This edition is sponsored by Redeeming Babel
Today’s Briefing
Ministers in an accountability group with scholar and professor Vince Bantu have come forward with claims that Bantu has defended polygamy as a way to justify his adultery. Bantu says they are lying.
Can millions of Filipino migrant workers help fuel the Great Commission?
Mounting practical and political challenges have made it even harder to reach North Korea, but that hasn’t stopped Christian efforts to connect.
How Scripture might shape our take on the massive rise in sports betting—and five ways to address online gambling in church.
The new book The Flourishing Family presents a vision for Christian parenting that is grounded in Scripture and informed by modern understandings of child development.
Behind the Story
From Daniel Silliman: My whole journalism career, people have asked me if I get depressed covering the news. When I started, I was a crime reporter outside of Atlanta, reporting on drugs, prostitution, robbery, and murders. I covered 100 murders in two and a half years. Which is way too many funerals to go to in your 20s. Way too many phone calls to make to mothers just gutted by grief.
Now, as CT’s news editor, I’m sometimes tasked with reporting on Christians roiled by division or, too often, embroiled in scandal. A friend asked me the other day, “How can you believe that good wins?”
I do believe that. But as a Christian, I think I have a peculiar idea of how good wins. I think the good news happens on the other side of bad news. There’s death, and then there’s resurrection. People are lost, but then they are found. The world is like it is, but a light has come into the darkness.
My job as a journalist is just to say what happened. I want to describe what is going on as accurately as I can. But my faith shows me this isn’t the end of the story. It’s just the setup. Jesus is coming. May he come quickly.
Paid Content
What if there were a way to engage in politics that brought people together instead of driving them apart?
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As it shifts our focus from divisive policy debates to a Christ-centered approach, this course can help you apply biblical principles to your political interactions, fostering understanding and respect even in disagreement.
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In Other News
- Abilene Christian University has gotten permission for an on-campus nuclear reactor. CT reported last year how the Church of Christ-affiliated school saw the nuclear light.
- Federal court rules that a Georgia jail was wrong to discriminate against a minister who preached that baptism is necessary to salvation.
- The new Justin Bieber single “Dear Christ” isn’t Justin Bieber. It’s AI.
Today in Christian History
September 19, 1853: Baptist missionary pioneer J. Hudson Taylor sets sail from England for China at the age of 21 (see issue 52: Hudson Taylor).
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in the magazine
Our September/October issue explores themes in spiritual formation and uncovers what’s really discipling us. Bonnie Kristian argues that the biblical vision for the institutions that form us is renewal, not replacement—even when they fail us. Mike Cosper examines what fuels political fervor around Donald Trump and assesses the ways people have understood and misunderstood the movement. Harvest Prude reports on how partisan distrust has turned the electoral process into a minefield and how those on the frontlines—election officials and volunteers—are motivated by their faith as they work. Read about Christian renewal in intellectual spaces and the “yearners”—those who find themselves in the borderlands between faith and disbelief. And find out how God is moving among his kingdom in Europe, as well as what our advice columnists say about budget-conscious fellowship meals, a kid in Sunday school who hits, and a dating app dilemma.
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