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Update (Jan. 24): Reuters reports that about one-third of Uruguay’s doctors are refusing to perform abortions in accordance with the new law.

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(Editor’s note: Time magazine has reported on the regional significance of Uruguay’s new law.)

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In predominantly Catholic Latin America, laws permitting abortion are gaining ground.

Both Uruguay and Argentina’s capital, Buenos Aires, recently voted to approve bills legalizing some forms of abortion. The bills passed legislatures by one-vote margins in each country.

In Buenos Aires, legislators narrowly approved (30-29) a law that “allows unrestricted abortions in cases of rape or when the mother’s life is in danger.” Argentina and Colombia have similar rules allowing abortions only in extreme cases, but this law would loosen the restrictions for Buenos Aires residents.

And just as religious and pro-life leaders are calling for Buenos Aires mayor Mauricio Macri to keep his promise to veto the law, a recent ruling by Argentina’s Supreme Court in a rape case has others calling for a federal abortion bill.

In Uruguay, the nation’s Chamber of Deputies narrowly approved (50-49) a bill that would legalize abortions up to 12 weeks after conception. President Jose Mujica is expected to allow the bill to become law once the nation’s senate approves the language, according to the Associated Press. The news service notes, “The Senate already has approved an even more liberal version of the abortion measure.”

Uruguay’s final vote is expected today.

But whether or not the bill is approved, women’s rights activists say this is not the law they have hoped for. The bill does not de-criminalize self-induced abortions, requires a woman to appear before a panel to request an abortion, and also requires a five-day “waiting period” before any procedure can take place.

Uruguay and Argentina, as well as most of the rest of Latin America, are predominantly Catholic. However, the AP reports that a poll of 802 suggests that more Uruguayans favor abortion rights than oppose them.

Last year, CT noted that Mexico’s Supreme Court upheld two state provisions that say life begins at conception, finding them to be constitutional. The provisions in San Luis Potosi and Baja California are 2 of 17 similar state provisions enacted after a 2007 Mexico City law legalized some abortions.

Update (Feb. 19): AsiaNews notes that a second Muslim-Christian ticket is poised to win another important political post in Indonesia. According to the article, “Voters appear drawn to tickets that include moderate Muslim and Christian candidates, hoping that they might bring good government in places where officials have tended to pursue their own personal or business interests.”

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Yesterday Jakarta, capital of the world’s most-populous Muslim country, officially installed its new leadership–including deputy governor Basuki Tjahaja, a Christian with Chinese origins.

But the inauguration, originally scheduled for Oct. 7, has not taken place without opposition. Government sources cited an administrative delay last week when they rescheduled the event, but Asia News reports that the delay was “due to protests by extremists who want non-Muslims banned from all key positions of responsibility.”

Adding credence to this theory: the discovery yesterday of two policemen murdered as they investigated the bombing of a Christian politician’s home.

Hundreds of members of the Islamic Defense Front rioted in Jakarta’s streets last week, making good on their earlier promise to protest the election of governor Joko Widodo, a moderate Muslim, and deputy Tjahaja.

Widodo, a moderate Muslim, and Tjahaja beat outgoing Governor Fauzi “Foke” Bowo and his deputy Nachrowi Ramli in a runoff election on Sept. 20.

According to the New York Times, Indonesia has long been considered a model of religious tolerance, but recent religious tensions, including the demolition of 20 churches and protests over attacks on Christians by Muslim extremists, suggest the country may be having trouble maintaining harmony between religious groups.

BP – Representatives from nine state legislatures have announced the formation of state-level religious freedom caucuses in a new nationwide effort to combat religious discrimination.

“There is a renewed interest in religious freedom in the country, and this growing attention is bringing together people of all religious faiths and political ideologies,” Tim Schultz of the American Religious Freedom Program (ARFP) said during a teleconference Oct. 9. “Freedom of religion is a right that all lawmakers, and this includes state legislators, have a role in protecting and defending.

“This is not an issue just for the courts,” Schultz noted.

With the assistance of a bipartisan group of more than 120 lawmakers–16 were present for the teleconference–ARFP plans to inaugurate religious freedom caucuses in all 50 states by the end of 2013. The current states with caucuses are Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Missouri, New Hampshire, Oklahoma and Tennessee.

