‘Believers, look up—take courage. The angels are nearer than you think. For after all (as we have already noted), God has given “his angels charge of you, to guard you in all your ways. On their hands they will bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone” (Psalm 91:11–12 RSV)’.

–Billy Graham, Angels: God’s Secret Agents (New York: Doubleday, 1975)

For #Michaelmas – the feast of St Michael and All Angels – we wanted to share this censing angel on the wall of the Abbey's south transept. Carved in the 1250s, it was originally richly coloured and gilded and is among the most important examples of English medieval sculpture of… pic.twitter.com/jMzzYZlOKv

— Westminster Abbey (@wabbey) September 29, 2026

Hear the word of the LORD, O people of Israel; for the LORD has a controversy with the inhabitants of the land. There is no faithfulness or kindness, and no knowledge of God in the land; there is swearing, lying, killing, stealing, and committing adultery; they break all bounds and murder follows murder. Therefore the land mourns, and all who dwell in it languish, and also the beasts of the field, and the birds of the air; and even the fish of the sea are taken away. Yet let no one contend, and let none accuse, for with you is my contention, O priest. You shall stumble by day, the prophet also shall stumble with you by night; and I will destroy your mother. My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you have rejected knowledge, I reject you from being a priest to me. And since you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children. The more they increased, the more they sinned against me; I will change their glory into shame. They feed on the sin of my people; they are greedy for their iniquity. And it shall be like people, like priest; I will punish them for their ways, and requite them for their deeds. They shall eat, but not be satisfied; they shall play the harlot, but not multiply; because they have forsaken the LORD to cherish harlotry.

–Hosea 4:1-10

Beautiful 😍 Autumn in Engerdal 🍁🍂 Photo Hilde Haugen Nordgård #Norway #nature pic.twitter.com/mlPL2bCS1W

— Elusive Moose (@elusive_moose) September 29, 2026

The Rector of St Helen’s, Bishopsgate, in London, the Revd William Taylor, has characterised the bishops of the Church of England as “false teachers” and “clear heretics”, in a sermon published on YouTube last week.

Speaking at St Helen’s on 10 September, Mr Taylor said that it was “quite simply impossible to fathom how a person could get consecrated by a group of bishops who are engaged in any way with the LLF process to move it forward” or remain “in any sense in spiritual fellowship” with them.

He took as his text Titus 3, focusing on St Paul’s injunction to “Warn a divisive person once, and then warn them a second time. After that, have nothing to do with them.”

“How can you possibly be allowing somebody who is in fellowship with unfaithful, clear heretics to select your future leaders, to train your new church workers, ordain your new deacons and presbyters, and install your new incumbents?” Mr Taylor said.

Read it all.

City of London churches sever ties with bishopshttps://t.co/xTTRIs8g9B via @ChurchTimes

— Glenna Demeter (@Glennademeter) September 25, 2026

Since the rise of psychology as a scientific discipline in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, there has been no lack of Christian discourse about psychological studies and theories. Christians have vigorously opposed, assiduously incorporated, or fought for compromises with the fast-growing cultural juggernaut that therapy represents, but even the most strident anti-therapy messages have been and are still the other half of a Rorschach blot: defined in opposition to the dominant message. Resistance to therapy culture is not futile, but some assimilation is inevitable.

The greatest danger that therapy culture poses to churches today is not that we will trade out our doctrines wholesale, but that we will define those doctrines only in terms that therapy culture finds acceptable. The best way forward, then, is to tell a story truer than the one on offer from our cultural mythmakers.

In this story, sin is not merely our “brokenness” or “messiness,” but it is the inescapable inclination to hurt ourselves and others by violating the laws that a holy God taught us so that we might live in peace. Our deliverance does not come through conspicuous consumption, rejecting moral strictures, or unvarnished asceticism, but through trusting in the power of Jesus’s death and resurrection. We are not helpless victims understanding ourselves through diagnoses, but we are transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit to live free of sin and imitate Christ. A therapeutic culture full of people living to be pleased will falter when compared to a body of believers who live as if sin truly is a deadly illness they have been healed from and hell is a real place they’ve been saved from.

Read it all.

What happens when the language of therapy becomes the language through which Christians understand sin, suffering, and human flourishing? In this piece, Matthew Loftus examines how modern psychology has shaped Christian thinking about the self, and argues that the Church’s task… pic.twitter.com/4xD2u3QFF0

— First Things (@firstthingsmag) September 28, 2026

And from Miletus he sent to Ephesus and called to him the elders of the church. And when they came to him, he said to them:

“You yourselves know how I lived among you all the time from the first day that I set foot in Asia, serving the Lord with all humility and with tears and with trials which befell me through the plots of the Jews; how I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you in public and from house to house, testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance to God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. And now, behold, I am going to Jerusalem, bound in the Spirit, not knowing what shall befall me there; except that the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and afflictions await me.
But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may accomplish my course and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. And now, behold, I know that all you among whom I have gone preaching the kingdom will see my face no more. Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all of you, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God. Take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God which he obtained with the blood of his own Son. I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish every one with tears. And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified. I coveted no one’s silver or gold or apparel. You yourselves know that these hands ministered to my necessities, and to those who were with me. In all things I have shown you that by so toiling one must help the weak, remembering the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, ”˜It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”

And when he had spoken thus, he knelt down and prayed with them all. And they all wept and embraced Paul and kissed him, sorrowing most of all because of the word he had spoken, that they should see his face no more. And they brought him to the ship.

