Quick to Listen

On Saturday, Beyoncé released her 12-song visual album, Lemonade, in which the 20-time Grammy award winning artist known for “Single Ladies,” “Irreplaceable,” and “Crazy in Love,” explored themes of anger, loss, redemption, and resurrection. The album’s lyrics and imagery also included a plethora of Christian references, including mentions of the “Holy Book,” “baptism”, and visuals of the Bible. “Chapters” within the visual album are named “emptiness,” “forgiveness,” “resurrection,” and “redemption.” “[I] went to the basement, confessed my sins, and was baptized in a river,” Beyonce says at the beginning of “Intuition.” “I got on my knees and said 'amen'... and said 'I mean.'” In “Anger,” text reading “God is God and I am not” momentarily appears on the screen, a section that moved Zakiya N. Jackson, who wrote about her initial reaction to the album’s release on Collected Young Minds. “It really is about being frustrated and angry, this sense of this isn’t right, what I have experienced. But even in the midst of this, there’s this acknowledgement that I can’t control all of this,” she said. “I love that because this place of letting go is acknowledging that God is bigger than me and that I can’t make everything the way I want it to be.” Jackson joined Morgan and Katelyn on this week’s Quick to Listen to discuss what Beyonce means to black women, what makes her message stand apart, and whether it’s time to make more lemonade. -What makes Beyonce unique? What about her work moves you? -As Christians, how did you interpret or perceive the religious references in the visual album? -It seems like the significance of Beyonce’s work is tied to her identity as a black woman. Why is that important? Why does that that resonate?

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Last week, Darrin Patrick, vice president of the Acts 29 church planting network and founding pastor of The Journey megachurch in St. Louis, was fired. (Read CT’s story.) Among the Reformed pastor’s offenses: “domineering over those in his charge,” “misuse of power/authority,” and “history of building his identity through ministry and media platforms.” TL;DR: pride. The son of uber popular Reformed pastor John Piper and author and blogger in his own right, Barnabas Piper joined Quick to Listen this week to offer his perspective to this thorny and recurring issue. “With the internet being what it is, local church ministry is no longer local church ministry,” says Piper, pointing to the number of pastors who publish books, host their own podcasts, and maintain an active social media presence. “Pride is an occupational hazard for all of us: if you have a byline, if your name is on a book, or you have a podcast, it comes with pride.” Here’s Piper’s chat with Morgan and Katelyn about what may make Acts 29 leaders prone to arrogance, what a pastor’s kid thinks other pastor’s kids are thinking after their parent messes up, and the circumstances under which a pastor should be restored.

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Less than a year after a Supreme Court verdict guaranteed same-sex marriage across the country, Christian conservatives and LGBT rights advocates remain at odds. The object of discontent: legislation that proponents say would guarantee the rights of people of faith to make hiring and employment decisions based on that faith, but which opponents claim would be used as a weapon to discriminate against LGBT people. CT recognizes that Christians hold a broad array of perspectives on these issues and invited Thomas Berg, a religious liberty scholar, to share his thoughts on the bills’ cultural and legal context. Berg teaches at the University of St. Thomas School of Law in Minneapolis and has had his work cited by the Supreme Court. In the latest episode of Quick to Listen, Berg chatted with Morgan and Katelyn about the significance of non-discrimination ordinances, why LGBT activists feel especially threatened by much of the recent legislation, and why he thinks the two sides actually share something important in common.

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You’ve heard the story before. Christian filmmakers make a movie about themselves. The title: God’s Not Dead. The focus: Evangelical persecution in the United States. Their $2 million creation opens on the big screen. It grosses $60 million during its theatrical run. Two years later comes the sequel, God’s Not Dead 2. Okay, so maybe we haven’t heard this exact story before. So how did Pure Flix, the production company behind these films, strike gold? Film critic Alissa Wilkinson discusses this question with Morgan and Katelyn in the latest episode of Christianity Today’s weekly podcast, Quick to Listen. Wilkinson, CT’s critic at large, recently reviewed the film for Flavorwire and analyzed the film against the Christian movie genre for the Thrillist. (Wilkinson previously juxtaposed the original to Fifty Shades of Grey.) “In the Bible, winning looks very different for people than it does in this film,” Wilkinson noted about the movie, where a teacher goes to court after quoting from the Bible in her classroom. “Sometimes you won’t win, even if you believe all the right things and have your apologetics straight.”

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More than 70 people died on Easter Sunday after Taliban suicide bombers blew themselves up at a children’s park in Lahore, Pakistan. The majority of the victims were Muslim, but its targets were Christians, a spokesperson for the terrorist group said. Life hasn’t been easy for Pakistani Christians in the past 50 years, says K. A. Ellis, an ambassador for the Christian persecution advocacy group, International Christian Response, who points to the country’s blasphemy laws and recent terrorist bombings of churches. “If it’s hubris to violate the image of God in any innocent being, it seems an even more profound offense to violate the name of Christ that believers bear,” says Ellis, a Ph.D. candidate in Church History at Oxford Center for Mission Studies. “God is grieved by the death of all men, but those who bear his name are precious in his sight.” Ellis joins Morgan and Katelyn this week as they process how Western Christians should grieve and act following this latest attack. What makes the Pakistan attack unique? What types of stories about persecution make the most prominent headlines? Should Christians grieve the death of other Christians differently than they do other victims? What can our support for persecuted Christians look like?

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The ongoing Flint water crisis has reminded many of us of the role that government plays in providing water to the public. While evangelicals may not be inclined to see access to clean water as a faith or justice-based issue, Calvin College political science professor Kevin R. den Dulk makes a case for why Christians should care about the human “right to water”. “For Christians, access to water ought not be about the arbitrariness of birth and geography or the vagaries of power,” writes the Michigan-based professor for The Center for Public Justice. “It is a matter of justice, and our response is grounded in God’s call to seek shalom, in this case by addressing the access problems and inevitable conflicts that arise when a good is both basic and unevenly distributed.” On this week’s Quick to Listen, Kevin R. den Dulk joins Morgan and Katelyn to discuss the Flint water crisis through the lens of public justice. With the Flint crisis in mind, what do bodies “owe” us citizens? Is water a human right? What does a public theology of water look like?

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Political Rallies. Black Lives Matter. March for Life. Westboro Baptist. If voting is the most popular way that Americans voice their concerns and frustrations, protests may be the second. (Time Magazine even named Ferguson protesters a runner up in its 2014 annual Person of the Year.) Jonathan Brooks, who leads Canaan Community Church on the city’s South Side, has experience organizing around issues of juvenile incarceration, inequitable school funding, and unfair policing practices. He’s also participated in several protests against police brutality after the city released a video showing a police officer shooting teenager Laquan McDonald 16 times last November. On this week’s Quick to Listen, Chicago pastor and community activist Jonathan joins Morgan and Katelyn to talk about protests. What makes a successful protest? Beyond protests, what other types of political actions must happen for social change? How do you define civil disobedience and how should Christians feel about it? We answer these questions, and preview CT’s April cover story on why all Christians should consider civil disobedience.

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