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Mildred Cable once observed: 'The year 1900 holds the same significance as does the Flood in Old Testament chronology. All China mission history dates before or after 1900.'

Missions in China had been going for six decades of the 19th century when the Boxer Rising took place. There were 85,000 Chinese Christians in some 60 Protestant societies, and church buildings and institutions were just beginning to reach a fraction of the population.

'With the near approach of the year one thousand,' Charles Williams wrote in The Descent of the Dove, 'Christendom everywhere expected the end. It did not come. The first millennium . . . closed and the second opened with no greater terror than the ordinary robberies, murders, rapes, burnings, wars, massacres and plagues, and the even less noticeable agonies of each man's ordinary life.'

In the year 1000, an important part of ordinary life in Europe was the Christian church. With the 'conversion' of Constantine in the early 4th century, the persecuted church had become the tolerated church and then, before long, the official religion of the Roman Empire. The invasions of the 'barbarians' from the north and east introduced chaos in the empire but extended Christianity through the conversion of the European tribes, and the 'centre' of the church shifted for the third time - from the Jewish Christian world of the eastern Mediterranean, to the Greco-Roman world of Rome, to the converted tribes of northern and central Europe.

The name of Dixon E. Hoste is not well-known today. But there are three reasons why he deserves to be better remembered.

The first is that he was the second General Director of the China Inland Mission, the chosen successor of Hudson Taylor.

It is with great sadness that we report that Dr. Roy Clements, who resigned some months ago as minister of Eden Chapel, Cambridge, is now separated from his wife.

He had told her that he had a celibate relationship with a younger man who has acted as a research assistant for him. A very few close friends had been aware for a little while that Roy had struggled with homosexual attraction over a number of years.

Unlike the question of Jesus to Martha (John 11.26), I was never asked: 'What do you believe?' until I reached my early 30s.

It may seem an extraordinary story, but I am not extraordinary. If this leads to others moving forward in their faith, then God be praised.

David Baker

Date posted: 1 Oct 1999

Is Vaughan Roberts a theological liberal? Certainly some may have been tempted to ask the question after he wrote an article in a theological magazine critical of the UCCF basis of faith. Then there is the fact that his views were slated by noted American evangelical Don Carson in his book The Gagging of God.

Just as well then, that Evangelicals Now sent me to interview the other Vaughan Roberts. For there are two people called the Rev. Vaughan Roberts, both clergymen, but with somewhat differing theology.

There are few more significant challenges facing the church and churches of our day than that of pursuing meaningful unity.

The fact that Jesus prays for a unity which can be witnessed by a watching world in such a way as to endorse the credibility of the gospel (John 17.20-23) and the fact that Paul uses a verb which can be translated 'spare no effort' to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace (Ephesians 4.3), both point to a Christian responsibility which too many Christians too easily shirk.

France is traditionally a Roman Catholic country. At the end of the 20th century, religion has been marginalised. People are turning away from Catholicism by the score, but what are they looking for?

In today's France, materialism is much in evidence. At all levels of society, people want to move up and have more. However, it has fostered frustration and emptiness and also guilt. The poor are left on the outside. So on the French TV news, the plight of the homeless always figures during the winter months. But apart from that, compassion is by proxy.

Scattered through the articles in The Times were nearly 20 web sites for those with computers and modems to find and download further information.

On television, a campaign is running to push the use of the web, and even my cereal packet boasts its own cryptic address of slashes and letters. The web is spreading so fast that - for once - the word 'explosion' is not hyperbole.

What are we waiting for?

Luis Palau, international evangelist from Argentina, was speaking at a series of mission meetings in north-west England in May. EN caught up with him, and heard some scorching comments on the lack of urgency in the British church.

EN: You have been visiting Britain since the 1970s and you are just starting another mission. What do you think of the state of the church?

Speaking at this year's Word Alive (Spring Harvest), at Weymouth, Roy Clements challenged the church to rethink its policy on choosing leaders.

In his address Roy said: 'God is looking for people who have learnt the crucial lesson of humility.' And he went on to warn those who seek leadership: 'Beware of selfish ambition.'