Ajg aug 2017

God’s Not Interested in ‘Make-up’ Religion, Says Pope in Morning Homily Religious practice that is only concerned with looking good — a “make-up” religion — is not what Jesus is looking for, Pope Francis reminded today at the Casa Santa Marta.

In his homily for morning Mass, the Pope spoke about Jesus’ criticism of the Pharisees’ focus on outward appearances.

According to Vatican Radio, Pope Francis noted Jesus’ rebuke to the Pharisee who criticized him for not observing the prescribed washing before the meal. “’Oh you Pharisees! Although you cleanse the outside of the cup and the dish, inside you are filled with plunder and evil.’”

And Jesus repeats this many times in the Gospel to these people: Your interior is wicked, is not good and is not free. ‘You are slaves because you have not accepted the justice that comes from God, the justice that Jesus has given us.'”

Reading 1 GAL 5:1-6, Brothers and sisters: For freedom Christ set us free; so stand firm and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery.It is I, Paul, who am telling you that if you have yourselves circumcised, Christ will be of no benefit to you.

Once again I declare to every man who has himself circumcised that he is bound to observe the entire law.

You are separated from Christ, you

who are trying to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace.

For through the Spirit, by faith, we await the hope of righteousness.

For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.

Responsorial Psalm PS 119:41, 43, 44, 45, 47, 48 R. (41a) Let your mercy come to me, O Lord. Let your mercy come to me, O LORD, your salvation according to your promise.

R. Let your mercy come to me, O Lord.

Take not the word of truth from my mouth, for in your ordinances is my hope.

R. Let your mercy come to me, O Lord.

And I will keep your law continually, forever and ever.

R. Let your mercy come to me, O Lord.

And I will walk at liberty, because I seek your precepts.

R. Let your mercy come to me, O Lord.

And I will delight in your commands, which I love.

R. Let your mercy come to me, O Lord.

Azerbaijan's Ambiguous Bible Breakthrough !

A restrictive majority-Muslim country is getting good news—or rather, the Good News.

The recent registration of a Bible Society in Azerbaijan, after a 20-year fight, has brought fresh optimism to the country’s minority Christians. But there remains some confusion about the types of books it will be allowed to print, with even Bibles potentially falling foul of the country’s strict regulations.

Terje Hartberg from United Bible Societies called it “a great development, which will start a new chapter in Bible ministry for all Christians in Azerbaijan.”

However, all literature either printed or imported by the Bible Society will remain subject to approval by the government. Every publication is labeled with an official sticker, and distribution is only allowed at stateapproved venues.

Those who distribute any religious literature outside these strict limitations face administrative or criminal punishment, reports Forum 18, a news agency focused on religious freedom in Central Asia.

The Old Testament and Hebrew Bible, meanwhile, remain on the list of banned books.

Texts from these parts of the Bible have been confiscated in police raids, according to Forum 18.

Asked whether the prohibition of the Old Testament in effect bans the Bible too, Forum 18’s Felix Corley told World Watch Monitor by email: “Well, you can't publish, print, import, or

distribute any religious publication without prior permission from the State Committee, which will also set numbers allowed. So nothing is approved until it is approved.

“Then it can only be distributed in a stateapproved venue with a sticker from the State Committee. It appears these stickers have not been available since April. As for the Old Testament, that appears to have been on a police list. So who knows?”

As a new chapter opens for the Bible Society in Azerbaijan, the country itself may be entering a new, more restrictive period.

President Ilham Aliyev, following the example of his counterparts in Turkmenistan and Tajikistan, is seeking to change the constitution to allow for longer terms in office and to remove minimum age restrictions.

Aliyev, 54, has been president since 2003, when he succeeded his ailing father.

Critics suggest the referendum, held on September 26, was an attempt by Aliyev to secure the rule in perpetuity for his family.

Voters were asked to “reject” or “approve” 29 separate amendments to the constitution, including extending maximum presidential terms from five to seven years and adding two vice presidents to be chosen by the president. The minimum age for a president would also be abolished, and the minimum age for election to parliament reduced from 25 to 18.

Critics have suggested Aliyev may have

earmarked the first vice president post for his wife, Mehriban—currently deputy chairwoman of the ruling New Azerbaijan Party—or their son, Heydar, who is 19.

In other proposed amendments, the president would be able to hold early elections or dissolve parliament. Another amendment proposes that if Aliyev were to fall ill, his powers would pass to the first vice president, rather than to the prime minister.

The results of the election are due by October 21. Voter turnout was said to be 63 percent—more than double the required 25 percent to validate the vote. On September 30, Ogtay Asadov, the speaker in the Azerbaijan parliament, said the turnout validated the referendum and indicated the people’s “strong support” for the president.

However, opposition groups criticized the proposed changes as “undemocratic” and “monarchical,” while five prominent humanrights activists sought to block the referendum by appealing to the Council of Europe. Intigam Aliyev, Rasul Jafarov, Anar Mamedli, Leyla Yunus, and Emin Guseynov—all of whom have faced jail or exile for their criticisms of the government—argued the amendments contravened “human rights and the supremacy of law.”

“The current regime’s intolerance of criticism and the continuing restrictions on the media and on freedom of expression and assembly ... render impossible a balanced evaluation of the proposed amendments and acquainting voters with them prior to holding the referendum,” they wrote.

In response, the Council of Europe's Venice Commission said the referendum had been called without a proper debate in parliament and that the proposed changes would give “unprecedented” control to the president.

B u t S h a h i n A l i y e v, h e a d o f t h e presidential legal department, called their response “flawed” and “politically driven.”

“They speak to us in a language of

ultimatums,” he said at a briefing in the capital, Baku.

One opposition party, the Azerbaijani Popular Front, called for a boycott of the referendum, while its ally, the Musavat opposition party, launched a petition against it.

The petition was voided after 3,500 of the more than 40,000 signatures were labelled “invalid”

by Azerbaijan’s Central Election Commission.

“Democracy is something that Azerbaijan has never known,” said Rolf Zeegers, analyst at the World Watch Research unit of Open Doors, which monitors treatment of Christians worldwide. “The regime in Baku is just another post-Communist authoritarian bunch of rulers that are only after consolidating their position.

“They are in perfect line with the different regimes in Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan.”

Tajikistan and Turkmenistan have already approved constitutional amendments to allow for longer presidential terms.

However, Zeegers said he didn’t believe the proposed changes would have “serious consequences” for the church.

“The regime is already known for strictly surveilling religious activities in Azerbaijan,” he said. “They will remain in power, and even more solidly than before. But it will not mean a change in attitude towards [Christians].”

But while the impact on Christians is indirect, Zeegers still said the overall climate is changing.

