A Christian street preacher prosecuted after criticising Islam is celebrating a win for free speech after his case was thrown out by a judge this week. 

At a hearing at Wolverhampton Crown Court, Mr Recorder G Kelly dismissed the case against Karandeep Mamman, 33, on the grounds that the Crown Prosecution Service had failed to provide any evidence for the charges brought against him.

Mr Mamman was charged under section 28 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 for causing religiously aggravated harassment, alarm and distress after preaching in Walsall town centre on 14 January 2023.

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Mr Mamman said he was surrounded by a group of Muslims who threatened to take him away, beat him up and "cut his throat".https://t.co/t3B6oclWPI

— Christian Concern (@CConcern) March 11, 2025

By March 2025, the pews of America’s churches tell a story of absence. Five years after COVID-19 shuttered sanctuaries, the faithful have not fully returned. Barna Group’s 2023 data revealed that one in three practicing Christians stopped attending during the pandemic’s peak, and while some trickled back, weekly in-person attendance among evangelicals — once exceeding 50% — now hovers near 35–40%, per reasonable extrapolation. Online worship persists, with 15–20% of believers logging in rather than showing up. The decline is not a mere statistic; it is a clarion call — a spiritual and cultural crisis demanding a conservative Christian reckoning. The church, God’s embodied witness, risks fading into a digital mirage unless we reclaim its sacred purpose.

This is no benign adaptation to modernity. Scripture commands us, in Hebrews 10:24–25, to “consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some.” The early church of Acts 2 didn’t stream sermons—they gathered, broke bread, and lived faith face-to-face. Yet today, we’ve traded this divine mandate for the flickering glow of screens, seduced by a culture that prizes convenience over conviction. The pandemic was a catalyst, not the cause; it exposed a pre-existing drift toward a privatized, consumerist Christianity. As conservatives who cherish tradition and truth, we must name this exodus for what it is: a quiet rebellion against God’s design.

The culprits are manifold, woven into the fabric of a society unmoored from biblical moorings. Technology, our pandemic lifeline, has become a gilded cage. By 2025, churches boast polished livestreams — AI-enhanced, no less — offering worship on demand. Pew Research noted in 2022 that 30% of regular attendees shifted online, and many stayed. Why rise early when you can replay the sermon over coffee? This isn’t progress; it’s capitulation to a secular ethos that reduces faith to a commodity. Meanwhile, government overreach lingers in memory — 2020’s lockdown mandates, upheld by courts but decried by conservatives, bred distrust in institutions, including the church. Some still balk at returning, fearing control more than communion.

Younger generations amplify the crisis….

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The Vanishing Flock: Reclaiming the Church in a Post-Pandemic Wilderness https://t.co/NlX5JfUt0D

— 🇺🇸RON BEATY🇺🇸 (@ronbeatyjr) March 13, 2025

The new Interim Dean of Winchester, Canon Roland Riem, has promised transparency and “radical candour” in response to a review, published last week, which identified leadership failings at Winchester Cathedral (News, 3 March).

In a statement read out to the cathedral’s congregation on Sunday, Canon Riem said that the Chapter would publish updates on its response to the review at three-monthly intervals.

Canon Riem, who was previously Vice-Dean of the cathedral, was confirmed as Interim Dean after the Very Revd Catherine Ogle brought forward her planned retirement.

In a statement last week, she apologised on behalf of the Chapter, saying that, although it had to accept “collective responsibility”, as its leader, she had decided to step back immediately (News, 7 March), ahead of her planned retirement.

Read it all.

The new Interim Dean of Winchester, Canon Roland Riem, has promised transparency and “radical candour” in response to a review, published last week, which identified leadership failings at Winchester Cathedralhttps://t.co/GbElq3J8JX

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) March 12, 2025

Diners and drinkers in a popular area of London are leaving more than 100 prayer requests a month after they are invited in by a nearby church for a special evening where they light candles, listen to music and pray.

