In his first speech on the Senate floor, in November 2015, Sasse essentially gave a lesson on the Constitutional order and on the abject failure of modern-day Congress to assert its authority against the administrative state and the executive branch. It’s a remarkable speech, given only after he’d spent a year in the chamber and spoken with many of his colleagues to understand what was going on. 

No one in this body thinks the Senate is laser-focused on the most pressing issues facing the nation. No one. Some of us lament this fact; some are angered by it; many are resigned to it; some try to dispassionately explain how they think it came to be. But no one disputes it. 

As a result, he also said, “The people despise us all.” 

The point of the Senate’s long terms, Sasse concluded, is to “shield lawmakers from obsession with short-term popularity to enable us to focus on the biggest long-term challenges our people face.” And the character of the chamber matters, he explained, “precisely because it is meant to insulate us from short-termism . . . from opinion fads and the short-term bickering of 24-hour-news-cycles. The Senate was built to focus on the big stuff. The Senate is to be the antidote to sound-bites.”

Read it all.

Former senator Ben Sasse is battling cancer.

Losing him would be one more sign that a certain kind of conservatism—and a certain kind of politics—is disappearing, writes @MikeCosper.https://t.co/5clU0XfODE

— Christianity Today (@CTmagazine) February 20, 2026

those universal values are not what we’re teaching people today. I was recently in Cleveland doing a television show. The audience was composed of students from six different Cleveland high schools. And the students were of different races, ethnicities, socioeconomic backgrounds, and religions. I asked them a question: “If you really wanted a certain item, would you shoplift if you were sure you could get away with it?”

Nearly all those kids said yes. And even the handful who would not shoplift were not prepared to say the others were wrong. Why? Because, they said, everything is a matter of opinion.

The great moral tragedy of our time is that feelings have replaced values. And they shouldn’t. Feelings are beautiful. Feelings are wonderful. It’s good to cry, it’s good to laugh, it’s good to love, it’s good to care, it’s good to have compassion. Feelings are what make us human. But values must always come first.

Hitler felt that Jews should be destroyed. Whites in South Africa felt that apartheid was right, that blacks shouldn’t be allowed to use white bathrooms or white restaurants or go to white businesses or live in white neighborhoods. Feelings cannot determine what is right.

In fact, the Bible repeatedly warns people not to rely on their hearts. If you want to know why so many people reject Bible-based religions, there it is: Most people want to be governed by their feelings and not have anyone—be it God or a book—tell them otherwise.

The battle in America and the rest of the Western world today is between the Bible and the heart.

Read it all.

Dennis Prager: Right and Wrong Are Not a Matter of Personal Opinion https://t.co/a3iSGBzxis

— The Free Press (@TheFP) February 19, 2026

‘There are three ideas currently supported by those in the Church of England who take a liberal approach to marriage and sexual activity (including members of the House of Bishops) and which are being pushed as part of the Prayers of Love and Faith process that cannot rightly be seen as a development of the Church of England’s doctrine…

The first idea is that it would be right to bless same-sex couples who are in a sexually active relationship either in normal church services or in special ‘standalone’ or ‘bespoke’ services.

The reason that this would not be a development of doctrine is that the doctrine of the Church of England, as we have seen, is that all forms of sexual activity outside heterosexual marriage are forms of the sin of fornication which all Christians are called to avoid committing (and for which those Christians who have committed it are called to repent, confess and receive absolution as they would with all other forms of sin). It is not an explanation of the Church’s doctrine on this matter to say that those who continue to be in a relationship involving the sin of fornication should be able to have this relationship blessed by the Church. Rather, saying this would contradict the Church’s doctrine in one of two ways. It would involve saying either (a) that fornication is not a sin or (b) that sin does not need to be met with a call to repentance, confession, absolution and amendment of life but can instead be the object of prayers of blessing.

The second idea is that those who are in same-sex sexual relationships should be admitted to, or allowed to continue to exercise, ordained ministry.

The reason that this would not be a development of doctrine is that the Church of England’s doctrine, as set out in the 1662 Ordinal is that it is an integral part of the calling of those who are ordained to be: ‘diligent to frame and fashion your own selves, and your families, according to the doctrine of Christ; and to make both yourselves and them, as much as in you lieth, wholesome examples and patterns to the flock of Christ.’  It is not an explanation of the Church’s doctrine to say that being in a same-sex sexual relationship is compatible with providing a wholesome example and pattern to the flock of Christ. As in the previous example, it would instead contradict the Church’s doctrine by in this case suggesting either (a) that being in a same-sex sexual relationship is in accordance with ‘the doctrine of Christ’ or (b) that the requirements for ministerial conduct set out in the Ordinal no longer matter.

