November 1, 2026

Today the church is asking what faithful witness actually costs, and whether the institutions claiming to represent it are paying that price. The Gospel Coalition and Relevant Magazine are both pointing to the same number this week: 388 million Christians facing high-level persecution globally. The Christian Post tells the story of a former Muslim who was disowned by family and jailed for sharing the Gospel and refused to stop. That's the frame. Then you look at what's happening inside the American church and the contrast is sharp enough to cut. The Roys Report is reporting that an Ohio megachurch pastor was fired for sexual misconduct, and separately that an evangelical financier just received a 15-year sentence for defrauding investors out of millions. The same week Christians are praying for brothers and sisters who lose everything to hold onto faith, the church is also reckoning with leaders who used faith to take from others. That tension doesn't resolve neatly.

The institutional credibility question runs through almost everything else in the feed today. A New Mexico megachurch is openly endorsing Republican candidates in apparent defiance of the Johnson Amendment, which raises a real question: what does the church think its public authority is actually grounded in? Crossway has a piece on overcoming polarization and engaging culture with civility, which reads differently after you've seen a congregation weaponize its pulpit for partisan politics. The Supreme Court will hear a case about a Jewish man blocked from hosting a prayer meeting in his home, a genuine religious liberty issue worth watching. Pew data surfaced by Relevant shows that Americans aged 23 to 26 are among the least religious adults in the country, while 18 to 22-year-olds attend church at higher rates than anyone. We were watching the Gen Z question earlier this month, and it hasn't simplified. The data now suggests it's less about a generation and more about a specific window of life when people drift. What the church does with its credibility in that window may matter more than any outreach strategy it deploys.