It is genuinely difficult to adapt your life to Christian living: to commit to a community full of people whose company you might not have chosen for yourself, in which you must regularly recognise your own flaws and weaknesses and cruelties. Forgiving other people is hard, but so is asking other people to forgive you. The long social dominance of Christianity in Europe has tended to obscure the fundamental oddness and difficulty of Christian observance.

It doesn’t help that well-meaning Christian attempts to appeal to reach out to young people have often been rather inept, often because they lack the confidence to just let the truths of the faith speak for themselves. Most people who grew up in churches will have their own stories of cringeworthy attempts by church leaders to get down with the kids, usually just a decade or two behind the times. Disco cathedrals are a hard no.

There are no easy answers. What works in one place, with one set of kids, may not work in another. Quite likely the much-mocked rainbow guitar straps have appealed to plenty of teenagers in their time. But, ultimately, no Christian congregation can avoid the question.

Read it all.

New research shows that most non-believers say they were raised in the faith.

So why did so many leave? Niall Gooch https://t.co/VYP2I27Rd1

— UnHerd (@unherd) March 30, 2025

The forced displacement and killing of Christians in Nigeria is not the product of climate change, or clashes between farmers and herders, but religiously motivated persecution, a bishop there said this week.

The RC Bishop of Makurdi, Dr Wilfred Anagbe, whose diocese is in the Middle Belt state of Benue, said on Tuesday that the international community needed to acquire a “clear narrative of what is going on. Previously it has been said it was based on climate change and farmers and herders clashing. . . That is not the reason.”

He spoke of a “clear, orchestrated agenda or plan of Islam to take over the territories” of people who were “predominantly Christian”. In some parts of Nigeria, villages were being given new Islamic names. “It is about the conquest and occupation of the land.”

Climate change was occurring in other countries, without simultaneous forced displacement, he said. Benue State was 99 per cent Christian; its economy was not based on rearing cattle.

Read it all.

The forced displacement and killing of Christians in Nigeria is not the product of climate change, or clashes between farmers and herders, but religiously motivated persecution, a bishop there said this week.https://t.co/Qmiq0Lh1aE

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) March 28, 2025

Donald Trump is holding a gun to the head of Volodymyr Zelensky, demanding huge reparations payments and laying claim to half of Ukraine’s oil, gas, and hydrocarbon resources as well as almost all its metals and much of its infrastructure.

The latest version of his “minerals deal”, obtained by The Telegraph, is unprecedented in the history of modern diplomacy and state relations.

“It is an expropriation document,” said Alan Riley, an expert on energy law at the Atlantic Council. “There are no guarantees, no defence clauses, the US puts up nothing.

“The Americans can walk away, the Ukrainians can’t. I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

Read it all.

Trump now threatens Europe with assisting Putin in rebuilding his war machine if Zelensky doesn’t sign over Ukraine’s resources.https://t.co/jhRH9B0aeE

— Jay in Kyiv (@JayinKyiv) March 27, 2025

The US’s federal debt burden is set to surpass the peak it reached in the wake of the second world war in coming years, Congress’s fiscal watchdog has warned, underscoring growing concerns over America’s public finances.

The Congressional Budget Office said on Thursday that the US’s debt-to-GDP ratio would reach 107 per cent during the 2029 fiscal year — exceeding the 1940s era peak — and continue rising to 156 per cent by 2055. The debt-to-GDP ratio is forecast to be 100 per cent for the 2025 fiscal year.

The projections come just days after Moody’s delivered a warning about the sustainability of the US’s fiscal position, with the rating agency saying that President Donald Trump’s trade tariffs could compromise attempts to bring its large federal deficit under control by raising interest rates.

“Mounting debt would slow economic growth, push up interest payments to foreign holders of US debt and pose significant risks to the fiscal and economic outlook; it could also cause lawmakers to feel constrained in their policy choices,” the CBO said on Thursday.

Read it all.

US debt burden to top second world war peak in coming years, CBO says via @FT
https://t.co/SfaV25Dypt

— Stare Decisis (@MsResJudicata) March 27, 2025

Over the past decade China’s hacking program has grown rapidly, to the point that in 2023 Christopher Wray, then FBI director, noted it was larger than that of every other major nation combined. China’s growing heft and sophistication has yielded success in three main areas.

