It was in 1787 that he first decided to put down a motion in the House of Commons about the slave trade. This nefarious traffic had been going on for three centuries, and the West Indian slave-owners were determined to oppose abolition to the end. Besides, Wilberforce was not a very prepossessing man. He was little and somewhat ugly, with poor eyesight and an upturned nose. When Boswell heard him speak, he pronounced him ‘a perfect shrimp’, but then had to concede that ‘presently the shrimp swelled into a whale.’ In 1789 Wilberforce said of the slave trade: “So enormous so dreadful, so irremediable did its wickedness appear that my own mind was completely made up for the abolition…. let the consequences be what they would, I from this time determined that I would never rest till I had effected its abolition.

So abolition bills (which related to the trade) and Foreign Trade Bills (which would prohibit the involvement of British ships in it) were debated in the commons in 1789, 1791, 1792,194, 1796 (by which time Abolition had become ‘the grand object of my parliamentary existence’), 1798 and 1799. Yet they all failed. The Foreign Slave Bill was not passed until 1806 and the Abolition of the Slave Trade Bill until 1807. This part of the campaign had taken eighteen years.

Next, soon after the conclusion of the Napoleonic wars, Wilberforce began to direct his energies to the abolition of slavery itself and the emancipation of the slaves. In 1823 the Anti-Slavery Society was formed. Twice that year and twice the following year, Wilberforce pleaded the slaves’ cause in the House of Commons. But in 1825 ill-health compelled him to resign as a member of parliament and to continue his campaign from outside. In 1831 he sent a message to the Anti-Slavery Society, in which he said, “Our motto must continue to be PERSEVERANCE. And ultimately I trust the Almighty will crown our efforts with success.” He did. In July 1833 the Abolition of Slavery Bill was passed in both Houses of Parliament, even though it included the undertaking to pay 20 million pounds in compensation to the slave-owners. ‘Thank God,’ wrote Wilberforce, that I have lived to witness a day in which England is willing to give 20 million pounds for the abolition of slavery.’ Three days later he died. He was buried in Westminster Abbey, in national recognition of his FORTY-FIVE YEARS of persevering struggle on behalf of African slaves.

— John R W Stott, Issues facing Christians Today (Basingstoke: Marshall, Morgan and Scott, 1984), p. 334

#OTD July 29, 1833:
Death of William Wilberforce, who had done much to end slavery in British possessions.

Persuaded to join the campaign against slavery and faced with evidence of its horrors, he wrote:

"So enormous, so dreadful, so irremediable did the [slave] trade's… pic.twitter.com/Noaw7qZQt2

— ☧ Today in Christian History (@HistoricalRook) July 29, 2026

Let thy continual mercy, O Lord, enkindle in thy Church the never-failing gift of love, that, following the example of thy servant William Wilberforce, we may have grace to defend the poor, and maintain the cause of those who have no helper; for the sake of him who gave his life for us, thy Son our Savior Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Politician William Wilberforce died #onthisday in 1833. He is remembered for taking up the cause of abolishing slavery alongside Prime Minister Charles Grey. He is buried close to the grave of William Pitt in the Abbey’s north transept, and his statue can be found in statesmen's… pic.twitter.com/mY5QlNaZfQ

— Westminster Abbey (@wabbey) July 29, 2026

A new resource has been launched to “help churches of all denominations use AI thoughtfully, faithfully, and well” amid the “silent adoption” of AI in church life.

The AI Guidelines for Christian Ministry has been produced by the AI Christian Partnership (AICP), a not-for-profit organisation made up of Christian groups, theologians, technologists, and academics.

The guidelines have been created to avoid AI “gradually seeping into church life without proper discussion”, and to support churchpeople to understand the long-term impact on congregations, AICP said. “Although aimed at church ministers, leaders, and volunteers, they contain principles, ethics, and practical tips that all Christians can apply and use.”

Its founder, Chris Goswami, said: “AI can be a great asset for ministry, or it can leave us with a fast-food version of ministry. As with social media, it may only be much later, with hindsight, that we understand the impact of AI — therefore, we encourage churches with foresight to give serious consideration to this now.”

Read it all.

A new resource has been launched to “help churches of all denominations use AI thoughtfully, faithfully, and well” amid the “silent adoption” of #AI in church life 💻https://t.co/xsPcd5RdrY

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) July 28, 2026

There’s a lot of talk about socialism these days, despite it’s inherently flawed premise and repeated failures, resulting in millions dying, mass starvation, widespread human suffering, readers here already know the history. Unfortunately, it’s rising again due to new promotion from people who hate America, combined to create the perfect storm since we also recently stopped promoting the story of prosperity and our information ecosystems are deeply propagandized. Also, our biased education system simply ignores past examples that might challenge some of the ideals they’re so keen to promote, which I find both annoying and civilizationally suicidal. Perhaps this is cyclical, and every civilization has to re-learn forgotten mistakes (even though we have parables that try to help, but ofc they’re unhelpful if no one reads them). So all we can do is share stories which are more instructive than dry statistics.

Today we have a fun one which takes us back to the year 1825. Here, a wealthy Welsh industrialist named Robert Owen acquired a complete American town, a plot with 20,000 acres, 160-plus buildings, working mills, workshops, barns, farmland already producing food. He renamed it New Harmony, and 1,000 people showed up in year 1, most convinced they were present at the birth of a new way of running civilization. It’s also notable that Owen wasn’t some kind of crank, before ever setting foot in Indiana he’d already made his name running textile mills in New Lanark, Scotland with shorter hours, real schools, better housing, and the mills still turned a profit. For the early 1800s that’s really impressive and illustrative of his operator skills.

