A YouGov poll in 2025 stated that 40% of UK adults have not read or listened to a single book in the last 12 months, and The Reading Agency’s “State of the Nation” report in the same year found that 35% of UK adults identify themselves as “lapsed readers,” having stopped their regular reading habits.
Perhaps the most worrying part of this trend can be seen in children; the latest annual survey by the National Literacy Trust showed the lowest levels of daily reading (18.7% of 8- to 18-year-olds) since records began in 2005.
Contentment is one of the great Christian graces. Paul tells Timothy that “godliness with contentment is great gain”. He tells the church in Philippi to be “anxious about nothing”.
Our Lord Jesus commanded His disciples not to worry about life. How could Jesus say this? How could He expect and even demand that His disciples not worry? Is this not sheer idealism? Is it not actually absurd to expect believers always to be content and never to be anxious? Clearly not. Our Saviour never engaged in idealism or mere wishful thinking. In fact, Jesus gives His disciples reasons why they should not worry. He makes the observation that worrying never accomplished anything of any significance. But more importantly, Jesus tells His disciples that their lives are cared for, watched over by and dearly loved by their heavenly Father. It is the fatherly love and care of God that is the bedrock of the Christian’s contentment.
Christians can feel helplessly situated in a world stymied by the embargoed Strait of Hormuz (if it's still closed by the time you're reading this) and Europe’s bleeding gash – the war in Ukraine.
At home, little sign of a let-up in the cost-of-living crisis only enlarges the aurora of neon gloom across British skies.
Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak, Sir Keir Starmer… Leadership, it seems, is getting increasingly difficult in the UK at the moment.
Some politicians ascend to the top job only for it to become sadly apparent that, quite apart from any party political considerations, they lack the appropriate skill set with which to govern effectively. Into this category we might, sadly, put most of those named above.
There is increasing interest as to what death doulas (who are also called end-of-life doulas, soul midwives, death coaches, dying guides, death midwives, and palliative care doulas) do. For example, there's this article on the BBC website; Nicole Kidman and Ruby Wax are reportedly undergoing training for this role, whilst Davina McCall has announced that she is planning to do so when she retires from her television activities.
Like birth doulas, who support mothers during pregnancy, childbirth and early parenthood, death doulas support people at the end of life. They help the dying person and their family in the final months and may be present at death, assist with funeral arrangements, and sometimes simply offer company.
In July this year, the Church of England could see the most significant Private Members Motion (PMM) on sex and marriage in the last 40 years being brought to General Synod.
The PMM in question reads as follows: “Same-sex relationships compatibility with Christian discipleship. Professor Helen King (Oxford) to move: ‘That this Synod affirm that there are no fundamental objections to being in a committed, faithful, intimate same-sex relationship, and that such a relationship can be entirely compatible with Christian discipleship.’”
We have reached the end of the football season – the point at which winners and losers are determined. The ten-month, 38-game marathon, which began last August, finally draws to its climactic conclusion.
The season’s finish provides either the highest highs or the lowest lows as a year’s effort boils down to a handful of key moments when players must perform at their best or face the unravelling of much of the work they have put in throughout the year.
Does your church mention Pentecost? Many churches, especially those that do not follow the liturgical year, barely mention it at all.
The gift of the Holy Spirit on the first Pentecost was a turning point in salvation history. It was a never-to-be-repeated moment that applied the finished work of Christ to the disciples and implemented Jesus’s heavenly reign over the church. Jesus baptised His disciples with the Spirit, just as John had prophesied and He had promised. They received the same anointing He received at His baptism so they could continue His ministry on earth. The Book of Acts records all Jesus continued to do through His disciples by the empowering presence of His Spirit.
It is extraordinary that after barely two years we are in a similar crisis of leadership in the Labour Government to what we saw in the later years of the Conservative Government.
It brings back painful memories to me, as I was a member of the Executive of the 1922 Committee which governed Party leadership elections. I was one of the “men in grey suits” – although we had women in the Executive and I rarely wore grey! Our task was to let the Prime Minister know the mood of backbenchers and views about issues of the day. It also had the ultimate role of telling the PM when his or her time was up.
When I was a boy growing up in Wales, World Cups arrived with a particular smell: the smell of a freshly opened packet of Panini stickers.
Before social media, before 24-hour football coverage, Panini albums were how many of us first discovered the wider world of football. I can still remember sitting on the floor staring at teams from countries I barely knew existed, learning flags, kits and improbable surnames long before I understood geography.
