The Weekend – 1-4-25

January 2, 2025
CT Weekly

This edition is sponsored by Redeeming Babel


weekend reads

This week at Christianity Today, we’re easing into 2025 by reflecting on our work from the previous 12 months. 

In 2024, we shared testimonies from an Olympic wrestler, a New Age psychic, and a president’s daughter; we offered ideas about “therapy speak,” motherhood, and the future of the pro-life movement. We reported on the founding of a new denomination, megachurch scandals, and polarization; we covered the church in Asia, Latin America, and the Greater Middle East and Africa. And we reviewed books on marriage, critical race theory, and establishing a rule of life.

Plus: Christian leaders who died in 2024, and the year’s discoveries in biblical archaeology.  

We’re grateful to have shared these stories with you and look forward to more in the year ahead. Thanks for your thoughtful reading! 

weekend listen

The Bulletin’s favorite episodes of 2024 feature conversations about foreign policy and domestic politics, education and grievance, attention and wisdom. | Listen here.  


paid content

What if the key to lasting change isn’t another resolution, but a reset? 

Statistics show 95% of New Year’s resolutions fail, leaving us stuck in old patterns. The Good Faith Podcast’s new 4-part series tackles this challenge head-on, featuring deep conversations with Christian thought leaders who offer fresh perspectives on resetting our relationships with alcohol, marriage, technology, and God.

Join host Curtis Chang and guests like John Mark Comer and Andy Crouch for thoughtful, honest discussions that move beyond quick fixes to real transformation. These long-form conversations blend theological insight with practical wisdom, asking the hard questions about how we should live. Listen to the New Year’s Reset series this January.

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editors’ picks

Daniel Silliman, news editor: Robert Alter’s translation of Genesis is fascinating and fresh and pays lots of attention to the Hebrew and the literary quality of the writing. Good especially for anyone who wants to reread with fresh eyes.

Ashley Hales, editorial director, print: I’m looking forward to finishing Percival Everett’s novel James for our church book club as well as starting All the Beauty in the World, a memoir from a security guard at the MOMA who left his New Yorker job; it’s been called “haunting” and “exquisite” and looks to be really a perfect book to cozy up with this season.

Bonnie Kristian, editorial director, ideas and books, and Mia Staub, editorial project manager, online: We’re both watching Silo—the second season is interesting for Christians in that it’s becoming more apparent that their community “constitution” functions like a Bible.


prayers of the people


PAID CONTENT FOR COMPASSION INTERNATIONAL

Compassion International helps Christian parents build bridges between their children and God’s global family. Learn more about raising kids who care for the least of these. When Jesus taught us…


more from CT

A Baptist from Georgia, he challenged categories with his evangelical witness and progressive politics.

The former president was elected while serving as a Southern Baptist deacon. But he was never fully welcomed by white evangelicals as one of our own. 

We hope these articles will delight you anew—whether you thumb through your stack of CT print magazines or revisit each online.

Mennonites thriving in Paraguay, architecturally stunning church buildings in China, and persistent faith amid Haiti’s pervasive gang violence.

IN THE MAGAZINE

As this issue hits your mailboxes after the US election and as you prepare for the holidays, it can be easy to feel lost in darkness. In this issue, you’ll read of the piercing light of Christ that illuminates the darkness of drug addiction at home and abroad, as Angela Fulton in Vietnam and Maria Baer in Portland report about Christian rehab centers. Also, Carrie McKean explores the complicated path of estrangement and Brad East explains the doctrine of providence. Elissa Yukiko Weichbrodt shows us how art surprises, delights, and retools our imagination for the Incarnation, while Jeremy Treat reminds us of an ancient African bishop’s teachings about Immanuel. Finally, may you be surprised by the nearness of the “Winter Child,” whom poet Malcolm Guite guides us enticingly toward.

THE WEEKEND FROM CHRISTIANITY TODAY

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