Last week there was jubilation and relief as the remaining 20 living Israeli hostages were released from Gaza. In return, Israel released 250 Palestinian prisoners and a further 1,700 detainees. This is hopefully a first tentative step towards building a peace process in the Middle East.
Of course there are many issues still to be resolved – for example, how Gaza might be governed and what the proposed multinational "stabilisation force" might look like.
There is a palpable sense that the world order is changing from the “rules-based” order established after the end of the Second World War and the American hegemony that followed the end of the Cold War, to be replaced by a multi-polar world of competing empires and spheres of influence.
Whilst Donald Trump may speak of “making America great again”, the reality is that American isolationism is seeing a diminution of US power and influence as other nations increase their military and economic power. The military parade held in Beijing on 3 September to celebrate victory over Japan was a very visual demonstration of this new reality, as Presidents Xi Jinping and Putin stood shoulder to shoulder alongside Prime Minister Modi of India and Kim Jong Un of North Korea.
Prior to his election to a second presidency in November 2024, Donald Trump repeatedly claimed that he would easily and swiftly bring the conflict to an end.
“It’s a very easy negotiation to take place. I will have it solved within one day, a peace between them”, he said as early as March 2023, in a Fox News Interview with Sean Hannity.
Over the weekend, the US conducted bombing strikes by air on three sites of nuclear infrastructure in Iran.
President Trump lauded the operation as a "spectacular military success" against the "world’s number one state sponsor of terror", claiming that Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities had been "completely and totally obliterated".
The “great man theory” of history, often ascribed to the 19th-century philosopher and historian Thomas Carlyle, has a lot at least superficially going for it.
The concept posits that “universal History, the history of what man has accomplished in this world, is at bottom the History of the Great Men who have worked here. They were the leaders of men, these great ones; the modellers, patterns, and in a wide sense creators,” as Carlyle puts it.
We have just marked the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Foreign leaders gathered in Kyiv to commemorate the invasion and pledge continued support to Ukraine.
President Zelensky has estimated that 46,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed, 380,000 wounded, and 35,000 are missing in action, likely dead.
‘US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order that prevents transgender women from competing in female categories of sports,’ a recent BBC item says.
Trump’s move followed on an earlier order which restated traditional and indeed scientific truths about men and women, declaring: ‘Ideologues who deny the biological reality of sex have increasingly used legal and other socially coercive means to permit men to self-identify as women and gain access to intimate single-sex spaces and activities designed for women, from women’s domestic abuse shelters to women’s workplace showers. This is wrong.’
The Joe Rogan Experience is a global phenomenon. The podcast features up to three hour long conversations with diverse and interesting guests, including recently with President-elect Donald Trump.
Encapsulating the zeitgeist of our age
Rogan's laid-back interview technique allows him to explore controversial subjects in ways that mainstream media cannot. The Joe Rogan experience has attracted millions of followers for this reason.
In what was expected to be a narrowly won election, former US President Donald Trump declared victory Wednesday morning after securing crucial ground in the states of Pennsylvania, Georgia, Wisconsin, and North Carolina.
Speaking from Florida, the 47th US president addressed supporters promising to deliver the golden age of America over his next term in office. 'Many people have told me that God spared my life for a reason and that reason was to save our country and restore America to greatness, and now we are going to fulfil that mission together,' the President said.
Throughout my Christian life, I have experienced acceptance and belonging in church by publicly identifying as (what some would call) a ‘card-carrying’ evangelical.
On reflection, I must confess that, among fellow evangelicals, the experience that I have most enjoyed has had little to do with being perceived as sacrificially loving, or exceptionally forbearing. To be brutally honest, neither of those virtues is my strong suit. Instead, as an evangelical, I’ve been choosing the far easier task of focusing on being what I call ‘confessionally sound’.
When considered in isolation, few would object to that focus. After all, for persecuted Christians, such as Martin Luther, Deitrich Bonhoeffer and even 21st century martyrs, confessional soundness has been one of the most conspicuous and admirable hallmarks of Reformed belief.
Nevertheless, there is danger in the pursuit of apparent confessional soundness at the expense of all other virtues, such love and forbearance. For example, it can result in a total lack of remorse over directing sarcastic ad hominem remarks and put-downs towards those people whom most evangelicals no longer consider to be confessionally 'sound.'