Donna is a lively young support worker, and Andy was one of her clients. Intelligent, talented and looking forward to starting a career in the Royal Navy, Andy had become homeless and needed help to get back on his feet. They met for coffee, visited Andy’s bank and got some new accommodation sorted out.
In 2015, one image of a three-year-old boy washed up on a beach in Turkey changed the way the world saw asylum seekers.
That terrible morning, every newspaper displayed Alan Kurdi’s body front and centre. His story was not only desperately sad, but intensely disturbing. No human being with a conscience could look at his picture for long - or, indeed, turn away from it.
Every preacher should love 1 Peter 3v8. The verse begins, “Finally”, but he is only half-way through chapter three: you can claim apostolic permission to say “finally” in your sermon without being anywhere near the end!
Peter has been exploring what it means to “live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us” (1 Peter 2v12). He addressed Christians as subjects of human authorities, then gave instructions to slaves, wives and husbands. Now, “finally” he ends this section by writing to “all of you” who received his letter.
Sir Keir Starmer is finished. It may not happen immediately. It may even drag on over the summer. But the prospect of him finishing this new parliamentary session as leader and prime minister is null and void. The question is not if Starmer will go, it is when and how and who will replace him.
If the leadership transition takes place in 2026, Starmer’s replacement will be the UK’s seventh prime minister in just ten years. By contrast, the previous decade saw four prime ministers, and the ten years before that, just two. Prime ministerial tenures are clearly becoming shorter and shorter!
What now for UK politics? Last week’s elections were really bad for Labour. The party lost its century-long dominance in Wales, and tied for second place with Reform in Scotland. In England it lost control of 37 English local councils and almost 1,500 councillors.
People voted on local factors but also gave their verdict on the Westminster government. Many are disappointed and angry at Labour’s performance since the 2024 general election. Many of his own MPs blame Keir Starmer personally, and the wagons circling the Prime Minister have been closing in. Wes Streeting has resigned; another Labour MP, Josh Simons, is standing down to spark a by-election in an attempt to help Andy Burnham back into the Commons; a leadership contest may well follow.
It was Lord David Alton, a committed Catholic Peer and pro-life legend, who described what he called a "mutant liberalism" as a massive problem in politics today.
It is a creed and ideology that, on the one hand, professes to believe in freedom of thought and action. But in reality, it all too quickly cancels you if you dare stray from its approved beliefs.
What does it mean to be the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in 2026?
At the time of writing, that post is still held by Sir Keir Starmer. For how much longer remains to be seen. If he resigns any time soon, his successor will be the United Kingdom’s seventh premier in just ten years.
If you had to finish this sentence: “I find myself erupting into praise when…” I wonder what you’d say. Possible answers might include: “I see a glorious sunset”, “I hold a newborn baby”, “I read an inspirational passage of Scripture” or, in my case, “Reading FC finally gain promotion back to the Championship”. Yes, I know, I’m shallow.
However, it’s less probable that you’d respond: “When I realise the enormity and extent of my miserable sinful state and sordid past”, but that’s what catapults Paul into his outburst of worship in the opening chapter of his first letter to his spiritual son, Timothy. Paul provides a comprehensive but not exhaustive list of his past failings in verse 13, cataloguing blasphemy, violence and the persecuting of others among his transgressions, leading him to conclude that he viewed himself as the “worst of sinners”.
The mass, inward, multinational migration experienced in the UK today is not a novel phenomenon.
Four hundred years ago, the Reformation caused large-scale, trans-European migration. The Calvinist Dutch Republic became an ark for refugees from all over the continent.
In recent months, I’ve noticed something shifting. Church leaders across the UK tell me that political conversations are becoming more contested, pastoral pressures are continuing to grow, and more people are turning up at church. This doesn’t feel like a passing phase, but part of something bigger.
Some have described the larger cultural moment as a "polycrisis" – not one crisis, but many, colliding at the same time. War in Ukraine and the Middle East; persistent cost of living pressures; a political landscape fracturing in ways that feel genuinely new; and artificial intelligence arriving faster than most of us can process, raising real questions about work, identity and what it means to be human.
Comment
When did you last get lost in a good book?
A YouGov poll in 2025 stated that 40% of UK adults have not read or listened to a single book in the last 12 months, and The Reading Agency’s “State of the Nation” report in the same year found that 35% of UK adults identify themselves as “lapsed readers,” having stopped their regular reading habits.
Perhaps the most worrying part of this trend can be seen in children; the latest annual survey by the National Literacy Trust showed the lowest levels of daily reading (18.7% of 8- to 18-year-olds) since records began in 2005.