“Tajikistan used to be rather relaxed towards religion until 2009,” he said. “The fact that the largest religious group in the country—Muslims—were able to openly and officially run religious schools is a very good indication for this. Since 2009, the regime in the Tajik capital, Dushanbe, has become much more authoritarian. All political opposition has been banned, and legislation has become more restrictive. In August 2011, more laws were passed that prohibit any [ministry to] youth.”

Christians have also experienced the

change of climate, Zeegers said. “The focus of the government against youth work has affected summer camps, a traditional church activity that brings young Christians together during the summer holidays. This can no longer be done openly, as the camps will be raided by the police. And it goes much further: Since August 2011, any youth work is prohibited. And youth form about 50 percent also of the [Christians], so it has big consequences. In curtailing the biggest religious group, the regime shows it is serious.

Christians are warned.”

Meanwhile, in Kazakhstan, President Nursultan Nazarbayev has called for the establishment of a Ministry for Religious and Civil Affairs. According to the website of the Kazakh presidency, the ministry will vouchsafe freedom of religion.

Zeegers said the announcement is “remarkable” but also “possibly dangerous.”

“Remarkable, because Kazakhstan is a secular country in which state and religion have been strictly separated,” he said. “[And] if there is a strict separation between state and religion, why form a special ministry for religious affairs?”

One possible answer is that it is “the first step towards much tighter control over religion in Kazakhstan,” Zeegers said. “So far, the country was relatively mild in its treatment of [Christians]—much milder than Uzbekistan or Turkmenistan. These developments mean we need to keep our eyes open about what is going on in Kazakhstan.” ____________________________________

Christian radio station WLRY serves as a ministry RUSHVILLE - WLRY FM 88.9 is a oneman show, and operations manager Mike Lamneck is the man who runs that show.His wife, Kelli, takes care of the business side at home, but in the studio it is all Lamneck, or Mike O’Riley, which is the name he uses on the air. The Christian station started broadcasting in 1998 and serves as a religious ministry. Archangel Broadcasting owns the station, which features both national, international and local guests, along with local news, weather and other local programming.

“We are a non-profit, noncommercial Christian radio station that serves southeastern Ohio,” Lamneck said. “It’s a mix of music and talk. That’s kind of what makes us different, is we are a mix of talk and also contemporary Christian music.”

Lamneck said the station’s goal is to reach as many people as possible with the message of Jesus Christ. It does so through the 1,100-watt station and its website. When Lamneck is not at the station, he can control its operation via computer or his phone. He said the station is always playing at his home so he can monitor it.

Lamneck has been with WLRY for 12 years. He said the station doesn’t formally track how many listeners it has, but he said it’s probably between 15,000 and 20,000 people at any given time. “But we really don’t have research for those numbers,” Lamneck said.

“Because we depend on (financial) support.

Unlike a commercial radio station, we don’t go and get advertisers based on our listener numbers.” B u t t h e s t a t i o n d o e s h a v e s sponsors, which includes local businesses, churches and listener donors. It also has online listeners, some of which have been tracked to Paris and Pakistan.

Lamneck is a Gahanna native who graduated from Ohio State, where he studied broadcast journalism. He is

currently celebrating his 30th year in radio, having started at WLOH. Lamneck said he always wanted a career in radio.

“I used to do a little radio show on my cassette tape recorder as a kid,” he said. “It’s been a blessing. I’m one of the rare cases that actually is doing what they dreamed of doing all their life.” Away from work, Lamneck plays guitar and sings for Christian rock band, SlawDog, which formed in 2005. He said the band is another way to spread the word of Jesus Christ.

Lamneck, who has five children, started playing guitar at age 26, and lists Rush and KISS has some of his favorite bands.

H e became a born-again Christian around 1999 or 2000 after struggling with drugs and alcohol from his teens to about age 36 or 37.

“I had tried other ways to rid myself of that,” Lamneck said. “I didn’t want to be involved in drugs and alcohol. Then one night, I remember very clearly, about 2 a.m. I was crying because I was trying to get to sleep. And I just reached out to the Lord and said, ‘If you can save me, if you can do something to rid me of this, then I’m yours.’ And he did. It was lifted.

The thirst for alcohol and the need for drugs was just lifted.”

Couples for Christ in Nepal at 14: A celebration with children The Catholic movement was established in Manila in 1981 and is present in more than 100 countries. It arrived in Nepal in 2003. Its anniversary falls on Labour Day. " When workers and employers both live in Christ, problems are resolved automatically.”

KATHMANDU: To celebrate the 14th anniversary of ‘Couples for Christ’ (CFC) in Nepal, members of the Catholic movement met in Kathmandu on 1st May. On this date, Labour Day, Catholics marked together with their children the birth of their group and gave thanks to Christ for his presence in their lives.

They promised to bear witness through their example to Christian teachings and spread their message through their families.

"Christ’s presence is important in everybody's life and has even greater value in the life of couples," group spokesman Chirendra Satyal said.

Founded in Manila in June 1981, the group is a Catholic lay movement that deals with the family, and is present in more than 100 countries.

Initially its focus was on strengthening couples’ bond. Later, the need to involved all family members to build relationships emerged; hence, the need to include children in groups divided by age.

Satyal noted that the movement has been active in the Himalayan nation since 2003. "CFC was established 14 years ago.

Christ's teachings are our important value, and help us build stronger bonds within families. " During the day, couples are accompanied by priests and sisters.

For Sujata Rai, a Catholic mother,

"families can have misunderstandings and problems, but these programmes help us solve them and stay united in Christ. They also help our children grow in the Lord under a proper guide."

The spokesman pointed out that the movement’s anniversary does not fall on Labour Day by accident. "When workers and employers both live in Christ, problems are resolved automatically. Living in Christ and following God’s signs could help Nepal and the world with the best workplace solutions."

Gyan Rai, an airplane pilot, is grateful to God for his daughter, who followed in his footsteps and is now an airplane pilot. "Her success and that of my family is worthy of God’s grace and Christian teaching. ____________________________________

Detention of American Christian in North Korea ‘Concerning’ White House press secretary Sean Spicer addressed the situation during Monday briefing North Korea has detained a U.S. citizen a self-described Christian missionary which raises the number of Americans held in North Korea to four.

Kim Hak-song, who was taken into custody, taught at Pyongyang University of Science and Technology. The university, founded in 2010 with donations from South Korean and American Christians, including the Illinois-based Church of the Brethren, remains the only private university in the country.

"Obviously, this is concerning. We're well aware of it and we're going to work through the embassy of Sweden … through our state

department, to seek the release of the individuals there," White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters Monday.

Song was detained on suspicion of "hostile acts" against the state, the North's KCNA news agency said.

