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        <title>Christian Daily International | Bible & Theology</title>
        <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/bible-and-theology</link>
        <description><![CDATA[Discover insights on Bible and theology, from scripture study to Christian doctrine and global theological debates. Explore how believers interpret God’s Word and apply biblical truth in the life of the church today.]]></description>
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            <title>Christian Daily International | Bible & Theology</title>
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        <copyright>Christian Daily International © 2026</copyright>
        <language>en</language>
        <lastBuildDate>Wed, 19 Aug 2026 05:18:11 -0400</lastBuildDate>
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                <title><![CDATA[Dallas seminary partners with India school to launch biblical counseling degree]]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/dallas-seminary-partners-with-india-school-to-launch-biblical-counseling-degree</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.christiandaily.com/news/dallas-seminary-partners-with-india-school-to-launch-biblical-counseling-degree</guid>
                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[CDI Staff]]></dc:creator>
                                                                                                                            <media:content  url="https://www.christiandaily.com/media/original/img/0/51/5126.jpg">
                            <media:title><![CDATA[Stephen George, president of Evangelical Theological Seminary in India, and Michael Ortiz, vice president for global ministries at Dallas Theological Seminary, shake hands following the signing of a partnership agreement to launch a new Christian counseli]]></media:title>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Dallas Theological Seminary ]]>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Stephen George, president of Evangelical Theological Seminary in India, and Michael Ortiz, vice president for global ministries at Dallas Theological Seminary, shake hands following the signing of a partnership agreement to launch a new Christian counseling program in India. ]]>
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                                                                            <pubDate>Mon, 17 Aug 2026 10:27:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[Dallas Theological Seminary has formed an academic partnership with Evangelical Theological Seminary in India to launch a graduate-level Christian counseling program, with a long-term plan for the Indian institution to operate the program on its own.]]></description>
                <content:encoded><![CDATA[
Dallas Theological Seminary has formed an academic partnership with Evangelical Theological Seminary in India to launch a graduate-level Christian counseling program, with a long-term plan for the Indian institution to operate the program on its own.
Evangelical Theological Seminary (ETS), located in Bagalur near Bangalore and operated as a ministry of Asian Christian Academy, will enroll its first cohort of 11 students in a Master of Arts in Christian Counseling beginning in fall 2026. The program is structured so ETS can eventually sustain and administer it independently of its American partner, according to a joint announcement.
Under the arrangement, students will complete their Bible and theology coursework at ETS while taking selected counseling modules from Dallas Theological Seminary's Master of Arts in Counseling Ministries curriculum. Those enrolled in the counseling portion will register as nondegree students at DTS, with instruction delivered through online courses and in-person teaching by DTS faculty traveling to India.
ETS was founded in 1978 by Isaac John, a Dallas Theological Seminary alumnus who had studied there in 1973 before returning to India to establish theological training suited to the local context. Accredited by the Asia Theological Association, the seminary offers postgraduate and doctoral programs in biblical studies, theology, and ministry, and describes its mission as equipping men and women for Christian leadership across India and Asia.
Stephen George, president of ETS, said church growth in India had created demand for trained counselors that existing programs were not meeting.
"ETS offers degrees for pastors, theologians, and ministry leaders in India, but as the church continues to grow, we identified a need for qualified Christian counselors," George said. "We're honored to cocreate a pathway to raise up a generation of biblically rooted counselors throughout India."
Michael Ortiz, vice president for global ministries at DTS and head of the International Council of Evangelical Theological Education, said the partnership is built around transferring ownership of the program to ETS over time.
"Our long-term plan is to equip qualified counselors and professors in India so that ETS can take over the degree and offer it independently of DTS," Ortiz said. "This is what global multiplication and discipleship look like, where we plan ahead and collaborate for the benefit of the church worldwide."
The two institutions have maintained a relationship for several years. Ongoing conversations between them identified a growing need for biblically grounded counseling training among pastors, ministry leaders, and lay counselors serving churches and communities across the region, they said.]]></content:encoded>
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                <title><![CDATA[Korean mission scholars probe Pentecostalism, diaspora and new research methods as global Christianity shifts]]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/korean-mission-scholars-probe-pentecostalism-diaspora-and-new-research-methods-as-global-christianity-shifts</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.christiandaily.com/news/korean-mission-scholars-probe-pentecostalism-diaspora-and-new-research-methods-as-global-christianity-shifts</guid>
                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[CDI Staff]]></dc:creator>
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                            <media:title><![CDATA[Attendees pose for a group photo at the Korean Society of Missiologys 2026 Fourth Regular Academic Conference, held Aug. 8 at Geumnan Church in Seouls Jungnang District. The conference was convened under the theme Trends in Contemporary Mission Theolog]]></media:title>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Korean Society of Missiology ]]>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Attendees pose for a group photo at the Korean Society of Missiology's 2026 Fourth Regular Academic Conference, held Aug. 8 at Geumnan Church in Seoul's Jungnang District. The conference was convened under the theme "Trends in Contemporary Mission Theology Research." ]]>
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                                                                            <pubDate>Sat, 15 Aug 2026 08:14:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[A group of Korean mission theologians gathered in Seoul to examine how shifts in global Christianity are reshaping the field of missiology, with papers ranging from the growth of Pentecostalism in the Global South to a proposed new research framework for studying local faith communities.]]></description>
                <content:encoded><![CDATA[
A group of Korean mission theologians gathered in Seoul to examine how shifts in global Christianity are reshaping the field of missiology, with papers ranging from the growth of Pentecostalism in the Global South to a proposed new research framework for studying local faith communities.
The Korea Society of Mission Theology held its 2026 Fourth Regular Academic Conference on Aug. 8 at Geumnan Church in the Jungnang district of Seoul, according to Christian Daily Korea. The conference, themed "Trends in Contemporary Mission Theology Research," featured four scholars presenting research on Pentecostalism, Korean diaspora mission, the 19th-century American Restoration Movement and what one presenter called "narrative missiology."
Pentecostalism's global reach — and its contradictions
Dr. Oh Seung-wook of Yonsei University opened with an analysis of Pentecostalism as a lens for understanding World Christianity, a theological paradigm that has grown in prominence as Christianity has declined in the West and expanded in Africa, Latin America and Asia.
Citing data from the Center for the Study of Global Christianity led by Todd M. Johnson, Oh said Pentecostal adherents worldwide numbered approximately 664 million as of 2025 — more than one-quarter of all Christians globally.
He argued that early Pentecostalism carried an egalitarian impulse, crossing boundaries of race, class and gender through what its adherents understood as the freedom of the Holy Spirit. But he said that ideal frequently did not survive institutionalization. The Apostolic Faith Mission of South Africa, he noted, practiced racial segregation in worship and ministry; a formal apology and declaration of integration came in 1996, though he said traces of discrimination persist.
On women's leadership, Oh pointed to figures such as Lucy Farrow and South Korea's Pastor Choi Ja-shil as examples of women who played formative roles in early Pentecostal movements, only for their successors to be gradually sidelined as churches became more structured organizations.
Oh described a similar tension in Pentecostalism's social posture. Early leaders including William Seymour and Frank Bartleman championed Christian unity, he said, yet in practice maintained skepticism toward ecumenical dialogue — a posture that has softened in recent decades as engagement with the Catholic Church and other denominations has grown. He said early Pentecostalism also showed concern for racial discrimination, war and economic inequality, even as the tradition later tended to focus narrowly on individual salvation.
He concluded that individual soul salvation, social service and structural transformation should be pursued together under what he called a holistic mission framework.
Korean diaspora reframed as senders, not just recipients
Dr. Lee Gang-wook of Juan University argued that Korean diaspora churches have been misunderstood as peripheral to global mission, when they should be recognized as missional agents in their own right.
Drawing on data from the Overseas Koreans Agency and South Korea's Ministry of Justice, Lee said the theological significance of Koreans living abroad had been undervalued — particularly as attention has shifted toward immigrants arriving in Korea. He said growth in domestic immigrant ministry should not become a reason to reduce support for diaspora mission.
Using the ASEAN Korean diaspora as a case study, he suggested that diaspora networks could evolve beyond individual congregations into what he called a "community of missional communities," shaped by shared identity, transnational connectivity and intercultural mediation.
Lee urged Korean seminaries, denominations and mission organizations to treat both domains — ministry to immigrants entering Korea and mission through Koreans living abroad — within a single, integrated theological framework, and called for empirical comparative research on the two contexts.
Restoration Movement's missional roots, and how they faded
Dr. Lee Chang-woo of Seoul Christian University examined the ministry of Barton W. Stone from the 1790s through the 1830s, arguing that the 19th-century American Restoration Movement originally placed gospel proclamation and world conversion above restoration and church unity as organizing values — and that later generations reversed that hierarchy.
Lee said restoration and unity in Stone's framework were means toward a missional end, not ends in themselves. As the movement developed, he argued, restoration gradually became a marker of church identity rather than a tool for evangelism.
He raised the possibility that the Churches of Christ in Korea inherited a more defensive, identity-focused version of restorationism — shaped by early 20th-century American theological conflicts — rather than Stone's original missional vision. Reexamining Stone's early work, Lee suggested, could serve as a theological reference point for missional renewal among Korean Restoration Movement and evangelical churches.
A new framework for studying how local churches tell their story
Dr. Shin Sang-hyeon of Presbyterian University and Theological Seminary offered a preliminary proposal for what he termed "narrative missiology" — a research methodology designed to analyze how local faith communities form, transmit and express the gospel through stories, rituals and cultural production.
Shin said World Christianity studies already emphasizes the translatability of the gospel and the agency of local churches, but that existing methods do not adequately capture how those dynamics play out in practice. Narrative missiology, he proposed, would examine sources including written documents, oral accounts, liturgical practices, film, art, music and digital content.
He said the approach could be applied comparatively across churches in Asia, Africa and Latin America, enabling intercultural dialogue by tracing how different communities have translated the gospel within their own cultural frameworks. He also proposed it as a tool for Korean churches to critically interpret their own history and explore what missional continuity might look like for the next generation.
Christian Daily Korea reported that the conference closed with question-and-answer sessions and open discussion following the four presentations. The society also noted the recent Korean publication of a translated volume — The Doctrine of Good Works: Reclaiming a Neglected Protestant Teaching — authored by Thomas McCall, Caleb Friedeman and Matt Friedeman, translated by society member Prof. Ryu Jae-seong and published by the Christian Literature Crusade.]]></content:encoded>
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                <title><![CDATA[8 million more Americans attending church, but young men remain a concern - report]]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/8-million-more-americans-attending-church-but-young-men-remain-a-concern-report</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.christiandaily.com/news/8-million-more-americans-attending-church-but-young-men-remain-a-concern-report</guid>
                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[CDI Staff]]></dc:creator>
                                                                                                                            <media:content  url="https://www.christiandaily.com/media/original/img/0/45/4518.jpg">
                            <media:title><![CDATA[Worshippers, congregants, church, catholic, service]]></media:title>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Unsplash / Kaylee Stoll ]]>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Worshippers attend a church service in a generic file photo. ]]>
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                                                                            <pubDate>Thu, 13 Aug 2026 09:19:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[Eight million more Americans attended a Christian church service at least twice in 2025 compared to two years earlier, according to new research from American Bible Society — a development the organization calls encouraging even as its data expose widening gaps in who is and is not showing up.]]></description>
                <content:encoded><![CDATA[
Eight million more Americans attended a Christian church service at least twice in 2025 compared to two years earlier, according to new research from American Bible Society — a development the organization calls encouraging even as its data expose widening gaps in who is and is not showing up.