The first is political espionage, linked primarily to the Ministry of State Security (mss), China’s foreign-intelligence service. Last year it emerged that one group of Chinese hackers, dubbed Salt Typhoon, had breached at least nine American phone companies, giving them access to the calls and messages of important officials. Ciaran Martin, who led Britain’s cyber-defense agency from 2016 to 2020, compares it to the revelations in 2013 by Edward Snowden, a government contractor, that American spy agencies were conducting cyber-espionage on a huge scale. China was “gaining vast access to the nation’s communications via a strategic spying operation of breathtaking audacity,” he says.

A second is in areas of little espionage value: hacking that lays the groundwork for sabotage in moments of crisis or war. These efforts are led by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), China’s armed forces. In 2023 it became apparent that a PLA-linked hacking group known as Volt Typhoon had, over several years, burrowed into an extraordinary range of American critical infrastructure, from ports to factories to water-treatment plants, across the continental United States and in strategic American territories such as Guam.

All of that builds on a third type of hacking: the industrial-scale theft of intellectual property. In 2013 Mandiant, a cyber-threat intelligence firm, which is now part of Google, made waves when it exposed “apt1”, the label for a group of hackers linked to the PLA. apt1 was not focused on stealing political secrets or turning off power grids but on stealing blueprints, manufacturing processes and business plans from American firms. A year later, America’s government took the then unprecedented step of indicting five PLA hackers for this activity. Keith Alexander, a former head of the National Security Agency (NSA), America’s signals-intelligence service, described this as “the greatest transfer of wealth in history”.

Read it all.

I wrote a piece on China’s evolution into a bigger, more sophisticated and more threatening cyber power over the past decade, and particularly in the last few years. I also look at the pivotal role played by China’s private sector ecosystem in that shift. https://t.co/EyAyZsgG84

— Shashank Joshi (@shashj) March 26, 2025

Credit rating group Moody’s has warned on the US fiscal outlook, saying President Donald Trump’s trade tariffs could hamper the country’s ability to cope with a growing debt pile and higher interest rates.

The rating agency said on Tuesday that America’s “fiscal strength is on course for a continued multiyear decline”, having already “deteriorated further” since it assigned a negative outlook to America’s top-notch triple A credit rating in November 2023.

While Moody’s highlighted the “extraordinary” economic resilience of the US and the role of the dollar and the Treasury market as backbones of the global financial system, its analysts also warned on Tuesday that the policies of the second Trump administration — including sweeping tariffs and plans for tax cuts — could do more harm than good for government revenues.

“The potential negative credit impact of sustained high tariffs, unfunded tax cuts and significant tail risks to the economy have diminished prospects that these formidable strengths will continue to offset widening fiscal deficits and declining debt affordability,” Moody’s said.

Read it all.

Moody’s warns on deteriorating outlook for US public finances https://t.co/xE1wjdoa8u

— Financial Times (@FT) March 25, 2025

Nearly four years ago, the Biden administration removed Nigeria from a list of countries whose threats to religious freedom are of “particular concern,” but continued attacks on Christians and other religious groups by Islamist militias have prompted calls from local faith leaders and members of the US Congress for the designation to be restored.

In Africa’s most populous nation, a deadly cycle of violence has unfolded for several years, with Christian clergy and laypeople as well as moderate Muslims falling victim to murder and kidnapping. The Christian nonprofit Open Doors recently reported that in 2024 some 3,100 Christians were killed and more than 2,000 kidnapped in Nigeria.

Last week, US Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa, held a hearing on religious freedom violations in Nigeria that included testimony from Catholic Bishop Wilfred Anagbe of the Diocese of Makurdi, in central Nigeria, and Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, a former US Commission on International Religious Freedom commissioner.

Read it all.

After thousands of deaths and kidnappings, Nigerian Christians call on the US to recognize their persecution.

“We live in fear, because at any point it can be our turn to be killed.”https://t.co/ciqtVMB2Ls

— Christianity Today (@CTmagazine) March 24, 2025

At the beginning of March, Norwegian evangelist Jan Eriksen, a former criminal and drug addict, visited Czech prisons, again.

He has been visiting the Czech Republic for more than 20 years, and during that time he has addressed thousands of prisoners.

This time, Jan Eriksen told his life story in prisons in Karviná, Opava, Kuřim, Rapotice and Mírov. During these five visits, about 120 prisoners responded to his call to repent and follow Christ.