The third idea is that the Church of England should accept that marriage can rightly be between two people of the same sex as well as two people of the opposite sex. This again would not be an explanation of the Church ‘s doctrine, but rather a contradiction of it. One cannot say both that ‘The Church of England affirms, according to our Lord’s teaching, that marriage is in its nature a union permanent and life-long, for better or worse, till death do them on the part of one man and one woman’ and also say that a relationship between two people of the same-sex is a marriage. The only way one can consistently say that a relationship between two-people of the same-sex is a marriage is if one has a different understanding of the nature of marriage. The idea that a doctrine of marriage that teaches that marriage is between two people of the opposite sex could be ‘spacious’ enough (as the bishops put it) to include same-sex relationships simply does not make sense.

What all this means is that the development of doctrine, rightly understood, rules out rather than permits these innovations which liberals wish to introduce, and which members of the House of Bishops are proposing.

Read it all.

How can we know what God is like and what his will is for our lives? Dr. Martin Davie, author and Anglican theologian, will explain how a careful reading of one of the Thirty-Nine Articles can provide us with answers. Register for this free event at https://t.co/2GO6OL0uPr. pic.twitter.com/Q5GTHbbswA

— Trinity Anglican Seminary (@TASeminary) September 6, 2024

Adults age 65 and older who completed five to six weeks of cognitive speed training — in this case, speed of processing training, which helps people quickly find visual information on a computer screen and handle increasingly complex tasks in a shorter time period — and who had follow-up sessions about one to three years later were less likely to be diagnosed with dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease, up to two decades later, according to new findings published today in Alzheimer’s & Dementia: Translational Research and Clinical Interventions.

This National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded study is the first randomized clinical trial, and only study of its kind, to assess 20-year links with dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease, among adults who participated in the Advanced Cognitive Training for Independent and Vital Elderly (ACTIVE) study. Investigators enrolled 2,802 adults into this study in 1998–99 to assess long-term benefits of participants randomized to three different types of cognitive training — memory, reasoning and speed of processing — in comparison to a control group who received no training. In the three training groups, participants received up to 10 sessions of 60–75 minutes of cognitive training that took place over five to six weeks. Additionally, half of participants were randomized to receive up to four additional cognitive training sessions, or boosters, which took place 11 and 35 months after the initial training.

In this 20-year follow-up study, investigators found that 105 out of 264 (40%) participants in the speed-training group with boosters were diagnosed with dementia, which was a 25% reduced incidence compared to 239 out of 491 (49%) adults in the control arm. This was the only intervention with a statistically significant, or meaningful, difference compared to the control group.

Read it all.

A type of cognitive training that tests people's quick recall seems to reduce the risk of dementia, including Alzheimer's disease https://t.co/1ntw4Q2cgE

— New Scientist (@newscientist) February 12, 2026

A new approach to outsourcing church safeguarding to an independent body was endorsed overwhelmingly by the General Synod on Wednesday afternoon.

Despite some speeches that called for a greater sense of urgency, or urged the Synod to revisit the idea rejected last year of also moving diocesan safeguarding teams to a new external organisation, members overall welcomed the latest thinking on independent safeguarding.

Dame Christine Ryan, the independent chair of the Safeguarding Structures Programme Board, which is piloting this work, said that, after months of conversations and consultation, it had become clear to her that the Church of England was “ready to change” and had a “deep commitment” to doing “what was right”. Nevertheless, actual change was happening far too slowly, she concluded.

Regulators, Parliament, and the public would no longer tolerate incremental improvements, she warned. She had, therefore, drawn up a new model for independent safeguarding which would simplify matters, restore trust, and end the “invidious” situation in which the Church acted as both “pastor and judge” in safeguarding cases.

Read it all.

A new approach to outsourcing #churchsafeguarding to an independent body was endorsed overwhelmingly by the General #Synod on Wednesday afternoon#churchnews #churchtimes https://t.co/hdXsDti9jm

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) February 11, 2026

‘In large corporations and administrations, justification and self-protection have become the primary motive in place of achievement. In this world, intuition is not talked about openly, but relied on surreptitiously.’

–Gerd Gigerenzer, The Intelligence of Intuition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023)

Gerd Gigerenzer:

Why simple rules of thumb often outperform complex models.https://t.co/FrPo8Csqfd

— GuruAnaerobic (@GuruAnaerobic) March 2, 2021

I am not given to sentimental displays of patriotism. I own a Team U.S.A. soccer jersey because I love the sport, but that may be my only apparel featuring the flag. I have been to my fair share of Fourth of July parades and fireworks displays, but I am also familiar with Frederick Douglass’s 1852 speech, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” which was delivered on July 5 to acknowledge those not included in the freedoms celebrated on July 4.

Douglass contrasted the lauding of freedoms won while enslaving large portions of the populace. He said, “The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought light and healing to you has brought stripes and death to me.” This Fourth of July, he said, “is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn.”

Like many of us, I know well our country’s contradictions.

Despite this, I am a sucker for the Olympics. Seeing our athletes decked out in the red, white and blue during the opening ceremony, or witnessing their tears on the podium as the anthem plays, stirs even my heart, almost despite myself. I experience something approaching national pride when my fellow citizens accomplish feats far beyond my ability.

With the Winter Games kicking off, this year feels different. The shame I feel for how our country is treating its citizens — and those who long to be its citizens — is hard to ignore….