The formation of these caucuses is based on two ideas, Schultz said: 1) Religious freedom is important to the majority of Americans from all faiths, and these individuals oppose “state-sponsored injury to religion” and 2) the free exercise of religion is a constitutional right that is foundational to all freedoms and must be protected by state lawmakers.

Schultz–state policy director for the AFRP, which is an initiative of the Washington-based Ethics and Public Policy Center–explained how the caucuses will function:

Even though these are the first state caucuses with a religious freedom agenda, they will work in a manner similar to other legislative caucuses. Each caucus will consist of lawmakers who come together to discuss various public policy issues pertaining to freedom of religion both in their state and throughout the country. There will be a multi-state information-sharing component to connect the caucuses across the country. This will help build legislative expertise beyond that of a single caucus in one state capital.

State Rep. Stephen Precourt of Florida said during the teleconference, “Religious freedom caucuses–that is, legislators of all political and religious affiliations working together–can work to help ensure the courts do not end up being the sole recourse for violation of religious freedom and, even better, to prevent the courts in the first place from being a means to push religious discrimination.”

When Jon Craton enrolled in an online class on artificial intelligence last fall, he was just one of 160,000 students—a far cry from his previous experience at Taylor University. At the Christian liberal arts school in Upland, Indiana, 59 percent of classes have fewer than 20 students.

But his AI class, taught by Stanford University's Sebastian Thrun and Google's Peter Norvig, was the first course of its kind—a massive open online course (MOOC) offering expert-taught, elite-level classes free to anyone. Now, other leading institutions are jumping on board, launching MOOC platforms such as Udacity, edX, and Coursera.

Christian colleges are embracing MOOC elements as well, though many schools remain concerned about sacrificing the benefits of in-person learning communities.

Dean of online learning Jeff Groeling says Taylor hopes to integrate MOOC elements into its existing 150 online courses in ways that stay faithful to its Christian commitments. "Christ discipled people face to face," he said. "Granted, tech didn't exist then; but we're trying to follow Christ's model."

Students' in-class experiences often set Christian schools apart from competitors, says David Nystrom, provost at Biola University in Los Angeles. The school recently launched Open Biola, a MOOC-style platform that offers archived classroom content for free.

Nystrom says Open Biola, which differs from the school's for-credit online courses, embodies Jesus' teaching of "disinterested goodness," or giving without expecting anything in return. "We are doing this because we think that there's material here that could be of benefit for God's work worldwide," he said.

Other schools embrace a different vision. Liberty University, whose 82,000 online students make it the largest Christian university in the world, plans to expand internationally. But provost Ron Godwin said the school "[has] bills to pay" and does not plan to "give away education" or incorporate MOOCs.

Scott Hines, CEO of World Education University (WEU), plans to launch one of the first MOOC schools this fall. Although WEU is not affiliated with any religion, Hines, a pastor's kid raised in the instrumental Churches of Christ, says its social justice mission aligns directly with the teachings of Christ.

"We are not necessarily feeding the poor or giving them shelter," he said, "but we are certainly giving something to those in poverty without asking anything in return."

However, as Taylor's Groeling points out, Christian transformation often happens in person-to-person interactions. He says the principle of large, online classes contradicts the school's emphasis on Christian discipleship. "[We've] really tried to understand the role of online in relation to the residential," he said. "[But] it's hard to get any farther away from an incarnational perspective than to have a class of 160,000 students."

Next time you're with a group of evangelical Christians, try this exercise in free association: What comes to mind when you hear the word "gay"? Whose faces do you imagine? The lesbian couple who live next door, who have been burned by the church and have been dropping hints that they're not too fond of Christians? The barely-clad, gyrating figures in the local Pride Parade? The political activists you watch on the nightly news? The radio show host who said those nasty things about conservatives?

Whatever pictures the label "gay" evokes, you probably don't immediately envision the face of an evangelical churchgoer. Justin Lee, a self-described "gay Christian" and author of the disarmingly vulnerable Torn: Rescuing the Gospel from the Gays-vs.-Christians Debate (Jericho Books), is out to change your perceptions.

Known as "God Boy" in high school, Lee was the kid who wouldn't shut up about Jesus. He came from good evangelical stock: Raised Southern Baptist, in a picture-perfect family, he was outspoken and winsome in a leadership role in his church's youth group. Yet while he was defending his church's traditional position on gay partnerships ("love the sinner, hate the sin," he once repeated to a skeptical fellow student, only to regret it afterwards), Lee was harboring a secret. "Years earlier," he writes, "when I had first hit puberty and all my male friends were starting to 'notice' girls, I was having the opposite experience: I was starting to 'notice' other guys."