Congregation members at the Parish of Our Most Holy Redeemer in Clerkenwell, in the Catholic tradition of the Church of England,  head out on a Thursday night every month after Mass with votive candles and lanterns to invite people in the busy Exmouth Market area into the church.

Vicar Fr Christopher Trundle said the Night Light evening, focussed on prayer, contemplation and adoration in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, is attracting up to 150 people, with more than 100 prayer requests left by those visiting.

He said that congregation members go out into the crowds in Exmouth Market to “invite people to encounter the love and beauty of God in Jesus Christ”.

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Diners and drinkers in London are leaving more than 100 prayer requests a month after being invited in by a nearby church to light candles, listen to music and pray as part of a new initiative.

Read more at https://t.co/emJhkN5rdi.

— The Church of England (@churchofengland) March 6, 2025

The Church of England has announced that the Revd Canon Samantha Brazier-Gibbs will take up the role in June.

She will be tasked with engaging younger people, enhancing community support, and increasing church attendance.

Currently, she is the parish priest for three rural churches in the Chelmsford Diocese and leads a team of ministers responsible for 14 parishes around Chipping Ongar.

Read it all.

ANNOUNCED TODAY
The Revd Canon Samantha Brazier-Gibbs has been appointed Archdeacon of Ipswich & Director of Inspiring Ipswich. Samantha is presently Vicar of Blackmore St Laurence and Stondon Massey Ss Peter & Paul with oversight of Fyfield St. Nicholas, diocese of Chelmsford. pic.twitter.com/spox6S1spE

— Rich Henderson (@archdeaconrich) March 9, 2025

In her introduction to your latest book, Jesus Changes Everything, Tish Harrison Warren mentions something many Christians are concerned about: that we live in a post-Christian world. She’s wondering if we actually are living in a pre-Christian world and whether that might not be such a bad place to be. What’s your take on the time in which we live and the opportunities in front of the church?

Well, the mainstream Protestant church is dying. And I don’t think that’s a bad thing. It makes us free. I mean, for some time people argued that the world would go to hell if it were not Christian. That may be the case. But being Christian doesn’t mean you need a Christian America. 

What I think we’re experiencing is the ultimate working out of nihilism, which so often goes with liberalism. Liberalism is the presumption that you should have no story except the story you chose when you had no story.

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In an interview with @Plough’s Charles E. Moore, Stanley Hauerwas meditates on the necessity of the gospel, the politics of the kingdom, and the high demands of sanctification.https://t.co/XI9F2ySH5C

— Christianity Today (@CTmagazine) March 11, 2025

“The Death of the Hired Man” by Robert Frost is an extraordinary poem. In a deceptively simple narrative style, it relates the discussion between a farmer and his wife over whether to offer shelter to the itinerant labourer whose work has been somewhat unsatisfactory in the past.

Silas has arrived at their doorstep, “a miserable sight — and frightening too”. Warren is unwilling to offer him employment again, but Mary’s kind heart won’t allow him to turn away a man who has “nothing to look backward to with pride and nothing to look forward to with hope”. She believes that he has “come home to die”, which feeling gives rise to the well known phrases: “Home is the place where, when you have to go there They have to take you in,” and “I should have called it Something you somehow haven’t to deserve.” Warren is persuaded to offer Silas work in order to keep his pride, but this offer is redundant: Silas, worn out by life and aware of reaching sanctuary at last, has died.

In a strange, lyrical way, this poem sums up the joy and the challenge of the “welcoming church”: the grace-filled obligation to accept in Jesus’s name every person who seeks entry to the worshipping community, no matter who they are or what they might believe. Every church leader, I suspect, secretly prides themselves on their welcoming attitude to stranger and seasoned churchgoer alike, and, if we are occasionally troubled by a feeling that perhaps not everyone feels instantly “at home”, then how easy it is to reassure ourselves that the fault lies, if not with the congregation, then certainly with one or two trickier members of it.

Enter the mystery worshipper….

