Every morning in Brazil, before the first light breaks, millions of phones buzz across time zones and cities. People roll out of bed, open YouTube, and join a single rhythm—the rosary at 4 a.m.

Led by Frei Gilson, a Carmelite friar whose voice has become familiar in countless homes, this livestreamed prayer has become a phenomenon.

In a nation once defined by Catholic ritual and later transformed by evangelical zeal, something new is stirring—a quiet awakening at the crossroads of faith, technology and culture.

Evangelicals among Catholics

I have watched this story unfold with both curiosity and hope. Brazil always has been a testing ground for missionary imagination—a laboratory of faith. In many ways, I am a by-product of that story.

My own faith and the origins of my family was shaped by the American Southern Baptist missionary movement that took root in Brazil more than a century ago. For many Baptists, Brazil was the first great foreign mission field—a land to be “reached” for Christ.

I grew up surrounded by the hymns, mission fairs and youth camps planted by Southern Baptist missionaries who traded the suburbs of Dallas and Atlanta for the tropical humidity of Recife and the colorful coral reefs of João Pessoa. Their influence was immense.

Yet beneath the mission statistics and baptism counts, there always was tension. For centuries, Catholicism enjoyed a near monopoly on Brazilian spirituality. To be Brazilian was to be Catholic by default.

When evangelical churches began multiplying in the 20th century, the word crente—“believer”—became a slur. Catholics used it to mock the noisy newcomers who sang with guitars and preached with passion.

As a young boy, I remember the sting of that word. It carried both disdain and fear, as if faith outside the old institution were a contagion. That divide—Catholic versus evangelical, traditional versus modern—shaped Brazil’s religious identity for generations.

A change happening

And yet something unexpected is happening now. The same Catholic Church that once viewed evangelical fervor with suspicion is rediscovering its own.

Frei Gilson’s 4 a.m. rosary is only one sign. His livestreams draw millions—including evangelicals who tune in quietly, searching for peace. It’s a kind of digital pilgrimage: part prayer meeting, part revival, part collective exhale in a nation weary from polarization.

In recent decades, Catholicism in Brazil has faced steep decline. Census data show Catholics have dropped from more than 90 percent of the population in 1980 to just over half today. Evangelical churches—especially Pentecostal and neo-Pentecostal movements—have surged, filling gaps left by institutional fatigue and economic despair.

Yet even evangelical growth is slowing. The irony is just as both traditions feel their limits, they are learning from one another. Catholics are embracing small-group community and emotional worship. Evangelicals are rediscovering liturgy, contemplation and social teaching.

In many ways, the pandemic accelerated this convergence. With sanctuaries closed, both Catholics and evangelicals went online. Prayer chains, Bible studies and worship nights migrated to YouTube and WhatsApp.

Out of the isolation emerged something organic and deeply human: people longing to belong, to pray, to find God together.

Frei Gilson’s dawn prayers captured that hunger. He is not a celebrity pastor with a production team. He’s a friar in a simple brown habit, praying ancient words in real time. Yet through the digital commons, he has reached more hearts than any cathedral could hold.

Shift in influence

As someone who grew up watching American missionaries teach Brazilians how to “do church,” I find this reversal fascinating. The flow of influence is shifting.

The global south no longer is merely the mission field. It’s becoming the mission force.

Brazilian Christians now are among the most active missionaries in the world, from the favelas of Rio to refugee camps in the Middle East. They carry a passionate, improvisational and communal spirituality.

Where Western churches often analyze strategy, Brazilians embody surrender. The 4 a.m. prayer movement may seem strange to Western observers, but it reveals a deeper truth: Renewal may not come from conferences or budgets, but from tired people praying in the dark before they go to work.

Of course, renewal in Brazil comes with complexity. Religion and politics never are far apart. The rise of the MAGA movement in the United States found echoes in Brazil’s own populist wave under Jair Bolsonaro, who drew strong support from evangelicals.

The fusion of nationalism and Christianity—what many call “Christian nationalism”—has scarred both nations. It tempts believers to confuse cultural dominance with divine mission. I have seen how this fusion divides families and congregations, turning faith into ideology.

Some of Frei Gilson’s critics fear his movement could be co-opted by similar forces. Perhaps that fear is justified. But beneath the noise of culture wars, ordinary Brazilians are rediscovering prayer. That may prove more transformative than politics ever could.

Post-Western, Revelation Christianity

The more I observe, the more convinced I am Brazil is showing the world what post-Western Christianity might look like. It is less tidy, less institutional and far more embodied. It is a church without monopoly—both wounded and vibrant, ancient and experimental.

It is Catholic women livestreaming the rosary from their kitchens, Pentecostal teenagers preaching on TikTok, Baptist pastors partnering with Catholic charities to feed the hungry. It is not the death of denominational identity, but its transformation into a wider imagination of the kingdom.

This is what gives me hope. The global church is becoming more like the one Jesus promised—polyphonic, multiethnic, global in accent and local in compassion. The old Western monopoly on theology and mission is breaking down, and that is good news.

When I see Catholics and evangelicals kneeling together in prayer—even through a screen—I glimpse a small reflection of Revelation 7: “a great multitude … from every nation, tribe, people and language.”

I think back to my grandparents’ generation—humble Brazilian believers who embraced the gospel through the witness of American missionaries. They never could have imagined their grandchildren watching a friar on YouTube pray the rosary at dawn, or evangelical pastors quoting Pope Francis in their sermons, or the world looking to Brazil for spiritual innovation. But God’s story always bends toward surprise.

Perhaps that is the quiet miracle of the 4 a.m. prayer. In a nation once divided by faith and class and creed, there now is a chorus rising before dawn—a sound of people seeking God together. It may not fit anyone’s missionary playbook, but it feels like the kingdom breaking in—slow, ordinary, luminous.

Diego Silva is the director of economic strengthening at Buckner International. A native of Brazil, he lives in Georgetown with his wife and two boys. He writes about faith, community development and global mission. The views expressed in this opinion article are those of the author.

The fifth “wall” in the Baptist “house” Karen Bullock describes in her Pinson Lecture is local church autonomy, paired as it is with congregational governance.

These are not difficult doctrines to describe. Baptists believe each local church is an autonomous entity, free from the control of governments or ecclesiastical hierarchies. Each congregation is governed by the will of its members, in whom the Holy Spirit is active to reveal the will of Christ and empower the local church to carry out that will.

It also is relatively easy to explain the benefits of this way of understanding the church. Each church member is granted the responsibility of participating in the governance of the local church, and healthy engagement in that governance demonstrates he or she is maturing as a disciple of Jesus.

Likewise, local congregations are free to shape their ministry in response to the needs and opportunities presented to them by their context.

Nevertheless, the problems created by these corresponding convictions are so myriad and so consequential they cannot be described fully here. All we can do is make a couple of preliminary observations and then touch briefly on the challenges presented by Baptist polity.

Preliminary observations

So, what does the Bible have to say about church polity? Unfortunately, the answer to this question is not as clear as we might like.

The New Testament assumes churches are independent of governmental control, but that is not surprising given the first Christians did not have the option of living in a “Christian” country.

As to the issue of how churches were run, it rightly has been observed that you can find evidence in the New Testament for any of the three broad streams of polity that have dominated church history—episcopal, presbyterian and congregational.

For example, 1 Corinthians presents the church in Corinth as a unified, decision-making body, one Paul had to persuade. In Acts 14, however, we see Paul and Barnabas relying upon their apostolic authority to appoint “elders” in each of the congregations they founded.

So, does one polity seem to work better than the others? That is a matter of opinion, but I would argue every polity has its weaknesses.

We have seen many of those weaknesses played out in the various sexual abuse scandals that have rocked the Roman Catholic Church, the Southern Baptist Convention, and many other denominations and parachurch organizations.

In episcopal systems, wrongdoing can be covered up by bishops, and elders or board members can do the same thing in presbyterian or semi-presbyterian contexts. In congregational denominations, the decentralized nature of authority can blunt attempts at accountability and change even when wrongdoing is brought to light.

