Southwell Minster will run out of funds next year, and needs £20 million “just to catch up on works that have not been done over many years”, the Dean, the Very Revd Stephen Evans, warned on Friday.

It could face closure, he said, describing the situation as “the most critical point in the Minster’s history”.

Dr Evans took up his post in April this year, following the retirement of the previous Dean, the Very Revd Nicola Sullivan, in July 2024 (News, 12 July 2024), and the interim tenure of Canon Neil Evans (no relation). The 2024 accounts had been produced 156 days late, he said, and it was during the “forensic process” of trying to close the accounts for 2025, and approach the end of 2026, that the true extent of the problem had become clear.

There are still no accounts for 2025. The Dean said that a succession of interim finance staff had been one of many factors that had contributed to the situation with the accounts, but that, overall, this was “just a sad tale of a cathedral among many other cathedrals” running out of money. 

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For Christianity Today to publish such a speculative piece, boosting material that was initially made public with a clear political agenda, seems in tension with the magazine’s own editorial philosophy as of 1970 that it is wrong “to gossip about things of which we are not certain.” According to a new report from Ruth Graham at the New York Times, the erstwhile flagship journal of American evangelicalism has been declining in more ways than one. To its critics, “Elliotgate” is one more sign that the magazine has lost its way, against the chaotic backdrop of mass layoffs and a waning subscriber base. But former deputy editor Bonnie Kristian, who edited Austen’s piece, has defended it as important and conversation-driving. Whatever the article’s merits, the magazine handled the backlash unprofessionally, leaving Austen unaware of the temporary choice to pull it.

Some of that backlash has itself been less than helpful. In a column for WORLD, Denny Burk, president of the Council on Biblical Manhood & Womanhood, rightly noted how thin Austen’s evidence is. But he has treated her claim that same-sex attraction isn’t itself a sin as an endorsement of “Side B,” the view that gay Christians should embrace their orientation in various problematic ways while remaining celibate. The two ideas are not the same. One can grant that same-sex attraction is itself not a sin while holding that it is “objectively disordered”: something to be resisted, not adopted as a public “identity” in the manner of modern sexual politics. This conflation has been a persistent blind spot in the evangelical approach to the issue, missing areas of concern for evangelicals and Catholics alike.

Still, Burk’s instinct is not entirely misplaced. Austen says plainly that Elliot’s story “should inform the church’s treatment of Christians who experience same-sex attraction,” and Side B proponent Wesley Hill’s praise for the piece suggests how it is likely to be read. Austen’s remarks seem to gesture beyond simply separating temptation and sin, implying that double standards toward opposite-sex and same-sex attraction are automatically bigoted and normalizing a broader church culture of “coming out of the closet” beyond a close circle of friends and counselors. This is not an especially helpful word for evangelicals, who if anything could benefit from more discretion and less “tell-all” culture when it comes to sexual temptations of any variety.

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In The Trouble with Elliotgate, Bethel McGrew examines the controversy surrounding claims about Elisabeth Elliot’s sexuality and Christianity Today’s handling of the resulting article.McGrew critiques the evidence behind the speculation, considers the broader tensions within evangelical debates over same-sex attraction and sexual identity, and questions whether publicizing such uncertain personal claims serves the Church or its readers.To read the piece, visit https://t.co/R5binXKe9Y

— First Things (@firstthingsmag) October 25, 2026

On July 5 the Northwest Chinese Baptist Church in Phoenix opened its weekly Mandarin service with a verse from the Old Testament. A pianist, a guitarist and a drummer prepared to lead the 100 congregants in song. The deacon read out the preamble to the Declaration of Independence — “We hold these truths to be self-evident” — and then invited the congregation to rise and sing “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” It was a good moment to exalt American ideals. The prior night, fireworks marked America’s 250th anniversary of independence.

The next speaker was a guest, Timothy Cheng, the chief executive of a Christian media company. Flicking through a slide presentation, he spoke about the significance of semiconductors, noting that chips made in Taiwan are the lifeblood of the American economy. He clicked to the next slide. The faces of Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Elon Musk and Jensen Huang appeared on the screen.

“In earlier years, Western missionaries brought knowledge, education and English to the East,” Mr. Cheng said. “They brought the Gospels and Western medicine. Now that Taiwanese have become fortunate and strong, why should they not transfer knowledge to the United States to make it powerful?”…

The parents are more concerned. Not about food fights — though the idea perplexes them — but about the laxity of education. Arizona’s public schools rank among the lowest in the country for graduation rates and the third-lowest in spending per pupil.
Taiwanese families were enticed to the United States in substantial part by the promise of sending their children to American colleges. Now parents fret that the Arizona educational system won’t help their kids get there. They’re nonplussed that teachers sometimes wave off assigning homework to high school seniors; some schools allow seniors to take Friday afternoons off. The idea astonishes parents used to spending big sums on extracurricular prep.

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I went to Phoenix to spend time with the Taiwanese community. TSMC will invest $265 billion and send thousands of engineers and their families, which marvel at their new lives in the SunbeltMy first feature as a contributing writer to the New York Times: https://t.co/n73RydKBiD

— Dan Wang (@danwwang) October 23, 2026

America is full of religious schools—Catholic elementary schools and Jewish day schools, Lutheran high schools and evangelical pre-schools. The Supreme Court has made clear that these schools are free to employ teachers who align with their missions, even if that involves hiring decisions that would otherwise fall foul of the law.

Teaching students in accordance with its faith is also integral to a school’s religious mission. But Colorado excludes from a state funding program religious schools that refuse to admit students who reject, or whose parents reject, the school’s religious mission.

