Almighty and everlasting God,
who in your tender love towards the human race
sent your Son our Saviour Jesus Christ
to take upon him our flesh
and to suffer death upon the cross:
grant that we may follow the example of his patience and humility,
and also be made partakers of his resurrection;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.

Jesus' entry into Jerusalem #PalmSunday
München, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, BSB Clm 4453; 'Evangeliary of Otto III'; c.1000 CE; Reichenau; p.94@bsb_muenchen pic.twitter.com/CSSIZi7DuL

— Ennius (@red_loeb) April 12, 2025

Righteous art thou, O Lord,
when I complain to thee;
    yet I would plead my case before thee.
Why does the way of the wicked prosper?
    Why do all who are treacherous thrive?
Thou plantest them, and they take root;
    they grow and bring forth fruit;
thou art near in their mouth
    and far from their heart.
But thou, O Lord, knowest me;
    thou seest me, and triest my mind toward thee.
Pull them out like sheep for the slaughter,
    and set them apart for the day of slaughter.
How long will the land mourn,
    and the grass of every field wither?
For the wickedness of those who dwell in it
    the beasts and the birds are swept away,
    because men said, “He will not see our latter end.”

“If you have raced with men on foot, and they have wearied you,
    how will you compete with horses?
And if in a safe land you fall down,
    how will you do in the jungle of the Jordan?
For even your brothers and the house of your father,
    even they have dealt treacherously with you;
    they are in full cry after you;
believe them not,
    though they speak fair words to you.”

-Jeremiah 12:1-6

Guten Morgen ihr Lieben, kommt gut in die neue Woche.☀ pic.twitter.com/hy7VDnZWt0

— Constanze Riegel (@ConstanzeRiegel) April 14, 2025

As on this day we keep the special memory of our Redeemer’s entry into the city, so grant, O Lord, that now and ever he may triumph in our hearts.  Let the King of grace and glory enter in, and let us lay ourselves and all we are in full and joyful homage before him; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.

Jesus makes his entry into Jerusalem, Dovetailed tapestry weave coloured wools on linen, Northern Europe, 17th century (V&A Museum, London) #PalmSunday pic.twitter.com/4CNPIqhWvA

— John McCafferty (@jdmccafferty) April 13, 2025

Lift up your heads, O gates! and be lifted up, O ancient doors! that the King of glory may come in.
Who is the King of glory? The LORD, strong and mighty, the LORD, mighty in battle!
Lift up your heads, O gates! and be lifted up, O ancient doors! that the King of glory may come in.
Who is this King of glory? The LORD of hosts, he is the King of glory!

–Psalm 24:7-10

Guten Morgen. Dann wollen wir mal fröhlich in den Tag starten. pic.twitter.com/wjlTwFsfVs

— Ursula Dahinden (@UrsulaDahinden) April 13, 2025

Gracious Father,
you gave up your Son
out of love for the world:
lead us by your Spirit to ponder the mysteries of his passion,
that we may know eternal peace
through the shedding of our Saviour’s blood,
Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen (slightly edited; KSH).

Good morning.
Looks like we have our first iceberg of the season!
I took this photo in Newman’s Cove, NL 🇨🇦this morning. #ShareYourWeather #NLwx #NewfoundlandandLabrador #Canada pic.twitter.com/S815j9uwTF

— 🇨🇦 (@GrayMarker99) April 12, 2025

“Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man and the seed of beast. And it shall come to pass that as I have watched over them to pluck up and break down, to overthrow, destroy, and bring evil, so I will watch over them to build and to plant, says the Lord. In those days they shall no longer say:

‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes,
    and the children’s teeth are set on edge.’

But every one shall die for his own sin; each man who eats sour grapes, his teeth shall be set on edge.

“Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant which they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it upon their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each man teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

–Jeremiah 31:27-34

Serried serendipity. Nowhere does it better 🙂 @alnwickcastle pic.twitter.com/I6iyjYUsyS

— Graeme Peacock (@GraemePeacock1) April 12, 2025

Much of my childhood was spent in vicarages, apart from a small stint at a theological college. Emerging into adulthood, I’ve realised that many of the habits that I picked up from years spent immersed in clergy life and the Church of England remain with me. Most fundamentally, it has formed my lasting view of the Church, of politics, and of the world around me.

I am now a member of a congregation in my own right, no longer lurking in the shadows of my parents. Perhaps, for some, I am an ideal parishioner: I will gladly sign up for rotas and pull my weight; for others, perhaps, I am an inconvenient know-it-all, who will gladly correct them when they misquote the Thirty-Nine Articles. But what I am sure of is this: having grown up in a vicarage, my view of the Church has been distinctly coloured.

The biggest challenge facing clergy children, if they remain churchgoers in adulthood, is readjusting to being in the pews. I am aware of what goes on behind the scenes of a church, but now I am no longer privy to those decisions.

Engrained in clergy children is a sense of responsibility for an institution. This is no light thing to carry, especially when this responsibility is often mixed with different emotions of pain and joy, hope and anger, at different things witnessed or experienced. When you grow up in a vicarage, the church becomes an additional family member whom you will inevitably squabble with from time to time, but whom you love despite their flaws.

Read it all.

Good Day!
Eric Ravilious, The Vicarage in Winter, 1935 pic.twitter.com/Uv1hiKWzyy

— John Constable (@JohnConstableRA) December 27, 2018

In short, the U.S. economy will suffer enormously in a large-scale trade war with China, which the current levels of Trump-imposed tariffs, at more than 100 percent, surely constitute if left in place. In fact, the U.S. economy will suffer more than the Chinese economy will, and the suffering will only increase if the United States escalates. The Trump administration may think it’s acting tough, but it’s in fact putting the U.S. economy at the mercy of Chinese escalation.

The United States will face shortages of critical inputs ranging from basic ingredients of most pharmaceuticals to inexpensive semiconductors used in cars and home appliances to critical minerals for industrial processes including weapons production. The supply shock from drastically reducing or zeroing out imports from China, as Trump purports to want to achieve, would mean stagflation, the macroeconomic nightmare seen in the 1970s and during the COVID pandemic, when the economy shrank and inflation rose simultaneously. In such a situation, which may be closer at hand than many think, the Federal Reserve and fiscal policymakers are left with only terrible options and little chance of staving off unemployment except by further raising inflation.

When it comes to real war, if you have reason to be afraid of being invaded, it would be suicidal to provoke your adversary before you’ve armed yourself. That is essentially what Trump’s economic attack risks: given that the U.S. economy is entirely dependent on Chinese sources for vital goods (pharmaceutical stocks, cheap electronic chips, critical minerals), it is wildly reckless not to ensure alternate suppliers or adequate domestic production before cutting off trade. By doing it the other way around, the administration is inviting exactly the kind of damage it says it wants to prevent.

This could all be intended as just a negotiating tactic, Trump’s and Bessent’s repeated statements and actions notwithstanding. But even on those terms, the strategy will do more harm than good. As I warned in Foreign Affairs last October, the fundamental problem with Trump’s economic approach is that it would need to carry out enough self-harming threats to be credible, which means that markets and households would expect ongoing uncertainty. Americans and foreigners alike would invest less rather than more in the U.S. economy, and they would no longer trust the U.S. government to live up to any deal, making a negotiated settlement or agreement to deescalate difficult to achieve. As a result, U.S. productive capacity would decline rather than improve, which would only increase the leverage that China and others have over the United States.

The Trump administration is embarking on an economic equivalent of the Vietnam War—a war of choice that will soon result in a quagmire, undermining faith at home and abroad in both the trustworthiness and the competence of the United States—and we all know how that turned out.

Read it all.

