Page 695 – Christianity Today (2024)

My family has spent a lot of time at Landspítali, the major hospital in the capital of Iceland.

For over a year, our five-year-old son has been undergoing chemotherapy for leukemia. Our youngest son, born this April, also spent two months at the hospital as doctors ran tests on him, finding a genetic mutation in his X chromosome that only two other people in the world have been diagnosed with.

Every day, as I walked into the intensive care unit at the hospital, I looked over a wall of pictures of young children and teenagers holding up photos of themselves as premature babies. They had been born after as little as 21 or 22 weeks of pregnancy. It was a monument to the lives that were saved.

Meanwhile, the cultural conversation in the rest of Iceland seemed so distant from what I saw in the hospital. There were talks of new legislation pushing to make abortion available as late as the 22nd week of pregnancy. And this month, the issue of abortion in Iceland took the internet by storm, with a CBS News report on how the country (population 340,000) is on the verge of eliminating Down syndrome.

What sounded like an impressive medical achievement was quickly revealed to be a spin on our heartbreaking reality. Only two to three children a year are born with Down syndrome since nearly 100 percent of mothers whose tests show a high likelihood of the condition end up choosing abortion.

Those of us who value life in the womb see Iceland is not eliminating Down syndrome, but terminating babies who have it (or could have it) before they are even born.

The Icelandic media, taking up the CBS story, have even shifted to use new language around abortion. They use a term suggested by a government think tank—Þungunarrof, which translates to “pregnancy discontinuity”—rather than fóstureyðing, “fetus termination.”

In such a small country—where just a few years ago, 4,375 births were reported compared to 951 abortions—people do not like to talk about abortion in a critical way at all. When it comes up, we are aware that there are likely plenty of individuals around us who have gotten an abortion.

It’s been a surreal moment for our family following the birth of our youngest son, whose prenatal tests did not indicate any abnormalities related to his genetic mutation (it’s rare enough that it’s not on a doctor’s radar). People have cheered us on, hoping for the best for our son and us as we seek to live with whatever the future may hold. I find myself wondering, though, if there was a test for diagnosing his condition, how many of those now cheering for him would’ve decided to end his life in the womb? What about my oldest son, who has severe autism?

Given how dramatic the abortion rate, near-universal prenatal testing, and Iceland’s approach to Down syndrome, we have reason to be afraid of modern eugenics—what I see as a direct result of our society no longer being anchored to a moral standard.

Iceland’s National Lutheran Church regularly takes to big media platforms to condemn violence in sports such as Mixed Martial Arts (MMA), but in the wake of this news article concerning Down syndrome in Iceland, the silence was deafening. The few priests in the national church who want to stand for truth may take issue with its approach to abortion, but most likely experience pressure not to speak out.

There is a small remnant of churches in Iceland that remain dedicated to Scripture alone as their supreme authority for living and theology. Many have faithfully preached and served for decades, only to experience a decline in interest and attendance. They have grown exhausted in the fight to defend biblical truth.

I pastor a small, four-year-old Baptist church plant in Reykjavík, and I know the feeling. Because we hold on to a biblical view on sexuality, abortion, and life in general, we are viewed as a strange minority, almost as sardines trying to swim against the heavy current of modern thinking. To me, that’s nothing new. In almost every era the church has been viewed as strange, so we stand on truth, remembering where our strength, joy, and hope comes from.

We see that those churches without Scripture as their highest authority have slowly made themselves irrelevant, and society around them has developed a morality based on no foundation at all.

We are viewed as a strange minority, almost as sardines trying to swim against the heavy current of modern thinking.

Abortions have skyrocketed over the past 55 years; between 1960 and 2014 (the most recent year statistics were available), total numbers of births dropped by a few hundred, while the number of abortions shot up to over 900 a year—17 times as many as decades before.

Iceland has also become the world leader in out-of-wedlock births per capita; in recent years, less than a third of babies in Iceland are born to married parents. Our country also sits as the sixth-most atheistic nation in the world and has recently been dubbed “the most godless country in Europe.”

Ultimately abortions are antithetical to the gospel message the church proclaims, as we marvel over the fact that Jesus says to undeserving sinners: “I will lay my life down for my sheep,” and so he did, taking on our sin and shame, and the debt that stood against us and nailing it to the cross. Abortion instead demands of an innocent life, “You will lay your life down for me.”

This is the time for the Icelandic church to find its strength in the Lord and preach the precious gospel entrusted to us to proclaim. The way to counter Iceland’s “elimination” of Down syndrome and culture of abortion will come through the Lord. He will transform hearts of individuals that will transform a nation, and he has allowed his church to take part in his work here.

We have our work cut out for us. As pro-life advocates around the globe discussed Iceland’s abortion rate for Down syndrome, our country was wrapping up a festival called “Hinsegin dagar,” or “Different Days,” which includes Reykjavik’s gay pride celebration. Contrasting the approach to Down syndrome with this week-long event dedicated to celebrating diversity, I was struck by the narrow kind of diversity our nation has opted to champion.

When society forfeits its appeal to a higher authority and gives itself to humanistic morality, the Christian belief that all have value as image bearers of the one true God of the universe becomes the exception.

Pray that the church in Iceland would boldly take a stance for truth. As we celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, I pray that we would follow Luther’s example. When asked to recant his teachings, he responded, “My conscience is captive to the Word of God. Thus I cannot and will not recant, because acting against one’s conscience is neither safe nor sound. God help me. Amen.”

Luther was fully aware of the costs that might come with his stance. It may cost us, too.

Jesus told a parable of man who sold everything he had with joy to buy a field with the treasure he sought since he knew its worth (Matt. 13:44). So too may we remember the worth of Christ. In secular Iceland, we may lose friends, status, or respect for standing for our faith, for the truth, and for life, but in the words of missionary Jim Elliot, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”

Gunnar Ingi Gunnarsson lives in Reykjavík, Iceland with his wife, Svava María, and their three children. Gunnar is the pastor of Loftstofan Baptistakirkja, currently the only doctrinally Reformed church in Iceland and the only Baptist church in Reykjavík. He is also the president of The Iceland Project, a church-planting initiative. You can follow Gunnar on Instagram, sign up for his monthly ministry updates, or contact him at gunnar (at) loftstofan.is.

“In the end we will conserve only what we love, we will love only what we understand, and we will understand only what we are taught.” – Senegalese forestry engineer, Baba Dioum

When I left university, I was a budding conservationist armed with good intentions, theoretical head knowledge, and an enthusiasm to change the world. I then entered a real world where human hearts were not so easy to sway. After firsthand experience in a variety of contexts, I was left wondering how to negotiate that space between understanding facts and inspiring a sacrificial love which is powerful enough to change our ways. It is not a simple step, but our Christian faith can help this conversation, and possibly the whole planet, in a big way.

