Two billion people, or a quarter of the world’s population, now lives in conflict-affected areas, according to the United Nations.

An estimated 84 million people were “forcibly displaced because of conflict, violence and human rights violations,” and an estimated 274 million people will need humanitarian assistance due to conflict, the U.N.’s Secretary-General António Guterres said on Wednesday. In remarks to the U.N.’s Peacebuilding Commission, Guterres said the world is experiencing the highest number of violent conflicts since 1945, as World War II drew to a close.

Guterres said the world is grappling with the most conflict since 1945, and proposed a plans to bring stability to places such as Yemen, Myanmar, Syria, Sudan and Ukraine.

Read it all.

"Peace-building is a bargain and a prerequisite for development and a better future for all."
World is seeing the greatest number of conflicts since the end of WWII, U.N. says https://t.co/sBZa2fpJys

— ben smith (@bensmit06780964) March 31, 2022

What can Florida reveal about America? In many ways, it is a land apart from the rest of the country. Yet a state as diverse as Florida is also a mini-America, with its political divisions condensed into single blocks. The rise of minor parties and voters with no-party affiliation should be a reckoning for the two main national parties. Immigrants and transplants want a positive message about the future, not a dire one, which should be a wake-up call to Democrats to refine their campaigning to signal optimism and opportunity. The lurch to the right of Mr DeSantis and other Republicans, who prioritise social issues such as abortion over practical economic concerns of ordinary Floridians, is a political calculation that may yet backfire.

Nowhere are the intergenerational divisions that scar America clearer than in Florida. The elderly who retire there feel little connection to the state or much desire to invest in its future. Meanwhile, the young require more than “freedom” (Florida’s favourite rhetorical export) to thrive. With such austere investment in citizens and good government, there is a vast gulf between older migrants who import their fortunes and savings into Florida and those who want to build lives there, but face lower wages.

Florida is a test-bed for the limits of libertarian policies. The early 2020s may be remembered as America’s “Florida years”, with Mr DeSantis’s embrace of policies, such as anti-lockdown provisions, that put his state on the national stage. But now that Florida feels the pain of soaring house prices and displacement of the labour force by new arrivals, some voters’ faith that the free market alone is enough to fix things has been shaken.

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Florida has become emblematic of much of America and central to all of it https://t.co/FaSkUZoUQu

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) March 31, 2022

A raucous, celebratory atmosphere inside the Costa Rica National Stadium dictated the mood. Los Ticos had just finished off a 2-0 win to remain undefeated all time against the United States men’s national soccer team in San Jose. There were even fireworks, despite the fact the home side failed to claim an automatic place at Qatar 2022, setting up a playoff versus New Zealand instead.

For an exhausted U.S. squad that had been looking to make history, the whole thing was disorienting. With 35,000 opposing fans so happy, it was instinctual to mirror their level of emotion in the opposite direction. But a slow walk back to the locker room and a few words from coach Gregg Berhalter returned the team to reality: It had qualified for the World Cup.

“Obviously, as competitors, we hate losing. But coming into the locker room, I think everyone just decided, ‘You know what, we realized our goal,’ which was to qualify,” said center back Walker Zimmerman, who captained the team Wednesday night. “So, everyone forgot about tonight. We put ourselves in a position where we could afford to do that.”

Read it all.

He was frustrated by the performance last night but Christian Pulisic quickly put things into perspective: “To be in this position and qualify for the World Cup, we're all extremely proud. This is where I've always wanted to be.” https://t.co/q9oOEwapZ4

— Kyle Bonagura (@BonaguraESPN) March 31, 2022

These poems speak, as [Philip] Yancey says, to “the guilt and fear and helpless faith that marked [Donne’s] darkest days.” They also answer one of the toughest questions we can face, “In the midst of plague times, how can we give thanks?”

Here are the three poems excerpted by Yancey, with his clarifying revisions of Donne’s eighteenth-century language…

Read it all.

The Church of England today commemorates John Donne, Priest, Poet, 1631 https://t.co/eOoA6wnyxv

Portrait of John Donne by Unknown English artist, c.1595. © National Portrait Gallery, London, CC-BY-NC-ND pic.twitter.com/1MSYaKCls3

— The Anglican Church in St Petersburg (@anglicanspb) March 31, 2022

1. Christians stay silent because of a desire to be friendly
Evangelism is a loving act of telling someone why you have hope in a broken world. It’s talking about something (or someone) important to you. However, for too many, evangelism conjures a negative image; it feels unkind.

We have no problem talking about our kids, grandkids, new cars, or even a television series we’re watching. But when it comes to talking about Jesus and the difference our faith makes in our lives, we freeze. We’ve accepted the idea that evangelism is unfriendly, so we remain silent.

