Surely you have heard something described as “good enough for government work.” Or you have heard its cousin, “close enough for government work.” These phrases make us think about mediocre quality.

George BullardWhen people think about congregational vision, do they think about mediocrity or excellence? Because becoming captivated by God’s vision is difficult, too often people work on it for a while and then say something like, “That is good enough for church work.” In doing so, they define congregational vision as sufficiently unimportant that it is fine to be mediocre.

Here are six insights that focus on congregation vision that is only “good enough.” I previously described 48 insights about congregational vision contained in the posts found here.

• When it comes to vision, good enough is never good enough, adequate is never acceptable, and mediocrity is never excellence.

During the 1980s, I worked at the national missions agency of a denomination. We worked hard at fulfilling the mission and vision embodied in the Great Commission in the spirit of the Great Commandment. We were deeply passionate about it. We always sought to do everything with excellence.

After four years, I moved to a state missional role that presented many challenges. The shock in moving from the national role to a state role was to discover the measuring rod of excellence was extremely different. What we would have considered mediocre at the national agency was seen as excellence in this state.

That gap in an understanding of excellence made it difficult to engage in leading-edge missional efforts.

• When vision is of a mediocre, business-as-usual future, then you get a mediocre, business-as-usual future.

When I pushed for excellence in my state missional engagement role, I experienced resistance in many places. The most disappointing was from other staff who did not want to work hard enough and smart enough to achieve true excellence. My staff team was criticized internally for our hard work and excellence.

The criticism was so strong that—with the permission of the CEO of the regional denominational organization—some of my team’s work went underground so we could continue achieving excellence and making kingdom progress, but it would not be as obvious to other staff.

• When vision is of a mediocre, business-as-usual future, then you get the less vital and vibrant future you projected.

One of the signs of mediocrity in the state denominational organization was in the area of work that sponsored the special missions offering that funded about half of the missional efforts. The year before I arrived, their offering raised about $777,000. Their goal, however, for the next year was only $700,000.

I questioned this. It did not appear challenging. The response was that they set their goals low so they are sure they will meet them. My thought was I had just discovered another example of mediocrity.

• When vision is of a mediocre, business-as-usual future, then less is less and more is nowhere in sight.

I was shocked one day when a colleague wanted to hold up as excellent a congregation so mediocre the possibility it might have to close down within a year or two was very high. I visited the congregation and discovered a mediocre, business-as-usual future was its goal.

• When vision is of a mediocre, business-as usual future, the congregation may be turning its back on the call of God.

What do too many congregations do when God calls them to a prophetic, innovative vision for kingdom progress? They lie down beside it and go to sleep. They declare they cannot really do what God wants them to do. They declare this is their church, and they will do what they want to do, not realizing in saying this they are spiritually insubordinate in opposing God’s leadership.

• When vision is of a mediocre, business-as-usual future, it can negatively impact the spirituality of the congregation.

If the vision of a congregation is mediocre, characterized by business as usual, then expectations of spiritual maturity among congregational participants likely are low. Cutting edge innovation in the spiritual formation, leadership development and missional engagement of congregations is not necessary if the expectations are low.

George Bullard is a strategic leadership coach for Christian leaders and organizations with The Columbia Partnership and general secretary of the North American Baptist Fellowship. This article appeared on his blogsite, “George Bullard’s Journey.”

This is the 19th in a series of posts on congregational vision. The next blog in this series is titled “Congregational vision is about expanding and deepening disciplemaking.” To see all the posts, click here.

This column first appeared on the Baptist News Global Perspectives blog. See more by clicking here.

Americans these days are addicted to fear. It’s a natural emotional response, but the overarching message of the Bible is, “Fear not.”

Read it at Baptist News Global.

Count your blessings! We have many students who come through our Texas Baptist universities who are called and prepare for ministry. Many go on to a Texas Baptist seminary or Christian ministry program and then into a Texas Baptist church. Texas Baptist universities prepare so many of our pastors and ministers. And your Cooperative Program giving supports all our 28 institutions and provides needed help for many students to receive scholarships and aid as they attend our universities.

René MacielHere are two more of our Texas Baptist schools that do a wonderful job educating and preparing many for ministry and other vocations. I am grateful I have a chance to relate to these universities at different times throughout the year and thankful for the wonderful programs and schools Texas Baptists can count as a blessing.

Dallas Baptist University began in 1898 in Decatur as Decatur Baptist College, often considered the oldest continuously operated junior college west of the Mississippi River. Dallas Baptists were interested in starting a Baptist college in Dallas to serve the Metroplex’s growing population, so in 1965 it moved with 945 students to a 200-acre site in southwest Dallas and was renamed Dallas Baptist College. It became a four-year institution for the 1967-68 academic year.

A former U.S. Cabinet member and chief of staff to President Lyndon B. Johnson, Marvin Watson, became president in 1979 and led the college toward university status by adding the first graduate programs. DBC became Dallas Baptist University in 1985, but it endured extreme financial hardship.