Autonomy and cooperation

With these preliminary observations in mind, let us turn our attention to the challenges associated with local church autonomy and congregational governance.

The first challenge has to do with how autonomous entities can cooperate with one another for the sake of a shared mission.

Southern Baptists long have cooperated with one another to fund various entities that serve the church—such as educational institutions and mission boards. For several decades, they did so recognizing different churches had different theological orientations and different value structures.

In recent decades, however, there has been less tolerance for this kind of diversity of thought.

Whatever one thinks of the various conflicts that afflicted Southern Baptists over the past 50 years, it cannot be questioned, these conflicts are about the extent to which any given Southern Baptist church has the right to have its particular values reflected in the denomination’s institutions.

At the risk of stirring up a hornet’s nest, let me put the problem in practical terms, using an issue that has been in the news over the last year or more.

On the one hand, it can be argued the North American Mission Board has every right to direct its money into church plants that reflect the dominant doctrinal convictions of the Southern Baptist Convention, since doing so reflects the will of the vast majority of messengers expressed during a number of annual meetings.

On the other hand, it can be argued doing so restricts the freedom of Baptist churches who do not agree with that consensus to see their own values and convictions reflected in the kinds of churches Southern Baptists plant.

Similar arguments could be marshaled concerning the beliefs of seminary professors, the commitments of candidates for missionary appointments, and especially for those allowed access to state convention resources for helping prospective pastors find a church.

My point in raising these issues is not to say who is right and who is wrong, and it certainly is not to hurt anyone’s feelings. Rather, my point is to ensure we understand issues like these are not a bug in the Baptist system. They are a feature of that system, one that must be acknowledged and addressed honestly whenever conflicts arise.

When something goes wrong

The second challenge related to Baptist polity already has been mentioned. When something goes wrong, as in the case of the reckoning that took place after the Houston Chronicle and other news outlets reported on the prevalence of sexual abuse in Southern Baptist churches, there is no easy way to bring about reforms.

At first glance, it would seem such should not be the case. If the SBC can discipline churches for having a female pastor, then they ought to be able to discipline churches for other transgressions of denominational doctrine or best practices.

But the truth is most problems in ecclesiastical spaces are not as easy to identify as simply looking for job titles on a church’s website.

Without an authoritative hierarchy of church officials that have been entrusted with the task of investigating problems and developing solutions, it is up to individual believers, congregations and smaller denominational units to bear the burden of bringing about reform.

And make no mistake about it. Reform is needed, and it will be needed again in the future.

Baptists will not be able to hide behind their polity when they stand before Christ. So, we had better figure out how we can preserve our commitment to what we really think is a biblical understanding of the church’s governance, while also creating mechanisms to bring about change.

New ways forward?

Perhaps this is one aspect of Baptist identity where we might do some experimenting.

The Evangelical Baptist Church of Georgia—the country, not the American state—describes itself as an “episcopal Baptist church.” As of 2013, it was led by an archbishop and three bishops, one of whom was a woman.

More recently, and closer to home, some Baptist churches have traded their business meetings and committees for boards of elders.

Only time will tell whether experiments like these produce better results than the polity that characterizes most Baptist churches and denominations today. Either way, Baptists have a lot to think about. I can only hope they will do so with a sobriety and generosity of spirit not common in our polarized, overly politicized and toxic world.

Wade Berry is pastor of Second Baptist Church in Ranger and has been resident fellow in New Testament and Greek at B.H. Carroll Theological Seminary. The views expressed in this opinion article are those of the author.

When the subject of apologetics comes up, many people start to quote 1 Peter 3:15: “Always be ready to give an answer to anyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.”

The word Peter uses there is apologia, which is where we get our modern term “apologetics.”

I love that passage. But I think sometimes we forget the context.

Peter isn’t writing from an ivory tower, debating abstract ideas about God. He’s writing to believers suffering—men and women under real persecution, possibly under Nero’s rule, maybe even during the time of the Great Fire of Rome. People were losing their livelihoods, their families, even their lives.

So, when Peter says, “Be ready to give an answer … for the hope that you have,” he’s not calling for an intellectual defense in a lecture hall. He’s talking about something much deeper—standing firm when it might cost you everything. He’s saying: “Know what you believe, know who you trust, and know why your hope in Christ is worth dying for.”

But somewhere along the way, I think we’ve lost sight of that.

We’ve turned apologetics into a kind of sport—a competition to see who can dismantle the most arguments or win the most debates. In doing so, we’ve missed the heart of Peter’s words. The call was to give an answer for our hope, not merely our logic.

When apologetics becomes about winning

Don’t get me wrong, I love theology. I went to school and got my graduate degree in biblical and theological studies. So, I’m firmly of the belief it’s not only healthy but necessary to understand what we believe and why we believe it.

But what troubles me is how often our approach to apologetics has communicated a subtle yet dangerous message that unanswered questions are dangerous.

When someone raises a doubt, our instinct is immediately to “answer” it—to shut it down, to defend God as if he needs us to. We treat questions like viruses that need to be neutralized before they spread. But the Bible doesn’t treat questions that way.

In fact, the Bible leaves many questions unanswered. It’s not a book that exists to explain every mystery of God or every nuance of theology. It’s not a user manual for every moral dilemma or an encyclopedia for every philosophical puzzle.

The Bible’s purpose isn’t to tell us everything. It’s to tell us who God is, what he’s done and what he’s promised to do. As Deuteronomy 29:29 would put it, “The secret things belong to the LORD our God.”

When we approach apologetics as if it’s our job to have all the answers, we rob people of the very space that faith requires—trust. Because faith isn’t the absence of questions. It’s trust in the midst of them.

The real crisis: Is God good?

When I was in seminary, Mikel Del Rosario, now a professor at Moody Bible Institute, was speaking to a group of us and said something profound I remember clearly to this day: “The main issue I see in most of my conversations isn’t that people don’t believe God is real. It’s that they don’t believe he’s good.”

That struck me deeply. He’s right.

We spend enormous energy proving God’s existence—arguing cosmological, moral and historical evidence. Those have value. But even if someone accepts God is real, it doesn’t mean they’ll follow him. As James wrote, “Even the demons believe—and shudder” (James 2:19).

Believing that God exists isn’t saving faith. Trusting who God is—that he’s good, loving and worthy of our trust—changes everything.

Too often, apologetics defends the reality of God but fails to demonstrate the character of God. We argue for his power but forget to display his love. We show he’s true but not that he’s beautiful.

This is one reason I’ve grown weary of formal debates. Don’t misunderstand me, debates can have their value. At their best, they were meant to bring ideas together, to help both sides understand the issues more clearly. But somewhere along the way, debate became about domination.

Domination, debate or discussion?

You can see it even in the titles of videos: “Christian DESTROYS atheist.” “Apologist CRUSHES Muslim scholar.” That kind of language doesn’t reflect Christ. It reflects pride.

When we go into conversations determined to win, we’ve already lost the heart of the gospel. Because love “does not boast, it is not proud, it is not self-seeking” (1 Corinthians 13:4–5).

The purpose of apologetics isn’t to crush an opponent. It’s to invite a person into a journey to true life.

That’s why I prefer the word “discussion” over “debate.” Discussion assumes we both have something to learn. It leaves room for humility. It gives me the freedom to say: “That’s a good point. I need to think about that.”

It’s not about keeping score but about pursuing truth together, even if the correct answer ultimately doesn’t come from you.

And honestly, that posture itself is one of the most powerful apologetics we have—a willingness to listen, to learn and to love.

What if we led with love?

Author Madeleine L’Engle once said: “We do not draw people to Christ by loudly discrediting what they believe, by telling them how wrong they are and how right we are, but by showing them a light so lovely that they want with all their hearts to know the source of it.”

That quote wrecks me every time I read it. Because it’s true. People aren’t drawn to Christ because we out-argue them. They’re drawn because they saw something beautiful—a hope, a peace, a love they couldn’t explain.

When apologetics becomes about love rather than leverage, something changes. We start seeing the person, not just the problem. We begin to realize, behind every question is a story—sometimes a story of pain, disappointment or fear.