Research shows 51% of Americans say they’re curious and wanted to know why faith is important to others. In other words, the cringe is inside us. Evangelism practiced in love and with a winsome personality would be a welcome part of most conversations and friendships.

Read it all.

In his years teaching evangelism, @dshildreth discovered several primary reasons Christians keep quiet about their faith. https://t.co/RzcnqhzBlg

— Lifeway Research (@LifewayResearch) March 30, 2022

“Unfortunately, today, Catholics have inculturated some of the worst divisions between science and Christian faith into our own mental worldview in America,” [Michael] Le Chevallier says.

“You have a number of Catholics who believe that evolution is in conflict with modern Catholic faith, and you have a number of young adults who identify that modern science and the Catholic faith are in conflict — often resulting in leaving the church.”

In February, the Lumen Christi Institute announced it had been awarded $3.6 million from the John Templeton Foundation to support a new three-year project that would create a national network of independent institutes of Catholic thought at U.S. universities.

Dubbed “In Lumine: Supporting the Catholic Intellectual Tradition on Campuses Nationwide,” the network includes six Catholic institutes: the Lumen Christi Institute at the University of Chicago; the Nova Forum at the University of Southern California; the Collegium Institute at the University of Pennsylvania; the St. Anselm Institute at the University of Virginia; COLLIS at Cornell University; and the Harvard Catholic Forum at Harvard University.

Read it all.

Now, with millions of dollars of new funding, a number of these institutes of Catholic thought will amplify their focus on science and religion.https://t.co/yWKbFH3TFU

— Religion News Service (@RNS) March 29, 2022

I recently received review copies of two books on the same day. The first, a galley of a book to be published by Eerdmans near the end of July, was Encountering Mystery: Religious Experience in a Secular Age, by Dale C. Allison, Jr. The second, just out from Hurst, was Beyond Belief: How Pentecostal Christianity Is Taking Over the World, by Elle Hardy. The fortuitous juxtaposition was ironic, of course, but more than that, it was very close to my heart. Like you, I expect, I have seen an ever-increasing number of articles and books intimating a radical shrinkage of “religion,” ranging from Ryan Burge’s The Nones to recent provocative columns by Philip Jenkins (to mention just two examples from a vast field). And behind this, of course, we must acknowledge the enormous, though to me still unaccountable, influence of Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age.

I will not issue any predictions. Many years ago, the admirable Joseph Ratzinger foresaw a radical shrinkage of the church, suggesting that, difficult as this passage might be, it could be purifying. I don’t know for sure what the future, even the “near future,” holds in this respect, but I do know that—for the moment, at least—we do not remotely live in a “secular age.” Imagine my surprise when, as I began to read Encountering Mystery, I discovered that Allison himself, despite the subtitle affixed to his book, also does not believe that we live in a “secular age.” On the contrary, and how strange. Whence then the framing? Perhaps that is why the superb scholar and memoirist Carlos Eire describes Encountering Mystery as a “marvelously daring book.” It is just that, describing many experiences (a few firsthand, many recounted by others) of the numinous, the mystical, the supernatural. I hope in due course that you will read it yourself. Nor, it’s important to add, are such experiences limited to Christians; see, for example, Susannah Crockford’s Ripples of the Universe: Spirituality in Sedona, Arizona.

Read it all.

John Wilson reviews “Beyond Belief: How Pentecostal Christianity Is Taking Over the World.”https://t.co/KLTHBepYjl

— First Things (@firstthingsmag) March 29, 2022

Two decades ago India’s information-technology (IT) firms were the stars of the rising country’s corporate firmament. The industry’s three giants, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys and Wipro, became household names at home and familiar to chief executives of big businesses abroad, who had outsourced their companies’ countermeasures against the feared “millennium bug”, expected to wreak havoc on computers as the date changed from 1999 to 2000, to Indian software engineers. By the mid-2000s the Indian IT trio’s revenues were growing by around 40% a year, as Western CEOs realised that Indian programmers could do as good a job as domestic ones or better, at a fraction of the price. Then, following the global financial crisis of 2007-09, revenue growth slowed to single digits. For years afterwards the stars seemed to be losing some of their shine.

Now they are back in the ascendant. Having declined as a share of GDP between 2017 and 2019, exports of Indian software services ticked up again as the world’s companies turned to them for help amid the disruption to operations and IT systems wrought by the pandemic. In the last financial year they reached an all-time high of $150bn, or 5.6% of Indian GDP (see chart 1). NASSCOM, a trade body, expects the industry’s overall revenues to grow from $227bn last year to $350bn by 2026.

Read it all.

