Page 1948 – Christianity Today (2024)

When I was 15 years old, my mother picked me up at school to take me to a dental appointment. In the car, I could tell immediately that she wasn't functioning normally—she was headed for another "episode." She drove nervously, struggling to recognize her surroundings. She was silent except when I forced conversation, and when she did speak, her speech was slow and seemed to require deliberation.

It was as if half of her had already shrunk into some unknown place, and the other half was not sure whether to follow or to maintain her grip on the reality of her daughter and a trip to the dentist.

I asked Mom if she had taken her medication that day. Her answer was not straightforward, but it was clear that she was not fully medicated and stable. So with one part of my brain, I prayed for a safe trip to the dentist. With another part, I employed a technique used by many people who feel powerless in the face of an unnamed enemy: I acted as if nothing was wrong.

At the dentist's office, when my name was called, I left my mother in the waiting room and went back for my appointment. After half an hour or so with the dentist, I returned to my mom, who didn't look at me.

"Mom, it's time to go," I said. "I'm finished." I received no response of any kind. Suddenly I realized my instincts had been right: something indeed was wrong with Mom … again. And it was up to me to help her.

I touched her arm and gently tried to shake her back to awareness, with no results. She was rigidly catatonic, immovable, staring into space and clutching her purse in her lap with clenched hands—in a waiting room full of strangers.

After a couple of quiet attempts to rouse her, I began to attract attention. People stared at me as I tried to get her to respond. When she wouldn't move, I realized I needed to call my dad at work for help.

As everyone in the room continued to stare, I walked to the reception desk and asked the woman behind the counter—who was also staring—if I could use the phone.

"No, there's a pay phone around the corner," she said. When I explained that I needed to call my dad for help, I didn't have change for the phone, and it would be a local call, she still refused. So I went back to my mom and wrestled with her rigid arms, pulling them aside enough to get into her purse to find a quarter for the phone. I went back to the receptionist to ask if she could keep an eye on my mom while I went to use the pay phone. She shrunk back in horror: "Is she dangerous?"

After assuring the receptionist that my motionless mother was not about to attack her, I called my dad and then returned to sit next to my mom till he got there. The receptionist and the people in the waiting room took turns staring at my mom, glancing at me, and studying the floor. No one asked if I needed help.

In the years since, that incident has become for me a symbol. The way people in that waiting room responded to my family's public crisis is the way I've seen people—including those in the church—respond to serious mental illness. They didn't know what to do for my mom or anyone associated with her. So they did nothing.

Though I didn't know it at the time, my mother has schizophrenia. As often happens with schizophrenics, she had not been faithfully taking her anti-psychotic drugs and had lost touch with reality. Dad and I took her to the hospital for another of her psychiatric stays and restabilization on medication.

And so continued our family's journey with an illness that in many ways has defined us—and shocked us again and again.

Family crisis

When I was growing up, my mother functioned well enough that her illness was formally unacknowledged and undiagnosed. Then my dad left his position as pastor of a small church, and our family moved from a rural area to a city. Dad was out of a job for months, working temp jobs while he looked for another pastoral position.

The whole family struggled with the adjustments, and for my mother, the stress of this time brought on the full-blown psychosis of schizophrenia, with symptoms that were impossible to ignore. She was hospitalized repeatedly, medicated heavily, and inconsistent in taking her medication.

For families, mental illness presents a crisis, although the degree of crisis varies widely. In cases of serious and chronic illness like schizophrenia, family members develop long-term coping mechanisms that help them but aren't always healthy—"emergency measures" that aren't meant for long-term use. Two of these, for example, are denial and escapist behavior. These can be useful coping mechanisms as people protect themselves from a new and difficult reality. But long-term they are harmful, and they diminish a person's capacity to function.

In addition, families experience confusion when navigating the mental health system, which focuses on stabilization and medication of patients, is reluctant to "label" people with diagnoses, and often refuses to share any information with family members who are then left to guess at how to support their loved ones' treatment and ongoing health.

If the ill person is expected to manage his or her own care and is noncompliant with medications, the family learns to expect the chaotic unexpected with each new day.

Hearing other teenage girls complain about fights with their moms, I wished I could fight with my mom because it seemed so normal.

For children of those with serious mental illness, life is built on a shifting foundation, which may leave them confused about who they are, emotionally starved, alienated from the "normal" world around them, fearful of the risks of their own problems with mental illness and substance abuse.

In the book Growing Up with a Schizophrenic Mother, Margaret J. Brown and Doris Parker Roberts cite a survey in which more than 25 percent of people with schizophrenic mothers reported that they had had problems with alcohol, drugs, or both at some point. Research indicates that anyone with a mentally ill parent has an increased risk of developing mental illness.

This increased risk is due in part to genetic factors and in part to the environment and parent-child relationship that develops under the influence of the parent's illness. Children of schizophrenics have a 13-percent chance of developing schizophrenia themselves, while the risk for the general population is less than one percent.

In my family, we each developed our own ways of coping with my mother's illness. I mentally and emotionally compartmentalized, so that I could be one person at home and another everywhere else. When I wasn't at home, I didn't give much thought to my mother's illness or our family's troubles. And I didn't talk about my family life with anyone—not even my best friend knew about my mother's struggle.

I remember hearing other teenage girls complain about fights with their moms and wishing I could fight with my mom because it seemed so normal and my mom would have to be strong to fight with me. So occasionally I made up a story about a fight with my mom, which never could have happened.

When I was home, I tried desperately to "fix" my mother and to suppress my negative emotions, which I didn't know how to handle. Unfortunately, this had the long-term effect of distancing me from all of my emotions—positive ones as well—which I have since had to painstakingly learn to embrace and which I continue to struggle to express.

Church life

As a pastor, my dad ministered to two congregations. He left the second church before Mom's illness became fully psychotic; however, she did struggle with some symptoms throughout his pastoral ministry. Her ongoing struggle meant that Dad sometimes had to spend more time at home, either to care for her or to care for the rest of the family.

As Dad explains it, "When I took responsibilities of pastoring a church, I wanted them to be aware that my first responsibility was to God, my second responsibility was to my family, and then my third responsibility was to the church." At times his responsibility to his family created "tensions between the church and the family," and members of the congregation were not always understanding about the impact on his ministry to the church.

After leaving the second church, Dad did not serve as a full-time pastor again. He did pulpit supply and served as an interim pastor, but "there was a time when I felt like I could not do it anymore. My time, my energies were needed here at home. I felt the Lord had something more important for me to do." So my family settled into membership in our local church as laypeople.

In general, my parents have felt supported as laypeople in the church because they connected with a few people who have been tremendously encouraging and who have prayed for them and walked with them through ugly times. But most people, including pastors, have kept their distance from both Mom and Dad.

In Dad's experience, most people in the church have been "a little fearful to talk to me or didn't know what to say, or just fearful of mental illness in general. And it was basically just a few people who were comfortable talking with me."

As for my siblings and me, no one ever asked what we might need. It just never came up. My sisters and I were active in the youth group and other church activities; no one ever asked how we were doing or how things were at home.

And since then, in the decades that have followed, I have heard a total of one sermon on depression—nothing else that even mentioned the reality of mental illness.

Several years ago, as I was sorting through some of my own baggage and some theological questions related to my mom's illness, I asked a pastor for help with these theological questions, and he was shocked when I brought them up. He was curious about my story, but deeply troubled by my questions, and completely unable to help.

Mental illness is mainstream

While we felt alone at the time my family's crisis first developed, I now know that we were not. In fact, mental disorders are the number-one cause of disability in North America.

