Marine Le Pen's Verdict, Christians, and the Rise of the Far-right in Europe

What does a corruption verdict for a popular politician in France have to do with evangelical pastors in the U.S.?

Last week, I joined Clarissa Moll on Christianity Today’s news podcast, “The Bulletin,” to discuss the verdict passed on to French politician Marine Le Pen and her party, National Rally.

Though there are particulars in France, Le Pen’s and National Rally’s — or Rassemblement National’s — upward trajectory can be connected to the rise of populist, nationalist, and far-right parties and sentiments across the continent and perhaps even across the Atlantic Ocean.

Right-wing populism has been on the rise in Europe for over 20 years and Le Pen’s popularity is not an isolated occurrence.

They draw on what might be called “transversal topics of concern” that reach, and connect, multiple groups hitherto disconnected: anti-immigrant sentiment, skepticism about liberal democracy and the EU, questions about gender equality, as well as discontent with existing economic systems and climate policies.

This includes Christians. One example was the voice of the Christian Right in protests against governmental policies during the COVID-19 pandemic, which united conservative Christians, left-leaning civil society, and far-right anti-establishment parties.

This networking across different constituencies and countries enhances the influence and reach of populist far-right ideologies like Le Pen’s.

Can Christian Charities Serve Both God and Trump?

The U.S. government and faith-based organizations have worked together since the dawn of the United States. The same Congress that prevented the government from endorsing or becoming too involved in religious activities through the First Amendment also set aside land for churches in the Northwest Territory, later Ohio, in the 1780s. Funds to support recently emancipated people after the Civil War were often channeled through Christian schools and agencies.

In the wake of World War II, faith-based relief organizations worked hand-in-hand with the U.S. government to deliver aid and address hunger, poverty, and displacement around the world. In the early 2000s, the George W. Bush administration created its “faith-based initiatives” program, which made religious social-service providers—including evangelical groups—institutionalized partners of the U.S. government.

But in his second term, President Donald Trump has quickly signaled a drastic shift in this relationship. In executive orders, Trump froze federal grants flowing to religious nonprofits; terminated refugee resettlement programs, most of which are run by religious organizations; and suspended foreign aid pending review. The Trump administration effectively dismantled the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which partners with an array of religious charities and communities.

The administration’s efforts face legal challenges on multiple fronts. A federal judge in Washington ordered a temporarily lift to the funding freeze that halted U.S. foreign aid. Meanwhile, religious groups have challenged the administration’s cuts, arguing that they disproportionately harm vulnerable populations. In separate suits, multiple faith-based organizations have challenged what they say is the unlawful suspension of refugee resettlement programs.

Faith leaders fear that such measures are just the beginning of a larger realignment of the U.S. government’s relationship with religious groups toward an aggressive attitude of brute force and domination.

No Christmas in Italy?

Imagine a December without seasonal decor, special treats, parties with friends, or a nativity. In other words, imagine a December without Christmas.

For many evangelicals in Italy, that is exactly how it should be.

Not celebrating Christmas — nor Easter — is a way to distinguish themselves from a Catholic holiday that they feel has lost any real meaning or focus on Jesus. It is a way, they say, to assert their identity by opposition to the status quo.

According to a 2023 survey by Ipsos (a France-based research center), over two-thirds of Italy’s residents are Christian (68%), with 61% saying they are Catholic, just 4% Protestant, and 3% identifying as “other Christians.” Over a quarter of Italians are non-religious (28%).

Evangelicals in Italy feel that as a small minority, Christian identity has been largely defined not by who they are, but who they are not — not Roman Catholic, not theologically liberal, not culturally secular. “In such a situation, evangelicals feel a need to better assert their identity based on core Gospel essentials rather than on cultural features,” says JD Gilmore, a church planter in Palermo and coordinator of Impatto (Acts 29 in Italy).

That is why Donato Trovarelli says he skips the aperitivi, the Christmas eel, the panettone and other trappings of what is often held up as Christianity’s biggest holiday. The charismatic author of three books says traditions in Italy have nothing to do with “born again” evangelicals. That is why, Trovarelli says evangelicals and Pentecostals like him “drive out of our places of worship all the traditions of the tree, the nativity scene, the figure of Santa Claus, Jesus as a child, and every other popular tradition of any non-Christian nature or religion.”