Although, his prior success is exactly what made him dangerous. Owen had convinced himself that people are basically a product of their environment, where you could rearrange the environment and you rearrange the person. Kill private property, kill competition, split the rewards evenly, and cooperation just… happens, naturally, without anyone having to be talked into it, which is of course idealist and ignorant of human nature. As is always the case, a very intelligent person is unable to model the behavior of others, many of whom simply operate differently.

The experiment pulled in serious people. Real optimism, real brainpower, real $ behind it. In January 1826 William Maclure floated an entire boat of scientists and educators down the Ohio River, historians still call it the “Boatload of Knowledge.” Thomas Say, the father of American entomology, was on it, so was naturalist Charles-Alexandre Lesueur along with Geologists, artists, educators, people like this. So this wasn’t some kind of backwoods commune of true believers with no credentials interested in getting high. It was, arguably, one of the highest concentrations of talent in America at that moment. If intelligence and good intentions were sufficient conditions for a new economic system to work, New Harmony had every box checked.

Unfortunately, it fell apart almost immediately.

Read it all.

This week's longform idea, we're talking about the (failed) socialist utopian experiment in America that lasted two years https://t.co/395RsSU4Vp

— Adam Singer (@AdamSinger) July 28, 2026

When Fernando and Patricia Escobedo moved to the Willows, an affluent neighborhood in El Paso, Texas, 25 years ago, kids were everywhere.

About half of the homes on their cul-de-sac had children. Growing up, the couple’s twin daughters used to ride their scooters outside with other neighborhood kids. At an annual block party, they jumped around in a bouncy house and climbed into the local firetruck.

The twins are now in college—and the neighborhood feels a lot different. The Escobedos also have a 12-year-old at home, and Fernando said she is one of a few children under 18 on the block. The local elementary school has noticeably fewer kids. And Fernando said he’s more likely to see a retired neighbor gardening than a child on a bicycle.

“It’s not the vibe it was 10 years ago when there were still kids here,” he said. 

With the nation’s fertility rate at record lows, the number of children under 18 is falling across the U.S. The decline is especially pronounced in big cities, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis.

Read it all.

WSJ: America’s Big Cities Are Rapidly Losing Kids – The number of children is falling across the U.S., but the decline is especially pronounced in big metros https://t.co/A2MzU94Cjm

— Aaron M. Renn 🇺🇸 (@aaron_renn) July 27, 2026

There are important policy interventions on the table, especially regarding young people’s exposure to AI in pedagogical contexts and at formative times in their life. Strong stances from the major mainstream institutions of American life would also be wonderful. But I suspect there is little point in waiting around for either D.C. or Harvard to lead the way.

We need schools, families, fraternal organizations, reading groups, secret societies, oratories, shared houses of civility — a thousand cells as diffuse and decentralized as all those compounding micro-engagements by which the image of a boot stomping on a human face forever is now being replaced with that of a human face slack-jawed and dribbling on itself. These cells of resistance will be different from one another. They may involve a semi-annual meeting, and they may involve the whole of life. They can be organized around reading Boethius or reciting limericks, sharing meals or shooting guns. Some will correspond only by letter. Some will employ Claude to manage their mailing lists. What all will have in common is: an insistence that we, and only we, will decide how we live; an explicit prohibition on new technologies in the spaces and activities where they gently and slowly degrade us; and a pledge to hold each other to the path we have jointly chosen.

This, I think, is where Magnifica Humanitas will prove most inspired and invaluable in the years to come. Regardless of whether the powers that be heed the pope’s injunctions and warnings, that striking opening image will be available to all the faithful, and to every person of goodwill. If you find yourself in a ruin, staring at the crumbling remnants of a wall and the world it protected, what do you do? You assemble your people, you stake out a section, and you start to build.

Read it all.

On forming cells of resistance: pic.twitter.com/90kSAIU9sS

— The New Atlantis (@tnajournal) June 3, 2026

I admire these students’ Zen-like ability to enjoy today in spite of tomorrow. But their powerlessness saddens me. In 2024, an Emory University professor, Stephen Nowicki, observed that his college seminar students felt less control over their lives than the average prisoner felt in 1966. The belief that you shape your own destiny strongly tracks with health, income and happiness. People who feel they have agency tend to eat better, apply for more jobs and recover more easily from setbacks. It’s true that in times of uncertainty, despair is a rational response. But when young people stop believing that long-term effort will improve their lives, something larger is lost: the capacity to imagine a meaningful future….

Ms. Perez and Mx. Durhal have a lot in common. Neither cares about prestige or job titles. Both want the income and flexibility to live according to their personal values. Timothy Judge, a professor at Ohio State University and an author of the foundational ambition study, told me that compared with previous generations, his current students think harder about what they want out of life. “Now’s the time to question it — early in your career, when you’re in the formative stage,” Dr. Judge said. “I think it’s a good thing.”

There’s a lot for us still to learn from the way Gen Z approaches work. Years of research have shown that extrinsic motivators like money and fame make people miserable while intrinsic motivators like enjoyment or self-mastery fuel satisfaction. In Dr. Judge’s study, the most ambitious people died slightly younger than those with less drive. He thinks it’s because those who focused on accomplishment experienced more stress and neglected their health and relationships.