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, "26.2 percent of Americans ages 18 and older—about one in four adults—suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder in a given year." That means more than 50 million people.

Serious mental illness is less common, but it is present among 6 percent of the population, or 1 in 17 adults. And antipsychotics are now the top-selling class of drugs in the U.S. If your church is typical of the U.S. population, on any given Sunday 25 percent of the adults in your congregation are suffering from some form of mental illness and many are under the influence of antipsychotic drugs.

Leadership Journal recently conducted a survey of 500 churches, using the National Alliance on Mental Illness definition of mental illnesses: "medical conditions that disrupt a person's thinking, feeling, mood, ability to relate to others, and daily functioning" and "often result in a diminished capacity for coping with the ordinary demands of life."

In this survey, 98 percent of respondents indicated they'd seen mental illnesses or disorders in their congregations.

The mentally ill might feel as if they are on the margins of society, but they're actually in the mainstream. And with the drugs available today—and future improvements to come—mental illnesses can be treated and managed effectively for most people. And yet our Leadership Journal survey also found that only 12.5 percent of respondents said that mental illness is discussed openly and in a healthy way in their church. Fifty percent said mental illness is mentioned in their church's sermons only 1 to 3 times per year; 20 percent said it is never mentioned.

Persistent stigma

It should be no surprise that people in the church aren't sure how to respond to the mentally ill. We live in a society that is still deeply confused about mental illness. Have you ever paid attention to the way the mentally ill are portrayed in popular media?

While some, especially more recent, works treat mental illness with honesty and sensitivity, most popular media treat the mentally ill as either frightening or funny or both. For people with loved ones who suffer from ongoing serious mental illness, such portrayals are hard to ignore. Most people don't give it a second thought, but try watching movies like Psycho, Strange Brew, Crazy People, The Shining, Misery, or Fatal Attraction through the eyes of someone who struggles with mental illness.

Or turn on the TV this week. On any given evening, you should be able to find at least one show that either reinforces terror of the mentally ill, or makes light of their illness for a cheap laugh. Even amusem*nt parks use mental illness to entertain and terrify, with rides like "Psycho Mouse," "Psycho House," "Psycho Drome," "Dr. D. Mented's Asylum for the Criminally Insane," "The Edge of Madness: Still Crazy," and "Psycho Path."

And in everyday conversation, it's common to stigmatize the mentally ill by casually calling people "crazy" and "psycho." The mentally ill are widely believed to be more violent than the general population, even though studies have shown that this is not true. No wonder people in the church—and outside the church—have no idea how to relate to a real person who acknowledges or displays a mental illness.

In addition, other factors contribute to the stigmatization of mental illness in the church.

• Social discomfort—the church is a community drawn together in love by a common Spirit. But made up of imperfect and sinful people, that community often feels fragile and sustains itself by polite behavior and exaggerated piety.

In such an environment, mentally ill people can upset the balance and intimidate the rest of the community because their behavior can be unpredictable and socially unacceptable. And while people might show patience with a short-term difficulty, the prospect of ongoing interaction with someone suffering from a chronic mental illness may be more than most people are willing to endure.

You can make your church a relevant, accepting place for those who struggle with mental health, or who have a loved one who is mentally ill, by talking about it.

Pastors too can be put off by the ongoing nature of a chronic illness: "Sometimes clergy distance themselves from people with mental illness because they realize the problem can be long term. To become involved with this person may mean a lengthy commitment. Perhaps this person will never be cured. Such a problem is contrary to contemporary Western ideas of being in control of one's life and destiny. People in modern day America expect to find a rational solution to any problem. And yet, in this case, there may be no solution. It is tempting, if an answer is not apparent, to avoid the person for whom one has no answers" (www.pathways2promise.org/family/pastorandperson.htm).

• Referral for treatment and care—the increased professionalization of psychiatry and counseling reinforces pastors' feelings of inadequacy to help the mentally ill and their families. Pastors and others often refer those struggling with mental health to professionals inside or outside the church, and then assume that the person's needs are met. But the need for care remains, even if ill people are being treated by professionals.

We're tempted to see mental illness as something we're not qualified to deal with, so we ignore it. But when someone is struggling with a different type of physical illness, the church doesn't ignore the people who are suffering, even though they may be under a doctor's care. The mentally ill and their families still need pastoral care and the love of a Christian community.

• Theological challenges—seeing people suffer with mental illness brings up troubling theological questions many people would rather avoid …

• Suffering—how can a good God allow people to endure the kind of suffering mental illness can produce? How can his followers suffer psychological terror, anguish, and despair?
• Accountability—can mentally ill people be held accountable for their choices? Are they responsible for their sin if they are delusional or under compulsion? How lucid is lucid enough to be responsible? And how can God hold mentally ill people accountable for their spiritual choices?
• Demon possession—is mental illness caused by demon-possession? If so, how should it be handled in the church? If not, what role does the person's spiritual condition play in his or her mental health?
• Punishment—is mental illness God's punishment for sin? Is it a sign that God's judgment has fallen on the suffering person? And if so, how should the church respond?

Such questions are troubling, especially in the face of illnesses, like schizophrenia, which are at least largely caused by biological conditions/tendencies present at birth. Such realities are not inconsistent with Christian theology—all creation is groaning under the weight of sin—but can present a great test of faith.

Leaders who feel uncomfortable with raising questions they can't easily answer are unlikely to bring them up. And yet people in every congregation must face these questions—with or without the church's guidance. Perhaps if our theology is too small to allow us to wrestle with them, we need to repent for our lack of faith.

• Overspiritualization—for some Christians, every problem and every solution is spiritual. In this environment, mental illness is evidence of a lack of faith. Medical and psychiatric interventions are suspect. When "just have faith and pray more" doesn't work, they turn away, and the mentally ill are shamed and alienated even further.

What we can do

So as a church leader, if you want to help your church be more faithful and effective in ministering to those with mental illness, what can you do? How can churches help, besides referring people to the professionals? Several ways:

• De-stigmatize. Make a determined effort to rid your church of the stigma and shame associated with mental illness. Talk about it. Acknowledge the struggles of people you've known, and your own struggle if applicable. Contact some local organizations to see how churches can better support the mentally ill. And if necessary, repent privately or even publicly for the way your church has handled mental illness.

• Talk publicly about mental illness. When was the last time you mentioned mental illness in a sermon or class? Have you discussed the tough theological questions that mental illness can raise? Is your church a community of imperfect people growing in relationship with a God who is not confused or threatened by our imperfection? Or does your church inadvertently send the message that it's a place only for the mentally healthy? You can make your church a relevant, accepting place for those who struggle with their mental health by talking openly about it. One note of caution: no "crazy" or "psycho" jokes. Making light of mental illness alienates those who suffer and reinforces the stigma and shame associated with mental illness.

• Encourage relationships and ask questions. I asked my parents what the church has done right in ministering to them. They both focused on the open and genuine relationships they have had. Small groups have been lifelines for them, especially when they have been able to talk openly about their struggles, mention their therapeutic work, and relate their experiences to the Bible.

They also mentioned how helpful it is when curious people ask questions, learning about their experiences and seeking common ground. Questions like "what it's like to be on medication?" or "what's it like to attend group therapy?" might seem intrusive, but for my mom, they open the door to genuine conversation and provide relief from feelings of isolation. Because these are her everyday experiences, they are easy for her to talk about if someone shows interest.

Genuine and mutual relationships are irreplaceable. Encourage the ministry of honest relationships in your church so that when mental health struggles and crises arise, those who are suffering have friends to walk through the suffering with them.