–Acts 20:17-38

7am Sunrise – Skye Bridge, Kyleakin, Isle of Skye #Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 pic.twitter.com/klBxRZIiHQ

— James MacInnes (@Macinnesplant) September 28, 2026

Almighty God, who gavest thy servant Lancelot Andrewes the gift of thy holy Spirit and made him a man of prayer and a faithful pastor of thy people: Perfect in us what is lacking of thy gifts, of faith, to increase it, of hope, to establish it, of love, to kindle it, that we may live in the life of thy grace and glory; through Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the same Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

This Day marks the 400th anniversary of the death of Lancelot Andrewes (25 Sept, 1626), bishop of Winchester, classical scholar, and theologian.

Read about his life, and reassessments of his legacy over the four centuries on #ODNB: https://t.co/IWeIHiQsd1 pic.twitter.com/Z1VK8PdAal

— Oxford Academic (@OUPAcademic) September 25, 2026

The word of the Lord that came to Hose′a the son of Be-e′ri, in the days of Uzzi′ah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezeki′ah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jerobo′am the son of Jo′ash, king of Israel.

When the Lord first spoke through Hose′a, the Lord said to Hose′a, “Go, take to yourself a wife of harlotry and have children of harlotry, for the land commits great harlotry by forsaking the Lord.” So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Dibla′im, and she conceived and bore him a son.

And the Lord said to him, “Call his name Jezreel; for yet a little while, and I will punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel. And on that day, I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel.”

She conceived again and bore a daughter. And the Lord said to him, “Call her name Not pitied, for I will no more have pity on the house of Israel, to forgive them at all. But I will have pity on the house of Judah, and I will deliver them by the Lord their God; I will not deliver them by bow, nor by sword, nor by war, nor by horses, nor by horsemen.”

When she had weaned Not pitied, she conceived and bore a son. And the Lord said, “Call his name Not my people, for you are not my people and I am not your God.”

Yet the number of the people of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, which can be neither measured nor numbered; and in the place where it was said to them, “You are not my people,” it shall be said to them, “Sons of the living God.” And the people of Judah and the people of Israel shall be gathered together, and they shall appoint for themselves one head; and they shall go up from the land, for great shall be the day of Jezreel.

Say to your brother, “My people,” and to your sister, “She has obtained pity.”

–Hosea 1:1-2:1

Early on Saturday morning in the heart of the Lake District.#Faeryland #Grasmere #LakeDistrict #loveukweather #Tranquility @StormHour @ThePhotoHour pic.twitter.com/AIz8T2vbqD

— Faeryland Grasmere (@faerymere) September 26, 2026

I once witnessed a theatre director giving notes to a cast of actors preparing to perform on stage. She said to them: “Imagine, just before you go on, that you’ve forgotten all your lines, forgotten the whole play, forgotten all the work you’ve put into rehearsals and preparation. Forget it all, and then step into the light, into the story.”

But forgetting presupposes the memory you are to forget. For the actor, the truth of their performance arises out of this process of remembering and forgetting. And then you step into the light, into the story. . .

I want to say this is truth reclaimed for meaning, truth as meaning. In John’s Gospel, Jesus says: “For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice” (18.37) So, the actor’s truth and the Christian’s truth are alike in this respect: it is something we come to belong to; it is how we live our part.

Rather than the truth being raw, or coherent with other truth statements, or somehow correspondent with reality out there, the truth is a memory of an encounter with meaning, something to which we can belong and which re-members us in turn. In short, it’s personal. More, it’s a Person.

Whether or not you try to record this truth on paper is ultimately immaterial. But you must record it in your heart.

Read it all.

‘The love we share at Christmas is a refuge. It replenishes our depleted batteries and allows us to go out again into the world’: The 2023 Country Life Christmas message, by Revd Colin Heber-Percy https://t.co/Vedsc9ywQX pic.twitter.com/97trNbTmlt

— Country Life (@Countrylifemag) December 25, 2023

Dost thou work wonders for the dead? Do the shades rise up to praise thee?…Is thy steadfast love declared in the grave, or thy faithfulness in Abaddon? Are thy wonders known in the darkness, or thy saving help in the land of forgetfulness?