While talking to students, I found myself questioning my own choice to worship at the altar of work. I wrote much of this article on weekends, sometimes while my toddler begged for me; I have chronic pain triggered by sitting too long; I don’t know how to turn off my drive. Before talking to these students, I never really considered what “success at any cost” actually cost me.

At the same time, ambition isn’t just about personal accomplishments. It’s also about having faith in our ability to shape the future. Speaking to Mx. Durhal and other young adults for whom tomorrow seems uncertain, I see a generation that’s learning not to hope too hard. Humans are future-oriented creatures. Not being able to look ahead deprives us of what matters most. Data collected in an ongoing study on people’s well-being showed that young adults across the world score low not just on happiness but on eudaemonistic well-being, including meaning, purpose and fulfilling relationships.

As an adolescent, I took solace in the saying “Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.” This aphorism, often attributed to Martin Luther, wasn’t about the joy of digging holes. It represented defiant optimism in the face of uncertainty. In the hardest moments of my youth, my goals gave me dignity and agency. When the present felt unbearable, my aspirations allowed me to transcend my surroundings. I think about sitting in the back seat of my rusty car, clutching an SAT book. I still bear the scars of my work ethic; I wish I’d known, like today’s youth, how to give myself more grace. But I also wish they understood how the dream itself illuminated the path a few feet ahead of me, until I stood on solid ground.

Read it all.

Fascintating piece by @eminietfeld about GenZ views on success and work: Gen Z Has Lost Its Ambition. Maybe It’s Found Something Better. https://t.co/BX1nigICFX

— Jason Ryan (@jasonryanmd) July 23, 2026

Finally, gambling must be recognized as wrong because it corrupts our society. The legal gambler and the corrupt politician have ever been close friends. Some would suggest that gambling should be legalized because its taxes will help to support our government, but gambling is a social leech; it has no product of value to offer. The revenues of the gambler have first been created by some legitimate business venture and should have found their way to another. The money received by the gambler means less business for the grocer, the clothing store, the gasoline station.

Then too, the fact is that gambling always corrupts government. The report of the Senate crime commission indicated that 20 percent of the gambler’s “take” is used as a fund to corrupt public officials. Responsible public officials always agree that wherever illegal gambling is conducted openly, it can be done only at the expense of the corrupted character of public officials.

At one time, former mayor William O’Dwyer of New York City proposed that legal gambling be permitted in New York State. Governor Thomas Dewey made a powerful response:

It would be an indecent thing for a government to finance itself so largely out of the weaknesses of the people which it had deliberately encouraged. … The entire history of legalized gambling in this country and abroad shows that it has brought nothing but poverty, crime, and corruption, demoralization of moral and ethical standards of living, and misery for all the people.

Read it all.

(Christianity Today from 1962 [!]) George Desmond–'Gambling Is a Moral Crime gambling must be recognized as wrong because it corrupts our society. The legal gambler and the corrupt politician have ever been close friends. Some would suggest that gambling should be legalized…

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) July 22, 2026

…The Government stresses that the “permanence” of marriage will be strengthened by enabling more questioning of candidates ahead of their weddings.

“Many couples have a religious-only wedding that reflects their faith and traditions, followed by a separate legal ceremony — or no legal ceremony at all. Research shows around two thirds of women who had a religious-only Muslim wedding did not also have a separate legal ceremony,” the consultation document says.

“To protect against forced, predatory and sham marriages, couples must complete a two-stage process, including in-person interview, to verify their identity and demonstrate eligibility to marry.”

Anglican banns of marriage would continue “as an important part of the established Church”, the document says.

Read it all.

Couples will be able to marry almost anywhere, including forests, beaches, cruise ships at sea, canal boats, and at home, under Government proposals that “shift the focus from bricks and mortar to people and promises”. https://t.co/1C2vRDXkpE

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) July 17, 2026

Secondly, unless something almost miraculous happens, there will remain deep divisions over where those boundaries of legitimacy are to be drawn and over the implications for church teaching and discipline of drawing them in different places. Related to this are the questions noted above concerning our disagreement about the level of disagreement that we are having to navigate. Here the recent FAOC work must not be forgotten and in particular the implications need to be considered of its strong and clear statement (GS Misc 1406, paper 1, para 139), that 

it is a failure of Christian love for one side to declare what kind of disagreement is being experienced by the other. It must surely be the case that those who disagree with a given decision are themselves determinative of what kind of disagreement is in view, not the content majority. Those who dissent from the majority view or decision get to define the nature of their disagreement: if it is widely held that such-and-such a belief or practice calls into question apostolic communion or ecclesial communion, then the disagreement simply is a first- or second-order disagreement, regardless of whether the majority think it merely strains communion (third order).

This is the deeper problem with the approach of the amendment: it appears that those who conscientiously have come to a position which represents a rejection or expansion or development of traditional teaching seem to be demanding that those who are not convinced by their arguments should nevertheless accept that their view is now within a “legitimate range of theological perspectives” and/or that if a majority can be shown to hold this view as to what is legitimate then church practice needs to adapt to embrace the full range of perspectives. There is an attempt to jump from acknowledgment of an indisputable pluralism in reality (a range of views clearly exists) to a pluralism that recognises that range of views as acceptable, indeed, legitimate.