This long, hot, sporty summer rolls on. Schools have been broken up for weeks, and children are everywhere - including all over my home! My three sons scrap over just about everything in the summer heat. Cries of ‘It’s not fair!’ seem to constantly ring out from one or the other; but how do I discern whose rights matter more when push comes to (literal) shove between the children?
Over in Paris, the Olympic women’s boxing has also been dominated by cries of ‘It’s not fair!’ Just 46 seconds into her bout against Algerian boxer Imane Khelif, Italian Angela Carini was punched so hard in the face that she fell to the floor weeping, ended the fight, saying to those in her corner 'Non è giusto' ('It’s not fair'). Later, she said she had feared for her life.
When an evangelical Christian is asked to summarise the message of the Bible they often turn to John’s Gospel: ‘For God so loved the world…’. It is a compelling verse because it expresses the need for a personal response to Christ as our Saviour.
But this is not the only crystalline expression of God’s saving purpose in human history. In the prayer He taught us, Jesus gives us another: ‘Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.’ Jesus is not only our Saviour; He also is our king. His purpose is to establish God’s rule and reign on earth. Following Jesus means that you are part of this movement.
The headline is not a misprint: it is ‘Untied’ rather than ‘United’ States. There is growing speculation that if Donald Trump is re-elected, it is possible to envisage the USA ceasing to exist in its current form – maybe even splitting into two.
A whole raft of thinkers in a wide range of disciplines can be read online, in The Washington Post of 10 October 2022 for starters.
Fox News has reached a US$787.5m settlement with the voting equipment company Dominion.
The case concerned a dispute over whether the network and its parent company knowingly broadcast false claims that Dominion sought to swing the 2020 American presidential election. Dominion accused Fox of airing claims that their machines were involved in a plot to steal the election away from Donald Trump, alleging that the network knew such claims were false but aired them anyway because they feared losing viewers to rival networks.
Racism is a terrible sin. Yet it seems, these days, to have the potential to produce political leverage. And politicians are sadly prepared to use it.
Back in July, President Donald Trump was rightly in hot water for tweets concerning four Democratic congresswomen of black or ethnic minority background that they should ‘go back’ to the countries they were from, despite the fact that they are all American citizens, three of whom were actually born in the United States. The House of Representatives passed a motion condemning the President’s words. Trump ducked the criticism by saying that his comments were not racist, but to do with the fact that the radical left-wing politics of these women is against what America stands for as a society. Since then, at the beginning of August, there have been two more mass shootings in the US, in El Paso and Dayton, Ohio, at least one of which targeted non-white people. Trump responded by saying ‘hatred has no place in America.’ But is he giving mixed messages?
The Brexit Party led by Nigel Farage, which had only been in existence six weeks, made extra-ordinary gains. But the Liberal Democrats, who have committed themselves to a second referendum hoping to stop our leaving the EU, also drew major support. The conclusion the political commentators rightly came to was that the UK is an increasingly divided country.
A wheezing and groaning Tardis-type sound is heard… There is a flash of light, and your columnist appears, looking rumpled and disorientated… Now read on.
Much like Doctor Who’s occasional regenerations into someone the same but different, so the former Anglican Update column has now morphed, courtesy of our new editor, into a more wide-ranging opinion column.
Donald Trump’s inauguration as the 45th President of the USA took place on 20 January amid protests in Washington and across the world from women’s groups and many others. These protests were reminiscent of those in Britain after the result of the Brexit referendum was announced. The election of Trump and Brexit are seen as part of a conservative (small c) backlash against multi-culturalism and the moves towards globalism of recent years. ‘The world has changed’, we are told.
It is an Internet shot from the opening montage of London 2012. The Queen is walking in the corridors of Buckingham Palace with Daniel Craig in his role as James Bond. Speech bubbles have been added. The intelligence officer is saying: ‘…and Donald Trump, ma’am?’ The Queen is responding: ‘Make it look like an accident, 007.’
The Middle East: Peace at last? A Christian perspective
Last week there was jubilation and relief as the remaining 20 living Israeli hostages were released from Gaza. In return, Israel released 250 Palestinian prisoners and a further 1,700 detainees. This is hopefully a first tentative step towards building a peace process in the Middle East.
Of course there are many issues still to be resolved – for example, how Gaza might be governed and what the proposed multinational "stabilisation force" might look like.