Degrees in philosophy and religious studies are to be “phased out” at the University of Kent, it was announced last week.

Courses in anthropology, art history, health and social care, journalism, music, and audio technology are also to be dropped, in part because the university believes that it can no longer compete in these specialisms, but more generally because of recent “financial challenges including the fixed tuition fee, rising costs, and changes in student behaviour”.

The changes are part of its Kent 2030 plan, “which brings together a range of improvements based on suggestions from our students”, a press release circulated last week says. Students on the courses to be phased out will be taught and supervised until the end of their degrees.

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Degrees in philosophy and religious studies are to be “phased out” at the University of Kent, it was announced last week https://t.co/pHmnywcy8G

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) March 28, 2024

As perhaps the ultimate job with purpose, careers in the church are enjoying a second coming.

In a world of zero-hours contracts and corporate greed, doing God’s work is an increasingly attractive option for those seeking a meaningful role making a difference to communities locally and worldwide. Two factors have combined to resurrect interest in church employment.

Firstly, ageing congregations and the rapid rise in female employment means there are fewer volunteers to take on local roles. A recent study suggested the average age of the church’s worshipping community was 61, but many congregations’ members are still in employment and unable to volunteer….

Secondly, modernising moves such as the Church of England’s £30 million net-zero carbon programme and diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives have aligned the church to corporate workplaces, making it simpler for those with transferable skills to make the move into ministry.

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'ageing congregations & the rapid rise in female employment means there are fewer volunteers to take on local roles

…With one in five churches missing people in key positions, some parishes are moving certain roles… to paid support staff'@thetimes https://t.co/x9dldFTerM

— Rebecca (Bex) Chapman (@bexchapman3boys) March 22, 2024

Pastors of Hispanic Protestant churches in the United States maintain immense gratitude for their role, but many face financial struggles. Their congregations reflect diverse worship styles, but they have a unified desire to reach and serve their communities.

Lifeway Research partnered with numerous denominations and church networks to survey Hispanic Protestant pastors in the United States for a study sponsored by Lifeway Recursos, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Samaritan’s Purse. This study follows a Lifeway Research study of U.S. Hispanic Protestant pastors last year focused on the congregations and their evangelistic outreach.

“The response from pastors and leaders about the first study we did last year was overwhelming,” said Giancarlo Montemayor, director of global publishing for Lifeway Recursos. “The goal with this second study is to dig deeper into some of the nuances of the Hispanic church in the U.S., such as worship and outreach. We also wanted to pay close attention to the particular needs of the pastors serving in these communities who often struggle with cultural and political issues that are not present in an English-speaking church.”

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More than 20 denominations and networks invited pastors of Hispanic congregations in the U.S. to participate in a survey describing their ministries https://t.co/v3TaHPRWcC

— Scott McConnell (@smcconn) March 20, 2024

The tendency to downplay the value of toddler groups has been challenged in a new booklet that highlights the vital part that they play in preparing children for school.

The booklet, It’s not ‘just’ a parent and toddler group, has been compiled by a number of organisations brought together by Dave King, the strategic director for Gather Movement, an organisation that works with churches seeking to transform communities. The group including Kids Matter, Daniel’s Den, Care for the Family, 1277, 5 Minus, and Love and Joy Ministries.

It encourages those running groups to stop prefacing references to their work with “just” (“I’m just putting out some toys”), and sets out 12 aspects of school-readiness to which the groups can contribute.

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Really enjoyed looking at a new booklet, "It’s not ‘just’ a parent and toddler group", about how they can contribute to school-readiness, & a chat with Jo Gordon of @DanielsDenUK. "The primary thing of a toddler group is that unconditional welcome to all" https://t.co/Gq1Wvx9xnE

— Madeleine Davies (@MadsDavies) March 19, 2024

Increasing the number of stipendiary priests in the diocese of Truro is the “top operational priority”, the Acting Bishop of Truro, the Rt Revd Hugh Nelson, who is the Bishop of St Germans, said this week.

His comments followed claims by the campaign group Save the Parish Cornwall (STP) that the number of stipendiary priests in the diocese had fallen to 38, and that there were 19 vacancies to be filled. The group says that the diocese is “struggling to recruit new priests to undertake the unrealistic roles proposed by the restructuring plans — in particular ‘oversight ministers’ . . . in giant benefices”.