Thirdly, as noted in the first proposed amendment, part of the remit of the new group set up by the bishops is “pastoral reassurance”. This points to the fact that our disagreements over the previous two areas are such that some form of ecclesial reconfiguration will most likely prove to be necessary if any way is to be found, within the Church of England, for opposing views to be able to be officially approved and for the opposing sides in votes such as that this week in Synod, to be able to co-exist well, even flourish. This might be understood as institutionally enabling some recognised form of principled pluralism that comes to terms with both the pluralist reality and the impossibility of sufficiently widespread acceptance of that pluralism being formally accepted as legitimate within the current episcopal and synodical structures. 

It was the refusal of the bishops to seriously address these matters of “pastoral reassurance” or “good differentiation” that in large part contributed to the winding up of the LLF/PLF process. We could continue with a “head in the sand” refusal to grapple with the ecclesiological implications of our deep disagreements about discipleship and about the legitimate range of discipleship options the Church of England can recognise and bless. The experience of this last, short debate in this recent Synod is, however, a further pointer to the fact that if we do not face this question head-on and with honesty and theological rigour early in the new Synod then, barring a sea-change one way or the other in the election results, and perhaps also now in the House of Bishops, we are simply preparing for continued unresolvable conflict and pain in the next five years.

Read it all.

Andrew Goddard on the Helen King motion discussion at CofE General @synod 'This is the deeper problem with the approach of the amendment: it appears that those who conscientiously have come to a position which represents a rejection or expansion or development of traditional… pic.twitter.com/U3ZkfLUbBN

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) July 20, 2026

You may listen directly here:

Or you may download it there.

Or you may watch it there:

Adroit, acerbic, and dry in his selective use of examples, Norman instanced Dr Robert McAfee Brown, Professor of World Christianity at Union Theological Seminary in New York. Addressing the World Council of Churches in 1975, in the guise of a penitent who now realised that he was a sinner, the Professor confessed his embodiment of “racism, sexism, classism, and imperialism”, and spoke of Jesus as a “liberator”, to be “identified with the demands of oppressed people”.

Another instance nearer to home was that of a sincere Anglican cleric interviewed on the radio, extolling the Sex Pistols’ song to change the world order as a model of true “Christian prophecy”.

Unconvinced by this unlikely juxtaposition, Norman highlighted the lacunae in the punk-rock gospel: nothing about the Christ who was the Lord of history or the sin that affects liberator and oppressor alike; silence concerning the need for the repentance and forgiveness, which are fundamental to prayer and spiritual maturity, or any acknowledgement of the final judgement of all human actions. Absent, too, was the unique Christian teaching concerning the place and ultimate end of humanity, along with any serious critique of secular visions of the future for the forsaken of this world.

The lecture series was praised for its clarity, intellectual depth, and the way in which it had facilitated a serious discussion of the relationship between Christianity, politics, and contemporary society.

Read it all.

Edward Norman, who died in April, deplored the politicisation of Christianity, writes Rod Garner https://t.co/Bs176KKzH4

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) July 10, 2026

[Gavin] Francis consistently challenges the labelling effect of standard diagnostic manuals, and the danger of “diagnostic creep”. “If we were able to hold the labels more lightly, aware of the human tendencies they oversimplify, would we be able to create a society more accepting of difference? Might it be less stigmatising, but also more hopeful, and more open to recovery?”

Religion appears from time to time. People who attend religious services evidently have a 20 per cent lower rate of depression than others. There is something priestly in the role of psychiatrist, “in that it concerns questions of doubt, faith and love”. More fundamentally, the author conveys a marvellous sense of wonder at the miracle and mystery of the human body and mind: “Wonder fosters humility, compassion and reverence for life — the cornerstones of all the major world religions, and fundamental qualities for the effective practice of medicine.”

Those involved in pastoral care can learn much from Francis’s account of his practice, and not least his insistence on the central place of kindness and compassion.

Read it all.

"Those involved in pastoral care can learn much from Francis’s account of his practice, and not least his insistence on the central place of kindness and compassion"

📚 Philip Welsh welcomes a GP’s reflections on mental-health issues#books https://t.co/LHAmMaRnUM

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) July 7, 2026

Someday real soon, most of us — starting with young adults — will carry an always-on AI. This agent will help us navigate our journeys, answer our questions, tutor and teach us new skills, remember people we have met before, remind us of what we once knew before, offer advice and recommendations, do simple errands, and remember everything we say and do. Before long, it will know us better than we know ourselves. It will be our exoself.

While we will use more than one agent, we’ll primarily favor just one that knows us best. Always-on means this agent is listening, watching, tracking, present during all our waking hours, and maybe even while we sleep. We will allow this intimate access to our inner life because it gives us superpowers: knowledge, judgment, decisiveness, confidence, and most important, speed. We will feel productive, creative, smart, capable, and on top of it when it is on. When it is off, we will feel amputated.

This entity is clearly not our self. But at the same time, this always-on AI will be so close to us, understanding us so well and so deeply — better than almost any human could — that it will not be an other, or an outsider either. It can model us too well to be an other. It will be an exoself: something in between our self and an other self. Neither us, but also not outside of us. A new category.

