EDITOR’S NOTE: “Signs and Wonders” is a column that shares thoughts on news items that either do not rise to the level of a news story for MinistryWatch or are slightly (even significantly) outside of our normal charity and philanthropy “beat.” My goal is to be punchy, opinionated, and not to worry much about being slightly off brand. If that is not for you, no hard feelings. But if it is…read on.
Feeding From the Government Trough. Christianity Today reports that “after making deep cuts in global health, food assistance, and other foreign aid based on allegations of fraud and abuse in USAID, the Trump administration announced $2 billion in humanitarian-aid funding for faith-based groups, with a consortium of US Christian organizations overseeing $1.4 billion.” CT’s Emily Belz writes, “World Vision will oversee one US-funded consortium providing health services and will co-lead another doing disaster relief with Compassion International and the Accord Network.” She adds that “Samaritan’s Purse has a separate $300 million award over two years for natural disaster response and other humanitarian responses to ‘protracted emergencies.’ Another pot of $570 million in funding will go to local faith-based hospitals and clinics through countries’ own infrastructure.”
By the way, if you think that this is a drop in the bucket compared to the federal budget, and it’s the least that a rich country should do, and that we should congratulate ourselves for our generosity, you should consider that the federal government will spend at least 25% more than it takes in from tax revenue this year. That means $500 million of this $2 billion has been borrowed from our children without their consent. They will have to pay back this $500 million with what will likely be inflated interest.
Mike Pence at Colorado Christian University. I find it fascinating that former Vice President Mike Pence will join the CCU faculty this fall. Christianity Today reports that “Pence, who served under President Donald Trump from 2017 to 2021, will travel to the Denver-area campus once a month as a visiting faculty member.” What’s interesting about this is that Pence has emerged as one of President Donald Trump’s most public critics, and CCU’s Western Conservative Summit was the platform — in 2016 — that helped Donald Trump win the presidency. In the words of the Dylan song: “The times they are a-changin’.”
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Finance Majors Go to Church, English Majors Don’t. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) does an annual survey with a sample size of more than 68,000 from more than 400 colleges and universities. It’s one of the most comprehensive surveys of its kind. The survey asks about church attendance, and — according to Ryan Burge, who has parsed the numbers — “the two most ‘teched up’ majors are the least Christian: data science and computer science. Just 27-28% of these folks identify as Protestants, Catholics, or generic Christians. In contrast, about 30% say that they are atheist/agnostic and another 13% are non-religious. In other words, they are about fifteen points more apt to be nones than Christians.
But they actually aren’t the most likely to be strictly atheist/agnostic. There are two majors who clearly lead in this regard: English and Environmental Studies. In fact, Environmental Studies is the most secular of all with 61% of students claiming that they are atheist, agnostic, or claim no religion in particular. English is at 60% on this metric.”
So, what are the most religious majors? According to the FIRE numbers, “There are two that are clearly outliers: Finance and Nursing. Among the latter group, 68% identify as Protestants, Catholics, or generic Christians. It’s 62% among the Finance majors. For each group, less than a quarter are non-religious.”
Measuring the Wrong Things. I an excellent article in the online British publication “Premier Christianity” Derek Hughes reflects on the “quiet power of slow faithfulness and asks whether Christians have forgotten how to commit to work whose fruit they may not live to see.”
Hughes writes that we are obsessed with quick wins, and that is why we invest more than we should in political victories and materialistic gains, such as church growth and bigger institutions. Hughes contrasts these aspirations with the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He writes, “Bonhoeffer’s seminary was shut down. The Confessing Church, the movement he had given himself to, largely ignored him. The plot against Hitler that he was drawn into failed. He was arrested, held and executed three weeks before liberation. He did not get to see whether any of it mattered. He died inside the failure of it, with no sign that the ground was about to shift.”
But then something amazing happened. After his death, Christians discovered him and were encouraged by his witness. “Bonhoeffer never read the second half of his own story,” Hughes writes. “He died before the ending arrived. He staked everything on a harvest he would not live to see.”
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Readers in Greenville/Spartanburg. I am in the Upstate of South Carolina at the end of August. If you live in Greenville or Spartanburg, reach out to me. I would love to share a meal or a cup of coffee with you. My email is wsmith@ministrywatch.com.