A half-a-trillion-dollar bet on revolutionising white-collar workhttps://t.co/0qPGRhrtBz pic.twitter.com/3vunUiQUGF

— Mir Mustafa Ali (@Im_AliMustafa) March 29, 2022

We have much to learn from the African concept of Ubuntu which outlines how an authentic individual is part of a larger and more significant relational, communal, societal, environmental and spiritual world, writes Revd Canon Nigel Genders

It’s a concept which is at the heart of the Church of England’s approach to education which sets out our commitment to educating for life in all its fullness through a broad and rich curriculum that enables children and young people to truly flourish. Such an education, with its focus on hope and aspiration, is vital in the light of a pandemic which has impacted massively on children’s mental health and wellbeing.

Today’s Government White Paper has stepped up momentum for schools to become academies, with the Government setting a clear aspiration for all schools to join a strong multi academy trust by 2030.

Since the beginning of the Academy programme, I have always spoken of the need for interdependence rather than an approach to the school system which has been driven by individualism and autonomy. Our work on rural and small schools has highlighted the need to work together and for schools to embrace change through formation of structural collaborations and partnerships, so I am delighted to see this emphasis in the White Paper.

Read it all and please follow the link to the full white paper (near the bottom).

As @educationgovuk sets out its White Paper today, Chief Education Officer @nigelgenders explains how Church of England Schools will play their part in the schools system of the future. https://t.co/XC0N4nzPkg

— CofE Education (@CofE_Education) March 28, 2022

There are no Covid fears here.

The district’s Covid-19 response center has registered just 11 cases since the start of the pandemic, and no deaths. At the regional hospital, the wards are packed — with malaria patients. The door to the Covid isolation ward is bolted shut and overgrown with weeds. People cram together for weddings, soccer matches, concerts, with no masks in sight.

Sierra Leone, a nation of eight million on the coast of Western Africa, feels like a land inexplicably spared as a plague passed overhead. What has happened — or hasn’t happened — here and in much of sub-Saharan Africa is a great mystery of the pandemic.

The low rate of coronavirus infections, hospitalizations and deaths in West and Central Africa is the focus of a debate that has divided scientists on the continent and beyond. Have the sick or dead simply not been counted? If Covid has in fact done less damage here, why is that? If it has been just as vicious, how have we missed it?

The answers “are relevant not just to us, but have implications for the greater public good,” said Austin Demby, Sierra Leone’s health minister, in an interview in Freetown, the capital.

Read it all.

It’s a pandemic mystery: Why has Covid been so much less lethal in sub-Saharan Africa? Research shows at least two-thirds of people have been exposed to the virus. Yet they’re not getting sick or dying. Are they? https://t.co/WphNh2Jdfq

— NYT Science (@NYTScience) March 24, 2022

How would you distinguish between apathy and close cousins like depression, despondency, and what might be called “dry spells”?

It’s important to note that I’m not using the term apathy in a clinical sense, but instead as it pertains to the things Christians purportedly value, the things of God. There is overlap between this kind of spiritual apathy and depression. But there are certain characteristics unique to each. Depression relates to things like suicidal ideation and a pervasive lack of energy or motivation in every area of life.

Apathy, however, tends to be more selective. With the young men I’ve mentored, they are not apathetic about everything. They might be quite excited about gaming, or their girlfriends, or the LA Lakers. Depression tends to be more pervasive, and it might require therapy or other forms of treatment that wouldn’t necessarily apply to apathy.

As for despondency, I define it as a deep sadness, or bewilderment, especially as it pertains to the things of God. If we’re dealing with despondency rather than apathy, what the despondent person needs most is to be comforted.

With dry spells, or what we might call the dark night of the soul, we’re dealing with something that is good and divinely orchestrated. God intends it for our good. The person going through the dry spell just needs help to persevere through it and press into God.

Read it all.

Uche Anizor’s college students know the importance of the Christian life. At least, intellectually.

“But they can’t get themselves to care the way they know, deep down, they should.”https://t.co/LBU1mvrX37

— Christianity Today (@CTmagazine) March 24, 2022

The Bishop of Coventry wants the city to retain its link with Volgograd.

Coventry council voted on Tuesday to suspend the city’s 80-year twinning arrangement with the Russian city due to the Ukrainian war, despite an appeal by the Right Reverend Christopher Cocksworth for it to continue.

The bishop said it was important to “draw a distinction between the Putin state and the people of Russia”.

He said he would keep in contact with friends in the Russian city.

The Labour-run council said it was pausing its twinning links “with a heavy heart” until “such a time” they could resume.

Read it all.

The Bishop of Coventry wants the city to retain its link with Volgograd.https://t.co/7b1Nkv5w1K

— BBC Midlands Today (@bbcmtd) March 25, 2022

In 1966, after more than 20 years without a national standard for time, Congress passed the Uniform Time Act, and daylight saving time was standardized in the U.S. for part of the year.

