The Morning Verse
The Morning Verse
A Prayer for the Tired
For the end of a long day, when strength is thin and the mind will not settle.
Daily Briefing
Daily Briefing: A pastor killed in Colombia, a contested claim over Ukraine, and a runway scare in Las Vegas
A Colombian pastor has been killed in Cartagena, Charisma News reports. The outlet names him as Jesús Alberto Puerta Pérez and says he was fatally beaten by members of a criminal gang he had been evangelizing. According to the report, the men wanted to use his motorcycle, and he refused. Charisma News carries the account as reported, and the details beyond this are not set out. A pastor's death at the hands of the people he was trying to reach is the day's gravest news. It is a plain reminder that for some Christians, sharing their faith carries a physical cost.
Christianity Today reports a dispute among Orthodox Christians in the United States over religious freedom in Ukraine. More than four years into Russia's full-scale invasion, the outlet says, US Orthodox communities are issuing competing claims about whether Kyiv persecutes Christians. The paper does not resolve the dispute, and neither will this briefing: the claims run in opposite directions, and the reader should know that much here is contested. Why it matters is simple. How Christians abroad describe a wartime government shapes how churches far from the fighting come to understand it.