That Europe May Know

The goal is audacious. But as far as James Davis, founder of the Global Church Network, is concerned, Christians need deadlines. Otherwise, they will never do what they need to do to fulfill the Great Commission.

His group gathered in Zurich, Switzerland, last September with 400 ministry leaders from across Europe who committed to raising up and equipping more than 100,000 new pastors in the next decade. The network plans to establish 39 hubs in Europe, with a goal of 442 more in the years to come, for training church planters, evangelists, and pastors to proclaim the gospel.

“A vision becomes a goal when it has a deadline,” Davis said at the event.

“So many Christian leaders today doubt their beliefs and believe their doubts. It is time for us to doubt our doubts and believe our beliefs. We will claim, climb, and conquer our Mount Everest, the Great Commission.”

Davis has a number of very motivated partners in this project, including the Assemblies of God, the Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee), and the International Pentecostal Holiness Church. The network also counts The Wesleyan Church, the Church of the Nazarene, the Foursquare Church, the Church of God in Christ, and OMF International (formerly Overseas Missionary Fellowship) as members of a broader coalition working to complete the Great Commission in the near future. If it turns out their European goal is a bit beyond reach, they will still undoubtedly do a lot between now and their deadline.

And the Global Church Network is not alone. In Germany, the Bund Freikirchlicher Pfingstgemeinden (Association of Free Church Pentecostals) has announced plans to plant 500 new churches by 2033. The group, celebrating its 150th anniversary in 2024, told CT it is currently planting new congregations at a rate of about seven per year. Raising up new pastors is key to its growth strategy. 

And the Bund Evangelisch-Freikirchlicher Gemeinden in Deutschland (Association of Free Evangelical Churches in Germany) has planted 200 churches in the past decade. It has grown to about 500 congregations with 42,000 members. The Free Evangelicals also have plans to launch 70 new churches by 2030, at a rate of 15 per year, and then start another 200 by 2040. 

“Goal setting is a bit of a thing in Europe,” said Stefan Paas, the J. H. Bavinck Chair for Missiology and Intercultural Theology at the Free University of Amsterdam and the author of Church Planting in the Secular West.

He’s not convinced it’s a good thing for Christian missions, though. In fact, he doesn’t think ambition, verve, and goal setting actually work.

Paas’s research shows that supply-side approaches—the idea that if you plant it, they will come—seem promising and often demonstrate early success, but the results mostly evaporate. While it is widely believed that planting new churches causes growth, he said, that’s not what the evidence shows.

“Yes, newer churches tend to draw in more people and more converts, but they also lose more,” Paas told CT. “There’s a backdoor dynamic where people come into newer churches but then leave.”

He examined the Free Evangelicals’ membership statistics from 2003 to 2017 and found that church plants often correlated with quick growth but then slow decline. 

“It’s one thing to draw people, and another thing to keep them,” he said. 

Evangelicals want immigration reform. Here's why they're unlikely to get it

What do evangelicals in the U.S. want? Immigration reform.

When do they want it? Now.

When will they get it? No time soon, it seems.

According to a recent Lifeway Research poll sponsored by the Evangelical Immigration Table and other evangelical groups, evangelicals desire immigration reform with increasing urgency. Showing a marked increase from prior years, 77 percent of poll respondents say it is important that Congress passes significant new immigration legislation in 2024 — up from 71 percent in 2022 and 68 percent in 2015.

Their opinions are in line with the wider U.S. population, which generally agrees that the current immigration system needs to be reformed. Different political groups, however, rarely agree on what exactly is broken or how to fix it.

Among evangelical leaders, the consensus is that the legislation should be both bipartisan andcomprehensive. That is the golden standard, said Chelsea Sobolik, director of government relations at World Relief — the humanitarian arm of the National Association of Evangelicals, and one of the poll’s sponsors.

