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December 9, 2025

This edition is sponsored by Global Center for Coaching

Today’s Briefing

The Trump administration’s new executive order highlights the importance of Christian involvement in foster care and adoption.

Parents may be underestimating the damage of technology in schools, Carrie McKean writes.

Former MLB player Geoff Duncan applies sports wisdom to his government service.

How Jane Eyre speaks to one adoptive mother about the meaning of belovedness.

Behind the Story

From deputy editor Bonnie Kristian: The last few years of American public life have been abuzz with talk of tech in schools. Driven by the research of social psychologist Jon Haidt, the consensus has gradually shifted toward a conclusion that always seemed obvious to me: You can’t let a kid use a smartphone in class and expect much learning to happen.

But phones are far from the only tech interfering with American schooling. Since the pandemic, primary education in this country has substantially moved onto screens. Particularly in older grades and public schools, students are required to spend more and more time online, often using buggy and badly programmed laptops. Some states have banned phones in schools, but they’re still requiring hours of daily screen time on school-owned devices that parents can’t properly police.

CT contributor Carrie McKean tackles all this—and much more—from her perspective as a public-school mom and journalist in West Texas. In a three-part series that will run today through the end of this week, McKean explores the characteristics, costs, and consequences of the US’s ill-considered rush to digitize our classrooms.

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In Other News

Elevation Church has announced it will be opening Elevation College next year.
After years of steady decline, religion in America is now holding steady.
An imprisoned Chinese artist is tearing paper by hand to create portraits of his family, scenes from his life in prison, and depictions of his Christian faith.

PAID CONTENT FOR GLOO

The Faith & Flourishing Ecosystem

In the United States, more than 450,000 churches, ministries, and non-faith-based organizations combine into an ecosystem. This is more than double the number of fast food restaurants across the country,…

Today in Christian History

December 10, 1520: German reformer Martin Luther publicly burns Pope Leo X’s bull “Exsurge Domine,” which had demanded that Luther recant his heresies—including justification by faith alone (see issue 34: Luther’s Early Years).

A Christmas Conspiracy for Zoomer Men

When Tucker Carlson sat across from Nick Fuentes and let him speak without resistance, what followed was justifiable outrage, with all the predictable clips and think pieces that comprise another…

People Always Ruin Christmas

In every family’s lore, peripheral characters pop up here and there, sometimes for a span of a few years, sometimes for decades. As you survey your memory, you will see…

God Is Your Father, Not Your Dad

When theologian David H. Kelsey asked in 1993 what happened to the traditional doctrine of sin, his concern was not that it had disappeared. It was rather that it had…

These Dark Days

The darkness haunts me. During the successive weeks of Advent, I want the mood to lift, the light to shine, and the joy to radiate. Yet the illuminated tree, songs…

in the magazine

As we enter the holiday season, we consider how the places to which we belong shape us—and how we can be the face of welcome in a broken world. In this issue, you’ll read about how a monastery on Patmos offers quiet in a world of noise and, from Ann Voskamp, how God’s will is a place to find home. Read about modern missions terminology in our roundtable feature and about an astrophysicist’s thoughts on the Incarnation. Be sure to linger over Andy Olsen’s reported feature “An American Deportation” as we consider Christian responses to immigration policies. May we practice hospitality wherever we find ourselves.

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