'Fatherly love is the bedrock of Christian contentment'
Contentment is one of the great Christian graces. Paul tells Timothy that “godliness with contentment is great gain”. He tells the church in Philippi to be “anxious about nothing”.
Our Lord Jesus commanded His disciples not to worry about life. How could Jesus say this? How could He expect and even demand that His disciples not worry? Is this not sheer idealism? Is it not actually absurd to expect believers always to be content and never to be anxious? Clearly not. Our Saviour never engaged in idealism or mere wishful thinking. In fact, Jesus gives His disciples reasons why they should not worry. He makes the observation that worrying never accomplished anything of any significance. But more importantly, Jesus tells His disciples that their lives are cared for, watched over by and dearly loved by their heavenly Father. It is the fatherly love and care of God that is the bedrock of the Christian’s contentment.
Everyone has faith – what makes ours different?
Christians can feel helplessly situated in a world stymied by the embargoed Strait of Hormuz (if it's still closed by the time you're reading this) and Europe’s bleeding gash – the war in Ukraine.
At home, little sign of a let-up in the cost-of-living crisis only enlarges the aurora of neon gloom across British skies.
Prime Maelstrom
Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak, Sir Keir Starmer… Leadership, it seems, is getting increasingly difficult in the UK at the moment.
Some politicians ascend to the top job only for it to become sadly apparent that, quite apart from any party political considerations, they lack the appropriate skill set with which to govern effectively. Into this category we might, sadly, put most of those named above.
What can we learn from death doulas?
There is increasing interest as to what death doulas (who are also called end-of-life doulas, soul midwives, death coaches, dying guides, death midwives, and palliative care doulas) do. For example, there's this article on the BBC website; Nicole Kidman and Ruby Wax are reportedly undergoing training for this role, whilst Davina McCall has announced that she is planning to do so when she retires from her television activities.
Like birth doulas, who support mothers during pregnancy, childbirth and early parenthood, death doulas support people at the end of life. They help the dying person and their family in the final months and may be present at death, assist with funeral arrangements, and sometimes simply offer company.
The most significant Synod motion in forty years?
In July this year, the Church of England could see the most significant Private Members Motion (PMM) on sex and marriage in the last 40 years being brought to General Synod.
The PMM in question reads as follows: “Same-sex relationships compatibility with Christian discipleship. Professor Helen King (Oxford) to move: ‘That this Synod affirm that there are no fundamental objections to being in a committed, faithful, intimate same-sex relationship, and that such a relationship can be entirely compatible with Christian discipleship.’”
Here's what I think football can teach us about the Christian journey
We have reached the end of the football season – the point at which winners and losers are determined. The ten-month, 38-game marathon, which began last August, finally draws to its climactic conclusion.
The season’s finish provides either the highest highs or the lowest lows as a year’s effort boils down to a handful of key moments when players must perform at their best or face the unravelling of much of the work they have put in throughout the year.
Our greatest need is to be filled by the Spirit
Does your church mention Pentecost? Many churches, especially those that do not follow the liturgical year, barely mention it at all.
The gift of the Holy Spirit on the first Pentecost was a turning point in salvation history. It was a never-to-be-repeated moment that applied the finished work of Christ to the disciples and implemented Jesus’s heavenly reign over the church. Jesus baptised His disciples with the Spirit, just as John had prophesied and He had promised. They received the same anointing He received at His baptism so they could continue His ministry on earth. The Book of Acts records all Jesus continued to do through His disciples by the empowering presence of His Spirit.
The UK leadership crisis: Responding Biblically
It is extraordinary that after barely two years we are in a similar crisis of leadership in the Labour Government to what we saw in the later years of the Conservative Government.
It brings back painful memories to me, as I was a member of the Executive of the 1922 Committee which governed Party leadership elections. I was one of the “men in grey suits” – although we had women in the Executive and I rarely wore grey! Our task was to let the Prime Minister know the mood of backbenchers and views about issues of the day. It also had the ultimate role of telling the PM when his or her time was up.
Do today's children lack embodied childhood experiences?
When I was a boy growing up in Wales, World Cups arrived with a particular smell: the smell of a freshly opened packet of Panini stickers.
Before social media, before 24-hour football coverage, Panini albums were how many of us first discovered the wider world of football. I can still remember sitting on the floor staring at teams from countries I barely knew existed, learning flags, kits and improbable surnames long before I understood geography.
Suicide: Let's talk about it
Please note: This article references suicide.
