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Every aspect of life in precolonial Philippines was religious. When the Spanish came in 1521, they brought Catholicism with them. Some Filipinos converted without changing their worldviews. Instead of venerating the deities of pre-Spanish traditional practices, Filipinos switched to venerating Catholic saints that performed the same functions—what we call folk Catholicism today.

The average Filipino sees no contradiction between going to a Catholic priest for forgiveness of sin and to a witchdoctor for healing. Many grow up doing both, as the Catholic church does not take a hard stand against folk rituals and practices.

Instead of shamans, Filipinos use the term witch doctors. Witch doctors are generally seen as honored members of society who care well for people seeking treatment for physical and psychological ailments. Sorcerers, meanwhile, are the “bad boys” of society who place curses and hexes on people.

There are two types of witch doctors in the country. The albularyo use divinatory practices to determine and diagnose illnesses, prescribe herbal remedies, and use various incantations in their healing processes. They will often write out a mantra called an oración—from the Spanish word for prayer—that can be written on paper and swallowed with water. In some cases, the mantra is tattooed on the client’s skin.

Another kind of witch doctor, the espiritista, will often be possessed by a spirit and go into a trancelike state before prescribing a remedy. When the spirit leaves their body, they remember nothing about what they did during that time. Some are also known to be able to put their hand inside of a human body with no medical instruments, no incision, and no scars left behind to allegedly perform healing.

The practice of seeing a witch doctor persists in the Philippines because modern society doesn’t address people’s deepest felt needs: How do I know my children are going to be successful or healthy? How do I know what the right day to get married is? The desire to connect with the supernatural is very strong, and no amount of cell phone technology or the internet is going to alter that.

Filipinos shouldn’t lose their desire for the supernatural. Christian leaders can redirect this desire toward God alone, not the Virgin Mary, the saints, or spirits. The goal is not to eradicate the worldview of the Filipinos but to transform it. The amulets, talismans, and paraphernalia used in witch-doctor practices ultimately have to be confronted and destroyed, but that process won’t happen right away.

People need time and discipleship needs to happen, especially as evangelical Christianity in the Philippines has tended to ignore issues relating to shamanism. Pentecostal missionaries, however, had a greater openness to the spirit world when they arrived in the country, even if they came with the same biases as other evangelical missionaries.

One verse in Scripture that challenges shamanistic practices is Exodus 12:12, where God says, “I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt.” God reveals the utter impotence of the other gods. Another Bible verse I often refer to is Colossians 2:15, where Jesus publicly held up the powers of darkness for display at the Cross, much like a Roman conqueror dragging slaves with him into town when he returned victorious in battle.

These verses strengthen my faith and my resolve that we deal with these issues. I encourage pastors to teach in ways that deal with a person’s worldview instead of just addressing behavioral issues. A theology of creation is critical to dealing with worldview, because many Filipinos think that the spirits control the weather, fertility, and other experiences they face. 

I interviewed 70 witch doctors in the Philippines as part of my master’s thesis research in 1997. All but one allowed me to observe their ceremonies and pray for them. The witch doctor who wanted us to leave her healing session had entered an altered state of consciousness but found it “too noisy” with us there. My team and I were excited because we felt that the demon spirit she claimed was possessing her could not move with the Spirit of God dwelling in us while we were present.

Another time, as we observed a group of fellow witch doctors going into a trance, I asked an espiritista, “Do we know what spirit is occupying and possessing them?” She replied, “Well, it could be the spirit of Saint Peter, San Antonio di Padua [Anthony of Padua], or the Holy Spirit. We won’t know until the end of the session when the spirit reveals itself.”

As long as people get healed, they very seldom question the source, which is one of the things that makes these practices dangerous—because people don’t realize what spirits they are dealing with and that these supernatural forces are in rebellion against God.

Dave Johnson is the editor of the Asian Journal of Pentecostal Studies at the Asia Pacific Theological Seminary. Read more in our series’ lead article, Shamans, Sorcerers, and Spirits: How Christians in Asia Grapple with the Supernatural.

The post Shamanism in the Philippines appeared first on Christianity Today.

I lived in various parts of Japan, including the city of Yokohama, for 26 years. One of my neighbors was a practicing shaman who described herself as a “pipe” through which God’s blessings would flow. We invited her to our home and had deep conversations about our faiths, religious practices, and ups and downs in our work.

Japanese shamanism is not a religion but a way of exercising spiritual guidance in the context of an animist worldview. It likely arose from the shamanistic practices of the Ainu, an Indigenous ethnic group in northern Japan.

In ancient times, shamans were mainly involved in political affairs. The role of shaman was almost exclusively held by women in pre-Buddhist Japan around the eighth century. Today, shamans tell fortunes, connect the living and the dead as mediums, conduct salvific rites for the deceased, and provide counseling and healing ministries.

Three traditional groups of shamans exist today: the miko, who work mainly in Shinto shrines and dance to stabilize the cosmic axis connecting heaven and earth; the kuchiyose, who are masters of telepathy, mediumship, necromancy, and divination and gain knowledge that they use in fortune telling when they are possessed; and the jussha (magicians) and gyōsha (practitioners), who are key figures of Japanese “new religions” like the modern Shinto sect Tenrikyō.

In the last 50 years, interest in shamanism has rapidly increased. Some factors for this development include the abolishment of State Shintō in 1945, which allowed new sects to develop, and the growth of individualism, which freed people to fashion their own patchwork religions by drawing on old occult practices and supernatural phenomena. There are about ten times as many books on shamanism published today than in the 1950s.

Japan is a fast-paced and technologically advanced society, but when it comes to worldviews, the country has never been modern. High school and university education puts a thin layer of Western rationalism over an otherwise solid core of premodern thinking in which shamanism plays a vital role.

This is reflected in how the role of a pastor is conceived in some Japanese churches, where pastors’ prayers, particularly for healing, are considered more powerful than those of lay people. Only pastors can deliver the benediction, which is often understood as a mantra with inherent spiritual power. Pledging obedience to the pastor may also be part of public baptismal vows, and pastors can forbid church members from visiting other congregations.

Within the church, Japanese evangelicals must address the danger of spiritual abuse, especially as the culture favors a top-down leadership style. The Yawata scandal in 2005, where a pastor sexually abused women and girls in his church while claiming to have divine authority over them, shook the Japanese church and has since galvanized greater awareness and preventive action.

Mitsuru Murakami, a pastor and expert on churches that deteriorated into cults, and Jean Dôgen, a missionary from Truth Word Mission Church Kansai, founded organizations that help victims. Missionary William Wood’s book When Churches Turn into Cults: Fostering Biblical Discernment was also widely recognized and challenged pastors to rethink their leadership styles.

