The industry makes most of its profits from those who are vulnerable, with 86% of online betting profits coming from 5% of customers. Most of thesepeople are already suffering from gambling–related harms or have been diagnosed as suffering from an addiction. Further, the statistics show that 35% of people with a gambling disorder receive daily incentives to gamble, compared to only 4% of those without. All too often there are reports in the media of people receiving offers of ‘free’ spins and the chance to be a ‘VIP customer’ when they have been trying to stop gambling.

Coroners currently do not need to record an opinion on the factors that may have caused a person to taketheir life. My Private Members Bill, the Coroners (Determination of Suicide) Bill aims to change that.

It is estimated that between 400 – 500 people take their lives each year in this country due to gambling. Yet when the House of Lords ministers answered my questions they claimed that there was no reliable statistics of the numbers of deaths caused by gambling. Furthermore, they showed little concern to find out.

If this bill comes into law, the requirement on coroners to record the ‘where, how and what’ questions associated with each suicide will remain unchanged. However, once this part of the inquesthas been concluded, each coroner will be required to record the co-morbidities of each suicide….

Read it all.

Coroners currently do not need to record an opinion on the factors that may have caused a person to take their life this has to change, argues the Bishop of St Albans in this important article discussing his PMB – https://t.co/pK6hMtBJlC #Parliament #SuicidePrevention

— Alistair Thompson (@ali_thompson1) March 17, 2023

The speed of the change is astonishing. Since entering America in 2017, TikTok has picked up more users than all but a handful of social-media apps, which have been around more than twice as long (see chart 1). Among young audiences, it crushes the competition. Americans aged 18-24 spend an hour a day on TikTok, twice as long as they spend on Instagram and Snapchat and more than five times as long as they spend on Facebook, which these days is mainly a medium for communicating with the grandparents (see chart 2).

TikTok’s success has prompted its rivals to reinvent themselves. Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, has turned both apps’ main feeds into algorithmically sorted “discovery engines” and launched Reels, a TikTok clone bolted onto Facebook and Instagram. Similar lookalike products have been created by YouTube (Shorts), Snapchat (Spotlight), Pinterest (Watch) and even Netflix (Fast Laughs). The latest TikTok-inspired makeover, announced on March 8th, was by Spotify, a music app whose homepage now features video clips that can be skipped by swiping up. (TikTok’s Chinese sister app, Douyin, is having a similar effect in its home market, where digital giants like Tencent are increasingly putting short videos at the centre of their offerings.)

Read it all.

Short-form video has taken over social media. Although users have a seemingly endless appetite for the format, it is proving less profitable for platforms than the old news feed https://t.co/3uUiiiW4VL

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) March 21, 2023

I had a most remarkable but unsettling experience last week. Craig Mundie, the former chief research and strategy officer for Microsoft, was giving me a demonstration of GPT-4, the most advanced version of the artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT, developed by OpenAI and launched in November. Craig was preparing to brief the board of my wife’s museum, Planet Word, of which he is a member, about the effect ChatGPT will have on words, language and innovation.

“You need to understand,” Craig warned me before he started his demo, “this is going to change everything about how we do everything. I think that it represents mankind’s greatest invention to date. It is qualitatively different — and it will be transformational.”

Large language modules like ChatGPT will steadily increase in their capabilities, Craig added, and take us “toward a form of artificial general intelligence,” delivering efficiencies in operations, ideas, discoveries and insights “that have never been attainable before across every domain.”

Then he did a demonstration. And I realized Craig’s words were an understatement.

Read it all.

