May 2021

Dear Christian Union New York Cornerstone Partners and friends of the ministry,

Do you ever feel discouraged and hopeless looking at our nation and our culture’s hard turn toward secularism? It often feels like the voice of Christianity in this country is being muzzled and is soon to be silenced. Especially on our nation’s university campuses and in our major cities, we are seeing this trend becoming entrenched and starting other trends in the rest of the country. Whether we want to see it or not, it is becoming more apparent through “cancel culture” and governmental mandating of church closures, how quickly we could lose ground on freedoms to openly live as the Scriptures require us to live.
A Christian member of the Finnish Parliament is facing six years of prison for publicly sharing Scripture verses on marriage and human sexuality. She is being alleged to have committed hate crimes for reading the Holy Scriptures. Yet, she is courageously standing on the Word of God in the face of disastrous personal consequences in order to attempt to hold back the tsunami of secularism. https://www.christianpost.com/news/christian-mp-faces-prison-for-tweeting-bible-verses-on-marriage.html Is this the precipice upon which the United States now totters?

I want to share some encouraging news with you. While we too see trends going in a very dangerous direction for religious liberties, God is still on the move in the hot spots of culture creation in the US. Please feast on the CU The Magazine (https://www.christianunion.org/the-magazine) to see how God is changing lives and developing strong Christian leaders in our nation’s top universities and in major cities like New York! In the article titled “A Weekend of Fire” on the recent CU Fire Retreat in New York, you will read how many industries’ future leaders are set on fire to live for God and with God.

You are changing lives and potentially the trends of this country through your prayers and partnership in developing transformative Christian leaders! As the body of Christ in America, we have a remarkable gift from God to shape our culture. How long that gift remains ours depends on how earnestly we are all involved. God bless you for sowing gospel seeds of love, grace, and truth into our nation’s places of influence.

Karen Hetzler
Assistant Ministry Director
Christian Union New York