My introduction to practical marine conservation began in the tropical waters around Madagascar and the Maldives. Here I dived into the rich world of the coral reef and came to delight in the familiar characters—territorial fish protecting their anemone, eels poking their heads out from caves, and graceful turtles surfacing nearby to breathe. In this busy picture-postcard scene, the reef-building coral are quite easily overlooked. It can be difficult to appreciate the rock-like structures for what they are: animals supporting an ecosystem under extreme threat.

If you watch a reef for long enough, or have the pleasure of a night-time snorkel, you will see small flower-like animals emerging all over the coral's surface. Coral is not just a hard skeleton—it is a colony of animals called polyps. Each polyp lives within its own calcium carbonate cup, which it builds by drawing minerals from the seawater. The animals emerge under the protection of night and use their tentacles to snatch passing food from the water around them. This feeding behavior only supplies a fraction of what they need. The bulk of their fuel is collected during the daytime from a relationship with colorful single-celled algae called zooxanthellae. These tiny organisms live within the polyp's body tissue, converting energy from the sun into carbohydrates.

Today, increasingly dire headlines announce concern for this relationship between coral and zooxanthellae in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. Coral are suited to live in a very particular range of water conditions. When a coral is shocked or stressed by a sudden change in these conditions, it loses its zooxanthellae in a process called bleaching. Using aerial surveys, scientists have estimated that the latest temperature increase in Australian waters has left more than two-thirds of the Great Barrier Reef bleached. If the zooxanthellae do not return to the polyps in time, the coral will starve and die, leaving behind lifeless white skeletons.

This bleaching affects not only the coral and a huge array of reef species, but also coastal communities, who depend on healthy reefs for sustenance, income, protection from storm energy and, for island states, the very sand they live on.

Healthy coral can withstand this lean period without their zooxanthellae if conditions quickly return to normal. However, many coral communities are not in good health. They face a myriad of local pressures like overfishing, poor water quality from construction, waste, and nutrients from nearby agriculture. When coral are weakened, even small changes in the water temperature or pH can act as the final straw for the important animal-algae relationship. These fluctuations are ultimately linked to ocean-wide processes and even to the Earth's changing atmosphere. The complex connections between land, ocean, and atmosphere are fascinating to study but impossible to restore without global cooperation.

Great Barrier Reef scientists now believe that this ecosystem can only be restored if many choose to change their lifestyles in consideration for other species, as well as people suffering in different countries and future generations. Cooperation must work on multiple levels from large-scale government support and energy change in industry down to households and churches using sustainably, ethically sourced products and individuals living aware of their carbon contribution, which includes wasting less food and cutting down on red meat, to name a few. Yet, with a problem this daunting and far removed from most of our everyday lives, how do conservationists inspire change?

The Making of a Disciple

In 2008, environmental education experts Joe Heimlich and Nicole Ardoin found that psychologists have difficulty explaining a clear relationship between “pro-environmental attitudes” and “pro-environmental behaviour.” Each of us are physical beings bound to a context: a specific time, place, culture, and set of values. We are not all motivated by the same things, and we are not equally capable of changing our routines. Different communities live under very different pressures, and some people—like the coral—are struggling for their very lives.

Heimlich and Ardoin's review also found that awareness of the issues and solutions are key steps along the road to action but that this knowledge alone is not enough. Beliefs are important for motivating behavior change. These include our responses to questions like: Do we believe that we are able to change and make a difference? Do we feel responsibility for and connectedness toward those suffering? Who do we believe has control over the events in our life?

While scientists may wish a simple knowledge transfer will inspire change, I am reminded of the relational way of Christian disciple making. After spending 24 years in pastoral ministry, the writer, speaker, and discipleship teacher Greg Ogden noted in his book “Discipleship Essentials,” that Jesus’ own disciple-making pattern "was to be intimately involved with others and allow life to rub against life."

The Power to Change

Christians are not strangers to working with the complexities and resistances of the heart. Robert Sluka, a marine biologist working for the Christian conservation organization A Rocha, first introduced me to this synergy between environmental education and faith. Addressing a room full of secular conservation scientists in Cambridge, United Kingdom, he said, “In a way, you are evangelists too! You have a message you believe is important, knowledge you believe should change how people live, and you face obstacles as you try and help the people you are approaching.”

As I’ve read about environmental education, I have been drawn to think of Jesus as the perfect teacher and changer of hearts. God fully entered into our context and gave us, by his love, the ultimate motivation to change our lives. Further, Jesus' winsome example—his humility, compassion, and sacrifice—teach us how to reach out relationally to those around us. As a conservationist, this insight shapes my approach to community projects. As a Christian, it goes even further than this.

Christians have witnessed a real change of hearts and lives, both in the Bible and also personally. Knowing that Jesus was the promised Messiah should have been enough to inspire radical behavior change in the disciples, and yet—almost cringingly from our perspective—we can see how long it took for that head knowledge to become a conviction of heart which gave them the courage to change their lives and proclaim that truth to others.

Mercifully, God sent the Holy Spirit to take hold of their hearts and strengthen them for all that lay ahead. He thoroughly transformed them—and it changed the world! His Spirit now drives us forward every day, helping us overcome all the potential stumbling blocks to which our hearts cling to resist change.

The Gospel for Conservation

My ultimate encouragement to stay in conservation science rests in my hope for the church. If we, as his church of transformed and Spirit-empowered hearts, engage with the needs of a groaning creation, can we show his will and goodness here on earth as it is in heaven?

I look to Margaret W. Miller as an example of belief in action. Miller is a Christian coral ecologist, who works in Florida and faces the discouraging task of conserving coral reefs in a polluted world. She works with reefs where—like the Great Barrier Reef—increasing bleaching events have left large areas of coral severely compromised. She laments that throughout her career, “much of what we observe them doing in the world is dying.”

Every day she stubbornly continues in her work. Her efforts to help the coral reproduce even go as far as coral midwifery and coral gardening, which involve assisting egg fertilization, nursing young colonies, and spreading fragments to new areas. She believes that this work is an important extension of her discipleship, because a healthy reef's fruitfulness and examples of interdependence demonstrate God's provision for all. The task at hand is “a very humbling and scary prospect,” but she continues in this field because of her understanding that God loves his creation and wants ecosystems to flourish and function in the way he intended. This idea gives the system an intrinsic value as God's creation. It also connects us to God's command to care for the vulnerable and marginalized of his creation—in this case, his coral ecosystems and the human communities who depend upon them.

As I reflect on this as a Christian and a conservationist, I've been challenged by words I say quite often. “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven…” I am quick to pray but slow to let it sink in. Am I really willing to be the hands and feet through which God works for his restored creation to be glimpsed, even partially, here in our world? When Jesus’ brother James described Abraham, he said, “You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did.” (James 2:22).