However, in late 1973, to cut fuel consumption during the energy crisis, President Richard Nixon signed a law instituting year-round daylight saving time. Shortly before the bill’s passage, 57% of Americans supported the concept as a means to help deal with the energy situation.

Yet, the law quickly became widely unpopular as the public began to experience early-morning darkness, and multiple children were killed after being struck by cars while they were going to school in the dark. By early October 1974, President Gerald Ford signed a bill ending year-round daylight savings.

The twice-a-year time changes that were established under the Uniform Time Act subsequently resumed and have remained in effect, with slight modifications.

Read it all.

Americans have favored daylight saving time for decades but not necessarily year-round. https://t.co/PQOXzFf2Rh

— GallupNews (@GallupNews) March 25, 2022

After parachuting into the frigid Alaska interior, Capt. Weston Iannone and his soldiers navigated miles through deep snow, finally setting up a temporary outpost on a ridgeline next to a grove of lanky spruce trees that were also struggling to survive.

Darkness was setting in, the temperature had fallen below zero, and the 120 men and women who had gathered as part of a major combat training exercise in subarctic Alaska had not yet erected tents. The supply line for fuel, essential to keep warm through the long night ahead, was lagging behind.

“Everything is a challenge, from water, fuel, food, moving people, keeping them comfortable,” said Captain Iannone, the 27-year-old company commander, as his soldiers shoveled deeper into the snow in search of a solid foundation to put up their sleeping quarters. “This is inherent training — understanding how far we can push physically and mentally.”

Read it all.

More than 8,000 troops mobilized for an exercise in Alaska this month as the U.S. military looks to build up its Arctic capabilities, alarmed by Russia’s efforts to militarize and control the region. https://t.co/fP38gvBIq8

— New York Times World (@nytimesworld) March 27, 2022

With another pandemic surge possibly on the way, vaccination for the coronavirus in the United States has all but ground to a halt, with initial doses and boosters plummeting to the lowest levels since the program began in late December 2020.

On Wednesday, the seven-day average of vaccinations fell to fewer than 182,000 per day, according to data compiled by The Washington Post. That is lower than at any time since the first days of the program.

The daily total has been in free fall for the past six weeks. On Feb. 10, the nation was averaging more than 692,000 shots a day. Booster shots have been more common than first or second doses since October, and the low rates have long caused concern among some experts.

Now, with authorities bracing for a possible increase in covid-19 cases caused by the BA.2 subvariant, 65.4 percent of Americans are fully vaccinated and just 44 percent have received a booster shot. That is substantially less than the totals in many Western European nations — which nevertheless have seen a sharp rise in cases in recent weeks and months.

Read it all.

With another wave possibly coming, covid vaccination in the US has all but ground to a halt, plummeting to the lowest level since shots became available in December 2020. ⁦@britsham⁩ ⁦@dtkeating⁩ ⁦@rizzoTK⁩ ⁦@LennyMBernstein⁩ https://t.co/Nfu91JEckb

— Peter Baker (@peterbakernyt) March 26, 2022

The story of religious change in America, especially religious disaffiliation, is often cast as the result of independent decisions made by a rising generation living by a different set of values. But new evidence paints a much more complicated picture than the traditional narrative of generationally driven disaffiliation. Young adults today have had entirely different religious and social experiences than previous generations did. The parents of millennials and Generation Z did less to encourage regular participation in formal worship services and model religious behaviors in their children than had previous generations. Many childhood religious activities that were once common, such as saying grace, have become more of the exception than the norm.

We have long known the importance of formative religious experiences in setting the trajectory of faith commitments throughout life. For as long as we have been able to measure religious commitments, childhood religious experiences have strongly predicted adult religiosity. They still do. If someone had robust religious experiences growing up, they are likely to maintain those beliefs and practices into adulthood. Without robust religious experiences to draw on, Americans feel less connected to the traditions and beliefs of their parents’ faith.

There is little evidence to suggest that Americans who have disaffiliated will ever return. First, the age at which Americans choose to give up their families’ religion—most well before they turn 18—suggests that they have not established a deeply rooted commitment to a set of religious beliefs and practices. Disaffiliated Americans express significant skepticism about the societal benefits of religion, even more than those who have never identified with a religious tradition. They also strongly disagree with the majority of religious Americans, who believe in the importance of raising children in a religious faith. Moreover, having children does not appear to affect religious involvement. Unaffiliated parents are not any more likely to be religiously active than those without children, and most are unconvinced that religion serves as an important source of moral instruction.

Read it all.

