Jared Kaplan, the chief scientist and co-owner of the $180bn (£135bn) US startup Anthropic, said a choice was looming about how much autonomy the systems should be given to evolve.

The move could trigger a beneficial “intelligence explosion” – or be the moment humans end up losing control.

In an interview about the intensely competitive race to reach artificial general intelligence (AGI) – sometimes called superintelligence – Kaplan urged international governments and society to engage in what he called “the biggest decision”.

Anthropic is part of a pack of frontier AI companies including OpenAI, Google DeepMind, xAI, Meta and Chinese rivals led by DeepSeek, racing for AI dominance. Its widely used AI assistant, Claude, has become particularly popular among business customers.

Kaplan said that while efforts to align the rapidly advancing technology to human interests had to date been successful, freeing it to recursively self-improve “is in some ways the ultimate risk, because it’s kind of like letting AI kind of go”. The decision could come between 2027 and 2030, he said.

Read it all.

AI systems will be capable of doing “most white-collar work” in two to three years: Anthropic’s chief scientist https://t.co/CciDRlxTDH

— Lisa Abramowicz (@lisaabramowicz1) December 3, 2025

Orthodox Anglicans have accused bishops in the Church in Wales of “misleading” statements as it moves towards making same-sex blessings permanent. 

Bishops in the Church in Wales have published a ‘road map’ for the future of same-sex blessings following a four-year trial and a six-month consultation with clergy and parishioners.

During the trial period, same-sex couples in a civil partnership or marriage were allowed to come to Church in Wales churches with friends and family to receive a blessing.

The bishops said that the Church is reaching the point “where it must take major decisions on these matters”. 

In a pastoral letter to Church in Wales members, the bishops said that “most” responses to the consultation were “in favour of the view that the time is right to offer equal marriage to traditional and same sex couples”.

Read it all.

Church in Wales 'road map' for same-sex blessings is 'distressing' https://t.co/0eujIwhx2e

— Christian Today (@ChristianToday) December 3, 2025

You may listen directly here:

Or you may download it there.

From there.

The House of Bishops will be meeting this month, amongst other things to confirm the course of action outlined in the statement made in October about the Prayers of Love and Faith.

There will, no doubt, be pressure from some to row back on these proposals. As the Church Times reports, the Bishop of Chelmsford has publicly stated her bitter regret at what was agreed, and Lincoln Diocesan Synod has called for the bishops to reverse it.

Although the supporting paperwork and the original statement suggest that it would be very difficult for them to do so, we should not underestimate the strength of feeling some will bring to this debate.

Please continue to pray that they will live up to their calling as shepherds and overseers of God’s flock.

Lincoln diocesan synod has called on the House of Bishops to “proceed at pace” to implement stand-alone blessing services for #samesex coupleshttps://t.co/ThKnbVlTYp

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) November 27, 2025

The advice from the Legal Office is that changing this would involve several pieces of legislation to change multiple canons, change the Book of Common Prayer, overrule ecclesiastical common law, and even “repealing references to dominical teaching” from Canon B30. In other words, if we want to change what we teach about marriage, we can’t even say that our teaching is based on the teaching of Christ. That’s how far this departs from our current teaching. Is it any wonder that the bishops are saying in the subtext that none of them even wants to attempt this legislative package?

The other route examined whether bishops could grant a canonical dispensation to allow such marriages. This would be akin to the existing power in Canon C4.5 to allow the ordination of those who are divorced and remarried whilst their former spouse still lives. The comparison is not straightforward, however, as the “[e]xisting powers of canonical dispensation do not permit the doing of things which are contrary to the Church’s doctrine; they permit doing things which are not normally permitted as being contrary to good order or that otherwise require regulation. To provide for a power of dispensation to permit the doing of something that was contrary to doctrine would be a novel departure in canon law of the Church of England” (p.68). It would stretch things so far as to break the internal consistency of the canons.

Finally, the paper addresses the same question as that addressed above in the FAOC papers: whether bishops could choose to turn a blind eye to clergy and ordinands in same-sex marriages. Whilst bishops have a large degree of latitude and discretion, they are not permitted to simply do whatever they want. “What it plainly is not lawfully open to a bishop to do is to declare that no clergy in his or her diocese will face discipline if they enter into a same sex marriage. First, such a statement would amount to an abrogation of the bishop’s canonical duties… Secondly, it is not even in the bishop’s gift to grant such a dispensation.”