In this hyper-connected world, with so much news at our fingertips, the overload can stop us from acting. So very often I let my environmental concern be momentary and head-based. I read an article, feel sad for a moment, wish I could change things, and then scroll on to news items that are going to affect my life more directly. Yet it is the equivalent of telling a naked, starving neighbor to “go in peace; keep warm and well fed” (James 2:16), while making no attempt to help them. James calls Christians to move beyond empathy to action.

After returning from the Maldives, I found it easier to connect with online news about the reefs and the sea turtles with which I had personally worked. We cannot all become active marine conservationists, but as a global body formed of many different parts, let us each do what we can, investing even a little bit of time, energy, or prayers.

Above all, my time caring for just a tiny fraction of God's world has helped me to praise him and challenged the way I had separated him from his creation. Let us enjoy time in God's presence through his works and declare our identities as children of the creator God by including stewardship issues in what we pray for and talk, sing, care, and preach about.

Cara Daneel, a South African native, received her Marine Biology and Oceanography degree from the University of Cape Town. She has worked in conservation and education in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. She works as a research assistant for The Faraday Institute for Science and Religion on a communications project: Wonders of the Living World.

We all face difficult moments—the loss of a loved one, the pain of a broken dream, or the mourning of a shattered heart. When we do, we need to put one foot in front of the other and believe God will lead us to the place we need to be. But where is that place? What is that place?

As Christians, our hope is that we will make it through the desert wilderness. We can’t see the end, but just as God has brought through those who have gone before us, we must believe he is able to do the same for us. We must hold on to his promises. He will lead us. He will guide us. He will provide for us. He will refine us. He will give us what we need in the midst of our confusion or suffering.

The Bible is full of promises. There are general promises that speak to the body of believers as well as examples of specific promises given to believers who came before us. What are God’s promises to you? God isn’t speaking in Morse code, communicating in confusing ways you have to work hard to discern. His Word is right there before you. It is “alive and powerful” (Hebrews 4:12) and God will speak through the pages of Scripture. You can fully embrace and rely on the truth you find there.

On your desert journey, you will be tempted to forget or question God’s promises. In those moments, trust this reality: The Lord may delay fulfilling his promises, but he will never deny them.

Bianca Juarez Olthoff is the author of Play with Fire: Discovering Fierce Faith, Unquenchable Passion, and a Life-Giving God (Zondervan). She is also the Chief Storyteller for The A21 Campaign and the Creative Director for Propel Women.

America’s top complementarian leaders have shifted their focus from gender roles to gender identity.

On Tuesday, the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW) released a new declaration that reasserts the significance of biological sex and traditional marriage over society’s growing LGBT acceptance.

“We are persuaded that faithfulness in our generation means declaring once again the true story of the world and of our place in it—particularly as male and female,” according to the group’s Nashville Statement.

At the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) national conference in Nashville last week, it was endorsed by about 150 conservative Christian leaders—many of them male, Baptist, and Reformed. (The mayor of Nashville, though, was not happy about the name.)

Initial signatories include many CBMW and ERLC leaders; pastors like J. I. Packer, Francis Chan, John MacArthur, and James MacDonald; and authors Rosaria Butterfield and Christopher Yuan.

At its founding by theologian Wayne Grudem 30 years ago, CBMW issued the Danvers Statement, which affirmed the complementary differences between the genders. It came in response to an increasingly feminist society (and church), where conservative leaders feared men and women were losing their biblical distinctions.

That foundational document, often seen as the textbook definition of complementarian convictions, critiques “feminist egalitarianism” and women rising in church leadership, and upholds “vocational homemaking” and wives’ submission in marriage.

The 2017 Nashville Statement, instead of outlining how the genders should live in relation to one another, makes several points defending the existence of two genders in the first place. CBMW upholds “God’s design for self-conception as male or female” in the face of new conversations over transgender identity, gender fluidity, and hom*osexual relationships.

John Piper called the document—which contains 14 points, each affirming and denying a belief about sex and sexuality—“a Christian manifesto concerning issues of human sexuality.”

“There is no effort to equivocate for the sake of wider, but muddled, acceptance,” he said. “It touches the most fundamental and urgent questions of the hour, without presuming to be a blueprint for political action.”

The new statement affirms that people with same-sex attraction can have “a rich and fruitful life pleasing to God through faith in Jesus Christ, as they, like all Christians, walk in purity of life.” But in another point, it critiques those who would self-identify as gay.

Christians who affirm same-sex relationships have pushed back against the statement—particularly a line that says approving of hom*osexuality and transgenderism “constitutes an essential departure from Christian faithfulness and witness.” (In the words of Baptist Press, no more “agreeing to disagree” on LGBT issues.) The Liturgists, founded by musician Michael Gungor and podcaster “Science Mike” McHargue, released a counter-statement in solidarity with LGBT Christians.

The Nashvile Statement also suggests that people who identify as transgender can and should accept the “God-ordained link between one’s biological sex and one’s self-conception as male or female,” while acknowledging the dignity of those who are born with physical conditions related to their sex.

It’s hard to capture the complexities of transgenderism in a concise declaration, but CBMW has approached the issue from a theological, biblical standpoint, relying on what researcher Mark Yarhouse calls an “integrity lens,” or concern for the integrity of sex and gender as created by God.

“It makes sense that faithful Christians would start there,” said Yarhouse, author of Understanding Gender Dysphoria: Navigating Transgender Issues in a Changing Culture and director of the Institute for the Study of Sexual Identity at Regent University. “It’s trying to signal what’s going to be within the bounds of evangelicalism, and it will be interesting to see how evangelicals respond to that.” (For more on his research, see Yarhouse’s 2015 CT feature, Understanding the Transgender Phenomenon.)

Some conservative Christians criticized the CBMW’s narrow focus on hom*osexuality and transgenderism, rather than the underlying gospel issues that have led to a distorted view of “bodily and sexual life” among Christians.

“The spectacles and obvious disputes this statement responds to are the sideshow, not the main action,” wrote Matthew Lee Anderson, in a Mere Orthodoxy post about why his name would not appear among the signatories. “Those obvious manifestations of the ‘spirit of our age’ are not the ones we should worry about; it is those that are not obvious, the subtle temptations that lure us in without us realizing their deadly force.”

The Nashville Statement, with its clear stances on such topics, explicitly expands the CBMW’s central concerns beyond what it had long been known for addressing: women’s roles in the home and the church.

“They seem to have won the battle on women’s ordination, at least in the Southern Baptist and Presbyterian church,” said Wendy Alsup, who was among the female complementarian bloggers who spoke out against CBMW’s theological emphases during last summer’s Trinity debate. “This may be a new iteration of CBMW, but I don’t think it will define them” in the same way as the Danvers Statement did, she said.