–Psalm 88:10-12

An absolutely stunning sunrise enjoyed by the @Cambridge_Uni CUBC women at training on the river Great Ouse in Ely, this Friday morning. 🧡🌅🧡#Sunrise #cambridge #LovEly #Rowing #Boatrace #TheFens — in Ely. pic.twitter.com/tAq5zFrY61

— Veronica in the Fens 🧚🏼‍♀️ My Heart in Nature (@VeronicaJoPo) September 25, 2026

Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

It is with renewed hope and deep gratitude to our Lord Jesus Christ that I announce to you that the Anglican Church in North America’s College of Bishops have sentenced Bishop Edgar to a censure with no accompanying pastoral admonition. There are no restrictions to his exercise of his episcopal office and, this action puts to rest the official  response of the Province to the [shared eucharist and] Chapel dedication at Porter-Gaud. Thank you for your prayers and concerns for Bishop Edgar. We now return our hearts and focus to the Gospel mission that is our primary calling.

Faithfully,

Shay +

The Very Rev. Shay Gaillard
President Standing Committee   

Reminder to all that the ACNA College of Bishops begins its meeting today, where they will decide how to sentence both Bp Chip Edgar (who consented to discipline) and Bp Derek Jones (who was convicted last month and has made no appeal): https://t.co/BOy9Ukki3r

— Arlie Coles (@ArlieColes) September 21, 2026

The College of Bishops of the Anglican Church in North America deposed Derek Jones from the Sacred Ministry on September 23, 2026.

This is in response to his guilt of four canonical charges against him, as determined by the Court for the Trial of a Bishop. The facts now established show that over a period of many years he has offended against God and the Body of Christ through acts of wickedness, cruelty, and abuse of power against chaplains with limited recourse.

The pain and destruction to these chaplains and their families is loathsome, and we are deeply ashamed and lament that members of this body who knew about this behavior neither urgently nor robustly addressed concerns and complaints regarding Mr. Jones.

Having read the affidavits and victim statements, we commit to continual prayer for victims known and unknown, pleading for God’s healing and hope. We also commit as a College to do everything in our power to address these injustices.

While we understand that we are unable to fully expunge the pain, destruction, and despair inflicted upon the lives of those who suffered, the College is undertaking a process by which chaplains may obtain canonical and pastoral restoration.

As part of our collective repentance, we recognize the culture of our College must change and we are seeking to understand how this abuse was allowed to happen.

Finally, the goal of disciplining a bishop is to protect the sheep and to invite the fallen shepherd to repent. Let us all fix our eyes on Christ Jesus the Good Shepherd under whose authority and care we all stand.

ACNA News: The College of Bishops has deposed Derek Jones, former chaplaincy bishop, from the ministry. "… we are deeply ashamed and lament that members of this body who knew about [his] behavior neither urgently nor robustly addressed concerns and complaints regarding [him]." pic.twitter.com/bf4kDRoymY

— Arlie Coles (@ArlieColes) September 24, 2026

And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee, and a report concerning him went out through all the surrounding country. And he taught in their synagogues, being glorified by all.

And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up; and he went to the synagogue, as his custom was, on the sabbath day. And he stood up to read; and there was given to him the book of the prophet Isaiah. He opened the book and found the place where it was written,

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovering of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”

And he closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant, and sat down; and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” And all spoke well of him, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth; and they said, “Is not this Joseph’s son?” And he said to them, “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, ‘Physician, heal yourself; what we have heard you did at Caper′na-um, do here also in your own country.’” And he said, “Truly, I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in his own country. But in truth, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Eli′jah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when there came a great famine over all the land; and Eli′jah was sent to none of them but only to Zar′ephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow. And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Eli′sha; and none of them was cleansed, but only Na′aman the Syrian.” When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath. And they rose up and put him out of the city, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their city was built, that they might throw him down headlong. But passing through the midst of them he went away.

–Luke 4:14-30

🍂 Autumn colours are starting to arrive across the Dales, and this border collie definitely understood the assignment. 🐾🧡#YorkshireDales #Autumn #UpperWensleydale pic.twitter.com/nfn8w5ChdI

— Yorkshire Dales National Park (@yorkshire_dales) September 24, 2026

As many atheist philosophers (such as the eminent John Gray) have noted, the New Atheists’ philosophical arguments were never very good. Moreover, their arguments seemed strangely anachronistic following many of the great scientific discoveries of the 20th century.

Consider first modern cosmology. Cosmologists have discovered that the universe, contrary to the expectations of those who long portrayed it as eternal, probably had a beginning. Multiple lines of evidence from observational astronomy support this conclusion. Developments in theoretical physics (such as the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin theorem, which states that any universe that is expanding – as ours is – cannot be infinite in the past), also back it up.

Nobel laureate Arno Penzias, who helped make a key discovery supporting the Big Bang theory, noted the obvious connection between its affirmation of a cosmic beginning and the concept of divine creation. “The best data we have are exactly what I would have predicted, had I nothing to go on but the five books of Moses…[and] the Bible as a whole,” he wrote in 1978.

Atheist physicists Lawrence Krauss and Stephen Hawking claimed to explain the beginning of the universe from “nothing”, but their “nothing” turned out to be a set of mathematical laws that allegedly pre-existed (or existed independently of) the material universe. But maths has no causal power. Mathematical equations are inherently conceptual. Thus, the attempt to circumvent the problem of the beginning with what was called “quantum cosmology” led inexorably back to the need for a pre-existing mind.