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In the parish: Sally Welch begins a series on how to ensure parish churches are as welcoming as they would like to behttps://t.co/iDumAsZFGG

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) March 7, 2025

War broke out in August and in September 1914 Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy wrote these words in his parish magazine:

“I cannot say too strongly that I believe every able-bodied man ought to volunteer for service anywhere. Here ought to be no shirking of that duty.”

This from the man who would, before long be writing this, “Waste”:

“Waste of Muscle, waste of Brain,
Waste of Patience, waste of Pain,
Waste of Manhood, waste of Health,
Waste of Beauty, waste of Wealth,
Waste of Blood, and waste of Tears,
Waste of Youth’s most precious years,
Waste of ways the Saints have trod,
Waste of glory, Waste of God–War!”

Read it all.

Delighted to be speaking on Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy at the Wantage Literary Festival on Sunday 21st @wantagelitfest pic.twitter.com/6O9REbmPks

— Linda Parker (@lindamparker56) October 18, 2018

O God, the King of Saints, who didst strengthen thy servants Perpetua, Felicity, and their companions to make a good confession and encourage one another in the time of trial: Grant that we who cherish their blessed memory may share their pure and steadfast faith and win with them the palm of victory; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Today's the feast of St Perpetua and Felicity, by tradition 2nd Century Carthaginian martyrs. They stand either side of St Alban in typical Kempe glass at St Mary, High Pavement, Nottingham. pic.twitter.com/9gS1EOYLDb

— Simon Knott (@SimoninSuffolk) March 7, 2025

The Synod’s failure to vote for such an approach, but to prefer more time to explore the legal and logistical barriers to outsourcing diocesan safeguarding teams while simultaneously creating a new, independent scrutiny body, was, Mr Myer said, “deeply disappointing”.

The decision, he said, “did not follow the recommendation from Professor Jay and many other specialists and professionals, or the preference of many survivors”.

Two separate surveys have suggested that about three-quarters of the victims and survivors questioned supported Professor Jay’s recommendations; but her advice was not supported by all safeguarding professionals.

Jim Gamble, the head of the INEQE Safeguarding Group, which is auditing all Church of England dioceses and cathedrals, was among those to disagree with Professor Jay. In a report published the day before the Synod’s debate, he wrote: “When it comes to delivering effective safeguarding practice — practice that genuinely works and makes a difference — it is most effectively delivered from within, not imposed from without”….

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In a House of Commons debate on Monday evening, MPs criticised the General Synod’s decision last month not to outsource all safeguarding functions immediately to an independent body https://t.co/phh7IAy7FJ

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) March 6, 2025

A review of Winchester Cathedral identified “significant failings in leadership and management”, the Bishop of Winchester, the Rt Revd Philip Mounstephen, said on Monday, when a summary of the review was published.

The Dean, the Very Revd Catherine Ogle, has announced that she will immediately hand over leadership of the cathedral, before her previously announced retirement on 1 May. The Vice-Dean, Canon Roly Riem, is to take charge of implementing the review’s recommendations, many of which, Dean Ogle said, were “already under way”.

In a statement, the Dean apologised on behalf of the Chapter to “everyone who has been hurt by the events of the last few months”. The Chapter, she said, had to accept “collective responsibility”, but, as its leader, she was stepping back.

Bishop Mounstephen said that “no one person is entirely to blame.” He also sought to emphasise that Winchester was not a “failing cathedral”, and that the reviewers had found “much to celebrate”.

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It's difficult to understand exactly what happened at Winchester Cathedral, but review refers to failures of management & a “culture of secrecy, due to a misunderstanding of appropriate confidentiality and the aversion of key individuals to conflict”. https://t.co/E7rFLuvkoG

— Madeleine Davies (@MadsDavies) March 4, 2025

When a mortar round exploded on top of their American-made Bradley infantry fighting vehicle, the Ukrainian soldiers inside were shaken but not terribly worried, having been hardened by artillery shelling over three years of war.

But then the small drones started to swarm.

They targeted the weakest points of the armored Bradley with a deadly precision that mortar fire doesn’t possess. One of the explosive drones struck the hatch right above where the commander was sitting.