Though she had significant concerns about some points in the new declaration, Alsup, author of the new book Is the Bible Good For Women?, said that overall, “This is not a knee-jerk reaction to liberal ideas; this is a thoughtful and biblical statement.”

Aimee Byrd, who raised the issue of the Eternal Subordination of the Son as it relates to complementrian theology, took issue with what the Nashville Statement left out. Not only did it not clarify that particular debate, she wrote, but it doesn’t address her questions on authority and submission; feminine and masculine stereotypes; and the relationships between men and women outside of marriage.

The new statement comes about a year after Denny Burk, a professor at Boyce College, replaced Owen Strachan as CBMW president.

“The spirit of our age does not delight in God’s good design of male and female. Consequently, confusion reigns over some of the most basic questions of our humanity,” said Burk. “The aim of the Nashville Statement is to shine a light into the darkness—to declare the goodness of God’s design in our sexuality and in creating us as male and female.”

Kevin Carden / iStock

What happens when we approach theological disagreement not as a problem to solve or a crisis to endure but as an opportunity to practice Christian virtue?

Religious communities play an essential role in improving the health of American public life. An unimpeded rise in public vitriol threatens American democracy in our time, but religions could help underwrite an infusion of civility, to make our politics more productive and inspiring. Religions often bring rich histories of moral reflection, including consistent priorities on other-regard and mutual respect, that if shared with the wider public could give us healthier ways of living with difference. As I talk to various church groups around the country, however, the same question comes up over and over again: How can Christians provide this civic leadership if we cannot get our own houses in order? How are we supposed to provide a template and resources for respectful dialogue when our own church debates are so often rancorous, divisive, and destructive?

These are exactly the right questions for us to ask, of course, so I have tried to imagine a better way for us Christians to navigate difference in our own midst, as an opportunity to practice biblical virtue and improve our social witness.

Carrying the Burden of Disagreement

The virtues that lend themselves to more constructive ways of living with disagreement are captured well in the practice of Christian forbearance. Forbearance is the active commitment to maintain Christian community through disagreement, as an extension of virtue and as a reflection of the unity in Christ that binds the church together. Admittedly, the term “forbearance” sounds a little antiquated. Most of us do not go around asking for or extending forbearance, unless we are talking about a bank loan. But I confess that the unusualness of the word is part of my attraction to it, because in its very utterance it represents the distinctiveness of Christian practice in the divisiveness of contemporary American culture. And while the word is not part of our normal vocabulary, it does have biblical significance that we might exploit to capture a healthier approach to disagreement. But what does it mean to practice forbearance?

In English, to forbear literally means “to hold back.” The several words translated as “forbearance” in English versions of the Bible usually capture the sense of someone abstaining from acting on a judgment. Saul forbears to pursue and kill David even though he has an opportunity. Kings demand that prophets forbear speaking any more of God’s judgment. God forbears exacting punishment, despite the people’s desert of it.

But there is a fuller connotation of the term “forbearance,” actually more in line with its literal meaning, and it is this sense of the term that I find appealing. Forbearing also means “bearing for or with,” which suggests not just voluntary restraint but actively carrying something or someone for a time. It implies patience, mutual respect, the extension of time, a certain latitude, and perhaps some affection that motivates a person to carry the burden of disagreement. In this sense, forbearance is less a momentary cease-fire than an active extension of concern for one another.

The author of Colossians commends forbearance in a way that captures this fuller meaning. Teachers of an alternative theology had infiltrated the church, contesting the Pauline understanding of Christ’s divinity and humanity, appealing to gnostic ideals to urge excessive asceticism and a rejection of the material world. The Letter to the Colossians is not bashful in its opposition to this alternative theology; at the same time, it urges the congregation to practice forbearance with one another as they navigate the crisis:

As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another [anecho] and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. (Col. 3:12–14, NRSV used throughout)

Pulling no punches in rejecting what he thinks are wrongheaded teachings about Jesus and Christian duty, the author nonetheless recommends that the Colossians put on the character of Christ, and part of that character is the practice of forbearance. The commitment to “bearing with one another” is rooted in Christian virtues—compassion, kindness, humility, patience, and love. The author does not ignore the conflict in the community, but he insists that how the church works through that conflict should reflect their character, and that of the one whom they claim to follow.

In the Letter to the Colossians we see not only an acknowledgment that unity and disagreement can exist together but also an illustration of how forbearance can be practiced without the abandonment of principle and conviction. For forbearance is not a recipe for dissolving difference; it is a virtuous means by which to maintain community even in the face of disagreement. To do so is to reflect the character of the God who brings us together, as is made clear in another use of anecho in the New Testament. In the Letter to the Romans, Paul uses references to God’s practice of forbearance to indict our own aptness to judge those with whom we disagree:

You say, “We know that God’s judgment on those who do such things is in accordance with truth.” Do you imagine, whoever you are, that when you judge those who do such things and yet do them yourself, you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you despise the riches of his kindness and forbearance [anecho] and patience? (Rom. 2:2–4a)

For Paul, our presumption to judge others hypocritically for their transgressions ignores the fact that we, too, deserve God’s condemnation. But in Christ God forbears us, extending us mercy even as we actively strive to remain estranged from God:

For there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith. He did this to show his righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over the sins previously committed. (Rom. 3:22b–25)

The concept of forbearance, then, captures the foundational act of divine grace on which all of Christian belief is built! God acted to extend forbearance to us, to pass over—that is, to refuse to respond negatively to—our sins, instead extending righteousness and patience to us in an act of grace and love embodied in Jesus Christ.

Refrain from Judgmental Contempt

In response, Paul strongly recommends that members of the church extend similar grace to one another, especially in moments of intense disagreement.

Toward the end of his Letter to the Romans, Paul wades into a church debate about the importance of certain religious practices. Some in the church believed adamantly that allegiance to Christ should manifest itself clearly in adherence to certain disciplines, including vegetarianism and presumably the celebration of a Sabbath. Others in the church were arguing that faith in Christ frees us from such external scruples. Paul apparently thought the latter group was correct, as indicated by his reference to them as “the strong” and the scruple-focused party as “the weak.”

Despite his allegiance with those emphasizing Christian liberty, however, he insists that “the strong” welcome the other party in faith, refraining from judgmental contempt for those whom they believed to be wrong in their interpretations of the faith. From Paul’s perspective, community can and should be maintained in a church that harbors important theological disagreement, for both “the weak” and “the strong” are united in their intent to live “to the Lord” and in their ultimate accountability to God. As a result, says Paul, we ought to bear with what we perceive to be the failings of the weak, pushing their growth gently, sometimes swallowing our disagreements, seeking not our self-interest but the building up of others (Rom. 15:1–2). For the forbearance we practice in a season of disagreement is a reflection of our gratitude for—and an extension of—the forbearance God in Christ shows us in the face of our alienation.