Read it all.

I wrote an article about cheering for the USA Olympic team while opposing many of the actions of team MAGA for @nytopinion https://t.co/Tcv0jvHqOY

— Esau McCaulley (@esaumccaulley) February 6, 2026

[Fox] Varian, who adopted the name Fox at 18 and is now 22, is one of thousands of minors who underwent gender-transition surgery over the past decade. And she is just one of the young people who have come to regret permanently addressing what was only a temporary identity shift.

Three years after her mastectomy, Varian stopped identifying as transgender and began a process known as detransitioning. In May 2023, she filed a medical malpractice lawsuit against the two principal Westchester County, New York, care providers who oversaw her gender transition: her longtime psychologist, Kenneth Einhorn, and Dr. Simon Chin, who performed the mastectomy.

On Friday, a jury in White Plains, New York, awarded Varian $2 million in damages. Varian’s case is the first malpractice suit from a detransitioner to go before a jury, and I was the only reporter to attend the entire three-week trial. Represented by personal-injury attorney Adam Deutsch, Varian said she had been injured by the defendants due to their deviation from standard practices and a lack of informed consent. While there are no guarantees in medical malpractice lawsuits, legal experts believe Varian’s victory could inspire a wave of similar cases that would significantly disrupt pediatric gender medicine.

The trial was anchored by emotional testimony from Varian and her mother, Claire Deacon. Varian testified that Einhorn served as an enabler, repeatedly assuring her that the mastectomy she desired would greatly improve her well-being. Deacon testified that Einhorn browbeat her into consenting to her daughter’s surgery, threatening that she would otherwise commit suicide. 

Read it all.

A Legal First That Could Change Gender Medicine by @benryanwriter https://t.co/yAv9DOK6c9

— The Free Press (@TheFP) February 5, 2026

The U.S. birthrate has declined to record lows in recent years, well below population replacement rates. So the news that the vice president and second lady are having a fourth child is welcome—and significant—news indeed, for several reasons.

First, there is a great cultural importance to influential people having more children. Even in local communities, pregnancy can be “contagious” because humans are social animals. When one lives in a career-minded metropolis where couples having only one or two children (if any) is the norm, there can be intense pressure to fit in and focus on careers, nights out, travel, accumulation of goods, and so forth to avoid having children. Conversely, visit any thriving church community and observe how, when large families are the norm, people who join that community are more likely to have more children themselves.

The effect could very well work at scale. When our leaders (from statesmen to idolized celebrities) do not marry and have children, there is a message coming from the top that avoiding children is a behavior to be imitated. So when our most visible leaders make the choice to be open to life and welcome new children, there could be a meaningful cultural effect. JD Vance is the vice president, likely the next Republican candidate for president, and therefore the soon-to-be leader of the post-Trump GOP. Perhaps a public announcement welcoming a fourth child coming from one of the most prominent and powerful people in the country will start to change the cultural norm back to welcoming more children. As Katy Faust said in response to the news, “four is the new two.” 

But there is another important takeaway from the Vance baby announcement. The Vance family draws a stark contrast to what the vice president has long lamented: a disturbing trend of a childless ruling class. 

Read it all.

Goodbye, Childless Elites
by Frank DeVito @therightfrankd https://t.co/SCHzpso7MG pic.twitter.com/5ZZwSCF32C

— First Things (@firstthingsmag) February 3, 2026

The Archbishops’ Council is to award £600,000 to two national charities that provide well-being services to clergy, including counselling and financial grants, it was announced on Monday.

The Clergy Support Trust, which is independent of the Church of England, has been awarded £500,000 for work that supports clergy with their finances, health, and well-being. It is hoped that the new grant will support clergy with everyday expenses such as energy costs, unexpected car repairs, and school-related costs for clergy children, a statement from Church House, Westminster, said.

The Trust also provides other grants and services for clergy, including counselling, coaching, and occupational therapy. A year ago, it received a grant of £2 million from the Archbishops’ Council (News, 7 February 2025), through which more than 7000 grants were provided to more than 2900 households.

“The vast majority of applicants are from serving clergy households in the Church of England,” Church House said.

The Trust has supported more than one fifth of all serving C of E clergy for the past three years. 

Read it all.

The Archbishops’ Council is to award £600,000 to two national charities that provide well-being services to clergy, including counselling and financial grants, it was announced on Monday#churchofengland #clergywellbeing #churchnews #churchtimes https://t.co/zyu8RXD6YK

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) February 3, 2026

Amidst the vast scene of the world’s problems and tragedies you may feel that your own ministry seems so small, so insignificant, so concerned with the trivial. What a tiny difference it can make to the world that you should run a youth club, or preach to a few people in a church, or visit families with seemingly small result. But consider: the glory of Christianity is its claim that small things really matter and that the small company, the very few, the one man, the one woman, the one child are of infinite worth to God. Consider our Lord himself. Amidst a vast world with its vast empires and vast events and tragedies our Lord devoted himself to individual men and women, often giving hours and time to the very few or to the one man or woman. In a country where there were movements and causes which excited the allegiance of many – the Pharisees, the Zealots, the Essenes, and others – our Lord gives many hours to one woman of Samaria, one Nicodemus, one Martha, one Mary, one Lazarus, one Simon Peter, for the infinite worth of the one is the key to the Christian understanding of the many. 