One other of the four Americans detained, Kim Sang-duk, also taught at PUST. Experts on North Korea consider the detentions an attempt by the authoritarian North Korean regime to gain bargaining chips as it resists U.S. pressure to rein in its nuclear program, with which it has threatened South Korea and the U.S. ____________________________________

Evangelicals & Race—A New Chapter Why racial justice and reconciliation are now core for the movement.

Evangelicals are sensitive to what we call “God moments” —when circumstances fall together in a way that suggests God is at work in our lives in a fresh way.

Mainstream white evangelicals have experienced collective “God moments.” In the 1970s, few churches concerned themselves with the relief of world hunger.

Then Ron Sider wrote Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, and before long, we just assumed that evangelicals should be concerned about hunger. Before Roe v. Wade, abortion was sidelined as a Catholic concern.

But after the advocacy of Francis Schaeffer and others, we quickly saw the great evil that abortion is.

These were God moments—times when our Lord graciously gave us moral clarity about an issue he was calling us to engage.

We are currently experiencing a new “God moment,” when God is shining his burning light on how our nation and our churches are fractured by racial division and injustice. In the past two years, we’ve seen image after image of injustice perpetrated against black Americans. We’ve studied the statistics. And most important, we’ve heard the anguished cry of a suffering community that is understandably hurting, angry, and demanding progress.

Moderate white evangelicals, who make up the bulk of our movement, see more clearly than ever how racism is embedded in many aspects of our society, from business to law enforcement to education to church life. We have been slow to hear what the black church has been telling us for a while. And in all that, we hear God calling his church to seek justice and reconciliation in concrete ways.

To be evangelical now means to be no longer deaf to these cries or to God’s call. In

2012, only 13 percent of white evangelicals said they thought about race daily (41% of black evangelicals did so). Today, we’re thinking about race more than daily—due partly to the news cycle, and partly to our rediscovering biblical teaching.

We’ve started to see afresh the vision of nations united at Pentecost (Acts 2), of all the peoples worshiping the Lamb before the throne of God (Rev. 4), of all parts of the body saying to each other, “I have need of you” (1 Cor. 12). We’ve seen again the relevance of Paul’s teaching that Christ has broken down the dividing wall between peoples (Eph. 2–3).

We’ve been convicted for neglecting these teachings in ways that have led to subtle and overt acts of racism. We are now struggling to find ways to model what a redeemed, multiethnic and multiracial community looks like before the return of Christ.

Today, we’re thinking about race more than daily—due partly to the news cycle, and

partly to our rediscovering biblical 1980s, Promise Keepers made racial teaching. reconciliation among men a priority. In 2000, the Southern Baptists, in the Baptist Faith and Ye s , w e k n o w a b o u t t h e “ w h i t e Message, acknowledged and repudiated their evangelicals” talked about in the media—many history of racism. But in the past two years, of whom are unchurched conservative evangelicals have coalesced on this issue on a Christians weary of being politically and massive scale. It’s difficult to find a mainstream socially marginalized. They long to make white evangelical leader or historically white America great again, which unfortunately evangelical organization that doesn’t believe seems to involve marginalizing those who are that racial justice is now a core concern, not white. They may affirm with us biblical alongside abortion, human sexuality, and authority, the uniqueness of Christ, and the religious freedom—and that doesn’t believe power of the Cross. But to the extent that they that the days of all-white evangelical remain deaf about racial injustice and organizations are coming to an end. reconciliation as gospel priorities, they do not This hardly means that the kingdom of represent the best of the evangelical tradition. heaven has arrived. Far from it. We have a lot to Our tradition’s record on race has been learn about the texture of the racism embedded checkered at best. At the same time, since the in our culture and our churches. To say that we Great Awakening, there has been a witness for have coalesced doesn’t mean that every single racial justice and reconciliation. In the last evangelical church is fully on board or knows century, Billy Graham started refusing to the next steps to take in their context. That said, segregate his crusades in the 1950s. In the we thank God for pulling the scales from our eyes and prodding us to more fully love him and our neighbors—all of them—as ourselves.

Farewell, Cultural Christianity Evangelical Christians, of almost all sorts, are a narrativedriven people. Our evangelism often includes personal stories of how we came to meet Christ. Our worship often includes personal “testimonies,” either spoken or sung. To those outside the community, these can seem cloyingly sentimental, and sometimes even manipulative.

Even so, those who emphasize the personal nature of knowing Christ often define following Christ in terms of our past, what we’re leaving behind. But even without a spoken testimony, one can often read what an evangelical is walking away from based on what he’s reacting, or overreacting, to.

Whenever I hear a Christian say that we shouldn’t emphasize the imperatives of Scripture (the commands of God), but rather the indicatives (who we are in Christ), I can predict that, almost every time, this is someone who grew up in an oppressive and rigid legalism. By contrast, when I hear an evangelical Christian wanting to build hedges of rules around the possibility of sin, I can usually guess that this someone was converted out of a morally chaotic background.

The Christian who was converted out of a dead, lifeless church often dismisses liturgy as “formalism” and contrasts “religion” with “relationship.” At the same time, one who was converted despite an emotionally exuberant but theologically vacuous church will often seek out the ancient roots and structure of a more liturgically ordered church.

What’s true at the personal level is also true at the movement level. We tend to ping back and forth between extremes—always seeking to avoid the last bad thing. As David R. Swartz points out in his book Moral Minority,

The Religious Left of the last generation was, in many ways, a reaction from some sectors of the “Jesus People” era to the empty consumerism and racism and militarism of the post-World War II religious establishments.

The old Religious Right was in many ways a reaction to the awful consequences of a real or perceived pietistic withdrawal of some in the church as the country veered into Sexual Revolution and an abortion culture. As we move into a new era, the church in America will seek to correct the course from some aspects of the past. We should simply make sure that we correct in the right way.

Some will see any reframing of Christian public witness as a “pullback from politics” or a withdrawal back into the enclaves. But this is not the case, for several reasons. First of all, it will be impossible. It is one thing for Christianity to correct errors in past forays into the public square: triumphalist expectations, for example, or theatrical panic and paranoia rooted in a victim-status siege mentality. It is

quite another to, with silence, constrict the liberty of future generations.

Total disengagement is itself a privilege of a cultural Christendom that is fast passing away. A church can avoid taking controversial stances on what it means to be human or what it means to be married only so long as the outside culture at least pretends to share the same basic ideals. A church can ignore the culture only until, as the divorce culture did in the past, that culture reshapes the church in a way that obscures the gospel itself. And a church can ignore the state only as long as the state respects the territorial boundaries of Mr. Jefferson’s “wall of separation.” A state that sees some aspects of Christian witness as bigoted and dangerous will not long stay on the other side of that wall.