On the Supreme Court’s docket is St. Mary Catholic Parish v. Roy, with oral arguments scheduled for Nov. 3. Every religious community should pay attention, for the case implicates the liberty of schools, houses of worship, and other faith institutions.

The case centers on funding for Colorado’s universal pre-K program. Private religious schools like St. Mary, a Catholic parish school in Littleton, are eligible to participate, but only if they accept all students regardless of religious values and practice. Colorado’s condition would force schools to choose between participating in the subsidized preschool program and compromising their religious identity.

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Government Money, Secular Strings by @NDiament https://t.co/smFC8yRz0r via @WSJopinion

— REGGIE B. QADAR (@SCOURING15) October 23, 2026

Christian charities and campaigners have condemned the Government’s approval of the Jackdaw gas field in the North Sea. Tearfund and the Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund (SCIAF) have called for the decision to be reversed.

They emphasised the consequences for communities already suffering from climate change, and urged government ministers to refuse permission for the much larger Rosebank oilfield.

The Government announced on Wednesday that the Energy Secretary, Miatta Fahnbulleh, had agreed that the regulator could grant consent for gas to be produced at the Jackdaw field. The Labour Party promised in its election manifesto not to issue any licences to explore new oilfields and gas fields, but Jackdaw already held a licence.

Ms Fahnbulleh said on Wednesday: “This decision will support the country’s energy security with home-grown gas this winter and help minimise the UK’s use of imported higher-emission fuels as we continue our transition to renewables and nuclear. The decision is compatible with our legally binding climate commitments, and we remain resolute in ending new licences for oil and gas and achieving net zero by 2050.”

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Christian charities and campaigners have condemned the Government’s approval of the Jackdaw gas field 🌊 in the North Sea #ChurchTimes #ChurchNews https://t.co/mcw9bY1Jnn

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) October 23, 2026

As the economy strains the U.S. public, pastors report increasing pressures and giving lagging behind inflation.

Lifeway Research’s annual tracking survey reveals most U.S. Protestant pastors (54%) report the economy is negatively impacting their congregation. Slightly more than a third (36%) say it’s having no impact, while 8% see a positive economic effect.

“Pastors hear the needs and problems of people in their congregations every week, so it is not surprising that they feel their pain from economic factors,” said Scott McConnell, executive director of Lifeway Research. “Even seemingly positive financial changes such as a member getting a promotion or more overtime could negatively impact a church if those people attend less.”

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Most U.S. Protestant pastors (54%) report the economy is negatively impacting their church. Slightly more than a third (36%) say it’s having no impact, while 8% see a positive economic effect. https://t.co/hsvFuUnhXW https://t.co/ZzjPpDZklk

— Lifeway Research (@LifewayResearch) October 22, 2026

The Bishop of Leicester is seeking to ban election materials containing a picture of a religious building that “suggests a close connection” between a candidate and the place of worship or the religion associated with it. 

Rt Rev Martyn Snow has tabled the amendment to the Representation of the People Bill, which refers to the use of churches or other religious buildings to imply endorsement. The proposals and briefing documents do not single out a particular party.

On the Faith in the Public Square Substack, the bishop and social policy advisor Florence Gildea said in recent years there had been “more leaflets – of all colours: red, yellow, blue and turquoise – with candidates posing in front of church buildings”.

They set out concerns about compliance with charity law, of churches being seen to endorse parties or candidates, as well as how church leaders or congregations will often only know images had been used “when a leaflet drops on the floor, leaving no means of recourse”.

The article highlighted the principle of elected politicians representing all their constituents, akin to the parish priest having a duty of spiritual care to all parishioners; not giving “the impression that they are aligned with a particular religion and that followers of that faith could expect to receive preferential treatment if the candidate were elected”.

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An amendment banning the publication of election material containing a picture of a religious building that “suggests a close connection” between the candidate and the building — or the religion associated with it — has been tabled by Bishop of Leicesterhttps://t.co/KXQlWrGsRP

— Madeleine Davies (@MadsDavies) October 19, 2026

Of all the predictions Alexis de Tocqueville made while surveying the youthful United States, one of the boldest concerned religion. Notwithstanding Protestantism’s apparent American dominance, the Frenchman prophesied that Roman Catholicism would be the long-term victor in a democratic age. “Our posterity will tend more and more to a single division into two parts,” he wrote in Democracy in America, with “some relinquishing Christianity entirely, and others returning to the bosom of the Church of Rome.”

The last few years have given that prediction new life. From the spate of traditionalist-inclined college converts to the heretofore secular humanists who have thrilled to Pope Leo XIV’s critique of artificial intelligence, it often feels like Catholicism is the strongest religious alternative to post-Christian tribalism, nihilism, and transhumanism. Writing for the Catholic magazine Commonweal, Wesleyan University’s Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins, himself a non-Catholic, envisions “a Catholic century,” in which the church’s thought becomes a “default option” for people seeking the common good amid liberalism’s crisis and AI-driven dehumanization.

As a Catholic I have a similar reading of the intellectual situation. But it’s also essential to look beyond the intelligentsia to assess the health and future of religion. And in the wider culture, the form of Christianity that’s most adapted to late-modern America is clearly not the Church of Rome. It’s evangelical Protestantism. The vibes of a Catholic moment are real enough, but evangelicalism’s resilience is our era’s more fundamental fact.

