The Christian Chronicle Podcast
The Christian Chronicle Podcast explores the news and stories shaping Church of Christ congregations and members around the world.
The Christian Chronicle Podcast
Episode 129: Why do Christians say one thing about immigration, but vote for another? (Scott McConnell)
Lifeway Research executive director Scott McConnell is back to talk about some new research that sheds light on current events.
For starters, church attendance and sales of Bibles are going up. Not only that, but Americans' regard for the Bible seems to be increasing. Young people, in particular are demonstrating more openness to learning about the Bible. Scott explores what could be driving these trends and what it means for Church of Christ congregations and members.
Next, we turn to Lifeway Research's ongoing research on how evangelical Christians say they feel and think about immigrants and immigration in the United States. On one hand, evangelical Christians say that they are pro-immigrant and pro-immigration by a wide margin; on the other hand, they continue to support politicians that seem to be anti-immigrant and anti-immigration. What explains this?
Link to Lifeway Research's latest findings on the increase in church attendance in the United States
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Learn more about how to visit the Bible lands as a graduate student at the Freed-Hardeman University Graduate School of Theology at fhu.edu/chronicle
family and friends, neighbors and, most of all, strangers. Welcome to the Christian Chronicle Podcast. We're bringing you the stories shaping Church of Christ congregations and members around the world. I'm BT Irwin May what you are about to hear. Bless you and honor God here. Bless you and honor God.
BT Irwin:So I have this secret dream that I never shared with anyone until now. We here at the Christian Chronicle always want to know how current events and trends in the world affect Church of Christ folks and what Church of Christ folks think about them. So here is my dream that some wealthy Church of Christ member gives us a check with a number followed by a bunch of zeros, so we could endow something like a Barna Group or Pew Research Center, but for the purpose of researching and surveying the Church of Christ community around the world. Well, maybe that dream will eventually come true now that I put it out there, but until then, we have the next best thing, and that is LifeWay research. Now, lifeway is an arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, but their research covers all Christ believers and Christ seekers in general, with special focus on what the general public calls evangelical Christians, since Church of Christ folks check a lot of the boxes for what the public and researchers consider evangelical. We fit in that category for the purpose of those who survey religious groups, and that includes LifeWay Research, so a lot of the studies they put out do a nice job of helping us make some strong inferences about how Church of Christ folks act, feel and think. In case you haven't noticed, there is a lot going on in the world Church of Christ. Folks are part of it and they have feelings and thoughts on it. We thought it might be a good time to figure out what some of those feelings and thoughts might be, so we brought back our old friend, scott McConnell, who is executive director at Lifeway Research. He's making his record-setting fourth appearance on the show.
BT Irwin:Scott, welcome back again. Well, thank you, it's an honor. You come out with new stuff every week, and I would encourage those in our audience that like to keep up with trends and really good research on what churches and Christians are doing to subscribe to your email newsletter, because every day something new drops in the inbox and it's always worthwhile. I picked a few things that I'd like to ask you about today that I think our audience would really care about, and I want to start with something that most people. Actually, I can't think of anyone who would think it's not good news. Bible sales in the United States were up 22% from October 2023 to October 2024. And that's from the Wall Street Journal. That continues a year-on-year trend of Bible sales increases that goes back to at least 2019. Y'all recently published a report on whether Americans are reading all of those new Bibles they're buying, and what did you find?
Scott McConnell:We approached the question kind of creatively. We didn't just ask how frequently do you read the Bible. We ask Americans how much of the Bible have you read? And two-thirds of Americans have read half of the Bible or less and in fact 9% have read none of it. But we do see that about more than one in five have read all of it or all of it more than once.
Scott McConnell:And so really, as you think of Americans yes, most Americans own a Bible somewhere in their house, but it's a pretty wide range of people who've read a lot of it or just a little bit of it, and even their attitudes about it many kind of read it. We think of somebody picking up the Bible and reading and then the next day they pick up where they left off and keep reading. But that kind of systematic approach is actually only the way about a third of Americans think about reading the Bible. Quite a few are actually thinking of it as a reference book. So somebody tells them of a passage, they'll pick it up and look at that, or, if they have a need, they'll look that up, or they'll just flip it open and see where their eyes land and start reading there.
BT Irwin:I was surprised by the number of Americans who reported that they feel like I'm going to say they feel like they think they've read more than half the Bible. Were you surprised by that?
