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January 5, 2026

This edition is sponsored by Smart Publishing Ltd.

Today’s Briefing

Senior features editor Kate Lucky reviews what the new book Pornocracy gets right and wrong in its case against the pornography industry.

Northern Seminary president Joy Moore has stepped down.

The Bulletin guests discuss the arrest of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro.

A photo essay captures ancient churches carved in lava as pilgrims in the Ethiopian highland town of Lalibela celebrated Christmas.

A new book considers alcohol addiction through the lens of forgiveness.

How a Brazilian journalist encountered Christ through his reporting assignments.

Church scandals do not negate God’s faithfulness.

Behind the Story

From senior features editor Kate Lucky: Several folks on our staff were grossed out by the cover of the new book Pornocracy (you can find my review of the title on our site today). It’s easy to see why; the image the publisher chose is provocative and, yes, a little icky.

Once you flip inside, Pornocracy continues to be grotesque, filled with lurid information about the pornography industry and its victims. One of the tasks of reviewing a book like this one is determining when the most awful anecdotes are deployed effectively and when they distract from the force of the authors’ argument.

Journalists writing about scandals and tragedies make the same determination when deciding whether or not to include a gross or scandalous detail that will make readers uncomfortable. Is that detail only in the story for the sake of salaciousness, or is it necessary in order to tell the full truth? In the case of Pornocracy, it’s most often the latter. The industry really is that bad.

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In Other News

Anthropic’s Claude AI chatbot has “soul” guidelines written into it.
Christian NFL players urged the US government to take action against religious persecution in Nigeria.
StubHub apologized for a concert listing that mixed up a popular heavy metal band Lamb of God with an Andrew Peterson “Behold the Lamb of God” performance.

FROM CHRISTIANITY TODAY

2026 Moms, Dads & Grads Gift Guide

No matter who you are celebrating this spring–a new graduate, your mother, your father–or if you are just looking for a little bit of renewal and new life for yourself, we have a book for you.

See the guide

Today in Christian History

January 6, 548: The Jerusalem church observes Christmas on this date for the last time as the Western church moves to celebrating the birth of Jesus on December 25.

Christianity Today: A Declaration of Principles

The evangelical world includes a vast variety of perspectives, ethnicities, and geographies. It’s blue-collar and advanced degrees, covenantal and dispensational, Reformed and charismatic, and none of the above, all under…

Death of a Eulogy

I’m troubled by a trend I’ve seen with funerals. For the last decade, I’ve been the preaching minister at a rural congregation in the Bible Belt South. My outpost is…

How Can I Find a Nondenominational Ministry Job?

Got a question? Email advice@christianitytoday.com to ask CT’s advice columnists. Queries may be edited for brevity and clarity. Q: In a post on our neighborhood Facebook page, a distraught lesbian…

The Architecture of Revelation

I was on the island called Patmos. To be precise, I was in the Orthodox Monastery of Saint John the Theologian, on a fortified hilltop once occupied by a temple…

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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