In Depth:  Sharon James

Elizabeth Prentiss was born in Portland, Maine, in 1818, the daughter of a well-known revival preacher, Dr. Edward Payson.

As a young girl, she was present in services where there was a powerful awareness of the holiness of God; she witnessed scenes of corporate conviction of sin and, as a youngster, she was committed to praying for the conversion of her friends. Although her father died just before her tenth birthday, his abiding legacy to Elizabeth was two-fold: a passion for holiness, and a conviction that surrender to the sovereign will of God is the way to real peace.

The reality

In August 2002, the British Medical Journal published an article on domestic violence, where it asserted that around one quarter of women in the UK have been physically assaulted by a current or former male partner (BMJ, vol. 325, pl.317).

Commonly quoted figures are that two women are killed every week by their partner or ex-partner; that an incident of domestic violence is reported to the police every six seconds, but only an estimated 2% of incidents are ever reported to the police.

'The glory of God seemed to be all, and in all, and to swallow up every wish and desire of my heart' - Sarah Edwards.

We have heard much this year about the great American preacher Jonathan Edwards, as 2003 is the 300th anniversary of his birth.

Controversy in the letters page of EN regarding the new Praise! hymn book has set some historical alarm bells ringing. It seems that there is nothing new under the sun . . .

Since the Reformation1 protestant churches have divided, rancorously, over musical matters with depressing regularity. At different times, all manner of issues have caused bitter dispute. Often a conservative old guard opposed 'dangerous innovations'. Usually the dangerous innovation soon became general practice, and the oceans of print spilled over its introduction were completely forgotten. Below are listed some of the arguments that have raged over singing in church down the centuries.

Ten years ago, an American professor wrote 'The Closing of the American Mind: How higher education has failed democracy and impoverished the souls of today's students' (Alan Bloom, Simon and Schuster, 1987).

This was a devastating indictment of the American education system. Bloom demonstrated the catastrophic consequences of abandoning belief in 'true truth' or absolute values. But what about the situation in Britain? What philosophical assumptions lie behind our education system? Progressive educational philosophy was a reaction against 'repressive' traditional teaching techniques, such as rote-learning, whole class teaching, and streaming. The 'child-centred' approach advocated methods taking account of individual needs.

The traditional family is under attack but are we really being told all the facts?

For 30 years now, many in the intelligentsia have blamed the nuclear family for the ills in society. The family is portrayed as the seed bed of repression and hypocrisy, of frustration and stereotyped gender roles. At the very least the media bombards us with 'evidence' to show that the family is 'just another lifestyle choice', and even some within the established church have jumped on this bandwagon.