It is to a ministry like that of our Lord himself that you are called. The gospel you preach affects the salvation of the world, and you may help your people to influence the world‘s problems. But you will never be nearer to Christ then in caring for the one man, the one woman, the one child. His authority will be given to you as you do this, and his joy will be yours as well.

—The Christian Priest Today (London: SPCK, Revised edition, 1985), p. 42

“The glory of Christianity is its ability to be utterly profound and yet utterly simple.”

Archbishop Michael Ramsey believed theology wasn’t about impressing—it was about revealing Christ to the world plainly and truthfully.⚓ pic.twitter.com/r3CaZw4hXe

— ⏳ (@TheJGutierrez_) June 17, 2025

We’re abandoning our humanistic core. The elements of our civilization that lift the spirit, nurture empathy and orient the soul now play a diminished role in national life: religious devotion, theology, literature, art, history, philosophy. Many educators decided that because Western powers spawned colonialism — and they did — students in the West should learn nothing about the lineage of their civilization and should thereby be rendered cultural orphans. Activists decided persuasion is a myth and that life is a ruthless power competition between oppressors and oppressed groups. As a result of technological progress and humanistic decay, life has become objectively better but subjectively worse. We have widened personal freedom but utterly failed to help people answer the question of what that freedom is for.

The most grievous cultural wound has been the loss of a shared moral order. We told multiple generations to come up with their own individual values. This privatization of morality burdened people with a task they could not possibly do, leaving them morally inarticulate and unformed. It created a naked public square where there was no broad agreement about what was true, beautiful and good. Without shared standards of right and wrong, it’s impossible to settle disputes; it’s impossible to maintain social cohesion and trust. Every healthy society rests on some shared conception of the sacred — sacred heroes, sacred texts, sacred ideals — and when that goes away, anxiety, atomization and a slow descent toward barbarism are the natural results.

It shouldn’t surprise us that, according to one Harvard survey, 58 percent of college students say they experienced no sense of “purpose or meaning” in their life in the month before being polled. It shouldn’t surprise us that people are so distrusting and demoralized. I’m haunted by an observation that Albert Camus made about his continent 75 years ago: The men of Europe “no longer believe in the things that exist in the world and in living man; the secret of Europe is that it no longer loves life.”

We could use better political leadership, of course, but the crucial question facing America is: How can we reverse this pervasive loss of faith in one another, in our future and in our shared ideals? 

Read it all.

The deepest cultural wound isn’t politics or economics.

It’s the loss of a shared moral order.

When nothing is sacred—no heroes, no texts, no ideals—anxiety rises, people atomize, and barbarism quietly returns.https://t.co/CryYvXJk5x#culture #meaning #morality #trust…

— Art Berman (@aeberman12) February 2, 2026

William Nicholson’s original script will barely be changed in the production at the Aldwych Theatre, which opens next week, apart from updating a story that a character reads from a newspaper. Raised as a Roman Catholic, Mr Nicholson initially had no time for C. S Lewis, sharing his mother’s view that the Narnia author was a “drippy Protty”. But, when his colleage in the BBC’s religious department Norman Stone — filmmaker, Lewis fan, and Christian — suggested creating a television drama about Lewis’s relationship and marriage to an American mother-of-two, Joy Davidman, Mr Nicholson was transfixed by their slow-burn love story.

“I personally connected, as a much younger person — I was 36 at the time — to the whole question of fear of commitment in love, which is maybe more of a male thing, but it was certainly something I was experiencing. I wanted to love and be loved, but was very afraid of committing myself to a full love affair, love relationship, marriage, children.”

Lewis’s loss of his mother at the age of ten probably affected the author’s ability to form close relationships, Mr Nicholson thinks. “When the person who is most central to your life, who gives you your sense of being loved, disappears and leaves you in pain, it’s reasonable to conclude that something closed off at that point, and had to be opened again. I responded to the fear of being made vulnerable by love. I made that one of the central themes, because that related strongly to me. I wasn’t married at the time; so I was able to channel a bit of myself into Lewis, and Lewis into myself.”

Read it all.

"Shadowlands speaks to something deep in all of us about loss, love and loss, and the fear of loss."

The story of C. S. Lewis’s marriage, exploring love, loss, and faith, is back on stage, says @SusanGrayMeets #CSLewis #Shadowlands #grief #theatre https://t.co/ltrjwQftU9

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) January 31, 2026

When Elon Musk was at Davos last week, an interviewer asked him if he thought aging could be reversed. Musk said he hasn’t put much time into the problem but suspects it is “very solvable” and that when scientists discover why we age, it’s going to be something “obvious.”