If someone asks, “Why does God allow suffering?” they really may be asking, “Why did God allow my suffering?”

In that moment, a textbook answer won’t heal, but empathy might. Listening, weeping and sharing our own wrestling—that’s apologetics in its truest form.

Peter’s call never was to “win arguments.” It was to share the “reason for your hope.” Hope is not abstract; it’s embodied. It’s the conviction that no matter what happens—persecution, loss, doubt, pain—Christ still is worth it.

And when people witness that kind of hope lived out, it’s contagious. Not because our reasoning is airtight, but because our trust is unshakable.

The hope that speaks

Maybe it’s time to recover what Peter meant all along. Apologetics isn’t about having perfect answers. It’s about having a faithful presence. It’s not about being right. It’s about being kind. The most persuasive apologetic isn’t a rebuttal. It’s a relationship.

The gospel doesn’t need defenders so much as it needs witnesses—people who have tasted and seen that the Lord is good, and who invite others to do the same. People who love deeply, listen patiently and live authentically. People who can say, not just with their words but with their lives, “This is why I still have hope.”

Because in the end, apologetics isn’t about winning arguments. It’s about revealing hope. And that hope has a name: Jesus.

Taylor Standridge is a Christian podcaster and producer who loves to help people understand who God is and how to live faithfully according to his goodness, grace and generosity. His writing has been featured in Peer Magazine, Christ and Pop Culture, RELEVANT Magazine and NextStep Disciple. He holds a Master of Biblical and Theological Studies from Dallas Theological Seminary. The views expressed in this opinion article are those of the author.

In my work as Baylor University’s associate director of ministry guidance, I have the privilege of working with women and men discerning a call to vocational ministry.

It is a gift to hear their stories and to bear witness to God’s work in their lives. I especially love hearing about the mentors, ministers and church communities that formed them as disciples of Christ.

While my male students tend to receive praise and encouragement across the board, regardless of denominational tradition, the experiences of my female students unfortunately are more varied and measured.

Some of these women arrive on campus still searching for the language to describe what they feel called to do, and sometimes a church’s tepid or partial endorsement makes it more difficult for them to imagine what is possible.

Inevitably, my female students who are most confident in their calling are those who grew up in traditions or congregations where women were affirmed fully in all levels of ministerial leadership.

They had mentors, opportunities and examples. Because they saw themselves in their church’s pastoral teams, they did not have to question whether they could be called or reconcile their big God-filled dreams with human limits.

Usually, male and female students from these empowering environments also are more equipped for critical thinking, and their faith is less threatened by ideas that might differ from their own.

State of women in Baptist life

Baptist Women in Ministry’s recent State of Women in Baptist Life Report 2025 supports these observations, noting: “Congregational culture is where theology meets practice, and thus is where Baptist women in ministry are either empowered or undermined.”

The data presented reinforces the important role congregations play in forming and affirming the women in their midst.

More specifically, the report names six practices congregations that empower women share: (1) affirmation of women in various leadership roles, (2) intentionality toward gender in the world of the church, (3) non-hierarchical organizational structures, (4) support networks for women, (5) addressing gender issues and (6) creating egalitarian staff policies.

The statistics provided in Part Two of the report remind us we have work left to do truly to embody these practices.

One simple suggestion

I have one simple suggestion for moving us forward: If you support women in ministry, join a church that affirms, encourages and empowers them.

Perhaps that recommendation seems too rudimentary even to write down, but I am continually surprised by the people who claim to be advocates for women in ministry who nevertheless attend churches that exclude women from positions of ministry leadership and/or refuse to ordain women to the gospel ministry.

These individuals do not hesitate to offer words of support in an academic context or in their mentoring of female ministry students, yet they excuse themselves from the faithfulness of solidarity in their choice of a local church.

For the family

One of the reasons I hear often from these would-be allies of women in ministry is they have chosen to worship in a complementarian church for familial reasons. Perhaps these churches have robust youth groups or an excellent music ministry. I normally smile and nod politely, because careful and constructive confrontation is not one of my gifts.

But here is what I wish I could say: “I have children, too.”

Indeed, it is in large part because of my children that my husband and I intentionally have chosen to worship in spaces that affirm women.

We never want either of our children—one boy and one girl—to question God’s calling on their lives. Because the local church plays a large role in one’s theological formation, we wanted to be in a space that valued and nurtured the gifts of our son and our daughter equally.

We have witnessed firsthand the deep-seated faith, active curiosity and quiet confidence that accompanies college students reared in such faith communities, and we wanted that for our children.

But this choice has not come without sacrifice. The congregations that tend to be the safest, most supportive places for women are not usually megachurches with large youth programs. Far more often, they are small to medium spaces that demand a lot of time and energy from every member of the congregation.

We all pitch in our gifts to support and build up the body. And that work can be exhausting. We could use a few more laborers in the fields of harvest.

Imagine the possibilities

When someone proudly tells me they support women in ministry only for me to find out they have excused themselves from this work in spaces that need their life and witness, it can be difficult for me to reconcile. Not necessarily for myself, but for the church.

If everyone who claims to support women in ministry joined a congregation that empowers women, imagine the possibilities.

Think of what we would be teaching our children. Think of our witness to the community. Think of our faithfulness to support those God has called. Think of the students—male and female—we could assist in discerning a call to ministry and the foundation our combined efforts could provide them.

I implore you again: If you affirm women in ministry, please stop telling me and show me. Join a church that empowers women.

Mandy McMichael is associate director of ministry guidance and J. David Slover Associate Professor of Ministry Guidance at Baylor University. The views expressed in this opinion article are those of the author.

In Part 5 of this series, I cited Karen Bullock’s Pinson Lecture on Baptist distinctives. One of the elements of Baptist identity she discusses some might argue is the most difficult to defend. It certainly has been the source of much controversy—both in the church and in the public square.

I am talking about the interlocking notions of soul competency and religious liberty.

Baptists assert faith is not something that can be compelled. Like love, humility and so many other Christian virtues, it only can be chosen.

Thus, the liberty to choose whether to believe in Christ not only is a cherished element of America’s political philosophy, but also is a core element of the church’s soteriology.

The problematic nature of religious liberty

In his recent series on Christian nationalism, pastor-scholar Nick Acker frames this core Baptist conviction this way: Both the church and the government have a role to play in a healthy society. The government’s role, among other things, is to restrain evil and promote good (see Romans 13:1-7).

But when the government uses the force of law to compel conformity to Christian dogma, it oversteps the boundaries established for it by God. In so doing, it corrupts both itself and the church.

There is plenty of evidence, both from history and from contemporary politics, to support Acker’s construal of the situation. But as Acker himself acknowledges, not everyone sees our plight as humans in this way. The problem boils down to the simple fact no legislation is either amoral or objective.

At the risk of offense, let me be both clear and emphatic. One of the most unhelpful sayings ever to catch on in our public life is, “You can’t legislate morality.”

It is true enough that moral laws do not guarantee moral conduct, and in a democratic society, it even can be argued legislation is a lagging indicator of that society’s moral health.

Nevertheless, all laws—and most administrative regulations—are moral in intent and quality, and that morality will not be religiously neutral. It will be informed by someone’s worldview—whether the Judeo-Christian consensus, enshrined in Sharia law, proposed by so-called “secular humanism,” or something else.

In turn, the perspective on the moral life that shapes our laws will shape our culture, and that influence will trickle down into the hearts, minds and hands of individuals.

Hence, we can put the logical objection to religious liberty this way. There is no “none of the above” option at the ballot box.

We must decide whose ethics will guide our democracy, and it is doubtful whether any worldview can be broad enough and nimble enough to accommodate a pluralistic society while simultaneously giving the necessary moral boundaries a nation needs to have a peaceful and profitable public life.

Remembering the past, acknowledging the present

Critics of religious liberty—and of its corollary, separation of church and state—need to remember this Baptist doctrine did not spring out of nothing. It was a reasonable reaction to centuries of persecution and corruption. Indeed, the church often was co-opted by the state, with disastrous consequences for the European continent.