The findings come from the fifth chapter of American Bible Society's 16th annual State of the Bible report, released Wednesday. The chapter, focused on church health, draws on a nationally representative survey conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago and covers church attendance, spiritual vitality, and the role of church leadership in congregants' lives.
The share of Americans who never or seldom attend a Christian church service dropped 4 percentage points since 2024 — equivalent to roughly 8 million people crossing the threshold of attending at least twice a year. Both Generation X and Millennials drove much of the shift: among Gen X, weekly or more frequent attendance rose from 49% to 54%; among Millennials, from 39% to 42%.
Generation Z moved in the opposite direction. The youngest adult cohort saw attendance fall from 46% to 42% over the same two-year period, making it the only generation to record a decline.
The picture is sharper still when broken down by gender. More than half of Christian men in the United States do not attend church on a monthly basis, and one in five reported never attending at all. Dr. John F. Plake, American Bible Society's chief innovation officer and the editor-in-chief of the State of the Bible series, said the data points to a specific pastoral challenge.
"The data reveals opportunities for church leaders to reach out to specific people — especially young men — and guide them toward a richer, deeper relationship with God and their church through regular engagement with Scripture," Plake said.
Men who do attend are somewhat more likely than women to worship in person. About 20% of male churchgoers attend services remotely, compared with 30% of women.
Among those who do attend — defined in the study as attending at least once every six months — satisfaction levels are high. Churchgoers rated their congregations an average of 8 out of 10 for spiritual health, with 10 out of 10 being the single most common response.
The survey assessed church health across five areas: whether congregations challenge members toward spiritual growth, create relational opportunities for that growth, deepen biblical understanding, promote community service, and whether pastors model spiritual disciplines themselves.
Across all five measures, women report higher satisfaction than men in every generation, and Gen Z men record the lowest satisfaction scores of any group. The pattern holds across denominational lines, with Mainline Protestants and Roman Catholics registering weaker attendance figures despite strong identification with their traditions.
One of the study's most consistent findings links Bible engagement to church satisfaction. Among churchgoers who said they were very satisfied with their congregation, more than 80% also agreed or agreed strongly that church leaders were helping them connect with the Bible. Plake said the pattern points to a structural reality.
"We see a consistent pattern that healthy churches keep the Bible at their core," he said.
The research does reveal what the American Bible Society describes as a broader dichotomy: while overall attendance figures remain mixed, those who are actively participating report genuine spiritual growth and satisfaction — suggesting individual congregations may function more healthily than national trends alone would indicate.
NORC at the University of Chicago fielded the survey using its AmeriSpeak panel between January 8 and 27, 2026. Responses came from 2,649 adults across all 50 states and the District of Columbia, conducted through online and phone interviews.
Three additional chapters of State of the Bible: USA 2026 are scheduled for monthly release through November 2026, covering forgiveness, the supernatural, and generosity. The fifth chapter is available at StateoftheBible.org.]]></content:encoded>
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                <title><![CDATA[Bible Society of Mexico celebrates 60 years of bringing the Bible to new generations]]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/bible-society-of-mexico-celebrates-60-years-of-bringing-the-bible-to-new-generations</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.christiandaily.com/news/bible-society-of-mexico-celebrates-60-years-of-bringing-the-bible-to-new-generations</guid>
                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[Ommar Ayala]]></dc:creator>
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                            <media:title><![CDATA[Bible Society of Mexico]]></media:title>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Photo: Ommar Ayala ]]>
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                                    <![CDATA[ In 2026, the Bible Society of Mexico celebrates 60 years of ministry. The anniversary was marked with a gathering of national and international representatives. ]]>
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                                                                                                <media:content  url="https://www.christiandaily.com/media/original/img/0/50/5091.png">
                            <media:title><![CDATA[Jaime López Vázquez]]></media:title>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Photo: Ommar Ayala ]]>
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                                    <![CDATA[ The coordination of the organization’s work is led by Jaime López Vázquez, the current director of the Bible Society of Mexico. ]]>
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                                                                                                <media:content  url="https://www.christiandaily.com/media/original/img/0/50/5092.png">
                            <media:title><![CDATA[The Bible Society of Mexico]]></media:title>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Photo: Ommar Ayala ]]>
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                                    <![CDATA[ The Bible Society of Mexico works to bring Bibles to Indigenous communities while preserving their languages and cultures. ]]>
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                                                                            <pubDate>Mon, 10 Aug 2026 08:01:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[As Mexico’s religious landscape continues to evolve, a Christian organization is celebrating six decades of ministry with a mission to make the Bible accessible to everyone — in their own language and in formats they can use.]]></description>
                <content:encoded><![CDATA[
As Mexico’s religious landscape continues to evolve, a Christian organization is celebrating six decades of ministry with a mission to make the Bible accessible to everyone — in their own language and in formats they can use.
The Bible Society of Mexico (SBM) was founded in 1966 and is part of the international fellowship of the United Bible Societies. Its mission is to make Scripture available to all people through Bible translation, production and distribution, working across denominational lines with churches and Christian organizations.
In 2026, SBM is celebrating 60 years of ministry. Over the decades, its work has supported thousands of churches, seminaries, ministries and believers who have found in Scripture the foundation of their faith.
Jaime López Vázquez, director of SBM, told Christian Daily International that the organization's mission remains as important as ever.
“God’s heart is to reach every Mexican. There is much work to be done, and we need the support of the entire evangelical Church in unity. When we achieve that, we will change the course of this country through biblical principles and values,” López said.
For López, reaching younger generations is one of the areas the church must address more urgently.
“Very few people recognize the great need for generational change. We face significant challenges in reaching young people and children who need to discover that the Word of God is still living and powerful in their lives,” he said.
As technology and culture change, SBM has expanded its outreach through digital platforms, artificial intelligence and multimedia resources, seeking to help younger generations stay connected to Scripture.
Digital formats have also made it possible for people with limited access to printed materials to read or listen to the Bible on mobile devices. The organization also provides resources in Braille for people with visual impairments.

When the Bible Society of Mexico was founded, the country looked very different from today. Although Mexico's Constitution already guaranteed freedom of religion, evangelical churches had a much more limited public presence.
According to census data from Mexico’s National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI), the country’s religious diversity has steadily increased over the past several decades. At the same time, evangelical and Protestant churches have expanded their presence across the country, creating greater demand for biblical resources for evangelism, discipleship and the training of new believers.
Data from Mexico’s General Directorate of Religious Associations, part of the Secretariat of the Interior, show that nearly 10,600 religious associations are officially registered in the country.
This growth has also created new challenges for organizations involved in Bible distribution. They must serve urban, rural and Indigenous communities, each with distinct cultural and linguistic needs.
Translating the Bible Into the Language of the Heart
Translating the Bible into different languages involves far more than simply converting words from one language to another. It requires years of collaboration among linguists, Bible translators, community leaders and native speakers to ensure that the message remains faithful to the original text while being understandable to people encountering Scripture in their mother tongue.
The challenge is particularly significant in Mexico, one of the world's most linguistically diverse countries. The Mexican government recognizes 68 Indigenous language groups, with hundreds of linguistic variants among them.
Millions of people still have limited access to the Bible in their own language. SBM is working to address that gap by translating Scripture for Indigenous communities while seeking to preserve their languages and cultural heritage.
“It is about building a bridge so that people can hear the voice of God in the language that speaks to their hearts. In our community of Ixcatlán, over 18 years, we have seen lives transformed through reading the Bible,” said Benito Fernández Figueroa, a Mazatec Indigenous translator and community leader.
SBM says the Bible has been translated into eight Indigenous languages, including Maya, Chol, Tzotzil, Tzeltal and Mixe.
Bible translation specialists say access to Scripture in a person's own language can deepen understanding of the Gospel while also helping preserve the cultural heritage of Mexico’s Indigenous communities.
The Numbers Behind the Ministry
The growing demand for Bibles in Mexico reflects both the expansion of churches and the need for resources specifically designed for children, young people, families and new believers.
Over the past six decades, SBM has participated in literacy initiatives, Bible education programs, efforts to increase Scripture access for people with disabilities, and programs serving children, young people and families.
“In 60 years, more than 374 million biblical materials have been distributed, and we have reached 13 cities across the country with service and distribution centers,” said Efraín Amaro, SBM’s head of distribution.
A Mission Shared With the Church

SBM works with churches from a wide range of Christian denominations, respecting their doctrinal traditions while maintaining its focus on making Scripture accessible.
In a world saturated with information, Christian leaders say the fundamental challenge remains the same as it was six decades ago: making sure every person has access to the Bible and can understand its message.
“We recognize God’s faithfulness to SBM, and He will continue to do so. We have witnessed that the light of God’s Word continues to shine,” said Chris Egitto, executive director of effectiveness at the United Bible Societies.
Sixty years after its founding, SBM emphasizes that the impact of its ministry cannot be measured only by the number of Bibles distributed, but also by the lives transformed through encountering the message of Jesus Christ.
As part of its 60th anniversary celebrations, SBM will hold a series of activities throughout the year, including thanksgiving services, conferences, historical exhibitions, gatherings with churches and campaigns encouraging people to read the Bible daily.
Original reporting by Diario Cristiano, Christian Daily International's Spanish edition]]></content:encoded>
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                <title><![CDATA[Christians from across German-speaking world to gather for JESUS27 revival conference]]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/christians-from-across-german-speaking-world-to-gather-for-jesus27-revival-conference</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.christiandaily.com/news/christians-from-across-german-speaking-world-to-gather-for-jesus27-revival-conference</guid>
                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[CDI Staff]]></dc:creator>
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                            <media:title><![CDATA[JESUS27 Conference]]></media:title>
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                                                                            <pubDate>Thu, 06 Aug 2026 04:50:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[Registration is open for a pan-denominational conference in Germany that organizers say will bring together Christians from across German-speaking Europe to pray, study Scripture, and strengthen the church's evangelistic witness.]]></description>
                <content:encoded><![CDATA[
Registration is open for a pan-denominational conference in Germany that organizers say will bring together Christians from across German-speaking Europe to pray, study Scripture, and strengthen the church's evangelistic witness.
JESUS27 is scheduled for April 8–10, 2027, at the Schönblick Christian Guest and Conference Center in Schwäbisch Gmünd, Germany. The gathering expects around 900 participants from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, according to the organizers, who described the event as a gathering place for those longing for renewal of church and society through the power of the Gospel.
