Dominating the news during the Autumn and early New Year were the reports of ferocious bush fires sweeping across Eastern Australia.
Properties have been destroyed, people killed and from time to time, with high temperatures and strong winds, it was acknowledged that the situation was out of control.
Even before lockdown the listener figures for BBC Radio 3 were going up. In February 2020 they were up to 2.13 million compared with 1.83 million the previous year. One suspects that the privations of the pandemic will have driven them up even more.
One reason might be that Radio 3 has revamped itself somewhat.
‘What do you think?’ she asked me. Someone in our congregation had been asked on Facebook about the accusation, which hit the headlines recently, that the heavy storms across Britain were God’s judgment for the government’s legalisation of gay marriage.
The question put me on the spot. My response was to say that as a nation we are guilty before God of all kinds of sins and already under his judgment. Whether or not the floods were related to that matter specifically was beyond my wisdom.
Increasingly the signs seem to be that we are moving towards some kind of world government. This phenomenon (much loved by those who deal in prophetic timetables of the last days) may not happen soon, but it seems fairly clear that it must emerge sometime on the long-term political agenda.
The need for such a body is argued from many starting points. First, there is the current widespread economic recession. As he met President Obama at the beginning of March, Gordon Brown insisted that our financial difficulties stemmed from a failure of the banking system worldwide. ‘Bold global action, a global grand deal, is not now just necessary, but is vitally urgent to deal with the challenges of the world economy’, he said. In April, a meeting of leaders is scheduled in London, hoping to take decisions to secure the world’s economic future. Wouldn’t an authoritative body to oversee the planet’s economics make sense?
Being a pastor never was an easy job, and in our society’s current secular climate there are extra pressures. Earlier this year EN conducted a survey of pastors to try to get some facts about being in the ministry in these days.
The survey asked ministers to comment on their experience of seven common areas of ministerial difficulty.
Climate change & persecution?
Dominating the news during the Autumn and early New Year were the reports of ferocious bush fires sweeping across Eastern Australia.
Properties have been destroyed, people killed and from time to time, with high temperatures and strong winds, it was acknowledged that the situation was out of control.