A diocesan spokeswoman said this week that there were 58 stipendiary clergy in post at the end of last month, including incumbent-status clergy, assistant curates, and archdeacons. In addition, eight new appointments had been made in the past three months. The plan was to increase the number of stipendiary clergy to about 85, “dependent on clergy being attracted to our posts”.

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Increasing the number of stipendiary priests in the diocese of Truro is the “top operational priority”, the Acting Bishop of Truro, the Rt Revd Hugh Nelson, who is the Bishop of St Germans, said this week https://t.co/Xg8Zz5KOH7

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) March 15, 2024

The Government’s new definition of extremism is likely to “vilify the wrong people” by threatening freedom of speech and the right to peaceful protest, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York have warned.

In a joint statement published on Tuesday afternoon, Archbishops Welby and Cottrell said that the plan also “risks disproportionately targeting Muslim communities, who are already experiencing rising levels of hate and abuse”.

Their statement pre-empts an announcement, expected on Thursday, in which the Communities Secretary, Michael Gove, plans to broaden the official definition of extremism to include individuals and groups who “undermine the UK’s system of liberal democracy” — and ban them from public life.

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The Government’s new definition of extremism is likely to “vilify the wrong people” by threatening freedom of speech and the right to peaceful protest, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York have warned https://t.co/T87MOTD9eg

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) March 12, 2024

The Church of England in Lancashire has achieved an important milestone in developing its environmental credentials.

The Diocese of Blackburn has been awarded the Bronze status of the national A Rocha Eco Church programme, which encourages churches, schools and dioceses throughout the UK to take practical action in ‘caring for God’s Creation’.

The collective award follows individual bronze awards for Blackburn Cathedral; the Diocesan Offices in Blackburn and the Centre for Christian Discipleship and Prayer at Whalley Abbey, along with 15 parishes in their own right across Lancashire. A further three churches in the Diocese have already achieved silver status; while another 36 have registered and are working towards their bronze status.

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Congratulations to @cofelancs on their Bronze Eco Diocese! #Ecochurchhttps://t.co/pECAWKNI6y

— Church of England Environment Programme (@CofEEnvironment) March 11, 2024

Some, who mistakenly view the Church of England as a unified, coherent body – may therefore delight in the shrinking congregations and generally low morale that defines it nowadays. I delight in none of these things, because I love the CofE.

Look more closely though, and you’ll realise that there is not one Church of England – but two. There’s the Reverend Dr Jekyll, the one who performs invaluable work on the ground; burying the dead, visiting the sick, educating more than a quarter of our nation’s schoolchildren to a much higher standard than the state normally achieves.

This Church manages the food banks, playgroups, dementia cafés and loneliness workshops. It does its best to protect some of the most valuable parts of our nation’s physical and cultural heritage. Its parish priests do this for little money; its thousands of volunteers do it for none at all.

Then there is the other Church of England – the Reverend Mr Hyde. This is a church of unaccountable committees and upward failure, resulting in perhaps the least impressive bench of bishops since Pope Gregory first observed “non angli, sed angeli”. Members of this caste speak in identikit managerial jargon, which from an institution that has provided some of the most beautiful cadences and turns of phrase in the English language is depressing.

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Several points expressed well. And they won’t stop. It’s like the control room at Chernobyl – total meltdown.

The Church leadership is destroying the CoE I love https://t.co/VUVRNZ06Te

— Tom Sander 🚴 (@RevThomasSander) March 6, 2024

I want to make a threefold response to what Bell says in these two paragraphs.

First, creating a new provincial structure for the Church of England to provide for the differing positions of conservatives and liberals is not a ‘fundamental threat’ to the Church of England’s ecclesiology.

What CEEC is asking for is internal differentiation within the Church of England by means of a re-configuration of the Church’s current provincial system. This could take the form of a new province for conservatives alongside Canterbury and York, a new province for liberals alongside Canterbury and York or a re-working of the two existing provinces to cover the whole country with conservatives in Canterbury and liberals in York. [1]

The key point to note about this proposal is that it is in line with the existing ecclesiology of the Church of England. The Church of England has historically consisted, and continues to consist, as a combination  of two separate provinces, each their own Archbishop (both of whom have metropolitical authority within their own province and neither of whom is subject to the other), and each having its own provincial synodical structure consisting of a provincial Convocation made up of the two Houses of Bishops and Clergy, and an attendant House of Laity.  A meeting of the General Synod is simply a joint meeting of these two provincial synods, and the two Convocations retain the power both to veto legislation proposed in the General Synod and to make provision for matters relating to their province (see Canon H.1 and Article 7 of the Constitution of General Synod).