The primary reason I think evangelicalism will not go wobbly on public engagement is the gospel. In the rising wave of evangelicals, one hears the constant refrain of “gospel focus” and “gospel centrality.” Some might dismiss this as just more evangelical faddishness and sloganeering, and perhaps some of it is. But I think it is far more than that.

The focus on the gospel is tied up with the collapse of the Bible Belt. As American culture secularizes, the most basic Christian tenets seem ever more detached from mainstream American culture. There is, for those who came and will come of age in recent years, no social utility in embracing them.

Those who identify with Christianity, and who gather with the people of God, have already decided to walk out of step with the culture.

These Christians have already embraced strangeness by spending Sunday morning at church rather than at brunch. This is leading to a sort of mirror image of the Rapture that the traveling evangelists warned us about. Those who were nominally Christian are suddenly vanished from the pews. Those who wanted an almost-gospel will find that they don’t need it to thrive in American culture. As a matter of fact, cultural Christianity is herded out by natural

selection. That sort of nominal religion, when bearing the burden of the embarrassment of a controversial Bible, is no more equipped to survive in a secularizing America than a declawed cat released in the wild. Who then is left behind? It will be those defined not by a Christian America but by a Christian gospel.

To understand why this leads to greater engagement rather than to lesser engagement, we must understand what the slow-motion collapse of the Bible Belt is about in the first place. This changes not just the number of unbelievers, but the way that believers themselves think and relate to the outside culture. Philosopher James K. A. Smith, in his book How (Not) to Be Secular: Reading Charles Taylor, gives the example of an evangelical church-planter relocating from the Bible Belt to a “post-Christian” urban center in the Pacific Northwest. The church planter is equipped to evangelize and make disciples by asking people diagnostic questions about what’s missing in their lives.

A generation or two ago, that might have been what they were trusting in to get to heaven. In more recent years, it would have been what’s missing in order to grant meaning and purpose to their lives. The central issue

isn’t that the church planter isn’t adequately trained to answer their questions; it’s that they are asking different questions. They do not feel “lost” in the world, and they don’t feel as though they need meaning or purpose. The effective evangelist must engage not only at the level of the answers, but also at the level of the questions themselves. The same will be true when it comes to the social and political witness of Christianity in a new era. Older generations could assume that the culture resonated with the same “values” and “principles.” They could assume that the culture wanted to conserve their “JudeoChristian heritage.” Increasingly, the culture doesn’t see Christianity as the “real America.” If Christianity is a means to American values, America can get by without it, because America is learning to value other things.

This is, perhaps counterintuitively, both good for the church and good for the church’s engagement with the outside world. In the 1920s, J. Gresham Machen warned the church his book Christianity and Liberalism not only that bartering away orthodoxy wouldn’t gain the church cultural credibility, but also that the great danger for the church is to see Christianity as a means to some other end.

Christianity does indeed build stronger families, he argued, and it does indeed provide

an alternative to Marxist ideologies. But if Christianity is embraced as a way to build strong families or assimilate people into American values or fight Communism, it is no longer Christianity but an entirely other religion, one he called “liberalism.” In the last generation of Christian public engagement, there were some genuine prophets and saints, who called the church out of isolation but constantly warned against a political captivity of the church, a captivity that would tap Christianity of its righteous zeal for the sake of power but would, ultimately, drain it of what every culture finds most troublesome: the exclusivity of Christ. As American culture changes, the scandal of Christianity is increasingly right up front, exactly where it was in the first century. The shaking of American culture will get us back to the question Jesus asked his disciples at Caesarea Philippi: “Who do you say that I am?” As the Bible Belt recedes, those left standing up for Jesus will be those who, like Simon Peter of old, know how to answer that question.

Once Christianity is no longer seen as part and parcel of patriotism, the church must offer more than “What would Jesus do?” moralism and the “I vote values” populism to which we’ve grown accustomed. Good.

Five great achievements of Pope Francis' rst four years It is hard to believe but Pope Francis is coming up on the fourth anniversary of his election as pope on March 13. In four years, the pope has had a profound impact on the church.

True, he has not changed the church's position on birth control, celibacy, women priests and gay marriage, but he has fundamentally changed how we see the church in five ways.

First, the pope has called for a new way of evangelizing. He tells us that the first words of evangelization must be about the compassion and mercy of God, rather than a list of dogmas and rules that must be accepted. He speaks daily of the compassion and love of God. Our response, he says, is to show compassion and love to all our brothers and sisters, especially the poor and marginalized. He not only talks about it; he does it by reaching out to refugees, the homeless, and the sick.

Previous popes wrote about the "new evangelization" in an abstract and boring way.

This pope communicates in a way that grabs people's attention with his words and actions.

His message is the message of the Gospel — it is about the Father's love for his people and their responsibility to love one another. He does not obsess over rules and regulations. He is more interested in orthopraxis (how we live the faith) than orthodoxy (how we explain the faith).

Second, Pope Francis is allowing open discussion and debate in the church. He is not scandalized by disagreements, even over doctrine. It is impossible to exaggerate how extraordinary this is. Only during Vatican II was s u c h a d e b a t e p o s s i b l e . I r o n i c a l l y, conservatives who attacked progressives as dissenters under earlier papacies have now become dissenters to the teaching of Pope

Francis.

During the last two papacies, dissent was roundly condemned and suppressed. The theologies of John Paul II and Benedict XVI could not be questioned. Episcopal candidates were screened on the basis of loyalty not pastoral skills. Bishops with contrary ideas were pressured into silence. An Australian bishop was removed from office for even suggesting the church might discuss women priests.

At synods of bishops, Vatican officials controlled the agenda and even instructed the bishops on what topics could not be discussed. The synods, which were supposed to advise the pope, became forums for bishops to profess their loyalty.

Under Francis, synodal participants were encouraged by the pope to speak their minds boldly and not worry about disagreeing with him. The result is a freer exchange of views, public disagreements, and even outright criticism of the pope by some conservative cardinals. All of this would never have been allowed under earlier popes.

There is also a long list of theologians who were investigated and silenced by the Vatican Congregation for Doctrine of the Faith during the last two papacies. This was

especially true of moral theologians in the United States, liberation theologians in Latin America, and those interested in interreligious dialogue in Asia. Many lost their jobs in seminaries and were forbidden to publish. Even more practiced self-censorship lest they get into trouble.

This was especially true for priest theologians, who were controlled through ecclesial rather than academic channels.

They were simply ordered under obedience to comply. Academic freedom for theologians was a joke, unless they were laypersons with tenure.

Priest journalists were also censured and ďŹ red.

All that is gone. One no longer hears of theologians being investigated and silenced.

This is extremely important if theology is to develop and deal with contemporary issues in a way that is understandable by people of the 21st century. The theological guild, if it is left alone, can be a self-correcting community of scholars.