Second, physicists have discovered that we live in a kind of “Goldilocks universe”. In other words, the fundamental laws and parameters of physics are finely tuned against all odds to make a life-friendly universe.

Read it all.

Who wrote the digital code?

"Discoveries in molecular biology have revealed digital code in even the simplest living cells. Francis Crick and James Watson elucidated the structure of the DNA molecule in 1953. Crick then developed his famed “sequence hypothesis”. He proposed that… pic.twitter.com/itAlWDyGN2

— Nancy Pearcey (@NancyRPearcey) September 23, 2026

On that night the king could not sleep; and he gave orders to bring the book of memorable deeds, the chronicles, and they were read before the king. And it was found written how Mor′decai had told about Bigthana and Teresh, two of the king’s eunuchs, who guarded the threshold, and who had sought to lay hands upon King Ahasu-e′rus. And the king said, “What honor or dignity has been bestowed on Mor′decai for this?” The king’s servants who attended him said, “Nothing has been done for him.” And the king said, “Who is in the court?” Now Haman had just entered the outer court of the king’s palace to speak to the king about having Mor′decai hanged on the gallows that he had prepared for him. So the king’s servants told him, “Haman is there, standing in the court.” And the king said, “Let him come in.” So Haman came in, and the king said to him, “What shall be done to the man whom the king delights to honor?” And Haman said to himself, “Whom would the king delight to honor more than me?” And Haman said to the king, “For the man whom the king delights to honor, let royal robes be brought, which the king has worn, and the horse which the king has ridden, and on whose head a royal crown is set; and let the robes and the horse be handed over to one of the king’s most noble princes; let him array the man whom the king delights to honor, and let him conduct the man on horseback through the open square of the city, proclaiming before him: ‘Thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delights to honor.’” Then the king said to Haman, “Make haste, take the robes and the horse, as you have said, and do so to Mor′decai the Jew who sits at the king’s gate. Leave out nothing that you have mentioned.” So Haman took the robes and the horse, and he arrayed Mor′decai and made him ride through the open square of the city, proclaiming, “Thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delights to honor.”

Then Mor′decai returned to the king’s gate. But Haman hurried to his house, mourning and with his head covered. And Haman told his wife Zeresh and all his friends everything that had befallen him. Then his wise men and his wife Zeresh said to him, “If Mor′decai, before whom you have begun to fall, is of the Jewish people, you will not prevail against him but will surely fall before him.”

While they were yet talking with him, the king’s eunuchs arrived and brought Haman in haste to the banquet that Esther had prepared.

–Esther 6:1-14

Het grijs maakt plaats voor zonneschijn. Fijne woensdag😀 #zonsopkomst #reflectie pic.twitter.com/nllUMjcDDV

— Tjark Dieterman (@DietermanTjark) September 23, 2026

As part of those concrete steps to rebuilding trust, I hope that the CoB is considering these questions:

What is the plan for releasing the Lathrop report? This report examines the Provincial Office’s handling of the disciplinary process for Bp. Stewart Ruch, and its publication (with appropriate redactions) would increase transparency and display a desire for accountability. (Additionally, thoughtful preparation will avoid the problems that plagued the release of the Husch-Blackwell report during the investigation into Bp. Ruch.)

Will the transcripts of the Ruch trial be released? Given the many irregularities in that trial, making the transcripts available would show that the province is willing to be transparent about its own processes.

Will the College release the presentment against Bishop Edgar? As of now, we do not know what charges were brought against Bp. Edgar, nor who brought them, which shrouds the disciplinary process in secrecy and veils potential conflicts of interest on the part of the presenting bishops.

As the province transitions to the new disciplinary process outlined in the recently passed revisions to Title IV of the canons, how specifically does the province intend to care for reporters and whistleblowers? What are the protections against retaliation for those who raise concerns?

What specific steps will the province take to rebuild trust after the Wood trial concludes? Regardless of the outcome, the ACNA must grapple with how to move forward and demonstrate its commitment to caring for reporters and keeping the disciplinary process transparent….

What message does it send to the province that a presentment could be filed so swiftly against Bp. Chip Edgar for blessing a school chapel [as I have noted elsewhere this is NOT the heart of the issue it is participation in and reception of the Eucharist] alongside an Episcopal priest, while it took significantly longer—and much persistence from reporters—for presentments to be filed against Bps. Ruch, Jones, and Wood?

Read it all.