At first he tried chalking this experience up to a phase many young men his age went through. He dated girls, focused on his schoolwork, and stayed busy with church activities. But his attraction to other guys didn't diminish or recede. In a particularly poignant passage of his book, Lee recalls holding hands with his girlfriend at a Michael W. Smith and Jars of Clay concert when, in an unbidden moment, he found himself staring at a guy. "I only saw him for an instant," Lee says, "but I couldn't help noticing his attractive features, and suddenly I found my thoughts and emotions rushing toward him. I wanted to know everything about him …. I wanted to meet him, to talk to him, to get to know him, to spend time with him."

Eventually, Lee admitted to himself—and then, later, to his pastor, his parents (whom his book describes as notably mature, compassionate, and sensitive), and a small cadre of trusted friends—that what he was experiencing wasn't just a phase, or a glitch caused by faulty parenting, or an overcharged sex drive. It was something far more quotidian—but also, by the same token, far more central and identity-shaping—than any of those things. Where his friends wanted to spend time with women and (eventually) fall in love, Lee wanted to know and love a man.

Here to Stay

As Lee began telling his story to others, he started to meet more people like him: kids who had grown up in Christian homes, remained Christian believers, and yet found themselves with persistent, apparently unchangeable, same-sex attractions. What was God's will for these new friends? Should they try to rid themselves of their hom*osexuality? (Lee eventually decided "no." A good chunk of his book is spent discussing his experiences of duplicity and false hope in and among "ex-gay" ministries.) Over a long period of prayer and frank conversation with his fellow believers, Lee came to think that he and other gay Christians should be able to express their feelings for a member of the same sex.

Where did that leave Scripture's prohibitions of hom*osexuality? For Lee, the answer to that question hinged on how to interpret Jesus' teaching about the centrality of love. True, he recognized, a few biblical passages do condemn hom*osexual partnerships, but those relationships appeared to be marred by exploitation or idolatry. (This is how Lee reads Romans 1, for instance.) Above all, there was Jesus' more compassionate teaching about love being the fulfillment of the law. If Jesus castigated the Pharisees for tying up "heavy, cumbersome loads and put[ting] them on other people's shoulders" (Matt. 23:4), what would he say to those who asked gay people to live without love?

Surely gays and lesbians are 'out there', somewhere else, not 'here' in our discipleship small groups, or kneeling at the Communion rail beside us—are they?

Out of these convictions, Lee started a ministry, first online and now involving a yearly conference, a regular podcast, and countless speaking engagements, blog posts, and one-on-one conversations: the Gay Christian Network (GCN). The closeted kid who had been the model evangelical child now became the public face of one of the country's up-and-coming gay advocacy groups.

Many of us evangelicals may believe that LGBTQ ("lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning") folks are far removed from our churches and ministries. Surely gays and lesbians are out there, somewhere else, not here in our discipleship small groups, or kneeling at the Communion rail beside us—are they? But if Lee, the God Boy of his high school who could quote John 3:16 in his sleep, is an example of what it means to be "gay," then yes, they are. They're here in our churches, and they're here to stay, forcing us to reconsider what it might mean to love our own spiritual siblings.

For his part, Lee is in no doubt about what form that love ought to assume. "Openly gay Christians must find their place throughout the church," he writes. Appealing to the dispute over food that Paul had to confront in the churches he founded (Rom. 14), Lee suggests that we follow Paul's counsel not to quarrel "over disputable matters." Those who believe in good faith that God allows for permanent, monogamous gay relationships (what Lee calls "Side A") and those who believe gay Christians ought to remain celibate ("Side B") can learn to treat one another as brothers and sisters in Christ who disagree over a matter of conscience.

A Place of Transformation

Full disclosure: I am a celibate gay Christian. Like Lee, I grew up Southern Baptist. Like him, I discovered during puberty that I was exclusively attracted to others of my own sex. But unlike Lee, I don't find any wiggle room in Scripture: Marriage is intended for one man and one woman (Gen. 2; Matt. 19; Eph. 5), and anyone living outside that marital state is called to celibacy (1 Cor. 7).

