Most U.S. adults (65%) say it would be positive for society if more Americans were religious, although that is down from an even larger majority of 75% when Gallup last asked the question in 2013. Twenty-two percent currently say greater religiosity would be negative for society, while the remainder think it would be neither or do not have an opinion.

The results are from Gallup’s Values and Beliefs survey, conducted May 1-17.

Belief that religion would have a positive effect has shrunk since 2013 among most key demographic and political groups — the exceptions being Republicans, Catholics and those without a religious preference. Democrats, young adults, women and those with some college education are the groups who show the largest changes compared with 2013.

Read it all.

Most U.S. adults (65%) say it would be positive for society if more Americans were religious, although that is down from an even larger majority of 75% when Gallup last asked the question in 2013.

22% currently say greater religiosity would be negative for society, while the… pic.twitter.com/nZDN8AV4Z4

— Gallup (@Gallup) June 16, 2026

Responding to the news that a Bill to permit assisted dying is to be reintroduced to Parliament, the Bishop of Newcastle, Dr Helen-Ann Hartley, has told the Church Times that she remains committed to scrutinising the legislation in the House of Lords — although MPs may use the Parliament Act to bypass the Upper House.

“The issues around workability and safety remain, as do the issues around the funding of palliative and social care,” she said.

The Bishop was speaking after the Labour MP for Rochester and Strood, Lauren Edwards, announced that she would use another Private Member’s Bill to reintroduce the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill into the House of Commons.

Read it all.

Responding to the news that a Bill to permit assisted dying is to be reintroduced to Parliament, the Bishop of Newcastle has told the Church Times that she remains committed to scrutinising it in the Lords—although MPs may use the Parliament Act https://t.co/uHGU8uJZkN

— James Macintyre (@James_Macintyre) June 15, 2026

In Vanishing Church, Burge contends that religion’s role in American public life was “recast” in the 1990s, when the religious right was at the height of its cultural prominence. Drawing on survey data such as the Cooperative Election Study and General Social Survey, he makes a case that until roughly the latter 20th century, religion was an incubator of social capital because it involved people from a broad cross-section of society working together to improve it. When the culture wars co-opted Christianity, it was to the detriment of not only Christianity but also American civil society, as young people began disaffiliating from Christianity (and religion as a whole).

“An increasing number of Americans began to see religion as primarily political,” Burge writes, instead of considering it as a body of theological beliefs, a means to approach existential questions, or a personal moral foundation. Opposing abortion, for example, became “a political stance with a religious justification, not a theological posture that expresses itself in how one votes on election day,” he writes.

One could argue that today’s online “trad” Catholicism is the current form of this recasting. This specific trend is mostly absent in Vanishing Church, but Burge has been vocal about it in interviews. As he recently framed it, this iteration has become “very desirable among highly intellectualized Republicans” as an entry point to “move up the ranks.” It is, in Burge’s words, “instrumental”—that is to say, another form of political sectarian identity. Burge also pours cold water on the notion that we’re living in the moment of a Catholic revival or ascendancy: It may appear so from “a vibes perspective,” but “not from a numbers perspective.” As college campuses and Manhattan parishes boast standing-room-only crowds and record numbers of converts, Burge observes that this is primarily an elite phenomenon that working-class parishes have not replicated. “It’s a bougie revival,” he recently told the National Catholic Register. “It’s very much an elite discourse revival.”

Read it all.

“There seems to be a rapidly spreading phenomenon of people who say they are religious … while they have essentially no connection to a local church.”

Is America’s “religious revival” more aesthetic than communal?@maggiemphillips's latest:https://t.co/adzIauhgsz

— Tablet Magazine (@tabletmag) May 27, 2026

A new parliamentary network of cathedral cities with a remit to make a “sustained appeal” to the Government for funding support was established this week.

Cathedral deans and their constituency MPs met in Westminster on Tuesday. MPs were urged to propose a motion for debate in Parliament on the value of cathedrals to the nation. The deans also urged the Government to call on the Church’s own National Investing Bodies to meet their obligations to cathedrals.

Parliamentary debates on cathedrals have been held every year for the past few years, covering their economic contribution, choral music, maintenance, and sustainability.

Read it all.

