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It's Saturday, October 21, 2023.

Today’s edition covers Christian outreach in Gaza and the West Bank, debate this week over Christian nationalism, how so many Israelites could have survived in the desert for 40 years, and much more.

Enjoy!

Of Christian Concern

CHRISTIANS REACH OUT TO GAZA AND THE WEST BANK IN A TIME OF WAR

West Bank and Gaza Strip (NordNordWest/CC BY-SA 3.0 DEED)

Both Gaza and the West Bank are in a tough spot, and Christians are trying to help, according to a Palestinian pastor who ministers in Bethlehem, Israel.

In a video published on Tuesday, Christian YouTuber Ruslan KD interviews Pastor Steven Khoury, who says that Bethlehem and its surrounding areas were formerly around 88% Christian. Now, 22 or 23 years later, that has declined to less than 20%, and perhaps even low as 14%. As for Gaza, he says, the most recent statistics estimate a total of between 500 and 580 Christians.

Khoury explains that Christians have done ministry in Gaza for many years, but more intensely in the past five to seven, because they perceived a need and a hunger for people to know more about Christ. In that context, the focus of his ministry, Holy Land Missions, is “compassion evangelism.” They share the gospel through meeting physical needs, such distributing care packages of food and sharing the love and message of Christ through these outreach events.

In addition to food distribution with an evangelistic approach, they have also in recent years provided medical aid and financial aid to help repair homes. They always take time to share Christ, he says, and they help Gazans who are persecuted and suffering after coming to Christ to get out of Gaza, providing for their living accommodations in a new location.

Since the start of the war two weeks ago, the West Bank has entered hard times too. “About two days into the war,” Khoury says, “Israel put a siege and they blocked all the West Bank cities from each other.” Why? “They’re trying to eliminate infiltration of militia, commandos, or terrorists into the West Bank.” The 200,000 to 300,000 Arab Palestinians who work on the Israeli side—even those who quietly respect Israel—are upset at the Israelis for closing the borders, and frustrated at Hamas for causing a war that prevents them from “having a functioning life.”

As a result, “food distribution…into the West Bank, it’s almost impossible now. Shelves are running out.” Khoury’s ministry is buying wholesale stocks of food and finding ways to help the Gazan families and Christians in the West Bank, as well as Arabs and Jewish families on the Israeli side, who recognize the provision is coming from Christians in the West through a local Arab Christian ministry. That, he adds, “really puts a healing on the hearts of many.”

Listen to the interview here. Learn more about Khoury’s ministry here.

DEBATE OVER CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM CONTINUES TO RAGE

A screen grab of Doug Wilson’s video response to critiques of Christian nationalism this week. (YouTube)

Christian nationalism is a hot topic of debate among Christians online. The position often evades a simple definition, though some have suggested it’s essentially synonymous with theonomy—the belief that “God’s judicial laws for Israel in the Old Covenant are the standard for all nations.” Here are some developments in the public conversation this week.

On Sunday, Pastor Doug Wilson of Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho posted “the case for Christian nationalism in one short thread.” In the series of pithy posts on the social media platform X, he argued that every nation has some moral foundation. Christianity is the only moral foundation that is not idolatrous—including secularism, which is self-idolatry disguised as neutrality. Therefore, he concludes, Christians should reject idolatry (secularism) as a social and political foundation, in favor of Christian nationalism.

In an article published Tuesday, Pastor Michael Riley of Calvary Baptist Church in Wakefield, Minnesota agreed with Wilson that all moral claims are ultimately groundless apart from the truth of Christianity. But, in Riley’s view, the fact that God’s law is the ultimate standard of morality does not require that the force of government should be the means by which that standard is established.

Wilson responded in an article and video to Riley’s engagement, expressing gratitude for its respectful approach but disagreeing with its characterization. “I do not believe,” Wilson writes, “that government is the means by which this standard is established. Politics is no savior. To say that politics is included among those things which need to be saved is not to maintain that politics is the entity doing the saving.”

The debate over Christian nationalism, what it means, and whether it’s legitimate, shows no signs of slowing.

Also Noteworthy

→ The National Hockey League (NHL) bans its players from using rainbow-colored tape meant to support the LGBTQ movement.

→ The Church of England’s House of Bishops votes to commend “prayers of love and faith” for same-sex couples. The legislative body will propose the approval of special services for same-sex couples during the General Synod next month.

→ Americans who attend church online are much more likely to read the Bible weekly than those who attend in person, according to a new American Bible Society report. Seventy four percent (74%) of online attendees use the Bible each week, compared to 32% of in-person attendees.

→ Catholic Church attendance declined in most states between 2008 and 2022, according to an analysis by Pastor Ryan Burge. It increased in only six: Vermont, Idaho, Oklahoma, North Carolina, Arizona, and Tennessee.

