UK & Ireland

More than 350 people, including 150 youth and children, explored how science ‘convincingly aligns with a Biblical view of creation’ at the Christian Values in Education’s annual conference, organisers say.

Christian Values in Education, a charity that seeks to equip and encourage believers involved in education – parents, students, teachers, staff, governors – chose the theme ‘Foundations’ for its annual national conference, focusing on the importance of ‘the literal truth of Genesis for today’.

Elizabeth McQuoid

Date posted: 19 Nov 2024

Attenders at the Keswick Convention this summer were issued with a challenge. Donate just £3 to send 2 copies of Femi Adeleye’s new book, Does God Promise Me Health, Wealth and Happiness?, published by OPAL Trust, to believers in the Majority World (read more here).

The prosperity gospel is rife and Femi, Africa Director for Langham Preaching, wrote this book to help Christians navigate the confusion and disillusionment this false teaching causes. He explains why the prosperity gospel is not Biblical, how God’s desire for our prosperity is far bigger than material possessions, and that Christ calls us to contentment, gratitude and living generously.

Emily Pollok

Date posted: 18 Nov 2024

Two civil servants for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) are facing legal action over allegations of discrimination against transgender people.

A colleague of Andreas Meuller and Elspeth Drummer-Wrigley, who currently remains anonymous, thinks the pair should be reprimanded for their view that transgender people can’t change their sex, The Telegraph reported. Mueller and Drummer-Wrigley are co-chairs of the Sex Equality and Equity Network (SEEN), a department of Defra the claimant is now calling to be shut down.

Nicola Laver

Date posted: 16 Nov 2024

Dr Bernard Randall, the Church of England chaplain dismissed from his post at a CofE school after giving a sermon on accepted church teachings on sexuality, is taking further legal action, saying the church has ‘closed ranks to protect senior people’.

He is seeking a judicial review of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s decision not to allow disciplinary proceedings against the Bishop of Derby, Rt. Rev Libby Lane, who blacklisted him as a safeguarding risk. He has since been vindicated by various organisations, including the Teaching Regulation Agency and the Disclosure and Barring Service.

Nicola Laver

Date posted: 14 Nov 2024

Anyone who silently prays outside any abortion provider in England and Wales now faces criminal prosecution and an unlimited fine.

From 31 October – ‘a shameful day for our country’, anti-abortion campaigner Isabel Vaughan-Spruce said – every clinic and hospital carrying out abortions is now protected by a 150-metre ‘safe access zone’. The move, introduced under the Public Order Act 2023, criminalises anyone who intentionally or recklessly influences or obstructs someone accessing the clinic or causes them  harassment, alarm or distress.

Anna Price

Date posted: 13 Nov 2024

A church in Norfolk has ‘engaged directly with the forces of darkness’ at Halloween - to show the power of Christ.

At St Mary Magdalene Gorleston, Great Yarmouth, hundreds of queuing trick-or-treaters were challenged to enter a ‘battle zone’ to discover ‘Light on a Dark Night’. Around 400 of them climbed into the pitch black, smoke-filled church building and took on a series of battles against the darkness.

Evangelicals are reacting to the news that Justin Welby has resigned.

In an unprecedented move, the Archbishop of Canterbury submitted his resignation to the King following an increasing clamour in recent days for him to go after last week's publication of the Makin Review.

Jim Sayers

Date posted: 12 Nov 2024

'Brevity of brevities, all is brevity.’ This was Greg Gilbert’s take on the famous words of Ecclesiastes.

As the keynote speaker at the Grace Baptist Association Day in London this October, he took us through a more positive approach to life in Ecclesiastes, inviting young and old to see life as a gift from God on the way to eternity. Yes, life is brief, and easily slips away from us, but we are to live life to the full, and not treat God as a dry legalist but as a joy-giver. God hasn’t finished with us till He calls us home.

Victims of serial abuser John Smyth are speaking out in the wake of the publication of the Makin Report.

Smyth abused dozens of children and young men who he met at summer camps funded by the conservative evangelical Iwerne Trust in Dorset during the 1970s and 1980s. Readers should be aware that some of the details below are deeply distressing.

Rebecca Chapman

Date posted: 7 Nov 2024

The Makin review has finally been published - over six years since it was promised and 11 years since the Archbishop of Canterbury was told about the abuse.

What Keith Makin and his review team found during their investigations was truly horrific and readers should be aware that some of the details are deeply distressing. The eminent QC John Smyth, described by one victim as ‘a charismatic personality… the blue-eyed boy, he was Mary Whitehouse’s lawyer, he was in the public domain, everybody knew about him’ was arguably the most prolific serial abuser with links to the church, and accused of abusing as many as 130 boys across five decades in the UK and Africa. The review describes him as ‘a skilled and determined narcissist, who derived pleasure from the sufferings of others’ with abuse of some boys starting when they were as young as 13 years old.

Key findings of the Makin Report

The 'key findings' of the Makin Report (see news item here) are as follows and readers should be aware that some of the details are deeply distressing:

'John Smyth was an appalling abuser of children and young men. His abuse was prolific, brutal and horrific. His victims were subjected to traumatic physical, sexual, psychological and spiritual attacks. The impact of that abuse is impossible to overstate and has permanently marked the lives of his victims. John Smyth’s own family are victims of his abuse.

There is a spiritual hunger among true Christians for the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Surely this is as old as Pentecost, and a worldwide phenomenon. We see it in our Bible-centred churches, in the amazing output of Christian books, in the wealth of online preaching – and in the almost weekly conferences being held all over the UK.

Milla Ling-Davies

Date posted: 7 Nov 2024

An official report has described John Smyth, a barrister and close associate of Archbishop Justin Welby, as the Church of England’s ‘most prolific serial abuser.’

According to Channel 4 journalist Cathy Newman on X, the report accuses top church officials, including Welby, one of his predecessors and multiple Bishops, of failing to stop Smyth’s abuse of as many as 130 boys and young men across the UK, South Africa and Zimbabwe.