Daily Archives: September 29, 2025

(Church Times) New Westminster Declaration on Christianity in public life encompasses education, gender, and AI

A declaration that “Christian truth and values” belong at the heart of public life in the UK has been launched in the hope that it will attract 100,000 signatures and trigger a debate in Parliament.

The 2025 Westminster Declaration, launched last week, argues for the importance of heterosexual marriage and the “complementarity of men and women”. It also offers warnings about “cancel culture” and artificial intelligence (AI) unchecked by moral reflection.

“By ignoring Britain’s Christian heritage we have endangered human life, weakened society, and created a fragmented nation uncoupled from its formative traditions, and without a unifying vision for its future,” the declaration says.

On marriage, which it defines as being between a man a woman, the declaration calls for a rejection of “ideologies which weaken family ties by falsely claiming that other types of relationship are of equivalent value to marriage”.

Read it all.

Posted in Anthropology, England / UK, Ethics / Moral Theology, Politics in General, Religion & Culture, Science & Technology

A front page article from yesterday’s NY Times about the nearly intractable problem of homelessness in America–To Get People Off the Street, He Pays for a One-Way Ticket Home

‘[John] Alle handed a flier to a man from San Antonio, who said he couldn’t possibly go home, because that’s where militants had been conspiring to control him and spying on him through tiny holes in the walls. A woman waiting outside a day shelter said she might be willing to go back home to Oklahoma, or maybe it was North Carolina, or wait — maybe it was Tennessee. But first she needed to shower, because it had been three weeks since the last time she bathed.

“Do you think we can help her?” Gibson asked. “Too entrenched,” Alle said. “She needs more than a bus ticket.”

Read it all.

Posted in * Culture-Watch, City Government, Drugs/Drug Addiction, Ethics / Moral Theology, Politics in General, Poverty, Urban/City Life and Issues

(CT) John Huffman, Evangelical Presbyterian Pastor, RIP

“I thought I was heading into oblivion,” he said. “It was scary—and exciting.” 

Huffman thrived in Florida, though, getting an opportunity to minister not only to the president but also to an island of young professionals who wanted to grow in their faith and a rotating cast of powerful people spending time on Florida’s beaches and golf courses.

He was careful to “just preach the gospel,” he said, regardless of who was in church, and to remember he was preaching to everyone, not just the most powerful person in the room. 

“There may have been someone else in the congregation who needed to hear what I said more than the president,” he said. “You’re there to serve the Lord. That’s the important part. Let the chips fall where they may.”

The year after Huffman told Nixon to confess, he accepted a call to be pastor at First Presbyterian Church in downtown Pittsburgh, a prestigious pulpit at a respected and historic congregation. Decision magazine did a photo essay on the church while Huffman was there, naming it “one of the great churches in America.” 

Read it all.

Posted in America/U.S.A., Church History, Death / Burial / Funerals, Ministry of the Ordained, Presbyterian, Religion & Culture

Prayers for the Anglican Diocese of South Carolina this week

Posted in * Anglican - Episcopal, * South Carolina, Parish Ministry, Spirituality/Prayer

A Prayer for the Feast Day of Saint Michael and All Angels

O everlasting God, who hast ordained and constituted the ministries of angels and men in a wonderful order: Mercifully grant that, as thy holy angels always serve and worship thee in heaven, so by thy appointment they may help and defend us on earth; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Posted in * Christian Life / Church Life, Church Year / Liturgical Seasons, Spirituality/Prayer

A prayer to begin the day from the ACNA Prayerbook

O merciful Lord, grant to your faithful people pardon and peace, that we may be cleansed from all our sins and serve you with a quiet mind; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Posted in Spirituality/Prayer

From the Morning Bible Readings

Now concerning the unmarried, I have no command of the Lord, but I give my opinion as one who by the Lord’s mercy is trustworthy. I think that in view of the present distress it is well for a person to remain as he is. Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be free. Are you free from a wife? Do not seek marriage. But if you marry, you do not sin, and if a girl marries she does not sin. Yet those who marry will have worldly troubles, and I would spare you that. I mean, brethren, the appointed time has grown very short; from now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no goods, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the form of this world is passing away.

–1 Corinthians 7:25-31

Posted in Theology: Scripture