A new parliamentary network of cathedral cities with a remit to make a “sustained appeal” to the Government for funding support was established this week.#Cathedral https://t.co/1VMa9dOhhB

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) June 12, 2026

The survey consisted of 2,365 Gen Z respondents and was conducted through AmeriSpeak and the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago between August 9 and September 26, 2024, with Rick Richardson as lead investigator. With weighting applied, the sample is representative of Gen Z as a whole. One of the first questions asked respondents to indicate their current religious affiliation, if any.

The results are striking. The generic “Christian” label was easily the most popular choice, selected by 27% of Gen Z respondents—about 10 points higher than those who identified as Catholic and 17 points higher than those who chose Protestant. This largely confirms what earlier data suggested: Young people are roughly three times more likely to call themselves generic Christians than Protestants.

Perhaps equally striking is what happens when we look at born-again or evangelical Gen Z respondents—a group that makes up about 24% of the total sample. Even among this theologically engaged cohort, a majority (54%) identify as generic Christians rather than Protestant. Only 22% chose Protestant, with Catholics at 12% and the remainder scattered across other categories.

Read it all.

Most of non Catholic USA Christianity is Protestant & Baptist but doesn’t know it or rejects the labels. https://t.co/S4AI8FdX1d

— @markdtooley (@markdtooley) June 11, 2026

Things were different amongst Christians. The Early Church challenged the contemporary pagan culture by insisting on the same standard of sexual ethics for both men and woman. The first Christians believed, based on the teaching of Genesis 1 and 2, that marriage was to be between one man and one woman, that marriage was the only legitimate setting for sexual activity and that a single standard of sexual fidelity was required of both men and women.

That is why men are told to ‘abstain from unchastity’ (1 Thessalonians 4:4), why Paul forbids man having sex with prostitutes (1 Corinthians 6:12-20) why a bishop has to be a ‘one woman man’ (1 Timothy 5:9) just as good wives were expected to be ‘a one man woman’ (1 Timothy 5:9).To quote Larry Hurtado:

‘The decisive step taken early Christian sexual teaching was to bring males under the same sort of behavioural requirements that in the larger cultural setting were expected of ‘honourable’ women. In the matter of marital fidelity in chastity, it seems that for early Christians what was good for the goose was also thought good for the gander!’[8]

In addition, the early Christians universally rejected abortion and infant exposure.

In the words of the second century Epistle to Diognetus, ‘They [Christians] marry like everyone else and have children, but they do not expose their offspring. They share their food but not their wives.’[9]

Thus, far early Christianity was in line with Jewish tradition. However, it departed from the Jewish tradition by also holding that intentional singleness (known then as ‘virginity’), and the celibacy that went with it, was not only acceptable but, in fact, a more excellent form of Christian discipleship than being married….

Read it all.

Martin Davie–Assessing two different visions for the future of the Anglican Communion https://t.co/F3so2u4TtA 'The difference between the two views of the future of global Anglicanism put forward by the Nairobi-Cairo Proposals and The Abuja Affirmation is that the former holds… pic.twitter.com/LXTgMmiuOZ

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) March 16, 2026

The documentary The Story of Everything was released by Fathom Entertainment at the end of April. It is the latest contribution from a group of scientists who have raised several serious challenges to the prevailing culture and ideology of scientific materialism, which has dominated the public discourse for 175 years.

The release of the film follows the publication of two books that press the challenges to scientific materialism to their logical breaking point. The first is The Return of the God Hypothesis (HarperOne, 2021) by Stephen C. Meyer; the second is God, the Science, the Evidence by Michel-Yves Bolloré and Olivier Bonnassies (Palomar) (Books, 14 November 2025). Both are global bestsellers.

The film includes contributions from many of the world’s leading scientists who do not accept the pre-eminence of scientific materialism — or, at least, who have grave doubts about it. Among them are Professor John Lennox, Dr Stephen Meyer, Dr David Berlinski, Professor Douglas Axe, and Professor James Tour. This is no band of lightweight chancers: they are serious scientists, experts in the natural sciences, mathematics, and the history of science and philosophy.

Over the past few years, they have patiently and politely argued their case with increasing confidence as the compelling nature of their argument has begun to cut through. Dr Meyer has been interviewed by Joe Rogan on his podcast at length, and has appeared on Piers Morgan Uncensored, in which Mr Morgan declared himself a theist on the same basis as Dr Meyer.

Read it all.

"For too long, scientific materialists have been allowed to obscure what has been obvious to many of us."