In the end, our maintenance of church unity in the face of difference itself testifies to our faith: “Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God” (Rom. 15:7).

This article is taken from Forbearance: A Theological Ethic for a Disagreeable Church, by James Calvin Davis (Eerdmans). Used by permission of the publisher. All rights reserved.

Tradition holds that Henry McNeal Turner’s grandfather was an African prince. While his royal blood did not save him from slave traders who kidnapped him from his nation and brought him to South Carolina in the late 1700s, his lineage ultimately kept him and his family from slavery. South Carolina was a British colony when the prince arrived, and it was against British law to enslave royal blood. Free—but unable to return to home—the prince stayed and married a local woman. The couple gave birth to Turner’s father, Hardy, and in 1834, their grandson was born.

From an early age, Turner’s life was marked by dreams. When Turner was eight, he dreamed that he was standing in front of a large, racially diverse crowd who were looking to him for instruction. He interpreted the dream as God “marking him” for great things, and it ultimately catalyzed his passion for education—at a time when it was illegal for African Americans, free or enslaved, to attend school. In spite of this discrimination, Turner began to teach himself through the help of a divine “dream angel” that he believed appeared to him in his dreams to help him learn. As Turner later told author William Simmons:

I would study with all the intensity of my soul until overcome by sleep at night; then I would kneel down and pray, and ask the Lord to teach me what I was not able to understand myself, and as soon as I would fall asleep an angelic personage would appear with open book in hand and teach me how to pronounce every word that I failed in pronouncing while awake, and on each subsequent day the lessons given me in my dreams would be better understood than any other portions of the lessons. This angelic teacher, or dream teacher, at all events, carried me through the old Webster’s spelling book and thus enabled me to read the Bible and hymnbook.

Despite Turner’s unusual educational method, by the time he was 15 he had read the entire Bible five times and memorized lengthy passages of Scripture.

Turner’s father died while he was still young. After his mother remarried, the family moved to Abbeville, South Carolina, and Turner became a janitor at a law office. Turner’s astute memory and eagerness to learn new things so impressed his white colleagues that they decided to assist their coworker in his education. Turner interpreted their actions as an answer to prayer and poured himself into arithmetic, astronomy, geography, history, law, and theology.

The “Negro Spurgeon”

At the age of 14, Turner, along with his family became members of the Southern Methodist Episcopal Church (SMEC) at a revival service. His conversion would come three years later in 1851 under the preaching of plantation missionary Samuel Leard. In a letter to Leard, Turner recalled his conversion experience:

I joined the Church under Rev. Mr. Crowell, on probation, at Abbeville, in the latter part of 1848, but soon went to cursing and getting drunk whenever I could get whisky, and was the worst boy at Abbeville Court House until you, at Sharon Camp Ground, in 1851, so stunned me by your powerful preaching that I fell upon the ground, rolled in the dirt, foamed at the mouth, and agonized under conviction till Christ relieved me by his atoning blood.

Shortly after his conversion, Turner felt compelled to preach the gospel. His denomination affirmed his calling, licensing him first as an exhorter and sending him to lead prayer meetings among the enslaved people of Abbeville, South Carolina. Two years later, the denomination granted Turner a license to preach. This move was uncharacteristic for the SMEC, a denomination which regularly licensed African Americans as exhorters but only rarely licensed them to preach.

This status allowed Turner to move throughout the slave-holding South, preaching to both black and white audiences. Turner's preaching combined not only Scripture but also outside readings of classics, such as John Milton's Paradise Lost and the writings of popular theologian Thomas Dick. Turner also remembered much of what he read and used it in his extemporaneously delivered sermons. Additionally, Turner presented his erudite sermons in a powerful and eloquently delivered oratory. His preaching earned Turner the nickname "Negro Spurgeon,” nodding to the eloquent English Baptist pastor who was a contemporary of Turner’s.

Turner’s preaching style led some to accuse of him memorizing his sermons and claim he could not speak impromptu. (At that time, impromptu speaking was widely seen a sign that one was lead and carried by the Holy Spirit in one's preaching.) One attendee challenged Turner to preach from a text that the guest would provide at random. Turner accepted the challenge and, “in the Spirit of the Lord,” he expounded on Genesis 7:1, “Come thou and all thy house into the ark." The contents of Turner’s sermon weren’t documented, but reports suggest that not only were the “white citizens well pleased with it,” but after the sermon, the church collected an $810 offering, a small fortune in that day.Turner was also instrumental in a series of revivals in Athens, Georgia, during the spring of 1858. Paired with W. A. Parks, a white minister and “missionary” to blacks, Turner preached “powerful sermons” and held the pulpit of the black Methodist church “up to twice a day during the week.”

Despite Turner’s preaching popularity, his denomination failed to soften its restrictions banning African Americans from ordination or becoming bishops. At the end of the 1850s, Turner left SMEC, joined the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME), and moved to Baltimore and served briefly as pastor of Waters Chapel AME Church and the Tissue Street Mission. In 1862, Turner became the pastor of the large and influential Israel AME Church in Washington, DC. In the midst of the Civil War, Turner organized a lyceum at his church, where intellectuals and congregants debated important issues of the day such as war and other political matters. In addition to his ministerial duties, Turner became a regular correspondent for the Christian Recorder, the AME’s weekly newspaper. Because his church within walking distance from Capitol Hill, Turner spent hours in its chambers, listening to debates and arguments on the floors of the House and Senate.As pastor of one of the largest black churches in Washington, DC, Turner quickly established himself as a leader in the black community. He befriended several Republican elected officials and became a major supporter of the war effort. Turner campaigned for the use of African American soldiers and helped create what soon became the 1st United States Colored Troops (USCT). After the unit reached its quota of 1,000 men, Turner campaigned for it to have its own chaplain. His petition paid off: In November 1863, President Abraham Lincoln named Turner to the position, making him the first black chaplain in any branch of the military and the only officer in the USCT. In this capacity, he also became a war correspondent, publishing dozens of articles in The Christian Recorder. When the Civil War ended, The Freedmen’s Bureau assigned him to Georgia as an army chaplain.

Church Planting and Politics

After his service in the military, Turner turned his attention to politics. During Reconstruction, Turner became a Republican Party organizer, recruiting black voters throughout Georgia. He helped establish the first Republican state convention, assisted in drafting a new state constitution, and served as a Georgia state representative. However, his victory was short-lived; in the fall of 1868, white members of the state legislature voted to disqualify blacks from holding elected office. Before leaving, however, Turner delivered a speech for the ages. In his opening remarks, Turner thundered:

I wish the members of this House to understand the position that I take. I hold that I am a member of this body. Therefore, sir, I shall neither fawn nor cringe before any party, nor stoop to beg them for my rights. Some of my colored fellow members, in the course of their remarks, took occasion to appeal to the sympathies of members on the opposite side, and to eulogize their character for magnanimity. It reminds me very much, sir, of slaves begging under the lash. I am here to demand my rights and to hurl thunderbolts at the men who would dare to cross the threshold of my manhood. There is an old aphorism which says, "fight the devil with fire," and if I should observe the rule in this instance, I wish gentlemen to understand that it is but fighting them with their own weapon.

