The Weekend – 12-6-25

December 5, 2025
CT Weekly

This edition is sponsored by Westfall Gold


weekend reads

Books about deconstruction, the Psalms, missionary kids, the religious history of Roe v. Wade, and transgender theory make an appearance on this year’s CT Book Awards lists. Whether you’re Christmas shopping for history buffs, fiction fans, theology nerds, or young adults (or simply looking for your next read), you’ll find plenty of titles worth cracking open in 2026.

While you wait for your books to arrive in the mail, stream a few of the 12 noncanonical Christmas movies a film professor recommended for us this week: “Keep the holiday milieu and the redemptive theme, but allow for a little melancholy amid the magic, and you’ve got plenty of alternatives to the familiar, comforting formula of a Hallmark special or a Christmas pageant.”


weekend listen

It’s Advent on The Bulletin! Our hosts discuss Christmas traditions and advice for navigating the season. 

“I think I really started paying attention to Joseph when we adopted. There would be all kinds of people who would ask questions about ‘Well, what about the real parents?” My response was, ‘This is real. Adoption is real.’ … The line that is being traced in the genealogies back to David, which is essential to Jesus being the Christ, goes through the line of Joseph. So if adopting love is not real, then the entire Nativity narrative doesn’t make sense. ” | Listen here.


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editors’ picks

Emily Belz, senior staff writer: I’m listening to Duke Ellington’s Three Suites (his version of Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker) this season.

Elise Brandon, copy editor: For the past few Christmases, my siblings and I have made cinnamon rolls from scratch. I like this recipe, which rises overnight, so you can make them the night before.


FROM CHRISTIANITY TODAY

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. 


prayers of the people


more from CT

The transfiguration and the mystery of time and space.

Amid rising persecution, Indian Christians share Jesus’ love with friends and neighbors through delectable dishes.

CT’s editor at-large recommends a handful of biographies—from Augustine to Robert Frost—along with sci-fi, Stephen King, social media, and more.

20 more suggestions from our editor in chief.


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.

THE WEEKEND FROM CHRISTIANITY TODAY

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