Author: Shalem John

Before becoming director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) earlier this year, Stanford physician and economist Dr. Jay Bhattacharya was an outspoken critic of the country’s COVID-19 lockdowns under longtime NIH head Dr. Francis Collins. A researcher focused on aging and chronic disease, Bhattacharya is known for coauthoring the Great Barrington Declaration in 2020, using scientific modeling to argue for focused protection of the vulnerable rather than sweeping restrictions. But few realized that Bhattacharya—a churchgoing Presbyterian—also drew from his faith to advocate for a more relational response, including preaching on the topic. As Bhattacharya comes into his new role,…

On March 6, Ziad nervously scoured social media, hiding in a windowless room in his apartment. He had heard gunfire, and over the long course of the civil war in Syria, he had learned how to distinguish the various weaponry. These were military-grade machine guns. Bands of balaclava-clad militants in pickup trucks shouted “Allahu Akbar” as they attacked a government office just a mile from his home in the coastal city of Lattakia. The 46-year-old educator and his wife, Zeinab, knew the militants were looking for Alawites. The couple belonged to the heterodox Islamic sect that many Sunni Muslims in…

While the US bombed Iran’s nuclear sites, Bishop Derek Jones was with a group of over 300 Anglican military chaplains at a weeklong symposium and training in Bluffton, South Carolina. Once the chaplains heard the news, “everyone was champing at the bit to get back to their unit,” Jones said. “They wanted to be with their people.”  The chaplains wanted to check in with and support soldiers in the aftermath of the attacks.  “My office is not in a chapel. My office is where the soldiers are,” said Major William H. Allen, a US Army chaplain based in Arlington, Virginia. …