The conference is a follow-up to JESUS25, held in May 2025 at the Langensteinbacher Höhe in Karlsbad with roughly 600 attendees. Organizers told the German evangelical news agency IDEA that the first conference gave rise to a gathering point for people and initiatives longing for renewal through the Gospel.
'A growing longing'
The two lead organizers — Reinhard Spincke, Regional Secretary for the North Region of the Association of Free Evangelical Churches in Germany [Bund Freier evangelischer Gemeinden, FeG], and Markus Till, Deputy Chairman of Bible and Confession [Bibel und Bekenntnis] — say they are seeing a shift in the pews.
"We are witnessing in many congregations a growing longing for spiritual renewal, solid unity, and renewed evangelistic passion," Spincke and Till told IDEA. They are persuaded that genuine unity and a vibrant church grow "where Christ and his Word stand at the center."
The conference website names two pressures driving the gathering. First, previously shared theological convictions are being questioned even within free-church and evangelical circles, straining unity and weakening missionary momentum. Second, proclaiming the Gospel in a post-Christian society, the organizers say, requires entirely new competencies and ways of grounding Christian positions.
Program and leadership
The program features five plenary sessions and 24 topic-focused workshops covering questions of church, theology, and society, with time set aside for networking among participants.
The initiative is backed by a sponsoring council of more than 60 individuals and over 70 partner organizations from across the German-speaking world.
The invitation is directed primarily at Christian multipliers across denominations and generations. Further information and registration are available at jesus27.net.]]></content:encoded>
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                <title><![CDATA[South Korean church leader urges Christians to become 'AI media missionaries']]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/south-korean-church-leader-urges-christians-to-become-ai-media-missionaries</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.christiandaily.com/news/south-korean-church-leader-urges-christians-to-become-ai-media-missionaries</guid>
                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[CDI Staff]]></dc:creator>
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                            <media:title><![CDATA[An Jong-bae, chairman of the International Futures Studies Association, says the Korean church must neither fear nor blindly embrace AI, but use it as a tool for the gospel.]]></media:title>
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                                    <![CDATA[ An Jong-bae ]]>
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                                    <![CDATA[ An Jong-bae, chairman of the International Futures Studies Association, says the Korean church must neither fear nor blindly embrace AI, but use it as a tool for the gospel. ]]>
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                                                                            <pubDate>Wed, 05 Aug 2026 08:01:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[A South Korean futures scholar and church leader is calling on Christians worldwide to treat artificial intelligence as a gospel tool rather than a threat — and to train ordinary believers to use it for cross-cultural mission.]]></description>
                <content:encoded><![CDATA[
A South Korean futures scholar and church leader is calling on Christians worldwide to treat artificial intelligence as a gospel tool rather than a threat — and to train ordinary believers to use it for cross-cultural mission.
An Jong-bae, chairman of the International Futures Studies Association and co-representative of the Jeju AI World Mission Center, told Christian Daily Korea that the church must move beyond both fear and uncritical acceptance of AI and develop biblically grounded standards for its use.
"AI is ultimately a tool, humans are the subjects, and God is the sovereign," An said. "Whether AI becomes a blessing or a curse for humanity depends not on the technology itself, but on the values and faith of the people who use it."
An's central proposal is what he calls "AI media missionaries" — a vision in which pastors, Sunday school teachers, youth, worship leaders and laypeople alike use AI to produce and distribute gospel content across languages and cultures. He described it as the most urgent task facing the Korean church in the AI era.
"Good gospel content is not created simply by learning how to use AI tools," he said. "Conviction about the gospel, a biblical worldview, sound theology, and an understanding of people and culture are all needed together."
Field mission and digital mission
An told the Korean outlet that AI will not replace traditional field mission but expand it. He envisions a future in which missionaries physically present in a region are complemented by digital outreach that overcomes barriers of language, geography, time and cost.
"The greatest change in the AI era is that more Christians can participate in world mission, transcending barriers of language, region, time, and cost," he said.
Real-time multilingual translation and locally adapted content production, he said, are the areas where AI can most immediately serve mission work. He also pointed to global online discipleship training and mission administration support as areas of growing potential.
But An stressed that human oversight remains non-negotiable. "AI can transfer language, but it does not perfectly understand culture and emotion. Multilingual content must always be reviewed by local language specialists and church leaders."
Limits on AI in ministry
On the growing use of AI in sermon preparation and Bible study, An drew a clear line. AI should function as a research assistant — helping with historical and cultural background, original language comparison, compiling illustrations and statistics, producing Bible study materials, multilingual translation, church administration and gospel video production — but must not substitute for preaching, pastoral care or spiritual discernment.
"AI should be used as a professional assistant that helps with preparation and research — not as a substitute for preaching, Bible study, pastoral ministry, or mission," he said.
He warned against a growing dependency that could erode pastoral integrity. "If the habit of using AI-written sermons or prayers without sufficient meditation and verification becomes normalized, a pastor's spirituality, creativity, and accountability can be weakened."
He argued that well-used AI should free up pastors for what matters most, not crowd it out. "The time saved through AI should be devoted more to meditation on the Word, prayer, fellowship with God, caring for congregants, and discipleship training."
'The standard is love, not efficiency'
An outlined a set of principles he believes should govern Christian engagement with AI: acknowledging God's sovereignty, protecting human dignity, prioritizing Holy Spirit guidance and human responsibility, centering use on gospel and love, and maintaining truthfulness and accountability.
"In Christianity, the standard for AI use must not simply be 'Is it technically possible?' or 'How fast and efficient is it?'" he said. "We must first ask: 'Is it in accordance with God's will?', 'Does it uphold human dignity?', 'Does it spread the gospel and love?'"
He was equally direct about what AI must never become. He said it must not be used in ways that harm human life or expand surveillance, control, discrimination, hatred, falsehood or greed. The guiding question, he argued, should not be "what is possible?" but "what is right, what is beneficial to humans, and what is in accordance with God's will?"
He described the ultimate measure as "not efficiency, but love; not success, but God's glory."
What AI cannot do
As AI reaches the point of providing answers at near-human levels, An said questions about the essence of ministry and mission are sharpening — and the answers point to what no technology can replicate.
"AI can explain information about the Bible and provide counseling-like answers. But AI cannot worship God, cannot repent in faith, and cannot receive the Holy Spirit's guidance to fulfill a calling," he said.
He told Christian Daily Korea that the core of ministry lies not in the transfer of knowledge but in love for souls and relationship. AI can compose comfort, he said, but it cannot sit beside someone in suffering, weep with them and hold their hand. It can write a prayer, but it cannot hold a soul in its heart and intercede through the night.
He argued that this reality makes the character and spirituality of pastors and missionaries more important, not less, in the AI era. "What only humans can do in the AI era is build a spiritual and personal relationship with God, discern the leading of the Holy Spirit, share in the pain of the congregation, and build up the church community."
A call for the Korean church to lead
An called on the Korean church to play a directing role in the AI era rather than a reactive one. He framed this in terms of what he called "AI humanism" — the conviction that AI must be developed and used in ways that elevate human dignity, freedom, creativity, responsibility and the common good.
"AI is the means, humans are the subjects, and human happiness and the common good must be the purpose," he said.
He urged the Korean church to move beyond declarations and apply ethical principles in actual education and ministry — building a gospel content production ecosystem that includes not only clergy and missionaries but youth, media professionals, cultural artists and laypeople across generations.
"The Korean church must not be a community that refuses or merely follows AI technology, but one that sets the direction — serving as salt and light — so that AI technology serves humanity, life, and the common good," he told the Korean outlet.
Citing Martin Luther's use of the printing press to distribute the Bible, An argued that today's church faces a comparable technological moment — and a comparable opportunity.
"Using AI, even an ordinary Christian can participate in world mission," he said. "A gospel song made by one person can be translated into multiple languages and sung around the world; a short mission video made by one person can cross borders and bring someone to their first encounter with the gospel."
"AI is ultimately a tool, humans are the subjects, and God is the sovereign," he concluded. "I hope the Korean church and all Christians will, grounded in a biblical worldview and Christian AI ethics, make good use of AI to fulfill the calling of sharing gospel- and love-filled content with the world."]]></content:encoded>
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                <title><![CDATA['Living in the Father's house, but not knowing the Father's heart': Senior mission leader on greatest obstacle to missions]]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/living-in-the-father-s-house-but-not-knowing-the-father-s-heart-senior-mission-leader-on-greatest-obstacle-to-missions</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.christiandaily.com/news/living-in-the-father-s-house-but-not-knowing-the-father-s-heart-senior-mission-leader-on-greatest-obstacle-to-missions</guid>
                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[CDI Staff]]></dc:creator>
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                            <media:title><![CDATA[Lawrence Tong, International Director Emeritus of OM International, addresses delegates during the evening session of the Arise Asia 2026 Congress in Manila, Philippines, July 29, 2026.]]></media:title>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Christian Daily International ]]>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Lawrence Tong, International Director Emeritus of OM International, addresses delegates during the evening session of the Arise Asia 2026 Congress in Manila, Philippines, July 29, 2026. ]]>
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                                                                            <pubDate>Wed, 29 Jul 2026 22:15:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[Lawrence Tong, International Director Emeritus of OM International, closed the third evening of the Arise Asia 2026 Congress challenging participant to confront a stark reality: that the greatest obstacle to world mission may not be distance, difficulty, or danger, but the condition of the heart of those already gathered in the Father's house.]]></description>
                <content:encoded><![CDATA[
Lawrence Tong, International Director Emeritus of OM International, closed the third evening of the Arise Asia 2026 Congress challenging participant to confront a stark reality: that the greatest obstacle to world mission may not be distance, difficulty, or danger, but the condition of the heart of those already gathered in the Father's house.
Drawing from Luke 15 and its three parables of the lost, Tong pressed approximately 4,000 young Christian delegates gathered in Manila to ask themselves a searching question: "Do I understand the heart of God? Or am I like the older brother — living in the house of God, worshiping in this big hall, but never really understanding the heart of God?"
His address, rooted in the story of the prodigal son, identified four qualities of the older brother that, Tong argued, are not ancient character flaws but present realities that still prevent Christians from crossing into the mission field today.
A coin, a sheep, a son
Tong opened by tracing the logic of all three parables in Luke 15. In each, something of value goes missing — a sheep, a silver coin, a son — and in each, someone goes looking. The shepherd leaves his flock. The woman lights a lamp and sweeps the house. And when the lost is found, there is celebration.
But the pattern breaks with the third parable. When the younger son is lost, no one from the household goes to find him.
"When it comes to the lost sheep, someone went out looking for the animal," Tong said. "When it comes to the lost coin, someone went out looking for it diligently. But when it comes to a lost neighbor, a lost cousin, a lost brother — no one."
He paused on that silence. Why? The answer, he said, is found not in the younger son's story but in the older brother's response to it.