Adding another province into the mix, or reconfiguring the two existing provinces, would not alter this ecclesiological structure in any fundamental way.[2] What it would mean is that the two (or three)  provinces of the Church of England could continue to meet together in General Synod to debate and legislate on matters of common concern, while their provincial synods could legislate to either maintain or change the Church of England’s current teaching and practice with regard to marriage and human sexuality, thus allowing both conservatives and liberals to have what they are looking for  within their own province or provinces.

Each province would hold that the other province or provinces is (or are) part of the Catholic Church and the Church of England, and there would be transferability of ministry without re-ordination between them subject to a minister being prepared to accept the doctrine and discipline of the province to which he or she was transferring.

The Church of England could thus stay together, but in a way which respected the conscientious convictions of both sides and would prevent the Church of England breaking apart entirely.

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Martin Davie–A response to Meg Warner ‘Does the Bible really say … that sex outside marriage is wrong? https://t.co/tYzlpsnfpt #christianity #sexualethics #marriage #bible #anglican #anthropology pic.twitter.com/qdQI0oGk5j

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) May 30, 2019

In a statement, the Roman Catholic lead bishop for life issues, the Rt Revd John Sherrington, an auxiliary bishop in the archdiocese of Westminster, welcomed the committee’s decision “not to recommend the legalisation of assisted suicide”.

He continued: “As highlighted in the Committee’s report, experts have noted that there have been major problems in safeguarding the vulnerable and those without full mental capacity when assisted suicide and/or euthanasia has been introduced in other jurisdictions.

“Recognising the distress and suffering of those who are sick and vulnerable, I welcome the Committee’s recommendation that the accessibility and provision of palliative and end of life care needs to be improved — something the Catholic Church has consistently called for.”

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The Bishop of London @bishopSarahM has welcomed a report by MPs which calls for palliative and end-of-life care to be made more widely available https://t.co/5liE9iClCh

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) March 1, 2024

The figures for the persecution of Christians in Nigeria have reached unprecedented heights.

The organisation Open Doors reports 4,565 murders in 2023 alone, covering practically all of the 4,998 people who were killed worldwide for their faith in Christ last year. However, are “the absolute lowest of what could happen”, they said.

Now, the International Society for Liberties and Rule of Law (known as Intersociety) states that the number of Christians killed in Nigeria in 2023 exceeds 8,000.

“The combined forces of the government protected Islamic Jihadists and the country’s Security Forces are directly and vicariously accountable for hacking to death of no fewer than 8,222 defenseless Christians, from January 2023 to January 2024”, says the report of the entity based in Onitsha, Eastern Nigeria.

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Nigeria: “There is an effort of the jihad and the Fulani to scare Christians out of their land and stop gospel preaching” https://t.co/iMhK1RKOIM

— വൈശാഖ് (@yshaq) March 1, 2024

The General Synod has renewed its call for a just peace in Ukraine, after a debate to mark the second anniversary of Russia’s invasion, which fell on Saturday.

The motion, which was carried almost unanimously on Tuesday at the end of a five-day meeting in Westminster, referred to the “ongoing suffering and terror” experienced by Ukrainians two years into the war, and called on churches and politicians to work for an end to the conflict and a restoration of the international order.

During the debate, the motion was amended to include a further call to UK politicians to “affirm their continued support for Ukraine until such time as a just and lasting peace is secured”.

First to speak was the Archbishop of Canterbury, recently returned from his second visit to Ukraine (News, 23 February). He had also spoken, directly but remotely, with Patriarch Kirill. “But I am not neutral on this,” he said. “Ukraine is paying for our security with blood.”

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Ukraine is paying for our security in blood, Archbishop Welby tells Synod https://t.co/vz6s408Ovc

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) February 29, 2024

Nick Skytland likes to ask pastors a question.

“Have you ever considered that the biggest mission field in the world is nowhere in the physical world?” he will say.

“It’s actually the digital world.”

Usually when he asks that, the NASA chief technologist, whose day job is focused on getting astronauts back to the moon, just gets blank stares.

