Viewing all items in Resource Category: Editorial

The Bishop of Leeds, Nick Baines, the Church of England’s Lead Bishop for Foreign Affairs, has welcomed the appointment of Rehman Chishti MP as the Prime Minister’s Special Envoy for Freedom of Religion or Belief, succeeding Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon. Bishop Nick said:  “Everyone has an inherent right to profess any faith or none, yet...

“I was travelling, and out early in the morning: at first there was a vast fog; but, by the time that I was seven or eight miles from home towards the coast, the sun broke out into a delicate warm day. We were then on a large heath or common, and I could discern, as...

By Paul Hattaway, SPCK, £10.99 ‘In one six-week period in November and December, more than 400 church buildings were bulldozed to the ground …’ Zhejiang, a prosperous eastern province, is home to the highest percentage of Christians in China. This volume describes how God established His kingdom there, using a one-legged Scotsman to bring the...

The number of female clergy in the Church of England continues to rise with more women than men entering training for ordained ministry for the second year running, according to recently published statistics. More women, 54%, than men began training for ordained ministry in 2018, for the second year running. Just under a third, or...

By Martin Saunders, SPCK, £9.99 What makes a man?  The answer used to be easy. You chopped wood, you wrestled bears, and never showed an ounce of emotion. Today, thankfully, we’ve started leaving some of those ill-fitting gender stereotypes behind. But what replaces them? How do you make sense of masculinity in a world of mixed...

The Himachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly has recently passed a bill to criminalise religious conversion in the northern Indian state. The Bill intends to extend a law that was introduced in 2006 which criminalised conversion by ‘fraud,’ ‘force’ and ‘inducement,’ by adding ‘coercion’ to its terms. Inducement has also been redefined under the new bill as...

Whether you’re scared of Brexit or the EU – everything is temporary, says Tim Farron. Former leader of the Liberal Democrats and Christian politician, Tim Farron, has reminded people to live for “something even better” as both Brexit and the EU “will be in ruins at some point in the not too distant future”. Tim...

Expectant The rector of a church had just made the happy announcement that a member of the congregation was with child.  Then he reminisced a bit: ‘As far as I know, there have been no pregnancies in this church for years – until I arrived!’ ** Apostolic An old lady went to church and heard...

Editor:  As saints don’t go away, we add to them each year rather than start afresh.  The saints with an asterisk appear on this site for the first time… 1          Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury – the Poor Man’s Earl 1          Remigius 1           Theresa of Lisieux 2          Your Guardian Angel 3          Hewald the Black...

Think of Piccadilly Circus, and that small statue of the angel poised with bow and arrow. Most people think it stands for Eros.  It does not. It stands for Anteros, his brother, the god of selfless love.  It is a memorial to the greatest Christian Victorian philanthropist, politician and social reformer of his generation –...

Theresa of Lisieux (1873-97) should be the patron saint of teenage girls and young women who want to make the most of their lives, despite being constrained by family and school or work. Theresa grew up in a strict, devout Roman Catholic middle-class family in France, one of four sisters.  Her father was a watch-maker. ...

If you’ve ever prayed for the ill children of non-Christian friends, then you are following in the steps of Remigius (d.533). Remigius was bishop of Reims late in the 5th century, and the king’s son was ill.  The queen, Clotild, was a Christian, but the king of the Franks, Clovis I, was not.  Then Remigius...