Evangelical, Exvangelical, or Christ Follower?

I remember it as though it were yesterday. Two middle-aged, well-dressed men walking up the driveway to my parents’ house. I eavesdropped on the conversation. They were from a Baptist Church several miles away — one would need to drive past about five churches to reach it — and were inviting families in the neighborhood to church. Already being part of another church my father politely declined their invite and wished them well in the door-to-door evangelism.

Fast forward several decades and Christian denominations don’t bother going two-by-two in communities as before. The form was “co-opted” by Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons (as they formerly preferred to be called.)

Today the same situation rages with regard to the word Evangelical. It’s been co-opted by a few whose political leanings often overshadow their allegiance to Jesus. So some are looking for another label.

That’s a shame. The “people of the good news:” (the evangel) had it first before those whose God is politics “co-opted” it. Perhaps instead of looking for a new moniker, they should be telling the political Christians to leave the camp and let them come up with a new word to describe whatever the heck that fusion of Christianity and conservatism is. Then inform the media who the true Evangelicals are.

This is not an American problem. The politicization of various issues among Christ-followers has spread. Where I write, north of the 49th Parallel, we see this polarization occurring frequently in non-U.S. contexts.

Our first identity must be to Christ. Not a political party. Not a fiscal or political ideology. Not an opinion on race, gun ownership, or dare I say it, even abortion. Christ, and Christ alone.

How Conservatives Demonize Progressive Christians

Excuse me while I come to the rescue of some people that a few regular long-time readers here wish I wouldn’t defend.

Recently someone posted a Babylon Bee ‘news’ item on Facebook proposing that progressive Christians now have a brand of Bible highlighters that are actually five different shades of Whiteout, in order to, quoting a fictional source, “give progressive Bible readers many options, from lighter shades of correction fluid for erasing problematic Scripture passages, to heavier shades for completely eliminating sections that are clearly heretical to a modern understanding of God’s heart.”

It’s been at least a year since I stopped reading the Bee, and I’m certainly not going to post the link, but I did check back last night and can only tell you that the article is actually two years old, but apparently still making the rounds.

I found it absolutely infuriating. It comes from the same mindset that thought nothing of using Rachel Held Evans’ name as a swear word on a weekly basis. (Podcast hosts, you know who you are.)

I wrote back the person who had copied the ‘story’ to Facebook and said that, “essentially this appears to equate those who embrace a more progressive perspective on some doctrines to Thomas Jefferson, who would have used Whiteout if it had existed. Besides, things are never that black and white. I would be considered very conservative on the essentials, but regard other matters as adiaphora.”

To be honest, I had been waiting all week to use adiaphora in a sentence.

He wrote back, “There are people who pick and choose what doctrines they like, then essentially whiteout the ones they don’t. When I hear the word “progressive” I tend to equate that more with rejection of doctrine with an air of superiority and elitism. I could be wrong about that though. Just my gut reaction to the word.”

And everything — his reaction, the Bee piece, and the whole habit of conservatives to rail against everything that’s not emanating from their tribe — is indeed a “gut reaction.” To him, Progressive Christians are picking their doctrine from a salad bar, putting some things on the plate and leaving others aside. So another shot gets fired across the bow.

Here’s the thing: The so-called “Progressive Christians” that I know personally, and whose books I’ve read have no desire to use Whiteout — isn’t that a brand that would require The Bee (and ourselves) to include a TM symbol — or a pair of scissors. They wrestle with the scriptures. They desire to take it all into account. They would actually make the original Bereans proud, not earn their condemnation.

Since he was unfamiliar with what Thomas Jefferson did, I replied, “The Jefferson Bible had many sections where the former president had removed content with scissors. But you are correct, we all do this in various ways and to greater or lesser degrees. A pastor who mentored me said, “every denomination is an overstatement.” We emphasize one thing at the expense of something else. Check out The Jefferson Bible at Wikipedia.”

And I guess we’ve left it there…

…Yesterday a friend also posted something to Facebook. A gallery of “Faithful Gospel Preachers.” Maybe you’ve seen it. I wrote him back.

Anyone can go to seminary and in 3-4 years emerge as a “faithful gospel preacher.” Especially in a tribe that places so much attention on saying the right words, and words in general.