Outside the church, Japanese evangelicals must tackle worldview issues that are commonly only addressed by shamans or Shinto and Buddhist practitioners. These topics may include the felt need for protection against hostile spiritual beings, healing, discernment in important decisions, and ancestor veneration. If evangelicals don’t address these topics, Christianity will likely not be considered a relevant religion, which may lead believers to seek answers to these questions outside of the Christian faith.

The Old Testament is full of references that candidly speak against activities that fall into the field of Japanese shamanism. The most prominent shaman of his age, Balaam, attested to this: “There is no divination against Jacob, no evil omens against Israel. It will now be said of Jacob and of Israel, ‘See what God has done!’” (Num. 23:23). Divination and sorcery are not necessary for the people of God because the Lord will guide and provide for them. Seeking instruction from any other god would be an act of infidelity.

Martin Heisswolf is the author of Japanese Understanding of Salvation: Soteriology in the Context of Japanese Animism. Read more in our series’ lead article, Shamans, Sorcerers, and Spirits: How Christians in Asia Grapple with the Supernatural.

The post Shamanism in Japan appeared first on Christianity Today.

When I was 14, a Christian friend introduced me to “white knowledge,” a supposedly mystical power from God that is distinct from the “black knowledge” of the devil. I memorized mantras, fasted, meditated, and performed special rituals. Once I mastered enough of this knowledge to become a “white shaman,” I used the power I felt I had acquired to heal the sick, exorcize demons, and protect people from black magic attacks, which occur through spells or charms that are used to harm others.

The deeper I delved into white knowledge, however, the darker my heart, mind, and emotions became. While I continued to attend church, I felt no peace. My mind didn’t understand Scripture, and my emotions were uncontrollable, although I was able to do good things that helped people.

Amid this confusion, I read 2 Corinthians 11:13–14 and realized that the white knowledge I had been studying was a deception of Satan, who masquerades as an angel of light. Nearly three years after I became a white shaman, I repented and experienced new birth. From then on, I have grown in my understanding of God’s Word.

Practicing shamanism is quite common in Indonesia, and it has a deep-rooted influence in the country’s culture. Shamans appear to possess supernatural power to either maintain or disrupt natural harmony. If they pray and perform rituals to heal the sick, expel evil spirits, support businesses, or maintain the harmony of life, people believe that their power originates from a god or a good spirit. These individuals are often called white shamans. Religious figures, including pastors, are often described as such.

In contrast, if certain individuals disrupt the harmony of life through their rituals by causing illness, economic loss, and suffering to others, people believe their power originates from evil spirits, and they are categorized as black shamans. They can easily become the target of mass anger and hatred. From 1998 to 1999, vigilantes killed more than 250 people suspected to be black shamans in East Java.

Because of traumatic memories from the 1998 killings, the Javanese word for shaman, dukun, carries a negative connotation. Those who practice witchcraft prefer to be called “paranormal,” or kyai in Javanese.

Recent events reveal the power that shamans continue to wield in Indonesian society.

In March 2022, a rain shaman performed rituals at a track on Lombok island to stop a downpour so that an international motorcycle race could proceed smoothly. While some people were against her actions, many were in favor, especially because the rain stopped. Last April, authorities arrested a village shaman in central Java for killing at least 12 people whom he had scammed in a money-multiplying scheme.

Generally, Christians in Indonesia reject shamanistic practices. Deuteronomy 18:10–12 firmly states that shamanistic rituals are “detestable to the Lord.” The account of Saul’s failure in 1 Chronicles 10:13–14 also serves as a stern warning to God’s people that consulting spirits, which is one form of shamanism, can bring about harsh judgment from God.

Some churches, especially those deeply rooted in traditional cultures, attempt to contextualize the gospel by adapting rituals commonly practiced by white shamans. For example, the Javanese Christian Church (Gereja Kristen Jawa) replaces ceremonies traditionally led by white shamans—like midodareni (a prewedding ceremony), mitoni (a seven-month pregnancy celebration),and nyewu dina (a thousand-day postdeath ceremony)—with thanksgiving services led by pastors.

The influence of the sacred-secular dichotomy in Indonesian Christianity, however, fosters spiritual shamanistic practices within the church. This dichotomy leads some to believe that there are certain people and objects that possess supernatural powers, enabling them to act as mediators with the spirit world.

In the church, this dichotomy makes pastors, the cross, the communion cup, and anointing oil be regarded as having supernatural powers, serving as mediators with God. As a result, the congregation may believe that only the pastor’s prayers are heard by God and that by touching or kissing the cross or communion cup or being anointed with oil, they will be blessed and healed by God.

This sacred-secular dichotomy should be increasingly dismantled. Evangelical church leaders should engage in intentional mentoring and discipleship so that congregations will increasingly understand and obey the Word of God. Seminaries can also conduct more research and studies on the gospel and culture to produce a more contextual theology.

Kristian Kusumawardana is head of the bachelor’s degree program in theology at Bandung Theological Seminary. Read more in our series’ lead article, Shamans, Sorcerers, and Spirits: How Christians in Asia Grapple with the Supernatural.

The post Shamanism in Indonesia appeared first on Christianity Today.

Asia has a crowded spirit world. And shamans are in the thick of the action. 

Shamans serve as mediators between the human world and the spirit world. They communicate with spirits to achieve certain aims for individuals or communities, such as physical healing or alleviation of a disaster.

Unlike Buddhist monks or Hindu priests, shamans embrace spirit possession, said Chansamone Saiyasak, founder of Mekong Evangelical Mission in Thailand. “Shamanistic practices address basic needs, from health and security to social belonging and self-esteem, similar to Maslow’s hierarchy,” Saiyasak said.

In other parts of the world, an encounter with mystical forces beyond human comprehension may occur through consuming psychedelics like ayahuasca, a South American Indigenous concoction with hallucinogenic properties, or when seeing a sangoma, a South African witch doctor, to connect with an ancestor.

In Asia, engaging with spirits or divine entities is an activity that is often centered on the role of the shaman. Seeking counsel from a shaman is often seen as a legitimate and effective way to deal with everyday matters in life, from deciding who to marry to removing bad luck and healing diseases or illnesses.

Belief in the supernatural is widespread in the region: A majority of adults in Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam say they believe in a god or unseen beings, according to Pew Research Center. Having an otherworldly experience is commonplace as well. “We often experience evil spirits before we experience the Holy Spirit,” said author Justin Tan in a CT piece on the Hungry Ghost Festival.

Christianity Today interviewed seven scholars on how shamanism shows up in certain Asian contexts, what its key sources are, how it has influenced their churches, and what Bible verses challenge it.

