The Church is now in a period of growth, with Gen Z leading the charge. The report – titled The Quiet Revival – shows that the most dramatic church growth is among young adults, particularly young men. In 2018, around four per cent of 18-24 year-olds said that they attended church at least monthly. Now this has gone up to 16 per cent, with young men increasing from four per cent to 21 per cent, and young women from 3 to 12 per cent.

They say that change happens slowly then all at once; and this feels to me to ring true when it comes to the seeming ‘vibe shift’ in perceptions and positivity about Christianity in our culture. Before the pandemic, we heard a lot about declining church attendance, then Covid-19 seemed to be the death-knell as congregations dwindled even further. Then after the pandemic recovery came the 2021 Census figures, which showed that the number of those that ticked the Christian box was at its lowest level.

But something seems to have shifted over the past two years, in particular. We hear of young people queuing to enter Catholic mass, we hear of teenagers turning up to church unnanounced, then dragging their parents along, we hear of Bible sales going up, we hear of online meetings run by the Orthodox Church being attended by hundreds, we hear of university mission organisations seeing sparks in interest among students. A drip-drip of change.

The numbers reported in The Quiet Revival will not necessary look like people queuing round the corner to get into local churches; but they may look a little like many churches having a few more congregants. I’ve noticed this in my own church when on Sunday mornings in recent months, I’ve looked around and wondered who these new people are that are joining us, and where they have come from.

Read it all.

The Bible Society have released incredible research about a quiet revival in the UK. Church attendance is up 50% (from 8% to 12%). When looking at 18-24 yr olds it’s up from 4% to 16%! pic.twitter.com/4VXEO5in4A

— Ｐｅｔｅｒ Ｌｙｎａｓ (@peterlynas) April 8, 2025

After the terror, the euphoria. When, on April 9th, President Donald Trump postponed for 90 days the most illogical and destructive of his tariffs, after a meltdown in financial markets, the s&p 500 index of American stocks rose by 9.5%, its fastest daily rise in nearly 17 years. The darkest scenarios for the world economy that had been envisaged by investors until that moment are now unlikely. It seems there is some limit to the market falls the president will tolerate on his watch. After the chaos that had followed Mr Trump’s announcement of “reciprocal” tariffs a week earlier, that is no small source of comfort for the world.

But do not mistake the consolation of having avoided disaster for good fortune. The scale of the shock to global trade set off by Mr Trump is still, even now, unlike anything seen in history. He has replaced the stable trading relations which America spent over half a century building with whimsical and arbitrary policymaking, in which decisions are posted on social media and not even his advisers know what is coming next. And he is still in an extraordinary trade confrontation with China, the world’s second-biggest economy.

Investors and companies everywhere have been put through the wringer. Global markets crashed in response to Mr Trump’s first tariff announcement. The S&P 500 fell by about 15%. Long-dated Treasuries sold off, as hedge funds were forced to unwind their leveraged positions. The dollar, which is supposed to be a safe haven, fell. After the tariffs were delayed, stockmarkets enjoyed a vertiginous climb. Between its low and high on the day, Nvidia’s value fluctuated by over $430bn.

Even after the tariff pause, however, Treasury yields remain elevated. Global stocks are 11% below their highs in February—and justifiably so

Read it all.

The Economist cover pic.twitter.com/yIs3oe0hpS

— MAKS 24 (@Maks_NAFO_FELLA) April 10, 2025

In an earlier volume, Awaiting the King, Smith devotes an entire chapter to undermining appeals to natural law and natural law theory—the very things one would need to reject to affirm what Smith wants to affirm nowadays. The whole chapter simplistically caricatures the natural law tradition and fails to represent it accurately. He only sets up a strawman version of natural law to tear it down. According to Smith, natural law is too minimalist and ineffective in a world marred by sin. It fails to give a robust explanation of the revelation of who Christ is. In that chapter, he upholds some generic notion of “nature” as a feature of the biblical storyline, but he then says that nature itself cannot be rightly known apart from Special Revelation. This common critique does not withstand scrutiny when held up to sound interpretation and human experience.

Yes, people reject natural law—but that doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with it. God’s moral law doesn’t misfire. Part of the reason people reject it is because sin has distorted human reasoning (Romans 1:21). But Scripture also says that people can knowingly suppress the truth that’s clearly seen in the created world (Romans 1:18–20). Nowhere does Scripture speak of creation order being wholly unintelligible or humans being entirely ignorant of its order. In fact, in the same set of verses, Paul says that God’s creation order is so teeming with moral order that people are “without excuse” when they disobey it (Romans 1:20). The Apostle Paul, in fact, focuses on sexual ethics to make this exact point. Homosexuality is a vivid rejection of the Creator’s design for our bodies.

Since both the Bible and natural law point to the same moral truths, it’s no surprise that Smith’s rejection of natural law in Awaiting the King eventually led him to reject what the Bible says about sexual ethics. You can’t keep rejecting natural law—especially the parts of natural law you don’t like—and still fully hold to the authority of Scripture. Morality is a package deal.

Read it all.