Not long after, the Harvard professor and life-extension evangelist David Sinclair jumped into the conversation on X to strongly agree with the world’s richest man. “Aging has a relatively simple explanation and is apparently reversible,” wrote Sinclair. “Clinical Trials begin shortly.”

“ER-100?” Musk asked.

“Yes” replied Sinclair.

ER-100 turns out to be the code name of a treatment created by Life Biosciences, a small Boston startup that Sinclair cofounded and which he confirmed today has won FDA approval to proceed with the first targeted attempt at age reversal in human volunteers. 

The company plans to try to treat eye disease with a radical rejuvenation concept called “reprogramming” that has recently attracted hundreds of millions in investment for Silicon Valley firms like Altos Labs, New Limit, and Retro Biosciences, backed by many of the biggest names in tech. 

The technique attempts to restore cells to a healthier state by broadly resetting their epigenetic controls—switches on our genes that determine which are turned on and off.  

Read it all.

The first human test of a rejuvenation method will begin “shortly” https://t.co/oHGyByBoyM

— MIT Technology Review (@techreview) January 27, 2026

Campaigners in favour of medically assisted suicide in England, Scotland and France have apparently suffered setbacks that could ensure the controversial practice never comes into law.

A recent report by The Guardian suggested that the Westminster bill, put forward by Labour’s Kim Leadbeater, will likely never come to a final vote and so will fail by default.

Both sides of the debate have accused the other of using underhand tactics to get their way. Proponents of assisted suicide claim the other side has used procedural delaying tactics in the Lords to ensure the bill never becomes law.

Pro-life campaigners have pointed out that the government, which is officially neutral on the issue, has apparently been favouring the pro-suicide position with its actions. It has also been pointed out that extra scrutiny of a bill that would give state institutions the power of life and death merits additional scrutiny and care.

Labour MP Florence Eshalomi told the Guardian, “Not a single royal college, professional body or cabinet minister will attest to the safety of this bill. Scrutiny should never be conflated with obstruction and it would be reckless for Lords to ignore the concerns of such a wide range of experts.”

Read it all.

(Christian Today) 'Campaigners in favour of medically assisted suicide in #England, #Scotland and #France have apparently suffered setbacks that could ensure the controversial practice never comes into law.

A recent report by The Guardian suggested that the Westminster bill, put…

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) January 27, 2026

Other business includes proposals to outsource Church of England safeguarding to a new independent body, which were approved in principle last February (News, 14 February 2025); but implementing that decision has not been straightforward.

The plan originally approved last year called for the National Safeguarding Team (NST) to be transferred to a new independent charity, and a second outside organisation to be set up to scrutinise all church safeguarding. Diocesan and cathedral safeguarding teams would remain employed by their respective dioceses and cathedrals.

Since, then, however, the working group has concluded that this would require years of ponderous legislative processes. Survivors and others wish to move faster, and so a new model has been drawn up, a Synod paper explains.

One new independent body would be created — provisionally titled the Church of England Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA). It would be overseen by a board, which would have a majority of non-church members.

Read it all.

A new model for quasi-independent #safeguarding is on the General Synod’s agenda next month, as are urban #poverty and the parliamentary ping-pong about the Clergy Conduct Measure#Synod #synodagenda #clergyconduct #churchnews #churchtimes https://t.co/YROYOjEi5M

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) January 26, 2026

there.

“We want to bring about a renewed Anglicanism, but we also want to be in service to the entire church,” The Rev. Jeff Miller shares about ⁦⁦@mereanglicanism⁩ being convened by Anglicans and with Anglican worship, but also drawing thinkers from the broader church. pic.twitter.com/OCXg7EwjQj

— Jeff Walton (@jeffreyhwalton) January 22, 2026

Its advocates cannot be allowed to act as if the Leadbeater Bill is a done deal

“In extreme cases I would be willing to kill a patient to help them escape unbearable suffering, if they had come to that decision after serious consideration,” says a colleague of mine, in the windowless, unventilated cupboard that serves as a doctors’ office, “But there is no way in hell that the NHS can be trusted with such a role.”

Those who deal with life and death each day recognise that giving patients lethal drugs to end their life is active killing, not passive dying. I happen to think that we should not kill ourselves or others. My colleague takes a different view on the principle. But we don’t shy away from what it is we are actually discussing, so our conversation benefits from a lot more clarity than when politicians emotionalised and euphemised to limp Kim Leadbeater’s assisted suicide bill through the Commons.

We discuss the systemic chaos that we see affecting patients every day, and imagine what the effects of introducing a new therapeutic option of being killed would be. US-style privatised medicine has a perverse incentive to keep the patient alive with increasingly extreme and expensive (but ultimately futile) interventions — a quarter of all Americans die in intensive care. 

UK-style socialised medicine has an equal and opposite perverse incentive to reduce the number of patients, especially in times of crisis. And the NHS is broken, as everyone from government to general practice states openly.