We still see this process at work today. While some tout Vladimir Putin as a champion of Christian identity, this dangerous dictator continues his war of aggression against Ukraine and suppresses any voice inside his country that would hold him to account.

We may never know how many people Putin’s wars have killed, how many women have been raped by his army, or how many children have been forcibly removed from their homes and brainwashed with Russian propaganda.

Most disturbing of all is the role church leaders have played in the atrocities that have marred Western history. The Russian government seems particularly adept at subverting the church, but other ecclesiastical authorities in other times have cooperated with “the powers of this dark world” (Ephesians 6:12), usually for their own financial, political or sexual gain.

Christianity and democracy

I am sympathetic to the concerns raised by Christian nationalism. The United States of America was not founded as a Christian nation, but it is difficult to see how it could have been founded at all without the assumptions and predispositions inherent in the Christian faith.

It well may be not every culture provides fertile soil for the seeds of liberty to be planted, and it certainly is true secularism—both on the right and on the left—threatens to poison the soil in which our own nation grows.

Nevertheless, I believe freedom of religion and separation of church and state are indispensable elements of a democratic society and even may be required for any nation that wants to describe itself as “Christian.”

Judaism and Christianity share a common conviction that every human is made in the image of God and therefore possesses indescribable dignity and inestimable worth. Each person must encounter God herself or himself, and each person must decide how to respond to that encounter.

I am aware of the philosophical problems inherent in positing a religiously neutral government, and I also am aware of the ways certain people—mostly ideological liberals—have misused separation of church and state to blunt the moral influence of those with whom they disagree.

Nevertheless, my first concern is to preserve the freedom of individuals to respond to Christ with authentic faith. My second concern is to ensure the church’s freedom to speak prophetically to its government and culture.

The traditional Baptist doctrines of soul competency and separation of church and state may not help us win whatever culture war happens to be raging during a particular news cycle, but they will help us achieve these two far more important priorities.

Frankly, there will be elements of the Judeo-Christian worldview we simply must insist upon, and there are no secular equivalents for these distinctively Jewish and Christian ideas. But in so doing, we will be laying the foundation for the kind of open, free society America’s founders envisioned.

Wade Berry is pastor of Second Baptist Church in Ranger and has been resident fellow in New Testament and Greek at B.H. Carroll Theological Seminary. The views expressed in this opinion article are those of the author.

In my last article, I argued believer’s baptism is important because of what it says about the nature and composition of the church. The same is true for another Baptist distinctive—the priesthood of all believers.

This conviction—often derived from 1 Timothy 2:5, 1 Peter 2:4-10 and Revelation1:4-6—has been a source of tremendous encouragement for Baptists throughout the centuries. But when it is misunderstood, it also can be the source of much mischief.

Defining the doctrine

Millard Erickson describes the priesthood of the believer this way:

“All persons are capable of relating to God directly. … There is no need of any special intermediary. All have redemptive access to the Lord. And what is true of the initiation of the Christian life is also true of its continuation. Each believer can discern God’s will directly” (Christian Theology, Second Edition, p. 1096).

We learn from Erickson that the doctrine has two dimensions. Christologically, the doctrine insists Jesus is the only mediator between God and humanity.

As the writer of Hebrews insists, Christ is a sufficient mediator precisely because he is the perfect sacrifice—the sinless Son offered on behalf of a sinful humanity—and because his offering was made out of complete and willing obedience to the Father.

Ecclesiologically, the doctrine asserts every person has both the right and the responsibility to come before God.

As Erickson insists, this capacity does not extend merely to an individual’s initial prayer for acceptance into God’s kingdom through faith. It also includes the believer’s ongoing engagement with God.

Erickson couches this ongoing engagement in terms of the discernment of God’s will, but for reasons we will discuss below, Stanley Grenz locates the believer’s activity as priest first and foremost in her or his intercession for other believers (Theology for the Community of God, p. 647).

This presentation of the doctrine can seem a bit two-dimensional and disjointed. But in the second volume of his Systematic Theology, James McClendon Jr. demonstrates the doctrine is neither of these things (Doctrine, p. 368.)

For McClendon, it is the direct result of Christ’s redemptive activity, resulting in “deliverance from the world of sacral authorities into the world of the good news.” Its consequences are nothing less than a radically reshaped relationship with status and power.

Jesus’ instructions in response to his disciples’ jockeying for position is not merely a commentary on effective leadership. It is an expression of the church’s essence and a call to live out its implications (Mark 10:35-45 and parallels). It even bears witness to a new set of metrics for judging human conduct (Matthew 23:1-12).

Defending the doctrine

But can the doctrine be defended from Scripture?

As I indicated above, the Christological dimension of this doctrine is beyond doubt. The old priesthood has been replaced by a single High Priest, one whose reign and service are eternal and whose sacrifice is qualitatively superior to those provided by the old sacrificial system (Hebrews 6:19-10:22).

But what about the ecclesiological dimension? 1 Peter 2:4-10 is the only text that explicitly associates believers with a priestly identity, and as Michelle Lee-Barnwall points out in Neither Complementarian Nor Egalitarian, the accent in that text is on the identity of believers as a whole, not on the identity of any individual believer (notice the phrase “royal priesthood” in vv. 5, 9).

Hence, it could be argued that Peter’s emphasis is on how the church as a whole fulfills a priestly function in its cultural context.

Grenz and McClendon, however, do not base their reflections upon the doctrine in 1 Peter. They do what the venerable apostle did, turning to the Old Testament—and especially to Exodus 19:5-6—to enrich their understanding of this core Baptist conviction.

It is true enough that God eventually instituted a priesthood within Israel, but McClendon implies this was not God’s primary intention.

Rather, Israel was to stand apart as a “holy nation” with one King, a people who by their words and by their lives pointed other nations to God. In that sense, they performed the most basic function of priests—interceding between God and humanity—and served as forerunners for those who believe in Jesus.

This is why Grenz highlights intercession as the primary—though not the exclusive—arena of priestly activity. When believers pray for one another, they are entering the very presence of God on behalf of their brothers and sisters in Christ. In so doing, they are enacting Paul’s model of the church as a spiritual family, advocating for one another out of love.

In turn, they listen for God’s voice. God can, of course, decide not to speak. None of this negates the revolutionary assertion that any person is capable of hearing from God, and God may decide he only wants to speak to the person directly affected by the church’s prayers. But the church is a family, and sometimes we are too emotionally compromised to perceive the truth.

We need a loving brother or sister to come alongside us, put his or her arms around us, and help us receive from our Father in heaven what we otherwise may not have the strength to bear.

Concerns, questions and contributions

Despite the ways religion has changed in the West over the past 2,000 years, the priesthood of all believers still can feel like an oddly fitting suit of clothing for some.

There is comfort in assuming our spiritual welfare is someone else’s problem. More importantly, it is frightening to think God has entrusted the teenaged metalhead or the back-row gossip with the responsibility of representing Christ to the world.

Our fears about this doctrine are not entirely unfounded.

As Karen Bullock points out in her Pinson Lecture, the priesthood of all believers is not a license to do whatever we want, and it is not a claim that individual people are sufficient to the task of reconciling themselves with God or living a God-honoring life. She has to issue these warnings because people sometimes have construed the doctrine in these ways.

Nevertheless, we should not underestimate the importance of the priesthood of all believers.

It coheres nicely with the presupposition all humans are created in the image of God, and it reminds us Christ had a particular preference for children and other outsiders—people who lacked the credentials to wield spiritual, moral or political authority but who received the message of the coming kingdom with faith, hope, joy and love.

The truth is all of us are the supposedly misguided teenager or the annoying old person. We all are the recipients of that shake of the head that says, “Lord, I think you’ve lost your mind this time.”

And yet, Christ not only receives us into his kingdom, but also appoints us as his priests. We are entrusted with the sacred responsibilities of bringing our broken, distorted selves to God for forgiveness and healing, of weeping in his presence on behalf of our brothers and sisters in Christ, and of sharing his good news with those—both inside and outside the church—who need to hear it.

Of course, there always will be questions related to this doctrine. For example, how should it affect our understanding of the pastoral office?