“It tore my arm off,” recounted Jr. Sgt. Taras, the 31-year-old commander who, like others, used his first name in accordance with Ukrainian military protocols.

Scrambling for a tourniquet, Sergeant Taras saw that the team’s driver had also been hit, his eye blasted from its socket.

Read it all.

Drones are now responsible for 70% of deaths and casualties in the Ukraine war.

A Thousand Snipers in the Sky: The New War in Ukraine https://t.co/53dQU6uF2q

— Martin Ford (@MFordFuture) March 3, 2025

John and Charles Wesley are among the most notable evangelists who ever lived. As young men, they formed a party which came to be derisively called Methodists, because they methodically set about fulfilling the commands of scripture. In due course they learned that works cannot save, and discovered salvation by faith in Christ. Afterward, they carried that message to all England in sermon and in song. John Wesley is credited with staving off a bloody revolution in England such as occurred in France.

Although the brothers did not set out to establish a church, the Wesleyans and the Methodists are their offspring.

Both preached, both wrote hymns. But John is more noted for his sermons and Charles for his hymns. Here we present two hymns by Charles and a sermon by John.

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Today the Church of England celebrates John and Charles Wesley, Evangelists, Hymn Writers, 1791 and 1788

Image: The Wesleys Conversion window (1924) in Wesley's Chapel, London, via https://t.co/h7sBybQMrR (see ALT) pic.twitter.com/rZa0pUTduM

— The Anglican Church in St Petersburg (@anglicanspb) May 24, 2024

Martin Emil Marty, a notable former Riverside resident, religious historian and retired University of Chicago Divinity School professor, died in his Minneapolis care community on Feb. 25, 2025. He was 97. The family noted the cause of death as “old age,” though his trademark sparkle-in-the-eye and generosity of spirit remained with him to the end. 

In a 2014 column in the Landmark, JoAnne Kosey noted that Marty was returning to Riverside that January to for a Taize Prayer service at St. Mary Parish. He was to offer a personal reflection after the service. 

Kosey wrote, “Those who remember Dr. Marty from his time in Riverside might recall him walking around town, a man with a warm smile greeting those he encountered. Music was also a part of the Marty household with his wife, Harriet, being a musician.” 

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Martin E. Marty, an eminent church historian, prolific chronicler and interpreter of religion and its role in public life, died at the age of 97 on Feb. 25 in a Minneapolis care facility where he spent his final years. https://t.co/V0X86fSuGY pic.twitter.com/tE55asTdJx

— MinistryWatch.com (@MinistryWatch) February 28, 2025

Churches such as Holy Trinity, Brompton (HTB), are better at connecting with younger generations on social media. I would much rather repost HTB’s beautifully curated content, with thought-provoking questions and soothing low-fi beats, than the C of E’s reels about Anglican history or what has been going on as the Synod sits. Recent content has highlighted the goings-on in the House of Laity, which, I think, most of my friends would assume was a new reality-TV show.

Before even getting into debates over the place of liturgy or the finer details of Anglican theology, this is a generation who still struggle with the concept of “sin” and “salvation”. The rhetoric that they remember from religious-studies lessons at school (for many, the only time when they have encountered Christianity) is that of judgement and wrath. In conversations with my friends, church has become synonymous with guilt. It is not seen as a place of community or inclusion, but of ostracism and hypocrisy. As a generation who have come of age during a pandemic and a crippling cost-of-living crisis, we are all too acquainted with the reality of a fallen world. What Gen Z are looking for is a Church that will offer them leaders with integrity and a better plan for the world.

Looking to the Gospels, both Jesus’s leadership and the hope that he offers the world seem very far from the reality of organised Christianity which my generation see in the media. The Church’s reputation in the media is so important because Gen Z church attendance is staggeringly low. They are not sitting in churches or opening the Bible: they are opening Instagram and having their views formed by the snippets of news which they see on their feeds.