The university hovered on the brink of closure, but it was saved through the support of the Dallas Baptist Association, the Baptist General Convention of Texas, and devoted faculty and staff. History credits Fred White, a former Texas Baptist pastor who served in various administrative posts during DBC’s first 20 years in Dallas, with championing the survival of DBC.

In 1988, Gary Cook’s presidency re-energized the school. By 1992, the debt was totally eliminated, and 92 more acres were added. Enrollment reached 5,319 by the fall of 2015. Among those are 588 international students representing 62 countries. DBU provides 72 undergraduate majors, 28 master’s programs and two doctoral degrees. Cook is now the school’s first chancellor as trustees search for the next president.

East Texas Baptist University traces its beginning to the College of Marshall, which started as a two-year institution in 1917 with 374 students. The campaign to create the college was led by William Thomas Tardy, pastor of First Baptist Church in Marshall. He acquired land, and the BGCT assumed control of the college. In 1944, trustees asked the state convention to elevate the college to four-year status, and the name was changed to East Texas Baptist College. In 1984, it became East Texas Baptist University.

ETBU’s current enrollment is 1,308, and it offers more than 40 programs of study and graduate studies in business, counseling, education, Christian studies and religion. J. Blair Blackburn became its 13th president last June, after serving at DBU 20 years—13 as executive vice president.

ETBU’s Great Commission Center deploys students, faculty and staff into mission endeavors through Beach Reach on South Padre Island, at Mission Marshall, and with Hope Springs Water, to repair water wells and offer hygiene clinics in Belize. Its nursing students have a 100 percent pass rate on the national exam, and teacher education graduates boasted a 97 percent state licensure exam pass rate for 2013-14.

Please keep these universities in your prayers and make plans to find out more about them at our BGCT annual meeting, Nov. 13-15.

René Maciel is president of the Baptist General Convention of Texas and president of Baptist University of the Américas in San Antonio.

Recently, I was startled to realize I had hit an important milestone—the 20th anniversary of my ordination to gospel ministry. As I’ve reflected on that 1995 August night in Biloxi, Miss., I’ve tried to recall some of the things I’ve learned since then. These are not necessarily the most important things I’ve learned—many of those, I’m sure, are subconscious. But these are 20 things I’ve learned in 20 years of ministry:

Russell Moore1. When it comes to preaching, Sunday school was more important to me than seminary. I value Greek and Hebrew and everything else, but absorbing the stories and phrases and teachings of Scripture as a child was more important. If I had to choose between the two, I’d choose Sunday school.

2. At my ordination, an elderly deacon referenced the Bible and my wife, saying, “Son, don’t ever get in the pulpit with any other book than that one, and don’t ever get into bed with any other woman but her.” Wise counsel. Another way of putting it: “I keep a close watch on this heart of mine; I keep my eyes wide open all the time. I keep the ends out for the tie that binds; Because you’re mine, I walk the line.”

3. Most of my regrets are failures to be kind or merciful. What haunts me most are not sermons that could have been preached better or ministries I could have led better, but rather people I loved who needed more mercy than I could or would give, or people I gave up on too soon. If I could advise my younger self, I would say, “Err on the side of kindness and mercy.”

4. I cannot overestimate the blessing of old friendships. I desperately need the people who knew me before I was “Dr. Moore.” They are the ones who can knock me down when I get prideful and remind me who I am and what God has called me to when I get down and depressed. As life goes on and ministry gets more frantic, it’s easy to let those friendships grow dormant, and more time elapses between phone calls or visits. Don’t let that happen.

Mentoring matters

5. There is no ministry without mentoring. I keep pictures around everywhere of mentors in my life—those who took chances on me at a young age and who taught me what I know. Most of what I learned from these men and women happened in nonprogrammed times, when these mentors would hardly have known they were “mentoring.” At the same time, I look around at the protégés God has given me in ministry—many of whom I still get to serve with in various ways as colleagues now. Mentoring takes a lot of time, and sometimes emotional energy, but it is worth it.

6. Personal counseling has been as important as study. I’m, by nature, more prophetic than priestly. I don’t particularly like one-on-one counseling. I’d much rather preach a sermon or write an article than sit with a bickering couple about who sent what text messages to whom. But I often found myself with a weekly load of personal counseling. I gained insights into struggles I’ve never had, wounds I’ve never thought of, temptations I’ve never experienced. It helped me, I think, pray better but also preach better and write better. It’s what I miss most about both being a pastor in a church and being dean at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

7. Bible study is easy for me; prayer is hard. I’ve found that, like Israel in the desert, God often has to make me hunger to the point I know I do not live by bread alone and must ask for the bread I do live by.

8. Nothing can reach me at the most primal spiritual level like hymns I’ve known my whole life. New songs can teach me much, but “Just As I Am” can reduce me to tears of gratitude. Losing a hymnody that connects generations may be one of our greatest losses as a church.

Adultery isn’t about sex

9. Of all the families I’ve counseled through the wreckage of adultery, I don’t know of one where the issue was about sex. Usually, it’s about the guilty parties trying to recapture the excitement of high school or college dating and the hormonal rush that comes with it. Our cultural definitions—often mediated through music—of what “love” is and should feel like contribute to this.