But there’s more to it than that. What is the fruit of having all the correct doctrine if you’re a spiteful, hateful person? They end up sounding like a clanging cymbal.

Especially toward those with whom they disagree.

There are a couple of names there who I would never allow to speak into my life.

It’s like there’s a cost of correctness, and that cost is the jettisoning of the fruit of the Spirit.

And there was one person listed whose social media comments indicate a severely messed up view on marriage and family; some have argued even psychological issues.

Those three or four people taint the entire list for me.

Frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if men like this — and they’re all male, by the way because goodness you can’t have…well, you know — are what drives so many into the arms of the so-called progressive tribe.

I know that’s how it works with me. When it is offered in compassion, I’ll take the messy doctrine — warts and all — any day over the certified and approved doctrine presented without love.  

---

This I will link to: The image above is from the Church Times UK, an article entitled, “Evangelism Isn’t Just for Evangelicals.” I especially liked the subtitle: “Progressive Christians have good news to impart, not prepackaged solutions.” And this quote, “The heart of liberal Christianity, for me, is, fundamentally, very orthodox.” Click the image or here to read.

Three Models of the Chain of Grace

^{NLT.2Cor.5.20} So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!”

^{The Voice.1Cor. 1.17} The mission given to me by the Anointed One is not about baptism, but about preaching good news. The point is not to impress others by spinning an eloquent, intellectual argument; that type of rhetorical showboating would only nullify the cross of the Anointed.

^{CEB. 2Tim.4.5} But you must keep control of yourself in all circumstances. Endure suffering, do the work of a preacher of the good news, and carry out your service fully.

On Saturday at C201 we looked at what I could call the vertical chain of grace; the idea of one generation passing its faith and faith-values on to the next.

There is also a horizontal chain of faith that happens when peers share their faith with friends, relatives and acquaintances (neighbours, workmates, fellow-students) who respond. One of the best stories I ever heard in church a youth service where a girl, got up and (I’m changing the names at this point, I am sure) said, “My name is Amanda…” and then went on to tell the story of how her life was changed because of a friend named Brittany. Then the next one stepped up and began, “My name is Brittany…” and told her story of coming to faith because of the influence of a girl named Crystal. Next — and you’re probably guessing the pattern already — a girl stepped to the microphone and started with “My name is Crystal…” and told her story which included being invited to an event by her friend Danielle.

You might think this all sounds too contrived to be true, but when the last girl got up and said, “Hi, I’m Danielle…” I swear there wasn’t a dry eye in the church. You could hear a pin drop.

My goodness, this works! This sharing your faith thing really, really works, and just last night we heard a very similar story involving three different peers…

…There is a third element to the chain of faith model, and as we thought in terms of horizontal (width) and vertical (length), we couldn’t think of a word to describe a depth of cooperation between various parties, so feel free to comment, but I’m calling this a trans-sectional chain of faith.

I took a picture of this page from The Message Bible to use in a presentation my wife and I shared Saturday morning. It’s from Romans 10:14.

^{NIrV.Rom.10.14} How can they call on him unless they believe in him? How can they believe in him unless they hear about him? How can they hear about him unless someone preaches to them?

What I believe sets this model apart is that it applies to a single conversion story and there may be different parties involved in the calling and sending of those who do the work of an evangelist. Different people responsible for the training and equipping. Different people responsible for the accountability and oversight. Different people who will look after the follow-up and discipleship of this one individual.

Perhaps the above verse doesn’t have this as finely tuned, but it talks about process. Believing follows an awareness of the Jesus redemption story, which follows a presentation of that same story.

Perhaps the one below is clearer, but I did want to include the above passage as well.

^NLT.1Cor.3.7 It’s not important who does the planting, or who does the watering. What’s important is that God makes the seed grow.⁸ The one who plants and the one who waters work together with the same purpose. And both will be rewarded for their own hard work. ⁹ For we are both God’s workers. And you are God’s field. You are God’s building.

It’s similar to the horizontal chain, but each part is now serving a different purpose in a single story. Each participant is one part of a chain of grace leading a single person to faith.

---

Go Deeper: What’s involved in the decision making process? Refer back to this model we presented in January, 2018 at C201, The Steps to Decision.

