As 2019 began, the 110 newly elected members of Congress arrived in Washington, D.C., to less of a fresh slate than a fresh slew of problems: A partial government shutdown trudged into its second week, with each party blaming the other for the impasse.

The four men who founded the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (SBTS) in 1859 owned a sizable amount of property—and people. The four founders together held more than 50 slaves.

It’s one of the many grievous facts recounted in a 71-page report SBTS leaders released last Wednesday.

Seminary president Al Mohler commissioned the report a year ago to document formally the role slavery and racism played in the school’s beginnings and its growth into the 20^th century. Six current and former faculty members served on a commission to write the report.

With the first day of Advent arriving on Sunday, it’s a worthy moment to think about the journalism of Advent. Not the advent of journalism—but the kind of journalism that Advent encourages. 

The book of Luke opens with the most oft-cited account of Jesus’ birth, but it also begins with a note from the author. We know that Luke was a physician and a companion of the Apostle Paul, but in the first four verses of his gospel account, Luke also sounds like a journalist. 

Another outbreak of mass shootings in recent days, including an attack on a bar in Southern California that ended with 13 dead last week, leaves communities across the country lamenting life in a broken and sinful world.

How do we navigate it?

For the Christian believer, an Old Testament book offers a needed liturgy for suffering: The Psalms give fertile ground for deep sighs and groans before the Maker of heaven and earth. 

In the weeks before Democrats won control of the U.S. House of Representatives on Nov. 6, U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., told a crowd of supporters how to approach Republican politicians they disagree with on immigration:

“If you see anybody in that [Trump] Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd. … And you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere.”

With all eyes on a caravan of several thousand Central American migrants trekking through Mexico toward the U.S. border this week, it was perhaps easy to miss another massive march that unfolded in Mexico just a few days ago.

In a small room in a nondescript building near Colombia’s mountainous border with Venezuela, Pastor Juan Martinez leans his slight frame over a bulky Bible and describes Christian ministry in his rural Colombian village: “I am currently under threat of death for preaching the gospel.”

Martinez isn’t alone.

In the same room, three other Colombian pastors tell similar stories about the dangers of leading evangelical churches in rural regions where armed militants still roam the hills and demand control.