Lee's book leaves people like me—his fellow gay Christians who, nonetheless, disagree sharply with him on sexual ethics—in a difficult position. On the one hand, we share his hope that the church may be a place of welcome and grace for LGBTQ people. However, we don't view our celibacy as simply one option among an array of valid choices which believers are free to sort out as they please. Rather, we see celibacy as obedience to the clear, if bracing, mandate of Scripture. And we've found the church to be a place of transformation, a place to be, in T. S. Eliot's words, "renewed, transfigured, in another pattern."

It's tempting, with Lee, to think that Jesus' ethic of love abrogates some of the more obscure or challenging biblical norms. Yet the sweep of the canon of Scripture suggests that we follow Jesus rightly when we see the apostles' teaching and commands as flowing from Jesus' love for us, not impeding it. "If you love me, you will keep my commandments," Jesus told his disciples (John 14:15, esv). Conforming our lives to Scripture's difficult ethical teaching is precisely the way we demonstrate that we've made our home in Jesus' love. And that's a path that Lee's book, for all its commendable honesty and salutary insight, chooses not to explore.

Wesley Hill, author of Washed and Waiting: Reflections on Christian Faithfulness and hom*osexuality (Zondervan), is assistant professor of New Testament at Trinity School for Ministry in Ambridge, Pennsylvania.

As the sun sets on Concordia Lutheran Church in Williston, North Dakota, a pile of shoes stacked outside the activity hall hints at events inside.

The heavy leather work boots are stained with oil and the reddish dust that churns through the air in the small but growing town. The population has tripled in less than 10 years. New drilling technology has revived the state's oil industry. About 20 new oil-patch workers arrive in the 20,000-person town every day, by Mayor Ward Koeser's estimate. Each worker faces the same challenge within 24 hours of arriving in this prairie town: finding a bed in a boomtown bursting at the seams that offers nothing even resembling a homeless shelter.

Many employers supply housing in "man camps" (which may also include women and families), but job-seekers who drive, bus, or take the train to town must find their own place to stay until they find a job. Hotels get booked weeks in advance and charge upwards of $100 per night. Concordia Lutheran is the only place in town with open beds and a charitable price tag.

Williston's churches have a prime opportunity to show hospitality and meet the earthly needs of new arrivals. However, many church leaders face the lack of resources for providing such care, not to mention local resistance.

Koeser told Christianity Today that this situation is tailor-made for a church to reach into the lives of people who otherwise might have no interest in religion. "They may not understand the whole process of trying God, but they will try the church," Koeser said.

"They're looking at their relationship with God and saying, 'Is it what it needs to be? I really need somebody's help—God, can you help me?'"

One year ago, Concordia Lutheran pastor Jay Reinke became one of the Christians willing to respond. He stumbled into his current role of offering his church's pews and Sunday school classrooms as nighttime shelter when a man came to Reinke's office to ask for money to pay for his drive back home to Idaho. The man had no place to sleep. "I thought: I've got floor space. A man can sleep on a floor," Reinke explained.

'A lot of people say,"Well, pastor, you can't save the world." I'm not trying to save the world, but here's a man standing in my office. I can help this man.'—Pastor Jay Reinke

Reinke, 56, has a welcoming smile that offsets his stark clerical collar and black shirt. As we sat in his office on a Sunday afternoon, there was a steady flow of phone calls and knocks on the door—mostly people looking for a place to stay or eat dinner. "A lot of people say, 'Well, pastor, you can't save the world,' " he said. "I'm not trying to save the world, but here's a man standing in my office. I can help this man."

About 50 men now sleep at Reinke's church every night. On a Sunday night last spring, some of the men who filed in were newcomers like Allan Kangas, an out-of-work window-washer from Wisconsin. He took the bus to Williston, arriving with $50 in his pocket and no job. Settling in, many newcomers pulled out laptops at folding tables to apply for jobs, while some used the kitchen to cook dinner.

Reinke's foray into social work has stretched his resources thin. Since he spends much of his time at the church caring for oil-patch workers, some churchgoers say that he does not check up on them as often as he should because he's otherwise occupied. It's a fair criticism, Reinke said, but he doesn't feel he can give up his sheltering ministry.

"It has connected us. We would otherwise have no connection with [them]. I would never have known these guys. They would have no reason to darken our door. They're not looking for ministry. But they do need a place to stay."