Insightful article by @tomfriedman. “Are we ready? It’s not looking that way: We’re debating whether to ban books at the dawn of a technology that can summarize or answer questions about virtually every book for everyone everywhere in a second.” #GPT4 https://t.co/Z3APrDVrlJ

— Michael Y. Uohara, MD (@mikeuohara_md) March 22, 2023

Almighty and everlasting God, the source and perfection of all virtues, who didst inspire thy servant James de Koven to do what is right and to preach what is true: Grant that all ministers and stewards of thy mysteries may afford to thy faithful people, by word and example, the knowledge of thy grace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Today the Episcopal Church commemorates James DeKoven, Priest, 1879 https://t.co/KvUQBNQEMg

A priest & educator who taught at Nashotah House & Racine College (now The DeKoven Center https://t.co/nPAViHbmdE), he was a leader of the Anglo-Catholic movement in the Episcopal Church. pic.twitter.com/bGvr0rawC9

— The Anglican Church in St Petersburg (@anglicanspb) March 22, 2023

Merciful Lord,
absolve your people from their offences,
that through your bountiful goodness
we may all be delivered from the chains of those sins
which by our frailty we have committed;
grant this, heavenly Father,
for Jesus Christ’s sake, our blessed Lord and Saviour,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.

Bright Blue Skies. 12°C and a keen Southwesterly breeze. Daffodils pic.twitter.com/f027R9N0M7

— Yorkshire Wolds Weather (@WeatherWolds) March 22, 2023

The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: “Arise, and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will let you hear my words.” So I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was working at his wheel. And the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do. Then the word of the LORD came to me: “O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter has done? says the LORD. Behold, like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel.

–Jeremiah 18:1-6

"Blue Hour, City in Bloom"#Daybreak #Dawn #JeffersonMemorial #CherryBlossoms, #PeakBloom #WashingtonDC #StormHour #ThePhotoHour pic.twitter.com/6lWJiuxi1q

— Thomas R Fletcher (@ThomasRFletcher) March 22, 2023

What’s missing? This exceedingly important discussion usually slides past a huge societal disruption in the early 21st century, the palpable decline in vitality for much of American religion, with shrunken youth groups, disappearing Sunday school programs, slumping worship attendance by teens and young adults — and with it the loss of congregations as natural places for young people to meet possible mates.

Writing about the CDC report for World magazine, Allie Beth Stuckey adds a spiritual crisis to all the other ills. She contends that social media help exchange “the god of self” for the true God through constant focus on ourselves, as in “how we feel, how we look, how we sound, what we want, what we like.”

We hear constant calls to teach girls “to love themselves more.” Yet she suggests that such “self-idolatry” is “driving teens into feelings of purposelessness and depression.”

Solutions do not come from the place where girls’ problems lie. Instead, people throughout history “have needed purpose, joy, and satisfaction that exists outside of themselves, namely in the God who created them.”

Read it all.

With alarming new reports on American youth, what should religious leaders be doing? https://t.co/rPH7DLbtky on the CDC report that shows rising percentages of hopelessness and suicide, much connected with increasing singleness and relational dysfunction pic.twitter.com/bIAx8VGBUM

— Jayson Casper (@jnjcasper) March 11, 2023

A spokesman for the diocese of York said this week: “The sender has taken some trouble both with identifying their chosen pseudo-sender and the intended victim. In many cases the sender has used an untraceable Gmail address, or texted from an equally untraceable pay-as-you-go or ‘burner’ mobile phone.”

At least one person is believed to have lost £1000 in the con and another only narrowly avoided losing a similar sum when they became suspicious after being asked to supply the voucher codes.

The diocesan spokesman continued: “It seems this is a national trend with similar reports from other Church of England dioceses. We have reported one specimen case to North Yorkshire police who have passed it over to Action Fraud, a national police scheme. Incumbents may like to consider advising their church officers and PCC members that: ‘I will never ask you by email to spend your own money for the church’.”

A joint unit of Northumbria, Cleveland, and Durham police has issued an alert over similar issues in the northeast, saying: “Clergy will never ask you to give them money, vouchers, or personal banking details directly, even to help someone in need . . . Even if they’re saying you’ll be refunded, it is a scam.”

Read it all.

Scammers have for a second time impersonated the Archbishop of York and other clergy to ask priests and church staff to buy them Amazon vouchers and online gift cards https://t.co/uHDbKQn5Ez

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) March 21, 2023

…the silt never ceased arriving in Lake Powell, the reservoir above the dam. Each day on average for the past 60 years, the equivalent of 61 supersize Mississippi River barge-loads of sand and mud have been deposited there. The total accumulation would bury the length of Manhattan to a depth of 126 feet — close to the height of a 12-story building.