 

Talking to People Who Reached Out to You First

“Blogging is so 2010.”

That was a line in a newspaper article I read on the weekend. It could have been worse. At least they didn’t say, ‘so 2005.’

A friend would periodically tell me about discussions he got into on Reddit.com. Great, I thought, Isn’t there already enough arguing going on at Twitter?

Still he got me scanning r/Christianity and r/Religion and over the past year a handful of the stories that appeared on Wednesday Connect came from those sources.

On the weekend, I could stand it no more. I couldn’t keep lurking in the shadows, chomping at the bit to weigh in on various topics.

Someone was asking a question which I felt somewhat qualified to answer. They’d received a fairly good number of answers, but I thought something was missing. I even did Ctrl+F to make sure the keywords weren’t somewhere I was missing.

I pulled the trigger.

Create account.

Nobody on Reddit seems to use a real name. It’s all pseudonyms. The first three I picked were taken. I thought of just using ‘paulthinkingoutloud’ but decided to distance my responses from what I do here.

God has people out there. Just because there’s an information gap in one particular set of answers doesn’t mean I need to take this on like it all depends on me,.

I posted to three other topics. On one, the information I shared wasn’t necessarily a great fit, given where it turned out the person was located. I looked this morning at the page and nothing particularly jumped out at me.

Still, I go back to where I was a year ago. I often said after my friend first introduced me to the site that if a Christ-follower was just sitting at home each day staring at something mindless on their screen, and they wanted to have a significant online ministry apart from blogging, or Facebook, or Twitter, then Reddit would be my first choice.

I just didn’t take my own advice. I thought I had my hands full with WordPress, Twitter, Facebook and MailChimp.

Reddit is different. It’s not like “broadcasting” on social media, which sometimes feels like spitting into the wind. People are asking for advice. Your answers are going to slowly disappear into the back-catalog of the forums, but for a few hours at least, you can interact with a wide diversity of people on faith-focused subjects in something closer to real time.

Maybe one or two of you will decide to join me.

 

Andy Stanley Clearly Articulates the Premise of Irresistible

Maggie John of the daily Christian television show 100 Huntley Street has posted a full, 49-minute interview she did with Andy Stanley, talking first about his famous father and his call to ministry, and then focusing in more directly on his book Irresistible: Reclaiming the New that Jesus Unleased to the World. (Thomas Nelson, 2018)

Some people have their minds made up about what Andy did say or did not say and that’s unfortunate, because I don’t see how anyone can watch this with an open mind and not grasp the point he is trying to make; namely, the need to switch our emphasis from “The Bible says it,” to “Hundreds witnessed it;” to remind ourselves that the key to our faith is not rooted in a book as it is rooted in a resurrection.

I suppose that actually giving this some thought is too big a stretch for some. It’s easier to pre-judge Andy and his book and bring personal bias to the discussion before actually slowing down to hear him out. It’s easier to go on the attack on Twitter and other media than it is to consider that if we fail to listen to this, we’re in danger of losing an entire generation. It’s easier to create a panic, accuse someone of heresy, or rally the troops around a common enemy.

I’m all in on this. 100%. I’ve embedded the video below, but if you click on the YouTube logo, it will open on their site and you can capture the URL to watch on another device. You may read my original review of the book at this link.

 

Credit Where Credit is Due

This dog also led Kevin to Jesus. Source Café Press.

It’s always interesting when people you know from a fairly fixed context show up at a funeral for someone you knew from a fairly different fixed context.

“How did you know Kevin;” I asked.

“Actually, I led him to the Lord.” It happened in the town park, apparently.

Later in the funeral service itself, a speaker who had been previously scheduled got up to pay tribute to Kevin and explained how he met him at his apartment through a mutual friend, and as they talked about different things, he led him to the Savior.

After the service was over, a woman who I’ve known for years explained how she had led Kevin to to the Lord on a bus in which they were both travelling.

I wanted to ask her if she’d even been listening to the man who had spoken one of the tributes, but decided not to go there. I’ve run into her since and she certainly affirms her version of things.

My wife said later that Kevin had a ministry to people who had the gift of evangelism.

(Think about it.)