Today on Substack, we’re naming questions we hope the College of Bishops addresses as it convenes this week. Which questions would you prioritize?https://t.co/dFw7dfdeys

— anglicanrenewal (@anglicanrenewal) September 21, 2026

On the third day Esther put on her royal robes and stood in the inner court of the king’s palace, opposite the king’s hall. The king was sitting on his royal throne inside the palace opposite the entrance to the palace; and when the king saw Queen Esther standing in the court, she found favor in his sight and he held out to Esther the golden scepter that was in his hand. Then Esther approached and touched the top of the scepter. And the king said to her, “What is it, Queen Esther? What is your request? It shall be given you, even to the half of my kingdom.” And Esther said, “If it please the king, let the king and Haman come this day to a dinner that I have prepared for the king.” Then said the king, “Bring Haman quickly, that we may do as Esther desires.” So the king and Haman came to the dinner that Esther had prepared. And as they were drinking wine, the king said to Esther, “What is your petition? It shall be granted you. And what is your request? Even to the half of my kingdom, it shall be fulfilled.” But Esther said, “My petition and my request is: If I have found favor in the sight of the king, and if it please the king to grant my petition and fulfil my request, let the king and Haman come tomorrow to the dinner which I will prepare for them, and tomorrow I will do as the king has said.”

And Haman went out that day joyful and glad of heart. But when Haman saw Mor′decai in the king’s gate, that he neither rose nor trembled before him, he was filled with wrath against Mor′decai. Nevertheless Haman restrained himself, and went home; and he sent and fetched his friends and his wife Zeresh. And Haman recounted to them the splendor of his riches, the number of his sons, all the promotions with which the king had honored him, and how he had advanced him above the princes and the servants of the king. And Haman added, “Even Queen Esther let no one come with the king to the banquet she prepared but myself. And tomorrow also I am invited by her together with the king. Yet all this does me no good, so long as I see Mor′decai the Jew sitting at the king’s gate.” Then his wife Zeresh and all his friends said to him, “Let a gallows fifty cubits high be made, and in the morning tell the king to have Mor′decai hanged upon it; then go merrily with the king to the dinner.” This counsel pleased Haman, and he had the gallows made.

–Esther 5:1-14

there’s more to the effect of our modern screen life on our reading habits than merely the choice between glass and paper. The personal computers of the 1980s gave us word processing, making the typewriter obsolete; the early internet of the 1990s gave us email (I remember thinking that this was reviving the lost art of letter writing that had been killed by the telephone); and by the turn of the century the bounty promised by the web looked truly impressive: digitized books and primary sources for research, online journals, a proliferation of news and commentary. (Yes, also the logorrhea of early blog culture, now reappearing on Substack.) Then came the smartphone, the jazziest (though not the first) being the iPhone, debuting in 2007. Now in the hands of billons worldwide, these devices have fundamentally changed our daily lives, for good and for ill. They are designed to seize and keep our attention, to amuse us endlessly with ever-changing stimuli, and to lure us into an in-the-cloud world that contains much of the human race’s knowledge yet also makes us dumber. As Wolf writes: 

No self-respecting internal review board at any university would allow a researcher to do what our culture has already done with no adjudication or previous evidence: introduce a complete, quasi-addictive set of attention-compelling devices without knowing the possible side effects and ramifications for the subjects (our kids). 

What we are all experiencing—and Wolf confesses her personal struggle to return to deep reading of books—are “decreasing attention spans, pushed beyond their cognitive limits by a flotsam of distractions and information that will never become knowledge.” 

Convinced that consistent, attentive reading is essential for the development of both our reason and our compassion, Wolf is worried about the effects of our contemporary screens on our capacity for self-government. This is even more explicitly the concern of British writer James Marriott, a journalist at The Times. Marriott’s The New Dark Ages: The Death of Reading and the Dawn of the Post-Literate Society has been out for a few weeks in the UK, and is soon to be published here in the U.S. (This one, dear reader, I acquired on paper from the publisher.) 

Marriott is a worried man, and he works hard not to be too alarmist—to use his indoor voice, as it were. But The New Dark Ages, which I hope will be widely read, is a brief, brisk, and persuasive book about the damage our screen life is doing to our social and political life. He puts the matter starkly in his introduction: “As reading fades I believe that we may find ourselves facing a post-literate future that resembles the pre-literate past: mystical, tribal, and autocratic.” We fill our eyes (and now increasingly our ears, too) not with the pages of books or even with the extended narratives and arguments to be found in newspapers and magazines, but instead with TikTok and YouTube videos, podcasts, X memes, Instagram posts, and Reddit rants.  

Read it all.

“As reading fades I believe that we may find ourselves facing a post-literate future that resembles the pre-literate past: mystical, tribal, and autocratic.”https://t.co/1igjBHxPox

— Jordan J. Ballor (@JordanBallor) September 21, 2026

We thank thee, heavenly Father, for the witness of thine apostle and evangelist Matthew to the Gospel of thy Son our Savior; and we pray that, after his example, we may with ready wills and hearts obey the calling of our Lord to follow him; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

Today is the Feast of St. Matthew. Jesus called him from life as a tax collector to be an Apostle.