For years this mud was hidden beneath Lake Powell’s blue waters. Now, as climate change and overuse of the Colorado have drawn the reservoir down to record lows, the silt is exposed — forming “‌mud glaciers‌‌.” And because of a gradient created when the lake level falls, the giant mud blobs are moving at a rate of 100 feet or more per day toward the dam.

These advancing mud blobs pose existential threats to the water supply of the Southwest: One day they could form a constipating plug that blocks Glen Canyon, preventing the water from flowing downriver. They could also someday endanger the structural integrity of the dam.

Asked about the dangers that the sediment posed, Floyd Dominy, the commissioner of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in 1963, later quipped, “We will let people in the future worry about it.”

Read it all.

In Opinion

Near the Glen Canyon Dam on the Colorado River, "advancing mud blobs pose existential threats to the water supply of the Southwest," Dale Maharidge, a professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, writes in a guest essay. https://t.co/ZaShKLoaxL

— The New York Times (@nytimes) March 20, 2023

And here is my real beef with Welby’s Church: managerialism. The backdrop to Welby’s appointment was the banking crisis and the subsequent Occupy camp at St Paul’s Cathedral. The Church needed to get a bit more this worldly, many thought. It needed to understand finance and business. When it came to capitalism, Welby was a grown-up, having worked for Elf Aquitaine in a previous life. And 11 years in the oil industry clearly shaped his thinking about organisational structures. The old, slightly bumbling high-table, soft-power understanding of Lambeth Palace was not for him. Welby wanted to change things and have access to levers of real executive power.

But the Church of England is not set up like this. It never has been. The parish system is the very model of subsidiarity. If anything, the Church is a bottom-up institution rather than top-down. You bow to your bishop, but you don’t necessarily do everything he asks. Under Welby, however, the centre has grown ever stronger, the parishes increasingly weaker. Max Weber famously divided power into the charismatic, the traditional and the legal/rational. Welby is the first archbishop who has tried to govern through the latter.

The “Save the Parish” movement was established as a fightback. Too many bishops became middle managers, hidden behind their laptops. Directives and new initiatives came down from head office, which many of the clergy, myself included, received with an inner groan. In the face of declining attendance, we all had to learn that evangelical up-speak, and get on with the paperwork. Morale has plummeted.

The Church’s reaction to Covid was the depressing conclusion of Welby’s legal/rational approach to power.

Read it all.

This is first rate: serious but not unsympathetic. It aligns with my thoughts: there is much to like about JW. He has been unfailingly kind towards me despite my implicit criticisms on Safeguarding. All the more reason to be “Father in God” rather than CEO https://t.co/qeiCvC9rIm

— MartinSewell (@SewellMartin) March 21, 2023

Almighty God, who didst give to thy servant Thomas Ken grace and courage to bear witness to the truth before rulers and kings: Give us also thy strength that, following his example, we may constantly defend what is right, boldly reprove what is evil, and patiently suffer for the truth’s sake, through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, now and ever.

#OTD 19 March 1711: death of Thomas Ken, non-juring bishop and hymn-writer. pic.twitter.com/D2SKsYXqdm

— Caroline Murray (@Prof_hedgehog) March 19, 2023

Grant us, O Lord, to rejoice in beholding the bliss of the heavenly Jerusalem; that as she is the home and mother of the multitude of the saints, we also may be counted worthy to have our portion within her; through thine only begotten Son, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Happy Spring Equinox from Glastonbury. The cloud eventually cleared on this first sunrise of Spring. The sun came out, lighting up the daffodils in the lane. #ostara #springequinox pic.twitter.com/KSJpPChesI

— Michelle Cowbourne (@Glastomichelle) March 21, 2023

The Lord reigns; let the earth rejoice; let the many coastlands be glad! Clouds and thick darkness are round about him; righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne. Fire goes before him, and burns up his adversaries round about. His lightnings lighten the world; the earth sees and trembles. The mountains melt like wax before the LORD, before the Lord of all the earth. The heavens proclaim his righteousness; and all the peoples behold his glory.