Now that we have the full content of the theological and legal papers, it is quite easy to see why the House of Bishops made the decision that they made in October to stop trying to shove everything through by episcopal fiat. Those of us opposed to the whole project have been saying for years now that they can’t do what they’re attempting to do, and they certainly can’t do it in the way they’ve been attempting to do it. These papers only confirm what we’ve been saying all along.

Read it all.

Why can't we have the Prayers of Love and Faith after all? A look at the theological and legal papershttps://t.co/9CVcoP0m4p

— Michael Hayden (@michael__hayden) November 7, 2025

In this month’s Q&A, contributing editor Serena Sigillito interviews Dr. Angela Franks about her new book, Body and Identity: A History of the Empty Self.

Serena Sigillito: I’ve just finished reading your fascinating new book. Can you give PD readers a brief description of the argument you make there?

Angela Franks: Sure. I argue that our concern with the body is usually a smokescreen for deeper questions about identity. I try to show historically why and how identity became a problem for us—why our culture is going through a systemic identity crisis. I try to show that this is not simply a new development, but it has its roots in phenomena that go back centuries, and even millennia.

SS: You’ve mentioned elsewhere that you were inspired, in part, to write this book by Carl Trueman’s The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self. I found that a really helpful and thought-provoking comparison. My sense is that your book is more unabashedly academic than Carl’s. Your book seems like it’s aimed at the kind of people who write for places like Public Discourse, who can then draw on your scholarly work and translate it into a more accessible register and help popularize the ideas you articulate. Does that seem right to you?

AF: Yes, I think that’s accurate. I had already been working on my book when Carl’s came out. We got to know each other pretty soon after that, and—as I told him—I was very relieved that his book was not making mine superfluous! I think Carl’s book is primarily a work of translation, whereas mine is a more academic synthesis. One of the books that was really helpful to me was Charles Taylor’s Sources of the Self, as well as A Secular Age. Those books are similar to what I’m trying to do—a work that’s lengthier, with an abundant use of footnotes, that really gets into texts at a deeper level. The hope is that it shifts the scholarly discussion around identity.

Read it all.

A great interview with @theologianmom @PublicDiscourse on her fine book on “the empty self.” With @SerenaSigillito.

It wasn’t only secularism that “liquified” the body and emptied the self. Christianity played a large role too. What do we do with that?https://t.co/y6RwYWeaqb

— Rachel Lu (@rclu) December 1, 2025

Scientists have identified five major “epochs” of human brain development in one of the most comprehensive studies to date of how neural wiring changes from infancy to old age.

The study, based on the brain scans of nearly 4,000 people aged under one to 90, mapped neural connections and how they evolve during our lives. This revealed five broad phases, split up by four pivotal “turning points” in which brain organisation moves on to a different trajectory, at around the ages of nine, 32, 66 and 83 years.

“Looking back, many of us feel our lives have been characterised by different phases. It turns out that brains also go through these eras,” said Prof Duncan Astle, a researcher in neuroinformatics at Cambridge University and senior author of the study.

“Understanding that the brain’s structural journey is not a question of steady progression, but rather one of a few major turning points, will help us identify when and how its wiring is vulnerable to disruption.”

Read it all.

Brain has five ‘eras’, scientists say – with adult mode not starting until early 30s | Hannah Devlin, The Guardian

Study suggests human brain development has four pivotal ‘turning points’ at around the ages of nine, 32, 66 and 83

Scientists have identified five major “epochs”… pic.twitter.com/X7i5Uxxc7H

— Owen Gregorian (@OwenGregorian) November 25, 2025

For most of human history, coupling up was not merely a norm; it was a necessity. Before reliable contraception, women could not control their fertility, and most were far too poor to raise children alone. Hence the centuries-old convention that, whereas a tragic play or saga ends in death, a happy one ends in marriage.

So the speed with which the norm of marriage—indeed, of relationships of any sort—is being abandoned is startling. Throughout the rich world, singlehood is on the rise. Among Americans aged 25-34, the proportion living without a spouse or partner has doubled in five decades, to 50% for men and 41% for women. Since 2010, the share of people living alone has risen in 26 out of 30 rich countries. By The Economist’s calculation, the world has at least 100m more single people today than if coupling rates were still as high as in 2017. A great relationship recession is under way.

For some, this is evidence of social and moral decay. As we report, many in the “pro-natalist” movement believe that the failure of the young to settle down and procreate threatens to end Western civilisation. For others, it is evidence of admirable self-reliance. Vogue, a fashion magazine, recently suggested that for cool, ambitious young women, having a boyfriend is not merely unnecessary but “embarrassing”.

In fact, the rise of singlehood is neither straightforwardly good nor bad. 