Scott McConnell:I mean because there's still a lot of Americans that call themselves a Christian. You would expect that a lot of them will have read a good chunk of the Bible, but the extremes are kind of where your eyes go first, and so those aren't that surprising. Part of it, too, is kind of their attitude of is this a book that you read once, or is this? You know, that's typically the way I think of books is. You know, I'm going to read it once, and if it's good, I'll keep it on my shelf, but I'm probably not going to read it again. 14% of Americans think of the Bible that way it's a book worth reading once. 44%, though, believe it's a book to read over and over again. As believers, we really do see it as something that can be life transformational. Really any day we pick it up, and 26% see it as a book to be referenced as needed, and 6% say it's not worth reading at all. So that's a pretty low number.
BT Irwin:And 9% are not sure. One thing I noticed from your research is that. One thing I noticed from your research is that, let's see, you did a similar study. Was it in 2019 or 2016? 2016, right, you did a similar study. And back in 2016, the age cohort that and I forget how you put it, I'll just say here maybe engaged with the Bible the least or knew the least amount of the Bible or read the least of the Bible, was the youngest age cohort. In your study, which wouldn't surprise many people. It's the youngest age cohort, but in the findings that you just released, that changed. The age cohort that replaced that youngest age cohort was the 65 and older age cohort. Was that surprising and what might be the reason for that? That really caught my attention.
Scott McConnell:I mean, oftentimes what we see when we look at an age breakout on different beliefs is that young people tend to be more curious and yet they may not have really thought through all the pieces yet of whatever belief we're asking about or practice, and the oldest adults tend to have made up their mind and are pretty firm in it, whatever that is. And so you know we do see a lot of older adults kind of pretty firm that I, you know, I really don't need the Bible on a regular basis, even though they may still hold on to some of the beliefs.
BT Irwin:I don't think you asked this question in your study, but does it seem like younger cohorts may be demonstrating more curiosity about the Bible than they did, say, 10 years ago?
Scott McConnell:I'd probably use the word openness. There's definitely an openness there. There is a curiosity of just interested in knowing more. You know, that doesn't necessarily mean they've bought into hey, I'm going to start reading because I'm so curious. But there's an openness and so you know, if somebody draws them in, somebody recommends something, somebody has a podcast on you know something in scripture, you know they're not going to tune that out, they're going to be, they're going to be curious, they're going to be interested in, in what it has to say. Uh, because they're still exploring.
BT Irwin:Yeah, so, uh, here's one of the big findings from your study of Americans Bible reading habits. In 2016, just 36% of Americans said that the Bible is quote true in quote and end quote, and that's from Lifeway Research. In the study you just released, that number is up to 48%, so that's a big jump. Also noteworthy is that 45% of Americans in your recent study said the Bible is quote life-changing end quote, and that is up from 35% in 2016. What were you all able to surmise about the reasons for this?
Scott McConnell:Really, we believe that increasingly there's less middle ground when it comes to the Bible, and so we see good news like this those that are open to the Bible, those that are fascinated by it or are devout believers in what the Bible has to say and what it is, are more positive.
Scott McConnell:But those who believe it's a book of myths, those that don't believe it's authoritative in their life, you know, they're also more convinced of that, and so even in other surveys we've done, we kind of see a 50-50 split, and here we see some of these positive adjectives about the Bible really jumping up toward that 50% mark. So all those that are kind of on the positive side, they may have been leaning that way before, so they picked one or two adjectives. Now, you know most of the positive adjectives, they're willing to check and just go yeah, you know I'm in on this, and so that's definitely encouraging that culturally, while we're in a secular age, it's not a secular age that has no room for faith. And so people who kind of say no, I think there's something more and I think that that more is found in the Bible, you know they're they're much more willing to say it, they're much more willing to, to identify with that and and so that is encouraging.
BT Irwin:Can we find any causation or correlation there that that explains why this has happened over the last 10 years?
Scott McConnell:We don't have anything direct in the data itself. You know our culture tends to be a swinging pendulum on a lot of different issues, so I think you know just some of the cultural conversations where you know where morality and where religious freedom is is kind of having a day right now. It creates a little more space to express, hey, yeah, that's what I think too, whereas when some of the social conversation is pushing against Christianity, some of these same people may be less willing to say out loud that they lean that direction.
