Latest / The Gospel Briefing / Troops to Poland, A Hospital That Won't Reopen, COGIC Lawsuit — May 22, 2026
Transcript
- This is The Gospel Briefing. I'm Charles King. Today: five thousand American troops headed to Poland, and Europe isn't sure what to make of it. A rural hospital that never reopened, and a fifty-billion-dollar promise that may not reach it. And a Pentecostal denomination tangled in a lawsuit over two hundred million dollars in alleged fraud. Headlines... Heartbeat... Hope. Let's get into it. [TRANSITION] President Trump announced yesterday that the United States will send an additional five thousand troops to Poland. The announcement landed in European capitals with something between relief and whiplash. For weeks, this administration has been signaling the opposite — that America was pulling back its military footprint in Europe. Then this. Poland is glad. Germany is confused. Allies across NATO are once again trying to read tea leaves from Washington. Here's what I keep coming back to. Christians can — and do — disagree about American foreign policy. Some of you hear "more troops to Europe" and think deterrence. Some of you hear it and think entanglement. Scripture doesn't hand us a position paper on NATO. But Scripture does hand us something else. Proverbs 21:1 says, "The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever he will." That verse is not a political endorsement. It's a steadying hand on the shoulder. Presidents pivot. Policies shift. Allies get nervous. And the God who rules over Caesar in Rome rules over the Oval Office today. You can take the news seriously without taking it ultimately. That's the posture. [TRANSITION] Story two takes us to Martin County, North Carolina. Their only hospital closed in 2023. For three years, neighbors have been organizing, fundraising, pleading — trying to reopen it. When you have a heart attack in Martin County right now, the nearest emergency room is forty minutes away. This week, NPR reported on a fifty-billion-dollar rural health fund Republicans passed as part of the broader budget package. The promise was that money like this would rescue communities like Martin County. It probably won't. The fund's structure favors existing facilities, not shuttered ones. One local resident, talking about a neighbor who died waiting for care, said this: "We'll never know if he could have been saved." Let that sit for a moment. There's a tendency in our politics to treat rural America as a talking point. A demographic. A voting bloc. But these are real towns with real grandmothers and real farmers and real kids who need stitches at two in the morning. James 1:27 defines pure religion as visiting orphans and widows in their affliction. Notice the verb. Visiting. Showing up. Proximity. The early church didn't outsource compassion to a federal line item — though they were grateful when help came. They went. Whatever you think about the politics of rural healthcare funding, here's what's true. There is almost certainly an under-resourced community within driving distance of where you're listening right now. And Christ is already at work there. The question is whether His people are. [TRANSITION] Story three is hard, and it involves the church. Pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly has filed a sixty-six-page civil lawsuit against four leaders in the Church of God in Christ — known as COGIC — one of the largest historically Black Pentecostal denominations in the country. The allegation: that these leaders helped facilitate a fraudulent drug rebate scheme that cost Eli Lilly more than two hundred million dollars. According to the suit, the operation ran under the cover of ministry-related entities. Now — these are allegations. A civil complaint is not a verdict. The accused deserve due process. And the vast majority of COGIC pastors and members had nothing to do with any of this and are grieving today. But the story still hurts. Because every time a headline reads "church leaders" and "fraud" in the same sentence, something gets harder for the gospel in this country. Watching neighbors hear "church" and reach for their wallet to make sure it's still there. First Peter 4:17 says, "It is time for judgment to begin at the household of God." That verse used to scare me. It doesn't anymore. Because what Peter is saying is that God loves His church too much to let her rot quietly. When sin is exposed in the household of God — even painfully, even publicly — that is not the failure of the gospel. That is the gospel doing its work. Pray for COGIC this weekend. Pray for the truth to come out, whatever it is. And pray for a watching world that desperately needs to see a church that handles her own sin with honesty. [TRANSITION] Now to your quick briefs. Senate Republicans called off a vote yesterday on a war powers resolution concerning Iran. They didn't have the numbers to dismiss it, and they didn't want to lose it. The vote is pushed to June. Ecclesiastes says there is a time for war and a time for peace. Christians should want their leaders to take both with the seriousness Scripture demands. In Canada, the province of Alberta will hold a referendum next October on whether to begin a process toward independence. Political fractures are not new — even ancient Israel split into two kingdoms. National unity is a gift, not a guarantee. The Democratic National Committee released what it's calling an autopsy of the 2024 presidential election — an internal review of what went wrong. Honest self-examination is rare in politics. Lamentations 3:40 says, "Let us test and examine our ways, and return to the Lord." A good word for any party. And any heart. And Stephen Colbert wrapped his run on The Late Show last night, with Paul McCartney, Elvis Costello, and a literal wormhole. An era of late-night television ended. Every cultural moment eventually does. Only one Kingdom doesn't. [TRANSITION] In a moment you'll hear today's verse. What you do with it after — that's where Bible Copilot comes in. It's an inductive Bible study app — open any verse, ask anything about it, and it walks you through it: observe, interpret, apply. One rule: Scripture interprets Scripture. No outside commentary. No agenda. Free — no ads, no account, no data collection. Pro is five dollars a month for unlimited studies and guided reading plans. Search "Bible Copilot" in the App Store. Link's in the show notes. Today's verse is Psalm 46:10. "Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth." Troop movements in Poland. Hospitals that won't reopen. Lawsuits inside the church. Provinces voting to leave their country. A lot of motion today. A lot of uncertainty. But the God of Psalm 46 is not pacing. He is seated. And He will be exalted — among the nations, in the earth, in Martin County, in Warsaw, in your own anxious heart this Friday afternoon. Thanks for listening to The Gospel Briefing. If today helped you, share it with one person who's feeling the weight of the news this week. They need this verse too. The world is loud. God is not nervous. I'll see you Monday.