Arguments that challenge a materialist world-view are gaining a hearing beyond academia, writes Simon Miller #science #Metaphysics https://t.co/EFRTei68Dm

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) June 8, 2026

The new encyclical comes as the culmination of various articles during recent weeks about AI’s implications for religion. Here’s a sampling of materials to consider alongside Leo’s magnum opus. 

Ross Douthat, author of the 2025 classic “Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious,” wrote in his May 10 New York Times column that A.I., with its virtual “machine God,” poses the most fundamental questions about our human identity, consciousness, will, and reason. He sees three possible responses.

For many, A.I. is “a win for atheism and a blow against religious ideas of soul and spirit,” with our minds seen as “just computers.” Others think religion is enhanced when the mystery of our personal consciousness becomes more profound and humanity more exceptional. A third attitude is simply becoming more uncertain about everything. 

A March 26 report from the University of Chicago and Northwestern University suggests AI and robotics may be a factor in the 21st-century decline in religious affiliation. These scholars observe that “historically, people have deferred to supernatural agents and religious professionals to solve instrumental problems beyond the scope of human ability” that now “may seem more solvable” through technology. 

Then this unsettling phenomenon. As Religion Unplugged reported on May 21, a Barna Group poll found that 30% of adults, and 34% of practicing Christians, agree “strongly” or “somewhat” that “spiritual advice from artificial intelligence is just as trustworthy as advice from a pastor,” a confidence that reaches 44% with the “Millennial” generation. Naturally, clergy members are far more skeptical. 

Read it all.

C.S. Lewis predicted AI in That Hideous Strength. N.I.C.E., that’s AI. Fans know what I’m talking about.

AI’s problem is not going to be its inability to do anything, but that it ruins everything. It creates a cultural problem. It sterilizes everything and makes nothing… pic.twitter.com/AIelvWRgdf

— Jeremy Wayne Tate (@JeremyTate41) February 16, 2026

He was a 10-year-old Malawian boy, born in a rural community like so many in sub-Saharan Africa. His family made the journey to Nkhoma Mission Hospital, a hospital in the Lilongwe district, after he began having difficulty breathing. An exam and ultrasound of his heart revealed he was in severe heart failure.

While the team was discussing treatment, his heart suddenly stopped beating. In most African hospitals, that would have been the end of the story. The boy would have died.

But the clinicians at Nkhoma Hospital wouldn’t accept that. Years of investment to raise their standard of care paid off in that moment. Oxygen was ready at the patient’s bedside, along with a defibrillator to shock his heart back into rhythm. Competent ICU nurses and physicians, trained in critical care at a partner hospital in Kenya, were prepared to leap into action. They knew the protocol, acted quickly—and it worked. After the first shock, the boy’s heart started beating again.

An echocardiogram machine provided by donors a year earlier allowed doctors to look inside his failing heart, understand what was happening, and make appropriate treatment decisions. Over the next several days, his heart function began to recover.

Read it all.

In a cultural moment deeply suspicious of institutions, African mission hospitals prove their value for kingdom work.https://t.co/pJ9nUONBYV

— Christianity Today (@CTmagazine) June 2, 2026

[Mr Funmi Ojetayo’s] professional experience includes senior legal positions with Florida A&M University, the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, and the Florida Department of Management Services. As Deputy General Counsel for the Department of Management Services, he led the agency’s litigation function and provided counsel on significant legal matters. He currently serves as a Partner at Allen, Norton & Blue, P.A., in Tallahassee, Florida, where his practice focuses on labor and employment litigation and appellate advocacy.

In addition to his legal training, Mr. Ojetayo holds a Master of Divinity degree from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He completed his pastoral residency at Incarnation Anglican Church in Tallahassee in 2022 and currently serves as Discipleship Pastor at Four Oaks Church East.

While under consideration for the appointment, Mr. Ojetayo disclosed that he has a brother who serves as a rector within Bishop Julian Dobbs’ diocese. As Mr. Ojetayo has no personal involvement in the matters under review, and his appointment is based on his professional qualifications and experience, the province deemed this not to be a conflict of interest.  

