WWUTT 2535 Q&A The Top 40 Biggest News Stories of 2025 (Part 1)

It probably goes without saying that 2025 was a very complicated year, but we're going to be counting down some of the biggest stories that happened, especially among the Christian faith in 2025, and how we understand these things as Christians, when we understand the text.

This is When We Understand the Text, a daily Bible study in the Word of Christ. For he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. Tell your friends about our ministry at www .wutt .com.

Once again, it's Pastor Gabe.

Thank you, Becky, and Happy New Year, everyone. I want to start off by issuing an apology that you haven't heard from us for a week. We gave you a Christmas episode and then nothing after that. We just dropped off the map.

No message as to what had happened to us or anything. Well, we all got sick. The entire Hughes household was sick all the way through the Christmas weekend. My last healthy day, in fact, was December 26th, the day after Christmas, but I was caring for a sick wife and kids so that I didn't have the chance to record an episode of the.

Podcast.

Then I got sick on Saturday. I preached ill on Sunday, and then I've been in bed all week long. I finally have something of a voice back that I was able to sit down and record this episode. Part one should have been last week, and this should have been part two, but this episode is going to start counting down the top 40 biggest stories that happened in Christian news for 2025.

As I mentioned, Becky is not along with me for this episode. Even if she had the energy to sit next to me, you wouldn't hear from her because she still has a touch of laryngitis. So prayers for her. She's had this much longer than I've had and has had a more difficult time kicking it than I've had.

And then the kids, of course, it's a bummer that during their Christmas break, they've had to be sick this whole time and they have to go back to school, get back to their classes on Monday. So pray for health in the Hughes household that we're all back on the upswing and able to jump into 2025 with a little more abled bodies.

Most of the time on the Friday edition of the broadcast, we respond to questions from the listeners, and you can send those questions to when we understand the text at gmail .com. I actually do have one email I'm going to be responding to in this episode.

You can also send us a voicemail. Go to www .utt .com, click on that voicemail tab, and you can record a message to us through your phone or through your computer. We would love to hear from you. Before we get started with our list of the biggest Christian news stories of the year, let me open with scripture.

This is 1 Thessalonians 4, verses 1 through 8. I figured this would be a good exhortation for us as we come into the new year. Finally, then brothers, the apostle says, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God just as you are doing, that you do so more and more.

For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, your sanctification, that you abstain from sexual immorality, that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God, that no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter because the Lord is an avenger in all these things as we told you beforehand and solemnly warned you.

For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. Therefore, whoever disregards this disregards not man, but God who gives his Holy Spirit.

To you.

May we desire and strive to live in holiness all the more in 2026. And may that be God's word for you, brother and sister in the Lord. As we count down these big Christian stories for 2025, this is not in an order of like the least important story to the most important story.

So it's not like we're starting at 40 and counting to number one. We're actually starting at number one. And I'm going to go through these in the order in which they happen. So this will be in order according to the date on which these stories occurred.

These first 20 stories happened between January to July. And then the next 20 stories, which I'll cover next week, pick up in the middle of July and go to the end of the year. We start with January the first Lichtenstein and Thailand legalized gay marriage to start the year.

Europe's fourth smallest country, Lichtenstein, with a population of 41 ,000 people in an area of 62 square miles, made same sex marriage to put in quotations because there is no such thing as same sex marriage.

They made it legal when their amendment to the Marriage Act took effect on January the first. The bill passed on May 16th of the previous year by a parliamentary vote of 24 to one. Herbert Elcock was the lone voice who voted against the measure.

Now, even though Herbert is known for his conservative politics, he's a cross dresser. He often wore women's clothing during his campaigns, including many skirts and high heels. Yet he voted against the same sex marriage act in his country.

Herbert did not run for reelection in 2025, citing age as the reason. Thailand legalized same sex marriage effective January 23rd when the Marriage Equality Act took effect. The bill passed their House of Representatives in March of 2024 by a vote of 400 to 10.

