“The Weekend Wanderer” is a weekly curated selection of news, stories, resources, and media on the intersection of faith and culture for you to explore through your weekend. Wander through these links however you like and in any order you like. Disclaimer: I do not necessarily agree with all the views expressed within the articles linked from this page, but I have read them myself in order to make me think more deeply.
“Special Psalms Help Pakistani Christians with Persecution, Pandemic, and Disunity” – Yousaf Sadiq in Christianity Today: “As Christians observe the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church (IDOP) this month, many will place high on their prayer list the nation of Pakistan, ranked the fifth most difficult place in the world to follow Jesus. Yet amid the prejudice, discrimination, and persecution faced by believers there, many Pakistani Christians have a unique resource to draw upon at the heart of their worship: contextualized psalms. A century ago, the Book of Psalms was translated into Pakistan’s predominant language, Punjabi, in versified form. Commonly referred to as the Punjabi Zabur, these poetic metrical songs can unequivocally be regarded as the most accustomed, read, sung, recited, and memorized part of Scripture by the body of Christ in Pakistan. Corporate worship within Pakistani churches (which are overwhelmingly ethnically Punjabi) is considered incomplete if the Zabur are excluded. As the deepest expression of indigenous Christianity, they can rightly be viewed as the heart of Christian worship in Pakistan and have given its believers an unrivaled familiarity with the Book of Psalms.”
“Beth Moore: What Galatians Tells Us About How to Confront Church Leaders” – Jessica Lea at Church Leaders: “Challenging other church leaders, says author and Bible teacher Beth Moore, can be grief-inducing and painful, but Scripture shows us that there are times to do so. ‘I don’t like being at odds with people that I love so much, those that have been my peers, my co-laborers,’ said Moore. ‘I hate that. I hate it. But there are times when leaders do have to say to other leaders, “Wait, this doesn’t seem in step with the gospel.”‘ In January, Beth Moore released Now That Faith Has Come: A Study of Galatians, which she co-authored with her daughter, Melissa. In an interview on the Stetzer ChurchLeaders Podcast, Moore shared how the book of Galatians provides a framework for some decisions she has made recently, including her choice to leave the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC)….In March 2021, Beth Moore announced that she was leaving the SBC, saying at the time, ‘I love so many Southern Baptist people, so many Southern Baptist churches, but I don’t identify with some of the things in our heritage that haven’t remained in the past.’ Moore explained in the interview that her decision to leave came from ‘facing up to the fact that somehow, I no longer belong. And, you know, it began instantly with speaking out back in the fall of 2016. It was overnight.’ Moore drew criticism in 2016 for calling out Christian leaders who supported former president Donald Trump, even after tapes were leaked in which Trump used lewd language to brag about assaulting women.”
“China’s Unrelenting Efforts to Abolish Christianity Continue with Surveillance of Clergy to Ensure Loyalty” – Andrea Morris at CBN News: “A report issued by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) outlines strict measures being taken by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which aims to oppress religious minorities. The measures, which went into effect on May 1, are a part of a series of newly issued regulations that add to the revised 2018 Regulations on Religious Affairs (RRA). Clergy members from all of China’s five state-sanctioned religious groups — Buddhist Association of China, the Chinese Taoist Association, the Islamic Association of China, the Protestant Three-Self Patriotic Movement, and the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association — will be subjected to rigorous monitoring and surveillance by CCP. “Article 3 of the Measures requires clergy — among other demands — to support the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) rule, the Chinese socialist political system, and the CCP’s ‘sinicization of religion’ policy, effectively imposing a political test to ensure clergies’ loyalty to the CCP,” the USCIRF report reads. The new regulations also ban government-sanctioned churches from interfering in any concerns with education or the daily activities of citizens.”
“Hezekiah’s Religious Reform—In the Bible and Archaeology“ – David Rafael Moulis at Biblical Archaeology Society: “One of the most significant changes in the religious life of ancient Israel occurred during the reign of the Judahite king Hezekiah, in the late eighth century B.C.E. The Hebrew Bible provides us with this image: ‘He removed the high places, broke down the pillars, and cut down the sacred pole (asherah). He broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the people of Israel had made offerings to it’ (2 Kings 18:4). In doing so, explains the Bible, the faithful king Hezekiah simply ‘did what was right in the sight of the Lord.’ But was Hezekiah really motivated only by ‘the commandments that the Lord commanded Moses’? What was his reform like on the ground?”
“Gardens of Eden: the church forests of Ethiopia – a photo essay” – Kieran Dodds in The Guardian: “South of the Sahara, and just north of the Great Rift Valley in landlocked Ethiopia, the Blue Nile flows from Lake Tana, the largest lake in the country. Radiating out from the sacred source is a scattering of forest islands, strewn across the dry highlands like a handful of emeralds. At the heart of each circle of forest, hunkered down under the ancient canopy and wrapped in lush vegetation, are saucer-shaped churches – otherworldly structures that almost seem to emit a life force. And in a sense they do. Ethiopia is one of the fastest expanding economies in the world today and the second most populous country in Africa. The vast majority of people live in rural areas, where the expansion of settlements and agriculture is slowly thinning the forest edge by cattle and plough. Over the past century, 90% of Ethiopia’s forests have been lost. In Amhara province, the only remaining native forests are those that surround the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church buildings.”
“Out of Your Car, Off Your Horse: Twenty-seven propositions about global thinking and the sustainability of cities” – This is a throwback to 1991 from Wendell Berry in The Atlantic: “The question before us, then, is an extremely difficult one: How do we begin to remake, or to make, a local culture that will preserve our part of the world while we use it? We are talking here not just about a kind of knowledge that involves affection but also about a kind of knowledge that comes from or with affection—knowledge that is unavailable to the unaffectionate, and that is unavailable to anyone as what is called information….What, for a start, might be the economic result of local affection? We don’t know. Moreover, we are probably never going to know in any way that would satisfy the average dean or corporate executive. The ways of love tend to be secretive and, even to the lovers themselves, somewhat inscrutable.”
Music: Interim, “Breathe.”
Renovate 