May 20, 2026

Today the church is asking what genuine encounter with Christ actually looks like — and whether we've been substituting something else for it. Christianity Today runs a piece this week arguing that the current Christian hunger for re-enchantment — mystery, ritual, atmosphere — is pointing in the wrong direction. The longing is real. The solution being offered isn't. That tension surfaces in a different key at Relevant Magazine, where worship artist Anna Golden describes chasing platform and influence until she found herself spiritually hollow. The machinery of Christian success produced everything except Christ. Tim Challies makes a related observation about corporate worship — we've perfected the music and neglected the actual meeting. Earlier this week we were watching desire and formation pressed hard by several writers. That question hasn't gone away.

The Gospel Coalition frames AI's limits in spiritual terms — not a policy argument, a theological one. What artificial intelligence cannot do is transcend. It cannot encounter. That's the same gap Golden describes, the same one Challies names in the sanctuary. First Things runs a piece on hospitality arguing that genuine welcome requires stability — a place, a table, roots — and that liquid modernity is dissolving the conditions hospitality needs to survive. The Aquila Report pushes toward assurance: clinging to Christ isn't anxious grasping, it's the posture of someone who knows what they've found. These pieces aren't in conversation with each other. But they're all circling the same absence — and asking whether the church has the nerve to name it.