President Lazarus? Understanding US politics
Tony Bennett
Date posted: 22 May 2025
Having spent a lifetime teaching and writing about American politics, I’m often asked this question by bemused church friends: “Why did 82% of white evangelical men vote for Donald Trump in 2024?” And the first thing that I want them to understand is that both they and those American voters are using the word “evangelical” to mean two different things.
My friends use the word to refer to something spiritual centring on the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ concerning man’s sinfulness, Christ’s atoning sacrifice on the cross, the empowering of the Holy Spirit to live God-honouring lives, and the need to preach that gospel to those as yet unsaved.
Trump 2.0: A concerned evangelical view
Martyn Whittock
Date posted: 24 Jan 2025
The return of Donald Trump to the White House should be a matter of concern; not panic, but concern.
It should, at this point, be stated clearly that my contention is not based on an expectation that US electors (including evangelical Christians) should become Democrats. Nor that there is something inherently wrong with the historic Republican Party. My case is that the matter is rather simpler: there is something inherently wrong with Donald Trump and the MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement (which has, in effect, become the Republican Party). I would also argue that there is something significantly wrong with the US section of the international evangelical movement; and this is shown in its deep commitment to Trump and to MAGA.
now this...
Living in a hostile world
Ian Hamilton
Date posted: 4 Aug 2026
The Bible is full of remarkable statements. One of the most remarkable is 1 Peter 1v17. Peter is instructing Christians how to live in an essentially Godless, anti-Christian society. He writes: “Honour everyone. Love the brothers. Fear God. Honour the emperor”.
This is surely remarkable. Love the brothers and fear God we can readily understand; but honour “everyone” and especially “the emperor”? The emperor in question was probably Nero, the fanatically anti-Christian megalomaniac. Honour him? God’s Word can be deeply unsettling.
To save humanity, we must return to humility!
James Burnett
Date posted: 13 May 2026
Jesus says: "The meek shall inherit the earth" (Matthew 5). But how realistic is this Sermon on the Mount prediction for the contemporary scene?
The stage-boards of world power creak under the hefty tread of “strong men” (Donald Trump AI-imaged himself as Jesus on Truth Social and later eschewed messianic similarities as fake news); the tech industry is supine to Elon Musk who is the richest person on earth with possibly a genius IQ and certainly a hedonistic outlook; while primary school children in the UK are taught the three “s's” of western success: self-interest, self-reliance, and self-promotion.
What if aliens are real? A thought experiment
Russell Moore
Date posted: 13 Mar 2026
This is how strange our times are: recently, two United States presidents engaged the question of whether aliens are real, and it wasn’t even in the top 15 stories of the week. The debate was over not "aliens" as in migrants to a country but "aliens" as in extra-terrestrial, nonhuman beings.
Former president Barack Obama sparked the controversy by responding to a question about aliens in a podcast interview and saying that "they’re real" before assuring listeners that there are no underground bunkers studying aliens at Area 51. President Donald Trump then accused Obama of giving out "classified information" and then pledged to declassify government documents on what used to be called unidentified flying objects (UFOs) and are now referred to as unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs).
Gaza and the gospel
Russell Moore
Date posted: 16 Oct 2025
After two years of bloodshed since Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October, 2023, the war in Gaza seems to be over. The living hostages are back home, as President Donald Trump and Hamas and Israel hammered out in a cease-fire agreement.
In that, all of us can rejoice, even if the peace will be fragile—and even though wounds from the loss of so many innocent lives, both Gazans and Israelis, will take decades if not centuries to heal. Christians around the world might be tempted to think this matter is now over, at least for us. Gaza, though, has more to do with our own gospel story than we might think.
defending our faith
Social media apologetics after Trump
Chris Sinkinson
Date posted: 4 Jan 2025
There is no doubt that social media and online platforms have provided opportunities for public witness and evangelism like never before.
In February 2004 Mark Zuckerburg launched Facebook, originally as a way of keeping in touch with friends; it quickly became a tool for sharing news, information and ideas.
earth watch
Why aren't Christians leading on climate change?
Paul Kunert
Date posted: 27 Jan 2025
Donald Trump is now President of the most economically powerful nation on the planet and – the President-elect is self-avowedly no friend of God’s creation.