For a few days in October, though, Skytland was surrounded by people who do know the scope and scale of the digital world. And if they didn’t respond to him, it was because they were busy working with artificial intelligence programs to develop real-life solutions to take faith to the digital mission field.

About 200 people gathered at the tech company Gloo’s headquarters in Boulder, Colorado, for the first-ever “AI and the Church” hackathon. Gloo, which is dedicated to connecting and equipping the faith community, invited 41 teams to compete for $250,000 in prizes and $750,000 in additional funding. Skytland and a NASA colleague, Ali Llewellyn, cohosted the event.

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To me adventure is really closely tied with exploration – Nick Skytland #tedxmanitoba pic.twitter.com/kFa3KbvMrF

— TEDxWinnipeg (@TEDxWinnipeg) June 12, 2014

After losing at the appellate level, state officials turned to the U.S. Supreme Court. They asked the justices to consider the dismissals and determine whether they amounted to religious discrimination.

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court declined to get involved, but Justice Samuel Alito published a statement emphasizing the importance of the issues involved.

Whether jurors can be dismissed based on their religious beliefs about sexuality is a “very serious and important question,” he wrote, one that he anticipated when the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage.

“In this case, the court below reasoned that a person who still holds traditional religious views on questions of sexual morality is presumptively unfit to serve on a jury in a case involving a party who is a lesbian. That holding exemplifies the danger that I anticipated in Obergefell v. Hodges, namely, that Americans who do not hide their adherence to traditional religious beliefs about homosexual conduct will be ‘labeled as bigots and treated as such’ by the government,” Alito said.

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The Supreme Court won’t yet consider whether potential jurors can be dismissed based on their religious beliefs. | By @kelsey_dallas https://t.co/8yVvoH8BE8

— Deseret News (@Deseret) February 28, 2024

The data published by a report published by the Evangelical Alliance in Northern Ireland has “surprised” even those who were aware of the strong presence of Christianity in the region.

The survey, conducted by polling agency Savanta ComRes in spring 2023, shows that 50% of people in Northern Ireland identify themselves as “practising Christians”. 17% of the surveyed said they had no religion, and another 31.3% identified as a non-practising Christian.

The study revealed that “23% go to church each week”, 35% pray on a weekly basis and 13% “personally read the Bible”.

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A new survey shows that younger Christians are more committed to their faith. Experts are “surprised at high rates of religious practice” as 65% say faith has a role in general society. https://t.co/yiRLcTrghT

— Evangelical Focus (@Evan_Focus) February 27, 2024

Againat a background of running costs of £30,000 a day, and an income down by £1 million a year since the pandemic, the Dean of Canterbury, the Very Revd David Monteith, has defended the decision to hold silent discos this month.

Dean Monteith also suggested that there was a “gentle evangelistic dimension” to such events….

A 1990s silent disco was held in the cathedral for two nights this month, eliciting criticism from some quarters after footage was shared online. An online petition (“Anglican Deans, stop turning our great cathedrals into nightclubs”) has collected more than 2600 signatures. It was organised by a Roman Catholic layman, Dr Cajetan Skowronski.

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I looked at the scale of the financial challenge facing cathedrals, as highlighted by @liturgicalben in a recent article.

‘Our commercial activities utterly subsidise our worship.’https://t.co/eo1NXJ0fj9

— Madeleine Davies (@MadsDavies) February 26, 2024

Since we celebrated Presidents’ Day recently, I thought it might be interesting to reflect on the faith of the first six men who held that office.

Most of them were believers in Jesus and were not ashamed to say so. Several of these instances are not politically correct, but they are historically accurate.

In 1779, ten years before he became the first president under the Constitution, George Washington was asked by Delaware Indian chiefs for advice on the education of three of their sons.

Washington told them, “You do well to wish to learn our arts and ways of life, and above all, the religion of Jesus Christ. These will make you a greater and happier people than you are.”

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22 February 1732. George Washington was born in Westmoreland, Virginia, USA. He served as the 1st President of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Previously, he led Patriot forces to victory in the War for Independence and was a key figure in creating the US Constitution. pic.twitter.com/rLlKPa5a5f

— Prof. Frank McDonough (@FXMC1957) February 22, 2024

Christians around the world have marked the death in a remote prison camp of the Russian opposi­tion leader Alexei Navalny. Armed po­­­lice dispersed citizens trying to do so publicly in Russia last Friday.