"The main message of Luke chapter 15," Tong told delegates, "is not about the lost sheep. It is not about the lost coin. It is not about the prodigal son. The main message of Luke chapter 15 is about the older brother — the man who lived in the father's house but did not understand the father's heart."
Self-centeredness: the first barrier
The older brother, Tong noted, returns from the field unaware that his brother has come home. He has to ask a servant what the music and dancing are about. Even then, his first instinct is not to go in but to stand outside and confront his father.
His words — "All these years I have been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me a young goat so that I could celebrate with my friends" — expose a preoccupation that crowded out any concern for another person's welfare. "It's all about me. I, mine," Tong said.
This inward orientation, he argued, is precisely what prevents a person from seeing the need around them. "He was completely self-centered. And for a person who is completely self-centered, it is very difficult for him to see the needs of other people."
The older brother could hear the celebration from outside and still feel nothing but resentment. "The tragedy is that the older brother who was physically near the father was relationally so far away," Tong said. "And he too needed to be invited in — not just into the house, but into the heart of the father."
Self-righteousness: the second barrier
The second quality Tong identified in the older brother shows up most clearly in how the older son refers to his brother: "this son of yours." Not "my brother," but "this son of yours."
"He was disowning his own brother," Tong said. "He refused to say, 'my brother.' Instead he distanced himself emotionally and relationally — as if to say, it is your problem, not my problem."
Self-righteousness, he said, defines people by their failures and refuses to look past them. The older brother focuses on what the younger son had done — squandering the inheritance — while the father has already looked past it to restoration. "He defines his brother solely by his failure, not by his father's forgiveness. His focus was on the past, not on the future."
Tong also noted the older brother's reaction to the feast: it registers not as good news but as personal offense. The fatted calf is not abundance but waste. "He was angry at grace," Tong said. "Self-righteousness is scandalized by grace, especially when it is given to someone it deems unworthy."
The irony, he said, is that while the younger son sinned openly and returned openly, the older brother was "sinning internally, hiding pride, resentment, entitlement, and self-righteousness under the cloak of obedience."
No compassion: the third barrier
The third reason the older brother did not go was, in Tong's telling, the one he knew most personally.
He recalled an early experience as a 23-year-old OM missionary sent to Venezuela ahead of one of the organization's ships. He had just received a brand-new briefcase — a gift he prized because it made him look important when meeting government officials and church leaders. Then a young man on a motorbike snatched it from him on the street and refused to give it back.
"We were both struggling," Tong recounted. "The briefcase flew out of his hand. It came open. All my things scattered on the road. The briefcase was broken. All the boys stood there watching and laughing." When the young man taunted him again, Tong lost his composure. He said to him, he told delegates quietly, "Go to hell."
The rebuke came immediately. "The Lord said to me: 'No. I don't want him to go to hell. That is why you are a missionary. You were supposed to rescue him from hell, not send him there.'"
"For the first time I realized that my briefcase was more important to me than the salvation of that young man," Tong said. "I was so insensitive to his lost state."
The young man later came to faith through someone else's witness, and Tong arranged for him to spend two weeks aboard one of OM's ships to begin his Christian journey. But the episode stayed with him as a vivid picture of the older brother's failure. "He was so insensitive to the lost state of his brother," Tong said. "He heard music. He stood at the door. And he would not go in — even when his father came out and pleaded with him."
Unavailability: the fourth barrier
The fourth reason Tong cited was a choice: the older brother chose to stay.
Referencing an earlier session at the congress that morning, Tong drew a pointed contrast. God, he said, is not looking for the able. God is looking for the available. The older brother was present, capable, informed about his brother's condition — and simply unwilling to go. Availability was what he withheld.
To close, Tong offered a retelling of what a different older brother might have said. In this version, the loyal son approaches the father and says: "Father, I know how much you love my brother and that you will not rest until he is found. Every morning I saw you look at the bed where he once slept. Every time we sat at the table, you would look at his empty chair. You would look out the window into the hills beyond, expecting him to come back. Father, for the joy of seeing my younger brother return to you — please let me go and find him. Here am I, Father. Send me."
Tong acknowledged this story does not appear in Scripture. "But I think it is very close to the Bible," he said. "It reveals the father's heart."
The reason it had to be invented is precisely the point. "The older brother, though he lived in the father's house, never truly understood the father's heart. Instead, we have the life of a man whose whole life is a joyless existence. A man who could sit in the presence of his father, but never really know the father."
He closed by challenging participants to reflect on the central question that Luke 15 poses to believers: "Do I understand the heart of God? Or am I the older brother?"
Follow Christian Daily International's full reporting on Arise Asia 2026.]]></content:encoded>
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                <title><![CDATA['Joy and suffering will always coexist': Veteran mission leader calls Arise Asia to surrender without reserve]]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/joy-and-suffering-will-always-coexist-veteran-mission-leader-calls-arise-asia-to-surrender-without-reserve</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.christiandaily.com/news/joy-and-suffering-will-always-coexist-veteran-mission-leader-calls-arise-asia-to-surrender-without-reserve</guid>
                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[CDI Staff]]></dc:creator>
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                            <media:title><![CDATA[Patrick Fung, Chair of the Global Board of Directors of Arise Asia and Director Emeritus of OMF International, addresses delegates during the morning session of the Arise Asia 2026 Congress in Manila, Philippines, July 29, 2026.]]></media:title>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Christian Daily International ]]>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Patrick Fung, Chair of the Global Board of Directors of Arise Asia and Director Emeritus of OMF International, addresses delegates during the morning session of the Arise Asia 2026 Congress in Manila, Philippines, July 29, 2026. ]]>
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                                                                            <pubDate>Wed, 29 Jul 2026 21:18:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[Patrick Fung, Chair of the Global Board of Directors of Arise Asia and Director Emeritus of OMF International, opened the third morning of the Arise Asia 2026 Congress in Manila on Wednesday with an address that pressed delegates to reckon with a truth he said modern Christianity tends to avoid: that joy and suffering do not stand in opposition but always accompany each other in the life of a faithful follower of Christ.]]></description>
                <content:encoded><![CDATA[
Patrick Fung, Chair of the Global Board of Directors of Arise Asia and Director Emeritus of OMF International, opened the third morning of the Arise Asia 2026 Congress in Manila on Wednesday with an address that pressed delegates to reckon with a truth he said modern Christianity tends to avoid: that joy and suffering do not stand in opposition but always accompany each other in the life of a faithful follower of Christ.
Speaking to approximately 4,000 young Christians from 50 countries gathered around the conference theme "For the Joy," drawn from Hebrews 12:2, Fung explored the day's theme of "Joy of Surrender, Holiness and Sacrifice" through the early chapters of Acts, warning that the greatest threats to the church have never come from outside.
A forgotten theology
Fung opened by acknowledging that the conference had spoken extensively about joy over the previous two days. He wanted to add what he called an inseparable companion.
"For followers of Jesus, joy and suffering always coexist," he said. "Jesus did not want his disciples to follow him without realizing that there is a cost involved in doing so."
He pointed to the breadth of Scripture's testimony on joy — more than 80 references in the Old Testament, 31 in the Psalms alone — before turning to a passage he said should stop readers cold: Acts 5:41, where the apostles left the Sanhedrin "rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name." They had just been flogged. The juxtaposition, Fung said, is not incidental. It is the point.
Many Christians instinctively treat suffering and joy as opposites, he said — one displacing the other. Scripture, he argued, does not. He drew delegates to James 1:2-4, where the apostle writes that trials of various kinds should be considered pure joy, because the testing of faith produces steadfastness. The logic is not that suffering ceases to hurt, but that something else is also true simultaneously.
Fung quoted a Sri Lankan theologian who described the theology of suffering as "a forgotten treasure," one largely displaced in contemporary Christianity by what he called an overemphasis on the therapy for suffering rather than its meaning. The problem, Fung suggested, is not that Christians seek comfort — it is that they have been taught to expect that comfort and faith move in the same direction. "The happiest people in the world are not those without suffering," he said, "but those who are not afraid of it."
He was careful not to minimize fear itself. Fear, he said, is real, and it can paralyze. The early church in Acts 4 was not fearless — the threats against them were real. Faith does not make fear disappear. What it does is hold joy and fear in the same hand.
Pressure from outside
Turning to Acts 4, Fung examined how the early church responded to external persecution, specifically the moment Peter stood before Jewish leaders and declared that salvation is found in no one else than Jesus Christ and no other name under heaven saves. Peter, he noted, was described by those same leaders as unschooled and unqualified. That, Fung said, was precisely the point.
"God often uses the unschooled, the uneducated, the unexpected to bring breakthroughs in gospel ministry," he told the congress. "God is not calling the able. God is calling the available."
When the early church faced its own crisis of persecution, Fung noted, it did not pray for the threats to be removed. The congregation in Acts 4 raised their voices together — the Greek word is homothumadon, appearing 11 of its 12 New Testament occurrences in Acts, he pointed out — and addressed God as sovereign over creation, revelation, and history. They asked not for relief but for boldness. "Nothing surprises God," Fung said.
He referenced the 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians killed by ISIS on a Libyan beach in February 2015, their lips moving in prayer in the moments before their deaths. The image, he said, brought revival to the Egyptian church and arrested the attention of many who did not share their faith. He also recalled the China Inland Mission's decision during the Boxer Rebellion of 1900, following the killing of 58 missionaries and 21 of their children, to refuse any government compensation — a response that moved a provincial governor to write a public letter commending their example to his people.
"Persecution has never killed the church," Fung said. "But a compromised gospel will." An assertion he would return to later in his address.
The weight of surrender
Fung then described his own experience of counting the cost. When he and his wife, Jenny, left careers in medicine to serve as missionaries in Pakistan, his father struggled deeply to understand the choice. For years he could not reconcile what he saw as a waste of his son's training and prospects.
Over time, what he could not explain away was the joy he observed in them. He eventually testified to noticing something he couldn't account for, and 20 years after they left for the mission field, Fung’s father became a Christian.
Fung also shared a conversation with a woman whose husband was imprisoned for preaching the gospel. When asked how to pray for him, she did not ask for his release or for the suffering to end. "Fear is real," she told Fung. "Fear can be contagious. But joy is even more contagious. Pray that he will be filled with joy, and that joy will spread across the prison."
The danger within
In the second half of his address, Fung turned from external pressure to what he called the more fatal threat: internal corruption. The structure of Acts, he argued, is deliberate. Chapter 4 shows Satan attacking the church through persecution from outside. Chapter 5 shows Satan changing tactics.
"When persecution doesn't work," Fung said, "he tries another method — to destroy the church through corruption, through falsehood, through deception from within."
That is the context, he said, for understanding the account of Ananias and Sapphira, the couple who sold property, secretly kept part of the proceeds, and presented the rest to the apostles as though it were the full amount. Fung paused on the precise charge Peter brings in the passage. The Greek word translated as "kept back," he explained, carries the sense of embezzlement — of taking what was not one's to take. Peter does not merely say they withheld money. He says they stole it.
