culture watch
A comeback for good
Rebecca Chapman
Date posted: 6 Mar 2026
If you’re reeling from the shocking finale of The Night Manager, you might find some solace like I did in the Take That three-part documentary on Netflix.
In the first episode, we spend some time watching the five boys form their band and find themselves thrust into the limelight.
defending our faith
Ancient map decoded?
Chris Sinkinson
Date posted: 5 Mar 2026
I often use this column to write about references to the Biblical world from outside of the Bible. It helps to confirm the accuracy of the Bible to read a reference to a person, place or event from external contemporary sources. But there is no doubt that it is even more exciting to see pictures of Bible people or Bible places. One scholar believes he has identified an overlooked portrayal of Jerusalem from 2,700 years ago. First, let’s review a few well-known examples.
Considered the earliest map of the world, a Babylonian clay tablet held at the British Museum dates to 600 BC and shows the world as a disk with Babylon at the centre. The map includes the Euphrates River, distant regions and outer oceans. It also shows the locations of Assyria and Urartu (Ararat). The map indicates where the Babylonians thought that the ark had landed after the great flood of ancient history.
helping children find faith
What does Easter mean?
Ed Drew
Date posted: 4 Mar 2026
The cinema was quiet. Families were coming to terms with the death of the hero. But the story was not yet over. With a crash, the stone table, where the hero had been murdered, lay cracked in two. Never again could anyone be punished on it, for their own or anyone else’s betrayal. In the silence, the little voice at the back of the cinema whispered: “Dad, what does that mean?”
This is still the question we can keep answering as we show our children and young people their slain hero in the Easter story.
Church leaders: How are you, really?
Phil Sweeting
Date posted: 2 Mar 2026
A friend once told me about the great tree that used to dominate his back garden in Oxford. It was a magnificent thing - tall, full, the sort of tree children point out from a mile away. It had stood through summers of blistering heat and winters that lashed at it without mercy. Anyone looking on would have called it healthy. Solid. Unshakeable.
But one night the wind rose.
More young men in church, but where are the young women?
Nay Dawson
Date posted: 2 Mar 2026
Across the Western world, something surprising is happening. After decades of decline, church attendance among young men is rising. For the first time in modern history, men under 25 are more likely than women to attend church [1]. While this is a cause for celebration, it also raises an important question: Where are the young women?
The answer is not that young women are becoming less spiritual. On the contrary, many are deeply engaged in spiritual pursuits – just not in the ways or places the church has come to expect. Psychologist Sabina Brennan points to evidence that young women are particularly drawn to non-religious forms of spirituality, such as tarot, astrology, or manifesting. These practices are not spiritually neutral, and Scripture is clear that they do not lead to life. Still, if we hope to reach young women with the good news of Jesus, our response cannot begin with condemnation. It must begin with understanding the longings that drive their search.
What we say and how we say it...
Jasmine Creese
Date posted: 1 Mar 2026
Language keeps springing surprises on us. Although I know a fair bit about languages, I was still surprised to learn recently that Greek consists not simply of ancient and modern. There is a range and a hierarchy of ancient Greeks, with distinct differences between the Greek of the marketplace (Koine) the Greek used by poets such as Homer (Epic), and that used by thinkers such as Socrates (Attic).
Unsurprising, though, is that God uses Koine Greek – Koine literally means “common” – as the main language of the New Testament and not the Greek of the thinkers or the poets, of the highborn or the highly educated. God’s promise to Abraham is that all peoples will be blessed through Him (Gen.12v3). All peoples. In giving His Word to everyone, God reinforces the dignity of humankind that bears His image, overturning the human constructs of hierarchy, and demonstrating that no one is outside of his love and grace.
history
The courage of Perpetua
Michael Haykin
Date posted: 28 Feb 2026
In the year 201 the Roman Emperor, Septimius Severus, who had become the head of the empire in 197, issued an edict forbidding anyone to become a Jew or a Christian. The Roman governor in Carthage in North Africa, Publius Aelius Hilarianus, a man who was steeped in Roman idolatry and paganism, was eager to enforce the edict.
And so, immediately prior to some gladiatorial games celebrating the birthday of Septimius Severus’ son Geta, in March 203, he had a number of Christians arrested. Eventually six were put on trial: four men – Saturninus and Secundulus, who were slaves, Revocatus, and their teacher, Saturus – and two women – Felicitas (or Felicity) and Vibia Perpetua, a noble-born Roman matron who was 22 years old with a newborn son.
Begin with politics? No. Start with Jesus
Mike Hood
Date posted: 27 Feb 2026
There’s a new person at church. As you welcome them and get chatting you realise she’s actually new to Christianity altogether – she’s part of the growing wave of seekers looking for something more.
