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

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

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

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

Read it all.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Read it all.

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

— Steve Williams (@HISteveWilliams) May 27, 2026

Many of the founders and important researchers at Anthropic and OpenAI joined the earliest gatherings at A.G.I. House. Mr. [Jeremy] Nixon is now founder and chief executive of a start-up called the Infinity Artificial Intelligence Institute, which is trying to automate the creation of A.I.

Mr. Nixon said he has met a generation of scientists who shunned traditional religion in favor of technology. After growing up with books like “The God Delusion” — in which the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins painted God as a false belief contradicted by empirical evidence — he and his peers saw A.I. as an alternative that was more real and far more powerful.

A.I. has started to crack math problems that humans struggled with for decades, he said, and it will soon cure diseases in the same way. “Practically speaking, it will achieve the outcomes that many religions claim their deities would be able to achieve,” he said.

This is an increasingly common belief among researchers in Silicon Valley. They insist they are on their way to building a more powerful species — or even a new God.

Read it all.

At the Epicenter of A.I., Pope Leo’s Warnings Are Dismissed
Pope Leo XIV’s spiritual message on artificial intelligence arrived as Silicon Valley’s A.I. enthusiasts pursue their own spirituality through technology.https://t.co/FLBlOaknrL

— Emily Turrettini (@textually) May 27, 2026

1. Humanity, created by God in all its grandeur, is today facing a pivotal choice: either to construct a new Tower of Babel or to build the city in which God and humanity dwell together. Each generation inherits the task of shaping its own era, of guiding history to become a place where the dignity of every person is safeguarded, justice is promoted and fraternity is made possible. Yet every era also runs the risk of creating an inhumane and more unjust world. Whenever humanity is in danger of marring its true identity, we Christians lift our eyes to the Incarnate God, knowing that it is “only in the mystery of the Word made flesh that the mystery of humanity truly becomes clear.” [1] In Jesus Christ, this humanity in its grandeur becomes the Way, the Truth and the Life, opening the path for each of us to grow toward fullness.

2. Founded on Christ, the living stone, we experience the powerful and mysterious action of the Holy Spirit, and we believe that every authentic human effort to cooperate with him for the good will be blessed by our heavenly Father, in whom we place our hope. For this reason, we can diligently contribute to every initiative that builds a more just world, and we can call others to collaborate in promoting the integral development of every human being. We wish to engage in dialogue with all men and women of our time, with whom we share in the events, questions and aspirations of humanity. [2] Together with them, we seek to identify new paths for the common good and for promoting a dignified life for all. Indeed, openness to dialogue is an integral part of the Church’s vocation because, constituted in Christ as “a sacrament… of communion with God and of the unity of the entire human race,” [3] she recognizes history as the place where the Gospel challenges and directs human experience.

3. In this spirit, Pope Leo XIII published his Encyclical Rerum Novarum in 1891, the 135 ^th anniversary of which we celebrate with deep gratitude this year. With that document, my beloved predecessor gave impetus to the reflection on society, the economy and politics, which is now known as the “Social Doctrine of the Church.” When some objected that the Church should not waste energy on worldly matters, but instead focus on communicating the message of eternal life, Leo XIII responded with realism and wisdom, saying that the proclamation of the Gospel cannot overlook the concrete lives of people. [4] Many decades have passed since then, and the Magisterium, pastors, theologians and faithful have continued to reflect on social issues in the light of the Gospel. Today, the Social Doctrine of the Church is a legacy of wisdom, where we find principles for thought, criteria for discernment and judgment, and concrete guidelines for action. Founded on Sacred Scripture and Tradition, and in engagement with the sciences, it helps us clearly interpret the challenges of the present and identify appropriate ways for living out a clear Christian witness, with joy and in service to the world. It is not an inert set of concepts, but a living corpus of truth that safeguards and interprets humanity’s vocation to a full and just life. I therefore wish to add my own voice to this living tradition, invoking the help of the Spirit of wisdom, who has dwelt in the world since its beginning (cf. Prov 8:22-31).

Read it all.

"building for the common good means accepting the limits & weakness of humanity without considering them an error ..the human desire for fullness of life is at risk of being misled by deceitful goals, such as the prospect of technology that promises to free us from all weakness"

— Jennifer A. Frey (@jennfrey) May 25, 2026

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

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

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

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

Read it all.

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

— BajaTed (@bajated) May 21, 2026

Going back to 2015 isn’t enough.  

The cultural revolution is on pause. Gender ideology, in particular, is in retreat. The fight isn’t over, but the momentum has shifted, especially when it comes to children. But to finish the fight, we must understand how things came to this—how did our society accept the sexual mutilation of children on the superstitious grounds that a boy can be born in a girl’s body or vice versa? 