Speaking in Rome, the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, said that news of the death of Mr Navalny, at the age of 47, had caused “astonishment and sadness”. The Cardinal had hoped that the dissident’s plight could be “resolved differently”.

Members of Finland’s Orthodox Church attended a memorial service for Mr Navalny in the Cathedral of the Assumption, Helsinki, led by Archbishop Leo (Makkonen). Dr Markus Dröge, the former Evangelical Bishop of Berlin, where Mr Navalny was treated for Novichok nerve-agent poisoning in August 2020, called for a street or square to be named after him in recognition of his “indomitable and fearless commitment to freedom and democracy”.

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Christians worldwide have marked the death in a remote prison camp of the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Armed police in Russia dispersed citizens attempting to do so publicly last Friday https://t.co/N0Z71GuddX

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) February 21, 2024

Sunday church attendance is just 80 per cent of what it was in 2019, Telegraph analysis has revealed, despite the Church of England claiming that it has “bounced back” after the pandemic.‌

The figures reveal that church attendance has more than halved since 1987, prompting clergy to warn: “This is a doom spiral of the church’s own choosing.”

‌In 2023, The Telegraph published an investigation which revealed that parishes are closing at a record rate, prompting fears that the Church had been “dealt a death knell”.

‌The investigation found that almost 300 parishes have disappeared in the past five years alone – the fastest rate since records began in 1960.

Read it all.

Sunday church attendance is just 80 per cent of what it was in 2019, Telegraph analysis has revealed, despite the Church of England claiming that it has “bounced back” after the pandemic https://t.co/ayVxbZnqEs

— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) February 17, 2024

The 11 survivors of church-related abuse who were awaiting reviews from the Independent Safeguarding Board (ISB) when it was disbanded last year (News, 23 June 2023) say that they are no closer to receiving a review into their cases. This contradicts what members of the General Synod have been told.

In a statement issued on Tuesday, the group, styling themselves the “ISB 11”, write: “Not one survivor is currently having their review progressed” by Kevin Crompton, who was appointed in September to take over the commissioning of independent reviews (News, 15 September 2023).

The statement disputes what is written in a General Synod paper, GS 2336, released on 9 February on behalf of the House of Bishops and Archbishops’ Council. The paper says: “We are glad that several people are taking up this offer and working with Kevin to set in place reviews. We remain open to listening, to conversation, and to attempts to find resolution with all those affected.”

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The Church of England authorities appear to be deliberately misleading their own General Synod about progress in caring for victims of abuse. https://t.co/Nbr0hh3uFB

— Andrew Graystone (@AndrewGraystone) February 20, 2024

Here we come to the first way in which Princeton’s new pedagogue helped to shape America’s founding generation. Although in Scotland he had made himself notorious by lampooning the worldliness, smugness, and theological laxity of the Moderates in the Scottish national church, on a deeper intellectual level he was closer to them than it seemed. Like many of them, he had been profoundly touched by the 18th-century intellectual cloudburst known as the Scottish Enlightenment. And it was the Scottish variant of the Enlightenment that this Calvinist pastor now imported into Princeton, from which, via his students, it shortly entered the mainstream of American thought.

When Witherspoon arrived in 1768, Princeton’s intellectual atmosphere still bore some of the marks of its revivalistic origins. The college’s tutors were ardent partisans of the philosophical idealism associated with Bishop George Berkeley in England and Jonathan Edwards in America. To the tutors’ dismay, the new president vehemently rejected Berkeleyan idealism, or “immaterialism” as he insisted on calling it. He soon instructed his students:

The truth is, the immaterial system is a wild and ridiculous attempt to unsettle the principles of common sense by metaphysical reasoning, which can hardly produce any thing but contempt in the generality of persons who hear it, and which I verily believe, never produced conviction even in the persons who pretend to espouse it.

Within a year the disappointed tutors had left the college, and Witherspoon had added the professorship of divinity to his duties.

Read it all.

John Witherspoon: Educating for Liberty https://t.co/X0yidcG983

— Adam M. Carrington (@carringtonam) February 20, 2024

Douglass rejoiced in 1865 when the Union triumphed in the Civil War and the nation ratified the Thirteenth Amendment, abolishing slavery forever. But he did not believe his prophetic work had ended. At the end of his life, equality under the law remained an aspiration, not a reality. African Americans and women were denied the right to vote. The ghost of slavery lived on in oppressive economic arrangements like sharecropping. Jim Crow carved rigid lines of racial segregation in the public square. White mobs lynched at least 200 black men each year in the 1890s.

