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If you love languages, then Henry Martyn is the saint for you. Born in 1781, and schooled in Truro, he went on to St John’s College in Cambridge, where he proved a brilliant student. He planned on becoming a lawyer, but at Cambridge he met Charles Simeon, the Vicar of Holy Trinity Cambridge, and a...

Forty years ago, on 16th October 1984, the South African Anglican, Bishop Desmond Tutu won the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize for his role in the opposition to apartheid. Born into a Methodist family in Transvaal in 1931, Tutu first went into teaching, but after three years retired in protest at the deteriorating standard of black...

Disinformation and fake news have helped fuel the recent riots and disorder taking place across parts of the UK. It’s just the latest example of how social media can impact all of our lives. Media campaigning charity Full Fact declared “The disorder we’ve seen, triggered at least in part by false claims circulating on social...

Women are increasingly represented in church leadership across many denominations. Some have had women in leadership right from the start, like the Salvation Army, while the Roman Catholics and the Orthodox still have none. The Church of England ordained women in 1994, and since then their numbers have increased every year since 2000. The average...

António Guterres (United Nations Secretary-General) has said that we’re at ‘Code red for humanity: the alarm bells are deafening, and the evidence is irrefutable: greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel burning and deforestation are choking our planet and putting billions of people at immediate risk.’ At this Creationtide, how are we to respond to these...

Mark is the second of the synoptic gospels, along with Matthew and Luke. Traditionally this gospel is ascribed to John Mark, a close associate of Peter. It was written for Gentile readers, probably in Rome during Nero’s persecution of the church (c AD 64-7). Mark unveils Jesus’ public ministry with the words: ‘the beginning of...

Fifty years ago, on 9th October 1974, Oskar Schindler, Austria-Hungarian-born German businessman, died. He saved more than 1,100 Jews during the Holocaust by employing them in his factories. The story is told in the film Schindler’s List. At the time of his death, in Hildesheim, Germany, he was almost unknown and very poor. After the...

Take it seriously.  If it has gone on for a while, it may even be well worth paying your doctor a visit. The reason is that a recent study has found that on-going work-related stress can actually double your risk of a potentially deadly irregular heartbeat. Researchers discovered that having ‘job strain’ along with a...

Following Ofgem’s recent announcement that average energy bills are set to rise by 10% from this month (October), Christians Against Poverty’s Chief Executive Officer, Stewart McCulloch has voiced the charity’s concerns. Stewart McCulloch said: ​“Almost half our clients already face the devastating reality of not having enough to pay for their basic needs, including energy costs. “With the...

When you are out and about on the road far from home, ever feel tempted to pop in and explore an unfamiliar church?  If so, think of Donatus as your patron saint – and beware.  You don’t know what you may be letting yourself in for…. In 829 Donatus, an Irish monk, had completed a...

Do you know that in Kenya, many parents and caregivers struggle to provide their children with even one meal a day? As a response to the need, the Kisumu Children Trust has long been feeding as many desperately hungry children as it can in the Kisumu area of Kenya, where food is often scarce and...

Do you value your Bible?  If so, Felix of Thibiuca (247 – 303) is a good patron saint for you.  The year was 303, and Diocletian was emperor in Rome.  In February of that year he decided that Christians were NOT a good thing. So he issued an edict:  all copies of the Christian Scriptures...