Tending Body and Soul

Job hunters who take Amtrak or Greyhound to Williston arrive in the town's vintage-looking downtown area. Cars with license plates from Alaska, California, Idaho, Florida, Oregon, Georgia, and Michigan line Main Street. Storefronts for the train station, eight bars (some with lucrative strip clubs), and J. C. Penney suggest the area hasn't been redeveloped for decades.

Greyhound drops off passengers in front of the National Guard armory, across the street from the town's Salvation Army office. Joshua Stansbury, a 29-year-old redhead who oversees the office with his wife, regularly turns away men looking for shelter. His building does not meet fire code requirements for lodging.

As the town grows with newcomers, the Stansburys face an unending demand for food, clothing, and other assistance. Their part-time caseworker sees an estimated 90 new cases each month on top of 30 or 40 regulars. The caseload is up dramatically from 2010 and 2011, when the office dealt with just a dozen or so new cases each month. The budget is strained. Christmas fundraising totaled $120,000 above their normal operating expenses. But they have spent $13,000 per month just on providing services and expect to come up short before the year is out.

Most people don't come to the Salvation Army looking for a church. Many don't realize it is a church. "It's hard to wrap your mind around the spiritual when you maybe didn't grow up in church and you're facing that physical necessity," said Stansbury.

He feeds and clothes new arrivals in hopes they will seek out spiritual guidance. This approach seems to be working. After two weeks of receiving food and clothes, two patch workers appeared in the back of his congregation for the first time.

Stansbury, Reinke, and other pastors have found that it is difficult to attract men to overtly spiritual events like Bible studies. Corporate policies at the man camps forbid Bible study meetings in the camps themselves. To address spiritual needs directly, Reinke talks with men who spend the night at his church. Stansbury offers counsel, but waits to be asked first.

One individual has found a direct way into the hearts and minds of patch workers. Ron Evitt calls himself the "Preacher in the Patch." He created a series of 90-second radio spots in which he shares a brief, daily gospel message. Evitt grew up working in the oil fields with his father and is now an oil producer. The tall, joke-cracking 51-year-old began a Bible study for patch workers in the mid-1990s, but his attempts foundered.

"We'd set up these speakers and chairs—nobody would come," he said. "I thought, 'That does it. We'll go to them. We'll go to the radio.'"

Evitt started his broadcast 15 years ago with spots on a handful of local radio stations. His messages now air on 36 stations throughout North Dakota, Montana, and Wyoming. He spends $10,000 to $12,000 per month to keep the spots on the air and recoups part of that money through donations.

This effort has become a family affair including Evitt's wife and adult son. "People will come up to Dad and go, 'Ron, you're my only church,'" said Riley, the 26-year-old son who helps mix audio for the radio spots.

"If they're not going to go to church, at least they're getting something spiritual in their life," Evitt's wife, Rachelle, said.

From Evitt's own work in the oil patch, he knows that many of the men he reaches over the radio have alcoholism, divorce, and family tension in their pasts and often are ashamed of those things. "I try to always bring it back to the Cross or to Christ," he said. "You've gotta have him, and he will wash your sins away, and all the bad things you did can be forgiven."

Reverting to Crazy Ways

The boomtown lifestyle in Williston challenges workers even after they find a job and lodging, says Phil Parent, a 33-year-old with an associate's degree in diesel technology.

"Boy, I don't even know where to start. I guess it's a lonely place to be," he said. "I don't have very many friends. I don't have time. Friends are hard to make."

We spoke in his room at a camp north of Williston. The 8-by-12-foot dorm-style room, one of 200 or 300 in the camp, contains Parent's whole Williston life. It holds a twin bed with a dark blue comforter, a desk, a mini refrigerator, a television, and a wardrobe. A window over the desk gives a view of an adjoining housing trailer.

One of Parent's biggest challenges is maintaining Christian morals in a place where few others do. Men congregate at the town's bars and strip clubs after work, and foul language fills the work sites. There are rumors of men sneaking prostitutes into nearby camps.

"In the shop, it's 'f this, f that'—that's a contagious way of talking," he said. "When I go back home, I'm having to bite my tongue nonstop."

Parent, who goes to Concordia Lutheran's Sunday services every other weekend when he's off his 10-day work shift, left a failing construction business in Idaho for the oil patch.