Turner then got to the real reason why white legislators voted to expel the African Americans:

The great question, sir, is this: Am I a man? If I am such, I claim the rights of a man. Am I not a man because I happen to be of a darker hue than honorable gentlemen around me? Let me see whether I am or not. I want to convince the House today that I am entitled to my seat here. … God saw fit to vary everything in nature. There are no two men alike, no two voices alike, no two trees alike. God has weaved and tissued variety and versatility throughout the boundless space of His creation. Because God saw fit to make some red, and some white, and some black, and some brown, are we to sit here in judgment upon what God has seen fit to do? As well might one play with the thunderbolts of heaven as with that creature that bears God's image, God's photograph.

He did not regard what the House did as a "thrust" against him; but a thrust against the Bible and God for "making a man and not finishing him," he argued that it was "simply calling the Great Jehovah a fool." He continued:

It is extraordinary that a race such as yours, professing gallantry and chivalry and education and superiority, living in a land where ringing chimes call child and sire to the church of God, a land where Bibles are read and Gospel truths are spoken, and where courts of justice are presumed to exist; it is extraordinary that, with all these advantages on your side, you can make war upon the poor, defenseless black man.

Turner closed his speech by proclaiming

You may expel us, gentlemen, by your votes, today; but, while you do it, remember that there is a just God in Heaven, whose All-Seeing Eye beholds alike the acts of the oppressor and the oppressed, and who, despite the machinations of the wicked, never fails to vindicate the cause of Justice, and the sanctity of His own handiwork.

After his ouster from the Georgia state legislature, Turner became the United States postmaster in Macon, Georgia, the first black ever to hold that position. However, not everyone liked the appointment, including J. C. Swayze, a white Radical Republican and newspaper editor, who felt that he had been passed over for the position and who published a series of articles attacking Turner. Soon after Turner received the position, Marian Harris, a prostitute with whom the married Turner had been involved, was arrested on charges of counterfeit money. While there ultimately was not enough evidence to incriminate Turner, pressure from President Ulysses Grant’s administration led him to resign his post in 1869.

After working for a few years as a customs inspector, Turner turned his efforts on growing the AME Church in the South. His primary goal was to increase membership and build churches. By all accounts, it was an arduous task, made even harder by the violence white confederates inflicted upon black people. Turner was not immune.

As he testified to Congress in 1871, on “two or three occasions, I may say in a dozen instances, if I had not secreted myself in houses at times, in the woods at other times, in a hollow log at another time, I would have been assassinated by a band of night-prowlers, or rovers.” When asked if he had seen any other evidence of night marauders injuring other African Americans, Turner replied that he had seen “scores of them.” He recounted the times he had seen “men who had their backs lacerated” and men “who had bullets in them. He seen others with their “arms shot off; shot so badly that they had to be amputated” and others with their “legs shot off." Despite the danger, Turner persisted. While we do not know the exact number of churches Turner planted or the number of ministers licensed, the AME church credits him with establishing the AME church in Georgia.

By 1876, his hard work paid off and he became publications manager for the AME Church. He was tasked with promoting all of the denomination's publications, including The Christian Recorder, Sunday school material, books published by AME ministers, and any training material for ministers and the laity. The position also allowed him to travel to all the districts and meet pastors and leaders of local churches. During the four years he served as publications manager, Turner developed a following that led to his election as one of the 12 bishops of the church.

As bishop, Turner had a national platform to espouse his ideas on race, politics, lynching, and other social issues of the day, especially emigration. However, after racism went unabated and conservatives rescinded many of the gains African Americans made during Reconstruction, Turner's oratory became increasingly pessimistic. After the Plessy v. Ferguson decision in May 1896, Turner declared that there was no future in the United States for African Americans. His denunciations against the country and his challenging and stinging critiques against other African Americans led many to dismiss Turner.

The most stinging rebukes came after Turner declared that "God is a Negro." One black man, who identified himself as not being a “race man,” declared, “If I should get to heaven and find only Negroes there, I think I would want to take my hat and walk out" while a white minister called the idea "blasphemous." He maintained that "God is not a God of any nationality, or any race, but of the whole human family; and as to color—God is a Spirit to be worshipped by renewed spirits in whatever colored bodies for a time they tabernacle of earth." Turner, however strenuously continued to defend his position.In the latter part of the 19th century, Turner remained active. He served as chair of the board of Morris Brown College from 1896–1908 and kept a busy schedule up to the end of his life. He was in Windsor, Ontario, at the General Conference of the AME Church on May 8, 1915 when he suffered a massive stroke. He died hours later at a Windsor hospital.

Turner left behind a rich legacy. Much of his writing foreshadowed many of the social movements in African American culture during the 20th century. W. E. B. Du Bois’s idea of “cultural nationalism,” Marcus Garvey’s “Back to Africa” movement, the modern-day civil rights movement, the Black Power movement, James Cone’s A Black Theology of Liberation, and even some elements of nationalist rap found in the current hip-hop culture owe a debt to Turner’s work and progressive insights.

But Turner was also public theologian. His oratory, writings, publications, letters, and editorials display a figure who was not limited to the walls of the church but saw the need for public engagement of God-talk in the public arena. His faith followed him from the battlefield of the Civil War to the halls of Congress to the offices of the AME, faith that led him to challenge America to live up to the ideals of freedom, justice, and democracy.

Andre E. Johnson, PhD, is an assistant professor of rhetoric, race and religion at the University of Memphis. He is the author of The Forgotten Prophet: Bishop Henry McNeal Turner and the African American Prophetic Tradition and the director and curator of the Henry McNeal Turner Project, a digital archive aimed at collecting the writings of Turner.

Surrender is a hard word. We want to trust God and let him do what he deems best, but we often have our caveats, like “God I want to serve you, but please don’t let [fill in the blank] happen,” or “God I want to serve you anywhere . . . except [fill in the blank].”

Moses was a bit like that. When God told Moses to free the Israelites from slavery, Moses questioned God (see Exodus 3). Moses had many doubts and many fears; he came up with many excuses. But then God asked Moses for what was in his hand:

Then the Lord asked him, “What is that in your hand?”
“A shepherd’s staff,” Moses replied.
“Throw it down on the ground,” the Lord told him. So Moses threw down the staff, and it turned into a snake! Moses jumped back. (Exodus 4:2–3)

God used that staff to demonstrate his miraculous power to Moses. But consider the moment before the miracle, when God first asked Moses to lay it down. What did the staff represent to Moses? His identity as a shepherd, his income as a business owner, and his influence as a man in his community.