All who were interested could also take away from the meeting a copy of the New Testament and Eriksen’s autobiographical book I lived in the underworld (in Czech: Žil jsem v podsvětí, originally Handlager der Unterwelt in Norwegian). In the book, he describes how as a pimp and drug dealer he experienced the bitter reality of a world full of violence, murder, rape and prostitution.

Read it all.

Jan Eriksen, a former pimp and drug addict, has been sharing his testimony of conversion with inmates in the Czech Republic and other countries for more than 20 years. https://t.co/0QJqo4MUud

— Evangelical Focus (@Evan_Focus) March 24, 2025

And so his question to all those who have the freedom to speak in the Church and for the Church is ‘who do you really speak for?’ But if we take seriously the underlying theme of his words and witness, that question is also, ‘who do you really feel with?’ Are you immersed in the real life of the Body, or is your life in Christ seen only as having the same sentiments as the powerful? Sentir con la Iglesia in the sense in which the mature Romero learned those words is what will teach you how to speak on behalf of the Body. And we must make no mistake about what this can entail: Romero knew that this kind of ‘feeling with the Church’ could only mean taking risks with and for the Body of Christ – so that, as he later put it, in words that are still shocking and sobering, it would be ‘sad’ if priests in such a context were not being killed alongside their flock. As of course they were in El Salvador, again and again in those nightmare years.

But he never suggests that speaking on behalf of the Body is the responsibility of a spiritual elite. He never dramatised the role of the priest so as to play down the responsibility of the people. If every priest and bishop were silenced, he said, ‘each of you will have to be God’s microphone. Each of you will have to be a messenger, a prophet. The Church will always exist as long as even one baptized person is alive.’ Each part of the Body, because it shares the sufferings of the whole – and the hope and radiance of the whole – has authority to speak out of that common life in the crucified and risen Jesus.

So Romero’s question and challenge is addressed to all of us, not only those who have the privilege of some sort of public megaphone for their voices. The Church is maintained in truth; and the whole Church has to be a community where truth is told about the abuses of power and the cries of the vulnerable. Once again, if we are serious about sentir con la Iglesia, we ask not only who we are speaking for but whose voice still needs to be heard, in the Church and in society at large. The questions here are as grave as they were thirty years ago. In Salvador itself, the methods of repression familiar in Romero’s day were still common until very recently. We can at least celebrate the fact that the present head of state there has not only apologized for government collusion in Romero’s murder but has also spoken boldly on behalf of those whose environment and livelihood are threatened by the rapacity of the mining companies, who are set on a new round of exploitation in Salvador and whose critics have been abducted and butchered just as so many were three decades back. The skies are not clear: our own Anglican bishop in Salvador was attacked ten days ago by unknown enemies; but the signs of hope are there, and the will to defend the poor and heal the wounds.

Read it all.

St Oscar Romero, Archbishop of San Salvador, died #onthisday in 1980.

He committed himself to the poor and the persecuted of his native El Salvador and was assassinated while celebrating Mass in the chapel of the hospital where he lived.

He was canonised in 2018 is one of ten… pic.twitter.com/hqU2aVCXcE

— Westminster Abbey (@wabbey) March 24, 2025

Almighty God, who didst call thy servant Oscar Romero to be a voice for the voiceless poor, and to give his life as a seed of freedom and a sign of hope: Grant that, inspired by his sacrifice and the example of the martyrs of El Salvador, we may without fear or favor witness to thy Word who abideth, thy Word who is Life, even Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with thee and the Holy Spirit, be praise and glory now and for ever. Amen.

Today is the feast day of St. Oscar Romero. He was canonized by Pope Francis in 2018 and is remembered for his faithfulness as Archbishop of San Salvador. On March 24, 1980 he was shot to death while offering Mass.

Amidst persecution we face today, St. Oscar Romero, pray for us! pic.twitter.com/G24TQP0EIw

— EWTN Global Catholic Network (@EWTN) March 24, 2025

Rising political tensions in South Sudan threaten to drag the country into a new civil war, but even if rival factions can safeguard a 2018 peace deal, more fighting is set to occur in the northeastern Upper Nile state, which will likely draw in growing involvement from Sudan’s warring parties. On March 18, the party of South Sudan’s First Vice President Riek Machar, SPLM-IO, announced it was halting its participation in key provisions of a 2018 peace deal, including joint security and ceasefire monitoring committees, until authorities released allies of Machar who are currently being detained. The announcement comes amid rapidly surging tensions between Machar and South Sudanese President Salva Kiir, who in early March ordered the arrest of pro-Machar figures after the White Army, a militia drawing support from Machar’s Nuer ethnic group, captured the town of Nasir in Upper Nile state on March 4….