In South Korea, shamanism is growing in popularity as younger shamans work through YouTube and other social media platforms to assuage citizens’ anxiety for the future. In Japan and Thailand, animistic beliefs form the bedrock of shamanistic rituals. In Indonesia, people may regard pastors as “spiritual shamans” who wield special powers. And in the Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam, folk religion, folk Catholicism, and Daoism (Taoism) have helped shamanism to thrive because many of their rituals encourage people to appease a spirit or venerate a deity.

While shamanism has helped to develop a greater awareness of the spirit world across many parts of Asia, engaging in shamanistic rituals or practices invites syncretism, opens up room for evil spirits to influence a person’s life, and goes against God’s injunctions on spiritism and sorcery, say these Christian leaders. Their responses can be found below:

Indonesia Kristian Kusumawardana, head of the bachelor’s degree program in theology at Bandung Theological Seminary

Japan Martin Heisswolf, author of Japanese Understanding of Salvation: Soteriology in the Context of Japanese Animism

Philippines Dave Johnson, editor of the Asian Journal of Pentecostal Studies at the Asia Pacific Theological Seminary

South Korea Yohong Roh, instructor of religious studies at Louisiana State University

Taiwan Tony Chuang, author of Religiosity and Gospel Transmission: Insights from Folk Religion in Taipei

Thailand Chansamone Saiyasak, president of Mekong Evangelical Mission

Vietnam Saralen Tran, Christian education lecturer at Hanoi Bible College

The post Shamans, Sorcerers, and Spirits: How Christians in Asia Grapple with the Supernatural appeared first on Christianity Today.

At any given hour on a December day in Brazil, a radio station is playing Simone’s 1995 version of “Então É Natal,” a local version of John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s “Happy Xmas (War is Over).” The cover has become so ubiquitous that in 1999, one newspaper columnist suggested that people fled the country at the end of the year to escape its incessant performance.

Brazil’s obsession with translated Christmas songs extends to church music, where most Christians sing and Christian radio stations play Portuguese versions of old European carols, like “Cantai que o Salvador Chegou” (“Joy to the World”) and “Oh Vinde Adoremos” (“O Come, All Ye Faithful).”

It’s not that Brazilian Christmas songs don’t exist: There are standards from the past, such as “Boas Festas” (“Happy Holidays”) by Assis Valente, released in 1933; Otávio Babo Filho’s “O Velhinho” (“The Old Man”), popularized by Carlos Galhardo in 1957; and the carnival-style “Meninos da Mangueira” (“Boys from Mangueira,” a reference to one of the most known samba groups of Rio de Janeiro) by Ataulfo Alves Júnior (1976). But all are songs about Santa Claus. 

Meanwhile, Christian Christmas songs, even Roman Catholic ones, are lacking. Among the Catholics, most celebrations are modest. Local traditions like Missa do Gallo (Midnight Mass) don’t have specific local musical traditions, and church leaders often lend their buildings for public Christmas programs unrelated to church programs.

Meanwhile, Brazilian gospel music has exploded in popularity. According to Spotify, the genre’s listenership grew on average 44 percent each year between 2015 and 2020. This year, from January to March alone, the number of gospel music listeners on Spotify grew an additional 46 percent. In another platform, Deezer, two of the most streamed songs in the country in 2024 were Christian.

So why has a country known for its vibrant music scene, robust recording industry, and a growing evangelical population been slow to produce original Christmas music? 

Part of it may be a consequence of the Judaizing theological movement that gained traction  in the 1990s, happening simultaneously as the Brazilian evangelical population began to explode, said Renato Marinoni, founder of the Institute of Worship, Culture, and Art.

In addition to advocating for the observance of Jewish festivals, this movement began to argue that the Bible doesn’t command the celebration of Jesus’ birth and that the date of Christmas was borrowed from pre-Christian pagan rituals. As this ideology spread, many churches began downsizing their own Christmas celebrations. 

“During my childhood, the church I attended in Poços de Caldas always put up a large Christmas tree in the building, but over time this tradition disappeared,” said Marinoni.

The lack of original holiday music sets Brazil apart from its Latin American neighbors. In Hispanic America, as in the United States, Christian musicians regularly release Christmas albums. Artists such as Marcos Witt (an American, son of missionaries who lived in Mexico) and Mexico’s Jesús Adrián Romero have regularly composed and released Christmas music for years. Some of them, such as Witt’s “Emanuel, Dios con Nosotros Es” are sung by Spanish-speaking congregations in seasonal services.

The same phenomenon is not seen in Brazil. “In the last decade, Brazilian evangelicals have produced lots of original worship music, but this type of repertoire [linked to Christian festivities] has not been something artists have as a priority [as it is in other countries],” said Marcell Steuernagel, the director of Southern Methodist University’s master of sacred music program, who grew up in Curitiba, Brazil. 

Compared to other parts of the world (and compared to those countries’ holidays), Brazilian Christians celebrate the festival in a more introspective, familiar way, said Fabiane Behling Luckow, an art history professor at the Universidade Federal de Pelotas. 

Many Christmas practices, including the singing of Christian Christmas carols, came as a result of immigration. Protestant migrants and missionaries who arrived in Brazil in the 19th and 20th centuries brought their denominations’ hymnals and translated them, Luckow said.

Beyond their theological significance, celebrations such as Christmas connected newcomers to a distant motherland and family members across generations.

“This time of the year makes me very happy because I know that I’ll finally sing hymnal songs that remind me of my childhood and my grandmother,” said Luckow, whose family immigrated to Brazil from Germany. 

Steuernagel agrees that Christmastime is marked by the celebration of traditions. “During the ‘ordinary time’ of the liturgical year, people turn to new music, to new releases,” he said. “During Christmas, as at Easter, people seek a return to the old and traditional.” 

Traditional arrangements of Christmas carols are structurally and stylistically different from popular new worship songs, which tend to “have few chords and rely heavily on repetition,” said Anuacy Fontes, president of the Council of Music of the Presbyterian Church of Brazil. “It works very well for congregational singing, but it’s not what churches need at Christmas.”

The association of Christmas music with classical music, choirs, and orchestras may actually “discourage those whose work stems from a more popular context from exploring this area,” said Jorge Camargo, a gospel singer and composer. For instance, worship leaders may feel that Brazilian genres like Música Popular Brasileira, which incorporates samba’s guitar and drum, create “too simple” of a sound for the holiday.

Camargo, who has been active in the Christian music industry since 1980, issued a Christmas-themed album—Natal, Piano e Voz, in 2021. Only 2 of the album’s 11 songs were original.

The Christmas album, he said, is not among his most-played on digital platforms, even during the holiday season. “The upside is that I can promote it every year as if it were something new, because most people are unfamiliar with these recordings.”