–Psalm 97:1-6

Good morning 🌎✨💫❤️ Have a great day , drink Coffee , smile , laugh and have the best of time all my lovely friends #photo #photooftheday #goodmorning #Tuesday #nature #flowers #colourful @StormHour @ThePhotoHour pic.twitter.com/JqePTpaqWX

— Dr.P_78Glasgow (@AbhaPaulina) March 21, 2023

A forlorn cow nuzzles the soil in search of a blade of grass that isn’t there. In better times Andur was the “boss cow” in a herd of 70. She always enjoyed the best pasture, was first to drink from the water trough, and where she led the others followed. By the look of her clearly articulated ribcage, Andur will soon be the one doing the following to where the rest of the herd lie dead on the edge of the village of Funan-Qumbi in Marsabit County.

Cattle-herding tribes of northern Kenya have been waiting four years for the sustained rainfall that they need to survive, but for most of their livestock it is too late. In Marsabit County, 80 per cent of the cattle have died.

Drought is nothing new in this semi-arid region near the Ethiopian border and the pastoralists are resourceful, but even the most wizened tribal elder says that they have never seen anything like this. In the scattered villages dotted about the remote 67,000sq m region where some half a million people live, hawks pick on the animals’ carcasses. It’s a gruesome visual reminder of the climate disaster that has caused the death of 11 million heads of livestock in Kenya and left more than 23 million people in northern Kenya, southern Ethiopia and Somalia at risk of starvation, according to the UN World Food Programme. Some of the elderly in the far-flung villages are already dying of hunger, but their deaths are not being reported because of the shame.

Read it all (subscription).

In Kenya, drought is wiping out livestock and children are dying from lack of food. It is a natural disaster made worse by rising global food prices. The region is bracing itself for heartbreak — within weeks https://t.co/49lRKmxEfi

— The Times and The Sunday Times (@thetimes) March 18, 2023

It’s Mothering Sunday today. Curiously, along with Christmas, Easter, and Remembrance Sunday, Mothering Sunday stands as one of the four days of the year when Church of England churches are likely to be full. There’s something primal and visceral about going back to see one’s mother on Mothering Sunday, and somehow this manifests itself in a larger number of people than usual heading down to church with, or to remember, their mother.

Its significance was even sharper in 2020. We may have blotted it from our collective memories, but Mothering Sunday 2020 fell on that fateful weekend just as we began to realise the full horror of the Covid pandemic. Although formal social distancing legislation was not brought in until the following day, most people resolved not to make their annual pilgrimages that Sunday, choosing to protect those we loved in the most counter-intuitive manner possible.

Not that Mothering Sunday is ever uncomplicated….

Read it all (registration or subscription).

Mothering Sunday lives on because the dream of our familial relationships is worth honouring, even if most of the time we honour them more in the breach.

There is perhaps something similar in our relationship to the parish church. https://t.co/zG48STk4gg

— The New Statesman (@NewStatesman) March 19, 2023

There is also a downloadable option there.

"Christ Healing the Blind"by El Greco, circa 1570. At the Met Museum in New York pic.twitter.com/4GBiH9QpTp

— Pictures of Churches (@ChurchPictures8) August 21, 2020

‘So what has been uncovered in the week since we learned that Silicon Valley Bank was no more trustworthy than a crypto spam text? A startup culture once considered the gem of the economy has been exposed as careless with its money, clueless in its judgment of character, hypocritical in its ideology, and ruthless in exercising its political clout as a powerful special interest. Meanwhile, the financial world is still jittery, with other banks failing and just about everyone wondering what comes next. And from here on, the concept of a cap on FDIC insurance is at risk. But at least the SBV credit cards are working again. And VCs can take a victory lap as they brag about how they saved the day….’

Read it all.