You can see that resilience across almost every means of measurement: conversion rates, retention rates, identification rates, church attendance, intensity of belief. A recent overview from Ryan Burge, the religion data analyst, showed that evangelicals have maintained a roughly steady share of the U.S. population since the 1970s, while both Catholicism and the so-called “mainline” denominations (Congregationalist, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, and so on) that once dominated American Christianity have seen marked decline. In the 2020s, evangelicals are more than twice as likely to attend church weekly as Catholics. They are also twice as likely to describe religious faith as “very important” in their lives.

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For all the buzz around a ‘Catholic century,’ evangelicalism is the denomination best placed to thrive in contemporary America. https://t.co/e3hTYPNEmb

— The Free Press (@TheFP) October 22, 2026

Last year, leaders of the evangelical publication Christianity Today summoned the entire staff to a hotel ballroom in the Chicago suburbs for a meeting about their future.

The publication’s chief operating officer, Nicole Massie Martin, opened her presentation with a Bible verse from the Old Testament about rejoicing even in dark times, “though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food.” Then Thomas Addington, the interim president, delivered a blunt message: Christianity Today’s reputation as a staid voice of intellectual centrist evangelicalism — embodied by its proximity to Wheaton College in Illinois — had to change.

Christianity Today needed to be less like Wheaton and more like TikTok, Mr. Addington told his staff, according to several people who attended the meeting. Warning that layoffs were coming, he ended his presentation with a prayer. A senior editor left the room in tears.

Fourteen months later, more than half of the 79 employees at that time have either been laid off or resigned, including an editor in chief and four of the company’s longest-tenured journalists.

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Christianity Today has seen about half its staff quit or laid off in the last 14 mos. Former employees told me that new business leaders have intervened in editorial decisions & are effectively abandoning the outlet’s commitment to independent journalism. https://t.co/Q4Iy7v5mQB

— Ruth Graham (@publicroad) October 21, 2026

Whatever Christian nationalism is, it takes its form and energy from its context. Over the past 12 months, the think tank Theos has been researching the apparent rise of Christian nationalism in Europe, with studies under way in France, Germany, Poland, Hungary, Romania, and the UK.

What is clear, even at this stage, is that the nature of this phenomenon alters depending on whether, for example, you are living in a once Roman Catholic but now firmly and formally secular polity (like France), a nation that has self-consciously seen itself as the gatehouse for Christian European Civilisation (like Hungary), or a country, such as Britain, that has a remarkably deep Christian history, a formally Christian “constitution”, but very low levels of church attendance. All these factors pour into and colour the phenomena of Christian nationalism.

The UK research, which has just been published in the report Beyond “Christian Nationalism”, shows that there is something that could legitimately be termed “Christian nationalism” in today’s Britain. But it also shows that the concept of Christianity that you have in mind (belief? practice? ethics? identity?), and the concept of Britishness (civic/political? cultural? ethnic/natal?) will, not surprisingly, shape the way you think about how the two relate to each other….

Finally, for all that this group are strongly Christian — 81 per cent claiming affiliation, 81 per cent being baptised/christened, 49 per cent definitely believing in God or some “higher power” — they are not strongly church-attending: only 13 per cent attend weekly, compared with a sample average of 11 per cent. Nor do they show particularly strong levels of prayer.

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📈 Analysis: Defining Christian nationalism depends significantly on context, ✍️ Nick Spencer @theosnick #ChurchTimes #Analysis https://t.co/Nmnx8EkQRD

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) October 20, 2026

A recent survey found that one in every three Americans describe themselves as being in an existential crisis of meaning. The percentage jumps to over half of Gen Z. That means if you meet two people between the ages of 14 and 29, then one of them likely has a deep sense of lostness regarding his or her place in the cosmos. Those bleak facts can be taken either as a reason to shrug our shoulders as a pessimistic sign of the times or as a golden opportunity for those of us to know the One who bestows enduring existential significance.

The same study found that a sizable 37 percent of Americans said “their entire lives feel out of their control,” with 52 percent of Gen Z expressing that same panicked sense of powerlessness. As a theologian, I read such numbers as what we may call “the Nebuchadnezzar contagion.” Two-and-a-half millennia ago, prior to what we may describe as a steep decline in his mental health, the ancient Babylonian king strolled his palace roof, surveyed the landscape, and declared, “Is not this great Babylon, which I have built by my mighty power as a royal residence and for the glory of my majesty?” (Daniel 4:30).

Such pretended self-sovereignty is rampant in our age in which the cult of self-worship manifests in the belief of 84 percent of Americans that “enjoying yourself is the highest goal of life,” 86 percent believing that you must “pursue the things you desire most,” and 91 percent affirming the statement: “To find yourself, look within yourself.” In a sense, we’re all Nubuchadnezzars now.

Yet we end up as what David Foster Wallace called “lords of our tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the center of all creation.” It turns out that living like the Babylonian king “for the glory of my majesty,” has terrible outcomes today just as it did in the ancient near east.

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The Neo-Babylonian Empire, led by King Nebuchadnezzar II, conquered Jerusalem in two major stages due to rebellions by the Kingdom of Judah. [1, 2] https://t.co/QxGtq2Ah0u

— Julie Parker (@JulieParker144) October 19, 2026

As Gallup recently reported, Americans’ use of alcohol is at its lowest point in history.

The question that follows, of course, is “Why the change?” There are numerous possible explanations. One of these involves religion.

At first glance, Gallup data on religion and drinking are counterintuitive. The country has become less religious overall. Yet, as I noted in a 2019 analysis, less religious Americans have historically been the most likely to drink. If changes in Americans’ religiosity were a primary driver of alcohol use, we should have seen an increase in drinking, not a decrease.

