Karen and Carl Ellis with students at the Edmiston Center
Karen Ellis, a student and professor of Christian Endurance Studies, is the lunch interviewee at our October Church Planting Network gathering. Karen is a thoughtful, earnest voice in global conversations about living in a Christ-like manner when facing suffering, whether big (think being imprisoned or killed for your faith) or small (think difficulties at your job, desiring to be married while in a long season of singleness, or exhaustion in the midst of busyness).
She is the director of the Alonzo and Althea Edmiston Center for Christian Endurance Studies at Reformed Theological Seminary, Atlanta, and she completed her PhD in World Christianity and Ethics at the Oxford Center for Mission Studies in England.
Karen is married to Carl Ellis (who has his own impressive list of accomplishments), and they are members at New City Fellowship in Chattanooga. The Edmiston Center began around the Ellis' kitchen table. She explains, “Between my husband’s work and my work, we had this cross-section of people passing through our home: local congregants, seminarians, urban church planters, and global networks of people working in challenging places and underground churches.”
As the Ellis kitchen table brought these people together, interesting conversations and connections arose. Groups and organizations wanted to send people to learn from this unofficial network. Karen says, “So many people were coming through our home that their organizations started sending them and paying them to come. We realized it would be helpful to somehow expand and intentionally steward this unique educational opportunity.”
Not knowing what was taking place in the Ellis’ home, Guy Richard (RTS Atlanta president) called them with his own idea for a study center. Karen recalls, “He described exactly what was happening around our kitchen table. The whole idea of discussing being a Christian in challenging places was born out of Guy’s burden for church planting, my work in global Christianity in challenging spaces, and Carl’s teaching and work in urban and rural spaces.”
On the center’s website, Karen explains, “On one hand, there’s great commonality in that whether we are Nigerian or American, Iranian or German, Chinese or Egyptian, Christians share the same Biblical story spanning Genesis to Revelation. We are assured that God created, keeps, and will gather a people for himself…On the other hand, there’s great creativity and diversity in how each community practically lives its endurance…Our goal is to equip students who wish to enter this global exchange of knowledge to better understand the role of cultural hostility in the life of the believer.”
Karen’s dissertation, “A Theology of Persecution and Christian Endurance,” uses the Moravian Church (one of the first African led congregations in the Americas) as a case study to help us develop a theology of endurance. She says, “They left an amazing testimony. It’s an example of the pattern of Christian endurance and how God is keeping us all the way through to Revelation. His faithfulness—not ours—spurs our obedience and gratitude.”
One key takeaway from her dissertation is that opposition to the gospel is a consistent pattern throughout history, yet there is always a group of people that God keeps for Himself. Karen elaborates, “He is keeping good on His promises. Implicitly, He is keeping good on Genesis 1 (a people created to worship Him and enjoy Him forever). Explicitly, He is keeping good on His promise to gather the nations to Himself in Genesis 12 and Revelation 7:9 (to Abraham and his offspring, with the nations gathered and glorified in worship).”
When we think about Christian perseverance through persecution and suffering, our minds may quickly jump to the persecuted Church in foreign countries, but what does it mean for those of us in the United States? What does it mean for pastors and congregants in the Bible Belt and in our presbytery?
Karen answers, “There isn’t a persecuted church and a non-persecuted church; we are one Church in Christ. We see that God works through both persecutive environments and environments where there’s relative religious freedom. There are responsibilities that go along with each of those contexts: Those with more religious freedom should feel the pain of those who are under greater pressure, not as a separate entity but as supportive members of the same body. We trust that whichever situation we are in, it is for God’s glory and our good, that our unity holds, and that the mission stays the same: ‘to fill the earth with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea’ (Habakkuk 2:14).”
Stories from our brothers and sisters in difficult situations are reminders of our singular identity in Christ that makes the Church unique. With this unity in Christ comes a distinctiveness from the world. “We’re not called so much to be a counter-culture as we are to be ‘other-political and other-cultural,’ a distinctive culture among cultures that holds out both an indictment and an invitation,” Karen explains.
Christians show that they are other-political when, for example, we don’t fear election results or hyperfixate on politics because Christ, not an earthly president, is our ruler. We show that we are other-cultural when, while valuing our culture and family history, we don’t worship that culture or allow it to separate us from others because the kingdom of God is our united culture.
Beyond persecution, we all encounter smaller yet substantial challenges throughout our weeks. For Christians not facing persecution, this can be where the rubber meets the road: When we’re overlooked for a promotion that we feel we’ve earned; when we’ve moved to a new city and are struggling to build life-giving friendships; when our spouse betrays us profoundly; when a tragic loss or death occurs; when our child faces sickness; when the budget keeps tightening and we’re tempted to mistrust God’s provision.
In these moments, Satan can draw us away from believing the truth about who God is and the goodness of His greater story, but in these moments, we can lean into the overarching theme of Christian perseverance through hardship. What would it look like to handle each small challenge, as well as great instances of suffering, with a rooted belief in God’s story?
Karen notes that while we in the Tennessee Valley Presbytery have religious freedom and safety, our own culture can be apathetic, and at times hostile, to biblical Christianity. “We don’t enjoy the perks of the dominant culture anymore. I think there’s room—without saying we’re being persecuted or on our way to being persecuted—to have conversations about taking a stand for truth. When our world presents false realities or false securities, the Church must find courage to stand up and say, ‘This is what’s true and real.’”
Karen urges pastors to talk about persecution, hostility, suffering, and hardship. She already sees many pastors teaching about this and conversations happening, but she would like to see these grow. “I need to hear from the pulpit, and in my personal life, that God works in and through the hardest circumstances. I thank God for every pastor who has preached this sort of Kingdom-centric message throughout my walk.”
She also advocates for rediscovery of the meaning of the sacraments. The richness of the sacraments is deepened when Christ’s Church throughout history and around the world is in view. “When I see a baptism, it tells Christ’s story which is our story. When I partake in the Lord’s Supper, I think, ‘That’s my story. That’s the story I’m following.’ The sacraments strengthen my faith and remind me who I am, that I have a historical past and a sure future. It reminds me of our unity in the body of Christ.”
For congregants who desire to grow in greater awareness about these topics, Karen recommends letting your church leadership know that you want to talk about hardship and perseverance or starting a book study and listening to teaching on the subject. Some recommendations include:
Sinclair Fergusons’ sermon: “Sermon on the Mount”
Wang Yi’s book (pastor of Early Rain Covenant Church in China): Faithful Disobedience: Writings on Church and State from a Chinese House Church Movement
Josef Ton’s book: Suffering, Martyrdom, and Rewards in Heaven
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