Research from political scientists Ruth Melkonian-Hoover and Lyman A. Kellstedt confirms that evangelical clergy and denominational leadership tend to support immigration reform efforts, and have stepped up their involvement to support them, based on biblical principles of “welcoming the stranger.” But a combination of partisanship, presidential voting preferences, and right-wing cultural populist attitudes mean not all evangelicals feel the same, they write. In particular, white evangelical laity historically view the effects of immigration most negatively and favor the most restrictive immigration policies.

From her time working in the nation’s capital, Sobolik knows immigration issues can draw strong passions from different populations and political factions. Nonetheless, she believes in the power of faith to motivate lawmakers to find bipartisan solutions by meeting on common sacred ground.

“Americans of faith want leaders who will work together on immigration and sensible border solutions,” Sobolik said in an interview. “They want pragmatic reforms that offer increased security infrastructure without sacrificing compassion and human dignity.

“In the end, they want a different, more reasonable conversation,” she said.

Sobolik suggested those sensible solutions draw on the principles proposed by the Evangelical Immigration Table, which include: respect for the God-given dignity of every person; protecting the unity of the immediate family; respecting the rule of law; guaranteeing secure national borders; ensuring fairness to taxpayers; and establishing a path toward legal status and/or citizenship for those who qualify and who wish to become permanent residents.

Holy divestments: Evangelicals rejoice at Church of England’s fossil fuel divestment

Sometimes, late at night, when her two boys have gone to bed and Eleanor Getson is doing the dishes at the end of the day, she is hit with an almost crippling fear.

“During the day, I can’t stop scrolling through stories about climate change,” said Getson, a 40-year-old evangelical living in Bradford with her husband and two kids, “glaciers melting, islands of plastic in the Pacific ocean, forest fires wiping out millennia of history.”

Sometimes, Getson says, the concern consumes her, “it’s too much to think about and I get this anxiety about what my children will suffer because of us.”

That’s why Getson was delighted to hear the news that the Anglican church she grew up in made the momentous decision to divest from fossil fuels last month. On June 22, the Church of England’s Church Commissioners and Pensions Board announced their divestments from all oil and gas companies.

Pressure on the Church of England to divest from fossil fuel companies has been building for several years as an increasing number of clergy, bishops, and dioceses have made divestment commitments and called for fossil-free pension schemes.

Among them have been evangelicals bringing their own distinctive arguments and motivations to the campaign.

Belarusian Evangelicals Fear Growing Isolation

Pastor Vitaly Chichmarev doesn’t hesitate to use the word persecution.

“Yes,” he told CT, “the Belarusian church is persecuted.”

Chichmarev, who leads Light of Hope, a Baptist congregation in Minsk, recently spent seven months in prison. He was arrested in front of his teenage daughter in early 2022 for his participation in the massive 2020 protests against the controversial reelection of Belarus’s authoritarian president, Alexander Lukashenko.

He is back serving his congregation in the nation’s capital now. He’s happy to return to church work, be at home with his family, and release an EP of some new music with his rock band AntiVirus. But he hasn’t forgotten the big picture in his country, Belarus. He believes the situation for Christians there is dire.

“We are not able to rent rooms for meetings,” he said. “New churches are not allowed to register. Catholics have had buildings taken away from them. Among the Protestant pastors, some, like me, have been in jail.”

The Norway-based human rights organization Forum 18 agrees. The group has documented a tightening web of restrictions on the free exercise of religion in Belarus. Secret police surveil evangelicals and other religious groups, raid their churches, contrive evictions, and detain religious leaders. Authorities require extensive bureaucratic paperwork to approve church buildings, to allow any meetings outside of church buildings, or to permit foreign visitors, who are frequently denied entry into the country.

These restrictions have grown more serious as Lukashenko has cracked down on every part of civil society that might challenge his control. He has been in power since 1994 and is frequently called a dictator by international observers.

The US government is also “concerned about the constraints on religious freedom in Belarus, as part of the whole-of-society human rights repressions committed by the Lukashenko regime,” according to a spokesperson at the Department of State. US officials, including embassy representative Ruben Harutunian, have met with Belarusian authorities to advocate for more freedom. In particular, the US urged the regime to ease state pressure on clergy for participating in political life in Belarus.