Thai law requires a 120 day waiting period before taking effect, which meant it became legal on January 23rd 2025. Interestingly enough, Thailand has been in the midst of an armed border conflict with Cambodia.

They agreed to a ceasefire on December the 27th. So far, the ceasefire is holding going into 2026. The Czech Republic made civil unions legal on January 1st, which basically means that same sex couples can receive all the rights as heterosexual couples, but still not being called married.

Lithuania also legalized civil unions in April. The European Court of Justice ruled in November just a couple of months ago that EU member states must recognize foreign same sex marriage, even if they don't allow them domestically, affecting countries like Poland, Slovakia and Bulgaria, where same sex marriage is not yet legal.

At the present, same sex marriage is legal in 22 European countries and same sex unions are legal in another 10. Altogether, there are 38 countries in the world that both legally perform and recognize same sex marriage, including the United States.

The leading group of people opposed to it is, of course, Christians. And in those countries where same sex marriage is legal, Christians can be persecuted for speaking up against it or preaching what the Bible says about marriage, that God made marriage be between a husband and his wife, and only a husband and a wife can be married and produce offspring.

Wesley Huff’s Rise as a Christian Apologist

Number two. The second big story of 2025 was on January 7th, when Wesley Huff appeared on Joe Rogan. As far as Christian teachers and apologists go, 2025 was the year of Wes Huff. Born in 1991 in Pakistan to missionary parents, Wes spent much of his childhood in the Middle East in diverse surroundings, which greatly impacted his later theological studies.

His family moved to Canada, where he would later complete a degree in sociology at York University, later to pursue a master's of theological studies and is currently working on a PhD in New Testament.

He is married with four kids, serves as the vice president for Apologetics Canada and is an elder at his Reformed Baptist Church. While living in the Middle East, Wes was diagnosed with a rare neurological condition at the age of 11 that left him paralyzed from the waist down.

He experienced a miraculous recovery for which doctors had no medical explanation and regained full mobility. This experience, along with a great deal of study and soul searching, solidified his faith and stirred his engagement with different beliefs and worldviews.

At one point, he thought he was going to go into law enforcement, but he found his interests turning in the direction of defending the Christian faith. I had listened to Wes several times as a guest on the Cultish podcast.

Some of the topics he engaged with include the Book of Enoch and how much of a role did Constantine really play in the spread of the Christian religion in the fourth century. At the end of 2024, Wes had an online debate with a religion hack named Billy Carson, founder and CEO of Forbidden Knowledge Inc., a best-selling author and a frequent guest on many popular podcasts including Joe Rogan.

Wes manhandled Carson and exposed him for the fraud that he was, but he was not rude or boastful about it. He simply presented the facts that Carson could not refute. It got to the point where eventually Carson just up and walked out of the debate, neither of them realizing the bomb that this was about to become.

The debate exploded, as well as Wes Hough's YouTube channel practically overnight. This gained Wes a spot on the Joe Rogan Experience, the number one podcast in the world. Rogan has been an atheist and hugely critical of Christianity in the past, but has softened in recent years.

He had Billy Carson on his podcast several months before, and after seeing Wes manhandle him on this now-famous debate, he had to get Wes on his show. So they talked for three hours about Wes's background, his study in languages and ancient manuscripts, different world religions and cults, and the authenticity of the Bible.

The most biblically solid conversation on Joe Rogan up to that point. In addition to Joe Rogan, Wes was also on the flagrant podcast and Julian Dory, and between just those three podcasts and all their clips, he received tens of millions of views in a matter of weeks.

Now, I must forewarn you that this is not an endorsement of any of those three podcasts. All of the hosts use R-rated language, but it is amazing how God has used Hough to step into those arenas and defend the truth and authenticity of the Bible and to share the gospel with those men.

He's since been on many other podcasts, including Michael Knowles, Piers Morgan, Patrick Bet-David, Cameron Bertuzzi, Nick Freitas, and Russell Brann, and Christian podcasts such as Living Waters, Daily Dose of Wisdom, Ruslan KD, Michael Horton, The Gospel Coalition, Stand to Reason, and Good Fight Ministries.