Like many in Williston, he came for the money. His business in Idaho pulled in only $15,000 in 2010, and most of that money came late in the year after bills had piled up. Lack of money put pressure on his marriage and family life. Parent sold his home in Idaho, and his wife and young daughter live with relatives. The couple plans Skype conversations, but they miss each other often when work schedules interfere. Even though it feels like life is on hold, Parent said, his marriage is stronger now that he makes $10,000 each month and money is no longer an issue.

Many workers have stories like Parent's. They feel they have tried everything to find work by the time they show up in Williston.

"You can see the despair when the fresh ones come in," said Maury Selvig, a 49-year-old construction worker. He moved to Williston from Salt Lake City after living on the streets in Las Vegas. "They've put everything they have on lucky number seven. They're gambling, and they're not sure."

It was Selvig's second week in Williston. Recently hired by a construction company, he offered to help out the Concordia Lutheran community, where he was staying, by volunteering to work on construction projects for church members.

Desperate newcomers find it easy to fall into old habits, and many men exhaust their paychecks at bars even after they find jobs in the town, Selvig said. Business is booming at the bars and strip clubs.

"You've got a lot of partying going on," Selvig said. "You've got a lot of people going back to their crazy ways."

Big-City Woes

Williston natives are wary of newcomers for valid reasons. The swelling population has increased crime and taxed the town's police force. Violent crime is up 246 percent since 2009.

The area made national news this spring when 43-year-old Montana schoolteacher Sherry Arnold disappeared while jogging in early January. Investigators found her body two months later near Williston, and two oil-patch workers were charged with choking her to death while they were high on cocaine.

Reinke officiated at a funeral last spring for a 12-year-old girl killed in an automobile crash. Truck-car and truck-train collisions have increased dramatically with the traffic, he said.

"There is a weariness that everything has changed," he said. "These new faces represent uninvited change."

The roads in town are paved, but the reddish dirt of the oil patch is carted in on the tires and boots of the thousands of patch workers who drive in to pick up groceries at the overcrowded Wal-Mart, eat at McDonald's, and sleep. City and county roads wear out before city officials expect them to, and the city sewer system strains to keep up with the crowds. The city council further limited housing options when it banned people from living in campers on residential property inside city limits and restricted some employers from letting employees live on worksites. The mayor has received dozens of letters from local residents complaining about transient workers living in temporary situations.

Stansbury, whose downtown Salvation Army office is just blocks from several bars and strip clubs, has to pick up beer bottles in the church parking lot and wash away vomit from the previous night's partying before church Sunday mornings.

Loving Outsiders

Refugees, the homeless, and the jobless have looked to the church for hospitality for centuries, said Christine Pohl, professor of Christian ethics at Asbury Theological Seminary.

"When a lot of people come at once, communities feel like their identity and their way of life is threatened," Pohl said. "Newcomers are experienced as outsiders, and they're viewed as threatening a cherished set of practices and community life." Part of the hospitality tradition means getting guests involved in local communities as contributing members, like including them in Bible studies and volunteering.

All the changes in Williston are deeply unsettling to locals, but that's no excuse to disengage from ministry, said Frank Beaty, former interim pastor of Liberty Evangelical Free Church.

"God has an eternal, sovereign purpose in bringing people from around the world to a remote location," he said. "Yes, I've lived here 42 years or 87 years, but I am a missionary. How does God want to use me on the mission field for his honor?" Pastor Reinke said the parable of the Good Samaritan teaches that our neighbors are often the unwelcome strangers who enter our lives.

"Am I waiting for the convenient neighbor to arrive that I love? There's no such thing as a convenient neighbor," he said. "It's messy, but he's my neighbor. So suck it up and love them."

Ruth Moon is a freelance writer and a Ph.D. student in communication at the University of Washington in Seattle.

Ron Sider, founder and president of Evangelicals for Social Action (ESA), announced yesterday (Tues, Oct. 16) that he will retire in June 2013. His replacement: a "consensus model" leadership team of two co-directors.

Sider, who founded ESA in 1973, is most known for his ground-breaking 1977 book Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger. CT ranked the book No. 7 on its list of the Top 50 Books That Have Shaped Evangelicals.

Scot McKnight, in his review yesterday of Moral Minority by David Swartz, described Sider and his influence as follows:

Sider emerged out of a quietist Brethren in Christ Canadian family; he caught fire intellectually and studied at an Ivy League school, Yale, where he studied under Jaroslav Pelikan; and Sider's biggest influence was his radical call to evangelicals to become less consumerist, more aware of the impact of economy on the poor of this world, and the need to scale back.