This question draws out the divisions between opponents of gender ideology. A movement that has lesbian feminists alongside conservative Christians was always going to be fractious, but the divisions escalate as we argue over how to win, and what winning means. Liberal elements of the coalition are especially upset by conservatives’ continued opposition to same-sex marriage, rather than just trying to roll things back to around 2015—yes to same-sex marriage, yes to the Sexual Revolution, but no to transitioning kids and no to letting men into women’s spaces, sports, and so on. In other words, LGB without the T. 

But the LGB led to the T. After winning on same-sex marriage, the gay-rights movement immediately pivoted to transgenderism. Same-sex marriage enabled gender ideology’s sudden onset, for if male and female don’t matter in marriage, then they don’t matter anywhere. Conversely, if men and women are real, then this matters for sexuality and family beyond mere personal sexual preferences. We cannot get male and female right while pretending that sex (in every sense) doesn’t matter in marriage. 

This is why warnings about the slippery slope have been more prophecy than fallacy—for another example, note that liberals are now fighting for polygamy, with the New York Times reporting that, “From big cities like Seattle and Portland, Ore., to small ones like Astoria, Ore., proponents of ‘nontraditional’ romantic relationships are making headway in getting legal recognition.” Remember when conservative Christians were called alarmist bigots for predicting this? 

Read it all.

What Binds Marriage Forever? https://t.co/E9t7nygCQC

— Public Discourse (@PublicDiscourse) May 6, 2026

It has been suggestively proposed that the book’s “presiding genius is Pascal.” Indeed, Pascal is cited or referenced fourteen times in the extant letters. One may note, in passing, that Clermont-Ferrand, the editor’s residence, is the birthplace of Pascal.

Perhaps, however, the archbishop’s vision owes even more to the second century Church Father Irenaeus of Lyons. The dual manuscript tradition, the English and Spanish versions of the letters, present, according to Hermès, “no variant readings,” save in one important particular. The heading of the English recension echoes Athanasius and reads forthrightly: “Letters on the Incarnation.” The Spanish compilation, instead, adapts Irenaeus, with an added flourish: “Letters on the Detection and Overthrow of Reality Falsely So Called.” Assuredly, the archbishop is bent on calling out the simulacra of reality that grow ever more pervasive and controlling. 

Still, both renditions capture something essential about the spirit and scope of these letters. For they offer a penetrating and passionate refutation of a prevalent Gnosticism that abhors this body, this community, this Church, where true life is won, paradoxically, only at the price of this death. Thus, the letters constitute an uncompromising polemic against what the archbishop calls the “disincarnation” practiced by the “indefatigable Gnostics.”  

Read it all.

Against Excarnation https://t.co/BbePQPWchc

— Public Discourse (@PublicDiscourse) May 13, 2026

Workers who enjoy what they do each day rate their lives more than a full point higher on Gallup’s zero-to-10 life evaluation scale than those who don’t enjoy what they do, according to a new Gallup analysis of more than 350,000 employed adults across 149 countries from 2020 to 2025.

But the analysis also reveals that job choice and purpose play an outsized role among specific populations, including full-time employees, workers in their peak career-building years and those living in lower-income economies.

Data from the Gallup World Poll show that, of three aspects of the work experience measured globally, enjoyment of daily work has the strongest and most consistent relationship with broader wellbeing outcomes. This pattern holds across most countries, age groups and employment types — though the relative importance of purpose and choice varies by context.

Work occupies a central place in people’s lives, shaping not only economic outcomes but also how people experience and evaluate their lives overall. To better understand this connection at a global level, Gallup, in collaboration with the Wellbeing for Planet Earth (WPE) Foundation and Persol, measures three core aspects of workplace wellbeing: enjoyment, purpose and choice. These dimensions reflect how work is experienced on a daily basis, whether it is seen as improving the lives of others, and the degree of freedom people have in what they do. These dimensions are closely connected: Having greater choice in one’s work can shape both the enjoyment people experience day to day and the sense of purpose they derive from it.

Read it all.

Globally, workers who do enjoy their daily work rate their lives more than a full point higher on a zero-to-10 scale than those who don’t enjoy it. pic.twitter.com/od3kRncXlC

— Gallup (@Gallup) May 6, 2026

“This Easter, can we let Jesus teach us to be good stewards of our grief? This Easter, can we let Jesus teach us to be good stewards of our grief? That ought to strike you as odd.
That’s a very strange combination of words, stewardship and grief. I’ll let you in a little secret about ministers. We are not very easy to deal with.
Langley has my deep sympathy. But one of the things about our life is that we have to preach on a regular basis, and whenever we have to preach, we have to get something from the text. And the thing is, if I don’t hear from God, you can’t hear from me.
And part of the problem is, if it’s Thursday and I’m still wrestling, that’s a problem. Friday, I’m at the near panic stage. But you do not want to be at my house when I get to Saturday, and I still have nothing to say.”