He has signed an order to withdraw from the 2015 Paris Agreement on Climate Change and has pledged to roll back Biden’s clean energy law, the Inflation Reduction Act. And he’s doubling down on oil and gas: ‘Drill, baby, drill’.
Trump 2.0: Understanding why people support him
Jonathon Macdonald
Date posted: 24 Jan 2025
Many British Christians are terrified of any association with Trump-supporting American Evangelicals.
I remember reading an article recently which mentioned an English congregation who had gone as far as removing the word ‘evangelical’ from their name to avoid giving the impression the church was too closely related to those west of the Atlantic. There are even some for whom this fear of association descends into an antipathy bordering on disgust.
the ENd word
How vulnerable was Jesus?
Jon Barrett
Date posted: 23 Jan 2025
One of the habits we’ve developed as a church staff team is to have a book that we commit to reading and discussing as part of our weekly staff meeting. Normally we opt for something theological but occasionally, to keep things lively, we go a bit rogue.
Recently we’ve been on one of our excursions into left field and have been working through Brené Brown’s bestselling book on the subject of vulnerability, Daring Greatly. In all honesty, to employ a clerical metaphor, it’s a bit of a curate’s egg of a book.
Christian Nationalism: A new Biblical critique of its dangers
Jim Sayers
Date posted: 27 Sep 2024
In the past six years as a church planter, I have met several unchurched young white men who want to investigate the gospel because they reject secular liberalism and the rainbow agenda.
They think we are throwing away our Christian heritage, but don’t really know what it is. Their starting point includes a suspicion of mass immigration (one called it a form of genocide), a fierce patriotism, a fear of Islam, and a strong antipathy to alternative sexualities. Some of them had already connected online with Christian men in other countries who run forest training camps to build physical and spiritual muscle. As we explored the gospel together, this strong nationalism faded as they grasped God’s grace in Christ and came to faith.
If you’re a Bible-believing evangelical Christian, you will vote for Trump
Richard Morgan
Date posted: 28 Aug 2024
I had once assumed that while ‘evangelicals’ overwhelmingly voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020, the word ‘evangelical’ was loose. I assumed a cultural sense to the word ‘evangelical’.
Surely, if you were serious about your faith, your Trump-mania would be dialed down? Surely, it would be the racist, xenophobic ‘evangelicals in name only’ – who rarely attend church, and have a cultural and not a personal faith – that were behind the rise and presidency of Donald J. Trump.
the ENd word
Avoiding money’s pitfalls
Lizzy Smallwood
Date posted: 1 Nov 2023
For a time in the endWord, we are receiving some spiritual heart surgery as we look at the letter of James. He uncovers some of our more insidious, respectable sins and cautions us from fatally wandering from the truth (James 5:19-20)
It seems that we are always facing a choice as we wander through this life: two pathways – the pathway of Obedience: faith and trust which leads to wisdom, or the pathway of Pride: a wilful double-mindedness that leads to folly and destruction.
How the inconceivable was conceived: The evolution of a new sexual morality
Steve Donald
Date posted: 2 Apr 2024
Christians have a problem with culture. Especially with the huge disconnect that has developed between the church and the Western World in the last forty or fifty years. How are we to respond to these changes?
Take the example of contemporary films and TV. Christians may be shocked when ministers such as myself watch contemporary films, films which themselves reflect the culture in which we live. Of course, clearly toxic films and TV series should be avoided because of their content. We must exercise discernment, but we must also engage with culture. We are to be ‘in the world but not of it’ (John 17:16).
earth watch
Hairstreaks and habitats
Simon Marsh
Date posted: 1 Apr 2023
One of my simple pleasures in life is going for a walk in a bluebell wood in Spring. It’s something I really missed when living in Africa, and during lockdown, so we try to make an annual pilgrimage to a local wood.
We pick a time when the wood is covered with a blue carpet of flowers, together with pale yellow primroses and white wood anemones. It’s a joyful Creation experience.
Why do some US evangelicals still support Donald Trump?
By evangelical historian, Martyn Whittock
How strong is evangelical support for Donald Trump now? How has his recent bout of Covid affected that perception? And watching from outside the US, how is it possible Bible believing Christians can back such an extraordinary figure?
