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This edition is sponsored by Cru |
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The Weekend newsletter is moving to Substack as soon as next week. No action is needed on your part: Readers will continue to receive the same email on the same schedule; it will just look a little different, with new opportunities to comment and connect with CT editors, writers, and readers. |
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Christopher Nolan’s upcoming Odyssey is just the latest attempt at adapting Homer’s epic poem. John Shelton wrote for Christianity Today this week about what any masterful adaptation needs to accomplish: "Tolkien was convinced that mankind’s myths, for all their failings, still steer toward a ‘true harbour,’" he writes. "To succeed, Christopher Nolan’s much-anticipated adaptation of The Odyssey will have to steer toward that same harbor, doing for the ‘man of twists and turns’ what he did in other films, like the Batman trilogy, Inception, and Interstellar." |
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Shelton explores how the Odyssey is a splintered, pre-Christian gospel: |
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The Odyssey has survived the ceaseless war and wear of the ages in part because it reflects what J. R. R. Tolkien’s biographer called "a splintered fragment of the true light": a gospel preached first to a simple herdsman; a returning master dressed as a beggar, unrecognized and rejected by his people; and a quest through many trials, sorrows, and temptations to restore the king’s bride, household, and land. Alongside these prefigurations of Christian truth, Homer’s epic makes human hearts sing with perennial themes of home, human greatness, fatherhood, time, and loss. |
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"As the Gospels testify, Jesus came to his own, and ‘his own did not receive him’ (John 1:11)," he continues. "Even after the gospel turned the world of pagan heroes upside down, myths like The Odyssey endured because they continued to point, in humanity’s crooked timbre, toward truths fulfilled only in Christ." |
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On this week’s episode of The Russell Moore Show, Russell joins Beth Moore and the novelist Daniel Nayeri to talk about his autobiographical novel Everything Sad Is Untrue. |
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"He’s trying to express it all, and the only thing he really has is a particular point of view or voice," he said of his novel’s narrator, a young Iranian refugee. "It really was a challenge of trying to write a good story with the most unqualified narrator possible." | Listen here. |
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As the world gathers for the World Cup, engage this moment with intention, hospitality, and faith. Open your home for a watch party, invite your neighbors, and create opportunities for deeper connection, meaningful conversations, and shared hope. |
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This free host kit delivers 7 ready-to-use resources straight to your door—to help turn this global soccer tournament into an impactful gathering. From planning to preparing to connecting—this free kit has everything you need to succeed and host a watch party that’s simple, fun, and natural. |
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Navigate complex times with clarity and conviction. Join CT for trustworthy reporting, informed analysis, and thoughtful commentary through a biblical lens.
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Bonnie Kristian, deputy editor: "Why Do Only Weird People Speak in Tongues?" by Daniel at Doctoral Discipleship. The title is tongue-in-cheek (no pun intended), and I found this a thought-provoking read particularly for its frank acknowledgement that how we feel about the charismatic gifts may not line up with our best understandings of Scripture. |
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Taylor Berglund, senior features editor: I just finished reading Brandon Sanderson’s epic fantasy series The Stormlight Archive. It’s taken me the better part of two years, owing to the shortest book—The Way of Kings—being over 1,000 pages, but it’s been an extremely worthwhile journey that helped get me back into recreational fiction reading. For those interested in a story about honor, religious faith and doubt, mental health, and—of course—sick aerial combat sequences, I highly recommend it! |
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Elise Brandon, copy editor: My husband and I have been enjoying Every Moment Holy: Rites of Passage. I particularly like the liturgies "For the Prime of Life" and "For Surrendering My Will." |
- For sick and vulnerable people living in rural areas, now unlikely to receive care after USAID cuts.
- For pastor Ezra Jin and his family, reunited after he was imprisoned for nine months in China.
- For children in foster care.
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If you watch the Super Bowl, you know about He Gets Us, the ad campaign that launched in 2022 with a budget to make Jesus "the biggest brand in your city." Since…
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While Americans were having abortions in 1776, America’s founders in Philadelphia put their names on a statement that all, created equal, are "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,…
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Have you noticed an uptick in the cultural prevalence of Japanese media? I know I have. Just the other day, I was surprised to learn that my local library stocked…
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"How do you know?" It may seem that a kindergartner, with a backpack that overwhelms her small frame and pigtails in perfectly even plaits on the first day of school,…
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While the internet seems consumed with political debate, as Christians, we must practice acknowledging cultural fissures and fractures while also placing our ultimate hope in God alone. Christ’s work invites us to work toward repair. As America observes its 250th birthday this year, we both celebrate the American experiment in democracy and speak honestly about it; as Justin Giboney writes in "America 250," "We must be able to critique and appreciate with impartiality." In her essay on notable books, Jen Pollock Michel calls readers to consider how freedom for (not just freedom from) is necessary. Also, historian George Marsden looks back at 1976, the year of the evangelical, and Bonnie Kristian examines Charlie Kirk’s legacy. We hope you’ll spend some time with Angela Lu Fulton’s feature "The Cost of Training Up a Chinese Child," about Chinese Christians who have kept their faith preeminent, and Emily Belz’s reporting on an Anglican church’s support of families healing a year after a school shooting. Whether you find yourself naming fractures or repairing fissures, we hope this will lower the cultural temperature, showing that our faithful work matters but also that Christ promises to make all things new. |
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