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A disturbing centrifugal force, seen in the enduring propensity for division among evangelical churches, has been powerfully at work among us for many generations, with devastating effects for the gospel of Christ.

Post-Reformation church history, particularly in the UK and the USA, is littered with evidence of disagreements, splits and rupture among congregations and church groupings, and it is quite staggering how often this has been over truly minor and secondary matters.

Global warming is often seen as either the end of the world as we know it, or as mere media scare-mongering. Which is right?

Could it be that I, a respectable Christian, am partly to blame? Might I need to change the way I live? Before we search for climate changes, we ought first to understand what it is that might be changing.

The fact that Scripture is silent regarding humour generally and, more particularly, regarding humour in preaching, should instil humility in anybody who addresses this topic.

Some Christians might agree with the words of the Earl of Chesterfield (1694-1773) who said: 'In my mind, there is nothing so illiberal and so ill-bred, as audible laughter', especially if we add the words 'in church'. Others, however, may feel that the need to discuss such an issue is not only pedantic but is also rather pathetic.

The International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES) is a global fellowship with ministry in over 140 countries - UCCF is the UK national movement.

EN: You have your World Assembly in 2003. Tell us first about that.

Josh Moody

Date posted: 1 Aug 2002

When I was an undergraduate at university in England, our college hockey team solicited corporate sponsorship from Arthur Anderson accounting LLC. The team used to sing, in raucous and irreligious fashion: 'Arthur Anderson had many sons' to the well-known church tune of 'Father Abraham had many sons'.

Little did I think at the time that Arthur Anderson would be the syndicated accountancy firm hired by Enron. Enron, famously now, has been caught up in an accounting scandal that destroyed the once corporate giant. Now, bad news following upon bad, WorldCom has declared that it overestimated its revenues by several billion dollars. Fast on the heels of that news, venerable stock-safe-haven Xerox has mentioned that it too has overestimated its revenues to the tune of a few billion dollars.

Rupert Evans, former president of Cambridge Inter-Collegiate Christian Union, speaks out on the spiritual malaise in our colleges and universities.

Many church leaders and youth workers and many Christian parents, relatives and friends encourage Christian students to join the Christian Union (CU) when they start life at university.

The Bible teaches that the earth has been specially prepared to be inhabited. Discoveries in the modern age have shown the spectacular truth of this. The earth has every single one of the many features required for life.

There are many features associated with the earth which make it ideally suited for life. 15 of the most important features are summarised below:

French Christians are bracing themselves for problems resulting from a controversial new law aimed at controlling the activities of dangerous religious sects. But it is also likely to affect ordinary churches.

Some churches were already considering removing the word 'evangelical' from their names, the president of the French Protestant Federation (FPF), the Rev. Jean-Arnold de Clermont, said from Paris.

The red van stopped outside the front gate where straw was laid across it and the post box hung beside a footbath of disinfectant, a spray and a broom.

'Good to see you', called the postman. 'You're the first person I've set eyes on round these parts today!' No wonder he was early: no chats at each door, no going in for cups of coffee.

Nurses have recently been promised a pay increase, but will it be enough to attract young people into the caring professions ...?

Pilgrim Homes is a Christian charity founded in 1807. Inspired by teachings from the book of Job (Job 29.12-13), a group of young people began a work by giving small pensions to elderly Christians living in appalling poverty. That work has grown over two centuries into a network of residential provision that ranges from sheltered accommodation through to nursing care. The guiding force of every Pilgrim Home, and the rock upon which it stands is the Lord Jesus Christ. It strives to provide spiritual as well as physical and emotional support to all its residents and, in so doing, to glorify the Lord.

The Anglican Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) is at the heart of attempts to tackle the split between Catholics and Anglicans.

Mark Santer, the Bishop of Birmingham, who was co-chairman of the Commission that produced the latest report entitled 'The Gift of Authority', is quoted as saying: 'the dialogue between Anglicans and Roman Catholics is only one stream in the wider river of ecumenical dialogue. The issue of authority comes up sooner or later in every dialogue which addresses itself seriously to the questions of communion and authority.'

I had just clicked the camera when an elderly woman came running out of the house screaming.

She demanded to know by what permission I had taken a photograph of her house. She certainly had not consented to this act. There we were, in a snow-covered Siberian hamlet. The place appeared to be desolate. The wooden houses set back, looked too flimsy to withstand the harsh climate.

We might be tempted to consider male absence a problem beyond the capacity of pastoral strategies to remedy. After all, we may think, it's produced by a tidal wave of cultural forces far beyond our ability to control . . .

Yet pastors can take specific steps to stem the tide; specific strategies will help us keep men in our fellowships. While not exhaustive, here's three that have worked in my own experience.

We eat to live, we eat for fun and we eat to socialise. But the pleasure of the experience is seemingly under threat by a new range of foods that has crept into our diets.

Every food-shelf and menu throughout the country is soon to be littered with notices advising about the presence or absence of genetically modified ingredients. Do we really need the warnings?

Last September, Geoff King and Clive Bullock visited Ghana at the invitation of Enoch Nketiah, pastor of Global Baptist Church, Kumasi, a church affiliated to the Ghana Baptist Convention.

Geoff and Clive were asked to teach on the attributes of God during the second week of the church's annual Bible Convention/ Pastors' Conference. They were also able to explore the possibility of establishing a continuing link between Global Baptist and Radcliffe Road Baptist Church, Bury, where Geoff is the pastor.

There was once a time when the adjective 'evangelical' before the noun 'Christian' was a sufficient and adequate description of a clear and defined theological position. But then the definition of the noun became so diluted and neutralised that the adjective had to stand on its own.

All sorts of other adjectives now compete to qualify the new noun. So an 'evangelical' can now be conservative or liberal, open or even post. It's all very confusing since some of the descriptive terms seem to deny the meaning of the noun, at least the meaning it used to have as an adjective - if you see what I mean! A couple of years ago, I met a minister who described himself as a 'liberal catholic evangelical', though on further discussion the noun seemed to mean little more than that he thought church growth was better, on balance, than church decline.

Sandinista-turned-Contra-turned-Christian brings economic and spiritual hope to Nicaragua's poor.

Central America is still choking from the smoke of 9,000 forest fires. The international airport at Managua, Nicaragua, has been closed periodically due to skies heavy with 'the brown mist'. In this year's El Nino-driven climate, it is uncertain how long the parched summer will continue. For Mario Aviles, who endured decades of political drought and breathed the gun smoke of a hundred battles, this kind of waiting is nothing new.