BT Irwin:I had to check myself a little bit because I've had conversations with people in recent years. I grew up in a small town in Ohio and I say to people back then in the 1980s in small town Ohio, you assumed that everybody believed the Bible, whether they went to church or not. And I've said recently to people that that isn't the case anymore. But these numbers you know, 48 percent, 48 percent of Americans you didn't say churchgoers, you said Americans in general say the Bible is true. It might indicate that there's more openness now from our neighbors who may not be members of churches or may not be practicing Christianity of any kind, more openness now to engage on the Bible, because it seems like more of them now would say yeah, I believe it's true, teach me about it?
Scott McConnell:Yes, absolutely, and that ties to our conversation about younger adults, younger Americans conversation about younger adults, younger Americans that, while some of the generation that is currently aging out and passing away were fully bought in, the younger generation is still open, many of them positive about the Bible, but may not have the knowledge that the older generation had, and so we've got to be inviting them in to study scripture. Let's read some of it together, book club style, or, you know, let's get them in the front door of really exploring what the Word of God says.
BT Irwin:Well, speaking of invitations, you released a report in March of this year that half of all Protestant congregations in the United States are reporting attendance growth since the end of the pandemic. What can you tell us about the people who are coming back to church, or coming to church for the first time, you know?
Scott McConnell:this snapshot of 2025 compared to the beginning of 2023, you know, many of those numbers are people returning from the pandemic, you know to see a majority of churches indicating actual growth in worship attendance. It's a rare thing We've not been in that space for a long, long time, and so that's very encouraging. This means that a lot of churches have had good news recently the vibe's gonna be better because, hey, we're a little more full than we were last year and the year before, and so that definitely is a positive thing. But, honestly, this is in the midst, though, of a long-term trend that's heading the other direction, and so we don't want to not celebrate, though, in the short term, this has been good and, as what are the financial advisors say, you know, past performance does not predict the outcome of your future investments, so we're not going to say we're definitely going back to that long-term trend, but you know we do want to celebrate what's happened these last couple of years of seeing growth in so many churches, and be praying that that continues.
BT Irwin:But you do report that not all congregations are growing equally.
Scott McConnell:That is true, and some of that is just the timing of the COVID rebound. Most of the smallest churches rebounded immediately, literally as soon as their local area they could meet again. They did. Some of them never had to stop because they were small enough that there were no regulations and so they bounced back immediately. The midsize, the large churches some of them had to be closed even for a year in some parts of the country, and so a lot of people got out of the habit of attending.
Scott McConnell:A lot of people got out of the habit of attending and I think a lot of church leaders were really surprised by that just how disconnected so many people got so quickly and it was really hard to get them back engaged.
Scott McConnell:It was almost like reaching a new person to get somebody to come back. And literally, when we set up this question, we thought we were post-pandemic. And literally, when we set up this question, we thought we were post-pandemic. You know, we thought, by comparing to the beginning of 23, that we wouldn't have much of the rebound from the pandemic. And yet we see with these numbers that you know, the mid and large sized churches, really, you know, we're still seeing COVID rebound in 2023 and 24. 24. And so you know, I do think we're reaching the point now and a number of denominations have put out really positive numbers this last year of conversions, of baptisms, and I think we're to the point now where the new people who are coming to churches are literally new people coming to Christ rather than rebound folks who had attended years ago, and so that's also super encouraging nationally, but also super encouraging for a local congregation.
BT Irwin:I want to ask you about that in a second. Just a quick detour here. I don't remember seeing anything in the research beyond just the larger churches seem to be seeing attendance growth faster than smaller churches. Did you learn anything about kind of a resorting of where people are members post-pandemic? For example? I know our congregation, larger congregation. There were several months that we were online but when we came back the growth, the return to the pews was slow. A lot of people did not come back to our congregation, they went to other congregations and we picked up some new people. So does Lifeway Research have any information about maybe how members of churches resorted themselves post pandemic? We have not dug into that.
Scott McConnell:There are a couple of good surveys by Pew and Hartford that have been tracking some of that. In general, the churches that were closed the shortest amount of time tended to benefit the most, because devout believers wanted to be attending church and if their church was going to be closed for months they'd find somewhere else, and so there were some folks moving. Obviously some people just used it as an excuse. You know they were kind of thinking of it. Anyway, let's go ahead and shop around or let's watch some churches online if we're going to be home, and let's try some others that way. And so you know it probably accelerated that more than normal, for sure. But yeah, a lot of the rebound again was initially just people coming back. But you know, a lot of churches reprioritized and they got back to the basics when they reopened and, I think, put a little more emphasis on evangelism. That often gets put on the back burner too often and just by encouraging their congregation to have those conversations, to be inviting people, I think it's bearing fruit.