10. Most of the theological errors I find in myself or in others are rooted in putting an “either/or” where biblically there’s a “both/and”—and vice-versa.

11. It’s important to tell the difference between a Simon Magus who needs to be rebuked (Acts 8:18-23) and an Apollos who just needs more patient instruction (Acts 18:25-26), between the Philippian Christians who need gentle reminders and Galatian heretics who must be repudiated decisively.

12. We are to be separate from sin, never separate from sinners. It is far easier to do the reverse. And the charge, “He eats with tax collectors and sinners” still works. Courage means not fearing those who will seek to intimidate you from following Christ toward those who are sick and in need of a physician.

13. The Scripture calls us to judge those on the inside, who bear the name of brother, and not those on the outside (1 Corinthians 5:9-12). Doing the reverse can make for a much easier ministry—as a hack.

Criticism happens, no matter what

14. You can’t avoid criticism. Decide ahead of time what sorts of criticism you would want remembered at your graveside. When that sort of criticism comes, take time to thank God for it. Make sure the criticism comes the way it does for Jesus—in stereo (Luke 7:33-34).

15. Cultural Christianity is a great comfort for some people. These are people who don’t have a strong doctrine of hell. If there is no judgment, then nominal Christianity is great, since it prompts people to behave and live good lives. If there is a hell (and I agree with Jesus that there is) then cultural, nominal Christianity is worse than secularism or hedonism or atheism or paganism because it says, “You shall not surely die” (Genesis 3:4) but pretends those words are coming from Jesus himself. This leads to death and to taking the Lord’s name in vain—all at the same time.

16. Most of the things I considered cul-de-sacs in my ministry turned out to be, in light of later years, no such things. God was using friendships made, books read, conversations had, jobs held, catastrophes experienced in ways I never could have predicted. And those are just the things I know about.

17. I can’t think of one thing I worried about early in ministry that ever turned out to be a worry later on. For instance, I agonized for long sleepless nights when first called to ministry about my fear of talking in front of people. You would think this realization would make it easier to “be anxious for nothing,” but I still must struggle to trust God.

18. My worst sermons were targeted first at the intellect or the will. My best sermons were targeted first at the imagination (“Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world”).

19. I keep notes of encouragement that have come through over the years—from everyone from my wife to random strangers. My Bible is filled with these, and some of them are even framed. This ought to, and sadly doesn’t as much as it should, remind me not to assume encouragement and appreciation but to express it. Sometimes, I think I don’t because I fear it will sound awkward. But it’s never once been awkward for me to receive it, and I should remember that.

20. When I preached every week at a church in Louisville, Ky., I would end every service with the same benediction: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:1-5, 14). I read that passage because I believe it sums up the whole of the Bible. But more than that, I read it because I needed to hear those words, aloud, every single week. My life depends on them.

Russell Moore is president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. This article appeared on his blogsite.

The Syrian refugee crisis is one of the great humanitarian tests of our era. Christians worldwide have responded in some of the most beautiful and ugly ways imaginable to this crisis.

Christian van GorderThere is no place for Islamophobic fear among Christians, but one also must look at this crisis within its larger context. How we respond to this crisis—both humanely and firmly—will dramatically define the advance of healthy Christian-Muslim interactions.

Traditional crisis relief responses have focused on providing refugees immediate and temporary protection, shelter, food and medical care as close to the homes of the refugees as possible. This rules out aiding refugees for the long-term in Scandinavia or North America. Fellow Muslims in the Gulf States and other nations must be expected to aid their own co-religionists.

Laws intended to ensure refugees adapt and assimilate to European cultural norms and expectations should not be branded as Islamophobic. Justice—not charity—is required, but the financial constraints and civic harmony of various European nations should not be disregarded as irrelevant. Many secular Europeans are learning first-hand how important religion is to those who have arrived into their midst.

In addition, some Muslims are taught their faith makes them morally superior to those who are helping them. They believe Islam is the true and best way and, as such, assimilation cannot include any compromises of faith or any recognition that secularists are not bankrupt religiously and, in some ways, morally. Native Americans four centuries ago learned what can happen when zealots who feel they are superior enter your lands as guests.

North Americans have been fortunate most émigrés have come to this land and felt compelled largely to adapt and adjust to local cultural expectations. This also has been the case for moderate Turkish guest workers in Germany who, for decades, largely have adapted themselves to their new homeland.

But what happens when clerics—as happens in France, Belgium and Great Britain—mock their new homes as places of godlessness and arrogantly expect Europeans to adapt to their demands instead of visa-versa? We are seeing the clear answer to this question in places like Cologne, Germany.

Historically, Muslim and Christian interactions have gone sour when religion and politics become synonymous with each other. Centuries of despotism in many Muslim lands have conditioned citizens from those lands to subjugate their own politics on the altar of expediency. In our modern post-colonial era, there is a clear revitalization of political Islam that evokes the foundations of early Islam built as it was on establishing an earthly state.