It won’t feel strange, because we don’t feel strange wearing eyeglasses all day, or hearing aids, or carrying a computer in our pockets. Machines like this have been moving closer to us since they were invented. Smart machines started out as room-sized apparatus, then moved nearer as appliances alongside a desk, then onto the desktop in front of us, then onto our laps, then into our pockets — and soon, they will sit on our skin, perhaps on our heads. We already see prototypes of smart glasses, where the exoself can perch, whispering into our ears and illuminating our eyes.

Read it all.

I write about the controversial idea of an "exoself" as if it were inevitable: https://t.co/nds5pW2b0r

— Kevin Kelly (@kevin2kelly) July 7, 2026

Clerical accountability must be “vigorously tackled” and is “the key issue for the Church to tackle and should not be a protracted debate”, a report on trust in the Church of England concludes.

The report, Trust and Trustworthiness in the Church of England: Listening and responding to usual and unusual challenges, was produced by Professor Veronica Hope Hailey, a former Dean of the Business School at the University of Bristol, drawing on 74 interviews with bishops, clergy, lay people, and members of the national church institutions.

“Whilst no one wants to return to the feudal patriarchal structures of the past, if the institution is to restore trust with the society it is meant to serve, clerical accountability must be vigorously tackled,” Professor Hope Hailey writes.

“It’s not simply about formal control but also the need to change the culture of individualism some clergy seem to think they deserve. That love of autonomy means that they can be inconsistent and unpredictable in their promises to implement policy.”

Read it all.

Clerical accountability must be “vigorously tackled”, a report on trust in the Church of England has concluded. It is “the key issue for the Church to tackle and should not be a protracted debate”, it says ⚖️#Clergy #churchnews #report https://t.co/oyP7wJBq8p

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) July 1, 2026

Many researchers are now convinced that humanlike AI, or artificial general intelligence (AGI), will require more than mastering language and images. It will require AIs that can reason about space, causality, and the consequences of actions—especially if they are to control humanoid robots, operate factories, and explore other planets.

Few people have argued for this need more forcefully than AI pioneer Yann LeCun. “I joke that the smartest systems we have today are not as smart as a house cat,” he says. A cat can’t code like an LLM, but it can survive by its wits. The notion that simply scaling an LLM will get to AGI is “complete nonsense,” he says. “It’s like saying you’re going to get into orbit by scaling airplanes. There’s a very powerful delusion circulating in Silicon Valley that this is the case.”

LeCun left a top job at Meta to co-found one of a growing number of labs and startups developing “world models”—systems that build representations of how the world works—and agents that operate within them to learn or plan. Ultimately, these researchers hope that more closely mimicking how the human mind learns will give AI stunning new powers.

The gaps between humans and LLMs are not merely quantitative. In a 2024 study, LLMs that were trained on sequences of directions from New York City taxi rides could generate new routes reliably, suggesting they had turned those directions into an accurate map of the city. But when researchers looked under the hood to examine their internal representations, they found not a clean city grid, but an incoherent mess of tangled streets. LLMs “are so alien and so unhumanlike,” says Brenden Lake, a cognitive scientist at Princeton University.

Read it all.

Words vs. worlds: As building bigger and better chatbots gets harder, AI researchers turn to systems that learn to simulate the worldhttps://t.co/DC8Q7QNoWp via @SilverJacket pic.twitter.com/OoMXTX5ZAD

— Ash Paul (@pash22) June 26, 2026

Read it all.

Young working-class men are significantly less happy & hopeful than their college-educated peers:

✔️ 1/3 of that "hope gap" traces back to a single variable: the quality of their relationship with their father.

New @FamStudies: https://t.co/DBuVi51HBd pic.twitter.com/BkBt2hSGqd

— Brad Wilcox (@BradWilcoxIFS) June 23, 2026

The Golden Result is a corollary to the Golden Rule, which calls us to do to others as we would have them do to us. The Golden Result says that people will usually treat us as we treat them. If we blame others for a problem, they will usually blame in return. But if we say, “I was wrong,” it is amazing how often the response will be, “It was my fault too.” I have seen this result in hundreds of cases over the past twenty-one years. Whether the dispute involves a personal quarrel, divorce, lawsuit, or church division, people generally treat one another as they are being treated.

When one person attacks and accuses, so does the other. And when God moves one person to start getting the log out of his or her own eye, it is rare that the other side fails to do the same. The Golden Result occurs most often with people who understand and cherish the gospel. When we admit that our own sins are so serious that Jesus had to die for us, and remember that he has forgiven us for all our wrongs, we can let go of our illusion of self-righteousness and freely admit our failures. When we do this, we experience the wonderful gift of God’s forgiveness. And in many cases, he will be pleased to use our confessions to help others see the logs in their eyes.

Ken Sande, The Peacemaker (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1991)

Two centuries ago, most American magazine and newspaper editors professed Christian faith and wanted their publications to show it—but many lost their audiences when new publications offered street-level reporting that won more readers than literary essays.

That’s important history to understand, but you won’t read about it in Alex Wright’s new book Empire of Ink, a supposed history of American journalism through 1900. Wright amusingly describes antics of The Printers, Rogues, and Radicals Who Invented the American Newspaper, as the subtitle states, but he skips the Christians and in doing so misses the forest for trees, billions of which fell in the centuries when words on paper ruled. 

But just as Wright overlooks something important, so did I—until my research for a history of abortion led me to what Wright rightly calls “racy papers … bearing names like The Flash, The Whip, The Rake, and The Libertine,” bearing “headings like Lives of the Nymphs.” They published detailed and prurient profiles of prostitutes, listing their addresses as a service to readers eager (as one critic wrote) to “fill the paths to perdition.” 