Third, Cardinal Burke and the pope's critics are right; the pope is presenting a new way of thinking about moral issues in Chapter 8 of Amoris Laetitia. He is moving the church away from an ethics based on rules to one based on discernment. Facts, circumstances, and motivations matter in such an ethics.

Under this approach to moral theology, it is possible to see holiness and grace in the lives of imperfect people, even those in irregular marriages. Rather than seeing the world as divided between the good and the bad, we are all seen as wounded sinners for whom the church serves as a ďŹ eld hospital where the Eucharist is food for the wounded rather than a reward for the perfect. Gone is any attempt to scare people into being good.

Fourth, the pope has raised environmental issues to a central place in the Catholic faith.

He recognizes that global warming may be the most important moral issue of the 21st century.

In his encyclical, Laudato Si', the pope tells us

that "Living our vocation to be protectors of God's handiwork is essential to a life of virtue; it is not an optional or a secondary aspect of our Christian experience."

His encyclical was greeted enthusiastically by environmentalists who in the past saw the church as an enemy because of its position on birth control. Now the church is an ally because environmentalists are recognizing that religion is one of the few things that can motivate people to the kind of selfsacrifice required to save the planet. The pope's encyclical has shown the way.

Finally, the pope has moved to reform the governance structures of the church. True, reform of the Roman Curia has proceeded slowly, but it is happening. The financial reforms are spreading through the various Vatican agencies, beginning with the Vatican bank and moving through other entities. The Vatican budgetary process has been tightened up, and various offices have been consolidated. This is all for the good of the church. There is still lots to be done, but it is happening.

More importantly, he is trying to change the culture of the clergy, moving them away from clericalism to a vocation of service. He wants bishops and priests to see themselves as servants of the people of God, not princes. Most important for the protection of his legacy, he has broken with tradition and seized control of the process for appointing cardinals. Rather than simply promoting prelates in traditional cardinalatial sees, he has reached into the college of bishops for cardinals that reflect his priorities and values.

This increases the chances that his successor, elected by these cardinals, will continue his agenda and not roll back the changes that he has made. To my progressive friends who are disappointed that the pope has not changed the church’s position on birth control, celibacy, women priests and gay marriage, I urge you to look at what he has done. It is revolutionary. Let us celebrate and give thanks for Francis. ____________________________________

Holy Week in the Orthodox Christian Church: An Overview A week from today Orthodox Christians throughout the world (commonly recognized as Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, Serbian Orthodox, Antiochian Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox, etc.) will enter into a week that is absolutely set apart from all other weeks of the Church Year; commonly referred to as “Great and Holy Week” in the Orthodox Church, or simply “Holy Week”.

The 40 days of Lent will end and we will “enter into the annual commemoration of Christ’s suffering, death, and Resurrection”, as the late Fr. Alexander Schmemann states.

“Having fulfilled the Forty Days… we ask to see the Holy Week of Thy Passion.” With these words sung on “Lazarus Saturday” — one week before Easter — our entry into Holy Week formally begins.

From Lazarus Saturday, the Orthodox Church then traverses through each day of Holy Week with its commemoration of the events of that “Passion Week” of Jesus Christ’s life on earth. In the Orthodox Church, through the worship services of Holy Week, the worshipper — by the grace of the Holy Spirit — truly “enters into” Christ’s “Triumphal Entry” into Jerusalem (Palm Sunday), His subsequent betrayal, suffering, crucifixion, descent into Hades, and of course His glorious Resurrection.

This “entering into” of Holy Week cannot be adequately explained in words. Just like a life lived “in Christ” can never be fully articulated by a Christian, so too Holy Week worship can only be understood through experience.

There are special services every day of Holy Week which are fulfilled in all Orthodox churches; each with its own particular theme.

(Note: most of the services of Holy Week are “sung” in anticipation. That is, the services are rotated ahead 12 hours. The evening service, therefore, is actually the service of the next morning, while the morning services of Holy

Thursday and Holy Saturday.

On Holy Thursday we turn to the last events of our Lord and His Passion. Thursday morning begins with a Divine Liturgy commemorating the “Mystical Supper” — the “Last Supper” at which the Lord instituted the Holy Eucharist. Thursday evening begins the services of Great and Holy Friday. The service of the Twelve Passion Gospels commemorates the deeply profound and solemn time of our Lord’s Crucifixion. The Holy Cross with the icon of the Crucified Christ is carried around the church in procession and placed in the center of the church.

On Holy Friday morning we celebrate the “Royal Hours.” At this solemn service we read various accounts and hymns concerning the crucifixion. In the afternoon we celebrate the Vesper service of the taking down of Christ’s body from the cross; commemorating the removal of Christ’s body from the cross by Joseph of Arimathea. In the evening the beautiful “Lamentations” service is celebrated.

This service begins in a solemn manner, but by its end the faithful are joyously anticipating the Resurrection of Christ (remember again, that the Holy Friday evening service is actually the first service of Holy Saturday).

Holy Saturday is a day of hopeful anticipation, a commemoration of Christ’s descent into Hades to free the faithful of the Old Covenant. The morning Liturgy commemorates Christ’s victory over death. Laurel leaves – a sign of victory in the ancient world — are strewn throughout the church during the service, while the people chant “Arise O God; Judge the earth, for You shall inherit all the Gentiles.” The Old Testament story of Jonah three days in the belly of the whale is read at this service because Jonah is seen in the Church as a Type of Christ Who was three days in the tomb.

Finally, this amazing week culminates with our commemoration of the Holy and Glorious Resurrection of the Lord and Savior

Jesus Christ. The celebration of Easter Sunday — the “Holy Pascha” as it is referred to in the Orthodox Church — begins just before midnight Saturday evening. Precisely at midnight, with all lights in the church off, the Light of Christ’s Resurrection “breaks through” when the priest takes the vigil light from the Holy Altar Table and gives it to the faithful, while singing: “Come receive the light, that is never overtaken by night, and glorify Christ, Who is risen from the dead.”

From there the people process out of the church building, where the Gospel account of the empty tomb is read; verses from Psalm 68 are sung — “Let God arise, let his enemies be scattered; let those who hate him flee from before his face!”; and the famous Paschal hymn is joyously chanted by all: “Christ is risen from the dead, by death trampling down upon death, and to those in the tombs He has granted life.” In this way the Church announces

to the entire world the glorious news of the Resurrection. The Festal Midnight Liturgy of Easter is celebrated and the faithful partake of the Eucharist in the “Light of the Resurrection.”

The spiritual striving of the Lenten season and the blessed travel through Holy Week has been accomplished, and thus the Joy of the Resurrection is inexplicably palpable for all who have participated in this grace-filled journey. In the words of Fr. Andrew Domotses, the services of Holy Week have transformed us “into eyewitnesses and direct participants in the awesome events of the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.”