Donna is a lively young support worker, and Andy was one of her clients. Intelligent, talented and looking forward to starting a career in the Royal Navy, Andy had become homeless and needed help to get back on his feet. They met for coffee, visited Andy’s bank and got some new accommodation sorted out.
Re-examining the call to love the stranger
In 2015, one image of a three-year-old boy washed up on a beach in Turkey changed the way the world saw asylum seekers.
That terrible morning, every newspaper displayed Alan Kurdi’s body front and centre. His story was not only desperately sad, but intensely disturbing. No human being with a conscience could look at his picture for long - or, indeed, turn away from it.
How would you characterise a Christian?
Every preacher should love 1 Peter 3v8. The verse begins, “Finally”, but he is only half-way through chapter three: you can claim apostolic permission to say “finally” in your sermon without being anywhere near the end!
Peter has been exploring what it means to “live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us” (1 Peter 2v12). He addressed Christians as subjects of human authorities, then gave instructions to slaves, wives and husbands. Now, “finally” he ends this section by writing to “all of you” who received his letter.
'Britain needs servant-hearted leadership'
Sir Keir Starmer is finished. It may not happen immediately. It may even drag on over the summer. But the prospect of him finishing this new parliamentary session as leader and prime minister is null and void. The question is not if Starmer will go, it is when and how and who will replace him.
If the leadership transition takes place in 2026, Starmer’s replacement will be the UK’s seventh prime minister in just ten years. By contrast, the previous decade saw four prime ministers, and the ten years before that, just two. Prime ministerial tenures are clearly becoming shorter and shorter!
Westminster tumult: An evangelical response
What now for UK politics? Last week’s elections were really bad for Labour. The party lost its century-long dominance in Wales, and tied for second place with Reform in Scotland. In England it lost control of 37 English local councils and almost 1,500 councillors.
People voted on local factors but also gave their verdict on the Westminster government. Many are disappointed and angry at Labour’s performance since the 2024 general election. Many of his own MPs blame Keir Starmer personally, and the wagons circling the Prime Minister have been closing in. Wes Streeting has resigned; another Labour MP, Josh Simons, is standing down to spark a by-election in an attempt to help Andy Burnham back into the Commons; a leadership contest may well follow.
The case of David Campanale: 'Neither liberal nor democratic'
It was Lord David Alton, a committed Catholic Peer and pro-life legend, who described what he called a "mutant liberalism" as a massive problem in politics today.
It is a creed and ideology that, on the one hand, professes to believe in freedom of thought and action. But in reality, it all too quickly cancels you if you dare stray from its approved beliefs.
Is this the biggest challenge for any Prime Minister?
What does it mean to be the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in 2026?
At the time of writing, that post is still held by Sir Keir Starmer. For how much longer remains to be seen. If he resigns any time soon, his successor will be the United Kingdom’s seventh premier in just ten years.
What makes you erupt in praise?
If you had to finish this sentence: “I find myself erupting into praise when…” I wonder what you’d say. Possible answers might include: “I see a glorious sunset”, “I hold a newborn baby”, “I read an inspirational passage of Scripture” or, in my case, “Reading FC finally gain promotion back to the Championship”. Yes, I know, I’m shallow.
However, it’s less probable that you’d respond: “When I realise the enormity and extent of my miserable sinful state and sordid past”, but that’s what catapults Paul into his outburst of worship in the opening chapter of his first letter to his spiritual son, Timothy. Paul provides a comprehensive but not exhaustive list of his past failings in verse 13, cataloguing blasphemy, violence and the persecuting of others among his transgressions, leading him to conclude that he viewed himself as the “worst of sinners”.
Historical lessons for exiled evangelicals
The mass, inward, multinational migration experienced in the UK today is not a novel phenomenon.
Four hundred years ago, the Reformation caused large-scale, trans-European migration. The Calvinist Dutch Republic became an ark for refugees from all over the continent.
The UK's 'spiritual openness' is both an opportunity and a challenge
In recent months, I’ve noticed something shifting. Church leaders across the UK tell me that political conversations are becoming more contested, pastoral pressures are continuing to grow, and more people are turning up at church. This doesn’t feel like a passing phase, but part of something bigger.
Some have described the larger cultural moment as a "polycrisis" – not one crisis, but many, colliding at the same time. War in Ukraine and the Middle East; persistent cost of living pressures; a political landscape fracturing in ways that feel genuinely new; and artificial intelligence arriving faster than most of us can process, raising real questions about work, identity and what it means to be human.