Trade Wars Are Easy to Lose
My latest. Escalation with China will be Trump's economic equivalent of the Vietnam War. The US will lose bigly. https://t.co/xXRAoMGqHe via @ForeignAffairs

— Adam Posen (@AdamPosen) April 9, 2025

The Trump administration’s high-pressure campaign to deal with Iran’s nuclear program has put U.S. allies in the Middle East on edge that failure at the negotiating table could spark another war.

President Trump has said he prefers a diplomatic solution to stop Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, but he has threatened that Iran is “going to be in great danger” if talks don’t go well.

The risk is if talks hit a logjam at a time when the U.S. has piled up military assets in the region and Iran remains vulnerable after Israel battered its air defenses and allies last year, the U.S. or Israel could decide to strike, potentially prompting retaliatory attacks across the Gulf.

In a letter sent to Iran’s supreme leader in March, Trump set a two-month time frame for negotiations to succeed, though it’s unclear if the period was to begin then or once talks get under way. 

Read it all.

The Trump administration’s campaign to deal with Iran’s nuclear program has put U.S. allies in the Middle East on edge that failure at the negotiating table could spark another war https://t.co/eDiSHqqYGm

— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) April 10, 2025

George Augustus Selwyn was a very active man. This table is to enable students to pinpoint where he was at any particular time….

Take a look at it all.

Almighty and everlasting God, we thank thee for thy servant George Augustus Selwyn, whom thou didst call to preach the Gospel to the peoples of New Zealand and Melanesia, and to lay a firm foundation for the growth of thy Church in many nations. Raise up, we beseech thee, in this and every land evangelists and heralds of thy kingdom, that thy Church may proclaim the unsearchable riches of our Savior Jesus Christ; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

Died #OTD in 1878: George Augustus Selwyn, 1st Bishop of New Zealand https://t.co/DX3L3ZYTeg

Selwyn was the 1st Bishop of New Zealand (1841-68) before being appointed Bishop of Lichfield on his return to England. Selwyn College Cambridge, est. in his memory, opened in Oct 1882. pic.twitter.com/VkpyA574LM

— The Anglican Church in St Petersburg (@anglicanspb) April 11, 2023

Let us depend above all things, O Christ, on your grace, desire in all things your love, rejoice at all times in your presence and delight through all undertakings in your glory.

Morning everyone I hope you are well. A seat with a view. A hazy day in the Lakes with a view across Loweswater with Grasmoor as a backdrop. Have a great day.#LakeDistrict pic.twitter.com/O3GjfkKcBi

— Rod Hutchinson (@lakesrhino) April 11, 2025

“Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Do not let your prophets and your diviners who are among you deceive you, and do not listen to the dreams which they dream, for it is a lie which they are prophesying to you in my name; I did not send them, says the Lord.

“For thus says the Lord: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfil to you my promise and bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me; when you seek me with all your heart….

–Jeremiah 29:4-13

Golden mornings of Masai Mara.#indiaves #BBCWildlifePOTD #ThePhotoHour #SonyAlpha pic.twitter.com/D8E2YbLuya

— ayyappan hariharan🐦‍⬛ (@passivelyactive) April 11, 2025

The Church is now in a period of growth, with Gen Z leading the charge. The report – titled The Quiet Revival – shows that the most dramatic church growth is among young adults, particularly young men. In 2018, around four per cent of 18-24 year-olds said that they attended church at least monthly. Now this has gone up to 16 per cent, with young men increasing from four per cent to 21 per cent, and young women from 3 to 12 per cent.

They say that change happens slowly then all at once; and this feels to me to ring true when it comes to the seeming ‘vibe shift’ in perceptions and positivity about Christianity in our culture. Before the pandemic, we heard a lot about declining church attendance, then Covid-19 seemed to be the death-knell as congregations dwindled even further. Then after the pandemic recovery came the 2021 Census figures, which showed that the number of those that ticked the Christian box was at its lowest level.