Read it all.

https://t.co/NzE22DL2Qe

— Arlie Coles (@ArlieColes) June 3, 2026

here’s an expression that artificial intelligence developers in California use to refer to their work: “Building God.” In fact, one of them, Avital Balwit, the chief of staff to Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, just did so in a May 22 essay for The Free Press. The use of the phrase, she wrote, is intended as a form of sardonic humor, acknowledging the awesome power and potential consequences of AI.

But is it a joke, really? The timing of Balwit’s piece was serendipitous, for only three days after it was published, Pope Leo XIV made headlines around the world for writing about artificial intelligence. On Monday, he issued his first encyclical—a major papal declaration on contemporary issues that is intended to guide the Catholic Church—titled Magnifica Humanitas: On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence.

AI, Leo writes, isn’t the first time people have tried to build something godlike. Indeed, he opens his encyclical with the biblical story from Genesis of the Tower of Babel, which was a human attempt to reach “to the heavens.” What was the builders’ motivation? By their own account, “so that we may make a name for ourselves.”

Lest you think his encyclical is a broadside against modern science and human ingenuity, the pope contrasts the tower with another biblical construction operation, the Wall of Jerusalem from the book of Nehemiah, which sought to serve and protect the people of God, who were vulnerable to their enemies. The difference was not in the engineering prowess each project required. It was in their goals. The tower, with its morally dubious purpose, is a cautionary tale of hubris leading to ruin. The wall, by contrast, is a story of promise leading to human flourishing.

Read it all.

For all the panic surrounding AI, Pope Leo offers a coherent philosophy for how individuals, leaders, and societies should actually live with it, writes Arthur Brooks. https://t.co/ngHpllpYEV

— The Free Press (@TheFP) May 28, 2026

Pope Leo XIV warned that artificial intelligence “threatens to normalize an anti-human vision” and said that the concentration of immense digital power in the hands of a few private actors must be countered.

The pontiff’s encyclical letter—a text that is poised to define Leo’s papacy—reads like a sharp warning to Silicon Valley executives and humanity more broadly about the future of civilization as new technologies rapidly advance.

The risk, he said, is that humans will be reduced “to mere cogs in a system driven toward ever greater efficiency.”

Leo used two biblical images to describe the choice humanity faces. 

“The primary choice is not between a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to technology, but rather between constructing Babel or rebuilding Jerusalem,” he wrote.

Read it all.

ICYMI: Pope Leo Compares AI Threat to Biblical ‘Tower of Babel’: The head of the Catholic Church is adding his moral suasion to a growing backlash against the impact of artificial intelligence – WSJ https://t.co/7lfkPN4W0D

— Steve Williams (@HISteveWilliams) May 27, 2026

So, now we are in the earliest stages of a third phase, whose precise shape is not yet clear, but it undoubtedly marks a significant shift in political discourse, social patterns, and both private and group allegiance. I would characterise it broadly not as a surge in institutional religion, or church attendance, but a more nuanced flourishing of religious sensibility and the accelerated rolling back of what Max Weber famously called “disenchantment”.

Everywhere one looks, the sacred, the numinous, and the mystical are reasserting themselves — not always in traditional form, of course: what Tara Isabella Burton aptly calls the “Remixed religions” of the young are customised, consumerist, and made-to-measure rather than doctrinally coherent….

That said, there is indisputably a discernible Christian edge to what is happening — and not only the “cultural Christianity” that Tom Holland’s wonderful book Dominion has nurtured in so many (Features, 27 September 2019). There have been specific, high-profile conversions, of which the most striking was the public announcement of the former New Atheist Ayaan Hirsi Ali, in 2023, that she was now a committed Christian.

Alongside this, one cannot begin to comprehend the contemporary tech world without understanding the grip of AI millenarianism and the growing fixation with the Revelation of St John among Silicon Valley oligarchs such as Peter Thiel, who has been lecturing around the world on the advent of the Antichrist. It is remarkable — and quite normal now — to hear “tech bros” talk with enthusiasm about the Christian theorist René Girard.

Read it all (subscription or registration).

"Everywhere one looks, the sacred, the numinous, and the mystical are reasserting themselves"@MatthewdAncona detects a huge shift in politics and culture https://t.co/uOFMcoLpZp

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) May 26, 2026

As the historian Leszek Kołakowski observed, Marxism functioned for many as “the greatest fantasy of our century”—a promise that history itself would bring final justice.

G.K. Chesterton captured the problem: Marx simply replaces one abstraction with another. But abstractions such as “historical inevitability” can’t produce justice on their own, because justice depends on the moral character of the persons who act within those systems.