Read it all.

A future with far more singletons is fast approaching. That will reshape the world in ways good and bad. Everyone, from construction firms to the taxman, had better prepare https://t.co/VnDr8O2MYV pic.twitter.com/l6mVxmWgBH

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) November 6, 2025

“Most of [us] have never really faced the facts about ourselves until we uttered them aloud in plain words, calling a spade a spade.” ⏤ C.S. Lewis, The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Vol. 3, from a letter to Mary Van Deusen on April 6, 1953

“To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.”
–CS Lewis pic.twitter.com/I0vQTTqPsC

— M.A.D. Life (@MADadLife) October 14, 2025

“Nothing in the world is harder than speaking the truth and nothing easier than flattery.If there’s the hundredth part of a false note in speaking the truth, it leads to a discord, and that leads to trouble.But if all, to the last note, is false in flattery, it is just as agreeable, and is heard not without satisfaction. It may be a coarse satisfaction, but still a satisfaction. And however coarse the flattery, at least half will be sure to seem true. That’s so for all stages of development and classes of society. -Svidrigailov (Crime and Punishment)”

― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment

#OnThisDay in 1821, Fyodor Dostoevsky was born in Moscow. (Crime and Punishment, 1866) pic.twitter.com/xcK1G6rZRD

— Bibliophilia (@Libroantiguo) November 11, 2015

As the GAFCON statement affirms: that future has now arrived.

Reordering of the Communion

What is this future for Anglicanism? Three points stand out.

1. New Foundation of Communion

The statement says the Anglican Communion will now rest on a single foundation: the Holy Bible, “translated, read, preached, taught and obeyed in its plain and canonical sense.” This is a deliberate echo of the Reformation principle of sola Scriptura. In other words, unity is no longer defined by loyalty to Canterbury or participation in Anglican institutions but by submission to Scripture as God’s Word.

2. Rejection of Failed Instruments

The statement names and rejects the so-called “Instruments of Communion”—the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lambeth Conference, the Anglican Consultative Council, and the Primates’ Meeting. Why? Because they have consistently failed to uphold biblical truth, especially following the 1998 Lambeth Resolution I.10 which affirmed that Christian marriage is between a man and a woman. These “Instruments,” while once helpful, have fallen into revisionism.

3. Return to the Original Model

The statement emphasizes that GAFCON has not left the Anglican Communion. Instead, it claims the original vision: a fellowship of autonomous provinces united by the gospel and the Reformation formularies. This was how the first Lambeth Conference in 1867 understood Anglicanism and what held member provinces together in unity—before the so-called “Instruments” turned Canterbury into the sine qua non of what it means to be Anglican. Now, GAFCON says, the center of the Communion is not a person or an office, but the Word of God.

In place of the old “Instruments,” Gafcon proposes a Council of Primates (archbishops) from all provinces that affirm the Jerusalem Declaration of 2008, with a primus inter pares (“first among equals”) serving as chair.

Read it all.

Despite 25 years of warnings by most Anglican primates, repeated departures from the authority of God’s word have torn the fabric of the Communion.

—The Kigali Commitment https://t.co/eESYLlpxWM

— The Gospel Coalition (@TGC) April 25, 2023

The Alliance network has been encouraging incumbents who are unhappy with the Living in Love and Faith (LLF) process to make known their church’s willingness to withdraw from Church of England structures.

Behind the scenes, the Alliance — a network of church organisations opposed to the changes brought by the LLF process — has been encouraging incumbents to persuade their PCCs to pass a resolution stating that, if the Church of England moves forward with either stand-alone services or clergy same-sex marriage, the parish will take at least one of a set of actions. Those include: seeking “alternative episcopal oversight”, a decision to “reroute their diocesan financial contributions”, and moves to “encourage ordinands to participate in an orthodox vocations programme”.

On Wednesday afternoon, the House of Bishops announced that full synodical approval would be required for either standalone services or clergy same-sex marriage, effectively stalling LLF (News, 15 October). The Bishops also announced that, as a result, they did not consider it necessary to develop any model of alternative episcopal oversight.

Read it all.

Exclusive from @PhrancisMartin: the Alliance network has been encouraging incumbents who are unhappy with the Living in Love and Faith (LLF) process to make known their church’s willingness to withdraw from Church of England structures. https://t.co/EGumMC3ZNk pic.twitter.com/pHAEN3Ovwn

— Madeleine Davies (@MadsDavies) October 16, 2025

The Church of England has called for a national conversation on artificial intelligence (AI) and its impact on the world of work. . 