The challenges have deepened because of the international situation. Belarus is sandwiched between Russia, Ukraine, and European Union member states Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland. It has become a close ally of Russia and supports its eastern neighbor in the war with Ukraine. Because of the conflict, Belarusian churches have found themselves cut off from global partners.

This has taken a toll on churches like Chichmarev’s. Light of Hope had around 100 members in 2020. About 45 remain, with more than half of the congregation fleeing to Poland, Georgia, and other countries to avoid military mobilization and escape the ongoing repression.

Article 31 of the Belarusian constitution provides accommodations for church gatherings and the public profession of faith. According to the government, there are 3,563 registered religious institutions in Belarus, representing 174 religious organizations.

Evangelicals, however, account for less than 2 percent of the population. And they are treated as second-class citizens under the law, according to Leonid Mikhovich, president of the Baptist Union in Belarus and rector at Minsk Theological Seminary. Even so, Mikhovich is ambivalent about using the word persecution.

Protect and Accompany: European Evangelicals Organize Against Abuse

When Fabian Beck volunteered to help with the children’s ministry at his small, evangelical church on the outskirts of Hanover, the largest city in the German state of Lower Saxony, he imagined he’d be singing songs, telling Bible stories or doing puppet shows.

He did not expect to be talking about sex.

But, as he prepared to join the team, he came across resources provided by the Federation of Free Evangelical Churches (BFeG) on the subject of violence against children and adolescents in the context of Christian communities like his own.

“Believers have to face the fact that our congregations are not safe just because they are full of Christians,” Beck said, “safe places for kids don’t come naturally and too often, we don’t know what we don’t know.”

Andreas Schlueter, the BFeG’s Federal Secretary for the Young Generation, said the program Beck discovered — known as “Protect and Accompany” — is part a much larger trend among free evangelical churches organizing against abuse, developing programs to face the reality of violence against children and adolescents, and seeking to prevent it from happening in the future.

“On the one hand, free evangelical congregations should be, or become, safe places for children and young people,” he said, but on the other hand, churches have to make intentional choices to make them safe.

In recent years, child sex abuse cases have been extensively reported across multiple Roman Catholic dioceses in Europe. Spurred by these revelations, Catholic initiatives in France and Portugal, Germany and Italy, have aimed at preventing and addressing abuse, with Pope Francis removing the applicability of pontifical secrecy in cases involving the mistreatment of minors or other vulnerable persons in December 2019.

Myriam Letzel, coordinator for the French organization Stop Abus, said that the Catholic Church in France’s groundbreaking investigations (the so-called “Sauvé report”) into clerical abuse not only highlighted the systemic nature of sexual violence, but put evangelicals on notice about dynamics in their churches that might also lead to inappropriate and illegal behavior. Not only that, but broader cultural conversations around #ChurchToo and revelations of widespread abuse among Southern Baptists in the U.S. have led European evangelicals to reckon with the fact their churches are not immune.

“We have to question ourselves on the theological bases which have, in the past, favored inappropriate sexual behavior: A misunderstanding of the relationship between men and women and a distorted relationship to sexuality.”

That is why, in September 2022, the National Council of Evangelicals of France (CNEF) started a listening service called Stop Abus to help its members remain vigilant in the fight against sexual violence. The service includes a commission of ten experts in the fields of social work, psychology, medicine, law, and pastoral care. There is also a team of 35 “listeners,” Letzel said, spread across France who connect with people who call their service. In its first six months, Stop Abus received 15 disclosures that are now being processed.

Letzel said this is just the first step. “What was happening elsewhere served as a warning: We could not pretend that such things did not exist in evangelical protestant churches, and above all we did not want to pretend that they did not exist,” she said, “on the contrary, the mission entrusted to us by Christ obliges us: as Christians we have a duty to be exemplary in our conduct and in our way of caring for the most vulnerable.”

Other evangelical groups in Europe have launched their own efforts too.

What is Christian nationalism? And how has it gone global?

The Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol brought the Christian nationalist movement into sharp focus.

Christian symbols prominently displayed on banners and T-shirts as well as faith-filled messages that fueled the fire that day forced many to consider the role that white Christians’ religiously motivated rage plays in U.S. politics. 

But Christian nationalism exists beyond U.S. borders. It is a global phenomenon. 

