Christians Helping Borrowers Trapped by Payday Loans | How to Hold on Through a Faith Crisis: CT Daily

Plus: The Moral Clarity of Superheros

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View in Browser | Subscribe to CT | Donate August 29, 2025 Today's Briefing Restrictions on payday lending are weakening, and Christian community development organizations are stepping in for victims facing interest rates in the hundreds.  Faith crises come from disillusionment of expectations, but a new book charts the path to holding on through the rough waters.    Superhero stories have a moral clarity that is helpful for kids.  What it's like to be a Christian teacher at a Muslim school in Kenya. This week on The Bulletin, Israelis are protesting, Republicans in Texas are choosing a Senate candidate, and attitudes toward divorce are changing. This Labor Day, new subscribers get 25 percent off a year of unlimited access to CT. A full year is just $36—less than 70 cents per week for trusted reporting and biblical insight to help you navigate today's complex world. Behind the Story From senior staff writer Emily Belz: One privilege we have on the news team is doing on-the-ground reporting. Going in person to cover news can give you access to difficult-to-find people, but it also feeds you so many details, from seeing a source fight back emotion mid-conversation to feeling the incessant heat at a detention facility.  In honor of on-the-ground reporting, I am sharing some of my top smells from recent reporting experiences. There have been bad smells—rotting limbs at a hospital or the Category 5 storm of colognes from Wall Street people attending a financier's trial—but we don't need to revisit that.  Top smells:  Freshly cut grass on a Texas baseball field. Old carpet in a Tennessee church office, mixed with a brewing pot of Folgers coffee. Somehow this is very nostalgic for me, as if it's what a church should smell like. Mingling of potatoes, beef, and kimchi at a post-service lunch in Brooklyn, at a church that hosts some of the disappearing Koryo-saram people. Woodsmoke, mixed with rain, from people making their own charcoal in Malawi. In Other News Authorities are working to determine the motive behind a shooting at a Catholic school in Minnesota. It took investigators two years to determine the motive in a Christian school shooting in Nashville.  Wikipedia founder Larry Sanger is joining the Anglican Church in North America. Dauphin Way Baptist Church, once the largest Southern Baptist congregation in Alabama, has put its building up for sale. The leading evangelical publisher in the UK is becoming employee-owned. August Is Make-A-Will Month! Need to create or update your will but not sure where to start? Christianity Today has a trusted partnership with PhilanthroCorp, a Christian charitable will and estate planning firm, to provide you with free, no obligation, and confidential help based on your needs, values, and financial situation.  How does it work?      1. A representative contacts you to arrange a phone appointment.     2. On your first call, you answer basic questions for the estate planning specialist to learn how to best serve you. Additional calls are scheduled as needed.      3. You are given a plan for your attorney to draft final legal documents or PhilanthroCorp can refer you to an attorney in their network at reduced rates.  Learn more or get started today. Today in Christian History August 29, 29: Since the fifth century, tradition has this as the date for the beheading of John the Baptist. CONTINUE READING in case you missed it 12 Bible Verses and 3,000 Pushups As a kid, Amit Merchant never felt that he had a close group of Christian friends. Shy and unassuming, he didn't fit in with his youth group peers. But when… Bible Colleges Close, but Their Legacies Live On I love back-to-school season. I love the sense of new possibilities, the reconnections after summer break, and the joy of learning. But this year, as students unpack their boxes in… Advice for Donald Trump on Getting into Heaven This piece was adapted from Russell Moore's newsletter. Subscribe here. Dear Mr. President, A reporter asked you not long ago about ending Russia's war on Ukraine. "I want to end it," you… Work Makes Love Visible Growing up as one of ten kids in a farming family, I understood from a young age that work is an inescapable part of life. Before breakfast, beds were to… in the magazine As developments in artificial intelligence change daily, we're increasingly asking what makes humanity different from the machines we use. In this issue, Emily Belz introduces us to tech workers on the frontlines of AI development, Harvest Prude explains how algorithms affect Christian courtship, and Miroslav Volf writes on the transhumanist question. Several writers call our attention to the gifts of being human: Haejin and Makoto Fujimura point us to beauty and justice, Kelly Kapic reminds us God's highest purpose isn't efficiency, and Jen Pollock Michel writes on the effects of Alzheimer's . We bring together futurists, theologians, artists, practitioners, and professors to consider how technology shapes us even as we use it. VIEW FULL ISSUE SUBSCRIBE NOW CT Daily Briefing Get the most recent headlines and stories from Christianity Today delivered to your inbox daily. Delivered free via email to subscribers weekly. Sign up for this newsletter. You are currently subscribed as ricklivermore.thankyoujesus@blogger.com. Sign up to more newsletters like this. Manage your email preferences or unsubscribe. 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