August 25, 2025

Today’s Briefing

Advice on short-term missions from a long-term missionary: Be honest about your motives, and resist the impulse to optimize for Instagram.

Chuck Girard, who shaped the sound of the Jesus People movement with Love Song, Maranatha! Music, and solo hits including “Sometimes Alleluia,” has died at 81.

Gen Z doesn’t want a watered-down gospel.

An invitation to Scripture shouldn’t be so quiet about the church.

When Hurricane Katrina hit 20 years ago, Christian groups showed up as heroes and helpers.

Behind the Story

From news editor Daniel Silliman: I am not trying to honor people when I write their obituaries. That’s a common misconception I hear from both readers who love what I do and those who are offended and feel betrayed.

The job of an obit, as I understand it, is different from a tribute, reminiscence, or eulogy. An obit tries to explain the significance of the recently deceased and the role that person played in shaping the world we live in.

Sometimes I think about the readers who have never heard about the person I’m writing about. Is the obit useful to them? Does it help those people see how the deceased impacted their communities and maybe even their own lives? Then I think I’ve done my job.

Most readers of a CT obituary, of course, will know something about Chuck Girard, James Dobson, John MacArthur, or whomever. I assume they want to know more. And I assume that most readers will pass judgment—deciding for themselves if they want to confer honor in some way, dishonor, or something else. I don’t think they need my help to make that moral evaluation. What they need from me is a fair, full, complicated account of the life that was lived, including the ways that person was praised and the reasons that person was criticized.

In Other News

Months of lobbying by evangelical groups helped put the issue of missing Ukrainian children on the White House agenda.
John Piper shared at John MacArthur’s memorial service last weekend.
The last pastor in Darfur ministers to a dwindling flock that is threatened by starvation and ongoing violence.
New church construction is increasing in the United States, after a 20-year decline.

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Today in Christian History

August 26, 1901: The American Standard Version of the Bible is first published by Thomas Nelson and Sons. The A.S.V. spun off from the 1881 English Revised Version, the first nondenominational English revision since publication of the King James Version in 1611.

The Transhumanist Question

Far before our time, the Renaissance humanist Giovanni Pico della Mirandola was an early advocate of transhumanism. In his Oration on the Dignity of Man from 1486, he has the…

Christian Education Can Survive ChatGPT

If you’d asked me a year ago why so many American college students are struggling, I’d have told you a familiar story: Rising tuition rates fund bloated administrations and build bougier freshman dorms.…

Black History at the Smithsonian Can’t Be Told with Half-Truths

When the National Museum of African American History & Culture opened in Washington, DC, in 2016, a friend and I received coveted tickets to be among the first visitors. The collection is…

What Christians Should Know About Shinto

Every August, Japan celebrates Obon, one of the country’s biggest Shinto-Buddhist festivals. Vibrant dances set to the beat of taiko drums take place in temples or parks as a form…

in the magazine

As developments in artificial intelligence change daily, we’re increasingly asking what makes humanity different from the machines we use. In this issue, Emily Belz introduces us to tech workers on the frontlines of AI development, Harvest Prude explains how algorithms affect Christian courtship, and Miroslav Volf writes on the transhumanist question. Several writers call our attention to the gifts of being human: Haejin and Makoto Fujimura point us to beauty and justice, Kelly Kapic reminds us God’s highest purpose isn’t efficiency, and Jen Pollock Michel writes on the effects of Alzheimer’s . We bring together futurists, theologians, artists, practitioners, and professors to consider how technology shapes us even as we use it.

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