July 19, 2026

Today the church is wrestling with what it actually means to stay — to stay with Jesus, to stay in the faith, to stay committed to institutions that keep failing. Desiring God opens the question directly: boredom with Jesus isn't a minor spiritual slump, it's a gateway to apostasy. That's a hard word. The Gospel Coalition runs alongside it with John Newton's account of progressive sanctification — doubt, failure, and slow growth aren't signs you're leaving the faith, they're part of how the faith works. The Aquila Report adds two more pieces to the same puzzle: God doesn't abandon you when you stray, and hypocrisy's deepest root is pride refusing to be seen. Taken together, these pieces are describing the interior architecture of a Christian who is tempted to quit — and making the case that the temptation itself can be the school.

Lifeway Research drops a number that ought to land harder than it seems to: American confidence in the church has crashed back near historic lows, after a brief post-pandemic uptick. Aaron Renn calls it a vibe shift — something in the cultural mood has turned, and institutions are feeling it. Then Christianity Today reports a court has sided with Second Baptist Houston's leadership over its own voting members in a power dispute, which is exactly the kind of story that feeds the distrust Lifeway is measuring. Across the Pacific, Chinese house church pastors are disappearing as Beijing tightens its grip — a reminder that institutional failure looks very different depending on where you sit. We've been watching this tension build for weeks now. On March 27 the question was what transformation actually looks like and what it costs. Today it's sharper: what happens to people who are trying to be formed by a church they no longer trust?