A new edition of the Crucible journal, released this month, explored how automation and algorithms reshape jobs and identity.  

It follows a motion passed by the Church’s General Synod in February 2024, which acknowledged the effects of AI and the ‘fourth industrial revolution’. 

Read it all.

Renewed call for national conversation on AI and the Future of Work https://t.co/7607ZNflnM via @Anglican Ink © 2025

— George Conger (@GeorgeConger8) October 10, 2025

Once again the history of the church is instructive; any kind of acceptance of same-sex unions was unknown to Christianity before about the last hundred years, and has only found widespread traction in about the last thirty. (Of course, popes, televangelists and many others have had their moral failings, but these were always recognised as failings and a subject of scandal when revealed.) And once again this is in part because of extremely plain statements in Scripture. Such behaviour is an “abomination”; those who practice these things “will not inherit the kingdom of God”. There is a famous story about Sodom and Gomorrah with which you may be dimly aware. Scripture is at pains to point out that this sin, like all others, will be forgiven for anyone who repents; but it is a sin, and forgiveness does require repentance. (Of course, for all the creative reinterpretations that have flourished here as well, the real reason for the church’s shift is evident to anyone with half a brain: the culture moved, and the church wanted to move with it.)

Here there is an important difference from the issue of women’s ordination. While Scripture is clear on that topic, it is silent on its precise seriousness; most conservatives would not suggest that disobedience around women’s ordination is necessarily the death of faith. But the matter is very different with sexual immorality (of which same-sex unions are of course only one example); here God repeatedly warns us that unrepentant disobedience means judgement. To our culture, obsessed with sex and thereby cheapening it, this seems a strange overreaction. In reality, however, God could hardly do otherwise. Sex is deeply significant, the closest you can get to another human being and therefore an act with enormous power. Any parent can testify to its life-giving strength; any victim of sexual abuse, to its destructive force. God takes it seriously because it is serious.

Read it all.

Why Christians have an issue with Sarah Mullally — by @petermileach https://t.co/S0KODGQZhf

— The Critic (@TheCriticMag) October 11, 2025

Her predecessor as Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, resigned in the wake of a sex abuse scandal in which he was accused of taking inadequate action. The selection of Bishop Sarah to be the next Archbishop of Canterbury is seen as response to that controversy, though, given the theological trajectory of the Church of England, the appointment of a woman to the highest clerical leadership position in the church was inevitable. It was just a matter of time, and, at the end of last week, the time came.

Two of the last three primates had been advertised as some kind of evangelical. In both cases, with George Carey and Justin Welby, they turned out to be the kind of evangelicals who are not evangelical. Both withered in conviction while in office. If they had any strong convictions in the past, those convictions seemed to disappear as soon as they put on Canterbury’s miter. Conservatives in the Church of England—and there are brave ones left—are now put in a devil’s bind. Evangelical priests in the Diocese of London, where Sarah Mullally has been bishop, were allowed to appeal for external episcopal oversight. Now that she is to be Archbishop of Canterbury, that would seem to be impossible.

Understandably, conservatives in the Anglican Communion are up in arms. Many expressed outrage at the appointment of Sarah Mullally to Canterbury, both for the fact that they do not recognize a woman as priest or bishop, and because this particular woman bishop is quite liberal. Interestingly, she cited her experience as a nurse in coming out against assisted suicide, now debated in Britain’s House of Lords. You can imagine the puns. It certainly does appear that the Church of England is being self-euthanized. On LGBTQ issues the new archbishop is all in on welcoming practicing homosexuals in the church and blessing their unions. It is hard to see how the church will not move swiftly under her leadership to embrace legalized same-sex marriage and all the rest—meaning, all the letters of GLBTQ, and that pesky + sign as well.

Read it all.

“A liberal nurse to lead a dying church?: The Church of England’s first female Archbishop of Canterbury is devastating news for conservative Anglicans” — my column today @wngdotorg.https://t.co/6THg1wlmrG

— Albert Mohler (@albertmohler) October 6, 2025

The bishop of Ebbsfleet, who looks after conservative evangelicals in the Church of England (and is severely overworked because of the flourishing nature of this constituency), has pointed out the challenges this appointment creates for those with complementarian convictions. Having worked with Mullally in London, however, he points out that she “has a long track record of gracious engagement, and real understanding of the particular theological convictions we hold,” and has no doubt this will continue. He will need to seek alternative spiritual oversight for his own role, however, now that the Archbishop is to be a woman.