With all of the different interviews and clips and even videos from his own channel, it is not out of the range of possibility that Wes Hough received hundreds of millions of views in 2025. In a year when so many professing Christian teachers tried amassing a large online following by making outrageous and clickbait claims, delving into all kinds of conspiracy theories and political rhetoric and even mysticism, they've been rude and brash with their rhetoric.

Yet here's Wes Hough, who achieved his platform just being biblical and polite. Perhaps no other Christian apologist was viewed more times in 2025 than Wesley Hough. Praise God for that witness that he's been able to do and is still doing.

I just watched another interview with him yesterday that I hadn't seen. So great to see an interest in apologetics come back to the forefront in our national conversation, well, international conversation even.

The Vatican Permits Openly Gay Men to Enter the Priesthood

Number three, on January the 10th, the Vatican allows openly gay men to become priests. This is a story that flew under the radar for a lot of people and it didn't make a lot of headlines in any of the news websites that I checked for the biggest stories of 2025.

This one was not on a single list, but make no mistake, this is a huge story. Of course, I would not categorize Roman Catholicism as biblical Christianity, but since it is the largest denomination of what would be encyclopedically categorized as the Christian religion, it deserves a mention.

And this will affect many other Christian denominations. The document entitled, The Formation of Presbyters in Italian Churches, Guidelines and Rules for Seminaries, is a provisional document published by the Italian Bishops Conference giving permission for openly gay men to enter the Roman Catholic priesthood as long as they maintain the normal requirement of chastity.

The document said, quote, in the formative process, when referring to homosexual tendencies, it's also appropriate not to reduce discernment only to this aspect, but as for every candidate, to grasp its meaning in the global framework of the young person's personality, unquote.

But that the man who becomes a priest must, quote, freely choose and to live chastity in celibacy in a responsible way, unquote. The document was signed by the head of the Italian bishops, Cardinal Matteo Zupi, Zupi or Zupi, anyway, who was considered a close collaborator with the now late Pope Francis.

This conflicts with the 2005 Vatican instruction by the Vatican Congregation for Catholic Education. In that document, it was said, while the church deeply respects the people in question, meaning homosexuals, it cannot admit to the seminary or to holy order those who practice homosexuality have deeply rooted homosexual tendencies or support the so-called gay culture, unquote.

The Vatican is now whistling a different tune. New Ways Ministry, which is an advocacy group for LGBTQ Roman Catholics in the U .S., praised this new turn, calling the document a big step forward. They said, quote, this new clarification treats gay candidates in the same way that heterosexual candidates are treated, unquote.

Donald Trump’s Inauguration and the Politics of Faith

Number four, the fourth biggest story for the fourth big story of the year, rather better way to put it, was on January the 20th. And that is the inauguration of Donald Trump as the 47th president of the United States.

Trump has now been the 45th and 47th president. He's the 45th and 47th president, right? Would that be the proper grammar? Anyway, the only other president to serve two non-consecutive terms was Grover Cleveland from 1885 to 89 and elected again then in 1893.

In the 2025 inauguration of President Trump, evangelist Franklin Graham compared him to Moses and Vice President J .D. Vance to Moses' brother Aaron. That's a little bit of a stretch, though you could certainly argue that the last eight years for Trump had been immensely trying.

He had been impeached twice during his first presidency. He had been indicted and unjustly tried, and in my opinion, on other charges in that four years in between. The 2024 campaign was largely seen as a revenge tour for Trump.

And after surviving a near assassination attempt in July of 24, he handily beat back the Biden campaign and defeated Vice President Kamala Harris in the election. Since then, he has overhauled immigration enforcement, ended the Biden administration's transgender policies, including putting an end to federal support of trans surgeries for minors.

He eliminated diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, is dismantling the Federal Department of Education, is working to boost domestic oil production, and he has promoted efforts to end global conflicts.