That hasn’t happened. Alcohol use is down despite the increasing numbers of less religious (and historically more likely to drink) Americans.

The explanation for these trends lies in changes in drinking patterns among those who are less religious. Those who attend religious services less than weekly — a growing group that constitutes the significant majority of all Americans — are now reporting their lowest use of alcohol in our Gallup timeline.

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Just 21% of U.S. adults attend religious services weekly, down from 30% about 15 years ago.While frequent religious service attendance has historically been associated with lower alcohol consumption, Americans are drinking less overall, including those who attend services less frequently.Full story: https://t.co/1NFtPa2KZK

— Gallup (@Gallup) October 16, 2026

Pope Leo XIV has taken as his motto “In Illo uno unum”: In the one Christ we are one. Last November he joined Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, Patriarch Theodore II of Alexandria and other Orthodox representatives to mark the 1,700th anniversary of the First Council of Nicaea. The pope and the ecumenical patriarch affirmed in a joint declaration their churches’ orientation toward “the hoped-for restoration of full communion.” Even Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, who leads one of the Orthodox churches most skeptical about Rome, has expressed hope that relations “will progressively develop for a joint witness to Christ.”

These symbolic gestures don’t directly address the longstanding theological barriers, but there has been some progress over the past several years. The 2023 Alexandria Document was an important step toward a joint understanding of papal authority, though not all Orthodox churches ratified the statement.

Patriarch Bartholomew, for his part, has prayed that the obstacles of the filioque—Rome’s teaching that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, rather than from the Father alone—and papal infallibility be resolved so that they “no longer serve as stumbling blocks to the communion of our churches.” The patriarch mentioned these two obstacles intentionally, and a joint international commission plans to examine them head-on over the next several years.

But reunion is the work of all believers, not just hierarchs and theologians.

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From @WSJopinion: Two churches divided by a common faith. The estrangement between Orthodox Christians and Catholics is a scandal, writes Dmitri Solzhenitsyn. https://t.co/wUfuzWTElQ

— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) October 16, 2026

Although we differ on the specifics, both of us believe in hell. This makes us part of a shrinking majority. Only 59 percent of Americans today believe in hell. That’s down from 71 percent in 2001. But these figures, while striking, fail to capture the remarkable shift currently underway in the United States. No one talks about hell much anymore, at least not publicly—not even religious people. We’ve both attended weekly religious services for most of our adult lives, and there’s just no other way to put it: Hell comes up less.

Hannah Arendt was one of the few modern philosophers who grasped the political consequences of losing belief in hell, writing, “The most significant consequence of the secularization of the modern age may well be the elimination from public life, along with religion, of the only political element in traditional religion, the fear of hell.” The contemporary retreat from hell has any number of causes, many of them understandable. As pastor Robert Golding notes, modern people find the concept of hell “illogical, unnecessary, and cruel.” Innovations in criminal justice now emphasize rehabilitation over mere punishment and bristle at the thought that anyone—even hardened criminals—deserves endless punishment or, worse, death.

Many readers will, no doubt, scoff at this idea. They might protest, “I could never believe in hell!” That’s okay. We’re not going to try to convince you to believe in it. One need not believe in hell to grasp its importance or its utility.

For the good of our democracy, you should want your religious neighbours to take their belief in hell more seriously—not less. And even if you don’t believe in hell, you should take some time to ponder its political utility and ask yourself how you intend to make up for its absence in your own life.

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Hell can be good for democracy because it helps us delay judgment until some unspecified point in the future, allowing us to "chill."My essay in @commentmag with @matthewkaemingk adapted from our new book CAN RELIGION SAVE DEMOCRACY? 🧵https://t.co/6cqdSCgRvE

— Shadi Hamid (@shadihamid) October 13, 2026

The presence of evangelical Christianity in Chile continues, new official records are showing.

An example is a review of Chile’s Official Gazette carried out by the Chilean news outlet Ex-Ante. It shows 82 religious organisations registered officially with the state in just three months: 36 in June 2026, 28 in July, and 18 in August.

These data amount to an average of nearly one new Protestant church per day, in addition to a further 16 that amended their statutes during the same period. They are spread across 13 regions, although they are concentrated in the centre and south of the country.

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One in six people (16.3 per cent) in the country identify as “evangelical” or “Protestant”. A government plan to promote Christian centres with a social impact in neighbourhoods shows the growing public presence. https://t.co/LAmeN20a6B

— Evangelical Focus (@Evan_Focus) October 14, 2026

For 150 years the story of Western Christianity has been one of decline and withdrawal. Even as Christians we have come to inhabit that narrative ourselves. We have leadenly accepted those who have told us that the only way is down and have mocked those who speak the language of renewal and growth. But every two hundred years, the French crop up and remind us that the fire of the Gospel is inextinguishable. Joan of Arc led the way in the fifteenth century, Vincent de Paul in the seventeenth, John Vianney and Teresa of Lisieux in the nineteenth, and now in the twenty first, it is a generation of teenagers and young adults who are heralding a time of change. They are seeking a deeper and more authentic truth than the consumer agenda can offer. And they are finding it in Jesus. The Holy Spirit is moving. Pope Leo on the way home from France described it as a Rebirth.

There is plenty of evidence that the wind is changing here also. Many of you are telling me about new families and especially young adults simply turning up in your churches, often starting with online exploration of the Gospel. A few Sundays ago I went to two churches where every year they have presented ten to fifteen Year 6 children for Confirmation. This time they were joined by ten adults in each church, passionate in their newfound Gospel faith. And that story is an increasingly common one across the county. There is a rebirth.