Sider has frequently appeared in CT's pages, including CT's examination of Sider's "unsettling crusade" that asked: "Why does this man irritate so many people?"

CT has also carried interviews with Sider on how his views changed in the 20 years since he wrote his first book, his jeremiad on the "scandal" of the evangelical conscience (in one word: hypocrisy), his argument for courageous nonviolence, and his explanation of why four Christian Peacemakers Team members taken hostage in Iraq were there in the first place.

Sider has also commented on whether American evangelicals are stingy or generous with their money, whether mercury pollution is a pro-life issue, and whether Christians should give money to people on the street that ask for it.

ESA, now part of Eastern University near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, will replace Sider with two co-directors currently serving as professors at Eastern's Palmer Theological Seminary.

Paul Alexander, currently ESA's director of public policy, teaches Christian ethics and public policy at Palmer. His ESA bona fides: he "protested the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories, was once fired for organizing against unethical business practices, and was jailed by the Los Angeles Police Department for peacefully protesting unfair labor standards in California."

Al Tizon, currently ESA's director of congregational ministry, teaches holistic ministry at Palmer. His bona fides: he "engaged in community development work, ministry to street children, and pastoral ministries among the poor in his native Philippines for almost ten years as missionaries with an international agency."

Quotes from the ESA press release:

"I am truly delighted with this bold shift," says Sider. "Paul and Al combine the gifts and passions of scholar, popularizer, and activist in a superb fashion and I am confident they will lead ESA into a new period of increased achievement and successful impact."

"Realizing that Jesus taught us to work for peace with justice saved me from my atheism," says Paul Alexander. "I'm excited and honored at the opportunity to work with and learn from a new generation of engaged Christian activists."

"I want to see every faith community that names the name of Jesus engaged in holistic ministry," says Al Tizon. "Imagine what a force the Church could be if it faithfully does evangelism, compassion and justice, and reconciliation ministries in their neighborhoods."

As the father of four daughters, J. Lee Grady realized early on that "God put all those girls in my life because he has a special message he wanted me to give," he says.

Grady, an ordained pastor and Charisma magazine's editor for 11 years, addresses questions of women in Christian leadership and ministry at conferences around the world; his new organization, the Mordecai Project, confronts the abuse of women, and his books address Ten Lies the Church Tells Women (Creation House, 2000), 25 Tough Questions About Women and the Church (Charisma House, 2003), and Ten Lies Men Believe (Charisma House, 2011).

In his new book, Fearless Daughters of the Bible: What You Can Learn From 22 Women Who Challenged Tradition, Fought Injustice and Dared to Lead (Baker, 2012), Grady turns his attention to biblical and historical women who challenged tradition, disrupted status quos, and stood up for themselves and others. Each of the book's 15 chapters discusses a woman or group of women whom Grady sees as role models. Each chapter highlights a specific character trait—for example, Miriam, Moses' sister, represents "the courage to lead in a man's world," and Ruth represents "the courage to forsake the past." Short chapters are designed to prompt further group discussion, with a handful of discussion questions and a short "Message from Your Heavenly Father" with the chapter.

Grady talked with Her.meneutics contributor Ruth Moon about women and ministry in the contemporary church.

Some of the women you mention are well-known Bible characters, but others I hadn't heard of. How did you choose them all?

All of the chapters are different messages that I've been preaching on for the past eight or nine years. For example, the daughters of Zelophehad, who are in chapter 2, [offer] a fundamental message, because of the whole revelation of women taking their inheritance. Hardly anybody preaches about them, even though they're in the Bible in five places. It's such a powerful message, yet most women never hear it.

You point out women in the Bible who take charge, some with actions that could be interpreted as overbearing. Is there a model for women today to do this well?

We've done such a disservice to women in the church [by saying] that in order for you to be a good Christian woman, you have to be quiet, demure, and all about domestic duties. That is tragic. I don't want my girls to be that way. I want them to be assertive and to stand up for what they believe and be bold when they need to be. There's nothing brash or wrong with a woman doing that. We've elevated timidity to a virtue. The Bible says timidity is a sin. Why do we think that women are being Christlike or virtuous by being silent or quiet? There's a time to be quiet. There's a time for all of us to keep our mouths shut. But there's also a time to speak, and we have plenty of examples of women in the Bible who were bold enough to speak.

What women in modern culture exemplify this boldness?