Facilitating the suicide of privileged elites who are used to having things their way and see their mode of death as a final opportunity for exercising autonomy is one matter, but if that requires suicide to be offered to all of our patients, including the vulnerable, the lonely, and the abused, the real cost appears to outweigh any idealised benefits. How do we tell a homeless patient with a new metastatic cancer diagnosis that they could wait months for a nursing home placement, or they could be scheduled for an assisted suicide in as little as nine days, without it sounding like a tacit recommendation?

Read it all.

Advocates of assisted dying cannot be allowed to act as if the Leadbeater Bill is a done deal, argues @TradSkowronski https://t.co/YPaIjSA0TL

— The Critic (@TheCriticMag) January 21, 2026

More than 9 out of 10 Alzheimer’s cases could be driven by specific variations in a single gene and the protein it produces, a new study reveals, suggesting that treatments targeting this well-known gene could prevent the disease from developing in the majority of instances.

The gene in question, APOE, has long been associated with Alzheimer’s risk. What’s new here is the way the different variations of the gene have been analysed and mapped against the chances of developing Alzheimer’s. It turns out that the APOE combination we’re born with could be even more important than previously realized.

Researchers led by a team from University College London (UCL) took a fresh look at the three main variations of the APOE gene: ε2 (linked to a protective effect against cognitive decline), ε3 (historically considered the normal or neutral version), and ε4 (already known to significantly increase Alzheimer’s risk).

Read it all.

Nearly all Alzheimer’s, and half of dementia, is driven by APOE.

A new, large-scale analysis reports that up to 93% of Alzheimer’s cases and 85% of brain amyloid burden are attributable to having an APOE ε3/ε4 genotype, and the combined contribution of ε3 and ε4 to all-cause… pic.twitter.com/lbP5NZJ4q7

— Dr. Rhonda Patrick (@foundmyfitness) January 9, 2026

In his book, Why Liberalism Failed, Patrick Deneen noted that many societies that advanced around individual rights and freedom from religious constraints ended up with less happy people. He famously writes, “Among the greatest challenges facing humanity is the ability to survive progress.” 

Andrew Sullivan, in an article entitled “The World Is better Than Ever: Why Are We Miserable?” adds: ‘As we have slowly and surely attained more progress, we have lost something that undergirds all of it: meaning, cohesion, and a different, deeper kind of happiness than the satiation of all our earthly needs.’

–From a December 14, 2025 sermon

10. What statement about friendship can be more sublime, more true, more valuable than this: it has been proved that friendship must begin in Christ, continue with Christ, and be perfected by Christ. Come, now: propose what in your opinion should be the first question about friendship.

IVO. I think we should first discuss what friendship is, lest we appear to be painting on a void, not knowing what should guide and organize our talk.

11. AELRED. Is Cicero’s definition not an adequate beginning for you? “Friendship is agreement in things human and divine, with good will and charity.”

12. IVO. If his definition suffices for you, it’s good enough for me.

–Aelred of Rievaulx Spiritual Friendship I.10-12 (Lawrence C. Braceland, tr., Marsha L. Dutton ed., Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 2010), p.57

12th January – St. Aelred of Rievaulx.

A talented author, theologian, preacher and diplomat, Aelred rose to become abbot of Rievaulx between 1147 and his death in 1167. He wrote a book on Spiritual Friendship in which he shared that God was pure reciprocity. pic.twitter.com/0bPfn8hLtK

— Ninefold Kyrie (@Gda1238) January 12, 2026

His solution consisted, first, in experiencing them. The god-man suffers too, with patience. Evil and death can no longer be entirely imputed to him since he suffers and dies. The night on Golgotha is so important in the history of man only because, in its shadows, the divinity, ostensibly abandoning its traditional privileges, lived through to the end, despair included, the agony of death. Thus is explained the Lama sabachthani and the frightful doubt of Christ in agony.

–Albert Camus, Essais [Paris: Gallimard, 1965], E.T. p. 144, quoted by yours truly in the Sunday sermon

"I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year."
– Charles Dickens pic.twitter.com/a2h1Djta2C

— gregorio catarino (@gregcatarino1) December 21, 2025

..[Jesus of Nazareth] was not a kind of demon pretending to be human; he was in every respect a genuine living man. He was not merely a man so good as to be “like God”–he was God.

Now, this is not just a pious commonplace: it is not a commonplace at all. For what it means is this, among other things: that for whatever reason God chose to make man as he is limited and suffering and subject to sorrows and death he [God] had the honesty and courage to take his own medicine. Whatever game he is playing with his creation, he has kept his own rules and played fair. He can exact nothing from man that he has not exacted from himself. He has himself gone through the whole of human experience, from the trivial irritations of family life and the cramping restrictions of hard work and lack of money to the worst horrors of pain and humiliation, defeat, despair, and death. When he was a man, he played the man. He was born in poverty and died in disgrace and thought it well worthwhile.