The deep question for our own moment is whether modern politics can resist the temptation to which Marxists surrender. Every generation is drawn to the hope that history itself will resolve its deepest conflicts. Marx gave that hope its most powerful modern expression by translating theological categories into the language of political economy. But as Eric Voegelin once warned, attempts to “immanentize the eschaton”—to force heaven into history—have repeatedly produced political disasters.

Marx didn’t abolish the Christian structure of redemption. He relocated it within history—and that relocation continues to shape the political imagination of the modern world.

Read it all.

Very interesting article. The central claim is that Karl Marx did not actually deny the redemption promised by religion, but rather relocated it in time. https://t.co/5LjYMR5YiV

— BajaTed (@bajated) May 21, 2026

In this episode of the Anglican Perspective Podcast, Canon Mark Eldredge sits down in Oxford, England with Susie Leafe, Director of Anglican Futures UK, for a thoughtful conversation on the future of global Anglicanism in the wake of recent developments across the Communion. Together, they discuss the installation of the new Archbishop of Canterbury, the response of Gafcon and Global South leaders, the growing realignment within worldwide Anglicanism, and the challenges facing faithful Anglicans in England and Wales. Recorded near the historic Oxford Martyrs’ Memorial, this episode reflects on what it means to remain rooted in biblical faithfulness during a time of institutional uncertainty, while also offering hope for renewal, clarity, and Gospel witness in the years ahead.

Listen here

Only days after U.S. President Donald Trump left a Beijing summit with CCP Chairman Xi Jinping where religious freedom and jailed religious leaders were discussed, authorities in eastern China have demolished a prominent church, razing the building with large excavators.

Yazhong Church (also referred to as Yayang Church), an unregistered Protestant church in Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province — a region known as “China’s Jerusalem” — has been under siege since late last year.

On Dec. 14 and 15, local authorities arrested 103 church members in a pre-dawn raid and took control of the church building, as confirmed last week in new reporting by Le Monde. That same week, at a public event, an unidentified government official announced: “We will see this campaign through to the end.” 

Five months later, heavy construction vehicles passed through tightly controlled security checkpoints set up by authorities, according to multiple sources confirmed by ChinaAid News. Crews then demolished the multi-level sanctuary from the top down, reducing it to rubble. Due to an unprecedented information blackout, the exact date of the demolition is not yet known; sources provided an initial report on May 19.

Read it all.

Prominent Church In East China Demolished Amid Escalating Crackdown https://t.co/js4iRUjdf7

— Bob Fu 傅希秋 (@BobFu4China) May 21, 2026

Heritage funding for the 14,000 listed places of worship in England, including cathedrals, is to come in upfront capital grants, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has announced. Those in areas of high deprivation and “facing overwhelming fund-raising challenges” would be prioritised, it said on Wednesday.

The new Places of Worship Renewal Fund (PWRF) succeeds the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme (LPWGS), under which places of worship could reclaim all the VAT paid on repairs and maintenance. Last year, the LPWGS was capped at £25,000 for each place of worship, meaning that those undertaking major repairs — such as a new roof — had to raise extra funds to cover VAT costs for the first time in two decades (News, 25 January 2025).

The new PWRF grant scheme is to be delivered by Historic England and is intended to bring places of worship in line with other heritage buildings. It has been influenced by the success of the Heritage at Risk and the Heritage Revival Funds, and, in targeting areas of greatest need, puts the emphasis on the community, DCMS says.

Read it all.

Heritage funding for the 14,000 listed places of worship in England, including cathedrals, is to come in upfront capital grants, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has announced. Those in areas of high deprivation would be prioritisedhttps://t.co/G2J758K7rI

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) May 20, 2026

The three American Muslims killed during a shooting Monday (May 18) at a San Diego mosque are being remembered by their imam and faith community as “men of courage, sacrifice and faith” who put themselves on the line to protect others. 

The Islamic Center of San Diego identified the victims as Amin Abdullah, a gentle security guard; Nadir Awad, a dedicated neighbor; and Mansour Kaziha, a longtime shopkeeper and caretaker of the mosque.