The desire to add complexity and grandeur to Christmas celebrations has led many Brazilian churches to rely on cantatas (accompanied choral pieces that may have multiple movements, carols, or selections from larger works, like Handel’s Messiah), almost always translated from English and German, Marinoni said.

Almost all evangelical churches, even when they are small, have their own choirs. In general, Christmas services are special programs, with a brief preaching and more music than usual. Some congregations enact Nativity scenes. Most of these services happen before the week of Christmas—services closer to the holidays are often empty because many families travel to spend Christmas with their families in other cities.

Despite this national preference for old music, choirs, and orchestras, some dissenting voices have been raised. Defying the trend, some Christian musicians are dedicated to creating new Christmas songs with a focus on congregational singing. Purples, a band based in Limeira, in the state of São Paulo, has released a Christmas song every year since 2022.

“The Incarnation of Jesus, the one who made himself nothing as mentioned in Philippians 2:7, has always deeply moved me,” said Júlio Filho, Purples’ vocalist and songwriter. 

“In 2022, when my son Cristiano was born, was when I realized how defenseless and vulnerable a baby is. That event made me come to a better understanding of the state of humiliation our Lord endured when he came into the world in such a profoundly human way.”

This was how “Emanuel,” Purples’ first Christmas song, came to life, which Júlio wrote for his small church to sing—and then was pleasantly surprised when he learned that other churches had incorporated the song into their services. The chorus says, “Christmas, our hope is born / Earth and heavens, bow to baby Jesus.”

The following year brought “Isaías 9,” whose lyrics are based on Isaiah 9:2, 6. With a simpler arrangement than “Emanuel,” the song was written to be accessible for worship leaders to teach their band and congregation. The band’s most recent track, “Glória,” released on November 25, includes vocals from a local church children’s choir and a portion that brings back Julio’s reflections on the Incarnation: “He became one of us. / He emptied himself. / By grace he delivered favor to his own.”

“Brazilian Christians are often concerned about anything that feels overly commercial, and this is also a concern shared by musicians,” Filho said. “But we need to be more intentional about celebrating occasions like Christmas and Easter so we are not flooded by tunes like Simone’s ‘Então É Natal.’”

The post Where Are the Great Brazilian Christmas Carols? appeared first on Christianity Today.

A Muslim candidate has the best shot of becoming Ghana’s next president for the first time since the country declared independence in 1957. Recent polls show current vice president Mahamudu Bawumia narrowly leading former president John Dramani Mahama as the country heads to the polls on December 7.

The country of 34 million, where 73 percent of the country identifies as Christian, has only elected Christian presidents. No Muslim candidate has represented a major party, be it Bawumia’s New Patriotic Party (NPP), which is currently in power, or Mahama’s National Democratic Congress (NDC). 

Struggling in a flailing economy, many Ghanaians, regardless of religious background, will vote for the man they hope can improve their infrastructure, increase youth employment, and solve the challenges posed by the rising cost of living and depreciating currency. 

“I don’t have money to eat. I eat only once. … I eat once a day because of the economy, so I have to save it so that tomorrow I can eat it,” Faiza, a mother of two, told the BBC about the realities affecting her voting decision. 

But for some Ghanaians, including Christians, a candidate’s faith is more important than their political credentials.

“We say that the people who can, and who will make us experience ‘The Africa God wants’ would be Christ-like persons—who live [a] lifestyle of godliness with integrity into every area of human endeavour,” wrote Jude Hama, the former CEO of Scripture Union Ghana, for a local weekend newspaper in October. 

Ghana’s economy has sputtered for several years. From 2019 to 2022, the percentage of its public debt relative to GDP increased from 63 percent to 93 percent while at one point, inflation spiked to 54 percent. 

While Ghanaians have criticized the current NPP government for the country’s economic woes, some have praised it for investing in social services, like making high school free. 

Many Ghanaians also associate the Mahama administration, which lasted from 2012 to 2017, with a significant electricity crisis that left parts of the country with regular power outages. Critics also accused him of corruption. These factors, plus frustrations over the economy, contributed to Mahama’s loss to current president Nana Akufo-Addo. 

On the campaign trail, both candidates have promised to fix the economy—and have been increasingly trying to do outreach to those who share their opponent’s faith, including making visits to mosques and churches, said John Azumah, the executive director of the Sanneh Institute, which studies both Islam and Christianity. 

Yet this type of pandering does not impress him. 

“I become very suspicious when candidates begin invoking religion for their policies,” Azumah said, pointing out that though many Nigerian Christians backed former president and fellow Christian Goodluck Jonathan, he struggled once in power and lost his reelection bid. 

“I would rather have a good, competent, technocrat politician who can come up with good policies for the development of my country than to be fixated with religious labels,” Azumah said.

Further, religious affiliation can be misleading, said Kofi Bentil, a senior vice president at Imani, a well-known think tank. Ghana has had a number of leaders whose profession of Christianity was in name only, he said. 

“Ghana has had presidents who worshiped idols and made pagan sacrifice. It was never a problem; I don’t know why a Muslim president should be a problem,” he said. “We must strictly separate church and state and focus on the person’s credibility and competence, not their faith.”   

Bawumia and Mahama both come from royal families, had fathers who were politicians, and come from northern Ghana, a predominantly Muslim region that historically lagged behind educationally. 

But the fact that Bawumia shared so much with Mahama wasn’t enough for Alan Kyerematen, a former NPP member who left the party when it decided to back the vice president. 

“As a predominantly Christian nation, as Christians, it is our responsibility that we elect a Christian leader, who is also a Christlike leader. We want a leader who has the vision to bring hope to the hopeless, but we also want a leader who will be a servant leader to serve the people and not to Lord over them,” Kyerematen preached to a congregation in March. “We want a leader who has integrity. These were the characteristics of our Lord Jesus.” 

Kyerematen’s comments sparked backlash, including from his former fellow party member Elizabeth Kaakie Mann. 

“We are all Ghanaians, living in harmony and there is peace in the country,” she said. “The peace we are enjoying is a result of us tolerating each other, whether being Muslim, Christian or traditionalist. His statement seeks to bring chaos amongst religious groups in the country and we are calling on him to apologize and retract the statement.”

Kyerematen, who at one time had been a leading contender to be the NPP’s presidential candidate, is now running for president as an independent but has not polled higher than third.

Meanwhile, Bawumia’s team has tried to present itself as the only option for Muslims. Recently, vice-presidential candidate Matthew Opoku Prempeh accused the NDC of being anti-Muslim and said it would be haram (forbidden by Islamic law) for Muslims to vote for any NDC candidates. 

“It’s a very divisive tactic, and it poses significant risks to Ghana’s unity and stability,” said Etornam Sey, a former journalist who now advocates for girls from marginalized communities. “Ethno-religious politicking is not right as a campaign strategy. If unchecked, it could drag Ghana down a path of dysfunction and disunity.”