The biggest challenge for the new Archbishop is the crisis of trust and credibility she faces. She has led the way in an attempt to institutionally gaslight the entire church, claiming that she and other revisionist bishops are not changing the doctrine of the church on marriage and sexuality, even while they attempt the most radical change to Church of England teaching and practice for 500 years. This has led to the collapse of confidence in Canterbury around the world and a severe split not just in General Synod but in every parish and chapel in the land.

Whether Mullally will have the ability to heal these deep rifts or not, remains to be seen. I am hopeful (because Jesus reigns!), but not optimistic. To use Augustus Toplady’s phrase: she will certainly have our prayers, but her errors will have our opposition also.

Read it all.

My article for @TGC on the new Archbishop of Canterbury. https://t.co/xrVwYThVxZ

— Lee Gatiss (@LeeGatiss) October 6, 2025

When the Church of England’s General Synod opened the door to the blessing of same sex relationships at its February 2023 General Synod she described this as ‘A moment of hope’. For us, it was a moment of lament because we believe that the teaching of Jesus and the whole of Scripture is fundamental to human flourishing, both now and for eternity, and should not be compromised by the pressures of a particular culture.

Sadly therefore, our position must remain as it was in our Ash Wednesday statement of February 2023 when we stated that we were no longer able to recognise the then Archbishop of Canterbury as the ‘first amongst equals’ leader of the global Communion.

Grievous though this turn of events is, it is not unexpected and is one further symptom of the crisis of faith and authority that has afflicted the Anglican Communion for the past quarter of a century. 

Read it all.

GSFA Statement on the Appointment of the Rt Revd Dame Sarah Mullally, Bishop of London, as the Archbishop of Canterbury https://t.co/IFGA33EpIc via @Anglican Ink © 2025

— George Conger (@GeorgeConger8) October 3, 2025

… more concerning is her failure to uphold her consecration vows. When she was consecrated in 2015, she took an oath to “banish and drive away all strange and erroneous doctrine contrary to God’s Word.” And yet, far from banishing such doctrine, Bishop Mullally has repeatedly promoted unbiblical and revisionist teachings regarding marriage and sexual morality.

In 2023, when asked by a reporter whether sexual intimacy in a same-sex relationship is sinful, she said that some such relationships could, in fact, be blessed. She also voted in favour of introducing blessings of same-sex marriage into the Church of England.

Anglicans believe that the church has been given authority by God to establish rites and ceremonies and to settle doctrine controversy, “and yet it is not lawful for the Church to ordain any thing that is contrary to God’s Word” (Article XX). The church cannot bless or affirm what God has condemned (Numbers 23:8; 24:13). This, however, is precisely what Bishop Mullally has sought to allow.

Since the newly appointed Archbishop of Canterbury has failed to guard the faith and is complicit in introducing practices and beliefs that violate both the “plain and canonical sense” of Scripture and “the Church’s historic and consensual” interpretation of it (Jerusalem Statement), she cannot provide leadership to the Anglican Communion. The leadership of the Anglican Communion will pass to those who uphold the truth of the gospel and the authority of Scripture in all areas of life.

Read it all.

“This appointment abandons global Anglicans, as the Church of England has chosen a leader who will further divide an already split Communion.”https://t.co/7JOa1byH9m

— The Anglican Diocese of the Living Word (@The_ADLW) October 3, 2025

Nearly every student clutches a phone in one hand as they traverse the University of Central Florida campus, even while walking in groups. Laptops and tablets are lunchtime companions, and earbuds and headphones are routine accessories. While waiting for class to start, many students sit in silence, drawn into their devices.

It is a familiar and exasperating scene for Seán Killingsworth, 22, a former U.C.F. student. “What is this life I’m signing up for?” he asked himself during his sophomore year. “It was just like, I’m talking to a bunch of zombies.”

Mr. Killingsworth craved a space where he could chat with his peers without feeling as though he was intruding. When he was in high school, he ran into similar conundrums, so he would organize phone-free hangouts with friends.

Why not in college too?

In 2023, he helped bring the idea of no-phone social time to two different Florida campuses — U.C.F. and Rollins College. He called it the Reconnect Movement: During meetings, everyone was required to hand over their phone and socialize without devices, a concept that has become a big draw for like-minded students. Reconnect has now spread to six schools in four states. And in September it broadened its reach beyond students, hosting a phone-free event in New York — soon to be followed by Orlando and Tampa — that anyone could attend.

Read it all.