(The Call of St. Matthew, by Caravaggio) pic.twitter.com/vUuiB7BcVs

— Christian Culture (@Christian8Pics) September 21, 2017

When Esther’s maids and her eunuchs came and told her, the queen was deeply distressed; she sent garments to clothe Mor′decai, so that he might take off his sackcloth, but he would not accept them. Then Esther called for Hathach, one of the king’s eunuchs, who had been appointed to attend her, and ordered him to go to Mor′decai to learn what this was and why it was. Hathach went out to Mor′decai in the open square of the city in front of the king’s gate, and Mor′decai told him all that had happened to him, and the exact sum of money that Haman had promised to pay into the king’s treasuries for the destruction of the Jews. Mor′decai also gave him a copy of the written decree issued in Susa for their destruction, that he might show it to Esther and explain it to her and charge her to go to the king to make supplication to him and entreat him for her people. And Hathach went and told Esther what Mor′decai had said. Then Esther spoke to Hathach and gave him a message for Mor′decai, saying, “All the king’s servants and the people of the king’s provinces know that if any man or woman goes to the king inside the inner court without being called, there is but one law; all alike are to be put to death, except the one to whom the king holds out the golden scepter that he may live. And I have not been called to come in to the king these thirty days.” And they told Mor′decai what Esther had said. Then Mor′decai told them to return answer to Esther, “Think not that in the king’s palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. For if you keep silence at such a time as this, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another quarter, but you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” Then Esther told them to reply to Mor′decai, “Go, gather all the Jews to be found in Susa, and hold a fast on my behalf, and neither eat nor drink for three days, night or day. I and my maids will also fast as you do. Then I will go to the king, though it is against the law; and if I perish, I perish.” Mor′decai then went away and did everything as Esther had ordered him.

–Esther 4:4-17

Purple skies sunrise through the trees at Armadale, Isle of Skye #Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 @ThePhotoHour @StormHour @VisitScotland @BBCHighlands pic.twitter.com/neQrlS161J

— James MacInnes (@Macinnesplant) September 21, 2026

Know this, my beloved brethren. Let every man be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger, for the anger of man does not work the righteousness of God. Therefore put away all filthiness and rank growth of wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if any one is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who observes his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But he who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer that forgets but a doer that acts, he shall be blessed in his doing.

If any one thinks he is religious, and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this man’s religion is vain. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

–James 1:19-27

Einen wunderschönen Sonntagsmorgen 😊

📸 Obernbergersee (gelegen in einem kleinen Seitental des Wipptales) pic.twitter.com/lboiXZ9OCK

— Renate Umundum (@RUmundum) September 20, 2026

So Paul, standing in the middle of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along, and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all men life and breath and everything. And he made from one every nation of men to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their habitation, that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel after him and find him. Yet he is not far from each one of us, for

‘In him we live and move and have our being’;

as even some of your poets have said,

‘For we are indeed his offspring.’

Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the Deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, a representation by the art and imagination of man. The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all men everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all men by raising him from the dead.”

Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked; but others said, “We will hear you again about this.” So Paul went out from among them. But some men joined him and believed, among them Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them.

–Acts 17:16-34

Morning everyone I hope you are well. Earlier in the week and looking into the "Jaws of Borrowdale". Have a great day.#lakedistrict pic.twitter.com/rZbgGagDHj

— Rod Hutchinson (@lakesrhino) September 19, 2026

Lambeth Palace said on Thursday that it had withdrawn an interfaith award given to a Muslim cleric by the Archbishop of Canterbury last week (News,18 September).

Hafiz Muhammad Tahir Mehmood Ashrafi was given the Hubert Walter Award for Reconciliation and Interfaith Cooperation last Friday — 11 September — for his “outstanding work as an ambassador of interfaith harmony in Pakistan”. He was described in the citation as a “prominent Muslim scholar and religious leader in Pakistan, known for his unwavering commitment to promoting religious tolerance and interfaith harmony”.

The Church Times understands that Mr Ashrafi’s nomination was made before Archbishop Mullally’s time in office.

Photos of Mr Ashrafi receiving the award from the Archbishop next to his wife wearing the niqab attracted attention after being published on social media on Tuesday. On Wednesday, Nick Timothy, the Conservative MP for West Suffolk, began publishing links to previous comments made by Mr Ashrafi.

Read it all.

Lambeth Palace said on Thursday that it had withdrawn an interfaith award given to a Muslim cleric by the Archbishop of Canterbury last weekhttps://t.co/GYqfoUtH6o

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) September 18, 2026

Today, Trinity Anglican Seminary announced the launch of Holy Order, a new podcast exploring how Scripture and the Anglican tradition—in all its richness and depth, both catholic and reformed—forms Christians for faithful living in a disordered age. Though produced by the seminary, the show is not about Trinity itself. Rather, it extends the seminary’s teaching ministry beyond the classroom, making the formative riches of Scripture and the Anglican tradition more accesible to the wider Church and the world at a time when many are seeking a deeper, more rooted faith.

Hosted by the Very Rev. Dr. Bryan Hollon, Dean and President of Trinity Anglican Seminary, and Cooper Nye, Director of Executive and Academic Communications, Holy Order offers thoughtful conversations on theology, culture, history, and the Christian life through the lens of the Anglican tradition. Each episode stays true to the name of the show by connecting timeless Christian wisdom with the questions and challenges of the present day, bringing listeners from a problem–a point of confusion or disorder–toward clarity and order. 

