Viewing all items in Resource Category: Editorial

The so-called Arab Spring started 10 years ago, in December 2010, when Tunisian street vendor Mohammed Bouazizi set himself on fire in protest at police seizing his vegetable stand over failure to obtain a permit. What was originally Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolution became a tsunami of demonstrations, protests, riots, coups, foreign interventions and civil wars throughout...

Did you know that it is a family in Wiltshire, the Parkers, who claim to own the world’s oldest artificial Christmas tree?  It was bought in 1886, and is still put up every year.

Jesus’ welcoming committee included Eastern scholars who learned about His birth through their study of astrology. I can’t help thinking that the arrival of these people at Bethlehem is a link between a very early form of science (albeit mixed in with their own form of religion) and Christian faith. What better way to discover...

Every year it happens. I hear Christians lamenting how ‘Christmas comes earlier every year.’ Since this September (or before!) supermarkets, shops and garden centres have been selling Christmas jumpers, socks and pyjamas and all kinds of other seasonal merchandise. Should we be annoyed or exasperated? Should we have gone around reminding people that it’s much...

By Tom Parsons, 10Publishing, £3.99 You will conceive and give birth to a son … And there were shepherds living out in the fields near by … You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” Luke’s opening chapters ring with the familiar well-loved lines that herald the warm solemnity of...

In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world… And everyone went to their own town to register. So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David.  (Luke 2 1-4) What a year we have had!...

In October I wrote about my addiction to cars. But how about the addiction to a busy life? Until a few years ago I ran a couple of imprints at a well-known publishing company, and feared I was slacking if I didn’t receive a hundred emails a day. I regularly attended events such as the...

No one is really sure, but a story is told of St Nicholas, a bishop who lived in the 4th century, who may have started the custom by accident.  St Nicholas was of a wealthy family, and of a generous heart.  As Christmas approached one year, he wanted to help a poor family whom he...

It was 40 years ago, on 8th December 1980, that John Lennon – rock musician, peace activist and a founder of the Beatles – was shot dead, aged 40, outside his New York City apartment by Mark Chapman, a deranged fan. Lennon is usually regarded as anti-Christian, but he denied being “anti-Christ or anti-religion”. Three...

By Asia Bibi, Authentic, £9.99 Here is the remarkable story of the woman who refused to renounce her faith and unwittingly became the global symbol of the fight against religious extremism. After drinking water from the same glass as a Muslim woman, Asia Bibi, a Christian, was sentenced to hang by the Islamic Republic of...

‘Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign: the virgin will conceive and give birth to a son and will call Him Immanuel.’ (Isaiah 7:14) This promise to King Ahaz in 8th century Judah is fulfilled in the coming of Jesus at the first Christmas: ‘God with Us’ (Matthew 1:23). Ahaz faced the military...

Did you know that the word ‘mistletoe’ means dung on a tree?  The Anglo-Saxons thought that mistletoe grew in trees where birds had left their droppings.  Mistel means dung, and tan means twig.