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Gen Z are open to faith — but not to the Church of England

When it comes to connecting with younger people, the Church has a communication problem, argues Abigail Kinghttps://t.co/Jj0uukXrGQ

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) February 23, 2025

Ten members of the clergy, including two bishops, could be subject to disciplinary proceedings in connection with the abuse perpetrated by John Smyth, if the President of the Tribunals permits the National Safeguarding Team (NST) to bring complaints under the Clergy Discipline Measure (CDM) out of time.

They include a former Bishop of Durham, the Rt Revd Paul Butler, and Lord Carey, a former Archbishop of Canterbury.

The announcement, made by the NST on Tuesday, concludes a four-stage process considering the actions of clergy named in the Makin review of Smyth’s abuse (News, 5 December 2024). The review culminated in recommendations by a panel; and these were reviewed by an independent barrister.

The Church House statement said that the panel had “considered the safeguarding policies and guidance which were in force at the relevant time, the facts of the particular case, the relevant legal considerations and whether there is sufficient evidence to justify proceedings”. The barrister had concurred with all of the panel’s decisions.

Read it all.

NEW: Ten members of the clergy, incl Lord Carey and Bishop Paul Butler, could be subject to disciplinary proceedings in connection with the abuse perpetrated by John Smyth. I've had a look at the ten, & context for bringing such complaints under the CDMhttps://t.co/6xdMFl6x9v

— Madeleine Davies (@MadsDavies) February 25, 2025

You may listen directly here:

Or you may download it there.

Archbishop Ben Kwashi, Bishop of Jos, General secretary of Gafcon:

Our priorities-

The primacy of scripture
The power of salvation to transform lives
The priority of evangelism and mission pic.twitter.com/0CU803Fxvi

— Gafcon (@GafconGBE) April 17, 2023

“We want to show people what can be done in a small place,” said Priest-in-Charge, the Rev Kay Jones. “So, we started with the church environment being different.”

Inside the building, a legacy provided for LED lighting and thermal boards, helping the church lower its carbon emissions, as well as providing a warm space for the community. “It’s not freezing anymore,” said Kay. “We can have warm-space activities. People like being here.”

And people are connecting with it. An open day to launch the potting shed brought 17 adults and 27 children together. “It was hard to get rid of them at the end,” Kay joked. “It is changing things for small numbers of people,” she added.

“What I’m seeing is people wanting to be part of what we do,” she said. “People are trying different foods grown in the garden, learning how – and what – to recycle in the church’s recycling bins, and crucially, learning where food comes from, helping to reduce their food bills.”

Read it all.

"We want to show people what can be done in a small place."

A church in one of the country’s most deprived areas is bringing people together and helping them with their wellbeing – thanks to the launch of a series of environmental projects.

Read more at https://t.co/Joa7q8MizC.

— The Church of England (@churchofengland) February 21, 2025

Holy Week can sit strangely in the church year. It is the most solemn and significant of times in the church calendar, and yet, to all intents and purposes, ordinary life carries on undisturbed by it. Unlike Christmas, which bursts upon the scene in a riot of tinsel and fairy lights, demanding attention and pulling people in from the streets to enjoy carolling and mince pies, for most of the population, Holy Week passes unnoticed. Only the promise of hot cross buns and free childcare when schools are closed or a few eccentrics walking mournfully round the community on Good Friday may have any impact at all.

How, then, to engage with the non-churchgoing public? How to share the message of sacrificial love — an unpopular theme in today’s “Because I’m worth it”, “Go on, treat yourself” society? Perhaps by using the week to experiment and challenge, to offer services and events that are different from the norm, and to think carefully about all sectors of the community and explore ways in which they might become engaged, even briefly, with the drama of Holy Week and the life-changing effect of its events.

Your community might well be happily settled into a regular rhythm of services. It is to be hoped that the schedule is one that all can manage — ministry team, musicians, volunteers working within their capacity and capability, able to maintain the level of effort and energy required without collapsing with burnout. Nevertheless, we all know the dangers of complacency, of falling into a routine that becomes almost mindless in its familiarity. Holy Week offers an opportunity to try out new things in a way that is manageable (because it is only one week), understandable (it’s a special week), and unrepeatable, if necessary. If something completely new is too challenging or demanding, try and ring the changes with the established patterns, enabling your community to look with fresh eyes on familiar events.