New research from @dcoxpolls: Formative religious experiences that were once common have become more of the exception than the norm among GenZers. https://t.co/A8Ieh7GDqX

— AEI (@AEI) March 25, 2022

And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. (Philippians 1:6)

Retirement is a serious business in the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion), in a country in which there are minimal or non-existent pensions and inadequate healthcare for senior citizens. It is a particular challenge for clergy, who must often fend for themselves. Mandatory retirement age is 70, and to be sure that everyone was fully aware, and birth certificates have not been lost, each bishop’s retirement date is published every year. Shortly before my 70th birthday, Angela and I were called forward at a meeting of the Provincial Synod and we were each given a one-time cash payment of $1000 as our pension. I tried to object, knowing that for many of the poorer bishops this was a substantial amount of money. I was sure they could make better use of it than I could, but I was told, quite firmly, that was not an option. We expressed our heartfelt thanks and thought again about the importance of preparation for retirement.

The first and perhaps most important question is, “What are we retiring to?” Not “What are we retiring from?” Bishop Dave Bena, a dear friend and mentor, has retired a number of times. He retired from military service (he served with distinction as a Marine and then in the US Air Force), and he retired as the suffragan bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Albany, as my suffragan bishop in CANA, and most recently as the assistant bishop of the Anglican Diocese of the Living Word. He is something of an expert on retirement! But he spells it “retire-ment,” declaring that it is an opportunity to change tires and start a new journey.

One of the great blessings of ordained ministry is that while our particular place of service may change, our call to Gospel ministry remains unchanged – it is a lifelong call.

Read it all (quoted by yours truly at the conclusion to my Lenten teaching on a Christian theology of vocation, KSH).

We so appreciated our recent visit with the Interim Bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh, the Rt. Rev. Martyn Minns, his wife Angela, and daughter Rachel. Watch for Friday's post of his sermon for tomorrow's Eucharist as well. pic.twitter.com/W8jsl72Qpg

— Trinity School for Ministry (@TS4Ministry) March 30, 2021

Today is the feast of the Annunciation, or ‘Lady Day in Lent’, as it was known in the Middle Ages. As I explored last year, the medieval church considered 25 March to be the single most important date in history: it was both the beginning and the end of Christ’s life on earth, the date of his conception at the Annunciation and his death on Good Friday. To underline the harmony and purpose which, in the eyes of medieval Christians, shaped the divinely-written narrative of the history of the world, 25 March was also said to be the date of other significant events: the eighth day of Creation, the crossing of the Red Sea, the sacrifice of Isaac, and other days linked with or prefiguring the story of the world’s fall and redemption. The date occurs at a conjunction of solar, lunar, and natural cycles: all these events were understood to have happened in the spring, when life returns to the earth, and at the vernal equinox, once the days begin to grow longer than the nights and light triumphs over the power of darkness. The resonances of 25 March reached even unto Middle Earth, as Tolkien aligned the downfall of the Ring to this most auspicious of dates.

‘Lady Day in Lent’ is the springtime feast of the Virgin Mary, one of several ‘lady days’ which marked the seasons of the medieval year. There is a vast amount of medieval poetry and art on the theme of the Annunciation, more than you could read or look at in a lifetime, and much of it is exquisite: I’ve posted some of my own favourites under this tag. Over and over again, through many centuries, thousands of poets and artists have tried to imagine this scene, where heaven and earth meet and the fate of the universe hangs upon a young woman’s word.

For today, here’s a lovely little poem about the Annunciation by William Herebert, friar and poet, writing in the early 14th century.

Read it all.

Today is the feast of the Annunciation to the Virgin Mary, 'Lady Day in Lent'. For the medieval church, March 25 was the single most important date in history: the day which saw both the beginning and the culmination of Christ's life on earth. https://t.co/7lQCefIOvR pic.twitter.com/NS57MoubD1

— Eleanor Parker (@ClerkofOxford) March 25, 2022

Given the continuing controversy over these matters, and also over the handling of the allegation against the long-dead George Bell (on which Carey also has much to say), most readers will be tempted to skim through the early chapters, which deal mostly with Carey’s involvement post-retirement with the World Bank, the World Economic Forum, and the World Faiths Development Dialogue.

That is a pity, because Carey was deeply involved in these matters, and casts an interesting light on the tensions that bedevil those who want to assert the continuing importance of faith in international relations and economic development. Given his own background as the first truly working-class archbishop in many centuries, and not a product of public school and Oxbridge, his participation in these circles is testimony to an extraordinary career — something perhaps not always appreciated by his critics. He gives little sense here of any lack of confidence.

Read it all.

The Truth Will Set You Free by George Carey https://t.co/uKbY0hN2C8

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) March 20, 2022

Borys Zabarko was six years old when the Nazis invaded what is now Ukraine in 1941 and his hometown, Sharhorod, became a Jewish ghetto. Women, children and old men slept in packed rooms with no bathrooms or water, he said. As typhus epidemics raged, the ground was too cold to dig graves, and bodies were thrown on top of each other. Mr. Zabarko’s father and uncle, who fought with the Soviet army, died in combat.