The theological weight of that distinction matters. The money, Fung noted, was theirs. They were under no obligation to give any of it. The sin was not the amount. It was the pretense.
"It was a show," he said. "People thought they had given everything. They had not. The gravity of their sin is hypocrisy."
And hypocrisy, he argued, is not a private failure. It is a threat to the whole body. Great fear fell on the church following the deaths of Ananias and Sapphira not because of the punishment itself but because the community understood what was at stake. A church that performs its devotion rather than living it becomes something other than the church. "Persecution can lock you up in prison," Fung said. "But hypocrisy destroys you — and it will destroy the church. It is more fatal than persecution."
He drew a direct line from that passage to the present moment. "Perhaps you have made promises to God in the past," he told the delegates. "You may appear to people as godly, spiritual, and sacrificial. And yet deep down, you know in your heart you have not fulfilled your vow before God."
"Have we surrendered to God with a pure motive?" he asked. "Not a show. Not a performance."
The antidote he named was not more effort or resolve, but a posture toward God: holy fear. Where Ananias and Sapphira feared the opinion of the church more than the eyes of God, Fung called delegates to reverse that order. "We need to be true before God. We need to be authentic before God."
No reserve, no regret, no retreat
Fung closed with a call to full surrender: no reserve, no regret, no retreat. He quoted Dixon Hoste, one of the Cambridge Seven, who served in China from age 25 to age 85, on the danger of spending spiritual energy fighting colleagues rather than the powers of darkness. "Choose your battle," Fung said. "Often we fight the wrong one."
He asked the delegates to examine the authenticity of their own commitments before God, and he prayed that what Arise Asia becomes — not in Manila this week but across Asia in the years ahead — would look like the early church of Acts: united, prayerful, proclaiming, and spirit-filled, going to places where the gospel has not yet been heard.
At the close, he returned once again to the theme he had pressed throughout the morning. "Joy and suffering will always coexist. But may the joy of the Lord be our strength — and that is God's promise to us."
Follow Christian Daily International's full reporting on Arise Asia 2026.]]></content:encoded>
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                <title><![CDATA[Young Christians find AI easier to talk to than humans — and that is a problem, pastors say]]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/young-christians-find-ai-easier-to-talk-to-than-humans-and-that-is-a-problem-pastors-say</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.christiandaily.com/news/young-christians-find-ai-easier-to-talk-to-than-humans-and-that-is-a-problem-pastors-say</guid>
                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[CDI Staff]]></dc:creator>
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                            <media:title><![CDATA[A young adult consults his phone]]></media:title>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Unsplash ]]>
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                                    <![CDATA[ A young adult consults his phone. For a growing number of Christians in their 20s and 30s, AI has become the first stop for questions about Scripture and faith. ]]>
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                                                                            <pubDate>Thu, 23 Jul 2026 17:02:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[A growing number of Christians in their 20s and 30s are bringing their questions about Scripture, spiritual struggles, and life decisions to generative AI before they bring them to a pastor or church elder.]]></description>
                <content:encoded><![CDATA[
A growing number of Christians in their 20s and 30s are bringing their questions about Scripture, spiritual struggles, and life decisions to generative AI before they bring them to a pastor or church elder.
The shift reflects how deeply AI tools have embedded themselves in daily life for younger adults who grew up in a digital environment. For this generation, AI functions less like a search engine and more like an always-available conversation partner — one that asks nothing in return.
Korean theological scholars say the trend raises significant questions about faith formation, the future of pastoral care, and the proper place of technology in Christian discipleship, according to reporting by Christian Daily Korea.
"Behind this phenomenon of young people turning to AI first lies 'the cost of relationships' and 'fear of uncertainty,'" said Choi Gwang-jin, head chaplain of Hoseo University and a former president of the Korean Society of Systematic Theology.
A conversation with another person, Choi explained, is never merely a transaction. It involves managing emotions, navigating social expectations, exposing one's ignorance, and finding the right time to ask. When a young believer shares a spiritual struggle with a pastor or church member, he said, advice and judgment often arrive alongside the response — and that prospect can feel like a risk not worth taking.
"Young people sometimes feel the burden of being evaluated or condemned in that process," Choi told Christian Daily Korea.
Why AI wins the first conversation
Books present a similar barrier, Choi argued. Reading demands patience and requires the reader to follow an author's logic on the author's terms. AI does the opposite: it restructures content around the user's question, adjusts its level of explanation, and responds instantly. A request such as "summarize this from a pastoral-theological perspective for someone in their 20s" produces a tailored reply in seconds.
That responsiveness is why many young people no longer think of AI as merely a reference tool, Choi said. They treat it as a personal assistant.
The psychological dynamic matters too. "Asking a person a question means revealing one's own inadequacies," he said, "but AI carries no risk of mocking the user or damaging a relationship, so the psychological burden is comparatively lower." Spiritual struggles — precisely the domain where vulnerability is highest — are where that difference becomes most pronounced.
What AI cannot do
Still, Choi was direct about AI's limits. Knowledge and meaning are not the same thing.
"AI can present answers to questions, but it cannot fill the meaning of life," he said. "What AI provides is quantity of knowledge, whereas conversation with a person conveys the quality of knowledge together with warmth."
He also pushed back against any reading of the trend as evidence that young people have turned away from human connection altogether. The problem, he said, is not indifference to community but exhaustion from wounded relationships.
"If they encounter a truly personal community that accepts them as they are and can be trusted, young people will once again choose relationships with people," Choi said. He added that as technology becomes more capable, the desire for what is distinctly human will deepen rather than diminish.
Choi described three qualities in the kind of person young adults are waiting for. The first is someone who listens to a question all the way through before offering a correct answer. "AI excels at finding the right answer, but a person is a being who can look at the other's heart and pain alongside them," he said. "What young people need is not a problem-solver who fixes issues, but a companion who endures the weight of their worries together with them."
The second quality is honesty about one's own failures. A person who speaks openly about weakness rather than projecting competence is far more likely to be trusted by younger believers as a genuine elder, Choi said.
Third, he stressed the need for flexibility — the ability to hold firm to the values of faith while communicating in language the next generation can actually receive, and to ask what young people think rather than simply delivering accumulated wisdom from above.
"Young people may appear to have left the church," Choi said, "but in reality they are waiting for an adult who will respect them as a full human being. Becoming a better person for someone begins not with grand achievements, but with the small daily effort to understand the heart of the person you meet."
A tool, not a judge
Lee Seung-gu, a distinguished professor at Hapdong Theological Seminary, told Christian Daily Korea that using generative AI is not inherently problematic — but treating it as a final authority is.
"Multiple experts have consistently pointed out that AI can provide a fairly high level of response on general topics, but errors can appear on specific and detailed matters," Lee said. A response from an AI can reasonably serve as one reference point among many — alongside books, commentaries, and the counsel of other people — but it should never be treated as settled.
"The issue is not using AI itself," Lee said, "but using it as one reference among books, diverse materials, and the opinions of others." He called for a balanced approach that draws on a range of sources before reaching any conclusion, and warned against letting convenience substitute for the harder work of weighing multiple perspectives.
The threat to contemplation
Seo Chang-won, chairman of the Korean Reformed Preaching Institute and a former professor at Chongshin University Graduate School of Theology, widened the frame beyond youth ministry. The rise of AI, he argued, poses a challenge to deep faith formation across every age group.
The concern is not simply about accuracy. It is about what happens to the interior life when information becomes too easy to obtain.
"Using AI allows one to obtain desired information easily and quickly, but in that process, the training of thinking deeply, reflecting, and looking back on one's own life may gradually diminish," Seo told Christian Daily Korea. "Simply obtaining knowledge and information, and having that knowledge flow into one's life, are entirely different matters. True learning must necessarily pass through a process of deep reflection."
Seo warned that a faith built on fast information without reflective digestion risks producing passive Christians — believers who are easily swayed by fragments of knowledge rather than grounded in a life shaped by sustained encounter with Scripture and God.
"Rather than raising Christians who actively and voluntarily follow and commit to God, a passive faith attitude may be formed, with the result that even spiritual zeal begins to cool," he said.
He also raised a concern about the pulpit. If congregants are habituated to content that is short, immediately useful, and emotionally stimulating, pressure may grow on preachers to match that register — at the cost of sermons that lead listeners into slower, deeper engagement with the Word.
"All the more in the AI age, the church must redouble its pastoral efforts to help believers deeply meditate on God and the Word," Seo said. He called guiding believers to explore the spiritual world on their own terms, and to think seriously about God, a central responsibility of the church in the current moment.
Experts who spoke with Christian Daily Korea agreed that AI's convenience need not be rejected — but that it should be held alongside a renewed commitment to the things technology cannot replicate: genuine community, honest relationships, and the slow, irreplaceable work of spiritual formation.]]></content:encoded>
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                <title><![CDATA[Global evangelical leaders call churches to mark Creation Sunday on Sept. 6]]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/global-evangelical-leaders-call-churches-to-mark-creation-sunday-on-sept-6</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.christiandaily.com/news/global-evangelical-leaders-call-churches-to-mark-creation-sunday-on-sept-6</guid>
                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[CDI Staff]]></dc:creator>
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                            <media:title><![CDATA[Rev. Joseph Tia Sugri reads Scripture to members of Nanyeeri Baptist Church during a baptismal service at a river in northeastern Ghana. African theologians say creation is already woven into African Christian spirituality — not reserved for a special day]]></media:title>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Rev. Joseph Tia Sugri reads Scripture to members of Nanyeeri Baptist Church during a baptismal service at a river in northeastern Ghana. African theologians say creation is already woven into African Christian spirituality — not reserved for a special day but embedded in everyday worship. ]]>
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                                                                            <pubDate>Wed, 08 Jul 2026 11:00:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[Leaders from the World Evangelical Alliance, Baptist World Alliance, and the Lausanne/WEA Creation Care Network joined representatives of several other global Christian bodies Wednesday in a joint webinar calling churches worldwide to observe Creation Sunday on Sept. 6 — calling creation care an act of worship and discipleship, not a political cause.]]></description>
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Leaders from the World Evangelical Alliance, Baptist World Alliance, and the Lausanne/WEA Creation Care Network joined representatives of several other global Christian bodies Wednesday in a joint webinar calling churches worldwide to observe Creation Sunday on Sept. 6 — calling creation care an act of worship and discipleship, not a political cause.
The hour-long online event, held July 8, was co-organized by seven global Christian bodies and moderated by Latin American evangelical theologian Ruth Padilla DeBorst of the Latin American Theological Fellowship. It drew church leaders and pastors ahead of the annual celebration, which falls on the first Sunday of September.
"Caring for creation is not about politics," said Rev. Elijah Brown, CEO and General Secretary of the Baptist World Alliance, which represents 53 million baptized believers in 138 countries. "It is about worship, stewardship and loving our neighbors, especially those who are most vulnerable to environmental degradation and natural disasters."
