A New York moment: 

On a warm, rainy night last week, I took the train up to the South Bronx to join a room of mostly black and Hispanic church leaders listening to pastors Ray Rivera and Tim Keller talk about the future of the urban church globally. 

On an August Sunday afternoon, the streets of central Munich, Germany, showed signs of approaching Oktoberfest: Huge beer tents filled the festival grounds and hundreds of temporary cell towers were in place to support the two-week influx of 7 million visitors.

On a Sunday morning in Phnom Penh, motorcycles, SUVs, and colorful tuk-tuks (motorcycle-pulled rickshaws) try to squeeze past each other on a busy road. Off the main drag and next to a multistoried mall stands New Life Fellowship, its open doors facing an indoor shoe market. Inside, past the megachurch’s coffee shop, greeters hold open doors to a dark, air-conditioned sanctuary where hundreds of young Cambodians have gathered for worship. Colored lights flash as rock-concert-style worship music booms loud enough for shoppers next door to hear. 

On Jan. 16, elders at the Chicago-area megachurch Harvest Bible Chapel announced that Senior Pastor James MacDonald would take an “indefinite sabbatical.” The announcement came a month after WORLD detailed accusations by former elders and staff members that MacDonald and other leaders at the multicampus church had fostered a culture of deception and intimidation (see “Hard times at Harvest,” Dec. 29, 2018).

Today’s social justice debate in the evangelical church feels eerily similar to the debate that led to division in the Protestant church in the early 20th century. Then, the debate didn’t center on social justice but the social gospel.

Frequently asked question by WORLD members: What do you think of Andy Stanley’s book, Irresistible (Zondervan, 2018)?

Answer: I’m impressed and depressed. Stanley notes rightly that “skinny jeans and moving lights” won’t keep many young people from abandoning Christianity. But he argues that the way to hold them, and win others who say they’re “spiritual,” is to abandon the hard things in the Bible and emphasize a smiling Jesus. C.S. Lewis brought us Mere Christianity. Pastor Stanley brings us Mere Sponge Cake.

Barbara Duguid was an MK, a missionary kid born in Nigeria who grew up partly in South America. She earned a degree in medical technology that equipped her to head a mission hospital in Liberia. She’s the author of Extravagant Grace: God’s Glory Displayed in Our Weakness and Streams of Mercy: Prayers of Confession and Celebration. She’s also married to a fine theologian, Iain Duguid. Here are edited excerpts of our interview in front of Patrick Henry College students.