Which poses a challenge for an institutional church. Do we believe it? And are we ready for it? In northern Europe we have become so inured to the language and methodologies of decline that our imaginations have become dulled. Many congregations simply cannot picture their churches being thriving and full of people. A mindset of scarcity and anxiety has gripped them. That’s why we waste so much of our time arguing over money rather than storing up treasure in heaven. If in the Church of England we cannot believe in a rebirth, then the Spirit will simply find other vehicles for renewal.

But I think that in the Diocese of Blackburn, we do believe and are increasingly ready for what the Spirit is doing in our nation. Just four weeks ago we had the most mind-blowingly fabulous weekend of mission. Almost every parish and benefice across the Diocese planned a weekend of events with the unashamed intention of inviting people in to hear the Gospel. Our Centenary events, from a crazy Big Day Out in Blackpool, to the wonderful Diocesan Conference, to our plans for the Centenary Eucharist on November 12^th, have had levels of engagement that reveal profound faithfulness and purpose amongst clergy and lay leaders.

And that has zeal has been demonstrated over the past two years as we have discerned God’s will for our new Diocesan vision, Joyful Followers of Jesus….

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Philip North Announced as Next Bishop of Sheffield https://t.co/gl3oXFdubQ @c_of_e #AnglicanNews #religion #uk #episcopate https://t.co/KPVLKKfngg

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) January 31, 2017

Most adults worldwide use social media, and among younger adults, nearly everyone does. Across 97 countries surveyed by Gallup so far in 2026, a median of 81% of adults say they have used some type of social media in the past seven days, rising to 95% among those aged 15 to 29.

Findings from the latest State of the World’s Emotional Health report challenge some assumptions about what that widespread use means for wellbeing. The analysis reveals a modest, complicated relationship that varies by time spent using social media, age and where people live.

With social media so embedded in daily life, the findings are particularly relevant at a time when the world’s emotional health is under considerable strain. Worry, stress, sadness, anger and physical pain all remain well above the levels Gallup measured two decades ago. What is less understood is how much social media is associated with this rise in negative emotions.

For this study, Gallup classifies adults as low use (no use or less than 30 minutes a day), moderate use (30 minutes to less than two hours) or high use (two hours or more). After accounting for factors that can influence wellbeing metrics such as these, moderate use is associated with fewer negative emotions than high use and more positive experiences and higher life evaluations than low use. As with many things in life, moderation appears to yield more optimal wellbeing outcomes.

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As part of the World Health Summit, Gallup has released new data from 97 countries on social media use and wellbeing.Globally, there is no substantial relationship between time spent using social media and wellbeing.This finding is remarkably robust. It is true for youth populations (N=26,700 youth 15-29) and for all ages pooled (94,460 adults 15+). It is true with or without extensive controls for internet use, employment status, physical health, age, gender, country effects, education, income, social support. It is true for linear and quadratic use effects. It is true for heavy use, defined several ways. In fact, in some models no use or light use predicts the worst outcomes, but the effects are always very small.However, associations vary widely across countries. In most countries, there is no effect. In Africa, associations between social media use and wellbeing are insignificant or even positive! In USA, CAN, AUS, ISR, & parts of Europe, social media use predicts negative wellbeing.Effects of social media among the youth are among the worst in the USA, raising interesting questions about differences in content and underlying mental health across youth populations.

— Jonathan T. Rothwell (@jtrothwell) October 12, 2026

Given the lack of evidence of any mass radical ideology of Christian nationalism, then, why does that narrative gain so much traction in today’s discourse? We can point to a few reasons. 

First, as the country has become more progressive in many ways, those who support the idea of a Christian nation are now further from the mainstream and thus look more extreme than they used to even if their views haven’t much changed. 

Second, there is a group of politicians, theologians, and right-wing influencers who really do advocate for radical ideologies that can be reasonably labeled “Christian nationalist” in the most alarming sense of the phrase. It’s easy to confuse those very visible cases with the more moderate expressions we find in population data. 

Third, it’s fair to say that the image of right-wing politics has gotten uglier over the past decade, meaning politically conservative Christianity suffers from guilt by association.

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Racist theocrats do exist in America. But most conservative Christians—even those who want a “Christian nation”—don’t share their beliefs or goals.Sociologist of religion Jesse Smith examines 3 myths about Christian nationalism: https://t.co/xMKPQy6JJ4

— Christianity Today (@CTmagazine) October 12, 2026

Unity is a big thing for Anglicans – about a third of candidates in the current elections prioritising it in their addresses. The problem is there is no agreement as to where that unity is to be found – and thus any call for ‘unity’ ends up excluding those who take a different approach.

This was seen very clearly in a different vote – which took place this week at the North Lambeth Deanery Synod.

The North Lambeth Deanery is diverse, gentrified and home to the ‘nones’. Stretching south from the Thames, it includes Waterloo and parts of Lambeth, Kennington, Clapham and Brixton. It is made up of twenty churches and eighteen benefices, served by twenty-eight clergy. It is also where two key figures in the battle over the future of the Church of England reside. Revd Dr Bączyk-Bell, a trustee of the liberal grouping Together for the Church of England, is based at St John the Divine, Kennington and Revd Jago Wynne, a director of The Alliance, is the vicar of Holy Trinity, Clapham.