He had good reason, then, in 1889, to mourn how the “malignant prejudice of race” still “poisoned the fountains of justice, and defiled the altars of religion” in America. Yet Douglass also rejoiced in the continued possibility of redemption. A new way of seeing the world, and living in it, still remained—one that rested, Douglass said, on a “broad foundation laid by the Bible itself, that God has made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on all the face of the earth.”

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The Radical Christian Faith of Frederick Douglass https://t.co/6kl4SvSd9U @Ctmagazine highlights his oft-neglected convictions on the 200th anniversary of his birth pic.twitter.com/hJe6kmJLK5

— Jayson Casper (@jnjcasper) February 22, 2018

When the late Federico “Fred” Mission Magbanua Jr. preached a radio sermon on offering one’s body as a living sacrifice, he probably didn’t imagine he’d one day hear these words again as a 10,000-watt radio frequency current surged through him in a near-death accident.

It happened one night in early 1961, while Magbanua was working at the Far East Broadcasting Company (FEBC) gospel radio ministry. He was mulling over a job offer in the United States with a salary far greater than what he currently made as an FEBC engineer and as a pastor of a small Baptist church.

Suddenly, the warning lights on the 308-foot radio tower went out. Magbanua loaded some new bulbs into a bag and began climbing the structure. From his home nearby, his daughters and his wife, Aliw, watched him scale the tower.

What Magbanua didn’t realize was that the grounding system—which diverts energy to the ground to prevent surges—wasn’t working. A radio frequency current “hit his head using his body as a lightning rod,” his friend Harold Sala later told God Reports. “Literally, he was being executed by the tremendous surge of electrical power.”

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A 7% increase in the National Minimum Stipend (NMS), set to come into effect in April, has been welcomed by the trade union Unite.

The increase, agreed by the Archbishops’ Council, acting as the Central Stipends Authority (CSA), will see the minimum stipend jump from £26,134 to £28,670.

Last July, the CSA announced a five-per-cent increase for 2024. The greater uplift to seven per cent has been made possible because dioceses, which will have to fund the stipends, need pay less into the Church of England pensions scheme. In December, the Pensions Board announced a drop in the contribution rate by three percentage points from April this year: to 25 per cent of the previous year’s National Minimum Stipend.

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A seven-per-cent increase in the National Minimum Stipend (NMS), set to come into effect in April, has been welcomed by the trade union Unite https://t.co/jroZM9yEUY

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) February 7, 2024

A recent study by women rights organisation Terre des Femmes shows that at least 26 people in Germany were victims of attempted or completed so-called ‘honour killings’ between 2022 and 2023.

According to the research, there were twelve victims of violence in the name of honour in the past two years, ten of whom were women. There were also 14 victims of attempted murders, including nine women, reported German newspaper Welt am Sonntag.

Terre des Femmes also documented 19 cases of attempted and completed ‘honour killings’ in 2021, so that in the past three years, there were a total of 45 victims, 22 of whom lost their lives.

In most cases, the killings took place at environments dominated by Islam, and the perpetrators often belong to the family of the victims.

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Most took place at Islamic environments by members of the own family. “It is the most despicable expression of gender-based violence”, says the minister of Justice.https://t.co/hzyjz039Or

— Evangelical Focus (@Evan_Focus) February 6, 2024

Christians have a duty “to follow the example of Jesus, who, throughout the Bible, focuses his love and care on the most vulnerable and marginalised people in society”, the Bishop of Chelmsford, Dr Guli Francis-Dehqani, has said.

She was writing in The Daily Telegraph on Monday in response to comments from senior political figures — including two former Home Secretaries, Suella Braverman and Dame Priti Patel — who have questioned the involvement of churches and members of the clergy in the asylum process.

The subject came to the fore after it was reported that the suspect in last week’s alkali attack in Clapham, south-west London, submitted that he had converted to Christianity before his asylum claim was approved (News, 2 February). The suspect, Abdul Shokoor Ezedi, is an Afghan national who is believed to have arrived illegally in the UK in 2016 and to have received support from church communities for his application to settle in the country.