Abdullah died protecting more than 200 children and community members, the mosque’s Imam Taha Hassane said in an interview with RNS. The “beloved” security guard was killed first, Hassane said, but before he died, he used his radio to warn teachers in the center’s school to lock their classroom doors. He “undoubtedly he saved lives today” by delaying the shooters in a gunbattle in front of the mosque, said San Diego Police Department Chief Scott Wahl during a press conference Monday. 

Read it all.

Victims of the deadly Islamic Center of San Diego shooting have been identified. https://t.co/PTM3tr430T

— WACH FOX (@wachfox) May 19, 2026

ewly released figures from the British Social Attitudes (BSA) survey confirm that church attendance in Britain remains below pre-Covid levels and that there are no signs of a revival among young people. 

The data – published by the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) – shows that within Britain’s adult population, only 5% attend a Christian service weekly – down from 8% in 2018. 

Only 4% of under 35s attend a Christian service at least once a week – consistent with figures since 2017 which have ranged from 3% to 5%. 

Even among those who identify as Christians, only one in eight (13%) say they attend a religious service at least once a week – well below the 20% recorded in 2018 before the outbreak of Covid and similar to the 12% recorded during the pandemic in 2021.

Read it all.

'Quiet revival' claims 'laid to rest' once and for all as study shows UK churchgoing continues to fall https://t.co/Jh0sF0Pyg6 pic.twitter.com/0gQrM0ugpe

— Christian Today (@ChristianToday) May 19, 2026

Both the Church’s funding bodies and the Government should ramp up investment in cathedrals, where financial pressures are resulting in commercial bookings that risk “crowding out the sense of stillness and calm”, a new report has concluded.

Living Stones: English cathedrals as sacred spaces in changing times celebrated the contribution made by the country’s cathedrals, but warned that they are in “serious difficulty”, with 80 per cent in structural deficit.

“The pressures of financial survival can consume so much energy and attention that there is little left for the deeper questions of purpose and mission,” it said.

Produced by Theos, the report was funded by the Church Commissioners’ Cathedral Sustainability Fund and the Association of English Cathedrals (AEC). It will be presented to the National Cathedrals Conference in Bristol this week.

Read it all.

Both the Church’s funding bodies and the Government should ramp up investment in #cathedrals, where financial pressures are resulting in commercial bookings that risk “crowding out the sense of stillness and calm”, a new report has concluded#churchnewshttps://t.co/t0Vje0hvt0

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) May 19, 2026

Ahead of what the White House is calling a “large-scale revival” meeting on the National Mall devoted to “rededicating our country as One Nation under God,” a new Pew Research Center survey shows that a growing minority of U.S. adults say religion is gaining influence in American life. And more than half say religion plays a positive role in society.

At the same time, most people want churches and other houses of worship to stay out of day-to-day politics and not endorse candidates.

The new survey also finds growing familiarity with the term “Christian nationalism.” Most Americans surveyed now say they have heard at least a little about it.

Support for ideas that are sometimes associated with Christian nationalism is mostly unchanged in recent years. For example, there has been no growth in the shares of Americans who want the government to stop enforcing separation of church and state or who believe that God favors the United States over all countries.

There has, however, been a small uptick in the share of U.S. adults who say the federal government should declare Christianity the nation’s official religion: 17% now say this, up from 13% in 2024.

Read it all.

Find more of Americans views on Religion’s influence in government and public life: https://t.co/I6PWa7ge6b

— Pew Research Center (@pewresearch) May 15, 2026

Exceeding glorious Father and Lord, who deckest thyself with light as with a garment; who spreadest out the heavens like a curtain: mighty creator of this and every world, of all stars and planets in their courses: We thy children render unto thee our praise and honour for the wonder of thy handiwork — for the beauty of creation, and at this season most especially for the blessing of new life and hope, visible in the face of our mother the earth as she awakens to Spring. In her awakening we see Christ triumphant over death. In her we see the rejoicing of St Mary Magdalen, first witness of the Resurrection. In her we see the fruitfulness of our most blessèd and glorious Lady the Virgin Mary — through whom thou hast given us the Light of the World, the light that shineth in darkness, the Word Made Flesh. As City and Universities, in unity and concord, we celebrate before thee today the birth of an earthly morning. We pray thee, use the beauty of this creation to knit our hearts to the things that endure to eternity, that we may rejoice at the dawning of the endless day of the kingdom of thy Son, our Saviour, Jesus Christ. Amen.