→ Christianity is the most common religion among Asian Americans, according to a Pew Research survey. Thirty four percent (34%) of Asian American adults say they are Christians (17% Catholic and 16% Protestant), followed by Buddhists and Hindus (10% each), and Muslims (6%).

Content Catch-Up

Recent, notable content by Christian creators.*

→ A Rabbi in Israel Discusses the War: Biblical scholar and radio show host Dr. Michael Brown, a Jewish believer in Jesus, interviews Orthodox Jewish Rabbi Pesach Wolicki in Israel about the war with Hamas, and its political and spiritual implications. (Video)

→ Kat Von D Talks Baptism: Celebrity tattoo artist Kat Von D discusses responses she received to a video she posted of her recent baptism, expressing surprise at the overwhelmingly positive reactions but expressing disappointment for some judgmental and nitpicky comments she received from Christians. (Video)

→ Sam Harris Exposed: Christian apologist David Wood argues that atheist Sam Harris unwittingly exposed his own arguments against Christianity as intellectually dishonest in a recent interview. (Video)

*Not necessarily an endorsement

The Bible, Briefly

Miracles All The Way: The Exodus Census

The Egyptians Drown in the Sea, Gustave Doré, 1866 (Public Domain)

“The Lord spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai…saying, ‘Take a census of all the congregation of the people of Israel…’

“So all those listed of the people of Israel, by their fathers’ houses, from twenty years old and upward, every man able to go to war in Israel— all those listed were 603,550.” (Numbers 1:1–2, 45-46)

At the time of the Exodus, the men of Israel capable of bearing arms totaled to 603,550. From this, it has been estimated that the entire population may have been around two million. This vast crowd, most of whom had lived their entire lives as slaves, now suddenly found themselves in an entirely foreign circumstance—and, of all places, in the wilderness.

How could such a large number have survived in the wilderness? According to Kirk Lowery, professor at Westminster Theological Seminary, they couldn’t have. In fact, he writes, “Neither could a hundredth of that many survive on their own.” He observes: “that part of the world would have been simply unable to support large numbers of nomads, especially without modern farming methods and technology.”

By that, Lowery doesn’t mean he doubts the biblical account. Rather, his critical point is that the people of Israel couldn’t have survived “on their own.” But they weren’t on their own. “It required God to actively intervene in Israel’s physical history,” Lowery explains, “in order for them to leave Egypt and subsequently survive. That is the point of the Exodus narrative.”

The miraculous means by which God delivered the Israelites out of Egypt—the devastating plagues, and the dramatic parting of the Red Sea—gets a lot of attention, and rightly so. But their survival as a people for the next 40 years, which involved God’s miraculous provision of bread and meat (see Exodus 16 and Numbers 11), was no less magnificent. They were not only delivered by miracles, but sustained by miracles too.

There may be a sermon in there somewhere.

“Yet he commanded the skies above and opened the doors of heaven, and he rained down on them manna to eat and gave them the grain of heaven. Man ate of the bread of the angels; he sent them food in abundance.” (Psalm 78:23–25)

Church History Tidbit

The Benedictine Rule

A manuscript copy of St. Benedict’s Rule, MS. Hatton 48 fol. 6v-7r of the Bodleian library in Oxford (Public Domain)

St. Benedict of Nursia (c. 480-547) was a monk born in the beginning of the Medieval period, who wrote a highly influential guidebook for monastic living (i.e., living as a monk) known as the Rule of St. Benedict.

The Rule, which Benedict wrote for his own abbey of Monte Cassino but which was eventually adopted by many abbeys across the world, lays out in detail the way of life for monks. It establishes the abbot—the leader of a monastery—as the absolute authority for the monks under him, controlling every aspect of life, and himself subject only to God and the Rule. It forbids owning anything, details the order of daily services, addresses the various roles within the monastery, sets out punishments for faults, and establishes the structure of the monks’ daily lives. That structure was one of moderation: seven and a half to eight hours of sleep, five to six hours of prayer, five hours of manual work, and four hours of reading the Scriptures and spiritual writings.

The Christian History Institute writes that, in a time when Christianity seemed threatened by the Western Roman Empire’s collapse, “Benedictine monasteries, more than anything else, kept the faith alive, and their short, simple but comprehensive rulebook allowed them to clone themselves unstoppably. Later, the monasteries were encouraged by Charlemagne, and spread like wildfire. And since Benedict required monks to spend time in reading, they kept theology and culture alive through centuries when almost the entire continent was illiterate.”

You can read the Rule of Benedict here.

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Why "18:15"? The name Project 18:15 is based on Proverbs 18:15: “An intelligent heart acquires knowledge, and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge.” The aim is for this weekly email—a Christian news briefing, a Bible study, and a Church history lesson rolled into one—to be one way you keep abreast of current events and acquire knowledge you might not acquire elsewhere.

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