scripture informs the issues.”

Dialogue at Liberty University

One place where Wilson-Hartgrove has had a harder time busting what he calls “slaveholding religion” is at Liberty University, where Jerry Falwell Jr. is president of the school his father founded.

Two years ago, Wilson-Hartgrove, Barber and others published an open letter challenging Falwell to a “peaceful debate” about Christian teaching at Liberty University. A few months later, both Wilson-Hartgrove and Barber led a revival at a high school near Liberty.

At that time, Falwell stifled efforts by the Liberty student newspaper to cover the event. He also had campus police send a letter to Shane Claiborne, a participant, threatening fines and jail time if he visited the Liberty campus.

But last month, Liberty announced the opening of the Falkirk Center for Faith and Liberty, a think tank intended to “play offense” against efforts by liberals to water down Judeo-Christian values—in the words of its leader, Charlie Kirk. One of the center’s first acts was to court Wilson-Hartgrove to a discussion of “Was Jesus Christ a socialist?”

In the days leading up to Christmas, Wilson-Hartgrove and Barber held a few phone calls with Liberty administrators to negotiate a time where they could hold that discussion.

“I’m not going to argue that Jesus was a socialist,” said Wilson-Hartgrove. “But yes, I want to have that conversation.”

Escape captivity of white American experience

Wilson-Hartgrove doesn’t necessarily want Christians to embrace his own lifestyle and politics. But he does want evangelicals to reckon with the ways the Bible has become captive to the white experience in America.

On Christmas Day, Wilson-Hartgrove, his wife and children spent the morning as they always do—singing carols outside Central Prison, a maximum-security facility in Raleigh that houses the state’s 143 death-row inmates.

The carolers, numbering about 100, sang “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” and “Jingle Bells.”

After each carol, they shouted in unison to the inmates, who may, or may not, have seen or heard them: “Merry Christmas,” “Happy Hanukkah,” “Happy Kwanzaa” and “Feliz Navidad.”

Shouting across divides isn’t Wilson-Hartgrove’s strong suit. He’d much rather preach, teach and write in a quieter, conversational tone. But he’ll take what he can.

“Jesus said, ‘I was in prison and you visited me,’” Wilson-Hartgrove said. “It’s also a way we remember how Christ promises to be present to us.”

SICHUAN, China (BP)—The United States and the European Union are urging China to free Pastor Wang Yi, sentenced to nine years in prison in what religious liberty advocates call Christian persecution.

China pronounced Wang guilty Dec. 30 of “illegal business operations” and “inciting subversion of state power”—convictions religious liberty advocates say stem solely from his leadership as founding pastor of Early Rain Covenant Church in Chengdu, Sichuan.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo expressed alarm at Wang’s sentence on charges that Pompeo called “trumped up” and issued with no defense lawyer present.

“We call for his immediate and unconditional release,” Pompeo said in a statement Dec. 31. “This is yet another example of Beijing’s intensification of repression of Chinese Christians and members of other religious groups. We continue to call on Beijing to uphold its international commitments and promises made in its own constitution to promote religious freedom for all individuals, including members of ethnic and religious minorities, and those who worship outside of official state-sanctioned institutions.”

E.U. spokesman Peter Stano issued a similar appeal Jan. 1.

“The E.U. is concerned about restrictions on freedom of religion and belief in China and calls for immediate release of Pastor Wang Yi, who was tried in secret and sentenced to nine years in prison in connection to his peaceful advocacy of freedom of religion,” Stano tweeted.

‘I will resist in meekness’

Wang responded to his sentence in a message Early Rain church posted on Facebook, religious liberty advocate Open Doors USA reported Dec. 30.

“I hope God uses me, by means of first losing my personal freedom, to tell those who have deprived me of my personal freedom that there is an authority higher than their authority,” the church quoted Wang, “and that there is a freedom that they cannot restrain, a freedom that fills the church of the crucified and risen Jesus Christ.

“Jesus is the Christ, son of the eternal, living God. He died for sinners and rose to life for us. He is my king and the king of the whole earth yesterday, today, and forever,” Wang said on Facebook. “I am his servant, and I am imprisoned because of this. I will resist in meekness those who resist God, and I will joyfully violate all laws that violate God’s laws.”

China also stripped Wang of his political rights for three years and will seize nearly $7,200 of his assets, the New York Times reported.

‘Unjust religious persecution’

Religious liberty advocate Bob Fu, founder and president of ChinaAid, called Wang’s imprisonment “a pure case of unjust religious persecution against a peaceful preacher of a Chinese reformed church.”

“This grave sentence demonstrates (Chinese President Xi Jingping’s) regime is determined to be the enemy of universal values and religious freedom,” Fu said Dec. 30. “We call upon the international community to stand up to the Chinese Communist Party and hold this evil regime accountable.”

Open Doors CEO David Curry said China is trying to turn both state and underground churches into “a Chinese church, not a church of Jesus.”

“There will be even more pressure on the body of Christ in China,” Curry said in a press release. “The government is trying to force out unregistered churches.”

Wang’s sentence is one of the latest moves in China’s systemic persecution of Christians, Muslims and other religious minorities there.

Wang had been imprisoned nearly a full year before the Dec. 26 trial, detained after officials raided the church in late 2018.

DALLAS (BP)—Lois Irene Evans, wife of Tony Evans for 49 years and founder of Pastors’ Wives Ministry, died Dec. 30 of biliary cancer. She was 70.

Tony Evans, senior pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, announced the news on Facebook.

“Just before the sun came up this morning, the love of my life transitioned from earth and watched her first sunrise from heaven,” he wrote.

She was with her husband and the couple’s four children when she died.

“As she slipped away, we told her how much we love her, how proud we are of her, and how thankful we are for the life she has lived,” Evans wrote. “We are what we are because of her.”

Priscilla Shirer, best-selling author, actress and the Evanses’ daughter, tweeted: “Goodnight my beautiful, beloved Mommy. I’ll see you in the morning.”

The couple’ son, Christian music artist Anthony Evans Jr., posted, “I love you forever, Mommy.”

Christian leaders express sympathy

Southern Baptist Convention President J.D. Greear also expressed his condolences on Twitter.

“Grieving with you and your family, Dr. Evans,” Greear tweeted. “Your and Mrs. Lois’ life and ministry have been an almost incalculable blessing to many of us.”

Marshal Ausberry, president of the National African American Fellowship of the SBC and pastor of Antioch Baptist Church in Fairfax Station, Va., shared condolences with Baptist Press.

“Lois Evans has been a picture of a loving wife, mother, and Christian woman,” Ausberry told BP Jan. 2. “Lois Evans’ strong support of her husband enabled him to do all he did. They truly served well as a team. The Evans family has touched countless lives around the world.”

A 9 a.m. viewing and an 11 a.m. funeral are scheduled Jan. 6 at Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship Church.

“We are grateful for your thoughts and prayers,” Evans wrote. “Many have asked how to help during this time. In honor of Lois, I would also love for you to consider sending flowers this week to your pastor’s wife. Lois loved receiving flowers, but she also loved giving them. Because her passion was ministering to pastors’ wives and making sure they felt loved and cared for, your gift of flowers in her memory would be a gift to us as well.”

In lieu of flowers, he suggested “continuing the ministry to pastors’ wives that was dear to Lois’ heart’ by contributing to The Urban Alternative’s Pastors’ Wives Ministry.