BT Irwin:So it is bearing fruit. You had a statistic and you you're going to have to help me through it again, but you had the statistic in your report about the number of conversions among people who come to congregations and it was interesting because you compared it to a study you did in the past, a few years ago, and it broke down to something like how many conversions per 100 people years ago and it broke down to something like how many conversions per 100 people, you know, or something along those lines. You can explain that in a second, but you already mentioned that conversions people being baptized, people committing their lives to Christ has been increasing in the congregations that you're covering in your research.
Scott McConnell:We're seeing that in some of the denominational statistics that have come out from several denominations this year. Just some nice rebounds not only in worship attendance but also again in conversions. However, they're tracking that, whether that's a profession of faith or a baptism, and some of the ratios of attendees per new commitment to Christ didn't change dramatically. But at the same time you know the totals are looking like they're heading in a really good direction.
BT Irwin:OK, so that's all good stuff, let's let's turn to a harder subject immigration or, to be more specific, immigrants living in the United States. It looks like it could be a case of heartburn for all of us this summer, and I'm putting it that way for reasons that will become apparent in my questions. Lifeway Research has been tracking evangelical attitudes about immigrants and immigration for several years now, and you updated that research back in February of this year. What did you want to find out by circling back to your body of research on immigration?
Scott McConnell:Normally we go several years in between. You know a survey on the exact same topic, but elections and political campaigns tend to oversimplify issues you know kind of get it down to are you left or you're right? You know kind of a kind of a dichotomy and you know most of the political polls showed that immigration was one of the top issues. Even even among pastors it was one of the top issues for for how they were going to vote and and so with with a lot of the sentiment of of the political conversation being negative. We just wanted to circle back to see if evangelical sentiments on immigration had changed very much, because again it felt like it was really a driving issue in the political cycle and in the past we've seen that evangelicals have strong views on immigration and wanted to see if those had moved.
BT Irwin:There may be this idea out there in mainstream news or in the online world that conservative Christians, evangelical Christians, like folks in the Church of Christ, would you know, build a moat and a wall on every foot of the US border and round up and deport 40 million immigrants today if they could. But based on your research, that picture of Christians in the United States really could not be further from the truth. That's true, I mean even when we put.
Scott McConnell:We try to be very objective in our survey, and so we put positives, we put negatives. You know, some of the negative things that we listed for respondents, you know, is the number of recent immigrants to the United States. Is it a drain on economic resources? Less than half of evangelicals believe that's the case. Is it a threat to the safety of citizens? Just 43% say that's the case. Is it a threat to law and order? Just 37% say that's the case. And then, mixed in there, almost the same percentages say you know, the number of recent immigrants is an opportunity to introduce them to Jesus Christ and it's an opportunity to show them love.
Scott McConnell:And so you know, yes, there are some negatives. There is hey, this could impact my security, this could impact my wallet, and you know, for all Americans, their wallet is super important. We know that from our elections. We know that, you know in the case, in any case. But there's also this you know this desire to love immigrants. And you know legal immigration 86% of evangelicals say that legal immigration is helpful. And so a lot of the questions really come down to you know our laws about what makes an immigrant legal, and oftentimes those who come here come with legally, but that status expires or that status changes. If it's a temporary status, that's for hundreds of thousands. That's changed recently. Just with the stroke of a pen, they move from legal to illegal, and and so you know what we've seen over time is more and more evangelicals saying Congress needs to pass significant new immigration legislation this year and so so in 2025, it's 80 percent of evangelicals say we need to change the laws we have on the books.
BT Irwin:A number of the questions we ask show that evangelicals want laws to be enforced, but there's also this really strong sentiment that our current laws are not just so the thing that strikes me and it may be the spark for your research is what a gulf exists between what evangelical Christians say they believe and want like a couple of the things you just mentioned there in regard to immigrants and immigration and, at the very least, what I'll call the rhetoric and spectacle coming from the politicians to whom evangelical Christians give their often unquestioning and unwavering support. And because of that I can see why Americans who are not evangelical Christians form such strong opinions about what evangelical Christians believe and what they want to do. So I try really hard to be Mr Vanilla on the show, but sometimes I have to ask a question because I can't come up with a better way to ask it. If there is such a big gap between what evangelical Christians say they want and the rhetoric and spectacle of the politicians they support, is that support simply a matter of evangelical Christians feeling like they have no other political options, feeling like they have no other political options?