And there always will be those who wield it as a defense against accountability.

But when properly understood, the priesthood of all believers is one of the Bible’s most profound affirmations of human dignity, and it can encourage us to hang in there when the fight for godliness seems utterly without purpose, benefit or end.

Wade Berry is pastor of Second Baptist Church in Ranger and has been resident fellow in New Testament and Greek at B.H. Carroll Theological Seminary. The views expressed in this opinion article are those of the author.

This Denys’s story could fit into a single sentence.

He was mobilized, sent to the front of the Russian-Ukrainian war and in his first battle suffered wounds that led to the high amputation of both his legs. For many veterans, such an injury means the end of their story. What follows is the loss of work, family troubles that often end in divorce, alcohol or drug abuse, marginalization and premature death.

But Denys’ story didn’t end there. Its continuation came in the form of a charity evening called “Voice of Worship.” Hundreds of people gathered to pray for him, to offer words of support and to donate toward his rehabilitation. The event took place on Oct. 19 in one of Kyiv’s Baptist churches.

It is striking that even in the fourth year of the full-scale war, Ukrainians continue not only to show resilience, but also an extraordinary capacity for generosity. That evening, guests raised about 115,000 hryvnias—roughly $3,000—to help Denys. For a nation at war, this is a meaningful sum, made up of countless small donations.

Denys, a young veteran of the Russian-Ukrainian war, had been a member of one of the Baptist churches before his mobilization. His community did not abandon him after his injury and amputation.

The strong horizontal ties that exist within Ukraine’s evangelical community made it possible to unite the efforts of many people to help the young man. Now, Denys is preparing for a long process of rehabilitation and holds on to the hope of returning to a full life—even after the terrible trials he has endured.

‘One especially vulnerable group’

Sadly, the number of people who have lost limbs as a result of combat continues to grow. Churches are ready to serve and support everyone—not only soldiers and not only their own members.

One especially vulnerable group of Ukrainians in need of care is children affected by the war. In truth, nearly all Ukrainian children carry psychological wounds, but many have also been injured physically in shelling or mine explosions.

According to the data from the Prosecutor General’s Office in Ukraine, the total number of affected children—those wounded or killed—exceeds 2,400.

Evangelical churches are combining their own resources with those of their partners to serve these boys and girls and their families. For example, in summer 2025, 81 evangelical communities, with the support of the international organization Mission Eurasia, organized 152 rehabilitation camps involving 19,100 Ukrainian children.

“Children should never be part of war, but the reality, sadly, is that they are among its most vulnerable victims. I am deeply moved by the selflessness and resilience of Ukrainian Christians, as well as the dedication of the volunteers who help children smile again and keep their hope alive,” said Sergey Rakhuba, president of Mission Eurasia.

Indeed, the powerful volunteer movement in Ukraine is made up of countless dedicated people who say: “Here I am, Lord. Send me.”

One of them, Oleksandra, sees her calling in helping wounded Ukrainian soldiers. She has been serving them for several years, helping them rediscover hope.

The miracle we become

“The wounded I meet today are often different from those I met back in 2022,” Oleksandra shared. “Now, I see the most severely affected men. After four years of this full-scale war, they are deeply exhausted, and some are disillusioned. Many, in addition to their physical injuries, are suffering from profound depression.”

Like many Christian workers, Oleksandra does everything she can to help bring such people back to life.

“A young man with a double high amputation was admitted to the hospital. First days our hospital chaplain saw deep depression and despair in his eyes, when [the chaplain] spoke with him,” Oleksandra said.

“The chaplain asked him about his dream, and the young man said he had always dreamed of riding a horse. But a high amputation is a very serious condition. We supported and encouraged him, prayed a lot, even though we understood that simply sitting on a horse would be a major challenge—and staying in the saddle, nearly impossible.

“But our team worked hard, and then a miracle happened. One day, our chaplain showed us a photograph—the young man was sitting on a horse.”

“The miracle is not that an amputee grows new limbs, but that we ourselves become those hands and feet,” Oleksandra concluded.

Churches joining forces

There are many people in Ukrainian churches ready to become the “hands and feet” for those who have suffered because of the war—though, of course, the needs far exceed the available resources. That is why churches are joining forces and creating new initiatives to provide help.

Vitalii Bolhar, the organizer of the charity evening “Voice of Worship”—where funds were raised for Denys’rehabilitation—shared:

“I am a church minister and also a professional musician. Today, music and singing help me not only to praise the Lord, but also to serve him through the gifts he has given me,” he said.

“I now carry out chaplaincy ministry and feel God’s calling to bring the hope of the gospel to soldiers who have become victims of this war.”

Vitalii gathered his musician friends and invited people to the event not only to help Denys, but also to strengthen the faith of Ukrainian believers.

“We want to serve those in need,” he explained, “but at the same time, we ourselves are part of Ukrainian society. We live under constant Russian shelling. We lose loved ones. We, too, need encouragement from the Lord—his comfort and support.”

Denys, sitting in his wheelchair, also listened to the Christian songs and sang along with everyone. He couldn’t hold back his emotions.

“I was amazed that traditional Christian songs could be performed so beautifully with a choir. I was deeply moved by the richness of the harmonies and by the tremendous support from my brothers and sisters,” Denys said.

Although there is still some stigma in society toward people with amputations, and not everyone knows how to respond to them, Ukrainian churches are learning to see in these suffering veterans the very image of Christ—the One who, in the words of the prophet Isaiah, was also wounded and afflicted, and from whom people turned away.

Sharing hope, not losing it

“We are preparing our congregation to welcome the victims of war and to serve soldiers and their families,” said Volodymyr Kondor, executive secretary of the Ukrainian Baptist Union and pastor of the church where the charity evening took place.

“We have reached an agreement with the Protez Foundation on cooperation—providing prosthetics for Ukrainian servicemen and children who lost limbs due to combat, as well as offering pastoral care for those who receive help. Our main goal is not to lose hope in Christ, but to share that hope with the wounded and the suffering ones.”

Christian communities in Ukraine remain a steadfast and living fellowship of service, sacrifice and hope amid the chaos of war. While this chaos is growing, the selfless ministry of Ukraine’s Christians is increasing steadily, too.

Denys Gorenkov is a minister of the New Life Evangelical Church in Kyiv, Ukraine, and a lecturer at the Military Chaplaincy Training Centre of the Military Institute of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. The views expressed in this opinion article are those of the author.

As the government shutdown stretches on, I can’t shake the image of social media posts filled with $10 meals—shared by families trying to stretch every dollar. They’re practical, but they reveal something deeper: We’ve accepted scarcity as normal and political dysfunction as inevitable.

Survival has become the responsibility of the poor rather than the powerful.

This shutdown is not only a political crisis. It’s a moral one. It exposes what we value, who we protect and how we love our neighbors.

In the communities where I serve, it means hunger, instability and fear. Mothers wonder how to feed their children when assistance is delayed. Seniors choose between groceries and medication. Meanwhile, leaders insist they are “working to find the money,” while families need food now.

Where is the church—those who follow the One who said, “I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat?”

Too often, we have traded our prophetic voice for proximity to power. We place our faith in ideologies and parties rather than in Christ. Scripture warns us: When God’s people align too closely with empire, the poor pay the price.

The church’s responsibility

This is not about partisanship. It’s about discipleship.

We’ve confused comfort with blessing, wealth with faithfulness and influence with righteousness. Meanwhile, children go hungry.

During my time as a U.S. Department of Agriculture Centers of Community Prosperity fellow, I witnessed something different: Republicans and Democrats, rural leaders and urban pastors working together to strengthen communities.

No one asked for party affiliation. We believed dignity begins with opportunity, and access to food, education and work is not partisan; it’s moral.

That spirit feels distant today. Policy has become warfare. Compassion is seen as weakness. This is more than political decay; it is spiritual decay.

Hunger as a mirror

Jeremy Everett of Baylor’s Collaborative on Hunger and Poverty wrote: “Hunger is simply one of the clearest measures of a society’s moral and systemic health. … Rising food insecurity … isn’t just a humanitarian concern—it’s a national litmus test.”

