November 5, 2026

Today the church is asking whether its public witness has become indistinguishable from political power, and whether that trade has cost something it cannot get back. Peter Wehner's argument, surfaced by Russell Moore, is blunt: Christians who chase political leverage tend to lose the moral credibility that made their witness worth anything. Christianity Today is running a post-midterm piece asking what the new political landscape actually requires of the church, and the answer it circles is not a strategy. It is a posture. Abortion rights measures just passed in Missouri, Nevada, and Virginia, according to Religion News Service, which means the political tools the church has invested in for fifty years are producing mixed results at best. The question underneath all of this is not tactical. It is whether the church's authority to speak on anything depends on the purity of how it has spoken on everything.

The abuse cases landing this week make that question harder to dodge. The Roys Report is covering an Orlando survivor who refused anonymity and is now suing his church, denomination, and Christian school. A second Roys piece names an Ohio pastor accused of sexual abuse by a stepdaughter. Two cases in one week, and the pattern under both is the same: institutions that claimed moral authority and then protected themselves instead of victims. We've been watching this tension surface for weeks now, the gap between what the church proclaims about human dignity and what it actually does when dignity is violated inside its own walls. Meanwhile the Supreme Court is weighing a Colorado law that World Magazine and the ERLC both cover, a case about whether a Catholic preschool can receive public funding while maintaining its own admissions criteria. Religious liberty is a real stake. So is the credibility required to argue for it.