But something seems to have shifted over the past two years, in particular. We hear of young people queuing to enter Catholic mass, we hear of teenagers turning up to church unnanounced, then dragging their parents along, we hear of Bible sales going up, we hear of online meetings run by the Orthodox Church being attended by hundreds, we hear of university mission organisations seeing sparks in interest among students. A drip-drip of change.

The numbers reported in The Quiet Revival will not necessary look like people queuing round the corner to get into local churches; but they may look a little like many churches having a few more congregants. I’ve noticed this in my own church when on Sunday mornings in recent months, I’ve looked around and wondered who these new people are that are joining us, and where they have come from.

Read it all.

The Bible Society have released incredible research about a quiet revival in the UK. Church attendance is up 50% (from 8% to 12%). When looking at 18-24 yr olds it’s up from 4% to 16%! pic.twitter.com/4VXEO5in4A

— Ｐｅｔｅｒ Ｌｙｎａｓ (@peterlynas) April 8, 2025

After the terror, the euphoria. When, on April 9th, President Donald Trump postponed for 90 days the most illogical and destructive of his tariffs, after a meltdown in financial markets, the s&p 500 index of American stocks rose by 9.5%, its fastest daily rise in nearly 17 years. The darkest scenarios for the world economy that had been envisaged by investors until that moment are now unlikely. It seems there is some limit to the market falls the president will tolerate on his watch. After the chaos that had followed Mr Trump’s announcement of “reciprocal” tariffs a week earlier, that is no small source of comfort for the world.

But do not mistake the consolation of having avoided disaster for good fortune. The scale of the shock to global trade set off by Mr Trump is still, even now, unlike anything seen in history. He has replaced the stable trading relations which America spent over half a century building with whimsical and arbitrary policymaking, in which decisions are posted on social media and not even his advisers know what is coming next. And he is still in an extraordinary trade confrontation with China, the world’s second-biggest economy.

Investors and companies everywhere have been put through the wringer. Global markets crashed in response to Mr Trump’s first tariff announcement. The S&P 500 fell by about 15%. Long-dated Treasuries sold off, as hedge funds were forced to unwind their leveraged positions. The dollar, which is supposed to be a safe haven, fell. After the tariffs were delayed, stockmarkets enjoyed a vertiginous climb. Between its low and high on the day, Nvidia’s value fluctuated by over $430bn.

Even after the tariff pause, however, Treasury yields remain elevated. Global stocks are 11% below their highs in February—and justifiably so

Read it all.

The Economist cover 👀 pic.twitter.com/yIs3oe0hpS

— MAKS 24 🇺🇦👀 (@Maks_NAFO_FELLA) April 10, 2025

In an earlier volume, Awaiting the King, Smith devotes an entire chapter to undermining appeals to natural law and natural law theory—the very things one would need to reject to affirm what Smith wants to affirm nowadays. The whole chapter simplistically caricatures the natural law tradition and fails to represent it accurately. He only sets up a strawman version of natural law to tear it down. According to Smith, natural law is too minimalist and ineffective in a world marred by sin. It fails to give a robust explanation of the revelation of who Christ is. In that chapter, he upholds some generic notion of “nature” as a feature of the biblical storyline, but he then says that nature itself cannot be rightly known apart from Special Revelation. This common critique does not withstand scrutiny when held up to sound interpretation and human experience.

Yes, people reject natural law—but that doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with it. God’s moral law doesn’t misfire. Part of the reason people reject it is because sin has distorted human reasoning (Romans 1:21). But Scripture also says that people can knowingly suppress the truth that’s clearly seen in the created world (Romans 1:18–20). Nowhere does Scripture speak of creation order being wholly unintelligible or humans being entirely ignorant of its order. In fact, in the same set of verses, Paul says that God’s creation order is so teeming with moral order that people are “without excuse” when they disobey it (Romans 1:20). The Apostle Paul, in fact, focuses on sexual ethics to make this exact point. Homosexuality is a vivid rejection of the Creator’s design for our bodies.