During the COVID-19 pandemic, we delivered 40 million meals to remote communities through a united effort of the USDA, nonprofits and the private sector. That worked because people came before politics.

Today, SNAP benefits are cut. States like Texas turn away federal nutrition aid. Hunger is not an accident. It is a policy decision.

Jesus never said, “I was efficient,” or “I was aligned with your party.” He said, “I was hungry.”

Hunger reveals where our compassion ends and our excuses begin.

Prophetic hope, not political idolatry

Hope is not passive optimism. It is the courage to live differently. The early church did not grow by seizing power, but by embodying an alternative kingdom marked by generosity, hospitality and shared life.

That is what we need now—not louder political arguments but a deeper gospel imagination.

The church’s role is not to defend systems of power but to challenge them when they harm the vulnerable.

Amos cried, “Let justice roll down like waters.” Isaiah declared true worship is to “share your food with the hungry.” These were not metaphors. They were commands.

The way forward

I see hope—in churches feeding children when schools close; in neighbors delivering meals; in families who, despite hardship, keep showing up for one another.

But hope must lead to action.

It is not enough to post cheap recipes while ignoring the systems that make them necessary. The church must become again the conscience of the nation—feeding the hungry, advocating for the poor and refusing to dehumanize those we disagree with.

If America is to be healed, it must begin with the church. We must confess we have placed our hope in presidents and parties rather than in Christ. The gospel calls us back—to feed, to serve, to repair.

Because hunger—physical and spiritual—is still the truest test of who we are. And how we respond will reveal whether we are the people of the risen Lord or merely an echo of a broken world.

Diego Silva is the director of economic strengthening at Buckner International and a former USDA Centers of Community Prosperity fellow. A native of Brazil, he lives in Georgetown, Texas, with his wife and two boys. He writes about faith, community development and global mission. The views expressed in this opinion article are those of the author.

In previous articles, I discussed how good things can become idols—how Christian nationalism, in both its formal and informal forms, can fuse our discipleship to our political identity. That is one side of the coin, where our faith is misused to baptize the powers.

Here, I want to look at the other side of the coin, when—through blending faith and politics—politics silences the gospel.

Caesar and God

In Matthew 22, Jesus is asked about paying taxes to Caesar. His answer is as famous as it is provocative: “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and give to God what is God’s.”

Jesus refuses two traps. He will not baptize Caesar’s power unequivocally. Nor will he join the zealots in their revolt as if Jesus’ kingdom were of this world. Instead, he reframes the question: Caesar’s image is stamped on coins; God’s image is stamped on people. Caesar may have his money, but God must have our lives.

This was more than clever rhetoric. It was a theological claim with political implications. Caesar has authority, but it is limited. God alone has ultimate claim.

Jesus’s answer to the question of paying taxes also demonstrates “it is possible to pay one’s dues both to the emperor and to God, to be both a dutiful citizen and a loyal servant of God,” as R.T. France wrote in his commentary on Matthew (New International Commentary on the New Testament, p. 830. Emphasis in the original.).

That helps us see two distortions of faith and politics:

• On one side of the coin, Christian nationalism: our faith is misused to baptize Caesar, tying the witness of the Kingdom of Heaven to the agendas of worldly powers.

• On the other side of the coin, silence and inaction: politics is misused to muzzle our faith, keeping us from speaking or acting clearly on Kingdom issues because they sound “too political.”

Both are forms of an unhealthy blending of faith and politics. The first weds our devotion to our party or nation. The second makes us submit our proclamation of Christ to the political categories of the day. Both can be ways of giving Caesar what belongs only to God.

Silencing the gospel: The error of inaction

Silence often believes itself to be “neutral” or even “loving,” but it also might allow the powers to set the agenda apart from the prophetic voice of God’s people.

Issues like racial injustice, poverty, war or abuse of power can get dismissed as “political” when they, in fact, are deeply theological. Scripture speaks directly about them. The prophets thunder against exploitation. Jesus blesses the poor and the persecuted. James condemns favoritism. Revelation unmasks empire.

Labeling issues “too political” may arise from a sincere desire to unite people, but it also might water down the gospel until it becomes little more than sentiment. And that’s simply not the picture we’re given in Scripture.

John the Baptist is a clear example. His ministry wasn’t confined to the wilderness. It collided with the politics of his day. When Herod Antipas took his brother Philip’s wife, John confronted him openly.

John could have stayed silent. He could have thought: “This is too political; better to keep my message more spiritual.”

But he didn’t. He named the corruption. And for that, he was imprisoned. For that, he was executed. John was not killed for keeping his faith “pure” and private. He was killed because he refused to muzzle the truth of God’s kingdom when it cut across the powers of the day.

To stay silent because we fear being labeled partisan is to let Caesar decide the intricacies of what God’s image is and where God’s image matters.

To remain quiet when rulers dehumanize the vulnerable or twist justice might not be faithfulness; it could be complicity.

And when the church falls into that silence, it simply is blending faith and politics in another way—not by baptizing the state, but by letting the state muzzle the gospel.

God’s image and Caesar’s coin

The coin bears Caesar’s image. Human beings bear God’s image. Giving to God what is God’s means honoring that image in ourselves and in others—friends and enemies alike.

The world’s power structures are not evil in themselves. They are part of God’s creation and were given for good—to restrain chaos, preserve order and serve human flourishing.

Yet, like the rest of creation, they are fallen. They can be twisted by sin, corrupted by idolatry and bent toward death. When they demand ultimate allegiance or when they silence God’s people, they overreach.

The body of Christ should bear witness against the powers when they distort their purpose of serving God and his image. That is part of giving to God what is God’s.

And so, to give God what is God’s means to honor God’s image wherever it is threatened. To advocate for Israeli families devastated by Hamas’s terror and for Palestinian families devastated by Israel’s retaliation.

It means to advocate for the lives of the unborn and born, and for mothers and fathers, for the lives of the murdered and the murderer, for the sanctity of marriage, and to care for the experiences of those disillusioned with institutional definitions. To honor one and ignore the other is to deny God’s image in both.

We don’t champion only one side’s victims. We grieve every person dehumanized by oppression and every person who dehumanizes themselves by becoming an oppressor.

The church’s cruciform witness

Our ultimate allegiance always must be to God, and that means speaking and living out the message of Jesus with clarity: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

The church is not called to baptize Caesar’s authority. Nor is it called to retreat into silence. It is called to bear witness to Christ crucified and risen—through words, through scars, through cruciform love that honors the image of God everywhere on any side of any aisle.

The church can bear the Spirit’s fruit and embody cruciform love. We can look like Jesus, giving God what is God’s and showing the world the true face of his kingdom.

Nick Acker, a native Texan, is co-lead pastor of Grace Ventura Church in Ventura, Calif., adjunct faculty member at Stark College and Seminary and a resident fellow at East Texas Baptist University’s B.H. Carroll Theological Seminary, and author of Exegeting Orality: Interpreting the Inspired Words of Scripture in Light of Their Oral Traditional Origins. He finds his greatest joy in his wife and three children. The views expressed in this opinion article are those of the author.

Perhaps the most well-known Baptist distinctive is believer’s baptism.

Baptists did not invent the conviction people should be baptized only once they have been converted. Other low-church denominations also observe this practice. Nevertheless, it stands at the heart of what it means to be a Baptist and is the reason I find it hard to imagine myself in any other denominational context.

This peculiar conviction is not without its detractors, however. Though few churches in North America would defend infant baptism on the same grounds they might have four centuries ago, many Christians still see it as a preferable or even necessary part of their own faith.

The back-story of baptism

There is no immediate precedent for baptism in the Old Testament. Certain purification rituals in the Law involved sprinkling people (for example: Exodus 24:4-8; 29:19-21; Numbers 19:17-19) or objects (for example: Leviticus 4:1-35; 14:48-51; 16:15), but no water-based or blood-based ritual performed the precise function baptism would take up later.

By the first century, though, baptism was a recognized ritual in Judaism, and rituals of a similar sort were performed in pagan religions, as well.