Wright also describes how newspapers first celebrated Charles Dickens when the author came to the US in 1842, then called him “a literary bagman.” Dickens reciprocated, attacking “moral poison” and arguing that “the influence of the good, is powerless to counteract the moral poison of the bad.” My sense is that Wright overemphasizes the bad in early American journalism, but I may have underestimated it. 

Read it all.

(CT) Marvin Olasky–'[Alex] Wright amusingly describes antics of The Printers, Rogues, and Radicals Who Invented the American Newspaper, as the subtitle states, but he skips the Christians and in doing so misses the forest for trees, billions of which fell in the centuries when…

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) June 19, 2026

Is it ethical to alter the genetic makeup of children? Should we create children with three parents? What about creating sperm from female stem cells to the end of creating a child with two biological mothers? Is it ethical to incubate a growing baby in an artificial womb? Could a womb like that end the perceived need for abortion?  

These questions might seem like science fiction, and indeed they were when Aldous Huxley, an agnostic, published his dystopian novel Brave New World nearly one hundred years ago. Huxley wove a fictitious world in which progeny were designed and grown in laboratories, children were raised by the state rather than in families, promiscuity was encouraged and monogamy considered grotesque, and the government endorsed self-medication with a “harmless” drug that kept its users in a placated state. 

Yet these are the questions up for debate in today’s public square, as evidenced by a recent debate hosted by The Free Press: “Is Designing Babies Unethical—Or a Moral Imperative?”  

All things considered, one has to wonder if Huxley wasn’t more a prophet than a novelist.  

Read it all.

https://t.co/vb0gflsCQ0 The elimination of suffering will not produce joy. If we seek to be truly free, we must acknowledge our responsibilities to one another. We will flourish to the extent that we all can flourish.

— Public Discourse (@PublicDiscourse) June 14, 2026

A proposal that would require ordained clergy to be monogamous is on the docket at the Presbyterian Church (USA)’s general assembly this summer.

The overture, CON-10, has generated strong reactions online but has not yet earned broad support from PCUSA groups. A separate proposal, highlighting the denomination’s commitment to the inclusion of different familial realities, asks for theological studies on gender and sexuality, life-giving relationships, and the Christian vocation of family. Together, these overtures show that as polyamory gains visibility in broader culture, it may have policy implications, especially in theologically progressive Christian denominations.

“I think it is the next big conversation that most mainline denominations will have,” said Claudia Aguilar Rubalcava, director of engagement for the LGBTQ-affirming nonprofit More Light Presbyterians.

The board and staff of More Light Presbyterians released a statement last month, saying the proposal on monogamy targets queer communities.

“It centers a single model of relationship as the only faithful expression of Christian life, ignoring both the breadth of biblical witness and the lived realities of many faithful people,” the statement says. “Scripture speaks richly about covenant, mutuality, justice, and love but does not prescribe one uniform relational structure across all contexts.”

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(RNS) — A separate proposal calls for a broader theological framework on human relationships. https://t.co/EqBtKfvcmn

— RNS (@RNS) June 9, 2026

The Christian faith is by nature conservative—in a theological sense. The Scriptures are replete with verses pointing to the unchanging and enduring nature of God and the Bible. Revelation 1:8 says, “‘I am the Alpha and the Omega,’ says the Lord God, ‘who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty’” (ESV throughout). Malachi 3:6 says, “For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed.” Isaiah 40:8 says, “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.” Hebrews 13:8 says, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” These verses do not mean that the biblical text cannot be distorted or manipulated by self-serving people, but it does mean that the Bible is not a party platform that gets updated every four years.

Thankfully, there are countless others who are faithfully preaching and teaching God’s word. These congregations are often small and do not receive any media attention. Many are led by pastors more concerned with preparing their members for eternity in heaven than getting souls to the polls on Election Day. Some of these churches have vibrant ministries for men, women, and families. They are committed to remaining faithful to biblical ethics regarding sex, sexuality, marriage, family, and the sanctity of life without any concern for whether elected Democrats—or Republicans—agree.

Liberation-minded pastors who reject the biblical definitions and descriptions of sex and marriage are incapable of doing the work needed to rebuild the Black family. They fashion themselves as brave prophets, but they make race and politics twin idols that draw their hearts—and pulpits—away from God.

Christians are often told to beware of wolves in sheep’s clothing. That is wise counsel, but what’s even more dangerous is a wolf in shepherd’s clothing. The former can devour a few sheep before the others scatter, but the latter can lead an entire flock over a cliff.

One ray of hope is the biblical theme of God’s mercy on those who turn from their wicked ways and trust him. The pattern in both the Old and New Testaments is quite familiar. God’s people rebel. He rebukes them. They reflect on their sin and repent. He restores them. This is my prayer because the Black family needs the church to function in its God-given role now more than ever.

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“Instead, liberation theology has transformed the Black church from a religious institution dedicated to the pursuit of righteousness to the religious wing of the Democratic Party.”https://t.co/Bh1V8SBXWw

— TheQueenofLA 🇺🇸 (@Queenofla2) June 17, 2026

The idea that dementia prevention may hinge on what people do in their mid-30s to their 60s is rapidly reshaping the field. Scientists increasingly believe the disease is driven not only by changes in the aging brain, but also by years of metabolic stress, inflammation and vascular damage accumulating across the body.