In Europe and the Americas, far-right leaders are invoking a heady mix of racialized, religious rhetoric to rally support, upturn elections and threaten the democratic order. From Hungary to Italy, Brazil to Russia, Christian nationalism plays an increasingly critical role in the far right’s growing power and appeal.

The latest edition of ReligionLink provides background on what Christian nationalism is, stories that show how it is influencing politics worldwide and experts to help reporters and readers better understand its heady mix of ideological politics and national identity. 

How migrants are changing Europe's churches

“Each apartment block has its own community, its own dynamics, its own culture,” Ute Paul said as she walked among the Plattenbau — formidable apartments built of prefabricated concrete slabs —  in Gotha West, a working-class suburb of the central German city, Gotha.

Originally constructed as a planned housing development (Neubaugebiet) during the waning years of the socialist East German Republic, the district is now home to migrants who have made their way from Ukraine and Eritrea, Afghanistan and Romania, Nigeria and Syria. Many of them are relocated to places like Gotha West, where they often end up grouped with their fellow countrymen and forming cliques based on shared language, religion, or background.

On Coburger Place, a centrally located square with shops and a small casino that serves as the neighborhood’s main hangout spot, there is a small storefront with the words, “from dark to light” written across its windows.

The shop is the principle gathering place for the Mustard Seed District Mission (senfkorn.STADTteil Mission). Since 2015, pastor Michael Weinmann and his wife Christiane have been leading Mustard Seed and “experimenting with new forms of community in Gotha-West,” said Paul, who joined the pair along with her husband, Frank, in 2021.

Focusing less on events and more on “relationships, ‘accidental’ encounters, and natural life in the district,” Paul said the mission has little to show in terms of deliverables or church attendance.

Instead, reflecting the challenges and opportunities of migrant mission in Europe, Paul said Mustard Seed has been able to “create a vibrant network of relationships between people of different backgrounds and origins from across the world.”

Along the way, Paul said the Mustard Seed team has had to unlearn a lot of what they thought they knew about mission and adapt to the everyday realities of those God has given them to serve.

Since the unprecedented migratory movements that shook Europe in 2015 and 2016, an increasing number of Christian organizations have had to reshape their institutions and rethink the identity of Christianity from below.

Mustard Seed is just one example of how the movement of asylum seekers, economic migrants, and internally displaced persons has created new commissions and institutions to meet changing facts on the ground across the continent.

Migration to Europe is not a recent phenomenon. But since 2013, some 17.2 million migrants from outside the European Union (EU) have come to Europe, finding their way to places like Germany and Spain, the UK and Italy. As they arrived, they have sparked public discourse around European culture, values, and religious identity.

Amid the debate, churches have played key roles in the process of integration. Beyond offering religious hospitality, a 2018 study from the Churches’ Commission for Migrants in Europe (CCME) found how congregations provide “symbolic resources for positive self-identification and opportunities for interaction with others as well as crucial services.”

The result has been a transformation of the churches themselves.

Creation care jobs signal possible climate shift for churches in the UK

If you were out there looking for a job this summer, you may have come across an eye-catching position at one of London’s largest churches.

Holy Trinity Brompton, or HTB, posted an ad for an “Environmental Project Manager,” to help “oversee the strategy, planning and execution of HTB’s approach to Creation Care.” The individual will work closely with other lead team members to put an “environmental response at the heart of church life,” according to the ad.

HTB, an Anglican church spread across six sites in London with around 3,500-4,500 worshipping every Sunday, is perhaps best known for being the place where the world-famous Alpha evangelistic course originated in the 1970s and 80s.

Jobs like this, at places like HTB, are notable, said Jo Chamberlain, National Environment Policy Officer for the Church of England. Such roles, she said, signal a wider sea change among evangelical churches in the UK — and perhaps elsewhere — realizing the critical importance of creation care and environmental stewardship at the congregational level.

“People are recognizing that we have to get our house in order,” said Chamberlain, “we can’t just talk about taking care of creation without doing the work and changing the way we do things.

Let there be nuclear light?