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Bishop challenges former Home Secretaries’ talk of churches’ ‘facilitating’ bogus asylum claims https://t.co/TMxbAqT8IE

— Simon Sarmiento (@simonsarmiento) February 6, 2024

What the families want is atonement. When something goes wrong, there is a need, buried deep within the human psyche, or even deep within the structure of the universe, for atonement — for someone to pay a price for what has happened.

And this is what the families need: some kind of atonement for what has been done wrong. They long for some sign of remorse, repentance even, on behalf of those who bear responsibility. Yet it does not come. The serried ranks of smart suits remain silent — maybe understandably so in this setting, but, without that sign, the pain continues.

There is deep anger about the fire brigade’s advice — families were told to stay in their flats until the firefighters put out the fire — without which, it seems, many of those who died would still be alive today. There is equally deep anger about the cladding draped around the building a few years before, which was dangerously flammable. It was the combination of these two factors which led to the deaths of their loved ones.

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Who will atone for the wrongs of Grenfell?

More than six years since the tragedy, no one has yet admitted responsibility, writes @gtomlinhttps://t.co/1V4lJDUI46

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) February 2, 2024

The Bishop of Newcastle, Dr Helen-Ann Hartley, is standing down as one of the co-chairs of the Living in Love and Faith (LLF) process. She has expressed “serious concerns” about the recent appointment of a new interim theological adviser to the House of Bishops.

In a statement published online on Thursday morning, Dr Hartley said: “It has become clear to me in the last 48 hours that there are serious concerns relating to the recent process of appointing an interim theological adviser to the House of Bishops.”

Dr Hartley and the Bishop of Leicester, the Rt Revd Martyn Snow, were appointed last November to co-chair the LLF process, and last week wrote an article for the Church Times setting out their hope for a “reset” of the process…

Read it all.

The @BishopNewcastle said that "there are serious concerns relating to the recent process of appointing an interim theological adviser", and that this had a "critically negative impact" on the work she and @SnowMartyn were doing as LLF co-chairs.https://t.co/qdnUoywfGT

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) February 1, 2024

In this issue of The Century, theologian Katherine Schmidt writes about the role of the humanities in a world where AI is becoming increasingly powerful, generative, and autonomous. As corporations and policymakers grapple with the blurring lines between human agency and computer-generated agency, Schmidt argues that “ethical theory and ethics education” are vital. Further, she points out that theologians and philosophers are “uniquely qualified” to weigh in on the conversation, since they are skilled at addressing basic questions about truth, meaning, and agency.

Madry’s characterization of a bad actor in the AI world as someone who asks, “How can I be most ingenious in my evilness?” supports Schmidt’s argument. It’s one thing to have a team of technology experts devoted to squelching the plans of folks who deliberately deploy their evilness in ingenious ways. It’s another thing for the developers and disseminators of AI technology to consider the questions behind Madry’s hypothetical question. What exactly is “evilness”? Who gets to define it? Where does it come from? How intrinsic is it to human nature? Is it even possible to recognize it in ourselves? Can it spread from one person to another or multiply within a group of people? How can it be measured, and who does that measuring? To what extent might it be foiled by human effort?

Read it all.

“It’s not unreasonable to believe that AI experts will be better equipped to prevent catastrophes if they’ve spent some time considering theological questions—whether about evil, creation, incarnation, or agency.”

– the Christian Century editorshttps://t.co/R4r9LuWUB4

— theChristianCentury (@ChristianCent) January 26, 2024

Later on Sunday, Turkey’s interior minister, Ali Yerlikaya, wrote on social media that the two murder suspects had been captured.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement on Telegram, “saying it was in response to a call by the group’s leaders to target Jews and Christians”, Reuters reports.

On Monday, the Anglican Chaplain in Istanbul, Canon Ian Sherwood, praised the response of the authorities.

“Christians in Istanbul enjoy a perfectly peaceable life with their Turkish friends and neighbours of other spiritual persuasions,” he said. “There is great sorrow on hearing the news of the murder at a celebration of the mass at the very moment that we, too, were celebrating the eucharist in our own church.

“The English Chaplaincy was impressed and grateful to see how quickly the Turkish authorities acted. As far as I know, within less than one hour, every open church in the city had a police presence assigned to it for protection and security.”

Read it all.

“We ask for greater security and for the safety of the faithful, of the Christian community, which perseveres in the faith and courageously face very long journeys at times to attend the eucharistic celebration.”https://t.co/SwOv4RI130

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) January 29, 2024