“And this past week, that’s exactly where I was. And past the near panic stage. And I was thinking as I was sitting there in my office yesterday, I was talking to the woman who cuts my hair in Summerville, who’s a Christian, and I was thinking, there have been millions of sermons.
Think of that, millions of sermons in the history of the church preached on this passage. Next year will be my 40th year. I can’t even count the number of times I’ve preached on the passage, probably 15 or something.
So I’ve got to get something fresh out of it. So I said, Lord, come on, this is not working. And I’m sitting there and I’m praying and I’m looking.
And I mean, I’ve read this thing, I don’t know how many times, and all of a sudden, click. And what the New Testament says about preaching, by the way, is rightly dividing the word of truth. And the thing is, it’s like cutting a diamond.”

“You can sit there and look at the text on Monday and Tuesday and not see it, and Friday you still don’t see it. And all of a sudden, the Holy Spirit shows up and boom. And then it just opens like magic.
Well, there I was sitting, and it all of a sudden came open. Now, let me tell you how important this passage is before I get into this. I was reading JC.
Ryle, the late great bishop of Liverpool in the 19th century, and he said something really fascinating about this passage that I want to start with. This is one of the great bishops in the whole history of the church. Listen to what he says about this story.

He says this, the history contained in these verses is not found in any other gospel, but only that of Luke. Of all the 11 appearances of Christ after his resurrection, none is perhaps so interesting as the one described in this passage. And I completely agree with him.

And one of the things that’s got to bother all of us is, it sticks out like a sore thumb, it’s unlike any of the others. What is it“doing in there? And there’s all sorts of reasons.

I mean, they are great resurrection stories, post resurrection narratives, all through all the gospels. But this one is unique. And so if you think about it and ask the question why it’s in there, there’s all sorts of answers.

But what came to me yesterday, which I never noticed before, is there’s one really, really, really important reason why it’s in there. And that is, it’s the only one that really shows how Jesus deals with the depth of people in incredible grief. This is a story about grief, not general grief, not superficial grief.
This is the story about people whose lives have been dashed on the rocks of reality. This is a story about people who are disappointed, dejected and nearly in despair and desperate. They’ve not just lost motivation, they’ve lost all hope.

And the question that we have to ask ourselves is, why are they there and how does Jesus bring them out of it? So those are my two questions. Why are they there and how does Jesus bring them (and by extension, us) out of it?”

You may listen directly here:

Or you may download it there.

Rembrandt van Rijn
Supper at Emmaus pic.twitter.com/B11NtKd3rg

— Marysia (@marysia_cc) April 19, 2026

“Without Easter, Good Friday would have no meaning. Without Easter, there would be no hope that suffering and abandonment might be tolerable. But with Easter, a way out becomes visible for human sorrows, an absolute future: more than a hope, a divine expectation.”

–Hans Urs von Balthasar To the Heart of the Mystery of Redemption (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2010), p.39

The Emmaus Disciples (1822), by Abraham Bloemart pic.twitter.com/B3qAjO7Htl

— Richies Place (@lastdays58) August 21, 2020

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

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

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

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

Read it all.

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

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) March 31, 2026

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

1. He cares because he created us

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

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

2. He cares because he loves us

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

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

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

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

3. He knows what’s best for us

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

Read it all.

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

— History Defined (@historydefined) September 21, 2025

In a statement suggesting the enormity of Canterbury’s failure to be a focus for unity, the former archbishop Rowan Williams recently admitted: “I honestly don’t know whether the communion will survive.” Such a statement from a former leader of the Church of England reflects the gravity of the current crisis. It is not merely a matter of internal disagreement but a question about the very future of Anglicanism.

A significant turning point came in 2023 when the Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches (GSFA) issued what became known as the Ash Wednesday Statement. In this declaration, the GSFA announced that it would no longer recognize the archbishop of Canterbury as primus inter pares and the head of the Anglican Communion. This decision marked a historic shift: The symbolic center of Anglican unity was effectively withdrawn by churches representing the majority of Anglicans worldwide.