Christians wrestle with questions about radioactive accidents, technology, and replacing fossil fuels

By the end of 2022, Germany is set to decommission the last of its three nuclear reactors. But for local Christians, debates around nuclear energy will continue to have their own half-life. 

By December, Germany is pulling the plug on its last three nuclear power plants — Isar 2, Emsland, and Neckarwestheim II — as part of the country’s Atomausstieg, or “nuclear power phase out.”

Amidst the shutdown, evangelicals on both sides of the Atlantic are wrestling with the potential risks, rewards, and responsibilities of nuclear power. Discerning whether there is a Christian case for nuclear energy is not as simple as turning on the lights. At issue are questions about nuclear power’s potential to destroy life and poison the earth through toxic waste. 

Robert Kaita, 69, who worked for the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory for 40 years, said, “as human beings created in God’s image, we have tremendous power to create and destroy, to give life and to take it. 

“Nuclear energy isn’t inherently evil,” he said, “but we have to go beyond technical problems and consider the moral ramifications of what we are doing.” 

Indeed, as Germany shuts down its nuclear energy program, it is perhaps ironic that nuclear energy was invented in its capital, Berlin. In what is now the Hahn-Meitner building on the campus of Freie Universität Berlin (FU Berlin), chemists Otto Hahn and Fritz Straßmann utilized Lise Meitner’s theories to discover nuclear fission on December 17, 1938. The splitting of nuclear atoms (fission) not only came to provide the basis for usable energy, but also the explosive force of the atomic bomb. 

Following World War II and the monumental, if monstrous, demonstration of fission’s power, Germany’s nuclear energy program kicked off in the 1950s. Its first power plants followed in the 1960s. Already, German anti-nuclear movements organized resistance to nuclear power’s proliferation. 

Local accidents and international disasters further propelled the anti-nuclear movement in the 1970s and 80s. Between 1975 and 1987 small scale incidents in Germany led to local contamination, radiation emission, and worrisome fires. Then, the Chernobyl accident occurred in 1986 and fears of nuclear fallout became mainstream.  

Located in what is now Ukraine, Chernobyl lies around 775 miles from Germany’s eastern border. When the reactor was destroyed, radioactive waste spewed across swathes of Europe, including Germany. It not only threatened lives, but water and food supplies. Wild mushroom samples in German forests still show signs of Chernobyl’s radioactive contamination signature to this day. 

For Markus Baum, 59, Chernobyl was a decisive crossroads. 

Walking the Road to Zero Emissions with Young Christians in the UK

“The road,” wrote Spanish poet Antonio Machado, “is made by walking.” 

Often adopted as a metaphor for pilgrimage and spiritual journeys, it served as a clarion call for Sarah Moring, 25, a climate activist living in Manchester, England. 

In September 2021, Moring joined the Young Christian Climate Network (YCCN) — an advocacy community of young Christians in the UK aged 18-30 —  on its relay in advance of this year’s United Nations Climate Change Conference, also known as COP26. 

Described as “a key moment in international climate negotiations,” COP26 is being held this November in Glasgow, Scotland. 

Stretching over 750 miles and cutting through Cardiff, London, and Oxford, YCCN urged participants like Moring to join the crusade for climate justice by walking a portion of the route between the end of the G7 meeting in Cornwall on June 13 and COP26’s opening ceremonies starting October 31.

Sins of the fathers: How German evangelicals are confronting antisemitism, past and present

“The Grandchildren, The Dialogue” (Die Enkel, Der Dialog) event was meant to be a chance for the people of Eisenach, a town of 42,000 in the central German state of Thuringia, to reflect on their collective Nazi past. 

Part of a series of events focused on “interreligious and intercultural dialogue,” the event brought together public personalities in Eisenach’s St. George Church to discuss how their families addressed Germany’s antisemitic past and how they could confront it today.

Bodo Ramelow, Minister-President of the Thuringia State Parliament, said his family simply did not talk about it. “I only found out my family’s involvement with National Socialism later, in pieces,” he said.

Worried about this historical neglect, Ramelow said, “we thought antisemitism was gone, but it never really left. We just stopped talking about it and now, it’s back out in the open.” 