I have no doubt now as to Kevin’s eternal state. He certainly met the Lord on many occasions and accepted him as Lord on an equal number.

I mean why would anyone lie about a story like that?

 

Don Richardson Wrote the Playbook on Finding Creative Analogies

For anyone studying to prepare for a vocational ministry career in third world missions, Peace Child by Don Richardson (Bethany House) is required reading.

As the publisher explains: “In 1962, Don and Carol Richardson risked their lives to share the gospel with the Sawi people of New Guinea. Peace Child tells their unforgettable story of living among these headhunters and cannibals, who valued treachery through fattening victims with friendship before the slaughter. God gave Don and Carol the key to the Sawi hearts via a redemptive analogy from their own mythology…”

I thought it was interesting that, depending on who you are, you can get into a lot of trouble for introducing analogies that include stories from the lore of other tribes and even other religions; but in missions, sometimes it can almost be a necessity.

His Wikipedia page contains this remembrance by Ruth Tucker:

As he learned the language and lived with the people, he became more aware of the gulf that separated his Christian worldview from the worldview of the Sawi: “In their eyes, Judas, not Jesus, was the hero of the Gospels, Jesus was just the dupe to be laughed at.” Eventually Richardson discovered what he referred to as a Redemptive Analogy that pointed to the Incarnate Christ far more clearly than any biblical passage alone could have done. What he discovered was the Sawi concept of the Peace Child.

In November of 1979, I was in the same room as Don Richardson; a showing of the movie version of Peace Child at the Valley Vineyard Church in Southern California. I was basically just a kid, and had no idea in whose presence I was. I wish I had at least shaken his hand…

…We learned last week that Don had passed away in December. His book Peace Child, originally written in 1975 and revised in 2007, is still in print, as are several others including Eternity in their Hearts, Lords of the Earth, Secrets of the Koran and Heaven Wins…

…Some of Don Richardson’s pioneering efforts continue today in a rather different form through Mustard Seed International and coincidentally, one of the directors of that organization moved to our area a couple of years ago, and we got a bit of a refresher about Don and the work of another missionary states-person, Lillian Dickson.

Almost a year ago, I wrote a profile about the organization which you can read at this link.

Also, if you’re interested, Moira Brown of 100 Huntley Street interviews Don Richardson in 2012 at this link. (21 minutes.)

A Cup of Cold Water; A Stack of Good Books

I came across this quotation while preparing an article for another blog I edit.

If he shall not lose his reward who gives a cup of cold water to his thirsty neighbour, what will not be the reward of those who by putting good books into the hands of those neighbours, open to them the fountains of eternal life? – Thomas a Kempis

As a book guy, it resonated.

At Christmas, it’s timely.

It now sits atop my Facebook page; in perfect ratio for FB if you wish to borrow!

When Missionary Zeal Exceeds Common Sense

There are times when you’re thinking something, but you don’t say it. One of those times is immediately following someone’s passing, especially if it was under unusual circumstances. “She shouldn’t have tried to do that electrical repair herself.” “He really shouldn’t have taken off from the airport in that storm.” “He really shouldn’t have always been eating chocolate cake.”

And yet, hours after we learned of his passing, Christian Today asked the questions we were all thinking about the young missionary killed one week ago today (Saturday, Nov.17th) on an island east of India in the Bay of Bengal.

It’s impossible to look at a photograph of John Allen Chau, the young American killed by tribes-people on North Sentinel Island, without sadness. He is in the full glow of youth, with decades of life ahead of him. His friends and family have paid tribute to his gifts and his character: ‘He was a beloved son, brother, uncle and best friend to us. To others he was a Christian missionary, a wilderness EMT [Emergency Medical Technician], an international soccer coach, and a mountaineer’, they wrote on Instagram.

…But this tragedy raises questions that sadness cannot be allowed to silence.

The article goes on to describe the challenges:

North Sentinel Island is inhabited by a few – anything from few dozen to a few hundred – tribes-people who are among the most isolated in the world. Though rules appear to have been confusingly slackened quite recently, they are still out of bounds for tourists. The Indian government believes the best policy for the islanders is to allow them the isolation they clearly desire – they killed two fishermen in 2006 – and operates a ‘hands off, eyes on’ policy, patrolling the coast to deter anyone from landing. A key reason for this is the vulnerability of the tribes-people to modern diseases: their isolation means they lack the antibodies to protect them.