The roots of this shift are not only historical but also theological and structural. The traditional configuration of the Anglican Communion emerged during the era of the British Empire. During that time, the Church of England functioned naturally as a coordinating center for Anglican churches established through missionary and colonial expansion. However, the global context has changed dramatically. The demographic center of Anglicanism has moved decisively to Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Today, the vast majority of Anglicans live in what is commonly called the Global South.

The departure of several western provinces from the traditional Anglican faith inevitably raises questions about unity, governance, and authority.

Read it all.

Canterbury and the Collapse of Anglican Unity
by Mouneer Anis @bishopmouneer https://t.co/5oNTQIwrz3 pic.twitter.com/LVjAFzbJjP

— First Things (@firstthingsmag) March 31, 2026

The Anglican Church in North America has chosen to retain Lathrop GPM to conduct a restricted and nontransparent review of the Title IV proceedings surrounding Bishop Stewart Ruch, and in that choice the truth of the matter is already disclosed, not at the end of the process but at its beginning. The terms will not be released. The findings are not promised to the light. The scope has been drawn with a care that ensures the most decisive questions will never quite arrive where they must be answered. One need not wait for conclusions. The arrangement itself speaks with sufficient clarity.

What presents itself as sober inquiry carries the unmistakable grammar of preemption. There will be interviews, reports, careful language, and the appearance of discipline, yet all of it unfolds within limits that have already been secured against the possibility that the truth might actually do what truth does, which is to judge, to expose, and to reorder. The structure is not neutral. It is already an answer. It ensures that whatever is said will be said in a way that does not require the institution to become something other than what it presently is.

The choice of Lathrop GPM makes this plain in a way that no further argument can improve. A firm known for defending institutions against claims of abuse has been entrusted with examining an institution under precisely such a shadow. One might search for a more transparent declaration of intent and fail to find it. This is not a tension to be resolved. It is a coherence to be recognized. The task is not to discover a truth that might unsettle the body under examination but to render events intelligible within a horizon that preserves that body’s continuity. While the conclusion has not been written in detail, its boundaries have been drawn with precision.

Even the most modest traditions of law would find this intolerable. The idea that judgment must be free from the control of those who stand to be implicated is not an advanced refinement. It is the bare minimum required for justice to exist at all. 

Read it all.

Re: Ruch trial aftermath: The Ex. Committee has appointed a subcommittee to "oversee a third-party review of the provincial administration" of the Ruch matter. They have not yet determined the scope of the review but will "retain a qualified firm or individual to complete it." pic.twitter.com/U1CXTUnENM

— Arlie Coles (@ArlieColes) January 17, 2026

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

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

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

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

Read it all.

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

— gript (@griptmedia) March 19, 2026

While headlines, industry hype and employers suggest a near-term revolution that will make workers more efficient and successful, [Daron] Acemoglu offers a more measured—and unsettling—view.

He agrees that recent advances, particularly in “agentic” AI, are moving faster than expected, but that today’s systems fall short when it comes to reliability, reasoning and real-world understanding. That means any sweeping, immediate transformation of jobs and productivity remains unlikely in the near-term. But the uncertainty about what comes next is higher than ever, and Acemoglu warns that tech giants are overwhelmingly focused on replacing workers rather than complementing them. This, Acemoglu says, risks both weaker productivity gains and serious social consequences.

Read it all.

Nobel Prize–winning economist Daron Acemoglu warns that multiple factors are driving a labor-replacement model, with dire consequences for society https://t.co/XWEYwny4Fa

— Bloomberg (@business) March 18, 2026

The Scottish Parliament’s rejection of a Bill to legalise assisted dying has been welcomed by the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, the Rt Revd Rosie Frew, and by Christian campaigners in the country.

On Tuesday evening, Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs) rejected, by 69 votes to 57, the Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill, which had been introduced by Liam McArthur MSP. The Bill sought to allow an assisted death for terminally ill adults who had decision-making capacity and had six months or less to live.

In a statement issued shortly after the vote, Ms Frew said: “I recognise that the outcome will be a disappointment to many, but it was clear that the safeguards included did not offer sufficient protection.

“We have been consistent in our position that we need to prioritise the development of excellent palliative care services that are universally available and fully funded. Without that, had the Bill passed, we would fear that many vulnerable people might have seen an assisted death as their only realistic option.”

Read it all.

The Scottish Parliament’s rejection of a Bill to legalise assisted dying has been welcomed by the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, the Rt Revd Rosie Frew, and by Christian campaigners in the country#churchnews #churchtimes https://t.co/NhNTeIZ6GR

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) March 18, 2026

When the former Archbishop of Canterbury the Rt Revd Justin Welby spoke recently about his mental health (Quotes, 6 March), his honesty was striking.