Christians and Muslims have long peacefully coexisted in Ghana. To that end, presidents must continue to allow the constitution to guide their decisions, Azumah said, not Islamic law or the Sermon on the Mount.

“We should not impose one particular religion’s values upon a whole nation made of people from different faith traditions,” he said. 

Despite his minor poll lead, both Azumah and Sey are skeptical of a Bawumia victory. (In fact, an October poll showed that 51.1 percent of Ghanaians supported Mahama.) Numerous incumbent governments around the world have lost reelection bids this year. That the NPP has already had eight years in power will make it more challenging for the vice president to win, Azumah said. The NPP has also had to deal with COVID-19 and the local challenges of a global economic crisis, Sey said. 

Regardless of the outcome, a Christian politician’s life and policies should be so attractive that people would want them to govern ahead of any non-Christian, said Dieudonne Nuekpe, executive council member of the Church of Pentecost. When non-Christians win elections against Christians, Nuekpe said, it indicates that their faith is only professed—not lived out. 

In fact, a non-Christian leading Christians, Nuekpe said, “happens only when God’s people disappoint him.”

Bentil said Christians obsessing over the faith of a candidate is unnecessary and irrelevant.  

“Christians are stoking this religious issue, and it is dangerous!” he said. “Christians have had a lot of time to lead. What did they do?”

The post Ghana May Elect Its First Muslim President. Its Christian Majority Is Torn. appeared first on Christianity Today.

No matter how many times I hear “Come Thou Fount,” I still think of an angry Victorian man shouting, “Bah, humbug!” when we reach the Ebenezer line.

The name has become synonymous with Charles Dickens’s beloved Christmas Carol. After bringing his own adaptation to life, playwright A. S. “Pete” Peterson has become well acquainted with Ebenezer Scrooge and his spiritually significant name.

Peterson—brother of Rabbit Room founder and musician Andrew Peterson—serves as artistic director of Rabbit Room Theatre, whose adaptation of A Christmas Carol debuts December 7 in Franklin, Tennessee.

The Nashville-based Rabbit Room Theatre has enjoyed a broad scope and reach in its relatively short lifespan. In 2022, its adaptation of Corrie ten Boom’s The Hiding Place ran locally in Franklin to sold-out audiences, and the following year was released in movie theaters across the US and internationally.

When considering what project to bring to the stage next, Peterson turned to one of his favorite authors.

“It’s been a lot of fun to dig into the language of somebody you look up to so much,” said Peterson, a devout Christian and a lifelong fan of Dickens “To get to live in their sentences and their story structure and figure out how their brain was working … to put your own version of it alongside theirs is really rewarding.”

A Christmas Carol is shorter than most of Dickens’s other works and is divided into five chapters, called “staves.” Peterson said that the brevity in the text afforded him the opportunity to build on the existing structure and play with the gaps in the story.

“You can read it in one sitting, and that opens it up to a lot of room to build out the meat and bones of it in different ways,” Peterson said. “Every adaptation does that a little differently.”

One of the angles Peterson approached in studying the text was to examine how the character of Scrooge came to be such a humbug.

He noticed a recurring image throughout the story of a small boy: Scrooge’s childhood self, Tiny Tim, and the hauntingly gaunt boy called Ignorance who appears with the girl Want underneath the robes of the Ghost of Christmas Present. Peterson realized how much the neglect and trauma of Scrooge’s childhood had contributed to the hardened, twisted adult Scrooge.

“The show that we’ve built gives us a really good roadmap from childhood through

adulthood of seeing how a person can end up as this really angry, twisted, cold miser

that Scrooge has become,” Peterson said. “And if we can understand how he became that way, then I think we can better understand how he can change.”

The character of Scrooge undergoes a miraculous transformation of divine intervention, repentance, and faith.

“Scrooge says, ‘The three spirits will strive within me,’ and I think that’s a real clue,” Peterson said. “The Trinity, the threefold spirit, strives within me—making me, sanctifying me, making me better than I was before.”

Even the name Ebenezer means “stone of help,” taken from 1 Samuel 7:12: “Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen. He named it Ebenezer, saying, ‘Thus far the Lord has helped us.’”

While Dickens doesn’t explicitly explain the meaning of this name, Peterson believes there was both intentionality and significance to his naming, which is often a characteristic of Dickens’s storytelling.

In exploring that background, Peterson found ample source material from Dickens’s life, adding allusions to David Copperfield, a work considered to be largely autobiographical, as “Easter eggs” in the show.

Dickens not only experienced mistreatment as a child himself but also as an adult was moved by the plight of poor British children and sought to advocate for them through his writing.

After a visit to one London institution, Dickens wrote to a newspaper to enlist the attention of the readers to the efforts “to introduce among the most miserable and neglected outcasts in London, some knowledge of the commonest principles of morality and religion; to commence their recognition as immortal human creatures.”

“He had gone on a tour to visit all these places and see the facts for himself, and he was so affected by that tour that he decided he was going to do something about it,” Peterson said. “What he wanted to do about it was write a political pamphlet.”

Instead of writing a pamphlet, Dickens ended up writing A Christmas Carol. The resulting work, Peterson said, is a much more effective tool.

Dickens’s original audiences thought so too. Shortly after its publication, Dickens wrote in a letter,

I have great faith in the poor; to the best of my ability, I always endeavor to present them in a favorable light to the rich; and I shall never cease, I hope, until I die, to advocate their being made as happy and as wise as the circumstances of their condition in its utmost improvement, will admit of their becoming.

His social advocacy was not merely humanitarian but also grounded in his faith. “He was motivated, I think, by the gospel and his care for children,” Peterson said. “Dickens is really clear that he definitely had a strong Christian faith. It bears out in a lot of his work.”

A Christmas Carol is one of his works that bears the marks of his faith with particular clarity.

Certainly, the story reflects the mercy toward the marginalized spoken of in James 1:27: “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress.”

While Peterson calls the story inherently a deeply Christian one, his adaptation also reflects his own faith. 

“I’m foundationally a Christian. All of my stories and the ways that I tell them are foundationally Christian, and so I see it as a mission,” he said. “We get to invite people from all over the city into our storytelling … to tell these beautiful stories that bear the truth of Christ and the kingdom.”

Courtesy of The Rabbit Room Theatre

Producer and director Matt Logan was instrumental in promoting Peterson’s first foray into theater—The Battle of Franklin. Since then, the two have teamed up to form a symbiotic creative partnership for several productions, including The Hiding Place.

“Matt and I have learned that we have very similar storytelling styles,” Peterson said. “I’m able to write in a way that he enjoys developing on stage, and I think the way that he works on stage is something that enables me to write specifically for his skill set.”