Not only that, neither man holds his theological position in isolation. The Revd Dr Bączyk-Bell is joined in the deanery by Revd Giles Goddard, Revd Sally Hitchiner and a number of others who serve in ‘Inclusive Churches’. While on the orthodox side, Holy Trinity alone has three curates and a self-supporting minister and there are at least two other churches in the deanery which would describe themselves as evangelical. This would suggest the make-up of the deanery synod offers an informed testing ground for controversial topics.

Turning to the events of this week, when [the] Revd Dr Bączyk-Bell placed a long and complicated motion before the deanery synod.

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Nothing much ever changes with the revisionist approach in the @churchofengland- ‘unity’ means everyone accepting that truth is plural i.e. everyone being revisionist. Really good from @AnglicanFutures https://t.co/igRcXa1f7J

— Dan Leafe (@DanLeafe1) October 9, 2026

Martin Luther King said: “The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state”. What happens when religious conscience and the law collide? In a socially diverse Britain, how should we understand peoples faith and religiosity in public life – as exceptionalism, privilege or as a human right?

This discussion includes faith based case law; the purpose of the Lords Spiritual; the assisted dying debate; plans to reform marriage law; and examples of religious dress in legal settings.

Listen to it all (28 minutes).

I’m delighted to be one of the panelists on the ‘Beyond Belief’ episode dedicated to religion and the law. It’s on @BBCRadio4 today at 3.30pm and available on @BBCSounds afterwards. I’m looking forward to hearing what made the edit!#BeyondBelief #Radio4 #Religion #Law https://t.co/cKduskItWS

— Russell Sandberg (@sandbergrlaw) October 6, 2026

“The Green Party’s motion declaring Zionism to be racism touches on questions of profound moral and political complexity. For my own part, I do not believe that Zionism can simply be equated with racism. I recognise the ways in which the policies and actions of successive Israeli governments have contributed to dispossession, inequality and the denial of Palestinian rights, and I believe these must be confronted honestly.

“I am also concerned that this motion may leave many Jewish people feeling misunderstood, marginalised or unwelcome within a political movement that should be committed to the full participation and equal dignity of all communities. 

“At the same time, we should recognise what Zionism means for many Jews: a profound longing for safety, belonging and self-determination, shaped by centuries of persecution and the Holocaust. That history cannot simply be dismissed. Nor can acknowledging it be allowed to obscure the equal dignity and rights of Palestinians. Both peoples have legitimate claims to safety, freedom and a future in which they can flourish.

“This matters particularly in Britain….”

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‘Antisemitism is evil, it must be confronted wherever it appears’The Bishop of Willesden, Lusa Nsenga-Ngoy, the Church of England’s Lead Bishop for Interfaith Engagement and Vice-Chair of the Commission on Interfaith Relations, spoke at the Standing Strong: Extinguish Antisemitism rally in London earlier this week.Read the full address at: https://t.co/Rmkhfn7r55@Lustherev #antisemitism #interfaith #HopeNotHate

— Woolf Institute (@Woolf_Institute) May 15, 2026

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has officially condemned gambling since its earliest years. Throughout the 20th century, prophets and apostles preached against the spiritually corrosive vice, and the Church encouraged members to oppose pro-gambling ballot initiatives. But the last time a senior Church leader addressed gambling at its General Conference—the Church’s semiannual global broadcast and most prominent pulpit—was in 2005. The long silence from the conference pulpit may have allowed some members to convince themselves that the Church had softened its stance—or that their Kalshi habit was not a religious issue at all.

The silence ended this past Saturday, when President D. Todd Christofferson, a senior leader in the Church’s highest governing body, used his General Conference address to condemn gambling. His remarks were well researched: He recited various statistics about the industry’s expansion, and spelled out the ruinous social consequences. He detailed the popular forms of online gambling and even offered a quick survey of the bets you can make on prediction markets—including the timing of the Second Coming. (“Where do you go to collect on that bet?” he wondered.)

But then Christofferson arrived at the real point of his talk.

“For us as Latter-day Saints, overarching all other concerns is the fact that gambling is morally wrong,” he said. “Gambling is built on the desire to obtain something for nothing. Its structure requires that any gain comes at others’ expense. It’s hard to reconcile that with the commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves.” He went on to say that Christians should be wise stewards of their God-given resources, and that “gambling produces nothing of value and enriches only its purveyors.”

He also addressed those in his audience who believe that they can gamble casually without becoming addicted. “Since your recreational gambling may lead a weaker brother or sister into temptation, just don’t do it,” Christofferson said. “Every soul is precious.”

Read it all.

This past weekend, senior Latter-day Saint leader @ChristoffDTodd did something that has become surprisingly rare: He made an unapologetic moral argument against gambling.I wrote about the religious leaders pushing back against the sports-betting boom. https://t.co/0FeDCYVV07

— McKay Coppins (@mckaycoppins) October 6, 2026

…[Today] marks the third anniversary of the most devastating attack on Jews in modern times. In its aftermath there were celebrations on the streets of London.

Since then, two Jewish worshippers have been killed in the Heaton Park synagogue in Manchester, two Jewish men attacked in broad daylight in Golders Green and four ambulances owned by a Jewish charity burnt by arsonists.

British Jews are feeling unsafe and besieged. They have encountered a terrible increase in antisemitism, here, in the land of their birth. In some quarters hatred of Israel has become indistinguishable from hatred of Jews. Many are considering leaving Britain.

As British Christians we cannot but feel a responsibility to respond. Without Judaism, there is no Christianity. The bonds are deep. For example, when a Church of England service begins with the words, “O Lord, open thou our lips”, and we respond, “And our mouth shall show forth thy praise”, we are hearing a Jewish prayer that was ancient even at the time of Jesus.