Speaking to Gyles Brandreth on the podcast Rosebud, he reflected on the failures surrounding the Church of England’s handling of abuse allegations, and revealed that he had sought professional help. “I’ve been seeing a psychotherapist for a considerable period of time, and a psychiatrist: very helpful,” he said. He went on to say that therapy was not about excusing mistakes, but about confronting them honestly: “It’s not about saying, ‘Oh, it didn’t matter,’ . . . quite the reverse. How does one live with such a failure?”

That candour should have been welcomed. Instead, it prompted a deeply damaging column in The Daily Telegraph by Celia Walden, who asked: “What’s the point of God if even Justin Welby is seeing a therapist?”

Reading her article left me shocked, distressed, and very upset at such ignorance about mental health. I felt shamed and triggered. As a serving clergyman who has lived with serious mental-health challenges, I felt guilty and embarrassed simply for seeking help. Her column was extremely damaging, heartless, and cruel, and lacked any compassion for clergy and people of faith who live with mental illness. It implied that faith alone should replace therapy: a view that is both wrong and pastorally reckless.

Read it all.

"I have never told someone with cancer to refuse chemotherapy and to 'just pray'. I have never suggested that insulin betrays belief. So, why is mental health treated differently?" ✍️ Mark Edwards #mentalhealth #JustinWelby https://t.co/FTUYk6BqKd

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) March 13, 2026

In my lifetime, American society has been transformed by widespread accommodation of vice. Marijuana has been legalized in many jurisdictions, as has addictive online gambling. Not surprisingly, pot use and regular gambling have increased. In 2025, 17 percent of adults report smoking pot daily, up from 8 percent in 2020. Less than a decade ago, nobody had a sports betting app on his smartphone; today, half of American men between eighteen and forty-nine have opened accounts. And pornography is readily available on the internet, protected as free speech by the Supreme Court.

Social norms have likewise shifted. Open use of ­illegal drugs is widely tolerated. Silicon Valley titans use ketamine and other substances, making a mockery of the restriction of these drugs to medical use only. The New Yorker publishes essays cheering “throuples” and other sexual arrangements. Activists campaign to remove the stigma from “sex work,” which few local governments make efforts to prevent. 

Writing in National Affairs (“The Case for Prohibiting Vice”), Charles Fain Lehman observes that social conservatives have been routed in recent decades. Large-scale social trends run against us. But Lehman thinks we share some of the blame. Too often, those who wish to sustain moral codes accept the dominant terms of public debate, which rest on the notion that people should be free to do as they wish in their private lives, as long as nobody else is harmed….

Lehman advises social conservatives to stop trying to shoehorn their moral judgments into liberal arguments that rest on proofs of harm. We need to talk more frankly about what it means to have a good society, one that promotes human flourishing. And we should not shy away from the obvious truth that a good society discourages vice because it is vicious.

Read it all.

“For most of American history, a libertarianism in private life, restrained only by the harm principle, did not hold sway. American constitutional law accords ‘police power’ to the states, allowing them to pass laws to protect and promote the health, safety, and morals of their… https://t.co/jvv02FoYXU

— First Things (@firstthingsmag) March 10, 2026

The BBC reported on Monday that 100 Labour MPs had written to the Prime Minister arguing that, if assisted dying legislation does not pass, trust in politics will be undermined.

But the Labour MP Jessica Asato, who opposes the Bill, told the BBC: “The sponsor of the Bill has rejected 99 per cent of suggested improvements and amendments in the House of Lords and so it still contains all the same faults and issues. Any MP that voted to push this Bill through would do so knowing that it is unsafe and would harm vulnerable people.”

A new Whitestone poll of more than 2000 UK adults for Care Not Killing shows that the public wants Parliament to prioritise safety over choice.

Asked if they would support a law that enabled patient choice, but was implemented in a way that put other patients and vulnerable people at risk, respondents opposed the move by 42 per cent to 35 per cent. The proportion of those who “strongly” backed putting safety over choice was more than double the proportion of those who said the opposite (26 per cent to 12 per cent).

Read it all.

As the assisted-dying Bill runs out of debating time in the House of Lords, the Christian Labour peer Lord Rook on Friday tabled three amendments on protecting vulnerable people from coercion and safeguarding young people#HouseofLords #debate https://t.co/2Q3MhOVc5N

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) March 16, 2026

The question then becomes what status we should give to the acceptance of same-sex sexual relationships by some Anglican churches today.