Read it all.

Rising tensions and violence in South Sudan's Upper Nile State risk reigniting civil war, threatening the fragile 2018 peace deal.https://t.co/BfMf97HiCx

Jan Pospisil, @covcampus#Politics

— The Conversation Africa (@TC_Africa) March 21, 2025

Buried in China’s latest government budget were some numbers that add up to an alarming trend. Tax revenue is dropping.

The decline means that China’s national government has less money to address the country’s serious economic challenges, including a housing market crash and the near bankruptcy of hundreds of local governments.

Weak tax revenue also puts China’s leaders in a box as they square off with President Trump, who has imposed 20 percent tariffs on goods from China and threatened more to come. Beijing has less spare cash to help the export industries that are driving economic growth but could be hurt by tariffs.

The drop in tax collections leaves China’s leaders in an unfamiliar position. Until the last several years, China enjoyed robust revenue, which it used to invest in infrastructure, a rapid military buildup and extensive industrial subsidies. Even as economic growth has slowed gradually over the past 12 years, taking a dent out of consumer spending, tax revenue held fairly steady until recently.

Read it all.

China’s Government Is Short of Money as Its Leaders Face Trump https://t.co/ElmQsX47Dt

— Michael Standaert (@mstandaert) March 21, 2025

Since….[2023], stories like the ones we found in Levittown have become far more widespread. With federal law remaining largely silent on the legality of creating nonconsensual deepfake pornographic images, state prosecutors have scrambled to find charges that fit a new kind of harassment.

AI-based deepfaking services are hitting a peak. Traffic to the 10 most popular “nudifying” apps soared by more than 600% year over year, from 3 million views in April 2023 to 23 million in April 2024, according to figures provided to Bloomberg by a research company that asked not to be identified in connection with its data on online pornography. In January this year alone, the websites received 18 million views, the research shows.

With a stamp of approval from first lady Melania Trump, lawmakers this year are expected to pass a bill criminalizing the posting of nonconsensual pornographic deepfakes on the internet. It will penalize the posters with prison time and the platforms with fines if they don’t remove the fake pictures quickly enough.

The proposed Take It Down Act, which passed in the Senate in the last Congress with bipartisan support, wouldn’t outlaw the apps themselves. So San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu last year tried to tackle the root cause. He brought a first-of-its-kind lawsuit charging the deepfake app creators, arguing they broke federal and state revenge and child pornography rules and broke California’s competition law. The apps named in the lawsuit have either closed or appear to be operating under different names. Some have geofenced their services so they can’t be accessed in the state. Out of 16 apps named, representatives of only one of them have responded to Chiu’s complaint.

Read it all (and consider listening to the accompanying podcast).

A new podcast tries to understand exactly who was behind a global clearinghouse of nonconsensual deepfake pornography https://t.co/ERCR6WvrLm

— Bloomberg Markets (@markets) March 21, 2025

The pace of China’s open-source AI push has been relentless. Since the debut in January of DeepSeek R1 — China’s answer to OpenAI’s o1 series — a wave of increasingly capable models has followed. Alibaba claims its latest AI reasoning model QwQ-32B rivals DeepSeek’s R1 and has performed well in official benchmark tests. Every few weeks, another arrives, pushing the boundaries of what open-source AI can do.

Chinese tech groups are taking a very different approach. By open sourcing AI, they not only sidestep US sanctions but also decentralize development and tap into global talent to refine their models. Even restrictions on Nvidia’s high-end chips become less of an obstacle when the rest of the world can train and improve China’s models on alternative hardware.

AI advances through iteration. Every new release builds upon the last, refining weaknesses, expanding capabilities and improving efficiency. By open-sourcing AI models, Chinese tech groups create an ecosystem where global developers continuously improve their models — without shouldering all the development costs.

The scale of this approach could fundamentally reshape AI’s economic structure. If open-source AI becomes just as powerful as proprietary US models, the ability to monetise AI as an exclusive product collapses. Why pay for closed models if a free, equally capable alternative exists?

Read it all.