Since both the Bible and natural law point to the same moral truths, it’s no surprise that Smith’s rejection of natural law in Awaiting the King eventually led him to reject what the Bible says about sexual ethics. You can’t keep rejecting natural law—especially the parts of natural law you don’t like—and still fully hold to the authority of Scripture. Morality is a package deal.

Read it all.

James K.A. Smith’s example shows that even a theology that claims to be “biblical” or “Reformed” can go wrong if it ignores what the Bible says about creation. Smith has become a theologian who stands against nature. https://t.co/dfIBuYQqPn

— Andrew T. Walker (@andrewtwalk) April 10, 2025

The human brain is so complex that scientific brains have a hard time making sense of it. A piece of neural tissue the size of a grain of sand might be packed with hundreds of thousands of cells linked together by miles of wiring. In 1979, Francis Crick, the Nobel-prize-winning scientist, concluded that the anatomy and activity in just a cubic millimeter of brain matter would forever exceed our understanding.

“It is no use asking for the impossible,” Dr. Crick wrote.

Forty-six years later, a team of more than 100 scientists has achieved that impossible, by recording the cellular activity and mapping the structure in a cubic millimeter of a mouse’s brain — less than one percent of its full volume. In accomplishing this feat, they amassed 1.6 petabytes of data — the equivalent of 22 years of nonstop high-definition video.

“This is a milestone,” said Davi Bock, a neuroscientist at the University of Vermont who was not involved in the study, which was published Wednesday in the journal Nature. Dr. Bock said that the advances that made it possible to chart a cubic millimeter of brain boded well for a new goal: mapping the wiring of the entire brain of a mouse.

Read it all.

An Advance in Brain Research That Was Once Considered Impossible https://t.co/peoDcslro2

Scientists achieved “a milestone” by charting the activity and structure of 200,000 cells in a mouse brain and their 523 million connections.

— Paul Higgins (@futuristpaul) April 9, 2025

Eternal God, the whole cosmos sings of thy glory, from the dividing of a single cell to the vast expanse of interstellar space: We offer thanks for thy theologian and scientist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, who didst perceive the divine in the evolving creation. Enable us to become faithful stewards of thy divine works and heirs of thy everlasting kingdom; through Jesus Christ, the firstborn of all creation, who with thee and the Holy Spirit livest and reignest, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

«Ce n’est pas d’un tête à tête ni d’un corps à corps,c’est d’un coeur à coeur que nous avons besoin.»(Pierre Teilhard de Chardin) pic.twitter.com/d9flsQvl1W

— Serge Doucet 😇🐶📖⚽️🎼 (@SergeDoucet3) April 10, 2025

Almighty and most merciful God, who hast given thy Son to die for our sins and to obtain eternal redemption for us through his own blood: Let the merit of his spotless sacrifice, we beseech thee, purge our consciences from dead works to serve thee, the living God, that we may receive the promise of eternal inheritance in Christ Jesus our Lord; to whom with thee and the Holy Ghost be honour and glory, world without end.

Kleur in de lucht. Fijne donderdag😀 #zonsopkomst #kleur pic.twitter.com/kxM6ak2VWo

— Tjark Dieterman (@DietermanTjark) April 10, 2025

In the beginning of the reign of Jehoi′akim the son of Josi′ah, king of Judah, this word came from the Lord, “Thus says the Lord: Stand in the court of the Lord’s house, and speak to all the cities of Judah which come to worship in the house of the Lord all the words that I command you to speak to them; do not hold back a word. It may be they will listen, and every one turn from his evil way, that I may repent of the evil which I intend to do to them because of their evil doings. You shall say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord: If you will not listen to me, to walk in my law which I have set before you, and to heed the words of my servants the prophets whom I send to you urgently, though you have not heeded, then I will make this house like Shiloh, and I will make this city a curse for all the nations of the earth.’”