I tell about women whom I've worked with over the years. A lot of them are women overseas, because in some of these environments, because of whatever challenges they've faced, they just had to be courageous. I give the example of a lady I've worked with in Indonesia who started a church several years ago in Jakarta that has 3,000 members now. She's an amazing lady.

If you look back through history, so many single women went on the mission field. We had the Amy Carmichaels and the Mary Slessors and the Lottie Moons—women who were brave and very much examples to women today. Their legacy is amazing. I believe we're on the verge of seeing something like that happen again. That's another reason I wrote the book, to fuel that passion in women. And for those who are sitting around waiting for Prince Charming to come along, maybe they need to just go and not worry about that.

What are you hoping the book accomplishes?

I believe there's going to be another very explosive movement of women in 21st-century Christianity. It's one of the missing ingredients in global revival. As women tap into their spiritual gifts and their spiritual callings, they're going to be mobilized. There are so many things women could be doing right now, but they've been conditioned to think, Well, I'm just going to go to church and sit and participate in prayer group. Prayer is great, but every person's created by God with potential and gifts and callings. We haven't done a good job of equipping women to discover who they are and what they're called to do. I hope this book unleashes that in women.

Are there things the church should change to equip women?

Church leadership is going to have to wrestle with what women will be able to do. We've been debating this for so long; I realize that some churches are not going to just all of a sudden announce that women can be pastors. But at least we can encourage women to discover their spiritual gifts and use them [in ways] they haven't been afforded before.

What do you as a man bring to the conversation writing about women and leadership?

Women need to hear some of these things from a man. When you're talking about women in leadership or pastoring, so many women in ministry have come up to say, "Thank you for defending us," and "Thank you that we don't have to be the ones saying this." Some people don't like the concept of men opening doors for women; some people think it's antiquated or old-fashioned. I was raised in the South, and my parents taught me to do that when I was a little kid. To me, that's normal—you do that not because she's weaker and can't help herself, but out of kindness.

In some ways what I'm doing is helping to open the door. I'm helping to usher some women into their place. Not because they need a hero, but simply because I'm being a good brother.

Phil hosts the podcast by himself this week with special guest singer-songwriter Andrew Peterson. Phil asks Andrew about the path of his career, from a young artist on a label to an independent artist and then back to being on a label. His latest album, Light for the Lost Boy, was written in part as songs for his growing children. Andrew also talks about his novels, the Wingfeather Saga, and his online storytelling community The Rabbit Room. Phil just keynoted the Rabbit Room’s annual conference, Hutchmoot.

Andrew Peterson is a Nashville-based singer-songwriter. He has quietly carved out a niche for himself as one of the most thoughtful, poetic, and lyrical songwriters of his generation. More recently he’s established himself as the grassroots facilitator of an online literary and songwriting community, The Rabbit Room, and an emerging fantasy novelist as well (The Wingfeather Saga). His latest album is Light for the Lost Boy.

Listen here.

The Tennessean is reporting that LifeWay Christian Resources will not sell its Glorieta Conference Center to Olivet University amid concerns that the school's founder and spiritual leader heads a movement that teaches he is a new Christ.

LifeWay spokesman Marty King told the paper that a National Association of Evangelicals report on Olivet's theological compatibility with the Southern Baptist Convention's resources arm, commissioned by LifeWay and Olivet, was completed last week.

"LifeWay Christian Resources has reviewed the report from the National Association of Evangelicals, and decided not to go forward with the sale of Glorieta Conference Center to Olivet University," said a statement given to the paper by King. "We are appreciative of our relationship with Olivet's leadership, and indebted to NAE for their thorough work. We will now renew our pursuit of viable options for the sale of the property."

But in a separate statement, Olivet president William Wagner told The Tennessean that the school will keep trying. "Olivet University leadership has been made aware that Lifeway Christian Resources plans not to proceed with the transfer of the Glorieta Conference Center," he told the paper. "Olivet intends to further discuss the decision of LifeWay Christian Resources' leadership in moving forward and continuing negotiations in hopes an agreement can be reached regarding the purchase of the Glorieta Conference Center in Glorieta, N.M."

Christianity Today published two major investigative reports on Olivet founder David Jang and his movement. The first examined the group's teachings and its growing influence in mainstream evangelical circles. The second looked at the story of two leaders of the movement in Singapore. CT will publish a more detailed update later.