After the liberation, Mr. Zabarko said he became convinced that nothing like that would ever happen again.

Now 86, he spent a recent night in the freezing train station in Lviv, in the west of Ukraine, standing on a crowded platform, as he tried to get on a train to escape another war.

“It’s a frightening repeat,” he said by phone from Nuremberg, Germany, where he fled with his 17-year-old granddaughter, Ilona, before eventually settling in Stuttgart. “Again, we have this murderous war.”

Read it all.

For some older Ukrainians, Russia’s invasion has revived painful memories of World War II, in which more than five million people were killed in Ukraine, even if the toll and scale of the current conflict are incomparable.https://t.co/EFteorWoQs

— The New York Times (@nytimes) March 24, 2022

The consistory court of the diocese of Ely has refused to grant the petition of Jesus College, Cambridge, for a faculty authorising the removal of a memorial dedicated to a benefactor of the college, Tobias Rustat (1608-94), from the west wall of the Grade I listed college chapel.

The petition, which had been supported by both the Dean of Chapel and the Bishop of Ely, was heard by the Deputy Chancellor, the Worshipful David Hodge QC (News, 25 January). It had been advanced on the basis that any harm caused to the significance of the chapel as a building of special architectural and historic interest by the removal of the memorial was substantially outweighed by the resulting public benefits in terms of pastoral well-being and opportunities for mission.

The college contended that, because of Rustat’s known involvement in the transatlantic trade in enslaved Africans, the continued presence of his memorial in such a prominent position, high up on the west wall, created a serious obstacle to the chapel’s ability to provide a credible Christian ministry and witness to the college community and a safe space for secular college functions and events.

Ranged against the college were 65 parties opponent to the petition, represented in court by Justin Gau. Another party opponent, Professor Lawrence Goldman, appeared in person, and two other parties opponent were neither present nor represented. The parties opponent contended that the court should give no weight to the petition since it was the product of a false narrative that Rustat amassed most of his wealth from the slave trade and used moneys from that source to benefit the college.

Read it all.

Detailed report from the hearing here, which concluded that the memorial should stay and that the college should not have allowed a ‘false narrative’ about Rustat to spread uncheckedhttps://t.co/ng90NXgLXm

— Madeleine Davies (@MadsDavies) March 23, 2022

As someone with an intense curiosity about world religions, I frequently listened to Christian radio, as well as stations specializing in Buddhism, Hinduism, shamanism, Celtic goddess worship, and several other types of spirituality. Hungry for answers, I searched far and wide.

In January 2015, I was driving along a Hawaiian road while listening to the Scottish-born pastor Alistair Begg on the Christian Satellite Network. Begg was giving an expository sermon called “Itching Ears.” It was about 2 Timothy 4, where the apostle Paul writes that in the end times, people will want their itching ears tickled by false teachers who offer false hope (v. 3). I could tell he was describing people just like me.

God used Begg’s sermon to convict me for the first time in my life. His words pierced my stony heart, and I felt ashamed of my false teachings. When I got home, I told my husband, Michael, that I wanted to start attending a real Christian church. He readily agreed.

After a lifetime of involvement in Christian Science and New Age practices, it took time to clear away the cobwebs of false belief. I realized that I did not trust God to provide for my needs. So instead of prayer and trust in the Lord, I continued relying on divination cards, astrology, psychic readings, horoscopes, and crystals.

Reading the entire Bible changed everything.

Read it all.

What an amazing testimony of God's grace. Bestselling New Age author hears Alistair Begg on the radio and comes to Christ. https://t.co/RUSOx7sTgN

— Trevin Wax (@TrevinWax) March 23, 2022

Four years ago, inside the most prestigious hospital in Tennessee, nurse RaDonda Vaught withdrew a vial from an electronic medication cabinet, administered the drug to a patient and somehow overlooked signs of a terrible and deadly mistake.

The patient was supposed to get Versed, a sedative intended to calm her before being scanned in a large, MRI-like machine. But Vaught accidentally grabbed vecuronium, a powerful paralyzer, which stopped the patient’s breathing and left her brain-dead before the error was discovered.

Vaught, 38, admitted her mistake at a Tennessee Board of Nursing hearing last year, saying she became “complacent” in her job and “distracted” by a trainee while operating the computerized medication cabinet. She did not shirk responsibility for the error, but she said the blame was not hers alone.

“I know the reason this patient is no longer here is because of me,” Vaught said, starting to cry. “There won’t ever be a day that goes by that I don’t think about what I did.”

Read it all.