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The Bishop of Hereford has written today’s Thunderer column in The Times. https://t.co/XyQKU2jo2o

— Richard Chapman (@SelsdonChapman) October 6, 2026

The late conservative icon William F. Buckley released God and Man at Yale in 1951, at age twenty-four. This polemic, released as Yale turned 250 years old, wielded the unique knowledge of a recent graduate to contend that that the Yale faculty were actively inculcating students in secularism while dismissing religion as “superstition”; that this malfeasance went far beyond mere open-mindedness (and that it would be undermining even if relativism were its end); and that Yale faculty were simultaneously indoctrinating students in an anti-capitalist economic ideology that threatened America’s system of limited government while instigating admiration for collectivism and ultimately, socialism. 

By the time I was enrolled as an undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania in the 2000s, the notion that the “tenured radicals” comprising an ivy league faculty would so much as pretend to conceal their investment in secular orthodoxy—or profess anything other than collectivist economics (which they, of course, do not practice)—seemed implausible on its face. 

By then, the venal bargain that Tyler Austin Harper lambastes in his recent essay in The Atlantic had long since been made, albeit in a less extreme form: influential faculty in the humanities and social sciences “discover” and “study” wild theories about race, sex, and gender—the crazier and more inexplicable to normal people the better—all while ratcheting up student debt and outsourcing ever more teaching to poorly paid adjunct instructors without benefits.  

Yet meanwhile—at least during my time at Penn—most of the students, even the ones majoring in the humanities, intended to go into business or some other lucrative field anyway. The real goal was not self-sacrificial do-gooding or a restructuring of society to better serve the poor, but fluency in an esoteric, elite language in which to express the most sophisticated brand of virtue-signaling available.  

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“I believe that if and when the menace of Communism is gone, other vital battles, at present subordinated, will emerge to the foreground. And the winner must have help from the classroom.”William F. Buckley Jr., God and Man at Yale [1951] https://t.co/ciHjFOkJZU

— Mark W. (@DurhamWASP) October 2, 2026

A California pastor named Justin Lester has built a digital twin of himself using nearly 2 million words from his sermons, books, and other messages. The artificial intelligence–generated clone offers counsel around the clock to hundreds of people in Vallejo, a city in the Bay Area. The New York Times, which reported on Lester, said the AI twin talks in the pastor’s cadence. It has comforted a woman the night before heart surgery, advised a person who felt despair over a lost job, and generated a letter for a homesick child at camp.

Lester is not alone in searching for ways to incorporate generative AI into Christianity. The creators of one AI-infused app, called Bible Chat, have created another sort of digital chaplaincy that allows users to confess their secrets and sins to a chatbot, and ask it for insight about how to interpret the bible. Bible Chat has been downloaded more than 30 million times. Other “faith tech” tools are also on the rise.

I’m sure most of us already sense something is off here, and plenty has been written about the obvious concerns with the technology: Can a chatbot pray for you? (No.) Can it know you? (No.) Can it be trusted to tell you the truth when the truth costs something? (No.) I won’t use this article to rehearse those arguments. Instead, I will focus on our existing problems, as Protestants, with spiritual authority and how AI technology that provides spiritual guidance threatens to make it a lot worse.

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(CT) ‘The New York Times, which reported on Lester, said the AI twin talks in the pastor’s cadence. It has comforted a woman the night before heart surgery, advised a person who felt despair over a lost job, and generated a letter for a homesick child at camp’ https://t.co/eimklPp9eQ #faith #parishministry #ordainedlife #technology #ai #21stc

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) October 5, 2026

A court in China’s Shanxi province sentenced Yang Rongli to 15 years for fraud in June 2025. She was the leader of a house church called the Golden Lampstand, and her fraud, according to the prosecutors, was collecting offerings from her congregation.

That’s the way churches have funded themselves for 2,000 years, and the Golden Lampstand’s congregants weren’t deceived. They gave willingly and knew where their money went. But in its campaign against independent churches, Beijing has doubled down on a troubling method: Take an ordinary practice and prosecute it as a financial crime. Pastor Wang Yi of Chengdu’s Early Rain Covenant Church is another example: sentenced to nine years in 2019, partly for “illegal business operations” tied to printing Christian books.

My parents are likely next. My father, Gao Quanfu, founded Light of Zion Church in Xi’an nearly four decades ago. He and my mother, Pang Yu, both 69, lived frugally and gave generously. The church’s money was handled by a finance team and overseen by its elders and deacons. My father drew a fixed salary for preaching, and my mother cooked meals as a volunteer.

But in May 2025, the police came to our home in Xi’an and took my father, returning three weeks later to take my mother. The original charge was “using superstition to undermine the implementation of the law,” but—with the method of using financial laws for religious oppression—they’ve now been charged with fraud instead. Prosecutors are seeking 12 to 13 years.

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In its campaign against independent churches, Beijing has doubled down on a troubling method: Take an ordinary practice and prosecute it as a financial crime, writes @GaoPu1231https://t.co/izxIujB28n

— Wall Street Journal Opinion (@WSJopinion) October 2, 2026

Best-selling British author Os Guinness never planned to be a writer. America helped make him one, with a little help from Switzerland. Since then, hundreds of thousands of readers have turned to the Christian public intellectual to understand both their walk with God and their place in the world.

Guinness’s 1998 title The Call, perhaps his most widely recognized book, helps believers discover their God-given purpose in life. The Global Public Square (2013) addresses religious freedom and the role of faith in society. And A Freedom Like No Other, published this year, continues his esteem of the American republic and its constitutional liberty.