Read it all.

How to engage with the non-churchgoing public

Sally Welch continues her series exploring practical ideas for Lent and Easterhttps://t.co/hUxKr4235W

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) February 18, 2025

The former site of a 24 Hour Fitness gym soon will become a spiritual home for hundreds of Anglican Christians in southwest Fort Worth.

Members of Christ the Redeemer Anglican Church gathered on Feb. 2 for a ceremonial groundbreaking for the congregation’s new place of worship at 5001 Overton Ridge Blvd.

With hard hats, plastic shovels for kids and a disco ball, the ceremony marked the culmination of a 17-year search for a permanent location for the church plant to call home, said the Very Rev. Chris Culpepper, rector of Christ the Redeemer Anglican Church and canon for church planting for the Anglican Diocese of Fort Worth.

“I just told everybody, ‘Bring a shovel because we’re all in this together,’” Culpepper said.

Tony Rutigliano was one of over 200 people who attended the groundbreaking ceremony. He grew up nondenominational and Baptist while his wife grew up in the Western rite Orthodox faith. When searching for a place for the family to worship together, Christ the Redeemer Anglican Church offered a “happy medium,” Rutigliano said.

Read it all.

Melissa Greene, reporter for the Ft. Worth Report, wrote an article about Christ the Redeemer Anglican Church finding a new permanent home. Read it here: https://t.co/OtWbug9eRQ

— ACNA (@The_ACNA) February 19, 2025

What Ilyich faces in the final moment is grace. He is graced with the realization that he needs to offer care. Knowing that the real is compassion is not his accomplishment but is the gift of his son’s presence. We, who would so quickly assist him out of this life, would do so because we can bear with neither grace nor compassion. They ask too much of us for another. 

Because death is not taken from him by “assistance” that offers no real help, Ilyich is graced with realization that death is no more. “Instead of death there was light.” He sees this light and realizes that “death is over . . . there is no more death.” Ilyich’s realization echoes Revelation 21:4 that “death will be no more.” Only a culture that can see death and care for those who are dying can be a culture open to the One who bore all our burdens. Christ’s dying offers us abundant life even in our deaths if we are willing to face them. In his Good Death, death itself dies. Euthanasia denies us a good death because it is the denial of care, the denial of facing death authentically, and the denial of the goodness of life. It is thus the denial of the Author of Life—or of any possible spiritual breakthrough at all.

Each fall for many more years, my students and I will read a novella about a dying, loveless lawyer from Tsarist Russia. We will ask what the real life is and wonder if we are living it. We will consider what love and care look like and whether we live in a culture in which we bear each other’s burdens. To bear those burdens is to face our deaths together. The direction of our culture is increasingly toward “death pods” where we will die alone, because we, like Ivan, have refused to really live together. Resisting such a culture of solitary and uncared for assisted dying will take legislation, but it will also require that we spend some time with Ilyich and try to recover the goodness of a good life and of a good death. Someday I will face death. Someday my students will face it as well. Will we do so in a world detached from reality or attached to it? A culture that dispatches the burdensome or bears their burdens? A culture that offers care or that offers death? The euthanasia of Ilyich would have made impossible his eu thanatos. Our society’s growing practice of euthanasia may well prove to be the denial not only of our good deaths but also of the only real thing, a good life.

Read it all.

Resisting the march of euthanasia will require numerous approaches. I hope this reflection on the good death of Ivan Ilyich contributes in some small way. https://t.co/wOO6VTKdnF

— Terence Sweeney (@TerenceJSweeney) February 19, 2025

In Uganda, during the eight years in the 1970’s when Idi Amin and his men slaughtered probably half a million Ugandans, “We live today and are gone tomorrow” was the common phrase.

We learned that living in danger, when the Lord Jesus is the focus of your life, can be liberating. For one thing, you are no longer imprisoned by your own security, because there is none. So the important security that people sought was to be anchored in God.