Some of these stories will come up even as we go through this list of big stories of the year. Not everything Trump has done has been without controversy, even on the Christian political right. However, Trump appointed Scott Besant to be the secretary of the Treasury.

Besant claims to be married to a man. Also, his crackdown on border policies have resulted in the deportation of Christians and pastors before the violent criminals. And Trump has vowed the federal expansion of IVF, which can cause more abortions than just the usual manner of abortion.

We'll come back to some of these later. Trump appointed outspoken Christian Pete Hegseth to be the secretary of war, reverting the name of the Department of Defense back to the Department of War, which is what it was originally.

Through Operation Midnight Hammer, the U .S. ended Iran's nuclear program. Operation Southern Spear, the U .S. is using to fight back against the drug cartels. And Hegseth also undid much of the trans-friendly policies that the Biden administration had enacted upon the U .S. military.

In his inaugural prayer, Franklin Graham quoted Psalm 3312, which says, Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. And also from Daniel chapter two, he said, We know that America can never be great again if we turn our backs to God.

In his prayer, he said, We ask for your help and we pray all of this in the name of the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, your son, my savior and our redeemer, Jesus Christ. All of those things said in Trump's inauguration.

Graham was also joined by Roman Catholic Cardinal Timothy Dolan, who had also prayed at Trump's first inauguration. Pastor Lorenzo Sewell, who quoted from Martin Luther King in his prayer, and also Jewish rabbi Ari Berman.

Trump had a Jewish rabbi pray in his first inauguration as well, which was the first time a rabbi had given a benediction in a presidential inauguration since 1985. The first time this was done was at the inauguration of Harry Truman in 1949.

Now, many do not know this, but Trump had scheduled a Muslim imam to give a benediction at his inauguration. It would have been the first time in American history that an imam would have given a benediction at a presidential inauguration.

But Imam Husham al-Husseini was removed from the program and did not participate amidst the controversy. You probably had not heard about it. Later on February the 6th, Trump announced the White House Faith Office, which would be headed up by prosperity heretic Paula White.

Marianne Budde’s Inaugural Sermon and the Warning of Judgment

Number five. The fifth big story of the year was on January the 21st, when Marianne Edgar Buddies' comments during a Washington interfaith prayer service made international headlines. Now, what's funny about this is as I was going through these stories of the year, I came to that when I thought, didn't I do a video on this?

And I went back to the what videos that I've produced for 2025, and I could not find one that I did on Marianne Edgar Buddy. So I went back to my archives and I found I had started one and did not finish it.

So I'm going to go ahead and play the video. This was the video that was never made. And it explains all of the details here concerning what had happened exactly in that interfaith prayer service in Washington, D .C. on January 21st.

Listen here. The day after Donald Trump was sworn in as the 47th president of the United States, he and his family, along with Vice President J .D. Vance and his wife, attended the inaugural prayer service at the Washington National.

Cathedral.

Episcopalian Bishop Marianne Buddy preached a homily in which she went after the president.

Saying, let me make one final plea, Mr. President, in the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country. We're scared now. There are gay, lesbian and transgender children in Democratic, Republican and independent families, some who fear for their lives.

What does she think the president is going to do to them? He nominated for his administration a homosexual man who claims to be married to another man, even though marriage is only between a man and a woman.

Trump is not opposed to homosexuality. Now, in his inaugural address, he did say it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female.

That's simply acknowledging a biological fact which harms no one. If only he had as much common sense about sex and marriage. If Donald Trump was going to be rebuked in a sermon, he could have been told, repent for judgment is coming.

God hates sexual immorality and the sacrifice of unborn children. Turn to Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and bow to his authority. Lead this nation in obedience to Christ and his word. This woman will receive the greater condemnation, leading even children in perverse sexual sin.

Luke 17, 2 says it would be better for her if a millstone were hung around her neck and she were cast into the sea. Then she would cause one of these little ones to sin. James 3, 1 says teachers will be judged with greater strictness when we understand the text.