Can College Students Stand to Ditch Their Phones for an Hour or So? https://t.co/i64o5O5tUJ

— Rajiv Prabhakar (@rajivprab) October 1, 2025

New research has identified 17 overlapping factors that affect your risk of stroke, dementia and late-life depression, suggesting that a number of lifestyle changes could simultaneously lower the risk of all three.

Though they may appear unrelated, people who have dementia or depression or who experience a stroke also often end up having one or both of the other conditions, said Dr. Sanjula Singh, a principal investigator at the Brain Care Labs at Massachusetts General Hospital and the lead author of the study. That’s because they may share underlying damage to small blood vessels in the brain, experts said.

Some of the risk factors common to the three brain diseases, including high blood pressure and diabetes, appear to cause this kind of damage. Research suggests that at least 60 percent of strokes, 40 percent of dementia cases and 35 percent of late-life depression cases could be prevented or slowed by controlling risk factors.

“Those are striking numbers,” said Dr. Stephanie Collier, director of education in the division of geriatric psychiatry at McLean Hospital in Massachusetts. “If you can really optimize the lifestyle pieces or the modifiable pieces, then you’re at such a higher likelihood of living life without disability.”

Read it all.

🧠 60% of stroke, 40% of dementia, and 35% of late-life depression cases are potentially preventable.

These are the most powerful protective and harmful lifestyle factors according to a new analysis. pic.twitter.com/wtjtHPYJUX

— Brandon Luu, MD (@BrandonLuuMD) April 29, 2025

A declaration that “Christian truth and values” belong at the heart of public life in the UK has been launched in the hope that it will attract 100,000 signatures and trigger a debate in Parliament.

The 2025 Westminster Declaration, launched last week, argues for the importance of heterosexual marriage and the “complementarity of men and women”. It also offers warnings about “cancel culture” and artificial intelligence (AI) unchecked by moral reflection.

“By ignoring Britain’s Christian heritage we have endangered human life, weakened society, and created a fragmented nation uncoupled from its formative traditions, and without a unifying vision for its future,” the declaration says.

On marriage, which it defines as being between a man a woman, the declaration calls for a rejection of “ideologies which weaken family ties by falsely claiming that other types of relationship are of equivalent value to marriage”.

Read it all.

A declaration that “Christian truth and values” belong at the heart of public life in the UK has been launched in the hope that it will attract 100,000 signatures and trigger a debate in Parliament #westminsterdeclaration #christianityinpubliclife https://t.co/8QrsPis7f2

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) September 29, 2025

“I’m currently working on a bunch of hellish paintings,” says the US-born artist Sedrick Chisom from his east London studio. One in particular, destined for the Paris Basel booth of gallery Pilar Corrias, features a Babel-esque “ziggurat tower structure that doubles as an active volcano”. In an earlier work, an axe-wielding “chaotic villain” is drawn with carnivalesque panache. “He’s got all the hallmarks,” says Chisom. “A really morose dying horse, his horns, and he’s just having a delightful time.”

The artist is interested, he says, in “the social dimension of designating something heaven or hell. It’s truly an intersubjective. What might be perceived as heaven by one person might be hell for another.” Chisom is one of a number of contemporary artists bringing the hellish and the heavenly to the canvas as a way of exploring personal and societal unrest, looming ecological crisis and utopian visions of possible transcendence.

At Hauser & Wirth in New York, Canadian painter Ambera Wellman’s current show Darkling (until 25 October) emits a sense of impending doom: her blurry, mutating figures seem to wrestle with a world in breakdown. German artist Florian Krewer sees his exhibition cold tears released at Michael Werner gallery (until 1 November) as a response to “the world feeling more heavy, more depressing and politically more conservative”, he says. By contrast, Greek-born Sofia Mitsola’s vibrant mythology offers a glimpse of paradise (albeit laced with a deadly siren call), and a sense of the sublime emanates from the Rococo interpretations of Flora Yukhnovich (seen in a new mural at The Frick in New York this autumn). Alabama-born artist Verne Dawson, meanwhile, paints a realistic kind of Eden.

Read it all.

What does the afterlife look like? https://t.co/sbYrnVccNK

— HTSI (@htsi) September 25, 2025

You are a citizen of the 2020s. Device in hand, ear buds in, you wander the lanes of a strange world. You can make a trip to the shops without talking to another human being, but you can’t walk through a city without being filmed. You are never far from a screen, you can’t afford to be, and why would you want to be? The screen gives. It has abolished time, distance, boredom, longing. Is anything you see on it real? But then, what is “reality”? Who decides? Do you find this or that notion oppressive, restricting? Redefine it. Make everything new. Make yourself into what you want to be. The app is available to download.