As we testified to the safe place we had in Jesus, many people who had been pagan, or were on the fringes of Christianity, flocked to the church or to individuals, asking earnestly, “How do you prepare yourself for death?” Churches all over the country were packed both with members and seekers. This was no comfort to President Amin, who was making wild promises to Libya and other Arab nations that Uganda would soon be a Muslim country. (It is actually 80 per cent Christian)….
It became clear to us through the Scriptures that our resistance was to be that of overcoming evil with good. This included refusing to cooperate with anything that dehumanizes people, but we reaffirmed that we can never be involved in using force or weapons.

…we knew, of course, that the accusation against our beloved brother, Archbishop Janani Luwum, that he was hiding weapons for an armed rebellion, was untrue, a frame-up to justify his murder.

The archbishop’s arrest, and the news of his death, was a blow from the Enemy calculated to send us reeling. That was on February 16, 1977. The truth of the matter is that it boomeranged on Idi Amin himself. Through it he lost respect in the world and, as we see it now, it was the beginning of the end for him.

For us, the effect can best be expressed in the words of the little lady who came to arrange flowers, as she walked through the cathedral with several despondent bishops who were preparing for Archbishop Luwum’s Memorial Service. She said, “This is going to put us twenty times forward, isn’t it?” And as a matter of fact, it did.

More than four thousand people walked, unintimidated, past Idi Amin’s guards to pack St. Paul’s Cathedral in Kampala on February 20. They repeatedly sang the “Martyr’s Song,” which had been sung by the young Ugandan martyrs in 1885. Those young lads had only recently come to know the Lord, but they loved Him so much that they could refuse the evil thing demanded of them by King Mwanga. They died in the flames singing, “Oh that I had wings such as angels have, I would fly away and be with the Lord.” They were given wings, and the singing of those thousands at the Memorial Service had wings too.

–Festo Kivengere, Revolutionary Love, Chapter Nine

Today, we celebrate the life of Archbishop Janani Luwum, a martyr who stood for truth and justice against all odds. ✨

His story is a beacon of hope for Uganda and beyond.🧡 pic.twitter.com/E2tzFgPblB

— Booked! Children's Library (@SoooManyStories) February 16, 2025

O God, whose Son the Good Shepherd laid down his life for the sheep: We give thee thanks for thy faithful shepherd, Janani Luwum, who after his Savior’s example gave up his life for the people of Uganda. Grant us to be so inspired by his witness that we make no peace with oppression, but live as those who are sealed with the cross of Christ, who died and rose again, and now liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.O God, whose Son the Good Shepherd laid down his life for the sheep: We give thee thanks for thy faithful shepherd, Janani Luwum, who after his Savior’s example gave up his life for the people of Uganda. Grant us to be so inspired by his witness that we make no peace with oppression, but live as those who are sealed with the cross of Christ, who died and rose again, and now liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Janani Luwum, Archbishop of Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Boga-Zaire, was killed #onthisday in 1977 after protesting against acts of violence which had been carried out across Uganda.

He is one of ten 20th-century Christian martyrs whose statues stand above the Abbey's West Door.… pic.twitter.com/cIdX4QV0oV

— Westminster Abbey (@wabbey) February 17, 2025

Trends in liturgical revision since the late eighteenth century have moved away from the simplicity of this approach back toward the medieval model of more movable parts and more options in the discretion of the presiding minister. The proliferation of options, rather than being freeing, paradoxically tends toward choice paralysis. ‘Having choices is actually rare in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer’, as Sam Bray and I wrote in How to Use the Book of Common Prayer. ‘Later prayer books have a huge number of choices, making them complicated to use.’ In Morning and Evening Prayer in the 1662 Prayer Book, ‘the only choices you make are about the sentences and the canticles’ and, in both of those cases, the different ‘options serve the same function in the service.’²

The simple, usable design – the commodiousness of the use, as Cranmer put it – reinforces its profitability or usefulness to the praying Christian. A simple structural pattern recurs throughout the Prayer Book: a scripture is read aloud to the assembly and they respond appropriately, in several key places, like the daily confession of sin, by simply doing just what the scripture read aloud says to do. This pattern carries a clear meta-message about the holy scriptures: that they ought to be heard, that their core message is comprehensible, and that they require humble, grateful, obedient response. By scripting the appropriate response – in this case, the confession of sin – the liturgy inculcates its users in a transformative approach to scripture reading that minimizes the risk that God’s word will be profaned.