Further, religious minorities in each of the 55 Muslim-majority nations are suffering new waves of religious persecution and intolerance: Yazidis are enslaved in Iraq, Coptic Christians are marginalized in Egypt and beheaded in Libya, the Baha’i are hunted down in Iran, and evangelicals and pentecostals are forbidden to share their faith with Muslim neighbors openly in many nations. Even “bright spots” like Indonesia, Senegal and Malaysia have seen persecutions against their Christian minority communities.

Future Muslim and Christian dialogue must advance with these harsh realities front and center. For too long, interfaith discussions have been wistfully theoretical and idealistically theological in our secure contexts of air-conditioned comfort while ignoring the cold, hard facts of horrific and brutal religious persecution worldwide.  

A. Christian van Gorder is associate professor of world religions and Islamic studies in the Baylor University Religion Department. He earned his doctorate from Queen’s University in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

It was early in my pastoral ministry. I still thought my primary job was to please people and make them happy, ensure their comfort, and leave them liking me.

Thus, when someone disagreed with me or criticized me, I spent many anxious hours, usually pre-dawn, reliving stressful conversations, imagining possible witty replies by me, and generally demonizing those who dared take me on. I was uncomfortable with the way things were going, and deep down, I knew a significant part of the blame was inside me.

Bill WilsonOne day, my most articulate nemesis and I had another round of frustrating, heated conversation. Finally, June—several years my senior—stepped close to me, looked me in the eye, and said: “Look, Preacher, do you want me to tell you what I really think or not? I thought you were big enough to handle it, but if you’re not, I’ll stop. I really like you and want you to succeed, but we can’t go on like this.”

I was taken aback but had the presence of mind to mumble something like, “Yes, please, help me learn how to do this.” She did. Over the ensuing months and years, I slowly learned how to disagree agreeably. She had worked years in politics and knew the art of healthy debate, was comfortable with anxiety and open about her opinions. She also had a keen mind, a deep faith and more courage than anyone I had ever met. For the next decade, she loved me enough to disagree agreeably with me.

The lessons were painful, sometimes embarrassing and always followed by a hug, a broad grin, and a promise of prayer and support. In the midst of those difficult lessons, I learned a great deal about myself and how God desires the church to function. Much of what I do today flows out of that education.

I am reminded weekly how inadequately many clergy have been prepared to navigate conflict and intense conversations. Here are some broad thoughts on what to do when you experience resistance, conflict or disagreement. You note that the word is “when,” not “if”: 

• Learn to believe intensity in relationships is a product of community, and disagreement is an outgrowth of caring. If people don’t care, they won’t fight.

• “Speak the truth in love” is the single most helpful word I have ever gotten regarding conflict. I’m still trying to understand all it means. Most people are frightened by it.

• Get help discovering your default tendency for responding to criticism and conflict. We all have one we learned early in life. Learn to recognize yours and manage it.

• Design safe systems, settings, events and/or forms that enable people to speak openly and give honest feedback. I learned the hard way to build 10 to 15 minutes of preventive conversation time into every deacon/elder/leadership team meeting. This time was devoted to asking the hard questions or expressing frustration. Moving those conversations in from the parking lot to the meeting room is huge.

• Politicians and media have destroyed the idea of thoughtful debate. The church must be the voice that reclaims it and insists upon it.

• If you want to get stronger/better, you need resistance. This is true at the church, just like the gym.

• Begin to talk about “transformative conflict” when no one is angry. Quote people like David Brubaker, George Bullard, Peter Steinke, Susan Nienaber and David Sawyer on this topic every chance you get. Seek to “normalize” conflict in the life of the church.

• Some conflict is pathological and toxic. It’s hard to know the difference between such a scenario and a conflict that can prove transformative. Nevertheless, seek to distinguish between the two by using at least three good minds for discernment. Make sure the others in your circle are not afraid to speak truth to you.

• Find a therapist or pastoral colleague you can talk to when things get especially intense. They’ll keep you from veering too far off a healthy path. Remember, everyone needs a Nathan, the prophet who dared to confront King David.

• Be disciplined about practicing biblical conflict. Start with this one: Talk to, not about, others. Everything healthy flows out of that core Matthew 18 teaching. 

Bonus: Beware those who are full of advice but have never (or not recently) walked in your shoes as a pastoral leader. Most of them wouldn’t make it six weeks in your role.

This is enough to get started. These are just a few items I have found especially helpful on the front line of ministry. Your list will be different, of course. Just make sure you have a blueprint that establishes a theological base, that gives you a road map and methodology, and that works. When you do, conflict and criticism can become your friend and a major asset in ministry.

Bill Wilson is director of the Center for Healthy Churches. 

I recently heard about a mother’s incredible journey of peace and reconciliation during my trip to Lebanon as part of the 21^st Century Wilberforce Initiative’s efforts to support education and training.