• Ask what you can do to help. Pretty simple stuff, even cliché, but this takes courage with someone suffering with mental illness. You must be willing to actually help if the individual or family expresses a specific need. People in crisis don't always know what they need, but sometimes they do and they feel as if no one is available or willing. You may not be a mental health professional, but you can help—organize meal delivery, visit someone in a psychiatric hospital, provide a ride or child care. Be especially attentive to the people who are caring for or living with a mentally ill person. They may be better able to communicate what's really going on and what they need, and like anyone who loves and cares for the suffering, they are suffering themselves.

• Be present. This sounds simple, but it's powerful. When an individual is struggling with mental illness, and when the person's family is in crisis, the earth can feel as if it has come loose from its proper orbit. They need something stable in order to help them keep their faith. A pastor who refuses to abandon a family in crisis powerfully demonstrates that God has not abandoned them either. Make yourself consistently available, even if it's not clear what else you can do to help.

• Radiate acceptance. Refuse to reject the person or family in crisis. Be the person who represents Christ's tenacious and bold love, refusing to be driven away by what you don't understand. Don't ignore them because you've given them a referral to a mental health professional. Like others in crisis, people affected by mental illness need to know that you care.

Try to treat them as you would a person who suffers from arthritis or diabetes. Ask questions: Are you managing your illness? Caring for yourself? Is the family healthy? A diagnosis or hospitalization doesn't change who a person is; it just changes your understanding of what someone needs.

• Draw boundaries and stick to them. Just because someone is mentally ill, you do not need to suspend standards of morality, biblical theology, or respectful behavior in your church community. Overlooking inappropriate behavior or beliefs is destructive to your congregation, and it does no favors for the mentally ill.

Regardless of how they respond to social expectations, mentally ill people do need structure and boundaries to grow in independence, understanding, and management of their illness. They need healthy people around them to give them objective feedback and an example of mental health. Help them pursue and maintain health by insisting on a healthy community around them. Communicate agreed-upon expectations openly and lovingly, and hold to them consistently.

• Know when you are in over your head. Sometimes you need to call in a professional to either handle an immediate crisis or provide long-term care. If you suspect a person in your congregation is struggling with mental illness, refer him or her to a professional counselor or psychiatrist.

Compile and keep a list of trusted professionals and their specialties: from depression to eating disorders to bipolar and schizophrenia. You'll have a relevant referral at your fingertips when someone in your church needs it.

And obviously if someone in your church is in danger or is endangering another person, call 911. This is not a situation for you or your congregation to handle; it's a situation for the police. Once everyone is safe, you can move to referrals and pastoral care as appropriate.

• Get help if you're struggling. If you or a member of your family is struggling with your mental health, seek professional help. You cannot effectively minister to a congregation without addressing your own needs. And your first ministry is to the family God has entrusted to your care.

Your suffering or your family member's suffering is not cause for shame. Seek answers to your theological questions. Facing a mental illness doesn't have to destroy your faith. On the contrary, it's more evidence of biblical truth: our world is fallen, and the creation groans under the weight of our sin.

Redemption

I don't know exactly where we get our ideas about the mentally ill or why we tend to simultaneously laugh at them and believe they're all dangerous criminals. I don't know why we believe mental illness is so much rarer than it is, or why we have such a hard time accepting the presence of psychosis in a world pervasively poisoned by sin.

I do know, though, that the mentally ill get a bad rap. And the people who love and care for those with mental illness often feel a shame they can't explain and a terrible burden to keep secret what they most need to share. This doesn't stop at the doors of the church.

I'll be among the first to acknowledge that what an illness like schizophrenia does to a person is not pretty. It's an ugly and heartbreaking reality, and my mother's illness has presented the single greatest test to my personal faith.

So I'm not trying to minimize the confusion and revulsion we can feel when dealing with someone whose brain is giving them a skewed picture of reality. But like any suffering person, the mentally ill should find solace and acceptance, love and redemption, in the church.

By God's grace (and I'm not using that term flippantly) and for his glory, my siblings and I are all healthy, productive, and living in relationship with Christ. Mom is currently managing her illness and benefitting from the advances made in the latest generation of antipsychotic drugs.

I'm proud of her determination to enjoy life and pursue health despite her struggles. I'm also proud of her enduring commitment to Christ. And Dad continues to live as a paragon of faithfulness, both to his God and to the woman he committed himself to nearly 50 years ago.

I've been inspired by his passionate pursuit of ministry in Jesus' name, whether in or out of the pulpit. God's redemptive work has used our family's pain to keep my dad's heart soft and ready to serve, and God uses him in a loving ministry toward people who cross his path.

May God's same redemptive work cause the struggles of people in your church to blossom into loving ministry toward the suffering.

Amy Simpson is editor of Christianity Today's Gifted for Leadership and the author of Troubled Minds: Mental Illness and the Church's Mission (InterVarsity Press, 2013).

Copyright © 2011 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

Islam

60 Monthly conversions in Pakistan from Christianity to Islam. Most are in response to the country’s blasphemy law.

Source: AsiaNews.it

Persecution

3/4 Religious persecution in the world that is directed at Christians.

2/3 Among countries where Christians are persecuted, those where persecution is getting worse.

Source: Aid to the Church in Need via National Review Online

Megachurch

4,000 Attendance at the 100th largest church in America in 2000.

8,000 Attendance at the 100th largest church in America in 2010.

Source: Church Growth Today

Copyright © 2011 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

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See our earlier Go Figure postings from February 2011, January 2011, December 2010, November 2010, October 2010, September 2010, August 2010, July 2010,June 2010, May 2010, April 2010, March 2010, February 2010, January 2010,December 2009, and earlier issues.

Microfinance may be falling victim to its own success. Since starting in the 1970s, microfinance—the practice of providing financial services, particularly small loans, to the world's poorest—has grown rapidly worldwide.

Today, experts estimate there are 665 million client accounts at more than 3,000 financial institutions. About 188 million of these accounts are in India, while 27 million accounts are in Africa. Microfinance organizations are likewise diverse, from the multibillion-dollar Grameen Bank of Bangladesh to Christian groups such as Opportunity International, based near Chicago, and Kiva.org, which matches lenders and borrowers with loans that average $382. Microlending, savings, and insurance programs have been the darling of overseas poverty-fighting agencies.

Now scandals threaten to tarnish the reputation of these programs across the board. In Andhra Pradesh, a southeastern Indian coastal state, officials say 85 borrowers killed themselves because they could not repay high-interest loans. Some of these borrowers were pressured and harassed by collection agents.

In addition, some microfinance founders are suspected of exploiting the poor for quick profit. Last year, SKS Microfinance Ltd., also based in India, raised $350 million by becoming a for-profit, publicly traded corporation. The move made a few SKS executives and early investors very wealthy, which critics say undermines the poverty-fighting purpose of such programs.

The microfinance industry has attracted larger institutions interested in a quick buck, says Susy Cheston, senior director at World Vision, which operates Vision Fund with more than 600,000 borrowers in 40 countries. Vision Fund mostly operates through non-governmental organizations, not deposit-taking micro-banks. Cheston says, "In India, [microfinance is] growing too much too fast, with new providers coming in who [are] interested only in profits."

Meanwhile, Nigerian officials say Africa's microfinance organizations face both high loan-default rates and corrupt officials who exploit lending for personal benefit.

The reputation of the industry has declined so badly that Muhammad Yunus, who received the Nobel Peace Prize for founding Grameen Bank, wrote recently in The New York Times, "I never imagined that one day microcredit would give rise to its own breed of loan sharks."