Although ultimately no depositor lost money in the Silicon Valley Bank saga, what happened to the bankers, founders, and avowed libertarians in the crisis can't be unseen. https://t.co/ud1PE7PlG6

— WIRED (@WIRED) March 17, 2023

ZENIT spoke with Father Tarcisio Giuseppe Stramare of the Congregation of Oblates of Saint Joseph, director of the Josephite Movement, about Tuesday’s feast of St. Joseph the Worker….

ZENIT: What does “Gospel of work” mean?

Father Stramare: “Gospel” is the Good News that refers to Jesus, the Savior of humanity. Well, despite the fact that in general we see Jesus as someone who teaches and does miracles, he was so identified with work that in his time he was regarded as “the son of the carpenter,” namely, an artisan himself. Among many possible activities, the Wisdom of God chose for Jesus manual work, entrusted the education of his Son not to the school of the learned but to a humble artisan, namely, St. Joseph.

Read it all.

Joseph the Carpenter
Georges de La Tour, c. 1645
Saint Joseph Feast pic.twitter.com/d5ijdfBFZv

— Marysia (@marysia_cc) March 20, 2023

O God, who from the family of your servant David raised up Joseph to be the guardian of your incarnate Son and the spouse of his virgin mother: Give us grace to imitate his uprightness of life and his obedience to your commands; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Today the Church of England celebrates Joseph of Nazareth https://t.co/2INOQAFrYr

Image: Window, designed by Edward Woore (1934-5), depicting Joseph with Jesus & Mary in Joseph's carpenter's shop. Originally in St Saviour's, Leicester, now in @stainedglassmus at @Ely_Cathedral pic.twitter.com/e3O7MkQbJL

— The Anglican Church in St Petersburg (@anglicanspb) March 20, 2023

Almighty God, who has taught us in thy holy Word that the law was given by Moses, but that grace and truth came by Jesus Christ: Grant that we, being not under the law but under grace, may live as children of that Jerusalem which is above, and rejoice in the freedom of our heavenly citizenship; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.

–The Rev. James Mountain (1844-1933)

« Vive le Printemps…». #chasseurdebeauté pic.twitter.com/gDZI6pgwKU

— Catherine Benoist (@benoistart) March 20, 2023

After this Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiber’i-as. And a multitude followed him, because they saw the signs which he did on those who were diseased. Jesus went up on the mountain, and there sat down with his disciples. Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand. Lifting up his eyes, then, and seeing that a multitude was coming to him, Jesus said to Philip, “How are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?” This he said to test him, for he himself knew what he would do. Philip answered him, “Two hundred denarii would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.” One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, “There is a lad here who has five barley loaves and two fish; but what are they among so many?” Jesus said, “Make the people sit down.” Now there was much grass in the place; so the men sat down, in number about five thousand. Jesus then took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted. And when they had eaten their fill, he told his disciples, “Gather up the fragments left over, that nothing may be lost.” So they gathered them up and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten. When the people saw the sign which he had done, they said, “This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world!” Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself.

–John 6:1-15

The marsh in Pawleys Island this morning. 📸 Sean Michael. #scwx pic.twitter.com/9uLAOo844F

— Ed Piotrowski (@EdPiotrowski) March 20, 2023

Gracious Father, whose blessed Son Jesus Christ came down from heaven to be the true bread which gives life to the world: Evermore give us this bread, that he may live in us, and we in him; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

Daffodils gently swaying in the breeze this morning in Glastonbury. This was taken shortly after sunrise today. pic.twitter.com/VSkOv83Uo8

— Michelle Cowbourne (@Glastomichelle) March 19, 2023

The Pharisees came and began to argue with him, seeking from him a sign from heaven, to test him. And he sighed deeply in his spirit, and said, “Why does this generation seek a sign? Truly, I say to you, no sign shall be given to this generation.” And he left them, and getting into the boat again he departed to the other side.

Now they had forgotten to bring bread; and they had only one loaf with them in the boat. And he cautioned them, saying, “Take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.” And they discussed it with one another, saying, “We have no bread.” And being aware of it, Jesus said to them, “Why do you discuss the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear? And do you not remember? When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?” They said to him, “Twelve.” “And the seven for the four thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?” And they said to him, “Seven.” And he said to them, “Do you not yet understand?”