The priests and the prophets and all the people heard Jeremiah speaking these words in the house of the Lord. And when Jeremiah had finished speaking all that the Lord had commanded him to speak to all the people, then the priests and the prophets and all the people laid hold of him, saying, “You shall die! Why have you prophesied in the name of the Lord, saying, ‘This house shall be like Shiloh, and this city shall be desolate, without inhabitant’?” And all the people gathered about Jeremiah in the house of the Lord.

When the princes of Judah heard these things, they came up from the king’s house to the house of the Lord and took their seat in the entry of the New Gate of the house of the Lord. Then the priests and the prophets said to the princes and to all the people, “This man deserves the sentence of death, because he has prophesied against this city, as you have heard with your own ears.”

Then Jeremiah spoke to all the princes and all the people, saying, “The Lord sent me to prophesy against this house and this city all the words you have heard. Now therefore amend your ways and your doings, and obey the voice of the Lord your God, and the Lord will repent of the evil which he has pronounced against you. But as for me, behold, I am in your hands. Do with me as seems good and right to you. Only know for certain that if you put me to death, you will bring innocent blood upon yourselves and upon this city and its inhabitants, for in truth the Lord sent me to you to speak all these words in your ears.”

Then the princes and all the people said to the priests and the prophets, “This man does not deserve the sentence of death, for he has spoken to us in the name of the Lord our God.”

–Jeremiah 26:1-16

Nothing says #spring quite like
the beautiful cherry blossoms! #Cherryblossoms #BlossomWatch #April2025 #Blossoms 🌸💗🌸 pic.twitter.com/krrpUlAe84

— Margaret O'Connell🌻 (@MargaretOC6) April 10, 2025

German Protestants have commemorated one of their foremost theologians on the 80th anniversary of his execution during the final days of the Second World War.

“Dietrich Bonhoeffer lived to be only 39 — yet hardly any 20th-century Protestant had such a profound impact on Church and society,” the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) said on its website.

“His passionate protest against the National Socialists, his active role in the resistance against Hitler, his books and his death have resonated far beyond Germany’s borders.”

The statement was published as young Christians gathered last weekend at the Flossenbürg Concentration Camp memorial, in the Fichtel Mountains of Bavaria, near the Czech border, to debate the legacy of Bonhoeffer. His death was also commemorated in a service on Wednesday, as well as in an exhibition and reading of his works.

Read it all.

German Protestants have commemorated one of their foremost theologians on the 80th anniversary of his execution during the final days of the Second World War#Bonhoeffer #DietrichBonhoefferhttps://t.co/xGc7JpsBJU

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) April 9, 2025

The severe storm system that has inundated the central and southeastern United States with heavy rain and high winds for days fits into a broader pattern in recent decades of increasing rainfall across the eastern half of the United States.

Data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for 1991 through 2020 show that the Eastern part of the country received more rain, on average, over those years than it did during the 20th century. At the same time, precipitation decreased across the West.

The sharp east-west divide is consistent with predictions from climate scientists, who expect wet places to get wetter, and dry areas to get drier, as the world warms.

While no individual storm can be tied to climate change without further analysis, warming air can result in heavier rainfall. That’s because warm air has the ability to hold more moisture than cooler air, fueling conditions for more average precipitation overall, and the potential for storms that come through to be more intense.

Read it all.

'Getting Heavier': Climate Change Primes Storms to Drop More Rain – The New York Times – … , an associate professor of climate meteorology and atmospheric sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Hourly Precip. – https://t.co/kV1MLQcDjZ

— The Postdoctoral (@thepostdoctoral) April 9, 2025

The Quiet Revival shows that the most dramatic church growth is among young adults, particularly young men. In 2018, just 4 per cent of 18–24-year-olds said that they attended church at least monthly. Today, says The Quiet Revival, this has risen to 16 per cent, with young men increasing from 4 per cent to 21 per cent, and young women from 3 to 12 per cent.  