Beyond Borrowing

While not directly tainted by these practices, Christian microfinance leaders say they are responding to the scandals by keeping the needs of clients topmost. This means doing more than lending money to the poor. It also means reaffirming the spiritual dimension as essential for addressing greed, corruption, and exploitation.

"When I came into the industry in 1992," says Dennis Ripley, a senior vice president at Opportunity International, "the early institutions were about providing loans to build the businesses of the poor," not making quick profits off the poor.

After graduating from seminary, Ripley believed his call was to help the church help the poor rather than serve as a full-time pastor. Eventually he joined Opportunity, which was among the first organizations to operate chartered banks to meet the needs of poor people, especially women in small business.

Opportunity made heavy investments in Eastern Europe after the fall of the Soviet Union. It soon learned that many people valued a safe place to put their money more than a loan. "If you offer people a loan versus a savings account, 70 percent prefer a safe place to save their money," Ripley says. Opportunity is now one of the oldest and largest industry players, with 1.4 million loans outstanding and more than half a million savings accounts at the end of 2009.

The mission shift toward savings also has required lending organizations to become regulated banks. Banks that hold savings deposits cannot become dependent on wealthy donors to fund their day-to-day operations and still meet the legal requirements to protect the money of their depositors.

The drive to better serve the poor had unintended consequences. It became clear that lenders could earn significant profits by providing loans, savings accounts, and related services with almost no competition. Ripley recalls that when Opportunity started providing these services, multinational corporations approached its leaders to learn how to tap into the so-called "fortune at the bottom of the pyramid."

The Transformation Lens

Today, microenterprise leaders are more likely to have an MBA than a divinity degree. Jeffrey Lee is an example.

Lee, chief executive of Urwego Opportunity Bank in Rwanda since early 2009, worked for 30 years in retail and commercial banking in the United States and South Korea. Nine years ago, Lee promised God that he would tithe one-tenth of his life to Christian work.

Lee contacted Sammy Mah, until recently head of World Relief, to express his willingness to serve with the evangelical agency. Mah told him about a joint venture that World Relief, Hope International, and Opportunity International were starting in Kigali, Rwanda, named Urwego (meaning "a ladder up" in the local Kinyarwanda language).

Just when Lee was ready to relocate to Rwanda and take on leadership at Urwego, it looked as though he would not be needed; other leaders were already in place. But Opportunity arranged for Lee to visit the country for a few days. "I arrived, and the Lord prepared me. I saw the opportunity of serving the least of these brethren and using financial services," Lee says. By the end of 2009, the bank had more than 30,000 clients with an average savings balance of $60.

Around the time Lee stepped into leadership at Urwego, Opportunity was making public a detailed explanation of its ministry model. Called the Transformation Lens, the organization's 2008 white paper describes seven aspects of transformation:

• Dignity: Recognizing a person's respect and unique value.
• Authority: Empowering a person's informed choice within the moral will of God.
• Security: Reducing fear, threats, or violence, while increasing economic and spiritual security.
• Adequate provision: Helping provide access to necessities of life for families.
• Purpose, hope, and meaning: Developing a person's potential and his hopeful attitude.
• Freedom and appropriate boundaries: Enhancing human rights and God-given freedoms.
• Authentic relationships and love: Building stronger relationships within families, communities, and markets.

Urwego's goal is for every program or product to fulfill at least three of the seven aspects of transformation. (Many programs address all seven, but three are necessary to move an idea forward.)

Last year, Lee and the Urwego staff dreamed of launching a new initiative: to supply $1,800 loans for motorcycle taxis that a borrower could pay off in one year. The program debuted in March 2011, and the bank is gearing up to make up to 25 motorcycle loans per week.

Meanwhile, Lee has his eye on obtaining a $200,000 grant from a United Nations agency to set up mobile phone banking for small-scale farmers in hard-to-reach areas.

Heart of the Mission

Given the move toward banking, faith-based microfinance groups face a challenge: how to be a for-profit bank while keeping the heart of a Christian organization.

Some don't see the for-profit status as an issue. At Urwego, the bank's shareholders (Opportunity International, Hope International, World Relief, and World Relief-Canada) share basic goals. Peter Greer, chief executive of Hope International, says, "NGO or for-profit, I don't think that's the key issue. The bigger issue is not the format but the focus."

Mark Russell, author of The Missional Entrepreneur and editor of Our Souls at Work, also consults for microfinance organizations. "They have a high degree of intentionality," he says of microfinance groups that are faith-based. "They are able to have a tremendous effect in their clients' lives."

'If we limit what we do to economic transformation, we are no different from secular organizations. So we are intentionally producing social and spiritual transformation.'

One of Urwego's key methods is to forge many ties between personal transformation and economic growth. Urwego creates such ties by supplementing its programs with financial education. A Crown Financial Ministries video on budgeting and related biblical principles is played in the banking halls.

Lee says, "If we limit what we do to economic transformation, we are no different from secular organizations. So we are intentionally producing social and spiritual transformation."

Changing lives works in all directions. "People think that transformation takes place only in the field," Lee says, but he wants bank employees also to be transformed. "Without being transformed," he asks, "how can you be transformative?"

The bank developed a corporate transformation plan, including staff devotions twice a week. It has set up an incentive system that focuses on building quality relationships, not financial transactions or loan volume, that drive short-term profits. "When our leadership team meets, we begin with prayer and end in prayer," says Lee. "And all our client meetings begin and end in prayer."

Bottom-Up Innovation

Hope International likewise supports programs outside formal banking, including 65,000 informal church-based savings groups.

These groups help people save as little as 10 cents a week in a joint account, and provide a small financial cushion for their members. Collecting savings in a local bank account also allows the local economy to put money to use that would otherwise have been stuffed into mattresses or hidden underground. Even small amounts of funds held jointly may be loaned out to local businesses.

"We're equipping people to save money," Greer says. "We're doing it through churches in creative ways, which is producing incredible results." Many of these savings groups touch on other core purposes, such as Bible study or HIV/AIDS care and prevention.

Researchers are conducting long-term studies on the benefits of microfinance programs. Their goal is to uncover how to improve the programs for maximum impact in reducing poverty. Currently most program benefits go directly to individuals. But the potential to reduce poverty at the community level grows as more people participate in the programs.

At the grassroots, World Vision provides complementary services that focus on children. The agency's For Every Child campaign hopes to raise $100 million for 1.7 million loan clients. This would improve the lives of 5.7 million children by improving their nutrition, health care, and education. These improvements occur when World Vision's microfinance programs are linked to its health care, child protection, and agriculture projects.

Opportunity has focused on deeply impoverished rural areas that other microfinance organizations have avoided for being unprofitable. In February 2010, Opportunity received a $16 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the MasterCard Foundation that will allow its banks in Africa to use technology such as cell phone banking to help farmers get the best price as they sell local fruits and vegetables and cash crops such as coffee beans.

Perhaps more importantly, the grant also paves the way to provide financing for farmers. Roughly 65 percent of the labor force in sub-Saharan Africa is engaged in agriculture, yet the continent is a net food importer. The first step in helping African farmers feed Africans is to give them the financial wherewithal to make better use of seed, fertilizer, water, and technology.

Providing credit to farmers is not enough. Africa is a graveyard for such programs. Farmers are a huge risk to banks, because if the rain does not fall, loans go unpaid. Crop insurance can reduce this risk. MicroEnsure, an Opportunity subsidiary, developed an insurance policy for the smallest farmers. Using satellite weather data, the policies automatically pay when the rain fails to reach a certain level.