So there you go. The what video that never was on that, uh, that fourth or sorry, fifth big story of the year now concerning those comments that were made at the interfaith prayer service. Let's go on now to number six, which was on January the 27th.

Donald Trump halted the U .S. Refugee Admissions Program, also called U .S. RAP, and he defunded U .S. Among the first executive orders that Donald Trump signed his very first day in office, he put an end to the U .S. Refugee Admissions Program effective January 27th and ended funding to the U .S. Agency for International Development.

Both of these orders exposed a lot of corruption, including among many religious pretenders. Let's start with the U .S. RAP story as part of Trump's efforts to tighten up borders and which would also include approving who gets into the country.

Trump issued stop work orders to resettlement agencies tasked with getting refugees into the U .S. This left tens of thousands of already vetted refugees overseas or in the U .S., preventing their resettlement and complicating access to education, health care and basic needs.

Six of the nine major U .S. resettlement agencies are faith-affiliated, including groups like the U .S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, U .S. CCB, Church World Service, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, Bethany Christian Services and World Relief.

These entities partnered with the government to provide essential services like housing, job placement and integration support for arriving refugees, which they believed they were doing in fulfillment of biblical imperatives like loving your neighbor and the sojourner among you.

Many faith leaders, especially among Roman Catholic priests and some of those other organizations that I just mentioned, they condemned the action as drastic and unchristian. But this work was not as clean or as well-intentioned as it might sound.

Along with halting U .S. RAP was the defunding of USAID. Now, contrary to what the name might imply, USAID is not a charity. It stands for the United States Agency for International Development. There are three government agencies used to spread our national interests abroad.

In short, it's these agencies that manage the American empire, for lack of a better expression. They are the State Department, the Defense Department and the intelligence agencies. In the middle of these agencies is USAID, which was started by President John F. Kennedy.

And again, that stands for Agency for International Development. It is not humanitarian work. And even the words international development are a smokescreen for many of the wicked leftist ideologies that are being pushed abroad or that were being pushed abroad through this program.

Here is just a sample of some of the things that USAID was funding that President Trump put a stop to. One and a half million dollars was advancing DEI in Serbia's workplaces, including LGBTQ empowerment initiatives.

$70 ,000 went to a DEI-focused musical in Ireland. $47 ,000 went toward a transgender-themed opera in Colombia. $32 ,000 went toward a transgender LGBTQ comic book in Peru. $25 ,000 went toward a drag show workshop in Ecuador.

$20 million was being used to develop and air a version of Sesame Street in Iraq. Millions of dollars went to Echo Health Alliance, which supported research of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, raising concerns over gain-of-function studies and the origin of the COVID pandemic.

Various grants went to promoting gender exclusivity in Indonesian coffee businesses. And various grants went toward expanding queer feminism in Albania. All of this coming from USAID. Here is The Daily Wire's Megan Basham, who's also been a guest on this program, talking with Ali Beth Stuckey about how this money was being mismanaged even among so-called faith-based groups.

Christianity Today has been very much on the front lines in both their editorial coverage and their news coverage. And what we've seen recently with this USAID revelation is that they have come out strong for their partner in the evangelical immigration table, World Relief, saying it's terrible that the Trump administration is shutting down this funding that goes to really good groups doing really good things for the least of these overseas.

And one thing I have been digging into for the last few days since this became a really hot topic of the news cycle is, OK, what is World Relief doing with this money? Because we are seeing these stories where people are saying, hey, it's terrible that they're shutting down aid to groups like this.

Again, we're talking about taxpayer money. And World Relief itself put out a statement saying how much they're grieving the shutting down of USAID and its money coming to them. And so I started looking at what are they doing?

And some things they're doing are fine, but some are pretty questionable. And one of those, for example, is they took in 2019, and it ran through 2024, $29 million from USAID for a program called SCOPE to encourage contraceptive use and morning after pills in countries like Malawi, Kenya, Haiti.

And when you look at the material that they're using on the ground there, it uses pretty surprising language for a Christian organization. It heavily talks about promoting reproductive health and family planning.