Many researchers now think the biological process that leads to dementia begins 15 to 20 years before the first memory problems emerge. By the time symptoms become noticeable, the disease likely will already be well established.

Neuroscientists now see midlife as a critical window when the brain becomes especially vulnerable to aging — but also more responsive to intervention. The implications are profound: The ordinary habits of middle age may matter far more than scientists once realized, and cognitive decline may not be inevitable.

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If you want to remain mentally sharp once you're in your 70s, 80s and beyond, there are steps you can take when you're much younger. Read @arianaeunjung to understand what scientists are now learning about the midlife brain, here: https://t.co/L0JnwnYGYl

— Juliet Eilperin (@eilperin) June 12, 2026

Safeguarding in the Church of England could be broadened to include anyone harmed or at risk of harm in a church context, after the C of E’s National Safeguarding Team (NST) launched a consultation.

The fresh approach is a result of recommendations from the Charity Commission, which has pointed out that the “Church does not treat allegations of abuse from an adult not assessed to be ‘vulnerable’ as a safeguarding allegation”. Its own guidance says that trustees “must take reasonable steps to protect from harm all people who come into contact with their charity”.

The consultation, What is Safeguarding?, focuses on the code of practice Safeguarding in the Church, the subject of a consultation in April and May. Until now, it has been referred to as Safeguarding Children, Young People and Vulnerable Adults. The change of title follows recommendations from the Commission that the NST review definitions of safeguarding and vulnerable adults.

“It is very important to note that this document is in the very early stages of thinking,” the NST says in a preface.

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Church of England’s definition of safeguarding could be broadened https://t.co/rheEMJAw4y

— Simon Sarmiento (@simonsarmiento) June 11, 2026

Thirdly, this raises the question about the three descriptors that have been chosen in the motion and what they mean, especially if they are to include within their scope sexual relationships. 

A classic statement advocating same-sex unions (and later marriage) is that by Jeffrey John which was entitled Permanent, Faithful, Stable. These three terms are also in need of more careful definition but how significant is it that both “permanent” and “stable” are lacking here? What conclusions are to be drawn from the fact they have been replaced simply by “committed” with no explanation as to the nature or level of that commitment?

There has been a long concern about occasional and non-exclusive male same-sex sexual relationships being acceptable, including among gay Christians (see for example the 1997 work of Andrew Yip whose research with gay male Christian couples found “the majority of couples were expectationally and behaviourally non-exclusive; the recently deceased leading campaigner Malcolm Johnson expressed surprise in his Diary of a Gay Priest that “a third are physically faithful—or say they are!”). Leaving that question open is one reason the LGCM statement quoted above offered no criteria as to when expressing love fully in a sexual relationship was entirely compatible with the Christian faith (see Sean Gill, The Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement (Cassell, 1998), pp. 12-13).

In a world of rapidly changing sexual norms there is now much wider discussion and acceptance of “ethical non-monogamy” (ENM). As briefly explained in this “ethics explainer” from The Ethics Centre this is distinguished from “infidelity” and “cheating”. Here it is not unreasonable to ask whether those in such an ENM form of relationship might nevertheless still be able to be classed as in a “committed, faithful, intimate” form of relationship.

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Helen King's motion for General Synod: a help or a hindrance? https://t.co/cIA8Evq875 via @psephizo

— Simon Sarmiento (@simonsarmiento) June 2, 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….

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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 Bishop of Newcastle, Dr Helen-Ann Hartley, has welcomed a poll of more than 10,000 people which suggests that a majority in all 632 parliamentary constituencies oppose the proposed law on assisted dying being revisited without full scrutiny and approval by both chambers.

Dr Hartley was on the House of Lords select committee that examined the Private Member’s Bill brought by the Labour MP Kim Leadbeater in October 2024 (News, 18 October 2024), and spoke against it before it was defeated earlier this year in the Upper House (News, 1 May). She told the Church Times that the poll “confirms that the public does not support the suggestion of bypassing the House of Lords in order to force through an unsafe Bill”.

She said: “This would mean using a procedure never used for a Bill of this kind and acting against the advice of medical professionals, disability groups, and the concerns of all those who want to see legislation that is safe and workable.

“For a Bill of this magnitude in terms of societal change, the highest level of scrutiny is imperative.”

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The Bishop of Newcastle has welcomed a poll of more than 10,000 people which suggests that a majority in all 632 parliamentary constituencies oppose the proposed law on #assisteddying being revisited without full scrutiny and approval by both chambershttps://t.co/1fB16bi9sv

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) June 10, 2026

On June 3, a debate about the silent genocide of unborn children with Down syndrome exploded on social media. The unlikely catalyst was an X post by YouTube influencer Jesse “McJuggerNuggets” Ridgway. For months, the Ridgways had been producing and posting news of their pregnancy for a massive online audience, including their pregnancy announcement on March 29, a gender reveal (a boy), ultrasounds, and finally, a disturbingly personal video of the grief-stricken couple finding out their baby likely had Down syndrome. 

The journey culminated in Ridgway’s announcement that the couple had decided to abort the baby at twenty-one weeks. (Last year, a preemie born at twenty-one weeks in Iowa survived.) Ridgway listed the health problems his son might have suffered from—heart defects, hearing challenges, learning disabilities, decreased lifespan—and concluded: “Down syndrome isn’t a ‘blessing.’” He assured his “fans” with autism and Down syndrome that “we appreciate you,” but said that the abortion “will be beneficial for our family” and that “thankfully, we had a choice.”