You’re full of excitement and gratitude to the Lord, until… “So can I just ask, what does this church believe about LGBTQ+ people?” Your stomach drops into your shoes. Why did she have to ask about that?
Lent and the case for fasting
James Cary
Date posted: 26 Feb 2026
Lent is here and now is a good time to consider fasting.
Forty days may seem excessive and unnecessary. But it’s hard to make an informed decision without understanding what fasting is.
Amy Orr-Ewing on forgiveness: ‘The old message in today’s moment’
Lydia Houghton
Date posted: 26 Feb 2026
en journalist Lydia Houghton interviews Christian author, speaker and theologian Amy Orr-Ewing, ahead of the release of her new book Forgiveness: Reclaiming Its Power in a Culture of Outrage and Fear.
FWS conference: 'The God who doesn't give up'
James Rollin
Date posted: 24 Feb 2026
Evangelical organisation Church Society's annual Fellowship of Word and Spirit (FWS) Conference is an event with plenty of time for genuine fellowship, friendship, spiritual encouragement, reflection and prayer.
Alongside engaging seminars, talks and Q&A sessions with speakers, there is space for resting from the frantic pace of ministry and time to enthusiastically worship God together in music and song.
The enduring power of conferences in a digital age
Lydia Houghton
Date posted: 23 Feb 2026
“I was watching footage of a music festival last night which was filmed back in 1995,” writes Phil Topham. “It was easily dated by the outfits people were wearing, but it was also clear what was missing – smartphones.”
It’s 2026. We live with digital abundance: YouTube sermons, theological podcasts, worship playlists, and more. With all the helpful, edifying, Christ-exalting content out there, why bother meeting together? Physically, I mean.
Learning from John Newton 300 years on
Adrian Warnock
Date posted: 18 Feb 2026
The headlines of the story are well-known.
A rebellious youth. Pressganged into the Royal Navy. Whipped after an attempted desertion. Swapped onto a ship on its way to pick up slaves. Enslaved, himself, in Africa. Rescued by a captain friend of his father’s only to almost die in a storm on the way home. So far from God that his fellow sailors thought that he, like Jonah, had brought the wrath of God down on them.
Pastor, you are not an island
Dan Steel
Date posted: 16 Feb 2026
The joke goes that Jesus' greatest miracle was being a man in His 30s with 12 (or possibly 11) close friends!
We live in a country where, famously, in 2018 a "loneliness" minister was appointed by the government as it recognised the danger of isolation in our world of "connections" but not real friendships.
imperfect parenting
Family meals – our most underrated weapon?
Katie Holloway
Date posted: 15 Feb 2026
As our eldest hits double figures, we’re tentatively considering secondary schools, which is why you’ll now find me on the school run quizzing all the parents I know with older kids about their school experiences. One such conversation led to me chatting with a Christian mum about the way faith issues are presented.
It was around the time of Charlie Kirk’s murder and this mum told me her daughter had come home saying they’d discussed his death in the classroom. That a teacher had presented Kirk as somebody who stood for something “not very nice”, but apparently hadn’t gone into details. Having not heard of him before, this teenage girl asked her parents about him. They explained that actually the man was a Christian, and much of what he stood for was Biblical.
culture watch
Waiting for the Out
Rebecca Chapman
Date posted: 13 Feb 2026
The start of 2026 has brought some cracking television already. With glossy big-hitters like The Traitors and The Night Manager returning to our screens, or the cultural phenomenon that was the finale of the sinister paranormal horror/coming-of-age series Stranger Things, it would be easier to miss some of the more genuinely unusual gems on television.
Waiting for the Out is one of these. The language at points might be strong, but it will make you laugh, make you cry, and certainly make you think. Waiting for the Out is a six-part BBC series (available on iPlayer) based on the memoir The Life Inside by Andy West, about his experience going from academia to teaching philosophy to prisoners, while the men in his own family had spent time behind bars.
subtle idols
Society is obsessed with control. Are you?
Graeme Shanks
Date posted: 12 Feb 2026
British writer Norman Douglas once famously observed that you can tell the ideals of a nation by its advertisements.
There’s a lot of truth in that when you think about it. Take Adidas' slogan, for example: "You Got This!"
Memorising Scripture as a tool for enjoyment
Jonty Allcock
Date posted: 12 Feb 2026
The Bank of England has deep underground vaults. They store gold bars that have an estimated worth of £200 billion. Squirrels store nuts. Humans store gold.
These are much the same. We stockpile what we consider to be of greatest value and discard what we consider to be worthless.