Critics note that the changes in the industry have opened it up to abuse and ill-gotten profit. Yet those changes have also opened up the possibility of agriculture finance in Africa, which could contribute to ending the continent's famines. Given recent history, the changes will encourage both.

It isn't the potential for profit that caused the microfinance industry's problem, but rather profits wrongly pursued, ministry leaders told Christianity Today. Christian microfinance institutions have operated nonprofit lending organizations as well as full-scale, regulated banks—all while serving some of the poorest people on earth.

For Christian microfinance institutions, then, the goal is to stay on mission.

Rob Moll is a CT editor at large and author of

The Art of Dying: Living Fully into the Life to Come

(InterVarsity Press, 2010). He was formerly employed by Opportunity International.

Copyright © 2011 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Related Elsewhere:

Previous Christianity Today articles on microfinance include:

Microfinance, Now More Micro | Hit by the credit crunch, lenders anticipate fewer loans to the poor. (December 17, 2008)

The Kiva Effect | Internet-based lender inspires innovation in Christian microfinance. (December 10, 2009)

Small Loans, Big Goals | Nobel Prize boosts growing microfinance ventures. (November 20, 2006)

A report by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) finds that proposed changes to the tax code could reduce charitable contributions. However, the CBO does not expect religious organizations to be affected because religious donors are less sensitive to the tax benefits of contributions. Instead, it is the charities favored by the rich—the arts, education, and healthcare—that are more likely to see lowered donations.

Congress is currently considering possible changes to the current tax code, which allows individuals to deduct their charitable contributions from their taxable income. President Obama has proposed a reduction in how much contributions would those making more than $250,000 a year. Rather than receiving a tax savings of 33 or 35 percent (the tax rate for the higher-income brackets), these income earners would receive a 28 percent tax savings.

This type of reduction is most likely to affect donations to large institutions such as colleges, hospitals, and foundations, not churches and smaller religious charities. Using data from the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, the CBO reports that those with the highest income give the least percentage of their donations to religious organizations.

Those making more than $200,000 a year give a quarter of their donations to religious groups; those making more than $1 million give one-sixth of their contributions to churches. Most of the donations from the rich go to large institutions.

This pattern stands in stark contrast to those with incomes less than $100,000. These individuals give two-thirds of their donations go to religious groups. These individuals also give a greater percentage of their income to organizations that help the poor with their basic needs (10-12 percent) than do those with high income (4-6 percent).

“In its main analysis, CBO assumed that all charitable contributions are sensitive to changes in the after-tax price of giving,” the report says. “However, taxpayers’ regular donations to churches and other religious organizations may be less price-responsive than other contributions.”

The CBO examines a mix of changes to the tax code. These changes included

– allowing all tax-payers to deduct contributions even if they don’t itemize their tax deductions.

– placing a single rate for tax deductions much like Obama has proposed. Two possible levels are 15 percent and 28 percent.

The CBO concludes that, in general, allowing all taxpayers to deduct contributions without itemizing all their tax deductions would increase contributions to charities. This would hold even if the tax reduction rate was set at 25 percent. However, if the deduction for donations was set at 15 percent (the rate for the lowest tax bracket), donations to charities would drop by four to five percent.

I’m grateful to Drew Dyck and Byron Johnson for their participation in this debate. I think we need many more conversations of this kind. Earlier this year, at Indiana Wesleyan University, I interviewed Pete Ward, who was visiting in the President’s Scholar Series, under the umbrella of IWU’s John Wesley Honors College. Pete is Senior Lecturer in Youth Ministry and Theological Education at King’s College, London, and author most recently of Gods Behaving Badly: Media, Religion, and Celebrity Culture (Baylor Univ. Press). I learned that he has initiated a series of projects under the provocative rubric “Ecclesiology and Ethnography.” (Eerdmans will be publishing a series of books growing out of this enterprise.)

Something like this innovative approach is needed as we consider the questions raised by the debate between Drew and Byron. Scholars and practitioners must be in ongoing conversation. Are we in fact witnessing a historic exodus from the church, especially among young people? How might that question be answered? What’s the evidence, one way or the other, and how do we evaluate it? I hope this week’s exchange has helped you to clarify your own understanding of these matters—and perhaps nudged you to study the question further.

John Wilson is the editor of Books & Culture.

Copyright © 2011 Books & Culture. Click for reprint information.

Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life is a magisterial symphony of sprawling scope and grand vision. Like the symphonies of the masters Malick clearly admires—Berlioz, Brahms, Bach, Mozart (all of whom show up in Life)—the film is a work of passion that consumed the reclusive writer/director for many years. Like the greatest composers, Malick’s ambition here is nothing less than to capture the meaning of life, to create a lasting masterpiece that probes the biggest questions and reflects upon our human struggles, using the forms of cinematic beauty rather than the words of philosophy. Few filmmakers go near the “big questions” any more. But Malick’s magnificent Life could change that. It’s the sort of film that could awaken a cynical generation of filmmakers to rediscover the possibilities of the form.

Eschewing traditional cinematic narrative, Life is structured in movements. The film is bookended by allegro movements—sweeping montage visions of the universe coming into being and a grandiose finale evoking what could be interpreted as a Christian eschatological climax. In the middle is the adagio section—a slower-paced, intimate observation of one Texas family in the 1950s. Though the spectacles of the beginning and end are jaw-dropping (dinosaurs, molecular reproduction, asteroids, a cosmic light show), it’s the middle section that reveals the most truth. Here, in one humble corner of a universe unimaginably large and complex, the true mystery of existence is manifest: A father, mother, children, love, death, hate, forgiveness, reconciliation. Together, this micro memoir and macro meditation form nothing less than a virtuoso triumph that will be talked about, remembered, studied, and treasured for decades.

Much of Life takes place in the mind and memory of Jack O’Brien (Sean Penn), an architect in Houston, as he reflects upon the formative years of his younger self (Hunter McCracken) in Waco, Texas. Aside from the show-stopping “God’s eye” sequence in the film’s first third—which takes us from the first nebulae and forming galaxies to the earth’s origins, the dinosaurs’ extinction and beyond—Life is basically a kaleidoscope assemblage of Jack’s poetic remembrances, dream-like reveries, hauntings, and hopes.

Most prominent in Jack’s memory is his family: Mother (Jessica Chastain), Father (Brad Pitt), and two younger brothers. Jack’s parents represent the film’s broader dialectic of what Mother describes as “two ways through life: the way of nature, and the way of grace.” As the stern, business-minded Mr. O’Brien, Pitt represents the way of nature, valuing a competitive, almost Machiavellian approach to life. He’s big on the idea of ownership, control, and being a self-sovereign man (“You have control of your own destiny,” he says). As the loving, compassionate Mrs. O’Brien, newcomer Chastain embodies the way of grace. She nurtures the kids, cares for them when dad’s mad, and is quick to forgive. In parallel scenes of waking the boys up from bed—mother by playfully slipping ice cubes down the back of their pajamas; father by ripping their covers off—we see the contrast clearly.

There’s an uncanny universality to Malick’s intensely personal, autobiographical portrayal of family life and growing up, which is part of what makes this collection of seemingly banal narrative fragments come alive in such an affecting way. As I watched these vignettes of Jack’s Texas childhood—playing with sparklers, running through sprinklers, drinking from a hose, swimming in the local pool, planting a tree with Dad—I remembered my own childhood adventures in Oklahoma. Like the kids in Life, I also played in the creek, threw balls on the roof, played outside on humid afternoons until Mom called me inside for a meatloaf dinner. I too struggled to assert my own obstinate power at the dinner table, to push the boundaries of control with my father. I too wrestled with sin, pride, belligerence, rebellion, and “wanting to be good” (as Jack prays to God one evening in his bedroom). I too loved my parents, and my sister, even when I was angry with them.