Nurses are right to watch this with eyes wide open and the potential it has to put a microscope on their profession in a time when it's hard to staff nursing roles.

As a Nurse Faces Prison for a Deadly Error, Her Colleagues Worry: Could I Be Next? https://t.co/patERTQJI0

— Gunnar Esiason (@G17Esiason) March 22, 2022

In January, the head of a group of serving and retired Russian military officers declared that invading Ukraine would be “pointless and extremely dangerous.” It would kill thousands, he said, make Russians and Ukrainians enemies for life, risk a war with NATO and threaten “the existence of Russia itself as a state.”

To many Russians, that seemed like a far-fetched scenario, since few imagined that an invasion of Ukraine was really possible. But two months later, as Russia’s advance stalls in Ukraine, the prophecy looms large. Reached by phone this week, the retired general who authored the declaration, Leonid Ivashov, said he stood by it, though he could not speak freely given Russia’s wartime censorship: “I do not disavow what I said.”

In Russia, the slow going and the heavy toll of President Vladimir V. Putin’s war on Ukraine are setting off questions about his military’s planning capability, his confidence in his top spies and loyal defense minister, and the quality of the intelligence that reaches him. It also shows the pitfalls of Mr. Putin’s top-down governance, in which officials and military officers have little leeway to make their own decisions and adapt to developments in real time.

The failures of Mr. Putin’s campaign are apparent in the striking number of senior military commanders believed to have been killed in the fighting. Ukraine says it has killed at least six Russian generals, while Russia acknowledges one of their deaths, along with that of the deputy commander of its Black Sea fleet. American officials say they cannot confirm the number of Russian troop deaths, but that Russia’s invasion plan appears to have been stymied by bad intelligence.

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The European Union surprised the world—and itself—with its unified response after Vladimir Putin ordered his tanks into Ukraine on February 24th. Unprecedented sanctions and new security policies swiftly appeared. But as the war grinds into its second month and Russian missiles and shells continue to rain down on Ukrainian cities, European resolve has begun to wane. That is the stark assessment of Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s foreign minister. “What we saw in the beginning of the war was the rise of the European Union as a powerful player that can bring change,” Mr Kuleba told The Economist. “What I see in the last ten days in the European Union is backsliding back to its normality where it cannot decide on strong and swift action.”

Mr Kuleba’s remarks were made on March 22nd by video link from an undisclosed location inside Ukraine. He highlighted two trials facing his country: Russian aggression on one side, and Western hesitancy on the other. The stakes remain as existential as ever, despite Russia’s initial setbacks on the battlefield. Russia’s shelling rings louder than its words. “There is no correlation between diplomatic dynamics and the dynamics on the battlefield,” Mr Kuleba said. Ukraine’s ability to prevail against its larger neighbour rests on three pillars, he argues: Ukrainian stamina, weapons supplies and Western sanctions. “We always realised that there would be no country fighting shoulder to shoulder with us, that it would be the cross that we have to bear. But to help us, countries can do two things: send us necessary weapons and impose sanctions.”

Western sanctions have already made an impact. “Almost every tenth sentence [Russian negotiators] say is about sanctions,” Mr Kuleba said. “It’s a pain for them.” But not yet painful enough. Many of the toughest-seeming measures have turned out to be what the minister calls “half-measures”.

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After a strong start the EU has slid “back to its normality where it cannot decide on strong and swift action”, Ukraine’s foreign minister says https://t.co/XzRfuRIuJb

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) March 22, 2022

But we might do worse than ask why non-Western cultures so fear being sucked into what they consider a moral vacuum. If all they see is a series of reactive demands for emancipation acted out against a backdrop of consumerism and obsession with material growth, the suspicion and hostility is a bit more intelligible. What do we in the shrinking “liberal” world think emancipation is for? Perhaps it is for the liberation of all individuals to collaborate in a positive social project, in a society of sustainable and fair distribution of goods. Perhaps it is for the construction of a social order in which our interdependence, national and international, is more fully acknowledged.

Solidarity with Ukraine involves sanctions that will cost us as well as Russians – decisions that will affect our reliance on oil and gas and open our doors to more refugees. If we are willing to accept these consequences for the sake of a positive vision of interdependence and justice, we shall have a more compelling narrative to oppose the dramatic, even apocalyptic, myths arising elsewhere in the world.

Unwelcome neighbours, after all, tend not simply to disappear; in which case, we must work out how we live respectfully with them. One thing that might be said in response to Patriarch Kirill is that neighbours have to be loved, not terrorised into resentful silence – a matter on which the God first acknowledged in Kyiv in 988 had a good deal to say.