Key findings from The Quiet Revival 

Co-author of The Quiet Revival Dr Rhiannon McAleer says the report shows that what people believe about Church decline is no longer true. ‘These are striking findings that completely reverse the widely held assumption that the Church in England and Wales is in terminal decline,’ she said. 

‘While some traditional denominations continue to face challenges, we’ve seen significant, broad-based growth among most expressions of Church – particularly in Roman Catholicism and Pentecostalism. There are now over 2 million more people attending church than there were six years ago.’ 

Read it all.

Incredible & hugely encouraging new research out from the @biblesociety today. The Lord is moving powerfully throughout the UK. The ‘Quiet Revival’ research includes some remarkable results as shown below & is available to download in full here https://t.co/7G4ltg91H3 pic.twitter.com/O4RbVAQVdo

— Gavin Calver (@GavCalver) April 8, 2025

Certainly you two, of all people, have every reason to look back with special thankfulness on your lives up to now. The beautiful things and joys of life have been showered on you, you have succeeded in everything, and you have been surrounded by love and friendship. Your ways have, for the most part, been smoothed before you took them, and you have always been able to count on the support of your families and friends. Everyone has wished you well, and now it has been given to you to find each other and to reach the goal of your desires. You yourselves know that no one can create and assume such a life from his own strength, but that what is given to one is withheld from another; and that is what we call God’s guidance. So today, however much you rejoice that you have reached your goal, you will be just as thankful that God’s will and God’s way have brought you here; and however confidently you accept responsibility for your action today, you may and will put it today with equal confidence into God’s hands.

As God today adds His ‘Yes’ to your ‘Yes’, as He confirms your will with His will, and as He allows you, and approves of, your triumph and rejoicing and pride, He makes you at the same time instruments of His will and purpose both for yourselves and for others. In His unfathomable condescension God does add His ‘Yes’ to yours; but by doing so, He creates out of your love something quite new – the holy estate of matrimony.

God is guiding your marriage. Marriage is more than your love for each other. It has a higher dignity and power, for it is God’s holy ordinance, through which He wills to perpetuate the human race till the end of time. In your love you see only your two selves in the world, but in marriage you are a link in the chain of the generations, which God causes to come and to pass away to His glory, and calls into His kingdom. In your love you see only the heaven of your own happiness, but in marriage you are placed at a post of responsibility towards the world and mankind. Your love is your own private possession, but marriage is more that something personal – it is a status, an office. Just as it is the crown, and not merely the will to rule, that makes the king, so it is marriage, and not merely your love for each other, that joins you together in the sight of God and man. As you first gave the ring to one another and have now received it a second time from the hand of the pastor, so love comes from you, but marriage from above, from God. As high as God is above man, so high are the sanctity the rights, and the promise of marriage above the sanctity, the rights, and the promise of love. It is not your love that sustains the marriage, but from now on, the marriage that sustains your love.

Read it all.

9 April 1945: Dietrich Bonhoeffer, German pastor, spy, and anti-Nazi, is hanged, accused of being part of the Operation Valkyrie conspiracy to kill Hitler. He is executed with #Admiral Wilhelm Canaris and others a month before the end of #WWII. #OTD #ad https://t.co/VTQ683Bc46 pic.twitter.com/R39hPNoMe8

— Today In History (@URDailyHistory) April 9, 2025

Gracious God, the Beyond in the midst of our life, who gavest grace to thy servant Dietrich Bonhoeffer to know and teach the truth as it is in Jesus Christ, and to bear the cost of following him: Grant that we, strengthened by his teaching and example, may receive thy word and embrace its call with an undivided heart; through Jesus Christ our Savior, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

„Jeder neue Morgen ist ein neuer Anfang unseres Lebens. Jeder Tag ist ein abgeschlossenes Ganzes."
Guten Morgen mit Dietrich Bonhoeffer, geb am 4. Februar 1907, Mitbegründer der bekennenden Kirche, Widerstandskämpfer, der am 9. April 1945 im Konzentrationslager erhängt wurde pic.twitter.com/EHp051Lnsg

— H.P. (@Peine01) April 9, 2025

O God, whose blessed Son did overcome death for our salvation: Mercifully grant that we, who have his glorious passion in remembrance, may take up our cross daily and follow him; through the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord.