And then, the central part of the article:

He wrote to his parents: ‘You guys might think I’m crazy in all this, but I think it’s worth it to declare Jesus to these people.

‘Please do not be angry at them or at God if I get killed. Rather, please live your lives in obedience to whatever he has called you to and I’ll see you again when you pass through the veil…’

…One response, then, is to hail Chau as a martyr… But those questions won’t go away.

His landing on the island was illegal. Should his personal convictions allow him to override the rule of law?

Not only did he break the law himself – and there might certainly be cases where Christians would feel free do to that – but he implicated other people in his lawbreaking. Is that justifiable?

He was putting lives at risk – not just his own, but the North Sentinelese themselves, who lacked any immunity to any pathogens he may have been carrying. Suppose the price of his evangelism was the deaths of those he evangelised – would it really have been worth it?

He was going against their clearly expressed wishes and invading their territory. Why should he have thought they would welcome him, when others had been driven away or killed?

Who knew what he was doing, and to whom was he accountable?

How, when he didn’t speak their language, was he going to witness effectively to them?

Continue reading here. (Christian Today is based in London, and is not related to the U.S. Christianity Today.)

Each of the questions they raise could be fleshed out into further detail.

In discussion earlier today at Internet Monk, Robert wrote:

I see John Allen Chau as a victim of disordered Christian ideas of what constitutes evangelism. It is now historically known that Christianity spread throughout the Roman Empire by the organic process of relational networks, not the heroic efforts of a few super-evangelists, for all intents and purposes parachuting into completely alien and unknown hostile territories and peoples.

Unfortunately, I think the Church came to glamorize and idealize the super-evangelist along with the martyr at a very early point; the two overlap in significant ways, and many early Christians seem to have intentionally sought martyrdom in an even more reckless manner than Chau’s attempt to evangelize the Indian tribe. Reading some of the accounts of the early martyrs, you get the impression that they are committing suicide by the hand of the pagan government, the way some people commit suicide by cop today. I see John Allen Chau as someone acting very much in line with that psychologically and socially unhealthy tradition and legacy. May he rest in peace.

The writer “Burro” adds something that some will find difficult to read:

The Protestant hagiography surrounding the deaths of the missionaries Jim Elliott, Nate Saint, and their compatriots to the Ecuadorian indigenous people is cut from the same cloth.

Although their mission was more anthropologically informed and ultimately successful, there doesn’t seem to be much difference between Jim Elliott’s mission and that of John Chau, except that Jim Elliott had a whip-smart and eloquent widow as a PR agent, and a less de-Christianized culture to receive the message.

Iain writes,

One more tragic thing about John Allen Chau, and the toxic mindset he was the victim of, is that it doesn’t seem to me to be about actually bringing people to Christ at all. It is all about the act of evangelism as a good in itself for the spiritual benefit (or if I am snarky the acquisition of divine brownie points) by the evangliser himself.

Apparently no-one even knows what language the people he was intruding on speak, and certainly no-one understands it, and from the extracts from his diary published he was attempting in fact to evangelise them in, of all things, English. The people he was interfering with apparently attack outsiders on sight because their last interaction with the outside world had a number of their people kidnapped and killed, and a great proportion of them wiped out by disease. There is no way he could possibly have successfully communicated anything to them, and arriving there could only have potentially done them serious harm. He must have known this, or at the best never bothered to find out but, and here’s the crucial bit, can’t have thought it mattered.

I don’t know if John Allen Chau deliberately wanted to be a martyr, or what he thought would happen, but it seems plain that someone has taught him that this is what he had to do to earn God’s approval, or save himself from wrath, or some such, and he died futilely because of it. Whoever taught him this killed him as surely as the guy with the bow and arrows, and without the justification that the guy who shot him had, that he was simply (and arguably not even misguidedly) defending his family and home.

I feel sorry for John Allen Chau and his family and hope he can find the rest and peace in death he clearly could not find in life, which drove him to this tragic and foolish death.