The post has been viewed over 24 million times and has garnered 18,000 mostly negative comments. Many were livid at Ridgway’s openly eugenic justification for having his unborn son destroyed; hundreds posted stories, photos, and videos of their loved ones with Down syndrome, expressing their gratitude for their love, lives, and contributions. The photos put faces to society’s most endangered population—as Ridgway pointed out in his post, around 90 percent of babies diagnosed with Down syndrome are killed in the womb.

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This is unspeakably evil, but I give the guy credit for speaking about it directly in public. Most of our eugenic killing simply goes on on the down low, which is how throwaway culture flourishes. When brought to light, they can be named for what they are. https://t.co/CLhEitDBTu

— Charlie Camosy (@CCamosy) June 4, 2026

Nineteen-year-old Olivia’s profile picture shows a demure and innocent-looking young woman with long blonde hair styled in beachy waves. She’s wearing a short, cleavage-exposing nightdress and her biography says she’s “deeply caring, supportive and attentive” and “sleeps on the floor… until you call her. Then silence. Obedience”.

While Olivia may appear to be an online dater looking for love, she isn’t real – not in the conventional sense of the term. This prospective love match is actually one of a growing trend of “AI girlfriends”: realistic-looking artificial intelligence “bots” created by “companion apps” – services that are being advertised on online games played by children and on platforms they watch, such as YouTube.

New research has revealed that one in five boys aged 12-16 is either in or knows of a boy their age who is in a romantic relationship with an AI companion. A report carried out by men’s organisation Male Allies UK and published last month spoke with more than 1,000 boys aged 12-16 in focus groups in 37 schools – public and state, grammar and comprehensive, and across a range of Ofsted ratings – up and down the country. Peer-to-peer focus groups were set up where boys could speak freely, with the aim of diving into their behaviour and attitudes, and it was the boys who wanted to talk about AI technologies. The findings make stark reading: eight in 10 boys (85 per cent) have had a conversation with a chatbot, with 43 per cent saying they talk to bots so they can ask questions without feeling embarrassed. More than a quarter (26 per cent) say they like the attention and connection over real-life equivalents, and (36 per cent) admitted that they prefer speaking to AI chatbots rather than to their family and friends at times.

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🦔One in five boys aged 12 to 16 is in or knows someone in a romantic relationship with an AI chatbot, according to a Male Allies UK study of over 1,000 boys across 37 UK schools. 85% have talked to chatbots and 26% prefer the attention to human connections.
The top companion…

— Hedgie (@HedgieMarkets) June 8, 2026

Just over thirty years ago, Oregon became the first state to allow physicians to intentionally seek death as part of healthcare. At the time, discussions of Jack Kevorkian were all the rage, along with his slogan, “dying is not a crime.” However, questions about expanding assisted suicide and euthanasia are not merely a thing of the past. Recently, The Economist and The New York Times have each run in-depth articles sympathetic to euthanasia, and the states of Illinois and New York have legalized assisted suicide. 

After Oregon’s 1994 “Death with Dignity” law took effect, the Jesuit moral theologian James Keenan published an important article, “The Case for Physician-Assisted Suicide?” in which he asked what the representative case would be for physician-assisted suicide (PAS)—or as it goes by now, “medical aid in dying” (MAiD). In the article, Keenan asked whether the standard rhetorical example is actually a representative case that reflects the typical MAiD patient, and if not, what that means. He presented the familiar case of “Uncle Louis,” which I might summarize as: Uncle Louis is very old and has lived a full life. He is dying of a debilitating, incurable cancer that has no good pain management. Uncle Louis has had a conversation about MAiD with his long-time physician with whom he has a good relationship. They have tried everything else and as a last resort Uncle Louis (autonomously and freely) decides that he would like “medical aid in dying.” Why should we not affirm Uncle Louis’s choice to die early and on his own terms in order to avoid pain and preserve his “sense of self?” Why should he be left to suffer? 

Keenan’s conclusion is clear: Uncle Louis is not the representative case. Rather, he argued thirty years ago, the more probable average case was that of Mary X—a woman who had a progressive chronic condition, who feared dependence on her family and others, and who was depressed. Mary probably did not have proper medical coverage or access to counseling and thought MAiD was her only option. Mary’s case, Keenan starkly observes, “demonstrates not the lack of autonomy (autonomy is, after all, only for those with power), but rather the inequities in our country … Proponents for the case of Uncle Louis … are only interested in the autonomous person … [Ultimately,] the law that Uncle Louis wants invalidated is the same law that keeps the more common Mary X from being marginalized to death.” 

Throughout the last thirty years, however, those who have argued that euthanasia and assisted suicide are always wrong and a public danger have been met with charges of being uncaring and promises that the implementation of such programs would be responsible, regulated, data-driven, and equitable. Indeed, after thirty years, we can ask whether Keenan was right when he argued that the more likely case once euthanasia is implemented would be a vulnerable Mary X rather than an autonomous Uncle Louis. Did the regulations bring about the intended results?  

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A New Case for Medical-Aid-In-Dying? https://t.co/VIivnP9Qa0

— Public Discourse (@PublicDiscourse) May 26, 2026