Why China is suddenly flooding the market with powerful AI models https://t.co/6NGxSWX6Tl | opinion

— Financial Times (@FT) March 19, 2025

Merciful God, who didst call Cuthbert from following the flock to be a shepherd of thy people: Mercifully grant that we also may go without fear to dangerous and remote places, to seek the indifferent and the lost; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

12th century wall painting of St. Cuthbert of Lindisfarne in the Galilee Chapel at Durham Cathedral. Today is St. Cuthbert’s feast day. #StCuthbert #Lindisfarne #Durham pic.twitter.com/c6gtvZ76tv

— Kevin Wilbraham (@KPW1453) March 20, 2025

“Whoever becomes the next Archbishop of Canterbury will need to know, more than anything, that she or he can only undertake this role with the grace and comfort of Almighty God. I am praying that God calls a humble follower of Jesus who draws others to the abundant joy of Gospel life, a pastor and shepherd, and a gentle prophet for our time.”

The Archbishop of York will also sit on the CNC. Had he chosen not to, another bishop from the Province of York would have been elected to take his place.

The remaining membership of the CNC — including representatives of the diocese of Canterbury and the Anglican Communion — would be announced in early April, a Church House spokesperson said.

It is expected that the CNC will convene for its first meeting in May, and that at least two further meetings will take place in July and September. It is hoped that a new Archbishop of Canterbury will be announced in autumn.

Read it all.

"Despite speculation in recent months, I have felt no sense of inner calling to be Archbishop of Canterbury," the Bishop of Norwich, Graham Usher, said today. He'd previously been considered among the front runners to be the next Archbishop of Canterbury.https://t.co/C9YvwoR0gU

— Francis Martin (@PhrancisMartin) March 19, 2025

In recent years, Nigeria has seen a surge in kidnappings and violent attacks. Christians living in the country’s five southeast states of Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo have said violence has affected their religious lives.

“Insecurity in the southeast affects religious activities. In some places in Imo State, especially in Orsu and some parts of Orlu, [most people] don’t attend church services on Sundays,” said Obi Ugochukwu, a Christian based in Imo State. “Even vigils are like things of the past because movement during the nighttime is not advisable.”

Experts said there are different groups responsible for the violence in the region.

“There are over 20 groups perpetrating violence in the southeast. We have Fulani herdsmen and street criminal entities,” said Emeka Umeagbalasi, founder of the International Society for Civil Liberties and the Rule of Law (Intersociety), a human rights and democracy advocacy organization.

Read it all.

In recent years, Nigeria has seen a surge in kidnappings and violent attacks. Christians living in the country’s five southeast states of Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo have said violence has affected their religious lives.https://t.co/CMHR4s513b

— Religion Unplugged (@ReligionMag) March 19, 2025

President Trump said the US and Russia are already talking about dividing “assets” as part of a push to end the fighting in Ukraine, the latest sign that he may be preparing to sacrifice Kyiv’s interests when he speaks with Vladimir Putin on Tuesday.

One objective of the call is expected to be getting the Russian president to agree to a 30-day ceasefire that Trump proposed this month and Ukraine has agreed to. Putin has been noncommittal so far, saying he accepted the idea in principle but wants certain conditions to be met.

“Tomorrow morning I will be speaking to President Putin concerning the War in Ukraine,” Trump said Monday evening in a social media post. “Many elements of a Final Agreement have been agreed to, but much remains.” Those remarks, along with Trump’s comments to reporters Sunday night that the two sides were already talking about how to divide assets, suggest that many decisions have already been made — with or without Ukraine.

Read it all.

President Donald Trump said the US and Russia are already talking about dividing “assets” as part of a push to end the fighting in Ukraine, the latest sign that he may be preparing to sacrifice Kyiv’s interests when he speaks with Vladimir Putin https://t.co/VssbS4Uy1T

— Bloomberg (@business) March 18, 2025

The U.S. military will continue attacks on Houthi militants in Yemen, officials said Monday, as the Trump administration launches a new, open-ended attempt to prevent the group’s assaults on commercial shipping or U.S. and allied targets.

The Pentagon said U.S. forces had struck more than 30 Houthi targets since Saturday, including command-and-control and training sites, drone infrastructure, and weapons production and storage facilities, in what officials have said would be an intensified campaign against the militants.

“Today, the operation continues, and it will continue in the coming days until we achieve the president’s objectives,” Lt. Gen. AlexusGrynkewich, a senior official on the Joint Staff, told reporters at the Pentagon.

Read it all.

