Crowds celebrated the ‘Yes’ vote on 25 May for abortion to become legal in Ireland.
I, like many others, was overcome with huge sadness at the prospective killing of new lives. I’m not sure that these days, as a man, I am even allowed to have an opinion on the issue, but I know that God is a God of life, not death. In England, we have had legal abortion for over 50 years, yet the fact that, statistically, the most unsafe place for a baby is its mother’s womb, I find horrific.
How one of the legends of women’s suffrage found Christ and preached his coming
The very first Suffragette to spend a night in prison, Christabel Pankhurst combined campaigns for the right for women to vote with speaking at Christian events, after a conversion experience in 1918.
The daughter of Emmeline and Richard Pankhurst, Christabel was born in Manchester in 1880. Her father had been a member of a Congregational Baptist Union chapel, but became a religious sceptic, so Christabel did not receive any biblical education as a child. The reading of a popular premillennialist work of 1879 by Grattan Guinness led to her conversion and to a growing preoccupation with the notion that the second coming of Christ was imminent and that biblical prophecy provided a key for understanding and predicting the course of events.
The eyes of the world were on Japan in 2011.
This was when it was left reeling from the triple disaster of a powerful earthquake, a devastating tsunami and a catastrophic nuclear accident. Seven years later, Japan is gearing itself up for a happier return to global attention – the Rugby World Cup in 2019 and the Olympics in 2020. Sporting occasions can be a fantastic opportunity to bring a nation together in unity and celebration.
But what’s the news about the state of the church in Japan? The bare statistics paint a discouraging picture.
The Church of Nigeria, Anglican Communion, like many denominations in the northern states, is facing persecution.
The radical Islamic terrorist group, Jama’atu Ahlis-Sunna Lidda’Awati Wal-Jihad (People Committed to the Prophet’s Teachings for Propagation and Jihad), has focused its attacks on Christians and their churches, businesses or communities since 2010, making Nigeria the 14th most dangerous country for Christians in the world.
The group then graduated to attacking anything it perceives as immoral against Islam, particularly Western education, exemplified in schools and in democratic governance. This earned it the name Boko Haram, meaning ‘Western education is un-Islamic and prohibited’.
Last June, the 24-storey tower block of public housing flats in North Kensington was engulfed in an horrific fire.
In the early hours of Wednesday, 14 June 2017, a fire broke out at Grenfell Tower in West London. 71 people lost their lives. The fire continues to impact the whole nation.
Graham Miller, Chief Executive of London City Mission, and Jackie Blanchflower, Team Leader at Latymer Community Church, spoke to Andrew Gordon on behalf of en. Both have a knowledge of what happened.
In April, it was announced that there would be a ban on online Bible sales and Christian books in China.
Important books for other major religions, such as the Qur’an and Buddhist sutras, were not taken down and are available online in China, and the Qur’an has a Chinese ISBN number, whilst the Bible does not.
Although being the world’s largest producer of Bibles, the Bible has never been entirely legal inside the country. It has always been ‘classified as an internal publication for internal distribution within and by registered Christian churches only’, according to Joann Pittman, Vice-President of China Source, a non-profit organisation supporting the Chinese Church.
‘This is your last hill – and I can tell you, you are going to be crying. But hey you want to make a move, you want to change’. So says my American virtual spin class tutor over the speakers as I strive to keep up. The idea is to give you motivation to keep going when things are tough and you feel like giving up.
But why is change so hard for us? You might ask: ‘Why after 32 years do I still not squeeze the toothpaste tube properly’; or ‘Why do I still binge eat?’ ‘Why do I still look at porn?’; ‘Why do I still get angry with my husband?’; ‘Why can’t I trust God rather than be anxious all the time?’; etc.
Small or massive change seems to involve pain and struggle with small incremental steps forward and some backsliding. It all seems painfully slow at times.
Many of us have never stopped to consider the value of a specific language.
Whether it’s one we’ve never heard or one we use every day – why would we? If our first language is English, our language isn’t under threat, and we have access to education, healthcare, God’s Word and everything else we could want in our own language.
At Wycliffe Bible Translators, we believe the Bible is for everyone, no matter what language they speak. Many people are surprised to learn that the Bible still hasn’t been translated into every language yet. In fact, the complete Bible is only available in 670 languages; less than 10% of all the languages spoken in the world today.
Evangelicals Now 
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