And, you know, I just I've got this on my phone because I wanted to read directly from.

It.

One of the things they do is that they push these village women in these countries to make a commitment at the end of, say, a training session to embrace some kind of family planning via birth control pills.

And they say that they're trying to overcome the local cultural and religious bias against this kind of family planning. Well, why is World Relief doing that? And even more importantly, why do they have this material promoting morning after pills, which we know has a secondary mechanism to prevent implantation when they're supposed to be a pro-life group?

Other faith-based groups that benefited from USAID included Christianity Today to push more Democrat ideas in churches. That's what they were using the money for. Megan Basham had talked about that as well.

Preston Sprinkle, who pushes a form of homosexual acceptance among Christians in many churches. The After Party, which pushed a Democrat agenda in churches and Revoice, another pro-homosexual faith-based group.

These were some of the quote unquote faith-based groups that were benefiting from USAID. And the Trump administration put a stop to it. Number seven was on January the 30th, and this was the Ordo Amoris debate or the Ordo Amoris, however you want to pronounce the Latin there.

On January the 30th, Vice President J .D. Vance did an interview with Sean Hannity of Fox News. And in this interview, Vance said the following.

Your compassion belongs first to your fellow citizens. It doesn't mean you hate people from outside of your own borders, but there's this old.

School.

And I think it's a very Christian concept, by the way, that you love your family and then you love your neighbor and then you love your community and then you love your fellow citizens in your own country.

And then after that, you can focus and prioritize the rest of the world. A lot of the far left has completely inverted that. They seem to hate the citizens of their own country and care more about people outside their own borders.

That is no way to run a society.

He went on from there to say that President Trump has prioritized America first, which doesn't mean you hate anyone else, he said, but it means you put the needs of your own citizens first. In his response, Vance appealed to natural affections first.

There's this old school idea, he said. Then he also said it's a very Christian concept. The latter part of that statement got more people in a tizzy than the first because now Vance hasn't just appealed to common sense.

He's appealed to the authority of Christ. This, of course, caused a firestorm of controversy. In theology, this is called the Ordo Amoris, Latin for order of affections or order of loves. This has been attributed to Augustine of Hippo, who presented this concept near the end of his famous work, City of God, written in the fifth century.

The idea is simple and basic, and everyone understands this, even if they wanted to argue against it. It's built into our nature. It's built into our very creeds. You think of the marine creed that goes God, core, country.

So God first, then the core, and then your country is third. Or maybe you've heard the acrostic JOY, which stands for Jesus, others, yourself. That's the order in which you put them. Again, we all understand this, but thanks to Vice President J .D. Vance, it became an international conversation for a few days.

I responded to this in a blog highlighting some of the comments that were made from all over the world and was actually my most read blog for the year. You can find it at PastorGabe .com. I'll put a link to the article in the description of this broadcast.

The War in Ukraine and Christian Solidarity

Number eight was on February the 28th, the ongoing war in Ukraine. Now, the war has obviously been going on since February of 22, but I chose February 28th of this past year as the date to be reminded that this war is still going on because that was the date that Ukrainian President Zelensky came to the White House and sat in the Oval Office with President Trump and Vice President Vance in what turned into a now famously heated exchange.

Vance accused Zelensky of not being grateful to the United States for the aid that it has received, and tensions just escalated from there. So far, the casualties in the war have been difficult to calculate, but estimates run between 300 ,000 and 500 ,000 total casualties between soldiers and civilians.

More Ukrainian citizens have died than Russian citizens, but more Russian soldiers have died than Ukrainian soldiers. According to a July report by The Economist, it is estimated that between 73 ,000 to 140 ,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed.

And later in October, The Economist estimated between 190 ,000 to 480 ,000 Russian soldiers have been killed. Pray for both Russians and Ukrainians, especially our fellow brothers and sisters in the Lord who have suffered through this conflict.

Not all Russians are guilty for Vladimir Putin, the leader of Russia, just like all Americans are not guilty for the million unborn children murdered by abortion each year in this country. Let us pray for one another, lifting each other up in love, and hoping also that the light of the gospel would be able to shine forth in the midst of these dark times.