Brown called the observance "an opportunity for your church to celebrate our creator God, give thanks for the beauty of the world God has made and recommit ourselves to faithful care and stewardship."
Rev. Botrus Mansour, Secretary General of the World Evangelical Alliance, grounded his endorsement in biblical theology and hope in Jesus Christ. "In a broken world that is kept captive between greed and fear, losing any perspective of hope, we as those who confess Jesus of Nazareth as our living hope should unite in serving our fellowmen in a relevant way," he said.
Mansour named environmental fear as one of the defining anxieties of the age. "One of the biggest fears for those who have no hope beyond the grave is that our planet is going down the drain," he said — and argued that Christians, far from standing apart from that concern, share it on deeper grounds. "Creation is nothing secondary. The natural is not unspiritual. Nothing is made without Christ" — citing John 1:3 and Colossians 1:20.
He argued that Christians who confess Jesus as Lord have particular reason, not less reason, to engage with creation. "As those who praise God for salvation and an eternal future in Christ, we honor the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ — not only by praising him for creation, but also by taking good care of his handiwork, not because we have no other hope, but because we do. It is an act of good discipleship and of fine stewardship."
The WEA leader framed the observance as a form of witness to a fearful world. "Those that confess Jesus as Lord should unite in taking care of God's creation, both to honor the creator and to show Christ's relevance in one more practical way, touching on the core of society's worst fears — showing that we also care for what is society's huge care, but with hope from the perspective of love."
"We therefore endorse the celebration of Creation Sunday as an expression of faith and as an expression of love, strengthened to do so by the authority of what scripture tells us to do," he said.
A theological foundation
Rev. Dave Bookless, an evangelical theologian who co-leads the global Lausanne/WEA Creation Care Network and serves as head of theology for A Rocha International, presented a new paper titled "Creation Sunday: An Introduction," produced by a working group of theologians from the convening bodies.
Bookless outlined six theological reasons for free churches — evangelical, Pentecostal and other non-liturgical traditions — to mark the day, beginning with Christology. "Creation Sunday helps us proclaim that Jesus is lord of all," he said, citing Jesus' role as preexistent creator in John 1, the cosmic reconciliation described in Colossians 1 and Christ's enthronement over all creation in Ephesians 1 and Philippians 2.
He described the gospel itself as inseparable from creation. Drawing on Romans 8, he noted Paul's declaration that "creation will be liberated from its bondage to decay." And he pointed to Romans 1 as evidence that creation plays an evangelistic role. "Creation displays God's eternal power and divine nature," Bookless said. "I often say creation is God's first evangelist."
The day also carries significance for discipleship and mission, Bookless argued. He cited Genesis 2's command to "work and take care of the garden" as a mandate that "has never been taken away," and linked creation care to the call in Matthew 25 to serve the most vulnerable.
He also drew a line from Creation Sunday back to Israel's liturgical calendar. "In the Old Testament, God's people celebrated festivals that often linked God's actions in history and God's actions in creation," Bookless said. Observances such as First Fruits and the Feast of Weeks were harvest-based, land-rooted celebrations. "We need to recover that tradition of celebrating God's provision and goodness in creation," he said.
Bookless spoke from personal experience about the spiritual dimension of engaging with creation. "The more I have learned about caring for creation, the more time I spend worshiping God in creation outdoors, the closer I find I get to Jesus," he said. He also noted that creation care "helps our faith become a seven-day-a-week rather than a Sunday morning thing."
African perspectives
Emmanuel Awudi, a theologian from Ghana representing the Pentecostal World Fellowship in the working group, opened with a historical observation. When the World Missionary Conference gathered in Edinburgh in 1910, he said, virtually no one anticipated the rise of a vibrant church in Africa. A century later, scholars widely acknowledge that the center of Christian vitality has shifted to the global south — and Awudi argued that shift carries direct implications for how the whole church thinks about creation.
"The wider church has much to learn from African Christians," he said. He pointed to indigenous African churches that have developed oral theologies enabling communities to conserve wetlands and ecosystems for centuries. He also drew on African hymnody, noting that African Christians sing of the mystery and wonder of God's creation in ways that echo the creation Psalms.
Among the Akan people of Ghana, he cited a traditional saying: "No one needs to teach a child the concept of God" — meaning the awareness of God as creator is understood to be innate, and the natural world is the first teacher. "The environment teaches believers a religious language," Awudi said. "The sun, the moon, the stars, the mountains, the lakes, the seas and the rivers, the thunder and the lightning, forests, plants and animals can all speak to human beings about the beyond."
For this reason, Awudi said, the feast of creation is not an import to Africa but a recognition of something already present. "The celebration of God's creation is already embedded in our spirituality and in our daily lives," he said.
That embeddedness, however, makes the formal observance no less relevant. Africa has suffered severe climate impacts, Awudi noted, and a named, celebrated feast can help channel African Christian creation theology into concrete care. He drew on Africa's long history of responding to environmental crisis — including, he said, the strategies employed by pharaohs during ancient famines — and expressed hope that "Africa can once again become the breadbasket of the world as it recovers the theology of creation."
Awudi identified three things the feast teaches: that creation belongs to God, not humanity; that human dominion is a delegated responsibility meant to mirror God's "compassion, love, mercy, and justice"; and that creation is not a resource pool to be exploited. "Every part of creation exists to fulfill God's purposes," he said. "It is not to be reduced to raw material or a commodity to be bought and sold on the market, but to be celebrated as God's creation."
He closed by urging that "the celebration of the feast of creation should not become an annual event but a way of life."
Creation Sunday is celebrated on the first Sunday of September each year. More information is available at creation-sunday.com.]]></content:encoded>
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                <title><![CDATA[Lausanne releases free discipleship video series to connect everyday faith with global mission]]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/lausanne-releases-free-discipleship-video-series-to-connect-everyday-faith-with-global-mission</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.christiandaily.com/news/lausanne-releases-free-discipleship-video-series-to-connect-everyday-faith-with-global-mission</guid>
                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[CDI Staff]]></dc:creator>
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                            <media:title><![CDATA[Michael Oh, global executive director and CEO of the Lausanne Movement, appears in a trailer for Becoming a Global Disciple, a free five-part video series connecting personal faith with global mission.]]></media:title>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Lausanne Movement ]]>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Michael Oh, global executive director and CEO of the Lausanne Movement, appears in a trailer for "Becoming a Global Disciple," a free five-part video series connecting personal faith with global mission. ]]>
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                                                                                                                        <pubDate>Tue, 23 Jun 2026 04:02:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[The Lausanne Movement has released a free five-part video series designed to help Christians connect personal faith with global mission, according to the organization.]]></description>
                <content:encoded><![CDATA[
The Lausanne Movement has released a free five-part video series designed to help Christians connect personal faith with global mission, according to the organization.
Becoming a Global Disciple, which launched June 22, offers short video episodes, discussion guides and devotional plans for use by churches, small groups, student ministries and individual believers. The resource is available in English and Portuguese at lausanne.org/globaldisciple, with French and Spanish translations expected within weeks.
The series grew out of a global listening process conducted in the lead-up to the Fourth Lausanne Congress, which identified deeper discipleship as one of the most significant gaps facing the church in fulfilling the Great Commission, the movement said.
"Following Jesus has always been deeply personal, but never merely private," said Michael Oh, global executive director and CEO of the Lausanne Movement. "The God who meets us in our daily lives is also the God who loves the world, gathers a global church, sends his people in mission, and calls us to live as one body in Christ."
The five episodes cover themes including the global church and its unfinished mission, prayer and cross-cultural learning, friendship and partnership across cultures, and the relationship between global and local discipleship. Each episode is paired with discussion questions, Scripture passages and practical next steps.
Contributors include voices from across the global church: Pearl Ganta, Desmond Henry, Janet Sewell, Joe Handley, Nana-Yaw Offei Awuku, Jurie Kriel and Jason Watson, alongside Oh.

Watson, Lausanne's director of content, said the series was built for ordinary church contexts. "Many church and ministry leaders care deeply about global mission, but they are asking how to help ordinary believers take meaningful next steps," he said. "Becoming a Global Disciple is a practical, accessible resource they can use without having to build a series from scratch."
Rather than framing global mission as the domain of missionaries or frequent travelers, the series is intended to help every believer see their daily life within the wider mission of God, according to the Lausanne Movement.
The resource can be accessed at lausanne.org/globaldisciple.]]></content:encoded>
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                <title><![CDATA[Pastoral burnout, AI, and micro-credentials among top agenda for ICETE's Mombasa gathering in 2027]]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/pastoral-burnout-ai-and-micro-credentials-among-top-agenda-for-icete-s-mombasa-gathering-in-2027</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.christiandaily.com/news/pastoral-burnout-ai-and-micro-credentials-among-top-agenda-for-icete-s-mombasa-gathering-in-2027</guid>
                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[CDI Staff]]></dc:creator>
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                            <media:title><![CDATA[At a house church in Durán, Ecuador, house church leaders study a theological education curriculum — an example of the grassroots, non-formal training ICETE aims to represent at its C27 global consultation in Mombasa, Kenya, in 2027.]]></media:title>
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                                    <![CDATA[ At a house church in Durán, Ecuador, house church leaders study a theological education curriculum — an example of the grassroots, non-formal training ICETE aims to represent at its C27 global consultation in Mombasa, Kenya, in 2027. ]]>
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                                                                            <pubDate>Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:37:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[Pastoral burnout, artificial intelligence, micro-credentials and the recognition of prior learning are set to dominate the agenda when the world's leading evangelical theological education body convenes in Mombasa, Kenya, in April 2027 — signaling a field grappling with pressures that traditional seminary models were never designed to address.]]></description>
                <content:encoded><![CDATA[
Pastoral burnout, artificial intelligence, micro-credentials and the recognition of prior learning are set to dominate the agenda when the world's leading evangelical theological education body convenes in Mombasa, Kenya, in April 2027 — signaling a field grappling with pressures that traditional seminary models were never designed to address.
The International Council for Evangelical Theological Education announced the gathering, dubbed C27, during a June preparatory call, setting an April 5–9, 2027 date at the Kenyan coastal city.
For the first time in the organization's 46-year history, prospective attendees must be nominated rather than simply registered. Executive Director Dr. Michael A. Ortiz said the event will be capped at 600 delegates, with nominations already exceeding available places.
Julie Shoemaker, ICETE's Director of Communications and Connections, said the change reflects a deliberate effort to shape the room rather than simply fill it. The goal, she said, is to ensure adequate representation from the majority world, women, next-generation leaders, students and all sectors of theological education — formal, non-formal and informal — alongside voices from the church.
There will be no public registration link on the ICETE website. All prospective attendees must submit a nomination form, and invitations to register will be sent by approximately August.
The theme for C27 — "Understanding the times and knowing what to do" — comes directly from 1 Chronicles 12:32, a passage describing the sons of Issachar, who are commended for grasping the moment and acting accordingly. Dr. Marvin Oxenham, ICETE's Quality Assurance Director and Director of the ICETE Academy, said the verse captures what the organization wants the gathering to accomplish.
