Drawing on focus groups and interviews with 55 clerics, it highlights the extent to which the Church’s wider challenges, from financial deficits to division over the Living in Love and Faith process, are impacting on clergy well-being.

The report notes “the extremely difficult financial situation of many parishes” — described by one participant as “hugely, hugely horrible” — and the “high awareness of stipendiary ministers of the relationship between their stipend and parish finances, via the parish share”. This is, it says, “often emphasised to local churches by dioceses to incentivise them to pay their parish share in full, and, amid the current economic challenges, some participants report that their dioceses are reviewing the viability of parishes that do not do so.”

For stipendiary clergy, this could provoke concern for their parish. One participant described thinking: “If we don’t pay our common fund, then when I move, then are they going to say, ‘Well, you can’t have a vicar any more?’ And I feel the responsibility for that.”

For some, the question of parish share could “provoke a sense of shame within the diocese”. One commented that, when the diocese set out the cost of a stipendiary priest in a parish share request, they were “made to feel really expensive”. There was an assumption that the priest was the recipient of the cost (£70,000).

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Always interesting reading latest from the Living Ministry study tracking clergy over 10 years. One finding was the impact of parish share requests on clergy themselves, including feeling "expensive" when the cost of the stipend is set out by the diocese https://t.co/fXiRDNpqJW

— Madeleine Davies (@MadsDavies) February 4, 2025

But when our institutions are weak and frayed, as many say they are now, the mature response is to root out bureaucratic rot while also strengthening our common bonds—the approach of a spade in one hand and sword in the other we see in Nehemiah 4:17. We defend and build simultaneously. We cannot simply critique church without seeking its peace and purity. We cannot tear down without also building up. We cannot sever spiritual growth from the manner and place in which Jesus says it takes place: the church.

Yuval Levin recently reminded us in the journal The New Atlantis that such institutional building is others-centered. We must take attention away from self to build for other (future) people. Levin’s criticism is sharp: “The inability to value those other people and judge them worthy of our work and sacrifice is a characteristic failing of a decadent society.” When we focus exclusively on our self-experience to the detriment of others, in the present or future, our cultural artifacts resemble a stagnant pond. There is no life there. 

In 2020, Ross Douthat identified American society as being in a period of decadence, “something that comes on civilizations when they’ve reached a certain stage, and it’s not clear where they go next.” Decadence, Douthat believes, happens after the ladder of success has been climbed: a sort of stalemate of cultural production and dialogue. Movies rehash the same stories, and sequels rule the day. We often see this stagnation in form before we see it play out in content.

Blue Like Jazz’s form felt new and edgy for young millennials and Gen Xers in 2003. In hindsight, the fruit it bore is that of a decadent society where the self is ultimately authoritative, where individuals self-select into churches that feed their values (rather than sharpen like iron on iron), and where our Christian message is no different from the world’s—if we stay in the church at all.

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Bishop Allison’s Book Recognized in 100 Classics The Right Rev. C. FitzSimons Allison’s most recent book, Trust in an Age of Arrogance, was recently recognized by Dr. Robert Yost, Emeritus Vice President of Academic Affairs at Charlotte Christian College and Theological Seminary, in his new book 100 Christian Classics – A Literary Bucket List for the Thoughtful Christ-Follower. Dr. Yost says, “I can guarantee that you will not be the same after reading it. You may, indeed, finish it on your knees.”

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"I started this book in an arm chair and finished it on my knees. Here is a rich treasury of insights and observations from a life well lived and thought, one that adds up to a profound and moving testimony to the wonder of the gospel and God's grace." –Os Guinness #books… pic.twitter.com/HkhnDyj7Rh

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) February 4, 2025

In 2022 and 2023, the Army missed its recruitment goal by nearly twenty-five per cent—about fifteen thousand troops a year. It hit the mark last year, but only by reducing the target by more than ten thousand. The Navy has also fared badly: it failed to reach its goals in 2023, then met them in 2024 by filling out the ranks with recruits of a lower standard; nearly half measured below average on an aptitude exam. The Army Reserve hasn’t met its benchmark since 2016, and the ranks are so depleted that active-duty officers have been put in charge of reserve units. Some experts worry that, if the country went to war, many reserve units might be unable to deploy. A U.S. official who works on these issues put it simply: “We can’t get enough people.”

At the end of the Second World War, the American military had twelve million active-duty members. It now has 1.3 million—even though the population has more than doubled, and women are now eligible for armed service. “The U.S. military has been shrinking for thirty years,” Lawrence Wilkerson, a former senior State Department official who leads a task force on the challenges facing the armed services, said. “But its global commitments haven’t changed.” The military operates out of bases in more than fifty countries, and routinely deploys Special Operations forces to about eighty. Now, Wilkerson said, “it’s not clear that the military is large enough anymore for America to uphold its promises.”

For decades, the armed forces based their requirements on a defensive doctrine called “win and hold”: the capacity to win one war while fighting a second to a standstill. Today, with the U.S. confronting perhaps its starkest global-security challenges since the Cold War, many analysts fear that even one war would be too taxing. A conflict with China over the disputed island of Taiwan could leave thousands of Americans dead in a matter of weeks—amounting to nearly half the losses the country sustained in twenty years of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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Dexter Filkins reports on the U.S. military’s struggle to recruit from a population that’s not just unenthusiastic but unable to serve as it also reckons with political turbulence at home and mounting security threats abroad. https://t.co/bw6y3RY3zT

— The New Yorker (@NewYorker) February 3, 2025

Americans are the most optimistic they have been in the past seven years about several aspects of the U.S. economy, particularly economic growth and the stock market. Majorities of Americans expect both indicators of economic health to go up this year, while 41% are hopeful that interest rates will fall, exceeding the 35% saying interest rates will rise.

The public is divided over whether unemployment will increase (38%) or decrease (38%) — although at a time of relatively low unemployment, the 21% expecting the rate to hold steady could be viewed as positive. A slim majority of Americans, 52%, predict that inflation will rise, but that is down significantly from recent years.

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"Americans are the most optimistic they have been in the past seven years about several aspects of the U.S. economy, particularly economic growth and the stock market."@Gallup pic.twitter.com/dvNHxgJTA1

— Daily Chartbook (@dailychartbook) February 4, 2025

O Lord, who alone canst cast out the evil passions and desires of the soul: Come among us, we pray thee, and by thy mighty power subdue our spiritual enemies, and set us free from the tyranny of sin.  We ask it in thy name and for thy glory.

✨A bit of Tuesday inspiration: sunrise at York Minster. pic.twitter.com/lnmAqdAYrU

— Andy Marshall 📸 (@fotofacade) February 4, 2025

Hear my cry, O God, listen to my prayer; from the end of the earth I call to thee, when my heart is faint. Lead thou me to the rock that is higher than I; for thou art my refuge, a strong tower against the enemy. Let me dwell in thy tent for ever! Oh to be safe under the shelter of thy wings!

–Psalm 61:1-4

I love these characterful jackdaws, who somehow always look as though they are in charge of proceedings. Just look at the expression on this one while it hitches a lift on the shoulder of a stunning red stag in Richmond Park. ❤️ pic.twitter.com/FmYR58T2P8

— Scot Down South (@LesleyAM13) February 4, 2025