Elijah BrownIn 1990, Adeline was a young mom and pregnant with her second child. Lebanon was in the midst of a war with Syria. Adeline, her husband and their son had been captured, lined up and were facing a firing squad. Adeline closed her eyes and prayed she would pass quickly and without witnessing her husband and son suffer through their own executions. At the last moment, a Lebanese tank emerged, firing a shell that decimated the Syrian soldiers. Miraculously, the family was unharmed.

For six years after these events, Adeline prayed and fasted for God to remove the hatred she felt toward those who almost murdered her family. As war has engulfed Syria and more than 1 million Syrian refugees have poured into Lebanon, Adeline is not only free from her hatred, but is working for a Christian organization that supports Syrian refugees.

According to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, the 5-year-long war in Syria is largely sectarian, and its history of religious diversity may be lost: “Syria’s religious communities are largely deprived of religious freedom. … Sunni Muslims (the majority) generally associate all Alawites and Shi’a Muslims with the regime of President al-Assad, an Alawite himself, and many Alawites, Shi’a Muslims, Christians and others believe that they will be killed by ISIL and other extremist Sunni groups if the al-Assad government falls. … Well over half of Syria’s pre-conflict population has fled to neighboring countries or is internally displaced.”

In short, there is almost nowhere in Syria where one has freedom of conscience.

On my trip, I also met a Lebanese pastor who trained as a child soldier to fight against the Syrians. He now is leading his church to begin an education center for Syrian refugee children.

Even though these servant leaders face personal threats to their lives, they continue to provide education, food and practical assistance to the refugees. When asked about the message he would most like to communicate to the United States, this pastor implored: “You are living in the comfort zone and living in fear. We are in the conflict zone, and we are experiencing victory every day.”

The choice to serve and to extend a welcoming relationship is making a difference. One Muslim refugee family described how it chose to live in the area of the church because the Christian community had a reputation of being safer, of not cheating, and of extending respect and rights to all people. A young Muslim student at the education center said she had learned from the Bible she was “to love everybody because everybody is created equally.”

May we all work to further religious freedom as a universal right.

Action items you can take: 

• Support the 21^st Century Wilberforce Initiative’s Ruth Project, which provides education tuition for Syrian refugees in Lebanon.

• Read the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom’s 2015 report on Syria. 

• Take a moment to recommit to working for religious freedom in 2016, considering the manner in which you forward emails and post to social media and the personal endeavors you can take to support those being persecuted around the world.

Elijah Brown is executive vice president of the 21^st Century Wilberforce Initiative. Adeline’s name has been changed for her safety.

Calls for “homogenous church growth” are being replaced with pleas for multiethnic and/or multicultural congregations. But most churches operate independently of each other and seem to agree skin colors, economic status and organizational styles cannot be mixed, blended or negotiated. What do you think?

Since stepping aside as executive coordinator of Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, I have served a historic church in Atlanta as interim pastor. Like so many urban congregations, Peachtree Baptist Church has experienced decline because of demographic changes in its neighborhood, denominational deconstruction and internal struggles. What became clear is the ministry methods designed for homogenous, program-based churches were inadequate to reach people for Christ, particularly in a polarized and increasingly secular culture. 

A missional church

In the past three years, Peachtree has set its heart on becoming an interracial, intercultural and intergenerational church. We don’t want to become a megachurch, a seeker church or a contemporary church, but rather a missional church that reflects the community in which God has placed us. We want to honor those parts of our Baptist tradition that are worth honoring and preserve the institutional structures that should be preserved, but we want to look and feel radically different when it comes to racial and cultural composition. 

This vision is rooted in the reconciling gospel of Christ and the ultimate goal of that gospel when people from every culture, nation, tribe and language will gather before God’s throne in worship. We realize the mystical body of Christ transcends any one congregation, but we want our congregation to reflect the richness and diversity of Christ’s present and coming kingdom.  

So, how are we doing? First, the vision of an interracial and intergenerational church is compelling and life-giving to our “little flock” and those who participate with us. I repeatedly hear someone say, “I really like the diversity here,” or, “There is love in this place.” Even though our numerical growth has been slow and the changes are incremental, we are experiencing spiritual vitality and genuine community. People are coming to Christ. People are coming back to Christ. 

Requires humility

Ministry in a multicultural context is not easy, and it requires intentionality in worship planning, leadership development and mission engagement. But most of all, it requires a great deal of humility and absolute dependence on God. We put a lot of emphasis on caring for one another across our differences and on the word of God and the Spirit of God that both unite us and empower us. We talk a lot about unity in diversity and diversity in unity. 

Relationships are important to us. Being together is central. We don’t spend a lot of time fretting about our future or the cultural currents that swirl around us. We work hard at being attentive to the individuals who make up our fellowship, as well as those individuals who walk in our doors, live in our neighborhood and struggle in our streets.

At our Thanksgiving dinner this past November, 75 people gathered in spite of a terrible rain storm to eat turkey and dressing. There were 15 nationalities represented. Children were laughing and singing. Testimonies of gratitude were offered. I presented a brief gospel message. Afterward, a 60-year-old African-American man who was visiting said to me: “I’ve never seen anything quite like this. It feels a bit like heaven.” A few weeks later, I baptized his best friend, and 30 of his family members attended worship to celebrate the baptism. 