–Mark 8:11-21

‘Bora da’ 😄🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🔥
‘Good morning’ 😄🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🔥@carolvorders @AledHall @hooson21 @ItsYourWales @Ruth_ITV @bootlegger1974 @StormHour @ThePhotoHour @S4Ctywydd @sianharries_ @RealShanCothi @carolkirkwood @DerekTheWeather @PipTomson @elinfflur @HCynwal @hawley_caroline pic.twitter.com/lugC59dwkF

— Llelo Gruffudd (@Llelo2801) March 19, 2023

Strengthen, O Lord, we beseech thee, the bishops of thy Church in their special calling to be teachers and ministers of the Sacraments, that they, like thy servant Cyril of Jerusalem, may effectively instruct thy people in Christian faith and practice; and that we, taught by them, may enter more fully into celebration of the Paschal mystery; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Bishop, Doctor of the Church (386)

As a simple priest he instructed catechumens during Lent. His teachings are saturated with Holy Scripture, his primary surviving work is a collection of 23 catechetical lectures for Baptism. The Arians exiled him thrice. pic.twitter.com/6Gh3lHuyop

— Memento Mori (@TempusFugit4016) March 18, 2023

O merciful God, who hast made all men, and hatest nothing that thou hast made, nor desirest the death of a sinner, but rather that he should be converted and live; Have mercy upon all who know thee not as thou art revealed in the Gospel of thy Son. Take from them all ignorance, hardness of heart, and contempt of thy Word; and so fetch them home, blessed Lord, to thy fold, that they may be made one flock under one shepherd, Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end.

–Robert W. Rodenmayer, ed., The Pastor’s Prayerbook: Selected and arranged for various occasions (New York: Oxford University Press, 1960)

Oh little town of Bakewell, dreaming on a quiet morning, jumbled gables and rooflines. The only movement is from the river and the slow drifts of smoke rising to meet the mist. The #peakdistrict is full of time slips, scenes that could have been yesterday or a hundred years ago. pic.twitter.com/MTnBeFddSJ

— peaklass (@peaklass1) March 18, 2023

Thus says the Lord to me, “Go and buy a linen waistcloth, and put it on your loins, and do not dip it in water.” So I bought a waistcloth according to the word of the Lord, and put it on my loins. And the word of the Lord came to me a second time, “Take the waistcloth which you have bought, which is upon your loins, and arise, go to the Euphra′tes, and hide it there in a cleft of the rock.” So I went, and hid it by the Euphra′tes, as the Lord commanded me. And after many days the Lord said to me, “Arise, go to the Euphra′tes, and take from there the waistcloth which I commanded you to hide there.” Then I went to the Euphra′tes, and dug, and I took the waistcloth from the place where I had hidden it. And behold, the waistcloth was spoiled; it was good for nothing.

Then the word of the Lord came to me: “Thus says the Lord: Even so will I spoil the pride of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem. This evil people, who refuse to hear my words, who stubbornly follow their own heart and have gone after other gods to serve them and worship them, shall be like this waistcloth, which is good for nothing. For as the waistcloth clings to the loins of a man, so I made the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah cling to me, says the Lord, that they might be for me a people, a name, a praise, and a glory, but they would not listen.

–Jeremiah 13:1-11

It started off blanket grey here in Glastonbury. The cloud soon began to clear and the sun came out. pic.twitter.com/pShjk9cjX7

— Michelle Cowbourne (@Glastomichelle) March 18, 2023

One way to offer collaboration is through intentional intergenerational discipleship and guidance — mentoring in a way that is less like facilitation and more like how family members interact with one another. As Tim Alford, director of the youth arm of the Elim Pentecostal Church, says: “Young people need spiritual parents more than spiritual programmes.”