Evangelical Futures: Should we ditch the term ‘evangelical’ in the Trump era?
Jonny Raine
Date posted: 1 Jun 2022
‘What kind of church is yours?’ Ever been asked that by someone who isn’t a Christian? I’m never quite sure what to say. ‘Evangelical’ – I suppose!
I’ve often wondered about whether the term, evangelical, is one that will continue to be worthwhile using. It doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. You can’t say it has an immediate connection with those who aren’t in the know. Its potential for being misconstrued is quite significant as well. With that in mind, is it worth ditching the term altogether and perhaps use a different label?
Meeting Frank Schaeffer – atheist son of Francis
Luke Barrs
Date posted: 1 Mar 2022
Frank Schaeffer (not to be confused with his father Francis) titled his memoir Crazy for God with the helpful subtitle How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back.
His writing is engaging and thought-provoking, especially for myself as a Christian father and pastor. His father, Francis Schaeffer, was a much-beloved Christian thinker who utilised contemporary music, art history, and philosophy to answer the questions of his day. He was truly countercultural in the way he wrote and lived.
400 years on, how the Mayflower Pilgrims can still inspire us...
Martyn Whittock
Date posted: 1 Dec 2020
In 1620, 102 ill-prepared settlers landed two months later than planned, in the wrong place on the eastern coast of North America.
They were a mixture of ‘saints’ (asylum-seeking members of separatist Puritan congregations) and ‘strangers’ (economic migrants necessary for the financial success of the venture). By the next summer, half of them were dead. Yet, from this inauspicious beginning, the impact of the Mayflower settlement still resonates 400 years later.
history
On pulling down statues
Michael Haykin
Date posted: 1 Sep 2020
According to the online American edition of the Spectator, the famous statue of George Whitefield, which was the inspiration behind the Banner of Truth logo, is to be removed from its present locale because of Whitefield’s participation in the race-based slavery of his day.
The article does a credible job of seeking to understand Whitefield in his context without whitewashing his sin. Although one statement in the article, namely that Whitefield ‘was the Donald Trump of the 1740s, albeit with a slightly higher degree of biblical literacy’, seems quite ridiculous to this writer.
defending our faith
Platforms for hate speech?
Chris Sinkinson
Date posted: 1 Mar 2020
In a very disturbing recent development, major British conference venues have cancelled bookings for a tour by the son of Billy Graham. The May 2020 mission has been planned to give Franklin Graham an opportunity to follow in his late father’s footsteps and preach the gospel in various UK cities.
It is true that Franklin Graham has been controversial in some church circles. His salary from the Samaritan’s Purse has been under scrutiny. His vocal support for Donald Trump has alienated some evangelicals. His style of evangelism may not always fit well with British churches. But it is important to remember that these issues are not the point.
Culture watching
No New Testament
Sarah Allen
Date posted: 1 Nov 2019
People
slept on
the
streets outside
bookshops the night before the launch of
The Testaments this September.
The day of the launch was marked by
a programme
live-streamed
to cinemas
across the globe containing an interview
with the author and readings from the
book. This was, The Guardian told us,
‘the literary event of the year’, with hype
on a Harry Potter level.
defending our faith
Unplanned: Expected Reaction
Chris Sinkinson
Date posted: 1 May 2019
The US Christian film company behind
God’s Not Dead have released a film dealing with
the
issue of abortion. Called
Unplanned,
it takes the true story of a
Planned Parenthood clinic director who
came to change her mind about the whole
abortion
industry. The film graphically
shows the reality of what abortion is: the
violent destruction of an unborn child. It
has been on theatre release in America and
will be available online in the UK.
I have not seen the film, and I came across
it because of a review
in
the Guardian.
Entirely predictably,
secular media have
been
scathing
in
their
response. Having
not seen the film I am in no position to
pass comment on the production values or
acting. I have no idea if the single star rating
(they can’t give lower) in the Guardian is
justified. But what was interesting in that
review is why they were so dismissive of
the film.
Evangelicals, race & the gospel
Jessamin Birdsall
Date posted: 1 Dec 2017
Jessamin Birdsall challenges conservative Bible churches
Just over one year ago, 81% of white Evangelical voters in the United States cast their vote for Donald Trump.