Bonjour Mister Sunshine
☀️ #WednesdayMotivation #sunrise #lambing2025#spring #weather #GoodVibesOnly #StormHour #jefinuist #croft #farming #outerhebrides #Scotland pic.twitter.com/o6cLcnFWDt

— DaliMach (@frenchscotjeff) April 9, 2025

But how are men to call upon him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without a preacher? And how can men preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach good news!” But they have not all obeyed the gospel; for Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes by the preaching of Christ. But I ask, have they not heard? Indeed they have; for “Their voice has gone out to all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world.” Again I ask, did Israel not understand? First Moses says, “I will make you jealous of those who are not a nation; with a foolish nation I will make you angry.” Then Isaiah is so bold as to say, “I have been found by those who did not seek me; I have shown myself to those who did not ask for me.” But of Israel he says, “All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people.”

–Romans 10:14-21

Zebra plains.
Pic taken at Masai Mara.#indiaves #BBCWildlifePOTD #ThePhotoHour #SonyAlpha pic.twitter.com/x5xMrrMI6i

— ayyappan hariharan🐦‍⬛ (@passivelyactive) April 9, 2025

During the WATCH conference, the Area Bishop of Croydon, Dr Rosemarie Mallett, a member of the steering committee that drafted the 2014 legislation (News, 26 July 2013), said: “I think in honesty we also thought that as society changed and as views became more open-minded among growing numbers of younger men and women, the culture of the Church would change like the culture of the wider society.”

Responding to this point, Mr Middleton suggested that, “Given that we are only just over a decade on from the settlement being put in place, and mutual flourishing is in its infancy, such attitudes do not bode well for any settlement emerging for evangelicals from their opposition to the Prayers of Love and Faith (PLF).

“What are they, and others, to make of the promises made to Anglo-Catholics, which some appear so keen to renege on so soon after those commitments were made?”

He also asked about the “well-being” of young clergy in the Society (which is supported and financed by Forward in Faith) who put themselves forward for ordination under the settlement, should this be revoked “after such a short elapse of time”.

Read it all.

Promises to traditionalists should be kept, Forward in Faith sayshttps://t.co/gRz5Njpgzp

— Madeleine Davies (@MadsDavies) April 8, 2025

Instead, a thoroughly biblical understanding of epistemic humility means rejoicing in a relationship with the eternal God and trusting that his vast and timeless knowledge far exceeds our own. I may not be certain about many things, but I have decided to follow Jesus, the only begotten Son of God, because he has given me good cause to trust him. In fact, I would do well to trust him more than I trust myself.

Jesus himself presents a remarkable example of this kind of humility. He alone had every right to approach life with absolute unmitigated certainty in the fullness of his knowledge, and yet he sought the will of his Father and submitted to the uncertainties of life in human form. Luke tells us that he “grew in wisdom,” listening to the priests and asking questions as a boy (2:52). He taught with divine authority but openly confessed that there were things he did not know which he left in the capable hands of the Father (Matt. 24:36).

If our Lord Jesus possessed and expressed this kind of humility, what excuse do we have?

In light of all this, I feel I can answer my student’s question with a bit more confidence. Yes, a Christian should have an open mind, if the term is rightly understood.

Read it all.

“What if there is no contradiction between unshakeable faith and intellectual humility?” asks Benjamin Vincent. https://t.co/DQi1yAUUwa

— Christianity Today (@CTmagazine) March 24, 2025