Robot bodies may soon fight wars, robot brushes make art, robot minds write sentences like this one. Babies might emerge from artificial wombs, their mothers finally free to work and consume and play so that they may be fully liberated. There are codes to scan to access things that only yesterday you never knew you needed. Soon you might need to scan the codes to do anything at all. Soon your children will be taught STEM by a bot, and they will laugh at its jokes. The algorithm will know them better than they know themselves.

Everything, it can seem, has shifted in the 2020s, in ways that we can’t quite pin down. The surface eruptions come in the world of politics or culture, but the shift seems deeper than either. It seems, somehow, as if the world around us has fundamentally changed. But how?

The philosopher Jeremy Naydler attempts an answer in his book “In the Shadow of the Machine” (2018)….

Read it all.

WSJ Opinion by Paul Kingsnorth is excellent.https://t.co/W1Doq1EAXv

— Jonathan Greer (@greerjon) September 19, 2025

When Gracy David first moved to the city of Jaipur in India’s Rajasthan state for an architecture internship nine years ago, the then-23-year-old was nervous.

It was her first time living away from her family and paying for her own rent and food with her small stipend. She didn’t know many people in the city and, beyond her work, had no plans in the evenings or weekends.

Yet through the Union of Evangelical Students of India (UESI), three Christian families in Jaipur welcomed her into their homes, giving her a “soft landing into adulting,” David recalled. They picked her up to attend church and invited her to Sunday lunches.

Read it all.

In India, Christian families are tackling Gen Z loneliness by inviting young people into their homes and lives.https://t.co/dhduRj4OLy

— Christianity Today (@CTmagazine) September 18, 2025

When students in my Old Testament courses contrast the allegedly messy world of the first testament with the allegedly simple, straightforward teachings of Jesus, I know for sure they haven’t read the New Testament lately. When we read the Gospels, not least Jesus’ parables, we discover him saying all sorts of bizarre, borderline offensive things.

Keith Bodner is here to help relieve our confusion. His new book, Exploring the Financial Parables of Jesus: The Economy of Grace and the Generosity of God, gives a tour of God’s “economy of grace” by focusing on “parables with a financial edge.” Indeed, Bodner suggests these parables provide “an excellent point of entry into the larger biblical story.”

Along the way, as Bodner invites us to learn from the parables, he also offers guidance on immersing ourselves in them as readers. The book thus inspires readers to engage a genre of biblical literature Bodner playfully dubs the “TikTok of the New Testament,” while equipping them with tools to engage it well.

Read it all.

Keith Bodner’s new book, “Exploring the Financial Parables of Jesus,” gives a tour of God’s “economy of grace” by focusing on “parables with a financial edge.”https://t.co/Ex1SSlyh5S

— Christianity Today (@CTmagazine) September 16, 2025

“Now let me say a word to all of us about the importance of Christians being Christians. I want to speak to you from my heart and tell you that you matter not just to God, not just to me not just this Parish, but to this country and the most important thing for the country right now is for Christians to be Christians and to be salt and light.

There’s no question that the last week has been unspeakably difficult for our country. We had a man who was speaking publicly at a university in Utah senselessly murdered in cold blood. It caused terror and shock to the students, to the university, to the state of Utah, to the country and indeed to the world.

Whatever else you can say about this terrible event it represents the symptom of a country that is not well. We need Christians to pray for this country but we need more than that. We need Christians to be Christians in the public sphere in this country and behave in the public Square in a manner that conforms with the person and the teachings of Christ.

This means two things specifically for us. First of all, it means speaking against political violence from any point of view as ever being justified in the public square. Christians need to be people who defend free speech, but also who defend the importance of good disagreement in public and who do everything in their power to pray and speak against any political violence.

There is also something philosophical at stake and it matters. One of the very alarming things that’s happened in the last few decades is that a perspective has emerged, which has moved from arguing that words are bad to arguing that words in and of themselves are violence.

We need to be careful here. There is no justification for using free speech to deliberately incite violence from others or ourselves, but this is different.

What is now being argued is that words of a certain type from a certain vantage point are inherently violent and therefore people who use those kind of words and those kind of arguments are able to be responded to with violence in certain circumstances.

Do not fool yourself that this idea that political violence is justified is somehow hiding anymore in the dark subways or smaller parts of our country. What is so deeply disturbing about what this week represents is how many people in public from various viewpoints are more and more justifying political violence as a means of somehow being a solution to our problems Political violence has never been good. It will never be justified. It can never be condoned. It must always be condemned.