Love is a complicated, beautiful thing. And The Tree of Life captures the magnificence of it time and time again. One particularly moving sequence shows Jack injuring his younger brother with a BB gun, followed by a scene of reconciliation that includes few words (“I’m sorry”) but expresses a world of truth in the eyes, the body language, the tender touch of the brothers as they share a moment of forgiveness. This is a spiritual epiphany for Jack, prompting him to understand more fully the working of God in his life: “What was it you were showing me? … Always you were calling me.”

Fragments of inner thought like this dominate the film’s narrative style, which prefers whispery voiceover to actual dialogue. This has always been Malick’s style, evident in each of his four previous films (Badlands, Days of Heaven, The Thin Red Line, & The New World), along with other trademarks: ubiquitous nature imagery, sunset lighting, elliptical editing, jump cuts, observant sound design (wind chimes, insect chirps, rustling leaves), ponderous shots of trees, baptismal water imagery, upward glances to the sky, and nods to the transcendent (“That’s where God lives,” says Mother). Aided by the immense talents of cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki—whose camera floats around wistfully, with a child’s eye toward the awe and wonder of discovery—Life certainly accomplishes the visual splendor Malick so passionately desires to convey.

In Life, as in his other films, Malick is trying to show us the glory: How the world around us—its majesty and miracle—cannot help but humble us. Another way of looking at the film’s nature vs. grace dialectic is to understand it in terms of pride vs. humility. While “grace doesn’t try to please itself,” says Mother, nature “only wants to please itself … to have its own way.” As fallen humans, we’re prone to the way of pride — to demand freedom, control, to dominate rather than be dominated.

To survive in this world, you must have “fierce will,” Mr. O’Brien tells his sons early on. But by the end of the film, after Mr. O’Brien loses his job, he comes to realize that he’s been misguided, losing out on the glorious presence of life and love in the midst of his ruthless insistence on success. “I dishonored it all,” he says. “Didn’t notice the glory.”

Mr. O’Brien is brought to his knees in humility, realizing that no matter how much we work and strive for things, we’re still all fragile creatures in need of grace. Who are we but men? Though the name of Christ is absent in the film, Life is full of Christian sensibilities (Malick is Episcopalian) and biblical allusions, with stops in Genesis, Job, and Revelation. The film opens with a quotation from Job 38: “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?” Later, the pastor of the O’Briens’ church gives a sermon on Job, pointing out the difficult truism that “misfortune befalls the good as well.”

In the battle between nature and grace, grace always wins, in the sense that survival is, in the end, out of our hands. It’s in God’s hands. It’s only by his grace that we can breathe in summer air, touch the butterfly, chase the bubbles, and swim in the creek. Even majestic creatures like dinosaurs are humbled, laid to utter waste by one massive rock flung to the earth. “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away,” says Grandmother (Fiona Shaw) in one scene. “That’s the way he is.”

The Tree of Life manages to showcase both man’s glory and his inestimable smallness. Life, in the end, is not about us making a mark. It’s about tuning our ears to the symphony of life around us, paying attention to the bigger story, and doing our best to love each other and receive grace in the time we’ve been given.

Talk About It

Discussion starters

1. Why does Malick take a 20-minute detour through the history of the creation of the universe? What purpose does this serve for the story?
2. How are our lives shaped by the “way of nature” and the “way of grace”?
3. What does Jack learn in the sequence of hurting his little brother and then being forgiven by him?
4. What do you make of the film’s final sequence? Is it a vision of the resurrection of the dead? A Christian vision of our eschatological hope?

The Family Corner

For parents to consider

The Tree of Life is rated PG-13 for some thematic material—mostly for its abstract, sometimes heady ideas. But there is little that is objectionable or of concern for parents. Aside from a few violent images (a child with burn scars, a BB gun accident), this is a very safe film to enjoy with children. It captures the zeitgeist of growing up and may connect with younger viewers. That said, the film is quite abstract and experimental at times; it’s lack of narrative may lose some viewers. Either way, there is much of value here to be discussed (questions about God, faith, redemption, grace) for adventurous families willing to venture outside of familiar filmgoing territory.

Photos © Fox Searchlight

Copyright © 2011 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Compiling top 10 lists give editors like me a chance to remember the good, hard work that has gone into their publications in recent days. Putting together the list below, the good, hard work that came to mind was primarily that of the tireless writers who faithfully contribute to Her.meneutics, some since the blog’s inception in 2009. Our mission statement, in case you’ve missed it in the left-hand navigation bar, is to provide “news and analysis from the perspective of evangelical women.” Without the evangelical women on our blog roll, Her.meneutics would have little reason to exist.

But of course, without Her.meneutics, our bloggers would have many reasons to exist! Some of them, in fact, have found time to blog, teach, parent, participate in church life, and publish books of their own. Gina Dalfonzo (best known at CT for “The Good Christian Girl: A Fable“) just released ‘Bring Her Down,’ a Kindle book about Sarah Palin and the media. In July Jennifer Grant will release Love You More (Thomas Nelson), about adopting a 15-month-old girl from Guatemala. Also in July, Elrena Evans releases This Crowded Night (DreamSeeker), centered on the women found in the Four Gospels. In August Amy Julia Becker will release A Good and Perfect Gift (Bethany House), about grace and her daughter, Penny, who has Down syndrome; and also in August, Caryn Rivadeneira releases Gumble Hallelujah (Tyndale), about praising God amid disappointment. We’re excited to see the cultural impact our writers will have beyond the women’s blog.

A note about metrics: Our top 10 lists are based on number of unique pageviews per post, and thus do not necessarily reflect posts’ popularity among readers or editors. If you had favorite posts from 2011 that don’t appear below, make sure to list them in the comments section. Now to the list!

(10)Sex Sells – So Does Virginity, by Sharon Hodde Miller (April 27, 2011)Nickelodeon star Miranda Cosgrove is being marketed as the embodiment of purity in a sex-saturated culture. Why Christians should be concerned.

(9)Why I Don’t Want to Be a Chinese Mother, by Amy Julia Becker (January 17, 2011)I don’t want to be an American mother, for that matter.

(8)What Are Wedding Vows For, Anyway? by Gina Dalfonzo (January 31, 2011)Not much, if Carol Anne Riddell and John Partilla’s wedding announcement in The New York Times “Vows” section means anything.

(7)Confessions of a Beth Moore Convert, by Karen Spears Zacharias (March 29, 2011)Why the Bible teacher with the big Texan hair may just be our female Billy Graham.

(6)When Christians Get Divorced, by Amy Julia Becker (March 23, 2011)A popular Christian blogger recently announced the end of her marriage. How should churches respond to those grieving?

(5)Lady Gaga: Where’s the Outrage? by Alicia Cohn (May 17, 2011)What happens when a pop culture phenomenon becomes a ‘religious experience.’

(4)The Argument for Girl-Boy Wrestling, by Caryn Rivadeneira (February 22, 2011)Joel Northrup cited his Christian faith for refusing to wrestle Cassy Herkelman in last week’s Iowa state championship. I say his Christian faith should have taken him to the mat.

(3)Another Assault on Little Girls, by Jennifer Grant (January 3, 2011)Vogue Paris‘s “Gifts” photo spread is one more example of how our culture robs children of innocence.

(2)Miss America and the Bikini Question, by Katelyn Beaty (January 20, 2011)Do modern-day pageants ask young evangelical women to compromise their values an itsy-bitsy teeny-weeny too much?