Pentagon says operation targeting Yemen’s Houthis is open-ended

https://t.co/HIXeSnFVPZ

— Mike Walker (@New_Narrative) March 17, 2025

The Church Commissioners’ control over dioceses has been criticised by the Bishop of Rochester, Dr Jonathan Gibbs, who has warned of “significant and unsustainable annual deficits”.

The announcement this weekend that his own diocese had been awarded £11 million from the Strategic Mission and Ministry Investment (SMMI) Board did not deter Dr Gibbs from arguing that the increasing emphasis on grants “exacerbates the sense of control by the centre”.

“Everyone accepts that the Commissioners are brilliant at investing money and generating excellent returns,” he told his diocesan synod on Saturday. “But the reality is that the resources they now hold represent a significant net transfer not only of assets but also of financial control from the dioceses to the national Church, something which has become more and more evident over the last ten or so years.”

His comments echo those of other bishops in recent months. In the General Synod last month, the Bishop of Bath & Wells, Dr Michael Beasley, expressed frustration after time ran out for a debate on a motion from Hereford diocese calling on the Commissioners to transfer £2.6 billion of assets to diocesan stipend funds to support parish ministry (News, 31 January). Gloucester, Coventry, Bath & Wells, Blackburn, Chichester, and Lincoln diocesan synods had all passed motions in identical terms to Hereford’s.

Read it all.

Strong words from +Rochester this weekend, who says the renewed emphasis on grants from the central Church "with resources going only to special projects approved by the Board, further exacerbates the sense of control by the centre" https://t.co/6Q9o3320Qn pic.twitter.com/MM1et3BQyM

— Madeleine Davies (@MadsDavies) March 17, 2025

Some firms may even intend to quietly pare back their investment plans. In 2017 Foxconn, a Taiwanese maker of electronics, vowed to spend $10bn on a plant in Wisconsin that would employ 13,000 people. Mr Trump visited the proposed site, proclaiming it the “eighth wonder of the world”. Yet after much watering down of plans, the company said last year that it had spent just $1bn on the project, and created only 1,000 jobs.

Faced with American tariffs, some foreign companies could instead direct their attention elsewhere. That has been the case with Chinese firms, which bore the brunt of the duties imposed during Mr Trump’s first term. The flow of greenfield FDI from China to America slid from $8.2bn in 2016 to $6.5bn last year. According to Morgan Stanley, listed Chinese firms generated around a quarter of their foreign sales in America in 2024, down from roughly a half in 2016. Instead, they have turned to the fast-growing economies of the global south.

If Mr Trump’s objective is to encourage foreign businesses to build in America, there are more effective policies at his disposal than tariffs. On the campaign trail the president also promised to slash red tape. Tortuous planning processes have long held back American manufacturing. For foreign firms, fixing those would be far more motivating. 

Read it all.

Will Trump’s #tariffs turbocharge #foreign #investment in America?
Companies from #Asahi to #TSMC are expanding production in the country—for nowhttps://t.co/ga2y1Ryoxw pic.twitter.com/kNAGIbbRpA

— pebbleone (@TACITWR) March 17, 2025

Almighty God, who in thy providence didst choose thy servant Patrick to be the apostle of the Irish people, to bring those who were wandering in darkness and error to the true light and knowledge of thee: Grant us so to walk in that light, that we may come at last to the light of everlasting life; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and ever.

#OnThisDay
(traditional date)
March 17, 461:
Patrick, missionary to Ireland and its patron saint, dies. Captured by Irish raiders as a youth, he was enslaved before escaping to Gaul (modern France). Years later, after a vision calling him to return, he preached the gospel to the… pic.twitter.com/CzMYThxGHs

— ☧ Today in Christian History (@HistoricalRook) March 17, 2025

Few would expect the future of artificial intelligence (AI) to depend on Eindhoven, a quiet Dutch town. Yet just beyond its borders sits the headquarters of ASML, the only company that makes the machines, known as lithography tools, needed to produce cutting-edge AI chips. ASML’s latest creation is a 150-tonne colossus, around the size of two shipping containers and priced at around $350m. It is also the most advanced machine for sale.

The firm’s expertise has placed it at the centre of a global technology battle. To prevent China from building whizzy AI chips, America has barred ASML from selling its most advanced gear to Chinese chipmakers. In response, China is pouring billions of dollars into building homegrown alternatives. Meanwhile, Canon, a Japanese rival, is betting on a simpler, cheaper technology to loosen ASML’s grip. Yet unlike software, where industry leadership can shift in a matter of months, success in lithography is a slow-moving race measured in decades. Overtaking ASML won’t be easy. At stake is control of the machine that will shape the future of computing, AI and technology itself.