Logan’s costuming and casting pedigree includes such Broadway credits as The Lion King, and he is also an established actor, director, and illustrator. He designed sets and costumes for the play’s upcoming premiere run, taking a creative direction Peterson calls a marriage of modern theater techniques with the traditional Victorian.

“You don’t do theater because you want to exactly represent a 19th-century street. Theater flourishes in its abstractions and its ability to paint beautiful pictures with light and space,” Peterson said. “We’re really leaning into that with this show.”

Peterson and Logan have been working on the production for the past year and a half, including multiple workshops with the cast and crew.

“It’s such a deeply Christian story that has so thoroughly pervaded our English-speaking culture,” Peterson said, “that it’s just a great opportunity to spread the good news.”

A Christmas Carol runs December 7–22 at the Franklin Special School District (FSSD) Performing Arts Center in Franklin, Tennessee, and tickets are available at rabbitroomtheatre.com. Peterson’s stage play is also available for purchase at store.rabbitroom.com.

Erin Jones is a freelance writer and the founder of Galvanize and Grow Copywriting. More of her writing can be found on erinjoneswriter.com.

The post The Rabbit Room’s ‘Christmas Carol’ Draws on Dickens’s Pure Religion appeared first on Christianity Today.

In its first major case on transgender issues, the US Supreme Court seems poised to uphold state restrictions on medical transition for youth.

Dozens of protestors gathered on the steps of the court Wednesday as justices heard arguments in United States v. Skrmetti, a dispute over a Tennessee state law that bans minors from receiving medical treatment to facilitate transitioning, primarily certain puberty blockers and hormones. (The law also bars surgery, but that aspect is not in consideration before the court.)

Those in favor of the ban—and similar laws in 26 states—held signs with slogans like “Do No Harm” and “Kids’ Health Matters.”

Among them were evangelical organizations, including staff from the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), which ranked opposing gender transition surgeries and other medical procedures on minors as one of its top policy focuses of 2024.

“It was inevitable that [the Supreme Court] was going to take a case like this, because of the prominence of the issue,” David French, a New York Times columnist and former attorney who worked on religious-freedom issues, told Christianity Today. “There are times when the court weighs in simply when the issue is important enough for the court to decide.”

After the law—Tennessee’s Senate Bill 1—was signed in March, the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee and other organizations sued the state  on behalf of three families to block the ban. They have argued that the law is unconstitutional and discriminates on the basis of sex, while the state countered that it regulates medical treatment for all minors and that the dividing line is based on age and usage, not sex. 

In the spring, a federal judge blocked part of the law in district court, and then the decision was reversed on appeal. In June, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case.

During oral arguments Wednesday, the high court’s 6–3 conservative majority at times sounded reluctant to wade into the arena, raising the possibility that they will take a more hands-off approach in their verdict that may allow the state’s position to stand. Conservative justices questioned whether there is enough conclusive medical research on the long-term impacts of such treatments. 

Christians concerned about gender transition of minors expressed concerns to the Supreme Court both about the theological implications of rejecting a person’s biological sex and about the health risks that the medical treatments carry.  

The case “implicates fundamental truths that Southern Baptists hold dear,” wrote the ERLC in an amicus brief filed along with the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board, which represents over 3,000 churches. 

They told the Supreme Court that they “have an interest in ensuring that governments protect children’s developing healthy bodies, including by prohibiting medical procedures that refashion healthy bodies based on the children’s perceived or desired gender.”

Echoing some of the justices, the Southern Baptists argued that not enough is known about “the actual long-term effects of ‘pausing’ puberty” to conclude that such interventions are safe.

Chief Justice John Roberts, a George W. Bush appointee, referenced an independent review from the United Kingdom that found insufficient evidence around the efficacy of transitioning treatments for minors, which caused England’s National Health Service to stop prescribing youth puberty blockers or certain hormone treatments until a certain age is reached.

“If it’s evolving like that and changing, and England’s pulling back, and Sweden’s pulling back, it strikes me as a pretty heavy yellow light, if not red light, for this court,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a Trump appointee, said. He also asked whether such questions are better decided by the legislative rather than the judicial branch.

Roberts agreed: “My understanding is that the Constitution leaves that question to the people’s representatives rather than to nine people, none of whom is a doctor.”

US Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar suggested the court doesn’t need to overturn the law, and it could send the case back to the lower courts for further scrutiny over Tennessee’s justification for the ban. She argued lawmakers singled out certain groups of children unlawfully in violation of equal-protection claims by drawing “sex-based lines.”

Prelogar also said ruling for the plaintiffs would not necessarily mean all state laws would be struck down: She brought up how treatments in the UK and Sweden are restricted but not banned outright and how other states have restrictions that still allow hormones and puberty blockers—West Virginia requires two doctors to diagnose a patient with gender dysphoria if the patient is under 18.

Meanwhile, the court’s liberal minority compared the state bans on treatment for youth to past laws that discriminated based on race or gender. 

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, an Obama appointee, argued that “every medical treatment has risks” and was skeptical of Tennessee Solicitor General Matthew Rice’s arguments that the case did not represent sex discrimination. “It is a dodge to say, this is not based on sex, it’s based on a medical purpose, when the medical purpose is utterly and entirely about sex,” she said. 

While this case is the first to reach the high court, similar controversies are bubbling up in other states, with different legislatures taking sharply different approaches to the issue. 

The 8th US Circuit Court of Appeals blocked a similar state ban going into effect in Arkansas. But the 6th and 11th circuits upheld similar state laws in Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, and Florida. At least 17 states have passed “shield” or “refuge” laws or have executive orders focused on protecting medical providers or families seeking access to these treatments.

The Williams Institute of the UCLA School of Law estimates that around 1.6 million adults identify as transgender. Among youth ages 13 to 17, around 300,000 identify as transgender.

The Christian Medical and Dental Associations opposes any interventions intended as sex reassignment, including hormones for children or adolescents. 

French said he expects the court to rule in favor of the ban since states have long asserted a “zone of protection over children,” restricting certain risky or harmful activities even if parents approve, such as laws regulating getting tattoos or piercings and age-of-consent laws. 

“I don’t think it is all that predictable how the court will come out here, although I do expect them to uphold the Tennessee law,” he said. 

On the chance that the Supreme Court rules against Tennessee’s ban, similar bans in other states could be overturned by lawsuits or declared unconstitutional. 

A ruling in favor of the state may mean a more federalist posture, allowing states to adopt differing levels of restrictions around transgender youth, similar to the country’s patchwork of abortion laws. The families argue that an adverse ruling would “effectively immunize all forms of government discrimination against transgender people from meaningful constitutional scrutiny.”

