Author: Shalem John

Peter Thomas, who oversees international education at Campbellsville University, got the text at 6:19 in the morning. “Check your records.” It was from a colleague at the University of Louisville. So before sunrise on Friday, April 25, Thomas rushed to his computer and logged in to the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System, or SEVIS, a government immigration database that records the visa status of international students in the United States. He scanned the list of names at Campbellsville, a Baptist school in central Kentucky. Weeks earlier, authorities had “terminated” more than ten of his international students from the system…

Perhaps this sounds familiar: A church group spent a week in a developing country, building houses for people most Americans would consider desperately poor. Although proud of their work, some volunteers also voiced that, despite their many material needs, their hosts seemed to enjoy a deeper sense of happiness than many Americans living in affluent cities and comfortable suburbs. They were generous, with deep commitments to their faith, families, and communities.  What’s going on? Are the perceptions of greater happiness or generosity merely a tourist’s fantasy, or are these reflections of deeper realities? How do we compare to our neighbors,…

Hundreds will meet near Pittsburgh in June as part of a 120-year tradition deemed the longest-running annual missions conference in the US.  This year’s New Wilmington Mission Conference, held at a lakeside pavilion on the campus of Westminster College, will welcome as special guests some of the 54 mission workers who lost their jobs when Presbyterian World Mission shut down in March. The end of Presbyterian World Mission—founded in 1837 as the Presbyterian Church (USA)’s foreign mission board—represents the latest consequence of declining giving and shifting stances around overseas evangelism in the mainline denomination.  PC(USA) blamed the decision on financial…