BT Irwin:What I've heard from my own family and friends is that they don't like the politicians they choose, but they like them a lot better than the other politicians. So your research showed that the vast majority of evangelical Christians actually want cooperation among politicians to bring about what we might call common sense policy. That would actually keep most immigrants here and let more in in a orderly fashion, right. Yet for all we hear about the power of the evangelical Christian voting bloc, we're getting no closer to that kind of cooperation or policy. So I guess I'm asking what has your research shown you about why evangelical Christians keep settling for policies and politicians that seem so out of step with what evangelical Christians keep saying they actually want?
Scott McConnell:As we have done surveys related to elections, both this last one and previous ones Americans and Christians both tell us that they're not single issue voters. Both tell us that they're not single issue voters. And so, even when we have something that's cut and dry, where there's large numbers of evangelicals believing the same thing, um, we sometimes see them voting in a different direction, or you know, because at the same time, they're you know, they're caring about their wallet, they're caring about immigration, they're caring about abortion, they're caring about healthcare, they're caring about, you know, defense, and so, in their mind, they're having to sort through all of that and pick a candidate, and and you know, every candidate is a human being. So they're they're having to sort through all of that and pick a candidate, and you know, every candidate is a human being, so they're all flawed. The United States system is built on compromise and we normally think of that as compromise happening in Washington, but the compromise also has to happen for a voter. I'm going to have to vote for somebody. That's less than what I want.
Scott McConnell:I'm going to have to vote for somebody.
Scott McConnell:That's less than what I want, and so, while in the voting booth you can only make one decision, the rest of the time we can speak up and say, hey, I voted for this person, but I'm not agreeing with them on this issue.
Scott McConnell:I voted against this person and I still disagree with with them, or I do agree with them on this issue, and I think, as Christians, we have to be less wedded to our political party and our political process and more wedded to the principles of the king of kings and really speaking up for God's heart, and really, all through scripture, we see that he has a heart for what many translations refer to as a resident alien, somebody born in another country who lives among you and you know, just a direct command to the people of Israel to treat them like they're one of you. And unfortunately, in our country we've probably for political reasons, we've made this a lot more complicated, and every piece of the process is more complicated. Applying for permanent status or applying for citizenship is incredibly onerous and incredibly expensive, and so we tend to end up treating people as less than us as citizens of this country who live among us.
BT Irwin:Your research touches on something I observe from my time working with the Christian Chronicle. We report on Church of Christ congregations that are deeply, deeply involved in caring for immigrants and refugee communities. We've had several, several episodes of this podcast that just focused on their stories, and they are deeply involved in trying to bring immigrants and refugees to the United States, literally to save their lives. So when you were talking about the stroke of a pen a moment ago, I thought about a guest we had on this show in the last few months. He's a brother in Christ from Haiti and he is here in the United States as a refugee because his life was in danger back in Haiti, was in danger back in Haiti.
BT Irwin:So we know a lot of people in our Church of Christ community. They do what they do for immigrants and for refugees because they believe in the Bible and the example and teachings of Jesus Christ. And yet, if other research holds, the majority of the folks in those congregations support, at least with their votes, political actions and rhetoric that seem to endanger, at least menace, the you know, the very immigrants and refugees these folks are supporting through their congregations. I mean, what kind of dissonance has your research picked up coming from respondents in these situations. Do you understand what I'm asking, dissonance being you have a strong love and a strong conscience and yet, at the same time, maybe, what you see happening around you, you don't support it, but you feel caught in the tension or the bind. Did your research respondents talk about that any with y'all as you surveyed them?
Scott McConnell:As we did this survey. Obviously I think the nation was anticipating some changes coming very quickly, but it was before many of those changes took place. But even the strong sentiments we've seen over the multiple surveys we've done on this topic, we see dissonance there and and really that's why they were calling for changes in laws, because we're desiring things that an outsider might think are in conflict. You know, we we desire nine out of 10 want the rule of law respected. Nine out of 10 want to guarantee secure national borders. But we also, nine out of 10, want to respect the God-given dignity of every person and nine out of 10 want to protect the unity of the immediate family. And in my local town I see a story last night on the news where a married couple of 25 years ripped apart and the gentleman deported because he did not have documents, and they have three kids. The wife and the three kids don't speak Spanish. So so for them to move, to try to keep to Mexico, to try to keep unity of the family, is almost impossible. You know, financially they're now in ruin. And so you know we're torn apart because we do want the rules to be followed, but at the same time we just ripped apart a family and that is not the heart of evangelicals.