In the words of C S Lewis, the traditional rule of the Christian Church with regard to sexual ethics has always been ‘either marriage, with complete faithfulness to your partner, or else total abstinence’[9] (marriage here means marriage between a man and a woman). This is the consensual teaching about marriage and sexual ethics that, as Vincent of Lerin puts it, has been held ‘always, everywhere and by everyone’[10] from biblical times onwards, in the same way that belief in the divinity of Christ and his bodily resurrection have been universally taught and accepted.

In the words of Darrin Belousek in his book Marriage, Scripture and the Church:

‘Scripture, consistently, presents a single picture of marriage and approves a single pattern of sexual relations: male- female union. Jesus summarizes this witness: ‘the two’ of ‘male and female’ joined into ‘one flesh.’ The Holy Spirit has woven this pattern of holy union throughout Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation, in the form, function, and figure of marriage. Tradition, East and West, also has consistently taught a single standard of sex and marriage: marriage is man-woman monogamy; all sex outside man-woman monogamy is sin. This doctrine has been taught always by the church, beginning with the apostles’ testimony to Jesus teaching; It has been proclaimed throughout the worldwide church, among all people in every place and epoch, as God’s will for sex and marriage; it has been articulated by apologetic writings and theological treatises, transmitted through baptismal catechesis and canonical discipline, celebrated in monastic vows and nuptial rites.’ [11]

Judged against this standard, the acceptance of same-sex sexual relationships (and even same-sex marriages) by some churches in the Anglican Communion has to be viewed as a ‘gross and grievous abomination,’ since it constitutes a departure from a key part of the Catholic and apostolic faith and an endorsement of sin. To put it plainly the churches involved have supported both heresy and immorality.

Furthermore, as the Church of England Evangelical Council report ‘Guarding the Deposit’ notes, the apostolic witness in the New Testament, which has also been accepted ‘everywhere at all times and by all,‘  teaches that:

‘…the Church should make a separation in this world between the people of God and those who practise sexual immorality (1 Cor 5: 1-13).

As Tom Wright notes, Paul teaches that the Church has the ‘God-given right and duty to discriminate between those who are living in the Messiah’s way and those who are not’.

Read it all.

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

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) March 16, 2026

The Bishops’ Conference said it strongly disagrees with the Government’s position, noting that every organization has guiding values that shape its mission and practice.

“For many faith‑based organizations, including Catholic hospices and care homes, these values are fundamentally incompatible with the introduction of assisted suicide,” said Bishop John Keenan of Paisley, the President of the Bishops’ Conference of Scotland.

“The Bishops’ Conference maintains that no organization should be compelled by the State to participate in the deliberate ending of life when doing so would violate its ethical or religious principles,” the bishop said.

Anthony Horan, the Director of the Scottish Catholic Parliamentary Office, said the Scottish Government and Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs) must accept that Catholic hospices and care homes cannot, in good conscience, provide any services under the Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill, nor can they be expected to refer anyone to such services.

“Assisted suicide is fundamentally incompatible with the Gospel,” he told Crux Now.

Read it all.

Ahead of a key vote, the bishops of Scotland, along with pro-life leaders, have made a passionate plea to politicians to reject a proposed assisted suicide bill because it is “unsafe.” https://t.co/Jl3aGGoLhL

— Catholic News Agency (@cnalive) March 6, 2026

A team at Eon Systems PBC, led by senior scientist Philip Shiu, has demonstrated the world’s first embodied whole-brain emulation. Not an AI trained to mimic biology. Not a reinforcement learning policy. A literal copy of a biological brain, neuron by neuron, synapse by synapse, running inside a physics-simulated body.

In 2024, Shiu and collaborators published in Nature a computational model of the entire adult fruit fly brain—125,000 neurons and 50 million synaptic connections—built from the FlyWire connectome and machine learning predictions of neurotransmitter identity. That model predicted motor behavior with 95% accuracy. But it was disembodied: a brain without a body.

Now, the ghost has found its machine. Using the NeuroMechFly v2 framework and MuJoCo physics simulation, Eon integrated the connectome-based brain emulation with a digital fly body. Sensory input flows in, neural activity propagates through the complete connectome, motor commands flow out, and the simulated body moves.

And here’s the jaw-dropper:

Scientists just copied a fruit fly’s brain into a computer. Neuron by neuron. No training data. No machine learning.It woke up and started walking. No one taught it to walk. No gradient descent. It just… knew what to do.

Read it all.

This breakthrough comes from Eon Systems, using the full connectome of the adult Drosophila melanogaster brain—over 125,000 neurons and 50 million synapses—to create the world's first embodied whole-brain emulation. https://t.co/Psimms60v2

— PoliticsVideoChannel (@politvidchannel) March 9, 2026

“Around the world, people are getting diminished,” Haidt said. “Less intelligent, less happy, less competent. And it’s happening very fast … My argument is that if we continue with current trends as AI is coming in, it’s going to accelerate. The decline of humanity is going to accelerate.”