ASML’s most advanced machine is mind-boggling. It works by firing 50,000 droplets of molten tin into a vacuum chamber. Each droplet takes a double hit—first from a weak laser pulse that flattens it into a tiny pancake, then from a powerful laser that vaporises it. The process turns each droplet into hot plasma, reaching nearly 220,000°C, roughly 40 times hotter than the surface of the Sun, and emits light of extremely short wavelength (extreme ultraviolet, or EUV). This light is then reflected by a series of mirrors so smooth that imperfections are measured in trillionths of a metre. The mirrors focus the light onto a mask or template that contains blueprints of the chip’s circuits. Finally the rays bounce from the mask onto a silicon wafer coated with light-sensitive chemicals, imprinting the design onto the chip.

Read it all.

ASML’s tools are indispensable to modern chipmaking. Rivals are now racing to dethrone the company—but it won’t be easy https://t.co/WNWBencgIo

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) March 14, 2025

A Christian street preacher prosecuted after criticising Islam is celebrating a win for free speech after his case was thrown out by a judge this week. 

At a hearing at Wolverhampton Crown Court, Mr Recorder G Kelly dismissed the case against Karandeep Mamman, 33, on the grounds that the Crown Prosecution Service had failed to provide any evidence for the charges brought against him.

Mr Mamman was charged under section 28 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 for causing religiously aggravated harassment, alarm and distress after preaching in Walsall town centre on 14 January 2023.

Read it all

Mr Mamman said he was surrounded by a group of Muslims who threatened to take him away, beat him up and "cut his throat".https://t.co/t3B6oclWPI

— Christian Concern (@CConcern) March 11, 2025

By March 2025, the pews of America’s churches tell a story of absence. Five years after COVID-19 shuttered sanctuaries, the faithful have not fully returned. Barna Group’s 2023 data revealed that one in three practicing Christians stopped attending during the pandemic’s peak, and while some trickled back, weekly in-person attendance among evangelicals — once exceeding 50% — now hovers near 35–40%, per reasonable extrapolation. Online worship persists, with 15–20% of believers logging in rather than showing up. The decline is not a mere statistic; it is a clarion call — a spiritual and cultural crisis demanding a conservative Christian reckoning. The church, God’s embodied witness, risks fading into a digital mirage unless we reclaim its sacred purpose.

This is no benign adaptation to modernity. Scripture commands us, in Hebrews 10:24–25, to “consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some.” The early church of Acts 2 didn’t stream sermons—they gathered, broke bread, and lived faith face-to-face. Yet today, we’ve traded this divine mandate for the flickering glow of screens, seduced by a culture that prizes convenience over conviction. The pandemic was a catalyst, not the cause; it exposed a pre-existing drift toward a privatized, consumerist Christianity. As conservatives who cherish tradition and truth, we must name this exodus for what it is: a quiet rebellion against God’s design.

The culprits are manifold, woven into the fabric of a society unmoored from biblical moorings. Technology, our pandemic lifeline, has become a gilded cage. By 2025, churches boast polished livestreams — AI-enhanced, no less — offering worship on demand. Pew Research noted in 2022 that 30% of regular attendees shifted online, and many stayed. Why rise early when you can replay the sermon over coffee? This isn’t progress; it’s capitulation to a secular ethos that reduces faith to a commodity. Meanwhile, government overreach lingers in memory — 2020’s lockdown mandates, upheld by courts but decried by conservatives, bred distrust in institutions, including the church. Some still balk at returning, fearing control more than communion.

Younger generations amplify the crisis….

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The Vanishing Flock: Reclaiming the Church in a Post-Pandemic Wilderness https://t.co/NlX5JfUt0D

— RON BEATY (@ronbeatyjr) March 13, 2025

Most gracious God, by the calling of thy servant James Theodore Holly thou gavest us our first bishop of African-American heritage. In his quest for life and freedom, he led thy people from bondage into a new land and established the Church in Haiti. Grant that, inspired by his testimony, we may overcome our prejudice and honor those whom thou callest from every family, language, people, and nation; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Today the Episcopal Church commemorates James Theodore Holly, Bishop of Haiti, and of the Dominican Republic, 1911

A missionary in Haiti from 1861, Holly was the 1st African-American bishop in the Episcopal Church when consecrated Bishop of Haiti in 1874 pic.twitter.com/pyNKYEE9Bz

— The Anglican Church in St Petersburg (@anglicanspb) March 13, 2024

The new Interim Dean of Winchester, Canon Roland Riem, has promised transparency and “radical candour” in response to a review, published last week, which identified leadership failings at Winchester Cathedral (News, 3 March).

