by Madeleine Davies, Church Times: AT the Lambeth Conference this year, bishops will “draw a line under some of the inward-looking approach of the past”, the Archbishop of Canterbury predicted this week at the close of the Primates’ Meeting in Jordan.Primates praised the “mature” and “grown-up” discussions at this week’s meeting. Primates from 33 of […]

from Premier: The number of Christians at risk of persecution across the globe has risen by 15 million in the past year according to a religious freedom charity. Open Doors has released its annual World Watch List, which assesses the scale of persecution faced by Christians across the world and ranks the top 50 countries […]

by Ian Paul, Psephizo: I have been contributing to the Church’s Renewal and Reform stream on developing lay leadership, and one of the questions that has come up is: ‘What does the Church of England actually believe about the laity and lay leadership?’ I am not referring here to what some have called ‘ecclesial lay […]

By Andrew Symes, Anglican Mainstream: Evangelicals share the same core theological beliefs, often expressed in a Confession or Basis of Faith statement (eg here). But evangelicals have historically been divided on a number of issues. In the past, these included: whether evangelistic speakers should call listeners to publicly indicate a decision for Christ; whether genuine believers […]

from SPUC: Pro-abortion campaigners appear alarmed at the recent rise of pro-life university groups across the United Kingdom. Student led group and SPUC collaborator, the Alliance of Pro-life Students (APS) which “encourage a culture of life by inspiring and equipping students to bring the culture of life into universities” have recently been assisting pro-life university […]

by James Bradshaw, MercatorNet: Shortly before Christmas, The Economist, the world’s leading news magazine, published an article titled ‘The liberalisation of Ireland,’ with the subheading ‘How Ireland stopped being one of the most devout, socially conservative places in Europe.’ This has been a familiar discussion both at home and abroad, particularly after the landslide vote […]

by Martin Barrett Davie: What Dominion is about. Tom Holland is an award-winning historian, author and broadcaster who has written extensively about the ancient world and the early Middle Ages. His most recent and highly acclaimed book Dominion – The Making of the Western Mind is much broader in scope in that it traces the […]

by Jeffrey Walton, Juicy Ecumenism: A diverse group of United Methodists has negotiated and released a proposed protocol to divide the denomination. This potentially concludes decades of internal conflict centered upon marriage and human sexual expression. IRD President Mark Tooley has a write-up of the proposal that can be viewed here. In evaluating the separation […]

by Michael Nazir-Ali, Conservative Home: Following the convincing Conservative victory in December’s general election, there has been a veritable flood of prescriptions about what the new government must do.These have ranged from reforming the inherent left-wing and libertarian bias in many institutions, quangos and ‘at a distance bodies’, funded by the State, to a radical […]

From Core Issues Trust: The International Federation for Therapeutic and Counselling Choice has responded to the call for input from the UN Council for Human Rights, which is reviewing its position on “conversion therapy”. Using detailed research, the document requests the office of the U.N. Independent Expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on […]