"There's the understanding of times component, and then there's the knowing what to do component," he said.
Oxenham said the understanding-the-times dimension of the consultation is intended to be driven by hard data and research rather than anecdote. Presentations will be expected to bring evidence that helps participants "become reflective practitioners," with that understanding then feeding into the second dimension: discernment and action.
Collaboration, he added, is a consistent goal of ICETE gatherings, and C27 will be no different.
Among the substantive topics already on the agenda is pastoral training, which Ortiz described as a pressing need — particularly in majority world contexts. Oxenham added another dimension to that concern, citing a recent Lausanne movement article reporting that more than half of pastors have at some point considered leaving ministry due to burnout. He said the data raises direct questions for theological educators: "Are we addressing the issues that lead to burnout, that lead to wanting to leave the pastoral ministry, and how are we addressing those in our training?"
Artificial intelligence will also feature prominently. Oxenham said it would be impossible to hold a consultation under the theme of understanding the times without a serious engagement with AI — a topic that has already generated significant debate across evangelical institutions. Christian Daily International has previously reported on warnings from theological educators that seminaries must balance AI's potential against the risk of bypassing genuine spiritual formation.
Additional topics will include quality standards across all three sectors, mega-trends in higher education — including the growing significance of mental health — micro-credentials, and, for the first time at an ICETE global gathering, the formal recognition of prior learning. Oxenham described recognition of prior learning as a key mechanism bridging formal and non-formal training, and said a separate consultation on the topic may follow C27.
On micro-credentials, Oxenham said a first cohort of providers — mostly from the non-formal sector — will have completed the certification process by the time the Mombasa gathering convenes and will be able to report on whether it is working for them.
ICETE has previously expanded its micro-credentialing offering to include a vocational track aimed at non-formal training providers, a development Christian Daily International has previously reported on as potentially reshaping the field.
Two major research initiatives will feed into C27's agenda. The first is a global student survey of approximately 60 questions, to be launched within weeks of the pre-call and distributed across formal and non-formal programs in multiple languages. The aim is to gather data from thousands of theology students across all regions.
The second is what ICETE is calling the Landscape Project — a mapping exercise covering the organization's roughly 70 member bodies, which together serve an estimated 500,000 people preparing for ministry globally.
Shoemaker described three components: mapping where members are working and whom they are serving, mining that data to identify duplications and gaps, and then convening members to act on what is found.
C27 is the third in a sequence that began with the C22 consultation in Izmir, Turkey, which focused on integrating formal and non-formal theological education, and continued with C25 in Albania, where the organization gathered data and published a document charting directions for the field. Ortiz described the series as a continuous body of work rather than a set of independent events, with impact teams, micro-credentialing and the landscape project all forming part of the same trajectory.
ICETE Virtual gatherings in July, August and September will address related topics before a second C27-focused preparatory session in October. Those interested in attending C27 or submitting relevant research data for consideration may contact ICETE at info@icete.info.]]></content:encoded>
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                <title><![CDATA['We are stronger together': WCC General Secretary Jerry Pillay on unity, persecution, Russia and the future of ecumenism]]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/we-are-stronger-together-wcc-general-secretary-jerry-pillay-on-unity-persecution-russia-and-the-future-of-ecumenism</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.christiandaily.com/news/we-are-stronger-together-wcc-general-secretary-jerry-pillay-on-unity-persecution-russia-and-the-future-of-ecumenism</guid>
                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[Timothy Goropevsek]]></dc:creator>
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                            <media:title><![CDATA[WCC General Secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Jerry Pillay during his exclusive interview with Christian Daily International at the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva.]]></media:title>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Christian Daily International ]]>
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                                    <![CDATA[ WCC General Secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Jerry Pillay during his exclusive interview with Christian Daily International at the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva. ]]>
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                                                                            <pubDate>Sat, 20 Jun 2026 02:58:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[At the Ecumenical Centre on the Chemin du Pommier in Geneva — home to the World Council of Churches (WCC) since 1966 — Christian Daily International sat down with Rev. Prof. Dr Jerry Pillay for an exclusive and wide-ranging conversation.]]></description>
                <content:encoded><![CDATA[
At the Ecumenical Centre on the Chemin du Pommier in Geneva — home to the World Council of Churches (WCC) since 1966 — Christian Daily International sat down with Rev. Prof. Dr Jerry Pillay for an exclusive and wide-ranging conversation. As General Secretary of the WCC, Pillay leads a fellowship of 356 member churches representing more than 600 million Christians across over 120 countries. It stands as one of the three primary world church bodies next to the Vatican and the World Evangelical Alliance.
Pillay, who began his tenure on Jan. 1, 2023, is the ninth person to hold that office since the body was founded in 1948. A South African theologian, ordained minister in the Uniting Presbyterian Church in Southern Africa, and former dean of the Faculty of Theology and Religion at the University of Pretoria, Pillay has been formally involved with the WCC since 2006.
The topics covered in the conversation ranged from the historic demographic shift of Christianity toward the Global South, the deepening relationship between the WCC and the evangelical movement, the delicate management of theological tensions over sexuality and human dignity, the challenge of religious persecution, and the question of the Russian Orthodox Church's continued membership in the wake of Russia's war in Ukraine.
Christianity's Center of Gravity Has Moved South
The interview began with a focus on the fundamental shift that has reshaped global Christianity over the past few decades: the remarkable southward move of the faith's demographic center of gravity. When the WCC was founded in the aftermath of the Second World War, it was overwhelmingly an institution of the Global North — European state churches, North American mainline denominations, and their theological assumptions shaped its agenda, its language, and its self-understanding. That world, Pillay observed, has fundamentally changed.
"We are very mindful of the shift of Christianity to the Global South," he said, "and the WCC is very proactive in ensuring that we take a lot more of our epistemologies, our learnings, our theological insights and understandings and information from churches and church life from the context of the global south."
In his view, this is not merely a matter of demographics or representation. It reflects a substantive theological reorientation. At the WCC's 2022 General Assembly in Karlsruhe, Germany, the body adopted a deliberate focus on decolonization. The goal, as Pillay described it, is to move beyond the inherited assumption that northern European theological frameworks are normative for global Christianity, and to ask instead what the global south's theologians and communities can contribute.
Part of what the south brings, he suggested, is a more holistic understanding of faith — one in which religion is not detached from economics, politics, or culture. "In the context of the global south, religion is not something that is separated from the way of living," he explained. "Culture, religion, politics, economics — everything in a sense is intertwined. And so, for a person believing in that context, faith speaks to everything."
He also noted that the southern voice brings a particular intensity around questions of justice. "Justice and unity have been big, but the focus on justice is a big issue for the global south because of historical experiences and the way life has been within that context itself."
Evangelicals Increasingly Open to Cooperation
Closely connected to the southward shift is another development Pillay took note of: an increasing openness to the WCC from evangelical and Pentecostal movements that for decades regarded the ecumenical movement with deep suspicion.
Historically, many evangelical churches kept their distance from the WCC, associating it with a perceived embrace of the "social gospel," progressive politics, and theological relativism. Pillay acknowledged that history. "In the past," he said, "there's been a lot of criticisms of the WCC because there was this view of the social gospel and politics and so forth."
But he argued that global crises — climate, conflict, inequality, and pandemic — have compelled a pragmatic rethinking. "The way the world has changed, and the big global issues has made many people realize that you cannot separate faith from life and politics and economics." The result, he said, is that the WCC is now receiving many of its membership applications from evangelical and even Pentecostal backgrounds.
They are drawn toward ecumenical cooperation as they discover common ground on shared concerns around social issues. "Many of them," he said, speaking of evangelicals who engage the WCC, "say, 'But we've been saying that too. Why can't we talk together?'"
Pillay himself maintains active relationships across traditional divides. He participates in the roundtable convened by the Pentecostal World Fellowship, recently received World Evangelical Alliance Secretary General Butros Mansour at the Ecumenical Centre, and deliberately seeks out spaces where conversations across traditions can occur.
"I believe that real ecumenism is on the ground," he said. "That's where people really live their ecumenical spirit at its best."
Managing Theological Tension Through a Consensus Model
A great diversity of member churches within the WCC's orbit, however, brings with it challenges — particularly around questions of human sexuality and the ordination of women. The fractures within some of the WCC's own member churches have made the challenge acutely visible.
The United Methodist Church recently experienced a formal split, with the theologically conservative Global Methodist Church departing over the denomination's evolving stance on same-sex marriage. The Anglican Communion is navigating its own rupture, with the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) having drawn a significant number of Global South Anglican churches away from the Canterbury axis over similar issues.
Asked directly how the WCC navigates such fault lines, Pillay acknowledged the tensions that the theological diversity of its constituency brings with it.
"Virtually every church has liberals and conservative people," he said. "It's not like we can just label one group being conservative and the other liberal." He pointed to churches within the fellowship as holding deeply conservative positions on sexuality and the ordination of women. "The WCC has a mixture of all of that."
The WCC's approach, as Pillay described it, is not to adjudicate between competing theological positions but to reorient the conversation toward shared commitments: the love of God, the dignity of every human person, and the example of Jesus. "When we talk from the perspective of justice, when we talk from the perspective of human dignity and rights and when we talk about the love that Jesus speaks about and the desire and the need to love people no matter what — those are the kind of things that we try to teach."
The WCC has also institutionalized a decision-making process designed to prevent theological disagreement from rupturing fellowship: the consensus model. Rather than majority voting, the WCC uses a card system — blue for disagreement, orange for agreement — that keeps disputed items in deliberation until sufficient consensus emerges. "We don't make a decision by majority vote. We make a decision by consensus," Pillay explained. "And of course there are people who disagree, but in the end, they may give consent for us to move on."
This approach, he argued, has allowed the WCC to hold together its 356 member churches across centuries of Christian tradition without experiencing institutional schism. "The mystery and the joy of coming together as God's people is really profound and overwhelming," he said. "Even in the midst of disagreements, we need to talk about what is our unity meaning in Christ, who brings us together and makes us one through the work of the Holy Spirit."
Political Polarization as a Key Challenge for Today’s Church 
When asked whether the WCC has noticed a movement within its membership toward either more conservative or more liberal theological positions in recent years, Pillay sought to avoid such labels.
He declined to characterize the overall movement as straightforwardly more conservative or more liberal, preferring to describe a trend toward "more engaged theological thinking" and a more open-minded approach to certain questions. However, he identified a complicating factor: the instrumentalization of religion by political actors.
"Politicians have entered into the fray and they are instrumentalizing religion for their own benefits," he said. "This kind of sense of exclusionary nationalism and politicization of religion has taken some steps backward because they have made the churches become more conservative in their thinking."
He pointed to the influence of both far-left and far-right political movements as destabilizing forces within church communities, producing a "big polarization" in which religious allegiances and political allegiances become deeply entangled. The WCC's response, in his view, is to insist on returning to the gospel itself as the orienting question: "The task of the church is to say, what does Jesus say? Let's not get influenced by any particular background or persuasion, but let's be true to the gospel message."