“Holy Order reflects Trinity’s deepest commitments: to forming leaders for mission, being rooted in scripture, serving the Church, and creating lifelong learners,” Hollon said. “We see it as a teaching ministry, and our hope is that these conversations serve not only clergy and seminary students, nor Anglicans alone, but anyone seeking to deepen their faith and follow Christ.”

Hollon added: “I am convinced that Anglicanism is a really good way to be a Christian. I love the riches of our tradition, and I believe they are precisely what so many are searching for today. My hope is that Holy Order will introduce some to the Christian faith and help others go deeper in it.” 

Read it all.

Trinity Anglican Seminary’s new podcast extends our teaching ministry beyond the classroom, exploring how Scripture and the Anglican tradition can bring clarity and order to the questions and challenges of our disordered age.

Listen and subscribe: https://t.co/79I9NEm3tw

— Trinity Anglican Seminary (@TASeminary) September 9, 2026

Mr. Kramer doesn’t shy away from pointing the finger at Germany’s newer demographic sources of antisemitism, even as he cites the latest official figures, which show right-wing extremism as the single largest identifiable source of antisemitic crime. In 2024, he says, 48.4% of antisemitic offenses were classified as right-wing, compared with 31.1% as fueled by “foreign ideology” and 11% by “religious ideology.” He stresses that “antisemitism linked to Islamist and anti-Israel milieus has risen sharply since Oct. 7 and is now a major part of the threat picture.”

And so, 25 years after it opened, Berlin’s Jewish Museum must face up to an existential challenge. It’s no longer enough to “explain Jewish culture to Germans from a Jewish perspective,” as Ms. Berg describes the institution’s founding mission. It must adapt to—and push back against—a spate of ugliness and violence in Germany that flows from sources old and new, from a resurgent right that many believe is nostalgic for a Nazi past and from an arriviste cohort of Islamist Jew-haters who teem in Germany’s cities.

“We cannot ever be complacent,” Ms. Berg says, as she navigates the barriers outside her buildings, each bollard proof of how hard it is for a German Jew to live in peace.

Read it all.

Fun Fact: Daniel Libeskind, who designed the Jewish Museum Berlin, and the National Holocaust Momument in Ottawa, is the uncle of Canada's NDP leader, @avilewis. https://t.co/edrdD9AwDz

— Phil Pothen 🇨🇦 he/him (@pothen) September 9, 2026

On the seventh day, when the heart of the king was merry with wine, he commanded Mehu′man, Biztha, Harbo′na, Bigtha and Abag′tha, Zethar and Carkas, the seven eunuchs who served King Ahasu-e′rus as chamberlains, to bring Queen Vashti before the king with her royal crown, in order to show the peoples and the princes her beauty; for she was fair to behold. But Queen Vashti refused to come at the king’s command conveyed by the eunuchs. At this the king was enraged, and his anger burned within him.

Then the king said to the wise men who knew the times—for this was the king’s procedure toward all who were versed in law and judgment, the men next to him being Carshe′na, Shethar, Adma′tha, Tarshish, Meres, Marse′na, and Memu′can, the seven princes of Persia and Media, who saw the king’s face, and sat first in the kingdom—: “According to the law, what is to be done to Queen Vashti, because she has not performed the command of King Ahasu-e′rus conveyed by the eunuchs?” Then Memu′can said in presence of the king and the princes, “Not only to the king has Queen Vashti done wrong, but also to all the princes and all the peoples who are in all the provinces of King Ahasu-e′rus. For this deed of the queen will be made known to all women, causing them to look with contempt upon their husbands, since they will say, ‘King Ahasu-e′rus commanded Queen Vashti to be brought before him, and she did not come.’ This very day the ladies of Persia and Media who have heard of the queen’s behavior will be telling it to all the king’s princes, and there will be contempt and wrath in plenty. If it please the king, let a royal order go forth from him, and let it be written among the laws of the Persians and the Medes so that it may not be altered, that Vashti is to come no more before King Ahasu-e′rus; and let the king give her royal position to another who is better than she.

–Esther 1:10-19

September is a month of mists and soft light, when the countryside feels as if it's breathing and slowing again after the rush and flutter of summer. It's always a pleasure to walk along the lanes as the dawn shines through the trees on quiet mornings.

📍 Peak District, England pic.twitter.com/1G0HwfwFZi

— peaklass (@peaklass1) September 18, 2026

Did it not trouble her conscience that, as the beneficiary of several generations’ work invested in female emancipation, which have culminated with her being the very first woman to hold the Archbishopric of Canterbury, she gave a tacit endorsement to those who would be contemptuous of women holding any such exalted office in church or state?

Did she not think, being the beneficiary of these hard-won liberties, that she should be at pains to advocate for them fearlessly, rather than turning a blind eye when others are denied them?

Perhaps she forgot the Christian insistence on the inalienable dignity of all humans, made as they are in the image of God, which runs so strongly through scripture that – for the modern Church of England – it outdoes even St Paul’s demand that women should remain covered and silent in church. Or the dignity of women in the Christian story – the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mary Magdalene, the women who first discovered the Resurrection. How could she appear at such ease when other women around her are denied the respect due to their dignity?