In a statement read out to the cathedral’s congregation on Sunday, Canon Riem said that the Chapter would publish updates on its response to the review at three-monthly intervals.

Canon Riem, who was previously Vice-Dean of the cathedral, was confirmed as Interim Dean after the Very Revd Catherine Ogle brought forward her planned retirement.

In a statement last week, she apologised on behalf of the Chapter, saying that, although it had to accept “collective responsibility”, as its leader, she had decided to step back immediately (News, 7 March), ahead of her planned retirement.

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The new Interim Dean of Winchester, Canon Roland Riem, has promised transparency and “radical candour” in response to a review, published last week, which identified leadership failings at Winchester Cathedralhttps://t.co/GbElq3J8JX

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) March 12, 2025

Throughout China’s annual legislative meeting, the national leader Xi Jinping made clear that he wants nothing to hold back his plans for China to march past its rivals by becoming a technological superpower. Not the economic slowdown or heavy local government debt, nor a trade war with the United States.

The meeting in Beijing, called the National People’s Congress, was once a stage for Communist Party leaders to make a show of public consultation. Congress delegates, although handpicked by the party, sometimes chided officials over problems like pollution. There were even rare flashes of discord among senior officials.

Mr. Xi, though, has turned the meeting into a meticulously orchestrated, weeklong salute to himself and his vision. This time, he urged China to forge ahead in advanced technologies including artificial intelligence, biotechnology and new weapons.

“Xi has seen how decades of investment into science by the U.S. government after World War II was a knockout success for the United States, and wants to replicate that,” said Jimmy Goodrich, who studies China’s science policies as a senior adviser at RAND Corporation.

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What Slowdown? Xi Says China Must Win the Global Tech Race
Well sort of…. https://t.co/AJ7299v2qA

— Paul Triolo (@pstAsiatech) March 11, 2025

In her introduction to your latest book, Jesus Changes Everything, Tish Harrison Warren mentions something many Christians are concerned about: that we live in a post-Christian world. She’s wondering if we actually are living in a pre-Christian world and whether that might not be such a bad place to be. What’s your take on the time in which we live and the opportunities in front of the church?

Well, the mainstream Protestant church is dying. And I don’t think that’s a bad thing. It makes us free. I mean, for some time people argued that the world would go to hell if it were not Christian. That may be the case. But being Christian doesn’t mean you need a Christian America. 

What I think we’re experiencing is the ultimate working out of nihilism, which so often goes with liberalism. Liberalism is the presumption that you should have no story except the story you chose when you had no story.

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In an interview with @Plough’s Charles E. Moore, Stanley Hauerwas meditates on the necessity of the gospel, the politics of the kingdom, and the high demands of sanctification.https://t.co/XI9F2ySH5C

— Christianity Today (@CTmagazine) March 11, 2025

From the choppy waters of the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait to the frozen ridges of the Himalayas, China is pursuing a relentless campaign of expansion, operating in the hazy zone between war and peace to extend its power across Asia.

Beijing carefully calibrates each move with the aim of staying below the threshold of action that could trigger outright conflict. But, step by incremental step, it has pushed deeper into contested areas, exhausting opponents and eroding their strength with a thousand cuts.   

Whether it is probes by war planes, maneuvers by coast guard ships or the creeping construction of new civilian settlements, China is constantly pushing boundaries in what security strategists call the “gray zone.” It tests the limits of what its opponents consider tolerable behavior, escalating a bit with every new action.

The Wall Street Journal reviewed years of ship-movement data, satellite images, flight-tracking information and other measures of Chinese activity. Taken together, it shows a clear intensification of tactics meant to intimidate rivals and deepen China’s control.

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China Is Waging a ‘Gray Zone’ Campaign to Cement Power. Here’s How It Looks. Years of ship-tracking data, flight paths and satellite images show a clear intensification of Beijing’s tactics across a swath of Asia@NiharikaSM https://t.co/WpfFAILKYRhttps://t.co/WpfFAILKYR

— Jonathan Cheng (@JChengWSJ) March 10, 2025