Today

Daily Briefing: A pastor killed in Colombia, a contested claim over Ukraine, and a runway scare in Las Vegas

By The FaithDaily Desk

Good morning. 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.

Charisma News also reports that the actor and New Kids on the Block singer Donnie Wahlberg was aboard a private jet that veered off a runway in Las Vegas on Sunday, having just left a concert. The aircraft was damaged. Everyone aboard was safe. Wahlberg, the outlet says, gave glory to God afterward. The story is slight beside the others, but it closes as many such scares do, with relief.

Two of the day's pieces step back from events. Lutheran Witness publishes a reflection on Bunyan's "The Pilgrim's Progress," describing the Christian's walk through this earthly life as beset by destructive forces both outside and within. The Gospel Coalition offers three reasons Christians should care about the rule of law, arguing that it can serve the good purposes God is advancing in his world. Neither is breaking news. Both sit beside the harder reports as the kind of reading a tired believer might return to.