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‘By supporting the war, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow has both normalised sinful behaviour and polluted Russian Christian identity.’ Rowan Williams https://t.co/BmoCmmVQ6A

— John Inge (@BishopWorcester) March 21, 2022

As an educator, Dr. DeKoven has had no superior in this or any other land. The great qualities of a leader and guide to young men–dignity, tact, firmness, sympathy, genuineness of nature–these he possessed in a marked degree. He needed no artificial safeguards to maintain his claims to respect. His personal appearance was noble and commanding. His face, whether bright with humor, or stern with disapproval, or melting with sympathy, was always attractive to look on, with a peculiar refinement of spiritual power. Students who never hesitated to cover him with ribbons on the base-ball ground or to tease him with ridicule of his favorite players, would rather have faced a battery than appear before him for discipline. In his constant visits to their rooms at odd times, he was always one of them, giving and taking jests, happy over their games, sometimes even mildly tolerant of their mischief, but the slightest violation of propriety or morals would be rebuked by a change of countenance indescribable, but most effective. He knew all the students by name and their antecedents, and he tried to make each one feel that “the Doctor” and he had some confidences shared by no one else. As a rule, the students worshipped him. If there was any fault found by any of them it was that his horror of certain kinds of evil was so keen that he could not force himself to be lenient to offenders of that class. In one other respect, he was sometimes misunderstood. He was with some men more than with others. They were not always necessarily the best or most congenial. They were those who, in his opinion, needed most help, and if any man ever thought that he was neglected it was because he himself erected the barrier that kept that great heart away from him. Sincere, true, tender, genuine through and through, that the Doctor always was, and the contact with such a life was an everlasting blessing to those who discovered it in time. Some, perhaps, who read these lines will recall with various emotions the old days–the early chapel service, and the walks with the Doctor afterwards, the thrilling sermons, the Easter morning breakfasts, the Sunday …night receptions, the gathering on the lawn at commencement, the choir suppers, the recitations in Butler, the Seniors’ tea, the hundred other associations with the old place where he was the spirit and the head; but however the memory comes to them now, with whatever regrets or misgivings or grateful joy, it cannot but bring the picture of a grand, pure, unselfish personality which never once in all the storms that beat upon it faltered for an instant in its love or duty for the individual students committed to its care.

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Almighty God, you gave your servant Bl. James DeKoven special gifts of grace to understand & teach the truth revealed in Christ Jesus: Grant that by this teaching we may… pic.twitter.com/9DwQevKLMe

— The Seabury Society (@SeaburySociety) March 22, 2021

A pilgrimage has taken place in County Durham in honour of a local saint.

The five-mile walk from Finchale Priory to Durham marks the arrival of the remains of St Cuthbert in AD995 at the site of the cathedral.

It was then the culmination of a long journey which began following a Viking raid on Lindisfarne in AD793.

About 120 people took part earlier, including a delegation of local MPs and tourism bosses from Spain, who have been visiting the region.

St Cuthbert was a monk, bishop and hermit who lived in Anglo-Saxon Northumbria and is often called the patron saint of the North of England.

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The walk from Finchale Priory to Durham Cathedral is held to mark St Cuthbert's Day https://t.co/ZVST6k2KkN

— BBC North East and Cumbria (@BBCNEandCumbria) March 19, 2022

….time to muse is valuable in virtually every role. To take one example, customer-service representatives can be good sources of ideas on how to improve a company’s products, but they are often rated on how well they adhere to a schedule of fielding calls. Reflection is not part of the routine.

The post-pandemic rethink of work is focused on “when” and “where” questions. Firms are experimenting with four-day workweeks as a way to improve retention and avoid burnout. Asynchronous working is a way for individuals to collaborate at times that suit them. Lots of thought is going into how to make a success of hybrid work.

The “what is work” question gets much less attention. The bias towards familiar forms of activity is deeply entrenched. But if you see a colleague meandering through the park or examining the ceiling for hours, don’t assume that work isn’t being done. What looks like idleness may be the very moment when serendipity strikes.

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Loafing about might look like the opposite of work. But it can be very useful indeed https://t.co/8GtTzOVKnh

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) March 21, 2022

Ill-treating workers is not just business. In God’s eyes it is sin.

P&O has sacked 800 people in Dover, a town dependent on shipping. Dover is a major part of the Diocese of Canterbury which we serve as Bishops.

The extraordinary move is at the command of DP World, the Dubai based and owned parent company, which made record profits last year. The move is cynically timed for a moment when world attention is on Ukraine. Done without warning or consultation it is inhumane, treats human beings as a commodity of no basic value or dignity and is completely unethical.

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“P&O: Joint statement from the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Dover
But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” – Amos 5:24
Ill-treating workers is not just business. In God’s eyes it is sin.” https://t.co/0ck5KT5fQv

— Margaret Georgiadou aka GangstaGran #FBPA #FBPPR (@madgie1941) March 18, 2022