Church Sex Abuse Scandals in 2025

Number nine. On March the 12th, Robert Morris was indicted on five counts of indecent acts with a child. And I've included other sex abuse scandals under this headline as well. Robert Morris was probably the biggest one of the year.

He's the founder and former senior pastor of Gateway Church, a large megachurch in the Dallas, Texas area. And his services were always broadcast on Trinity Broadcast. I think it was Trinity, either Trinity or Daystar that aired them.

This church also funded the founding of Trinity Church, which is Mark Driscoll's church in the Phoenix area. On March the 12th, Morris was indicted for child sex abuse, going back to an incident that began in 1982 in Oklahoma with a 12-year-old girl named Cindy Clemshire.

At the time, Morris was 21 years old and already married, and he continued this abuse for the next four or five years. Morris turned himself in on March the 17th and pled guilty the following October.

He will serve only six months in an Osage County, Oklahoma jail, followed by probation, registration as a sex offender, and he will be ordered to pay restitution. Now, there were many, many other stories of sex abuse that happened in even Christian churches all across the country in 2025.

I have tons and tons of these that are marked. When one would come up, I would mark it, and then I would put it in my folder that I would use for coming back to those big stories that happened in the course of the year.

Here are a few of some of those other stories, some of those other scandals that had taken place in different churches and religious institutions across the country. Tim Somers, a youth pastor at Stephen Furtick's Elevation Church, was fired after being accused of engaging in sexual misconduct with students.

Jeffrey Summers, a pastor of the church where President Jimmy Carter taught Bible study for decades, was arrested in a sting operation targeting child predators. Michael Howard faced 80 counts related to the alleged sexual abuse of a young teen boy.

Howard was the worship leader at Florence Baptist Church in Burlington, Kentucky, and he was part of the band True Song, which was a worship music group that serves as the resident artist band at the Ark Encounter.

He had been let go by answers in Genesis before they had become aware of this investigation against him. Will Johnson, a worship pastor in Michigan, pled guilty to hiding a camera in the bathroom at his church.

Jason Yates, former CEO of MyFaithVotes, pled guilty to possessing child abuse sex material. Stanley Jay, a pastor in Arizona, was charged with molesting a 16-year-old girl during counseling sessions following the death of the girl's brother.

Anthony Pinckney, a pastor in Pennsylvania, was arrested for threatening to rape and kill his wife. A pastor in Oklahoma was arrested for filming up a woman's skirt in a Hobby Lobby. A Virginia youth pastor, Jacob Barnett, pretended to be a teen on TikTok to solicit explicit images from a teen girl.

Las Vegas pastor Neil Creasy was arrested in a child sexual predator sting operation. A pastor in Ohio was charged with acts of public indecency. Jeffrey Williams Zabel, a Southern California worship pastor, was accused of possessing child abuse sex material.

Nathan Walker, a youth pastor in Houston, was charged with possession of CSAM. The stepson of the founder of Covenant Eyes was charged with possessing CSAM. And self-acclaimed apostle David E. Taylor of Kingdom of God Global Church in Detroit was arrested and charged with human trafficking and money laundering.

Archbishop Steve Wood of the Anglican Church of North America accused of sexual harassment. South Carolina youth pastor was sentenced to 20 years for possession of child sex abuse material. And this was not just men, but even among women.

A woman named Reagan Gray was charged with sexual assault of a 15-year-old youth group student where she was a leader in a Southern Baptist church in Arkansas. May God cleanse his church. Those who do this evil, that they would be rooted out, that they would be punished according to the law.

If you know of somebody who is guilty of such a thing, that they would be turned over to the local magistrate. As said in Romans chapter 13, that God has appointed the governing authorities to carry out justice on the wrongdoer.

He is the Lord's servant in these things. And may we also lift up in prayer these children or any others who had been abused by these sexual predators. May justice be done in this lifetime or in the next.