One thing that will change before a decision is reached is the position of the federal government on the case. The incoming Trump administration is expected to side with the state’s view that the bans are constitutional. The switch may mean some legal shuffling for the Supreme Court but is not expected to impact the justices’ ruling.

A decision is expected by late June or early July 2025.

The post Supreme Court Considers State Bans of Transgender Procedures for Minors appeared first on Christianity Today.

In 2014, the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) canceled its General Assembly due to “internal divisions among the evangelical community” in South Korea.

This year, as the ministry geared up to announce that it had once again selected Seoul to host its October 2025 gathering, divisions within the church have once again emerged.

Four days before WEA leaders signed a memorandum of understanding with the official organizing committee of the upcoming assembly, 1,000 Korean evangelical leaders published a full-page advertisement explaining why they and Hapdong, the country’s largest Presbyterian denomination, will not engage with WEA. The notice was published on November 11 in a church newspaper founded by Yoido Full Gospel Church—the world’s largest Pentecostal church and one affiliated with the Assemblies of God. Yoido’s senior pastor, Younghoon Lee, is on the WEA’s official organizing committee.

On the same day the advertisement ran, a former WEA affiliate, the Christian Council of Korea (CCK), also released a statement urging that the assembly be postponed until the issues the group raised are addressed.

The opposing parties challenged the WEA on three main issues: the “WEA’s emphasis on social responsibility,” its interactions with the World Council of Churches (WCC) and the Vatican, and its “theological ambiguities.”

“In principle, the WEA would like to stay above commenting on these different said controversies,” said Peirong Lin, the WEA’s deputy secretary general for operations, in a series of correspondences with CT. “We are grateful to work with the Korean churches for the upcoming General Assembly and would like to focus our energies and attention on making this GA an event that will unite the global church.”

Lin noted that although the groups are not directly involved in working with WEA for the 2025 meetings, the WEA is “committed to further communicate our theological position to them.” She also said the alliance is working with the Korean Evangelical Fellowship (KEF), the WEA’s current country affiliate, and clarified that “KEF does not have questions on our theological position.”

A report published in Korean by Christian Today Korea portrayed the selection process that led to Seoul as the city to host the General Assembly as involving “backroom negotiations.” “I am not sure what the accusation means,” Lin wrote to CT in a WhatsApp message.

“The WEA General Assembly is at its core a business meeting of different national alliances. The discussion on location has been ongoing for the past year,” Lin wrote in a follow-up email, adding that the WEA works “with the leads that we have in light of our requirements.” She added that the global alliance works with national bodies—in this case, the KEF—as they “broker for the unity of evangelicals in their country.”

“As a unity movement, the WEA looks forward to working with an organizing committee that represents the evangelical churches in Korea,” the organization said in a press release. With Lee of Yoido, Junghyun John Oh of the Hapdong denomination will also serve as cochair of the organizing committee.

Founded by David Yonggi Cho and his mother-in-law five years after the Korean War, Yoido counts around 800,000 members. Cho, who died in 2021, popularized the cell group concept, where groups of 10–15 people would meet weekly for Bible study and worship. In 2014, he was convicted of embezzling $12 million in church funds but avoided jail time.  

Hapdong claims around 2.8 million members and 12,000 churches. A group of leaders affiliated with Hapdong ran the full-page ad with their statement, titled “Reasons Why the Korean Presbyterian Church Hapdong Cannot Engage with the WEA.”

In their published statement, the Hapdong leaders said WEA “superficially presents itself as reformed and conservative evangelical in theology” but its positions remain “inconsistent with reformed and conservative evangelical doctrine.” The Presbyterian leaders questioned WEA’s use of infallibility instead of inerrancy when affirming the Holy Scriptures in its statement of faith. They also cited the alliance’s and its leaders’ ecumenical interactions, including former WEA secretary general Thomas Schirrmacher’s endorsement of the WCC mission declaration during the WCC Assembly held in Busan, South Korea, in 2013.

The evangelical leaders, including pastors, elders, and seminary professors, went as far as to say their denomination must “sever ties with WEA due to its misalignment in faith and practice.”

For its part, CCK has released three statements raising similar issues as the Hapdong group while also alleging that WEA executive chair Goodwill Shana is part of the New Apostolic Reformation, whose tenets have courted controversy within the American evangelical movement. Shana “emphatically denies this accusation based on his beliefs and practice,” Lin said in an email to Christianity Today.

The CCK, pointing to several social media posts that characterized John Langlois, a lawyer and WEA International Council member emeritus, in a negative light, urged him to resign.

The CCK characterized John Langlois, a lawyer and WEA International Council member emeritus, in a negative light, noting unspecified social media posts on his son’s feed, and urged him to resign.

“WEA has experienced him as a legal expert with a heart for religious liberty,” said Lin. “We do not comment on personal issues.”

Noel Pantoja, head of the Philippine Council of Evangelical Churches, attended the Fourth Lausanne Congress in Incheon, South Korea, in September. Pantoja’s predecessors include Efraim Tendero and Agustin Jun Vencer. Both have served at the helm of World Evangelical Alliance (which was called the World Evangelical Fellowship during Vencer’s time).

Pantoja said he witnessed a group protesting at Lausanne, which he believed was part of CCK.

“They say WEA does not have solid positions on some things, that it’s playing safe all the time, that WEA is becoming liberal,” Pantoja said, “but of course, that’s their perspective. I don’t believe it.”

In a 2014 analysis by Bong Rin Ro, who served as the international director of WEA’s Theological Commission from 1990–1996, he noted that the Korean church is one of the most theologically conservative worldwide.

“The church has been very sensitive to theological issues, especially the liberal theologies of the WCC,” he wrote. He explained that those within the Hapdong denomination would consider “any engagement with WCC liberals compromising.”

In addition to Schirrmacher’s 2013 endorsement of WCC, the opposing groups noted that WEA’s interactions with various faith communities, including the Roman Catholic Church and the Muslim community, indicate that the alliance is endorsing religious pluralism.

“The World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) interacts with leaders of other Christian churches and non-Christian religious traditions in a variety of contexts in order to fulfill its goals and carry out the mission of Christ in the world,” Lin wrote in an email to Christianity Today. “WEA representatives work with these leaders to pursue common goals in areas such as social welfare and religious freedom, and engage with them in a diplomatic and respectful manner to effectively reconcile differences.”

She emphasized that throughout these interactions and engagements, the “WEA always affirms Jesus Christ as the way to salvation and consistently defends the central tenets of evangelical beliefs.”

Christianity Today reached out to CCK but has not heard back.  

In CCK’s third statement, released on November 22, the group described WEA’s responses to their objections as “evasive” and “attempting to deflect with ‘false explanations.’”