Scott McConnell:And while it's not 90%, three in four evangelicals actually want to establish a path towards citizenship for those who are interested and meet qualifications. And you know we've got other questions where, you know eight out of 10, you know want to see a citizenship path for dreamers. You know second generation, you know the second generation, and so there is this dissonance where you know laws have not been enforced but at the same time, and that we know that's not biblical, but at the same time, the laws are not what we want them to be and some of the, you know, some of the red tape is pretty crazy. For some of these, and again for many undocumented immigrants, there's literally no path, there's no way to apply, there's no way to request to make it right, and we're a people that believe in redemption, we're a people that believe in second chances and making things right. Making things right and for many we, as Americans, we have to take responsibility. We have not offered that second chance, we have not offered a path for somebody to make it right.
BT Irwin:On this show. I say this all the time this is not a show about politics, it's about the church, and I try to keep us in the bounds of the church. But politics affects the church and vice versa. One of the things I feel like I remember from the report is that congregants reported in the survey that they do want to talk about this stuff in church, not the politics of it.
Scott McConnell:But it sounds to me like they're saying we would welcome teaching on this, we would welcome conversation about this in our churches 80% would value hearing a sermon that teaches how biblical principles and examples can be applied to immigration in the US, and only 23% of evangelicals say the Bible is the number one influence on their thinking on this topic Interesting, and less than four out of 10 say it's even on their list of influencers. The Bible, yes. So you know, as evangelicals, we are to be people of the book, and so the principles of the Bible should be influencing everything in our lives. And so, really, that's the biggest opportunity for the church is to understand what Scripture does say, to understand what God's heart is. And, yes, this is a very complicated topic.
Scott McConnell:You touched on refugees. Well, that's a whole category to understand what is our legal definition of a refugee and what does that involve. And so, yes, it's difficult, but at the same time, the principles are pretty easy to apply. And, yes, some really smart people in Washington need to set policy in place and procedures in place that fit that. But we've really just seen paralysis at that level, and I think, as believers, we've got to continue to speak up and ask for improvement.
BT Irwin:So I think I found a way to draw all three topics of our conversation together today. So, leaders of churches, more people believe the Bible is true than they did 10 years ago. More people are coming to church and they want to hear what the Bible has to say about how to treat the immigrant and the refugee who are our neighbors. So didn't know if these three topics related, but it turns out they do. I'm going to ask you a question. I don't know if I'm allowed to ask, but I want to know do you have any really exciting new research coming up that you just can't wait to share with the public? I'm not asking for the research, I'm just asking for a sneak peek. Is there a summer blockbuster trailer you can give us right now for some new research Lifeway is going to be bringing to us soon.
Scott McConnell:We are doing analysis on a couple big discipleship surveys and so we're going to be eager to share that this fall and just unpack that Because, again, on that journey of understanding scripture, understanding our relationship with God kind of the fancy church term for that is discipleship and allowing other people to help us on that journey and just unpacking a lot of pieces of that.
BT Irwin:I'm excited about it. I've been in a lot of churches recently where leaders have asked me about discipleship and they're talking about discipleship, so it sounds like you're on the right wavelength there. So, scott, you're always one of the most fun guests for a nerd like me, and I know all the nerds in our audience just love listening to you talk about data and surveys and things like that. Thanks for coming back on such a busy week. Thank you, appreciate it, god bless.
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BT Irwin:The Christian Chronicle podcast is a production of the Christian Chronicle Incorporated, informing and inspiring Church of Christ congregations, members and ministries around the world since 1943. The Christian Chronicle's managing editor is Audrey Jackson, editor-in-chief Bobby Ross Jr and executive director and CEO Eric Trigestad. The Christian Chronicle podcast is written, directed, hosted and edited by BT Irwin and is produced by James Flanagan at Podcast your Voice Studios in the Motor City, detroit, michigan, usa. Until next time, may grace and peace be yours in abundance.