Haidt is the Thomas Cooley Professor of Ethical Leadership at New York University’s Stern School of Business and the author of the recent bestseller “The Anxious Generation,” which suggests that the widespread adoption of social media in the 2010s has been especially damaging to young women, making them prone to anxiety and depression.

But as Haidt has continued to examine the effects of social media on society, he has started focusing on additional issues. Our inability to put our phones away, our compulsion to check social media, and the way we spend hours a day watching short-form videos, may be causing problems that go far beyond any rise in anxiety and depression.

“It turns out, it’s not the biggest thing,” Haidt said. “There’s something bigger. It is the destruction of the human capacity to pay attention. Because this is affecting most people, including most adults. And if you imagine humanity with 10 to 50 percent of its attentional ability sucked out of it, there’s not much left. We’re not very capable of doing things if we can’t focus or stay on a task for more than 30 seconds.”

Read it all.

More evidence that the global decline in test scores that began after 2012 is linked to the proliferation of smartphones and computers in class: The slide was bigger in countries where students began spending more time on devices (for leisure)https://t.co/HbzevWcG9e pic.twitter.com/7UipvTgZvS

— Jonathan Haidt (@JonHaidt) February 28, 2026

The future shape of the Global Anglican Communion is being debated this week in Abuja, Nigeria. At the GAFCON conference, more than 400 bishops and global leaders are working through the logic of the proposal that could lead to a new Global Anglican Communion — a fellowship grounded in the authority of Scripture and historic Anglican doctrine.

On Day 2 of the conference, Dominic Steele speaks with key leaders including Vaughan Roberts (Oxford), Julian Dobbs (ACNA), and Richard Condie (Tasmania), along with presenters from Uganda, Brazil and Nigeria.

They discuss: • The implications of the Church of England’s current trajectory • The logic behind a reordered global communion

• The mission opportunity for global Anglicans • What this could mean for churches in the UK, North America and Australia

Watch and listen to it all.

Professor Helen King has put forward a private members motion for debate at the Church of England’s General Synod that runs as follows:

‘That this Synod affirm that there are no fundamental objections to being in a committed, faithful, intimate same-sex relationship, and that such a relationship can be entirely compatible with Christian discipleship.’[1]

The Church of England website states that this motion had 161 signatures on 18 February, which is the second largest number of signatures of the four motions listed, and if the number of signatures continues to increase there is the possibility that it could be selected for debate at the General Synod in July.

The language of King’s motion deliberately echoes the language of the motion passed by General Synod in 1975 ‘That this Synod considers that there are no fundamental objections to the ordination of women to the priesthood.’ This motion paved the way to General Synod passing legislation allowing women to be ordained as deacons in 1986, as priests in 1992 and as bishops in 2014. The purpose of King’s motion is an attempt to pave the way in similar fashion for those in same-sex relationships to be allowed to be ordained in the Church of England.

The motion would not in itself make such ordination lawful, but it would provide the basis on which a measure to allow those in same-sex relationships to be ordained could then be brought forward for debate. The argument would go that because General Synod had voted for King’s motion it had established the principle that ‘such a relationship can be entirely compatible with Christian discipleship’ and this would in turn mean that it was entirely compatible with the exercise of ordained ministry.

This being the nature of King’s motion, the question that arises is whether it would be right for members of Synod to vote for it should it be put forward for debate in July. In the remainer of this post I shall set out the two reasons why I think members of Synod should not vote for it.

Read it all.

I have just published a new blog post 'Why faithful Christians should reject Helen King's private member's motion.'https://t.co/bXjhSyRYsT

— Martin Davie (@MartinBDavie) March 2, 2026

Here, Lewis is asserting the importance of stories for communicating truths, and the danger of dismissing them as feigned nonsense. The 1300 years that have passed since the reign of the Pevensie children means that they have once again taken on a mythical status among the inhabitants of Old Narnia. The beasts have no evidence of their existence, nor that of Aslan, but nevertheless they have faithfully passed on the stories through the generations and held fast to the truths they communicate.

Trufflehunter’s assertion of his faith is a kind of creed, which summarises the key tenets of his faith: “I believe in the High King Peter and the rest that reigned at Cair Paravel, as firmly as I believe in Aslan himself.” We might compare this statement of belief with the Apostles’ Creed and its opening statement: “I believe in God the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth.” The tendency for such stories to be dismissed as merely myths or fairy stories, recounting fabulous adventures of fantastical beasts like human beings, is an important reminder of the value of the stories of the Bible for continuing to transmit the Christian faith to new generations in a society where such tales are frequently dismissed.