You can listen to the whole thing here:

Ben Sasse: The Senate needs to be less like Instagram. The Senate needs to be more deliberative. And that means less smack-down nonsense. One of the fundamental mistakes we’ve made over the last 30 or 40 years is putting cameras everywhere in Washington, D.C. This is not an argument against transparency. We should have reporters around. We should have pen and pad. We should have people recording what’s happening. But we should make the Senate less of an institution that is built as a backdrop platform for people to get sound bites. That’s not what the Senate is for. The Senate should be plodding, and steady, and boring, and trustworthy.

Scott Pelley: To be too frank, you were expected to be dead by now.

Ben Sasse: That’s frank. I like it. Let’s be blunt.

Scott Pelley: What changed?

Ben Sasse: Let’s go with– providence, prayer, and a miracle drug. In mid-December I was given a three- to four-month life expectancy. I am on extended time already. I have pancreatic origin cancer that has metastasized a number of places. So, I’ve got lung, vascular, liver, other. Liver’s pretty far along…

Read it all.

there.

“Many senators I know would not be able to breathe without that job. It would kill them to leave,” says Scott Pelley.

“I don't want what you said to be true. But I fear that that is true. And that is a sign of a much, much deeper problem,” responds former Sen. Ben Sasse.… pic.twitter.com/lXfzeDWr7Y

— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) April 26, 2026

Driven by a recent increase, young men in the U.S. have now surpassed young women in saying religion is “very important” in their lives. Gallup’s latest data, from 2024-2025, show 42% of young men saying religion is very important to them, up sharply from 28% in 2022-2023. By contrast, during this period, young women’s attachment to religion has held steady at about 30%.

Although young men had previously tied young women on this key marker of religiosity, young men now lead by a statistically significant margin. The recent increase among young men also contrasts with minimal changes since 2022-2023 among older men and women.

With the recent surge in their attachment to religion, young men have returned to the high point of their expressed religiosity of the past 25 years, roughly tying the 43% found in 2000-2001. By contrast, women of all age groups and older men are at or near their historical lows.

These findings are based on biennial aggregates of Gallup’s religion data from 2000-2001 through 2024-2025, allowing for stable estimates across age and gender groups.

Read it all.

Skeptics claimed that the supposed religious revival among young men wasn’t showing up in the polling. Gallup says otherwise. A shift is here, and it’s massive. https://t.co/ItPM1mWc7h

— Walter Russell Mead (@wrmead) April 16, 2026

The Bishop of Southwark, the Rt Revd Christopher Chessun, was among the speakers who last week expressed further doubts over the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill when it was debated in the House of Lords.

Bishop Chessun raised the prospect of “pressure on all sorts of ancillary staff” who could be “co-opted, either directly or indirectly, into what becomes the final procedure, when the conscience of such an ancillary participant tells them that they should have nothing to do with such a procedure”.

The Bishop pointed out that, when it comes to assisted dying, “matters of acute conscience are not restricted to the immediate preparation of a lethal dosage or the medical oversight of the procedure.”

He went on to ask: “Is it right that they should face sanction or inhibition of their careers, or even dismissal? I suggest not.”

Read it all.

The Bishop of #Southwark, the Rt Revd Christopher Chessun, was among the speakers who last week expressed further doubts over the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill when it was debated in the #HouseofLords ⚖️#Assisteddying #churchhouse #churchnews https://t.co/F3cCOzkoxB

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) March 31, 2026

But why does God care who we sleep with? Let me give you three reasons

1. He cares because he created us

To understand the purpose and limits of sex, we have to refer to the creator of sex: 

God himself. Yes, as one writer puts it, “sex was God’s idea, not ours. It’s not something we discovered behind God’s back…. His first command to humanity in the Bible involves and necessitates sex!” Genesis 1:28: “Be fruitful and multiply!” So, if you are married, have sex and feel free to have it often!

2. He cares because he loves us

God is all about love. He love us, and he longs for us to love him too. We’re designed to live lives of love. Ultimate reality isn’t grounded in cold submission to an authoritarian deity but in heartfelt response to the God who wants his universe pulsating with love. God cares who we sleep with because he cares that we really do love each other well, and that might mean loving in a different way to how we feel. Christopher Yuan, author of the excellent,

“Holy Sexuality and the Gospel”, (and a man who wrestles with same-sex attraction but who’s chosen the biblical call to chastity), puts it this way,  “Human emotions can’t be the determining factor for any gift from God.” No,  Jeremiah 17:9 says: “the heart is deceitful above all things”. And as Ashley Null says, summarizing the theology of Anglican reformer Thomas Cranmer, “What the heart loves, the will chooses, and the mind justifies.” So be careful when people say “Listen to your heart.”