If reducing options enhances usability then one might conclude that printing a complete service booklet for each unique service, thereby eliminating from view any options that are not used for that particular occasion, is ideal. Moreover, the booklet eliminates the need to flip to proper collect of the day, the Psalms, or look up the scriptures for the day. From the narrow point of view of usability for a novice user in one particular church service, yes, the booklet is better. But the analysis that leads to that conclusion focuses too narrowly on one particular occasion and one particular kind of user – the novice user. But the Prayer Book is not just a manual for ministers planning Sunday morning worship; it has historically served as the rule of life for all Anglicans. Our aim for novice users is not just to facilitate easy participation in one particular service on one particular Sunday, but to draw them into the Prayer Book, to facilitate their familiarity with the Prayer Book and help them discover its value beyond the Sunday morning church service. Printing complete booklets for every service puts us on a trajectory away from those goals in at least three mutually reinforcing ways.

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Explore the viability of the Book of Common Prayer in today’s Anglican Communion. This insightful article by @d_n_keane examines the liturgical and theological richness of this powerful work.https://t.co/cGust1IiG9

— The Anglican Way (@TheAnglicanWay) February 13, 2025

The Anglican Church in Uganda has adopted a series of strategic measures to safeguard its vast tracts of land that are under threat from encroachers.

The church’s initiatives involve venturing into coffee farming to transform unused land into productive agricultural spaces, registering mass tracts of untitled church land, issuing spiritual warnings and pursuing legal action against land grabbers.

The church said the initiatives will safeguard property and contribute to economic growth and social stability — ensuring that church land remains a valuable resource for future generations.

For nearly four decades under President Yoweri Museveni’s National Resistance Movement government, land grabbing has remained a significant challenge, not only for the other sections of society but also for the church. This issue has led to the displacement of thousands of impoverished Ugandans and even the demolition of churches. In 2020, a renowned land grabber demolished 40-year-old St. Peters Church in Ndeeba, in Kampala, sparking outrage among Christians.

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The Anglican Church in Uganda has adopted a series of strategic measures to safeguard its vast tracts of land: transforming unused land into productive agricultural spaces, mass registration of untitled church land, spiritual warnings and legal action.https://t.co/OWkv1YpB5H

— Religion Unplugged (@ReligionMag) February 13, 2025

A suggestion that a “big stick” be deployed by the Archbishops’ Council to ensure that the Lowest Income Communities funding (LINC) reaches the poor parishes for which it was intended was heard by the General Synod on Tuesday.

Delivering an update on the work of the diocesan finances review, the chair of the Archbishops’ Council’s Finance Committee, Carl Hughes, reported that only two-thirds of LINC funding was reaching parishes in the 25 per cent most deprived areas. This was something that he felt “very strongly about”, he said; and a “light-touch” reporting framework was being proposed for dioceses, to “improve transparency and accountability”.

In the ensuing debate, speakers expressed concern about the statistic and the sufficiency of the proposed approach. The Revd Jonathan Macy (Southwark), who chairs the National Estates Churches Network, suggested that the figure was “absolutely shocking. . . You speak of things that are ‘light touch’, and I get why, but would you consider with that light touch an extra option akin to a big wooden stick to ensure that money actually goes to where it should be going?”

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Only two-thirds of Lowest Income Communities Funding is reaching parishes in the 25% most deprived areas – up from 35% when it was launched in 2017. Synod raised concerns about properly holding dioceses to account after "light touch" reporting was proposed https://t.co/ZzBG07XwLz

— Madeleine Davies (@MadsDavies) February 12, 2025