James K.A. Smith’s example shows that even a theology that claims to be “biblical” or “Reformed” can go wrong if it ignores what the Bible says about creation. Smith has become a theologian who stands against nature. https://t.co/dfIBuYQqPn

— Andrew T. Walker (@andrewtwalk) April 10, 2025

The human brain is so complex that scientific brains have a hard time making sense of it. A piece of neural tissue the size of a grain of sand might be packed with hundreds of thousands of cells linked together by miles of wiring. In 1979, Francis Crick, the Nobel-prize-winning scientist, concluded that the anatomy and activity in just a cubic millimeter of brain matter would forever exceed our understanding.

“It is no use asking for the impossible,” Dr. Crick wrote.

Forty-six years later, a team of more than 100 scientists has achieved that impossible, by recording the cellular activity and mapping the structure in a cubic millimeter of a mouse’s brain — less than one percent of its full volume. In accomplishing this feat, they amassed 1.6 petabytes of data — the equivalent of 22 years of nonstop high-definition video.

“This is a milestone,” said Davi Bock, a neuroscientist at the University of Vermont who was not involved in the study, which was published Wednesday in the journal Nature. Dr. Bock said that the advances that made it possible to chart a cubic millimeter of brain boded well for a new goal: mapping the wiring of the entire brain of a mouse.

Read it all.

An Advance in Brain Research That Was Once Considered Impossible https://t.co/peoDcslro2

Scientists achieved “a milestone” by charting the activity and structure of 200,000 cells in a mouse brain and their 523 million connections.

— Paul Higgins (@futuristpaul) April 9, 2025

Eternal God, the whole cosmos sings of thy glory, from the dividing of a single cell to the vast expanse of interstellar space: We offer thanks for thy theologian and scientist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, who didst perceive the divine in the evolving creation. Enable us to become faithful stewards of thy divine works and heirs of thy everlasting kingdom; through Jesus Christ, the firstborn of all creation, who with thee and the Holy Spirit livest and reignest, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

«Ce n’est pas d’un tête à tête ni d’un corps à corps,c’est d’un coeur à coeur que nous avons besoin.»(Pierre Teilhard de Chardin) pic.twitter.com/d9flsQvl1W

— Serge Doucet (@SergeDoucet3) April 10, 2025

Almighty and most merciful God, who hast given thy Son to die for our sins and to obtain eternal redemption for us through his own blood: Let the merit of his spotless sacrifice, we beseech thee, purge our consciences from dead works to serve thee, the living God, that we may receive the promise of eternal inheritance in Christ Jesus our Lord; to whom with thee and the Holy Ghost be honour and glory, world without end.

Kleur in de lucht. Fijne donderdag #zonsopkomst #kleur pic.twitter.com/kxM6ak2VWo

— Tjark Dieterman (@DietermanTjark) April 10, 2025

In the beginning of the reign of Jehoi′akim the son of Josi′ah, king of Judah, this word came from the Lord, “Thus says the Lord: Stand in the court of the Lord’s house, and speak to all the cities of Judah which come to worship in the house of the Lord all the words that I command you to speak to them; do not hold back a word. It may be they will listen, and every one turn from his evil way, that I may repent of the evil which I intend to do to them because of their evil doings. You shall say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord: If you will not listen to me, to walk in my law which I have set before you, and to heed the words of my servants the prophets whom I send to you urgently, though you have not heeded, then I will make this house like Shiloh, and I will make this city a curse for all the nations of the earth.’”

The priests and the prophets and all the people heard Jeremiah speaking these words in the house of the Lord. And when Jeremiah had finished speaking all that the Lord had commanded him to speak to all the people, then the priests and the prophets and all the people laid hold of him, saying, “You shall die! Why have you prophesied in the name of the Lord, saying, ‘This house shall be like Shiloh, and this city shall be desolate, without inhabitant’?” And all the people gathered about Jeremiah in the house of the Lord.

When the princes of Judah heard these things, they came up from the king’s house to the house of the Lord and took their seat in the entry of the New Gate of the house of the Lord. Then the priests and the prophets said to the princes and to all the people, “This man deserves the sentence of death, because he has prophesied against this city, as you have heard with your own ears.”

Then Jeremiah spoke to all the princes and all the people, saying, “The Lord sent me to prophesy against this house and this city all the words you have heard. Now therefore amend your ways and your doings, and obey the voice of the Lord your God, and the Lord will repent of the evil which he has pronounced against you. But as for me, behold, I am in your hands. Do with me as seems good and right to you. Only know for certain that if you put me to death, you will bring innocent blood upon yourselves and upon this city and its inhabitants, for in truth the Lord sent me to you to speak all these words in your ears.”

Then the princes and all the people said to the priests and the prophets, “This man does not deserve the sentence of death, for he has spoken to us in the name of the Lord our God.”

–Jeremiah 26:1-16

Nothing says #spring quite like
the beautiful cherry blossoms! #Cherryblossoms #BlossomWatch #April2025 #Blossoms pic.twitter.com/krrpUlAe84

— Margaret O'Connell (@MargaretOC6) April 10, 2025