This whole affair leaves serious questions for Lambeth Palace to answer. If none of these questions came to the Archbishop’s mind, then she must answer for her naïveté, and her advisers must explain why she was put in this position.

Read it all.

New @Telegraph I've written on the fiasco of Sarah Mullally and the award to bin Laden supporter Tahir Ashrafi. Gift access in next post… pic.twitter.com/UWjNYmEBNv

— BijanOmrani (@BijanOmrani) September 17, 2026

In December, Edward Hughes and Louis Kirsch, two of the world’s leading artificial intelligence researchers, left Google. Their goal: to build an A.I. system smart enough to build a better A.I. system.

At their new London start-up, Inherent, they now spend their days working alongside a prototype called Faraday. Named for the 19th-century English physicist Michael Faraday, it gathers mountains of data capturing the daily activities of Dr. Hughes, Dr. Kirsch and Inherent’s other researchers: emails, instant messages, meeting transcripts and their ongoing chats with Faraday itself. The company then uses this data to build a better version of Faraday.

“Faraday has access to everything that goes on at the company,” Dr. Hughes said. “We want to give it data describing the process we go through, to discover something.”

Though Inherent pledges to keep humans involved in this elaborate process, many other companies are building similar technology, and some leading researchers believe A.I. systems will eventually be powerful enough to improve themselves with little or no help from human developers — a mind-bending goal that computer scientists call recursive self-improvement, or R.S.I.

Two Silicon Valley start-ups — each valued at $4 billion — are proudly pursuing this dream, and leading labs like OpenAI and Anthropic are chasing it too. They hope to accelerate the development of artificial intelligence that discovers drugs, creates new materials, speeds other forms of scientific discovery and, one day, surpasses human intelligence in practically every way.

Read it all.

The Liftoff Scenario That Terrifies A.I. Doomsayers: “Recursive self-improvement” is the idea that artificial intelligence could learn to build & train itself, creating exponential new progress — & risk (NYT) https://t.co/y5RXO0VbEu

— Candice Rose (@CandiceRose) September 16, 2026

“But where shall wisdom be found?
And where is the place of understanding?
Man does not know the way to it,
and it is not found in the land of the living.

–Job 28:12-13

Good morning from Ely 🧡
A little bit of colour at sunrise, before the drizzle 🌧️ started. pic.twitter.com/mDBjviVotp

— Veronica in the Fens 🧚🏼‍♀️ My Heart in Nature (@VeronicaJoPo) September 17, 2026

As we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners much gain by soothsaying. She followed Paul and us, crying, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to you the way of salvation.” And this she did for many days. But Paul was annoyed, and turned and said to the spirit, “I charge you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And it came out that very hour.

But when her owners saw that their hope of gain was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the market place before the rulers; and when they had brought them to the magistrates they said, “These men are Jews and they are disturbing our city. They advocate customs which it is not lawful for us Romans to accept or practice.” The crowd joined in attacking them; and the magistrates tore the garments off them and gave orders to beat them with rods. And when they had inflicted many blows upon them, they threw them into prison, charging the jailer to keep them safely. Having received this charge, he put them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks.

–Acts 16:16-24

Wishing you a wonderful Wednesday from Skinningrove, North Yorkshire 😊 pic.twitter.com/yxG1BCJMY0

— Nicky (@NickyJohnsonNY) September 16, 2026

In its latest (fourth) report on AI “misuse”—more essential reading—Anthropic revealed that its most popular models (Claude Haiku, Sonnet, and Opus) are being, or have recently been, misused by a variety of Generative Threat Groups (GTGs) in “seven harm areas: cyber operations, influence operations, surveillance, scams and fraud, biological misuse, conventional weapons development, and distillation.” In each case, AI was making bad human behavior much more effective, until Anthropic spotted what was going on.

The interesting thing is who out there is up to no good. GTG-20006 (Anthropic gives each case a number) was the inevitable Russians, “attacking military intelligence targets in Ukrainian and European governments as well as diplomatic and defense organizations and individuals connected to U.S. foreign policy.” Putin and his little green men have been doing this kind of thing for years, of course. But AI makes the mobile exploitation kit, the credential-stealing tool, and the phishing platform all work better and faster as well as helping evade detection.

I have long shared the view articulated by Gregory Conti, a professor of politics at Princeton, that “even if AI does not end life on Earth, it will destroy our way of life”.…..To understand why Conti is right, you need to grasp the four forces inexorably driving p(Doom) upward above 10 percent: Recursive self-improvement, The unscrupulousness of Sam Altman, The complete confusion in Washington, The utter cynicism in Beijing.

Read it all.

Niall Ferguson: AIpocalypse Now
It’s not just the next 9/11, enabled by AI, that is coming. It’s the next global financial crisis. It’s the next pandemic. It might even be the next world war. What, if anything, can we do about it? https://t.co/DRLqpVxqKF

— Juan Carlos Zapata S. (@jczapata_s) September 14, 2026