—Creed or Chaos? (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company,1949), page 4 (with special thanks to blog reader and friend WW)

The Nativity #Nativity
BL Yates Thompson 2; The Ottobeuren Collectar'; Germany, S. (Ottobeuren); 12th century; f.57v@BLMedieval pic.twitter.com/mrNGISDFqq

— Ennius (@red_loeb) December 24, 2025

The standard sperm-meets-egg story posits that sperm cells are hardly more than bundles of shrink-wrapped DNA with tails. Their mission is simple: Deliver a father’s genes into a mother’s egg for sexual reproduction. Just about all other aspects of a developing embryo, including its cellular and environmental components, have nothing to do with dad. Those all come from mom.

But nearly two decades of studies from multiple independent labs threaten to rewrite that story. They suggest that dad’s gametes shuttle more than DNA: Within a sperm’s minuscule head are stowaway molecules, which enter the egg and convey information about the father’s fitness, such as diet, exercise habits and stress levels, to his offspring. These non-DNA transfers may influence genomic activity that boots up during and after fertilization, exerting some control over the embryo’s development and influencing the adult they will become.

The findings, so far largely described in mouse models, could end up changing the way we think about heredity. They suggest “that what we do in this life affects the next generation,” said Qi Chen(opens a new tab), a reproductive and developmental biologist at the University of Utah Medical School who is among the pioneers of this research. In other words: What a father eats, drinks, inhales, is stressed by or otherwise experiences in the weeks and months before he conceives a child might be encoded in molecules, packaged into his sperm cells and transmitted to his future kid. The researchers have largely zeroed in on RNA molecules, those short-lived copies of DNA that reflect genetic activity at a given time.

Read it all.

Growing evidence in mouse models suggests that non-DNA sperm molecules can pass along a dad’s condition at the time of conception. Researchers are working to understand how this occurs, and if it occurs in humans.@ivan_amato reports: https://t.co/6fc0bgO0M5

— Quanta Magazine (@QuantaMagazine) December 22, 2025

It is not my habit to comment on the contents of sermons in this blog. However, the Dean of St Edmundsbury, The Very Reverend Joe Hawes, used his sermon at St Edmundsbury Cathedral last Sunday to comment on the Living in Love and Faith process[1] and it seemed to me to be important not to let the points he made about this subject go unchallenged.

The Dean makes five points in relation to the LLF process, and I shall consider each of them in turn.

The first point he makes is that he feels able to affirm:

‘… with heartfelt certainty, that although I get it wrong pretty regularly and need to hearken to the Baptist’s cry to repent, who I am in my creation, is essentially what God intended. That I am not an aberration, a mistake on God’s part, but, like all of you, a gift from God, and trying in my life, to be a gift back to God through loving service.’

The question that this statement raises is who the Dean thinks God created him to be. If he means that his creation as a male human being made in the image and likeness of God is willed by God and is ‘very good’ (Genesis 1:31), I don’t think that there is anybody in the Church of England, even those who the Dean calls ‘hard line fundamentalists,’ who would disagree with him.

If, however, what the Dean means is that he was created by God to be a gay man then there would be many who would rightly disagree with him. This because, to quote Sean Doherty (who is himself same-sex attracted):

‘God did not create straight women, straight men, gay women and gay men. God created two sexes, with the capacity to relate to one another sexually.’ [2]

This truth is taught in the creation accounts in Genesis 1 and 2 and, as Paul notes in Romans 1:26-27, it is also taught by nature in the sense that the observation of human biology teaches us that human beings have bodies that are designed to engage into the kind of ‘one flesh’ sexual union with a member of the opposite sex that has the capacity to produce offspring.

In the light of this truth the Pauline teaching that same-sex sexual attraction and the same-sex sexual activity that results from it are a result of the Fall makes perfect sense. If human beings are created to have sex with members of the opposite sex, it follows that desires and actions that are contrary to this must be seen not as a reflection of God’s original creative intention, but as a result of the distortion of the created order consequent upon demonic and human rebellion against God.

Read it all.

I have just published a new blog post, 'Why the cupboard is bare – a response to the reflections of the Dean of St Edmundsbury'https://t.co/fzxq2YZ4wr

— Martin Davie (@MartinBDavie) December 13, 2025

Corporate America’s latest hot job is also one of the oldest in history: storyteller.

Some companies want a media relations manager by a slightly flashier name. Others need people to produce blogs, podcasts, case studies and more types of branded content to attract customers, investors and potential recruits. All seem to use the word differently than in its usual application to novelists, playwrights and raconteurs.

“As storytellers,” a Google job ad said last month, “we play an integral role in driving customer acquisition and long-term growth.”

The listing sought a customer storytelling manager to join the company’s Google Cloud storytelling team. One article the unit published this year was titled, “Lowe’s innovation: How Vertex AI helps create interactive shopping experiences.”

Microsoft’s security organization meanwhile is recruiting a senior director overseeing narrative and storytelling, described as part cybersecurity technologist, part communicator and part marketer. Compliance technology firm Vanta this month began hiring for a head of storytelling, offering a salary of up to $274,000. Productivity app Notion recently merged its communications, social media and influencer functions into one 10-person, so-called storytelling team.

Read it all.

The hot new job at tech companies is leading "storytelling."