Like Moses, we may have fears and excuses. We, too, we must be willing to lay down our income, lay down our status, lay down our perfectionism, lay down our finances, lay down our children, lay down our relationships, lay down our self-pursuits. When Jesus asks us to pick up our cross and follow him, it’s a call to lay down our desires and pick up his.

Bianca Juarez Olthoff is the author of Play with Fire: Discovering Fierce Faith, Unquenchable Passion, and a Life-Giving God (Zondervan). She is also the Chief Storyteller for The A21 Campaign and the Creative Director for Propel Women.

I was 15 years old, disheveled, and red-eyed in the backseat of my parents’ old Pontiac the first time I laid eyes on Houston, Texas. We’d waved goodbye to our small Arkansas town and to the only world my little brother and I had ever known. Tony and I curled up in that backseat and sobbed into our pillows for the first 60 miles of the eight-hour stretch.

We drove all night to get to Houston in time to register for the first day of classes. (I’d left a public high school with a total population of 1,000 and would later step into an enormous human ant bed crawling with 4,600 students.) In the morning, I roused to the loud static and broken syllables of Dad searching for a radio station.

My brother and I stared out the backseat windows as an enormous ball of orange fire rose boastfully over the horizon and Interstate 10 spilled us onto a freeway congested by more cars than we’d ever seen. A DJ from KILT AM bellowed, “Good morning, Houston, Texas, the biggest city in the South.” We nearly threw up.

I pressed my nose to the window and glared at a sight utterly foreign: windows boarded up on this storefront and that business, all leftover precautions from a recent scare. It was this exact same time of year—within a day or two, I’m sure—that I got my first introduction to Houston’s hurricane culture. We’d moved right in the middle of its annual season and, as God would have it, I’d spend the rest of my life joining the rest of our region minding its business.

I married a fourth-generation Houstonian. This is our home. These are our people. The first sign of summer is the kiosk near grocery-checkout stocked with hurricane supplies and pamphlets. The faces of weathermen on our local stations are more familiar to us than the news anchors’.

This is life on the Gulf Coast. While each state begs the hellish winds to pass us by, we ache with empathy wherever they blow. Houston took Hurricane Katrina personally, hearts broken and homes, churches, and arenas open to thousands upon thousands of evacuees. Every coastal city knows it could be next. We have to have our neighbors to survive.

We Houstonians, generally speaking, are hearty. The weather’s too hot for us not to be. We are a case study for very effective evangelism tactics: Do you want to go somewhere hotter than this? Huh? Do you? No, we don’t. Maybe that helps explain our spiritual culture.

I’ve never known more Jesus-serving, Jesus-loving, people-loving, people-serving folks on earth than right here in my hometown of Houston, Texas. I know you think I’m just saying this because I’m all teary eyed with sentimentality but, with all due respect, you’d be as mistaken as a Longhorn in College Station.

Most of us didn’t get the memo until late in the game that different denominations were supposed to snub one another. I don’t know how to explain it. A lot of Christians actually like other Christians in Houston. A lot of Christians even like non-Christians in Houston. And, on frequent occasions, a fair amount of non-Christians like us.

We Houstonians are a spicy lot. We raise our babies with tongues of fire, mostly lit by chips and salsa. Our blood is as thick and warm as queso. As you pray for us, picture us with the faces of virtually every ethnicity on Planet Earth. What’s your favorite international food? Indian? Korean? Vietnamese? South American? Which region? We’ve got it and better than you’ve ever eaten it.

We are proud of a lot of things about our fair city, but none more so than our diversity. Outsiders say it’s not a beautiful place, but we think they’re just not looking closely enough. Our beauty is in our color; it’s on our faces and also on our plates.

We’re a long shot from ideal. There’s crime, of course, like you’d find in any city with our girth. There’s poverty and much that pleads to be done to relieve it. We have ample room for improvement, but that’s somebody else’s article to write. Right now my heart is broken for my home city, and she could use a lot of love.

I’ll use the space I’ve been offered to say this: Your aid to Houston after Hurricane Harvey will not be in vain. She’s a thankful kind of girl, our city. Her children try hard to take care of their own, but we’re going to need your help this time. We are devastated. They say it will take many months and perhaps even several years to put us back together again.

Please don’t soon forget us. Don’t forget our rescue workers. Don’t forget our law enforcement. Don’t forget our children and our babies. Don’t forget our poor. Don’t forget our homeless. Don’t forget our elderly. Don’t forget our sick. Don’t forget our residents who suffer mental disabilities. They are so disoriented and afraid.

And don’t forget our community of faith. We will work hard and long together. We serve a Savior who walked on water. One who can still rebuke winds and waves and spit out the words, “Peace! Be still! It is I. Do not be afraid.”

He can strip the vicious breath off the tongues of tornados that have the nerve to harass us like a hurricane wasn’t enough. Pray that he will work wonders. Pray that he will equip Governor Greg Abbott, Mayor Sylvester Turner, and city officials with supernatural wisdom; our evacuees with shelter; and his own people with supernatural love and care for our city so that, years from now, someone might say, “I never was much for church. But do you remember the way those people came out of the woodwork to help that nightmare summer of 2017?”

Your prayers greatly matter to us. Scripture is a good place to start:

Have mercy on me, my God, have mercy on me, for in you I take refuge. I will take refuge in the shadow of your wings until the disaster has passed. I cry out to God Most High, to God, who vindicates me. He sends from heaven and saves me, rebuking those who hotly pursue me—God sends forth his love and his faithfulness. (Ps. 53:1-3)

He reached down from on high and took hold of me; he drew me out of deep waters. He rescued me from my powerful enemy … He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me. (Ps. 18:16-17,19)

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze. (Is. 43:2)

We are forever grateful. We’ll never be the same. But we can mend the stronger.

Beth Moore’s Living Proof Ministries is headquartered in Houston.

Michael Cromartie, who passed away earlier today, was one of the most life-affirming people I ever met.

He had a radiant personality, deep and winsome faith, endless energy, and tremendous generosity of spirit. He touched and brightened countless lives during his earthly pilgrimage, mine very much among them.

I first met Mike in 1985, when we started to work together at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. He has been a colleague for many of the intervening years and a close friend for all of them.

Mike was a wise counselor, a great raconteur, and a friend of just about everyone he met. He was also one of the most important figures in modern American Christianity. As director of the Faith Angle Forum, which he started in 1999, he worked to strengthen reporting and commentary on how religious believers, religious convictions, and religiously grounded moral arguments affect American politics and public life.