He acknowledged that this call is not always easy to receive, particularly in contexts where churches are closely bound to states or to political support structures.
Religious Persecution: What Lies at Its Roots?
Beyond the fractures within the church itself, the conversation then turned to another kind of pressure coming from outside. Pillay was asked how the WCC engages with the growing problem of religious persecution, particularly in countries like India and Nigeria where violence against Christian communities has intensified markedly in recent years.
Many evangelical advocates for the persecuted church — particularly organizations working in the religious freedom space — tend to view persecution primarily as an ideological or religious phenomenon: the systematic targeting of Christians because of their faith, driven by hostile religious or political ideologies.
Pillay, by contrast, emphasized the economic and political roots of what presents itself as religious violence. "Most of these violences and these persecutions are religiously inspired because they're motivated by the instrumentalization of religion," he said, "and politicians and governments use them wisely and wildly for their own advantage. Often these things are not religious issues. They are politics and economics under the disguise of religion — and that's the sad thing."
In Nigeria, where the WCC maintains an office in Kaduna specifically focused on Christian-Muslim relations, Pillay described what he sees as a pattern of mutual violence. "Christians are equally attacking Muslims in Nigeria," he said, while adding that "the other way around is worse where Muslims are attacking Christians." The WCC's approach there has been to create visible public partnerships between Christian and Muslim leaders — modeling at the institutional level the coexistence they hope to encourage at the community level.
On India, Pillay pointed to the political dimension of Hindu nationalist pressure on Christian communities. "You have a government leader, a prime minister who openly says he favors Hinduism at the expense of other religions," he said. "What happens in a context like that? People feel supported that they could do whatever they want to do and Christians are under attack. So, it becomes a politically based thing where people take advantage and resort to violence because political leaders do not proclaim a sense of harmony and working together."
When pressed specifically on the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) — the Hindu nationalist organization widely understood as the ideological parent of India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and frequently cited by religious freedom advocates as a key driver of anti-Christian violence in India — Pillay acknowledged this reality: "Absolutely. Absolutely." He conceded that ideological movements of this kind are real and present. However, he maintained that even in such cases, a deeper structural analysis is essential. "If you go deeper, you will see most of these things are driven by other factors," including political power and economic competition.
His broader theological argument was that authentic religion, in any tradition, points toward peace rather than violence. "If we are inspired by true religion, then no matter what your religion, you should be talking peace," he said, adding that "Islam says it's a religion of peace. Judaism says it's a religion of Shalom. Christianity says it's a religion of peace. Hindus are among the most harmonizing, accepting religious people."
For Pillay, violence carried out in the name of religion thus reflects a distortion of faith, not its true character.
The Russian Orthodox Church: Dialogue or Exclusion?
Pillay was then asked about the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) and its continued membership in the WCC since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 — and particularly since Patriarch Kirill's repeated invocations of the conflict as a "holy war."
Pillay described his personal visit to Moscow, where he met with Patriarch Kirill face-to-face and delivered the WCC's position in unambiguous terms. "I spoke to Patriarch Kirill and very clearly outlined the WCC view and policy on holy war," he said. "We simply laid out that we do not accept that. There is no justification for that whatsoever as far as we understand it. I said that to Kirill."
The WCC's 2022 General Assembly took the deliberate decision not to suspend or expel the ROC — a decision that has attracted considerable criticism, particularly from European churches, Ukrainian church bodies, and others who argue that continued membership amounts to complicity. Pillay defended that decision on strategic grounds: "At that time it was the right decision because no other people or bodies were able to speak with them apart from ourselves."
He acknowledged that the situation has not fundamentally changed. Patriarch Kirill no longer uses the phrase "holy war" explicitly, but "he uses other words to give the same kind of implications." The WCC, Pillay said, has "systematically" called Russia's war on Ukraine "immoral and illegal" and has stood firmly by the Ukrainian people. The ROC continues to participate in WCC governance — including representation on its executive and central committee — while remaining in theological and political tension with the Council's stated positions.
The criticism from European churches and civil society, Pillay said, while understandable, reflects an incomplete picture. "They don't understand the dynamics of relationships. They are one-sided and biased in their own position and we accept that, we understand that, but I do think you need to step aside and have the whole picture." He called for critics to engage the WCC in direct dialogue rather than public pressure campaigns, suggesting that those who have done so have sometimes moderated their public positions once they understand the complexity of maintaining prophetic engagement from within rather than exclusion from without.
He emphasized, however, that continued membership is not unconditional: "We will not prolong our view on any matter because we are quite strong about membership must be indicating that you follow what the WCC proclaims together."
Looking Ahead: Cautious Optimism with the Right Leaders
In closing, Pillay was asked where he sees the relationship between the ecumenical movement and evangelicalism heading over the next five to ten years.
"I think it will get stronger. I can see the spirit of ecumenism is a lot wider and broader and recognized and accepted," he said. He pointed to the urgency created by global crises, including environmental, geopolitical, and social, as a powerful driver of cooperation across traditional divides. "We cannot do it alone. We need to do it together. We are stronger and better together and the unity of Christians and believers in Christ will make a difference."
He acknowledged that doctrinal and cultural tensions will not disappear, and that the polarizing political, ideological, and theological forces that currently fragment the Christian world will continue to exert pressure. But he described a growing sector of evangelical Christians who, once they come to understand what the ecumenical movement actually stands for, are willing to identify with it. "Not all evangelicals, but a growing sector of evangelicals when they understand what being ecumenical is all about will also subscribe to say, 'Yeah, that describes me too.'"
The quality of leadership, he suggested, remains decisive. "When church leaders are in good understanding and good relationship, it does well to move it to a different level. You get the wrong leaders; they do more harm than good. Our task is to bring glory to God."]]></content:encoded>
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                <title><![CDATA[Asian seminary journal calls for 'integrative approach' to forming whole-person Christian leaders]]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/asian-seminary-journal-calls-for-integrative-approach-to-forming-whole-person-christian-leaders</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.christiandaily.com/news/asian-seminary-journal-calls-for-integrative-approach-to-forming-whole-person-christian-leaders</guid>
                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[CDI Staff]]></dc:creator>
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                            <media:title><![CDATA[ATA Journal]]></media:title>
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                                                                            <pubDate>Thu, 18 Jun 2026 06:14:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[A peer-reviewed journal published by the Asia Theological Association has released a volume focused entirely on how theological institutions across Asia are working to form students not just academically but spiritually, relationally, and personally — a challenge that leaders in the region say is growing more urgent.]]></description>
                <content:encoded><![CDATA[
A peer-reviewed journal published by the Asia Theological Association has released a volume focused entirely on how theological institutions across Asia are working to form students not just academically but spiritually, relationally, and personally — a challenge that leaders in the region say is growing more urgent.
The Journal of Asian Theological Education and Spiritual Formation (JATES), published by the ATA and now indexed in the ATLA Religion Database, dedicated its 2026 volume to what the editors call "institutional approaches to holistic formation." The issue features six research contributions from seminaries in Taiwan, India, South Korea, and the Philippines, drawing on case studies, student surveys, and qualitative research.
The volume's editorial introduction, written by editors Dr. Justin Peter and Dr. Sooi-Ling Tan, identifies a central gap in how the region's seminaries operate: institutions widely desire to form whole persons but lack clarity about how to do it.
Drawing on an ATA-wide study led by researcher Allan Harkness, Peter and Tan write that the findings reveal both "a strong desire among member institutions to foster holistic formation and a corresponding lack of clarity in implementation." Harkness surveyed 47 ATA institutions across 14 countries and conducted focus groups with participants from 45 additional schools across 11 countries.
The editors describe holistic formation as the integration of three dimensions: cognitive or intellectual growth, ministry skills, and what they term "spiritual, relational, and personal formation." The last category — the least systematically addressed, according to their findings — encompasses a student's inner life, character, sense of calling, and capacity for healthy relationships.
Relational and spatial formation
Across the six institutions represented in the journal, several common patterns emerged. Each school had embedded formation within structured curriculum rather than treating it as an add-on to academic work. China Evangelical Seminary used family systems theory and counseling-based coursework to help students develop self-awareness and relational maturity. South Asia Institute of Advanced Christian Studies used practicum placements paired with mentoring and reflective journaling. Torch Trinity Graduate University in South Korea built mentoring into its Master of Divinity program as a sustained relational context for personal and spiritual growth.
The editors also draw attention to what they call the "hidden curriculum" of space and environment — the formative role of shared meals, hospitality, prayer rooms, and retreats. These physical and communal contexts, they argue, shape students in ways that formal coursework alone cannot.
"Holistic formation is woven through curriculum, relationships, spaces, and practices," Peter and Tan write in the journal's editorial introduction.
The JATES findings align with broader concerns Dr. Theresa Lua, general secretary of the ATA, has raised in other settings about the direction of theological education in Asia. Speaking to Christian Daily International in March 2025, Lua said that while Asian institutions have increasingly taken ownership of training their own leaders, online learning has made it harder to provide the kind of in-person formation that discipleship requires. She argued that seminaries need intentional partnership with local churches to fill that gap. "When there is an intentionality in terms of the partnership and the mentoring, then churches are very much involved in that formation aspect," she said.
The 'academization' concern
At the Asia Conference on Church and Mission held in Manila earlier this month, Lua pressed the issue further. She warned that seminaries across the region have drifted toward what she called the "academization" of theological education — prioritizing intellectual credentialing in ways that widen the distance between institutions and ordinary congregations.
"There has been a call for decades to provide theological education for all those people in order to empower them to serve in a wide spectrum of ministries in the church and beyond," Lua told the Manila gathering, referring to lay believers. She argued the church's mission requires equipping the full people of God — lawyers, doctors, artists, and business professionals — to live as disciples in every domain of life, not only those who enter professional ministry.
The JATES special issue is partly a response to that gap. The project originated through a partnership between the ATA and the Global Spiritual Formation Project, funded by the Templeton Religion Trust. Thirty-three research abstracts were submitted by ATA member institutions; fourteen were selected for development; eleven completed the full process of peer review, external review, and professional editing. The first batch of papers appears in this volume, with a second installment to follow.
Lifelong discipleship as the frame
Harkness, summarizing the ATA study in the journal's lead article, draws four implications for institutions seeking to improve their formation programs. Formation should be oriented toward lifelong discipleship and service, not just preparation for first ministry roles. It needs to account for both globalization and contextualization — recognizing that Asian students live in complex, rapidly shifting environments. The impact of formation extends beyond individual students to their families, congregations, and communities. And effective formation, he argues, depends on community support and partnerships, both within institutions and with outside stakeholders.
Those conclusions echo what Lua told Christian Daily International last year, when she described her concern that seminaries can easily lose touch with what is actually happening in local churches. "We remind schools that their mission is not just for the seminary itself, but for the church and God's broader mission," she said.
The volume is available online as free download.]]></content:encoded>
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