All glory be to God.    

Daniel Vestal is the distinguished professor of Baptist leadership and director of the Eula Mae and John Baugh Center of Baptist Leadership at Mercer University in Atlanta.

Americans overwhelmingly are concerned about religious liberty. That’s good. What’s troubling, but perhaps not surprising, is they are less enthusiastic about protecting those liberties for some religions.

According to a recent poll by the Associated Press and the University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center, 82 percent said religious liberty protections were important for Christians, compared with around 60 percent who said the same for Muslims and the religiously unaffiliated.

Yet religious freedom is not merely an important issue. It is our “first freedom.”

What Americans, especially Christian Americans, must understand is this: Religious freedom for some is not religious freedom for long.

LifeWay Research data might help explain the lower enthusiasm for the religious freedom of Muslims. About 40 percent of Americans believe Muslims are a threat to religious liberty. However, that does not explain why Mormons, who are not seen as a threat to religious liberty, get lower favorable responses in polls.

Partly, it may be that religious freedom means different things to different people. Another reason may be that these faiths are smaller and less mainstream.

Clarify “religious freedom”

Yet we must be clear about religious freedom, its definition and value to our nation. Regardless of people’s faith, or lack thereof, it is important for Christians, Hindus, atheists, Muslims and everyone in between to work for religious freedom for all.

So, what do we mean when we talk about religious liberty?

For some, it brings to mind a Kentucky clerk not signing a same-sex marriage certificate or Hobby Lobby not providing certain contraceptives.

Many may believe the religious freedoms of Jews and Christians are beneficial to the “Judeo-Christian” nation but think granting those same freedoms to others would endanger our safety. I get it: Working for the religious freedom of someone else may appear to be endorsing their beliefs.

Pursue freedom

This is a faulty line of thinking. We must pursue religious freedom for all. Here’s why:

1. The First Amendment does not protect certain faiths, but all faiths and people of no faith.

It’s a dangerous idea to let majorities and government decide whose religious freedom is worth protecting. Historically, U.S. Christians have recognized this. A well-known agitator pushing for what would become the First Amendment was a preacher named John Leland. He made it clear: “All should be equally free—Jews, Turks, Pagans and Christians.” And for what it’s worth, Turks were Muslims.

2. Minority faiths, like minority viewpoints, are the ones that need most protection.

Those in the majority rarely see their liberties curtailed legally and culturally. Minority faiths, often misunderstood by others, need additional protection from the inherent power of the majority.

We see a similar reality with freedom of speech. Popular opinions do not need protection. This is why freedom of the press and freedom of religion both are mentioned in the First Amendment.

3. When those of us who identify as Christians allow the government to pick whose freedoms are recognized, we undermine our own religious liberties.

As an evangelical, whose beliefs increasingly are out of touch with the majority culture, I defend religious freedom now, because I may need those protections later.

The majority of Americans and Protestant pastors believe religious liberty is on the decline in our nation. We should recognize we can prevent those erosions by standing for the religious freedom of others.

As a Christian confident in my faith, I want freedom of religion because I believe the gospel will advance in a free and open market of religious ideas. I want all to hear the gospel, even those who think I should not share it. But as an evangelical, I believe all are made in the image of God and, as such, all must have the freedom to choose their faith or to change their faith.

A better way …

Yes, religion has been—and is—used to promote and condone violence, and we would be naïve not to see the link between Islam and Islamist radicalism. But we can address such issues in any faith without undermining the general founding principles of our nation. The actions of a minority of Muslims do not mean the entirety of that faith should forfeit religious freedom. Most Americans see that.

Around the world, nations often deny religious freedom. So, let’s show the world a better way—one our Founding Fathers laid forth.

When Christians demand religious freedom for ourselves and do not speak up for others, we miss the teaching of Jesus, “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the law and the prophets” (Matthew 7:12).

Ed Stetzer is executive director of LifeWay Research. Religion News Service distributed his column.

Imagine a major motion picture about NFL football, featuring Will Smith as the superstar lead actor, which got solid reviews. How do you think its opening weekend would go in our football-obsessed culture?

Just such a movie, Concussion, opened on Christmas Day and finished the weekend in an embarrassing sixth place—behind a terrible Alvin and the Chipmunks film.

The reason is related to the reason meat-eaters don’t like to look at animals in factory farms and abortion-rights activists don’t like to look at what abortion does to prenatal children. The ostrich approach keeps us from thinking about the moral implications of the practices we support.

Americans are addicted to football—especially this time of year—and we simply don’t want to be confronted with the results of the violence inherent in the game.

Confronted with violence

But no fan can watch Concussion without being so confronted. Smith plays Dr. Bennet Omalu, a man who heroically challenged the NFL juggernaut and forced it to admit the game was causing serious brain damage to many of its players. His medical breakthrough came with examining the brain of the great Pittsburgh Steeler Mike Webster—who died at age 50, living in a van, regularly firing a Taser on himself to deal with the pain.

