“Evangelization is colonialism,” she said. So, there I was on a Zoom call, part of a biweekly meeting of a Christian writers group. After sharing our latest accomplishments and travails, the topic of discussion turned to evangelization. One group member—I’ll call her Josephine—surprised us by categorically rejecting the very concept of missionary evangelization. She alleged that bringing the Gospel to foreign lands was tantamount to exploitation and oppression. “To send missionaries to Africa and Asia to convert the native people to Christianity is religious colonialism,” she insisted. To support her argument, Josephine recited the familiar litany of evils perpetrated over the recent centuries by waves of Christian European colonizers: the African slave trade, the genocide of Native Americans, and other atrocities. My first instinct was to dismiss Josephine’s viewpoint as just another example of rampant “wokeism.” But the emotion behind her argument…

This piece on St. Matthew first appeared in the Autumn 2020 Scripture issue of Evangelization & Culture, the quarterly journal of the Word on Fire Institute. Learn more and become a member today to read more pieces like this. As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up and followed him. (Matt. 9:9) Perhaps the best-known artistic depiction of this event is Caravaggio’s The Calling of Saint Matthew, kept today at the Church of St. Louis of the French in Rome. In this canvas, four men sit with Matthew—also called Levi—at a table counting money. Jesus and St. Peter stand in the doorway with their fingers extended toward the tax collector: he is being chosen. God is offering grace to the sinner.  In…

Several years ago, I found myself commiserating with a friend over his struggles to have children. For years, it seemed, he and his wife were able to conceive, but incapable of sustaining a pregnancy. Notwithstanding extensive examinations, lab work, and imaging studies to identify a treatable source for their difficulties, they suffered one miscarriage after another. Meanwhile, with each pregnancy came a familiar, grueling emotional cycle. It began with great joy, evolved into profound anxiety, and ultimately, concluded with withering sadness. With each miscarriage, their hopes dimmed that they would ever experience of joy of childbirth. It was a terrible story. As I looked at him with his furrowed brow and his unconsciously shaking head, it had been eighteen months since their last jeopardized pregnancy. It had been a harrowing road. Only now, they had a baby. My friend’s little boy was a miracle,…