A sermon is not “an op-ed for a newspaper”, the former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Williams has said. “You are not just there to comment on current affairs, and I am always rather wary when I hear a sermon which is dominated by what’s in the media to the extent that you are not quite sure whether anything more than a general moral perspective is coming out of it.”

He offered the comments in a new podcast, Preaching Well, launched by the Bishop of Loughborough, the Rt Revd Saju Muthalaly, who said that he had created it because “the Church urgently needs voices who can speak God’s truth with clarity, mercy, and conviction.” He hoped that it would “build confidence in preachers and encourage those who long to proclaim the gospel in ways that stir hope, deepen faith, and lead us towards Jesus Christ”.

Lord Williams is the first guest in the new series. Sermons should help the congregation to “look more clearly at the nature of the God that has addressed us”, he said. “Then bits of the contemporary jigsaw begin to fall into place a bit more. . . If that’s the kind of God we believe in, then there are some reactions and engagements with the world around us that will make sense and some that won’t.”

A sermon “prompts people, encourages people, to a certain level of self-awareness”, he said, “so that somebody might go out from listening to sermon and be able to say not just ‘I have never thought of that,’ but ‘I have never seen that in myself.’”

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A sermon is not “an op-ed for a newspaper”, the former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Williams has said. He offered the comments in a new podcast, Preaching Well, launched by the Bishop of Loughborough, the Rt Revd Saju Muthalaly 🎧#Sermon #RowanWilliams https://t.co/8RKZylcfyb

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) February 26, 2026

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In 1973 a club of Arab petrostates held the world to ransom by halting crude-oil exports to countries they accused of supporting Israel. Petrol prices soared; Western economies buckled. Today the danger is that China will use its grip on other natural resources to achieve its aims, such as seizing Taiwan. It has already shown its power by choking off exports of rare-earth metals last year. That is why America is staging its biggest intervention in commodity markets in decades.

The battleground is the supply of “critical” metals, a group of minerals vital to making military, electrical and computing infrastructure—everything modern economies need to be safe, high-tech and green. China supplies most of these: it mines about 80% of the world’s tungsten, for instance, and refines 99% of its gallium. This is spurring America into an all-out campaign to diversify its sourcing of 60 minerals. It has pledged billions of dollars to dozens of mining projects at home and abroad, floated plans to create price floors and trade blocs, and announced a vast stockpile to cover months of national needs. The risk now is that America depends too much on its scattershot efforts—and that, in seeking control, it breaks the flexible and resilient system of market incentives that ensures the smooth functioning of the global economy.

China’s grip on critical minerals has exposed the West’s most serious strategic weakness in many years. Last April, during its trade war with America, China restricted exports of seven crucial rare earths; it targeted another five in October. Nearly a third of Pentagon procurement programmes faced the risk of shortages, as did industries from carmaking to renewable energy. The prospect of large-scale disruption prodded President Donald Trump into a trade truce with Xi Jinping, as well as a relaxation of American controls on some technology exports. Yet Mr Xi can deploy the weapon again whenever he chooses. Meanwhile, exports of rare earths for dual-use applications—the expanding grey zone between military and civilian uses—remain largely barred, sapping Western efforts to rearm….

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America is racing to break China’s chokehold on critical minerals—but its approach has flaws. It should follow three principles https://t.co/t5SkUsYgjf pic.twitter.com/BgoWViJBZv

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) February 26, 2026

The novel centers on an institution called the N.I.C.E., which stands for the National Institute of Co-ordinated Experiments. It presents itself as scientific, humane and forward-looking. It promises efficiency. Improvement. A better future, scrubbed clean of superstition and sentiment.

Behind the glass walls and polite language, however, darker intentions take hold. The organization seeks to “recondition” humanity. To reshape desire. To erase conscience. To replace moral limits with technical control.

Lewis saw where this road leads. When science proceeds without reference to anything beyond itself, it doesn’t remain neutral. It fills with myth. Bad myth. Ancient forces wearing modern lab coats.

The leaders of N.I.C.E. don’t worship God. They worship power disguised as progress. In the end, they openly submit to demonic intelligences, though they dress this submission in the language of evolution and inevitability.

Lewis’s point was as unambiguous as it was unsettling: When people stop believing in God, they do not believe in nothing. Instead, they believe in anything.

Fast-forward to our own moment, and the novel no longer feels imaginative. It feels documentary. In Silicon Valley, some technology leaders speak openly about “awakening” artificial intelligence. About communion with non-human intelligences. About revelations delivered not through prayer, but through code.

Some have dedicated their creations to ancient gods. Others speak of consciousness emerging from machines as if it were a spiritual event. The vocabulary changes. The impulse does not.

Lewis, an Oxford University academic who converted from atheism to Christianity wouldn’t be surprised. He warned that superstition doesn’t vanish with faith. It mutates. When humility disappears, fascination rushes in. When reverence fades, obsession takes its place.

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In 1945, C. S. Lewis published a strange, unsettling novel called “That Hideous Strength.” It was marketed as fiction, but it read like prophecy.

At the time, many critics dismissed it as eccentric. Too symbolic. Too mystical. Too suspicious of science. Lewis, they said, was…

— Religion Unplugged (@ReligionMag) February 25, 2026

Almighty God, who gave your servant Cumméne the White to guide the community of Iona with wisdom and to cherish the memory of Saint Columba; Grant that, as we recall his faithfulness, we may follow his example in studying your Word and bearing witness to your power, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen (moved from Tuesday).

Feb 24: Feast of Cumméne Find, ‘the White’, (†669), abbot of Iona. He was said to have written a book about Columba’s miraculous powers. His abbacy coincided with the Synod of Whitby in 664. Faílbe mac Pípáin succeeded him. 📸August Schwerdfeger pic.twitter.com/F0FaroQfQa

— North Ages (@NorthAges) February 24, 2026

O God, who willest not the death of a sinner: We beseech thee to aid and protect those who are exposed to grievous temptations; and grant that in obeying thy commandments they may be strengthened and supported by thy grace; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

For still there are so many
things that I have never seen:
in every wood in every single
spring there is a different
green.

J.R.R. Tolkien pic.twitter.com/9kkKkBNZhM

— Nemophilist✨🌿🌲 (@acblaauboer) February 26, 2026

And when he returned to Caper′na-um after some days, it was reported that he was at home. And many were gathered together, so that there was no longer room for them, not even about the door; and he was preaching the word to them. And they came, bringing to him a paralytic carried by four men. And when they could not get near him because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him; and when they had made an opening, they let down the pallet on which the paralytic lay. And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “My son, your sins are forgiven.” Now some of the scribes were sitting there, questioning in their hearts, “Why does this man speak thus? It is blasphemy! Who can forgive sins but God alone?” And immediately Jesus, perceiving in his spirit that they thus questioned within themselves, said to them, “Why do you question thus in your hearts? Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise, take up your pallet and walk’? But that you may know that the Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he said to the paralytic— “I say to you, rise, take up your pallet and go home.” And he rose, and immediately took up the pallet and went out before them all; so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, “We never saw anything like this!”

–Mark 2:1-12

26th February 2026 06.48 pic.twitter.com/AOkR2SKVfr

— SeaWindowCraster (@SeaSkyCraster) February 26, 2026