IT’S not just the stories that are important in passing on the Christian faith: it is also the people. The passage we have considered provides an effective contrast between the transitoriness of humans, and the edifices that they build, and the steadfastness of the badgers.

Where human rulers come and go, badgers remain. 

Read it all.

"Here, Lewis is asserting the importance of stories for communicating truths, and the danger of dismissing them as feigned nonsense."

Our #Lent series continues with a reflection on C. S. Lewis’s Prince Caspian#CSLewis https://t.co/cv1iJSInqG

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) March 1, 2026

Assisted suicide campaigners have repeatedly claimed that just seven Peers have been blocking the Bill by tabling lots of amendments.

A new analysis by Right To Life UK’s Public Affairs team has, however, confirmed that this spin from assisted suicide campaigners paints a deeply misleading picture of the actual situation in the House of Lords.

The analysis shows that nearly 80 Peers have so far tabled or signed amendments highlighting concerns with the Bill and that 131 Peers have either spoken against the Bill or signed amendments raising such concerns during its passage through the Lords.

This is significant because Bill supporters are seemingly attempting to persuade MPs to revive the Bill in the next parliamentary session and force it through using the Parliament Acts, on the basis that a small number of Peers have inappropriately blocked its passage. Our analysis shows this claim to be wholly untrue.

131 is an exceptionally high number of Peers opposing a Bill, particularly one where debates are reserved for Fridays when Peers are often not expected to be in Parliament. It is even more remarkable given that the Bill has not yet completed Committee Stage or reached its Report Stage or Third Reading. In addition to these 131 Peers, it is likely that more Peers will speak out during future sittings and it is known that many more Peers are opposed to the Bill. Others have already spoken out in the media or expressed concerns via written parliamentary questions.

Read it all.

BREAKING: UK Bill to Legalize Assisted Suicide Fails After Massive Opposition https://t.co/rSU7BExTq4 pic.twitter.com/XyZHW46dcu

— LifeNews.com (@LifeNewsHQ) February 26, 2026

Christopher Wild, a lay Anglican, is a former Professor of Molecular Epidemiology at Leeds, with a particular interest in the relationship between environmental and genetic factors in the development of cancer.

Appointed, leaving Leeds, director of the prestigious International Agency for Research on Cancer at Lyon, he is now excellently qualified to give an overview of ethical issues arising from recent developments in genetic science. He does so with commendable clarity: someone useful for the new Archbishop of Canterbury to consult.

He repeatedly emphasises — as others have done, following the late, great Ian Barbour — that (genetic) science can be used for good or ill: “As with so much of genetics, honourable and dishonourable aims run side by side, employing the same tools. This is ‘dual use’ at its most dangerous. While some seek to overcome disease by genetic engineering, others seek to weaponise biology.”

Read it all.

Robin Gill reviews Unravelling DNA: Applying Christian values to a genetic age by Christopher Paul Wild 🧬📚#Bookreview #DNA #churchnews #churchtimes 📖https://t.co/1nTZv19uVi

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) February 25, 2026

Now in similar manner, the Church of England Canon law on Marriage is cast as ‘unjust’ by an appeal to subjective feelings and desires. This is the basic thrust of Thompson’s argument which calls for acceptance of same-sex civil marriage.

Anglican divine Richard Hooker stated unequivocally that human authority in the sphere of law was totally subject to the moral law of scripture.  “Laws human are of force so far forth as they are agreeable to the law of God.”[x]Biblical law must always inform issues of justice, and the 39 Articles of Religion asserts this principle, “… it is not lawful for the Church to ordain anything that is contrary to God’s Word written, neither may it so expound one place of Scripture, that it be repugnant to another.”[xi]

Christ definitely does not embody a law based on democratic human decisions which is in total opposition to God’s holy law. The people’s voice cannot take the place of God’s voice. After all, the people’s voice all too quickly turns into a baying for blood – as in, “Crucify him”^[xii].

Christ as the second Adam[xiii] points us back to the Creator’s original intention for human beings, as described in Genesis. His purpose for human sexuality – to bond a man and a woman in lifelong marriage so that children may be brought up in the knowledge and fear of the Lord[xiv]. Certainly, without knowing the purpose of humanity, we cannot know what justice is.

Read it all.

Is the penny dropping? Is clergy same-sex marriage a step too far for the CofE?https://t.co/81lNU3o0A5

— Anglican Futures (@AnglicanFutures) January 24, 2025