“With respect to our theological position, the WEA has published books, an open access journal and also publishes our opinions as editorials,” said Lin. “Our intra and interfaith work is governed by policies approved by our International Council, our governing body.”

The post The World Evangelical Alliance’s Controversial Korea Announcement appeared first on Christianity Today.

The streaming platforms are going biblical. Amazon has House of David, from one of the codirectors of Jesus Revolution, coming next year. Netflix released the multifaith docuseries Testament: The Story of Moses last spring. (It was one of their top 20 TV shows in the first half of this year.)

Now Netflix has picked up its first original Bible movie: Mary, a film about Jesus’ mother, starring Bible-movie veteran Anthony Hopkins (Peter and Paul, Noah) as King Herod.

The film, which starts streaming this Friday and counts megachurch pastor Joel Osteen as one of its executive producers, isn’t your typical Christmas movie. For one thing, it dramatizes not only the birth of Jesus but also the birth of Mary, following an ancient tradition—well known in Orthodox and Catholic circles—that says her birth was a miraculous answer to her own parents’ prayers.

The film has more violence than some viewers might expect, enough to earn it a TV-14 rating. Much of it involves the cruelty of King Herod, though Joseph (Ido Tako) also grabs tools and weapons to protect Mary (Noa Cohen) from various threats: Herod’s soldiers, a judgmental mob, even Satan himself (Eamon Farren).

Lately, Mary has been controversial for another reason, with some calling for a boycott over the film’s use of Jewish Israeli actors in many of the key roles, including Mary, her parents, her cousin Elizabeth (Keren Tzur), and Joseph.

CT spoke with director D. J. Caruso (Disturbia, Redeeming Love), who is Catholic, about the conversation around Mary and what he hopes audiences will take away from the film. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

The producers of Mary have been trying to make a movie about her for quite some time, since at least 2009. How recently did you get involved? What finally got the project off the ground?

Well, what finally got it off the ground is that I got passionate.

I was looking for a story about Mary, and I had read some screenplays over the years. They just weren’t presenting anything different or new. Then this came to me. I read it and I thought, “Wow, this is great.”

I know the movie has had a long journey, but for me, it’s been only 16 intense months with the project. I put my head down and said, “I’m going to give it to you, Lord.”

This film gets into the birth of Mary herself, which is not in the Bible. I’ve seen some Protestants say, “Well, this movie is going to be very Roman Catholic because it has the miraculous birth of Mary, so it’s not for us.” But I’ve also seen Catholics object to the trailer because it shows Mary experiencing labor pains when Jesus is born.

How were these creative decisions made, keeping in mind your anticipated audience?

Well, where to start. First of all, regarding the labor pains: That’s about presenting Mary in a human way, acknowledging that she had apprehensions. I think something like a third of women died in childbirth in antiquity.

I also wanted to get at the transformative, beautiful moment when a mother gives birth to a child. Every mother has experienced it, right? The mother Mary is giving birth to the Son of God, to Christ. This is my interpretation of what that would be like.

Now to answer your other question: I grew up Catholic and always knew something about Mary’s parents: Saint Joachim (played by Ori Pfeffer) and Saint Anne (Hilla Vidor). But who are they really? Why are we celebrating them?

I went to the Protoevangelium of James and looked at the story of Mary told there. Also the historian Josephus gave me a lot about the geopolitical situation. Using these texts, I was able to put together this narrative.

But just because you see the birth of Mary doesn’t mean the movie is particularly Catholic. It’s really just a celebration of her as the mother of God. This is the story we chose to tell, and it is for everybody.

I’ve seen the film twice now, and the second time in particular, I was struck by how powerful it was to see, early on, the scene of Anne giving birth to Mary. Then Anne is there when Mary gives birth to Jesus.

You imagine that Anne on some level is reliving what she’s been through.

That’s exactly why she’s there. The actresses were committed to making the connection between mother and daughter and the birth of Christ.

The film also expands the role of Anna the Prophetess (Susan Brown), who appears with Simeon in Luke 2 but doesn’t have any dialogue.

In the film, she’s a mentor to Mary as she’s growing up in the Temple, and we don’t see Simeon (David Gant) until the very end. Why is Anna a much bigger part of the story?

I give credit to Tim [screenwriter Timothy Michael Hayes] for that. I think the idea was to give Mary a protector.

It’s really about Isaiah’s prophecy, right? (Isa. 7:14). If Anna is a prophetess, she understands—maybe not exactly—the beauty and the power of Mary and why Mary’s coming to the Temple.

The film is also very violent. You’ve got Herod killing everybody in his family—which, yes, Herod did do—and eventually you’ve got Joseph himself taking up arms in self-defense.

This might not be the sort of film that families are expecting to get all cozy with after they’ve opened their Christmas presents.

Mary and Joseph fled because the Roman soldiers were coming for them. Well, what happens if a Roman soldier happens to be in the house next door and traps you in the room where you’re hiding? Fire to me represents purification. And so I put them in a burning house.

Joseph really has no voice in the Gospels. (There’s one exchange with him and the angel Gabriel.) What would it be like to be a young man thrown into this situation? What would the decisions be? How would you go against the mob?

It’s not easy for young men today to go against the mob. Joseph could be a great role model: “Look, I’m going to follow my heart. I’m going to do what I know is right; I’m not going to do what you tell me is right.”

And then there’s Herod: the Roman Empire, the geopolitical struggles. Herod killed his wife and his own sons (which we didn’t even include). He takes down people because he’s paranoid.

So yes, there’s going to be a little bit of action; it’s going to be a cinematic experience. I wanted the movie to have movement. But it’s not like Mary’s an action hero.

A controversy has emerged recently over casting Israeli actors in the film. Can you talk a little about that?

When I started to cast the film, we looked all over the world. I wanted to get someone from the region where Mary was born to play her. That was my goal. I felt like if we could find a great young Jewish actress, that would be amazing.

When I saw Noa’s audition—there are certain things you just know. So I got her on the phone, we started working together, and she was my Mary.

I felt blessed to say, wow, there’s this authenticity of this young Jewish woman playing a young Jewish woman. I thought that was fantastic. But obviously, this horrible war in the aftermath of October 7—the world is in upheaval.

I just know that Noa did an amazing job. She’s a fantastic actress. She’s got this grace and beauty, and at the same time, she’s accessible. I’m so proud of her performance, and I think it should be celebrated. It has nothing to do with politics.

The idea of the movie is to spread love, and art is hopefully a uniter. It’s not supposed to be something that separates anybody.

Peter T. Chattaway is a film critic with a special interest in Bible movies.

The post Hail ‘Mary,’ Full of Violence appeared first on Christianity Today.