Since then, we’ve come to know the stories of many others who have been affected by football concussions. Brett Favre cannot remember his daughter’s childhood and has said he would not permit any child of his to play football. Dave Duerson and Junior Seau had brain injuries that led them to take their own lives. Super Bowl-winning quarterback Jim McMahon said of his struggles: “I am glad I don’t have any weapons in my house, or else I am pretty sure I wouldn’t be here. It got to be that bad.”

Even if one’s life is not in immediate jeopardy, plenty of NFL players can relate to Super Bowl winner Leonard Marshall, who said: “I just noticed that my behavior was starting to change. … I would forget things, forget financial responsibilities, take things for granted, have a short fuse with my daughter, a short fuse with my ex.”

Some steps … not enough

The NFL, under severe legal and social pressure in recent years, has taken some steps to address the problem, adding new penalties for “targeting” the head of an opposing player and putting protocols in place for those who suffer head injuries. But as Concussion director Pete Landesman rightly notes, “There’s a very limited range of things they can actually do” with the game as it currently exists.

I take a back seat to no one when it comes to love of football. The game has been a very important source of community for my friends and family. (Indeed, because my parents met on a train going to see Notre Dame play Alabama for the 1973 national championship, I literally wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for football.) Left unrestrained, I could easily watch five, six games in a typical weekend. Football is an intoxicating combination of ridiculous athletic talent, the complexity of a grand master chess match and raw caveman force.

Growing up a football fan in Wisconsin during the 1990s, I was obsessed with the rise of the Green Bay Packers’ Mike Holmgren, a coach who pulled no punches in connecting the sport to violence. “Football is about physically pounding the opponent. If you want to win this game, you have to beat the crap out of these guys,” he said.

As much as I love to try to recognize a zone blitz or am awed by a wide receiver laying out for a diving touchdown reception, I have to admit there is a primal part of me that loves the violence. I’m not proud of it, but a blind-side hit on the opponent’s quarterback or a ball-hawking safety taking out an opponent’s wide receiver as he comes over the middle gives me a thrill.

Implicated in violence

But it is precisely this aspect of the game that is so morally problematic. As long as we continue to support a game deeply connected to violence, each of us is implicated in the terrible toll this is taking on football players in their retirement.

The game has changed its relationship to violence before. In 1905, 18 players died from their football injuries. In response, President Teddy Roosevelt summoned coaches and athletic directors to the White House with the goal of “reducing the element of brutality in play.”

Football must again fundamentally change its relationship with violence. Though such changes likely will cause short-term growing pains and complaints from the fans, the wild popularity of fantasy football, which focuses on things like touchdowns, yards, receptions and interceptions, indicates football still would flourish without the violence.

But this will not happen without pressure from the fans. We must make our desire for change loud and clear. And, yes, we should refuse to watch and otherwise support the game as it currently exists.

Perhaps this should be the final weekend we watch football until it fundamentally changes its relationship with violence.

Charles C. Camosy is associate professor of theological and social ethics at Fordham University. Twitter: @nohiddenmagenta. Religion News Service distributed his column.

Our pastor preached on Philippians 4:4-9 and said following the Apostle Paul’s advice to “think on these things” should lead to behavior that reflects those “things.” So, how do we maintain the discipline of thinking on those “things”?  

Most of us know if you eat foods that are healthy, then you will increase the chance you are healthy. Eat junk food all the time, and you will struggle to maintain your health. Fewer of us realize what we think about all day affects our spiritual health. Messages we consume each day through television, social media and conversations with friends affect our thinking. Our thinking affects our souls.

You are right to note it requires discipline to guard one’s thoughts. Without a plan and without discipline, we likely will find ourselves passively consuming unhealthy messages that corrupt our thinking. Here are some basic suggestions for practicing discipline of wholesome thinking:

• Set limits to your media consumption. If we are not careful, our consumption of mass media can fill our day. When it does, we effectively have turned over the agenda of our mind to others. Think about what kind of time limits you want to place on your television, social media and even radio consumption, and then stick with it.

• Plan times for active, God-directed thinking. Do not allow the television or social media to set the agenda for your thoughts. Plan times when you will unplug. Take that time to think actively about the things of God. You could read your Bible, take a walk and marvel at God’s creation, or even sit quietly and think about God’s love for you.

• Invite a partner to walk this journey with you. Changing habits is difficult. It often helps to ask a person to hold you accountable to your new plan and check in regularly. If time on the Internet is tripping up your thought patterns, consider using Internet accountability software that keeps track of the time you spend online and e-mails those results to a friend.

• When consuming any kind of media, ask yourself if it fits Paul’s criteria in Philippians 4:8-9. There really is no one list of what a Christian should or shouldn’t watch or listen to. Faithful Christians will answer those questions in different ways. Every Christian should get in the habit of asking these questions about consuming mass media that affects our thoughts: Is it true? Is it noble? Is it lovely? Those questions alone would cut out much of the things we consume.

