Viewing all items in Resource Category: Editorial

Editor:  Some people make the world a better place for hundreds of thousands of others. By Tim Lenton.   The prison reformer and philanthropist Elizabeth Fry died 175 years ago, on 12th October 1845.  She was widely admired during her lifetime and after, and was depicted on the British £5 note between 2001 and 2016....

By Pamela Johnson, Authentic, £9.99 At a time of ethnic cleansing and military dictatorship, being a Christian in predominantly Buddhist Myanmar brought huge risks and danger. Yet despite persecution, one family chose to use the weapon of love to combat evil. ‘Though I Run Through the Valley’ tells the incredible story of three generations of...

Editor:  A significant cultural milestone was passed 100 years ago this month. By Tim Lenton.   A century ago, on 7th October 1920, Oxford University allowed women to become full members and study for full degrees for the first time, and the first 100 women were admitted. Women had been attending lectures, taking examinations and...

Dairy cows have serious competition these days: a third of young people are now opting for vegan milk instead. Recent data from the global market research firm, Mintel, has found that 23 per cent of Britons now use plant-based milk. It has become most popular among the 16 to 24-year-olds. Many millennials have switched to...

The Church of England and Royal School of Church Music (RSCM) have been awaiting updated guidance on singing in places of worship after findings of a Government-backed study were published. The research project, known as ‘PERFORM’, recently published its findings on measuring aerosol production from humans.  It measured singing, speaking and breathing in a zero-background...

‘Happy is the man who doesn’t give in and do wrong when he is tempted, for afterwards he will get …his reward.’  James 1:12 Are you facing a temptation of some sort? It is easy to think of it as a bad thing. But it can become a stepping-stone rather than a stumbling block.  Just...

You may have missed it at the time. The movie ‘Contagion’ didn’t make much of an impact when it was released for public viewing in 2011. Perhaps it was thought to be unrealistic. It was about a highly contagious, unknown virus, transmitted by an infected bat to a pig in a Chinese marketplace. From there it spread like...

Editor:  Tim Lenton looks back on a horrific and unnecessary accident.   The Hatfield rail crash took place 20 years ago, on 17th October 2000. Four people were killed and more than 70 injured when a high-speed passenger train derailed because of a cracked rail. The crash was caused by metal fatigue and exposed major...

Covid-19 has even affected women’s make-up routines. In many cases, they simply haven’t bothered. The lack of demand for foundation, lipstick, eye makeup and hair-dye has been so great in recent months that 350 products have been pulled from supermarket shelves. Research from Edge by Ascential, the ecommerce consultancy, found that overall, there was a...

By Meg Warner, SPCK, £12.99 You may think you know the story of Joseph, but this book will make you think again! It invites you to think deeply about Joseph’s character and how he responds to the traumatic events that threaten to overwhelm him. Lacing her commentary with telling anecdotes from her own life story,...

Just a month after converting the famous Hagia Sophia into a functioning mosque, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced that another historic church has been turned into a place of Islamic worship. The historic Chora church, one of Istanbul’s most recognisable Byzantine buildings, was officially commissioned as a mosque in late August. The mediaeval church contains several 14th century...

Odran is a suitable saint to remember as Halloween approaches, for his story involves the spirit world. British by birth, Odran (died c. 563) was one of Columba’s first companions on Iona.  Sadly, he died not long after his arrival on the island.  But Columba found comfort, for in a vision he saw Odran’s soul...