Within its Jewish context, baptism was an initiation ritual. It marked the transition of a person out of “the nations” and into the people of God. In the ministry of John the Baptizer, it also enacted a person’s repentance and preparation for the coming of the Lord (see Mark 1:1-8 and parallels).

Baptism retained these functions in Christianity, but scholars also have described it as a “death to life” ritual (see Romans 6:1-14).

Baptism proclaims a person’s faith in Christ and initiates her or him into his body. But it also symbolizes (and some would say enacts) that person’s transfer from the hegemony of sin and death into the service of Christ—a service that produces righteousness, holiness and eternal life (see Romans 6:15-23).

Baptist convictions

For Baptists, these functions point inexorably to one conclusion. Baptism is an act of obedience (see Matthew 28:19) that publicly proclaims an individual’s commitment to Christ as Lord and Savior and that symbolizes the transformative work Christ has done in the believer’s life.

It is the natural consequence, Baptists believe, of a person’s acquiescence to Christ’s rule and a prerequisite to church membership.

As the Reformed scholar Ligon Duncan has pointed out, not everyone reads the biblical evidence the way Baptists do.

For example, Duncan sees in 1 Corinthians 10:1-11 a precedent for understanding the church more broadly than Baptists do, and he rightly asserts both the Reformed position on this issue and the Baptist position are attempts to account for the nominal faith of many who claim church membership.

Moreover, those in the Restoration tradition—such as Churches of Christ—believe the overall teaching of Scripture, and specific texts like 1 Peter 3:20-22, teach baptism is a prerequisite for salvation.

Nevertheless, Baptists have rejected the idea baptism has regenerative power and have held firm to the symbolic significance of the ritual.

The coming of the Spirit on Peter’s Gentile hearers in Acts 10 strongly suggests baptism is not a prerequisite for salvation but is its outworking.

Moreover, Paul’s construal of the church as a fictive family—that is, a network of believing individuals bound together by God’s Spirit—suggests baptism should be seen as the marker of those who have been genuinely converted, not of those who are related to the church by bonds of blood or marriage but who have not undergone the rebirth (John 3:1-15) or adoption (Galatians 3:26-4:7; Ephesians 1:3-14) facilitated by the Spirit.

Contributions and questions

I am basically satisfied with the Baptist consensus in favor of believer’s baptism. It reminds the church of the personal nature of salvation, and it serves as an important theological foundation upon which other Baptist distinctives are built.

Though I recognize evangelicals in general, and Baptists in particular, sometimes have put too much emphasis on discerning the exact moment of conversion, believer’s baptism has testified rightly to the importance of a person’s transition into the people of God and the necessity of commemorating the public, intentional quality of that transition.

Nevertheless, there still are questions related to baptism worth asking. Such questions might clarify the reasons Baptists hold the convictions they do and provide grounds for further conversation with non-Baptist Christians. These questions include the following.

• Is baptism a sacrament, and if so, what exactly does that mean?

Baptists typically describe baptism as an “ordinance,” not a “sacrament.” The word sacrament could refer simply to a “mystery,” thus signifying something of a spiritual nature is taking place during the ritual.

But the language of sacrament has a lot of theological baggage, and Baptists want to be clear we perform this ritual because Christ commanded it, not because it has any bearing on a person’s standing before God.

• If baptism is merely an ordinance, and if baptism has no functional effect on an individual’s soul—thus resulting in salvation—then why is it commanded by Jesus?

As Baptists, we do not take the symbolic significance of the ritual lightly. Still, some may wonder why we should perform the ritual if it does not accomplish anything.

Likewise, have Baptists imbibed too deeply a culture that has been thoroughly disenchanted? In other words, are we too rationalistic in our understanding and practice of baptism?

• Is the mode of baptism—immersion rather than pouring or sprinkling—really as important as many Baptists allege, or are there ways in which these alternative methods of performing the ritual better symbolize what is taking place when a person is converted?

It is clear the Old Testament contains a lot of imagery related to sprinkling (see above), and scholars in other denominations may prefer other texts as models for how baptism is to be conducted. Moreover, there are practical considerations that sometimes make immersion impossible or unwise.

Should an individual’s baptism be considered invalid if they were not immersed?

• Should Baptists prohibit those who have undergone infant baptism from partaking of the Lord’s Supper on the grounds they have not been baptized properly, and should they prevent from partaking in the Lord’s Supper those whose post-conversion baptism is thought by their denomination to have a greater significance than Baptists allow?

This is the question of “open” or “closed” communion, and Baptist doctrine would suggest communion ought to be closed.

Nevertheless, at the church I pastor, we have chosen to leave our communion open. We see it as an opportunity to acknowledge our kinship with other believers and to cultivate theological humility.

Other Baptists may disagree, arguing baptism is such an important topic, we cannot compromise. We must, by our practices, model to other believers what we believe the Bible clearly teaches.

You may have other questions as you think abut baptism. Talk them over with your pastor. Acquaint yourself with current and historic Baptist confessions. Ask your non-Baptist friends why they believe what they believe about baptism. And approach all these activities and conversations with a curious, humble heart and a prayer for unity in Christ’s body.

Wade Berry is pastor of Second Baptist Church in Ranger and has been resident fellow in New Testament and Greek at B.H. Carroll Theological Seminary. The views expressed in this opinion article are those of the author.

My journey with Christ has been deeply personal and profoundly shaped by my life in Palestine.

Growing up among a Christian family in Ramallah, I learned early that faith can endure through hardship. Yet, it was only when I questioned everything and rediscovered Jesus for myself that I truly understood what it means to follow him.

Early years

I was born in Ramallah, a city in the hills of central Palestine, about 20 minutes north of Jerusalem. My family, like many Christian families here, carried its faith through generations of trials and displacements.

We were among what some call the “Living Stones,” the indigenous Christians of the Holy Land, heirs of the first believers who heard the gospel firsthand.

We preserved the faith of our ancestors, protected the holy sites, and witnessed to the power of Jesus through endurance, love and steadfast hope. We also were the salt of the earth among our fellow Palestinians.

In my family, Christianity was not just a faith, but also tradition, culture and loyalty to our ancestors who had kept the faith through empires and persecutions. Leaving it would have felt like betraying both Jesus and my heritage.

My grandfather often told me how his father, a stonemason, had built many churches across the Holy Land, including our own in Ramallah and Jerusalem. My grandparents taught me to pray before meals and before bed.

My parents and extended family were devout, rarely missing Sunday Mass. Church life shaped our rhythms: weekly worship, a Christian school, youth Bible studies and Scouts run by the parish.

Most of our neighbors were Christian, and the few Muslims I knew were classmates from mostly secular families. My childhood revolved around school, church and family.

Hometown

Ramallah itself changed drastically over the last century. Once a small, fully Christian town, it is now a major city more diverse, politically charged and socially tense.

After the 1948 Nakba, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were ethnically cleansed and their homes and towns destroyed to make way for new Jewish immigrants and the creation of Israel, refugees—both Christian and Muslim—fled to Ramallah.

Many local Christians feared occupation and emigrated, and the Christian population declined, leaving the remaining community caught between Israeli occupation and cultural erosion.

When Israel occupied Ramallah in 1967, the exodus accelerated. Today, Christians make up roughly a quarter of Ramallah’s 40,000 residents.

Yet, the “American Federation of Ramallah, Palestine,” representing the Ramallah diaspora, counts about 45,000 Palestinian Christian members, making it the largest Palestinian organization in the United States.

Going to university

University life in nearby Birzeit—a small, largely Christian town—opened my eyes to the broader Palestinian society. There, I met Palestinians from across the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Jerusalem, and even from Israel, Jordan and the diaspora.

For the first time, I realized how limited my upbringing had been. I had lived in a predominantly Muslim society without really seeing it.

As I grew older, my faith faced questions I could not answer easily: Why are we Christians becoming a minority in our own city and land? Why are we Palestinians being occupied by the Israelis? Why did God allow suffering, injustice and confusion, especially here in his Holy Land?

