CT Daily Briefing – 05-12-2026

May 11, 2026
Christianity Today
May 11, 2026
CT Daily Briefing

This edition is sponsored by Cru

Today’s Briefing

A year into the Trump administration’s tariffs, Christian small businesses lean on their faith to persevere.

Amid the monotony of middle age, editorial director of features Ashley Hales finds she needs resurrection more than resilience. She reviews three books on the topic: What Grows in Weary Lands by Tish Harrison Warren, Resilient by John Eldredge, and Antifragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.

Nijay K. Gupta’s Paul for the World tackles the question of how Christians should live in this world, rather than just waiting for the next. 

An excerpt from Christ and Covenant in Global Politics by Robert J. Joustra explores how a Christian view of international relations should embrace responsibility.

On The Bulletin: Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s campaign ad, the cyberattack on college software, and psychiatric drug skepticism. 

Behind the Story

From Ashley Hales: With my eldest child graduating high school in just a few weeks, I was excited to talk to Douglas McKelvey about his newest prayer book, Rites of Passage. The newest offering from the Every Moment Holy collection offers prayers particular to young adults, like “For Late-Night Studies,” “Before Moving Away from Home,” and “For Embracing Adulthood.”

Yet others apply well beyond the young adult years, including one that asks God to let us “live into the story you would tell through me, and not into any lesser narrative of my own making.”

When I sat down with Doug, we did chat about the lack of rites of passages for young adults, and I shared my concern that digital media is dulling our spiritual senses. But more than that, he kept coming back to how he thinks about the beginning of faith and the end of our lives.

Doug said that over the years, he has learned that time is a gift we have been given to steward. He encouraged us all to ask, “What do you want your life to have looked like? Start that now. Cultivate that vision now. Start to make that plan. How do I get from here to there?” And reflecting personally, he noted, “You start to amp yourself up for that final sprint. I don’t want to cross the finish line with any reserves left over.”

Read my interview with Doug here.

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In Other News

  • Pastor Mark Burns unveiled a 22-foot gold statue of President Donald Trump with his fist raised at the president’s golf course in Doral, Florida, noting on social media that “this is not a golden calf.”
  • Finnish parliamentarian Päivi Räsänen, who wrote a pamphlet on sexual ethics, appeals her “hate speech” conviction to the European Court of Human Rights. CT has previously reported on her case. 
  • Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission’s pro-life ministry, Psalm 139, placed its 100th ultrasound machine Friday at a pregnancy resource center in Elizabethtown, North Carolina.

Today in Christian History

May 12, 1543: British Parliament prohibits any “women or artificer’s prentices, journeymen, servingmen of the degree of yeoman, or under, husbandmen or labourers to read the New Testament in English.”

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Christian Colleges Call New Federal Regulation an ‘Existential Threat’

Though college presidents are in the middle of graduation season, Philip Dearborn, the head of the Association for Biblical Higher Education, found 21 of them willing to make a last-minute…

At 90, My Grandma Is Leading Worship at Her Retirement Home

 At five minutes before nine, nurses gently push in and arrange the wheelchairs. The window-walled multipurpose room at Deerfield Retirement Community in Urbandale, Iowa, has rows of chairs, a glossy…

The Megachurch Caught in Brazil’s Largest Bank Fraud

In March, police arrested banker Daniel Vorcaro and his brother-in-law, businessman and pastor Fabiano Campos Zettel, for their roles in what Brazil’s finance minister said could be “the largest banking…

Supreme Court Rules on Gerrymandering

Late last month, the Supreme Court ruled that Louisiana’s congressional map was unconstitutional because, according to The New York Times, it “improperly considered race to create a majority Black district.”…

IN THE MAGAZINE

Cover of the May/June issue

Throughout Scripture, God calls his people to be faithful and steadfast as we abide in him. Isaiah reminds us our faithfulness is fleeting “like the flowers of the field,” yet our hope is secure when we place it in God, so our strength is renewed (Isa. 40:6, 31). In this issue, we consider stories of resilience. Historian Thomas S. Kidd shares missionary Adoniram Judson’s hardship and fortitude in Burma (now Myanmar). Emily Belz reports on Minnesota churches today that are supporting persecuted Karen Christians, also from Myanmar. Haleluya Hadero reports on groups who are determined to help Gary, Indiana, achieve a more resilient future. We also consider Tish Harrison Warren’s new book and feature an interview with her. Rooted in the person of Jesus Christ, Christian resilience is about more than having grit or bouncing back.

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