The next time someone wants a good Advent book, Fleming Rutledge recommends Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, which deals with the total breakdown of society. There is no hope in sight, only cruelty. Like voices crying in the wilderness, a father and son travel through the ravaged wasteland of what used to be the United States, stewarding the one thing they have left: tender love for one another.

“Advent,” Rutledge notes, “is not for sissies.”

What can apocalyptic bloodbaths ...

A 2021 firing of a female staff member from a Chicago-area church led by pastor and author Dane Ortlund was determined to have “substantial evidence” of retaliation, according to an investigation into alleged discrimination by the state of Illinois.

The former director of operations at Naperville Presbyterian Church, Emily Hyland, said her termination came days after privately complaining to two elders about gender discrimination from Ortlund. At the time, she had worked at the church ...