The term doubled on LinkedIn job posts in the U.S since last year. The WSJ writes:

"Compliance technology firm Vanta this month began hiring for a head of storytelling, offering a salary of up to $274,000."… pic.twitter.com/TQzUXPwl8g

— Natalie Sportelli (@N_Sportelli) December 15, 2025

 “Where among our bishops, are those with the courage to act from love?” the Dean of Bristol, the Very Revd Mandy Ford, asked on Sunday, as the House of Bishops prepares to finalise decisions on the Living in Love and Faith (LLF) process.

She joined the Dean of St Edmundsbury, the Very Revd Joe Hawes, who — alongside organisations campaigning for greater inclusivity for LGBTQ+ people — last week called on the Bishops to change their minds (News, 11 December).

On Tuesday, the Bishops are due to confirm decisions announced in October, which would effectively forestall the introduction of stand-alone services of blessing for same-sex couples and maintain the current ban on clergy entering same-sex civil marriages (News, 17 October).

Read it all.

Temperature rises ahead of Bishops’ formal vote to put the brakes on same-sex marriage https://t.co/Wjh3LQN2up

— Simon Sarmiento (@simonsarmiento) December 15, 2025

More than a thousand people gathered at Bondi Beach in Sydney on December 14th, the first night of Hannukah, to watch the lighting of a menorah. Children wearing face paint crowded a petting zoo. Families held balloons and bubble wands. Yet as the sun began to dip, two men dressed in black and wielding long-barrelled firearms shot into the crowd from positions just outside the beach-side park where the event was taking place. They murdered at least 15 people and injured dozens more, including two police officers.

Anthony Albanese, Australia’s prime minister, confirmed the massacre was a “targeted attack on Jewish Australians”. He labelled the attack “a terrorist incident”; that designation gives authorities additional powers to question and detain suspects. The dead include Eli Schlanger, a prominent local rabbi and the organiser of the event.

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MORE THAN a thousand people gathered at Bondi Beach in Sydney on December 14th, the first night of Hannukah, to watch the lighting of a menorah. Children wearing face paint crowded a petting zoo. Families held balloons and bubble wands. Yet as the sun began to dip, two men dressed in black and wielding long-barrelled firearms shot into the crowd from positions just outside the beach-side park where the event was taking place. They murdered at least 15 people and injured dozens more, including two police officers.

Anthony Albanese, Australia’s prime minister, confirmed the massacre was a “targeted attack on Jewish Australians”. He labelled the attack “a terrorist incident”; that designation gives authorities additional powers to question and detain suspects. The dead include Eli Schlanger, a prominent local rabbi and the organiser of the event.

The attack is one of the worst shootings in modern Australian history, even if the final toll will take some days to come clear. And but for the immense courage of bystanders, it might have been even more lethal. One video shows a man in a white T-shirt creeping up on one of the gunmen from behind a car, then wrestling the attacker’s rifle away from him. “That man is a genuine hero,” said Chris Minns, the premier of New South Wales. “I’ve got no doubt that there are many, many people alive tonight as a result of his bravery.”

Read it all.

The attack is one of the worst shootings in modern Australian history, even if the final toll will take some days to come clear. And but for the immense courage of bystanders, it might have been even more lethal https://t.co/3PxXmMvLYN

Photo: AFP via Getty Images pic.twitter.com/OpyEkjiKcn

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) December 14, 2025

“But the man who is not afraid to admit everything that he sees to be wrong with himself, and yet recognizes that he may be the object of God’s love precisely because of his shortcomings, can begin to be sincere. His sincerity is based on confidence, not in his own illusions about himself, but in the endless, unfailing mercy of God.”

—No Man Is an Island (New York: Houghton Mifflin 2002 paper ed. of 1953 original), p.202

Dec 10 – “Thomas Merton” © icon by Br. Robert Lentz, OFM. Happy Memorial Day Thomas!#thomasmerton #trinitystores

Get your Saint of the Day – LIKE our FB Page – https://t.co/E6Hk8Ph3AChttps://t.co/I1znabZE0v pic.twitter.com/FkjcPqWcYP

— The Trinity Crew (@trinityiconsguy) December 11, 2025

The House of Bishops will make a final decision on the future of standalone same-sex blessings when it meets again on December 16 but Bishop Philip Mounstephen said the theological and legal advice made clear that any changes will need to be “done properly according to the norms of our governance”.

Addressing a recent meeting of the Winchester Diocesan Synod, Bishop Philip Mounstephen said that questions over how such changes could be made without changing the official doctrine of the Church of England – which upholds marriage between a man and woman – proved to be “the game changer”. 

He said the theological and legal advice had brought the House of Bishops “face to face with the sheer constitutional difficulty of making such changes”.

Read it all.

The Bishop of Winchester has defended the recent decision of the House of Bishops to pause plans to introduce standalone same-sex blessing services https://t.co/OD99QBXeo5 #anglican #bishops #anthropology #parishministry #ethics #21stc #pastoralpractice #doctrine

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) December 8, 2025