I have just been reading my church’s annual report for the AGM and I’m feeling just a little too pleased with myself. Our average Sunday attendance has risen steadily over the last few years. During 2022 it was 138; 2023 it was 153; during 2024 it was 170. Other churches have also experienced a bounce back after Covid, though most of them haven’t yet returned to pre-Covid levels. But my little glow of inner vicarly smugness is made utterly ridiculous by the story of Holy Week, the days running up to Easter.

This Easter weekend, it’s time for some Good News: Christianity’s decline in America has slowed and might soon turn an upward corner – just what America needs as we struggle with record rates of suicide and depression.

As a former agnostic who converted to Christianity in 2017, I find this an encouraging development, especially during a season when Christians celebrate resurrection and renewal. Science suggests that faith is a healing force, and that’s something Americans can use more of.

It was the darkest day the earth had ever seen.

Literally.

At noon, when the sun should have been at its highest, the sky went black. Not clouded. Not stormy. Black. Like the heavens themselves turned their back on what was happening at Skull Hill.

Colin Smith’s *Heaven, How I Got Here* ends where history paused—between two worlds.

One man—the thief—is no longer with us. Neither is the Man on the middle cross. Their lifeless bodies hung in silence as the crowds shuffled home, bloodstained and stunned.

The White House Faith Office hosted a special Easter dinner at the presidential mansion last night. It's just one of several events CBN News has reported on since the administration announced it's honoring the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ throughout Holy Week.
 
The White House is always busy with activity – activity that affects the events going on around the world. But this week has been special for different reasons.

When readers thumb through their Bibles for examples of courage, few consider flipping to the passage of the penitent thief on the cross (Luke 23:32–43). Whether in sermons or hospital rooms, his story has become a sort of byword for eleventh-hour repentance.

In contrast to his unrepentant companion, he’s seen as the poster boy for the deathbed conversion, the face of the last-minute participation prize: he is the anyone Christ can save. But what if the story of this man, whom tradition calls Saint Dismas, has more to teach us?

Palm Sunday marks the day Jesus entered Jerusalem and the beginning of the week of his passion, which, in the context of this article, refers to his suffering and death on the cross.

Oklahoma Superintendent Ryan Walters and the state's Department of Education have sued the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), claiming that the organization is conducting a "blatant attack on the religious freedoms and Christians of Oklahoma students."

"We won't stand idly by while atheists try to erase faith," Walters said in a statement.

When reached for comment, a spokesperson for Walters referred Newsweek to comments he made earlier this week in a press release and social media posts.

When President Trump launched the White House Faith Office, he fulfilled a promise on the campaign trail.  Some see the move as the president seeking to make America prayerful again. In choosing its leaders, he called on two people, Paula White-Cain and Jenny Korn, whom he has known for many years. 

When the president offered the opportunity, they both saw it as an offer they could not refuse. White-Cain, who serves as the senior adviser, explained it is an honor and a rare opportunity.

During his final Bible study before the government forced him to leave the United States, pastor Eduardo Martorano asked his congregants to take care of his library.

The Venezuelan man had accumulated a formidable book collection during seminary in Michigan and his early days in ministry. He called it “a treasure.” He had moved all that paper and ink across the country when Iglesia La Vid, a small Spanish-language congregation in Laredo, Texas, invited him to serve as its pastor in 2021.