The worship experience of Holy Week and Pascha is so deeply profound for an Orthodox Christian, and thus it is our genuine desire to share this experience with all who might be so inclined to “Come and see!” ____________________________________

Iraqi Christians celebrate Palm Sunday near Mosul for the rst time in three years

Hundreds of Christians flocked to the Iraqi town of Qaraqosh on Sunday to celebrate Palm Sunday for the first time in three years, packing into a church torched by Islamic State to take communion at its ruined altar.

In October, Iraqi forces expelled the Sunni Muslim militants from Qaraqosh as part of a campaign to retake nearby Mosul, the country’s second-largest city seized by the group in June 2014.

Iraq’s biggest Christian settlement until the militants arrived, Qaraqosh has been a ghost town as most residents are still too afraid to come back with the battle for Mosul, located 20 kilometres away, still raging.

But on Sunday church bells rang again across the town.

Hundreds arrived in cars from Erbil, the main city in autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan where

most Christian had fled when Islamic State gave them an ultimatum to pay special taxes, convert or die.

“We need reconciliation,” Syriac Catholic Archbishop of Mosul Butrus Moshe told worshippers in the Immaculate Conception Church guarded by army jeeps.

Islamic State has targeted minority communities in both Iraq and Syria, setting churches on fire.

Scribbled “Islamic State” slogans could be still seen on the church’s walls while torn-up prayer books littered the floor.

Escorted by soldiers carrying rifles, the congregation then walked through Qaraqosh for Palm Sunday, the start of Holy Week that culminates on Easter Sunday, holding up a banner saying “In times of war we bring peace.”

Christianity in northern Iraq dates back to

the first century AD. The number of Christians fell sharply during the violence which followed the 2003 overthrow of Saddam Hussein, and the Islamic State takeover of Mosul purged the city of Christians for the first time in two millennia.

“Almost 75 percent of houses were burnt so if people return where can they live?” said Aziz Yashou, a worshipper. “We call for an international protection in order to live here.” ____________________________________

Religious education teaching that 'Christianity is superior' The government is being accused of breaching the Bill of Rights Act with religious instruction in schools.

The Secular Education Network has filed a case with the Human Rights Review Tribunal, saying the Education Act allows religious favoritism in state schools, which it says is prohibited under the Bill of Rights.

Its spokesman, David Hines, a retired journalist and lay preacher, said Section 78 of the Education Act allowed a school to hold religious instruction for up to an hour a week or 20 hours a year.

But he believed all religions should be taught in an academic way - the Christian religion should not be given preferential treatment - and the impact could be damaging for other people.

"It's a spit in the face for every other religion, it is saying that Christianity is superior," he complained.

"It is telling the Jews that the Bible is a

Christian book when the Jews have substantially the same book but put a different interpretation on it.

"It is a put down for atheists because it says you have got to believe in God to live a good life."

David Hines has gathered 26 witnesses for his case, including 13 parents who said their children were mistreated.

One of them is Tanya Jacob, who had to pull her children out of their school in Christchurch.

"We knew there were going to be these bible classes so we thought we would just opt out," she said.

"Over time we found that our kids were being put back in (to the class) and we found they were being told they were going to Hell.

"They were also being badgered for not believing in God." Joining the case along with Mrs Jacob were leaders from five religions saying their beliefs were misrepresented.

Another witness was Paul Morris, Professor of Religious Studies at Victoria University.

He examined three religious instruction courses used in schools and found defects in all of them.

"They present Christianity from an evangelical perspective," he said.

"The teachers' guides include prayer sessions, thanking God for the Bible, thanking God for the miracles, they do not address students who come from different faith worlds."

The Christian Education Council issued a statement defending its position.

The council, whose expressly stated aim was to equip and inspire children through values-based Christian religious education, said more than 600 schools throughout New Zealand invited in its religious instructors each week.

It said it was the largest provider of religious instruction in the country, and was passionate about its continuation in New

Zealand's state schools.

However, Mr Hines argued that the religious instruction being done by this group was not, strictly speaking, legal.

He said the Bill of Rights Act prohibited state institutions from favouring one religion over another, but the Education Act allowed exactly that.

"Those two laws are in conflict with each other," he said.

"And we are asking the tribunal to make a ruling that the laws are inconsistent, and send a report to parliament saying they should consider changing the law."

Mrs Jacob said she pulled her children out of school for religious instruction that should not have existed, she said.

"It's got nothing to do with normal education," she said.

"If you want your children to be brought up in a faith, then you take them to church or the temple or a mosque.

"That is not for school time. All our kids should be able to go to school without being made to believe in things or be harassed for not believing in things."

The attorney general was not commenting on the upcoming hearing, nor was the Ministry of Justice, except to confirm that a case has been filed.

No date for a hearing has been set but the battle lines have been drawn, with senior lawyers, including a QC, hired for representation.

Laser technology uncovers 1,600-year-old Christian frescoes in Rome's biggest catacomb Deep in a labyrinth of dank tunnels, in the heart of Rome’s oldest and largest catacombs, archaeologists have discovered an exquisite set of 1,600-year-old frescoes painted to commemorate the city’s early Christians.

Experts used the latest laser technology to uncover the centuries of grime which had rendered the frescoes invisible.

The discovery has shed new light on the process by which wealthy Romans shifted away from their pagan beliefs and embraced the new religion of Christ in the fourth century AD. The beautifully rendered, multi-coloured frescoes adorn the ceilings of two crypts which were built for merchants who were part of the complex and highly organized imperial grain trade.

Archaeologists found a series of frescoes which chronicle how grain was transported by ship from around the Mediterranean to the ancient Roman port of Ostia, then transferred to smaller boats which brought it up the Tiber River to warehouses in the centre of the imperial capital. The import and distribution of grain was a state monopoly controlled by high-ranking officials, at a time when every Roman was entitled to a daily bread ration.

The crypts, hacked out of soft volcanic rock, were created for the families of the

imperial functionaries who grew rich on the grain trade and the production of bread.

For centuries, the ceiling frescoes in the Catacombs of St Domitilla were covered in a thick black layer of calcium deposits, algae and smoke from oil lamps.

Laser instruments were used to burn away the dirt and deposits, leaving only the rich colours of the frescoes beneath.

When we started work, you couldn’t see anything it was totally black. Different wavelengths and chromatic selection enabled us to burn away the black disfiguration without touching the colours beneath, said Barbara Mazzei, who was in charge of the project. Until recently, we weren’t able to carry out this sort of restoration. if we had done it manually we would have risked destroying the frescoes.

At the centre of the ceiling fresco is an image of Christ, seated on a throne, with two men either side of him. They are thought to be either St Peter and St Paul or St Nerius and St Achilleus, two Roman soldiers who were martyred for preaching the new faith.

