Compassion Kerfuffle

Plus, prediction markets, Anglican growth, Presbyterian split

EDITOR’S NOTE: “Signs and Wonders” is a column that shares thoughts on news items that either do not rise to the level of a news story for MinistryWatch or are slightly (even significantly) outside of our normal charity and philanthropy “beat.” My goal is to be punchy, opinionated, and not to worry much about being slightly off brand. If that is not for you, no hard feelings. But if it is…read on. 

Compassion International’s AI kerfuffle

The Roys Report published an article that would lead the reader to believe that Compassion International failed to act when they had evidence of 25,000 “suspected grooming cases.” But a close read of the article reveals more smoke than fire.

The article hangs on the word of a whistleblower, Andrew Vezey, a former Compassion employee. I have to admit that I found the article less than convincing. Maybe he is a courageous whistleblower. Maybe he is a disgruntled ex-employee.

I will also say that the evidence of any actual wrongdoing here (as opposed to possible wrongdoing) seems mighty thin. Vezey helped build an AI tool that used millions of pieces of correspondence to “train” the AI. It flagged 25,000 that were suspicious, but those “suspicions” were based on arbitrary criteria that may or may not be a predictor of grooming, such as sending email addresses. Correlation is not causality.

Asking for a picture of a child in a bikini is inappropriate, but did that letter actually get through to the child, or was it flagged using conventional methods? My understanding is that all letters were already reviewed by staff, and that such a letter would not have gotten through to the child.

I will admit that a child predator would want an email address, but so might others, and for innocent reasons. My wife Missy and I have sponsored Compassion children and one of the things that always frustrated me is the difficulty of forming any real relationship with the child, or of finding out what happened to the child years later. Did they go to college? Did they get married? We have no idea. I can think of a lot of reasons someone might send or ask for an email address that do not involve grooming.

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Gambling by another name

A hat tip to my friends and former colleagues at The Colson Center for Christian Worldview for consistently keeping a spotlight on the corrosive effects of sports gambling. Last week John Stonestreet and Tim Padgett published an article on prediction markets, which rightly called Kalshi and other similar schemes “gambling by a different name.” According to the article, “In the past few years, the platform has handled over $52 billion and carries a valuation of over $22 billion, more than many countries. Unlike traditional betting sites, the company takes between .07% and 7% of each trade. As they say, the house always wins.”

Anglican growth flattens

New data from the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) released this past week shows a 2.55% jump in churchwide Average Sunday Attendance in 2025 — an increase of 2,509 from 96,009 in 2024 to 98,514 in the most recent reporting year.

These new data mean the ACNA continues to buck denominational trends and show growth, though they also mean the growth has flattened a bit from the heady days early in the young denomination’s history.

According to Jeff Walton, writing for Juicy Ecumenism, “ACNA Executive Director Deborah Tepley announced in June at the denomination’s annual Provincial Council held at Cornerstone Church in Tulsa an attendance increase of 1,402 persons (1.5%) from 97,032 persons in 2024 to 98,434 in 2025. Numbers from that 2025 mission index have since been adjusted by a data analyst who corrected 2024 figures, revising them downward from 97,032 to 96,009, accounting for the greater%age attendance increase in 2025 compared to the initial announcement. The ACNA previously reported a 13.4%age increase for 2024.”

The “Split Ps” strike again

Presbyterians schism and reformulate so often that some of us who follow church dynamics call them the “Split Ps.” They are at it again, forming a new presbyterian denomination in Kansas City.

About 50 teaching and ruling elders gathered in Kansas City October 6-8 to launch a new denomination, the Westminster Churches of America (WCA).

According to the Aquila Report, “Preaching to the assembly, Bill Heming, pastor of Parkway Presbyterian Church in Tacoma, Wash., said he grieved over the theological errors of the [Evangelical Presbyterian Church] and called for Biblical and spiritual reform. The movement to start a new denomination was a response to the action taken by the EPC 46th General Assembly that opened the door to the ordination of celibate homosexuals.”

Twenty-two churches are committed to joining the WCA and 25 others have expressed serious interest, said Nate Atwood, senior pastor of St. Giles Presbyterian Church in Charlotte, N.C.

Evangelicals and “real” Catholics

My favorite data guy, Ryan Burge, did some more myth busting in the run-up to the election. The myth is that evangelicals and “Real Catholics,” those who are not merely “cultural catholics,” have a lot in common politically.

Burge’s conclusion: Not so much.

He found that evangelicals and Catholics, even Catholics who are weekly church attenders, tend to be pretty far apart on issues such as same sex marriage, abortion, and support for the two major political parties. Catholics skew much more liberal/progressive/Democratic and evangelicals skew conservative/Republican.

Burge’s conclusion:

Are Catholics conservative? Yes, certainly when compared to a group like the non-religious. Are they as conservative as evangelicals? The answer is unequivocal in this data: absolutely not. Even when we restrict our sample to the most engaged Catholics, they are still at least 10 points less conservative than their evangelical counterparts.

I know some people are going to read this and say, “That doesn’t match my experience — I’m a devout Catholic and all the people I know are too, and we are really conservative.” But this is another instance of where your world doesn’t equal the entire world. Our perspective is limited. Our experiences belong to us alone.

The data cut through that. And it tells us a consistent story: evangelicals are more conservative than Catholics no matter how you compare the two groups.

LGBTQ vibe shift among teens

According to a report from the Christian Broadcasting Network, “The number of teen girls identifying as lesbian or bisexual has plunged rapidly over the last four years.” The story cites new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and says “a whopping 30% of ninth-grade girls identified as lesbian or bisexual in 2021. By 2025, that figure had fallen to 17%. Those identifying as bisexual alone fell by half — from 26% to 13%.”

New on the podcast

If you are just discovering our podcast, welcome aboard. We now have more than 650 episodes for you to binge on. This week, we dropped an encore interview with Charlie Peacock, musician extraordinaire who now has a new novel out. I strongly recommend this conversation, which you can find here.