Through his work there, including as moderator and host of his two-and-a-half day retreats with scholars, theologians, and writers, Mike introduced a generation of journalists to the positive role faith can play in the life of our country. He enriched the public dialogue and helped shape American culture.

In addition to that, and in many respects more important than that, Mike enriched the lives of those who became part of his community with his kindness, his genuine interest in others, his light touch, and his joie de vivre. This was obvious based on the outpouring of affection as his health worsened. This was a man who left a deep imprint on people’s hearts and souls.

When I met with Mike soon after he learned his cancer had spread and was terminal, we talked about many things, including his own feelings about what lay ahead. He told me he had no fear of dying, and it was clear he did not.

He shared with me, and others, his intensified interest in knowing about heaven. He was captivated by two Jonathan Edwards sermons in particular, and part of him longed to go to his true home. Eternity became a little closer to him, a little more tangible.

But that sense of anticipation was mitigated by something else he said, with equal conviction, which is that he loved his life and his job, his friends, and, above all, his family—his remarkable wife, Jenny, who has been such a source of strength and comfort to him through their entire marriage, and their children Ethan, Eric, and Heather. He didn’t want to leave them, not yet. He had to try to balance two competing realities, two beautiful truths.

When I saw Mike for the last time, two nights before he passed away, we talked about politics, the NBA, books, family, and faith. The mood was remarkably upbeat, given the circ*mstances; but then again, it’s hard to imagine life ever being less than upbeat with Mike. For him, life was always lived in the broad, sunlit uplands. It was until the end.

Near the end of our final conversation, I told Mike about how many lives he had touched along the way, and I told him, “You’ll have crowns in heaven.” He looked at me and said, “Do you really think we’ll get crowns?” I told him I thought we might, and if so he’d get a lot of them. He looked at me and smiled. It strikes me now, in recounting this story, that in all my many conversations with Mike over the years, I don’t think I ever had one in which he didn’t smile or make me smile.

Now this good and gracious man, this bundle of joy and energy and kindness, this culture-shaping ambassador of Christ, has passed from this life to the next. He has gone home to be with the Lord he loved and served so well. We rejoice in that, even as we grieve this huge loss.

Peter Wehner is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times. He is the co-author, with Michael Gerson, of City of Man: Religion and Politics in a New Era.

Michael Cromartie, a Washington networker who helped rebrand America’s image of Christian political engagement, has died of cancer at age 67.

The news of his death was reported Monday on Twitter and confirmed by colleagues at the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC), the DC-based conservative think tank where he served for more than 30 years.

Cromartie brought Christian thought leaders and secular journalists under the same roof at the Faith Angle Forum, held every year since 1999. Through his work as EPPC vice president, he evoked theologians and philosophers as he advocated for thoughtful engagement in public policy and civil discourse.

In a political arena often dominated by competition, power grabs, and culture war debates, Cromartie stuck out by offering a friendlier, humbler approach. It’s this attitude that his colleagues remember most and cite as his greatest legacy.

“It can’t be said of many people, but everyone Mike touched was influenced for the better,” said Michael Gerson, a Washington Post columnist and former speechwriter for President George W. Bush. “His passing leaves a huge gap in American public life and in the lives of his friends.

“Mike was a man of great knowledge who made it accessible to others,” Gerson told CT. “He was a man of great faith, who make it real and attractive to others. And he was a man of exceptional decency, who demonstrated how to live with joy and integrity.”

Journalists and Christian leaders alike shared their tributes [see CT’s Twitter Moment].

“Michael Cromartie was different from what most people think of when they think ‘evangelicals and politics.’ Thanks be to God,” said Russell Moore, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, who admired his humble character and effective engagement with journalists.

“After his cancer diagnosis, every time I saw Mike he would say, ‘Pray like a Pentecostal.’ We did,” Moore shared with CT. “Mike now is in the presence of the Lord of Pentecost. We will miss him here, and must pray for more like him.”

Michael Wear, a former White House faith adviser under Barack Obama, described Cromartie as “one of Christianity's principal ambassadors in Washington, [representing] Jesus with joyful confidence.”

“I've seen the effects of his life and work up close, and both the church and the nation are better off because of him,” said Wear. “Michael was a friend whose encouragement I did not deserve, and whose insight has shaped my work, my life, and my faith. In the days ahead, we should look to Michael's example to stoke our imagination for what a faithful public witness can look like in this moment.”

Cromartie had surgery last September for stomach cancer. By July, his cancer had spread, and he heard from doctors last week that they had done everything they could, according to Timothy Dalrymple, who profiled Cromartie for CT in 2013.

Dalrymple’s feature sums up the “Beltway believer’s” story this way:

Cromartie converted to Christianity as a teenager in the Vietnam War era, proclaimed himself a progressive pacifist, and joined a Christian commune. Shortly after joining Chuck Colson's then-new Prison Fellowship, however, he was literally mugged by reality when thieves invaded his hotel room in Denver in 1978 and left him bound and gagged. (Cromartie managed to convince the burglars to leave his new tie so he could still attend his meetings with dignity.) That experience and Colson's influence produced a paradigm shift, and Cromartie went on to work for the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center, where he is now vice president and director of the Evangelicals in Civic Life project. From his perch on M Street five blocks from the White House, he has served as a consigliere for conservative Christians in the nation's capital.

He has also helped countless journalists, whose only map to evangelicalism reads HERE BE DRAGONS, chart a more finely drawn geography of the American Christian landscape. In fact, the concept for the forums took shape as Cromartie received one call after another from knowledgeable journalists who wanted to know whether all evangelicals hate sex, or whether he could provide contact information for the author and publisher of the Book of Ephesians.

“Grieving with many today over the death of the brilliant and gifted Michael Cromartie—a clear thinker with strong character. RIP,” tweeted John Stonestreet, president of the Colson Center. “Cromartie was a voice of clarity and reason, thoughtfulness and moral judgment. Brought people together in the best of ways.”

Even before his death, stories and tributes came pouring in on his family’s Facebook pages. His son Eric pledged to share the comments with his dad, who was hospitalized at Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington.

“Mike enriched the lives of those who became part of his community with his kindness, his genuine interest in others, his light touch, and his joie de vivre. This was obvious based on the outpouring of affection as his health worsened,” wrote EPPC colleague Peter Wehner. This was a man who left a deep imprint on people’s hearts and souls.”

Cromartie described his faith as “evangelical, reformed, Anglican” and attended Falls Church Anglican. He graduated from Covenant College and American University. A former chairman of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, he regularly advocated for the cause of religious liberty.

He also served as a senior advisor to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, a senior fellow with the Trinity Forum, and a former advisory editor at CT.

In a Politico feature on his birthday last month, he shared his morning routine: “Pray. Read the news. Then pray all the more!”