Jean writes,

…Mr. Chau had to hire someone to get him into space he was forbidden to enter, evade Indian patrol boats, risk (and ultimately lose) his own life, in order to reach a people who didn’t want to be reached, whose language he did not know, to “tell them about Christ.” He returned to the island after he had been injured by an arrow the day before. He seems, to me, to have been a man seeking martyrdom for his own reasons. He left behind a grieving family, a people possibly exposed to diseases to which they have no immunity, and seven Indian fishermen arrested for helping him break the law. What good did any of that do?

Lastly, some interesting food for thought from Christiane

…I know Mr. Chau wanted to bring Christ to them, but maybe they are already in His care, unbeknownst to Mr. Chau or to themselves. Such is the lack of humility that many who see such tribes as ‘the lost’ may not realize that our lives exist because of the breath of God in our nostrils. Those primitive people ARE in the hands of the Lord, and to impatiently cause them to wound, injure, or kill out of fearfulness seems more the action of a ‘lost’ person than of someone seeking to bring them salvation…

You can add your thoughts to the discussion at Internet Monk. (There is no specific article there per se; the comments were following a short link which appeared in the Saturday news roundup.)

In the end, I think that Christian Today and those leaving comments today at Internet Monk do need to ask the critical questions; if only so that valuable lessons can be learned and we can avoid repetition of this horrible tragedy.

That may be John Chau’s greatest contribution to world missions.

photo: All Nations (mission agency); map: Wikipedia commons

The Message Bible: Paraphrase or Translation?

^{The Message.Romans.12.1-2} So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

With the passing of Eugene Peterson this week, Michael Frost has written what I feel to be the best overall summary of The Message Bible. He quickly shows us both why it is needed, and what may have given Peterson the idea to creat it. A few short excerpts follow, but first some background personal background from me.

I’ve always resisted people who are dismissive of The Message because “it’s a paraphrase.” I usually point out that first of all, Peterson was a brilliant scholar who worked from original languages. He didn’t just pick up a previous English translation and restate it, as did Ken Taylor with The Living Bible (not to be confused with the NLT, which was the translation-status upgrade of Taylor’s work.)

Second, I will often point out that some linguists have told me they don’t really have the term paraphrase. Anytime you are taking something written for audience “A” and then re-presenting it for audience “B” you are, in fact, translating.

The problem is that for everyone, including me, it was an either/or proposition.

But Frost introduces a new phrase, “rendering the text” which I think really says it best.

…There are many criticisms of The Message, some of them justified. It’s not a reliable translation if that’s what you need. It’s a rendering of the text, an attempt to make the Bible accessible in the common vernacular. But as a doorway into serious Bible reading, it has been a gift to the church. At least that’s how my friend has found it.

In his book on Bible reading, Eat This Book, Eugene Peterson writes about his motivations in writing The Message. He goes so far as to say it’s a form of sacrilege to speak of God in language that is “inflated into balloons of abstraction or diffused into the insubstantiality of lacey gossamer.” …

…Knowing this helps me appreciate The Message for what it is. It’s a protest against arcane and impenetrable religious language. It’s an invitation for ordinary people to enter the Scriptures once again.

…In his 1997 book on spirituality, Leap Over a Wall, he opens by telling us how his mother used to recount Bible stories to him when he was a child. In quite a moving passage, he writes:

My mother was good with words; she was also good with tones. In her storytelling I not only saw whole worlds come into being, I felt them within me through the timbre of her voice.”

Sure, he admits, she took some liberties with the stories, adding extracanonical detail, but “she never violated or distorted the story itself.” …

Here we have our primary clue to reading The Message: it’s like sitting on Uncle Eugene Peterson’s knee and listening to him tell the Bible story…

A rendering of the text.

I need to remember that phrase. 

Again, click here to read Michael Frost’s article; and click here to listen to Skye Jethani interview Michael about his new book Keep Christianity Weird on Phil Vischer’s podcast. (Skip to the start of the interview at 30:39.)

…Here’s another phrase to keep in mind if you know someone who is a sharp critic of Peterson’s work: “It wasn’t written for us.” If they persist, just smile and say, “It wasn’t written for you.”

---

• Related: On Christian people becoming emotionally bonded to certain words and phrases.
• Also: On the politics of Bible translation (multiple sources article)

Image: Bible Gateway blog