Despite the nation’s “Culture of Remembrance” (Erinnerungskultur), antisemitism is still a problem in Germany. The Department of Research and Information on Antisemitism Berlin’s (RIAS Berlin) most recent report recorded a total of 410 anti-Semitic incidents in the first half of 2020.

The most recent prominent attack occurred in 2019 in the eastern city of Halle when a gunman killed two people outside a synagogue during the observance of Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement. 

While some blame far-right politics or Germany’s Muslim community, data shows multiple sectors of society bear responsibility for the rise in antisemitic incidents, including Christians. 

Data such as this has recently forced Christians to reconsider how their communities respond to anti-Semitism, or whether they address it at all.

Although sources say that churches have long sidestepped the issue, many are learning to confront the history of Christian complicity in the greatest sins of the nation’s past and build better Jewish-Christian relationships in the present. 

Come, let us wear face masks in worship: Lockdown measures eased, but Christians struggle with coronavirus restrictions

Franziska König always enjoys getting a note from her pastor. Even so, she never expected to get one like she did last week.

“The message started out normally, asking me how I am doing,” König said, “how I am fairing in these terrible times and so on.”

Then, her pastor told her that their small evangelical church in Berlin was going to reopen after being closed for weeks due to the COVID-19 pandemic. That was good news.

“But it was weird when he said I would have to make ‘reservations’ for my family to have a spot on Sunday,” said König. “That’s certainly never happened before.”

König and her congregation are not alone in navigating a “new normal” for worship gatherings as lockdown limits ease across Germany.

While Germany’s federal government makes plans for tracing infection chains and reopening public facilities, churches across Germany are developing their own plans for how to restart worship with new regulations such as compulsory face masks, the prohibition of physical contact, and restrictions on congregational singing.

Questions about singing, more than anything else, have caused consternation among evangelicals in Germany. Perhaps this comes as no surprise. It was the German reformer Martin Luther, after all, who said that “next to the Word of God, music deserves the highest praise.”

However, Lothar Wieler, the head of Germany’s top health research organization—the Robert Koch Institute (RKI)—strongly advised against communal singing of any kind while there are still fears about the spread of the coronavirus. Wieler explained in the official biweekly COVID-19 press conference that “evidence shows that during singing, the virus drops appear to fly particularly far.”

Some even say that singing is a “super-spreader.”

O For a Global Tongue to Sing: Why German Evangelicals Are Praising God in English

English is the first thing you notice at Hillsong Berlin. The church was meeting at the Kino in der Kulturbrauerei—a movie theater in a historic brewery, just one tram stop from the last standing section of the Berlin Wall—but on Sunday night the sign out front said, “Welcome Home.” A smiling cadre of young, fashionable, and diverse volunteers from around the world greeted people in accented English.

Inside, the entire service is in English, including the sermon and all the worship songs. Participants sing “Wake,” “What a Beautiful Name,” and “King of Kings.” Most international Hillsong churches translate their services from the local language into English. In Berlin, there is no translation. The service is just in English. That isn’t Hannah Fischer’s first language, but that’s part of why she comes to Hillsong Berlin.

“People from outside Germany can’t really understand how awkward it is to be Christian here,” she said. “I could never praise God like that in my language.”

Five hundred years ago, Martin Luther insisted that Christians needed to hear the gospel in their own language, in words they could understand. When the Reformation swept Germany, people abandoned Latin worship for German prayers and praise.

Today, however, German Christians like Fischer are turning from their own language to a more global tongue: English. They say the foreign language allows them to loosen their German identity, praise God in an uninhibited way, and connect with a global, cosmopolitan Christianity.

How to Brexit Like a Christian: British Evangelicals Brace for Brexit

British evangelicals are divided over Brexit. The January 31 deadline for the nation’s departure from the European Union is fast approaching, and Thursday’s elections gave the Conservative Party a historic victory and “a powerful new mandate to get Brexit done,” according to Prime Minister Boris Johnson. As evangelicals absorb the news, they are grappling with the political tumult, the ongoing uncertainty, and the question of what a Christian should do in these difficult times.

In my first piece for Christianity Today’s News & Reporting section, I talked to leading experts and everyday evangelicals about prayer, prophecy, and hospitality in the ever-changing scene of British Brexit politics.