While aimed at our media consumption, these guidelines also could apply to other things that affect our thinking, including time with certain friends and also leisure activities. The goal is to guard our thoughts so everything we think nourishes our soul and benefits our neighbor.

With God’s help, we can transform our thinking and enrich our lives.

Taylor Sandlin is pastor of Southland Baptist Church in San Angelo, Texas.

Although a recent GOP debate focused on terrorism and national security, none of the candidates drew a connection to the availability of guns, as though it’s not a problem.

What brings people to violence and what brings Americans who have no will to violence to so defend guns—and fear giving them up? The issue is not gun rights vs. gun control but why we are so jumpy with each other, so ready to shoot, and especially jumpy about government.

Other nations aren’t. Compared with countries not in economic or political demise or in the grips of gang rule, the United States has high rates of gun violence—more than 3.8 homicides per 100,000 people. That’s compared with nations that have quite different cultures (Japan, 0.3) and nations with similar ones, like the Anglo-Saxon settler countries that are now, like America, culturally diverse—Canada, 1.4; Australia, 1.1; and the U.K., 1.0. Canadians and Australians hunt and watch much of the same media as Americans do. But they don’t shoot each other.

Violence triggers

Two triggers—fear and a sense of meaninglessness—cause much of the violence. We aren’t moved to violence to get what others have, but because we fear they will take what we have—physical resources, dignity, a sense of control of our lives.

A lack of meaning beyond survival and “lifestyle” is corrosive, leading to substance abuse, crime and vulnerability to any “meaning” that comes one’s way. The willingness to die in war or suicide bombing can seem the greatest meaning of all.

A sense of meaninglessness may afflict all demographic groups, but the two causes come together when economic duress leads to loss of purpose. The worst version—young men with nothing to do.

Some Americans have good reason to fear their livelihoods and purpose are at risk, given globalization that threatens entire industries. Some turn to violence. In the 1980s farm crisis, thousands lost their sustenance and sense of purpose. Suicide and substance abuse spiked, as did spousal abuse and child abuse—along with membership in far-right groups with arsenals of guns. As Joel Dyer notes in Harvest of Rage: Why Oklahoma City is Only the Beginning, the fallout—while details differ—included shootouts at Ruby Ridge, Idaho (1992); the Branch Davidian Compound (1993); and Timothy McVeigh’s massacre at the Oklahoma City federal building (1995).

Buying protection

Yet millions of Americans who have no intentions to violence act as if they do—as if they fear their livelihoods and ability to live as they choose are at risk. They buy weapons to protect themselves.

From whom?

In part, each other and in larger part, government. It’s not only that things will be taken but that government is doing the taking. Gun ownership, former NRA Assistant General Counsel Thomas Moncure Jr. wrote in the Harvard Law Journal, is “to protect against the tyranny of our own government.”

An “honest” fear

It’s a fear America came by honestly. The earliest settlers immigrated already wary of Charles I’s efforts to centralize power under the British crown. Many were Europe’s religious dissenters, who had suffered under official government churches. Add to this the rough nature of settlement, which prioritized self-reliance and lasted until the last frontier closed in the 20th century. Add again the central tenets of Protestantism—the mandate to read the Bible oneself and strive inwardly for one’s personal bond with God.

The value and habits of individualist striving, while initially directed toward the divine, became individualist striving per se, a well-exercised muscle that was flexed—because it was laudable—in many arenas, sacred and mundane. For those with an apocalyptic eschatology, personal responsibility now—the end times are near—was even more pressing.

The Methodism that John and Charles Wesley brought to the United States held God’s grace enables salvation. Yet each person, by dint of grace, becomes God’s effective partner. “He will not save us,” John Wesley wrote, “unless we ‘save ourselves.’”

Saving ourselves

Saving ourselves was just the religion for do-it-yourself Colonials, and Methodism became America’s predominant faith into the 20th century.

The upshot—of rough settlement, the dissenter’s wariness of government and American Protestantism—is that our “social imaginary” is one of individualism, do-it-yourself survivalism and anti-authoritarian suspicion of the state. When Ronald Reagan said government is not the solution but the problem, he was tapping into the foundations of our culture.

It gives America much of its energetic, self-responsible can-do-ism but also a cultural, emotional vigilantism—me in contest with others and in defense against them, and, most of all, against government. We deem Washington too incompetent to do the job yet just competent enough to take away our rights, resources and chosen way of living—our sense of meaning.

Guns represent retaining control over and against government, even for those with no violent agendas.

Gun rights advocates want to keep weapons away from criminals, the mentally unstable and terrorists. But it’s difficult to pass even this legislation, because many don’t want the fox guarding the henhouse—don’t want government supervising a program that hobbles resistance to government.

The issue is not gun rights vs. gun control, but whether it’s productive in the 21st century to continue the culture of vigilantism.

Marcia Pally teaches multilingual multicultural studies at New York University and is a guest professor in the theology department of Humboldt University in Berlin. Her book Commonwealth and Covenant: Economics, Politics, and Theologies of Relationality will be out in February. Religion News Service distributed her column.