But this liberty is also at risk, Guinness cautions. A visit to the US in 1968 began his intellectual relationship with America, as he traveled from Harvard to Berkeley amid political assassinations, race riots, and a liberal counterculture upending traditional values. And as he interviewed leading figures from the right and the left, he came to a startling conclusion.

“I hardly met any evangelicals who really understood what was going on,” he said in a 2025 interview.

Guinness’s travels led to his first book in 1973, The Dust of Death, a critique of cultural trends in the 1960s. For a man who never planned to be a writer, he proved prolific in the decades that followed, penning more than 30 titles.

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Os Guinness Still Challenges Christians to Think

The tumult of the 1960s sparked a literary journey that hasn’t stopped for the prolific social critic.https://t.co/XnmWTZZodU

— Christianity Today (@CTmagazine) September 30, 2026

In short, The Death of Religion? insists that religion is not dying; it’s merely changing. Christianity may be declining in the West but it’s growing elsewhere. “The fastest-growing areas of Christianity are in the Global South,” the authors state, “particularly sub-Saharah Africa and the Asia-Pacific region.” For those who are Christians, this is an important reminder that the work of God continues throughout the world, with Christianity continuing to advance in many places—and this is reason to celebrate.

In fact, Johnson and Kidd project that Pentecostals will continue to experience significant growth and may surpass a billion adherents by 2050, asserting that in this competitive religion economy, these are the groups that have managed to thrive. And while there are good reasons to criticize the consumeristic mindset of some Christian groups, “at some basic level, churches still have to account for congregants’ perceived needs.” Pentecostal congregations, apparently, do just that.

The authors acknowledge, however, that “the most salient story of Christian decline in American history has been the shocking collapse of the mainline denominations since the 1960’s.” They discuss the decline of several different denominations in American and around the world. The Methodist church, for example, has been deteriorating in the U.S. since the 1960s, but globally the denomination is doing very well. The Episcopal Church has a similar story. The denomination has not died yet, but “it is about as close to death as a well-heeled, historically influential denomination can get in contemporary America.” But like Methodism, the worldwide Anglican church, of which the Episcopal Church in America is but one part, appears to be growing in the Global South, and conservative Anglicans have formed new denominational structures such as the Anglican Church in North America that are trying to partner with like-minded groups around the world.

Read it all.

Is religion dying?

It's easy to think so, but the story is more complicated.

A new book by sociologist Byron Johnson and historian @ThomasSKidd argues that the decline of religion has been greatly overstated. @sopresley reviews "The Death of Religion?" and explores why… pic.twitter.com/qXrsphf7TQ

— Acton Institute (@ActonInstitute) September 30, 2026

Since the rise of psychology as a scientific discipline in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, there has been no lack of Christian discourse about psychological studies and theories. Christians have vigorously opposed, assiduously incorporated, or fought for compromises with the fast-growing cultural juggernaut that therapy represents, but even the most strident anti-therapy messages have been and are still the other half of a Rorschach blot: defined in opposition to the dominant message. Resistance to therapy culture is not futile, but some assimilation is inevitable.

The greatest danger that therapy culture poses to churches today is not that we will trade out our doctrines wholesale, but that we will define those doctrines only in terms that therapy culture finds acceptable. The best way forward, then, is to tell a story truer than the one on offer from our cultural mythmakers.

In this story, sin is not merely our “brokenness” or “messiness,” but it is the inescapable inclination to hurt ourselves and others by violating the laws that a holy God taught us so that we might live in peace. Our deliverance does not come through conspicuous consumption, rejecting moral strictures, or unvarnished asceticism, but through trusting in the power of Jesus’s death and resurrection. We are not helpless victims understanding ourselves through diagnoses, but we are transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit to live free of sin and imitate Christ. A therapeutic culture full of people living to be pleased will falter when compared to a body of believers who live as if sin truly is a deadly illness they have been healed from and hell is a real place they’ve been saved from.

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What happens when the language of therapy becomes the language through which Christians understand sin, suffering, and human flourishing? In this piece, Matthew Loftus examines how modern psychology has shaped Christian thinking about the self, and argues that the Church’s task… pic.twitter.com/4xD2u3QFF0

— First Things (@firstthingsmag) September 28, 2026

When Sheen appeared in his Emmy-winning show, “Life is Worth Living,” from 1952 to 1957, he was an auxiliary bishop in New York. He proved a natural for the medium: handsome with a beautiful voice and mesmerizing eyes. Sheen used no props except a chalkboard and chalk. He focused on such serious topics as philosophy, history and religion. He rarely, if ever, used notes.

“Life is Worth Living” routinely drew up to 30 million weekly viewers, becoming for a time the most popular television show in the country. Through both the show and his real-world ministry, Sheen inspired countless conversions.

Every bishop today wants to know Sheen’s secret. How did he enrapture millions of souls despite political, religious and geographical differences? How did he win converts while being outspoken about controversial truths?

The answer can primarily be found in Sheen’s prayer life, which inspired genuine love for his fellow human beings. On the day of his ordination in 1919, Sheen committed himself to a daily hour of prayer. He kept this promise until the day he died in 1979, despite a hectic schedule and major pastoral responsibilities. Sheen was so faithful to this promise that he drew his last breaths before the Eucharist.

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America’s first bishop turned saint? Catholic leaders have a lot to learn from Blessed Fulton Sheen, master of the TV era, writes @ArchbishopOKChttps://t.co/nDX6j4ay62

— Wall Street Journal Opinion (@WSJopinion) September 25, 2026