(1)Sin, Grace, and the Royal Wedding, by Caryn Rivadeneira (April 28, 2011)What I’ll tell my 6-year-old daughter about marriage as we watch the festivities together.

Other notable posts of the year:

Christian Dating Do-Over, by Marlena Graves (February 18, 2011)

A Tarnished Silver Anniversary, by Christine A. Scheller (January 4, 2011)

Why I Let My Son Wear Pink, by Ellen Painter Dollar (April 18, 2011)

When Gender-Based Parenting Goes Too Far, by Caryn Rivadeneira (February 1, 2011)Beyond slu*tWalk: A New Conversation about Sexual Assault, by Katelyn Beaty (May 11, 2011)

I once had an aunt with a serious case of schizophrenia. She thought one of her daughters came to her on a beam of light from the moon. She also had rages of temper and threatened to kill her children. Things got so bad, she had to be hospitalized for a time, and then medicated for years.

One day I was driving through the community where she lived, Bryte (just over the river from Sacramento), because my mother spent a large part of her childhood there. I was with my wife and my father; I had asked my dad to explain everything he knew about my late mother’s life there—where she lived, the gas station she was born in, and other such lore. We were hoping to do a drive by, wanting to avoid my Aunt Julie at all costs. But as we drove down her street, we spotted a man shouting for help from a rooftop. It appeared his ladder had fallen over. So my dad got out of the car and propped the ladder up against his house.

As fate would have it, this man’s house stood next to my aunt’s house, and before my dad could make a safe escape, out popped Aunt Julie, “Bob? Bob Galli!? What are you doing here? What a wonderful surprise!”

And before you know it, we were in Aunt Julie’s house, sipping coffee and soft drinks, listening to her strange and wonderful stories.

We have a fair number of Aunt Julies in the church, don’t we? People who tell strange and wonderful stories about the end of the world. Those who in a crazy burst of Islamophia burn the Koran. Those who are sincerely confused about what type of prosperity the gospel promises. Those on the left and the right who equate their politics with divine politics. Those who are in love with their self-righteousness more than God. Maybe some readers think this author and Christianity Today are crazy aunts!

In any event, each of us has to put up with crazy aunts in the family called the church. Just when we think we can pass them by on the other side of the road (like the priest and the Levite tried to pass by the mugged victim), they come running toward us with a smile and a warm greeting. Or they drop in unexpectedly at our church. Or they make headlines—and this just after we’ve pulled off a program that’s done a pretty good job of making God or the church look cool again.

We’re tempted at such moments to distance ourselves from them. To push them away. To lock them out. We’re likely to mock them so that others will know we’re not like them. In short, we disown them. We say, “They’re not one of us.”

The problem is that they very much are one of us. They are naming the name of Jesus, proclaiming loyalty to him first and foremost. Often they are making substantial sacrifices of fame or fortune to do what they feel God is calling them to do. And they don’t care, because they believe they are doing it for Jesus.

When my Aunt Julie rushed out to greet us, we had no choice but to fellowship with her. She was my blood. She was the mother of my cousins. She was the sister of my mother. She deserved some respect. And more. My mother loved her, as did her daughters. So I needed to love her.

Earlier in her life, to love Aunt Julie meant to keep her from her children lest she harm them. At one point, it meant putting her in a mental ward. Later it meant making sure she took her medicine. By the time of the ladder incident, when medication seemed to be doing the trick, it meant listening to her strange stories with genuine interest, to laugh at her jokes (which, in fact, were often very funny), and to treat her like family.

We’re fond of saying that the poor and those hostile to the faith deserve our respect and love, and of course, the same goes for the Aunt Julies in the church. That will mean confrontation sometimes, sometimes publicly, sometimes privately. In rare instances, when the gravest of betrayals has occurred, families may disown a member. That happens when a member disowns our Elder Brother and his Father, or when someone denies the faith or promotes teachings that destroy the health of the church (what is called heresy or false teaching), or when someone disowns the church by calling it apostate. Then while still deserving our love (which includes the invitation to repent and return), they really can no longer be said to be family, can they?

Under normal circ*mstances, though, to disown our Aunt Julies would mean to disown ourselves. Because when we look deep within ourselves, we see wild passions and lusts we don’t always control. We entertain crazy thoughts and imaginations that are scandalous. We tell ourselves wacky stories that are lies. Often the only difference between us and the vocal Aunt Julies is our ability to keep the thoughts of our heart secret. But God knows the thoughts of our hearts, knows how desperately wicked the heart is (Jer. 17.9), knows that all of us are in essence Aunt Julies.

But while we were Aunt Julies, Christ died for us. To know that, to trust that, to give your life to the One who died and to the family created by his Spirit–is to know that you too are a member of this dysfunctional family.

Whether Harold Camping is a member of the church family or not, we each know plenty of Aunt Julies who are in the family. Maybe I’ll try to have a cup of coffee with one of them, to share a laugh or two–if she’ll have me.

Mark Galli is senior managing editor of Christianity Today, and author of the forthcoming God Wins: Heaven, Hell, and Why the Good News Is Even Better than ‘Love Wins’ (Tyndale, July 2011). This article was modified on June 1, 2011.

Copyright © 2011 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Related Elsewhere:

Previous SoulWork columns include:

Rob Bell Is Not a Litmus Test | What one thinks about ‘Love Wins’ is no test of faith. (May 5, 2011)

Mercifully Forsaken | There is a reason Good Friday is called good, and why we can be thankful when God forsakes us. (April 21, 2011)

The Problem with Christus Victor| An increasingly popular view of the atonement forces the question: What are we saved from? (April 7, 2011)

Historically, summer has long been the season when film critics moan and groan and gnash their teeth and talk about how there are too many movie sequels and too few original ideas. I’ll be honest, though: I think Kung Fu Panda was made for sequels, and I’m quite happy to have the gang back for a second big-screen adventure—even if it is a little light on new ideas.

Because really, so what? The appeal of this movie—and, by the way things are headed, this franchise—has never had much to do with its Idea; unlike, say, Wall*E or even Up, Kung Fu Panda is not high-concept filmmaking. These are movies about animals that do kung fu. They are, essentially, Saturday morning cartoons rendered for the big screen (and, in the second installment, in 3-D). The 2008 original was an appealing blend of goofy comedy, martial arts scenes that mixed Jackie Chan-styled cartoonishness with Charlie Chaplin-esque slapstick, and well-intentioned messages about being yourself and standing up for what’s right. It did all these things well, and the sequel is just as good; I’m perfectly content to see all this done for a second time, in a different setting and with a tweaked plot.

The first film never dug any deeper than its Saturday morning cartoon goofiness and expertly-choreographed action sequences, and the sequel doesn’t either—and that’s a good thing. Frankly, the first chapter really only gave us one interesting character—Po, the title character, voiced by Jack Black. The members of the Furious Five, though well-designed and voiced by some big-name actors, really never got a chance to do much, or to develop into anything beyond cardboard cutouts.

If anything, they are used even less here. There are some vaguely emotional scenes with Angelina Jolie’s Tigress that just doesn’t resonate like they are clearly meant to because, well, Tigress is just not an interesting character. But this second film gives me a little more enthusiasm for Po’s dad, Mr. Ping; the film’s most convincing scenes of characterization are its father-son moments.

The first movie was frivolous and flimsy but a lot of fun, and the second does nothing to lessen the appeal of this imaginary world. I’ll never care about these characters the way I care about, say, Woody and Buzz, but on the flipside, the sheer zaniness and spirit of whimsy means that I don’t worry about the characters being ruined or the impact of the earlier film being tarnished; the worst thing that could happen to this franchise is that it could simply run out of steam, and so far, it hasn’t. I’d be glad to watch a third one.