Seeking guidance

During this period, I turned to Christian media for guidance, watching Arab and international channels such as SAT-7, TBN, CBN and God TV, and following preachers and ministers like Paul and Jan Crouch, Joyce Meyer, Benny Hinn, Joel Osteen, Hal Lindsey, Pat Robertson, Andrew Wommack and T.D. Jakes.

I prayed with these preachers and ministers from home, read their books, received their newsletters and grew spiritually, yet I was deeply unsettled.

Many of these preachers and ministries glorified Israel politically while ignoring, dismissing or even vilifying Palestinians. Their sermons often replaced compassion with ideology and faith with politics.

It was painful to see those I admired celebrating symbols of occupation while remaining silent about our suffering. That silence, and at times hostility, made me feel invisible, unloved and unwanted within the global body of Christ.

I began to question everything. If this was Christianity, did I still belong? Their message, instead of bringing me closer to Jesus, drove me into doubt, spiritual loneliness and depression.

Seeking the truth

I decided to seek the truth for myself. I began to study other religions systematically. I met with Muslim clerics—one at Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem to learn about Sunni Islam, another in a northern West Bank village to study the Ahmadiyya movement, a sect separated from Sunni Islam. I admired much in Islam but could not embrace it fully.

I then turned to Judaism, studying with an Israeli Jewish rabbi from Jerusalem and at the same time learning from the Palestinian Samaritan community, descendants of those mentioned in the Bible who still live in Nablus and number about a thousand today. Again, I found wisdom but not the fullness of truth.

I even explored briefly other religions such as the Bahá’í faith, Raëlism, Eckankar, Hinduism and Buddhism, gaining insight but not conviction.

After years of searching and questioning, I found myself drawn once more to the faith of my childhood.

Returning

I returned to Christianity with a renewed hunger to understand it deeply and started studying the Bible with new eyes.

Ramallah, remarkably, has nearly every major denomination: Orthodox, Melkite, Roman Catholic, Anglican, Evangelical, Baptist, Lutheran, Quaker and Coptic. At first, attending different services felt awkward, but over time, I discovered beauty in each. Through their diverse prayers, traditions and liturgies, I encountered Jesus in new and profound ways.

Eventually, I came to accept Jesus as my Lord, Savior and companion.

I felt his presence everywhere—in the stones of our streets, the olive trees, the mountains and even the sea. He became my guide, my moral compass and my constant friend. I imagined him walking where I walked, resting where I rested and eating the same fish from the Sea of Galilee.

Gaining discernment

Looking back, I now understand my disillusionment with Christian media was not the end of faith but a test of discernment. It helped me recognize what Jesus warned about false prophets and religious leaders who twist God’s word for power or profit.

Like the Pharisees of Jesus’ time, they used religion to serve their own agendas. Yet, even through the teachings of these preachers and ministers, I learned something vital: The gospel must be separated from politics, Christ’s truth stands apart from every empire and ideology, and my faith must rest not in institutions, but in the living Christ himself.

Being a Palestinian Christian

Being a Palestinian Christian shapes everything I do. It calls me to love my Muslim and Jewish neighbors and even our enemies, including the Israeli occupation and settlers who oppress us. Loving them does not mean accepting injustice. It means praying they, too, will encounter Christ and turn from evil.

My identity is bound to my people’s history of suffering and resilience. Living under Israeli military occupation has deepened my understanding of Jesus’ teachings on justice, compassion and perseverance.

To be a Palestinian Christian is to carry Christ’s light into darkness, his peace into fear and his justice into oppression. It is to live resurrection amid crucifixion and to follow Christ not because of heritage or tradition, but because he alone is the truth that redeems, forgives and gives hope no power on Earth can take away.

Jack Nassar is a Palestinian Christian based in Ramallah, Palestine. He holds a Master of Arts degree in political communications from Goldsmiths, University of London, and brings professional expertise across multiple sectors, driving positive change. He can be reached at: jacknassar@aol.com. The views expressed in this opinion article are those of the author.

In Part 1 of this series, I distinguished between Christian nationalism as ideology and Christian nationalism as instinct or mood. I also differentiated the church’s mission and the state’s mission.

In Part 2, I examined the six main arguments for Christian nationalism and how they hold up against the gospel, William Stringfellow’s insights on the “powers and principalities,” and the cruciform love of Jesus.

Here, I will outline what our response should be to Christian nationalism.

Smashing idols

Christian nationalism has some noble desires: order, morality, identity, witness. But like the bronze serpent that became the idol called Nehushtan, those desires become dangerous when they get lifted to the height of the cross.

That’s why Hezekiah had to smash Nehushtan. That’s why we must smash the idol of Christian nationalism. America is not the kingdom of God. The cross stands above every flag.

Christian nationalism promises life, but it cannot heal the poison of sin. Only Christ lifted on the cross can do that. Only his kingdom lasts.

Smashing idols doesn’t mean walking away

It’s easy to hear all of this and think: “So, should Christians just abandon politics altogether? Should we throw up our hands and say: ‘Forget the nation. Only Jesus matters?’”

Not at all. Smashing the idol of Christian nationalism doesn’t mean walking away from public life. It means engaging it with clear eyes and a cruciform posture.

Hezekiah didn’t destroy the bronze serpent Nehushtan because healing was bad. He destroyed it because the people were worshiping it. In the same way, we don’t abandon civic responsibility because nations are prone to idolatry. We just refuse to worship them.

So, what does that look like?

What smashing idols looks like

• Love, not dominance. We engage in politics not to secure power for “our side,” but to seek the good of our neighbors—especially the vulnerable. Voting, advocacy and policy work are legitimate ways of loving our neighbor as ourselves.

• Service, not survival. The powers teach us to fight for survival and supremacy. The gospel frees us to give ourselves away, even when it costs us. We don’t cling to control. We pour ourselves out in service.

• Resistance, not retreat. Sometimes the most faithful thing we can do is say “no.” No to systems that dehumanize. No to policies that harm the poor. No to fear-driven rhetoric that scapegoats the outsider. Resistance isn’t retreat; it’s active fidelity to Christ’s kingdom.

Living for the gospel kingdom

Smashing Nehushtan doesn’t leave us empty-handed. It clears the way for us to lift up the cross—the only true source of life. That’s where our witness lies. That’s where our hope rests.

America will rise and fall like every other nation. But Christ’s kingdom endures forever. So, let’s live, love and even vote with that in mind—not to baptize the nation, but to embody the gospel.

Returning to state’s mission vs. church’s mission

My great-grandfather, Leonard Cranford Baxley, was a lawman in the early 1900s. Family stories describe him as a peacekeeper—someone who carried pearl-handled pistols and enforced the law with such reputation that people would rush to turn themselves in rather than face him. He was good at what he did: keeping order, restraining violence and protecting his community.

That’s what peacekeepers do. They use the threat of force to hold the line against chaos. And that’s the state’s calling: to keep the peace. It’s a limited but necessary mission. Peacekeeping can stop a thief, but it can’t turn him into a generous neighbor. It can punish a murderer, but it can’t transform a violent heart into one that loves its enemies.

The church’s mission is different. We are called to be peacemakers. Peacemaking doesn’t just restrain evil; it overcomes evil with good. It doesn’t just enforce order; it creates new life. Peacemakers embody the Sermon on the Mount, carry the cross into places of hostility and show the world what it looks like when heaven breaks in.

Christian nationalism confuses these two missions. It asks the state to play the role of the church—imagining laws can disciple or national power can bring the peace of Christ. But laws can only keep peace. Only the cruciform love of Jesus makes peace.

Blessed are the peacemakers, Jesus said—not the peacekeepers. When the church forgets this, it trades the scars of the cross for the sword of the state. And when that happens, Nehushtan rises again.

Nick Acker, a native Texan, is co-lead pastor of Grace Ventura Church in Ventura, Calif., adjunct faculty member at Stark College and Seminary and a resident fellow at East Texas Baptist University’s B.H. Carroll Theological Seminary, and author of Exegeting Orality: Interpreting the Inspired Words of Scripture in Light of Their Oral Traditional Origins. He finds his greatest joy in his wife and three children. The views expressed in this opinion article are those of the author.