There are scenes from the Old and New Testaments, including Noah and his Ark and the miracle of Jesus. Â feeding of the five thousand with bread and fishes.

The fresco is adorned with peacocks, which in pagan belief were symbols of the afterlife. The crypts were painted around 360AD just a few decades after Christianity had been made legal by Emperor Constantine.

There are also depictions of Christ the Shepherd, with a lamb slung over his shoulders and sheep at his feet. Either side of him are

figures gathering fruit from trees a pagan image that represents the seasons.

Fabrizio Bisconti, superintendent of the Pontifical Commission for Sacred Archaeology, a Vatican department which manages the catacombs, said: Rich Romans were the last to convert to Christianity. They were all pagan until the middle of the fourth century AD. After the fall of the Roman Empire, the catacombs were gradually abandoned and forgotten. They were rediscovered in the 16th century by an amateur archaeologist, Antonio Bosio, who celebrated his find by daubing his name all over the frescoes in thick charcoal writing.

It is a myth that Christians buried their dead underground in secrecy, the academics said. The reason they dug catacombs was to accommodate thousands of dead bodies, while only paying tax on the surface area of the land. In the St Domitilla Catacombs, the Christians dug down to a depth of 100ft.

Corpses were wrapped in simple white sheets and placed in rectangular niches carved into the tunnel walls, with the spaces then closed off with marble slabs.

The newly-restored tombs are among around 70 elaborately decorated crypts scattered around the Catacombs of St Domitilla, which extend for more than 10 miles on four underground levels. Of the 70, only a dozen or so have been restored. There is still a great deal to do. We’re getting there, little by little, said Ms Mazzei.

Pope Francis’ teaching on marriage is not ‘in the Spirit of Christ’: scholar

Pope Francis’ teachings on marriage do not “breathe the Spirit of Christ” since they offer an “accommodation to human weakness,” said one of the world's top Catholic experts on the Church Fathers in an exclusive interview with LifeSiteNews.

Dr. Anna M. Silvas, a professor at the University of New England, said there has been a “fierce war” going on within the Church over the nature of marriage. On one side is the teaching of the Church on the matter as developed by the Fathers of the early Church.

On the other side are those who seek to undermine and change that teaching.

“There's a fierce war that's been going on on this issue for some decades. And currently, Pope Francis thinks he's winning. But he's not doing things in the Spirit of Christ. Whatever it is, it does not breathe the Spirit of Christ,” she said.

Silvas said that Catholics seeking to be faithful to the Church must “cleave” to Christ more than ever.

“And we have to center on Him absolutely. Popes come and go, but Jesus Christ is the real Lord and Master, and the Bridegroom of the Church, absolutely. The same yesterday, today and forever. Getting a

good, strict purchase on that will be the one remedy, at least in our own pained situations, individually, that we can look for,” she said.

The interview was conducted in Rome last week while Silvas was attending an international conference titled “Bringing Clarity O n e Ye a r a f t e r A m o r i s L a e t i t i a . ” T h e conference examined the problems that have arisen in the Church after Francis’ publication of his exhortation. *** Anna Silvas, your talk gave the impression that you think that everything that is happening is intentional. How can we as Catholics live with a Pope who is doing intentionally bad things?

I did try to not disguise the stark conundrum we find ourselves in, and I don't quite know what the solutions are. The Lord is obviously allowing this to happen for some very good purpose. I think it's the culmination of decades of malaise in the Church. How on earth is the Lord going to purify the Church of

this crisis, I don't know.

But the fact is that the current Pope of Rome is a serious paradox. I don't think, for example, “synodality” or “conciliarism” is any sort of solution to balance the papacy. I do think the papacy itself probably needs to be looked at, but how on earth the Lord will allow this to happen…

There have been other times in the Church when the vast majority of bishops went the way of heresy, or soft-pedaling heresy as in the Arian crisis. The Lord has handled that.

Pope Francis is moving, bit by bit with his choices of cardinals, to get his sort there in the Vatican so that he can retire. He thinks this is the way he can achieve his agenda.

All of that actually makes me glad in a way, because it's obvious that it’s so very much not of the Spirit of God. It's so very much not of the Spirit of Christ. It's paradoxical, but I think it's clear that the Lord Himself is going to bring about something different. ***

That was the gist of your talk: Christ will not abandon His Church.

He will not. And we have to center on Him absolutely. Popes come and go, but Jesus Christ is the real Lord and Master, and the Bridegroom of the Church, absolutely. The same yesterday, today and forever. Getting a good, strict purchase on that will be the one remedy, at least in our own pained situations, individually, that we can look for.

I'm not one of the minimizers of the deep distress of the Church, but it is so varied, in so many different ways. This moral, sacramental crisis is just like a widespread corruption – the cult of modernity. You can think of your own descriptions. We're all thinking and have been thinking for years to try and understand what has brought society, in general, and our Church, in particular, to this point. But how we'll get out of this hole, I don't know, except by definitely cleaving to Our Lord Jesus Christ, with faith. LifeSiteNews: In the Oriental orthodox Churches, there is the “oikonomia,” as you remarked, of remarriage and communion. Has their theology evolved because of this or at the same time as this?

Has it moved away from the true faith?

Definitely! They've abandoned the Greek Fathers! They have abandoned the original tradition of the Fathers of the Church – I refer to their breech with Holy Tradition. In the 3 r d c e n t u r y, t h e r e w e r e p e o p l e l i k e Athanagoras of Athens. The early tradition of the Church was you did not marry a second time after the death of your first spouse.

They've traveled a fair distance since the time of Justinian. It took about 500 years, I'd say, when Rome and civil law began to infiltrate into the practice of the Church and a bad example began to be set for “dynastic reasons,” of course, by the emperors and empresses. And then it filters down … It takes some centuries.

You get some saints, like saint Theodore the Studite, who fought a rearguard action against this devolution in the Church of Constantinople, but they very definitely

abandoned the Greek Fathers. You can still find some very powerful statements from Saint John Chrysostom or Gregory the Theologian, but it’s a fair-seeming theology, beguiling language that actually cloaks a serious abandonment of the Tradition.

People like Kasper and Häring are listening to all this, and they haven't actually done the work on the early Fathers. They're listening to their line, and thinking of course the Russian Orthodox Church must know about the Fathers of the Church. Actually, this is one of the most significant areas where the Catholic Church maintained the Tradition and the Eastern Orthodox didn't. *** Has the notion of sin been changed by this breaking away from tradition in the Russian Orthodox Church?

No, I think they just suspend judgment, mostly. Marriages break down, they don't investigate whether it was valid or not, it's just a sort of accommodation to human weakness, and they call it kindness. Which is more or less what we're hearing from Pope Francis, it's exactly the sort of thing.