The plot isn’t an extension of the first film, but a whole new adventure—a good move for this franchise, which will work well with an episodic nature; taking itself too seriously, or turning into an epic, would be a bad move. Here, Po is still training with the Furious Five and honing his fledgling kung fu skills. Mr. Ping is still running his restaurant, which he has adorned with posters and signs alluding to the fact that his son is the long-prophesied kung fu warrior; part of it is based in a desire to capitalize on his son’s newfound celebrity, but it mostly seems to stem from sincere fatherly pride. This sense of warmth, combined with some really funny gags related to his “Dragon Warrior” promotional campaigns, make these scenes some of the best in the film; by contrast, the scenes of Po bonding with the Furious Five are mostly boring, but thankfully brief.

But things don’t sit still for long. A prologue shows a much earlier, sinister plot enacted by the villainous peaco*ck Lord Shen (voiced by Gary Oldman), only now coming to fruition. He has been in hiding for years perfecting a weapon that he hopes will signal the death of kung fu and his own ascension to ruler over all of China. The Furious Five are called upon to stop him. Of course. And Po tags along. Of course.

Shen’s character is a fairly pedestrian and uninteresting villain, and the plot is formulaic and predictable. But I don’t much care about those things. The storyline, while not particularly gripping, serves some utilitarian purposes. It opens up the world of Kung Fu Panda considerably. It allows for some excellent dream sequences—rendered in 2-D, as with the first film—that fill in some of Po’s backstory and lead to both some ho-hum moments of self discovery (complete with some vaguely New Age-y philosophizing about finding “inner peace”—more cheesy than concerning) and some effectively heartfelt moments of Po coming to grips with who he is as an adopted child.

But most of all, there’s some great action, choreographed to look like what you’d see in a live-action Hong Kong martial arts comedy—like Jackie Chan’s movies, with their mix of thrills and slapstick. Some scenes may be just a bit too frightening for sensitive children, but for older kids and their parents they are mightily entertaining; they look great, both in terms of the animation and the choreography, and the changes of scenery in 2 are significant enough to make it all feel fresh and new again.

A closing scene makes it obvious a third movie is in the works. And I say, bring it on.

Talk About It

Discussion starters

1. Po learns some surprising things about himself and asks big questions about who he is in the world. Do you think the answers he arrives at are satisfying? What do they seem to suggest about family, and about adoption in particular?
2. Po says it’s important to choose the kind of person you’re going to be. What does the Bible say about choice, and about the extent to which we as people are able to determine who we are to be?
3. What is this movie’s view toward destiny and fate, and how does that compare to a biblical worldview?

The Family Corner

For parents to consider

Kung Fu Panda 2 is rated PG for martial arts action and some mild violence. It’s very much along the lines of the first film, or any other action-oriented cartoon. It may be a bit much for very young or sensitive children, but older kids should have no problem. There is some vaguely mystic kung fu mumbo-jumbo—stuff about “finding inner peace” and the like—though this element is, if anything, less prevalent here than in the first movie. There is also some dialogue discussing adoption in a frank and emotionally heavy way.

Photos © Dreamworks

Copyright © 2011 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

It is very popular these days to claim that religion—especially among the young—is not only in decline, but that people are leaving the faith in droves. This is, of course, a story many in the media are happy to help disseminate as if it were true. Sadly, joining the media in making such claims are a number Christians, armed with bad data or a lack of understanding when it comes to interpreting data, or both. Consider the recent book UnChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity and Why It Matters. The book offers a pathetic view of Christians that is wildly inaccurate. It paints a picture of contemporary Christians that goes something like this: “Why would anyone want to be a Christian since Christians tend to be such rotten people?” The book is a highlight reel for how not to conduct objective and scholarly research. UnChristian is not based on a random or representative sample of the American population. Rather, it is based on interviews with people who have had negative experiences in the church or with believers. Unfortunately, sample bias does not keep the book’s authors from making unwarranted generalizations about contemporary Christians. Adding insult to injury, the authors ignore hundreds of empirical studies documenting all the positive and prosocial ways in which Christians show compassion by helping others. Instead they choose to focus on what we social scientists call “outliers,” the exceptions. if the book were turned in as an essay in an undergraduate methods course I was teaching, it would get a failing grade.

Alas, like UnChristian, Drew Dyck’s book Generation Ex-Christian: Why Young Adults are Leaving the Faith … and How to Bring them Back relies upon dubious data and anecdotes. Not one empirical study published in a reputable journal that would support his central thesis is cited in the entire book. Unfortunately, many ministers and other church leaders do not know the difference between good and bad research and share as fact what authors like this are contending to be the truth. In sociology we call this creating a moral panic. Drew is correct when he states popular news outlets aren’t known for their restraint—ditto for many Christian thought leaders.

Drew cites the American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) and a survey by the Pew Forum (the Religious Landscape Survey) as evidence of a falling away from the faith, as both report increases in those marking “no religion” on surveys. My previous response has already addressed why it is wrong to draw this conclusion. I’m not offering my opinion; I’m simply referring to the data by drawing upon published studies in scholarly journals. I raise the issue of journal publications because research published in academic journals is reviewed and vetted thoroughly by anonymous reviewers long before it is ever accepted for publication. Studies submitted for publication in peer-reviewed journals undergo a lengthy and rigorous review before they ever see the light of day. In fact, most good journals accept only a small percentage of studies for publication. Since book authors do not undergo this kind of peer-review, it is possible for authors to go unchecked in making unsubstantiated claims. Drew is certainly entitled to his opinion that we are witnessing “a trend of growing religious disengagement, especially among the young.” I’m sure that he is motivated by genuine concern. However, it is important to note that not one published study in a refereed journal has documented a dramatic falling away or abandoning of the faith in the United States.

Finally, like many commentators in secular media outlets, Drew misinterprets both the ARIS study and the Pew study. For example, in addition to finding an increase in the “religious nones,” the ARIS study confirmed the extraordinary growth in evangelicalism, finding that 34 percent of Americans (approximately 100 million) are evangelical Christians. This is the same conclusion reached in one of our studies published in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion (Dougherty, Johnson, and Polson, 2007). Interestingly, Drew did not mention this finding but rather drew upon the same old tired and wrongheaded conclusion—Americans are losing their faith.

What the ARIS survey and the Pew Forum “Religious Landscape” survey document is that religion in America is constantly changing. Some churches are growing and others are shrinking. Some regions of the country have a higher percentage of churchgoers than others. Seventy years of survey research confirms this fact. The ARIS, Pew, and Baylor surveys confirm that Americans shop when it comes to finding a church. Indeed, many Americans switch churches from time to time, but they do not in the process abandon the faith—that is why it is called “switching.” People are willing to switch churches if they feel another church is a better fit. Switching is a major phenomenon and worthy of much more research and debate. But if people were abandoning the faith in significant numbers, we should have seen a dramatic rise in the number of people in America claiming to be atheists. In fact, the percentage of Americans claiming to be atheists has remained around 4 percent for more than sixty years. Switching is not an indication that Americans have abandoned or lost their faith, as many in the media and, unfortunately, a number of Christians would have us believe.

Byron Johnson is Distinguished Professor of Social Sciences, director of the Institute for Studies of Religion, and director of the Program on Prosocial Behavior, all at Baylor University. He is the author of More God, Less Crime: Why Faith Matters and How It Could Matter More, published in May by the Templeton Press.

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