This is true for everyone, but especially for us as Christians. Let us renew our commitment to pray for this country and let us renew our commitment to seek the common good, to defend the importance of the public square and to defend the need to behave properly in the public square. And let us all work for the common good of our country.

Several people have argued that this week could be a turning point—let us pray that it is, in all sorts of ways, a turning point for the better, but let us, especially as Christians, respond by making sure that it deepens our resolve to be people of salt and light who speak the truth in love and who declare to all that speaking the truth in love matters. And let us pray that the God who brought his light into the darkness of this world, somehow brings his light out of this very dark week in Utah and in America.”

If doctors find it too difficult to assess ‘unbearable suffering’ they referred the person to an ‘end of life’ clinic. If the second doctor did not agree it was referred to a third doctor. This becomes ‘doctor shopping’.

A committee cannot assess if someone’s suffering is ‘unbearable’.

Doctors have to be able to imagine a person’s suffering. But autistic pain is difficult to assess and so doctors have to take the autistic person’s word for it. The suffering of an autistic person is different from that of a non-autistic person.

In quite a few instances there was no physical illness that was terminal. One person found it too difficult to eat more than three meals a day – required because of their condition.

The Dutch ‘openness’ is good and good that there is scrutiny through the reports being made available online.  There was a change in the culture and unspoken pressure to accept this way of dying.  But there is no 6 month limitation and the law may be being expanded too much. The interpretation of the law expanded while the law itself was unchanged,

Disabled people cannot be excluded from the law on account of their disability because that would be discrimination. The disabled have the same rights as everyone.

Read it all.

“…all through the world [sin] takes possession of us as power and destiny…. There is no such thing as human autonomy. One is never simply oneself but always the projection of an all-encompassing power, the copy and image of whichever lord has commandeered one for service.”

–Ernst Käsemann, “The Theological Relevance of the Word ‘Possession’ in the New Testament, in On Being a Disciple of the Crucified Nazarene (Eerdmans, 2010), 64, cited by yours truly in a recent sermon

As a last word and as my bequest, let me call to you in Huguenot style: ‘Résistez!’ Discipleship of the Crucified leads necessarily to resistance to idolatry on every front. This resistance is and must be the most important mark of Christian freedom. ~Ernst Käsemann (1906-1998) pic.twitter.com/F0PCbXtS4N

— Kenneth Kovacs (@KenKovacs) September 18, 2023

Bishops decried the proposed legalisation of assisted dying on Friday, as the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill came to the House of Lords for the first of two days of debate.

“If passed, this Bill will signal that we are a society that believes that some lives are not worth living,” the Bishop of London, the Rt Revd Sarah Mullally, said. It would become, she said, the “state-endorsed position”.

Bishop Mullally, a former Chief Nursing Officer, questioned whether Parliament had properly listened to the advice of medical experts, including professional bodies which have expressed concerns about the legislation.

The Bill also failed in its “central claim” to give people choice about the manner of their death, she said. “A meaningful choice would see the measures in this Bill set alongside easily available, fully-funded, palliative and social-care services. Without a choice offered, this choice is an illusion.”

Read it all.

"A meaningful choice would see the measures in this Bill set alongside easily available, fully-funded, palliative and social-care services. Without a choice offered, this choice is an illusion.” – @bishopSarahMhttps://t.co/y4bKSThSPJ

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) September 12, 2025

n a digitally oversaturated society like ours, distraction is a daily sparring partner. What begins as a quick check of the weather to decide what to wear on a morning run turns into 20 minutes of scrolling political takes or cat videos. Most of us don’t wake up thinking, I’d like to spend two hours watching Seinfeld reruns today, but here we are.

Our devices and internet algorithms are remarkably effective at capturing our attention and redirecting it from whatever we intend. Yet for all the well-earned anxiety about our attention crisis, a troubling tendency in our discourse is to conflate the predicament with concerns about productivity.

We can, and should, care about productivity and attention’s role in it. But when output and efficiency become our primary concern, it distorts the nature of attention. Attention becomes only a means to an end, problematically viewed as merely a “resource.” And the root of this problem is glimpsed in the most basic way we talk about attention: We pay it.

When we pay for something, we expect something beneficial or useful in return. When we pay, we’re the consumer—and we want to know that what we’re paying for is worth the cost. But attention isn’t something we pay. It’s something we should give.

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We shouldn’t pay attention. We should give it.

That subtle shift in language “transforms how we inhabit our world.” https://t.co/bPt4H7Qhga

— Christianity Today (@CTmagazine) September 8, 2025