Yes, sex matters to God because people do. He cares because misusing sex can cause profound hurt and damage. He cares because He regards us as worthy of His care. 

And, in fact, that care is not only seen in telling us how we should use sex, but also in how He makes forgiveness and healing available to us when we mess this up.

3. He knows what’s best for us

This is a hard one for many of us to accept. But, Jesus is for you, and even his difficult directives are for your good….

Read it all.

A young Sam Elliott and Katharine Ross on the set of The Legacy in 1978, the film where they met and fell in love. They've been together ever since. pic.twitter.com/y84yc97LhM

— History Defined (@historydefined) September 21, 2025

What does the reordering of the Anglican Communion actually mean for Christians in the Australian Church? 

Archbishop of Sydney Kanishka Raffel on what it means for Anglican churches, clergy and church members in Australia.

We explore what ‘principled disengagement’ from the Canterbury Instruments will mean for Australian leaders and other Global Anglican Communion leaders. 

Plus an update on implementing the Sydney Diocean goal of seeing five percent saved through conversion growth each year.  

And Archbishop Raffel responds to criticism over his comments on Pauline Hanson, ‘We must reject hateful words and threats of violence.’ 

Watch it all.

An arson attack on Jewish charity-owned ambulances in north London is being treated as an antisemitic hate crime and is being investigated by counter-terror officers, the Metropolitan Police has said.

Four Hatzola ambulances were set ablaze in Golders Green in the early hours of Monday, causing several explosions – caused by gas canisters onboard the vehicles.

No arrests have been made but CCTV, which appears to show three suspects dressed in black setting fire to an ambulance, is being investigated.

Det Ch Supt Luke Williams said the attack had not been declared a terror incident “at this stage”.

Read it all.

In a surprising move, the Scottish Parliament this week voted to reject assisted suicide. And it wasn’t even close – 57 for and 69 against, with every party except the Lib Dems and the Greens having a majority voting against. Why did this happen? Especially when at the first two stages of the bill it comfortably passed. 

And therein lies the answer. As MSPs got to look more closely at what was involved, they realised that the bill itself was badly worded and had insurmountable difficulties – like compelling staff and organisations who did not want to participate in ‘mercy killing’ to do so.  

Like the threat of people feeling coerced. The bill would have made the treatment available to terminally ill, mentally competent adults who have been given less than six months to live – but opponents said there were not enough protections against coercion.  

Like the government admitting that money would have to be taken from other frontline NHS services to provide for assisted suicide.  The irony of taking money from the sick in order to kill people was not lost on some MSPs. 

Read it all.

The Scottish parliament has rejected a bill that would have seen the country introduce assisted suicide, in what is the latest victory for the vulnerable the world over in recent weeks, writes JASON OSBORNEhttps://t.co/PdDInXhp1z

— gript (@griptmedia) March 19, 2026

‘…some who rightly opposed racial inequality became suspicious of the very word reconciliation. Perkins never did. He would no sooner give up that concept than he would give up the word grace because some television evangelists had used it to excuse their latest sex scandals.

Perkins truly believed what Paul wrote:

All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. (2 Cor. 5:18–19, ESV throughout)

To those who wanted to honor civil rights and care for the poor but couch their concerns in vague generalities about “the divine,” Perkins thundered, “Jesus!”

And to those who wanted to keep the Jim Crow mentality, just substituting modern complaints for the language their grandparents would use, Perkins stood with the Bible: “Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts” (James 5:4).

Perkins combined preaching the gospel, registering people to vote, advocating for justice and civil rights, and starting neighborhood initiatives to give the poor hope—not only for the life to come but also for escaping poverty now. Yet he never gave up on reconciliation, even with those who hated him.

Read it all.

Grieving the death of my friend, hero, and fellow Mississippian John Perkins. He stood up to Jim Crow and stood up for Jesus Christ. Enter into the joy of rest brother. I am grateful for you. pic.twitter.com/DIU97sZRJA

— Russell Moore (@drmoore) March 13, 2026