Recruiting more volunteers to help to run programmes for Gen Z — whether groups for youth or for those in their twenties — is not enough (research carried out by Youth for Christ suggests that only two per cent say that youth clubs are a favourite place to spend time). What is needed is an ongoing commitment to relationships between the generations throughout the Church.

I have loved opportunities to walk alongside some amazing women in their twenties, as they settle into adult life and learn what they want that to look like. They are passionate, empathetic, and have grown up trying to navigate a connected, constantly changing, and uncertain world.

The American author Simon Sinek suggests that many young adults in Gen Z project a self-confidence that they do not feel. In a precarious job market, they navigate side-hustles on top of their day-jobs; their peers constantly present their apparently perfect lives and selves on social media, whatever the reality when the camera isn’t there.

Gen Z, Explained notes that, for this generation, “revealing a weakness is honest, authentic and appreciated”. In Faith Formation in a Secular Age (Baker Academic, 2017) (Features, 3 January 2020), Professor Andrew Root describes our current “age of authenticity”. Gen Z are looking for authenticity, honesty, and integrity in not only what we say, but what we do and how we say it.

Read it all (registration or subscription).

Making friends… listening… being spiritual parents… Loads of food for thought here in how older people in the church can best bless 15-25 year olds. And, by extension, others. https://t.co/5Nb9IGBJho

— Lucy Moore (@lucybmoore) March 17, 2023

Churches dot Linwood, a predominantly Black neighborhood in Columbus, Ohio. Yet drive down a quiet road past Holy Spirit Church of Columbus and Christ Centered Apostolic Church and you’ll find an unexpected sight: a brightly colored Buddhist shrine with ornate gold accents and a pointed roof typical of Laotian architecture.

Twin red dragons guard the pathway to the shine, surrounded by reflections ponds. In the same compound is the Watlao Buddhamamakaram Buddhist temple, built in 2009 by Laotian immigrants. Inside, monks in saffron robes pray in front of golden statues of Buddha.

This Buddhist temple is a visible marker of the changing landscape of the United States. Since the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act ended national origin quotas, the number of immigrants from Buddhist-background countries has grown drastically.

Today, Asians are the fastest-growing ethnic group in the United States, making up 7 percent of the US population, or 22 million people. Arriving to pursue higher education or job opportunities or to escape wars and turmoil, Asians will continue moving to the US, and demographers project the community will grow to 46 million by 2060.

This trajectory means US churches and Christians will more likely encounter neighbors who are Buddhist or from a Buddhist-influenced culture, as the religion significantly influences more than a billion people worldwide. Around 500 million people practice Buddhism, most of whom live on the Asian continent. China has the largest number of Buddhists (with about 245 million adherents), while seven countries have Buddhist majorities, most in Southeast Asia.

Read it all.

#Buddhism Went Mainstream Decades Ago. US Churches Still Aren’t Ready. https://t.co/ANgpoQmi1I @CTmagazine introduces new biweekly series, explaining the basics and providing pointers for outreach pic.twitter.com/1Uf28xcXbN

— Jayson Casper (@jnjcasper) March 17, 2023

We are engaged in a massive national experiment, making all schoolchildren fit one behavioral mold; the results speak for themselves. Reading and math scores have not risen, but mindless acceptance of orthodoxy certainly has. The dream of certain educational reformers for centuries, it is only in the past couple decades that factory education has become reality, thanks to the power of Big Pharma. When students of the past did not fit, there was not that much even the most authoritarian teacher could do about it. Today, however, the choice is starker: Conform or be drugged. We used to make dystopian movies about it; now we make our children live it.

The medicine is the message. The nature of your discourse depends upon the popularity of your prescriptions. Once we have obedience in a tablet—a drug that makes students sit still and attend to whatever faddish nonsense their teacher may be spouting—society can be independent no longer. By making pharmaceuticals an integral part of the modern educational project, it is not simply the stimulant-taking students who become docile and obedient, but the unmedicated ones as well.

Read it all.

If Ritalin did not exist, neither would ADHD; the treatment conjures the disease. https://t.co/Rl4h992jxz

— First Things (@firstthingsmag) March 17, 2023