Welcome to The Light, where we pause together and consider what the day is asking of us.
In a London courtroom this week, prosecutors opened their case against Russell Brand, describing the professing Christian as a sexual predator. The charges include multiple counts of rape and sexual assault. The trial invites a familiar and uncomfortable question — how faith is proclaimed, and how it is lived, are not always the same thing.
From the gravity of that courtroom, we turn to something quieter but no less searching. Theologian John Piper has expressed what he calls appallment at the growing practice of using artificial intelligence to draft sermons. His concern is not merely practical — it is spiritual. A sermon, he argues, is an act of worship, and worship cannot be outsourced to something incapable of longing.
And from the ancient world, a discovery that humbles our sense of time. Scientists have identified the first megaraptor ever found in Europe — a feathered dinosaur whose name translates as unconquered female warrior. She walked the earth long before any question of faith or meaning was ever spoken aloud, and yet here we are, giving her a name.
That's this hour's reflection. Carry the light gently.