Of course, all this has decades of back history in the recent history of the Catholic Church. Kasper fought this one out with the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 1993 – who happened to be Ratzinger. All of this was going on for some years and we're supposed to pretend that none of it happened.

There's a fierce war that's been going on on this issue for some decades. And currently, Pope Francis thinks he's winning. But he's not doing things in the Spirit of Christ. Whatever it is, it does not breathe the Spirit of Christ, so I think the Lord will paint something else.

I'll finish with this; I read this wonderful little saying from a Russian saint, a monk, the Elder Paisos. He said something like this: “The things I see going on around me would drive me insane if I did not remember that the Lord will have the last word.”

Being a female Christian in tech places you in the double minority.

Imagine an app whose users pray through their contact lists with the goal of collectively praying for the whole world.

Christian developers like Lori Hill teamed up to create Ceaseless, which invites people to “pray for three friends each day and together we can pray for everyone on earth.” Hill plugged away at the program during Code for the Kingdom’s global hackathon in October. The event brings together Christian coders, designers, and entrepreneurs for an intensive weekend of collaboration.

Over the past couple years, Hill’s work on Ceaseless allowed her to prove her tech chops after two decades as a stayat-home mom and to get the experience to land a job as an iOS developer. Working for NBC, where she makes apps for the Today Show, NBC News, and NBC Nightly News, Hill said the biggest barrier for working moms is getting employers to trust their skills.

“You could say that the barrier is that the technology changes, but really, I learned the new technology,” the Seattlebased developer said. “The barrier was that companies just don’t have the mindset that there is this pool of people that would be fantastic employees, that they don’t even think of it. It’s not even on their radar.”

It’s no secret that women are a minority in the tech industry; Christian women in tech make up an even narrower demographic. According to the National Center for Information and Technology, women make up just 25 percent of the tech workforce. By 2020, just three percent of the 1.4 million computing jobs will be occupied by women.

The industry doesn’t only need more women, it needs more women like Hill. Hackathons like the ones put on by Code for the Kingdom reveal how women dream up unique, functional ideas that men might overlook.

Chris Windsor, a full-stack developer, pitched a grocery story app. AisleQ is evangelistic and incredibly practical. It organizes a person’s grocery store list to match the aisles in an actual store. As a bonus, users get to read contemporary testimonies of Jesus’ miracles and healings.

By helping women in tech, churches and Christian groups play a key role in unleashing talent—using the gifts of the whole kingdom—for the sake of the gospel.

“If churches had hack days and the women developers were

Kate Tracy

Imagine an app whose users pray through their contact lists with the goal of collectively praying for the whole world. Christian developers like Lori Hill teamed up to create Ceaseless, which invites people to “pray for three friends each day and together we can pray for everyone on earth.” Hill plugged away at the program during Code for the Kingdom’s global hackathon in October. The event brings together Christian coders, designers, and entrepreneurs for an intensive weekend of collaboration.

Over the past couple years, Hill’s work on Ceaseless allowed her to prove her tech chops after two decades as a stay-at-home mom and to get the experience to land a job as an iOS developer. Working for NBC, where she makes apps for the Today Show, NBC News, and NBC Nightly News, Hill said the biggest barrier for working moms is getting employers to trust their skills.

“You could say that the barrier is that the technology changes, but really, I learned the new technology,” the Seattle-based developer said. “The barrier was that companies just don’t have the mindset that there is this pool of people that would be fantastic employees, that they don’t even think of it. It’s not even on their radar.”

It’s no secret that women are a minority in the tech industry; Christian women in tech make up an even narrower demographic.

According to the National Center for Information and Technology, women make up just 25 percent of the tech workforce. By 2020, just three percent of the 1.4 million computing jobs will be occupied by women.

The industry doesn’t only need more women, it needs more women like Hill. Hackathons like the ones put on by Code for the Kingdom reveal how women dream up unique, functional ideas that men might overlook.

Chris Windsor, a full-stack developer, pitched a grocery story app. AisleQ is evangelistic and incredibly practical. It organizes a person’s grocery store list to match the aisles in an actual store. As a bonus, users get to read contemporary testimonies of Jesus’ miracles and healings.

By helping women in tech, churches and Christian groups play a key role in unleashing talent—using the gifts of the whole kingdom—for the sake of the gospel.

“If churches had hack days and the women developers were involved, they could work on side projects for the kingdom,” Windsor said. “It’s a win-win because they keep their skills up-to-date and they’re helping advance the kingdom using their talents.”

Women involved with Code for the Kingdom see the unique contribution of their leadership. Women bring a creative and relational component to technology and development work. They’re helping dream up technological solutions for mentoring, dating, sex trafficking, and the Syrian refugee crisis. Women in the industry see themselves as focused on getting tech out of the code and into the real world.

“The church as a whole needs technology more than ever,” said Louann Hunt, emerging technologies manager at the Bible.is lab, which is run by the ministry Faith Comes by Hearing. “Tech is the new way—or one way—that people interact with God, and we need to come to that realization.”

And Code for the Kingdom is the perfect place for women to engage their skills and talents in the tech world; they all affirmed the encouraging, humble atmosphere at the hackathon.

“It’s a safe environment to try things out,” said Hill. “There is way more interesting stuff going on than you find in the corporate world or in church. Where church and tech meet, there are interesting things going on.”

Despite the exciting projects in the works, barriers still exist. The lack of representation among women perpetuates stereotypes. “People assume that women in tech must be in two extremes: They are either not technical and they don’t understand anything, or they are programming rock stars,” said Justyna Zarna, an organizer for the Code for the Kingdom hackathon in Poland.

At the Denver hackathon, there were two female participants in a group of 50. Many of the women at various locations of Code for the Kingdom’s global hackathon spoke of the feeling of isolation in the tech world—Christian or non-Christian—as they are so often outnumbered by men.

Sarah Pierce, a London-based entrepreneur, has watched the tech world overlook budding women for male counterparts. When she first started as an entrepreneur, people would refer her to men for networking, and she sees a subconscious bias in the way no one would ever recommend a woman in their circles.

Still, Pierce, CEO of a new social venture called Sohi World, looks for the upsides. Being surrounded by men forced her to immediately recognize and overcome some common challenges for women in the tech world. Rather than understating her vision and asking for less funding—which limit investment opportunities—she said she has become more bold and confident as an entrepreneur.

“The church is quite female dominated,” she said. “It’s actually quite refreshing to go to a Christian event where there are a lot more men than women.”

Even non-techy women have found communities like Code for the Kingdom’s hackathons to be an excellent space where their ideas for furthering the gospel are not only welcomed, but also brought to fruition.